Chief Seattle Club's new café dishes up tradition: Today So Far

• The ʔálʔal café specialized in Native food from around the USA.
• 19,000 patients in Seattle could soon be finding a new doctor, or be forced to pay out-of-network prices.
• Syphilis cases in King County have considerably spiked.

This post originally appeared in KUOW's Today So Far newsletter for December 1, 2022.

ʔálʔal is a Lushootseed word. Pronounced "ahl-ahl," it means "home." It's a fitting title for Chief Seattle Club's new café that features Indigenous foods.

The Chief Seattle Club is a social service organization that provides services to the city's Native population. With its ʔálʔal café, it aims to bring in food from across the country, drawn from Native cultures, such as bison tacos, blue corn mush, and wild rice and wojapi parfait. Ingredients are largely sourced from Native producers.

“We’re trying to serve as many types of traditional foods from various regions of the country as we can,” said café manager and chef Anthony Johnson.

Read more here.

Insurance companies and health care providers bicker all the time. It's a tense relationship. But when 19,000 patients are at risk, that's a pretty big deal. That's what's involved as Regence and Polyclinic fail to see eye-to-eye — 19,000 Regence BlueShield customers who currently rely on Polyclinic for health care. If the two parties break, then two things will happen: thousands of patients will flood other doctors in the area; or thousands of patients will discover just how expensive health care is when they're suddenly out-of-network.

Read the full story here.

An uptick in syphilis cases across King County has been noted in recent years, but looking at a graph of 2021 and 2022, it's safe to say that cases have exploded in our region.

Since 2015, syphilis cases have shot up five-fold, specifically in cisgender women.

“The increase in syphilis in cisgender women and pregnant people suggest that syphilis may be spreading in the general population and among women in particular,” said Dr. Matthew Golden, director of the Public Health – Seattle & King County HIV/STD Program. “Rising rates of syphilis in cisgender women and pregnant people is alarming, which is why we are recommending that most sexually active women 45 and under get tested if they haven’t had a test since 2021, and why we are asking providers to increase syphilis testing in pregnant persons.”

The issue is increasing the risks of congenital syphilis. Read more here.

AS SEEN ON KUOW

The trial for Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer has begun. Attorney Anne Bremner, left, delivers opening statements to the jury. Troyer faces two misdemeanor charges in Pierce County District Court. (Pierce County District Court)

DID YOU KNOW?: Happy birthday, Bette Midler

Happy birthday, Bette Midler. The iconic singer, comedian, actress, and more was born on Dec. 1, 1945 in Honolulu, Hawaii. Actually, at the time, Hawaii was a territory, not a state. Hawaii officially became a U.S. state by a vote of its residents in 1959.

Midler was voted "most talkative" and "most dramatic" at Radford High School. She briefly studied theater at the University of Hawaii, but after landing a paid role as an extra in a movie, she used the money to move to New York where she pursued her acting career. It turned out to be a smart move. After performing on stage in the 1960s, and rising to stardom in the 1970s, Midler has won 37 awards spanning the Golden Globes to the Grammys, not to mention a couple Tony awards.

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