The Cauliflower and Wild Mushroom Kugel served at the "A Monday Night in Winter" pop up restaurant. Sisters Anna and Molly Goren, Seattleites who organized the event, hope it will help bring more Jewish food choices to the area. (Photo by Lindsey Wasson / The Seattle Times)

Old-world Jewish food gets a new Seattle spin

Seattle's Jewish community is growing fast developing a taste for traditional Ashkenazi cuisine.
Jan 16, 2015
Bilingual court Judge Veronica Alicea-Galvan

For bilingual judge, there’s no translating the language of justice

Veronica Alicea Galván didn’t mean to start the only Spanish-language courtroom in Washington state. It just kind of…happened.
Jan 9, 2015
Eco Kargha weaver Poonam Devi prepares bobbins of silk thread, January 2013.

Upaya helps India’s ultra poor get higher-paying jobs

Extreme poverty is an unavoidable reality in India. The first time I traveled in the country — as an inexperienced and idealistic 20-year-old backpacker — I was shocked by the families living on the street, the children begging for food, the old women breaking rocks on the side of the road. I wondered what could […]
Dec 12, 2014
Chanting "hands up, don't shoot," protesters briefly blocked the entrance to the Comet Tavern on Black Friday, saying that the business owners discriminated against East African youth. (Photo by Alan Berner / The Seattle Times)

Do #BlackLivesMatter on Capitol Hill?

What to make of accusations of racial profiling and police harassment in a neighborhood known for tolerance?
Dec 5, 2014
Ziplock bags full of Metformin, a medication used to treat diabetes, donated to Seattle's Salaam Cultural Museum for delivery to Syrian refugees in Jordan. (Photo by Alisa Reznick)

Drug recycling: crime or compassion?

Collecting unused meds and giving them to needy people overseas isn’t legal. But some Seattleites are doing it anyways.
Dec 3, 2014
Carol Glenn, a former Seattle nurse, collected leftover HIV/AIDS drugs to send overseas. It wasn't legal, but Glenn believed it was her duty. (Photo by Isolde Raftery / KUOW)

Seattle’s humanitarian drug trafficking ring

At the height of the AIDS crisis, nurse Carol Glenn ran a secret pipeline to get leftover drugs from Seattle to sick people in the developing world.
Yoga instructor Sweta Saraogi shows one of her moves in the yoga studio she teaches out of in her condo in Seattle. (Photo by Ellen M. Banner / The Seattle Times)

The Seattle yoga scene’s diversity problem

"That’s the face of yoga: a thin, white, blonde American teacher who can do crazy pretzel moves and pass for a super model.”
Nov 28, 2014
Selam Zecharias, an intern at Facebook's Seattle office, is interviewed in the office "hot tub," About one percent of Facebook employees are African-American. (Photo by Ken Lamber / The Seattle Times)

Facebook’s first Habesha reflects on her refugee roots

With the help of an innovative internship program, Eritrean refugee Selam Zecharias found a place in a Seattle tech world dominated by white men.
Nov 21, 2014
Patrice Thomas, left, and Maia Segura discuss community development and diversity at Kaffa Coffee & Wine Bar on Rainier Avenue South in Seattle. (Photo by Mark Harrison / The Seattle Times)

Confronting the myth of Seattle as a “white city”

What the numbers hide when we measure diversity in Seattle.
Nov 14, 2014
A beachside building in Majuro, capital of the Marshall Islands. (Photo by Mrlins from Flickr)

US citizenship just out of reach, Marshall Islanders fight for food aid

Hailing from a tiny island nation ravaged by American nuclear testing, a growing population of Marshall islanders are struggling to make a home here without access to citizenship.
Oct 31, 2014
Jose Antonio Vargas attends a Mitt Romney presidential campaign rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa in 2012. (Photo courtesy Apo Anak Productions)

The new ‘coming out’

Our undocumented neighbors, co-workers and friends are taking a brave step out of the shadows to change the way we think about immigration.
Oct 23, 2014
Pastor George Everett speaking to Mercer Island Presbyterian Church about the Ebola outbreak in his home country of Liberia. (Photo by Sarah Stuteville)

Ebola crisis taking a toll on local Liberians

Liberian-Americans say they have the knowledge to help contain the outbreak in their home country, but they don't have the money
Oct 17, 2014
Hugo Lucitante pilots a boat on the Ecuadorian Amazon, on the land of the Cofan people, which is threatened by oil extraction. (Photo courtesy Oil and Water)

Lifeline for Amazon tribe runs through Seattle

Local documentary, “Oil & Water,” tells the story of an Ecuadorean tribe endangered by global warming and oil extraction, an ambassador from that tribe in Seattle and his friendship with a man who helps certify oil companies as environmentally friendly.
Oct 3, 2014
Hamda Yusuf, a third-year international studies major who is Somali American, often works on her poetry about identity at the Quad on the University of Washington campus. (Photo by Lindsey Wasson / The Seattle Times)

Borders collapse in voices of young poets

A growing cohort of immigrant poets gives a universal spin to Northwest themes.
Sep 26, 2014
David La at the UW’s Baker Laboratory is part of a team working on potential Ebola treatments, but they’re also crowdsourcing ideas over the Internet relating to a cure. (Photo by Mark Harrison / The Seattle Times)

Northwest labs and donors leading the fight against Ebola

As Ebola spreads at alarming rates in West Africa, local labs are leading the race for an effective treatment.
Sep 19, 2014
Volunteers unpack donations at a food bank in California. (Photo from Flicrk by OC Foodbank)

Immigrants, especially vulnerable to hunger, have trouble accessing food aid

Seattle's international population is especially vulnerable to hunger — but they're often unable or afraid to access food aid.
Sep 12, 2014
A guard at the Red Security Building in Sulaimaniyah, Iraq, the headquarters of the Iraqi Intelligence Service under Saddam Hussein’s regime where many Kurds were imprisoned and tortured. (Photo by Alex Stonehill)

Why I’m resisting the urge to tune out news from Iraq

After years as a secular, stable, pro-American bastion, Iraq's Kurdish region is under serious threat and deserves our help.
Aug 29, 2014
Climbers in the midst of a small avalanche during an Everest ascent. (Photo by Lloyd Smith)

Seattle Sherpas weigh role at Everest after deadly avalanche

Members of the Northwest Sherpa community are collecting money to aid the families of Sherpas killed in April’s big avalanche on Mount Everest, and some are rethinking their careers as mountain guides.
Aug 22, 2014
Campers at Kids4Peace in Mount Vernon play piano together. (Photo by Deborah Espinosa)

During summer of war, kids at Mount Vernon camp study peace

As missiles and airstrikes fill this summer’s news out of Israel and Gaza, a group of 35 American and Middle Eastern youth of different faiths gathered at a summer camp to train as the next generation of peacemakers.
Aug 15, 2014
A rickshaw painted by Bobby Solanki depicts a classic Bollywood scene featuring Amitabh Buchchan and Rekha. (Photo from Flickr by Meena Kadri)

Planet Bollywood makes its mark on the Pacific Northwest

From Facebook groups to festivals, dance parties to college courses, our region enthusiastically celebrates the global powerhouse that is Bollywood, the Indian film industry.
Aug 8, 2014