Thursday Evening Headlines

Bandolse comes in hundreds of shapes, sizes, and flavors, but one Seattle Bakery is reimagining

the Mexican sweet breads with Pacific Northwest ingredients. Hey, I'm Brandy Foward,

host of Seattle Eats. On the latest episode, Seattle Times Food Rider Bethany Jean Clement

gives us some inside tips to build the perfect pastry box from a local panadheria.

Listen to Seattle Eats on the KOW app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Good afternoon from the KOW newsroom. This is Seattle now. I'm Paige Browning with the roundup

of today's top stories. It is Thursday, March 26. Starting off with a reminder today,

we're still in this thing, our spring fundraising drive, only a couple more days left in his fundraiser.

And you know, we're going to shout you out once we've collected everyone's names,

those of you who donated, unless you don't want that, of course, to be a champion of this show,

give a gift today. $15 a month, unlocks the new KOW socks, and at $25 a month,

we'll send you the coffee mug and coffee bean combo. Thank you so much for supporting

public radio. Our donation link is in the show notes. And thanks again.

We just got to ride the new light rail connection across Lake Washington. By we, I mean our producer

Brooklyn did. Today's sound trends it gave the news media a preview. Engineering and operations

expert Craig Delala explained that they've been testing the trains at a special facility in Colorado.

But what we did is we built a simulated area where we have the track bridges,

and we had hydraulic cylinders that could move them around to simulate the lake.

The official opening of the seven mile long extension of the two line over the i90 bridge

is set for Saturday morning, after being delayed a few times. The new light rail route across

the lake will be the first in the world to run on a floating bridge. In other local news,

Seattle wants a new trial over the death of a teenager in the chop, the Capitol Hill organized

protest zone. Attorneys for the city of Seattle say the $30 million verdict is too high,

and they plan to appeal it. In January, a King County jury found the city negligent in the death of

16-year-old Antonio Mays Jr., who died from gunshot wounds inside chop in 2020. The city is asking

for a new trial, claiming there was a 90 percent chance that Mays would have died regardless

of delays in medical care. The courts were busy today, dozens of people charged with criminal

trespassing during protests at UW entered not guilty, please. 33 people are accused of causing

more than a million dollars in damage to a UW engineering building. They were rallying and

supported Palestinians and took over the building to demand the university cut ties with Boeing

due to its military contracts with Israel. If convicted, the participants could face jail time and

a $5,000 fine. Seattle's losing another drug store, Walgreens will close its location on 23rd

and Jackson in Seattle's central district in May. The Capitol Hill Seattle blog reports that the

final day will be May 19th. The drugstore chain told the blog that customers can keep filling

prescriptions until the closure, but it's the latest loss in the city's drugstore scene after

Bartell drugs went out of business last year. The next closest drugstore to the shuttering

Walgreens is a mile and a half away inside a safeway store. Two Olympia state lawmakers had to make

some tough budget cuts this year, but they saved a program that provides long-term health care

for non-citizens who are in the country legally. State government reporter Sarah Meises Tan has more.

Liliana Chernova is a refugee from Ukraine who lives in Battleground, Washington. She cares for

her mother-in-law who has staged for cancer. If our mother-in-law will lose her Medicaid, it is equal

to the death. It is the same. Because in her situation, she will not be able to get medicine,

she will not be able to get care she needs. She cannot go to the doctor. Lawmakers have set aside

$19 million to fill in the federal government's cuts to Medicaid, which pays for the care

Liliana is giving her mother-in-law. Legislators say this was a tough budget year that required

prioritizing the state's most vulnerable and preserving access to this program was part of that

effort. In Olympia, I'm Sarah Meises Tan. Also in Olympia, state lawmakers cleared the way for

hundreds of millions of dollars to be invested in the state's free preschool program for low-income

households. During the legislative session, lawmakers created the Pre-K Promise account

that allows the state to accept massive philanthropic gifts from the Balmer group over the next decade

to expand its free preschool program by up to 10,000 slots. Katie Warren is with the Washington

State Association for Head Start and E-CAP. She says, even with this investment, there are

infrastructure challenges that will need to be addressed to support more students, such as finding

more classroom space. You cannot open the classroom if you do not have a classroom to open, right?

And that classroom has to be safe for children who are three and four, right? And finding the

funds to do that too. On top of needing more space Warren says to accommodate more students

and rolling in the state's free preschool program, more qualified educators will be needed as well.

A couple more notes today before our big story. Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson has appointed a new

director of Seattle Center, Randy Engstrom. He'll start almost immediately on March 30. This key

city position oversees one of the region's largest civic spaces and the site of some of Seattle's

biggest events and landmarks. Engstrom previously served as director of Seattle's Office of Arts

and Culture and his appointment gained celebration today from the arts entities of Folklife, Art Noir

and Langston Seattle. And it's opening day of baseball for the Mariners tonight at T-Mobile Park.

And just in time, the team has finally announced how to watch them through cable and satellite TV.

On Comcast Exfinity, the channel is 1261. If you have direct TV, it's channel 687. For

court cutters, you can purchase a streaming package from the team directly. No option for

bunny ears users. I'm still watching the PWHL on YouTube while it's still free there.

Now our feature story today, the US Supreme Court heard a case this week challenging how states

allow people to vote by mail. Local election officials are trying to figure out how to respond.

To learn more politics reporter Scott Greenstone spoke with KUW's Kim Malcolm.

Scott, what is this case all about? Hey, Kim. So this case is about if you and I fill out our

ballots and mail by election day, get them in the mail by election day, but they don't get counted

until after election day, should those votes count in Washington state, they would. As long as

your ballot is post marked by election day, you miss Mississippi, they'll count it up to five days

after. And that's what this lawsuit is about. The Republican National Committee is challenging

that Mississippi law saying all ballots must be received by election day. And from what we can tell,

a majority of conservative justices seem ready to side with the Republican National Committee and

overturn it. We're not going to know for a few months. So explain how a decision on a voting

law in Mississippi might affect how Washington voters cast their ballots. Yeah, if the Supreme

Court, right, the US Supreme Court rules that you can only count the ballots that came in by election

day, it would affect all states like us that do vote by mail. And especially that count ballots

that come in, I mean, we count them even weeks after election day. In 2024, the Washington

Secretary of State told me 127,000 votes came in after election day, almost 7,500 of those were

military and overseas voters, all of those votes would get thrown out. If this ruling were to come

to pass. Yes, that's right. Okay. So if the court goes ahead and strikes down this Mississippi law,

how big a deal would it be for our local election officials to adjust? I think that they could

adjust. And I should say for years, election officials here in King County have been telling voters,

hey, if it's within a week of the election, just take your ballot to one of those drop boxes at

the library or wherever is close. Right. They're saying, don't go to the post office. Don't take

the risk. Right. Don't take the risk. Exactly. And as a result, they have seen the number of ballots

coming in after election day drop to a very small percentage. Have elections officials here had

anything to say about this potential, really? Yeah, a lot of Democrats and election officials in

King County have said, this will disenfranchise voters. I will say some election officials in the past

have pushed for it and think that it would actually be better to count faster. One of them was

Sam Reed, Washington's Secretary of State from 2001 to 2013. Now, he says longer counts actually

do mean the counters, the folks who count the ballots, they're taking their time to make sure it's

right. And while he did run as a Republican, he does not think the Republican National Committee

should win this, go to his case. But Reed does think ballots should be counted quickly to be

fair actually to elected officials. A lot needs to be done to prepare for serving. And I really

think that it's not fair to have elections try going forever. So Reed certified the

infamously close 2004 gubernatorial election after Christmas. Right. And that did not leave

new governor Christine Gregor, much time to prep for the January legislative session, right?

All right. Well, Scott, if the court goes ahead and rules against this Mississippi law,

what would that mean for our elections this year? It could be chaotic. The court's decision will

likely come out in June or July. We mail military ballots for the primary in mid June. So King

County election staff told me they're talking about deploying more ballot drop boxes, potentially

looking at other counties where, you know, the League of Women voters have put signs near those

blue USPS mailboxes on the street, right? When elections are coming up, it's saying, hey,

if you're mailing your ballot and it's close to the election, just think about maybe walking

or driving it over to the light blue ballot drop box, the ones that say vote in a lot of different

languages. Politics reporter Scott Greenstone speaking with KUW's Kim Malcolm.

Next time on Seattle now, it's casual Friday. And we're talking about the possible return

of the super sonics. But some folks just still aren't over what happened in 2008.

I mean, we went to Oklahoma and I told my brother and my husband, they'll just talk about the

sonics. We get there. I did all the talking at trash talk. We're in every Uber driver.

So what do you think about stealing our teams? Hear more tomorrow morning. That's all for today

from the KUOW Newsroom in Seattle. Our producer is Andy Hearst and I'm Paige Browning. The

interview in today's episode was produced by John O'Brien. Seattle now and KUOW are members of

the NPR network. See ya.

Hi, I'm Joshua McNichols. And I'm Monica Nicholsburg. We host KUOW's

Economy Podcast booming. It's taken 10 years and almost $4 billion. But at long last,

light rail will soon run across Lake Washington. Some say the new connection could lead to more jobs

and housing opportunities on top of faster commutes. On the latest episode, we find out what a bridge

in Scandinavia can tell us about our own future. Listen to booming on the KUOW app or wherever you

get your podcasts.