All eyes are on Texas as Republicans work to draw new congressional districts ahead of

26. But the battle for control of Congress runs through Southwest Washington, home to one of the

most competitive districts in the country. And that's where incumbent Marie Glucent-Camp

Perez has a new challenger. He's the Republican leader in the state Senate. Meet John Braun,

a moderate who could deliver the third district to the GOP this week on

sound politics wherever you get your podcasts.

Good afternoon. From the KUOW Newsroom, this is Seattle now. I'm Paige Browning with our roundup of today's top stories. It's Wednesday, March 12th. Starting with a real belt tightening in Seattle, the University of Washington has paused non-essential hiring and travel amid federal funding uncertainty.

Sammy West reports.

Udub officials announced this belt tightening to staff late last week and warned of more

budget cuts on the horizon.

A growing list of universities across the country have put similar spending freezes in place

as the Trump administration threatens to

slash funding for higher education. Udub biochemist David Baker says all this uncertainty is

already having big impacts and will disrupt critical research on new drugs for years to come.

He spoke at an event celebrating his Nobel Prize on Monday.

It might be surprising to many people that actually most of the innovation doesn't actually happen in the big companies.

It happens at universities.

And the universities also train the workforce for the biotech and the pharmaceutical companies.

Last year, UW received over $1.3 billion of federal funding for research.

Sammy West, KUOWW News.

Another Tesla location has been hit with vandalism.

Police are searching for the people who vandalized six cars at a Tesla dealership in Linwood, sometimes Saturday night.

...