All posts tagged: Washington News

Steve Albini, Legendary Producer for Nirvana, the Pixies and an Alternative Rock Pioneer, Dies at 61

Steve Albini, Legendary Producer for Nirvana, the Pixies and an Alternative Rock Pioneer, Dies at 61

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Steve Albini, an alternative rock pioneer and legendary producer who shaped the musical landscape through his work with Nirvana, the Pixies, PJ Harvey and more, has died. He was 61. Brian Fox, an engineer at Albini’s studio, Electrical Audio Recording, said Wednesday that Albini died after a heart attack Tuesday night. In addition to his work on canonized rock albums such as Nirvana ‘s “In Utero,” the Pixies’ breakthrough “Surfer Rosa,” and PJ Harvey’s “Rid of Me,” Albini was the frontman of the underground bands Big Black and Shellac. He dismissed the term “producer,” refused to take royalties from the albums he worked on, and requested he be credited with “Recorded by Steve Albini,” a fabled label on albums he worked on. At the time of his death, Albini’s band Shellac were preparing to tour their first new album in a decade, “To All Trains,” which releases next week. Other acts whose music was shaped by Albini include Joanna Newsom’s indie-folk opus, “Ys,” and releases from bands like the Breeders, the Jesus Lizard, Hum, Superchunk, …

These Cities Raised Taxes — for Child Care. Parents Say the Free Day Care ‘Changed My Life’

These Cities Raised Taxes — for Child Care. Parents Say the Free Day Care ‘Changed My Life’

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NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Last summer, Derrika Richard felt stuck. She didn’t have enough money to afford child care for her three youngest children, ages 1, 2 and 3. Yet the demands of caring for them on a daily basis made it impossible for Richard, a hairstylist, to work. One child care assistance program rejected her because she wasn’t working enough. It felt like an unsolvable quandary: Without care, she couldn’t work. And without work, she couldn’t afford care. But Richard’s life changed in the fall, when, thanks to a new city-funded program for low-income families called City Seats, she enrolled the three children at Clara’s Little Lambs, a child care center in the Westbank neighborhood of New Orleans. For the first time, she’s earning enough to pay her bills and afford online classes. “It actually paved the way for me to go to school,” Richard said one morning this spring, after walking the three children to their classrooms. City Seats, she said, “changed my life.” This series on how the child care crisis affects …

Zebras Get Loose Near Highway Exit, Gallop Into Washington Community Before Most Are Corralled

Zebras Get Loose Near Highway Exit, Gallop Into Washington Community Before Most Are Corralled

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NORTH BEND, Wash. (AP) — It was an unusual wildlife sighting Sunday when four zebras escaped from their trailer and galloped into a Washington neighborhood. Three of the four black-and-white striped animals were quickly captured, but the fate of the fourth wasn’t immediately known Monday, Washington State Patrol Trooper Rick Johnson said. The zebras were being transported from Washington to Montana when the driver took the Interstate 90 exit for North Bend, located about 30 miles (48 kilometers) southeast of Seattle, to secure the trailer. That’s when the the zebras bolted. Witness Dan Barnett of North Bent told KING-TV of Seattle that he was in “disbelief,” when he saw the zebras eating grass off the side of the offramp. He and other drivers helped protect the zebras from the busy nearby interstate, as drivers on the offramp pulled over to “make a makeshift fence” to block the animals from the highway, Barnett said. Photos You Should See – April 2024 The zebras then began heading toward town, trotting past brunch patrons at a restaurant near …

The US and China Talk Past Each Other on Most Issues, but at Least They’re Still Talking

The US and China Talk Past Each Other on Most Issues, but at Least They’re Still Talking

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BEIJING (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrapped up his just-concluded latest visit to China with a stop at a Beijing record store where he bought albums by Taylor Swift and Chinese rocker Dou Wei in a symbolic nod to cross-cultural exchanges and understanding he had been promoting for three days. Music, he said at the Li-Pi shop on his way to the airport late Friday, “is the best connector, regardless of geography.” Yet Swift’s “Midnights” and Dou Wei’s “Black Dream” could just as easily represent the seemingly intractable divisions in the deeply troubled relationship between the world’s two largest economies that both sides publicly and privately blame on the other. Blinken and his Chinese interlocutors, including Chinese President Xi Jinping and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, all referred to these rifts even as they extolled the virtues of keeping communication channels open to manage these differences and avoid misunderstandings and miscalculations. Blinken went out of his way to champion the importance of U.S.-China exchanges at all levels. In Shanghai, he ate at a …

Police in Washington City Issue Alarm After 3 Babies Overdosed on Fentanyl in Less Than a Week

Police in Washington City Issue Alarm After 3 Babies Overdosed on Fentanyl in Less Than a Week

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EVERETT, Wash. (AP) — Officials are sounding alarms after a baby died and two others apparently also overdosed in the past week in separate instances in which fentanyl was left unsecured inside residences, authorities said. A 911 caller on Wednesday afternoon reported that a 13-month-old baby was not breathing in an apartment in Everett, the Daily Herald reported. The baby died later at a hospital, according to the Everett Fire Department. The Snohomish County Medical Examiner’s Office will determine the baby’s official cause and manner of death, officials said. Last Saturday, firefighters were called to a residence after an 11-month-old was found unresponsive by the parents, a news release from the Everett fire and police departments said. The baby was given the opioid overdose reversal medication naloxone before firefighters arrived and provided further medical care, authorities said. The infant was then taken to a hospital and has since been released. On Wednesday morning, a 911 caller said a 6-month-old baby was having trouble breathing. Arriving firefighters found the infant unresponsive and administered medical care, including …

Microsoft Quarterly Profit Rises 20% as Tech Giant Pushes to Get Customers Using AI Products

Microsoft Quarterly Profit Rises 20% as Tech Giant Pushes to Get Customers Using AI Products

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Microsoft on Thursday said its profit rose 20% for the January-March quarter as it tries to position itself as a leader in applying artificial intelligence technology to make workplaces more productive. The company reported quarterly net income of $21.93 billion, or $2.94 per share, beating Wall Street expectations for earnings of $2.82 a share. The Redmond, Washington-based software maker posted revenue of $61.86 billion in the period, its third fiscal quarter, up 17% from the same period a year ago. Analysts polled by FactSet expected Microsoft to post revenue of $60.86 billion for the quarter. Microsoft doesn’t spell out how much money it makes from AI products, including its flagship Copilot chatbot that can compose documents, write code or generate images. But it has infused the technology into its main lines of business, such as cloud computing contracts and subscriptions for its email and other online services. Quarterly revenue from Microsoft’s cloud computing business segment grew to $26.7 billion, up 21% from last year’s January-March quarter. Revenue from the company’s productivity services – such as …

America’s Child Care Crisis Is Holding Back Moms Without College Degrees

America’s Child Care Crisis Is Holding Back Moms Without College Degrees

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AUBURN, Wash. (AP) — After a series of lower-paying jobs, Nicole Slemp finally landed one she loved. She was a secretary for Washington’s child services department, a job that came with her own cubicle, and she had a knack for working with families in difficult situations. Slemp expected to return to work after having her son in August. But then she and her husband started looking for child care – and doing the math. The best option would cost about $2,000 a month, with a long wait list, and even the least expensive option around $1,600, still eating up most of Slemp’s salary. Her husband earns about $35 an hour at a hose distribution company. Between them, they earned too much to qualify for government help. “I really didn’t want to quit my job,” says Slemp, 33, who lives in a Seattle suburb. But, she says, she felt like she had no choice. Even so, women’s participation in the workforce has recovered from the pandemic, reaching historic highs in December 2023. But that masks a …

The Drug War Devastated Black and Other Minority Communities. Is Marijuana Legalization Helping?

The Drug War Devastated Black and Other Minority Communities. Is Marijuana Legalization Helping?

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ARLINGTON, Wash. (AP) — When Washington state opened some of the nation’s first legal marijuana stores in 2014, Sam Ward Jr. was on electronic home detention in Spokane, where he had been indicted on federal drug charges. He would soon be off to prison to serve the lion’s share of a four-year sentence. A decade later, Ward, who is Black, recently posed in a blue-and-gold throne used for photo ops at his new cannabis store, Cloud 9 Cannabis. He greeted customers walking in for early 4/20 deals. And he reflected on being one of the first beneficiaries of a Washington program to make the overwhelmingly white industry more accessible to people harmed by the war on drugs. “It feels great to know that I’m the CEO of a store, with employees, people depending on me,” Ward said. “Just being a part of something makes you feel good.” A major argument for legalizing the adult use of cannabis was to stop the harm caused by disproportionate enforcement of drug laws that sent millions of Black, Latino …

US will provide .1 billion to Micron Technology for chip plants in NY and Idaho, Schumer says

US will provide $6.1 billion to Micron Technology for chip plants in NY and Idaho, Schumer says

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration has reached an agreement to provide $6.1 billion in government support for Micron Technology to produce advanced memory computer chips in New York and Idaho. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., personally courted Micron to build what would ultimately be a set of four chip factories near Syracuse in the town of Clay. He noted in a Wednesday interview that the announcement was a sign to voters about how Democrats were reviving the manufacturing sector. ”It will be the biggest memory chip plant in America,” said Schumer. “For the Syracuse area, this is the best thing that’s happened probably since the Erie Canal.” The comparison to the 1825 infrastructure project that connected the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean is audacious, but it gets at the possible magnitude of the economic impact as well as the national security stakes in an increasingly digital world. Including the government support, Micron plans to invest $100 billion in upstate New York over the next two decades. The investment would lead to an …

Pentagon leaders press Congress for Ukraine funding, saying battlefield situation is dire

Pentagon leaders press Congress for Ukraine funding, saying battlefield situation is dire

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Ukraine and Israel both desperately need the military weapons that are being held up by Congress’ failure to pass a funding package for the two countries at war, Pentagon leaders told House appropriators Wednesday, calling the situation in Ukraine dire. “Whether it’s munitions, whether it’s vehicles, whether it’s platforms,” Ukraine is being outmatched by the Russians, Gen. CQ Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. “I’ll just tell you that Ukraine right now is facing some dire battlefield conditions.” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, seated alongside Brown, told lawmakers that time matters. “We’re already seeing things on the battlefield begin to shift a bit in Russia’s favor. We are seeing them make incremental gains. We’re seeing the Ukrainians be challenged in terms of holding the line,” he said. Their grim assessments came as House Republicans wrangle over the $95 billion foreign aid bill that the Senate passed in February. That legislation provides funding for Ukraine, Israel and other allies, as well as humanitarian aid for civilians …