State lawmakers on Thursday announced they would not hold a special session, which could provide school districts with a clearer picture of how they should arrange their budgets.

Earlier in the week, Seattle Public Schools spokesman David Tucker said one of the more significant proposals yet to be resolved was a bill that would have lifted the levy lid by 4 percent. The Legislature also sought to cut $60 million in school-levy equalization funding. Since lawmakers weren't able to get to those bills before the end of regular session on April 26, none of these changes will occur, at least for next school year.

Thanks to a bill signed into law today by Gov. Chris Gregoire, homeowners and renters will have a bit more time to before the bank foreclosures on their home. The new law requires that banks give owners 30 days notice before foreclosing. If there are renters in the building, the new owners must give tenants a written notice and 60 days to move out.

A bare-bones transportation budget was announced Wednesday by top-ranking Senators on the State Senate's Transportation Committee. The focus of the budget is to keep afloat high profile projects, such as the Alaskan Way Viaduct, the 520 projects and the ailing ferry system.

The state is facing a $514 million transportation shortfall for the 2009-11 biennial budget. The decline of funds is because the state gets the majority of its revenue for transportation projects from the state gas tax.

Prostitution and the Mercer Corridor project will be up for debate this week in the Seattle City Council.

Councilmember Tim Burgess wants anyone busted for patronizing a prostitute charged an additional $150 fee to cover the cost of john school to educate johns on the evils of prostitution.

No matter how you slice or dice the numbers Washington's economy is going to get worse before it gets better, according to a report today by the state's Economic and Revenue Forecast Council.

"We are witnessing an unprecedented economic crisis the likes of which, arguably, we have not seen since the Great Depression," ERFC Executive Director Arun Raha said during the quarterly revenue review in Olympia with legislators and the press. "That's not to say we're heading there, not by a long shot, but number two is not great either," he said while explaining his latest economic forecast showing a much weaker state economy than was predicted just a few weeks ago.

At a press conference this morning in Olympia, Gov. Chris Gregoire announced Washington's new $5 million online sex offender database to track the whereabouts of the 18,136 sex offenders living here. Well, the system actually knows the location of 13,254 convicted sex offenders, leaving 4,882 unaccounted for.

In Olympia, the state Senate passed a bill Wednesday to move forward on securing state funding to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct with a deep bore tunnel that Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels proposed this past January.

"We have a plan and it's time to move forward," said the bill's sponsor Sen. Ed Murray, D-Seattle.

Washington state Rep. Ross Hunter, D-Bellevue, wants to start taxing streaming online videos.

Hunter told the Seattle Times that watching a video online should be no different than renting a video at a video store, therefore, it should be taxed.

In Olympia, Senate Democrats are working on a bill that its sponsor says will provide much needed transparency and accountability in Washington's Retrospective Rating program. Republicans claim the bill is an attempt by Democrats to silence the Building Industry Association of Washington which has used money from the program for partisan political advertising, rather than workers' safety.

The bill that passed the Senate with bipartisan support yesterday to increase weekly unemployment benefits will not only provide direct assistance to the burgeoning jobless population in the state, say supporters, but it will also inject $193 million of stimulus into Washington's economy in recession.

In Olympia today the Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony today on whether to abolish the death penalty. While committee chair Sen. Adam Kline said this is a contentious issue, no one testified in favor of keeping the death penalty.

The atmosphere was tense, the temperature hot and the crowd an uneven mix of vitriol and hope at today's House Bill 1727 public hearing. Openly gay Representative Jamie Pedersen introduced the bill, which if passed provide all of the benefits of marriage to Washington State's domestic partners.