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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Did you pay your fare? Inspections start Monday at Sound Transit stations
Starting Monday, Sound Transit fare ambassadors will begin checking passengers for proof of payment on some Link station platforms.
This adds to the current fare checks that take place on Link and Sounder trains.
The new process will rollout at downtown Seattle stations, with inspections only occurring on the 1 line in the first phase.
Eventually, the approach will be expanded to other areas, according to Sound Transit spokesperson John Gallagher.
“The goal of this is really to educate our riders about our fare system,” Gallagher said. “Fares are an important part of our revenue and how we continue to operate the system,” he said.
Inspections will occur in designated fare-paid areas.
Gallagher said there will be yellow markings to indicate which areas are fare-paid zones at stations. The assumption is that people entering those areas have a ticket.
Gallagher said the new process is designed to help passengers avoid citations or possible fines, and instead buy a ticket or access services.
"If you don't have one, if you're on the platform, you can go right upstairs and, you know, buy a ticket and you're taken care of. If you say, 'I don't have the money for a fare,' you can get information about ORCA LIFT, which is for people with low income. It's a dollar a ride,” he said.
Sound Transit’s current enforcement system allows people to have multiple citations before facing fines for non-payment of fares.
The organization overhauled their approach several years ago after equity concerns. Data showed Black riders were facing fines and consequences like misdemeanors far more often, according to Seattle Times reporting.
The first phase of fare checks in stations will run through August. Sound Transit will collect passenger feedback about the process through an online survey.
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Atmospheric river to strike Western Washington with major rain ... in June?
Significant rain is forecast for Western Washington on the first day of June 2024, thanks to an atmospheric river that will drench the region for several days. But wait ... an atmospheric river? Don't those usually show up in the fall?
"Usually, we don't see these going into the end of May and the beginning of June," Meteorologist Trent Davis with the National Weather Service in Seattle told KUOW. "So that's kind of the drastic thing about this one."
"I don't know if there's a distinct season for these, but usually by the time we get into June, we're starting to dry out a little bit. So having this much rainfall of several inches into June ... it is a bit unusual to get this much rainfall."
RELATED: How warm will Washington state get during summer 2024?
The Northwest is familiar with the atmospheric river phenomenon that dumps inches of rain on the region. Tropical areas deep in the the Pacific Ocean send strong moisture into the atmosphere, which then travels to the Northwest.
"Everyone's gonna see a good dosing of rain across Western Washington," Davis said.
- Rain is expected to dump on Washington Sunday evening through Tuesday afternoon. Most of the rain will come Sunday night into Monday morning.
- Seattle-metro area could see up to 1.5 inches.
- King, Snohomish, and Skagit counties could get between 2-4 inches.
- Expect the highest rainfall in the Olympic and Cascade mountains. Higher peaks could see more rain, which will lead to heavy runoff in rivers.
- Major river flooding is not expected, though the Snohomish and Skykomish rivers will be flowing quite full. Davis adds that the Snoqualmie River at Carnation could reach a minor flood stage.
Davis said some precipitation may linger in areas through Wednesday or Thursday, but the sun will show up by Friday. Above normal temps could follow.
"We are looking at a drier pattern coming up," Davis said. "It looks like a little bit warmer and drier weather late next week into the weekend, with some of the long-range forecasts suggesting that a really strong high pressure is going to build in. So in a way, I think it looks like it's kind of balancing out."
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The Red Chador and 'the fabulousness of being a Muslim woman'
There's an exhibit at the Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park called "Hybrid Skin, Mythical Presence." It's a retrospective of the work of Tacoma-based, Cambodian American performance artist Anida Yoeu Ali.
One of the stars of the show, in addition to “The Buddhist Bug,” is the internationally known “Red Chador,” a being completely covered from head to toe. We'll have a chance to see her as she walks the streets of Seattle this weekend. KUOW’s Kim Malcolm met with Ali at SAAM to discuss her work.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
Kim Malcolm: Tell me about The Red Chador and how she came to be.
Anida Yoeu Ali: I was given a commission to be in Paris in 2015. A lot of that informed me conceiving The Red Chador. It's the rise of Islamophobia, the rise of misogyny, It's also being in Paris and knowing that the burqa was banned. I wanted to occupy that space and confront the French public with that image.
The other thing I was thinking about is really joy, the celebration of joy and the vibrancy of women, Muslim women in particular, that I knew, that I grew up with, and that I'm surrounded with, that are not oppressed, that are not treated with fearful stereotypes. I was thinking about the question of, if an orthodox Muslim woman wanted to go to her prom, could she wear a fabulous outfit like a red sequined chador?
It's fully sequined. I just want to say you are completely leaning into the fabulousness there, and clearly that was a choice you made.
That was definitely a choice because when you think about evening gowns, and when you think about prom outfits, you clearly think of sequined garments. That was why I selected the red sequins, for the representation of red being life, and love, and blood, and lust, all these things that red reminds us of. But also it's the sparklingness, it's the shininess. How could you not smile when you're coming across this beautiful garment as the sunlight hits it in a certain way? She is sparkling, she is shiny, she is not somebody to fear. Let her have her moment. Let her have her dance.
As a Muslim woman, I am most definitely claiming joy. But I'm also claiming complexities, like complexity of being, complexity of existing. There are many people who don't even think of me as an Asian person as being from a Muslim country, or being Muslim for generations and generations. That's also a problem that I come across, which is whether or not I'm “Muslim enough.” I think that's a dangerous way of looking at identity and not seeing and not allowing Muslim people and Muslim women to have a complexity, almost pigeonholing us in a certain way. I'm resisting that.
You go to any congregational prayer, especially during Ramadan, and for Eid, and you see the most fabulous fashion show unfold in front of your eyes. Women go into the women's section of prayer to see all of those dazzling, fabulous, highly embroidered, ostentatious gowns that other Muslim women wear, specifically during Ramadan. And so, I am reminding all of us that we have this in all of our specific cultures. Even with the layers of Islam, we are always celebrating the colors and the textiles of our cultural specificity, through the garments and through the act of covering, and it is by choice, and we should celebrate in that moment of rejoicing in all of the colors and the splendidness and what I like to call the fabulousness of being a Muslim woman.
Listen to the interview by clicking the play button above.
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Styrofoam containers are about to disappear in Washington
The next phase for Washington state's ban on Styrofoam is about to kick in, putting an end to an era of squeaky to-go containers used by restaurants and other businesses.
Yep. No longer shall five to-go clamshell containers be stacked on top of each other, their weight inevitably cracking the bottom two causing them to leak teriyaki sauce all over the bag and the back seat of your car. Nobody likes cleaning that up.
RELATED: Washington's ban on high-capacity gun magazines will stay in place as court battle continues
It's not just those clamshell containers used for food. The statewide ban is also for the sale or distribution of Styrofoam coolers, plates, cups, bowls, and similar items. The ban officially begins Saturday, June 1.
Styrofoam offenders (styrofenders?) could face fines ranging from $250 to $1,000, after one or more violations.
Styrofoam is actually the brand name for "polystyrene foam," which Washington state lawmakers banned 2021. It's part of the same suite of laws that banned plastic bags, and made it so the customer has to specifically ask for single-use utensils when ordering food.
The polystyrene plan has been to do away with these materials in two phases. The first phase began in June 2023, when the state nixed packing peanuts and similar packing materials.
The state notes that most recycling programs do not accept polystyrene foam. The ban aims to prevent these materials from polluting the environment.
Note: Technically, the brand Styrofoam is not used to make common containers like cups, plates, or clamshells. It's also polystyrene, but it's a different type made by Dupont that is used for insulation. Sorry, Dupont. You did a little too well with your marketing. Honestly, when was the last time you were at a barbecue and said to someone: "Hey, put a hot dog on my white EPS foam disc ... no, not that closed cell extruded polystyrene plate! Get real! Plates are made from EPS!"
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Vice President Kamala Harris slated for June campaign visit to Seattle
Vice President Kamala Harris will be in Seattle Saturday, June 1, 2024.
The Northwest Progressive Institute reports that the visit is to raise money for the Biden Victory Fund.
RELATED: Vice President Kamala Harris visits Seattle, promotes 'Bidenomics'
Few details about the fundraising events are known, however, at least two events for Saturday have been publicized, both scheduled for Seattle. One event states it will be a "reception" with the vice president, and the other says it's an "evening" with Harris.
General admission to the evening event is going for $500 per ticket. Prices range up to $50,000 for premium seating and a photo.
President Biden was in Seattle about three weeks ago, also for a couple of fundraising events.
Just as with Biden's visit, be prepared for road closures and traffic delays while Vice President Harris is in town.
The last time Harris visited Seattle was in August 2023 to promote Bidenomics.
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Out-of-state abortions have risen in Washington since 2022
The number of out-of-state women coming to Washington for abortions went up after 2022, when national protections for abortion care ended, according to a new assessment from University of Washington Medicine.
“The increasing number of abortions, out-of-state patients and delays to care points to the need for increased investment in and resources for abortion care in Washington,” Taylor Riley said in a statement. Riley is a graduate student at UW's department of epidemiology.
“This could include expanding the number of abortion-providing facilities and strengthening existing primary care and telehealth accessibility, financial support and referral systems within the state.”
The UW study points out that certain statistics around this group of patients changed after the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on Dobbs vs Jackson. After that, laws around abortions became a state-by-state issue, with some banning the medical care and others, like Washington, protecting it with local laws.
Since that decision, NPR reports that there has been "a slow and small steady increase in the number of abortions per month" at a national level (there were 82,000 abortions per month in the United States in 2022, and 86,000 per month in 2023). This is based on yet another study, which concluded that telehealth is playing a role in accessing abortions by medication.
UW Medicine study on out-of-state abortions in Washington
UW researchers looked at data from Cedar River Clinics, a network of clinics in Washington state. The clinics' data shows a 50% increase in out-of-state patients seeking abortions (its share of out-of-state patients went from 4% to 6% of all cases).
They also documented that this group of patients experienced, on average, a one-week delay in care.
“While a one-week delay does not sound significant, any delays in receiving abortion care are problematic because it adversely affects the health of the pregnant person,” said Dr. Emily Godfrey with UW Medicine.
Godfrey is the senior author of the paper now published in JAMA. Researchers compared data before and after the Dobbs decision — from January 1, 2017 through June 23, 2022, and then June 24, 2022 through July 31, 2023.
Before the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision, 6% of women seeking an abortion at Cedar River Clinics in Washington were from Texas. After the decision, it went up to 27%. Texas is now the state sending Washington the highest number of out-of-state women seeking abortions.
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Seattle’s Wing Luke Museum closed after staff say exhibit 'frames Palestinian liberation' as antisemitism
Seattle’s Wing Luke Museum remains closed after more than half its staff walked out last week to protest an exhibit that addresses antisemitism in the region.
The “Confronting Hate Together” exhibit focuses on the history of discrimination experienced by Black, Asian-American, and Jewish communities in Seattle.
At a press event previewing the exhibit last week, Cassie Chinn, Wing Luke's deputy executive director, said, “We wanted to look towards the past to see how that might inform our present and our future.”
RELATED: Wing Luke exhibit shows how Black, Asian, and Jewish Seattleites confront hate together
But, in bringing the history of prejudice and discrimination to the current day, the museum's own staffers argue the exhibit suffered from a glaring omission — the ongoing plight of more than one million displaced Palestinians in Gaza.
Explanatory panels highlight a rising tide of antisemitism and hate crimes in Seattle. The exhibit says that graffiti sprayed in November on the Herzl-Ner Tamid Synagogue on Mercer Island that said “stop killing” was antisemitism “disguised as anti-Zionism ... as if the Jews of Mercer Island could control the actions of the Israeli government.”
The exhibit also says that the Palestinian protest cry, "from the river to the sea," is "a phrase defined by the erasure of Israel," which pro-Palestinians activists say is not true.
The exhibit did not mention of a similar rise seen in anti-Islamic, anti-Arab, or anti-Muslim hate. According to preliminary data from the Washington chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, almost 40% of Muslims in Washington have experienced heightened discrimination since the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
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Seattle Kraken has a new head coach: Dan Bylsma
The Seattle Kraken announced Tuesday that the hockey team has hired Dan Bylsma to be its next head coach.
"I've witnessed the path the organization is on, the young players coming into the organization, the drafts that have happened, there are a lot of great players coming down the pipe," Bylsma said during a press event Tuesday.
RELATED: NHL on the Eastside? New hockey arena discussed by Seattle Kraken and Kirkland
"We have a great group of leaders, a great group of players, and they're a group that we can have a lot of success with down the road and build a championship organization."
The move comes a month after the organization fired head coach Dave Hakstol, and assistant coach Paul McFarland, marking a new direction for the Seattle team.
Bylsma still has some things to tie up with his current job coaching the Coachella Valley Firebirds in the American Hockey League. The Firebirds are the AHL affiliate of the Kraken, so Bylsma has already been working within the organization.
“Dan is a winner with a proven track record of developing both young and veteran talent, and his leadership will help our team as we move forward,” General Manager Ron Francis said in a statement.
“He has had success at every level, winning the Stanley Cup in 2009, earning a Jack Adams Award as the NHL’s top coach in 2011, and he led the Firebirds to Game 7 of the Calder Cup Finals last year in the team’s first season," Francis continued. "He knows our franchise and has worked with several of our NHL players. We are excited to have him behind the bench and guiding our team next season.”
The Kraken note that Francis interviewed "a number of other candidates with NHL experience" for the job.
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Will closing schools really balance the budget for Seattle Public Schools? Parents have their doubts
Seattle parents will get more details next week on the school district's proposal to close up to 20 elementary schools by the fall of 2025.
The district is holding three in-person "well-resourced school" meetings at high schools across the city next week, and one on Zoom the following week.
District officials have said distributing students more evenly across fewer schools is key to get back on good financial footing and better serve students. The district faces a $105 million budget gap next school year, and even larger shortfalls of $129 million and $153 million the following two school years.
But a growing number of parents and community members are skeptical that the benefits of shuttering over a quarter of the district's elementary and K-8 schools outweigh the disruption for families.
The district says closing a school saves between $750,000 and $2 million in expenses related to administration, transportation, support staff, building maintenance, and operations.
RELATED: How Seattle Public Schools' budget woes got so bad
Megan Fisher, the parent of a first-grader at West Seattle's Gatewood Elementary, says the district should provide the public with more data showing closures are the best solution to the ongoing budget crisis.
"Like our kids in school, we get taught to show our work when we're doing math," she said. "We just want to see the district show us their work."
Fisher is also a leader of All Together for Seattle Schools, a citywide grassroots advocacy group of parents, teachers, and community members. As of Friday afternoon, their letter opposing the closure plan had gotten nearly 600 signatures in less than a week.
The letter also calls for the district to provide more data and analysis on potential closures, consider alternative plans, and better involve the community in the process.
"It's a bummer to not feel, as a parent, that your voice actually matters or is able to be heard," Fisher said.
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Low-income families in Washington can get free air conditioning, but time is running out
This summer could be a scorcher in Washington. Low-income families in the state have about a month left to get free air conditioning units.
Thanks to federal money funneled through community organizations, people living below a certain income can get help paying for their energy bills. And this year, they can also get a voucher to buy an air-conditioning unit for their home, choosing from a few eligible models on Amazon. That’s thanks to a pandemic-era bump in federal funding.
The income cutoff depends on family size. In King County, it’s $45,000 for a family of four.
RELATED: Seattle is now an air conditioning town
People can apply through community organizations, including the Byrd Barr Place in Seattle and HopeLink on the Eastside and in Shoreline.
The state commerce department expects most of the air conditioning funding to run out by the end of June, so interested families should apply soon.
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Assistant chief with Seattle Police put on leave, reasons unclear
Updated 5:35 p.m. on 5/24/2024.
Tyrone Davis, an assistant chief for the Seattle Police Department, was put on leave Thursday, according to the police department’s communications department.
Chief Adrian Diaz sent a department-wide email saying that due to allegations sent to the police oversight agency, he had taken “the precautionary step” of putting Davis on administrative leave.
The email came as a surprise across the department, according to several who received it.
The department would not say why Davis was put on leave. The Office of Police Accountability said it received a complaint regarding Davis on May 8.
Reached Friday, Davis said he could not talk.
This is the latest setback in a department plagued nearly weekly by bad news at the top levels.
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Seattle Police must report what it’s doing to hire women: City Council resolution
The Seattle City Council has weighed in on the five lawsuits filed against the police department — all alleging racial and gender discrimination.
On Tuesday, the City Council passed a resolution mandating that the police department report what it is doing to hire more women and address allegations of sexism and racial discrimination — much of it detailed in KUOW reporting.
“It’s time for the behavior described by women at SPD to end — full stop,” said Councilmember Tammy Morales in a statement.
The resolution came one day after Captain Eric Greening filed a lawsuit saying Chief Adrian Diaz dismisses feedback from BIPOC and female officers.
Women currently make up 12% of officers at the Seattle Police Department. The department has pledged, through its collaboration with the 30x30 initiative, to increase that to 30% of its recruiting class by 2030.
Ted Buck, Chief Adrian Diaz’s personal attorney, wrote in a statement that the police department is “deeply committed to enhancing diversity department-wide.”
Buck noted that Diaz launched the Relational Policing Initiative in 2022, “which focused on changing the future of policing.”
Buck added, “Also, for the first time in department history there is an Executive Director of Employee Support Services to oversee general officer wellness. Her sole focus will be building and maintaining officer resilience.”
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