Northwest News

The Monroe prison inmate convicted of murdering Corrections Officer Jayme Biendl was sentenced to death this morning by a Snohomish County jury. If the sentence is affirmed by a judge later today, Byron Sherf will become the ninth inmate on death row in Washington.

The unemployment rate in Washington state is down to a flat 7 percent. That news from the state employment department Wednesday. The agency recorded a drop in the jobless rate of 0.1 percent in April.

State labor economist Scott Bailey says that puts Washington's rate at the lowest it's been since the end of 2008. "Overall, we're seeing accelerating growth in terms of jobs compared to say a year ago."

Bailey estimates a net gain of 3,800 jobs statewide last month.

The NBA’s Board of Governors meets in Dallas today (Wednesday) to decide whether the Sacramento Kings move to Seattle. Until a few days ago, it seemed clear that the answer was no. Now as KUOW’s Carolyn Adolph reports, the fate of the team is up in the air.

In the next couple of months, many employment office workers in the Northwest will join the unemployed. State labor agencies are having to make cutbacks in staffing. It's due to a combination of the economy getting better and federal budget cuts known as the “sequester” setting in.

Staffing at the local employment office usually moves in the exact opposite direction as the rest of the economy. When times are tough, unemployment rolls are booming.

The Oregon House Tuesday approved a measure to renew a tax paid by hospitals and long-term care facilities. The concept isn't controversial since the institutions that pay it are largely reimbursed by federal Medicaid dollars. But the vote became a skirmish in a larger political battle in Salem.

Washington’s court system will hire an outside expert to perform a computer security review and audit. The move follows a hacking incident – revealed last week - that exposed nearly a hundred Social Security numbers and perhaps up to a million driver license numbers. But now there’s another cyber security concern at Washington Courts.