Washington
Washington state lawmakers consider lower threshold for DUI charges as road deaths continue to rise
The Capitol building is seen on the first day of the legislative session at the Washington state Capitol Monday, Jan. 8, 2024 in Olympia, Wash.
Lindsey Wasson / AP
Intoxicated drivers are involved in about half of the fatal crashes on Washington state roads, and as road deaths continue to rise, lawmakers are considering a change that some say could deter more people from impaired driving.
“In 2023, we lost at least 800 lives on our roadway, and that is the highest we’ve seen in 33 years,” said Debbie Driver, transportation policy advisor to Gov. Jay Inslee.
To reverse that trend, lawmakers are considering lowering the blood alcohol concentration, or BAC, limit to charge someone for driving under the influence.
Right now, the state’s legal limit is a concentration of 0.08% of alcohol in a person’s blood. Under House Bill 2196, it would drop to 0.05%. A similar proposal was considered in 2023.
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Experts say the number of alcoholic drinks it would take to exceed that lower limit depends on a person’s size, sex and whether or not they’re eating food. According to one study, it would take the average 170-pound male at least four drinks on an empty stomach to exceed the 0.05% limit in two hours.
Only one state, Utah, already has the 0.05% BAC limit, but some others are considering it, including Hawaii and New York. The National Transportation Safety Board recommended states move to the lower 0.05% limit more than a decade ago.
Health officials, law enforcement and people who have lost loved ones in crashes involving an impaired driver say it’s an important deterrent that will make drivers think twice before getting behind the wheel.
“These .05 laws save lives, and it’s the education around the enforcement,” said Dr. Beth Ebel, a pediatrics professor in Seattle.
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Still, there are some concerns about the proposal from the hospitality industry, even as many agree drunk driving is a problem.
During the bill’s hearing Thursday, lobbyists representing places that serve alcohol said they worry lowering the BAC limit could deter people from rural businesses or make servers more legally liable for overserving people — and some question if lowering the limit will actually work.
“We just don’t think that lowering the BAC level to .05 is the right approach — we believe it’ll put our staff and breweries at risk,” said Daniel Olson from the Washington Brewers Guild.
The bill is scheduled for a possible committee vote next week.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
“ 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.”
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.
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.”
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.
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