Washington state plans to fully reopen by June 30. All counties go Phase 3 on Tuesday
All of Washington state will be in Phase 3 of reopening on Tuesday, with the state on track for a total reopening of its economy by June 30, Gov. Jay Inslee said at a news conference Thursday. The plateau in the state’s fourth wave of new COVID-19 cases has turned into a decline, allowing all of the state to have restaurants, bars, fitness centers, movie theaters, bowling alleys and more open at 50% capacity as of Tuesday, he announced at a news conference. Continue reading at The Olympian. (Bob Brawdy/Tri City Herald File)
USDA, Interior Department gear up for ‘dangerous’ wildfire year
USDA and the Department of the Interior are gearing up for what’s expected to be one of the most intense fire years in recent history. “May is wildfire awareness month, but these days, it seems as if the fire season is the entire year,” Deb Haaland, secretary of the Interior, told reporters in a press call Thursday. The National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, predicts 2021 will be another above-average year for wildfire potential in the West. Continue reading at Capital Press. (CalFire)
New Washington state law makes drug possession a misdemeanor
The jeans were from American Eagle, via Goodwill, and they were too short for their new owner, 6-foot Shannon Bowman. So Bowman stitched a couple inches of denim onto the bottom of the legs and put them on for the first time two days after her friend had given them to her. She didn’t notice the tiny, nearly empty baggie of methamphetamine in the coin pocket. That fact more than four years later would lead to a Washington state Supreme Court decision striking down Washington’s drug possession law; the expected vacation of tens of thousands of criminal convictions dating back decades; and the overhaul of the state’s approach to drug possession signed into law by Gov. Jay Inslee on Thursday. Continue reading at Bellingham Herald. (Shannon Bowman)
Associated Press
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News Tribune (subscription required)
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Olympian (subscription required)
Washington state plans to fully reopen by June 30. All counties go Phase 3 on Tuesday
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Walla Walla Union Bulletin (subscription required)
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Washington Post
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Broadcast
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