Washington State stretches from the rainy Pacific coast to high desert plateaus, with a culture shaped by Indigenous nations, tech innovation, and deep environmental commitments. This archive tracks progress stories from across the state — clean energy, public health, conservation, and community wins.
Starbucks says it will pay travel expenses for U.S. employees to access abortion or gender-confirmation procedures if those services aren’t available within 100 miles of a worker’s home.
The new benefits will apply to treatments that are not available inside a 100-mile radius of an employee’s home and for which virtual options are not available.
Under the new code that will take effect in July 2023, new commercial buildings will be built with high-efficiency electric heat pumps for water and space heating.
Washington State’s new alert system for missing Indigenous people is the first of its kind in the nation, modeled on the familiar Amber Alert and pushing notifications out through highway billboards, radio, and social media the moment a family reports a loved one missing. The law was championed by State Representative Debra Lekanoff, a member of the Aleut and Tlingit tribes, and inspired in part by the disappearance of Tulalip woman Mary Johnson-Davis in 2020. A companion bill tackles a quieter injustice: requiring coroners to correctly identify Indigenous victims and notify their families, so cultural and burial traditions can be honored. Oregon, Wisconsin, and Arizona are moving in similar directions, suggesting Washington has built a foundation other states can follow toward visibility, dignity, and accountability.
2,300 acres of tidelands in Everett are now off-limits to development for the next 50 years with more likely to come soon.
Alaska is the first major airline to eliminate plastic cups and estimates that the measure will save 1.8 million pounds of single use plastic waste per year.
The court found that GEO Group, a private prison operator that runs the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, WA, is violating the state’s minimum wage laws by paying its workers $1 per day.
Costco has around 180,000 US employees, and 90% of them work hourly. Costco’s new starting wage puts the chain $2/hr above Amazon, Target, and other top retailers’ minimum wage, and $5/hr above Walmart.
The move is being described as a “first of its kind victory,” as Microsoft becomes the only major company to bow to the whims of a shareholder resolution regarding the “right-to-repair.”
The City Council voted unanimously to decriminalize the non-commercial possession and cultivation of many psychedelics for “religious, spiritual, healing, or personal growth practices.”
