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Good afternoon. Close to 9 p.m. sunsets tonight. Welcome to June. From the KUOW Newsroom,

this is Seattle now. I'm your host Paige Browning with today's top stories.

It's Monday, June 1st.

Flags are flying half-staff this week by decree of Governor Bob Ferguson. The lowered flags honor the 11 workers killed in last Tuesday's chemical tank implosion at the Nippon-Dinawave packaging plant in Longview.

Federal investigators are in Longview now, but funding for their work might be cut before the

investigation's complete. Oregon Public Broadcasting's Courtney Sherwood explains.

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board is a small independent agency that investigates

disasters like the one that killed 11 people at the Napan-Dinawaive paper mill last week. President

Donald Trump has been trying to defund the agency since his first term in office. Congresswoman

Marie Glusencamp-Perez represents Longview. She says she hopes the Trump administration will reconsider that policy.

An important partner in this is the watchdog agency, the Chemical Safety Board.

Unfortunately, their budget was zeroed out by the president.

The administration has said CSB's work overlaps with other federal agencies.

Kluzenkamp-Perez says she'll advocate for Congress to keep funding CSB's work overlaps with other federal agencies. Kluzenkamp Perez says she'll advocate for Congress to keep funding CSB

...