Do you remember the Goodwill Games?: Today So Far

• The Goodwill Games were relatively short lived and had nothing to do with thrift stores ... despite what I initially thought.
• Washington will not add Covid vaccines to the list of required immunizations to attend school.
• Researchers are surveilling you ... actually, their monitoring your poop. Yep.

This post originally appeared in KUOW's Today So Far newsletter for April 14, 2022.

Those of us who were in the Northwest back in the 1990s might recall a special event called The Goodwill Games. At the time, I thought it had something to do with thrift stores. I was wrong, but that hasn't stopped me from finding awesome deals as if it were a professional sport.

The Goodwill Games was an Olympics-like event that aimed to remove politics from sports. It emerged as the Soviet Union was declining and tensions between Russia and the U.S. were easing. The first games were held in Moscow in 1986. Seattle hosted the second games in 1990. It garnered a lot of press and hype in our region. Jane Fonda even came to town because of them.

But the games didn't last much longer after that. Why? KUOW's Soundside spoke with a few folks involved to learn more about the short-lived Goodwill Games.

Washington will not add Covid vaccines to the list of required immunizations to attend school.

Kids are required to have a number of vaccinations in order to attend public schools in Washington state. So with a pandemic-worthy virus going around, many have been wondering if the state will add the Covid-19 vaccine to that list. Right now, that answer is no.

Wednesday, Members of the Washington State Board of Health stressed that the vaccines are safe and are the best path forward for this pandemic. But ultimately, some felt that the vaccine requirement would push some families away from education. Others questioned if schools had the resources to implement a new vaccine requirement. Read more about the decision here.

In related news, the CDC has extended the requirement to wear a mask while traveling through airports and transit hubs, and on planes, buses, and trains. It will now last through May 3. The mandate extension comes as Covid cases are rising again in some parts of the U.S., though not at levels as severe as the winter omicron wave. Cases have been rising slowly, but steadily in King County.

If you don't like reading about poop, you can skip this next story. Short version: researchers are looking through wastewater (sewage) to test for Covid levels.

Back in the day, when I was a small town newspaper reporter, my editor called for me from the other room.

"Dyer!" he yelled. "I just got an email offering a tour of the wastewater treatment plant ... have you toured the local wastewater treatment plant?"

"Um, can't say that I have," I yelled back.

"Huh ... you lucky shit," he said.

That story marks the first time I've sworn in this newsletter. It also goes to show that even in small towns, everybody poops, or so I'm told. And just about every community, big and small, has a sewage system to deal with wastewater, ultimately at a treatment facility. That's good news for researchers who want to surveil us. Yep, scientists are surveilling our sewage, testing for things like Covid levels in an area. That's what has been happening in some parts of Washington during the pandemic. It's been able to show when viral levels have spiked locally.

Monitoring our sewage can also detect levels of drug usage, certain ailments, and even how hydrated we all are. But while researchers say this surveillance can tell us a lot, there are still limitations. Soundside recently covered this issue, which you can read about here.

AS SEEN ON KUOW

Riders cross the newly rebuilt Beverly Bridge on the Palouse to Cascades State Park Trail after a well-attended dedication event on April 8, 2022. The trestle bridge was originally built for trains. It's now been remodeled to offer a crossing for cyclists, horse riders, and hikers. It will also fill a gap on the Palouse to Cascades State Park Trail. (Northwest News Network)

DID YOU KNOW?

Before he was pummeling Rocky Balboa, actor Dolph Lundgren was studying at Washington State University. Turns out, this '80s action star in not all brawn — he also has a lot of brains.

If there's one role you know Dolph from, it's probably the Russian boxer who nearly defeated Rocky in 1985. But unlike his character Ivan Drago, Dolph was born in Sweden. After high school, he went to the United States to study chemical engineering. That's how he ended up at Washington State University in 1976-77. He was even a member of the Cougar Marching Band. His time at WSU was cut short when he was called back to Sweden to serve in the Swedish Coastal Artillery (mandatory service in that country). He was able to roll over his U.S. education at Stockholm's Royal Institute of Technology and finally got a chemical engineering degree. He eventually earned a master's in chemical engineering at the University of Sydney in Australia.

There's a much longer story that involves Dolph's other passion, karate, which earned him international awards and jobs as a bouncer wherever he was going to school. At one point (after he got a Fulbright Scholarship to MIT in 1983) he met singer Grace Jones and that relationship put him on a new path that led to the ring with Sylvester Stallone. And the rest is Hollywood history.

ALSO ON OUR MINDS

Ukrainians have arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border by the thousands

Ukrainians fleeing the war have been arriving at Mexico's northern border cities by the thousands. There, they are presenting themselves to U.S. border agents and asking for temporary admission to the United States on humanitarian grounds. Thousands of Ukrainians have been let in — availing themselves of the avenues that the Biden administration has opened to ease their admission into the U.S. faster than people who have come from other countries. But so many Ukrainians have arrived that a backlog has formed.

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