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Know More: Under-Reported Stories For Week Ending 11.7.15

Erin Hennessey
Sound Effect's roundtable, left to right: Alex Stonehill, Editor of The Seattle Globalist; Phyllis Fletcher, Managing Editor of Northwest News Network; Gabriel Spitzer, Host of Sound Effect; Mike Lewis, freelance journalist

Each week on Sound Effect we sit down with reporters from the region to talk about stories they think deserve more play.

KPLU's Sound Effect hears from Alex Stonehill, co-founder and editor of The Seattle Globalist; Phyllis Fletcher, managing editor of NW News Network, and freelance journalist Mike Lewis.

This week's choices for under-reported stories include a discussion about the usually sleepy election for King County assessor. This time around the challenger, John Wilson, beat the incumbent by talking about taking a more activist role when it comes to affordable housing for those living in the county. That campaign message and Wilson's win tapped into a larger conversation going on locally about people feeling priced out of their homes and businesses due to rising property values and the taxes that go along with that.

The panel considers the city council elections in Yakima and the big difference newly-created districts have made there. In a city with a significant Latino population, there were no Latino representatives on the council until a federal lawsuit forced the city to replace its at-large election system with one that elects candidates by district. Now, three Latinos have been elected to the council.

And the discussion concludes with a look at a new report out in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that says white, middle-class Americans between the age of 45 and 50 are dying at a rate researchers say they haven't seen since the height of the HIV-AIDS crisis. It's a steep trend that's caught public health officials by surprise and it looks like it's mostly due to drugs and suicide.