Melinda Kupers has worked for the state agency for 35 years — in prisons, community corrections, reentry centers and graduated reentry. On a daily basis, she said working for the Washington state Department of Corrections is brutal.“ Our community corrections staff are out in the community with guns on their hips, arresting people, going into homes,” Kupers said.
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Evan Abell/Yakima Herald-RepublicA bill that would have made it easier for Washington’s farmworkers to form a union will not become law this year. -
Courtesy: Edgar FranksFarmworkers in Washington state don’t have a formal legal pathway to collective bargaining, but that could soon change under recently introduced bills. -
Courtesy: Legislative District 12Washington state's 2026 legislative session began this week.
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Washington and Idaho legislators open their respective off-year sessions Monday in Olympia and Boise. -
Public records uncovered by Cascade PBS and KNKX show a city employee asking ChatGPT for help tipping the scales to ensure a preferred vendor would be awarded a contract. -
U.S. Senate and House Democrats from Oregon and Washington moved swiftly to condemn President Donald Trump’s announcement that the United States carried out a military strike in Venezuela and captured President Nicolás Maduro and his wife. -
A seat in Congress will be open in the 2026 election in Washington’s 4th Congressional District, which covers most of Central Washington. U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse announced Wednesday morning that he will not seek reelection. -
NWPB reporter Lauren Gallup joined host Phineas Pope to discuss Tacoma's 2023 Landlord Fairness Code and its impacts on affordable housing providers today. -
In Moscow, Idaho, there is a new mayor in town. Nearly 70% of voters marked Hailey Lewis on their ballots in the November election. -
Whether states can dole out full benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, is unclear after the U.S Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration to temporarily block funding for food stamps, shortly after funding returned. -
Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown has joined a coalition of 18 other attorneys general and New York City in calling for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to immediately publish a rule that would expand language accessibility for government emergency alerts. They sent a letter to the FCC last Friday. -
A federal program that helps young people from migrant families attend college abruptly halted this year after the Trump administration eliminated funding for migrant education. -
The Trump administration is making unprecedented demands of colleges in the Northwest and across the country.
