Regional News

Pets dead or sick after coming in contact with Columbia River water near the Tri-Cities, Wash. Now health officials have confirmed the culprit, Anatoxin-a in toxic algae.

Charlie was just nosing around in the Columbia River. Her family was off a beach they had visited many times before just north of Richland, Washington.

The entire state of Idaho is now in a crisis standard of care due to a massive increase in COVID-19 cases.

The declaration came after a request from St. Luke’s Healthcare System in Boise. The hospital had surpassed its capacity and delayed most non-life-threatening procedures – including some cancer treatments, says Dr. Jim Souza, the chief physician at St. Luke’s.

Washington Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz has reopened all Department of Natural Resource lands east of the Cascade Mountains to the public.

A woman abandoned her car and her dog at a security perimeter on Washington’s Capitol Campus Wednesday morning and then managed to access the secure grounds to the governor’s residence before she was stopped by the Washington State Patrol.

Gov. Jay Inslee and First Lady Trudi Inslee were not home at the time of the security breach, according to Inslee’s office.

Research photos taken with a drone show multiple killer whales are close to giving birth in one of the Pacific Northwest's critically endangered pods. The late-stage pregnancies stirred excitement among whale watchers -- and also renewed worries about the availability of adequate food supply for the mothers and babies.

More than 90 state troopers, correctional officers, ferry workers, city firefighters and other public sector employees in Washington have filed a lawsuit in an attempt to overturn Gov. Jay Inslee’s requirement that they get vaccinated against COVID-19, or lose their jobs.

A new Washington mask mandate goes into effect today. It applies to crowds of more than 500 people in outdoor settings, even for people who have been vaccinated.

“For anyone wondering why we are doing this, I guess it should be pretty obvious. It’s because we’re seeing evidence of transmission, unfortunately, in outdoor settings. The Watershed Festival at the Gorge led to more than 200 infections from that one event and it was outdoors," said Governor Jay Inslee last week.

Former Idaho State Legislator Aaron von Ehlinger, is facing a warrant for his arrest on rape charges.

A warrant for von Ehlinger’s arrest was issued Thursday for Sexual Penetration-Forcible by Use with a Foreign Object, a felony. He is a Republican from Lewiston.

He is accused of raping an Idaho legislative intern last spring and resigned amidst an Idaho State Legislature investigation into his conduct.

Idaho’s Panhandle Health District has looked to its own ranks for a new leader.

Don Duffy was introduced Friday as the agency’s new director.

Healthcare providers say if COVID numbers don’t improve, Eastern Washington could soon follow North Idaho into crisis standard of care.

Bidders are lining up for a $14 million equipment auction in the latest turn of the Easterday ghost cattle scam.

There’s a fleet of Dodge Ram trucks, tractors, dozers, feed mixing wagons, 4-wheelers and even a horse trailer with living quarters for riders. In all, more than 100 truckloads of farm-related equipment are on the auction block in one of the largest sales of farming gear ever undertaken in the country, much less the Northwest.

Just in time for the kickoff of the NFL regular season, the first legal sports betting operation in Washington state has opened for business. On Thursday, a line of bettors queued behind a sports celebrity to place their first bets at a tribal casino in the eastern suburbs of Seattle.

Gov. Jay Inslee on Thursday announced that people attending outdoor events with 500 or more attendees will have to wear a mask, whether vaccinated or not. The new, expanded mask mandate goes into effect on Monday.

Inslee’s order comes on the heels of similar requirements that took effect this week in King and Pierce Counties.

More white-tailed deer are dying in the Northwest of viruses that often cause more die-offs after hot summers and droughts.

While numbers could continue to climb, lab testing has found more white-tailed deer than normal have been infected with either bluetongue or epizootic hemorrhagic disease, known as EHD.

Tens of thousands of public school students in Washington state returned to classes this month in school buildings judged to be at risk of collapse in a strong earthquake. A new report to the state Legislature prepared by state geologists and a structural engineering firm gave the lowest possible seismic safety rating to more than 90 percent of the school buildings assessed in a selective statewide survey.

Inland Northwest healthcare providers are expecting a new surge of cases in the weeks following holiday gatherings on Labor Day weekend.

Spokane Regional Health District Interim Health Officer Dr. Francisco Velazquez said regional hospital capacity is already stretched at about 90%, and the community is contending with the more infectious Delta Variant.

Monoclonal antibodies have become a more common remedy for those who have tested positive for Covid and who could become vulnerable to some of its more severe symptoms. But where you can receive that treatment has been limited to hospitals and doctors' offices.

North Idaho is now in a "crisis standard of care"  and state health officials warn that the rest of the state soon could be as well, if more people don’t get vaccinated.

The largest state employee union in Washington has reached a tentative agreement over the implementation of Gov. Jay Inslee’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

The deal, which was announced early Saturday morning, follows a series of bargaining sessions this week between representatives of the Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE) and the Inslee administration.