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Initiative-594, the universal background check initiative being bankrolled by millionaires and billionaires in Washington state, will lead to "universal handgun registration" if passed. Page 2 of the 18-page initiative opens the door to such registration by "extending the requirement for a background check to apply to all gun sales and transfers within the state." This means record keeping, and record keeping means the formation of a database to compile the location of all known guns and the names of all known gun owners.

Pot-infused edibles are trickling onto shelves at marijuana stores, and more products are coming, despite a shortage of legal pot and new last-minute state regulations. Entrepreneurs have bemoaned the slow pace, but regulators are being cautious about public health. Statewide pot-supply shortages slowed edibles’ arrival, but manufacturers also were stifled, and frustrated, by emergency regulations from the state Liquor Control Board (LCB), which has taken a cautious approach to opening the marketplace. So far, the LCB has given its blessing to products — including chocolate bars, sodas and energy shots — from three new businesses. Nine more kitchens have been...

The Washington Alliance for Gun Responsibility launched its TV advertising campaign yesterday to promote Initiative 594, a statewide ballot measure to broaden background checks on all gun purchases. The ad, titled "Prevent," features former Bellingham Chief of Police Don Pierce. Citing FBI data, in the ad, Pierce credits current background check laws with stopping more than 40,000 people — "felons, domestic abusers, you name it" — from purchasing guns in Washington state.

Extremely low levels of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the active compound in marijuana, may offer a novel and viable treatment for Alzheimer's disease (AD), preliminary research suggests. Investigators at the University of South Florida in Tampa found that THC both decreases the production of amyloid beta (Aβ) and inhibits its aggregation in cell cultures. In addition, it does so at extremely safe doses. These observations have implications for a potentially new therapeutic approach to the treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD), as researchers suggest. "Our group believes that amyloid aggregation is the initiator of AD, so we wanted to see if THC can...

(edit)  The goal of "Twitterpated" is to encourage conversations about same-sex relationships in a disarming way, said Oksendahl, adding that he chose bunnies for the game because "they are known for being very active as far as their reproductive strategy." The game contains no sex, and instead, the bunnies rub their noses and hearts when paired together, he said. "I came up with some game mechanics that I thought would be kid friendly, but at the same time expose kids to the idea that there's more than one way to be," he said. "I grew up as a youth with...

In the shrub steppe of Grand Coulee on the banks of the Columbia River, the town’s two family doctors practice at an unrelenting pace, working on call every other night and every other weekend. In the coastal town of Port Angeles, the doctor shortage is so acute that a clinic is turning away 250 callers a week seeking a physician. George and Lynne Rudesill are two of those people. Since learning earlier this summer that their primary-care doctor in Sequim was retiring, the couple have scrambled to find a replacement. Their calls are being met with waiting lists hundreds of...

<p>The Seattle Human Rights Commission is doubling down on its effort to purge Columbus Day from its list of city celebrations, and have it replaced in the Emerald City with “Indigenous Peoples’ Day.”</p> <p>“WHEREAS, the Commission recognizes that the celebration of Christopher Columbus and his alleged 1492 discovery of the lands that would later become known as the Americas works to celebrate an era of colonization and dispossession of indigenous peoples’ homelands, as well as the decimation of entire groups of indigenous peoples from North and South America.”</p>

Religious directives that some worried could restrict medical care at a new health clinic preparing to open on the Washington State University Spokane campus are being jettisoned. The announcement Friday by Providence Health & Services comes two days after the American Civil Liberties Union expressed concern about the clinic’s bylaws and asked WSU regents to address the matter at their Sept. 11 meeting. The Spokane Teaching Health Center is a consortium of Providence, WSU Spokane and the Empire Health Foundation. It’s expected to open on the WSU Spokane campus in 2016, and regents will consider selling $15 million in revenue...

Microsoft co-founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen also recently donated to Initiative 594 campaign

Two days after the Seattle Times announced that Bill and Melinda Gates have donated $1 million to the Initiative 594 campaign, Bellevue gun rights advocate Alan Gottlieb, who opposes the measure, has today publicly challenged the billionaire Microsoft founder to a public debate. Gottlieb issued his challenge Wednesday morning, demanding that Gates “Put his mouth where his money is!” “It’s one thing to be for background checks,” said Gottlieb, who is chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and a leading spokesman for Initiative 591. “But, I-594 is poorly written bad law, and all...

Ninety individual health plans sold by 10 insurers will likely make their way into Washington’s exchange marketplace for 2015, if the Washington Health Benefit Exchange board approves them Thursday, as expected. ... The reviewers appeared to have taken a tight approach to premium rates, lowering requested rates from all but one insurer. On a weighted average, the actuarial review squeezed an overall rate increase of 8.6 percent in the insurers’ original proposals down to 1.9 percent. ... Washington’s insurance exchange for small businesses got off to a slow start its first year when no one offered coverage statewide. For 2015,...

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, have donated $1 million to a Washington state campaign seeking to expand background checks on gun sales, bringing the total amount the campaign has brought in up to nearly $6 million.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, have donated $1 million to a Washington state campaign seeking to expand background checks on gun sales, bringing the total amount the campaign has brought in up to nearly $6 million. ... The large donation comes on the heels of fellow Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s $500,000 donation earlier this month. Also last week, venture capitalist Nick Hanauer donated an additional $1 million, bring his total donation to the campaign to nearly $1.4 million.

MADISON, Wis. – Conservative targets of a Democrat-launched John Doe investigation have described the secret probe as a witch hunt. That might not be a big enough descriptor, based on records released Friday by a federal appeals court as part of a massive document dump. Attorneys for conservative activist Eric O’Keefe and the Wisconsin Club for Growth point to subpoenas requested by John Doe prosecutors that sought records from “at least eight phone companies” believed to serve the targets of the investigation. O’Keefe and the club have filed a civil rights lawsuit against John Doe prosecutors, alleging they violated conservatives’...

YAKIMA, Wash. — A federal judge has ruled in favor of the ACLU in its voting rights lawsuit against the city of Yakima through a summary judgment, bringing an abrupt end to two years of litigation and likely resulting in a potentially dramatic change to Yakima city politics.In a ruling Friday afternoon, the judge said the American Civil Liberties Union met the preconditions necessary to vacate the trial and move directly to the remediation phase, where both the ACLU and the city will present proposals for changing the way City Council members are elected. The ACLU has already proposed all-district...

For two bloody months, an armed jihadist serial killer ran loose across the country. At least four innocent men died this spring and summer as acts of "vengeance" on behalf of aggrieved Muslims, the self-confessed murderer has now proclaimed. Have you heard about this horror? Probably not. The usual suspects who decry hate crimes and gun violence haven't uttered a peep. Why? Like O.J.'s glove: If the narrative don't fit, you must acquit. The admitted killer will be cast as just another "lone wolf" whose familiar grievances and bloodthirsty Islamic invocations mean nothing. I say: Enough with the whitewashing. Meet...

SEATTLE — A man accused of shooting to death two men in Seattle on June 1 and a man in New Jersey later that month was charged Wednesday with gunning down a 30-year-old in the Skyway area in April — all, he allegedly told police, as “vengeance” for U.S. actions in the Mideast. Ali Muhammad Brown, 40, is quoted in charging documents as saying that he they were “just kills” and that he was “just doing my small part” as a self-styled jihadist. He was charged Wednesday with aggravated first-degree murder by the King County Prosecutor’s Office for the slaying...

A Seattle man who confessed to killing four people in Washington and New Jersey this year said each shooting was part of a mission of vengeance against the U.S. government for its actions in the Middle East, according to court documents released Wednesday. Ali Muhammad Brown, who had already been charged in the targeted killing of a gay couple in Seattle and the point-blank shooting of a New Jersey college student, was charged Wednesday with the April slaying of 30-year-old Leroy Henderson in Skyway, Wash., according to the King County Prosecutor's Office. According to a criminal complaint filed in King...

The man accused of gunning down a Livingston [NJ]teenager in his car earlier this summer told investigators the murder was an act of retribution for U.S. military action against Muslims in the Middle East. . . .[Ali Muhammad]Brown, 29, also confessed to killing the other men, all of whom, like Tevlin, were shot multiple times in isolated areas late at night. He described the murder as a “just kill” – carried out against an adult male who was not in the company of any women, children or elderly persons, court papers said. . . .

Between 1989 and 2010, Congress rejected nearly 700 cap-tax-and-trade and similar bills that their proponents claimed would control Earth’s perpetually fickle climate and weather. So even as real world crises erupt, President Obama is using executive fiats and regulations to impose his anti-hydrocarbon agenda, slash America’s fossil fuel use, bankrupt coal and utility companies, make electricity prices skyrocket, and “fundamentally transform” our economic, social, legal and constitutional system. Citing climate concerns, he has refused to permit construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, and blocked or delayed Alaskan, western state and offshore oil and gas leasing and drilling. He’s proud that...