Latest Washington Headlines
All the headlines from our Washington Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Obama Product Safety Chief Tenenbaum Returns to South Carolina
Dec 6 2013 // After four years in Washington as the nation’s products safety czar, Inez Tenenbaum is coming home to the Columbia area, her life changed in ways large and small. “Now I’m always giving advice unsolicited...
Lawsuits Challenging Obamacare Cite Religion, Tax Issues
Dec 5 2013 // Hours after the University of Notre Dame filed a religious challenge to the U.S. health-care overhaul in Indiana federal court, a judge in Washington heard arguments in a lawsuit assailing tax provisions of the...
Flood of Regulations Coming from Obama Administration
Dec 5 2013 // Over the next 12 months, the Obama administration is due to issue regulations governing everything from e-cigarettes to smoke-stack emissions in what experts predict will be a second-term rush to put rules in place before...
Metro-North Crash Seen Thwarting Delay of Automatic Braking
Dec 4 2013 // The deadly train derailment in New York City may force railroads to install automatic brakes by 2015 and dash industry efforts to put off adding the technology by five years. The Metro-North Railroad wreck may persuade...
50-Plus Tornadoes Pummel Midwest in Late Season Outbreak
Dec 2 2013 // In a rare late season outbreak, more than 50 tornadoes blasted across Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio. on Nov. 17. Preliminary estimates by the catastrophe modeling firm RMS put insured losses from the...
States, Insurers Working on Ways to Bypass Obamacare Federal Exchange
Nov 21 2013 // States and insurers are already working to bail out President Barack Obama’s healthcare overhaul, anticipating the system’s online insurance exchanges may not be ready by a critical December deadline. All of...
Forecasters: Illinois Twister Had Winds of Up to 190 mph
Nov 19 2013 // National Weather Service said a tornado that struck the central Illinois community of Washington had winds between 170 and 190 miles per hour. The meteorologists said that the storm had a preliminary rating of an EF-4. The...
Car Makers Offered Relaxed Regulation for Installing Ignition Lock Tied to Seat Belt Use
Nov 19 2013 // A U.S. regulator’s offer to relax auto safety rules for manufacturers that install technology to prevent drivers from starting a car unless seatbelts are fastened drew swift opposition from safety advocates. Cars...
Storms Sweep Across Illinois, Kill at Least 5, Delay Flights
Nov 18 2013 // Tornadoes and thunderstorms swept through a 300-mile stretch of Illinois and other Midwestern states, killing at least five people, damaging hundreds of homes and disrupting air travel at O’Hare International...
D.C. Insurance Commissioner Dismissed After Questioning Obamacare Fix: Reports
Nov 18 2013 // Washington, D.C.’s commissioner for the department of insurance, securities and banking, William P. White, was dismissed last Friday, a day after questioning the White House’s proposal to let health insurers...
Washington Driver Blames ‘Gorilla’ For Causing Crash
Nov 18 2013 // A Spokane, Wash., woman who wound up with a totaled car, a broken collarbone and a $550 ticket blames her post-Halloween crash on a person in a gorilla suit who she says jumped in front of her car. Hailey Wulz said she...
Obamacare Banking on Enrollment Surge Near Deadlines
Nov 14 2013 // Almost 1 million people who applied for health care on the government insurance exchanges last month left without choosing a plan, a pipeline of potential customers the Obama administration must persuade to return. While...
Washington Apple Crop Tops $2B in Sales
Nov 11 2013 // An apple a day may not keep the doctor away, but it sure lines the pockets of Washington’s apple growers. Apples were worth more than $2 billion to Washington farmers in 2012, the first crop in state history to cross...
Washington Driver Blames ‘Gorilla’ For Causing Crash
Nov 6 2013 // A Spokane, Wash., woman who wound up with a totaled car, a broken collarbone and a $550 ticket blames her post-Halloween crash on a person in a gorilla suit who she says jumped in front of her car. Hailey Wulz told KREM-TV...
PLUS Conference: Global Risks, Governance and Hypocrisy
Nov 5 2013 // America’s European allies are being hypocritical in their complaints about the U.S. spying on them because they all have their own surveillance programs, according to two former top officials in the Clinton...
Thousands Without Power After Pacific West Wind Storm
Nov 4 2013 // Thousands of people were without power as of Sunday evening in Washington state following Saturday’s wind storm. The storm knocked out power to about 150,000 people in the Puget Sound region. About 10,000 were still...
Courts Split Over Health Care Law Birth Control Coverage Mandate
Nov 4 2013 // A requirement of President Barack Obama’s health care law that group insurance plans cover contraceptives may violate religious freedom, a U.S. appeals court said, widening a split among the circuits and making it...
Washington City Braces For Increased Flood Risks
Oct 31 2013 // New information shows sediment buildup in the White River is increasing the flood danger faced by the city of Pacific, Wash. The King County Flood Control District, in cooperation with Pacific and the U.S. Army Corps of...
After JPMorgan $13B Deal, Banks Seek Protections in Future Bailouts
Oct 24 2013 // As the U.S. government closes in on a $13 billion settlement with JPMorgan Chase & Co. over its mortgage practices, lawyers specializing in bank mergers are looking for ways to protect their clients from big losses in...
Washington Metro Settles Lawsuit Against Aon Stemming From 2009 Crash
Oct 23 2013 // The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (Metro) has agreed to settle a lawsuit against its insurance broker that stemmed from the 2009 red line crash that killed nine people. After the crash, Metro sued...
