Soundside

Shortly after the shooting of two national guard troops in Washington, D.C., the Trump Administration said it was pausing asylum decisions and halting visas for Afghan immigrants.  The alleged shooter is Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a Bellingham resident who came to the U.S. from Afghanistan in 2021. The motive for the attack is unknown. One victim – 20 year old Sarah Beckstrom – was killed in Wednesday’s shooting. The attack has prompted the Trump administration to supercharge restrictions on migrants from 19 countries, primarily ones in Africa and the Middle East. And it has left many others in this country fearful about their future as the federal government turns new scrutiny on green cards and asylee statuses that have already been granted.  We’re trying to get a sense of how policy actions may impact immigrant communities, so we’re speaking with Luis Cortes Romero. He is an immigration lawyer and managing partner at Novo Legal Group. A note:  After our taping, on Tuesday evening, the Department of Homeland Security announced a pause for all immigration applications for people from 19 countries deemed "high risk."  Those are the same 19 countries Luis and I discussed that were under some previous restrictions: mainly African and Middle Eastern nations, including Sudan, Somalia and Iran -- also Venezuela, Haiti, and more. DHS says this requires "all aliens meeting the criteria undergo a thorough re-review process." GUESTS: Luis Cortes Romero is an immigration lawyer and managing partner at Novo Legal Group.  RELATED LINKS:  Shooting of National Guard members prompts flurry of U.S. immigration restrictions - PBS Trump pauses immigration applications for 19 nations on travel ban list - Washington Post Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes Soundside is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Have you ever wanted a pet raccoon?  Well, here’s a possible sign that dream is slowly approaching:  a new study published in the journal Frontiers in Zoology suggests raccoons are getting closer to domestication.  The study is not definitive yet, and more research is required. But it all has to do with researchers observing a shorter snout on the animals we affectionately refer to as trash pandas.  GUEST Marina Wang, freelance journalist RELATED LINKS Raccoons Are Showing Early Signs of Domestication - Scientific American Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes Soundside is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Seattle’s brand new Professional Women’s Hockey team, the newly christened Seattle Torrent, faces off against the New York Sirens tonight at Climate Pledge Arena…  Tonight’s game is the third ever for the team, and their growing fan base has both high hopes and big expectations as the season gets started. Soundside Producer Jason Burrows sat down with Libby Denkmann ahead of tonight's game to talk about how things are going! RELATED LINKS:  Seattle Torrent lose PWHL debut to Vancouver Goldeneyes in overtime  Seattle Torrent drop PWHL home opener to Minnesota before record crowd  Seattle Torrent vs Minnesota Frost Inaugural Home Opener Post Game Press 365 HOCKEY GIRL | PWHL (@365_hockeygirl) • Instagram Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes Soundside is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Twenty-six years ago, this week over 40,000 people came to Seattle to protest at the World Trade Organization's ministerial conference. Labor organizers, farmers, and environmental groups planned and executed peaceful action against what many saw as anti-democratic elements of the WTO, and the profound risks from the unfettered expansion of global trade.  At events from Memorial Stadium to the waterfront and marches in downtown Seattle, advocates for the global south joined arms with American steelworkers, decrying the outsourcing of jobs.  Ultimately, the “Battle of Seattle” pushed trade policy to the front page.  But for many, the enduring memories from that week in Seattle are the clouds of tear gas deployed by police and broken windows at downtown businesses.  A new documentary called WTO/99 tries to capture the events on the ground as they happened. It’s composed entirely of archival footage. And it highlights the way narratives around power and protest are shaped by media images.   GUEST: Ian Bell, director, WTO/99 RELATED LINKS: Soundside's conversation with DW Gibson, author of "One Week to Change the World," about the WTO protests Where to watch WTO/99 Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes Soundside is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Some rare bipartisanship is emerging in congress: it focuses on questions about the legality of a September 2nd U.S. strike on a boat in the Caribbean. 11 people were killed, including two men who initially survived the first strike, but were killed by a follow-up attack. This operation was the start of a campaign of strikes the Trump Administration says it is waging to protect Americans from drugs smuggled by narco-terrorists.  GUEST: Representative Adam Smith (WA-09), ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee  RELATED LINKS: NPR: Congress steps in as questions mount over who authorized a second strike at sea NPR: As strikes on alleged drug boats grow, so do questions about their legality and goal Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes Soundside is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We have a new thing we’re trying out on Mondays on Soundside. We're calling it Front Page.It’s our chance to talk about the latest news with a rotation of plugged-in journalists and guests, taking a look at the headlines from the weekend and the stories that we'll be following as the week moves forward. GUEST: KUOW politics reporter Scott Greenstone. TODAY'S TOPICS: National Guard Shooting in Washington D.C. Noem says National Guard shooting suspect was 'radicalized' in the U.S. Seattle Traffic Why Seattle traffic got worse in 2024 Light rail’s push to Federal Way gives students, workers front-door access Pigeons Why Sound Transit is waging a ceaseless battle against birds Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes Soundside is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr. Robert Jones is the new president of our region’s largest educational and research hub. He took the helm at the University of Washington in August, and when we sat down recently, he shared a bit about his background and path to Seattle. Jones says his parents were sharecroppers farming peanuts and cotton in southwest Georgia. “Where most people would tell you the last thing you should have anything to do with if you grew up as a son of sharecroppers. I was innately curious about science, and particularly became very curious about plants” It’s ultimately what set him on his academic path: Crop physiology. “And in my case, it was corn, and the whole goal was to understand the impact of environment on physiological processes that would be disrupted and cause a reduction in the yield of a major agricultural crops under a global climate change scenario.  This was before the term global climate change was coined, and so that's what I spent 34 and a half years trying to understand, how do we make corn more tolerant to heat and drought stress?  And that basic physiological research has led to what is now most of the major agricultural crops being able to withstand temperatures and drought longer than they ever had before in the modern history of production agriculture.” Jones spent more than three decades teaching and doing research at the University of Minnesota. He later led the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where the enrollment grew by 25% and they launched a new medical school during his tenure.  The University of Washington has a similar enrollment size to Illinois – more than 60-thousand students and 30-thousand faculty and staff. So Soundside wanted to hear from the new university president… Roughly 100 days into his tenure, what’s his read on the biggest challenges and opportunities facing the school?  We should note we are a self-sustaining service of the University of Washington, with editorial independence. GUEST: University of Washington President, Dr. Robert Jones Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes Soundside is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the show today, we’re getting you ready for Thanksgiving leftovers with a little leftovers of our own. We’re pulling some of our favorite segments from Soundside past out of the fridge, and warming ‘em up for you. Up first: edible plants are all around us in the Pacific Northwest. We'll hear how one local author became obsessed with helping people identify tasty greens and stay safe foraging for mushrooms and leafy goodies. Also on the show: for over 60 years the quiz game show Jeopardy has been a beloved part of people’s lives. Washington native Ken Jennings says, growing up, the show sparked his love of trivia. It’s a passion that led him to a 74 game winning streak in 2004, and eventually a job behind the podium as host.  Meanwhile he’s translated his trivia expertise into his own game - called Kennections. It’s a weekly puzzle he writes for Mental Floss. GUESTS: Natalie Hammerquist, herbalist, expert forager, and author of Edible Plants of the Pacific Northwest and Medicinal Plants of the Pacific Northwest Ken Jennings, host of Jeopardy and author of The Complete Kennections: 5,000 questions in 1,000 puzzles RELATED LINKS: The many joys (and a few potential dangers) of foraging in the PNW Soundside "kennects" with Ken Jennings Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes Soundside is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week we’re going back into the archives to dig up some of our favorite Soundside segments. And with Thanksgiving just days away, this episode is all about food and drink!  We'll revisit conversations we had this year on the trend of people drinking less alcohol these days....  .... The sweet apple variety that has left a bitter taste in some farmers’ mouths (spoiler: it's the honeycrisp).... ...And the shortage of matcha, which has blown up on social media and dominated coffee shop menus lately.  GUESTS: Emily Ritchie, executive director of the Northwest Cider Association. Malcolm Purinton, assistant teaching professor of history at Northeastern University. Bill Clark runs the Diamondback Acres farm with his wife, Angell, in Chelan.   Jeannie Liu, owner of Miro Tea. Bettina Makalintal, senior reporter at Eater. RELATED LINKS: Liquor before beer, best to steer clear? Why people are drinking less these days Honeycrisp apples are the worst (just kidding, but they are tough to grow) A lot of people love matcha... And that's causing some problems Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes Soundside is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, we’re re-airing some of our favorite stories from the past year.  First up on today's show: The Seattle Torrent played their very first professional women’s hockey game on Friday night, but before they even had a name, we talked with their General Manager Meghan Turner about bringing the team to the city. Later, we’ll play an interview with the author of the literary mystery “Murder by the Book.” Finally, we’ll get a peek inside a Pow Wow through the lens of a kid who just wants to play his game! GUESTS:  Meghan Turner - General Manager, Seattle Torrent Amie Schaumberg Joey Clift RELATED LINKS: No name, lots of game: Women's pro hockey comes to Seattle Spoiler Alert: Someone dies in Amie Schaumberg's "Murder by the Book" Filmmaker Joey Clift talks about the inspiration behind the animated short POW! Watch POW! via First Nations Experience - Pow! Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes Soundside is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.