Soundside

The rising cost of everyday goods, and the end of several pandemic programs like the expanded Child Tax Credit has put millions of families across the family in a financially precarious position. Here in Washington, Tacoma is piloting their own guaranteed income initiative. It's called GRIT, an acronym for growing resilience in Tacoma.

Point Roberts, Washington's famous exclave, is surrounded on three sides by water and on the last side by the Canadian border. If you want to get to "The Point" on land, you have to drive to Blaine and through British Columbia to drop back down into U.S. soil.

So when the pandemic closed the northern border, the community of 850 residents was essentially cut off. Two years later, with the border the most open it's been since the pandemic began, there are slow signs of recovery -- but some residents say more needs to be done.

Last week, a judge ordered Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer to stay 1000 feet away from a local Black newspaper carrier. The carrier, Sedrick Altheimer, had filed an anti-harassment protection order against Troyer.

And this isn’t the only legal trouble Troyer is facing. Yet Troyer is still in office. And he says he plans to stay there.

In the early 1960s, Seattle Public Schools launched the "voluntary racial transfer program." A new documentary features voices of students, past and present, reflecting on the legacy of busing and racism in the halls of Roosevelt High School and the district at-large.

Seattle has spent years trying to figure out how to make its police department more accountable and transparent. That's a big reason the Office of Police Accountability, or OPA, exists. The OPA's job is to investigate cases of police misconduct - everything from dishonesty and rudeness from officers, to excessive use of force.

Now, a new director will soon take over.

At its core, Soundside is about connecting with our listeners and bringing you stories you care about and that impact those of us living here in the Pacific Northwest.

Each week we ask for your thoughts about our stories -- where they've succeeded and where they can improve. Here's what you told us.

Amazon. Starbucks. The Seattle Art Museum. All local companies with workers fighting to unionize.

And now that list also includes gaming companies.

Employees at Redmond-based Paizo Inc., which publishes tabletop RPGs like Pathfinder and Starfinder, recently voted to form a union, and the company has voluntarily recognized it.

That's relatively unique in the gaming industry, which doesn't have a history of labor organizing. The Seattle retail store Card Kingdom is trying to do the same.

Members of United Paizo Workers are now tackling the tough work of bargaining for a contract.

Two years ago, the Seattle Police Department abandoned the Capitol Hill East Precinct, leading to the creation of the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP). At the time, former Police Chief Carmen Best distanced herself from that decision. Whether Best approved the move remains an open question that is difficult to answer due to missing text messages. In a deposition obtained by Axios, Best said she deleted texts she sent during the 2020 protests.

The fictional tech company at the center of the new book, “The Immortal King Rao,” is called “Coconut.” It’s a rough amalgamation of Apple and Microsoft of the 1980s and 1990s, driving a personal computer revolution, and later it morphs into a Google, Amazon and Facebook avatar in the way it gobbles up peoples’ data and monetizes human interaction.

Last month, Metro Parks Tacoma announced the closure of the popular Five Mile Drive to vehicles, after a geotechnical assessment found that the erosion of the bluffs posed a safety risk. The report did not explicitly link the erosion to climate change, but park officials say they believe there is a connection. So how are Washington's parks responding to the effects climate change is having on our coastlines, forests, and mountains?