Washington | featured news

SEATTLE — The state Supreme Court has declined to immediately take up the lower-court ruling that killed Seattle’s income tax and is instead sending the case to the Court of Appeals.
The Seattle Times reports the Supreme Court issued the order after meeting en banc Thursday, more than a year after the city petitioned for direct review.

ALBANY — Public safety workers used a boat and a cadaver dog to search the Willamette River near Corvallis for a missing Brownsville woman, but haven’t found her.
The Albany Democrat-Herald reports that Benton County Undersheriff Greg Ridler said they would continue the search for Suzanne Durheim Friday.
Authorities say Durheim’s pickup apparently slid off an icy Highway 20 Monday morning and crashed into the Willamette River near the Hewlett Packard campus.

WASHINGTON — Officials have given President Donald Trump a plan to divert funds designated for Army Corps of Engineers projects in California and Puerto Rico to help pay for a wall along the southern border, a leading member of Congress said Thursday.
On his way to the Texas border Thursday, Trump was presented with 13 Army Corps of Engineers projects for which Congress has allocated money, but which have not yet been put under contract, according to Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.).

ALBANY, N.Y. — The campaign of U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been fined $1,500 for not having the required workers’ compensation for a month last year.
A spokeswoman for the New York state Workers’ Compensation Board, Melissa Stewart, said Friday that Ocasio-Cortez’s Democratic campaign lacked coverage from March 31 to April 30.
She says the fine, first reported by the New York Daily News, has been paid.
Stewart says the coverage is “vital to ensuring workers are protected for on-the-job injuries.”

WASHINGTON — White House national security adviser John Bolton has selected a new deputy.
Bolton announced Friday that Charles Kupperman, a longtime colleague dating back to the Reagan administration, would serve as President Donald Trump’s new deputy national security adviser.
Bolton says in a statement that Kupperman has been an adviser to him for more than 30 years. He adds, “Charlie’s extensive expertise in defense, arms control and aerospace will help further President Trump’s national security agenda.”

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — The government shutdown has suspended federal cleanups at Superfund sites around the nation and forced the cancellation of public hearings, deepening the mistrust and resentment of surrounding residents who feel people in power long ago abandoned them to live among the toxic residue of the country’s factories and mines.