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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At 50, Seattle Gay News starts a new chapter
In 2024, Seattle Gay News celebrated 50 years of publishing news for the region's LGBTQ community, elevating their voices over decades, through good times and bad.Seattle is a city that flaunts its queer bonafides, but it’s easy to take hard-fought cultural change for granted. Anti-gay initiatives emerged in Seattle in the 1970s around the same time the city’s first Pride celebrations began. In the 1980s, the AIDS crisis spurred far-reaching fear. In 2015, gay marriage became legal across the United States. Through all these milestones, Seattle Gay News has been instrumental in organizing the queer community and making its stories visible.
“There’s not many organizations in this community that can say they’ve made it to 50 years," Renee Raketty told Seattle Now. "We’ve lost a lot of legacy organizations, and to be honest with you, the SGN is an institution in our community here in Seattle. And I’m so proud to carry that forward for the next 50 years.”
RELATED: Northwest Asian Weekly newspaper turns the page to a new generation
After writing and editing for the newspaper for many years, Raketty now takes over as publisher. In the wake of the death of George Bakan, editor and publisher since 1983, his daughter Angela Cragin stepped into the role. Bakan suddenly died at his desk in 2020, working on the newspaper that has become a fixture of Seattle's LGBTQ community. Cragin later sold the paper to Mike Schultz, who took on the role of publisher in 2023. Raketty has worked under all three publishers during her time at Seattle Gay News.
Seattle Gay News actually started as a newsletter run out of the local Gay Community Center in the 1970s. Its writers depended on local gay bars for donations and businesses for supplies. Since then, the newspaper has been a fixture of the community, through good times and bad. It’s been involved with the city’s Pride celebration since its inception. Even in the early days, the paper became a sort of hotline, fielding calls from people who were kicked out of their homes and had nowhere to go. The newspaper published during the era of “gay cancer,” when HIV and AIDS hit the community hard through the 1980s and 1990s. Raketty recalls a time when it was legal to fire someone for being gay, making it difficult for people to find and keep a job. The paper was there for them, too.
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Train carrying hazardous sulfur derails in Whatcom County
Environment
A BNSF Railway freight train passes through Shoreline, Washington, in January 2021.A BNSF Railway freight train derailed in Whatcom County late Tuesday night, with six cars going off the rails near the town of Custer, Washington.
At least two railcars containing molten sulfur — a hazardous material used in oil refining and paper milling and transported at about 290 degrees Fahrenheit — tipped over on their sides.
Officials say there were no injuries and no spill. Local officials closed Portal Way, the main route into the town of Custer, for the day at BNSF's request.
“Our priority is always life safety, and it is gratifying that there was and is no risk to the public from this event,” Whatcom County Sheriff Donnell “Tank” Tanksley said in a press release.
This is the same stretch of tracks where an apparently sabotaged oil train — its brakes and couplings disabled — pulled apart and crashed into itself, bursting into flames, in 2020.
RELATED: Sabotage caused Washington oil-train disaster, rail union says
The cause of Tuesday’s crash is under investigation.
“The train was not carrying crude oil,” BNSF Railway spokesperson Lena Kent said by email. Kent did not respond to KUOW’s questions on the size, destination, and origin of the train. Kent said BNSF’s main rail line, used by freight trains and Amtrak trains passing between Canada and the United States, was not affected.
According to a federal hazardous materials database for emergency responders, molten sulfur cools and solidifies quickly if it spills.
"Exercise caution walking on the surface of a spill to avoid breakthrough into pockets of molten sulfur below the crust," the CAMEO Chemicals database warns.
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What does June rain mean for Western Washington's 2024 summer?
Environment
The early June 2024 atmospheric river may have dumped rain across Western Washington, but the National Weather Service still expects the summer to lean warmer and drier than normal.June rain is not unique in Western Washington, but heavy atmospheric rivers are perhaps not as common. That's what dumped rain across the region last weekend and set records.
"We had two atmospheric rivers, and they were really winter-like storms, and not something we usually see in early June," Deputy State Climatologist Karin Bumbaco told Seattle Now. "With that said, we’ve had plenty of wetter-than-normal Junes before, so it wasn’t really the rain that was unusual to me.”
RELATED: How are atmospheric rivers affected by climate change?
The heavy wind stood out more to Bumbaco. Still, the National Weather Service noted a few rainfall records that were broken for Sunday, June 2. Seattle recorded .65 inches of rain (beating its previous record of .48 inches set in 2001). Olympia had 1.08 inches of rain (much more than the .48 inch record set in 2010). NWS records go back as far as 1953.
Atmospheric rivers are common, natural weather patterns. In short, it's how water from the tropics in the Pacific Ocean evaporates up into the atmosphere, and travels to North America where it falls down as rain or snow. You may have also heard this referred to as the "pineapple express." When a lot of water heads our way, we note it as an atmospheric river and expect to get dumped on. These are mostly expected in winter, and not so much during the first week of June, which is what just happened.
“For the future, we are expecting to see more atmospheric rivers and more winter rain in a warming climate, we’re not really expecting to see those in June. If anything, we’re expecting drier summers in the future," Bumbaco said.
With a heaping, fresh dose of rain, could this have any implications for the upcoming summer, and the drought that Washington state currently faces?
RELATED: Big Northwest floods a ‘dress rehearsal’ for a hotter climate
Looking ahead, Bumbaco had a few points to consider.
- The recent rain means that Western Washington will probably record a wetter-than-normal June this year, which strays from forecasts published in March/April. However, the June/July/August forecast, as a whole, is still expected to be warmer and drier than normal. This comes as Washington has much lower-than-normal snowpack in the mountains, which many communities rely on for summer water. This is the reason Washington is in a statewide emergency drought.
- Despite the below-normal snowpack that has put the state in an emergency drought declaration, Seattle’s water supply is looking good. The city was able to store more rain than usual over the past winter to help maintain a buffer in its reservoirs. Also, recent wetter and cooler weather caused less water consumption.
- As for summer wildfires: A higher-than-normal wildfire season is expected for Western Washington, while Eastern Washington faces normal fire risk this year.
- Wildfire smoke: While California's fire risk is reduced this year, British Columbia faces elevated fire risk this summer, and could send smoke down into Washington state over the summer months.
- El Niño is switching over to La Niña right now, but that likely won't affect the summer months. This is more likely to impact winter weather and Bumbaco doesn't expect this factor to be a "drought buster." Winter could see more precipitation, however.
The National Weather Service's long-term weather forecast for August, September, and October 2024 still predicts warmer-than-normal temperatures for Western Washington, with equal chances for below or more-than-normal rain.
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Seattle's once controversial soda tax may be paying off via children's health
Health
A new University of Washington study concludes Seattle's soda tax is helping lower children’s body fat.
Seattle is among seven U.S. cities that have imposed such taxes in an effort to curb the consumption of sugary beverages that have been linked to chronic diseases, such as diabetes. Earlier research showed the tax has deterred people from buying sugary beverages since the tax took effect in 2018.
RELATED: Seattle soda tax works in curbing consumption, study says
Now, UW School of Public Health Prof. Jessie C. Jones-Smith said the tax not only had an impact on people’s pocketbook, but it also may be affecting their health. Jones-Smith is lead author of the latest report on the tax, which focused on the policy's health outcomes; basically, she wanted to know whether people buying fewer sugary drinks translated to better health.
"If people really decreased their purchasing, or not substituting with other caloric beverages or snack foods, maybe this could actually have an impact on BMI," she said.
RELATED: Seattle's low income communities benefit from soda tax revenue, UW study says
Researchers tracked the height and weight of more than 6,000 children, between the ages of 2 and 18, over five years. In that time, researchers found a "statistically significant reduction in BMI," or body mass index, among the children included in the study.
"The findings of this cohort study suggest that the Seattle sweetened beverage tax was associated with a modest decrease in [BMI] among children living in Seattle compared with children living in nearby nontaxed areas who were receiving care within the same health care systems," the study concludes. "Taken together with existing studies in the U.S., these results suggest that sweetened beverage taxes may be an effective policy for improving children’s BMI."
RELATED: Some Seattle doctors are ditching the scale. They say focusing on weight drives misdiagnoses
Jones-Smith said their next study will look at whether the tax has a similar impact on adults.
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Seattle and Spokane are slated to get 25 electric school buses each
Environment
Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell in October 2022 at an announcement for new electric school buses coming to Washington state communities. Funding for the new buses was provided by the Clean School Bus Program that is part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.Sen. Patty Murray's OfficeFederal funding is coming to 16 Washington state school districts to help pay for a total of 111 electric or propane-powered school buses.
Seattle is slated to get 25 zero- or low-emission school buses, and another 25 will be rolling into Spokane now that federal funding for cleaner buses has opened to school districts across the United States.
RELATED: This transit agency could be the first in the Northwest to use hydrogen-powered buses
A total of 16 school districts in Washington will get a share of $24 million in federal funding, dedicated to nixing diesel-powered buses and replacing them with cleaner versions. The money will ultimately pay for 111 clean buses across the state — most will be electric, and some will be powered by propane.
The money comes from the Clean School Bus program that was woven into 2021's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. U.S. Sen. Patty Murray (D–Wash) is credited with pushing the program through.
“Clean school buses are a huge improvement over diesel buses — they’re better for the environment, better for public health, they save school districts money on fuel, and we’re building them here in America — which is why I worked so hard to get my bill passed as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law," Sen. Murray said in a statement. "Soon, kids from Seattle to Spokane will be riding to school in clean buses and breathing in cleaner air as a result. This is a big win for our kids, our environment, and our economy — and I’m proud to have helped make it happen.”
The electric / propane bus funding was first announced in 2022, when Sen. Murray and Vice President Kamala Harris held an event in Seattle to showcase electric buses. Grants for electric buses were also given in 2022 and 2023.
RELATED: Fire trucks are going electric, too. Portland and Redmond, WA, getting there first
For 2024, it was recently announced that 16 schools districts in the state will benefit from the federal money in the form of "rebate funding."
Seattle and Spokane will be getting $7.8 million in rebate funding, and $9.1 million respectively, to purchase electric buses. Other districts, such as Snohomish and Mount Vernon, will put the money toward the purchase of propane buses.
RELATED: A lot more electric buses are coming to Western Washington roads
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Free Amtrak for kids in Washington state – funded by big polluters
Environment
The Amtrak Cascades heads north in Shoreline, Washington, on Nov. 30, 2023.Young passengers can travel free on Amtrak trains and buses between Bellingham and Vancouver, Washington, thanks to fees paid by major polluters in the state.
Amtrak Cascades service within Washington state is now free to anyone 18 years old or younger. Reservations must be made in advance, and passengers below the age of 16 must travel with an adult, who has to pay the regular adult fare.
With the addition of Amtrak Cascades discounts, youth can now travel free on trains, ferries, buses, and light rail. Of 31 local transit agencies in Washington, only Selah Transit in Yakima County is not providing free service for youths.
Youth fares remain unchanged on Amtrak’s Coast Starlight and Empire Builder routes.
Washington State Department of Transportation spokesperson Janet Matkin said the free Amtrak Cascades fares are expected to cost about $1 million a year.
“Train travel is significantly better for the environment than driving,” Matkin said by email.
State-run auction of permits to emit carbon dioxide and other climate-harming gases have raised more than $2 billion since February 2023. Most of the proceeds are going to projects aimed at reducing pollution or helping communities weather the impacts of fossil fuel burning.
Since 2023, climate-harming emissions from major polluters have been limited under Washington state’s cap-and-trade policy. Some industries get their pollution allowances for free, while other polluters have to compete for a limited number of permits to keep harming the climate.
Which businesses have actually paid to pollute is a state secret.
To prevent market manipulation, the cap-and-trade law, known as the Climate Commitment Act, prohibits auction participants from disclosing their bids or even whether they participated in the quarterly auctions. The Washington Department of Ecology only releases the names of businesses that are qualified to bid for the carbon allowances. In the latest auction in March, 39 businesses, including oil, gas, and utility companies, were qualified.
Opponents of the carbon cap argue that it has driven up gasoline prices and are seeking to repeal the policy through a ballot initiative in November.
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Skip the clam digging. Washington coastline off limits to shellfish harvest, for now
Environment
Vernon Cayou carries bags of clams that will be used primarily as bait after a commercial clam dig on Tuesday, August 27, 2019, at Ala Spit County Park.KUOW Photo/Megan FarmerIf you’re planning to head out to the beach this weekend for some clam digging, you’ll need to ditch the harvesting part. That’s because shellfish harvesting is off limits for now, as health officials have closed Washington coasts and bays due to high levels of biotoxins.
“This is very serious,” said Jerry Borchert, who manages the marine biotoxin program for the Department of Health. “Things are still changing quickly as we get more samples in our lab.”
Borchert and his team are working overtime to deal with samples coming in, including those from commercial growers. Right now, they’re most concerned about the coastal areas of Willapa Bay along with Grays Harbor.
Borchert says the high biotoxin levels are a result of warmer temperatures, creating the right conditions for this kind of toxic bloom, and for the type of plankton that produces paralytic shellfish poison.
“And the shellfish are really good at filtering them out of the water," Borchert said. "So if you have a lot of these cells, the shellfish then becomes toxic.”
Borchert notes this is one of the earliest closures in a long time. Longer, warmer days has helped expand toxic algae’s growing season, requiring earlier harvest closures than usual.
Borchert also recommends throwing away shellfish harvested during Memorial Day weekend. Cooking shellfish does not remove the toxins.
The Department of Health said two Washington residents are reportedly ill from shellfish harvested in Oregon. Currently there are no reports of any illness stemming from harvests here.
Oregon closed its entire coastline to mussel harvesting last Saturday. Twenty people there became ill with paralytic shellfish poisoning.
Correction notice, Monday, 6/3/2024: A previous version of this article mentioned Oregon's closure affecting shellfish harvesting. It has been corrected to reflect the closure affects mussel harvesting only.
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Demotion costs Seattle’s ex-police chief his title at national police org
Seattle mayor Bruce Harrell looks on as former Seattle police chief Adrian Diaz addresses members of the press during a press conference where it was announced that he’d be stepping down, on Wednesday, May 29, 2024, at City Hall in Seattle.Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz was demoted this week. Mayor Bruce Harrell made the change, citing a “distracting” amount of litigation by SPD officers and the need for an outside investigation to proceed unimpeded. Now, Diaz has lost another title as well.
He is no longer listed as the president of the Police Executive Research Forum, a nonprofit think tank focused on improving law enforcement through research and policy development. Diaz was elected president of the group’s all-volunteer board by his fellow chiefs across the country. But now the group’s website contains a blank space where his name would have been.
PERF Executive Director Chuck Wexler told KUOW in an email, “You need to be a police chief to be a member of the Board of Directors of PERF. Since [Diaz] is no longer a chief he is automatically no longer eligible to be president. He wasn’t removed but rather does not meet the criteria any longer. So the position is vacant and there will need to be an election to fill his position.”
Wexler said Diaz was elected to replace Baltimore Police Commissioner Mike Harrison and served about a year. (The organization’s vice president also recently retired.) Wexler oversees PERF’s day-to-day operations and research.
Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell said Diaz will continue with SPD but his rank, role, and salary aren’t clear. The Seattle Police Department and Diaz himself are the target of legal claims and lawsuits by seven different officers and members of his command staff. They have filed claims of race and gender discrimination, retaliation, and harassment. Last month SPD responded that the tort claim by four female officers reflected “perceptions of victimhood that are unsupported.”
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Did you pay your fare? Inspections start Monday at Sound Transit stations
The Sound Transit light rail is conducting final test runs inside the new U-District station.KUOW Photo / Natalie NewcombStarting 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?
An atmospheric river is forecast to hit Western Washington with significant rain during the first week of June 2024 — notable because atmospheric rivers usually don't show up in late spring, according to the National Weather Service.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
Environment
Washington state lawmakers voted to ban styrofoam (polystyrene foam) in 2021. The ban came in two phases that kicked in June 2023 and June 2024.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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