KUOW Blog
News, factoids, and insights from KUOW's newsroom. And maybe some peeks behind the scenes. Check back daily for updates.
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Stories
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More people have died from overdoses so far in 2022 than in all of 2021
More people have died of overdoses in King County so far this year than in all of 2021.
Public Health — Seattle & King County says it's recorded an average of 17 overdose deaths per week in 2022. According to the public health department:
"Since 2019, the number of overdose deaths in King County has grown exponentially, jumping by 20% between 2019 and 2020 and 39% between 2020 and 2021. By October 15, 2022, 710 overdose deaths had occurred in King County, surpassing the total number of deaths in 2021."
Fentanyl is being blamed for 70% of all confirmed overdose deaths to date this year. Prior to 2018, that number was below 10%.
RELATED: King County declares fentanyl a public health crisis
The health department also says that the most disproportionately impacted communities in King County are: people experiencing homelessness; American Indian and Alaskan Native and Black residents; and communities in Seattle and South King County.
RELATED: Fentanyl is a great drug for cartels. But those blue pills are killing King County
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More layoffs at Amazon possible in 2023
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the company could start laying off even more workers in 2023, adding that "leaders across the company" are reviewing their employees, teams, and workloads.
"This year’s review is more difficult due to the fact that the economy remains in a challenging spot and we’ve hired rapidly the last several years," Jassy said in a statement.
The news comes after the Seattle-based online retail giant confirmed this week that it's laying off employees who work on its smart devices and speakers, as well as those who work in retail stores. It's estimated that upwards of 10,000 workers could be laid off soon.
RELATED: Tech industry is shedding employees in the NW
Amazon plans to offer some employees severance packages, or help them find a different position within the company. Jassy said they don't know how many more people they'll let go, but expect more layoffs in the People and Stores divisions.
According to Jassy, the recent decision involves eliminating "a number of positions across our Devices and Books businesses," as well as "some employees in our People, Experience, and Technology (PXT) organization."
Jassy further stated:
"Our annual planning process extends into the new year, which means there will be more role reductions as leaders continue to make adjustments. Those decisions will be shared with impacted employees and organizations early in 2023. We haven’t concluded yet exactly how many other roles will be impacted (we know that there will be reductions in our Stores and PXT organizations), but each leader will communicate to their respective teams when we have the details nailed down. And, as has been the case this week, we will prioritize communicating directly with impacted employees before making broad public or internal announcements."
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Can I ruin this turkey?: Today So Far
What these NW chefs (and others) are cooking up, and what it means.
This post originally appeared in KUOW's Today So Far newsletter for November 18, 2022.
A couple years ago I made goose for Thanksgiving dinner. Last year, I made duck. Both times ... it didn't go well.
This year, we decided to stop fighting tradition and are going with a turkey, and the usual roast vegetables, cranberries, and so forth. I'll be making cherry pie while I'm at it. Also this year, I'll have some backup. My ma-in-law has secured sticky rice and Thai sausage (though she says it might be Lao, but really, "You know, sausage. It has herbs. It's good!").
I've also noticed that family just shows up with food at such gatherings. So that's comforting, but still, it feels somewhat odd this year. Nina and I moved since the goose and duck dinners, and brought her mom along with us. That means more potential for family around holidays (not my sister and her husband though; they've already started decorating for Christmas, so they're not invited). So when I think about all of this — I've never had the opportunity to screw up Thanksgiving dinner in front of so many people before. This should be an experience to remember...
Chef Shota Nakajima is likely to have a very different experience this year, and he's cooking duck! He's the owner of Taku and Kobo restaurants on Capitol Hill, and therefore, he knows what he's doing. Chef Nakajima tells KUOW's Soundside that he will brine the duck for two days, then blanche it in hot water, before drying and roasting it up in the oven to make it crispy. The duck will be stuffed with mochi rice and hijiki (a type of seaweed).
Nakajima wasn't the only chef who Soundside quizzed about their holiday plans. Corie Ratliff, owner of Mama Corie's Kitchen in Yakima, is keeping up family traditions with a broccoli puff dish. James Lim, owner of Watson's Counter in Seattle's Ballard neighborhood, is going for an American / Korean combo meal.
For Ratliff, holiday cooking is special because of family, not just the ones at the table, but the people and recipes that came before. Her broccoli puff dish originated with her great grandmother. Lim shared a similar sentiment, saying, "my mom cooked as a labor of love. My grandma cooked as a labor of love. And so for me to cook is just that — it's a labor of love for community."
Over at Seattle Now, Andrew Walsh with the podcast "Too Beautiful to Live" is having a "warm and cozy" dinner with a small group of family. His main goal is to not ruin brussels sprouts. Author Jodi-Ann Burey will spend the day at home with her dog, writing a book, though she aims to get leftovers from her neighbor, or any non-burnt brussels sprouts from Andrew. Hear that conversation here.
Chef Nakajima told Soundside that he is also celebrating alone this year, with his duck, to take time for reflection and gratitude. That's the thing that can be nice about holidays. Whether you lean into, or cut away, the myths surrounding it all, they really are what you make them, and what you put into them.
I'm not exactly sure how to cook/ruin a turkey. So far, I figure you can't go wrong with butter, garlic, and rosemary. Maybe some lemon. That should cook up nicely in, like, say 30 minutes-ish ... right? I am open to any ideas and tips from TSF readers out there.
Despite not going at it alone this year, I think I lean more into Chef Nakajima's approach — focus on gratitude. If there is one thing I can expect from holidays like Thanksgiving, and the inevitable chaos, is that I am certainly thankful when it's over.
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Mayor Harrell appoints panel to address sexual assault, police reform
Mayor Bruce Harrell announced the names Thursday of six people who will form a new advisory panel to provide recommendations on how Seattle police handle sexual assault investigations.
Harrell said in a press release that the advisory panel is the next step in a process that started this summer, after he issued an executive order in July to support victims of sexual assault and enhance investigations. A KUOW and Seattle Times investigation in June reported that Seattle Police had stopped investigating sexual assaults committed against adults.
The sergeant overseeing the sexual assault and child abuse unit outlined the problems facing the unit in an internal memo last spring.
“The community expects our agency to respond to reports of sexual violence,” Sgt. Pamela St. John wrote, “and at current staffing levels that objective is unattainable.”
The Seattle Police Department has struggled to retain employees. The sexual assault and child abuse unit is now staffed with eight detectives, according to Harrell, an increase from earlier this year.
The new panel includes local stakeholders and those with expertise on the subject of sexual crimes:
- Megan Allen, Legal Advocacy Manager, King County Sexual Assault Resource Center
- Michael Cervantes, Policy Manager, Seattle Indian Health Board
- George Gonzalez, Assistant Director, Harborview Abuse and Trauma Center
- Jackie Helfgott, PhD, Professor of Criminal Justice, Criminology, and Forensics; Director of the Crime & Justice Research Center, Seattle University
- Sara Mooney, Pro Bono Counsel, Sexual Violence Law Center
Jennifer Wallace, Program Director – Sexual Assault, Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission
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New regulations to push WA homes away from fossil fuels in 2023
In an effort to meet the state’s climate goals, new regulations will push home construction in Washington toward all-electric heating and away from natural gas. Proponents of the change, which takes effect in July 2023, say it will also have public health benefits.
The regulations require new homes to have heat pumps, which are usually electric and more efficient than gas furnaces.
The requirements will apply to new single-family homes, duplexes, and townhouse clusters.
Cardiologist Mark Vossler, president of Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility, said it’s better for people’s health to not burn fossil fuels in the home.
“The pollutants released by burning gas increase the risk of asthma and other lung diseases, heart attack and other cardiovascular diseases, dementia and other neurological diseases,” he said.
Dr. Vossler said this change will especially benefit low-income families and communities of color, who are more likely to live in smaller homes — where pollution can't dissipate — and are more likely to be exposed to other forms of air pollution. The effects of air pollution are cumulative.
“This isn’t a de facto gas ban,” said Jonny Kocher, an advocate with the nonprofit clean energy group RMI, who helped draft the regulation. “It basically promotes electrification by requiring heat pumps.”
He said there are gas-powered heat pumps, or people could have gas backup for electric heat pumps, but “there’s a high incentive for folks to just go all-electric.”
A second building code change will increase the ventilation required in new homes that do have gas stoves installed.
These changes follow a related requirement in new apartment buildings, condos, and commercial buildings that passed in April. Those now have to heat both water and the building itself with electricity. In those buildings, gas stoves are also still allowed, but the electric heating requirement means it won’t usually be cost-effective to install them.
These changes aim to bring down Washington’s overall carbon emissions — about a quarter of which come from buildings.
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A grizzly situation in Washington: Today So Far
- Should we bring grizzly bears back to the North Cascades?
- Washington's DNR is nixing fishy business in Puget Sound.
- When will our dry November end?
This post originally appeared in KUOW's Today So Far newsletter for November 17, 2022.
Once upon a time, there were grizzly bears in Cascade Mountains. Then settlers came, and the grizzlies went away.
That's the end of the story as far as people are concerned, but the story continued for the environment and other animals in the region. Now, there is an effort to start a new chapter for grizzlies in our neck of the woods.
"Essentially, what changed was people arriving," Seattle Times Environmental Reporter Isabella Breda told Seattle Now. "Their value never changed."
Just as with wolves in the Northwest, grizzlies were viewed as a threat to people and livestock. They were hunted for fur, or to just get rid of them. Turns out, they served a purpose for the region's ecosystem. Breda notes that grizzlies turned up the soil as they searched for food, which helped a range of plant species. They ate berries, and in turn, distributed their seeds, such as huckleberries, which are popular with black and white tail deer. Populations exploded among smaller animals that the bears preyed on. The absence of the bears turned the "food chain upside-down," Breda said.
"When the grizzlies left, those processes that the ecosystem relied on them for, left."
In 2014, under the Obama administration, a process was launched to bring the bears back to the North Cascades. That "process" just meant that wildlife officials were going to look into it, but this was all paused under Trump, and now it's being relaunched. The basic idea under consideration is to round up three to five grizzlies from other national parks and bring them to the North Cascades. Then do that every year until you have about 25 bears. Hopefully, the region would have about 200 bears after a century.
Sounds simple enough, until you remember that grizzlies are massive, giant bears and we have all these people in the Cascades now — living there or just driving over for a hike or a camping trip. That brings us back to square one. It's probably why Congressmember Dan Newhouse is pushing back against this idea. Newhouse represents the 4th Congressional District, which spans the North Cascades. In an op-ed, Newhouse argues that reintroducing the bears would "upset our ecosystem and cause undue hardships on agriculture producers, businesses, and families." Newhouse further says that locals have repeatedly shot down this idea, but "outside interest groups and government bureaucrats" who don't have to live with the grizzlies, keep pushing.
A proposal like this is likely to take time. Expect battle lines to be drawn through the North Cascades as this issue moves forward. Check out Breda's full conversation with Seattle Now here.
As one effort to bring animals to one corner of the Northwest begins, another effort is underway to remove another. Washington is nixing all its public waterway leases for fish farms.
You may recall that a fish farm pen near the San Juan Islands broke in 2017, and about 263,000 Atlantic salmon escaped into Puget Sound waters. That was a fish pen off Cypress Island operated by Cooke Aquaculture. The company initially said that far fewer fish escaped, which rubbed state officials the wrong way when the truth was revealed. Relations between the company and the state haven't gotten much better since then. At the time, Cooke was farming Atlantic salmon, which as the name implies, are not native to our Pacific region. As such, they pose certain risks, such as spreading diseases our local salmon have not evolved to handle. The Atlantic salmon that escaped in 2017 reportedly carried a virus which made locals concerned. Beyond all this, local tribes have objected to fish farms and have argued they conflict with treaty rights.
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'Short staffing equals venti wait times': Seattle Starbucks employees join nationwide strike
Workers at more than 100 Starbucks stores in 25 states are picketing in what's being called the largest labor action since employees started their unionizing campaign.
The walkout on Thursday coincides with the Seattle coffee giant's annual Red Cup Day, when customers who order holiday drinks get special reusable cups. They're considered collector's items and customers line up at the crack of dawn to get their hands on a decorated cup. It's one of Starbucks' most profitable days on the calendar.
Daisy Federspiel-Baier is a shift supervisor at a Starbucks in Seattle's University District. She says the strike is necessary because Starbucks has not been bargaining in good faith with its unionized employees.
"They said that they would, but every single time we have entered a bargaining room, they have left within 15 minutes," Federspiel-Baier says. "Additionally, we have been really short-staffed, and we are protesting not having enough labor."
That may be especially true on what Federspiel-Baier says is her store's busiest day of the year.
"Short staffing equals venti wait times," she says.
Staffing is just one of the issues that Starbucks Workers United representatives say prompted them to launch the so-called Red Cup rebellion.
According to the Starbucks Workers Union, the company has retaliated against union leaders, and Starbucks lawyers have walked out on bargaining sessions or made last-minute rescheduling requests that make it challenging for members to participate.
But A.J. Jones, an executive vice president of communications for Starbucks, disputed that allegation in comments to NPR.
"Nothing could be further from the truth," Jones told NPR, adding that the company has provided Starbucks Workers United with ample notice of bargaining session letters.
Jones said the company has probably been "overly aggressive" in trying to schedule bargaining sessions. The problem with recent talk breakdowns, he said, is that union leaders at the table want to record or broadcast negotiation talks on social media — a legal no-no.
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Why the polls were way off: Today So Far
A red wave didn't happen as some predicted. In Washington, races were not as close as many expected.
This post originally appeared in KUOW's Today So Far newsletter for November 16, 2022.
As Lloyd Christmas would say, once again the polls leading up to the election were "way off!"
"The fact that there is such a difference between the Republican polls and the others indicates something is going on there, and I'm not imagining that they're all sitting in a dark room someplace and making up numbers ... polling comes down to who you ask and what you ask," said Stuart Elway, director of the Crosscut/Elway Poll of Washington voters.
Going through some post-election analysis with KUOW's Angela King, Elway says there are a few reasons why the polls miscalculated things: a lot more younger residents voted than expected, and the people who pollsters spoke with probably weren't the best sample groups. A big reason, however, is that many polls skewed toward the political direction of the groups behind them, and Republicans produced a lot of polls.
Take the Senate race between Democrat Patty Murray and Republican Tiffany Smiley. Elway notes that there were 19 polls after the August primary, 10 of which were conducted by GOP-affiliated groups. Six of the final eight most recent polls were from Republican-leaning organizations. They all put Smiley in a much better position than she ended up having in the election. Other polls from Democrat-leaning groups or media outlets didn't have Smiley as far ahead.
"So I think the Republican-leaning polls skewed the polling averages that everybody looks at and made it look a lot closer than it was. It turns out that was a mirage. Tiffany Smiley ended up with the same vote Loren Culp got for governor two years ago, and Patty Murray got her average reelection vote."
Fueling all these voters were a few key issues. Elway points out that the economy was a top priority for most voters. Abortion came in second. A lot of reporters and pollsters focuses on those two, but there was another issue layered on top of it all: the future of our democracy. That's where independent voters came in.
There is another issue that the GOP may have to reckon with in the coming years — a certain corner of its party, and their rhetoric, which speaks to this democracy concern. Sure, disagree or agree with them, you can dig up some reasonable, sane-sounding, willing-to-work-with-you Republicans from Tim Scott to Lisa Murkowski, or the Mainstream Republicans of Washington. But Republicans also have characters like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Kari Lake, or Herschel Walker who are much louder and claim a lot more headlines and SNL sketches. This attention-getting corner is where conspiracies and 2020 denialism seem to take root. That's my observation, but Elway argues that the issue of supporting our democracy and elections was indeed influential.
"When people got to the polls, they're thinking about abortion and the future of democracy ... Let's fix democracy first and then we'll fix the issues after that," Elway said. "I think that was a large part of the swing vote, and those suburban women we keep talking about always made up a large section of the swing vote. I think that is how it ended up swinging."
You could probably place Joe Kent in that latter group of GOP candidates I listed above. He came into the election with an endorsement from Trump, and he questioned the 2020 election results.
It appears that he won't win in his bid for Washington's 3rd Congressional District, but has not yet conceded (he has already started flirting with election conspiracy theories). A few polls put Kent in the lead ahead of the election. Still, Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez managed to flip the 3rd District from red to blue and is already in DC preparing to get to work.
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Want to buy a home in Seattle? Better make more than $200K, Redfin says
Homebuyers are going to have to earn a lot more money this year if they want to purchase a home in the Seattle area.
A new report from Redfin says people looking to buy a median-priced home in Seattle need to earn at least $205,000 a year. That's up from last year's figure of approximately $141,000.
That figure of $141,000 has now shifted down to Tacoma. That's how much is recommended if you want to buy a home in Grit City. Other Northwest cities are seeing the same increases, according to the Redfin report that compares salary recommendations for October 2022 to October 2021.
- Seattle: $205,000 ($141,000 in 2021)
- Tacoma: $141,000 ($99,000 in 2021)
- Boise, Idaho: $132,000 ($94,000 in 2021)
- Portland, Oregon: $145,306 ($100,146 in 2021)
Nationwide, those making $107,000 annually can afford a typical home, which is a 46% increase from last year. Redfin notes that hourly wage has only gone up 5% over the past year, and inflation is still straining wallets.
Meanwhile, the median home price in Seattle continues to fall. The latest data from Redfin shows it was sitting around $760,000 in September. That's about $90,000 less than it was in May.
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Why eastern states are getting all of our Northwest weather right now
It's mid-November and we've got the cold, we've got the dark, but where is the rain?
National Weather Service forecaster Dustin Guy says this Saturday is supposed to be the wettest day of the year in the Seattle area, with rain 73% of the time.
"That's not going to be the case this year," Guy said. "We've had almost a week of dry weather, we've got at least six or seven days to go before we see any rain."
He says the current weather trend could be one of the longer dry stretches Washington has seen in a November. The region went 13 days with no rain back in 2000.
Guy says, however, that this dry spell is more of a "blip," and rain is going to return around Sunday or Monday.
"As we get into the week of Thanksgiving, things are going to look a lot more like normal around here," he says.
The cause of Washington's dry weather is a "persistent ridge along West Coast" that is sending all of Washington's usual weather off to the east.
"A lot of that weather is being deflected into the northern plains states," Guy said. "Basically, the eastern two-thirds of the country is getting the weather we are not ... It just doesn't really want to budge, but eventually it will."
Guy adds that the lack of clouds isn't just robbing us of rain, it's sending overnight temperatures lower and lower. Cloud cover is like a blanket that helps keep heat, even winter temps, up. That's why there has been so much frost in the morning lately.
Statewide, there has been some progress when it comes to dry conditions. The US Drought Monitor says a small corner of Southeast Washington (Asotin, Garfield, and Columbia counties) along with parts of Whitman County are no longer dealing with any type of drought. But that's it.
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WA polls got the Senate race wrong. What happened?
The outcomes from last week's midterms are still being finalized, but already some results stand in stark contrast to polling ahead of Election Day.
Stuart Elway, the director of the Crosscut/Elway Poll of Washington state voters, he spoke to KUOW's Angela King about the discrepancies.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
Angela King: Stuart, I want to start by asking about the Senate race between Democratic Senator Patty Murray, who won reelection, and Republican Tiffany Smiley.
We spoke to you just a few days before the election, and you’d said it looked like Smiley was actually closing the gap by quite a lot. Murray won by about 14 percentage points, though. So, what happened?
Stuart Elway: There were 19 polls on that Senate race after the primary, including 10 in the last month. Of those 19, 10 of them were conducted by Republican-affiliated organizations, including six of the last eight and all of the last three. The average of those Republican polls, over that whole period, was Murray plus three. [In other words, Murray led Smiley by just 3 percentage points.] The other polls conducted by media organizations and a couple of Democratic-leaning firms had the race at Murray plus 10, if you average it out. [Or, Murray led Smiley by 10 percentage points, according to those polls.]
So, I think they Republican-leaning polls skewed the polling averages that everybody looks at. That made it look like it was a lot closer. It turns out that was a mirage.
Tiffany Smiley ended up with the same vote percentage that Loren Culp got in the governor's race two years ago. Patty Murray got her average reelection vote plus two points.
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State audit: local governments should use data to address homelessness in WA
Local governments need to rely more on data to address homelessness in their communities, according to a recent state audit that focused on two cities —Seattle and Spokane, and two counties — Snohomish and Yakima.
“When it comes to determining which services to procure, we found decisions were often driven by grant requirements and approval from elected officials,” said Sohara Monaghan, a senior performance auditor with the Washington State Auditor’s Office.
Monaghan said data can help them better evaluate how service providers are performing, and which programs are meeting goals.
“We found that there are some governments that are not using data to find out which of their programs are not meeting goals, that are intended to move people out of homelessness,” she said.
Part of the audit included meeting with stakeholders, who noted that governments could do a better job prioritizing procured services.
The audit comes at a time when statewide spending on homelessness jumped to $357 million dollars last fiscal year — up by $108 million.
Many programs faced different challenges including staff shortages, turnover, and administrative changes.
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