Seattle Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Northwest Public Broadcasting

To Address Homelessness, Spokane Is Starting To Put Relationships Before Punishments

By NPR News February 19, 2020

Julia Garcia started the nonprofit Jewels Helping Hands, which began by operating mobile shower units to serve Spokane's growing homeless population. CREDIT: Kirk Siegler/NPR

There's a growing consensus that a more punitive approach hasn't worked for Spokane. Nationwide, the homeless population is rising. In many communities, it can feel like an intractable problem. Yet cities like Spokane are starting to show some incremental progress with some prevention programs. Read More

Seattle Shelter Steps In To Address Needs Of Native Peoples Experiencing Homelessness

By NWPB News December 30, 2019

Eagle Village resident Jolene Neiss says it's important to make each room feel like the resident's home with decorations, knickknacks and family photos. CREDIT: Casey Martin/KUOW

A new homeless shelter in Seattle is exclusively serving Native Americans, Alaska Natives and Pacific Islanders. It's one of the first facilities of its kind in the country helping to house the more than 1,000 Native people in the city experiencing homelessness.Read More

Boise Is Trying To Address Homelessness Through Courts. It’s Rippling Across Western Cities

By NPR News December 16, 2019

This undated file photo shows the entrance to an alley known as Cooper Court, a homeless camp in Boise, Idaho. A federal appellate court says cities can't prosecute people for sleeping on the streets if they have nowhere else to go. CREDIT: Adam Cotterell/Boise State Public Radio via AP

It's billed as one of the most livable places in the country with its good schools, leafy streets and safe neighborhoods. That's what makes Boise, Idaho, an odd backdrop for a heated legal fight around homelessness that is reverberating across the western United States.Read More

Tensions Rise In Olympia As People With Few Options Park RVs Outside Washington Capitol

By Austin Jenkins November 22, 2019

Austin Hall, left, his fiance Victoria Swan and a man who identified himself as Mark Goddard sit in one of the RVs parked on Deschutes Parkway on Washington's Capitol campus. CREDIT: Austin Jenkins/N3

The state of Washington now finds itself grappling with an issue that’s been front and center in Seattle, Portland and many other cities -- people who are homeless living in dilapidated recreational vehicles parked on public streets.Read More

Gordon Sondland Was A Low-Profile Northwest Hotel Owner. Then He Became An Ambassador

By NPR News November 20, 2019

Hotel owner Gordon Sondland, who is scheduled to testify before Congress on Wednesday, is a pivotal witness in the impeachment inquiry. CREDIT: Carlos Jasso/Reuters

Until recently, Sondland, 62, had a pretty low profile outside his hometown of Portland, Ore., where he and his wife, Katy Durant, are big Republican donors and contributors to numerous arts and civic organizations.Read More

Seattle Teams With Rideshares For Transport To Immigration Interviews In Yakima, Portland

By Esmy Jimenez September 10, 2019

File photo. An Uber car and driver in San Francisco. CREDIT: Jeff Chiu/AP

Back in June, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that some citizenship interviews and naturalization ceremonies would take place in Portland or Yakima instead of the local Seattle office. Officials said it would help cut wait times. Now the city is helping provide transportation.Read More

Stay In A Western Washington Motel 6? You May Have Claim On A $12M Settlement

By Enrique Pérez de la Rosa August 28, 2019

The hotel chain Motel 6 agreed on Thursday to pay $12 million to settle a lawsuit filed by Washington state claiming hotel guest information was improperly provided to immigration officials, according to Attorney General Bob Ferguson. CREDIT: Elaine Thompson/AP

Motel 6 turned over the private information of more than 100,000 guests to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, doing so without warrants or consent. Now, those guests can claim their part of a $12 million settlement. Read More

Seattle Man’s Toilet Kit For Homeless Individuals Brings Privacy, Opens Doors

By NWPB News August 3, 2019

Seattle tech worker Mark Lloyd navigates the city's homeless encampments, giving away toilet kits and connecting with people. Gabriel Spitzer /KNKX

Mark Lloyd started his guerrilla toilet distribution project after he saw encampments popping up and spreading in his Seattle neighborhood, just east of downtown. He felt compelled to become involved, get to know the people and see what they needed. Read More

Seattle Woman Charged In Capital One Data Breach Exposing Over 100 Million Customers

By NPR News July 30, 2019

Capitol One, the country's seventh-largest bank, says information was taken from a hack of credit card applications submitted over a 14-year period. CREDIT: Jeff Chiu/AP

Authorities in Seattle have charged Paige A. Thompson, who also goes by the handle "erratic," with a single count of computer fraud. She appeared in court on Monday and is scheduled for a detention hearing on Thursday.Read More

He’s Been Living In A Seattle Church For A Year. ICE Detained Him At Immigration Check-In

By Esmy Jimenez July 17, 2019

Jose Robles poses for a portrait on Sunday, December 16, 2018, at Gethsemane Lutheran Church in Seattle.

For over a year, Jose Robles has spent his days in sanctuary at Gethsemane Lutheran Church in downtown Seattle. Robles is an undocumented immigrant. He has a pending U-visa — that's for victims of a crime. But he's been in U.S. for about 20 years.Read More

Seattle Faces Backlash After Easing Up On Punishing Crimes Involving Mental Illness

By NPR News July 12, 2019

In this incident in April, captured on a police officer's body camera, it took nearly two hours of negotiations and at least a dozen police officers to safely subdue a man with mental illness who had taken over an alleyway. Courtesy of city of Seattle

Seattle is grappling with a crisis of what is sometimes called "visible homelessness" — people who live in the street and struggle with mental illness or drug addiction. It's a population that often commits small crimes, such as disorderly conduct or shoplifting to pay for drugs. And public frustration is growing.Read More

4.6 Magnitude Earthquake Strikes North Of Seattle

By NWPB News July 12, 2019

A screenshot from the USGS Earthquake Hazards website shows reports of shaking from a quake that struck at 2:51 a.m. Friday, July 12, 2019. CREDIT: USGS

A 4.6 magnitude earthquake shook the Puget Sound region early Friday. The quake was centered in Monroe, east of Everett, according to the U.S. Geological Survey's earthquake mapping system.Read More

Leaders From 13 States Urge Federal Court To Allow Supervised Injection Sites

By NPR News July 11, 2019

Supplies sit on a check-in desk at a model of a hypothetical injection site in San Francisco, pictured here in September 2018. Local leaders from San Francisco are among a dozen local officials urging a federal court to allow an effort to open a supervised injection site in Philadelphia. Eric Risberg/AP

A friend-of-the-court brief submitted Wednesday by leaders from five cities — Seattle, Ithaca, New York City, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco — says injection sites, widely used in parts of Canada and Europe, need to be part of the way cities respond to the opioid crisis.Read More

Those Seeking Citizenship In Western Washington May Now Need To Drive To Yakima Or Portland

By Esmy Jimenez July 3, 2019

Newly sworn-in U.S. citizens gather for a naturalization ceremony at the Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center in Alexandria, Va., in August. The Trump administration is planning to include a question about U.S. citizenship status on the 2020 census. Claire Harbage/NPR

Immigrants in South Seattle and Bellevue who applied for citizenship will now have to travel to Yakima or Portland for their naturalization interview instead of having it at the local Seattle office.Read More

Beyond Grunge: 15 Artists Redefining Seattle Music

By NPR News June 14, 2019

Dark Smith. CREDIT: ALLEY RUTZEL/DARK SMITH

Seattle's music scene has produced a diverse and talented crop of up-and-coming musicians, each of whom makes bold contributions to this vibrant city.Read More

Crane Collapse Kills 4 In Seattle’s South Lake Union Neighborhood

By NWPB News April 27, 2019

Scene of a crane collapse in downtown Seattle on Saturday, April 27, 2019. CREDIT: GIL AEGERTER/KUOW

The crane collapsed at a project known as Block 25, which includes six stories of offices for Google and an apartment tower above. The building is part of a multi-block campus nearly twice the size of Google’s Kirkland offices. It’s being developed by Vulcan and built by GLY Construction.Read More

Storycorps Northwest: 50 Years On, A Seattle Daughter Recalls Her Slain Civil Rights Leader Father

By NPR News March 23, 2019

A family photo of Bettye, Miriam and Edwin Pratt together in 1966. Courtesy of Jean Soliz

Miriam Pratt was five years old when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968. She remembers that after her father, Seattle Urban League leader Edwin Pratt, found out, he paced back and forth in his bedroom. "He was emotional," Pratt's daughter tells Jean Soliz, her godmother, at StoryCorps. "I had never seen him like that."Read More

In ‘Shrill,’ Lindy West Made The Body Positive Show That She Never Had

By NPR News March 16, 2019

"You don't see fat people being happy on TV. If there's a fat character on TV they are sad," West says. That's definitely not the case in Shrill, a Hulu comedy series adapted from West's 2016 memoir.Read More

‘Bowl Of Jello Effect’ Raises Risk Of Tall Buildings Collapsing In Cascadia Quake, Scientists Say

By Tom Banse March 13, 2019

Skyscrapers in downtown Seattle and other Northwest city centers could sway more than anticipated in The Big One, according to research presented this week. CREDIT: TOM BANSE / NW NEWS NETWORK

A research project to model the effects from a Cascadia megaquake found higher risk of collapse for modern tall buildings than previously thought.Read More

Some State Lawmakers Want To Remove Seattle’s Lenin Statue. But It’s On Private Property

By Marcie Sillman February 27, 2019

The statue of Vladimir Lenin in Seattle's Fremont neighborhood. CREDIT: FLICKR PHOTO/MARTIN DEUTSCH

While some art lovers look down their noses at the monument to children’s television icon J. P. Patches, the replica of a rocket and other sculptures, Fremont’s public art has a bevy of defenders. But a group of state lawmakers is not among them. If they have their way, one of Fremont’s signature artworks, the 16-foot-tall statue of former Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin, Read More

Bricks Could Rain Down On Your Head During The Next Major Quake. These Proposals Want To Fix That

By Tom Banse February 22, 2019

Brick or unreinforced concrete buildings could crumble in an earthquake, like this one in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2011. CREDIT: SCHWEDE66 VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS - TINYURL.COM/YCFSUL7Z

Thousands of old brick, stone and concrete buildings in the Pacific Northwest could crumble in the next strong earthquake. To face that challenge, measures pending in the Oregon and Washington legislatures would set up grant programs to help owners of dangerous buildings make seismic safety upgrades.Read More

Microsoft Pledges $500 Million To Address Homelessness And Affordable Housing In Seattle Area

By NPR News January 17, 2019

Brad Smith, president of Microsoft Corp., speaks during a presentation on affordable housing in Bellevue, Wash., on Thursday. Microsoft Corp. said it will spend $500 million to develop affordable housing and help alleviate homelessness in the Seattle area. CREDIT: Bloomberg via Getty Images

Microsoft is investing $500 million to help develop affordable housing and address homelessness in the Seattle area as the growth of tech companies in the region continues to flood the real estate market with high-salaried workers, leaving many other people behind.Read More

Space Needle, Meet Lord Stanley: Seattle Is Getting Its Own NHL Team

By NPR News December 5, 2018

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman (center left) presents a jersey with No. 32, signifying that Seattle is soon to be the NHL's 32nd active franchise. The NHL Board of Governors announced the expansion Tuesday. CREDIT: STEPHEN B. MORTON/AP

The league's Board of Governors unanimously approved the city's bid to become the 32nd active franchise in the NHL. The team expects to take the ice for the first time in 2021.Read More

Report Finds Seattle Has Most Missing And Murdered Native Women

By Amy Radil November 16, 2018

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women of Washington group members start the Women's March on Saturday, January 20, 2018, on Pine St., in Seattle. CREDIT: MEGAN FARMER/KUOW

More than 500 Native American women have disappeared or been murdered in U.S. cities, many since the year 2000, according to a new report from Seattle’s Urban Indian Health Institute.Read More

Seattle Catholic Archdiocese Pays $7 Million In Priest Sex Abuse Cases

By NWPB News November 13, 2018

Father Theodore Marmo, accused of sexual abuse, in a photo from a brochure for St. Edward Hall, a seminary that was part of the John F. Kennedy Catholic High School campus in Burien, Wash.

The Seattle Archdiocese has paid nearly $7 million to settle claims by six men that former priests abused them when they were children. The men said the archdiocese “knew or should have known that the priests posed a danger to children” and failed to protect them.Read More

Across Washington, Election Framed As Choice Between ‘Trump Or Seattle’ Policies

By Austin Jenkins October 17, 2018

A woman wears a Seattle Seahawks jersey making reference to impeaching President Donald Trump as she takes part in a Women's March in Seattle, Saturday, Jan. 20, 2018. The march was one of dozens planned across the U.S. over the weekend. CREDIT: TED S. WARREN/AP

In statehouse races across Washington this year, there are two potential boogeymen: President Donald Trump and the city of Seattle. Democrats are counting on an anti-Trump bump while Republicans are running against the liberal policies of the state’s largest city.Read More

Seattle’s New Seawall Is Built To Help Salmon

By Eilís O'Neill September 26, 2018

A view of the new seawall being installed on the Seattle waterfront. It's designed to help juvenile salmon. CREDIT: EILIS O'NEILL/KUOW

The Seattle waterfront is getting a redesign to be friendlier to fish. The city is redesigning this area for migrating salmon, making it more like the shoreline that was here before there was a city.Read More

Ruling Favoring Homeless Individuals Could Have Big Impact On Northwest Cities’ Anti-Camping Laws

By Dirk VanderHart September 5, 2018

Taz Harrington, right, sleeps with his girlfriend, Melissa Ann Whitehead, on a street in downtown Portland, Oregon. CREDIT: TED S. WARREN/AP

The city of Portland will not change how it enforces its anti-camping law, following a sweeping opinion by a federal appeals court on Tuesday that similar rules might violate the constitutional rights of homeless citizens.Read More

Why People With Disabilities Want Bans On Plastic Straws To Be More Flexible

By NPR News July 11, 2018

As cities and companies — including Starbucks — move to oust straws in a bid to reduce pollution, people with disabilities say they're losing access to a necessary, lifesaving tool.Read More

Seattle Symphony Nominated For Gramophone’s ‘Orchestra Of The Year’

By Gigi Yellen June 20, 2018

Britain’s prestigious Gramophone Classical Music Awards have created a new award for 2018, called Orchestra of the Year. The shortlist includes a familiar name to Northwest listeners: the Seattle Symphony. For the first time in the history of these awards, public voting will decide an outcome. The 2018 Orchestra of the Year Award will go to the nominee receiving the most Read More

Seattle’s (Not Quite) Forgotten First Major League Baseball Team

By Max Bartlett April 18, 2018

The story of Seattle’s first Major League team, and how its single disastrous season led to the creation of the Mariners.Read More

How Three Major Fires Reshaped Washington’s Cities

By Max Bartlett March 23, 2018

In 1889, three massive - and mysterious - fires engulfed Washington cities. Read More

Washington Man Charged In Case Involving ‘Gingerbread House’ Full Of Child Porn

By NPR News March 20, 2018

The cabin sits about 8 feet off the ground and was made with high-quality construction materials, solid wood planks and heavy-gauge bolts. Courtesy of King County Superior Court.

A secret "gingerbread house" deep in a forest sounds like something from a fairy tale, but investigators in Seattle say the one they found was anything but. Now, 56-year-old Daniel Wood faces charges of possession of depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.Read More

How This Washington Family Brought Oysters Back From The Brink

By Ruby de Luna March 7, 2018

Jerry Yamashita stands with his mother, Masako, and father, Masahide, in 1927. Courtesy of Patrick Yamashita

Oysters are a cornerstone of Pacific Northwest cuisine. But there was a time when our region’s oysters were in trouble, all but obliterated by over-harvesting and pollution. Then a Japanese immigrant helped turn things around.Read More

Man Who Accused Ex-Seattle Mayor Ed Murray Of Sex Abuse Dies At 47

By Ann Dornfeld February 19, 2018

Delvonn Heckard - Photo from KING 5 News

Delvonn Heckard, who accused former Seattle Mayor Ed Murray of child sex abuse, has died. He was one of five men who last year accused Murray of sexually abusing them as teenagers. Read More

ICE Attorney Accused of ID Theft To Have First Court Appearance This Week

By Liz Jones February 15, 2018

Snachez was charged with is stealing the identities of seven people who are in various stages of immigration proceedings and he used their identities to then apply for credit cards in their names. Places like American Express, Bank of America, Capital One. CREDIT: ELISE AMENDOLA

The former chief counsel for the Seattle office of a federal immigration enforcement agency has been accused of stealing identities of immigrants.Read More

What Amazon Doesn’t Want You To Know About The Cloud

By John Ryan February 12, 2018

Pedestrians crossing the street in front of Amazon's headquarters in Seattle. CREDIT: MEGAN FARMER

Carbon emissions by the tech giants that dominate cloud computing are surging, even as companies like Amazon and Microsoft take steps to tame their climate impact.Read More

Worthy Causes Want To Get Their Solo Drivers Into Washington Carpool Lanes

By Tom Banse February 7, 2018

WSDOT says 10 out of 12 stretches of carpool lanes in the Seattle metro area are failing to meet performance standards. CREDIT: TOM BANSE

With traffic congestion getting ever worse in the Seattle metro area, two classes of solo drivers are asking for permission to use the carpool lanes. But it's a hard sell in Olympia.Read More

These South Seattle Teens Are Taking On The FAA To Fight Airport Noise Pollution

By Eilís O'Neill February 7, 2018

Two Cleveland High School students, Brandon Teeny and John Hoac, and Western Washington University Professor Troy Abel are measuring pollution on the Cleveland campus in south Seattle. CREDIT: EILIS O'NEILL

It’s 8 a.m. on a rainy, windy Saturday morning, and John Hoac and Brandon Teeny just got to school — Cleveland High in south Seattle. They’re here to measure air and noise pollution on campus.Read More

As Seattle Booms, A New Reality: The Carbon-Concrete Conundrum

By Eilís O'Neill January 24, 2018

As the Pacific Northwest economy booms, it’s using a lot of concrete to build buildings, roads, and other infrastructure. Making all that concrete is a big part of our carbon footprint, and it all comes from one plant: Ash Grove in south Seattle. Read More

‘Climate Leader’ Seattle: Lots Of Promises, Lots Of Pollution

By John Ryan January 11, 2018

For more than 10 years, Seattle leaders have said the city will lead the nation in fighting climate change. But the lofty words have been matched by continuing clouds of carbon emissions. Seattle dumps as much carbon dioxide into the sky as it did 25 years ago.Read More