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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Ingraham High School seeks federal funds to cope with repercussions of school shooting
As a new schoolyear begins, Seattle's Ingraham High School is applying for nearly half a million dollars in federal funding to help it rebound from last November's deadly school shooting, in which one student was killed.
In its grant application Seattle Public Schools said, “The impact the shooting has had on students’ learning as well as student and staff wellbeing is beyond what could have been imagined. Review of the data suggests Ingraham students and staff are hurting. However, with adequate resources and support, we can get back to a routine of consistency, predictability, and structure within the Ingraham school community.”
According to the application, the largest single priority for the $494,000 federal grant would be the ongoing salary for a full-time “house administrator,” a staff member in charge of holding reentry meetings with students who have been disciplined and creating safety plans, among other duties. That position was hired last year.
The grant would also fund an additional security specialist, and resources to contract with community-based, culturally responsive mental health supports.
The Seattle Public School Board voted Wednesday to accept the money from the U.S. Education Department’s School Emergency Response to Violence initiative, or Project SERV, if the federal government approves the grant and awards the funding. An SPS spokesperson said there's no set timeline for that decision.
RELATED: About the gun that killed a boy at Seattle’s Ingraham High School
Seventeen-year-old Ebenezer Haile died on the campus of the North Seattle school Nov. 8, 2022 after being shot by a fellow student. A student who was 14 at the time has been charged with first-degree murder and assault in Haile’s death. Another student was also arrested and charged in connection with the shooting.
KUOW reporters traced the history of the gun that was used that day at Ingraham High School.
According to the Seattle Public Schools’ grant application seeking federal assistance, “After police and school administration determined the school environment was safe, students were led to the auditorium for reunification with their families. The grueling reunification process took over two hours. Students and staff were crying, hungry, and in disbelief. You could see the impact and trauma the shooting already was having on the Ingraham community. The school shooting was also coming days after another Ingraham student had overdosed and died.”
The shooting continued to reverberate throughout the rest of the school year. During the remainder of the schoolyear, officials say Ingraham saw drops in attendance and academic performance, especially among seniors, and spikes in mental health referrals and disciplinary incidents including threats to others. The school also had an increased number of staff on leave.
The federal Project SERV grants are intended to help educational institutions “recover from a violent or traumatic event in which the learning environment has been disrupted.”
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Time and money: The cost of Labor Day 2023 travel plans
Washington and Oregon drivers continue to pay more for gas than the rest of the nation as the Labor Day travel weekend approaches.
The national average for a gallon of regular gasoline is around $3.83, according to AAA's data as of Tuesday morning.
RELATED: Road trip! Kicking the tires on electric travel in the Northwest
Oregon has the fourth-most expensive gas in the U.S. at around $4.80 a gallon, Oregon Public Broadcasting reports. That is slightly lower than prices in California, Washington, and Hawaii. The Medford region has the highest average price in Oregon at about $4.85, one cent higher than the Portland area. Just over the state border, Vancouver has an average of nearly $5.10.
In Washington, the average price is $5.11. King County is averaging $5.31.
OPB notes that West Coast usually sees the highest gas prices because it's relatively far from oil-producing parts of the country. Nationally, crude oil prices have simmered after a recent increase, largely driven by a cut in Middle East oil production this spring.
RELATED: What we do and don't know about high gas prices in Washington
Although national prices may be stagnating, drivers should expect a jump closer to Labor Day weekend as more people book flights and plan road trips.
The Washington State Patrol will be keeping an extra close eye on weekend traffic as drivers hit the roads. WSP is also activating its Mobile Impaired Driving Unit which specializes in DUI calls.
Over Labor Day weekend 2022, Washington State Patrol responded to:
- 448 speeding violations
- 232 aggressive driving calls
- 115 collisions
- 60 distracted driving incidents
- 21 DUIs
- 19 seatbelt violations
- 2 fatal collisions
Sea-Tac Airport
Travelers passing through Sea-Tac Airport are expected to surge to pre-pandemic levels over Labor Day weekend (estimated to be 18% higher than Labor Day 2022), according to the Port of Seattle.
Monday, Sept. 4 is forecast to be the most popular travel day at Sea-Tac — 190,000 expected travelers.
Friday, Sept. 1 is also expected to be a very busy day with an estimated 185,000 travelers. Sunday, Sept. 2 will have about 177,000 travelers.
Before Labor Day 2023, Sea-Tac Airport has already seen 3% more travelers than the Port of Seattle expected summer travel (that adds up to more than 500,000 travelers). In fact, so far, summer travel through the airport has added up to a 14.6% increase over summer 2022. A total of 29 million passengers used the airport between Jan. 1 and July 29.
The Port of Seattle expects 2023 travel volumes to be near 2019 levels, and 2024 is forecast to break travel records and exceed 2019 levels.
Ferries
"If you don't like waiting in line, and I think most people probably don't, don't travel when everybody else travels," said Ian Sterling with Washington State Ferries. "The way to do that is to travel later at night, or earlier in the morning, if your schedule allows that. The other hack we know doesn't work for everybody, if you can leave your car or truck at home and walk aboard, there's plenty of walk-on capacity."
In Washington state, folks with Labor Day weekend travel plans that include a ferry trip are likely going to have company. Washington State Ferries predicts that 400,000 people will come aboard this weekend, making this summer the busiest since 2019.
Saturday is set to be the peak, but drivers can expect the longest lines and wait times heading westbound to the islands Thursday through Saturday.
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Amazon CEO says ‘it’s probably not going to work out’ for employees who defy return-to-office policy
NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon employees have been pushing back against the company’s return-to-office policy for months — and it seems CEO Andy Jassy has had enough.
During a pre-recorded internal Q&A session earlier this month, Jassy told employees it was “past the time to disagree and commit” with the policy, which requires corporate employees to be in the office three days a week.
RELATED: Most workers want a 4-day work week. Here’s what might make employers come around
The phrase “disagree and commit” is one of Amazon’s leadership principles, and was used often by the company’s founder and current executive chairman, Jeff Bezos.
“If you can’t disagree and commit, it’s probably not going to work out for you at Amazon,” Jassy said, adding it wasn’t right for some employees to be in the office three days a week while others refuse to do so.
His comments were first reported by Business Insider, and later shared by Amazon.
The current office attendance mandate, which was announced in February and went into effect in May, is a shift from Amazon’s previous policy that allowed leaders to determine how their teams worked. But the company said Tuesday it rejects the notion that the prior policy was supposed to be the norm, and pointed to a blog post from 2021 where Jassy noted Amazon would “continue to adjust” things as more information rolled in.
When announcing the updated policy earlier this year, Jassy wrote in a memo to staff that Amazon made its decision after observing what worked during the pandemic and talking to leaders at other companies. He said the company’s senior executives, known internally as the S-team, concluded employees tended to be more engaged in person and collaborate more easily.
But many workers haven’t been convinced. In May, hundreds of Amazon employees protested the new policy during a lunchtime demonstration at the company’s Seattle headquarters. At the time, an internal Slack channel that advocated for remote work had racked up 33,000 members.
Some employees have also been pushing the company to supply data that support Jassy’s claims. During the session, Jassy said the company’s leadership looked at the data it has available and among other things, he said they didn’t feel that meetings were as effective from home as they were before. He added there are a lot of scenarios where the company has made some of its biggest decisions without perfect data, pointing to examples like Amazon’s decision to pursue an online marketplace for sellers and AWS, its cloud computing unit.
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White House plan to cut drug prices could lower costs for over 100K WA seniors
The Biden White House has announced plans to negotiate for lower prices on 10 drugs, which could save seniors in Washington state a lot of cash.
“Americans pay two to three times more than people in other countries for the exact same drug,” said Kristin Link Young, deputy assistant to the president for health and veterans.
The medications are used to treat a range of health problems including blood cancers, diabetes, heart failure, and arthritis. And they’re pricey. Nationally, these 10 drugs cost people on Medicare around $3.4 billion in out-of-pocket expenses last year, according to the White House.
The move to negotiate drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies was made possible thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, which became law last year.
For their part, pharmaceutical companies object to the effort, arguing it will mean less money for the research and development needed to create new life-saving medications.
“Politics should not dictate which treatments and cures are worth developing and who should get access to them. The cancer moonshot will not succeed if this administration continues to dismantle the innovation rocket we need to get there,” wrote the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, in response.
The White House rejects that claim, pointing to evidence that big pharma spends more of its profits on stock buyback and dividend programs to benefit shareholders than it does on research and development.
“While big drug companies made record profits and spent hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbying year after year, millions of Americans were forced to choose between paying for the medications they need to live or paying for other basic necessities,” Link Young said.
The new drug prices will go into effect in 2026.
According to the White House, these 10 drugs, which include Eliquis for the prevention and treatment of blood clots, and several diabetes drugs including Januvia, are just a start. Medicare will negotiate prices for up to 60 covered drugs over the next four years, and up to 20 drugs per year after that.
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Are you ready for a full, super, blue moon ... that might actually be red?
Blue moons aren't actually blue. Keep that in mind Wednesday, Aug. 30, when a very rare type of moon passes overhead.
What type of rare moon? Adding it all up, the moon will be a full moon, a supermoon, and a blue moon all at once. But again, "blue moon" is just a saying, which means something that doesn't happen very often. The moon won't actually be the color blue.
However ... since we are in the territory of rare occurrences, Alice Enevoldsen, an astronomy teacher at South Seattle College and a NASA solar system ambassador, noted that there is a (tiny) chance that conditions could align to actually give us a blue, blue moon.
"If you go out and you see the moon tomorrow night, if you get lucky, and you happen to see it through the clouds, and it does look blue, the reason for that is going to be a specific kind of wildfire smoke," Enevoldsen said. "If there are particulates in the air of about one micron, then that can actually filter the light that we're seeing and make it so that the moon will look blue, usually."
RELATED: How to watch a supermoon
This phenomenon is the same reason that the moon could look red or orange at night. It's because particulates in the air can scatter different wavelengths of light (similar to how light breaks into different colors when it passes through a prism, or ya know, like that Pink Floyd album cover). It's also why sunlight can look more red or orange. Enevoldsen noted that it's the size of the particulates that can influence what hue shines through.
"But if we happen to just have a gust of the right kind of smoke go across the moon, that would be one micron particulates, then we would actually see that blue color, which has nothing to do with the fact that it's a blue moon; that could happen at any time," she said. "It's absolutely mind boggling that there is a thing going on right now that could turn it blue, probably won't."
Again that's rare. It's more likely that, with the potential of wildfire smoke, the moon could appear red — a red ... full ... super... blue moon.
The moon rises shortly after 8 p.m. Wednesday, and sets around 7 a.m. Thursday morning. Even if the blue doesn't shine through, Wednesday's moon is still a rare sight to behold.
While it is close to a circle, the moon's orbit around the Earth is an elliptical journey (just like all orbits) — sometimes it is closer and sometimes it is farther away. On Wednesday, Aug. 30, the moon will be the closest to the Earth in its orbit. That makes it a supermoon.
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Jack Kerouac wrote about this fire lookout, currently threatened by fire in WA
As crews battle the Sourdough Fire in Washington's north Cascade Mountains, one corner has received particular attention for its place in literary history.
"I believe it's an author. I learned about this today, actually. Author Jack Kerouac ... he based some work off of a person who was operating out of that lookout,” Thomas Kyle-Milward with the state Department of Natural Resources told KUOW about the Sourdough Lookout.
“So it has some historical significance, which is one of the reasons why such pains were taken to make sure it was safe.”
RELATED: Evolving ecology — wisdom from 30 years as a fire lookout
Kerouac stayed at a nearby lookout, Desolation Peak, and wrote about the Sourdough location, where fellow poet Gary Snyder previously worked. For a few years, this corner of the Cascades served as a summer home, place of inspiration, and source of boredom for writers before their bylines garnered fame.
Both the Sourdough Mountain Lookout and the Desolation Peak Lookout have views of Ross Lake, where a nearby wildfire has threatened hydroelectric operations that power the city of Seattle. Crews have dropped fire retardant around the Sourdough Lookout. Kyle-Milward noted that it's the second time retardant has been used in the park. Tin-foil-like material has been wrapped around the structure to protect it from any flames, making it look like a big baked “potato,” as KUOW's John Ryan reported in early August.
The Sourdough Lookout is no longer operational, and is only staffed when needed, according to Kyle-Milward.
Across Ross Lake, a few miles north, is Desolation Peak, surrounded by dry tinder and a rocky landscape. Rocks are space, and space is illusion when it comes to wildfires that rip through a mountainside.
Desolation Peak gets its name from Lage Wernstedt. He was the first recorded person to scale the peak in 1926, after which he gave it the name that stuck — Desolation Peak — because a wildfire had recently charred the vast surrounding landscape.
Fire lookouts were constructed in the years that followed to watch for such fire threats. That’s when the writers came.
What is that feeling when you're fighting a wildfire away from where a beat poet once looked out on the plain? It's the too-huge flames vaulting us, and its good-bye, but we lean forward to the next crazy fire erupting beneath the skies.
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13 South Seattle home invasions targeted elderly Asian Americans, police say
Robbers have been forcing their way into the homes of residents living in South Seattle in recent months, leading city leaders and police officials to address the spree. Police said some victims have been pistol whipped.
There have been 14 incidents reported to police since June in several neighborhoods in the following zip codes: 98108; 98118; 98144; 98178.
Elderly people of Asian descent have been targeted in all but one of these incidents, police said Tuesday during a press conference.
"They're going after people they think are easy targets," said John O'Neil, police spokesperson.
Although police said it appears they're targeting Asian Americans, police said it doesn't amount to a hate crime.
Police described the suspects as working in groups ranging in size from three to seven people carrying guns who either rob people outside their homes or force their way inside to steal money and valuables. In one instance, a 10-year-old was led through a house at gunpoint while the family was robbed.
This pattern has emerged before. In 2016, detectives investigated several cases in which Asian American families in the Beacon Hill area were targeted. At the time Seattle Police wrote that in each of these cases, the suspects targeted households that had large amounts of cash on-hand.
Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell spoke on the recent increase of robberies on Monday.
“It’s just unacceptable,” he told KUOW.
Harrell said he’s recruiting police officers everywhere he goes, alluding to the ongoing staffing shortage within the Seattle Police Department. The department has a goal of recruiting 125 officers a year, a target which Harrell hopes they’re on track to reach this year.
“I hope that our City Council understands the need for strong public safety in all these areas as well,” Harrell said.
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Pink salmon are having a great 2023 return in Puget Sound
Did you know pink salmon are quite considerate? They schedule their returns during odd-numbered years. That makes things easier for folks watching salmon communities around Puget Sound, and in 2023, they are observing one of the largest pink salmon runs in the past decade.
Matt Bogaard with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is one such salmon expert who keeps track of these numbers.
"We're forecasting to see about four million Pink Salmon returning to Puget Sound this year. That's right around the 10-year average," Bogaard said. "We did see a run size of a little over 8.5 million in 2013. And we've had several large run sizes since, but in the last two pink salmon cycles, we've seen declining run sizes. So it's great to see a larger number coming back this year."
RELATED: One way to help coho salmon survive NW pollution
The 2023 pink salmon run is expected to peak now through early September.
In 2021, about 3.7 million pink salmon returned to Puget Sound.
"Pink salmon tend to swim in high-density aggregations, sort of at the shoreline, so they are a bit easier for folks to observe. They're typically chasing their preferred food source and honing in on their natal stream habitats," Bogaard said.
In recent years, the Pacific Ocean experienced consecutive La Niña cycles, which created favorable conditions for the young salmon. That could be one reason that pink salmon numbers are so high for marine observers, recreational catches, and commercial observations this year.
"We've also seen an increase in abundance in some of our other stocks," Bogaard noted. "Baker [River] sockeye, for example, has had one of the highest run sizes on record. So we're hoping that the pink, and other stocks, follow suit."
"I think we have some really positive inclinations, so far, that we should see a higher abundance of pink salmon communities here, which is great for us to meet our conservation objectives, but it's also going to be excellent to hopefully provide an increase in both recreational opportunity, as well as commercial opportunity, and for tribal co-managers as well," he said.
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Stop flying drones near wildfires. Firefighters are grounding planes as result
"Our firefighting operations are more important than those 12 likes you'll get on Instagram."
The Washington State Fire Marshall's Office has often reminded people that it's not a good idea to fly drones through wildfire zones. There are, after all, firefighters and aircraft in those same areas trying to operate amidst the chaos. But last week, the office felt the message might hit a bit harder if translated into the language of the internet.
RELATED: Ready, Set, Go — What to know about evacuating Western Washington wildfires
In case that wasn't clear: Don't fly a drone near wildfires.
Fires continue to surge in Washington state.
More firefighting personnel are set to arrive at the Gifford Pinchot National Forest Monday after lightning strikes sparked more than 45 new fires southeast of Mount Rainier on Aug. 24-25.
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Tiny house villagers get internet in Seattle
People living in tiny house villages in King County are getting an upgrade this summer: Fast, reliable internet service.
The Seattle Public Library and King County are donating Wi-Fi hotspots to help villagers get online without having to leave their tiny houses.
This month, Raven Village opened its tiny houses in Seattle's Ballard neighborhood. It has private rooms, a shared kitchen, onsite laundry, and a Wi-Fi hotspot for villagers to get online.
“We all know that everything — jobs, schooling, resumes, even the basic internet stuff that you have to do just to live, like bills, has to be done online,” said Joshua Goldman with the Low Income Housing Institute.
Reliable internet can be hard to come by, he said, especially at night when libraries and coffee shops are closed.
“Homeless shelters don't have Wi-Fi. We don't talk about it, but they don't,” Goldman said. “The Salvation Army has, like, a broadband system they can use, but at peak hours it's almost unusable.”
This summer, King County and the Seattle Public Library donated Wi-Fi hotspots to villages in Seattle and Tukwila.
“Installations are going great. We're actually talking about a village in transition right now, it's just coming into Seattle in the future here and already having it set up so that when they land the village becomes permanent we can offer them free Wi-Fi as well,” Goldman said.
He says internet access is essential for people trying to escape homelessness.
“Some individuals don't even have the basic stuff like a social security card and an ID,” he said. “Without internet, they can't get those things.”
Goldman says some villages had hotspots before, but the devices were not weather resistant and relied on batteries. The new hotspots are hard-wired and can support up to 20 devices at a time.
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Are kids in danger when wildfire smoke hits, even on 'moderate' days?
The Puget Sound area has seen good, moderate, and dangerous air quality in the last few weeks due to wildfire smoke. Last weekend was especially bad, but many people hit the streets and parks anyway.
The forecast this weekend is for moderate air quality, but even that is a concern, especially for children.
Dr. Catherine Karr is a professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine. She puts a fine point on that distinction:
"Kids are not small adults. That's our mantra in children's environmental health," Karr said. "They are growing and developing and their organs are undergoing transformation and development. The lungs are part of that. And the brain is a really important organ that we're starting to see concerns for exposure to air pollutants in children."
Karr said new studies suggest that exposure to higher levels of air pollution in early life may have effects on children's brain development, and lead to behavior problems or cognition problems. She urged parents and caregivers to be aware of how a child is reacting to conditions.
"If you pay attention and are aware of the air quality in your community, and you see on days when it's moderate that your child is coughing or wheezing, they are a more sensitive person, and so indeed you would definitely want to be aware and make changes for that kid," she said.
Changes might include staying inside, building a box-fan filter if you don't have air filtration in your home, setting your car air conditioner to re-circulate, and making sure kids are masked properly.
"Cloth masks do nothing," Karr said.
Karr said it's generally OK for some kids to play outside when the air quality index is in the moderate range, but she cautioned against more vigorous activities that lead to heavy breathing.
Karr noted that if it's safe and comfortable enough to close doors and windows, you can reduce exposure by about 50%. And if you're able to filter your indoor air, that figure rises closer to 80%.
For more information, Karr suggests visiting the following websites:
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One way to help coho salmon survive NW pollution
There is an air filter for your car, a filter for your tap water, and air filters for our smoky Northwest air. Now, there could be a filter to help the region's struggling salmon.
According to a new study from Washington State University, using simple biofilters on stormwater runoff can dramatically increase the survival rate of newly hatched coho salmon.
“This study highlights how vulnerable the fish are as soon as they hatch to the toxic impacts of stormwater runoff,” said lead author and associate WSU professor Jen McIntyre. “Biofiltration appears to be very effective at preventing that acute lethal toxicity. We also found that it prevented some of the sub-lethal effects, but not all of them.”
RELATED: Seattle salmon has a huge bite out of his head. Will it reach its home stream?
The effects of chemical-carrying stormwater runoff from roads, and other places, into streams and rivers has recently received a lot of attention. After years of searching for the cause of so many salmon deaths, researchers discovered in 2020 that a tire stabilizer (6PPD) breaks down into a toxic substance. As tires wear down on the road, their rubber, and all the chemicals they carry, wash into local bodies of water where fish and wildlife encounter them.
RELATED: Tribes call for national ban on salmon-killing chemical in car tires
WSU research also helped pinpoint the fish-killing culprit. The information prompted congressional hearings. The tire industry has been ordered to find safe alternatives to these chemicals. Tribes have petitioned for a national ban on the use of such chemicals.
In the meantime, mitigation methods, such as those in the recent WSU study, could help improve environmental conditions. The study put contaminated stormwater through natural biofilters — a combination of mulch, compost, sand, and gravel.
Researchers exposed coho eggs to water taken from 15 Seattle-area storm drains, which contained metals and fossil fuel chemicals that often wash off our roads. While the eggs, which are protected by a shell, survived, once the coho hatchlings encountered the contaminants, nearly all of them died.
Professor McIntyre notes that this could explain why coho have disappeared from some waterways in the Northwest.
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