A longer version of this article originally appeared in The News Tribune.

The plan to build a tiny-home village for the homeless in Spanaway can move forward following the Pierce County Council’s vote to amend zoning codes that were obstructing the project.

The director of the Low Income Housing Institute (LIHI), Sharon Lee, told The News Tribune that the village at 415 208th St. E. will have 40 to 50 homes. She said the homes will be eight feet by 12 feet, insulated, with heat, air conditioning and furnishings.

A hygiene trailer, community kitchen, community space, laundry room and case-management offices will be on site. There will be a fully fenced perimeter, security check-in office and 24/7 staffing, according to Lee.

LIHI operates several tiny-home villages in the Puget Sound region, including two in Tacoma. LIHI has owned for some time the land where the village will be, but county code prohibiting temporary housing shelters from being built and operated in unincorporated Pierce County for more than 90 days was an obstacle.

Last summer, now-Pierce County Executive Ryan Mello spearheaded an effort as the chair of the County Council to amend county code to allow for the Spanaway tiny-home village and others like it to be established outside of Tacoma. Mello and his Democrat colleagues supported the effort to change the code in two separate ordinances that were opposed by Republicans on the Council and former Pierce County Executive Bruce Dammeier, a Republican.

In June, the Council passed an ordinance amending the county zoning code and allowing temporary housing projects to exist for longer than 90 days. The ordinance passed along party lines by a vote of four to three and took effect at the beginning of July.

According to LIHI, the property where the village will be built cost $1.55 million, and the village will cost $1.5 million to set up and $1.2 million annually to operate. Lee told The News Tribune that LIHI anticipates opening the village by spring 2026.

LIHI’s tiny-home villages serve as temporary housing for those experiencing homelessness to get back on their feet while looking for permanent housing. According to LIHI, more than half of tiny-home residents stay in villages for less than six months before transitioning.

The News Tribune originally published a longer version of this article on Aug. 1, 2025. Cascade PBS has edited this story for length.

After three years of bargaining, outdoor retailer REI Co-op and the two unions representing some REI workers announced an agreement that could bring them closer to an initial contract at unionized stores.   

In a joint press release Friday, REI, based in Issaquah, and the union bargaining committee said they had agreed to establish a “national bargaining structure to inform store-level collective bargaining agreements” for its 11 unionized stores, including one in Bellingham. 

“This agreement is a tremendous step forward in negotiating a first contract,” the REI Union bargaining committee said in a statement. 

Since 2022, workers at 11 REI stores have been affiliated with either the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW)​ or the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), which work together as the REI Union. The union cites issues with wages, staffing and unpredictable hours. Unionized workers have accused REI of bargaining in bad faith and dragging its feet, a claim the company denies. Friday’s announcement comes after three years of contentious negotiations between the co-op and the REI Union. 

In March, the National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint against REI alleging that the company had broken the law by withholding wages and bonuses to workers at unionized stores in retaliation for organizing activity. 

The company denied the claim. A hearing in the case was scheduled for later this year, but as part of the new agreement reached Friday, REI said it will pay wage increases and bonuses to the workers at unionized stores who didn’t receive them. In exchange, the REI Union said it would drop the unfair labor practice charges it had filed with the NLRB over the matter. 

“This agreement reflects both sides’ commitment to finding solutions to complex issues and clears the way for continued good faith discussions towards a collective bargaining agreement,” REI said in a statement. 

This spring, the REI Union successfully urged co-op members to reject the board of director candidates put forward by REI in protest of the company’s approach to labor issues. REI has yet to announce who will be appointed to the board in place of its handpicked candidates. 

A longer version of this article appeared in The Columbian and The Daily News.

The Interstate 5 Bridge Replacement Program recently cleared another bureaucratic funding hurdle when Metro, Portland, Oregon’s regional governing body, voted to spend $1.9 billion in funding that had already been awarded to the project.

The vote moves the roughly $6 billion project forward even as questions remain about whether a megaproject bridging two blue states can succeed under President Donald Trump. U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., has raised alarms about Trump’s administration pulling funding for projects in Democratic-leaning states.

The $1.9 billion approved by Metro on July 24 comes from the federal government, as well as Washington and Oregon. While the money has already been allocated to the project, planners need another layer of procedural approval before it can actually be spent.

The project had already secured a similar approval from the Southwest Washington Regional Transportation Council, which rubber-stamped it July 1. It still needs the State of Oregon’s approval. (Washington doesn’t require an equivalent approval at the state level.)

“Once we have federal environmental approval, the [bridge replacement] program can begin construction and turn dirt on this key transportation investment,” said Ray Mabey, second in command at the project.

The project to replace the 108-year-old bridge is currently funded with $2.1 billion from the federal government, $1 billion each from Washington and Oregon, and $1.2 billion from future tolls. Gov. Bob Ferguson signed a bill in May that allows the state to issue $2.5 billion in state bonds to pay for part of the bridge replacement project before tolls make up that cost.

While tolls were initially expected as soon as next spring, project managers now say the fees likely won’t start until summer 2027. Those will be on the existing bridge.

The project expects construction to start in early 2026 after federal environmental review approvals, Mabey said.

The Columbian and The Daily News published a longer version of this article on July 30, 2025. Cascade PBS has edited this article for length.

This article was originally published by the Washington State Standard

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced Friday that it will be shutting down.

The announcement came just one day after a major Senate appropriations bill omitted funding for the nonprofit that funds public media and a week after President Donald Trump signed a bill into law that yanked $1.1 billion in previously approved spending for CPB. 

CPB, which Congress authorized in 1967, provides funds for National Public Radio, the Public Broadcasting Service and hundreds of local stations across the United States. President Donald Trump and fellow Republicans have criticized NPR and PBS of left-leaning bias, an accusation the public media organizations have rejected.

“Despite the extraordinary efforts of millions of Americans who called, wrote, and petitioned Congress to preserve federal funding for CPB, we now face the difficult reality of closing our operations,” Patricia Harrison, president and CEO of CPB, said in a statement Friday.

“CPB remains committed to fulfilling its fiduciary responsibilities and supporting our partners through this transition with transparency and care,” Harrison said.

She added that “public media has been one of the most trusted institutions in American life, providing educational opportunity, emergency alerts, civil discourse, and cultural connection to every corner of the country.”

CPB said employees were notified Friday that the majority of staff positions “will conclude with the close of the fiscal year on September 30, 2025,” and a small transition team will stay through January 2026.

The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday approved the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education spending bill for fiscal year 2026, which did not include any CPB funding.

Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state, the top Democrat on the panel, expressed her disappointment over the lack of a CPB allocation in the bill during a committee markup. 

“It is a shameful reality and now communities across the country will suffer the consequences as over 1,500 stations lose critical funding,” Murray said.

In a win for the Trump administration, Congress passed a rescissions package in July that clawed back $9 billion in previously approved spending for public broadcasting and foreign aid, including $1.1 billion for CPB.

Trump signed the measure into law just days later. 

The Washington State Standard originally published this article on August 1, 2025.

Washington has signed onto a lawsuit against the Trump administration over funding cuts targeting Planned Parenthood, Attorney General Nick Brown announced Tuesday.

The “Big Beautiful Bill” spending plan passed by Congress earlier this month bans Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood for the next year, meaning clinics cannot be reimbursed for providing medical services to low-income patients insured under the federal health care program.

Washington is one of 24 states suing the administration over the provision.

“The broad attempt to cut Washingtonians’ access to Planned Parenthood means more unscreened cancers, more untreated sexually transmitted diseases, and more unintended pregnancies,” Brown said in a statement. “The Trump Administration’s punitive actions will have real ramifications for Washingtonians.”

Gov. Bob Ferguson has already committed to backfilling the loss of federal funding to the 30 Planned Parenthood clinics in Washington. That’s about $11.8 million over the next year.

In a press conference earlier this month, Ferguson said he would divert some funding from the state Health Care Authority to fill the gap.

The lawsuit was filed in Massachusetts and asserts that the budget provision is unconstitutional because it is ambiguous and violates congressional spending authority.

The provision “does not reflect a health policy choice but was drafted to single out [Planned Parenthood Federation of America] and Planned Parenthood health centers for their abortion advocacy,” the lawsuit reads.

Planned Parenthood has filed its own lawsuit over the funding provision in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. A federal judge blocked the funding provision from going into effect earlier this week, but the case is ongoing.

Along with Washington, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin have all signed onto the lawsuit.

This article originally appeared in the Washington State Standard.

Parents trying to overturn a Washington law protecting runaway transgender youth have hit another roadblock in federal court.

A three-judge appeals court panel on Friday unanimously dismissed a constitutional challenge to the controversial 2023 statute, which allows operators of emergency shelters to notify state authorities, rather than parents, when children seek refuge as they pursue gender-affirming care and support services.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld a lower court ruling that concluded those challenging the law lacked legal standing to sue because they could not prove they suffered actual or imminent harm from the statute. The plaintiffs who brought the case included several parents whose teenage children exhibited signs of gender dysphoria, but were not runaways, and two nonprofits that oppose gender-affirming care for children.

In a statement, Washington Attorney General Nick Brown’s office said, “We are pleased that the court saw through this politicized attempt to create a case where none existed.”

America First Legal Foundation, counsel for the plaintiffs, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The conservative legal organization was founded by Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff for President Donald Trump.

State law calls for parents to be notified within 72 hours of their child’s arrival at an emergency shelter unless there are “compelling reasons” not to do so. If there are signs of abuse or neglect, for example, shelter staff are to inform the state Department of Children, Youth and Families, which would take the lead on reaching out to parents.

The court fight is over Senate Bill 5599, which expanded the list of compelling reasons to cover situations in which a young person feels they could be subject to abuse or neglect because they are pursuing gender-affirming care or reproductive health services. The law’s passage incensed conservatives, who said it was an attack on parental rights.

America First Legal Foundation sued in August 2023, days after opponents of the law failed to gather enough signatures to get a referendum on the ballot.

The lawsuit argued the statute “deprives certain parents — but not all parents —  of their fundamental right under the U.S. Constitution to direct the care and upbringing of their children, as well as their rights to the free exercise of religion, due process, free speech, and equal protection.” 

Miller, in a statement issued at the time the suit was filed, said his group was “leading the courtroom charge against radical transgenderism and the sexual exploitation of our children by militant gender activists.” He added: “No state action more frighteningly illustrates the threat to our children than this law.”

International Partners for Ethical Care, Inc. and Advocates Protecting Children joined the parents as plaintiffs.

After the state responded that the plaintiffs lacked standing, America First Legal amended its complaint to broaden the original challenge. That didn’t work.

In May 2024, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Bryan dismissed the suit, citing the plaintiffs’ lack of standing.

The 9th Circuit Court panel of judges agreed. Judge Milan D. Smith, Jr., a 2006 appointee of President George W. Bush, authored Friday’s appellate decision. Circuit Judges Sidney R. Thomas and Daniel A. Bress joined in the opinion.

The Washington State Standard originally published this article on July 28, 2025.

A longer version of this article originally appeared in the Washington State Standard.

A controversial plan to kill up to half a million invasive barred owls to protect endangered spotted owls is in jeopardy after the Trump administration terminated three critical grants funding the program. 

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s barred owl management strategy was approved last September. 

The plan, set to start this year and continue for three decades, called for the lethal removal of barred owls in Washington, Oregon and California by shooting them with shotguns or, less frequently, capturing and euthanizing them. 

Barred owls and spotted owls prefer the same habitat and compete for the same food. But the barred owl is larger and more aggressive, and typically prevails in conflicts with the spotted owl.

Julia Smith, endangered species recovery section manager for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, told the state Fish and Wildlife Commission last week that the northern spotted owl will be functionally extinct in Washington within the next decade if no new action is taken. 

“There’s no easy button to recover this bird, and we’re left with only the most difficult options,” Smith said. 

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has said its plan to shoot barred owls would result in the annual removal of less than one-half of 1% of the species’ North American population.

Animal rights activists and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have publicly opposed the plan, calling it costly, unsustainable and inhumane. 

Now the Trump administration has canceled $1.1 million in grants to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to enact the program, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday. 

The grant cancellation is the first public indication of the administration’s stance on the plan. 

Washington is home to the endangered northern spotted owl, which was designated as “threatened” under the federal Endangered Species Act nearly 25 years ago.

In the Pacific Northwest, spotted owls are known for their central role in the “timber wars” of the 1980s and 1990s, which pitted environmentalists concerned about saving old-growth trees against loggers. 

This conflict eventually led to the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan, which put new protections in place for forests where the spotted owl lives.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says that the rate of spotted owl population decline showed signs of improvement until about 2008, but accelerated soon after, and that the downturn coincided with the expansion of barred owls into spotted owls’ territory. 

Smith, with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, said modeling of what would happen if barred owls were no longer present in Washington showed the spotted owl population growing steadily for the next 15 years and stabilizing in 30 to 40 years.  

The Washington State Standard originally published a longer version of this story on July 22, 2025. Cascade PBS has edited this story for length.

This article originally appeared in the Washington State Standard.

A federal appeals court on Wednesday agreed with a Seattle judge’s decision to universally block President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting birthright citizenship.

The appeals judges ruled 2-1 that Trump’s order, issued on Inauguration Day, violates the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which states “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”

“One power that the President was not granted, by Article II or by any other source, is the power to modify or change any clause of the United States Constitution,” Judge Ronald Gould, a Clinton appointee, wrote in his opinion.

Gould’s opinion, joined by Judge Michael Hawkins, sides with U.S. District Court Judge John Coughenour, who stopped Trump’s order with an indefinite preliminary injunction in February. Such orders block enforcement while the case proceeds through the courts.

Coughenour called Trump’s order “blatantly unconstitutional.” The lawsuit was brought by Washington, Oregon, Arizona, Illinois and two pregnant noncitizen women who feared their children could be born without citizenship in any country.

In a statement, Washington Attorney General Nick Brown applauded the appeals court ruling.

“The court agrees that the president cannot redefine what it means to be American with the stroke of a pen,” Brown said. “He cannot strip away the rights, liberties, and protections of children born in our country.”

The decision from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals adds to the list of courts that have found Trump’s move unconstitutional and blocked enforcement of it. The ruling comes after the Department of Justice and Washington attorney general’s office argued the case in early June.

Since those arguments, the U.S. Supreme Court decided judges like Coughenour had overstepped their authority in blocking Trump’s order nationwide. The justices ruled nationwide injunctions should be limited to when necessary to “provide complete relief to each plaintiff.”

The high court’s decision left the door open for creating a checkerboard of states where birthright citizenship remained and others where it didn’t.

The justices didn’t take up the merits of Trump’s order.

Wednesday’s ruling is the second to confirm a complete block is necessary since the Supreme Court decision, after a New Hampshire federal judge certified a nationwide class action suit. 

The Trump administration looks to define “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” as only covering people whose primary allegiance is to the United States. So people born to parents only here temporarily or without legal status wouldn’t qualify for citizenship at birth.  

In 2022, about 153,000 babies across the country were born to two parents without legal immigration status, including 4,000 in Washington, according to the plaintiffs. The states have said they stand to lose federal funding through programs like Medicaid that otherwise could help these children if they were citizens.

Gould found this argument persuasive, justifying “complete relief” to block the order nationwide. He wrote that Trump’s birthright citizenship order would require states to overhaul their eligibility verification systems for social service programs.

“The preliminary injunction here merely prevents the Executive Branch from denying citizenship to individuals who are likely constitutionally entitled to citizenship,” Gould wrote. “Because, as the district court correctly concluded, the Executive Branch does not have a legitimate interest in violating the Constitution, the Executive Branch has not shown that either the public interest or the balance of equities tips in its favor.”

Judge Patrick Bumatay, a Trump appointee, disagreed, arguing the states lack standing to bring litigation over the order because their financial loss would be a “self-inflicted injury” if they choose to provide benefits to immigrants without legal status.

In his dissent, Bumatay didn’t address the issue of the injunction’s scope.

The Washington State Standard originally published this article on July 23, 2025.

This story originally appeared in the Spokesman-Review.

Sighs of relief, hesitant celebrations, even tears emanated from after-school providers and advocacy groups around the nation when they got word that the Trump administration lifted a three-week pause on $1.3 billion in federal grants that paid for summertime, before- and after-school programs.

“I was so excited I almost cried, just because of the state of our staff. They were freaking out, like ‘Am I going to have a job?’” said Debra Raub, executive director of Communities in Schools of Northeast Washington, a recipient of millions in grant funding for programs at six schools in Spokane County.

The nonprofit will continue to host after-school programs at Bemiss, Cooper, Regal and Stevens elementaries in Spokane Public Schools, as well as Seth Woodard and Orchard Center elementaries in the West Valley School District. Each school has around 30 students enrolled in the grant-funded programs.

“That’s hundreds of kids that would lose before-school, after-school and summer programming, which also affects parents’ ability to provide child care during that time period,” Raub said.

In June, the Department of Education froze previously approved funding for six different educational grants totaling around $6 billion, including $1.3 billion nationally in 21st Century Community Learning Centers that the department restored on Friday after three weeks in limbo.

Washington received $21.3 million from the grant, doled out to providers and school districts to operate the services at 105 sites in the state, according to a spokesperson from the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Raub’s nonprofit was expecting around $9 million to operate the programs at six schools for three more years in Spokane County.

The Trump administration froze the funding to ensure it was in line with the president’s priorities.

The administration has yet to make a decision whether it will follow suit and release the $5.5 billion that pays for staff training, English-language education, migrant education and literacy programs for adults in five other paused grants, according to a notice sent to grantees from the Department of Education.

Friday’s release of some of the grant money doesn’t extend beyond the upcoming school year, despite Congress OKing the grants until 2028 without interruption.

President Donald Trump’s proposed 2026 budget doesn’t allocate any dollars to after-school programs specifically, instead consolidating the existing 21st Century Community Learning Center grants with 17 other K-12 grants and reducing their combined allocations by 69%, according to D.C.-based advocacy group Afterschool Alliance.

The group’s executive director, Jodi Grant, said the cuts would be premature for grantees expecting funding.

“It breaks my heart to see anybody going through this, any program where you’re impacting kids and families in schools,” Grant said.

The Spokesman-Review originally published this story on July 21, 2025. Elena Perry's work is funded in part by members of the Spokane community via the Community Journalism and Civic Engagement Fund. It is republished here under a Creative Commons license. 

A longer version of this article appeared in the Washington State Standard.

Catholic priests in Washington cannot be required to report child abuse or neglect they learn of in confession, a federal judge ruled Friday.

U.S. District Court Chief Judge David G. Estudillo granted a preliminary injunction, sought by three Catholic bishops, temporarily blocking enforcement of a controversial element in a new state law, SB 5375, set to take effect July 27.

Estudillo ruled that requiring disclosure of information priests hear in the confessional infringes on their First Amendment right to practice religion and will force them to violate their sacred vows or face punishment by the state.

SB 5375 added clergy to the state’s roster of professions that must report to law enforcement when they have “reasonable cause to believe that a child has suffered abuse or neglect.”

But the state, Estudillo ruled, cannot require Archbishop Paul Etienne of Seattle, Bishop Joseph Tyson of Yakima and Bishop Thomas Daly of Spokane — the three who filed the suit — or any Catholic priest in Washington under their direction to disclose such information they hear in confession.

The legislation “places them in the position of either complying with the requirements of their faith or violating the law. The consequences for violating the law are serious and, as Plaintiffs assert, the implications of violating the Sacramental Seal are more serious still,” Estudillo wrote.

Attorney General Nick Brown’s office emphasized that the ruling applies only to “the Sacrament of Confession,” and that if clergy learn about abuse in any other setting, the injunction does not change — they will be mandated reporters.

Attorneys for the bishops have argued the law treats Catholic priests, and the religious activity of confession, differently from other professions that involve confidential conversations. They pointed to House Bill 1171, which also takes effect July 27. 

That law exempts attorneys employed by public or private higher-education institutions, and employees under their supervision, from their mandatory reporting obligations if the information obtained is related to the representation of a client.

Estudillo agreed, ruling that this undermined the state’s argument that it was not singling out the church practice.

“Ultimately, Washington’s failure to demonstrate why it has an interest of the highest order in denying an exemption to clergy while making such exemptions available to other professionals who work with underserved children … is likely fatal” to the law, the judge wrote.

Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice sought to join the legal fight as an intervening party on the side of the bishops. The Trump administration also filed a separate request for a preliminary injunction. It is slated for a hearing next week.

Meanwhile, a similar legal battle is unfolding in the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Washington. The Orthodox Church of America, along with other churches and individual priests, has sued state officials and county prosecutors, contending that the law violates the First Amendment right to practice one’s religion.

The Washington State Standard published a longer version of this story on July 18, 2025. Cascade PBS has edited this story for length.