A bright green fireball streaked over Portland and parts of the Pacific Northwest on March 23, 2026, sending a rush of video and eyewitness reports. OMSI and scientists say the color likely came from burning magnesium as the object hit the atmosphere.

Meta will lay off roughly 331 Washington employees on March 20, concentrated in Redmond, Bellevue and Seattle as Reality Labs is pared back.

NOAA reached an agreement to fund nine Alaska seismic stations, restoring near-real-time data that tsunami forecasters use to speed alerts for the Aleutians and Pacific Northwest.

UT Austin researchers built a near-atomic map of the Andes hantavirus and produced a vaccine candidate that triggered neutralizing antibodies in mice.

Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit helped disrupt Tycoon 2FA, seizing core domains tied to an MFA‑bypass phishing network. Security researchers say phishing‑resistant MFA and hardened email gateways are now essential.

San Carlos‑based Aetherflux will open a Seattle hub to build orbital data‑center satellites and hire engineers as it advances the Galactic Brain project.

A Seattle jury sided with Valve, finding inventor Leigh Rothschild violated state anti‑trolling and consumer‑protection laws and awarding Valve about $152,000.

Phil Spencer is retiring after nearly 40 years at Microsoft. Asha Sharma will lead Microsoft Gaming while Matt Booty is promoted and Xbox president Sarah Bond departs.

Amazon is backing a small modular reactor project in Washington meant to supply carbon-free power for AWS and the regional grid.

Microsoft AI chief Mustafa Suleyman warned most computer‑based office tasks could be automated within 12–18 months, a claim that puts Seattle‑area jobs in focus.

Seattle’s Highspot will merge with San Diego rival Seismic, combining two major revenue‑enablement platforms under a San Diego‑led brand and an AI‑first roadmap.

Bloomberg reports Amazon flagged hundreds of thousands of suspected child-sex-abuse images in datasets used for AI training; child-safety groups say missing provenance makes many reports inactionable.

Samir Bodas, co-founder of Bellevue contract-intelligence company Icertis, has died at 61 after a battle with cancer. He helped scale Icertis into a global leader and stepped back last year to focus on his health.