A Heavy Snow Is Gonna Fall: "Another round of heavy snow pummeled the Cascades early Thursday, raising avalanche danger throughout the mountains and closing mountain-pass highways," the Seattle Times reports. "In Seattle, [National Weather Service meteorologist Doug McDonnal] said, there’s one word for conditions: Wet. 'In the Seattle area, we’ve had basically anywhere from a third to two-thirds of an inch rain overnight and we’re going to get another probably half- to an inch of rain for the rest of today and tonight,' he said. Flooding is not forecast, McDonnal said, but with so much precipitation, small landslides are possible. The warm front will slowly grind its way through Seattle, and rain will begin to taper off Friday." (Meanwhile, on the East Coast...)

Where Did All the Lunch Hours Go? Susan Kelleher looks at "how we choose to save money, time eating at our bacteria-infested desks."

Bundy Go Home: "The leader of an armed group who took over a national wildlife refuge in Southeastern Oregon weeks ago joined hundreds of area residents at a tense community meeting — listening quietly as many loudly chanted at him to 'go,'" the Associated Press reports. "Ammon Bundy, who has been trying to drum up support for his cause, didn’t speak at Tuesday night’s meeting in Burns where residents discussed the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge which began earlier this month."

Report Criticizes Gates Foundation Spending Priorities: "The foundation’s emphasis on vaccines, technological solutions and specific diseases undermines support for basic health systems in poor nations, argues the report’s publisher, Global Justice Now, a U.K. group with 60,000 members that advocates for more just policies around trade, food and energy," writes Sandi Doughton.

McDermott Wants to Replace McDermott: "Joe McDermott—who was just selected to chair the King County Council—has made official what we've all been expecting," Heidi Groover reports. "He's running for the seat in the U.S. House of Representatives currently held by Jim McDermott."

Should Our State Parks Really Be Run Like Businesses? The State Legislature seems to think so, and you'd trust people like this to tell other people what to do, right? Well, anyway, as the Seattle Times reports: "With a directive from the Legislature to generate more revenue and rely less on the state’s general fund, the parks agency plans to overhaul its archaic reservation system to function, in some aspects, like the commercial lodging industry — offering last-minute discounts and creating a customer database to attract repeat visitors. The agency is already adding dozens of cabins in parks where overnight rentals were already popular, and expects to build even more around Western Washington."

The Similarities Between the Seattle and Boston Priest Abuse Cases: “The similarities between what happened in the Boston Archdiocese and Seattle Archdiocese are striking,” attorney Michael Pfau told KUOW. “They have roughly the same number of credibly accused priests, but Boston is a much larger Catholic community with a lot more priests. The same patterns of moving abusive priests from one parish to another without warning parents and parishioners.”

Here's An Idea: Make Boeing's Record Tax Break Contingent on Creating Washington State Jobs: "A group of Democratic lawmakers in the Washington House of Representatives is trying again to link Boeing’s tax break to the number of jobs the company keeps in the state," KPLU reports. "This time, they’ve won support from two Republicans: Rep. Cary Condotta, who represents the Wenatchee area, and Rep. Richard DeBolt from Chehalis. Boeing’s two biggest unions have pushed for this bill because the company has been shedding jobs ever since the state extended its aerospace tax breaks in late 2013. Boeing’s workforce in Washington state has shrunk by about 4,000 positions." (Remember: the tax break in question is "the largest state-tax subsidy granted to a private company in American history.")

Raise the Smoking Age to 21? "Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson is renewing his push to raise the smoking and vaping age to 21," Austin Jenkins reports. "The Democrat announced the bipartisan effort Wednesday at a Capitol news conference. Ferguson says a change in the law would save lives and health care costs."

Where Today's Slaves Work: "A 2014 report by the United Nations estimates that tens of millions of people in the world are currently enslaved," NPR reports. "Most of them are in the developing world, where they work in mines, quarries or shrimp farms for no money and without hope of escape. Slavery is the complete control of one person by another, and violence is used to maintain that control in all forms of slavery," author Kevin Bales explains to Fresh Air's Dave Davies. 'The adults in that situation know that if they attempt to leave, they may be killed.'"

And Bernie Sanders's Closing Ad in Iowa: