Washington 639 articles

U.S. traffic deaths exceeded 40,000 in 2018, the third year in a row that the number of people killed in traffic accidents surpassed the 40k mark. Additionally, 4.5 million people were seriously injured last year in traffic crashes, a 1-percent rise over 2017’s figures, according to the National Safety Council (NSC). Although data shows that traffic deaths have dipped slightly since 2016 (40,327 deaths) and 2017 (40,231 deaths), the estimated 40,000 people killed in 2018 is still 14 percent higher than four years ago. The spikes in traffic deaths were found in Florida, Hawaii, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, Oregon, Pennsylvania ... Read More

The notorious Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Southeastern Washington has been mired in fraud and corruption for decades, ever since the U.S. government started paying contractors billions of dollars to clean up and convert 56 million gallons of radioactive sludge. On Feb. 8, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it has lodged a False Claims Act lawsuit against Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed Martin, alleging the company and its executives used a $232 million support contract for nuclear waste disposal to enrich themselves. According to federal prosecutors, Lockheed Martin engaged in a fraudulent kickback scheme by paying more than $1 million to ... Read More

A Seattle jury ordered Ride the Ducks International and its Seattle operator to pay the victims of a deadly 2015 duck boat bus crash and their families $123 million in damages. The awards to the 42 plaintiffs in the case range from $40,000 to $25 million, with the highest award of about $26 million going to Phuong Dinh, a severely injured crash survivor. The crash occurred in September 2015 when the left-front axle broke on a World War II-era amphibious duck boat, sending the vehicle into oncoming traffic on Seattle’s Aurora Bridge. The duck boat crashed into a charter bus ... Read More

Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in anticipation of a tidal wave of litigation stemming from the Nov. 8 Camp Fire, which destroyed an entire town and killed 86 people. Bankruptcy court filings show that PG&E’s liabilities after the Camp Fire – the largest wildfire in the state’s history – have topped $50 billion while the utility’s assets are valued at about $71 billion, according to The Washington Post. The bankruptcy announcement has riled people throughout the state, including investors, government officials, and the general public. Likely to suffer most from the filing are the ... Read More

More than 100 cities have electric scooter services that provide convenient transportation especially in high-traffic areas. But many riders of the two-wheeled vehicles are landing in the emergency room, often for head injuries that could have been prevented had they been wearing a helmet. According to an observational study conducted by researchers with the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), about 40 percent of e-scooter riders treated at two southern California emergency departments suffered head injuries, but only 4.4 of them wore a helmet. Equally as troubling is that researchers also found that 182 of 193 e-scooter riders they observed ... Read More

University of Washington (UW) researchers have developed a cellphone app designed to detect when a person is overdosing from opioids and contact someone with naloxone to intervene. The app is intended to save people from opioid overdose, an epidemic that kills about 115 people each day. “We’re experiencing an unprecedented epidemic of deaths from opioid use, and it’s unfortunate because these overdoses are completely reversible phenomena if they’re detected in time,” said Dr. Jacob Sunshine, an assistant professor of anesthesiology and pain medicine at UW School of Medicine. The Second Chance app uses an algorithm that allows smart phones to ... Read More

Registration is now open for the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO)’s 15th annual International Asbestos Awareness and Prevention Conference, scheduled for April 5-7, 2019, in Washington, D.C. The conference brings together experts, survivors, unions and lawmakers from nearly 20 countries to connect and share the latest information about education, advocacy, and community support efforts to ban the mining, import, export, sale and use of asbestos in order to eliminate asbestos-related diseases like asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma, a rare but deadly form of cancer that develops in the lining of internal organs. The event is the only annual asbestos conference ... Read More

A construction worker died after falling about 12 feet and suffering impalement injuries at a downtown Miami Beach construction site Dec. 17. Authorities did not identify the 35-year-old construction worker but said he was a mason employed by the New Jersey-based Rinaldi Group, a general contractor with operations in New Jersey, New York, Florida and Arizona. Miami Beach Fire Rescue reported that the accident occurred about 9 a.m. when the construction worker fell backward from the third-story level where he was working to the second story and became impaled on two pieces of reinforcing bar. Miami Beach Fire Department Division ... Read More

A California farm linked to the E. coli-contaminated romaine lettuce that triggered a massive nationwide recall is now recalling other types of produce as a precaution. Adam Bros. Farming, Inc. of Santa Maria, California, said the new recalls include red leaf lettuce, green leaf lettuce, and cauliflower harvested on Nov. 27 through Nov. 30, 2018. Although none of the produce has tested positive for the E. coli strain associated with the outbreak (E. coli O157:H7) and no illnesses have been reported, the company says it’s voluntarily recalling the extra produce out of an abundance of caution. The recalled cauliflower was ... Read More

California resident Mason Kein is leading a group of angry consumers in a proposed class action lawsuit against Kellogg Co. for selling breakfast foods without revealing that they contain a possible cancer-causing chemical. Kein told the Southern District of California that testing by the nonprofit Environmental Working Group revealed that Kellogg Co.’s strawberry Nutrigrain Soft Baked Breakfast Bars and Cracklin’ Oat Bran cereal contain the herbicide glyphosate, a chemical deemed a “probable carcinogen” by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). Glyphosate is the same chemical found in Monsanto’s Roundup, the controversial weed killer that was ... Read More