Seattle Now
Get up to speed on the stories shaping Seattle, weekday mornings at 6 a.m.
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Episodes
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Casual Friday: Enough with the atmospheric rivers
It’s another Friday and another week filled with Omicron. At least the free at-home Covid tests are on the way. Plus we’ve had a break from the rain, and our hockey team got an adorable new puppy. Aww. We’ll get into all of that with Seattle Weather Blog’s Justin Shaw and KUOW’s Paige Browning.
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Inside the hospital covid crunch
The good news: Omicron appears to be peaking and fewer people are becoming seriously ill. But the biggest infections spike of the entire pandemic is flooding hospitals, and the next few weeks could push things past the breaking point. We talk with NPR science reporter Will Stone about how Harborview Medical Center is holding up.
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On the road to one million EVs
There are 84,000 electric vehicles on the road in Washington today. By the end of this decade, the plan is to get to one million. And there’s a pile of federal money on the way to get you behind the wheel.
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Tongans wait for a word from home
Tonga is still mostly cut off after an undersea volcano erupted on Saturday and put the West Coast on tsunami lookout. Here in Seattle, family and friends are standing by and ready to help.
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When MLK came to town
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. only came to Seattle once, in 1961. He was invited by his longtime friend, Reverend Samuel B. McKinney of Mt. Zion Baptist Church. KUOW's Isolde Raftery tells Kim Malcolm about the message he brought with him that would become his most famous speech.
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Seattle Now: Definitely no crimes in this episode
The second week of 2022 was a lot like the first week of 2022: wet, gray and filled with Omicron. We talk school closures and judging risk in this new not-lockdown times. Plus, escape to a different kind of
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This squirrel puppet won't judge
Plenty of people are struggling with their mental health through this long pandemic. Some are finding community online. We’ll meet a TikTok creator who’s roaming Orcas Island with a squirrel puppet who preaches non-judgement.
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How do we make the city safer for pedestrians?
More Seattle walkers and bikers are dying on the city's roads than five years ago, despite an initiative to eliminate traffic fatalities by the end of this decade. KUOW's Gracie Todd dug into why it's happening and what could be done to reverse the trend.
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Charge your laptops, remote school might be back
It's "refresh your email and wait for an update to find out if your kid has school tomorrow" time, as Omicron has begun to force closures due to short staffing and safety concerns. KUOW's Ann Dornfeld explains how Seattle is handling the pressure to keep schools open.
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'Before was practice.' This epidemiologist says to treat the pandemic like it's 2020
When you're coming up on two years in a pandemic, the last thing anyone wants to hear is that everything up until now has been a trial run. But that's how UW epidemiologist Judith Malmgren sees things with omicron driving infections to record levels.
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Casual Friday: The Homer Simpson Transformation
It's a new year, but Covid didn't get the memo that it's no longer invited to the party. Between scrambling to find rapid test kits and returning to our home offices, it's been a hell of a week. Plus, we look ahead to the good food Seattle can expect to see in 2022.
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It'll melt
The first big snow of winter is mostly behind us, but if you’ve been trying to get around recently you’ve likely got a story to tell about it.