2024 recap: Readers' top KUOW stories from this year
If there were any trends among all you KUOW readers over 2024, it was your love of animal stories (even if those animals are not very nice) and talking about the weather.
RELATED: Listen to Bill Radke's 2024 Year in Review
But it wasn't all animals, sun, and rain. A range of other issues dominated your conversations throughout the year. Here are the top 15 stories that got the most attention on KUOW.org in 2024.
15
The Seattle community was stunned on June 6, when shots were fired on the campus of Garfield High School. Christle Young was in front of the school at the time, waiting to drop something off to her son, a student at the school. As she watched students return to campus after lunch, she heard a series of gunshots. A former police officer, Young ran toward the gunshots and found a young man wounded. She started giving aid until medics arrived.
That young man was 17-year-old Amarr Murphy-Paine. When a fight broke out at Garfield during lunchtime, he stepped in to try and stop it. One of the brawlers reportedly pulled out a gun and shot Murphy-Paine. Despite witnesses and cameras, Seattle police have not made an arrest in this case. Murphy-Paine's family has urged the community to speak up.
14
Powerless Tesla drivers storm Seattle-area grocery store to recharge during outages
Society is evolving toward electric vehicles more and more these days, but what happens when there is no place to plug them in? Western Washington found out when a windstorm shook the region in November, knocking out power far and wide. Since most EV owners plug their cars in at home, they became quite concerned they'd be stuck with a dead battery and no way to charge it up. That led to a very long line at a Kirkland Fred Meyer, where a handful of Tesla chargers were up and running. EVs snaked around the parking lot, many on a couple percent charge left.
Molbak's Garden and Home store in Woodinville closed up in early 2024, which saddened much of the region's gardening community. The closure was the result of a tense back and forth between the garden store and a developer slated to renovate the area where it stands. But in April, Molbak's leadership announced they had a plan to bring the store back, but not quite in the same way. Instead of Molbak's, the new operation would be the "Green Phoenix Collaborative," a sort of gardening community with programs, classes, and food trucks. To make all this happen, however, it asked the community to donate money, with a goal of $2.5 million. After a month, and a little more than $100,000 raised, the collaborative effort shriveled up.
12 Drought emergency declared for Washington state ahead of warm summer
It was quite a dry winter, which led to the declaration of a statewide drought in April. The region did not receive adequate snowfall in the mountains over the season, which was alarming given that mountain snow is basically the state's summer water supply.
11 ‘That’s not nice!’ Brown bear eats entire family of ducks in front of kids at Seattle zoo
Juniper, a 2-year-old brown bear at Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo, got some bad press in April when she gave some children an up-close view of how nature works. It also doesn't help that in the one photo of Juniper out there, she looks like a crazed bear that wants to attack you through your computer screen. A mother duck and five ducklings got into the bear enclosure to take a swim in the pool. That pool is up against a glass window for spectators, where the children were watching them swim around. But for Juniper, the ducks looked like hors d'oeuvres. We all know what happened next. “That’s not nice!” one child cried.
State lawmakers considered reviving an old form of housing as a solution to our region's woes — "co-living." The idea is that people would rent rooms to live in, but share kitchens and bathrooms. These spaces were once common around here, but became less popular. Some cities even made them illegal. As KUOW's Joshua McNichols reported, "The epicenter of this micro-housing renaissance is in Redmond and Kirkland." This was among the first issues that KUOW's new podcast "Booming" reported on.
9
The year began with a series of severe weather blows that prompted the Federal Emergency Management Agency to issue a disaster declaration for 16 counties in Washington, as well as the Colville Indian Reservation. Extreme weather struck with heavy windstorms, then flooding and landslides, and eventually extreme cold temperatures. Statewide damages were estimated to be about $32 million between January 5-29. King County alone suffered about $11 million in damages.
8
Blocked by prosecutors, Seattle judge reassigned to parking and traffic tickets
In March, Seattle Judge Pooja Vaddadi's duties were reassigned. She went from handling criminal cases to cases related to parking tickets and traffic infractions. The move came from Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison, whose office filed affidavits disqualifying Vaddadi from judging criminal cases, citing “a pattern of biased rulings.”
7
Seattle-area readers love digital books. In fact, the Seattle Public Library ranks at number eight worldwide, and the King County Library ranks third, when it comes to digital checkouts. But the growing popularity of e-books has created issues for local libraries, which have to pay for these digital titles. The costs have been adding up ... and up again. This year, Seattle Public Library reduced the number of digital holds a person can make, dropping the limit from 25 to 10.
6
Seattle crows, beloved and feared, may be playing us with their primate-sized brains
Crows have brains the size of a small primate's, which is one reason why some develop relationships with humans. This relationship has fascinated University of Washington professors and corvid enthusiasts who now study these birds flying around Western Washington. They've found that crows may like humans for more than their ability to feed them. And these crows can even identify and remember different people.
5
At this point, whenever we report on weather heading into summer, people just want to know if another heat dome is coming. That was one of the first issues that local climatologists and forecasters got out of the way in May, when looking at the upcoming summer months (no heat domes this year). The long-term summer predictions ended up being quite accurate this year.
4
Listeria deli food recall hits Washington state, impacting Albertsons, Kroger, and other stores
If it feels like food recalls have become more and more common recently, it's because they have. Many recalls this year involved Washington, but one garnered a lot of attention locally. The state was part of a national recall in October that affected 10 million pounds of ready-to-eat meat and poultry products due to potential listeria contamination. Customers who shopped at Trader Joe's, Albertsons, Walmart, Amazon Fresh, or Kroger stores (Fred Meyer, QFC) were particularly interested. When processed food is involved, this type of recall can get complicated. The list of products in this case was 300 pages long. It could be a Trader Joe’s Chicken Enchiladas Verde, or ReadyWise freeze-dried emergency food buckets.
3
Kroger, Albertsons are selling 124 grocery stores in Washington
Albertsons and Kroger were so confident their proposed merger would go through in July, that they started listing stores to sell off — 579 across the USA, with 124 in Washington. More recently, however, things have gone the other way. After a court ruling did not go in the companies' favor, Albertsons sued Kroger for not doing enough to make the deal happen and make regulators happy.
2
September offered us another reminder that wild animals are indeed wild, even if they're cute. A river otter pulled a small child into the water at a Bremerton marina, prompting a bit of a fight with the child's mother. The otter briefly pulled the child under water before the mom was able to pull the kid onto the dock. The otter bit the mom, then chased the family off the dock.
1
A cougar attacked them. They fought back for 45 harrowing minutes
Yep. It's another animal attack story, and it's your top story of 2024. A group of women cyclists in their 50s and 60s took a selfie on Feb. 17 at the start of their ride on the Tokul Creek trail, north of Snoqualmie. About 19 minutes later, they were fighting a cougar. There were two cougars that crossed their path that day. One ran off; the other attacked then 60-year-old Keri Bergere, knocking her off her bike. The cougar would not let go. Using sticks, rocks, and their bikes, the group fought the cougar for 45 minutes and saved their friend's life.
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Dyer Oxley
Online Editor/Producer
Dyer Oxley joined KUOW as an Online Editor/Producer in 2020, handling day-to-day upkeep of the station’s website while providing editorial oversight. He also helms KUOW’s Today So Far newsletter, an insightful daily roundup of what KUOW is reporting ... so far.
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