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NYT Politics

The R.N.C. Has a New Interview Question: Was the 2020 Election Stolen?
Author: Michael C. Bender
The question during job interviews at the Republican National Committee reflects Donald J. Trump’s newly tightened grip on the party apparatus.
Disney and DeSantis Settle Suit Over Florida Special District
Author: J. Edward Moreno and Brooks Barnes
The settlement ends a two-year fight between the entertainment giant and the Florida governor over control of a state tax district near Orlando that encompasses Walt Disney World.

Portland Business News

Pendleton UAS test range accelerator seeks first cohort
Author: Malia Spencer
Applications are due March 31 for the Pendleton-based accelerator designed for startups in unmanned aircraft systems.
Thought Leader Roundtable: Secrets of the Women of Influence (video)
In a special Secrets of the Women of Influence virtual roundtable, the Portland Business Journal convened honorees from the 2024 Women of Influence Awards to discuss insights and secrets to their success with PBJ Publisher and Market President Candace Beeke. Tara Marshall, manager, Providence Health Plan Julia Markley, partner, Perkins Coie Amy Reeves, vice president, SW Washington Area Manager, OnPoint Community Credit Union Melissa Busley, partner, Dunn Carney

Washington State News

Reign extend D Julia Lester's deal through 2025
(Photo credit: EM Dash-USA TODAY Sports) The Seattle Reign extended defender Julia Lester's deal through the 2025 NWSL season on Wednesday. Lester, 26, joined the Reign on Jan. 24 in a three-team trade with Racing Louisville and NJ/NY Gotham. She appeared in a total of 33 matches with Racing during her first two NWSL campaigns in 2022 and 2023. "Julia Lester has been a fantastic addition to the club. Her calm and consi

The Chronicle - Centralia

News Dump Ep. 181: It was that damn sasquatch

On the 181st episode of The Chronicle News Dump, hosts Aaron VanTuyl, Chronicle Editor-in-Chief Eric Schwartz and photographer Kody Christen discuss the Rochester cross country bigfoot fiasco, one hosts opinions on women’s education, the AAUW book sale, one legislator’s quest to stop birds from eating fish, and a city’s payout to a police shooting victim.

Email us at chroniclenewsdump@gmail.com.

Brought to you by SUMMIT FUNDING, CHEHALIS OUTFITTERS and THE ROOF DOCTOR! Listen to past episodes or subscribe here: https://apple.co/3sSbNC5.

Inslee signs bill allowing liquor at adult entertainment venues

Gov. Jay Inslee has signed into law a Washington bill that allows adult entertainment venues the ability to serve alcohol to customers.

Senate Bill 6105, sponsored by Sen. Rebecca Saldaña, D-Seattle, also mandates training for workers at the venue regarding sexual harassment and potential human trafficking.

“Strippers are workers, and they should be given the same rights and protections as any other labor force,” Saldaña said in a press release statement. “If they are employed at a legal establishment in Washington, they deserve the safeguards that every worker is entitled to, including protection from exploitation, trafficking, and abuse.”

The bill cleared the Senate on Feb. 7 in a 29-20 vote, then in the House on Feb. 27 in a 58-36 vote. At the bill’s March 25 signing, Inslee said the legislation “prevents worker exploitation.”

“It’s pretty simple why we’re passing this bill,” he said. “These are working folks, and working people deserve safety in the environment in which they work.”

Among the bill’s other provisions is mandating panic buttons for rooms where a worker might be alone with a customer. If alcohol is served at the venue, no one under the age of 21 is allowed to work there or enter the premises. Any worker who is terminated or not rehired after applying for a job can request a written notice for the termination or refusal to rehire.

“We need to recognize workers’ rights to safeguard their well-being,” Saldaña said in her statement.

Earlier this year, several Seattle bars were accused of “lewd conduct” and running afoul of a Liquor and Cannabis Control Board rule that prohibited the serving of alcohol at venues with adult entertainment, prompting inspections by LCB and Seattle police officers. Ultimately, no arrests were made.

SB 6105 repeals the Washington Administrative Code that specifically prohibits liquor licenses for venues that have “lewd conduct,” which Rep. Skyler Rude, R-Wall Walla, told colleagues on the House floor is why he opposed the final bill.

“A person has more restrictions on their body in an establishment that is limited to people who are over 21 than they do right outside the door,” he said, adding that he preferred they “modernize” the WAC, rather than repeal it.

No more statute of limitations in civil child sex abuse cases in Washington

A bill that removes the statute of limitations for civil claims on child sexual abuse has been signed into law by Gov. Jay Inslee.

Rep. Darya Farivar, D-Seattle, sponsored HB 1618.

“We all know that sexual abuse is underreported and that often, people don’t come forward for fear of retaliation or fear it won’t be taken seriously, or because of having to relive that incredible trauma,” he said. “We also know that trauma significantly impacts how our brains work and it can take time for someone to speak their truth and seek that justice." 

Amid debate, Courtney Butler, a concerned citizen, told members of the Law and Justice Committee about the abuse she endured as a teen.

“At the age of sixteen, I was sadistically raped by a coach while I was playing soccer at a Thurston County club. After that happened, I replaced the love of a sport I had played since the age of 5, with shame, self-hatred and depression.”

She told lawmakers she began cutting herself and still looks at the scars on her hands from self-harm.

“Shortly after that, I discovered drugs and it was my outlet, it made me feel nothing, it made me not care about anyone or anything,” she said. “When my statute of limitations ran out, I was in deep addiction and after another woman came forward from the same soccer club but a different coach, I swore that day I would kill myself, rather than come forward and tell my story.”

“To this day I still scream in the middle of the night and have night terrors over what happened to me,” said Butler, who settled her case in 2022. 

Her attorney, Darrell Cochran with the Washington State Association for Justice told lawmakers when they initially filed suit against the soccer club, “Their insurance and attorneys immediately tried to have the case dismissed because of the statute of limitations.”

He explained how in 1991 Washington lawmakers passed a law removing the statute of limitations for child sex abuse, but he said that law has slowly been eroded because trial courts were given a great deal of opportunity for interpretation of the law.

Cary Silverman with the American Tort Reform Association testified against the bill.

“The bill’s complete abandonment of the statute of limitation is unprecedented and while some may see statutes of limitation as arbitrary, they are critical," he said.

Silverman said he was concerned about this bill opening the door for a flood of legal action going back decades.

“Never before to our knowledge has the state of Washington completely eliminated a statute of limitations for civil action,” Silverman said. “There may be no doubt that a plaintiff experienced horrific abuse, but the question may be difficult or impossible to answer when the perpetrator is dead, the staff at the time is gone, the records haven’t been saved.”

As signed into law, the measure is not retroactive.

Language in the bill reads in part:

There shall be no time limit for bringing any claims or causes of action based on intentional conduct brought by any person for recovery of damages for injury suffered as a result of childhood sexual abuse when the act of childhood sexual abuse occurs on or after June 6, 2024.

9-year-old boy on bike gets caught under bus in Vancouver and survives

A 9-year-old boy on a bike survived after getting pinned under the rear axle of a school bus Tuesday morning in Vancouver, police said.

The boy was taken to a Portland hospital with non-life-threatening leg injuries, said Vancouver police spokesperson Kim Kapp.

The Evergreen School District bus driver, whom police did not publicly identify, was not cited in the crash, police said.

The bus was turning east onto Southeast 10th Street from Ellsworth Road on a green light when the boy tried to bike across Ellsworth Road, Kapp said. He crashed into the side of the bus behind its door and went underneath the bus, she said.

Vancouver firefighters responded and found the boy and his bike pinned under the rear axle of the bus, police said.

Firefighters used wooden blocks to support the bus as they lifted it off the boy using hydraulic struts. Photos released by the Vancouver Fire Department show a mangled bike under the bus and a lone Nike sneaker next to a firefighter’s helmet.

Officials have not released the boy’s name or the bus driver’s name. The driver was not at fault in the crash and was not cited, Kapp said.

Washington firefighter accused of strangling wife wanted to hide affair, divorce plans, court records allege

A high-ranking firefighter charged with strangling his wife to death told investigators he was a happily married man — but he actually was having an affair and had planned to move out the day of the killing, a probable cause affidavit alleges.

Battalion Chief Kevin West is now on unpaid leave from his $160,000 a year job at the Camas-Washougal Fire Department, according to a spokesperson. He was arrested Friday on a first-degree murder charge in the death of his wife of 22 years, Marcelle “Marcy” West, 48.

The affidavit filed Monday in Clark County Superior Court reveals how investigators pulled key details from Kevin West’s digital devices during the more than 70 days since his wife’s death.

First responders from West’s own department rushed to the family’s home in Washougal around 4 a.m. Jan. 8, where West, 50, said he woke up, saw his wife was having a seizure and desperately performed CPR, according to the affidavit.

A medical examiner, however, noted bruises and under-the-skin bleeding on Marcy West’s neck and jaw — injuries consistent with death by strangulation, the affidavit said.

A tipster also contacted police, saying he’d seen Kevin West at a bowling alley with another woman, Cynthia Ward, about a year ago and believed the two were having an affair, the affidavit said.

Kevin West’s attorney didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. Ward hung up when reached on her phone.

Investigators wrote in the affidavit that they arrived at the West home on Jan. 31 to interview Kevin West and saw Ward’s car parked in the driveway. Yet West told the detectives during the new interview that he and his wife had spent their last night together happily watching movies and eating Chinese take-out, the affidavit said.

The couple had been able to “rediscover what we have,” Kevin West claimed, as their daughter had recently left for college and their son had begun an intensive internship at the fire department, according to the affidavit.

When pressed, Kevin West admitted to the affair with Ward, saying they met when she interned for the fire department in the early 2000s and had begun an affair in 2004, broke it off but then reignited the relationship in August, according to the affidavit.

Still, West told investigators: “I talked about divorce but … there’s no way I could go through with it,” according to the affidavit. “Marcy and I had too much together.”

Detectives say they found much evidence to the contrary after searching the Wests’ home and their cellphones.

In a box in the garage, police found a love letter to Ward from Kevin West promising “2024 will be our year” as well as text messages discussing divorce papers and references to Kevin West’s plans to move out on Jan. 8 and meet with his attorney the next day, according to the affidavit.

The Wests were about $100,000 in debt, a detective also noted in the affidavit.

Marcy West appeared to be well informed of the relationship trouble, investigators say.

She wrote, “Not happy with me for a long time, 10-14 years,” in a note on her phone in 2016, the affidavit said, and wrote another note about her husband in 2023 saying, “You get angry frequently.”

“When we went to Seattle for family weekend, you spent multiple hours in car talking to ‘dad,’” she wrote in another late 2023 note, per the affidavit.

Kevin West texted his wife in December, “I’ve been nothing more than a paycheck,” according to the affidavit. Marcy West responded later that day: “You have made yourself clear that I have made you unhappy for 23 years.”

West remains in custody at the Clark County jail on $1.5 million bail.

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