Linda Harrison was about to get into bed for the night when she heard a banging on her door.

The Midland resident in unincorporated Pierce County wondered who it could be at 9:15 p.m. on July 4. When she opened the door, she was greeted by a couple who said they were driving by when they saw a firework land in the ditch near her property and start to smolder.

“It reached my fence within minutes,” Harrison said about the fire that started from the spark. The couple helped her put out the fire w...

Grief doesn’t wait for the right time. For some residents in the Gig Harbor area, sometimes it has to.

Barbara Rogers, age 80, believes the best time to visit Haven of Rest, a funeral home, crematory and cemetery along state Route 16, is very early on Sunday morning, when she feels highway traffic is lightest.

Without an on-ramp from the cemetery to westbound state Route 16, drivers only have seconds to hit the gas and get up to speed as they merge off of the cemetery’s short access road.

Rog...

There are people who come to Gig Harbor to settle. Others come to sail. And some come to steal.

Shoplifters come from “all over,” Gig Harbor Police Chief Kelly Busey told The News Tribune. He listed off a long list of cities: Port Angeles, Bellingham, Portland, Yakima, Spokane, Tacoma. The Police Department did a statistical analysis of where their criminals come from and couldn’t detect a pattern, he said.

The department started a program in the fall of 2021 to help curb retail theft, called...

“My translation project as a whole is about showcasing a Korea that is not what the mainstream cultural production would have you believe,” Hur said. “As in I want to showcase a Korea that’s more diverse. That’s more feminist. That’s more edgy.” 

One book Hur chose to translate was Bora Chung’s Cursed Bunny, which critiques capitalism and other systems embedded in Korean society. It isn’t what people might expect from K-dramas, which present a Korea that is heteronormative, capitalist and reluc...

An English teacher resigned from their teaching job last week through a mutual agreement with the Peninsula School District, after online trolls began attacking their after-hours profession as a drag king on social media and the information was amplified by a local conservative commentator.

The post that quickly turned into an online firestorm surrounding K Wayne, who uses they/them pronouns and has taught in the district since 2021, is an example of how social media cyberbullying has targeted...

“Life is worth living. There is help. ”

Since signs with messages of hope and phone numbers to call for help were tacked onto the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in 2021, Jud Morris of the Gig Harbor/Key Peninsula Suicide Prevention Coalition says it’s made a difference for at least two families.

Those families said their loved ones chose not to end their lives after seeing the signs, Morris said.

Could suicide-prevention nets save even more?

“One life lost is too many, so if there’s anything we can d...