Northwest Reports

Reporters Amanda Snyder and Joseph O'Sullivan share the stories of three moms who live with their babies through the state's prison parenting program. The United States has seen a substantial increase in the incarceration rates of women over the past few decades. Some of them are entering the prison system pregnant.  Many of these women are forced to serve their sentences away from their children,...

We spoke with reporter Josh Cohen about the district races and how they could impact the city after Nov. 7. Election Day is just around the corner and Seattle’s in for a lot of change. Only three incumbents are running to represent Seattle’s seven City Council districts. Additionally, at-large Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda may leave her post if she secures a spot on the King County Council. All of...

The Working Washington program aimed to get pandemic relief to small and “historically disadvantaged” business owners. Did it?   In April 2020, Washington distributed $10 million to businesses navigating the pandemic, the first of many rounds of grant funding delivered by the state.    The Working Washington grant program was established to get money to small businesses overlooked by federal COVID...

Members of local Jewish and Palestinian communities discuss the war's impacts across the Atlantic. On Oct. 7, Hamas, a militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, launched a surprise attack on Israel.  Israel quickly declared war – pounding Gaza with airstrikes and restricting the region’s access to water, food and electricity .  Around 1,400 Israelis and 3,000 Palestinians have been killed.  For...

Azerbaijan’s push for territory has forced thousands to flee. Reporter Taija PerryCook spoke with local communities about erasure and resilience. Azerbaijan launched an offensive in September to claim land that Armenians have long considered home. The move has driven about 100,000 ethnic Armenians from the disputed territory, known as both Nagorno-Karabakh and Artsakh, and raised fears of ethnic c...

You probably noticed a new voice in the past few episodes of Crosscut Reports. That’s Maleeha Syed, the show’s new co-host. She’ll be working alongside Sara Bernard to bring you weekly updates on the stories coming out of Crosscut’s newsroom.  This episode of Crosscut Reports starts with a casual conversation between the two co-hosts. Syed, previously Crosscut’s communities reporter, talks about w...

Politics reporter Joseph O’Sullivan talked to teachers about the increasing criticism they face at school over race and LGBTQ+ topics. Teachers have found themselves embroiled in a national culture war as parents and politicians question what children are learning in school, from critical race theory to gender identity .  These days, educators in Washington say they’re feeling reverberations from...

Reporter Megan Burbank spoke with former nurses who, amid grievances like staffing shortages and low pay, changed their careers. Nurses took on immense responsibilities as COVID-19 raged across the country, overloading hospitals and overextending health care workers.  Today, some of these nurses have left the field completely due to mounting pressures that were exacerbated by the pandemic – but ha...

Residents say that WA-based management company Hurst & Son LLC is responsible for price hikes, reduced services and other grievances. Mobile home communities have long served as an affordable-housing option for Washington residents, but many say they’re now being priced out of their homes.  Crosscut reporters Farah Eltohamy and Mai Hoang investigated allegations against Hurst & Son LLC, a...

Reporter Mai Hoang explains how the court decision to exempt a Colorado web designer from LGBTQ+ antidiscrimination laws could have a ripple effect. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that a Christian website designer in Colorado can refuse to provide wedding websites to same-sex couples, because doing so falls within her First Amendment right to free speech. As Crosscut reporter Mai Hoang found...

Calls for censorship of LGBTQ+ young adult books in Columbia County mirror a national political debate. Meg Butterworth shares her reporting. A fight has been raging nationwide over book-banning in schools and libraries. According to the American Library Association, calls for censorship of specific titles nearly doubled between 2021 and 2022, and the vast majority targeted books by and about the...

Federal relief funds are financing new surveillance technology across the state. Reporter Brandon Block discusses why privacy advocates are concerned. If you walk around downtown Seattle and look closely, you may notice that you’re being watched. From traffic cameras to automated license-plate readers, surveillance technology is all around us. And thanks to new funding from the American Rescue Pla...

Reporter Conor Courtney explains how cyclist Danny Roberts began the passion project — and what the journey meant to both of them. In late 2021, freelance writer and photographer Conor Courtney noticed some strange patterns on the fitness app Strava. An acquaintance, Danny Roberts, was posting about riding his bike all over Seattle—but not on typical bike-friendly routes. He would consistently zig...

PTSAs can reduce resource gaps, but also exacerbate inequities among schools. Reporter Venice Buhain shares local efforts working to change that. Seattle public schools, like most public schools, don’t all have the same resources to offer students. And they tend to rely on parent-led fundraising to fill in the gaps. But that can exacerbate the inequities that already exist, as wealthy families can...

Politics reporter Joseph O’Sullivan details the Association of Washington Cities' sway over the Legislature. One of the most powerful lobbying forces in Olympia is the Association of Washington Cities, a nonprofit that represents the state’s 281 cities and towns. It has influenced lawmakers, defeated bills, and even written its own legislation — and often gets its way. Crosscut state politics repo...

Reporter Mai Hoang discusses the growing issue in Central Washington and the efforts to build permanent supportive housing. Big cities like Seattle and Spokane get most of the attention when it comes to homelessness in Washington state. But housing instability is not limited to the borders of major metropolitan areas.  For this episode of the Crosscut Reports podcast, we look at a smaller Washingt...

Writer Jas Keimig discusses their work profiling current creators and researching the lives of those that shouldn't be forgotten. Seattle has been home to Black artists of great renown, from Jimi Hendrix and Ernestine Anderson to Jacob Lawrence and August Wilson. But those big names are by no means the only ones from our city deserving of recognition.  For this episode of the Crosscut Reports podc...

As the Taliban tightens restrictions, Marnie Gustavson's nonprofit finds workarounds. Reporter Hal Bernton shares the WA native's history of advocacy. Journalist Hal Bernton took his first trip to Afghanistan back in 2009, to cover the war for The Seattle Times. There he met a Washington woman, Marnie Gustavson, and learned about PARSA, the Kabul-based nonprofit aid organization she has now led fo...

With 45 candidates vying for a district seat, a lot could shift this fall. Crosscut reporter Josh Cohen talks it through. Today, at the launch of Seattle’s 2023 campaign season, we examine some of the biggest issues our city faces. Crosscut city reporter Josh Cohen recently spoke with campaign consultants, pollsters, pundits, and representatives of big business and labor to get a sense of what’s a...

Seattle was an early adopter of the use of bicycles in law enforcement — especially as a form of crowd control. The SPD first put cops on bikes in 1987, but the “Battle of Seattle” WTO protests in 1999 began an era of more aggressive tactics. In recent years, bike cops have routinely anchored crowd-control efforts at events or demonstrations. Now, the use of bikes, and the crowd-control methods Se...

Crosscut politics reporter Joseph O’Sullivan and Axios reporter Melissa Santos break down the biggest developments from the 2023 legislative session. It was a busy legislative session in Olympia. By the time lawmakers adjourned on April 23, a slate of new bills affecting gun ownership, abortion, gender-affirming care and housing were on their way to Governor Inslee’s desk to become law. Host Sara...

Emergency actions put money in the hands of struggling small businesses — and opened the door for some scammers.  Three years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the relief efforts enacted by the U.S. government to shore up small businesses are still headline news. But the stories aren’t about recovery; they’re about fraud. Crosscut investigative reporter Brandon Block recently examined how...

We asked Washington voters their opinions on the court and their thoughts on current cases. Pollster Stuart Elway shares his takeaways. It has been a tumultuous year for the U. S. Supreme Court. Last June the Court, with an expanded conservative majority, handed down a decision that ended federal protection for abortion and set off political shockwaves. Now the Court's nine justices are considerin...

Reporter Andrew Engelson discusses WA's 1998 ban of the practice, and what UW has done since to increase racial equity on campus. The U.S. Supreme Court seems poised to strike down affirmative action across the nation, but if it does, little will change in Washington state. Washington has banned the practice since 1998, the year a ballot initiative altered state law to prohibit considering race as...

Reporter Hannah Weinberger discusses the Seattle policy that many homeowners didn't even know existed. “Street trees” are the ones that line a city’s medians, roads and sidewalks. They beautify and provide wildlife habitat, of course, but they also help mitigate climate change.  That’s part of why the health of Seattle’s street trees is so vital to the city’s goal of increasing its diminishing tre...