Dan Chasan

The Biden administration’s approval of the Willow Project on the North Slope may have felt like it came out of the blue, but of course it didn’t.  It had plenty of history. And plenty of bogus predictions.

A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit has stayed U.S. District Judge Richard Jones’ May order that would have shut down the Southeast Alaska troll fishery for chinook salmon.  More legal challenges will follow.

Some people expected the worst.  The worst didn’t happen.

This case could easily have been decided narrowly. But the majority, especially Alito, didn't want a narrow decision.

A May 2 U.S District Court decision looks like the best thing that has happened to Southern Resident Killer Whales – aka Puget Sound orcas -- in the nearly half-century since people stopped trapping them for display at Sea World and other marine parks. 

Maybe we need a two-or-more-tiered system in which different kinds of public speech get different levels of protection.  That would solve a number of problems, but it would also create others. Just exactly which kind of speech should get more or less protection?

Acceptance of mass timber is obviously growing. The state Department of Commerce says that “cross-laminated timber is one of the fastest-growing segments of [Washington’s forest products] industry.”

Getting rid of Sullivan’s constitutional shield has evidently earned a place on many conservatives’ wish lists. It has long had a place on Donald Trump’s.

Taxing income has been a hot-button issue in Washington for more than 90 years.  Now the Court might force a decision.

An estimated 97 percent of the Chinook caught by that Alaskan fishery spawn outside Alaska. Many of those fish might normally nourish the Southern Resident Killer Whales (SRKWs) – our Puget Sound orcas.