InvestigateWest

Op-ed by Mark Trahant President Barack Obama answered an important philosophical question last week: How will the federal government fully fund a starved Indian health system? The answer is budget by budget: The administration boosted spending by 13 percent in fiscal year 2010 and is proposing another 9 percent increase for 2011. But this budget does not [...] read

Sitting before a Senate subcommittee is a young mother. She is slim, pretty, intelligent . . . and full of dangerous chemicals. Molly Jones Gray of Seattle testified this week in Washington, D.C., regarding human exposure to toxic chemicals.  After participating in a study conducted by the Washington Toxics Coalition, a pregnant Gray was horrified to learn that [...] read

It’s time to stand up for education funding. What with a judge telling the state it’s been failing in its constitutional duty to fund K-12 education, and college students and staff across the state walking out of the classroom to speak out against budget cuts in higher ed, it’s heady stuff. “State funding is not ample, it [...] read

There are a lot of homeless people living in cars or camping out under overpasses in Lake City. So many that the Seattle neighborhood has its own task force on homelessness. But this is a task force that helps turn words into action. John, a Vietnam veteran who lived on the streets of Lake City for [...] read

Just say no. To paper and plastic. An Oregon lawmaker is backing legislation to ban plastic bags. A big fight is shaping up, with plastic bag makers pointing to the  harmful effects of paper, and asking ‘who can say paper is worse than plastic?’ In Seattle last year, voters bowed to big spending by big plastic and [...] read

Op-ed by Mark Trahant Paul Levy’s Running A Hospital “is a blog started by a CEO of a large Boston hospital to share thoughts about hospitals, medicine, and health care issues.” The postings started as a lark. But when the president and CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center writes openly, that sends a message that [...] read

Mothers take great care to provide the best for their children, choosing nutritious formula and food for their young. So why is a chemical that may hinder a child’s development allowed in baby bottles and sippy cups? That was the sentiment behind a 36-9 vote in the Washington state Senate today for a bill (SB 6248) [...] read

With 500 people in metro Vancouver, B.C., hunkering down without a roof overhead nightly, an advocacy group wants to distribute red tents to the city’s homeless to make shelter on the sidewalks — at the height of the Olympic games festivities. The Tyee reports: Picture homeless people camped on downtown sidewalks. Big yawns inside bright red tents [...] read

In the Good News for Your Friday category comes this bulletin: More than 38 million pounds of electronics otherwise headed for the landfill have been recycled during the first year of a new program in Washington state. A similar program in Oregon collected nearly 19 million pounds of electronics in its first year. Go Washington recyclers! And [...] read

A proposal to increase the tax on petroleum, pesticides and other chemicals is being floated in Olympia as a way to raise as much as $250 million to clean up polluted stormwater. But so far, support the for the idea among leading lawmakers appears lukewarm at best. Environmentalists are pushing the idea, which would mostly tax [...] read