2-vote difference in a state Senate race

By Bill Lucia | Editor

By Jake Goldstein-Street

The race in the 42nd District is for the Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Sharon Shewmake, D-Bellingham, who isn’t seeking reelection. The district has trended blue in recent years, but Republicans have still eyed it as territory where they could possibly flip a seat. Creydt, a psychologist and school board member, has 44.7% of the primary vote.

Shepard has many union endorsements, as well as the backing of Shewmake and party establishment figures. He has also benefited from $7,000 in independent mailers supporting his campaign from the Jackson Legacy Fund, a business-friendly group that tries to elect moderate Democrats. “I think we have two great candidates in this race on the Democratic side,” he said Thursday.

Collins previously served as a policy adviser in the U.S. Senate and appears to be the preferred candidate of the left. He has support from the Washington Federation of State Employees and the district Democratic Party. He told the Standard Thursday he’s confident he’ll overtake Shepard when all the votes are counted. He also said that when he got into the race, “exceptionally few people thought I had a chance against the Senate Democratic Caucus’ anointed successor.”

By Carolyn Jones

The Trump administration appears poised to gut the central policies that shape Head Start, a popular and long-established early childhood education program that serves the country’s neediest children.

The Department of Health and Human Services announced the changes Thursday.

The federal Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs posted a notice that it intends to “significantly reduce regulatory requirements” for Head Start, effectively stripping the program of the unique features that have defined it since its creation in the mid-1960s.

The agency doesn’t specify exact cuts, but reports indicate it could be most of the program’s standards and guidelines. That may include low student-to-teacher ratios, minimum teacher qualifications, and stipulations that Head Start accept all income-eligible children regardless of whether they’re disabled or if their parents are citizens.

By Shauneen Miranda

President Donald Trump is urging Republican senators to pass a measure making daylight saving time permanent nationwide. A bipartisan bill passed the House in July but faces hurdles in the Senate, where members from both parties have pushed back against ending the semiannual clock changes. “People are sick and tired of having to change their clocks twice a year,” Trump wrote in a social media post Tuesday night, adding that “it is foolish, inconvenient and, in some cases, very costly.” 

By Ariana Figueroa

President Donald Trump on Thursday signed two executive orders in his second attempt to deny citizenship to babies born to noncitizens, following the Supreme Court’s defeat this summer of an earlier order to redefine birthright citizenship. One of the orders aims to end so-called birth tourism, the practice of foreign nationals traveling to the U.S. only for the purpose of giving birth in order to obtain citizenship for the baby.  Both of the new orders are likely to face swift legal challenges, possibly all the way to the Supreme Court again. Washington was among the states that sued over Trump’s initial order seeking to end birthright citizenship.

ICYMI

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