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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Fans of Little Red Hen, banjos and fiddles in hand, rally to save Seattle honky-tonk
The Little Red Hen has a sign promoting “live country music.” It’s a honky-tonk landmark in Seattle’s Green Lake neighborhood.
Opened first in 1933, it moved to its current location in 1968. The venue hosts local musicians and dancing, from country to bluegrass to open mic nights and karaoke. But now patrons are alarmed over its potential closure.
On Tuesday nights, the bar’s bluegrass jam attracts so many players, they spill onto the sidewalk outside. Stan Hall is the president of Outlanders Progressive Bluegrass Social Club, which organizes the event.
“This is the overflow jam,” Hall said. “So inside, you’ve got about 10 pickers right now and that’s probably a little large for the circle, so they start to break off. They play out here, and then we have our — we call it the dumpster jam. They play out back in the parking lot.”
RELATED: Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library survives WA funding cuts — for now
In the wake of the pandemic, Hall’s organization focused on seeking out places for local musicians of all ages and levels to play together.
“Once Covid hit, we lost the longtime jams and people didn’t know where to go anymore after that,” he said. “If we fancy ourselves a musical city, we’ve got to fight for it, right?”
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Washington's biggest utility pays customers to save energy during heat wave
With temperatures expected to hit the 90s in much of Washington Wednesday, the state’s largest utility is paying some customers to save energy.
Puget Sound Energy is paying customers to temporarily dial back their electricity use to keep power prices down.
Demand for electricity is expected to surge as people flee the heat and crank up the air conditioning.
A surge in air conditioning during a heat wave in July 2024 drove up regional electricity use by Puget Sound Energy customers by more than one-third, according to the Energy Information Administration.
RELATED: It’s about to hit 90 degrees in Seattle. Here’s how to keep your pets cool
Such spikes in demand could force PSE and other utilities to buy expensive power on the open market.
“Customers’ efforts to collectively contribute to smoothing out the demand during high demand periods helps us transition to cleaner energy and keeps us from going to the market or using those more costly facilities to generate more energy,” Puget Sound Energy spokesperson Gerald Tracy said.
During extreme-weather events such as heat waves or wintertime cold snaps, Puget Sound Energy asks customers to reduce or shift their electricity use away from peak hours and activates programs that reward customers who do so.
Customers who sign up for “PSE Flex” programs get paid to do things like turn up their thermostats a few degrees or charge electric vehicles late at night.
In one PSE Flex program, customers get $25 to enroll and $1 for every kilowatt-hour they save during brief windows when power demand is peaking.
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Washington state bans invasive ivy
Washington state has banned the sale or transport of English ivy and its cousin, Atlantic ivy.
The leafy holiday decorations are also aggressive invaders of Northwest forests.
The Washington State Department of Agriculture on Wednesday added 19 species to its quarantine list of plants and seeds that cannot be sold or distributed in the state due to their potential to wreak havoc on agricultural and natural areas.
None of those noxious weed species attracted nearly as much attention as the two European ivies.
“Local jurisdictions and Washington state spend millions of dollars, either in volunteer hours or actual funds, to remove ivy from forests, urban forests in particular,” said landscape architect Kristi Park of Bellingham. “So, the fact that you could turn around and buy it just blew my mind.”
RELATED: Have a Holly Noxious Christmas? State board eyes un-jolly label for invasive greenery
In 2002, Washington’s Noxious Weed Control Board listed three cultivated varieties of English ivy and one of Atlantic ivy as “Class C noxious weeds,” but that designation carries no restrictions on growing or selling a plant.
Some nurseries, big-box retailers, and online stores continue to sell ivy in Washington state. They have to stop doing so by Aug. 9.
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Bolder efforts needed to save Northwest's endangered orcas, report finds
Efforts to save the Northwest’s endangered orcas are not working on either side of the U.S.-Canada border, according to an international panel of scientists.
In a new report, the panel of 31 researchers call for bolder measures to bring the endangered whales back from the brink of extinction.
The whale experts say these orcas urgently need comprehensive action for quiet, clean, salmon-rich waters.
“It's a declining population, and it's a population that we predict will be declining for a generation or two, and then that decline will accelerate rapidly towards extinction if we don't turn this around quickly,” said Rob Williams, chief scientist with the nonprofit Oceans Initiative in Seattle and one of the report’s coauthors.
The salmon-eating orcas, known as southern resident killer whales, were declared an endangered species in Canada in 2001 and in the United States in 2005.
A patchwork of projects and regulations since then has failed to boost their numbers.
“Whatever it is we're doing, collectively, cumulatively, is not enough. The population is still declining,” Williams said. “The whales need more salmon and less noise, and we need to somehow reduce the impact of toxic chemicals on the whales’ health and reproduction.”
RELATED: NOAA firings in Seattle include orca-saving employee of the year
Noise can prevent orcas from finding the salmon they hunt using echolocation.
Many cargo ships have voluntarily slowed down in recent years to make less noise in orca waters, and regulations in Washington state in 2025 widened the space boaters are required to give the whales to 1,000 yards. Canadian officials are considering requiring boats to stay 1,000 meters (1,094 yards) away.
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Trump casts shadow over Seattle’s city attorney race
Four years ago, Ann Davison’s victory in the race for Seattle city attorney was seen as an upset, fueled by voter distress over drug use and petty crime. Now Davison faces three challengers in her quest for a second term — and they’re banking on Seattle voters’ opposition to the second Trump administration.
Davison went public in 2020 with her disillusionment with the local Democratic party, which she accused of failing to address social disorder on the streets of Seattle. After a failed bid for lieutenant governor as a Republican in 2020, she won the race to become Seattle's city attorney in 2021.
The three Democrats running against her in this year's race are highlighting her Republican credentials to voters.
“I really do think it’s irrelevant,” she said in a recent interview. “This is a nonpartisan race and I’m a problem-solver.”
Davison said one of her biggest accomplishments was reducing the impact of what her office refers to as “high utilizers,” 118 people who generated thousands of misdemeanor criminal referrals. Those people weren’t getting booked into jail when she took office, and she worked to change that.
Davison said staying focused on local conditions is the best way to increase public safety. Early reports suggest crime is dropping in Seattle and King County this year, joining national trends.
“These three-and-a-half years I’ve been in office have been significant," she said. "I think the city has turned — we’ve shown that safety is important. We’re not done but that’s been kind of the most significant piece for me personally and professionally."
But in a city that has seen vigorous protests against Republican President Donald Trump’s administration, Davison’s three Democratic opponents say her party affiliation is relevant to voters.
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It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s not like other ‘Superman’ films
With a K9 sidekick, a sense of humor, and a Man of Steel who says “dude,” 2025’s “Superman” might not be the Superman you expect, or even want. But for our modern times, it’s the “Superman” we all need.
Don’t expect another origin story in the latest version of "Superman," which opens in U.S. theaters Friday.
After 87 years with Superman as a household name, we know about the doomed planet Krypton, Clark Kent growing up on a Kansas farm, Lois Lane, and how glasses can be a convincing disguise.
Audiences are now accustomed to superhero movies after nearly two decades of Marvel dominating Hollywood.
Filmmaker James Gunn, who wrote and directed 2025’s “Superman,” appears to be well aware of these facts. He was tasked to find a way to make Superman a fresh experience for audiences and has produced a Man of Tomorrow — a film apt to kickstart a long sought after (successful) DC cinematic universe.
“Superman” immediately drops you into a city that isn’t surprised to see a man with a red cape flying around. A giant fire-breathing dragon is just the sort of thing that wanders into Metropolis.
This allows the movie to simply be an adventure without forcing audiences to buy in to yet another superhero pitch. This is another chapter in the life of Clark Kent, who we already know — a mild-mannered reporter who sneaks away to save the day, but finds out that things can get complicated, fast.
RELATED: With 'Karate Kid: Legends,' this film franchise keeps on kicking
With this approach, Gunn has delivered a surprising experience with Superman that can overcome superhero fatigue and give DC Comics a chance to compete with Marvel on the big screen. Even the score to the film feels familiar, yet new.
This should come as no surprise to fans. Gunn managed to turn the Guardians of the Galaxy into three of Marvel’s more popular movies (a superhero team that practically nobody knew about outside of hardcore comic book nerds).
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Heading outdoors? WA recreation prices go up as state tries to fix budget deficit
New license fees for fishing and hunting in Washington state take effect July 1.
The 38% price hike is the first increase since 2011.
Before the new fee, it cost just over $14 dollars, for example, to dig for razor clams.
“The out-the-door price after this increase will be $17.44,” said Morgan Stinson, chief financial officer at the Department of Fish and Wildlife.
He said while the fees will generate new revenue, it’s not a gain. The agency’s share from the state general fund will be slashed because of the state’s budget deficit.
RELATED: Gov. Ferguson signs new WA budget into law, leaving bulk of tax increases intact
Brandon Bean, the department's budget officer, estimated the new fees will generate $16 million over the next two years.
“Without this fee [increase], the department faced further reductions that we were largely able to mitigate against with this particular increase in there,” Bean said.
But even with the revenue from the higher fees, the department is working on a long list of program cuts, including wildlife disease work.
“The funding we have now we can no longer spend on avian flu and white nose bat syndrome and some of these other diseases,” Stinson said.
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Washington AG pledges 'fight' to preserve birthright citizenship as SCOTUS limits nationwide injunctions
Democratic attorneys general from five states including Washington said Friday they were disappointed but undeterred by the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in favor of the Trump administration in a case surrounding birthright citizenship.
The high court’s 6-3 decision restricts the powers of federal judges to freeze President Donald Trump’s executive orders nationwide, including the one eliminating birthright citizenship for children of undocumented parents and those on temporary visas. An injunction on the executive order will remain in place for Washington state, however, since it is a plaintiff in the legal challenge.
The majority on the U.S. Supreme Court said the Trump administration is likely to suffer irreparable harm from the district courts’ entry of injunctions that likely exceed the authority conferred on them by federal law.
But the five attorneys general whose lawsuits landed before the court last month emphasized that birthright citizenship is unchanged for now, and said they will seek remedies in the next thirty days to maintain automatic citizenship for all babies born in the U.S.
Washington Attorney General Nick Brown called the court’s decision an “incredibly disappointing result.” He highlighted the language of Justice Sonia Sotomayor in her dissent, saying she noted “how fragile the rule of law is in America today, and how the court made it even more tenuous in this moment.”
“But we will not give up, we will continue to fight,” Brown said, against what he called Trump’s efforts to undermine the rule of law. “It is incumbent on all of us to not capitulate in this moment, to not accept these changes that we’re seeing from the president and the rest of the administration, and to continue to use every tool that we have available to challenge these unconstitutional orders.”
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Judge un-freezes environmental justice funds for Northwest
A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to release $180 million in federal funding for environmental justice projects, including $60 million in the Pacific Northwest.
The Environmental Protection Agency had blocked that funding in February.
The agency had selected Seattle-based Philanthropy Northwest in 2023 to distribute competitive grant funds to disadvantaged communities trying to fight pollution or adapt to climate change in Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington.
Philanthropy Northwest, the Minneapolis Foundation, and Baltimore-based Green and Healthy Homes Initiative sued EPA in April. Each regional organization had $60 million in EPA funds frozen as the agency canceled its environmental justice programs.
“We are thrilled with the court's decision, and we know that there is a road ahead, and are committed to doing our best to secure these funds,” Meredith Higashi with Philanthropy Northwest said.
An EPA spokesperson declined an interview request and said the agency is reviewing the decision.
RELATED: 'The purge has begun.' Environmental justice workers locked out of EPA Seattle office
More than 700 groups had applied to Philanthropy Northwest for the federal grants before they were frozen.
Higashi declined to identify specific grantees because their contracts have not been signed yet, but shared three expected grant projects in Washington state:
• A decarbonization campaign for rural Snohomish County communities;
• A tribe’s work to strengthen regional emergency management on the Olympic Peninsula;
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Trump denies Washington state's disaster-aid request, again
For a second time, President Donald Trump has denied Washington state’s request for major-disaster aid following a bomb cyclone storm that hit in November.
Trump denied Gov. Jay Inslee’s initial request in April. Gov. Bob Ferguson appealed Trump’s initial denial in May.
Neither denial offered any explanation.
Sen. Patty Murray called the decision a “betrayal” and a “dangerous politicization of disaster assistance.”
“Storms and disasters don’t discriminate between red and blue communities and neither should our President,” Murray said in a press release.
RELATED: FEMA was starting to fix long-standing problems. Then came the Trump administration
Since February, Trump has denied 6 of 10 major-disaster requests he has received from Democratic governors, according to Federal Emergency Management Agency records analyzed by KUOW.
Trump has approved 14 of 15 requests he has received from Republican governors.
Trump has denied requests from California, Hawaii, Kentucky, Oregon, Tennessee, Washington, and Wisconsin.
He also denied a request from Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, his former press secretary, following a series of tornadoes and hailstorms in March.
Sanders appealed the denial, and Trump approved it in May.
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Washington's climate pollution slow to be revealed, despite new law
For a week, NPR has been exploring various solutions to climate change, from quitting fossil fuels to putting coastal homes up on stilts.
In Washington state, it is hard to know how well climate solutions are working.
The state takes up to four years to disclose whether it is keeping its promise—and legal mandate—to slash its climate-damaging pollution.
The Washington Department of Ecology revealed statewide carbon dioxide emissions for 2020 and 2021 in January 2025, two years after its legal deadline.
RELATED: Despite state law, Washington takes 3+ years to reveal its climate pollution
The state’s next greenhouse gas inventory is scheduled to be published by Dec. 1, 2026, to cover data from 2022 and 2023.
Legislators have dedicated more funding and passed legislation to accelerate the state’s pollution tracking, while conservative activists have sued the state over its tardy transparency.
Even so, better visibility into the state’s stubborn carbon problem is still years away.
“The reports coming out of the Department of Ecology are four years old,” said Republican state Sen. Matt Boehnke of Kennewick. “My bill actually just tried to speed it up to say, let's do this annually, and let's get more current, accurate data so we can make better decisions now.”
The Democrat-led Legislature unanimously passed Boehnke’s bill to require speedier disclosures of carbon emissions — but not before pushing its requirement for annual reporting down the road five years.
“They basically hijacked my bill, frankly, and said, ‘We can't do this.’ And I said, ‘You can,’” Boehnke told KUOW.
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Protest Trump but do so peacefully, Washington state officials warn
Holding signs reading “Peaceful Protest,” Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson and local Democratic officials urged people to raise their voices in a planned day of protest Saturday against the policies of Republican President Donald Trump, as Trump celebrates his birthday and the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army with a military parade in Washington, D.C.
But officials also urged protesters to avoid violence and deprive Trump of any excuse for intervening, a week after he deployed the National Guard and U.S. Marines in California to assist with crowd control and immigration enforcement.
“Don’t give Donald Trump an excuse to try and federalize the National Guard here in Washington state like he did in California," Ferguson said. "He wants to be able to say we cannot handle our own public safety issues here in Washington state.”
RELATED: Peaceful protest in the park, fireworks after dark at Seattle anti-ICE demonstration
Speaking from Dr. Jose Rizal Park with the Seattle skyline in the background, Ferguson said he’s had no communication from Trump or any federal agencies about any deployments or planned interventions in Washington. He said he has been in close communication with the state’s National Guard and other agencies.
“We think we can handle our situation with the partners that we have reflected here,” he said.
Ferguson said Seattle police will have assistance from the King County Sheriff, Washington State Patrol and other agencies.
He said while people will overwhelmingly be prepared to protest peacefully as part of the “No Kings” events scheduled across the state by the group Indivisible and others, the small number of people who could intend to commit violence are “the single biggest challenge” to planners.
“Some folks may seek that violence," Ferguson said. "All we can do is make sure we are coordinated, working with our law enforcement partners.”
RELATED: Judge issues a temporary ruling against Trump using the National Guard in LA
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