Chris Gregoire news

Declared criminally insane, instead of being straitjacketed and locked away as might be depicted by film or fiction, Phillip A. Paul in the past two decades has spent time living and working in downtown Spokane, fathered a child, created music videos and racked up $85,000 in credit card bills.

Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire said Tuesday she would consider tax increases as officials run out of ways to fix the state's recession-hammered budget.

The Secretary of Energy's big visit to Hanford carried a big announcement: The state settled a lawsuit against the feds over cleanup timelines.

Washington state and federal officials announced a court-enforceable schedule Tuesday for cleaning up the nation's most contaminated nuclear site, ending more than two years of negotiations that followed dozens of missed deadlines.

About two dozen seriously ill prisoners in Washington state could soon be released from prison - as long as their freedom is expected to save the cash-strapped state money.

Gov. Chris Gregoire is opposing an initiative that would cap government revenue growth. Initiative 1033 would cap the yearly growth of state, county and city general funds at the rate of inflation plus population growth.

Transportation projects are the most visible indication of more than $827 million in federal stimulus money that has been spent in the state so far this year. But more significant is the money still...more working its way through the economy, said Jill Satran, Gov. Chris Gregoire's main adviser on stimulus projects.

Higher demand for government services, particularly health programs, is pushing Washington's state budget deeper into the red amid the lingering recession.

The state is receiving $672 million in federal stimulus money that state officials say will help offset budget cuts in the K-12 education system.

The campaign against expanding the state's domestic partnership law is challenging the wording of its potential ballot measure. A petition to amend the referendum language was filed Tuesday in Thurston County Superior Court by Larry Stickney, who is president of the Washington Values Alliance.

Gov. Chris Gregoire approved the state's $35 billion two-year operating budget on Tuesday, calling the slash-and-burn spending plan a "necessary evil" that manages to protect education programs while the state waits out a deep recession.

Gov. Chris Gregoire has given the official OK for higher university tuition. Gregoire signed the bill Monday as part of the plan for fixing an estimated $9 billion state budget shortfall through 2011.

The new law, which takes effect Jan. 1, limits the size of a payday loan to 30 percent of a person's monthly income, or $700, whichever is less. It also bars people from having multiple loans from different lenders, and sets up a database to track the number of loans taken out by people.