Soundside

Thanks for checking out the Weekend Warmup - We have a LOT going on this weekend. First of all, Sunday is Mother's Day. Second of all, the Mariners are starting a home stand against the Blue Jays on Friday. Let's go! LINKS: Seattle Mariners Schedule USAF Band of the Golden West - Bellingham USAF Band of the Golden West - Mercer Island Seattle Beer Week 43rd Annual Beat the Bridge World Migratory B...

More than three decades ago, tiny blobs of gelatinous goo of unknown origin rained down on the small Grays Harbor community and captured national headlines. The cause of the strange phenomenon, and even what the blobs were made of -- remains an enigma. It was even the subject of an episode of the TV show Unsolved Mysteries. (Watch the episode here .) No one knows what they were. But last month the...

Yesterday, Seattle-based author Tessa Hulls won a Pulitzer Prize for her graphic novel "Feeding Ghosts." Hulls' first published book starts with her Chinese grandmother, Sun Yi, a journalist and author who fled Shanghai after the Communist Revolution. Then, the narrative shifts -- to her mother Rose, the daughter of a Swiss diplomat, essentially raised in a Hong Kong boarding school after her moth...

King County has its first new Executive in 15 years.  Dow Constantine, who held the position since 2009, was chosen as the CEO of Sound Transit earlier this year. He stepped away from the Executive job at the end of March. In his place, Shannon Braddock is leading the county until a new executive is elected this November. Before this she worked mostly behind the scenes in various roles for th...

In the face of staff cuts, funding freezes, and threats to zero out its budget – Head Start has survived… for now.  This program serves almost 800,000 kids throughout the country –15,000 in Washington State alone. Many of these children are low-income, disabled or in foster care. A Trump Administration budget proposal leaked in April put all Head Start funding on the choppi...

In the new Netflix documentary “Bad Influence”, 11 teenagers recount their experiences working with Piper Rockelle, who was herself a child influencer. All of the teens were former “squad members” of the Youtuber. They described performing scripted scenes in front of the camera - like fake “dating” scenarios, or pranks.  They also described feeling violated...

In the 2010s, the video game industry saw an ENORMOUS boom, with annual revenues jumping from 80 billion dollars to TWO HUNDRED billion over that decade, according to a report by investment research group Epyllion. But in recent years, that exponential growth hit a plateau.  “Games were so successful both prior to & during 2020 & 2021, that they set kind of impossible standards...

Seattle city leaders were met with some less than ideal news this month: the city is facing a $241 million dollar budget shortfall over the next two years. And maybe you’re thinking, hey didn’t city council use the Jump Start tax to fill the $250 million budget gap this year? Surprise: that was a whole other budget deficit.  But Seattle is far from the only municipality facing a s...

Since May 8, 1792, European colonists have called the large volcano just off the coast of Puget Sound "Mount Rainier." It was given that name by a British explorer, Captain George Vancouver – a gift to his friend, Rear Admiral Peter Rainier.  But prior to Vancouver’s arrival in what eventually became Washington state, the Indigenous peoples in and around the Salish Sea called it b...

After a week of gloom & drizzle, we’ve finally got a 70 degree day or three in the forecast! We won’t talk about what’s happening with Saturday’s weather, it knows what it did…  THAT SAID - if you need a few more excuses to go out & do things, we’ve got you covered!  Soundside Producer Jason Megatron Burrows is here with a VERY SPECIAL Weekend...

For people addicted to fentanyl, the desire to quit is often overshadowed by the fear of withdrawal. Incredible nerve pain, diarrhea, chills, vomiting. It’s been likened to the worst flu you’ve ever experienced.  Buprenorphine, the medication often used to aid in easing addiction, can trigger withdrawal symptoms, making it tough for patients to continue treatment.  Here in Se...

A new law waiting to be signed by the governor would give you more options when your technology breaks. House Bill 1483 establishes a “right to repair” for consumer electronics, including tech like phones, laptops, and home appliances. Its partner bill in the Senate ( SB 5680 ) also establishes the right to repair electric wheelchairs. This is part of a larger, nationwide movement to c...

When tech companies began announcing advanced artificial intelligence systems like ChatGPT, there was widespread enthusiasm. AI was going to make mundane jobs more efficient; it was going to reshape entire industries and creative processes; and it was going to free up time for humans to do things that were, well, more human – things like creating art.  But in the last few years, it&rsqu...

Today marks the 100th day of Donald Trump’s presidency. How about some more numbers: Since taking office, the President has signed more than 140 executive orders, pushing major policy shifts on issues from  immigration, to climate policy, and DEI in schools and workplaces . As of Monday, court rulings have blocked or paused Trump policies 128 times,  according to the New York...

Sheriff Patti Cole-Tindall has headed up the King County Sheriff’s Department since 2022.  The King County Sheriff’s Department serves unincorporated King County and 12 contract cities, in addition to policing King County Metro buses and Sound Transit trains. Since she took over the role, overall crime numbers have been  trending in a positive direction – felony referra...

The debate over how to address homelessness in Spokane continues to simmer after a decision this month from Washington’s Supreme Court. The ruling struck down Proposition 1, a camping ban introduced by a citizen-led initiative that was overwhelmingly passed by Spokane voters in 2023.  The court’s decision wasn’t based on the merits of the camping ban, but rather on whether t...

Companies have increasingly shifted the responsibility of saving for  retirement onto workers. Pension plans have mostly disappeared from the private sector, in favor of 401k style plans. For example, the Boeing Machinist union tried unsuccessfully get their pension plan reinstated during last year’s strike. For most public employees, including Washington state workers, though, Pensions...

Do you ever wonder why you turn to Google so often to search for a recipe or a news article or how to properly use a semicolon?  If you ask Alphabet, Google’s parent company, they’ll tell you it’s because they just have the best results.  The Department of Justice has a different take: it filed an antitrust case against the company in 2020 accusing Google of using its p...

Have you been outside this week? It’s GORGEOUS.  If you need a few more excuses to go out & do things, then you’re in luck. We’ve got Soundside Producer Jason Megatron Burrows here with one or two or three more reasons to leave your house LINKS: Seattle/King County Clinic - Seattle Center Crescendo: A Symphonic Celebration of Washington Landscapes Seattle Independent Boo...

Vauhini Vara’s new essay collection opens with a heart to heart with ChatGPT.  In her prompt, she asks the program to give her feedback on a few chapters of her upcoming book.  “I’m nervous,” she tells it.  “That’s completely understandable,” it responds with a cheery exclamation point. “Sharing your writing can feel really personal, b...

On Monday, the Department of Education announced that it will resume collections on defaulted loans on May 5th. That’s after a five year pause started in the midst of the covid pandemic. More than 42 million people in the United States have student loans through the federal government.  And, according to the Department of Education, five million have not made a payment in the last year....

"Our world is changing. It's changing rapidly. Like, we can see climate changing our world as we speak, but also, we're losing nature at unprecedented rates, and there's an equity crisis as well." That was University of Washington professor Phil Levin two years ago. At the time, he’d just been tapped by the Biden Administration for a one of a kind mission: writing the most all encompassing r...

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments over an executive order ending birthright citizenship.  President Trump signed that order in his first days in office. A federal judge in Seattle temporarily blocked the Trump administration from enforcing the order nationwide. And two other legal challenges – in federal courts in Massachusetts and Maryland – also prompted injunctions...

The Pentagon is roiling over yet another Signal group chat. No, not  that one with the Trump Administration national security team that accidentally included an editor at the Atlantic. This is… another Signal group chat scandal.  The New York Times reports that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth shared operational details for a March 15th U.S. strike on the Houthis in Yemen wi...

An old faded rice cooker. A blue two piece suit. A vial of water from the Ganges River. For the past four years, Poet Shin Yu Pai’s podcast, Ten Thousand Things, has explored how objects – from the extraordinary to the mundane, the literal to the figurative – communicate stories of Asian American meaning, identity, and culture. As of last month, the stories in the series have bro...