A dozen protesters affiliated with the Service Employees International Union occupied the state Office of Administrative Hearings in Vancouver Tuesday and staged a sit-down strike at closing time Tuesday to protest recent state cuts to in-home care.

The state supplemental transportation budgets proposed by the Senate and House include funding for Southwest Washington highway projects, including the plan to replace the Interstate 5 bridge over the Columbia River.

WASHOUGAL — It’s $1.75 for a standard-size top loader, $3.50 for a big front loader and $4.50 for a superloader. Then, it’s 25 cents for a meager seven minutes of drying time, which is never close to enough. Plus, there’s detergent. Add it all up, and the price of doing your laundry is as much as a decent meal or a gas tank top-off.

Pete, a 24-year-old eastern black rhinoceros and one of the most popular animals at the Oregon Zoo, was euthanized Tuesday due to advanced kidney failure.

A public hearing draws a crowd of 100, mostly employees of two hospice providers at odds over a proposal to build a second inpatient hospice center in Clark County.

The 1-800-GET-THIN marketing campaign and its affiliated surgical centers, which implant the Lap-Band for weight-loss, are being investigated by local, state and federal authorities. At least three wrongful death lawsuits have been filed and the Department of Insurance has launched an investigation into allegations of insurance fraud.

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A little more than a year ago, NPR launched the Road Back to Work series, following six people in St. Louis who started 2011 unemployed and were searching for work. Like so many Americans, the people we followed have had difficulty getting health coverage, even after returning to work.

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County's largest inpatient substance abuse facility to remain open.

The "Portlandia" spoof, "Vancouvria," already put a flag on it, so our love for gas-guzzling SUVs was bound to come next.

Virginia state legislators passed a bill requiring women to receive an ultrasound — which is conducted via transvaginal probe in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy — before having an abortion. Dahlia Lithwick, senior editor for Slate magazine, calls the proposed law "an abomination."

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