KUOW News and Information
Revelers at the McGilvra Elementary School Spring Auction on April 23, 2016. The auction brought in much of the $422,000 the school raised last year.
KUOW Photo/Ann Dornfeld

Should wealthy PTAs have to share funds with poorer schools?

It was dark and rainy in most of Seattle. But inside a glittering event space, hundreds of middle-aged, mostly-white Madison Park residents were dressed for summer: Men in bright seersucker suits and saddle shoes. Women in sherbet-colored silk dresses and matching hats with plumage.

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Courtesy of Jon Shields

Do we teach Civics anymore? Technically, yes, in the public school systems of all 50 states. We often call it Government. But are these courses fulfilling the spirit of our country’s founding when it comes to civic responsibility? Thomas Jefferson had something like this in mind: “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”

KUOW PHOTO/MEGAN FARMER

Seattle mayor-elect Jenny Durkan assembles her transition team, and the City Council rejects a head tax on big Seattle businesses – for now. We'll cover the latest from City Hall as Durkan's swearing-in fast approaches.

The Spokane City Council will consider an ordinance Monday, that would make it easier for anyone with a criminal record to be hired.

Benaroya Hall, home of the Seattle Symphony.
Flickr Photo/D Coetzee (Public Domain)/https://flic.kr/p/6uEiXr

Seattle’s lively theater community will lose two of its leaders.

The 5th Avenue Theater said artistic director David Armstrong is stepping down. Meanwhile, the Seattle Symphony has announced that its president and CEO Simon Woods will leave for the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

If you're reading this on your phone while driving, stop it. Especially if you're a young neurotic extroverted guy who drives a lot.

Two seconds of attention to the insistent beeping and blinking of our mobile phones or simply changing the radio station accounts for at least 12 percent of car accidents worldwide and 14 percent of them in the U.S., according to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration.

Seattle Mayor Tim Burgess, King County Executive Dow Constantine and Deputy Executive Rhonda Berry at a press conference announcing the intent to move youth detention oversight to Public Health Seattle King County.
KUOW Photo/Patricia Murphy

King County Executive Dow Constantine is making a change he says will help the county with its effort to dramatically reduce the practice of detaining young people arrested for crimes.

Constantine signed an executive order Thursday moving oversight of youth detention to Public Health Seattle King County.

Updated at 8 p.m. ET

TransCanada, the company that owns and operates the Keystone Pipeline, says that an estimated 210,000 gallons, or 5,000 barrels, of oil have spilled near the small town of Amherst, S.D.

For the past almost-50 years, I've been sharing an old family Thanksgiving recipe with NPR listeners. Mama Stamberg's Cranberry Relish comes from my late mother-in-law Marjorie Stamberg, who served it in Allentown, Pa., when I was brought there to be inspected by my future in-laws.

The Washington State Supreme Court has decided that it believes in second chances and rehabilitation in a case involving a former drug addict who transformed into a promising future attorney.

The high court ordered that Tarra Simmons of Bremerton, an honors law school graduate with a criminal past, can take the bar exam to become a licensed lawyer.

“I’m just overwhelmed,” Simmons said shortly after receiving news of the order. “I went to my knees crying because it’s been such a long and painful journey. “

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