Gabriel Spitzer

How skinny is that latte? Starbucks rolls out calorie counts nationwide

Gabriel Spitzer — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 22:59:15 +0000

Starbucks will begin posting calorie counts on its menu boards and bakery cases nationwide next week—something it’s already required to do in King County

'Sort of' alive: Researchers probe how kids think about robots

Gabriel Spitzer — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 12:01:00 +0000

One way young kids learn to organize the world is by dividing it into living and non-living things. But now that robots vacuum our floors and smart phones talk back to us, do children think of technology as alive? A team of Washington researchers is exploring how kids interact with robots, and what that might reveal about both their brains and ours.

Council gets a warning about dismantling homeless camp

Gabriel Spitzer — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 17:02:35 +0000

Homeless residents of a large Seattle tent city warn that closing down their camp will have dire consequences, while city council members left the door open to keep the camp dwellers together.

About 125 residents make their home at the West Seattle site known as Nickelsville. Advocates told members of a city council committee Wednesday that many of those tent dwellers will die on the streets if the city moves forward with threatened evictions September 1st.

Plan to carve city council into districts likely headed for ballot

Gabriel Spitzer — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 23:58:46 +0000

Seattle voters will likely get a chance to consider a new way to elect the city council. Supporters of a district-elections amendment delivered 10 boxes of petitions to the city clerk, containing 46,633 signatures – more than enough to grab a place on the November ballot.

Seattle City Council wants to disband Nickelsville tent city

Gabriel Spitzer — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 00:51:59 +0000

Seattle officials want to break up the two-year old homeless encampment called Nickelsville, but residents there say that would just cause a new tent city to spring up somewhere else.

Seven city council members sent a letter to Mayor Mike McGinn Monday calling for Nickelsville to shut down by Sept. 1. The camp, made up of more than 100 homeless people, is about to begin its third summer parked near the Duwamish River in southeastern West Seattle.

Labor board sides with PLU faculty in unionization push

Gabriel Spitzer — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 00:30:35 +0000

Disclosure: Pacific Lutheran University holds the license for KPLU. The station’s on-air staffers form the university’s only unionized unit.

In a decision with national implications, labor relations officials have ruled that certain faculty at Pacific Lutheran University should be allowed to form a union. This case is a test of some new provisions in labor law, and is being followed by other universities around the country.

Olympia couple snared in dragnet of timeshare scams

Gabriel Spitzer — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 00:32:27 +0000

The state’s attorney general says an Olympia couple ripped off thousands of people, including about 1,500 in Washington, in a series of timeshare and travel scams. He’s suing the couple as part of a nationwide crackdown.

Police urge caution—not panic—after rash of kidnapping attempts

Gabriel Spitzer — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 12:00:00 +0000

It’s the stuff of bad movies: a masked man snatches a toddler, tucks him under his arm and runs off. And yet the King County Sheriff’s office says that’s exactly what happened Sunday in White Center.

It was one of four attempted kidnappings reported in the area over just a few days. All the kids were returned safely, and the incidents appear to be unconnected. But the rash of seeming abduction attempts have Seattle-area police and parents on edge. But just how much should people worry?

Seattle investor declares the advent of ‘Big Marijuana’

Gabriel Spitzer — Thu, 30 May 2013 23:08:21 +0000

A Seattle investment group has declared the advent of “Big Marijuana,” but big questions remain about just how their multimillion dollar nationwide pot business would work.

Bellevue-based asteroid miners plan public space telescope

Gabriel Spitzer — Wed, 29 May 2013 22:24:40 +0000

A company devoted to space exploration is planning to make an orbiting telescope available to students, scientists, and space enthusiasts.

Bellevue-based asteroid mining company Planetary Resources hopes to eventually extract rare minerals from asteroids. But first the company must prospect, which will involve a fleet of space-based telescopes. Now the company has announced it will deploy an extra telescope for public use, paid for by a crowdfunding campaign on the website Kickstarter.

Students remember slain teacher by sending him to the stratosphere

Gabriel Spitzer — Tue, 28 May 2013 12:01:00 +0000

Last fall, sixth-graders in Spanaway, Wash.

Seattle instructors to help parents stem kids' summer brain drain

Gabriel Spitzer — Wed, 15 May 2013 21:26:37 +0000

Summer vacation may be fun, but research shows it wipes out about a month’s worth of learning. This weekend, Seattle schools officials will offer strategies to reduce summer learning loss.

Since kids are understandably wary of anything that makes summer break feel like school, the key is to make it fun, said Seattle Public Schools’ Bernardo Ruiz.

Seattle Public Schools will let high schools scrap the MAP

Gabriel Spitzer — Tue, 14 May 2013 00:36:38 +0000

Seattle public high schools will be able to opt out of the controversial Measures of Academic Progress, or MAP tests, starting next year.

The policy change comes after teachers at Seattle’s Garfield High School staged a boycott of the MAP tests in January, blasting the tests for giving unreliable data and for sucking up classroom resources. A half-dozen more Seattle schools have since signed on, and the protest has drawn national and international attention.

Wash. universities look to 'redshirt' freshman engineers for one year

Gabriel Spitzer — Mon, 13 May 2013 12:00:00 +0000

Some freshmen engineering students at Washington’s largest universities will get an extra year to find their footing, thanks to a new “academic redshirting” program.

The idea of redshirting comes from college sports, and here’s how it works: When Huskies quarterback Keith Price joined up as a freshman in 2009, he didn’t take the field. Instead he got a year of practice and workouts to acclimate before starting his four years of eligibility.

Now the University of Washington, along with Washington State University, want to apply that to academics.

With NBA's final decision looming, Hansen ups bid

Martha Kang and Gabriel Spitzer — Fri, 10 May 2013 19:23:48 +0000

With Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson already celebrating his city’s victory in the bid to keep the Kings in town, Chris Hansen and his Seattle-based investment group upped the ante on Friday.

Hansen said his group has raised the proposed purchase price for the franchise by $75 million, bringing the total to $625 million “in an effort to further demonstrate the extent of our commitment to bring basketball back.” The group also guaranteed to the league that the franchise would be a revenue sharing payer, Hansen said.