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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Who should get a statue in Seattle?: Today So Far
- There are a lot of public works of art around Seattle. Only one features a female from real life history. Who would you honor with such a statue?
- No more tiny plastic bottles at hotels in Washington.
This post originally appeared in KUOW's Today So Far newsletter for April 12, 2023.
Seattle has more than 400 public art pieces in its civic art collection. These are statues, sculptures, murals, and more. Recently, it was pointed out that among it all, there is only one monument of a female. That statue is of Sadako Sasaki, a Japanese girl who survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, but died from leukemia (caused by radiation from the bomb) at the age of 12. She folded more than 1,000 origami cranes before her death. Her story has become a symbol for world peace, which is why her statue is featured at Seattle Peace Park in the University District.
As Soundside recently discussed, that's the only statue of a real life woman in the city. There are other public art displays, which are abstract, but not of a genuine historical figure. As UW Professor Sasha Welland points out, art displays like these shape "our collective memory of the place and the people because there are these markers in the landscape in the places that we walk by every day that reminds us of something of someone or some movement, or some moment in historical time."
Soundside reached out to the city for a comment. You can read the full story here. But it begs a question: Who would you make a monument to in Seattle?
Off the top of my head, Sue Bird stands out. I'm no sports fan, but even I can sense the impact Bird has had on Seattle, a celebrated, record-making athlete who spent their entire WNBA career in the city.
Brandi Carlile? She paid her dues busking around Seattle and playing local clubs before rising to become one of the most influential, award-winning musicians working today. She did thank Seattle while receiving three Grammys, afterall. While we're talking about influential local musicians, we should probably also consider Ann and Nancy Wilson from the band Heart.
Bertha Knight Landes was the first female mayor of any major American city — Seattle — in 1924. There's also Dixy Lee Ray, who had a few titles — scientist, Pacific Science Center leader, public TV show host, Washington's first female governor, and really cool name. Or Kikisoblu aka Princess Angeline, Chief Seattle's daughter. After the Treaty of Point Elliott in 1855 forced the Duwamish onto nearby reservations, and despite Seattle also banning Native Americans from the city, Kikisoblu stayed at her cabin, near where modern day Pike Place Market is now, and became a fixture of the city. That would be an informative statue for people to see.
Who else? Feel free to send me any ideas at dyer@kuow.org.
A handful of environmental and health-related moves just passed out of the Washington Legislature this week. What you'll most likely notice in your life is the eventual absence of tiny travel bottles of shampoos, soaps, and other toiletries. Plastic items like these will be phased out over the next four years.
The core argument around the ban is the persistence of microplastics in the environment.
“The Seattle Aquarium’s research team has been studying microplastics in Puget Sound for several years now, taking samples every two weeks,” Seattle Aquarium's Nora Nickum told KUOW, adding that microplastics are found in every sample. “It’s just clear that this is a local problem. The plastics are coming from here, in our region, and we need to take action here locally to prevent that.”
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2 words to understand amid abortion drug headlines: Today So Far
- Recent court decisions have highlighted the drug mifepristone, but it's not the only abortion drug on the market.
- A middle housing bill has gone through a few changes as lawmakers work on it in Olympia.
- Have you noticed a poem showing up on KUOW.org every day this month?
This post originally appeared in KUOW's Today So Far newsletter for April 11, 2023.
The main thing to understand about recent abortion care news is that the legal drama has targeted one particular abortion drug. But it's not the only abortion drug available to health care facilities.
That doesn't mean that states like Washington won't be impacted by yet another anti-abortion move at the national level.
"One of the things we've seen since the reversal of Roe v. Wade is that access to abortion has been upheld and maintained in states like Washington because we have robust state-level legal protections," freelance reporter Megan Burbank told Seattle Now this morning.
"We also tend to have fewer abortion restrictions. What we are seeing now is that Washington has become more of a destination for abortion care. It always has been ... this has not been an overnight shift that happened with Roe v. Wade. Washington has always been a destination for people seeking abortion care from states that have severe restrictions, like Idaho.
"One of the things around this particular story that has been confusing is that a lot of headlines have framed it as 'restrictions' or 'a ban on medication abortion that will take effect nationwide.' Well, it's not really that. It's about one particular drug that is used in medication abortion. It certainly will have an impact though."
Here's the situation. A federal judge in Texas ruled last week that the FDA never had authority to approve the drug mifepristone. It is used in medication abortions. At the same time, a judge in Washington state ruled that the FDA cannot pull the drug. These two rulings contradict each other, which means this issue is likely headed to the Supreme Court.
Even if mifepristone ultimately goes away, that doesn't mean medication abortions will be unavailable. Burbank notes that doctors have other options. To understand those options, take a minute to get familiar with these two words: "mifepristone" and "misoprostol." Those are the two drugs to know. Both are used in medication abortions. Both start with "m." But "misoprostol" is easier to say, which is good because that is the drug that isn't being run through the courts.
"Mifepristone is one of two drugs used in most medication abortions; misoprostol is not at the center of this case, which is important because it means that even if mifepristone is taken off the market there will still be a protocol for medication abortion that is accessible and works," Burbank said.
As NPR reports, that protocol is using just misoprostol. The downside is that this regimen takes a bit longer than the two-drug combo. Listen to Seattle Now's full conversation with Burbank here.
In the meantime, Washington state has stockpiled about 30,000 doses of mifepristone while it remains in legal limbo. California has made a similar move by stocking up on misoprostol.
KUOW has reported a lot on the efforts to get more "middle housing" in Washington state. A bill to accomplish that has been working its way through the state House and Senate, but it is going through quite a few tweaks in the process. Here's an update.
Under companion bills HB 1110 and SB 5190, different types of "plexes" would be allowed in neighborhoods, depending on the size of the city, and the proximity to mass transit. For example, fourplexes (a building with four housing units) would be allowed in cities with more than 75,000 people. That means a fourplex would be OK in Kirkland, Renton, Pasco, etc.
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What's in a name ... like 'state-affiliated media?': Today So Far
- NPR is not state-affiliated media (unless I'm wrong, in which case, I'm in big trouble...)
- The Port of Seattle was a bit lax on anti-fraud protocols, which allowed scammers to nab more than $570,000 of port funds.
- Everett is slated to pay a bikini barista stand $500,000 to settle a lawsuit that was partially over the city's dress code.
This post originally appeared in KUOW's Today So Far newsletter for April 10, 2023.
Let's get something straight: NPR is not state-affiliated media. Neither are the many public radio outlets that are part of NPR's network. Twitter labeled NPR as "state-affiliated media" last week (which is not true). This tag is also used for news outlets in Russia or China that are controlled by the government and are associated with propaganda.
After some back-and-forth with NPR, Twitter CEO Elon Musk slightly walked back on the issue. NPR is now labeled as "government-funded media," which is not exactly accurate — it's less than 1% accurate. That's how much money NPR gets from the government. NPR gets a bunch of its money from stations like KUOW, which pay to be a part of its network. If NPR is getting a nice chunk of change from the feds, then we've been wasting a whole lot of time begging you to donate to KUOW to help keep our lights on.
In the wake of the Twitter move, news organizations under NPR's wing have come out in opposition to the label. KUOW is among them. The following is from KUOW President and General Manager Caryn Mathes.
"NPR, KUOW and our fellow members of the NPR Network are editorially independent news organizations supported by listeners who believe that an informed public makes our democracy stronger. Twitter labeling NPR as "state-affiliated media," a term the platform uses to identify propaganda outlets and government-controlled media, is false and dangerous. We stand with NPR and are greatly disturbed by this blatant attack on independent journalism."
If you want an example of state-affiliated or government-funded media, the military's Stars and Stripes newspaper or Voice of America are news outlets that certainly fit these labels (though I'm not sure I'd label them with anything that implies propaganda). VOA currently has the "government-funded" tag on its Twitter page (which is fair), but Stars and Stripes does not. Even Stars and Stripes, a newspaper that operates under a division of the Department of Defense, promotes that it remains independent thanks to the First Amendment and freedom of the press.
Just in case Elon Musk needs to hear this, NBC (National Broadcasting Company) is not a nationally funded channel, and ABC (American Broadcasting Company) is not funded by the American government. And just in case I'm wrong, and public radio is under the influence of the government, I should probably stop poking fun at how Gov. Inslee talks ... who I should say, is very handsome and sports a winning smile.
Get more details on this Twitter drama here.
The Port of Seattle was a bit lax on anti-fraud protocols, which allowed for scammers to nab more than $570,000 of port funds.
The port's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Department received a phishing email in 2021. Like all phishing emails, it was all fake. Basically, the scammers wrote something like, "Hey, we're Vendor X and, wow, this is embarrassing, but we sent you the wrong bank account to pay us. Whoops! Can you please fix the glitch on your end and send us $184,000 to this other, totally not-suspicious account? Thanks! Byee!"
OK, to be fair, the email probably sounded more professional than that. The DEI department forwarded the email to the accounts payable department, which sent the money along to the scammers. Thing is, two months later, scammers sent another phishing email and got the same result, this time taking in more than $388,000. The state auditor ran an investigation and found that port employees didn't follow some basic fraud-prevention protocols, such as not forwarding emails that end with "byee!" (Again, I don't know if that was actually written in the email, I'm just assuming). Luckily, the port has recovered most of the money since then.
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How is Washington's snowpack looking this spring?
Climatologists look to snowpack recordings made on April 1 as an indicator of possible drought conditions on the West Coast.
This year, snowpack levels in California were dramatic — 237% of average statewide. In fact, California tied a record from 1952.
In Washington state, the snowpack is currently just above normal, at 104%.
Karin Bumbaco is Washington state's assistant climatologist. She said forecasters were hopeful for a good snowpack during this La Niña year, when winter temperatures are generally cooler than normal in the North, but she's seen some surprises.
"If you actually look at precipitation, we've been below normal," Bumbaco said. "So thinking back to last summer, where we were really dry; we were dry starting the year out in the fall, saw some good precipitation in late fall. But then again, since January 1, we've been on the dry side. So we've had below-normal precipitation, but because our temperatures have been so cold, we've been able to build snowpack in the mountains."
Bumbaco said there are variations in levels around the state. The west slopes of the Cascades in Whatcom County are averaging 75%–85% of normal. But the Blue Mountains in southeast Washington are around 120% of average.
Bumbaco's statements echo an assessment from Washington's Department of Ecology. The La Niña that ended in March was expected to bring colder and wetter conditions. It only brought colder temps, however, and the rain didn't show up as much as expected. This is why, according to Ecology, "Lurking beneath the snowpack are soil-moisture deficits resulting from a dry spring and summer." The fact that the Eastern United States got much of the Pacific Northwest's rain in late 2022 could explain some of this.
Monitoring snowpack levels is important for state officials and residents. The levels indicate how much water is being stored (as ice) in the mountains going into the drier summer months.
Bumbaco notes that the last two springs have really been unusual in the Pacific Northwest. April through June of 2022 was wetter and colder than normal. The same period in 2021 was almost the exact opposite, with record warm and dry conditions resulting in drought later in the season. She says that people in her field tend to focus on April 1 when it comes to rain and snowpack, but they're learning that Northwest springs can also highly influence conditions in the months ahead.
"The last two seasons have been a good reminder that spring can really change the drought outlook. So we are going to continue to monitor conditions going forward."
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No, Twitter. We are not 'state-affiliated media.' (Seriously, Elon Musk?)
Groaaaaaaaaan.
Twitter recently added a tagline to National Public Radio's Twitter page: "US state-affiliated media." Which was surprising, because it's a term typically reserved for Russian propaganda outlets that spew misinformation.
There's a lot silly about NPR getting this label. For one, NPR, our fairy godmother in newsgathering, receives a mere 1% of its annual operating budget from the federal government in the form of grants. For two, NPR is not propaganda, no matter your opinion.
Twitter defines state-affiliated media as "where the state exercises control over editorial content through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressures."
Yes, NPR receives some federal money to do journalism. No, the feds are not giving them this money to have sway over Nina Totenberg. I haven't interviewed the federal grant writers, so this is pure speculation, but my hunch is that the government awards NPR some money to uphold the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution — the part about "freedom of the press." It's not like, "here's some coin to downplay how bad a biter Major was."
Honestly, I'd just roll my eyes if it weren't also alarming. KUOW President Caryn Mathes pushed back against Twitter's label on Friday, calling the "state-affiliated" label "false and dangerous."
NPR, KUOW and our fellow members of the NPR Network are editorially independent news organizations supported by listeners who believe that an informed public makes our democracy stronger. Twitter labeling NPR as "state-affiliated media," a term the platform uses to identify propaganda outlets and government-controlled media, is false and dangerous. We stand with NPR and are greatly disturbed by this blatant attack on independent journalism.
- Caryn G. Mathes, KUOW President & General Manager
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Everett to pay $500K to settle bikini barista dress code lawsuit
The city of Everett is poised to sign a settlement agreement with bikini baristas, bringing an end to years of legal back-and-forth over the city's coffee stand dress code.
"I am satisfied that the city entered into doing this whole process as a way to protect vulnerable people and to support and protect our community members who were near these stands, and to civilize this to the degree that we can," Councilmember Ben Zarlingo said at the council's meeting Wednesday.
The Everett City Council voted unanimously in favor this week of allowing the mayor to sign a settlement agreement with a barista stand owner. The settlement pays the owner and baristas $500,000, but the city will still enforce some requirements around the coffee stands.
The city will amend its laws, starting with a rewrite of its barista dress code to align with its existing lewd conduct rules. An amendment would also require stand owners to post signage with information about sex trafficking, with resources for victims.
RELATED: Court says Everett's bikini barista dress code is unconstitutional
At the council's meeting Wednesday, Assistant City Attorney Ramsay Rammerman went through the history of Everett's barista dress code drama, beginning in 2009.
"When we had dozens upon dozens of citizen complaints about the stands," Rammerman told the council. "Our subsequent investigations revealed that the coffee stands were not just selling coffee, but they were selling sex shows, allowing customers to have physical contact with baristas, we had a problem of men masturbating near the stands. It was part of a business model. The stand owner was encouraging this conduct, because he was also selling the baristas oxycontin and he wanted them to earn tips so they could buy the drugs."
That first investigation resulted in the prosecution of four baristas. Rammerman said the coffee stand owner disappeared and was eventually declared dead. Other bikini coffee stands became more careful after this, Rammerman said.
In 2013, a county deputy traded information about investigations into the businesses in exchange for sex, helping them avoid the police. Eventually, an investigation determined that two more stand owners were encouraging baristas to perform sex acts for tips. The investigation also reported that one barista was sexually assaulted, and that in one case, a stand owner was encouraging an underage employee to engage in the conduct. The two coffee stand owners were charged and convicted with promoting prostitution and exploiting a minor.
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New state dashboard shows rising drug-related deaths
A new state dashboard gives further insight into the number of drug-related deaths and hospitalizations occurring in Washington.
The dashboard shows there were 7,598 fatal overdoses from 2017 through 2021, the majority related to opioids.
Deaths have been climbing sharply for the past few years.
Increased availability and use of the synthetic opioid fentanyl, which is far more potent than heroin, has played a role in the rising death toll.
Fentanyl contamination in other drugs may also be a factor.
State officials say they hope the dashboard will help people understand the magnitude and trends of the current crisis.
“I would love to see this information used at the local level,” said Anna Frerichs, drug overdose epidemiologist with the state Department of Health.
Frerichs said having the right data can go a long way to helping improve prevention, treatment, and harm-reduction programs in communities. She said it can also help target services to those who are hardest hit.
The state data not only shows the increase in deaths and hospitalizations that have occurred in recent years, it also shows that the crisis is taking a heavier toll on some groups.
“Overdose rates are higher in men, as opposed to women, and they're highest in the American Indian and Alaskan Native community,” Frerichs said.
Drug-related age-adjusted death rates for American Indian and Native Alaskan people in 2021 were more than double those in any other population.
The next hardest hit population were members of the Black community.
The history of systemic racism and oppression contributes to health disparities for both of these groups, as it does for other communities of color.
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Washington lawmakers debate who benefits from juvenile sentencing reforms
One of the bills advancing in the Washington Legislature involves juvenile sentencing reforms, but lawmakers have to decide whether these changes will be retroactive, or only affect people sentenced in years to come.
Right now in Washington, a prison sentence is calculated based on the person’s prior offenses, both adult and juvenile.
In the wake of more recent landmark court decisions, and laws that treat offenses committed by youth under 18 as fundamentally different from adult crimes, lawmakers are considering HB 1324. The bill would drop all but the most serious juvenile offenses from a person’s sentencing score.
Eugene Youngblood is formerly incarcerated, and teaches at King County’s juvenile detention center. He spoke in support of House Bill 1324 last month on behalf of the organization Dream.org, saying it is in line with the state’s goal of not penalizing people for youthful mistakes.
“What my ask is to you is to pass 1324 to show that Washington does not just provide lip service — that it means what it says and it says what it means," Youngblood said.
Attorney Gabriel Galanda told legislators that Indigenous people are disproportionately incarcerated over mistakes as adolescents.
“We need to reverse the destructive intergenerational pattern of Indigenous youth incarceration,” he said. “We need to bring certain of our youth home so they, their families and their communities can heal.”
Making the law retroactive would mean that roughly 1,000 people could petition for resentencing, to have their sentences recalculated without the points from juvenile adjudications.
Russell Brown heads the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys. He told legislators that revisiting existing sentences would not be fair to the victims of those crimes.
“It is the resentencing of those, it is the breaking of the promise, that draws our significant opposition here," Brown argued. "If you want to have a conversation about moving forward, we’re happy to have that.”
The Washington State Association of Counties estimated that those resentencing hearings would cost more than $10 million.
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Is it logical to cut school arts programs?: Today So Far
- School districts are facing budget shortfalls and are looking at programs like art, music, newspaper, etc. to cut and save money — which is just so cliché.
- Washington's lawmakers want to create incentives for buying e-bikes, similar to the perks for buying electric cars.
This post originally appeared in KUOW's Today So Far newsletter for April 7, 2023.
The best math teacher I had in my entire K-12 experience started every class the same way. He went up to the whiteboard, wrote down the assignment from our textbook that was due the next day, then he sat down at his desk at the front of the room and said, "I'll be up here if you need me." He then got out a deck of cards and started playing solitaire.
That was the best math teacher I ever had. It was my senior year in high school. Before this, I spent years with teachers making me stare (I was really asleep with my eyes open) at a board while they lectured. I barely passed those classes. But senior year, I suddenly scored straight A's in math. How?! Because I wasn't sleeping in a class before being sent home to do homework without the assistance of a teacher. Instead, I was doing math. That classroom was not quiet. Students traded tips and asked how to do this or that problem. "How do you do number 28?" "Oh, I found the instructions on page 137." Sometimes we would just asked the teacher, and he would work it out on the board. It was a process of doing, not sitting/sleeping.
I can't help but think of that experience when I hear that the school districts in Seattle and Shoreline are considering cutting arts, music, newspaper, and other programs as they face budget shortfalls going into next year. Let's run through the logic on this. Schools are there to teach kids, yet in a pinch, they will cut the relevant programs that put learning into action. School districts are basically saying, "We want you learn it; We don't care if you use it." These programs are where learning is active.
Seattle needs to find a way to fill a $131 million budget gap before the next school year. Shoreline is aiming to cut $14 million from its budget for next year. In Seattle, the district has already nixed 74 central office positions, and some teachers are getting displacement notices. A displacement notice is when the district cuts a class or program you're teaching, and you could be moved to another school. This has already happened to one of two music teachers at Washington Middle School. That school will now have one teacher carrying the same load as two. In Shoreline, a similar threat to arts and music programs looms as the school board seeks solutions. The situation has prompted pushback from students and parents in both districts.
In short, the districts are facing budget shortfalls and are looking at programs like art, music, newspaper, etc. to cut and save money — which is just so cliché. The tactic of cutting such programs (never sports for some reason) is an oft told tale. Does this seem logical? Cutting the programs where learning is active; that actually have long-term benefits and educational applications? Music is associated with improved mental processing, memory, teamwork, and math skills. Speaking as a newspaper reporter at heart, this program is excellent for critical thinking and communication skills.
This is like teaching a person to bake a cake. You tell them about flour, eggs, sugar, mixing and molds, and oven temperatures. Then you cover frosting and sprinkles. And then there are the options: red velvet, funfetti, angel food, and pound cakes. All that information is conveyed, but when it comes time to bake a cake, the district says, "Well, we told you about the ingredients, that should be enough."
Read more here.
Following Washington's first carbon credit auction in February, we're now seeing where that money is going. One place you'll see funds diverted is e-bikes.
Drivers who buy electric cars have a few perks, from federal tax credits to Washington state voiding the sales tax. Washington's lawmakers now want to create similar incentives for e-bikes with the House and Senate open to spending millions on e-bike level perks. The Senate has slated $5 million in rebates for buying an e-bike, which breaks down to $300 per bike, or $1,200 for low-income buyers.
A few years ago, as bikeshares started rolling into Seattle, I reported on one company's operation by riding its bike three miles to work for a few days. After the first day, I couldn't walk. Seattle had beat me, and that single-speed cruiser. Another company eventually entered the mix with an e-bike option and everything changed. Seattle became "flat." I liked it so much I looked into buying an e-bike of my very own — I would become a cyclist, a bike commuter, one of those people who screams "on your left!" at pedestrians, or gets snobby at drivers. Then I saw the price tags for e-bikes and that was the end of that.
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Port of Seattle paid fraudsters more than $570,000 due to lax security, audit finds
The port fell for phishing schemes on two occasions in 2021, the Washington State Auditor's Office found, due to weak controls including staff not following protocol.
In October, 2021 the Port of Seattle Diversity, Equity & Inclusion department fell victim to what auditor's office spokesperson called a "classic phishing scheme": cyber-fraudsters posing as a legitimate contact seeking to have upcoming payments sent to a different bank account.
The department forwarded the phony email to the accounts payable department, which also took the bait, and paid the fraudsters $184,676 in three payments.
Two months later, the DEI department received a second phishing email, which it also forwarded on for processing, and the port made five more payments totaling $388,007 to a second fraudulent bank account.
After the port realized the fraud, it was able to recover most of the money, minus a $50,000 insurance deductible.
The auditor’s office found that port employees failed to follow standard protocols to prevent fraud, which State Auditor Pat McCarthy said is a cautionary tale for other state and local governments.
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Idaho's 'abortion trafficking' law prompts pushback from Washington leaders
Idaho Gov. Brad Little signed HB 242 into law on April 5. It outlaws helping a minor get an abortion without parental permission. The law includes restrictions on any Idaho resident from helping others travel to other states for abortion services. The bill calls this "abortion trafficking."
RELATED: Washington stocks up on abortion drug as federal ruling on access looms
Idaho law only allows abortions to be performed in cases of rape, incest, or when the life of the mother is in jeopardy. Violating the new law could result in two to five years in prison. Even if parents consent to an out-of-state abortion, people assisting with the travel could still be charged and have to prove in court that permission was given.
In a statement, Gov. Little said that the bill "does not criminalize, preclude, or otherwise impair interstate travel, nor does it limit an adult woman from obtaining an abortion in another state. Rather, the 'abortion trafficking' provision in the bill seeks only to prevent unemancipated minor girls from being taken across state lines for an abortion without the knowledge and consent of her parent or guardian."
The law is slated to go into effect in 30 days.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee wrote a letter to Gov. Little before the bill was signed into law this week, urging him to veto the bill. Inslee said he feared "that our residents, in particular the women and girls of Washington, will be in grave danger if they travel to your state and find themselves in need of urgent reproductive health care services."
Noting that Idaho's health care providers are welcome in Washington, Inslee added, "make no mistake, Governor Little, the laws of another state that seek to punish anyone in Washington for lawful actions taken in Washington will not stand.”
Upon the bill's signing, Planned Parenthood pushed back against the law, calling it "despicable" and objecting to the use of the term "trafficking."
“For too long now Idaho lawmakers have slipped under the radar with some of the strictest anti-abortion laws in the country," Mistie DelliCarpini-Tolman, Idaho state director of Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates, said in a statement. "Now, they are using an incredibly serious term like 'trafficking' to talk about young people traveling with trusted adults to access a legal procedure in another state. It’s despicable."
In Washington state, ever since the Dobbs decision in 2022, lawmakers have put up safeguards around the issue of abortion. Gov. Inslee has ordered the state patrol not to assist in any out-of-state investigations into people seeking abortion care. Washington voters legalized abortion in 1970, but lawmakers have recently been pushing for a state constitutional amendment to provide further protections.
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NW scientists study the promises – and challenges – of offshore wind
With the climate rapidly changing, researchers are trying to find ways to make clean energy developments less expensive and easier to build. For the Northwest, offshore wind power could play a critical role, but it also presents major challenges.
One of the lead research groups in this area is Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. This year, they received federal funding to build upon an earlier study that reviewed obstacles to fully developing offshore wind along the West Coast.
According to the national lab, floating turbines off the coast of Oregon and California could power millions of homes. But even if all that energy were harnessed, there’s no easy way of plugging it into the existing grid, said Travis Douville, wind energy grid integration lead for the lab.
“I love the analogy of getting a blood transfusion through your fingertips,” Douville said. “You would never pick that, right? That would never be the opportune way to interconnect and transmit a significant amount of offshore wind, through these fragile and relatively small coastal transmission links.”
PNNL is studying how to improve that process.
“We have world class resources off the coast of southern Oregon and northern California in particular, which is precisely a region where we don't have much transmission on shore,” Douville said.
Building the turbines would also be difficult. On the West Coast, the continental slope drops off sharply – meaning the water gets really deep, really fast. Because of that geography, offshore wind turbines would have to “float.” They’d be anchored to the ocean floor with cables, which would keep them from moving much at all.
“When you get beyond depths of approximately 60 meters, generally, it's not economical to use a fixed bottom foundation for a wind turbine, which is similar to when people think of land-based wind turbines and putting them in the sea floor,” Douville said.
As part of the study, an advisory committee will evaluate potential impacts to coastal communities and marine life from offshore wind.
The research is expected to come out late next year. [Copyright 2023 Northwest News Network]
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