Seattle Now

Dozens of homeless residents in Burien are still living outside, months after the city started debating how to help them. A million dollar deal fell through. An entire city board resigned. And council meetings are getting heated, to say the least.

There's something for every community in the region to learn about Burien's homelessness crisis. Publicola editor and publisher Erica C. Barnett explains.

People in Seattle have always cared about trees - we’re the Emerald City, after all. One tree in the Wedgwood neighborhood has captured Seattle’s attention in recent weeks, enough for vigils, tree sitters, and protests at city council meetings. KUOW Online Managing Editor Isolde Raftery is here to tell us more about Luma the tree, and those determined to keep it standing.

Local journalism is an integral part of the community, and Seattle’s media landscape has changed dramatically in recent years. Those changes have consequences for news consumers. South Seattle Emerald founder Marcus Harrison Green and Vanishing Seattle founder Cynthia Brothers are here to talk about the state of journalism in Seattle.

Washington’s new drug possession law kicked in at the start of this month… After a long political fight that ended in a special session.

But while it’s still a crime to have drugs on your person, the law ALSO creates a pilot program to treat substance use disorder.

We’ll get a preview of what that might look like with Nina Shapiro of the Seattle Times.

This week… Taylor Swift is coming to town, marking yet another busy weekend in the Seattle area. The Stranger released its top 15 restaurants in Seattle, centered around affordable eats. And the Mariners started, and quickly stopped, selling Toronto Blue Jays merch. Author Jodi-Ann Burey and Too Beautiful To Live Co-Host Andrew Walsh are here to break down the week.

Summer is in full swing... Sun, fun, watermelon and swimming. It’s a tough time to be short on lifeguards, but that’s what’s happening. KUOW’s Bill Radke and economy reporter Monica Nickelsburg set out to find out why.

Whether or not you’re a Swiftie… Taylor Swift’s presence will have a big footprint on our region For some local fans, her three-and-a-half-hour performance is their wildest dream and the most important event of the year. We'll talk to two local fans about how they’re getting ready and why they feel such a deep connection to her music.

Politics, especially local elections, can be really inaccessible to young people. So, The Stranger and Washington Bus pulled out all the stops for an event called Candidate Survivor. It included everything from tofu hot wings to lip sync battles to help inspire the youth vote. Seattle Now Producer Vaughan Jones is here to break down the event, and its impact.

Artificial Intelligence is showing up in our daily lives more and more, from smart search engines to fake images on social media. Government regulation is trying to catch up.

The Federal Trade Commission is investigating OpenAI, makers of ChatGPT and backed by Microsoft. KUOW’s Monica Nickelsburg is here to tell us how the investigation might impact AI in our daily lives and in Seattle’s tech scene.

This week… The city’s All-Star festivities are going, going, gone, but Seattle’s got another big event on its plate. Ballots for this year’s August primary were sent out this week, but statistics show you might not be voting in it. And our panel defends Seattle’s status as a geek-friendly city. KUOW Education Reporter Sami West and Ticket Editor Chase Burns are here to break down the week.