Soundside

News has not been good lately for research universities in the United States. The Trump Administration has proposed slashing the National Institutes of Health Budget by about half – eliminating tens of billions of dollars for the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world. The White House had earlier announced a 15 percent cap on indirect costs for NIH grants. That money...

“With dignity, but like any Christian, because the bishop of Rome is a pastor and a disciple, not a powerful man of this world.” That’s part of the instructions from Pope Francis to “lighten” the formality of his funeral arrangements. Francis wrote about his wish for a simpler ceremony in his autobiography , published earlier this year.  The attitude reflected hi...

The Trump administration is pushing for more logging on public land, pledging to boost America’s domestic supply of wood products and increase wildfire resilience.  In March, the President issued an executive order directing federal agencies to begin finding ways to expand timber production by 25% over the next few years.  Last week, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins sent a memo...

It's CONVENTION WEEKEND... But also Easter Weekend... And the start of Bellingham Beer Week, and National Park Week. It's the Weekend Warmup! Enjoy! LINKS: Norwescon Sakura-Con Bellingham Beer Week National Park Week Climate Pledge Arena – Phish Spring Fair | Washington State Fair Events Center Skagit Valley Tulip Festival KUOW - Meet Me Here Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help mak...

We are three weeks into the Major League Baseball season and one of the main story lines of the nascent season is the bats. On the second day of the season, the New York Yankees hit 9 home runs against the Milwaukee Brewers. Many of the Yankees players were using a new type of bat – shaped kind of like a bowling pin. This bat bulges at the center and narrows at the end. It’s calle...

The James Beard Award has been a kingmaker in the food business since the 1980s. Even getting a nomination can be life-changing.  Chef Jay Blackinton – a punk musician and self-described wannabee skateboarder – has been nominated seven times. He’s self-taught and runs a buzzy two-man kitchen on Orcas Island. And this year, he’s been named a James Beard Award finalist i...

Mindie Lind is a Seattle-based musician. In a new short animated film called "View from the Floor", Lind and co-director Megan Griffiths explore Mindie’s life as an artist grappling with imposter syndrome. Mindie was born without legs. And as she came of age, she couldn’t shake the idea that the praise and attention she received was more about her disability, and people looking to...

Today, a federal judge reprimanded the Trump Administration over its failure to comply with a court order to facilitate the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States.  Abrego Garcia is a 29 year old Salvadoran citizen who is married to a U-S citizen and was living in Maryland when he was mistakenly deported despite being under court-ordered protection from being sent back to El Sal...

In an executive order called “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” President Trump criticizes  Smithso nian exhibits that examine how race interacts with power and privilege. He claims they “portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive.”   The executive order also threatens to take away funding from exhibitions within t...

A harried emergency room doctor rushes between patients; his waiting room is filled to the brim with sick and injured people, he’s dodging a RAT infestation, all while overseeing a new crop of residents getting up to speed on their ER rotation. AND oh yes… sparring with a hospital administrator who’s reminding him: He needs to get those patient satisfaction scores up. It’s...

For years now, members of Seattle's political establishment have been trying to fix one particular street corner: 12th and Jackson, in Little Saigon. This corner is an example of what city leaders call "hot spots" — tiny sections of the city that are home to disproportionate amounts of crime and disorder. A report by the city last year found there were more than a hundred crimes targeti...

Pride is one of the events of the summer here in Seattle. Thousands of people gather in the city throughout the month of June for parties, themed events, and of course a huge parade celebrating and elevating the LGBTQIA+ community here in the Pacific Northwest. But this year, those events may look a little different. And that may be due to pressure from the other Washington. In his first few month...

Certain names linger on the lips of ardent Seattle fans who still rock Supersonics Green & Gold: Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp. Detlef Schrempf and Nate McMillan. Ray Allen and Kevin Durant… Players who evoke wistfulness and nostalgia.  Other names bring notes of bitterness, and regret for Sonics faithful: Howard Schultz. The man who sold the team…  And Clay Bennett &ndash...

Trapped in the never ending cycle of, “what do YOU want to do? I dunno, what do YOU want to do?” Well, the weekend is nigh, and Soundside Producer Jason Megatron Burrows is here with everything YOU need to enjoy your time away from work… LINKS: Scott Shoemaker’s :Probed! – Intiman Theatre Rick Steves, Ann Powers, J. Kenji López-Alt, and Pedro the Lion —...

More than 500 law firms across the United States have signed a legal brief supporting Perkins Coie in a fight against President Trump. The Seattle-based law firm was targeted last month by the Trump Administration with a sweeping Executive Order. The order directs the federal government, in almost all cases, to not hire Perkins Coie or use contractors associated with the firm.  This is just o...

“Patient A,” as she is identified in court documents, artificially conceived a child at the University of California San Francisco Center for Reproductive Health.  She had carefully selected the sperm donor – it was the same one used for her other child.  But she later found out through a genetic database and a private investigator that the doctor who oversaw the proced...

Five years ago, Washington found itself at the leading edge of a once-in-a-century pandemic. The rapid spread of COVID, and the lockdowns that followed, shaped our communities, our health and our work for years to come. In this hour long special, we reflect on how the pandemic changed our region and how its effects still show up in our every day lives. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy infor...

The price of eggs is the talk of the town, and has been, for months. Earlier this year, a dozen eggs could cost you up to eight dollars a carton. Today, you can find them for cheaper. However, farmers continue to deal with the leading cause of that high price tag: the avian flu. To get a local perspective on the disease and the strain it’s putting on egg production, we reached out to a few W...

Amazon is taking a crack at satellite internet.  On Wednesday, the Seattle based tech company plans to launch the first 27 satellites of Project Kuiper. The company bills this as the start of a “constellation” of satellites providing internet all over the world.  In all, it plans to launch more than 3,000 satellites by 2029.  Amazon is trying to take market share from El...

Troublemakers is one of the groups behind #TeslaTakedown, an escalating campaign of peaceful protests outside Tesla dealerships across the country. They’re targeting Musk as his Department of Government Efficiency continues to slash federal jobs and restructure agencies, purportedly in an effort to root out waste, fraud and abuse.  The peaceful activism, along with scattered incidents o...

The Trump Administration is poised to slap worldwide tariffs on friend and foe alike…. Sending Wall Street reeling today. And the president’s crackdown on unauthorized immigration has arrived in Washington, with the first big ICE raid of a workplace in our state in Bellingham.  There’s plenty of news out of D.C. hitting home for Western Washington, and joining Soundside hos...

Seattle has tried, and is still actively trying, many different approaches to addiction treatment: law enforcement diversion programs , housing first, medication assisted treatment, drug court, outreach work, the list goes on. Now, the city has added another attempt to that list by piloting a new program that aims to get people into treatment faster by expanding access to private rehabs.&nbsp...

50 years ago, on Friday, April 4th 1975, two guys from Seattle launched a software company in a  strip mall in Albuquerque NM.. That business would soon relocate to Redmond, Washington… and those Lakeside kids, Bill Gates and Paul Allen, did all right. The Windows operating system would go on to dominate the personal computer industry.  Today, Microsoft is one of the most profitab...

You’ve maybe heard that Washington state’s operating budget has a big hole… in the 12 to 15 billion dollar range? Well, that’s not the only fiscal crater lawmakers are trying to fill. The transportation budget is underfunded by around $1 billion dollars right now, with a bigger deficit projected down the road, if nothing changes. Lawmakers say that would put the brakes on...

President Trump is readying new tariffs that will reportedly be his most aggressive trade policy move yet.  The White House is ready to move PAST a scandal involving the Administration’s top national security officials discussing war plans on the encrypted messaging app Signal.  And meanwhile, Democrats are facing anger from their own voters who are deeply displeased with how the p...