WA Supreme Court has first open race in 12 years
Washington will elect three state Supreme Court justices this year, and for the first time in 12 years, one of those seats is open with no incumbent judge running.
State Supreme Court justice is a nonpartisan position – but there is one candidate endorsed by the state Republican Party: Dave Larson, a municipal court judge in Federal Way.
“The foundation of justice is dignity and respect, and that's what our courts are supposed to deliver, is dignity and respect,” Larson told KUOW public radio. “And we haven't been doing a very good job.”
Larson says vaccine mandates are “illegal” and criticizes the court’s decisions on drug possession.
His opponent is Sal Mungia, a trial lawyer.
“But when this opportunity came up, I thought, man, if I can make bigger systemic change, I've got to try,” Mungia said.
Mungia says if elected he’d lobby Olympia and Congress for legal aid for low-income people. He’s endorsed by the governor and eight of the nine sitting justices.
UW lab accelerates battery development
Washington Governor Jay Inslee says the state is leading a worldwide revolution in clean energy technology – but it needs better batteries. That goal may be within reach, as the University of Washington accelerates testing for emerging battery technologies.
One such project on display recently is a pouch-cell battery about the size of a postage stamp. Dr. Rebecca Vincent of the UW Clean Energy Institute says the tiny battery is an important ingredient in battery research and development.
“If you want to prove that your material can work at scale to any degree, you need to make a pouch cell,” Vincent told KNKX public radio.
A main focus of Vincent’s work right now is finding ways to evaluate the health of used batteries without taking them apart – a model, she said, that should help improve materials, re-use and recycling.
About 150 companies have already used the UW facility. A laboratory expansion is set to open next summer. It was funded using $7.5 million dollars from the Climate Commitment Act.
Federal judge allows Meta lawsuit to proceed
A federal judge has rejected Meta’s claim to dismiss the case brought by 42 Attorneys General, including Washington’s, against the tech company.
The federal lawsuit accuses Meta of putting profits before the well-being of millions of children and teens by intentionally targeting them with harmful features to addict them.
The judge kept the AGs’ claims regarding Meta specifically using its programming to target younger users, including appearance altering filters, features that hindered time restrictions, and Instagram’s “multiple accounts” function.
However, the judge dismissed other claims that Meta’s programming violated state and federal laws, including infinite scroll and autoplay, how Meta designed and used notifications and alerts, the quantification and display of “likes” and how Meta algorithmically served content to young users.
Washington AG Bob Ferguson hailed the decision as a win.
"Meta can’t get off the hook that easily," he said in a statement. "This ruling brings us one step closer to accountability. Meta and its top executives disregarded their own research and publicly downplayed the risks Facebook and Instagram posed to its most vulnerable users."
Waiting for fall? Weather Service says it looks like this time is for real
So far, fall in the Inland Northwest has felt a lot like summer. Cold fronts knock temperatures down for a few days, but above-average warmth always returns.
Beginning today, the region may finally tip fully into cooler weather. With so many false starts from Mother Nature, how do weather forecasters know this time might be the long-awaited seasonal shift?
National Weather Service meteorologist Laurie Nisbet said she and her colleagues at the Spokane office study up to 100 computer models and look for patterns.
“When a large majority of those models are agreeing as we head into days 7 through 10, even into days 14 and beyond, and they're all consistently keeping our high temperatures in the 50s, then we know that there's becoming an agreement that we are trending now into our real fall season,” Nisbet told SPR News.
Later this year, forecasters expect the cool Pacific waters of La Niña to influence the Inland Northwest’s weather. While La Niña typically means a cooler, wetter season, Nisbet said early indications call for a weaker La Niña this year.
Idaho researchers create biodegradable plastic substitute
Plastic is everywhere around us. Almost half of it is designed to be used once and thrown away. And this is a problem for the environment.
Researchers at Boise State University are working on an alternative to single-use plastics — something that’s durable, biodegradable and easily recyclable.
Dr. Terra Miller-Cassman’s recipe for her plastic substitute starts with sugar — specifically isomalt.
“One of the benefits of this project is that everything I work with smells really good,” Miller-Cassman told Oregon Public Broadcasting. “Smells like melting sugar. Smells very sweet.”
Isomalt is made from processing sucrose — that’s table sugar, which in the United States, mostly comes from sugar beets. Isomalt is just good enough for single use. With it, the lab has developed a composite material that’s recyclable, reusable and quickly breaks down in the environment.
Miller-Cassman has spent a lot of time in the lab molding the isomalt-sawdust mix into different shapes. Her team’s aim is to replace plates, cups, forks and spoons, party favors and decorations.
The vision is ambitious: Isomalt from sugar beets grown in Idaho. Sawdust from local sawmills.
“We could potentially keep the entire process local,” Miller-Cassman said. “That would be the dream.”
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Reporting was contributed by Scott Greenstone, Bellamy Pailthorp, Owen Henderson, Brandon Hollingsworth and Jes Burns.