The Tri-Cities are three closely linked cities at the confluence of the Yakima, Snake, and Columbia Rivers in the Columbia Basin of Eastern Washington. The cities border one another, making the Tri-Cities seem like one uninterrupted mid-sized city. The three cities function as the center of the Tri-Cities metropolitan area, which consists of Benton and Franklin counties. The Tri-Cities urban area consists of the city of West Richland, the census-designated places (CDP) of West Pasco, Washington and Finley, as well as the CDP of Burbank, despite the latter being located in Walla Walla County.
Cave Junction is a city in Josephine County, Oregon, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 1,995. Its motto is the "Gateway to the Oregon Caves", and the city got its name by virtue of its location at the junction of Redwood Highway and Caves Highway. Cave Junction is located in the Illinois Valley, where, starting in the 1850s, the non-native economy depended on gold mining. After World War II, timber became the main source of income for residents. As timber income has since declined, Cave Junction is attempting to compensate with tourism and as a haven for retirees. Tourists visit the Oregon Caves National Monument and Preserve, which includes the Oregon Caves Chateau, as well as the Out'n'About treehouse resort and the Great Cats World Park zoo.
The Metropolitan Area Express (MAX) is a light rail system serving the Portland metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Oregon. Owned and operated by TriMet, it consists of five lines that together connect the six sections of Portland; the communities of Beaverton, Clackamas, Gresham, Hillsboro, Milwaukie, and Oak Grove; and Portland International Airport to Portland City Center. Trains run seven days a week with headways of between 30 minutes off-peak and three minutes during rush hours. In 2019, MAX had an average daily ridership of 120,900, or 38.8 million annually. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which impacted public transit use globally, annual ridership plummeted, with only 14.8 million riders recorded in 2021.
The Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon (TriMet) is a public agency that operates mass transit in a region that spans most of the Portland metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Oregon. Created in 1969 by the Oregon legislature, the district replaced five private bus companies that operated in the three counties: Multnomah, Washington, and Clackamas. TriMet started operating a light rail system, MAX, in 1986, which has since been expanded to five lines that now cover 59.7 miles (96.1 km), as well as the WES Commuter Rail line in 2009. It also provides the operators and maintenance personnel for the city of Portland-owned Portland Streetcar system. In 2022, the system had a ridership of 53,889,500, or about 196,100 per weekday as of the third quarter of 2023.
The Hawthorne Bridge is a truss bridge with a vertical lift that spans the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon, joining Hawthorne Boulevard and Madison Street. It is the oldest vertical-lift bridge in operation in the United States and the oldest highway bridge in Portland. It is also the busiest bicycle and transit bridge in Oregon, with over 8,000 cyclists and 800 TriMet buses daily. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in November 2012.
State Route 509 (SR 509) is a 35.17-mile-long (56.60 km) state highway in the U.S. state of Washington, connecting Tacoma in Pierce County to Seattle in King County. The highway travels north from Interstate 705 (I-705) in Tacoma to SR 99 south of downtown Seattle. It serves cities along the Puget Sound and west of Seattle–Tacoma International Airport in south King County, including Federal Way, Des Moines, and Burien. SR 509 is part of the National Highway System and is a limited-access highway near the Port of Tacoma and from Burien to its northern terminus in Seattle.
State Route 18 (SR 18) is a 28.41-mile-long (45.72 km) state highway in the U.S. state of Washington, serving southeastern King County. The highway travels northeast, primarily as a controlled-access freeway, from an intersection with SR 99 and an interchange with Interstate 5 (I-5) in Federal Way through the cities of Auburn, Kent, Covington, and Maple Valley. SR 18 becomes a two-lane rural highway near Tiger Mountain as it approaches its eastern terminus, an interchange with I-90 near the cities of Snoqualmie and North Bend.
The MAX Blue Line is a light rail service in Portland, Oregon, United States, operated by TriMet as part of the MAX Light Rail system. It travels east–west for approximately 33 miles (53 km)—the longest in the network—between Hillsboro, Beaverton, Portland, and Gresham and serves 48 stations from Hatfield Government Center to Cleveland Avenue. The line carried an average 55,370 riders each day on weekdays in September 2018, the busiest of the five MAX lines. It runs for 221⁄2 hours per day from Monday to Thursday, with headways of between 30 minutes off-peak and five minutes during rush hour. Service runs later in the evening on Fridays and Saturdays and ends earlier on Sundays.
The MAX Red Line is a light rail service in Portland, Oregon, United States, operated by TriMet as part of the MAX Light Rail system. An airport rail link, it connects Beaverton, Portland City Center and Northeast Portland to Portland International Airport. The Red Line serves 26 stations; it interlines with the Blue Line and partially with the Green Line from Beaverton Transit Center to Gateway/Northeast 99th Avenue Transit Center and then branches to the 5.5-mile (8.9 km) Airport MAX segment to Portland Airport station. Its trains run for 22 hours per day with headways of up to 15 minutes. The Red Line carried an average 10,310 passengers per weekday in September 2021, the second-busiest MAX service after the Blue Line.
The MAX Yellow Line is a light rail service in Portland, Oregon, United States, operated by TriMet as part of the MAX Light Rail system. It connects North Portland to Portland City Center and Portland State University (PSU) with 17 stops from Expo Center station to PSU South/Southwest 6th and College station. The line travels from Portland Expo Center in the north, south to the Rose Quarter through a 5.8-mile (9.3 km) light rail segment along the median of Interstate Avenue. From the Rose Quarter, it crosses the Willamette River via the Steel Bridge and enters downtown Portland, where it operates as a northbound-only service of the Portland Transit Mall on 6th Avenue. Service runs for approximately 21 hours daily with a headway of 15 minutes during most of the day.
The East Bay Times is a daily broadsheet newspaper based in Walnut Creek, California, United States, owned by the Bay Area News Group (BANG), a subsidiary of Media News Group, that serves Contra Costa and Alameda counties, in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. It was founded as the Contra Costa Times, and took its current name in 2016 when it was merged with other sister papers in the East Bay. Its oldest merged title is the Oakland Tribune founded in 1874.
The Westside Express Service (WES) is a commuter rail line in the U.S. state of Oregon serving parts of Washington and Clackamas counties in the Portland metropolitan area. Owned by TriMet and operated by Portland & Western Railroad (P&W), the line is 14.7 miles (23.7 km) long and travels north–south from Beaverton to Wilsonville along a route just west of Oregon Highway 217 and Interstate 5 (I-5). WES consists of five stations and connects with MAX Light Rail at Beaverton Transit Center. Service operates on a 45-minute headway on weekdays during the morning and evening rush hours. In Spring 2022, WES saw a daily ridership of 420 passengers or about 109,000 riders annually.
State Route 397 (SR 397) is a state highway in the U.S. state of Washington, serving the Tri-Cities region. It primarily functions as a truck route through industrial areas in Finley, Kennewick, and Pasco, running 22 miles (35 km) between junctions with Interstate 82 (I-82) and I-182. The highway crosses the Columbia River on the Cable Bridge, built in 1978 to replace an earlier bridge.
Swift Communications Inc. is an American digital marketing and newspaper publishing company based in Carson City, Nevada. Swift's primary markets are resort town tabloid newspapers and websites as well as agricultural publications. Swift Communications has been noted for "being outside of the mainstream" and "drawing national attention inside the industry" for disabling commenting and implementing paywalls on most of its online newspaper's websites. Many of Swift's newspapers are heavily composed of paid advertorial "sponsored content".
Stephens Media LLC was a Las Vegas, Nevada, United States, diversified media investment company. It owned stakes in the California Newspapers Partnership and the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette.
U.S. Route 12 is a major east–west U.S. Highway, running from Aberdeen, Washington, to Detroit, Michigan. It spans 430.8 miles across the state of Washington, making it the second longest highway in the state. It is also the only numbered highway to span the entire state from west to east, starting near the Pacific Ocean, and crossing the Idaho state line near Clarkston. It crosses the Cascade Range over White Pass, south of Mount Rainier National Park. Portions of it are concurrent with Interstate 5 (I-5) and Interstate 82 (I-82), although the majority of the route does not parallel any interstate highway.
The 2022 Washington Secretary of State special election was held on November 8, 2022. Incumbent Kim Wyman, a Republican, resigned from the office on November 19, 2021, to become the senior election security lead for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in the Biden administration's Department of Homeland Security. Washington governor Jay Inslee, a Democrat, announced he would appoint state senator Steve Hobbs as her replacement, the first Democrat to hold the office in more than fifty years.
