Northwest Reports

Phillips, one of the advocates behind the Cascade PBS project that highlights Black artists in Seattle, discusses its origins — and the new season. Black Arts Legacies has returned for its third season.   The project dedicated to documenting the impact and stories of Black artists in Seattle has showcased dozens of people — from dancers and musicians to architects and curators — through written an...

Producer Sara Bernard offers a peek into how the moss is made and teases what lies in wait for listeners in the podcast’s fifth season. Mossback’s back!   The beloved video series has returned, and host Knute Berger continues to explore Pacific Northwest history. The fifth season of the companion podcast that Knute co-hosts with Stephen Hegg is back, too.   A couple of episodes are already out – a...

After Evans' appearance at a Northwest Power and Conservation Council meeting, Venice Buhain and Knute Berger discuss his impact on Washington. Dan Evans has been a force in Washington for decades.   The public figure, now 98, has plenty of titles under his belt: Engineer. Washington governor. U.S. Senator.   In this episode of Northwest Reports , host Maleeha Syed speaks with Cascade PBS associat...

Cascade PBS reporter Mai Hoang talks with the former state legislator about her newest gig, including key issues affecting the city's community members. This week, Lisa Brown officially passed the 100-day mark in her new role as Spokane’s mayor.  Brown started her term at the beginning of the year after defeating incumbent Nadine Woodward. She has worked in several different capacities over the ye...

We spoke with Cynthia Brothers, founder of the project that highlights disappearing institutions and cultures in the city, about losing public spaces. Coffee shops. Churches. Gyms.    These are just a few examples of what you might consider your “third place” – a spot you go outside of work and your home to hang out and connect.   The concept of third places isn’t new, but it has seen renewed inte...

Lizz Giordano takes us behind the scenes on how dozens of foreign Filipino fishermen wound up stranded on a boat in Grays Harbor. A fishing company allegedly left two dozen Filipino men stranded at the Westport Marina for months last year, according to the latest reporting from the investigative team at Cascade PBS.   The men were contracted with McAdam’s Fish, which decided to dock their boats in...

The newspaper’s future was in question after founder Sandy Williams died. Reporter Mai Hoang talks about the push to get it up and running again. For years Black readers in Eastern Washington could rely on The Black Lens, a Spokane-based newspaper, for community news.   That changed in 2022, when founder Sandy Williams died in a floatplane crash .  Suddenly the fate of the publication — which had...

The two, who met years ago through a peace organization, spoke about their lives before and after Oct. 7 at a Town Hall Seattle event on Friday. All eyes have been on Gaza since October 7, when Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel that killed around 1,200 people. Since then, Israel has killed upward of 30,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.   The war between Israel and Ham...

The environmental crisis has brought on anxiety, grief and a reluctance to have kids, says UW Bothell professor Jennifer Atkinson.    It’s hard to miss the signs of climate change .    The ocean’s heating, ice sheets are melting and – in places like Washington – wildfire seasons are getting longer .   But climate change isn’t just impacting our landscape: It’s also affecting our mental health.   I...

News editor Donna Blankinship interviewed Steve Hobbs about boosting voter confidence ahead of this year's elections. Washington’s Secretary of State has a big year ahead.   The 2024 election is already underway as Washington voters begin to cast their ballots in the presidential primary. Voters have until March 12 to choose among a handful of candidates, including Joe Biden and Donald Trump — the...

Reporter Jadenne Radoc Cabahug shares the stories of Black Seattleites who are continuing to work for equity and police accountability. In May 2020, amid a global pandemic, protests erupted around the United States following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.   People marched to demand greater accountability from law enforcement across the country, including in Seattle, where protes...

A Bellingham tenant and a housing advocate explain how steep rent increases are hurting state residents, and how HB 2114 could help. For many tenants across Washington, rent is too high – and it keeps climbing. Right now, landlords face no limit on when or how much they can raise rents.   HB 2114 would cap rent and fee increases to 7 percent in a 12-month period and prevent landlords from raising...

Reporter Brandon Block shares an example of how the state intercepts parental assistance to people who also receive TANF, or welfare. In 2017, Amy Roark applied for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program after one of her exes stopped paying his child support.     She began to receive money through the program, but as these funds started coming in, she stopped getting payments f...

June Guzman and Audrey Baedke offer housing and emotional support through the nonprofit Real Escape from the Sex Trade (REST). The Seattle area is a known hub for sex trafficking. Some estimates suggest that more than two thousand people could be trafficked in the region every night.  June Guzman manages the 24/7 hotline and emergency shelter for Real Escape from the Sex Trade, or REST. Audrey Bae...

Reporter Mai Hoang talks about the ongoing fight to redraw majority-Latino legislative districts between Yakima and Pasco. A yearslong debate over redistricting in Central Washington could close just in time for the 2024 election.   Plaintiffs filed a lawsuit in January 2022 over the 15th Legislative District, arguing that its boundaries as drawn diluted Latino votes. In August, a U.S. District Co...

Reporter Nimra Ahmad describes a day on the job with the city's experimental mental health crisis program staff. Seattle is now dispatching mental health crisis responders on 911 calls – and reporter Nimra Ahmad got to watch them work in real time.  In October, the city soft-launched the Community Assisted Response and Engagement (CARE) team, made up of crisis responders who are dispatched with po...

The governor spoke with Crosscut's Paris Jackson about mental health, climate change and the Huskies ... prior to their national championship game. In November, voters will cast their ballots for someone to succeed Jay Inslee, the governor of Washington for more than a decade.  Until then, Inslee has some key issues he wants to address.  The governor sat down with Crosscut’s Paris Jackson in early...

The third episode of the investigative series co-produced with Crosscut focuses on one woman's experience with foster care and homelessness in WA.  A few months ago, Crosscut collaborated with the nonprofit organization Youth Today to produce a three-part multimedia series on youth homelessness.   Reporter Elizabeth Whitman and producer Sam Leeds investigated several pilot programs designed to sup...

Earlier this year, Crosscut reported on an Aberdeen park facing rising rents and cut services. Farah Eltohamy shares how the story has evolved. Mobile home parks are often considered one of the most reliable forms of affordable housing. Some tenants in Washington beg to differ.   This summer, Farah Eltohamy and Mai Hoang investigated allegations that one management company, Hurst & Son LLC, ra...

Taylor Swift shows and MLB All-Star Week brought business this summer, but the city center is still hurting. Reporter Josh Cohen offers some updates. Downtown Seattle got plenty of visitors this year thanks to the MLB All-Star Game and concerts from big-name musicians like Taylor Swift and Beyoncé.   Events like these make Downtown feel like a far cry from the early days of COVID-19.   Still, ther...

But there still isn't a contract. Crosscut reporter Lizz Giordano updates us on employees’ unionizing efforts. Unions have been flexing their muscles to advocate for workers’ rights across sectors from the auto industry to Hollywood.    Coffee shops are no exception: Employees at more than 300 Starbucks locations have voted to unionize under Starbucks Workers United since December 2021, when a sho...

Reporter Megan Burbank discusses new and old complications for reproductive healthcare in WA, from appointment delays to politics. When the U.S. Supreme Court ended the federal right to abortion in June 2022, Washington leaders doubled down on ensuring access.   Over the past year and a half, state policy has followed accordingly, from a suite of shield laws to the allocation of government funds f...

Reporter Lizz Giordano talks about the legal handling of Harold Felton’s death – and why his family thinks more could have been done. In 2016, Harold Felton was working in a trench in West Seattle when it suddenly collapsed, killing him.     Seattle police declared his death an accident and handed the case to Washington’s Department of Labor & Industries (L&I), which enforces safety standa...

Your Last Meal gets in the Turkey Day spirit with interviews from Greta Gerwig, Martina McBride and more. This Thanksgiving, you’re invited to a celebrity potluck courtesy of Your Last Meal , a podcast that asks celebrities what they would choose to eat for their final meal.  Rachel Belle, the podcast’s host and an editor-at-large at Crosscut, compiled interviews from her show into one episode, ta...

Joseph O’Sullivan breaks down what poll respondents had to say about the upcoming presidential election — and almost no one is excited. More than 60% of Washington voters think Donald Trump is corrupt, while 70% think Joe Biden is too old to be president. Around three in five feel pessimistic about major issues, such as gun violence and immigration.  And overall, Washington voters are generally un...