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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Seattle's low income communities benefit from soda tax revenue, UW study says
Seattle’s soda tax has been effective in reducing consumption of sugary drinks. Turns out, money from the tax also helps low income communities, according to a University of Washington study.
Revenue from Seattle’s soda tax funds programs like Fresh Bucks, which helps low income families afford fresh fruit and vegetables.
Emy Haruo, director of community resources at the social service organization Neighborhood House, says having Fresh Bucks vouchers helps her clients stretch their food budget.
“Knowing that they can spend $40 on fresh foods that they wouldn’t have money to spend on makes a difference,” Haruo said.
Last year, the non-profit enrolled 736 people in the program.
Seattle started taxing sugary drinks in 2018 in an effort to reduce consumption and improve health.
Critics have argued that the tax would disproportionately burden low income communities. A new UW study shows that low-income families pay a larger portion of their household budget on the tax. But much of the tax revenue also funded food-related and health programs that benefit this population.
In addition to expanding Fresh Bucks, the city directed soda tax money to local food banks, and senior meal programs, among others.
Haruo says part of Fresh Bucks’s appeal is being able to choose their own produce.
“Some of our clients even found new interests and vegetables they’ve never heard of,” Haruo said. “Bok choy has gotten popular, Chinese broccoli have gotten popular, taro has gotten popular.”
In addition to Seattle, researchers analyzed data from San Francisco and Philadelphia. The study was published this month in the journal Food Policy.
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988 hotline is going live. What is it for?
A crucial life line for people in crisis goes active this weekend. All you have to do is dial 9-8-8.
For emergencies, people know to call 911. Now, 988 is the number to call for people experiencing mental health, substance abuse or suicide crises. The new 988 hotline goes live on Saturday, July 16, 2022.
It’s a national program that builds upon the long-existing National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Before, though, callers had to dial a 1-800 number to reach that hotline. Now it will be just three numbers. Callers will be routed based on their area code.
In Washington, lawmakers approved a new 988 tax on telephone lines in 2021. The funds support the expansion of call centers in the state. Some of that money will also help fund a specific tribal crisis line to serve Native American communities.
Callers to 988 will be able to connect by phone or text. The service will also be available in Spanish and in other languages through interpreters. All calls are confidential.
Updates and more in KUOW's Today So Far Blog
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Summer tourism surge hits while Washington's ferries are still on reduced service
Washington tourism has begun its summer surge, especially on the state's ferries. But at the same time, many routes are still running on alternate schedules with reduced service.
"It's a significant reduction in service levels," said Ian Sterling with Washington State Ferries. "But that said, whenever we have the people to operate an extra boat we do that."
Sterling says that fewer vessels means that some riders are having to wait up to four hours in line. That wait time is having ripple effects on businesses that rely on tourism.
Travelers are encourages to make trips during non-peak times. It's also a good idea to reserve a spot on a ferry ahead of time, or use walk-on services instead of driving.
Updates and more in KUOW's Today So Far Blog
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Graffiti goes down while summer traffic goes up in Seattle
If you're planning some trips along I-5 through Seattle this summer, you might want to check ahead. The Washington State Department of Transportation is closing I-5 for much-needed repairs.
When repairs are done, however, drivers may notice a bit of a difference, and not just because the expansion joints have been replaced and will no longer tear up your car.
According to a statement from WSDOT:
"While some crews are chipping out old joints and replacing them, a subcontractor is painting over graffiti while we already have some lanes closed. Normally, we’d have to schedule separate lane closures to address graffiti, which is often painted in areas that are difficult to access."
"Difficult to access " is sort of the goal of a lot of graffiti. A few years back, I became fascinated by one specific graffiti tag throughout Seattle — Homer Simpson. Once I spotted Homer's face spray painted on a sidewalk near my work, I began seeing him everywhere. Near my neighborhood bar. On an abandoned building I drove by. On a dumpster.
Looking into Seattle's graffiti scene, I discovered a few things. First, Seattle had a dedicated graffiti detective, charged with keeping an eye on tags that get thrown up around town. Second, local taggers spraying up walls, streets, and bridges are, statistically, more likely to be middle class, white guys with an average age of 23.
RELATED: 'Thrill And Addiction' Of Seattle Graffiti Artists
And finally, a big concept in the graffiti scene is "buff and burn," which speaks to that "difficult to access" point that WSDOT made. It's like a calculation a tagger makes: How likely is my tag to be buffed away, plus how long will it stay up to burn into the eyes of passersby. A lot of the graffiti along I-5 has good buff and burn. It's been up for a while and it's added up.
In the four weekends that crews have been doing work on I-5 so far this summer, they've used about 300 gallons of paint to cover the graffiti. They were going through so much, crews actually ran out of paint one weekend, according to WSDOT.
Revive I-5 work began last year and is slated to continue through this summer while the skies are clear. A total of 15 weekend closures are expected, including a closure from 7:30 p.m. on Friday, July 15 through 5 a.m. on Monday, July 18. As with all closures on I-5, expect traffic to be snarled throughout the region.
Updates and more in KUOW's Today So Far Blog
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Monkeypox spreads further in Washington; expert says more cases will emerge this summer
Snohomish County is the latest region in Washington state to detect a case of monkeypox.
That brings the statewide total of monkeypox cases to 19. Nationwide, there are more than 750 cases. Monkeypox first emerged, locally, in King County and was soon detected in Pierce County.
RELATED: Monkeypox vaccines en route to Washington
The Snohomish Health District says that the new case is an adult male and that health officials are getting in touch with recent close contacts.
The University of Washington Medicine Virology Lab is one of the few sites in the country that tests for this infection.
"Our turnaround time probably is about one to two days right now, depending on when you send it," said Alex Greninger, assistant director of the lab.
Greninger says the virus is going to be around through the summer and adds that now is a good time to be cautious.
"It’s not going to be just like Covid, obviously, but we're going to see more cases than people normally would expect, and certainly more than we've ever seen before," he said. "I mean, that's already true right now."
Monkeypox is spread through close contact with the skin of an infected person. It causes flu-like symptoms, swollen lymph nodes and a rash (bumps).
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Would you drink this to combat green crabs?: Today So Far
- A distillery may have one solution for invasive green crabs. Could the Northwest's breweries find solutions of their own?
- Should Seattle be a chocolate chip cookie, or a brownie? In other words, what are we going to do with all these people moving to town?
This post originally appeared in KUOW's Today So Far newsletter for July 12, 2022.
Would you drink whiskey made with crabs?
Problem: European green crabs have been slowly invading Northwest waters, and are making their way down through Puget Sound. They destroy habitats for local sea life, such as our native Dungeness and red crabs, as well as salmon habitats. People are pretty worried about this.
Solution: Whiskey?!
Over in New Hampshire, they've also been dealing with invasive green crabs. One distillery there has drawn attention to the issue by bottling a special whiskey that incorporates them into its recipe. Each bottle uses about a pound of green crabs.
"People are going to hear 'crab whiskey,' and I'd venture to say three-quarters of them are going to go, 'No, absolutely not,'" said Will Robinsons, product developer at Tamworth Distilling in New Hampshire. "But if you can get them to taste it, they totally change their tune for the most part."
Whiskey can't entirely get rid of the green crabs. Trappers are pulling tens of thousands of them from Puget Sound at this point. But it could help. I know, I know — beer is the big thing in the Northwest. But personally, I've always felt that beer has one major flaw — it's not whiskey. But you got to play your audience, and we all know that our local breweries are some of the most creative corners in our region (we have a festival dedicated to brewing up strange beers, and I once even had beer made with Doritos Cool Ranch chips on Bainbridge Island — it worked). So I'd like to throw this out there to the region's breweries: Is it possible to make beer using invasive green crabs?
I'd also like to challenge Northwest breweries to make any beer that is not an IPA. Because, believe it or not, such non-IPA beers exist. But one thing at a time.
Moving on from beer, let's talk about cookies. And by "cookies" and mean "engineering the future of Seattle's neighborhood density to accommodate the massive influx of new residents."
But KUOW's Joshua McNichols likes to think of it as a cookie (or maybe he was just really hungry when he wrote this story ... somebody get Joshua a cookie!). The idea goes like this: If you think of Seattle like a cookie, the chocolate chips are where we have placed our urban villages, the places where taller buildings, shops, and more are established. The rest of the cookie/Seattle is just houses and other spaces. But there's not enough room for all the new people moving to town. So do we add more chips to the cookie? Do we make bigger chips where more people can live? Do we turn the cookie into a brownie? These could all be part of the recipe Seattle is considering as it plans for future growth.
If the plan so far has been a cookie, then it could be said that former Mayor Norm Rice baked it about 30 years ago. Rice was mayor of Seattle from 1990 to 1997. During this time, he set in motion a plan that created the city's urban villages. Before that, the general approach was to keep building the region up to accommodate cars. But the downsides of that approach became apparent as more and more people moved to the region, and crammed onto roads.
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Washington nonprofits feeling the strain of inflation
Inflation is putting a strain on several non-profit organizations in Western Washington.
“We do see the increase for food and gas," said Nickhath Sheriff.
Sheriff heads the social service program for the Muslim Association of Puget Sound in Redmond. The group works with people experiencing homelessness, and refugees from Muslim majority nations, such as Afghanistan and Syria.
The food cards they hand out help these communities with specific dietary needs. But Sheriff says the food cards they usually provide don’t go as far as they used to.
“We used to give them halal food card, $50 halal food card," Sheriff said. "But now a larger family says that’s not enough so we have to increase it to $100.”
The Consumer Price Index has risen by more than 8% over the past 12 months. And that is forcing some families to adjust their shopping habits, or resort to going to charities for help.
Read more on KUOW.org:
- Minimum wage vs your neighbors vs inflation: Today So Far
- In a turbulent economy, here's how to weather the inflation storm
- Here's what 8.6% inflation feels like
- Yes, inflation is eating up your food budget
Find news updates and more on KUOW's Today So Far Blog!
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Washington health officials urge families to keep kids safe from Covid this summer
Public health officials in Washington state are reminding parents to keep their children safe from Covid-19 as they hang out with their friends over the summer. Covid levels are still high in several communities across Washington state.
Reported Covid cases appear to be decreasing among kids and teens in Washington, according to the latest state report. However, most cases in the community go unreported these days, with a high prevalence of home testing making it hard to determine short-term trends.
In the last couple of weeks of June, kids three and under had the highest case rates in the state, according to the report. And hospitalizations for children and teens are increasing.
People who have previously been infected with Covid, and have recovered, seem to have less protection against the newest variants of the coronavirus. Currently, the BA.5 variant of omicron is the most common in the United States and is driving up case counts throughout the country. With the latest variants, people are becoming sick with Covid multiple times. And there is evidence that suggests the more times a person is infected, the more likely they will suffer from long Covid.
Public health officials recommend all kids stay up to date with vaccines. Covid vaccines are available for everyone six months and older.
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Did you know?: The Burr conspiracy after the infamous duel with Hamilton
This Did You Know segment originally appeared in the Today So far newsletter on July 11, 2022.
Get news updates and more in KUOW's Today So Far Blog!
On this day in history, July 11, 1804, Aaron Burr fatally shot Alexander Hamilton in their now famous duel. Burr was charged with murder after Hamilton died from his wound. But since he was vice president at the time, the charge never went too far.
Most of us know that story, either because of "Hamilton" the musical or because of "Drunk History." But what some people don't know is that Burr went on to create even more controversy. He faced multiple charges of treason, but was never ultimately convicted. This all stemmed from allegations that Burr was brewing up an international conspiracy. It's a long story, but the short version is that he allegedly kept attempting to seize land, create a new country, and make himself the monarch. Such plans included stealing land that the United States recently got through the Louisiana Purchase, and also getting into a fight with Spanish Mexico to seize land there. None of these alleged plans worked out. I say "alleged" because he kept dodging convictions due to lack of evidence.
Despite no charges ever sticking, Burr was not popular in the United States after all this. He went to Europe to hide from his bad reputation and debts. He eventually returned to the U.S. where he passed away. And history has since leaned more toward Hamilton's perspective that Burr was a bit of an opportunist who could not be trusted.
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Be like water: Today So Far
- New Bruce Lee exhibit opens in Seattle, exploring his life and philosophy.
- Monkeypox spreads further in Western Washington as vaccines arrive.
- Lori Matsukawa awarded with the Order of the Rising Sun.
This post originally appeared in KUOW's Today So Far newsletter for July 11, 2022.
Have you ever watched "Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story?" If you're like me, you had ample opportunity to watch it on cable TV throughout the 1990s (it felt like it was always on some channel). And also, if you're like me, you loved it and got sucked in every time.
As an adult, however, I was a little disappointed to find out that a lot of Lee's story was, let's say "stretched" for dramatic effect by the director. And some was left out, like Seattle. Watching the film, you wouldn't know that Lee came to Seattle, lived here, worked at Ruby Chow's restaurant, went to school here, and met his wife here. And he was laid to rest here.
I still love "Dragon." But if you want to dive deeper into who Bruce Lee was, and his philosophy, you can find it at the Wing Luke Museum.
A new interactive exhibit, "Be Water, My Friend: The Teachings of Bruce Lee," just opened in Seattle. Part of this exhibit is more than 1,200 books he studied. “We're trying to express through his book collection, his sentiments on his philosophical idea around being like water," Shannon Lee, Bruce Lee's daughter, told KUOW. "So, this exhibit explores that idea, tells you the origin story of his philosophy on water, and how it came to be.”
KUOW's Mike Davis has the full story here.
The monkeypox situation continues to grow in Western Washington. Last week, the Today So Far Blog reported that monkeypox was spreading throughout the King County community. In other words, it wasn't just showing up because someone travelled into town from a place with an outbreak. It's now spreading from person-to-person (nine people in King County as of last week). That spread has now reached Pierce County where health officials are reporting that a man in his 30s has a presumptive case of monkeypox. The CDC still has to confirm it. The man reportedly doesn't have a severe case and is recovering at home. Just like the situation in King County, the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department is reporting that the new case is not related to travel, meaning the man got the infection from someone else in the community.
Some good monkeypox news is that the Washington state Department of Health just received a shipment of monkeypox vaccine — enough to inoculate 398 people. The vaccine comes in two doses. Nationally, health officials want to get one million doses distributed.
“The risk to the public is low at this time," said state epidemiologist Dr. Scott Lindquist. "Transmission generally requires close, skin-to-skin contact with someone who has symptoms of the disease. For people who have had recent contact with someone who tested positive for monkeypox, the vaccine can reduce the chance of developing a monkeypox infection.”
Personally, I'm hoping that the monkeypox story fades away soon — mainly because KUOW only has one file photo for monkeypox from the Associated Press, and it's pretty boring. We can't keep that up for too long on KUOW.org. So fingers crossed.
I love stories like this next one — Lori Matsukawa has been honored with the Order of the Rising Sun. Within three generations, her family went from coming to the United States to becoming one of the most influential figures in Seattle media, and being awarded one of Japan's highest honors.
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K-pod has a new baby orca for the Salish Sea
The first calf born to the K-pod in more than a decade has been spotted on the west side of Vancouver Island.
Video taken Saturday showed the baby orca, named K45, swimming with its mother K20 and the rest of the family.
And while we still don't know the calf's sex, the Center for Whale Research says it looks to be in good physical condition and has good coloring. The center also says the baby and the K-pod haven't been seen since last November.
Rumors of a new calf with K-pod began swirling around in April and June, but it was not confirmed until July.
The last time this pod saw a new baby was in 2011. There are approximately 74 of the endangered southern resident orcas left.
Get news updates and more in KUOW's Today So Far Blog!
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Can whiskey be a solution to the NW's green crab problem?
Green crabs have slowly been invading Northwest waters and are moving further and further into Puget Sound, leading many to search for solutions that will knock down their numbers. Now, a far away distillery may have one solution to get them out of the water — whiskey.
"People are going to hear crab whiskey, and I'd venture to say three-quarters of them are going to go, 'No, absolutely not,'" said Will Robinsons, product developer at Tamworth Distilling in New Hampshire. "But if you can get them to taste it, they totally change their tune for the most part."
RELATED: Think 85,000 invasive crabs is a lot? Wait 'til you see Vancouver Island
New Hampshire has been dealing with the European green crabs for much longer than the Northwest. Now Tamworth Distilling is using the invasive crabs to make a crab-flavored whiskey called "Crab Trapper." It takes about a pound of green crabs to make each bottle.
While Robinson admits that the whiskey won't get rid of all the invasive crabs, the distillery hopes the effort will at least bring more awareness, and possible solutions, to the problem. Read more about green crab whiskey here.
Solutions are what the Pacific Northwest needs. Green crabs are among the most successful invasive species in North America. They damage native shellfish populations and salmon habitat. That has local tribes and fisheries worried.
More more than 60,000 have been captured in Washington waters so far in 2022, which is far more than this same time last year. Washington Governor Jay Inslee declared an emergency over the invasion back in January and authorized the use of $8 million to kill the crabs.
RELATED: Lummi Nation combats massive outbreak of invasive European crabs
Like other crabs, the green variety are edible, however, capturing them to dish them up probably isn't the most likely solution. Diners prefer the red rock and Dungeness crabs far more. Also, the green crabs are not nearly as large as their Northwest counterparts, which means a lot more would have to be captured. You'd think that would be easy given their exploding numbers, but there are many other factors at work, too.
Get news updates and more in KUOW's Today So Far Blog!
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