Capitol  Buzz

BUSINESS, ECONOMY & LABOR

• US hiring stayed strong in November despite Fed rate hikes (AP)
• Starbucks ordered to begin bargaining with workers at Seattle flagship store (Puget Sound Business Journal)
• COLUMN: Strike or not, railroads remain essential to America (Jon Talton/The Seattle Times)

CONGRESS

• Rail strike to be averted: Biden to sign bill (AP)
• Congress passes bipartisan bill to avert freight rail strike, rejects measure to give workers more paid sick leave (The Spokesman-Review)
• McMorris Rodgers demands fuel reserve answers from energy secretary (The Center Square)

COURTS (FEDERAL)

• High court to rule on Biden student loan cancellation plan (AP)

COURTS (STATE)

• Washington leads nation in curbing regressive court fees, study says (Axios – Seattle)
• Gov. Inslee appoints replacement for Thurston County Superior Court Judge James Dixon (The Olympian)
• $275,000 payout follows Loren Culp’s alleged mishandling of sexual-abuse case (The Seattle Times)

CRIME

• Teekah Lewis’ family hopes new information will help solve her 1999 disappearance (KING TV)

CYBERSECURITY

• Lynnwood data breach exposed sensitive info for 3.7 million across US (The Everett Herald)
• Local patient data breached in recent VMFH ransomware attack. Here’s what we know (The News Tribune)

DAMS

• COLUMN: Are the dams really damnable? (Ed Palm/Kitsap Sun)

EARLY LEARNING

• ESD 112 official urges lawmakers to support early learning in Southwest Washington (The Columbian)

EDUCATION

• Seattle school enrollment levels off, but district still faces budget woes (The Seattle Times)
• Spokane Public Schools plans to ask legislature for more funding for special education, transportation and more (The Spokesman-Review)

ENERGY & UTILITIES

• Washington state has low electricity prices. Will it stay that way? (The Center Square)

ENVIRONMENT

• BP affiliate pulls back from Washington carbon forest plan (Capital Press)

FISH

• Olympic National Park closes three rivers to recreational fishing (KONP Radio)

HEALTH CARE & HOSPITALS

• 7 die from flu in Washington state, activity ‘very high’ (AP/KEPR)

HIGHER EDUCATION

• Lawsuit: Seattle U pushed a nursing master’s degree it couldn’t offer (The Seattle Times)

HOMELESSNESS

• In the cold and snow, politics falls away amid the effort to stay warm and dry (The Spokesman-Review)

LAW ENFORCEMENT

• Police: Washington officer shot, wounded while making arrest (MyNorthwest)
• ‘Life or death’: Dispatcher, 2 Tacoma officers testify about Sheriff Troyer threat call (The News Tribune)
• Kirkland police to equip body-worn cameras to entire department by the end of the year (The Center Square)

LEGISLATURE

• State legislature looks to revise Washington’s drug possession law (KOMO TV)
• Senate Democrats, Republicans optimistic on climate change work (MyNorthwest)
• To address wealth gap, Washington lawmakers to consider $4,000 ‘baby bonds’ (The Chronicle)
• Dem 2023 legislative preview: drugs, police pursuit, energy, abortion (The Center Square)

LGBTQ

• ‘Love, Equally’ celebrates WA marriage equality, LGBTQ civil rights (The Seattle Times)

LOCAL GOVERNMENT

• Seattle City Council OKs public safety spending, rejects gunshot detection tech (Puget Sound Business Journal)
• EDITORIAL: Seattle Council errs on public safety — voters, take note (The Seattle Times)

MENTAL HEALTH

• Prosecutor: Flood of mentally ill inmates stuck in local jails is a ‘public safety crisis’ (KING TV)
• OPINION: Remedy misguided policies to ease WA’s crisis of mentally ill persons in jails (David D. Luxton, clinical psychologist, Ph.D., and professor with the University of Washington Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Washington School of Medicine/The Seattle Times)

MILITARY & VETERANS

• In ‘a historic moment,’ a military jail built in 1957 is replaced in Pierce County (The News Tribune)

OTHER STATES

• Oregon’s hospitals are struggling, with weeks to go in the respiratory illness season (Oregon Public Broadcasting)
• Oregon Measure 114 draws third legal suit, latest from NRA, National Shooting Sports Foundation (The Oregonian)
• Conservation group asks Oregon to revoke approvals for renewable diesel refinery on Columbia River (The Oregonian)
• ‘We’re going to solve this’: Moscow police chief dismisses quadruple murders turning to cold case (FOX 13)

PARKS

• Access to Mt. Rainier’s Paradise Road only open on weekends (KUOW Radio)

POLITICS

NATIONAL

• AP sources: Biden tells Dems he wants SC as 1st primary vote (AP)

SCHOOL SAFETY

• School staff to board: Student behavioral issues getting worse (Walla Walla Union-Bulletin)

SPORTS

• Spokane to host women’s freestyle wrestling National Championships (The Spokesman-Review)

STATE GOVERNMENT

• Foster parent told CPS she was moving across the state before alleged kidnapping (KING TV)

SUBSTANCE ABUSE

• More powerful opioids beginning to appear in Grays Harbor County (The Daily World)

TAXES

• Policy groups blast, praise early capital gains tax collection (The Center Square)

TRANSPORTATION

• WA’s new vehicle registration law reinvents itself for modern world (MyNorthwest)
• ‘It takes one careless driver:’ State agencies urge drivers to follow chain requirements (FOX 13)
• Crews clean up landslide on closed highway east of Astoria (AP)

TRIBAL ISSUES

• Washington tribe tests its rights to commercial net pen fish farming (KNKX Radio)

WILDFIRE PREVENTION & RESPONSE

• Many states fail to adequately budget for wildfire costs, study says (KUOW Radio)

WILDLIFE

• Rep. Dan Newhouse slams possible grizzly bear reintroduction to the North Cascades (KPQ Radio)