I'm a firm believer that nature is healing.

In these chaotic times, I invite you to take a breath and reconnect with our natural world.

Wow, right in front of us.

I'm Chris Morgan. Join me on the wild as we explore stories of hope and resilience in nature.

We'll bring you up close to some extraordinary species and learn how they are

finding ways to adapt and thrive and fast-changing environments. Listen to the Wiles on the KUOW app or

wherever you get your podcasts. Good afternoon. From the KUOW Newsroom, this is Seattle now. I'm Paige Browning with a roundup of today's top stories. It's Thursday, January 22nd.

The U.S. House today passed a spending package totaling $1.2 trillion. One of the bills funds the Department of Homeland Security and ICE through September.

Washington Congress members voted on the bill along party lines, Republicans for, and Democrats against.

Except for Democratic Representative Marie Glusen Camp Perez of Southwest Washington,

she broke with Dems and voted for the spending bill. In a statement,

she said, overly aggressive slogans like defund ICE are not the solutions and that in a

shutdown, ICE would continue operating with limited oversight. In city politics, how to handle

drug crimes is an early topic this year.

Seattle's new mayor and new city attorney want to emphasize diversion rather than prosecution for people arrested for public drug use.

Arrests and charges for drug possession were up in 2025 over 2024.

Brandy McNeil is deputy director of the organization that oversees the city's

law enforcement assisted diversion program lead. She says collaborating with police is an

important part of their process. We want, and it is critical to the success of the program,

that officers that are out on the street who are seeing

folks every day who are responding to calls every day retain their discretion to be able to

say what makes the most sense and what doesn't. McNeil says diversion teams will have more funding

...