Local News | The Seattle Times

Washington state’s death-row inmates, from left to right, top to bottom: Jonathan L. Gentry, Clark R. Elmore, Cecil E. Davis, Dayva M. Cross, Robert Lee Yates Jr., Conner M. Schierman, Allen E. Gregory, Byron E. Scherf. (Department of Corrections) — Washington state's death-row inmates, from left to right, top to bottom: Jonathan L. Gentry, Clark R. Elmore, Cecil E. Davis, Dayva M. Cross, Robert Lee Yates Jr., Conner M. Schierman, Allen E. Gregory, Byron E. Scherf. (Department of Corrections)

Death penalty struck down by Washington Supreme Court, taking 8 men off death row

The “death penalty is invalid because it is imposed in an arbitrary and racially biased manner,” the Supreme Court decided in a ruling published Thursday.

Don't Miss

Licton Springs residents Lilli Cox, 51, left, and friend Ricky Brown, 54, visit after being told by staff that the nonprofit SHARE/WHEEL will cease management of the tiny house village for people experiencing homelessness, Sunday, Oct. 14, 2018, in Seattle. Cox said she has a place to go. “Moving here gave me the courage and ability to change,” said Cox. 208143

Project Homeless

Seattle homeless camp that allows alcohol, drug use is losing its management as tensions escalate VIEW

Every night of the week, musicians playing traditional and more modern instruments jam for tourists in Jemaa El Fna Square, the main meeting point in the medina of Marrakech. The fabled city is a couple of hours by car from the coastal town of Essaouira.

For Tyrone Beason column on Morocco trip. Ag

Tyrone Beason

Jimi Hendrix’s ‘experience’ in Morocco made my own more powerful

FILE – In this Nov. 20, 2008, file photo, the execution chamber at the Washington State Penitentiary is shown with the witness gallery behind glass at right, in Walla Walla, Wash. Washington state’s Supreme Court has ruled that the death penalty violates its Constitution. The ruling Thursday, Oct. 11, 2018, makes Washington the latest state to do away with capital punishment. They ordered that people currently on death row have their sentences converted to life in prison. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)

Danny Westneat

Meet the UW professor who just killed the death penalty

Summit Foods corner store on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2017 in Seattle will soon have its sugared sodas taxed.

Local Politics

Soda industry has spent $13 million to fight I-1634 — without talking about soda

Times Watchdog

Sally port entrance at left and control station at right — entrance to the Center for Forensic Services at Western State Hospital in Lakewood, WA shot September 24, 2018. 207853

Attacks on staff surge at Western State Hospital: ‘How bad does it have to get?’

Politics

Kim Schrier, left, and Dino Rossi, right, seeking election to the U.S. House to represent the 8th Congressional District of Washington, in the 2018 election.

ORIGINAL CAPTIONS:
LEFT:
Kim Schrier is a 2018 Democratic candidate seeking election to the U.S. House to represent the 8th Congressional District of Washington.
RIGHT:
Dino Rossi is a 2018 Republican candidate seeking election to the U.S. House to represent the 8th Congressional District of Washington

Congressional candidates Dino Rossi and Kim Schrier clash in lone debate in Ellensburg

Featured Video Stories

Pastor Patrinell “Pat” Wright has spent the past 45 years helping people in Seattle and around the world, of all backgrounds, grasp the meaning of African-American gospel music. (Bettina Hansen and Corinne Chin / The Seattle Times)

Pastor Patrinell “Pat” Wright brings gospel to Seattle (3:42)

Chisato DuBose, 54, and her daughter Sachie DuBose, 18, are world-champion power lifters and competitive bodybuilding athletes. As the women train and compete together, they build each other up. (Erika Schultz and Corinne Chin / The Seattle Times)

Mother-daughter powerlifters 'don't care what people have to say' (5:12)

Experience the sights and sounds of the parade and victory rally for the Seattle Storm, winners of the 2018 WNBA Championship, at Seattle Center on Sunday September 16, 2018. (Corinne Chin, Ramon Dompor and Bettina Hansen / The Seattle Times)

Seattle Storm: WNBA Champions 2018 (2:23)

Sabrina Tate died in her RV at the age of 27. Five months later, her parents, Tommi Tate and Kellie Sevier of Spokane, continue to grieve. (Corinne Chin / The Seattle Times)

A leaf of remembrance for Sabrina Tate (2:15)

After Juan Lopez arrived in the United States, he wasn’t thinking about the future. Now he has a wife and children. “To see them crying… it just hurts me now.” (Corinne Chin, Ramon Dompor & Erika Schultz / The Seattle Times)

'It's going to be hard to leave': The Lopez family's tough... (8:41)

Recent Chief Sealth graduate Juan Old Chief Betancourt has learned a lot from his great grandmother. He wanted to honor her the best way he knew how, by taking her to his high school prom. (Lauren Frohne & Erika Schultz / The Seattle Times)

Family always comes first: A prom story (5:07)

Stand up paddle boarding is making its Special Olympics USA Games debut, and 21-year-old Devon Adelman is up for the challenge of this new sport. (Lauren Frohne, Bettina Hansen & Emily M. Eng / The Seattle Times)

Paddling for Special Olympics gold (5:22)

"History matters because it shows our values," says Jeffrey Coopersmith, a Seattle attorney who has collected historical artifacts for the past four decades. (Corinne Chin / The Seattle Times)

Artifacts of Injustice (2:38)

Project Homeless

Homeless camps cropping up near the Honda/Toyota dealerships on Airport Way South at South Holgate Street have resulted in businesses along the stretch into paying the BIA to hire a caseworker because they feel the city isn’t doing enough to deal with the homeless. Some of the homeless have been violent to customers and staff at the businesses. This homeless community is just to the west of the dealerships on the corner of Airport Way South and South Holgate Streets.
Photographed on October 16, 2018. 208167

Feeling abandoned by City Hall, Seattle businesses try to respond to homelessness

About Project Homeless

Project Homeless is a new Seattle Times initiative that explores and explains the region’s complex, troubling problem of homelessness. With strong watchdog reporting and vivid storytelling, Project Homeless seeks to spotlight what is working, and what is not working, in responding to homelessness. We will also feature solutions-oriented reporting from elsewhere in the country.

Transportation

Ride the Ducks exhibit 641 in the trial. Video frame from Sept. 24, 2015 duck bus crash. Here you can see the Ride the Ducks turning into the bus lane.

Lengthy civil trial begins in 2015 Ride the Ducks crash that killed 5 on Aurora Bridge VIEW

Local News Photography

Crowds walk through “I Am Here” by LMNts: Plamena Milusheva, Scott Crawford and Chris Savage?on the Lake Union Park walking bridge during Borealis, a Festival of Light, in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood. The festival features light installations, multimedia video mapping showcases, live music, beer gardens, food trucks and street art performances from October 11-14, 2018. For more information, visit: https://borealisfestivaloflight.com.
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Arts & Entertainment

Borealis: a ‘magical, light, beautiful’ art event in South Lake Union VIEW

Local News

Having a ruff day? This story about George the skateboarding bulldog is sure to make you howl WATCH

The children of Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell, who took his own life, unveil his statue, Sunday, Oct. 7, 2018, outside MoPOP in Seattle. From left: Lily, 18; Toni, 14; and Christopher, 12. 208042

Music

Chris Cornell statue unveiled outside MoPOP in Seattle VIEW

Photographs at “Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, The Exhibition,” are allowed of the 34 panels, but no flash.

in Tacoma’s Armory,
Saturday October 6, 2018.

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Local News

Sistine Chapel in Tacoma VIEW

Education

A woman with kids walks away from school (at left) as school buses at right drive kids home from the temporary campus of Queen Anne Elementary School in Seattle’s Ravenna neighborhood Wednesday, September 12, 2018.
A bus driver shortage has caused severe delays in school bus routes, some running two or three hours late in the morning or afternoon. One bus driver said that since teachers are still on strike in Tacoma, they were able to bring these buses to Seattle to help out and get the students home. 207779

Over a month since school started, Seattle's bus-driver shortage still causing delays

Education Lab

Seattle schools adjusted levy's priorities to make it more fair, but alienated some families in the process

Seattle property-tax levy to test voters’ generosity toward education

About Education Lab

Education Lab is a Seattle Times project that spotlights promising approaches to some of the most persistent challenges in public education.

Health

Brigham Young University student Renee Phillips holds a sample of powdered folic acid, a supplement proven to prevent birth defects like spina bifida and anencephaly.

FDA allows food makers to fortify corn masa to halt birth defects, but few do

Loaded with Lead

Loaded with Lead

The Times investigates lead poisoning at gun ranges

More Special Reports

A photograph of stepfather Sean Rowe and mother Carmen Rowe is taken in downtown Seattle Monday, Dec. 12, 2016. Their son Andrew Westling, 19, died while in the Nisqually Jail earlier this year. They described Westling as friendly and that he loved music, horses and fishing.

Times Watchdog

Fatal confines? A teen’s troubling death in Nisqually tribal jail

Monday, October 31, 2016. Hundreds of untested Rape Kits fill a freezer isle in the Seattle Police Departments evidence room (kits kept at 5 degrees).

Crime

Rape-kit backlog grows at state crime lab — despite new money WATCH

Tom Wales, assistant U.S. Attorney and president of the gun-control group Washington CeaseFire, was the apparent victim of an execution-style slaying Thursday night in his Queen Anne home. The gunman shot Wales through a basement window, hitting the prosecutor in the neck and side.

Thomas Wales

Crime

Unsolved slaying of Seattle prosecutor 16 years ago today has ‘hallmarks of a hit’

Special Report

‘My God, that’s Kimberly!’: Scientist solves perplexing mystery of identity thief Lori Ruff

Data

A logging truck drives through Aberdeen, Wash., Friday, June 16, 2017. Aberdeen was built as a boom town at the turn of the 20th century. Its spectacular landscape, the Chehalis River carves through tree-topped hills to the harbor, offered ships easy access to the Pacific Ocean. Millionaire lumber barons built mansions on the hills. There were restaurants and theaters and traffic that backed up as the drawbridge leading into town seesawed up and down for ship after ship packed with logs and lumber. Now that drawbridge pretty much stays put. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Washington state’s white working class shrinks in share of population — a national trend | FYI Guy

Crime

Man who prompted a police standoff in Auburn last week charged with raping a 14-year-old girl

Prosecutors say a 14-year-old Auburn girl was walking to school last week when a man forced her into his apartment and sexually assaulted her. She escaped when he fell asleep and used his phone to call police.

Shielded by the Law

Nearly impossible to charge police for wrongful killings in Washington

Seattle Sketcher

Our views along the Seattle waterfront will never be the same

Black Market skate shop: Amid the Amazon boom, a little chunk of funky Seattle hangs on

An almost-secret garden: UW’s Medicinal Herb Garden has been growing for 107 years

New downtown Seattle tower busts out of the usual box at street level

Eastside

Kim Schrier, left, and Dino Rossi, right, seeking election to the U.S. House to represent the 8th Congressional District of Washington, in the 2018 election.

ORIGINAL CAPTIONS:
LEFT:
Kim Schrier is a 2018 Democratic candidate seeking election to the U.S. House to represent the 8th Congressional District of Washington.
RIGHT:
Dino Rossi is a 2018 Republican candidate seeking election to the U.S. House to represent the 8th Congressional District of Washington

Congressional candidates Dino Rossi and Kim Schrier clash in lone debate in Ellensburg

Environment

Federal judge orders EPA to protect salmon from warm temps in Columbia River basin

Salmon in the Columbia River basin have struggled against slow-moving, warm waters produced by dams.

Weather

See the latest weather news and forecasts

Science

The Experience Music Project, known as MoPOP since 2016, was founded by Paul Allen along with his sister, Jody, in 2000. Frank Gehry designed the building. (Ken Lambert / The Seattle Times)

Paul Allen’s death leaves many questions around what’s likely the largest estate in Washington history

Earthquakes

Get ready to rumble: A guide to quake preparedness

Northwest Wanderings

It’s easier to get on than to get off Rachel the Pig, mascot of the Pike Place Market, as Sandy Roller, finds out. She and husband Ron visiting from Muskego (CQ), Wisconsin are celebrating their 46th wedding anniversary. They asked Ting Yi Liao, far left, to take their photo aboard Rachel. Liao is visiting from Taiwan.

Northwest Wanderings column

Wed, Sept 19, 2018

Rachel the Pig pulls her weight at Pike Place Market VIEW

Boat storage on the north side of Lake Union provides a different framing of the skyline.

Northwest Wanderings on Lake Union and Sense of Place,

Saturday Sept 1, 2018

Obscured views, best views, all sides of Lake Union

You can see change closing in on Lake Union, Seattle’s hardworking, ever-evolving waterway VIEW

Fabio the rooster gains another blue ribbon for Cora Shieder, second from left, and is a magnet for more from her Hoofs-n-Paws 4-H friends at the Evergreen State Fair.

(CQ on Hoofs-n-Paws)

ref to more photos, video online

Saturday August 25, 2018

Northwest Wanderings

Fabio the rooster has plenty to crow about at Evergreen State Fair WATCH

Ken Olsen (CQ) troubleshoots a problem with his scale model of a Great Northern steam engine, checking under the firebox. Behind him are engineers Chris Haaland (CQ) and Don Deffley.

Northwest Wanderings
Steam engines, mainly, and more.

Sat. July 14, 2018

In Port Orchard, running a mini-railway is an exercise in engineering fun VIEW