Ross Reynolds

Yesterday in Olympia the House Judiciary Committee passed a bill that would compensate people who served time in prison for crimes they didn’t commit and were exonerated of. The exonerated people would be given $50,000 for each year spent behind bars. This isn’t the first time this legislation has been proposed but it is the first time that it has bipartisan support. Ross Reynolds takes a closer look at the bill and who it's intended to help.

Nationally the private sector added 5 million jobs since a low point in June of 2009. But during that same time period the public sector cut 721,000 jobs. What effect is the shrinking public sector having on the economy? And what’s the story here in Washington state?

This week the International Olympic Committee announced a plan to drop wrestling from the 2020 summer games. But there's some chance the drop could still be stopped. Ross Reynolds interviews former Olympic wrestler Ivan Ivanov who is now based in Idaho, and Seattle Times columnist Ron Judd.

According to a 2012 study by the CDC, Washington had the seventh highest rate of home births in the country. Overall, home births have been on the rise since 2004. But as of 2009 they still represented less than 1 percent of total births in the United States.

Despite recent disagreements over gun control proposals in the state legislature, a few Democrats and Republicans are coming together to support one bill that would require background checks for all firearms transactions in Washington.

Is tipping the best way to compensate people? Would you rather people get tipped or get paid higher wages? And is 25 percent the new 20 percent? KUOW’s Ross Reynolds takes your phone calls.

Washington state is in the process of changing the language in state law to make it more gender neutral. Policemen are now police officers, for instance, and freshmen will become first-year students. Supporters say the change is needed because language matters. Critics say the changes are a waste of money. Ross Reynolds interviews University of Washington Sociolinguist Crispin Thurlow, and we take your phone calls.

This week we’ve been taking a closer look at the battle over how to improve state education.  Today we get another perspective from Mary Lindquist, president of the state’s largest teachers' union, the Washington Education Association.

The Mechanical Turk was a fake chess playing robot that fooled Napoleon and Benjamin Franklin. Today the Mechanical Turk is a service Amazon provides, linking workers with people who need tasks done. Some pay as little as a penny. Critics call Mechanical Turk a digital sweatshop. Ross Reynolds talks with Jonathan Zittrain, co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, about working for points, Mechanical Turk and artificial-artificial intelligence.

According to the Migration Policy Institute as of 2011, 13.3 percent of Washington’s population was born in another country. Today on The Conversation, Ross Reynolds hears stories about traveling to the US in search of a new home.