When have you gotten your money back on a ferry purchase? After 20 years? 40? 60? How about 80? Washington State Ferries still had plans to fix at least three 80-year-old ferries before the magnitude of their decay was uncovered. Now, because WSF never imagined the day would come when the ferries would have to be replaced, it'll be a year or more before new ferries can be built and car-ferry service returned. Our favorite... more ›

In November, Mike Hamilton adds this racist joke political commentary to his notorious Uncle Sam billboard: In December, massive floods dunk that section of I-5 into suspiciously biblical amounts of water. Co-inkydink? Or is someone "up there" even more displeased with Hamilton's latest message than everyone else who's seen the billboard?... more ›

As an alumnus of Centralia Community College (out of boredom, we took a Latin class there one fall) and former southwest Washington resident, we've been following the flooding thataway with interest. A friend of ours just passed along two emails from K. in Centralia, and they can't be beat for a you-are-there feel that balances some of the apocalyptic news coverage -- let's face it, if nothing terrible happened to you, you aren't news. On... more ›

When you're seen as the number-two city and number-two university in the state you can either embrace it or try and avoid the notion. more ›

You may not like getting pulled over by the state patrol, but at least you have a sartorially pleasing view leaning in your window. Our state's troopers are the best-dressed state law enforcement officers in the country, according to the National Association of Uniform Manufacturers and Distributors. more ›

Ten Sheriff's deputies were found by rescuers Sunday after a spending a night in the woods of southwest Washington. The officers were reportedly "removing" marijuana plants from an operation they'd busted when they suddenly became "disoriented." more ›

Let’s recap what's legal and illegal according to Washington State law: more ›

Greg Nickels' son Jacob has been charged with one count of conspiracy and four counts of theft stemming from a multi state casino cheating ring. more ›

Don’t you hate when you’re out by the lake sitting on a dock with your best buds, sipping on some mass produced brew, just laughing and having a caucasianly good time, when someone pulls out a guitar and starts strumming until a song breaks out—evening ruined. more ›

This happened between Tacoma and Olympia. Nobody got hurt, but if you were planning to take the train between Portland and Seattle, you'll be taking the bus instead, says Amtrak. There's also a road blocked and some people lost electricity. The AP has the details. more ›

Kids have been getting shafted by disputes between their parents since the first caveman hired an attorney to protect his rock collection after breaking it off with the cavewoman. Or at least since the 70s--same difference. But there's a kid down in Oly who's about to suffer above and beyond what most casualties of divorce go through. His father has converted to Judaism (we're picturing Goodman in The Big Lebowski) and wants his son to convert as well. The son has agreed--although maybe "agreed" should have quotes around it because a twelve-year-old can't really disagree with much that his legal care-giver decides--to also convert to Judaism, even though one of the stipulations is that he gets circumcised. more ›

C'mon, Seattle Times. You get a press release related to the McMenamins affair in Kenmore from some mysterious source claiming that the whole deal is off and you turn around and announce it to the world without so much as a phone call to McMenamins? When Seattlest gets a release in the mail detailing the city's plan to dye the sky green we immediately start ranting about how blue skies were good enough for us back in the day, but we expect a little more snooping around from the pros. more ›

Back on March 15, police in Tacoma found a ginormous safe in the middle of Fourth Street. Origins? Unknown.

Police took the safe to Bill's Towing & Garage, where workers have created wild tales of its contents. more ›

The Senate passed the bill on Tuesday by a 41-8 margin, despite the Seattle Times editorial claiming a case "hadn't been made" for action. No word on how the Seattle Times editorial board Frank Blethen feels about most of the legislative body pretending he doesn't exist. more ›

"We're gonna send you to military school" will no longer be an idle threat only of rich parents, if Governor Gregoire gets her way. She's backing a "boot-camp-style" academy for our state's high school dropouts.

The governor is seeking about $6 million to build and operate the academy, which would serve about 300 dropouts each year — two intensive five-month sessions of 150 youths, drawn from around the state. more ›

Our favorite column in the PI may just be "Getting There," the weekly column in which Kery Murakami answers readers' traffic and transport-related questions. Today's revelation: six-digit license plates are on the endangered species list:

State Licensing Department spokesman Brad Benfield says Washington is about two years away from running out of all configurations of letters and numbers in the current system. Washington plates now have three numbers followed by three letters. more ›

Not to kick the TAG people in the teeth while they're down, but that's ridiculous. They're talking about needing $100,000 in operating capital to keep the doors open, and foundations have never been crazy about that kind of in extremis giving. (Sometimes individual major donors will pony up via a foundation.) more ›

Yes, we think you will be able to spare some change, should you get panhandled by a newly-homeless Napavine family. more ›

The state DOT today said that one of the two choices on the March special "what to do with the viaduct" election isn't safe, effectively rendering the election pointless.

Seattle's proposal for a reduced, four-lane Alaskan Way tunnel should be dropped from further consideration, because of "serious operational and safety problems found during our technical review," the State Department of Transportation said in a letter released this morning. more ›

Realizing that trying to protect our way of life with humans gets people killed, the Navy has decided to do the job with sea lions and dolphins. more ›

Once, Washington stretched all the way from the Pacific Ocean to the Continental Divide. From the Canadian border to the 46th Parallel. Lake Coeur D'Alene, Lolo Pass, it all belonged to us. more ›

McMenamins, a Portland-based chain of hotels, restaurants and brew pubs, submitted a 2005 letter of intent to lease the seminary building and turn it into a hotel with a restaurant and a conference center. more ›

Last March we were trying to keep a stiff upper lip as we informed you that the bill banning PBDEs, a wily fire-retardant chemical, had been stifled for another year. more ›

Seattlest's windchimes chimed last night. That's usually an indication that winds are stronger than average. Usually our chimes just sit there limp and dead. The windstorm that was promised for last night turned out to be tamer than anticipated, though, or at least our threshold for windstorms is set so high that anything below sustained 45mph winds now seems pretty weak. We're under the impression that if someone in Woodinville sneezes a forest of undecided trees will hurtle themselves at feeder lines, but we're not hearing reports of a lot of new damage today outside of a Q13 story on West Seattle this morning. Here are the outages Seattle City Light currently recognizes. more ›

Governor Gregoire stood in front of the sculpture park yesterday and threw packets of hundred dollar bills into the Sound until $220 million disappeared into the sludge, or, she may as well have. Actually, she talked about the myriad environmental concerns that threaten Puget Sound and she pledged $220,000,000 towards the $9 billion the Puget Sound Partnership says it will take over the next 14 years to adequately protect and repair the Sound. more ›

A double amputee robbed a Spokane bank branch Monday, one week after a single amputee did the same, according to the AP. more ›

When we heard about the Lewis County central services director who oversaw the installation of mobile computers with instant message clients in police cruisers and then used the system to make sexy time with a dozen different cops we thought the resulting IM logs would make for fascinating reading. Wrong. Not only is it hideously embarrassing, it's boring as hell and the backwards reading PDFs are awkward to read. There are a bunch of affairs and Patti Prouty the director invites half the force over to her place at one time or another. There's even sex of the textual kind, but it's mostly just a bunch of real life stuff like "im tired" and "computer's down again." more ›

In case local breweries need more cheap advertising, Olympia’s got them covered. Lawmakers recently created a "state-sanctioned commission to better market [Washington-brewed] ales to consumers." Naturally, brewers are loving it. And so should fans of Washington beer. Because not only is the commission going to promote this alcoholic nectar, specific sections of the Revised Code of Washington require that: more ›

We wandered the campus of Walla Walla's Whitman College campus, our alma mater, this weekend. more ›

Who would you think grows the best syrah in the world? A French guy in the Rhône Valley, no doubt. The celebrated wines of the Côte Rôtie and Hermitage are 100 percent syrah, after all. Or maybe a bloke from Australia, where syrah provides the backbone for the legendary Penfold's Grange Hermitage? Wrong! It's a one-time potato farmer from Pasco! more ›