Washington's economic recovery will depend on small business. 
That message is driven home in the newly updated Washington Small Business Profile released this week by the Office of Advocacy of the U.S. Small Business Administration. 
The most recent data show that the state has 147,948 small employers, and they employ 98.2 percent of the state's workforce.
"Washington depends on small business for jobs and economic growth....

Victims of recent severe winter storms, landslides, mudslides, and flooding in Washington may qualify for tax relief from the Internal Revenue Service.
Following severe winter storms, landslides, mudslides, and flooding on Jan. 6, 2009, the President declared King, Lewis, Mason, Pacific, Pierce, Snohomish, Thurston and Wahkiakum counties a federal disaster area qualifying for individual assistance.
As a result, the IRS is ...

Despite voting down this same bill a week ago, Congress has now voted to approve a bill that will move the digital television transition deadline from Feb. 17 to June 12. President Obama is expected to sign the legislation.
Procrastinators beware: national deadlines don't matter -- many television stations may be switching over within the next few weeks no matter what Congress says, because delaying the switch to all-digital will cost stations money.
Under the law, television stations will still be allowed to make the switch early, requiring televisions without digital receivers, cable or satellite service to attach a digital converter box to the analogue antennae....

On 1/29/2009 President Obama signed into law the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act which expands the time period in which employees can pursue discrimination claims related to employment compensation. This will result in a substantial increase in the number of pay-related lawsuits. Support for the law began after the bill's namesake, Lilly Ledbetter, filed suit against her former employer claiming that she was paid less money than equally qualified, and in some cases lesser qualified, men over a span of almost 20 years....

Portland Trailblazer and University of Washington Basketball star Brandon Roy saw his #3 jersey officially retired Thursday, Jan. 22 at the Washington vs. USC game. He met with some 200 fans at Niketown in downtown Seattle beforehand, including current players from his high school alma mater, Garfield, above. Roy is only the second player in UW basketball history to have his number retired. The Huskies beat USC 78 to 73.
Photo by Susan Fried

Although Congress attempted to delay the digital television transition from  Feb. 17 to June 12, television stations told The Skanner they never planned to wait. That's because delaying the switch to all-digital would have cost stations a lot of money... it would cost the Public Broadcasting Service $22 million to put off the transition until June. Officials had already stepped in to help unprepared consumers ....

For nearly 150 years, the autobiography of William Grimes sat in relative obscurity on the shelves of a New Haven, Connecticut Historical Society.
It wasn't until the late 1990s when Regina Mason, the great-great-great-granddaughter of Grimes uncovered her familial link with a man who had chronicled his life's story as a freed slave nearly four decades before the Emancipation Proclamation was signed.
Mason speaks about her new reissue of the book, "Life of William Grimes: the Runaway Slave ...

The Skanner News Group is currently building a major expansion and redesign of this website, and a new street version of The Skanner ... The Seattle and Portland print editions will merge into one publication, and this website will also be reorganized as a resource for the readers in communities throughout the Pacific Northwest....

What's happening for you in Seattle this week? Read here a day-by-day diary of free community events to fill your spare time. For a full calendar please click on "Read the complete article" below….

Larry Evans, the father of a T.T. Minor student, joined several hundred parents, students and teachers Sunday, Jan. 25 at a march and rally at the school to stop the school closures set to be finalized Jan. 29 by Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson. Larry Evans' daughter has already had to change schools once — she moved to T.T. Minor following the closure of Martin Luther King Elementary School in 2006....
Photo by Susan Fried