Washington attorney general has gone 15-0 against the Trump administration in federal court decisions
Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson takes great pride in his legal staff, but he credits President Donald Trump with much of the state’s recent success in suing the federal government.
Speaking to a packed house at Washington State University’s Foley Institute on Thursday, Ferguson said the Trump administration’s frequent defeats in the federal court system the past two years stem largely from its own inability or unwillingness to follow the letter of the law. The Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy and Public Service is administered through the School of Politics, Philosophy, and Public Affairs in the College of Arts and Sciences at WSU.
“This [Trump] administration doesn’t go through a very rigorous process of review before taking action,” he said.
Washington State University’s slogan is “World Class. Face to Face.”
Bennefield
And the Cougar marching band proved it Friday night, led by Troy Bennefield, assistant professor of music and director of athletic bands.
When the University of Washington marching band bus crashed on Interstate 90 outside of George, Wash., the night before the 111th Apple Cup, causing minor injuries to 47 of the 56 people on board, it was no secret Cougs would be there to pick up UW’s slack in their absence.
And they did.
Leading up to Friday’s kickoff between No. 7 Washington State and No. 16 Washington, the Cougar marching band was hard at work, putting together their own musical gameplan. Band members showed up several hours before the game to rehearse UW’s anthem, “Bow Down to Washington.”
With less than a day’s notice, the band in crimson and gray carried the purple tune in a wet, white blanket of Pullman snow.
The Cougar marching band put aside their Husky hatred and practiced the Husky harmony. The band formed a giant “W” on WSU’s football field to represent their rivals from across the state.
Washington State University scientists, led by Andrew Storfer, an evolutionary geneticist and WSU professor of biology, have discovered genes and other genetic variations that appear to be involved in cancerous tumors shrinking in Tasmanian devils.
Their research is an important first step towards understanding what is causing devil facial tumor disease, a nearly 100 percent fatal and contagious form of cancer, to go away in a small percentage of Tasmanian devils and could have implications for treating cancer in humans and other mammals as well.
Mark Margres
“Some of the genes we think have a role in tumor regression in Tasmanian devils are also shared by humans,” said Mark Margres, a former WSU postdoctoral researcher now at Clemson University who is part of an international team of researchers studying devil facial tumor disease led by Storfer.
“While still in a very early stage, this research could eventually help in the development of drugs that elicit the tumor regression response in devils, humans and other mammals that don’t have this necessary genetic variation,” Margres said.
For the last decade, Storfer’s team has been investigating how some Tasmanian devil populations are evolving genetic resistance to devil facial tumor disease that could help the species avoid extinction.
Tasmanian devils have been pushed to the brink of extinction by the rapid spread of devil facial tumor disease, one of only four known forms of transmissible cancer and by far the deadliest. Since it was first documented in 1996, the disease has wiped out an estimated 80 percent of devils in Tasmania, the only place in the world where the animals live.
The rise of wind and solar power, coupled with the increasing social, environmental and financial costs of hydropower projects, could spell the end of an era of big dams. But even anti-dam activists say it’s too early to declare the demise of large-scale hydro.
The International Hydropower Association (IHA)—which represents dam planners, builders, and owners in more than 100 countries—touts dams as a clean technology, but that’s not quite true: Many reservoirs emit substantial amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas released by decomposing vegetation and other organic matter that collect in oxygen-poor reservoirs.
John Harrison
A 2016 study in BioScience found that methane emissions from reservoirs constitute 1.3 percent all of global human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, and the highest-emitting reservoirs rival coal-fired power plants. It is commonly assumed that methane emissions occur chiefly in shallow, tropical reservoirs, as if it’s a problem for only a small number of dam projects. But according to John Harrison, a professor at Washington State University’s School of the Environment and one of the study’s authors, “There is strong and growing evidence that temperate reservoirs can produce methane at rates comparable to those reported from tropical reservoirs.”
Even so, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which sets standards for measuring nations’ greenhouse gas emissions, doesn’t include reservoir emissions in its calculations; the IPCC is considering changing that policy next year. Growing understanding of the factors causing reservoir-generated methane could at least guide decisions about siting dams, avoiding places certain to produce high emissions.
Marina Tolmacheva, WSU professor emerita of history and an expert in Islamic and world history, has been awarded a four‑month Fulbright Fellowship to teach and consult on academic development at KIMEP University in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Tolmacheva recently began teaching courses on Central Asian history in the context of world history to graduate and undergraduate students at KIMEP, a North American‑style independent university, formerly known as Kazakhstan Institute of Management, Economics and Strategic Research. While in Almaty, she also is teaching graduate students in history at Al‑Farabi National University (KazNU).
“For my lectures, I’m drawing from my many years in teaching interdisciplinary and world history at WSU, as well as my research in broad Islamic cultural history, including women’s history and historiography of Central Asia,” she said. A native speaker of Russian, one of Kazakhstan’s official languages, she is teaching primarily in English.
Tolmacheva’s additional experience in academic development and assessment at WSU and universities overseas also informs her work with KIMEP administrators who are seeking to infuse a global perspective into their Central Asian Studies and General Education curricula.
“Whether it is consulting on matters of curriculum reform, developing student-centered pedagogy or interacting with colleagues and students, I want to help make positive change,” she said.
