Federal Government

Convening a rarely used committee for the first time in more than three decades, top Trump administration officials voted Tuesday to exempt oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico from requirements that protect endangered species. It’s a striking move that advocacy groups say could further imperil gulf wildlife like the Rice’s whale, one of the rarest whale species on earth with an estimated fewer ...

The race for Congress is underway, and Spokane’s Republican incumbent, U.S. Rep. Michael Baumgartner, has a head start.

The posted start time of 1 p.m. didn’t stop a few hundred from gathering early at B.A. Clark Park for Spokane’s third “No Kings” protest against the Trump administration and its policies.

A “No Kings” rally Saturday at Riverfront Park went off without a hitch until a small skirmish between police and protesters outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building near the park broke out and led to two arrests.

WASHINGTON – A former top official at the Department of Veterans Affairs, who oversaw the purchase and deployment of a flawed computer system that led to patient harm after it was launched in Spokane, was charged on Wednesday with hiding thousands of dollars in cash and other gifts he received from government contractors.

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s nomination of Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma to be the next head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Sunday advanced toward final confirmation after the Senate voted 54-37 to limit debate on the appointment.

WASHINGTON – In 2021, Democrats in the nation’s capital seized a rare opportunity.

WASHINGTON – A controversial election-reform bill backed by President Donald Trump would cost Washington state taxpayers at least $35 million to implement but wouldn’t provide federal funding to cover those costs, according to a new report from Sen. Maria Cantwell’s office.

WASHINGTON – On the morning of April 18, 1983, a young diplomat named Ryan Crocker had a meeting at the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon with Bob Ames, the CIA’s chief Middle East analyst.

WASHINGTON – In his address to a joint session of Congress in March 2025, President Donald Trump set a bold goal for the U.S. government.

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s firing of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem drew bipartisan support from Washington state’s congressional delegation on Thursday, as a partial government shutdown of the agency continues amid controversy over its crackdown on immigrants.

WASHINGTON – The Republican-controlled Senate voted largely along party lines on Wednesday to reject a Democratic measure to halt President Donald Trump’s war with Iran, effectively endorsing the U.S. strikes that continued for a fifth day as the conflict expanded across the Middle East.

WASHINGTON – Trump administration officials acknowledged in closed-door briefings with congressional staff on Sunday that there was no intelligence suggesting Iran planned to attack U.S. forces first, two people familiar with the matter said.

Regional foreign policy experts warn that the fallout of the joint strikes on Iran by U.S. and Israeli forces early Saturday morning could be far reaching, and tough to discern in the coming days, weeks, months and years.

Washington’s top Democratic lawmakers say the joint U.S.-Israel military action against Iran early Saturday morning shirked congressional authority, and are calling on their peers to reconvene “to put an end to this war.”

WASHINGTON – After finishing a close second in a state considered key to winning the presidency, Donald Trump claimed on social media that his opponent had “illegally cheated” and said the results should be nullified because the winner had committed “fraud.”

WASHINGTON – In his first official State of the Union address since returning to office a little more than a year ago, President Donald Trump touted his administration’s accomplishments on Tuesday while Washington state Democrats accused him of being responsible for chaos, rising costs and unprecedented corruption.

WASHINGTON – Since its inception in the Cold War-era Germany of 1963, the Munich Security Conference has become the premier gathering of U.S. and European elected leaders and military officials, so Rep. Michael Baumgartner wasn’t going to let a little lapse in federal funding stop him from attending for the first time.