Today's headlines:
- Washington State University is studying the effects of artificial intelligence in the workplace.
- Northwest emergency management officials are happy with the results of a national earthquake-related exercise last week.
- General election ballots are in the mail. KNKX’s Freddy Monares reports on why you should return them early.
Those stories and more, coming up on SPR News Today.
________________________________________________
A new study from Washington State University finds that employees who fear their industry is threatened by AI are more likely to show worse workplace behavior — like stealing a coworker's lunch.
Doctor Tahira Probst is the Regents Professor of Psychology at WSU, and one of the authors of the study.
TAHIRA PROBST: “But A- and automation and other kinds of new technologies are not only impacting job insecurity, so worries that you might lose your specific job within an organization, but that it might actually transform your entire occupation as a whole.”
She says the onus is on organizations and how they plan to roll out AI. Here’s Dr. Probst again.
TP: “A lot of whether these negative effects might come to pass is in the hands of the organizations themselves, right? So they need to be transparent, they need to engage workers, they need to involve them in the decision-making around these systems.”
She says she’s hoping to see more studies like this in other countries.
________________________________________________
Spokane’s planning department assisted wildfire survivors at the Shadle Park Library for most weekdays in September and October.
That remote development services office stopped operating last week. But it’ll be open again for a special session this Saturday, October 24, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
City planners will be on hand to guide Spokane Complex Wildfire survivors through the process of rebuilding damaged or destroyed homes.
Donna Pontarolo, a principal planner for the city, says that going forward, the planning department hopes to host evening pop-up sessions as well.
________________________________________________
Premiums for Washington’s paid family and medical leave will increase in 2027, according to the state’s employment security department.
The current rate is 1.13%. It will rise to 1.2% beginning January 1.
Paid leave is funded by premiums collected from Washington state employers and employees. Every October, the Employment Security Department recalculates the premium rate based on program usage and premiums collected the previous year.
________________________________________________
Northwest emergency management officials are happy with the results of a national earthquake-related exercise last week.
Washington, Oregon and Idaho all participated in the Great ShakeOut, which encourages people to “drop, cover and hold on” when a tremor hits.
Brian Terbush is the earthquake and volcano program manager for Washington’s emergency management division. He says earthquakes happen so suddenly and unexpectedly that people sometimes forget the safest way to react.
BRIAN TERBUSH: “That's why we like having this Great ShakeOut drill every year so people get a chance to practice, get that in their muscle memory, and so that as soon as they recognize that's an earthquake or get that alert, they know what to do, and their body can do it automatically.”
Terbush says more than 1.5 million Washingtonians participated last week, though only 60,000 from east of the Cascades. He says he has to remind people that earthquakes aren’t exclusive to the Puget Sound corridor.
Terbush says most cell phones have a function that allows their phone to warn users that an earthquake is happening. He recommends an app called MyShake that does the same thing.
________________________________________________
Washington State University will receive new federal funding for research on animal health.
Last week, the state department selected WSU as one of eight Feed the Future Innovation Labs.
Innovation Labs is a partnership between land-grant universities and the federal government. It strengthens research that focuses on reducing global hunger, poverty and malnutrition.
________________________________________________
Idaho’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate stayed steady at 3.6% through August and September. That’s also the same as it was in September 2025.
Nationally, the unemployment rate went up between August and September of this year, rising to 4.2%.
Idaho’s non-farm jobs had a net increase of 0.1% in September. Some industries experienced decreases, including Accommodation and Food Services and Local and State Government.
Data is provided by the Idaho Department of Labor.
________________________________________________
Voters in Washington state are starting to receive ballots in the mail, and election officials want them to return them as soon as they can ahead of the November 3 general election.
That message comes after the number of ballots rejected because they were received late in the August primary rose compared to 2024.
KNKX reporter Freddy Monares explains why this is happening, and how to make sure your ballot gets counted.
In Washington state’s August primary, more 20,000 ballots were rejected because they were not postmarked by Election Day. That’s up from the primaries in 2024, when around 16,000 were rejected for the same reason.
Garth Fell is president of the Washington State Association of County Auditors. Fell says this is all happening because the post office switched from picking up mail multiple times a day to just once at certain locations. He says that pickup typically happens in the morning.
GARTH FELL: “If you don't meet that that kind of morning pickup deadline, your mail piece and — in our case, ballot — is going to hang out at the post office for 24 hours,”
Fell says some counties have seen even longer delays.
GF: “There have been some extreme cases where it's where it's been up to a week or two for a piece of mail to move through the postal system and and get back to the elections office."
The post office stopped collecting mail multiple times a day from certain locations to cut costs, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. The post office didn’t make anyone available for an interview, but they did confirm that there are fewer collection times for mail.
MARIA CANTWELL: “That's what Washingtonians need to know.”
That’s U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell. She says in addition to how often the post office picks up mail, the agency is also changing how it is processed once it is collected.
MC: “The post office is taking your ballot as a piece of mail, but not stamping it that day. They are waiting and going to a distribution center, and then later postmarking that, and may thereby be delaying your actual vote.”
In response to the criticism, the Post Office says locations can set up lines just for clerks to postmark ballots. The agency says it will also work to expedite ballots from late October through November 3.
Meanwhile, Maria Cantwell’s office says the broader changes happening at the Post Office are having a greater impact on rural communities, such as Mason County on the Olympic Peninsula. The number of late ballots there quadrupled in the August primary compared to 2024.
Steve Duenkel is the Mason County Auditor. He says his office is reaching out to the 258 voters whose ballots were not counted in August.
STEVE DUENKEL: “So they know why their ballot was rejected, and they can make whatever changes in their own planning and preparation to make sure that the ballot gets here on time next time, or and in future elections.”
This year, the county began running this public service announcement on a local radio station.
PSA: “If you return your ballot through the post office, it must be postmarked on or before election day. Mail your ballot at least one week before election day or request a manual postmark.”
AGAIN, mail your ballot at least one week before the election deadline or drop it off at a country dropbox. If you have to mail your ballot, you can request a postmark from the clerk at a local post office.
Once you've voted, you can track the status of your ballot by visiting the Washington Secretary of State’s website. There you’ll also find a map of voting centers, where election officials can help register someone to vote as late as 8 p.m. on Election Day.
In Seattle, I’m Freddy Monares.
________________________________________________
SPR News Today is a production of Spokane Public Radio.
Reporting today was contributed by Ember Braun, Audrey Nelson, Doug Nadvornick, Freddy Monares and Lisa Leinberger, today’s host and producer.
Web support was provided by Audrey Nelson.
