Tom Banse
Tom Banse covers national news, business, science, public policy, Olympic sports and human interest stories from across the Northwest. He reports from well known and out–of–the–way places in the region where important, amusing, touching, or outrageous events are unfolding. Tom's stories can be found online and heard on-air during "Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered" on NPR stations in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.
Before taking his current beat, Tom covered state government and the Washington Legislature for 12 years. He got his start in radio at WCAL–FM, a public station in southern Minnesota. Reared in Seattle, Tom graduated from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota with a degree in American Studies.
When not sifting through press releases, listening to lobbyists, or driving lonely highways, Tom enjoys exploring the Olympic Peninsula backcountry and cooking dinner with his wife and friends. Tom's secret ambition is to take six months off work and travel to a faraway place beyond the reach of email.
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The space agency NASA has chosen a small Tillamook-based aerospace company to design and test robotic balloons for future scientific exploration of... -
The Pacific Northwest might seem like an unlikely place for mermaid culture to catch on, given the cold water here. Yet, putting on an eye-catching tail and pretending to be a mythical sea being is a thing across the Northwest.
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Small ship cruise lines are pressing ahead with plans to restart overnight cruises on the Columbia and Snake rivers, around Puget Sound and in Alaska.
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The brief, widespread beachings of "gazillions" of purplish-blue jellyfish along the Pacific Northwest coast create a memorable sight for those who chance to be in the right place at the right time.
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This coming Sunday, March 21, will mark one year since the U.S. and Canada closed their shared border to nonessential crossings due to the pandemic. But every weekend, rain or shine, Peace Arch State Park in Blaine, Washington, becomes a meetup point for couples and families separated by the northern border.
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Residents of the Pacific Northwest will have to set their clocks ahead by an hour this weekend to move onto daylight saving time. The Oregon and Washington legislatures voted nearly two years ago to stay on daylight time year-round -- joined later by Idaho and British Columbia -- but still the biannual time change ritual and associated grumbling persists.
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Smartphone users who opted in to a test of the West Coast earthquake early warning system got an early taste last week of what is to come.
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Rescheduled fall sports seasons for high school athletes are kicking off this month in large parts of Washington state and Oregon. The general happiness this brought came with a dose of consternation among some coaches and families over strict COVID-19 safety guidelines set down by state health authorities.
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Bringing back sea otters to the Oregon Coast just got a high-level endorsement. The federal budget for this new year, which President Trump signed after...
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Bringing back sea otters to the Oregon Coast just got a high-level endorsement. The federal budget for this new year, which President Trump signed after some unrelated last-minute drama, includes a directive to study sea otter reintroduction.
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A new government report on high speed rail in the Pacific Northwest recommends that Oregon, Washington and British Columbia formalize their interest in a Cascadia bullet train by creating an independent body to plan and eventually build it.
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The pandemic has forced many information workers out of the office and into working from home. As these workers realize their jobs no longer require them to live in the cities where their employers are based, this had led to a real estate boom in scenic rural areas in the Northwest.
