KPLU

If you listened to KPLU in the Skagit Valley area at 91.1 FM, please note that we had to move to a new frequency on Thursday afternoon. So for the foreseeable future, you can listen to us at 105.5 FM. Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.

For thirty years, the National Endowment for the Arts has honored jazz musicians with the highest award for the genre, the NEA Jazz Masters Award. However, in its latest appropriations request, the NEA removed specific reference to Jazz, Folk, and Opera.

The way KPLU’s Groove Notes blogger and Jazz on the Grooveyard host Kevin Kniestedt reads it, the new language means no more Jazz Masters.

Read more.

As the United Nations and the international community ramps up to airlift food and supplies into East Africa, mostly for starving Somali refugees, two perspectives on this crisis seemed especially interesting to Tom Paulson, who runs KPLU’s Humanosphere.

One: In Foreign Policy, Charles Kenny contends that, in this day and age, allowing a famine to occur is basically a crime against humanity.

Two: David Dickson, editor of the Science and Development Network, contends that the UN, Western powers and aid organizations could have been well-prepared for this crisis – if they had paid any attention to the scientific evidence.

Read more.

Washington today became the latest state to align its education standards with a national movement. Forty-four states have now committed to what are dubbed  “common core standards” for Language Arts and Math in public schools.

Washington officials say residents have recycled more than 100 million pounds since the state's electronics recycling program began in January 2009.

In Seattle, residents have hit an all-time high in recycling of all products, according to the City of Seattle’s annual recycling report to be released Wednesday.

President Barack Obama hung the Medal of Honor around the neck of Sergeant First Class Leroy Petry, from the Joint Base Lewis McChord, in a ceremony at the White House today.  Petry is assigned to an Army Rangers regiment at Fort Benning, Georgia.

RICHLAND, Wash. – The cherries are finally ready for harvest in the Northwestern U.S. A cold spring means that this is the latest cherry season anyone can remember. The Northwest News Network’s Anna King has this audio postcard from one of the largest fruit orchards in the world. (Watch the story inside)

These days home sellers are facing an uphill battle, and qualified buyers are becoming ever pickier. Find out how traffic congestion and pending construction project - even those that benefit the community at large- can impede the sale of a house.

The 27th Annual Victoria International JazzFest is underway now through July 3 in various venues in downtown Victoria.

JazzFest presents a culturally and musically diverse program of 85 stunning performances and four workshop/clinics on 12 stages in downtown Victoria. Over 350 musicians in 66 bands from over nine of the world's most diverse countries including Australia, Cuba, Denmark, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the U.S. will be performing in Victoria during the Fesival.

"If this isn't the best jazz festival in the world, please send us tickets to a better one."

~Paul de Barros, The Seattle Times

Vancouver's signature festival and British Columbia's biggest music showcase will animate the city for ten days, June 24 - July 3.

From noon to the wee small hours, a rich tapestry of jazz, blues, funk, Latin, fusion, electronica and world music will fill the air at venues big and small, indoor and outdoor across the city.

UNITED STATES ATTORNEY'S OFFICE
Western District of Washington

June 23, 2011

TWO MEN CHARGED IN PLOT TO ATTACK SEATTLE MILITARY PROCESSING CENTER
Defendants Sought Firearms and Grenades to Attack Complex where Enlistees Report

In 2009, Seattle-based PATH, with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, launched a project aimed at combating cervical cancer in India by introducing the HPV vaccine.

The vaccine program didn’t work out as planned.

To the EM community - 

The safety of the DOE workforce and the communities around our facilities is of the utmost importance to Secretary Chu and is something that requires constant vigilance.  As he says regularly, "We must always be looking for ways to strengthen our approach to safety and foster a questioning attitude at each of our sites."   

Suzanne Heaston, Bechtel’s spokeswoman in Richland. (Bechtel is the prime waste treatment plant contractor.)

WTP management and employees are fully committed to a strong nuclear safety and quality culture, and we welcome every opportunity to improve it. We will work with the DOE to carefully study the DNFSB report and any supporting information provided to identify further opportunities for enhancement.

Jen Stutsman, a DOE spokeswoman:

At every level of the Department of Energy, we take our obligation to protect the safety of our workers and the public very seriously. We are committed to fostering a questioning, safety-driven attitude among all of our federal and contractor employees. That is why the Department has in place a number of distinct safety programs that include independent nuclear safety reviews and an integrated safety management program headed by the DOE Office of Health, Safety and Security.