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Oregon needs more money to fight big wildfires. Who should pay for it?
Two senators aim to boost funding to the state’s firefighting efforts, one funded by the public, the other by timber companies. The Oregon Department of Forestry needs more and consistent funding to fight wildfires. That much was clear following the 2020 Labor Day fires that burned nearly 850,000 acres of forests and became the state’s most expensive disaster in history.
Cap-and-trade, climate change return to the 2024 WA Legislature
On the agenda starting Jan. 8: Spending Washington’s carbon tax, tweaking the cap-and-invest program and taking a stab at utility rebates. Washington’s 1-year-old cap-and-invest program will be one of the dominant issues of the 2024 Legislature, from adjustments to how carbon auction money is being spent to efforts to study its impact on fuel costs and the oil industry.
Why some advocates oppose legislation requiring police get involved in human trafficking cases
Survivors say state, federal bills could put them in danger if passed. Sabra Boyd didn’t want to tell the police she was a victim of human trafficking. Her first trafficker was her father in the 1980s, she says, and he threatened to kill her if she ever told. “If...
Idaho investigators repeatedly found kids in danger. Youth treatment programs faced few consequences
An InvestigateWest analysis reveals a lack of disciplinary action against troubled programs. In 2016, Idaho state regulators wrote a scathing letter to Northwest Children’s Home, a 46-bed residential care facility in Lewiston. The facility’s license was being revoked, the letter explained, after a seven-week investigation conducted by the Idaho...
Public records show 10 years of child abuse, neglect allegations at Idaho’s troubled teen facilities
The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare currently oversees 28 children’s residential care facilities. These programs offer housing and treatment services meant to give kids the help they can’t find elsewhere. Since 2013 — as far back as the state’s access to the records go — the agency...
The Cruelest Lie: You’re Safe Now
Idaho officials rescued a young girl from a house of horrors, only to send her to a state-licensed facility where she was preyed upon again. Editor’s note: This story details cases of sexual assault. Alyssa Bowers was 3 when her mom went to prison. She was 12 when her...
How we reported ‘The Cruelest Lie’
A prison interview, court documents and public records told the story of a girl failed by the system. In August, I sent a letter to Alyssa Bowers, who was incarcerated at South Idaho Correctional Institution, notifying her that InvestigateWest was working on an investigation of Cornerstone Cottage, a youth residential treatment facility in Post Falls, Idaho. At the time, I knew about the case in which a former employee, Brad Ott, had been accused of raping her, but I knew little else about Alyssa’s story and I wanted to give her an opportunity to share her experience.
Almost 57,000 Idaho kids have lost Medicaid. Federal regulators are worried
Idaho, tied for the highest rate of children removed from Medicaid, says its following the law in how it re-evaluates program eligibility. Idaho has removed children from Medicaid faster than many other states. The federal government wants that to change. Earlier this year, states started to remove people from Medicaid...
NW states, tribes reach ‘historic’ deal with feds over Columbia River Basin fish and dams
Settlement agreement calls for a 10-year pause in legal fighting over salmon restoration efforts that dates back to the 1990s. By Lynne Terry and Bill Lucia / Oregon Capital Chronicle and Washington State Standard/ December 15, 2023. A decades-long battle over dams in the Columbia River Basin had a breakthrough...
Biden’s Administration Is Still Denying Immigrants Citizenship for Working in Legal Cannabis
Federal officials consider immigrants “drug traffickers” even in states where cannabis has been legalized. This InvestigateWest report was co-published exclusively by Politico. As an immigrant, Maria Reimers tried to do everything by the book. She entered the U.S. legally, married an American citizen and secured a green card...
Oregon employers rarely pay penalties for wage theft. The state wants that to change
From 2015 through 2020, employers paid just 11% of penalties in full. For Oregon’s Bureau of Labor and Industries, tackling wage theft involves more than just collecting unpaid wages. It also involves deterring wage theft from happening in the first place. That’s why the bureau may issue penalties to...
Idaho keeps some psychiatric patients in prison, ignoring decades of warnings about the practice
A temporary program for “dangerously mentally ill” patients has continued for five decades, despite calls from critics to provide better care. Soon, Idaho will be the only state still using prisons to house patients who face no criminal charges. One night in March 1976, a young advocate for...
With pipeline growth booming, the US agency in charge of safety struggles to keep up
Pipeline miles expand every year, and are expected to see even faster growth in the near future thanks to major federal laws. The pipeline industry added thousands of miles of natural gas, crude oil and carbon dioxide pipelines to the national network in recent years. But the federal regulatory agency responsible for ensuring that vast system’s safety failed to grow at the same pace.
Cascadia bullet train stuck at the station as feds dole out big bucks for rail
Supporters say the dream of a speedy train between Portland and Vancouver, BC, is not derailed. Meanwhile, other rail fans want to see more money directed to existing Amtrak lines in the region. The Federal Railroad Administration largely passed over the Pacific Northwest while doling out more than $8 billion...
Reforms coming to WA elections after three counties settle with the UCLA’s Voting Rights Project
The case followed InvestigateWest reporting that showed Latino voters were disenfranchised at disproportionate rates. Washington state’s signature-verification procedures are meant to root out exceedingly rare cases of voter fraud. But what they’ve typically done is get a lot of innocent legal votes tossed out. In 2020 alone, the state rejected more than 24,000 ballots.
Patients stuck in Washington hospitals pose quandary for state lawmakers
Health officials and hospital operators want to see further action to help patients with conditions like dementia and mental health disorders transition. Washington needs to do more to keep people from staying at hospitals longer than medically necessary, state health officials told lawmakers this week. Over the last five years,...
An Alaska Native tribal council greenlit a gold mine. Some tribal members aren’t happy.
Some in the Native Village of Tetlin claim their leaders broke tribal laws when agreeing to the Manh Choh mine. People in Alaska’s rugged Interior have long known the hills surrounding the Native Village of Tetlin hid gold. As tribal member Kevin Gunter grew up, his elders told him such riches should be left alone.
Influential Idaho Freedom Foundation quietly hired alt-right propagandist to help shape messaging
Right-wing Idaho legislators stay silent on the group’s affiliation with Dave Reilly. In the months leading to the infamous 2017 Unite the Right tiki-torch rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, then-talk radio host Dave Reilly had some messaging-strategy tips for the attendees from the alt-right, the internet-savvy collection of racist and antisemitic groups that arose during the Trump era.
Washington Three Percenters want to escape the ‘extremist’ label — but experts remain wary
Three Percenters elsewhere were among most indicted members of January 6 attack. It was after Jan. 6, 2021 — after rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol — that the Three Percent of Washington started polling the group’s leaders about changing its name, said the group’s vice president Erik Rohde.
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