Austin Jenkins

The Washington Department of Corrections will pay $12.5 million to the families of three of the four Lakewood police officers killed by parolee Maurice Clemmons. The settlement announced Friday comes nearly three years after the Thanksgiving weekend shooting at a coffee shop.

The wildfire situation in central Washington continues to worsen. A complex of lightning-sparked fires north of Ellensburg has grown to more than 30,000 acres. Mandatory evacuations are in place near Liberty, Wash., along Highway 97.

Does the governor of Washington have the right to keep certain internal documents secret from the public? That question is at the heart of a case heard Thursday in the Washington Supreme Court.

Election year tensions erupted at Washington’s latest quarterly revenue forecast. At the center of the partisan flare-up Wednesday was former Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi. He’s been appointed to finish out a vacancy in the Washington senate.

Washington’s idled construction industry continued to show signs of life in August. Nonetheless, the state’s jobless rate still rose slightly. Overall Washington lost 1,100 jobs last month. The new unemployment rate announced Wednesday is 8.6 percent -– up a tenth of a percent from July.

Washington Fish and Wildlife police have raided more than a dozen locations around the state. The one day blitz on suspected poachers and traffickers follows a two year undercover investigation.

One of the Northwest’s leading solar power advocates likely used his state position to help a company he was working for get an unfair tax designation. That’s the conclusion of a state ethics board investigation released Friday.

Character is quickly becoming a key issue in the race for Washington State Auditor. Republican James Watkins and Democrat Troy Kelley sparred Wednesday over the question of honesty as they debated before a business audience.

Watkins reiterated his attack from last week: that Kelley can’t be trusted because of past civil allegations that he misappropriated millions of dollars. Watkins told the debate audience about a deposition Kelley gave in a 2001 wrongful termination lawsuit in California.

Character is quickly becoming a key issue in the race for Washington State Auditor. Republican James Watkins and Democrat Troy Kelley sparred Wednesday over the question of honesty as they debated before a business audience.

Barry Massey was one of the youngest juvenile killers in the country to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Now, in a rare move, the Washington inmate has withdrawn his plea for clemency.