crosscut.com : Spokane

A plea bargain douses the scandal of the Thirtymile Fire

Crosscut — Thu, 08 May 2008 05:00:01 PDT

The darkest moment in U.S. Forest Service history won't be told — not to a jury, anyway.

Greg Nickels' rebel yell

Crosscut — Mon, 05 May 2008 23:00:01 PDT

Seattle's mayor waves the flag of secession. In so doing, he may have waved goodbye to a future in state politics.

Bellevue ranks at top for places to live and launch a company

Crosscut — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 09:00:01 PDT

Bellevue is the top city in a new ranking of best American cities to live and launch a new business by CNN Money.com. Seattle doesn't even make the list of the top 100 such places. The survey rates Bellevue high for its low crime rate, great schools, excellent health care, and diverse population (40 percent nonwhite or foreign-born). It describes the town as having "grown with unusual grace" into a place that is sophisticated and metropolitan but not yet crowded or expensive. Apparently the survey is not aware of the traffic problems on the Eastside, though some of the comments on the site point that out, along with the high cost of housing. One Seattleite protests: "Boring!"

Best places to do business in America? Think Boise and Olympia

Crosscut — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 09:33:01 PDT

Forbes has a new listing of the best places to build a business or a career. and the surprise local leader is Boise, which came second (after Raleigh, N.C.). Seattle finished 20th, while Portland was 35th.

March Madness: A rational view

Crosscut — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 09:22:01 PDT

Me, I don't really get March Madness. I mean, I get it as a journalist and armchair shrink, but I don't get it. But I'm happy to feed your madness. Here's a quick guide to Northwest teams and coverage.

McCain and Clinton both have serious problems

Crosscut — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 20:00:01 PST

National update: Hillary Clinton must figure out a way to slow Barack Obama's surge of momentum, and Wisconsin may be a key state. John McCain's big drawback is having no real base in the party. Our campaign veteran also marvels at all the energy at a Labor Temple caucus.

White highways

Crosscut — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 08:28:01 PST

Here in Seattle, the ground is merely wet after overnight snow was predicted, but elsewhere the Northwest snow is falling on top of earlier snow, schools are closed, and residents are bracing for more.

As of this writing, there is a heavy snow warning and an avalanche warning for the Cascades and Olympics in Washington and the Cascades in Oregon; a heavy-snow warning for the Columbia River Gorge and higher elevations in northeast Washington; a snow advisory for metro Portland and for Whatcom County, Wash., by the Canadian border; a gale warning for the Pacific Ocean and the Strait of Juan de Fuca; and a small-craft advisory for inland waters, including Puget Sound.

Here are the National Weather Service pages: Seattle and Western Washington, metro Portland, Spokane, Pendleton. A more complete list of weather and travel links can be found on Crosscut's Newsstand page.

The Northwest whiskey rebellion

Crosscut — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 05:00:01 PST

Entrepreneurs are lifting spirits with a rash of new distilleries in the region, putting a little more zip in the agri-tourism boom.

The Crosscut guide to election guides

Crosscut — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 07:59:01 PST

Links to the various election guides, for your last-minute researching pleasure:

The Crosscut guide to endorsements

Crosscut — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 07:44:01 PST

For those of us just now paying attention, here's an endorsements chart.

It takes a village to raise a blog

Crosscut — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 09:53:01 PDT

PR Newswire, that busy source of tips and announcements that fills our e-mail boxes just as press releases used to fill those wire in-baskets, has some highly relevant-to-blogging content. Survey results passed on by the wire service show that Austin leads the nation in blogger-residents, with Portland (Oregon, not the colder one with the real port and affordable real estate in the Northeast) San Francisco and Seattle coming in next. Spokane makes an appearance well down the chart.

Is a species endangered if you can't find it?

Crosscut — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 05:00:01 PDT

That's just one of the questions raised by the mystery of the great white worm of the Palouse — a lilly-scented, spitting underground enigma.

The bad and the ugly of Northwest newspaper Web sites

Crosscut — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 00:00:01 PDT

We're asking for your input with a Crosscut reader survey, so we thought we'd offer some advice ourselves — to the regional papers we're reading online.

Primary election results

Crosscut — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 00:00:01 PDT

Local races and issues in Seattle, Spokane, and elsewhere.

How the Northwest's cities are coping with the homeless

Crosscut — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 08:00:01 PDT

Homelessness has ceased to be an orphaned issue for the Northwest's major cities, as all of them have in recent years announced ambitious strategies to tackle the problem. Here's a report card on how Vancouver, Seattle, Spokane, and Portland are doing so far.

The next Northwest world's fair might be in Shanghai

Crosscut — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 00:00:01 PDT

North Americans look ahead to China's big coming out party in 2010 and remember when ...

The new population figures show slow growth in Seattle and big growth in outer counties

Crosscut — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 00:00:01 PDT

The region is growing smartly, particularly as you get farther away from Seattle, and in amenities-rich hotspots like Whatcom and the Columbia River valley. The new figures show what high costs will do in cities with lots of economic growth, pushing families and other residents farther and farther out.

Democrats try on the idea of Lisa Brown for governor in 2012

Crosscut — Mon, 21 May 2007 00:00:01 PDT

She's the Senate majority leader, she's from Spokane, and a serious run might necessitate a run for treasurer, first, to gain statewide name recognition.

An investigation finds that the Spokane Spokesman-Review let readers down

Crosscut — Sun, 06 May 2007 00:00:01 PDT

A Washington News Council report says that in covering a big downtown development over a period of 10 years, the newspaper was unduly influenced by the developer — who happened to be the S-R's owner.