KUOW Blog
News, factoids, and insights from KUOW's newsroom. And maybe some peeks behind the scenes. Check back daily for updates.
Have any leads or feedback for the KUOW Blog? Contact Dyer Oxley at dyer@kuow.org.
Stories
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Again, court refuses to hear case challenging WA's ban on conversion therapy for minors
A federal appeals court has denied the latest swipe at Washington state's ban on conversion therapy.
Tacoma-area therapist Brian Tingley asked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to hear his complaint against the ban, but the court has refused to take up the case. A small panel of the Ninth Circuit ruled against Tingley last year.
"This is the absolute last word on this issue from the Ninth Circuit, and the court denying review is appropriate," said Attorney Shannon Minter with the National Center for Lesbian Rights. "I mean, that's what the court does when the majority of the judges believe that there's no important issue to be resolved here."
Minter worked to represent Washington state in the case.
About 20 states, including Washington, prohibit gender and sexuality conversion therapy for minors.
Tingley has argued the state's ban on conversion therapy for minors violates free speech. His attorneys with the Alliance Defending Freedom say they will assess their next steps.
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Seattle Catholic Archdiocese plans to consolidate parishes across Western Washington
The Seattle Catholic Archdiocese is working on a plan to consolidate parishes in the region.
"The very practical thing that we are doing is forming 'parish families,'" said Archbishop Paul D. Etienne in a video announcing the effort which they are branding "Partners in the Gospel."
"Parish families" means bringing two or more parishes together. The Archdiocese of Seattle says the reason for the consolidation is multifaceted and strategic and that officials are developing a plan to re-envision parish life due to the impact of the pandemic and a drop in parish giving.
The Covid-19 pandemic did have an impact on attendance, and numbers have recently rebounded, but not to pre-pandemic levels. On top of that, fewer people are going into the priesthood across the nation.
Caitlin Moulding, CEO for the archdiocese, says attendance at Seattle-area Catholic masses has been on the decline. Fewer people means less parish giving. That places a financial strain on the archdiocese's ability to operate and maintain its facilities. The Archdiocese of Seattle operates more than 150 parishes and other Catholic sites across Western Washington, from Bellingham down to Vancouver, and throughout the Olympic Peninsula.
"When you have a parish that's struggling, you can't invest in faith formation programs and social justice programs, things that really bring the community together," Moulding said.
In addition to a decline in parishioners, Moulding said there has also been a drop in available priests.
“So today we have 80, diocesan pastors, and in 2036, we project that we will have about 66," Moulding said.
That's an 18% decrease in priests.
Parishioners will be given multiple forums to provide feedback on the new proposals for consolidation this fall. The consolidation is expected to take effect in the summer of 2024.
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New tool connects survivors of sexual assault to resources
A new online tool designed to raise awareness and ease access to services for survivors of sexual assault was launched Tuesday by a group of five Washington state health and advocacy service providers.
The project is intended to consolidate and simplify information for survivors of sexual assault who may feel overwhelmed or be unaware of what resources are available to them.
The Seattle Sexual Assault Resource Connector Tool — available in English and Spanish — walks the user through a set of questions about the survivor’s background and needs, and generates a list of suggested service providers, including those offering therapy and legal services. The survey is anonymous.
Larraine Lynch is the chief program officer for the King County Sexual Assault Resource Center, one of the agencies that spearheaded the new tool.
“Upon realizing that victims were not getting help in the immediate aftermath of sexual assault, it prompted us to come together as a collective to brainstorm ways to ensure that whatever was happening on the system side of things, that we were helping victims to recover,” Lynch said.
She said immediate response and support is crucial for a survivor and their recovery. She said that survivors will often share what happened in the immediate aftermath of a sexual assault, and the response they receive to that disclosure impacts their willingness to disclose again.
“We want survivors to have a good experience when they disclose and feel supported, feel believed, and validated,” Lynch said.
In an effort to spread awareness of the new tool, a QR code leading to the portal will be featured on business-sized cards made available to police, medical providers, first responders and schools, to hand out to those seeking confidential sexual assault resources, Lynch said.
But anyone can send the website to a friend or loved one, and even navigate through the tool on their behalf.
The connector tool was created in a collaboration between the Seattle Indian Health Board, King County Sexual Assault Resource Center, the University of Washington departments of Psychiatry and Psychology, and the Harborview Abuse and Trauma Center.
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King County Councilmember Joe McDermott will not run for re-election
Another local lawmaker has announced they won't be seeking re-election in 2023. King County Councilmember Joe McDermott will finish his term through the end of this year, but will leave it open for a newcomer to take over.
"After more than 22 years in public office, I will not be running for re-election this fall," McDermott said in a statement. "I remain humbled and honored by the trust granted to me by the people I’ve represented in the Washington State House of Representatives, State Senate, and for over 12 years now on the King County Council. To be able to serve the community I’ve called home my entire life has been a true joy and remains a deep responsibility I take seriously every day. Thank you, truly, to all my neighbors, from West Seattle to First Hill, Capitol Hill, Downtown Seattle, Chinatown International District, Little Saigon, Pioneer Square, SODO, White Center, Georgetown, South Park, Tukwila, Burien, and Vashon and Maury Island for this opportunity."
McDermott was first elected to the council in 2010 and served in the state House and state Senate prior to that. McDermott represents the county's 8th District.
In a statement, McDermott pointed to his history in public service, going back to 2001 when he was elected to the state Legislature. He notes that he was the first LGBTQ candidate elected to the county council. In his time in office, he pushed forward gun safety measures as well as a commercial fireworks ban in unincorporated parts of the county.
The council member said that he will pursue "professional opportunities yet to be identified" after leaving office in 2024.
"I am grateful for the opportunity to work for our communities," McDermott said. "I look forward to continuing doing so as a private citizen."
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Olympia Police all booked up for guns-for-gift-cards event
It didn't take long for the Olympia Police Department to run out of gift cards to exchange for firearms, and its first guns for gift cards event hasn't even happened yet.
OPD announced the event on Jan. 17 at 9 a.m. By 2:50 p.m., and all available appointments to turn in firearms were scheduled.
The department is exchanging VISA gift cards for eligible firearms between 9 a.m. and noon on Tuesday, Jan. 31.
Similar events have been hosted by police departments throughout Western Washington, but unlike previous guns-for-gift-cards promotions, Olympia opted to schedule appointments. Other police departments have experienced long lines of cars waiting to turn in guns, sometimes turning people away when the cards ran out.
Olympia's guns-for-gift-cards effort was spurred by its city council, with the aim of reducing gun violence and encouraging gun safety.
OPD is accepting the guns anonymously and will not make any record of participants. People turning in guns are asked to keep them, unloaded, in the trunk or a locked area of their truck bed. Officers will remove them from there.
The police department has not said exactly what qualifies as an "eligible" firearm, or the value of the gift cards, but it has stated that flare guns, starter pistols, BB guns, Airsoft guns, and other toy or replica firearms will not be accepted.
Federal Way guns for gift cards
The Federal Way Police Department is organizing its own guns-for-gift-cards event for Feb. 4, between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.
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What should we call Seattle's era of apartment architecture?: Today So Far
- King County council member pushes back against cashless businesses.
- Should we get rid of design review boards? (Or ... How did Seattle go from gorgeous brick and wood buildings to our modern era of flat-puke apartments?)
This post originally appeared in KUOW's Today So Far newsletter for January 23, 2023.
You may have heard that cash is king. Apparently, that's not always true in King County.
Modern payment methods, like tapping a debit card, or using Apple Pay or Google Pay, have grown in popularity. I've gone to many conventions where vendors sold everything from artwork to bath bombs, and some didn't even mess with cash. All transactions were done via a sales app on their smartphone. There are also shops that have opted to go entirely cashless, such as Just Burgers in the University District. The cash-free decision was made in 2020 after a few burglaries at the shop.
But this payment method doesn't work for all customers. That's why the King County Council is considering an ordinance that would require businesses to accept cash (and not go cashless) in unincorporated parts of the county. It would not affect businesses in cities, like Seattle or Bellevue.
"The problem I'm trying to solve with this ordinance is to make sure that those individuals who do not have access to, or the desire to, use credit cards or debit cards, or swiping their smartphones ... are able to access needed food, consumer items, and services," said King County Councilmember Jeanne Kohl-Welles, who proposed the idea.
Kohl-Welles told Soundside that people who primarily rely on cash, or who are under-banked, are more likely to be low-income, unhoused, seniors, undocumented residents, or people of color.
Hear Kohl-Welles' full conversation with Soundside here.
Lawmakers' discussions on how to improve Washington's housing situation have begun in Olympia. One idea that you're going to hear about is a proposal that could rub some people the wrong way, and get others excited — getting rid of design review boards.
State lawmakers are considering a bill that would remove design review requirements for residential housing with the aim to speed up such developments. The design review process generally puts a building project in front of a volunteer panel that makes sure it aligns with city rules, but also considers aesthetics such as landscaping or what sort of siding is used. The public gets a chance to weigh in, too. The downside is that this process takes a lot of time and comes with some extra costs. So getting rid of it, hopefully, would speed things up and cut down on those costs. In its place, city staff would review projects and make sure they are up to code. KUOW's Joshua McNichols has more about this proposal here.
The idea is not entirely new. Seattle has already been exploring this for affordable housing projects. That's when I started scratching my head, going back and forth over it. I think a lot of folks out there have too. On one hand, you want some level of review. That way, you don't get some monstrosity sneaking into town. It's also good to give neighbors a say.
On the other hand, I totally get the final line in Joshua's recent reporting on this, which states city staffers would hopefully be more objective, "and less unpredictable than volunteer board members, each of whom bring their own suite of subjective aesthetic preferences to the table." That definitely rings a bell, because I've passed by newer buildings along Roosevelt Way, for example, with awkward rust orange paneling, contrasted with what I could only describe as a pale, puke yellow. It's mixed among corrugated this and flat paneling that. I often wonder who thought this patchwork quilt of siding was a good idea, let alone the color scheme. This sort of style is scattered throughout Seattle.
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Covid vaccines provide protection during pregnancy, study says
A new study out of UW Medicine states that Covid vaccines provided great protection during pregnancy, even amid omicron spikes.
"What we've learned over the last few years is that pregnancy is a very vulnerable time for Covid infection, with its complications, and it increased risks of adverse pregnancy outcome that could be largely prevented by appropriate vaccination and booster," said Dr. Michael Gravett, an OB-GYN with the University of Washington School of Medicine.
The study states that Covid vaccines, plus the first booster shot, provided protection against death and severe complications during pregnancy, with 76% efficacy.
“Given the marked increased in maternal mortality and severe morbidity seen in our earlier studies prior to vaccination, the 76% efficacy is pretty impressive and really points to the need to get women vaccinated," Gravett said.
"One misconception during pregnancy is that having been vaccinated, you're now protected ... our data would demonstrate that the booster adds additional protection. Immunity, as in all cases, tends to wane over time. The booster is especially important for the newer variants that are coming along."
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Why egg prices are so high, and some shelves are so bare
Egg prices have been on the rise in recent weeks, with a dozen costing some people nearly $10. But chicken egg farmers say they are not to blame for the woes surrounding their eggs, from price increases to supply shortages.
“We are seeing some very temporary, hyper-local isolated shortages, in some areas," said Emily Metz, president and CEO of the American Egg Board. "We’re not seeing any panic buying. I think it’s become kind of trendy, quite honestly, to post a pictures of an egg shelf being a little bit emptier.”
RELATED: As prices soar, border officials are seeing a spike in egg smuggling from Mexico
Instead, Metz says the bird flu has wiped out approximately 6% of chickens in the United States. On top of that, demand for eggs was high during the holidays. Then you have the inflation issue.
Metz says that shortages might appear worse as the industry works to shore up supplies.
The bird flu has struck particularly hard over the past year, and has been called the deadliest such outbreak in U.S. history. The virus is being carried far and wide by wild bird populations, which transmit it to domestic and commercial operations, such as chicken and egg farms.
In the Northwest, one such egg operation was hit hard in December. More than a million chickens were destroyed after coming down with the bird flu at a farm in Franklin County, Washington. Oakdell Farms has operations in Utah, Idaho, and Washington. It provides eggs to 11 states. When its Washington farm was hit with bird flu, it was a tough blow to farmers and egg customers.
Read the full story on egg supplies and prices at Northwest News Network.
Dyer Oxley contributed to this report.
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2 observations around the trend of tech layoffs: Today So Far
- Major tech companies are laying off tens of thousands of employees in the United States and beyond. A couple themes seem to keep coming up among these corporate announcements.
- Washington lawmakers are considering a wealth tax. It's not a capital gains tax, exactly, but it's in the same territory.
This post originally appeared in KUOW's Today So Far newsletter for January 20, 2023.
First it was Amazon. Then it was Microsoft. Now, it's Google. The tech layoffs keep coming.
In truth, it was also Salesforce, Meta, Twitter, Sophos, Coinbase, and a bunch of other tech companies laying off employees in recent weeks, but the above mentioned are shedding a decent share of their global workforces. Amazon is letting go of 18,000 people. Microsoft is laying off 10,000. Now Google says it will lay off 12,000 employees. That adds up to about 6% of Google employees worldwide. Employees in the United States have already been notified. Layoffs in other countries are expected to come soon. It is unclear how much this will affect Google's Seattle-area workforce. Last I checked, the company had a little more than 7,000 employees in Seattle.
Amazon is not only laying off workers, it is also moving out of some of its Seattle offices, KIRO 7 reports. Amazon's lease at the West 8th Tower in the Denny Triangle expires in April, and the company is just going to let it expire. Amazon says that a lot of its office workers are still remote and the need for the office space is not as high was it was before the pandemic sent such workers home. The company is also cutting its AmazonSmile program, which donates to charities customers choose. NPR called this a "cost-cutting effort." This speaks to a couple themes that have emerged amid a lot of these layoffs.
First, a lot of companies went on a hiring spree during the first couple pandemic years when people stuck around home more often. Now, things are easing up and these companies say they need to adjust. As Google CEO Sundar Pichai just wrote to employees, "we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today." Amazon is going through a similar change. Within such adjustments is the fact that office work has changed. Many jobs (sure, not all jobs, but many) do not need commutes and cubicles. Unlike Starbucks, which wants workers in the office three days a week (seems like Starbucks has a goal of becoming the Seattle employer with the most disgruntled employees), Amazon appears to be more inclined to just nix office space and adapt.
Another theme is artificial intelligence. Tucked into a string of corporate jargon explaining the layoffs, CEO Pinchai includes this mention: "I am confident about the huge opportunity in front of us thanks to the strength of our mission, the value of our products and services, and our early investments in AI. To fully capture it, we’ll need to make tough choices." He adds that Google is ready to pursue this AI opportunity "boldly and responsibly."
And then you have Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who recently said, "The next major wave of computing is being born with advances in AI" while talking about the company's job cuts. How will AI relate to the future of tech jobs, or the products these companies are cranking out? That remains to be fully realized. What is clear is that in the face of economic challenges, "AI" is a term that is getting thrown around.
KUOW's Joshua McNichols recently reported that there is a silver lining amid all these layoffs — there are a lot of tech jobs in the region.
“If you’re a tech worker, and you got laid off by a big company like a Microsoft or an Amazon, or any of the others, you’re gonna find yourself gainfully employed in less than 90 days,” Michael Schutzler with the Washington Technology Industry Association told KUOW. “That seems to be a national average now. People are turning over into into other wide open jobs in the tech sector within three months.”
Washington state lawmakers have joined a multiple-state effort to establish a "wealth tax." In our state, this is coming from Democrats Sen. Noel Frame and Rep. My-Linh Thai. Similar proposals have emerged in eight other states.
“Here in Washington state, we are going to fund our future by enacting a narrowly tailored property tax on extreme wealth derived from the ownership of stocks, bonds, and other financial assets, with the proceeds dedicated to education, housing, disability services, and tax credits for working families," Frame said.
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WA Democrats join nationwide rollout of ‘wealth tax’ proposals
Washington state Democrats Sen. Noel Frame and Rep. My-Linh Thai announced legislation Thursday to create a state wealth tax on financial assets in excess of $250 million. They say it could generate an estimated $3 billion per year to fund housing and education, and decrease the tax burden on working-class people.
The rollout was part of a coordinated push nationwide, with similar proposals from Democrats across eight states. Frame called the legislation “the next step in the fight for progressive tax reform in Washington state.”
“Here in Washington state, we are going to fund our future by enacting a narrowly tailored property tax on extreme wealth derived from the ownership of stocks, bonds, and other financial assets, with the proceeds dedicated to education, housing, disability services, and tax credits for working families," she said.
Two-thirds of Democratic lawmakers have already signed on as sponsors of the proposal, Frame said. Thai said she expects the bill to be heard in committee.
Frame said she fully anticipates a legal challenge if the bill passes, but she believes this tax proposal complies with the state constitution, which she said grants lawmakers “fairly unbridled” powers of exemption.
“It’s a broadly applied property tax and a broadly applied exemption,” Frame said. “Everybody’s subject to it, and everybody gets their first quarter billion of assessed value exempt before the tax goes into effect.”
Jason Mercier is the government reform director for the Washington Policy Center, which has argued against new taxes. He called Frame’s legal interpretation a “very novel argument.”
Mercier said the state’s bipartisan tax structure work group found the wealth tax unpopular and declined to recommend one. But he said today’s launch, which was also attended by House Finance Committee Chair April Berg, was a strong show of support for the proposal.
“We knew these bills were coming,” Mercier said. “The amount of sponsors and having [committee] chairs on there kind of changes this from being a conversation bill to a bill that they might try to push through.”
Mercier said these taxes would be the first of their kind in the U.S. But other countries, including France, have abolished them after concerns emerged that they drove wealthy residents to move elsewhere.
Supporters said the wealth tax would be a necessary correction to Washington’s current tax structure, which Frame called “the worst in the country.”
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Sawant's plans beyond Seattle City Hall: Today So Far
- Seattle Councilmember Sawant will not run for reelection. She plans to do this instead ...
- FBI has been concerned about neo-Nazis targeting the energy grid. There have been 15 such attacks on substations in the Northwest since last summer.
This post originally appeared in KUOW's Today So Far newsletter for January 19, 2023.
Seattle Councilmember Kshama Sawant will not seek reelection this year, opening up District 3 to a newcomer after 10 years in office.
Sawant's announcement Thursday served two purposes. One is straightforward: She's not running again. The other is to establish an argument for her next steps. Those next steps include forming Workers Strike Back, which she hopes will be a new movement to further the causes she has championed along with her party, Socialist Alternative. Within this argument that Sawant lays out are some fighting words against Democrats, including Seattle's Pramila Jayapal, who represents the region in Congress. She also isn't a fan of Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and calls them both "sell outs," in a "guest rant" in The Stranger today.
After establishing that Democrats basically suck, Sawant says that Workers Strike Back will be the solution. It is here, after leaving office at the end of 2023, that she says she and her supporters will "continue to be disturbers of the political peace in Seattle." Read the full story here.
It's worth noting that earlier this week, Central District's Joy Hollingsworth announced her campaign for District 3. Read more about that here.
While the recent arrests for the Christmas attacks on substations in Pierce County appear to have been motived by a desire to rob local businesses, the FBI has been concerned about such attacks on the power grid for months now. Why? Answer: Neo-Nazis.
Two Puyallup men said they were knocking out power in December in order to commit burglaries at local businesses. Which sounds a bit odd. All that work, over hours, putting their lives in danger, to knock out power at four substations, and all they reportedly got was $100 from a local restaurant's cash register. I suppose if you don't hesitate to poke at a substation processing hundreds of thousands of volts, you may be operating at a level where that all makes sense.
There is no indication that these two men were motivated by extremist ideologies. But according to an FBI memo that KUOW and OPB obtained, the agency has been on alert for neo-Nazis and other extremists with similar intentions. Such extremist reasoning, however, may be just as odd as the alleged Puyallup burglars'.
“The individuals of concern believe that an attack on electrical infrastructure will contribute to their ideological goal of causing societal collapse and a subsequent race war in the United States,” according to the FBI memo.
As KUOW's John Ryan reports, instructions on how to attack the power grid have been going around online extremism websites and discussion boards for a while now, along with calls to attack substations. During this same time, the Northwest has experienced 15 such attacks. In more recent months, the FBI has noted a rise in such threats. One FBI alert in November stated, “The FBI has received reports of threats to electrical infrastructure by threat actors who espouse RMVE ideology to create civil disorder and inspire further violence." That abbreviation, "RMVE," is FBI speak for "racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists."
This idea may sound quite illogical to anyone with ... the ability to process logic. The basic thinking here is that the only thing keeping us all from attacking people different than ourselves are light bulbs, binge watching Netflix, and easy access to TikTok. Once those things are powered down, obviously, all hell will break loose. Once Joe Neighbor realizes that he can't microwave his dinner, he'll scratch his head and say to himself, "Huh, I should go pick a fight."
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Tri-Cities lawmaker wants wind turbines to turn the lights off — sometimes
A lawmaker in the Tri-Cities wants to limit how long warning lights on top of wind turbines can stay on. Such lights, way up high, warn airplane pilots of their presence.
Residents near wind turbines say the blinking red lights on top of the tall structures are hypnotic, distracting, and a nuisance. While the lights keep aircrafts safe, Tri-Cities Representative April Connors says they don’t need to blink constantly from sundown to sun up.
RELATED: Pacific NW 'hydrogen hub' pitch to federal government treated as top secret
Connors is proposing a bill that would essentially have someone flip the light switch on when it's needed, and off when it's not. HB 1173 would require radar monitors to turn on the lights as planes approach. The bill would also require Washington state adopt light mitigation rules by January 2025.
“It’s a monitoring system that works with the radar on the airplanes, that when they’re close by, the lights turn on. When the airplanes go safely by, they turn back off.”
Wyoming, North Dakota and New Hampshire use similar types of aircraft detection lighting systems.
Tri-Cities residents also say a controversial renewable energy project, called the Horse Heaven Hills Energy Center, would bring hundreds of blinking red lights very close to many homes. However, business groups worry retrofitting existing wind turbines could raise energy costs.
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