KUOW Newsroom

Over the past several months, protesters have interrupted City Council discussions. Like on Sept. 19: Councilmember Bruce Harrell: "You're giving me no choice but to adjourn the meeting and I don't want to do that, I want to hear from you."

Emily Fox talks with Dr. David Breland, medical director of the Gender Clinic at Seattle Children's Hospital. The new clinic will provide mental health services, pubertal blockers and hormone therapy for people aged 8 to 21.

Tu Tu is his full name, because Burmese people don’t use last names. He is 20 when he arrives in Seattle. With his long bangs and torn jeans, he looks American. It terrifies him that he can’t speak English. How will he get by if he can’t communicate? It’s a fear he pushes out of his mind. He’s not supposed to be a kid anymore.

Kim Malcolm talks with Shankar Narayan about the use of surveillance technology by the Seattle Police Department. ​The issue resurfaced recently after a report in The Stranger detailed how the police had purchased software that allows officers to monitor your social media posts.

You have to get creative if you want to take a bus in Seattle late at night. Only 20 bus routes in King County run between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. A new King County Metro plan would expand those bus options. According to Metro, it's not just late-night workers or bar-goers who benefit. So do homeless people.

Seattle will be the first city in the nation to take a citywide plastic bag ban to another level, and ban any plastic produce bags in the colors green or brown. Seattle leaders want to help people who are composting wrong to finally get it right. People have been throwing plastic produce bags in their compost, since they resemble the green/brown biodegradable bags meant for compost bins. Plastic bags jam up the city's composting machines, which are costly for the city to fix. To prevent the

Large zoos in Washington are standing by while a private foundation tries to bring panda bears to the state. Officials at the Washington Panda Foundation say they'll be attending a Chinese Panda Summit this month. The only other invitees? Zoos who host pandas. The Chinese government charges $1 million a year for U.S. zoos to host panda bears and requires a minimum 10-year commitment to hosting.

There was a time when voting wasn’t so boring. History remembers those bygone voting days as a blast. Think the Suffrage movement, Civil Rights and pretty much all the 19th century (before women or people of color could vote, so not much of a party for them). But in the last decades, voting has become antiseptic and antisocial.

The Seattle International Film Festival's director and chief curator, Carl Spence, is stepping down after more than 20 years with SIFF. Spence joined the organization in 1994 as an assistant to the festival founders.

Sometimes businesses that have been around forever disappear. That favorite dive bar or cheap restaurant closed to make way for a glitzy condo complex. For a while, Seattle City Councilwomen Kshama Sawant and Lisa Herbold were trying to get rent control for businesses like that. But that idea didn’t fly. Now Herbold is exploring a backup plan.