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Art exhibit showcases Washington’s shrub-steppe ecosystem – Northwest Public Broadcasting

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Art exhibit showcases Washington’s shrub-steppe ecosystem – Northwest Public Broadcasting


Driving through central Washington might look like scrubland from the highway. Now, an art exhibit in Tieton is highlighting the landscape’s beauty.

A sculpture of a pygmy rabbit by Janet Beuge. The piece is on display at the Boxx Gallery through Sept. 29. (Courtesy of Cowiche Canyon Conservancy)

“When you get up close to it, there’s this incredible tapestry of wildlife that inhabits the shrub-steppe and needs the shrub-steppe to survive,” said Celisa Hopkins, the executive director of Cowiche Canyon Conservancy.

The conservancy is helping put on the show at the Boxx Gallery. The show runs through this Sunday. The gallery is open on Fridays from 1 to 5 p.m. and on the weekend from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

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“Images of the Shrub-Steppe” is the eighth annual juried art exhibit that features paintings, sculptures, photography and collage. 

“Art is and has been a way that people connect with nature and share their experience of the wonder of the natural world,” Hopkins said.

A painting with a dark grey sky. The bottom third of the painting is light green and brown, like the ground.

“The Promise of Spring” by artist Gayle Scholl. The painting is featured in the “Images of Shrub-Steppe” juried art exhibition. (Courtesy of Cowiche Canyon Conservancy)

Viewers can connect to the natural world while contemplating a sculpture of a pygmy rabbit or an impressionistic painting of “The Promise of Spring,” by artist Gayle Scholl.

“Whether it’s a specific flower or an animal that lives on the landscape, I think that gives people a different window that we may not see when we’re out walking alone on a trail,” Hopkins said.

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This weekend, a talk by Zach Schierl will cover two lava flows that met in Tieton and formed the shrub-steppe landscape.

“The focus will be on the two main lava flows that underlie the valley: the Columbia River Basalts and the Tieton Andesite, which form the backdrop for some of my favorite images from the Yakima area,” Schierl wrote on his website.

Two of Schierl’s photographs are featured in the exhibit.

“I’ve thoroughly enjoyed photographing this unique and wide-open landscape (especially during spring wildflower season!) since we moved to Yakima in 2019,” he wrote.

Hopkins said she hopes the art will bring people closer to the threatened landscape around them.

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The arid shrub-steppe ecosystem is one of the most diverse landscapes in Washington — and it’s in trouble, according to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Washington’s “sagebrush sea” has been fragmented by agriculture and development.

Less than 20% of shrub-steppe habitat is left in the Columbia Basin, Hopkins said. It’s home to sage grouse and burrowing owls. 

“For the survival of the species that rely on the shrub-steppe, they need connected tracts of land and the ability to migrate from one space to the other as climate conditions change,” she said.



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Shooting during ICE operation in Maryland leaves 2 injured, officials say

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Shooting during ICE operation in Maryland leaves 2 injured, officials say


Federal immigration agents shot at a moving vehicle on Wednesday morning during an enforcement and removal action in Glen Burnie, Maryland, striking one person and injuring another, officials said.

A spokesperson for the Anne Arundel County Police Department said neither person had life-threatening injuries, and both were taken to the hospital.

Anne Arundel police responded to a report of a shooting involving federal agents at about 10:50 a.m. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were the only officials involved in the shooting, police said.

Preliminarily, police said the agents approached a white van, but the vehicle attempted to run them over. The agents fired at the van, which accelerated until coming to a stop in a wooded area, police said.

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When asked for comment, Department of Homeland Security officials said both civilians involved in the altercation with ICE are in the U.S. illegally. They did not indicate whether either of the men had been arrested.

“Continued efforts to encourage illegal aliens and violent agitators to actively resist ICE will only lead to more violent incidents,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.

Anne Arundel police said they will investigate the shooting, while the FBI investigates the alleged assault on the agents and ICE conducts an internal investigation.



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Millionaire tax plans spread as Washington state eyes new levy | Fortune

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Millionaire tax plans spread as Washington state eyes new levy | Fortune


When Washington Governor Bob Ferguson proposed the state’s first income tax in modern history, he said the word “affordability” five times. 

Ferguson on Tuesday asked the legislature to craft a 9.9% tax on personal income over $1 million, which would revolutionize a state revenue system heavily reliant on sales and property tax. Although his fellow Democrats have for decades failed to push through an income tax, Ferguson said it’s “a different time right now.”

“We are facing an affordability crisis,” Ferguson said. “It is time to change our state’s outdated, upside-down tax system. To serve the needs of Washingtonians today, to make our taxes the more fair, millionaires should contribute toward our shared prosperity.”

Democrats across the US are increasingly exploring taxes as a way to capture the populist moment and address the country’s widening wealth gap. If “affordability” was the issue highlighted by Democrats who outperformed expectations in the off-year elections of 2025, the slogan next year could very well be “tax the rich.”

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It’s an opening Democrats see as the Trump administration this year paired tax cuts for high earners with reductions in Medicaid and supplemental food assistance. Raising taxes on the wealthy could also help solve a fiscal problem for states dedicating more resources to plug the holes from federal cuts.

“We have a federal government that has gone into super-villain mode, seeming to deliberately take from the poor and middle class to give to the rich,” said Darien Shanske, a tax professor at UC Davis School of Law. “This unnecessary emergency is laying down a gauntlet for states: Will they let this suffering come to pass and, if not, how will they pay for the triage? Taxes on the best-off are not just fair but also efficient.”

Read more: Millionaire Tax That Mamdani Loves Fuels a $5.7 Billion Haul

Progressive tax advocates often point to Massachusetts’ 4% surtax on incomes over $1 million, which brought in roughly $5.7 billion in fiscal 2025, far exceeding revenue projections in its third year of collection. 

New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani campaigned on raising the city’s income tax on millionaires by 2 percentage points to 5.9%, which critics said would lead to an exodus of wealthy people.

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Colorado voters this year approved a measure to limit deductions for taxpayers earning at least $300,000. The revenue will fund a program providing free meals for all public school students. Colorado officials also advanced a ballot measure to change the state’s 4.41% flat rate to a graduated income tax, potentially raising more than $4 billion. That will likely go before voters in 2026. 

Michigan residents could also face a ballot initiative next year to change the state’s flat 4.25% tax rate to add a 5% surcharge on individuals earning more than $500,000 and couples making more than $1 million.

Romney’s Call

Even 2012 Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has joined the call. Last week, the former US senator from Utah penned an essay in the New York Times calling for rich people to pay more, mostly in the form of closing loopholes the wealthy use to minimize tax obligations.

“It would help us avoid the cliff ahead,” Romney said, pointing to government funding shortfalls, “and might tend to quiet some of the anger that will surely grow as unemployed college graduates see tax-advantaged multibillionaires sailing 300-foot yachts.”

Most of the populist proposals coming from the states would raise taxes on income. But the tricky thing about some wealth is that it doesn’t come from a paycheck and thus is harder to tax. Even a levy on capital gains depends on a taxpayer selling assets to realize that increased value. 

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For example, former Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer’s net worth increased by $706.5 billion on Monday, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Even though his mansion sits across the lake from downtown Seattle, those gains wouldn’t be subject to an income tax. 

That’s why some Washington state Democrats are still pushing for the US’s first wealth tax on unrealized gains. Under a proposal passed by the state Senate last year, portfolios of some publicly traded asset classes worth at least $50 million would be taxed at 0.5%. 

Ferguson panned the wealth tax proposal last year, saying it would be irresponsible to balance the budget on a measure that would certainly face legal challenges. 

One of the most common warnings from tax opponents is that once legislators have a new tax mechanism, they’ll either increase the rate or lower the threshold at which it would apply. Ferguson in his income-tax proposal nodded to that concern, saying the $1 million level should increase with inflation and be included in the statute or perhaps even a constitutional amendment.

Read More: Vegas Lures Millionaires Fleeing Wealth Tax in Washington State

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State taxes are also easier to avoid than federal taxes, because it’s relatively easy to move a primary residency. Washington used to attract taxpayers fed up with California’s high rates, but that has changed since the Evergreen State started taxing capital gains. Next year could be the year of the millionaire’s tax — in Washington state and across the US. 



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Windstorm to hit western Washington on Christmas Eve with gusts up to 70 mph

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Windstorm to hit western Washington on Christmas Eve with gusts up to 70 mph


All is calm, all is bright for Christmas Eve-eve…not so much for Christmas Eve itself.

An unusual windstorm will slingshot up the west coast, making for a windy Wednesday in western Washington as we head into the holiday. A pre-emptive HIGH WIND WATCH has been issued by the National Weather Service to account for strong and potentially damaging easterly and then southerly winds, but I expect that to turn over to a HIGH WIND WARNING as we get closer and these gusts look imminent.

ALSO SEE: Mountain snow, gusty winds and heavy showers expected for Christmas Eve

In the short-term, things are quiet enough for now. Mainly cloudy skies will tuck us in, but because the air mass is still seasonably chilly, we’ll drop back into the 30s by dawn. The passes are very passable, but could be icy as lows plunge into the 20s overnight.

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On Wednesday, things get interesting quickly. Storms don’t usually move from California right up the coast to Washington, but there has been nothing usual about this December so far, and that’s exactly the odd track this system is going to take on its way into the region.

Remember that lows act like giant vacuums in the sky, pulling air into them as they go by. This is a roughly 980 millibar low on approach–plenty deep enough to suck in air noticeably as it passes.

This howling wind-maker will work its way up toward the Washington coast by Wednesday morning. With its center still over the Pacific, the winds will be easterly.

The ocean beach communities and the foothills of the Cascades (Enumclaw, Issaquah, North Bend, and Monroe) will be subject to these easterly blows, gusting 30 to 50 mph for the first half of the day there. Why not in Seattle? The 8,000′ tall Olympics will initially act as an offensive lineman for the waterfront locations near the Sound, blocking the bulk of the windy weather before the lunch hour.

However, this low will hightail it over Neah Bay, eventually curling in over Vancouver Island by the afternoon. Now, without the shield of the Olympics between Seattle and the storm center, we’ll be subject to strong southerly (remember the wind follows the low’s movement and track, so the direction will change) gusts of 30 to 50 mph over the Sound, including in Tacoma, Olympia, Everett, and the Emerald City.

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These strong winds may be enough to give us some tree damage and knock down power lines…not what we want to see on Christmas Eve! A grand finale burst of southerlies of 40 to 60 mph or more (some models suggest gusts to 70 mph) will close down the evening in Port Townsend, Oak Harbor, Friday Harbor, and Ferndale–those of you closer to British Columbia will be subject to the strongest winds right after sunset.

By the time people are heading out to the midnight mass, the windstorm should be a wrap, but it will be a dicey day beforehand. Not only will it deal with the wind, but also rain in the lowlands and bursts of heavy, blowing snow over the Cascade passes. Highs will bump up a bit, ending up closer to 50 in the metro area.

Christmas Day itself should be far easier for travelers and celebrations, with lighter rain at times and temperatures back in the more typical middle 40s. This will keep occasional snow falling over the mountains to about 3,000′ (Snoqualmie Summit level) as well.



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