Washington | featured news

RICHMOND, Va. — Some prominent legislators are backing a bill to raise the minimum age for buying cigarettes and vapes from 18 to 21 in Virginia, a state where tobacco once loomed so large that images of the leaves adorn its stately Capitol.
Alarmed by rampant vaping by teens, a group of Republicans and Democrats in both the House and Senate rolled out legislation last week targeting an industry whose roots in the Commonwealth stretch back four centuries to the Jamestown Colony.

PORTLAND — Police in Hillsboro say two pedestrians were struck by a van and one died of her injuries.
KOIN-TV reports the crash occurred at 7:40 p.m. Saturday.
Police say a man and woman crossed a road as a white van stopped at a stop sign.
The van made a left turn and struck both pedestrians.
Police say the van did not stop and drove off.
The woman died at the scene. The man sustained what police say are non-life-threatening injuries.

After drawing crowds that broke records two years ago, the Seattle Womxn’s March had a noticeably smaller number of participants on Saturday amid growing tension over divisions within the movement launched in the wake of Donald Trump’s election in 2017.
As they did last year, people gathered at Cal Anderson Park on Capitol Hill before beginning the 2 1/2-mile march to Seattle Center. Police estimated the crowd at 10,000 people, including those who joined the march en route.