A synagogue on Mercer Island was discovered vandalized Wednesday morning – at least the third incident in a week targeting Jewish organizations in this city. 

The FBI is investigating because of an increase of “targeted incidents” nationally, according to a Mercer Island Police Department spokesperson. The FBI has reported a rise in hate crimes and threats against Jews and Muslims since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Seattle-area Jewish and Muslim groups told Crosscut that they feared the war would lead to an increase in anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

Members of the Herzl-Ner Tamid Conservative Congregation on Wednesday morning found graffiti on the exterior of the synagogue, including the words, “Shame on Israel,” “You know better” and “Stop Killing.” 

The vandalism followed a few days after two Jewish organizations on Mercer Island received suspicious packages in the mail. The Mercer Island Police Department did not identify the organizations in its press release. The Seattle Times also reported that at least five other Jewish organizations in Seattle have received suspicious packages in recent days.

The recent targeting of Jewish organizations – and the lack of loud condemnation – disheartens Rabbi Will Berkovitz, CEO of Jewish Family Service of Seattle.

“People say, ‘We’re just critiquing the Israeli government.’ Well, if you are vandalizing a place of worship, a Jewish space, that’s not a critique of the Israeli government, that’s hatred of Jews,” he said.

Berkovitz said while he and other Jews have stood in solidarity with groups outside their community, they haven’t seen the same open support in recent days.

“At our time of need, we are not being supported,” Berkovitz said. “We are standing – we feel like – alone.” 

The Wednesday morning vandalism comes as Israel and Hamas tentatively agreed the night before to a temporary four-day ceasefire to facilitate the release of women and child hostages taken by Hamas during the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. The agreement includes Israel’s release of Palestinian prisoners, according to The Associated Press and CNN. The details of the agreement are still being worked out, according to the New York Times.

Starbucks baristas in Prosser recommitted to unionization last week after the company challenged a September vote in which three-fourths of workers voted to join the national Starbucks Workers United union. 

In Thursday’s vote, baristas voted 12 to 8 to unionize at the city’s only Starbucks. The Prosser cafe had become just the third Starbucks in Eastern Washington to unionize in the nearly two years since local shops started organizing. 

Both parties agreed to set aside the previous results, according to National Labor Relations Board documents, after Starbucks filed an objection “alleging certain conduct by the Petitioner interfered with the employees’ exercise of a free and reasoned choice.” 

“The union engaged in misconduct immediately outside of the election location that essentially nullified [a] fair election environment,” wrote Rachel Wall, a director of communications for Starbucks.

Tony Warwick, 22, who helped lead the unionization effort at the lone Starbucks in Prosser, said the challenge was in response to baristas gathering on the store’s patio during the first vote. 

“Even with these weak claims and our 3-to-1 majority, we decided on a re-election to avoid the long legal process,” Warwick said. 

The Prosser Starbucks is the 27th location in the company’s home state to vote to join the union. 

The Starbucks Workers United union plans to hold a one-day strike this Thursday as the company rolls out Red Cup Day, an annual holiday promotion. Last year, thousands of workers walked out the day the company handed out the limited-edition holiday reusable cups.

More than 36,000 homes, businesses and public facilities lost natural gas service Wednesday in southeast Washington and parts of Idaho following a rupture in a pipeline near Pullman. 

School districts, government offices and businesses throughout the region remained closed without heat Thursday as Avista Utilities announced they would have to go meter-by-meter to restore gas service once the pipeline is repaired. 

Williams Cos., which owns the pipeline servicing the area, wrote in a statement to Crosscut that a third party ruptured an underground line just north of Pullman on Wednesday. No injuries occurred. Williams stated it had a repair team on site and it expected to have the pipeline fixed by later today. 

Avista called the service shutdown the largest natural gas outage in its history. Crews worked to manually turn off lines at each individual meter as part of purging the line. Avista expected its crews would start going back to restore service at individual meters on Friday and it would likely take the next three to five days to get to all customers.

“We know this incident has caused hardship for you and your families,” Avista wrote in a statement to customers, “and we are grateful for your patience as we work to restore your service.”

Restaurants throughout the area abruptly started closing their doors Wednesday evening when they lost natural gas for heating and cooking. Several school districts canceled classes and government agencies closed offices. The University of Idaho in Moscow canceled classes and non-essential services through Friday. Washington State University in Pullman announced it had switched to an alternative heat source and would operate as normal. 

Washington’s health insurance exchange, which launched its open enrollment period Wednesday, is expanding access to health and dental plans to every state resident regardless of citizenship or immigration status, the Washington Health Benefit Exchange announced.

Federal subsidies such as sliding scale tax credits continue to be available solely to U.S. citizens or immigrants with legal documentation, according to the agency. However, people without immigration documentation with modest incomes could be eligible for the state subsidy program. The program, Cascade Care Savings, will be available to anyone in Washington who meets the income eligibility limits, regardless of immigration status.

About one out of four of the remaining uninsured in Washington are people who are undocumented, according ot the state. 

“Disparities exist and access to insurance coverage can often be the difference between life and death,” Wynne McHale, chief of staff at the Washington Health Benefit Exchange, told Crosscut. “We are glad to be opening our doors to everybody.”

Washington is one of the few states to offer access and state subsidies for health insurance through its exchange to all residents regardless of immigration status. Generally, the federal Affordable Care Act prohibits undocumented immigrants from purchasing health care through state exchanges. Washington received an innovation waiver from the federal government last year that allows the state to expand its enrollment to “work towards its goals of improving health equity and reducing racial disparities by expanding access to coverage for the uninsured population” without raising costs. The waiver is effective from 2024 to 2028.

A similar expansion of Washington Apple Health, the state’s Medicaid plan, is scheduled to launch in July 2024.

Five states – California, Illinois, Oregon, New York and Colorado – and the District of Columbia currently offer state-funded coverage or subsidies to all residents, according to health policy nonprofit KFF. Minnesota has plans to do so as well by 2025.

Enrollment through the Washington State Healthplanfinder is open through Jan. 15. People who enroll by Dec. 15 can sign up for a plan that starts Jan. 1. People who enroll between Dec. 16 and Jan. 15 can sign up for a plan that will start Feb. 1.

Washington’s Liquor and Cannabis Board has suspended the certification of an Olympia cannabis testing laboratory.

The True Northwest lab received an emergency suspension of its state certification on Tuesday and has 180 days to appeal that decision to the Cannabis Board.

The agency’s staff determined that the lab failed to meet several accreditation requirements, including not having a lab director and not having its scales properly calibrated. The lab provided incorrect results to its customers, the Board said in a news release.

In September, the Cannabis Board received documents that suggested the lab was producing inaccurate test results. On Sept. 19, an independent lab certification firm, RJ Lee, confirmed that True Northwest had failed proficiency tests on June 16, 2022 and May 23, 2023.

On Oct. 9, the Board and RJ Lee audited True Northwest and found five major deficiencies. Board spokeswoman Julie Graham said the deficiencies included the lack of a lab director, improperly labeled chemicals, improperly calibrated balances and scales, calibration curves for residual solvents being noncompliant with regulations, and the inability to complete the lab’s data review process.

On Oct. 11, the Board ordered True Northwest not to accept new samples or proceed with tests. After Tuesday’s suspension, Washington has seven remaining marijuana quality-assurance labs. 

The lab tested marijuana samples for THC levels (the potency of the substance that gets you high) and CBD levels (the substance that helps medical patients deal with pain and nausea), as well as moisture and bacteria content. The THC results are sent to the state marijuana testing database and to growers. Those numbers would then be put on the labels for the pot to be sold.

At least one other marijuana quality-assurance lab — Praxis Laboratory in Centralia — has had its certification suspended. Inspections determined in 2021 that Praxis sent inflated THC figures to its grower clients, tricking them into thinking their cannabis was more potent than it really was. Praxis did not contest the suspensions after the 180-day waiting period, and lost its certification. 

Washington’s backlog of about 10,000 sexual-assault test kits has been cleared, eight years after the state began targeted efforts to analyze old evidence that had been collected but never processed, Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s office announced this week.

As a result of testing thousands of kits and uploading the data to a national DNA database known as CODIS, defendants have been charged in 21 cases, all dating from 2015 to 2022, Ferguson’s office announced. 

Prior to a 2015 law that set clear deadlines for handling and processing rape test kits, some law enforcement agencies didn’t have a consistent system for processing them, in some cases storing untested evidence for more than a decade. According to Ferguson’s office, some kits found during efforts to clear the backlog dated back to the 1980s.

About 1,000 tested kits still need to be processed and uploaded to CODIS, a process that should be completed by the end of the year, according to Ferguson’s office.

Other steps that the state has taken to clear the cases include a tracking system for the test kits, funding for testing in private labs and the completion of a new Washington State Patrol crime lab in Vancouver.

Sexual-assault kits contain tools used by medical professionals to collect and preserve physical evidence for later DNA testing during the investigation. The evidence could be blood, semen, saliva or other biological traces. The kit also includes procedures for packaging the evidence and preserving the chain of custody as it gets processed.

Amid a rising number of drug overdoses locally and nationwide, 13 Washington counties are participating in a new Department of Health dashboard tracking unintentional overdose deaths. 

The 13 participating counties account for about 88% of statewide overdose deaths. The Department of Health plans to add more counties, with a goal to include data from the entire state. The currently participating counties are: Clallam, Clark, Grays Harbor, Island, King, Kitsap, Pierce, Skagit, Snohomish, Spokane, Thurston, Whatcom and Yakima.

The Unintentional Drug Overdose Data dashboard presents the data by demographics, including age, race and ethnicity, industry, gender and other categories; as well as which drug categories are involved and the circumstances in which the overdose occurred. 

The state says the data, collected through the CDC’s State Unintentional Drug Overdose Reporting System (SUDORS), use information from coroner and medical examiner reports, toxicology, autopsy and a prescription-drug monitoring program. The oldest data from Washington’s unintentional deaths dashboard are from 2019.

This state previously made some data available in April on the Opioid and Drug Overdose Data Dashboard. That dashboard shows all overdose deaths, hospitalizations and EMS responses, sortable by residence, age, gender and race/ethnicity, for every county in Washington.

The dashboard is being launched as the state and advocates work to stop the rising rate of drug use and overdoses, including pushing for greater addiction recovery resources and making naloxone, a medication used to reverse opioid overdoses, more available in public places and schools. 

The Spokane City Council has formally denounced Mayor Nadine Woodward’s appearance at an August event with former state legislator Matt Shea and traveling Christian nationalist pastor Sean Feucht.

The resolution, passed on a vote of 4-3 Monday, says in part: “Spokane City Council formally denounces Mayor Nadine Woodward for her actions that associated her with an alleged domestic terrorist, former Representative Matt Shea, who has participated in the planning of taking arms up against the United States of America, and denounces her preplanned attendance that associates her with known anti-LGBTQ extremist, Sean Feucht, and hateful rhetoric.”

Both Shea and Feucht lead movements that couch their right-wing political views in evangelical Christianity. 

When Shea was in the state House of Representatives, his own caucus, the Washington Republican Caucus, expelled him in 2020 after an investigation accused him of helping to plan the 2016 takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, as well as participating in two other armed conflicts against the U.S. government and recruiting militia members. Shea opted not to run for reelection that year and now runs a Christian-based organization that encourages evangelicals to get involved in politics.

Feucht, a musician and megachurch leader from California, tours the U.S. with his Christian revival events, including Let Us Worship, which started as a state-by-state protest against COVID-19 restrictions, and continues today. After accusations of being a Christian nationalist – a person who calls for laws and government to be based on evangelical Christian beliefs – Feucht has embraced the term.

Woodward joined Shea onstage at Feucht’s Aug. 20 Let Us Worship event in Spokane, where Shea led a prayer over her and others running for office this year, according to news organization Range Media. After the event, Woodward denied knowing that Shea would be there and denounced his politics.

The federal government is restarting its free COVID-19 home test distribution program, as federal and local health officials get ready for “respiratory virus season.”

Starting Sept. 25, each household will be able to order four tests from the reopened COVIDTests.gov, which also has information on how to check for extended expiration dates on test kits that people might already have at home. 

The restarting of the federal testing program comes as Washington, along with the rest of the United States, sees a slight increase in people testing positive for COVID-19 in the past few months – though at much lower levels than in the previous two fall seasons.

It also comes just after FDA approval of the latest COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, which are expected to reach clinics and pharmacies in Washington over the next few weeks.

Washington health officials last week encouraged residents to get updated vaccines, and said that they expect that getting a shot for COVID-19 will be an annual habit similar to the influenza vaccine.

Health officials also encouraged frequent hand-washing and to consider wearing masks to help stem the spread of viral infections during the “respiratory virus season” – the fall and winter months when COVID, influenza (also known as flu) and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) are at risk of increased spread. 

The Washington State Department of Health has also launched a Respiratory Illness Data Dashboard, so people can keep track of those three viral infections. 

The Dayton Memorial Library in Columbia County will survive, after a court on Wednesday blocked a general-election ballot measure that called for dissolving it.

A Columbia County-based group, Neighbors United for Progress, filed a lawsuit to stop the measure. It had qualified for the November ballot after a petition by people upset by the Columbia County Library District’s placement of LGBTQ+ books for teenagers.

Columbia County Superior Court Commissioner Julie Karl blocked the Columbia County Auditor’s Office from printing ballots with the measure. She said in court that dissolving the library would be an “irreparable loss” to the community because of the diverse services it provides aside from books, noting its resources for people who are low-income or who do not have housing.

Neighbors United for Progress also argued that because only Columbia County voters who live outside the Dayton city limits could vote on the measure, it would disenfranchise city residents who pay taxes for the district by violating their rights to representation. The library district’s sole building is within the city limits of Dayton, the largest city in Columbia County.

Earlier this year, community resident Jessica Ruffcorn organized the petition after she and others were upset that minors had access to LGBTQ+ books that they believe have sexual content. The community debate leading to the ballot measure in this rural Washington county mirrors a growing national fight over access to books in schools and libraries throughout the U.S.