Sara Lerner

The Federal Aviation Administration said this morning that the Boeing 787 will undergo a comprehensive design, manufacture and assembly review.  The announcement  follows two separate incidents with  the so-called Dreamliners operated by Japan Airlines. The first was a fire in a battery pack of an auxiliary power unit and the second was a fuel leak.  

A state report has found Puget Sound Energy at fault for a gas explosion that injured two people in September 2011. The blast destroyed the North Seattle home of the Ingham family.

Scientists will soon head to the Olympic coast to evaluate a dock that washed ashore in a remote section of Olympic National Park. It could be debris from last year’s tsunami in Japan. It might even be as big as the gigantic piece of debris that showed up on Oregon’s coast in June. That dock weighed 188 tons.

Dave Workman with the Washington state Marine Debris Task Force tells KUOW’s Sara Lerner scientists need to see if invasive species might be hitching a ride on the dock. They also need to figure out how to remove it.

Two people, plus the suspected shooter, are dead after police say a gunman opened fire at a crowded shopping mall in suburban Portland Tuesday.

An ambulance took one survivor of the attack to OHSU Medical Center in Portland. The young woman is expected to survive.

The state of Washington will not appeal a federal court decision to strike down a new state sex trafficking law. The law would have held online websites like Backpage.com accountable for illegal ads posted on their sites.

Pre-trial hearings continue this evening at Joint Base Lewis-McChord for Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales. He’s accused of massacring 16 civilians in Afghanistan, including nine children. Prosecutors say he left his base last March and went on an overnight five-hour killing spree.

The hearings will determine whether the case will advance to court-martial, where the government has said it plans to seek the death penalty. KUOW’s Sara Lerner spoke with Patricia Murphy, who’s covering the hearings.

This is Washington’s first presidential election after making the switch to all mail-in voting. Just over half of the ballots have been counted and many races are still undecided.  KUOW’s Sara Lerner speaks with Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed.

Many races in Washington state are yet to be decided. In the highly contested race for governor, Republican Rob McKenna is trailing Democrat Jay Inslee by about 2.5 percentage points. The same-sex marriage referendum and the charter schools initiative are also too close to call.  But the returns on the marijuana initiative are decisive: recreational use will soon be legal in Washington. 

KUOW’s Sara Lerner speaks with our political reporter Austin Jenkins.