Year in Review

Seattle Met's 6 Most-Read Stories of 2018

From an unclaimed Seattle rock star to a world-changing card game, these were our most poplar long-form articles of the year.

12/19/2018 By Seattle Met Staff

Feature

A Rumor in Madrona

Can a decades-old deadly home invasion case help unmask the dangers of the misinformation age?

10/15/2018 By James Ross Gardner

Born This Way

Conversion Therapy Survivors Still Have Wounds to Heal

Licensed therapists can no longer practice conversion therapy on minors. But new legislation can't erase the anguish of those who lived through the experience.

06/19/2018 By Hayat Norimine

Feature

The Boat at the Bottom of the Sea

More than a year after a Seattle-based crabber vanished in Alaska's Bering Sea, its final hours remain a mystery. The surviving family of the Destination’s crew—and one intrepid investigator—seek to uncover the secrets the ocean still keeps.

04/09/2018 By Eva Holland

Feature

Darren Berg on the Run: Inside the Biggest Ponzi Scheme in Washington State History

He owned yachts and sped around the country in Lear jets—spoils from the more than $100 million he bilked from investors—before he was convicted and sent away to serve an 18-year sentence in federal prison. Then, late last year, Darren Berg disappeared.

03/19/2018 By Ciara O'Rourke

Feature

Rape Survivors in Washington State Run Against a Ticking Clock

Most people sexually assaulted in Washington state have just three years to pursue criminal charges against their assailant. A bill to remove the statute of limitations would change that. Until then, survivors who seek justice are racing against time.

01/17/2018 By Hayat Norimine

Best of Seattle Met

Seattle Met's 6 Most-Read Stories of 2017

From avalanches to growing up Muslim in rural Washington to the surprising origins of a mall-food mainstay, these were our most popular long-form articles of 2017.

12/19/2017 By Seattle Met Staff

Feature

Spell Casters, a ‘Magic: The Gathering’ Origin Story

A Boeing employee and a mathematician dreamed up a new kind of collectible card game in a Seattle parking lot 25 years ago. They couldn’t have known Magic: The Gathering would change the gaming world forever.

12/18/2017 By Darren Davis

Feature

How 'Real Change' Changes Lives

Some 300 people take to the Seattle streets and suburbs to sell Real Change, the weekly homelessness, poverty, and social justice newspaper. They endure wet weather, indifference, and rejection—lots of rejection. Here’s why they still press on.

11/20/2017 By Brooke Jarvis

Feature

The Russian Spies Who Fooled Seattle

Before hackers tried to sway the 2016 election or word spread that our new president might be compromised, a peculiar couple resided on Seattle’s Capitol Hill. Have we really taken stock of the spies who lived among us?

10/30/2017 By James Ross Gardner

Feature

Scents from a Mall: The Sticky, Untold Story of Cinnabon

Three decades after its creation in Seattle, the cinnamon roll purveyor maintains a novel sway over our appetites and, thanks to a certain flamboyant, corrupt attorney, some unexpected TV fame.

10/23/2017 By Allecia Vermillion Photography by Kyle Johnson

Profile

Is Consensus Gone After Tim Burgess?

Over the past decade, Tim Burgess has clashed and collaborated with colleagues and as a council member left fingerprints on some of the city’s most important legislation. But mostly he has been a consensus builder. What happens when he’s gone?

09/19/2017 By Hayat Norimine

Essay

The Great Divide: Growing up in Rural Washington as a Muslim Immigrant

What being an outsider taught me about race, class, and politics today.

08/17/2017 By Hayat Norimine

Feature

The Kings of Suicide Hill: Inside the Famous—and Deadly—Omak Stampede

It’s called the World Famous Suicide Race, a harrowing horseback contest between Native American riders in Washington’s most infamous rodeo. This year, one teenager has four days to defend a way of life and keep a family legacy alive.

07/17/2017 By Allison Williams

Profile

Michael Foster Is Defiant

The Seattle climate activist who turned off the North Dakota Keystone Pipeline gave up his livelihood, his family, and quite possibly—after the upcoming trial—his next two decades of freedom. What drives someone to risk it all?

06/05/2017 By Kathryn Robinson Photography by Mike Kane

Feature

The Secret Life of Urban Crows

…and why Seattle may be the Corvid Capital of the World.

05/17/2017 By James Ross Gardner

Banned in the USA

We The People: Meet Six Immigrants from the Six Countries on Trump's Travel Ban List

Some have been here for decades, others for just a few weeks. All felt the impact of the executive order acutely.

04/17/2017 By James Ross Gardner, Rianna Hidalgo, Hayat Norimine, and Allison Williams Photography by Brandon Hill

Feature

While in Custody: The Fight to Stop Jail Deaths in Washington State

When an inmate dies in Washington state, the question of who is to blame often goes unaddressed. Meet the families, and their lawyers, who want answers.

03/20/2017 By Ciara O'Rourke Photography by Mike Kane

Feature

After the Fall: Remembering the Tunnel Creek Avalanche

The Tunnel Creek avalanche took the lives of three world-class skiers and was immortalized in a Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times story. Five years later, the survivors, friends, and family members reflect on what was lost that day.

02/13/2017 By Eva Holland

Feature

Quiet: A Soldier’s Fight for the Most Silent Place in America

The military’s plan to send newer, more disruptive jet planes over the Hoh and Quinault rain forest region has unraveled not only townspeople throughout the Olympic Peninsula, but the veterans who thought they’d found a refuge.

11/16/2016 By Madeline Ostrander