Latest news with #TheEvergreenStateCollege
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Yahoo
Police dog drags suspect from under a deck early Saturday, Thurston Sheriff Sanders says
A police dog helped take a male suspect into custody early Saturday morning, according to Thurston County Sheriff Derek Sanders. In a social media post, Sanders said a resident flagged down a deputy and his police dog, telling the deputy there was an armed drug dealer driving around west Olympia. A short time later, according to Sanders, the deputy tried to conduct a traffic stop on a vehicle with tabs that expired in 2022, but the driver drove away from the deputy. It was not immediately clear if the resident's tip and the vehicle with expired tabs were connected; however, a pursuit was initiated, Sanders said. The driver fled at speeds of 100 miles per hour near The Evergreen State College, slid into a tree in a nearby neighborhood, left the car and ran, according to Sanders. 'K9 Igo found the driver hiding under a deck,' he wrote. 'Despite numerous K9 warnings to crawl out, the suspect refused and instead chose to ignore our commands and dig through his pockets and waistband.' The dog was deployed and he extracted the suspect from under the deck, according to Sanders. Once in custody, deputies obtained a search warrant to search the suspect vehicle and found a loaded .357 Magnum handgun. Sanders said the suspect was treated for minor injuries from the dog bite and booked into the Thurston County Jail for attempting to elude, unlawful possession of a firearm, and hit and run.
Yahoo
08-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Bill that would have turned Evergreen into UW branch campus is dead, official says
A Senate bill that would have turned The Evergreen State College in Olympia into a branch campus of the University of Washington is dead, an official said Thursday. Evergreen's Director of Government Relations, Sandy Kaiser, delivered the news during a daylong Board of Trustees meeting. 'The policy cut-off date and the fiscal cut-off dates have come and gone, which means that bills that did not pass out of their committees are essentially dead for the (legislative) session,' she said. 'That means Senate Bill 5424, which would have abolished Evergreen in 2026 in favor of a health sciences branch campus of the University of Washington, will not get a vote.' The legislation, which was proposed by Republican Leader John Braun, aimed to convert the school so that it could be used to address workforce shortages in health care. The Centralia Republican said that Evergreen is an important part of the community. At the same time, there's a dire need for more health care professionals, he told McClatchy in January. Kaiser and Evergreen President John Carmichael recently met with Braun, she said, and updated him on Evergreen's growing enrollment and its strength in STEM studies. They also talked about expanding health sciences study at the four-year public liberal arts college. 'I would call it a constructive meeting,' Kaiser said. Prior to meeting with Braun, there also were a series of meetings with other lawmakers, she said. 'We are making a strong case for Evergreen, students, staff and faculty,' Kaiser said. President Carmichael, too, made his own case for Evergreen during the meeting. He shared comments he had received from the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities, an accrediting body for schools in the greater Northwest, including Washington state. 'Accreditation is the quality assurance standard for higher education,' he said, adding that Evergreen's programs are regularly reviewed on a seven-year cycle. 'Every year, or every other year, we owe them a significant report,' Carmichael said. He then read aloud to the board the commission's comments on the school's most recent report: 'When additional materials were requested, the content and quality were exceptional. Our review team considered it a privilege to review the reports, and wants the institution to know that it was excellent, great work.' 'I think that is just further evidence, if any is needed, that what we're doing is is recognized in the larger world,' he said. The Evergreen State College, Saint Martin's University announce major anonymous donations Republican Senate leader's bill would convert The Evergreen State College into a UW campus
Yahoo
23-02-2025
- General
- Yahoo
What's in the water? Public invited to observe Budd Inlet sediment sampling in March
The Port of Olympia kicked off a second round of sediment sampling in Budd Inlet earlier this month, and once again the public is invited to observe the process. This time the focus is on West Bay, according to the port. Those aboard a research vessel will test more than 100 sites, including waters near the marine terminal, multiple private tidelands, Capitol Lake, historic industry along the shore and various marinas. Two kinds of sampling will take place: surface samples and others at depths of about 20 feet, according to the port. 'These samples will provide insight into the breadth, depth and concentration of contamination and inform how much sediment may be impacted,' a news release reads. As part of this process, the port will host a public observation day on Tuesday, March 4, which will include students from The Evergreen State College in Olympia. 'This will allow attendees up-close observation of the sampling and research crew in action directly from the Port Plaza Pier,' the release reads. 'Port staff and environmental team members will be on site to answer questions and engage with the community about the project.' The weather might be better later in the year, but the winter sampling is in accordance with the state Model Toxics Control Act when in-water work is the least disruptive to aquatic life, according to the port. The port collected 1,100 sediment samples in late 2023 and early 2024 in East Bay of Budd Inlet, also from more than 100 locations. The results from the those samples are expected in spring 2025. 'The Budd Inlet cleanup aims to repair environmental damage and contaminated sediments to build a healthier bay that will benefit aquatic life and the community,' said Environmental Manager Jonathon Wolf in a statement. More details about the public observation day will soon be available on the port's website.
Yahoo
16-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Solemn gathering in support of Palestine draws hundreds to WA Capitol
Hundreds of Washingtonians arrived at the Capitol Campus last week to mourn, share words of hope, and demand justice and peace in Palestine. At the Feb. 13 event, attendees meditated at an interactive art installation under gray skies. The sidewalk leading to the Winged Victory Monument was lined with grayscale portraits of people killed in Palestine, including two Washingtonians: Rachel Corrie and Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi. Corrie was a 23-year-old Olympia native and graduate of The Evergreen State College who went to support Palestinians whose homes were being demolished in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip. In March 2003, an Israeli bulldozer fatally crushed Corrie as she tried to stop the destruction of a Palestinian family's home. Eygi was a 26-year-old Turkish-American woman who grew up in Seattle. The University of Washington graduate had traveled to lend support to Palestinian villagers, but was killed by Israeli forces last September while participating in a demonstration, according to the BBC. Thursday's event calling for peace in Palestine was the latest to be held at the Capitol in Olympia. A tenuous Gaza ceasefire deal was struck in January, about 15 months after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 attacks in Israel ignited a bloody conflict. Some 1,139 people in Israel and 62,614 Palestinians have been killed since the war began, according to a live tracker published by Al Jazeera. Sabrene Odeh came to the Capitol Thursday to advocate for Palestinian human rights. Many Palestinian Washingtonians have been hurting for the past 15 months, she said, and they want to make sure that they're heard, seen and represented. 'I think there's a lot of elected representatives that aren't even willing to hear us, to have conversations with us, and that's extremely problematic,' Odeh said. 'We're their constituents, right? They represent us, too.' Odeh wants lawmakers to demand an independent investigation into Eygi's death and to sign onto a resolution recognizing Palestinians in Washington. 'There's a lot happening in the U.S., and here in Washington, I know there's a lot of our communities that are feeling unsafe,' she said. 'I think the key takeaway that I'm hoping that people leave with today is that we're much stronger together.' Diana Fakhoury, an artist based in Seattle, volunteers with Washington for Peace and Justice, which organized the event in partnership with the Rachel Corrie Foundation and the Council on American Islamic Relations. Last year, Fakhoury led a flag-memorial installation to honor the nearly 13,000 children who had been killed up to that point in the war. She described that experience as traumatizing: connecting with each death in a tangible way. For this installation, Fakhoury said, certain pieces represent grief in grayscale 'in which we're honoring our martyrs from Washington state and some of the child martyrs in Gaza.' But other artwork features pops of color, helping to convey themes of healing. The community was encouraged to send in messages expressing both sorrow and hope, which were then transcribed onto paper and pasted onto the art, she added. In addition to portraits of Eygi and Corrie, two others represent Palestinian children killed in the conflict, she said. One was a little boy who had the same name as Fakhoury's son. 'I fell in love with him when there was a video of him where a journalist was interviewing him, and he had found some food from an air drop, and he was the only one out of all of his friends that was able to find food,' she said through tears. 'He was so heroic, and also so humble and sweet. And obviously from the name, but also something about his spirit, really reminded me of my own son.' A few months later, Fakhoury said, she learned that the boy had been fatally struck by another air drop. 'There's so many stories like that,' Fakhoury said. 'There's so many stories that are just being lost and forgotten. So that's why I wanted to highlight an unknown martyr.' Gaza recently logged the highest number of child amputees in modern history, according to the United Nations. Fakhoury said the violence and dehumanization endured by Palestinians is effectively sponsored by the U.S., which has supplied weapons to Israel for use in the war in Gaza. She wants state elected officials to start undoing that harm — to hear Palestinians' stories and recognize their pain. Yes, there is grief — but there is also healing: Fakhoury hopes that people understand the power of coming together and lifting each other up. 'I think it's what's carrying us forward to do this work,' she said, 'and hopefully impact change in the future.'
