WA Senate Democrats choose new committee chairs ahead of 2025 session
A half-dozen state Senate committees will have new chairpersons heading into the 2025 session, with Democrats releasing the lineup on Thursday. The caucus also outlined who will hold other leadership positions and unveiled a change to the structure of the budget-writing Ways & Means Committee. The caucus is getting some new faces in its leadership as well. Here’s a look at other leadership changes hitting the caucus this year… Continue reading at the Washington State Standard. (Bill Lucia)
Seattle park’s record chum salmon run points to good conditions for sea life
Chum salmon appear to be having a boom year in the northwest. Numerous runs from Puget Sound to the Columbia River have seen near-record returns already, more than a week before the season usually peaks. At Carkeek Park in North Seattle, a chum salmon run on Pipers Creek that was revived in the 1980s is a case in point. A community group started the efforts in the watershed and got help from the Suquamish Tribe, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and Seattle Public Utilities. Continue reading at KNKX. (Bellamy Pailthrop)
Trans health care under Trump may follow the abortion playbook and its Hyde amendment
Ringing in voters’ ears in the final weeks of the presidential campaign was the tagline: “Kamala is for they/them. Trump is for you.” With the success of that part of its closing argument, the new Trump administration is likely to turn to policy affecting transgender people early in its tenure. The issue is mentioned twice in President-elect Donald Trump’s 20-point “Agenda 47” platform: #16 Cut funding to schools that teach “radical gender ideology”; and #17 “Keep men out of women’s sports.” There are also plans to curb access to gender transition by limiting insurance coverage. To do this, Republicans could take a page from the anti-abortion rights playbook. Continue reading at KUOW. (AP)
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