Local
Stressful weather in the PNW
By Lucas Barquin
(©Hawkeye Image credit: Charli Gilchrist)
On May 23-26, the 54th annual Folklife festival was held in the Seattle Center. Music, performances, food, and art were all accompanied by a celebration of culture, personal growth, and experience. This year’s theme, “Ikigai,” is a Japanese term that roughly translates to “a reason to live,” or “a life worth living.” One student, junior Maddie Keating, got to perform at this festival to celebrate her Irish heritage. “I dance for Carroll-Henderson School of Irish Dance…where we teach traditional artistic and competitive dancing,” Keating said. Her school performed several numbers for audience members at the festival on Saturday May 24. “[our] Performance was more of the artistic style and we did a mix of some performance numbers and some competitive dance numbers.” The festival, which prides itself on celebrating all different forms of culture and ‘folk-life’ is a blank canvas for performances such as this one. “I wasn’t there for a super long time….When I got there we just practiced dancing and then did our performance. We weren’t a main attraction or anything but it was still definitely a cool experience.” Keating added. Apart from Irish dancing, there were plenty of other attractions to entertain crowds. Cultural dancing, food stalls, art exhibits and more peppered the festival, creating an exciting and inviting atmosphere.
“[I also saw] traditional Polish Folk dancing… and that was really interesting, I haven’t seen a lot of Slavic dancing like that before, so that was cool to watch,” Keating said, remembering her time spent attending the festival.
Overall this festival is a fun and exciting way for differing cultures to come together and celebrate their differences.
“[The Folklife Festival] is in Seattle, and basically all the buildings around there, and there’s a bunch of performances and outdoor booths…it’s just kind of a way for everyone to come and show their different cultures and arts and food. It’s just a way for everyone in the Seattle community to show they’re from and where they’re family is from,” Keating concluded.
Joann Fabrics closed
By Lana Gleeson
(©Hawkeye Image credit: Liz Herrmann)
Joann Fabrics, a retail fabric and craft store, recently closed all of its remaining locations as of May 31. This follows a second bankruptcy filing in Jan. 2025. As an avid shopper here at Terrace, it’s disheartening to see the store close its doors. Joann’s is – or was – a fabric and craft store that sold an assortment of useful fabrics and supplies for various art or craft projects. The eventual closure stems from a combination of plummeting sales as well as heavy debt, all of which contributed to the gradual decline of stability for the company. Lots of online retailers were surpassing them greatly in sales, and they could not keep up, causing them to file bankruptcy twice and go out of business. They also struggled with inventory management, and slowly became understaffed. A recent global shift in focus towards DIY and online tutorials has also led to their closing, with fewer and fewer people coming in to learn or buy craft supplies in person. I’ve shopped there many times for materials in my own creative endeavors and it saddens me to see them go out of business.
National
Doom: The Dark Ages release
By Benyamin Wardak
(©Hawkeye Image credit: Dewey Jones)
On May 15, 2025, Bethesda and iD Tech released Doom: The Dark Ages. It’s a prequel to the hit games Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal. It’s the eighth installment of the Doom series and was released on the PS5, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, and PC. It is a fantasy/sci-fi first-person shooter that takes place in a medieval setting. It introduces many new gameplay features and aspects that the first two modern Doom games don’t have. You play as the Doom Slayer on his quest to protect the human race and destroy the demons.
However, while the game has a majority of overwhelmingly positive reviews, some fans were disappointed by the game. Many people complained that the changes to the gameplay were unnecessary and negative. Lots of people also complained that the game did not run well on PC, and that many people had issues with it on their PC, and sometimes the game would constantly crash.
And the game’s release hasn’t gone smoothly financially, either. While Bethesda has made the claim that Doom: The Dark Ages has been a huge success with over 3 million active players, the full truth is that the game has sold less than 1 million copies. This is largely due to many people accessing the game through subscriptions, such as Xbox Game Pass. This has led to a big loss in sales as people aren’t required to purchase the game.
Federal government restricting youth gender care
By Bri Sprague
(©Hawkeye Image credit: Dewey Jones)
Months ago, in January, when Donald Trump was sworn into office, he had signed an executive order that restricts people under 19 years old from getting gender-affirming care, such as surgeries. Now, the federal government has been directed to ensure that they don’t sponsor, promote, assist, or even support the transition of a child from one sex to another.
This includes providing gender-affirming care to people under 19. Specific supply of this Executive Order, among other things, was:
1. All federal agencies rescind or amend all policies relying on guidance that’s issued by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health.
2. Federal agencies that provide research or education grants to hospitals or medical institutes take “appropriate steps” to ensure that they end gender-affirming care to people under 19 years old.
3. The Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) should take appropriate regulatory and legal action to end Medicare or Medicaid conditions for participation or coverage, clinical abuse, or inappropriate use relevant to State Medicaid programs for people under 19 years old.
4. The U.S. Attorney General will enforce an already existing federal law against “genital mutilation” and coordinate with other state attorney generals to enforce state laws against gender-affirming care.
5. The Director of the Office of Personnel Management includes provisions in the Federal Employee Health Benefits and Postal Service Health Benefits programs’ call letter for the 2026 plan specifying that eligible carriers will exclude coverage for pediatric transgender surgeries or hormone treatments.
Supply of this EO that is related to research and education grants has been enjoined by two federal courts and is now pending on appeal. On March 28, the order was denied in the District Court of Maryland, but federal agencies have already taken action to implement other provisions that the EO had.
