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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Boeing workers having trouble making ends meet amid strike
Business
Jake and Juniper Meyer and their two kids, Tim and Lyra, on the picket lines in Renton on Tuesday, September 17, 2024.KUOW Photo/ Casey MartinUnionized Boeing employees say they’re facing serious economic hardship as they wait on a new contract with the aerospace giant.
Tuesday marked the third workday that 33,000 workers didn’t show up to any of Boeing’s plants.
Dozens of striking workers stand outside the Renton factory around the clock, feeding off the blaring horns of passing cars and trucks showing their support. The honking seems to never end on Logan Avenue.
Jon Holden, president of IAM District 751, the union that represents the workers, said at the beginning of the strike that things would be “a little bit chaotic at first, but we'll get our feet under us as we picket the sites.”
RELATED: Unified and determined, Boeing workers take to the picket line in Washington state
And the picket lines certainly did get organized.
Most spots now feature amenities for strikers, like snacks, bottled water, some sort of covered canopy, a porta-potty, loud music, and a burn barrel, of course, to keep warm.
But despite the music and cheers, workers say this strike is not a celebration.
“It sucks and hurts for everybody to think that we're worth so little,” said Jake Meyer, a mechanic who’s been at Boeing for two years. “We're supposed to be the top aerospace mechanics in the world, and we're getting paid $4 more than McDonald's down the street. Doesn't make any sense.”
RELATED: The Boeing Strike: 4 moments the company fractured its bond with workers
He was picketing in Renton on Tuesday with his wife, Juniper, and their two young kids, ages 5 and 1. Meyer said he took the job at Boeing thinking it would come with a stable paycheck and good benefits to take care of his children.
But the job — and pay — have been too frustrating, he said.
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Seattle's free and subsidized preschool program still has room for 600 kids
Education
Seattle has expanded its program offering free and subsidized preschool to hundreds of families each school year, and there are currently about 600 open seats.
"We are still in the midst of doing a lot of outreach, informing the community that we have new classrooms," said Leilani Dela Cruz, Seattle's Early Learning Director. "We are trying to get into parts of the city that may not have had publicly funded preschool before."
The program is for 3- and 4-year-olds and aims to bring high-quality preschool to kids who might not otherwise have access. Most of the program’s classrooms are in Seattle’s south end and the Lake City area, which have historically had lower test scores and fewer high-quality preschools.
“We wanted to serve the highest-needs children first, even though our program is open to anyone,” Dela Cruz said. “We know where there is a higher concentration of [Black, Indigenous, and people of color] communities and low-income communities, so that’s one of the reasons we started in the south end.
RELATED: Is Seattle headed toward preschool for all? Another expansion announced for 2024-25
“It was a little bit of a mix of creating new preschool[s], but also bringing into the fold preschools that already existed but just may not have had as [many resources] to produce kindergarten readiness,” Dela Cruz added.
Tuition is on a sliding scale based on a family’s income, and about two-thirds of students attend for free.
Families can enroll children anytime as long as there’s still space.
Dela Cruz said initial data suggest that the program is particularly successful at helping Black kids and English-language learners gain the academic and social-emotional skills they’ll need for kindergarten, but less successful at preparing Latino students and students with individualized education programs.
“We’re trying to unpack how we can do better” for those kids, Dela Cruz said.
Dela Cruz said the plan is to add more classrooms downtown, in the Magnolia area, and in the University District next year.
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Amazon is ordering employees to go back to pre-Covid, in-office schedules
Business
Amazon employees and their parents are reflected leaving the Day 1 Building during Amazon's bring your parents to work day on Friday, September 15, 2017, in Seattle.Megan Farmer / KUOWWhen 2025 arrives, Amazon will order its employees to go back to the before times with a five-day per week, in-office schedule, at assigned desks.
"We understand that some of our teammates may have set up their personal lives in such a way that returning to the office consistently five days per week will require some adjustments," CEO Andy Jassy said in a letter to employees Monday.
Jassy's letter buries the lede, so to speak. After writing about his own personal Amazon story that began in 1997, he lays out an argument for two points: trimming back company bureaucracy and maintaining Amazon's company culture. Company culture is code for, "coming into the office five days per week."
For starters, Jassy said Amazon's growth has led to more managers, and that has led to what he calls "artifacts we'd like to change." This means issues such as having more layers and processes, and "pre-meetings for the pre-meetings for the decision meetings," which slows things down. In other words, it somewhat sounds like Amazon has a case of the "Ineffectual Middle Management Suck-Ups." The company wants senior leadership to fix this by the end of the first quarter in 2025.
Then Jassy gets to the point that will affect employees: requiring them to be in the office five days per week. Amazon will also assign desks to employees, just like before the pandemic sent most folks to remote work.
"We’ve decided that we’re going to return to being in the office the way we were before the onset of COVID," Jassy wrote. "When we look back over the last five years, we continue to believe that the advantages of being together in the office are significant. ... We’ve observed that it’s easier for our teammates to learn, model, practice, and strengthen our culture; collaborating, brainstorming, and inventing are simpler and more effective; teaching and learning from one another are more seamless; and, teams tend to be better connected to one another. If anything, the last 15 months we’ve been back in the office at least three days a week has strengthened our conviction about the benefits."
What Amazon has also noticed over the past 15 months is "coffee badging." The company began a hybrid work schedule in May 2023 that required employees to be in the office three days per week. A group of employees protested the policy, partially arguing that it would increase Amazon's carbon footprint. By September, the company began monitoring when and how many times employees swiped their badges to enter an Amazon office building. This came after it was discovered that some employees were swiping their badge to enter a building, grabbing coffee, and then returning home to do their jobs. The practice has been dubbed "coffee badging." The issue is not unique to Amazon, and no official policy was implemented in response; however, The Seattle Times reported that the company began having talks with employees who weren't spending "meaningful amounts of time in the office.”
RELATED: Amazon is 30. Here's how a book store gobbled up all of e-commerce
Also around this time, Amazon instructed its workers to move closer to a corporate building, so they could work in office more, if they had moved further out when remote work was the norm. In response, some employees quit. Jassy also said that while employees could disagree with the three-day policy, they still had to commit to it. And if they could not do that, "it’s probably not going to work out for you at Amazon.”
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Bellevue slated to get its own edition of Monopoly
Arts & Life
Mr. Monopoly stands in Bellevue's Downtown Park, Sept. 13, 2024, to announce that Bellevue was selected to be featured as board game's next city edition. Designers are asking locals about what aspects of the city they would like included in the game. Bellevue Monopoly is expected in spring of 2025.Courtesy of Kerry Sutherland PRBellevue has been chosen to get its own, officially licensed, edition of Monopoly. What's on the board? That's up to locals.
"Little things that personalize and customize the game, I want to know those things that make Bellevue unique," said Aaron Green with Top Trumps, the game company licensed to many city editions of Monopoly. "Where you go to get ice cream, where you go to get a nice steak dinner, what park you have your kid’s birthday at. All those things, and the memories people have, are why these editions sell so well. Everyone knows the game, everyone knowns Monopoly. They’ve played it their whole lives. But when you see things, and say, ‘Oh yeah, we went to that park, we saw a show at that theater,’ that’s what we really want.”
The Bellevue edition is expected to hit store shelves in spring 2025. But before the game is printed, designers want to know what locals would like to see included on the board. The original Monopoly, published in 1935, had locations based on Atlantic City, New Jersey. But the game will need an Eastside makeover to be up to Bellevue standards.
“The game is going to be completely customized," Green said. "The only thing we don’t change are the tokens. We’ve found that people love the nostalgia of the original pieces ... After that, the whole board is changed. The center image montage, the box lid, the community chest and chance cards will have custom copies particular to Bellevue. We even redesign the money, which could be a city skyline or mountain ranges. We want the game to be as personalized as possible."
Instead of Boardwalk, perhaps Bellevue Square? Instead of Marvin Gardens, it could be the Bellevue Botanical Gardens. You could opt to replace Pennsylvania Avenue with the food court at Crossroads Mall. Maybe T-Mobile or MOD Pizza's headquarters could stand in for St. James Place. The South Bellevue Station could be the local version of the B. & O. Railroad.
Ultimately, such ideas will be sourced from locals, or even Bellevue fans. People can email their ideas to bellevue@toptrumps.com through Oct. 31, 2024.
The board has 22 squares, so just as with the real Bellevue, real estate on the board will be highly competitive. Green said that locals and visitors should hopefully be able to relate to the squares "for generations to come." The company is therefore aiming for the most popular and recognizable corners of the city, but it is also reserving some squares for local businesses. That means a local company can sponsor a square (Climate Pledge Place?). When it comes down to dollars and cents, it's such sponsorships that get the game published.
“If you’re a business owner, if you have a small bakery that’s been there a long, long time and you have a great customer base, let me know about it," Green said. "If you’re a nonprofit that does a lot of great work in the community … let me know about it. We love recognizing nonprofits that do good work. We’ve had the Boys and Girls Club on different editions, and YMCA chapters. Our Sacramento edition has a nonprofit that helps women in domestic violence situations, so we also want to make sure we get a good message out. We all know it’s a game about capitalism and squashing your opponent, but at the end of the day it’s a game and we can have fun with it … it’s a fun game to commemorate where you live.”
RELATED: The story of PAX. How a 'misunderstanding' led to one of the largest video game conventions around
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They 'have fueled so much of Boeing's success.' Washington officials react to machinist strike
Business
Washington's branch of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, representing Boeing employees, vote to reject a contract offer from the company and to also authorize a strike on the evening of Sept. 12, 2024.Casey Martin / KUOWIt didn't take long after news broke that Boeing machinists were going on strike for state and federal officials to start weighing in, encouraging both parties to find a path forward.
"I strongly urge the parties to return to the negotiating table and participate in good faith discussions that result in a strong agreement," Congressmember Adam Smith said in a statement shortly after the union approved a strike late Thursday evening.
RELATED: Boeing factory workers go on strike after rejecting contract offer
Boeing and its machinist union reached a tentative agreement on Monday, but when it came time to vote, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers overwhelmingly voted to reject Boeing's most recent contract offer (by 94.6%) and to authorize a strike (by 96%).
The strike affects 33,000 machinists, most of whom are based in Washington state and work on the 737 Max, 777, and the 767 cargo airplane at factories in Everett and Renton. According to the Associated Press, Boeing machinists in Washington make an average of $75,608 annually. Boeing's offer to raise wages 25% over four years would eventually bring that up to $106,350. The union, however, is aiming for a 40% raise in wages as well as increase 401K contributions (Boeing nixed its pension program about 10 years ago).
“The message was clear that the tentative agreement we reached with IAM leadership was not acceptable to the members," Boeing said in a statement. "We remain committed to resetting our relationship with our employees and the union, and we are ready to get back to the table to reach a new agreement."
The strike was authorized shortly after 9 p.m. Thursday. Minutes later, Rep. Smith issued a statement on X (formerly Twitter). Smith represents the 9th Congressional District, which includes Renton.
"Across corporate America, so much of the wealth has wound up in the hands of so few people," Smith wrote. "Large corporations have increasingly prioritized their own profits and shareholders at the expense of workers. It is crucial that Boeing behaves as a responsible steward for its employees, so that every employee at their company is respected with fair wages and working conditions. Unions remain essential for workers and their families, and I will always champion the right to organize and collectively bargain for better working conditions. I sincerely hope that the parties reach an agreement that respects all employees as well as the company as a whole."
RELATED: With its new CEO, is Boeing about to write the 'turnaround story of the century'?
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River otter drags child off dock, under water in Bremerton
Environment
John Yunker via UnsplashA river otter pulled a small child off a dock and dragged them underwater at the Bremerton Marina Thursday morning.
According to a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife press release, a mother and child were walking down a dock when the otter attacked. It pulled the child underwater for “a few moments” before resurfacing, when mom was able to lift her kid out of the water.
The otter bit the mother on the arm, then chased the pair as they left the dock. On land, river otters can run at speeds of up to 15 miles per hour, according to the National Wildlife Federation.
The child was treated at a local hospital for scratches and bites to the top of the head, face, and legs. A fish and wildlife department spokesperson declined to provide the child’s age or gender.
Direct clashes between humans and river otters are rare, with six documented human-river otter incidents in Washington in the last decade, according to the Department of Fish and Wildlife .
The department warns that otters, like all wildlife, are “inherently unpredictable.”
RELATED: Our super-bacteria spreading to Puget Sound otters, orcas
State officials say they have asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services program to remove and kill any otters at the Bremerton Marina.
The federal wildlife-control agency reports killing 73 river otters in Washington state in 2023.
Any otter carcasses from the marina are to be sent to the state’s Animal Disease Diagnostic Lab in Pullman to be tested for rabies and other diseases.
“Trapping or shooting river otters should be a last resort,” a fish and wildlife department brochure states. “Removing river otters by any means is a short-term solution since other otters are likely to move in if attractive habitat is still available.”
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Trump asked when Seattle protesters would be prosecuted. Answer: They have been
Politics
Police arrest a person wearing a yellow shirt an armband that reads "Mom," Saturday, July 25, 2020, during a Black Lives Matter protest near Seattle Central Community College in Seattle. A large group of protesters were marching Saturday in Seattle in support of Black Lives Matter and against police brutality and racial injustice.AP Photo/Ted S. WarrenFormer President Donald Trump wants to know why people in Seattle weren't arrested and prosecuted for crimes related to the 2020 protests and the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest, known as CHOP. The answer is simple: Many people were arrested and prosecuted.
"When are the people who burned down Minneapolis going to be prosecuted, or Seattle?" Trump said during Tuesday night's debate with Vice President Kamala Harris. "They went into Seattle, they took over a big percentage of the city of Seattle. When are those people going to be prosecuted?"
RELATED: Federal prosecutors take over Seattle protester cases, concerning local attorneys
Trump pointed out Seattle in response to another question: If he regretted any of his actions on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of his followers attacked police officers at the U. S. Capitol.
In 2020, protests against police violence erupted across the United States, following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis officer. Large protests took over downtown Seattle, and part of Capitol Hill was turned into a protest zone known as "CHOP." During these events, Seattle police did make arrests. Local authorities also prosecuted cases that stemmed from these incidents.
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The Green River Killer has been brought back to Seattle, booked into King County Jail
Crime
The King County Jail in downtown Seattle.Photo courtesy of King County Executive's officeGary Ridgway, known as the Green River Killer, was moved to the King County Jail in Seattle Monday.
Ridgway was booked into the King County Jail at 10:42 a.m. Monday, Sept. 9. The King County Sheriff's Office has him there on an "institutional hold."
RELATED: Last known set of remains connected to Green River Killer case identified
A Sheriff's Office spokesperson would not say exactly why Ridgway was moved to Seattle, but told KUOW, "Since Gary Ridgway’s arrest in 2001 pertaining to the Green River murder investigation, the King County Sheriff’s Office continues to actively investigate potentially related cases."
Ridgway was arrested in 2001 for more than 70 suspected murders spanning the 1980s and 1990s. He entered a plea bargain for 48 murder charges in 2003 and has since helped authorities locate and identify the remains of some of his victims. Modern DNA technology has also helped identify victims in recent years.
He has been sentenced with 49 life sentences. He hasn't been back to Seattle in 21 years, according to KOMO.
RELATED: DNA testing identifies teen victim of Green River Killer 4 decades later
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Deadly white-nose disease is spreading in Western Washington bats
Environment
Researchers examine and test bats for white-nose syndrome at Northwest Trek Wildlife Park in Eatonville, Washington, on June 1, 2022.KUOW Photo/Megan FarmerA deadly disease in bats is spreading in Washington state.
Wildlife officials say the fungal disease known as white-nose syndrome has spread to seven more counties in Western Washington and four in Eastern Washington.
The fungus that causes white-nose syndrome was found for the first time in Clallam, Clark, Grant, Grays Harbor, Island, Kitsap, Klickitat, Okanogan, and Whatcom counties for the first time in 2024, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife bat researcher Abby Tobin said in a press release. Diseased bats were also found in Benton and Thurston counties.
The fungal disease has killed millions of bats across the country since it was first detected in a cave in upstate New York in 2006; according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's White-Nose Syndrome Response Team, white-nose syndrome is one of the worst modern wildlife disease oubreaks.
RELATED: 'Yogurt for bats': A new way to fight a deadly pandemic
Washington is home to 15 species of bats, which provide major economic benefits by eating insects all night long.
A new study finds that the widespread loss of bats in the Eastern United States has, indirectly, harmed human health there.
With fewer bats around to consume insects, farmers wind up using more pesticides, which can contaminate nearby communities’ air and water, University of Chicago environmental economist Eyal Frank wrote in the journal Science. In Eastern United States counties where bat populations collapsed as white-nose syndrome spread, farmers increased their pesticide use by nearly a third, Frank found. He estimated the increased pesticide use led to more than 1,300 infant deaths in those counties from 2006 to 2017.
Counties where bats had not (yet) been decimated did not show increases in pesticide use or infant mortality rates.
Despite the increased pesticide use, crop output also fell. The fungal disease caused more than $39 billion in total economic damage, according to Frank.
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'I didn’t know it existed.' Why young people are the least vaccinated in Seattle area
Health Care
Volunteer registered nurse Amy Rioux administers a Covid-19 vaccine on Wednesday, April 7, 2021, at Island Drug in Oak Harbor.KUOW Photo/Megan FarmerGillian Wolfe, a student at the University of Washington, didn’t get the last Covid booster. “I didn't know that it existed, frankly,” she said.
Wolfe isn’t alone. A total of 71% of King County residents never got one. And young people are the least likely to get the vaccine. Only 18% of people ages 18 to 34 got last year’s shot.
Not that Wolfe is opposed to it. Standing on University Way (The Ave) in northeast Seattle, Wolfe and her friend Evie Pearce said life got in the way.
“I just think I was really busy and probably just didn't care as much as I should have,” Pearce said.
Wolfe added, “It's kind of just a group mentality. No one's getting around to doing it. I feel like, if one of my friends was like, ‘Oh, I'm gonna go get vaccinated,’ I would just come along with.”
As the words left her mouth, Wolfe and Pearce had an epiphany. “Girls’ trip!” they said. “We’ll make a day of it. We could get coffee, get, like, a little sticker or something.”
Wolfe said that back home, she went regularly to a clinic, so she would have heard about the updated vaccines. But she hasn’t found a doctor here in Seattle.
“It's more difficult when you're moving around a lot,” she said. “Being transient makes it difficult.”
Alise Sheppard, 25, got the initial two Covid shots back in 2021, when it was required for her job, but she hasn’t gotten boosters since.
“I just didn't think that I would need to get it again and again and again,” she said. “I had no use for it. I haven’t gotten Covid, so…”
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Seattle's non-police first responders prepare to expand footprint
Mental Health
Community crisis responder Sasha Pollock, right, checks in with Seattle police officers before approaching a crisis call in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood in December 2023.KUOW Photo/Amy RadilSeattle’s unarmed crisis responders are staffing up as they prepare to answer calls citywide by next spring. Additional job postings for 18 responders and three supervisors should be online in the coming days, officials say.
The expansion is funded by a $1.9 million grant from the U.S. Department of Justice.
Under a pilot program, Seattle 911 dispatchers have been sending a team from Seattle’s new department of Community Assisted Response and Engagement (CARE) to certain non-criminal calls alongside police downtown for almost a year.
RELATED: New mental health teams are hitting the streets in downtown Seattle alongside police
The calls for “person down” or welfare checks often involve helping people who are unsheltered, or dealing with mental health or substance use issues. Managers say about a third of the CARE team’s calls also involve transporting people to access necessary resources.
Catriana Hernandez is the community crisis response manager overseeing the CARE department. She said the existing team is already answering calls in the East and West precincts that cover the central swath of Seattle. Additional teams will expand first to north Seattle later this year, and then to south Seattle next spring.
The existing team is currently working out of the Seattle Municipal Tower, but Hernandez said the city is looking for appropriate spaces in six different sectors of the city.
“We really want the team to be able to respond quickly for one thing, and also just to consistently be out in the area — if you’re not out on a call — visiting community partners, getting to know resources,” Hernandez said.
“We’re also talking to potential community partners” including the University of Washington Police Department, she added, about providing space for the teams.
Under Seattle's pilot program, the existing CARE team can only respond to certain low-acuity 911 calls and cannot be directly dispatched without police.
RELATED: In Seattle area, 988 mental health hotline supports tens of thousands in crisis
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Following Seattle woman's killing in West Bank, local officials respond
Politics
This image was taken from an Associated Press video showing Aysenur Ezgi Eygi's body being transported through the Rafidia Surgical Hospital, where she was taken after after witnesses say she was fatally shot by Israeli soldiers, Sept. 6, 2024, in the West Bank city of Nablus.Aref Tufaha / Associated PressSeattle-area officials are responding to the death of a local woman, reportedly at the hands of Israeli soldiers in the West Bank Friday.
RELATED: Israeli soldiers fatally shot an American woman at a West Bank protest, witnesses say
Aysenur Eygi, 26, was a United States and Turkish citizen who lived in Seattle and graduated from the University of Washington in June 2024. According to the Associated Press, she was participating in a weekly demonstration protesting the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Witnesses said the shooting happened shortly after a communal prayer on a hillside outside the town of Beita, near the settlement of Evyatar. Israeli soldiers reportedly surrounded the prayer and tensions rose. Some Palestinians threw stones, and soldiers fired tear gas and rifles.
A spokesperson for the Turkish Foreign Ministry released a statement saying that Turkey will make an “effort to ensure that those who killed our citizen [are] brought to justice.”
According to University of Washington President Ana Mari Cauce, Aysenur Eygi was a peer mentor in psychology at the university.
"This morning brought the awful news that recent UW graduate Aysenur Eygi was reportedly killed by Israeli troops in the West Bank. My heart goes out to Aysenur’s family, friends and loved ones. Aysenur was a peer mentor in psychology who helped welcome new students to the department and provided a positive influence in their lives. This is the second time over the past year that violence in the region has taken the life of a member of our UW community and I again join with our government and so many who are working and calling for a ceasefire and resolution to the crisis."
The other fatality in the UW community was 32-year-old Hayim Katsman, who was killed in Israel during Hamas' attack on October 7, 2023.
Washington's chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations called on the Biden administration Friday to hold Israel accountable for Eygi's death at the hands of the Israel Defense Forces.
“For the past 11 months, we have seen how the IDF has continuously shown an utter disdain for innocent life, whether in Gaza or in the West Bank,” CAIR-WA Executive Director Imraan Siddiqi said in a statement. “We call on the Biden Administration to hold accountable the killers of Aysenur Eygi and bring them to justice.”
“In our lifetimes, we have seen the IDF kill Americans such as Rachel Corrie, Shireen Abu Akleh, and Furkan Dogan, while our government has barely acknowledged their murders. We must continue to stand for justice for Aysenur and all those who have been killed before her.”
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