News

Ballots go out in Washington and Oregon at the end of the week of October 15. Last minute money is pouring into the ballot fight over same–sex marriage in Washington. Those dollars are buying television ads on both sides of the issue. So what claims are the campaigns making? Olympia Correspondent Austin Jenkins takes a closer look.

A lot of strange things happened in October 1962.

In Hollywood, Bobby "Boris" Pickett topped the charts with “Monster Mash.” In New York, James Brown recorded his incredible "Live at the Apollo" album. And in Cuba, offensive missile sites were being built, marking the start of the Cuban missile crisis.

Meanwhile, closer to home, the Pacific Northwest was about to face one of the most destructive natural disasters in American history.

Applications are now available to serve on Seattle’s new, court-ordered Community Police Commission. This citizen oversight board is part of the city’s agreement with the Department of Justice about police reforms.

This is not exactly a new idea. Seattle’s created civilian panels in the past to monitor police and propose changes. But City Council Member Nick Licata says this new one has a key difference.

A new study by Marijuana Arrest Research Project says more than 240,000 people in Washington have been arrested for marijuana possession over the past 25 years, and that those arrested are disproportionally Black, Latino and Native American.

Seattle Public Schools’ attorney says the district will likely only get a $280,000 insurance settlement after the $3.1 million financial scandal involving former district official Silas Potter.

The Mayor of Kent, Washington is proposing another round of layoffs and new taxes to bridge a $2 million budget shortfall. Mayor Suzette Cooke presented her 2013-2014 budget to the City Council Tuesday. In her opening speech, Mayor Cooke called her budget “as ugly as the economic times we face.”

The full King County Council is expected to vote on the latest Sodo arena plan next week, following some adjustments made by the council’s budget committee Tuesday.

Committee chairman Joe McDermott said the adjustments included that language that requires
improving pedestrian access to the new Sodo arena. “It could be anywhere from sidewalks to an overpass or underpass somewhere.  I want to underscore that those kinds of pedestrian improvement also assist in freight mobility,” he said.

The 1962 Seattle World's Fair introduced technological innovations that seemed out of reach at the time, but would eventually become a part of every day life.  Some of the ground breaking gadgets unveiled included a pager, a cordless phone and something called a computer.

Dryer than normal conditions prompted Washington Governor Chris Gregoire to declare a state of emergency and extend a ban on outdoor fires. Outdoor burning is banned in all counties until October 15. The state is experiencing a rare stretch of dry weather.

The University of Washington is a respected institution of higher learning, serving more than 92,000 students on campuses in Seattle, Bothell and Tacoma.  But it didn’t quite start out this way; in its first 25 years, the school went broke and even shut down for a brief time. It barely had enough students and faculty to fill a large room.