By Jake Goldstein-Street (Washington State Standard)
Advertisement
Dec. 25, 2025 4:55 p.m.
A road is covered by floodwaters after heavy rains led to historic flooding in the region Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, in Burlington, Wash.
Lindsey Wasson / AP
U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. declared a public health emergency Wednesday over this month’s flooding in Washington state.
The action from Kennedy, the head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is focused on helping meet the needs of Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries. As part of that, his agency is providing access to HHS emPOWER, which gives data on the number of Medicare enrollees reliant on medical equipment dependent on electricity and other health care services that could make them especially vulnerable to a disaster.
Advertisement
The announcement could be a good sign for the state’s chances of getting a major disaster declaration from President Donald Trump to potentially open up tens of millions of dollars to deal with the flooding’s aftermath.
Gov. Bob Ferguson plans to ask for such a declaration in the coming weeks.
The flooding from heavy rain and overflowing rivers forced thousands of evacuations, breached multiple levees and damaged numerous highways. It still didn’t quite reach the levels some forecasts predicted. One person has been reported dead.
Kennedy’s order follows an emergency declaration from Trump that unlocked federal resources to respond to the storm.
John Knox, of the department’s Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, said in a statement that, “HHS stands ready to assist state and local response efforts in the state of Washington due to the potential health care impacts from severe storms.”
Advertisement
Health and Human Services has also waived penalties for violating federal health privacy rules under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, for hospitals.
“With today’s declaration and waiver, HHS is helping ensure that residents in the storm’s path have continuous access to the care they need during and after this storm,” Knox said. “ASPR’s highly trained personnel are prepared to support state and local actions to save lives and protect the delivery of health care services.”
The federal Disaster Distress Helpline is also available for crisis counseling. The multilingual hotline, open 24 hours a day, can be reached via call or text at 1-800-985-5990.
The declaration is retroactive to Dec. 9.
A windstorm forecast to arrive in western Washington on Wednesday could exacerbate problems, as saturated soil from the recent rain could make trees and powerline poles especially susceptible to falling over. But the wind is now not expected to be as intense as predicted earlier this week.
Advertisement
Meanwhile, Washington Attorney General Nick Brown filed a lawsuit with other states against Kennedy on Tuesday for his threats against gender-affirming care providers.
Brown called Kennedy’s move “as cruel and unnecessary as it is illegal, but consistent with an administration that puts politics above health.” It’s Washington’s 49th lawsuit against the federal government since Trump retook office in January.
Washington State Standard is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501(c)(3) public charity.
This republished story is part of OPB’s broader effort to ensure that everyone in our region has access to quality journalism that informs, entertains and enriches their lives. To learn more, visit opb.org/partnerships.
Sign up today for OPB’s “First Look” – your daily guide to the most important news and culture stories from around the Northwest.
Trinity Rodman signs record deal with Washington Spirit
USWNT forward Trinity Rodman signed a three-year deal with the NWSL’s Washington Spirit. The deal makes Rodman the highest-paid female footballer in the world.
unbranded – Sport
Washington Spirit goalkeeper Aubrey Kingsbury has announced that she and her husband Matt are expecting a baby in July.
Advertisement
The couple made the announcement in a video on the Spirit’s social media channels, holding a baby goalkeeper jersey on the pitch at Audi Field.
Kingsbury becomes the most recent Spirit star to go on maternity leave, following defender Casey Krueger, midfielder Andi Sullivan and forward Ashley Hatch.
Sullivan gave birth to daughter Millie in July, while Hatch welcomed her son Leo in January.
Krueger announced she was pregnant with her second child in October.
Kingsbury has served as the Spirit’s starting goalkeeper since 2018, and has been named the NWSL Goalkeeper of the Year twice (2019 and 2021).
Advertisement
The 34-year-old has two caps with the U.S. women’s national team, and was named to the 2023 World Cup roster.
The club captain will leave a major void for the Spirit, who have finished as NWSL runner-up in back-to-back seasons.
Sandy MacIver and Kaylie Collins are expected to compete for the starting role while Kingsbury is on maternity leave.
Advertisement
The Spirit kick off their 2026 campaign on March 13 against the Portland Thorns.
YAKIMA, Wash. — Yakima could soon take a major step toward redesigning Sixth Avenue after the Washington State Public Works Board awarded the city a $985,600 loan.
The loan was approved for the design engineering phase of the Sixth Avenue project. The funding can also be used along Sixth Avenue for utility replacement and updated ADA use.
The Yakima City Council must decide whether to accept the award. If the council accepts it, the city’s engineering work will move forward with the design of Sixth Avenue.
The cost of installing trolley lines is excluded from the plan. The historic trolleys would need to raise the funds required to add trolley lines.
Advertisement
The award is scheduled to be discussed during next week’s City Council meeting.
Microsoft will ramp up its investment in the University of Washington.
Brad Smith, the company’s president, made the announcement at a press conference with University of Washington President Robert Jones on Tuesday.
That means hiring more UW graduates as interns at Microsoft, he said.
And he said all students, faculty, and researchers should have access to free, or at least deeply-discounted, AI.
Advertisement
“ Some of it is compute that Microsoft is donating, and some of it is pursuant to an agreement where, believe me, we give the University of Washington probably the best pricing that anybody’s gonna find anywhere,” Smith said. He assured the small group of reporters present that it would be “many millions of dollars of additional computational resources.”
The announcement today didn’t include any specific numbers.
But Smith said Microsoft has already invested $165 million in the UW over several decades.
He pointed to Jones’ vision to spur “radical collaborations with businesses and communities to advance positive change,” and eliminate “any artificial barriers between the university and the communities it serves.”
Advertisement
Microsoft’s goal is for AI to help UW researchers solve some of the world’s biggest problems without introducing new ones.
At Tuesday’s announcement, several research students were present to demonstrate how AI supports their work.
Amelia Keyser-Gibson is an environmental scientist at the UW. She’s using AI to analyze photographs of vines, to find which adapt best to climate change.
It’s a paradox: AI produces carbon emissions. At the same time, it’s also a new tool to help reduce them.
Advertisement
So how do those things square for Keyser-Gibson?
“ That’s a great question, and honestly, I don’t know the answer to that,” she said. “I’m highly aware that there’s a lot of environmental impact of using AI, but what I can say is that this has allowed us to make research innovations that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.”
“If we had had to manually annotate every single image that would’ve been an undergrad doing that for hours,” Keyser-Gibson continued. “And we didn’t have the budget. We didn’t have the manpower to do that.”
“AI exists. If we don’t use it as researchers, we’re gonna fall behind.”
Advertisement
Microsoft reports on its own carbon emissions. But like most AI companies, it doesn’t reveal everything.
That’s one reason another UW student named Zhihan Zhang is using AI to estimate how much energy AI is using.
