Why Bill Gates Is Investing Big Time In Farmland Across Washington And The Country

By NWPB News
File photo. Washington state's richest residents, including Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, would pay a wealth tax on certain financial assets worth more than $1 billion under a 2021 proposed bill whose sponsor says she is seeking a fair and equitable tax code. Under the bill, starting Jan. 1, 2022, for taxes due in 2023, a 1% tax would be levied not on income, but on "extraordinary" assets ranging from cash, publicly traded options, futures contracts, and stocks and bonds. CREDIT: Elains Thompson/AP
Seattle’s technology billionaires are many things: innovators, visionaries, philanthropists and some less polite descriptors, depending on whom you ask. But thanks to some scrupulous digging by industry journal The Land Report, which tracks land ownership across the country, we now know that Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has another feather in his multi hyphenated career Read More

BOOK REVIEW: In ‘Remote Control,’ Drones Fly Over The Yam Fields Of A Near-Future Africa

By NPR News
Book cover - Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor
At the start of the story, Fatima is a young Ghanian girl who has taken on the mantle of the Adopted Daughter of Death. Renamed Sankofa — an avian symbol of the West African Akan people, one that embodies the idea of harnessing the past to forge a better tomorrow — she wanders the land, inducing dread and awe in the towns she encounters, a living legend wielding the power Read More

Across Washington, People Show Up Big In Smaller Cities And Towns To Support Black Lives Matter

By NWPB News
Fran Cuhtahlatah stands in protest at the corner of North Main Street and West Fifth Avenue in Ellensburg, Kittitas County, June 14, 2020. While other local residents have protested recently, Cuhtahlatah has been out quietly protesting in the community for the past three years. CREDIT: Matt M. McKnight/Crosscut
Small, mostly white rural towns across Washington are standing up in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter protests. Although dwarfed by comparison with the thousands protesting in places like Seattle and Portland, the people standing up against racism in smaller numbers do not think their message should be dismissed or watered down because they aren’t big enough to make Read More