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 Warmup…

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 cont…

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 o…

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 a…

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,…

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 direct…

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 ba…

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 Wash…

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 G…

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 S…

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, but I’m here to p…

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 hav…

"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 …

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 Mary…

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 …

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, th…

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 ind…

“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…

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 Secr…

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…

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 a…

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 Be…

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 …

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-order…

In an executive order called “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” President Trump criticizes Smithsonian 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 w…

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 sat…

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 …

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…

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…

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 L…

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 contract…

“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 wh…

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 li…

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 …

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 …

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 acti…

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, …

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…

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, Micros…

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…

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 …

As a resident of a state, you are guaranteed certain rights by your state constitution. In Washington, for example, we have a right to religious freedom and free elections. Oregon is looking at guaranteeing the right for all citizens to live in a healthy environment – including a stable climate. The state legislature is debating whether to have vot…

The Washington State Legislature is in the process of hammering out the transportation budget, which is estimated to have a BILLION dollar shortfall over the next two years. according to Transportation Committee Chairman Senator Marko Liias. Down in Olympia, both the House and Senate have each been working on their own respective bills aimed at add…

Bellevue-based startup OneCourt says its devices enable the “first tactile sports broadcasts." The goal is to give a deeper game experience for sports fans who are visually impaired, and to deliver it in real time. A social media influencer recently went viral when he took the tablet for a spin at a Trailblazers game. Portland was the first NBA tea…

The fight over fluoride in drinking water is not new – it’s been around ever since public programs began in the 1940s. But now, there is a push to end fluoridation programs. United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F Kennedy Jr has criticized fluoridation, claiming it contributes to a host of afflictions, including bone cancer an…

In the United States, immigrants do not have the right to legal representation in the same way American citizens do. But it’s a different story for children who come to this country alone, thanks to the federally funded Unaccompanied Children Program. It provides legal representation to more than 26,000 children by contracting with non-profit legal…

Seattle is taking on one of the more contentious issues to regularly pass through city hall: the Comprehensive Plan. That plan dictates where and how the city will add more people. And previous plans concentrated new apartments and condos along busy streets with access to transit. But why do cities like Seattle have to engage in this planning exerc…

It has been a long week, we’ve seen SUNSHINE, we’ve had the threat of TORNADOES, and now it’s time to sit back, relax, and enjoy our weekend… Soundside Producer Jason Megatron Burrows is here with everything YOU need to know about what to do to beat the rainy blues… LINKS: Seattle Mariners OPENING NIGHT! - First pitch is at 7:10 Book Event - TILT w…

23andMe, the San Francisco tech company known for its direct-to-consumer genetic testing, announced Sunday it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. That’s raised a lot of privacy concerns over the genetic records it holds of roughly 15 million customers. The company said that while in bankruptcy court, that data will be handled with the same level of pr…

Yesterday was one of those days that makes you feel like maybe, just maybe, winter is finally over. Here in Seattle, the sun was shining, the cherry trees blossoming, it was in the 60s… And yes, now there are severe thunderstorms and potential tornado level winds heading our way this afternoon. But – once those storms are over, it’ll be the perfect…