The Stranger

Slog AM: The Supreme Court Stomps on Trump's Tariffs, New Voter ID Bill Is Bad News, and Seattle Women's Hockey Captain Breaks Olympic Record

Hannah Murphy Winter — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 08:43:00 -0800

The Stranger's Morning News Roundup. by Hannah Murphy Winter

Good Morning! Did you see a little snow yesterday? It was spotty, and fleeting, and it might be the only snow we get this year, so I hope you got a taste of it. Today promises to be cold (low 40s), but probably dry, so get outside for a bit. Tomorrow, the rain starts again.

MAHA Moms Revolt: On Wednesday, Trump invoked a Korean-war era law that allows the government to force the manufacture of supplies “in the interest of national defense.” What’re we manufacturing? Glyphosate—a probably-carcinogenic pesticide that’s sold in the hardware store aisles as Roundup. And the anti-vax, raw milk chugging, horse dewormer-obsessed MAHA crowd is pissed. The founder of Moms Across America (named Zen Honeycutt, of course), which has led the anti-glyphosate campaign, called it “an egregious offense to what he promised,” and Republicans are worried that it could impact how many women vote red in the midterms. To be clear, MAHA is off base on a lot, but they’re right to hate this pesticide. Studies have shown that it very likely causes cancer. But it’s a Monsanto favorite, and every decision is for sale in Trump’s America.

UN Who? On Thursday morning, President Trump emceed the inaugural meeting of his knock-off United Nations, aka the Board of Peace, which he created and oversees. (Any nation can get a permanent seat, as long as they’re willing to pay $1 billion to get it.) In the meeting, Trump announced that the US was committing $10 billion in aid to Gaza, but Congress doesn’t appear to have appropriated that money, so who knows where he’s getting it. “Beyond that, there were few clear objectives from the meeting. It was like the United Nations General Assembly, if everything about the United Nations revolved around Donald Trump,” the New York Times wrote.

Speaking of Peace: Trump is sending the largest force of American warships and aircraft to the Middle East in decades, and said that Iran needs to strike a meaningful deal with the US about their nuclear program, “otherwise, bad things happen.” He’s given the country “10-15 days” to strike a deal that’s been deadlocked for years.

Israeli Settlers Kill Palestinian American: His name was Nasrallah Abu Siyam, and he was 19 years old. According to residents, settlers marched into the town of Mukhmas and attacked a farmer. When villagers intervened, Israeli forces joined the settlers and, according to residents, that empowered the settlers to start firing into the crowd. Settlers in the West Bank killed 240 Palestinians last year, a campaign that the UN says could be considered ethnic cleansing. Nasrallah Abu Siyam is the first Palestinian killed by settlers in 2026.

Tariff Tumble: On Friday morning, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Trump does not actually have the authority to impose his insane tariffs. So far the Treasury Department has collected about $240 billion in tariff revenue since Trump’s “Liberation Day” last April, and they could be forced to issue massive refunds, which, in Brett Kavanaugh’s wise words, would be a “mess.”

New Neon: Pike Place Market got its first new neon sign in almost 100 years. It’s mounted on the elevator shaft attached to the Waterfront Park. I think it classes up the place.

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Vote ID Law Would Do Its Job: Sen. Maria Cantwell and Washington election officials warned that the Trump-backed SAVE America Act (which requires proof of citizenship to vote) would turn our midterm elections into chaos. Fortunately, even Republicans in the Senate think it’s harmful bullshit, so it’s got slim chances.

Mom and Dad Are Fighting Again: Governor Bob Ferguson has some big feelings about the Millionaire Tax—namely, who should benefit from it, and who gets a tax break alongside it. But rather than working directly with lawmakers on it, state legislatures are complaining that at every stage, he’s simply taking to the microphone to bah-humbug their work. In this comically short session, they have just three weeks to land this plane.

The Latest from NWDC: Nurses at St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma told KUOW that since the beginning of Trump’s second term, they’ve seen a spike in ICE detainees coming to the hospital as patients. They say that agents have repeatedly ignored standard practices to safeguard patients’ privacy, health, and safety, including “refusing to leave detainees’ rooms during catheter changes, shackling a detainee so tightly to a bed they caused nerve damage to the person’s hand, and refusing to wear required masks and gowns in rooms where patients had communicable diseases,” KUOW reported. “I feel like [ICE agents] treat [detainees] like they’re animals,” one nurse told them.

Are you a renter? Probably. And if you are, you have until midnight to fill out the mayor’s renter survey. This is an opportunity to tell the City how much your rent has spiked, what kinds of bullshit charges you deal with every month (wtf is a valet garbage fee, really), and any other challenges you deal with as a renter just trying to keep a roof over your head.

Coming Home With the Gold: After a perfect Olympic season, the US Women’s hockey team won the gold in overtime against Canada. Hilary Knight, the captain of Team USA (and the Seattle Torrent), scored the shot that tied up the game, and at the same time, broke the record for most career Olympic goals (15 of them, if you were wondering). The players are coming home next week, and the Torrent will play their first post-Olympics game against the Toronto Sceptres on Friday the 27th.

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More Olympics Shine: US figure skater Alysa Liu won the gold on Thursday, breaking a 24-year drought for women’s figure skating. For reference, the last time the US won a gold in women’s figure skating, Liu hadn’t even been born. And to make it even more badass, she claimed the win after a two-year break from the sport. The US women’s curling team also made it to the semi-finals for the first time in 24 years.

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Have you played Routle today? It’s like Wordle, but for the King County Metro system. You get the shape of the route on a blank background, and five guesses. Are you King of the Bus?

A Song for Your Friday: A perfect track to make your commute feel like a little adventure, or to keep you company while you take a walk for your stupid mental health before the rain comes.

Slog AM: Woman Killed by Driver in Capitol Hill Identified, Dog Enters Olympic Skiing, We’re Suing Trump Again

Micah Yip — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 08:58:00 -0800

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Micah Yip

Woman Killed By Driver in Capitol Hill Identified: Her name was Lilliana Moreno. On Monday night, the 27-year-old was crossing East Pike Street when she was hit by a car making a right turn from Bellevue Avenue. She was trapped under the car for 20 minutes and died at the scene.

ICE Arrests: According to the Deportation Data Project, ICE arrested 2,000 people in Washington between late-January and mid-October of last year, a 140 percent increase from the same period in 2024. Roughly 47 percent of those arrested had no criminal history.

Seahawks for Sale: Paul G. Allen’s estate has begun the sale process, the team announced on Instagram. Allen’s will directed his sister/estate chair to sell all his sports holdings and donate the proceeds to “philanthropic efforts.” But don’t worry, the team is unlikely to leave the city.

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8 Skiers Dead, 1 Missing: On Tuesday, a deadly avalanche in California overtook a group of 15 skiers and guides in the Sierra Nevadas near Lake Tahoe. Eight are dead and one is missing. Six were rescued and one was still in the hospital last night. An avalanche warning was issued Tuesday morning. Authorities are investigating the decision to proceed anyway.

College (Re)Bound: After a pandemic-era decline, community college enrollment in Washington has rebounded. New data from the Washington Student Achievement Council shows a 7.5 percent increase in community college enrollment between 2024 and 2025. Four-year universities aren’t so lucky—undergrad enrollment only rose 1 percent last year, and actually declined 7.5 percent among first-term freshmen.

We’re Suing Trump Again: Attorney General Nick Brown and 14 other state attorneys general are suing the federal government for decimating clean energy programs created and funded by Congress. Trump is not supposed to do that!

Weather: It’s COLD! It’ll be mostly cloudy with a high near 40 and there’s a slight chance of rain and snow before 1 p.m. Tonight will also be cloudy with a low of 27.

Underdog: I have very little interest in the Winter Olympics. The only real clip I’ve watched is of this dog crashing a cross-country skiing course to join two skiers crossing the finish line. And really, it’s the only clip I need.

Ex-Prince Arrested: Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested today on suspicion of misconduct in public office for allegedly sharing confidential documents with Jeffrey Epstein. The former prince was stripped of his titles in October for his association with the convicted sex offender.

Put it On My Card: Actually, don’t—I don’t want to pay extra. Starting March 1, you’ll be charged a 3 percent fee when you use a credit or debit card to pay for a Washington State Ferry fare. Added in the 2025-26 state transportation budget, the new fee is meant to offset the cost of processing card payments. Officials estimate it’ll bring in $7.4 million over the next two years.

Lunar New Year Began Tuesday: Looking to celebrate? Here’s EverOuts’ list of Lunar New Year events around the city.

Ramadan Also Began Tuesday: WBUR’s Here & Now put out this segment yesterday on the importance of the date fruit when breaking the fast, and follows reporter Hana Baba as she shops for Ramadan and talks with other Muslims about the date.

Slog AM: ICE Left a $200 million Hole In Minneapolis’s Economy, Waymo Uses DoorDash to Close the Doors of Its Cars, Will the Seahawks Visit the White House?

Charles Mudede — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 09:40:00 -0800

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Charles Mudede

The Seahawks basically destroyed the Patriots to claim their second Super Bowl. Now comes the big question: Will the team visit the White House? Back in 2014, they made the trip and celebrated with the then president Barack Obama. But things are very different now. Trump is violently attacking cities and not even trying to hide his racism. The Seahawks have a lot Black players and the city it represents is considered a “Welcoming City.” How can this work out? Rumours recently circulated that the team had declined the standard invitation, but it’s now reported that the whole business is still very much up in the air. Also not verified is the rumor that the Seahawks haven’t received an invitation from Trump’s White House. Maybe both sides just want to keep their mouths shut and let this difficult matter quietly pass like two ships in the night.

Yesterday, at around 4:45 pm, we at the Stranger’s office saw through the windows something that had the likeness of snow. Was it the real stuff or not? We couldn’t tell. Maybe this was a collective hallucination. Today, expect a low of 31, a mostly cloudy morning, some rain in the afternoon, and, yet again, no snow.

KIRO Radio is popping the champagne because Seattle's noble attempt to improve the labor standards of hyper-exploited gig workers has apparently backfired. Drivers are now earning “20 cents less per hour than before.” They blamed this drop on Seattle leaders who apparently have no contact with reality, with capitalist reality. And what the captains of this mode of accumulation never stop telling us is this: Labor rights and rising wages are the sole cause of rising costs and immiseration of the poor. Any other explanation is, according to them, not realistic. It’s just labor’s demand for more and more that’s the root of all evil, they say.

A quick thing about a book I’m currently reading. It’s called Capitalism: A Global History. It’s by German-born economist and historian Sven Beckert. It’s 1344 pages. I’m near page 900. But what I've learned from this book is that the natural rate for wages in capitalism is zero. And the rise of wages is, essentially, nothing but the resistance by labor to this natural tendency. Beckert doesn’t exactly say this, but he does make it clear that a capitalism without any regulation must lead to its form of slavery, which is the commodification of the body. Wages above zero result in the commodification of labor power. I will stop there and now turn to the robots of the 21st century.

The best story I’ve heard in a minute is that Waymo, which is basically Uber without drivers, is turning to gig workers, such as those who work for DoorDash, to close car doors left open by flakey or crafty customers. And how much does Waymo pay for what can only be called the human touch? $11.25. So the zero wage robot is not yet up to snuff.

Now, let’s turn to something that should really alarm Seattle’s leaders. Operation Metro Surge not only brought death, state-sanctioned lawbreaking, and general mayhem to Minneapolis; it also delivered a big blow to the city’s economy. The estimated cost so far of an operation that began on the first day of the present year and had nothing to do with protecting Americans from the “worst of the worst” is $203.1 million. The bulk of this cost is attributed to revenue small businesses lost ($82 million). The rest of the tab went to lost wages ($47 million), social services that experienced extraordinary stress ($17 million), overtime pay to police officers and other city officials ($4 million), and hotel cancellations ($4 million). The city thinks it will take years to regain ground from this complete waste of money.

Now that ICE is bringing its post-apocalyptic show in Minneapolis to an end, the border czar, Tom (Bribe Loving) Homan, is looking for the next theater. Homan: "I've said from day one that, you know, we need to flood the zone and sanctuary cities with additional agents.” That "sanctuary city” could be Seattle. And the cost of this performance, which is all it really is, will be terrific. The only thing that might protect us from this massive waste of time, lives, and money is our tech hub status, which means we play an important role in maintaining the only game in town, the gigantic AI bubble.

Minneapolis officials have released an estimated tab on what Operation Metro Surge has cost city residents so far.

bit.ly/4cqEfFq

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— FOX 13 Seattle (@fox13seattle.bsky.social) February 15, 2026 at 6:00 AM

So, you still want to talk about how high wages always backfire. Well, what’s this in the Seattle Times? The pay ratio for Starbucks CEO, Brian Niccol, is an astounding 1,749 to 1. Meaning–he earns $30,992,773, and the average worker earns $17,279. My god. The pressure to reduce wages to zero is way too real in 2026. Again, nothing but labor’s resistance to the true nature of capitalism prevents this catastrophe. If we do nothing, the zero law will be, to use the words of Marx, like “the law of gravity [that] asserts itself when a house falls about our ears.”

Let’s end AM with an ‘80s tune that compares love-enthrallment with the condition of a robot, the Pointer Sister’s “Automatic.”

Slog AM: Rev. Jesse Jackson Dies, Millionaires Tax Passes State Senate, Anderson Cooper Leaving 60 Minutes

Vivian McCall — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 09:03:00 -0800

The Stranger's Morning News Roundup. by Vivian McCall

Millionaires tax passes Senate: After a three hour debate, the 9.9 percent income tax on earnings over $1 million a year passed with a 27-22 vote. Three Democrats voted with Republicans. Lawmakers approved an amendment that repealed part of our sales tax, but didn’t approve a tax break on baby diapers.

Legalize It! “It” being smaller, cheaper elevators. The Washington State Senate approved a bill aimed at culling onerous standards that prevent elevators from being built at all. Sponsored by mushroom (and ibogaine) crusader Sen. Jesse Salomon, the bill will direct the state’s building code council to take on the issue next year.

Conviction in Anti-Trans Case: Andre Karlow is facing five to seven years in prison for beating a transgender woman in the University District last year. A jury found him guilty of a hate crime and second-degree assault. A group of men joined Karlow in the beating, but none have been identified. Six months earlier, Karlow was convicted of assaulting another trans woman, a Sound Transit fare ambassador, when she asked him for proof of payment.

Another Day, Another Boeing Suit Over Deadly Crash: Twenty families have sued the plane-maker over the South Korean Jeju Air Flight 7C 2216 crash, the country’s deadliest aviation disaster. The cases, representing 23 of the 179 people killed in the crash, all allege a bird strike just before landing, causing the electrical and hydraulics systems to fail. The families allege the company kept outdated safety systems on the aircraft to avoid costly redesigns and recertification processes, even though modern systems were safer.

Weather: There’s a chance of snow before 1 p.m., and a chance of rain after. If snow does fall, it’s not expected to stick. Our snow-they-won’t-they situation continues through Thursday night.

Rev. Jesse Jackson Dies: The civil rights leader, two-time presidential candidate, close ally of Dr. Martin Luther King, and unbelievably influential American was 84. In November, the Rev. Jackson was hospitalized to treat progressive supranuclear palsy, a rare neurodegenerative condition. He was somebody.

Seattle Judge Back in Action: City Attorney Erika Evans reversed her Republican predecessor’s order to routinely disqualify Seattle Municipal Court Judge Pooja Vaddadi from hearing criminal cases like DUIs and domestic violence charges. “I believe in litigating cases—not attempting to ban judges we do not like,” Evans said in a statement.

Tick-tick-tick-tick: Anderson Cooper is leaving CBS’ 60 Minutes after 20 years balancing the job with his other low-stakes gig at CNN. The gay dad of news said in a statement that he wanted to spend more time with his children. While he didn’t say he wanted to spend less time with CBS News’ Bari Weiss, it certainly looks that way. (In December, Weiss speciously held a 60 Minutes report on CECOT prison in El Salvador, bringing a ton of attention to the segment and herself.)

In other CBS News news, Late Show host Stephen Colbert says the network’s lawyers yanked his interview with Texas Senate candidate James Talarico before air on Monday evening to comply with the FCC regulation that requires stations to give “equal time” to political candidates and their rivals. News is exempt, and for the past 20 years, talk shows have been considered exempt, too. But the FCC chair Brendan Carr is rejecting that thinking. “Fake news” shows like Colbert’s shouldn’t count on the exemption. Anyway, Colbert’s show posted it on YouTube.

The Hated Haters: Wired has been monitoring a forum for current and prospective Homeland Security Investigations Officers where ICE Agents talk shit on other ICE agents.

Who Will Lie to Us Now? DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin is leaving the Trump administration, two DHS officials told Politico. McLaughlin did not immediately respond to their request for comment.

Guthrie Case Update: The 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie has been missing for more than two weeks without a suspect. The night she disappeared, a masked person wearing a handgun holster in surveillance video outside her home is shown wearing a backpack exclusively sold at WalMart. Investigators are working with the company to develop leads on this suspect. Guthrie’s family, including her daughter, “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie, are not suspects.

Slog AM: The Government’s Out of Money Again, Two Immigrants Were Released from Tacoma’s Detention Center, and Who Knows, We Might Get Some Snow

Hannah Murphy Winter — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 10:00:00 -0800

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Hannah Murphy Winter

Good Morning! It’s Presidents Day, which our president is celebrating with an AI-generated Time magazine cover and the quote: “I was the hunted, and now I’m the hunter.” This is probably what George Washington had in mind, right?

The Weather: We had our taste of False Spring, and now we’re back to winter for a bit. Highs in the 40s, lows right around freezing, and we might even get a little snow later in the week.

Some Good News: ICE released Wilmer Toledo-Martinez, a Vancouver, WA man who was mauled by an ICE dog in December, from the Northwest Detention Center. He still has to continue his immigration case, but he’s doing it from home with his wife (who is an American citizen) and three kids.

And He Wasn’t the Only One: Greggy Sorio, a Filipino immigrant who came to the US on a green card, had to lose a part of his foot to infection, bleed out of his rectum for a month, and lose a “dramatic” amount of weight before a judge demanded that he be released from the Northwest ICE Processing facility in Tacoma. Sorio is able to access real medical care now, but he’s still at risk of deportation.

Another Shutdown: In a Valentine’s gift to us all, the Department of Homeland Security technically ran out of funds on Saturday while Dems in Congress try to fight for some limitations on ICE’s funding. Unfortunately, ICE and Border Patrol will barely be affected. And nearly 85 percent of FEMA employees and 95 percent of TSA’s are expected to work without pay through the shutdown.

ICYMI: Last week was a really good week for local anti-ICE legislation. City Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck introduced a moratorium on new detention centers in Seattle, and the County and the Port are blocking immigration agents from using their non-private land. Next up: let’s talk about the CCTV and ALRP cameras.

Trump Bombs 39th Boat: On Saturday, the military bombed another supposed narco-trafficking boat in the Caribbean. This illegal 5-month campaign, theoretically to fight the drug trade, has killed 133 people. This bombing killed three.

Pity the Millionaires: According to the Seattle Times’s Danny Westneat this weekend, taxing the rich is generally a popular and successful proposition. We learned that last week when, it turns out, the tax meant to fund our Social Housing Developer brought in more than double what was projected in its first year. (As Mayor Katie Wilson put it, this city is “filthy rich.”) And we know that the Millionaire Tax currently scooching through the leg is wildly popular. But Dems in the state leg (and Jamie Pedersen, specifically) are still considering a rollback for our Estate Tax to avoid the myth of the Fleeing Rich People.

Sheriff Certification: Right now in our state law, elected sheriffs are required to get certified by the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission within a year of taking office. Seems reasonable, right? But right now, if they just… don’t do it, there’s nothing anyone can do about that. The state legislature introduced a bill that would oust sheriffs who aren’t certified. So naturally, Pierce County’s hyperconservative, transphobic Sheriff Keith Swank thinks it’s unfair.

A Headline From Popular Mechanics to Breakup the Doldrums Today: “Jesus Was a Psychedelic Mushroom, a Controversial Theory Suggests. Could It Reshape Christianity Forever?”

Olympic Breakdown: NBC spent the first half of the games talking about American figure skater Ilia “Quad God” Malinin as the new face of the sport and the inevitable gold medalist. And he is the only person who’s ever landed a quad axel in an international competition. But in his final skate in the competition, the 21-year-old fell twice, struggled to deliver any of the quad jumps he’s famous for, and ended up placing eighth in the competition. Watching reporters try to make him explain what happened within minutes of his walking off the ice was brutal, and he handled it with a lot of grace. He told the Athletic that he was feeling overwhelmed when he got onto the ice. “I just felt like all the just traumatic moments of my life really just started flooding my head,” he said. “And there’s just like so many negative thoughts that just flooded into there and I just did not handle them.” We’ll see him again in four years, and by then he’ll surely have figured out how to fight the yips.

The Curlers Are Fighting: Both the men’s and women’s Canadian curling teams were accused of cheating—both for getting too handsy with the stone after they released it. And if you’ve watched curling, you know it’s a very mild-mannered sport (they’ve got brooms for fuck’s sake), but the head of the Men’s curling team threw around enough “fucks” that news reports called the exchange NSFW.

Wanna watch some of the action for yourself? Our local Granite Curling Club is throwing watch parties all weekend.

They Don’t Make ’Em Like They Used to: Naturally, when Olympians medal, they fuckin’ party. And who would take their medal off?? But it turns out, someone cut some corners on this year’s medals, and they’re popping right off their ribbons while the athletes celebrate. “Don’t jump in them. I was jumping in excitement and it broke,” said women’s downhill ski gold medalist Breezy Johnson. “I’m sure somebody will fix it. It’s not crazy broken but a little broken.”

Fun Olympics Fact: There’s a move in ice dancing called a twizzle. You’re welcome.

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Slog AM: SPD's May Day USA Fuck Up, EPA Won't Regulate Greenhouse Gases Anymore, Michigan Town Must Slaughter Park Deer

Nathalie Graham — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 08:27:00 -0800

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Nathalie Graham

Protect and Serve? Last summer's May Day USA event, the right-wing Christian extremist event held in Cal Anderson, was a clusterfuck largely because of the Seattle Police Department's biases against the people of this city, a new report found. SPD apparently didn't see what the big deal was about holding an anti-LGBT rally in the park—they "weren't familiar with the neighborhood's history," according to PubliCola. They viewed May Day USA as a "church group" and the counterprotesters as "antifa." They entered the event with a "anticipatory defensiveness" toward the counterprotesters—who they started referring to as "transtifa" after hearing May Day USA security use the term. SPD—which is largely made up of people who do not live in Seattle—also shared information with May Day USA security. This big mess of bias and animosity toward the people SPD is supposed to protect caused an aggressive police response and 23 arrests of counterprotesters.

Impeached: The Federal Way City Council voted 4-3 to remove Martin Moore from his post as council president. Moore posted on his official Facebook page in support of the anti-ICE student walkouts. The rest of the council did not like this. Despite public commenters speaking largely in favor of Moore's actions at a meeting Tuesday, the council sided against him. He'll still stay on council, but he's lost his presidential role.

The Weather: Say goodbye to dry skies. The rain is back. In case you're wondering if we'll get any more wintery weather, the Seattle Times has the answer: There is no hope for Seattle snow this year.

Well, what about ICE? In his first executive order, King County Executive Girmay Zahilay banned Immigration and Customs Enforcement from doing anything on nonpublic county-owned land. This includes "parking lots, vacant lots, buildings, and garages and prevents them from being used for staging areas, processing or operations bases." The executive order won't stop ICE if those gooners have a judicial warrant. Zahilay's order also directs $2 million to immigrant communities for "emergency food, housing, and legal aid" and steers the King County Sheriff's Department to make a plan for dealing with ICE, including how to identify undercover agents and how to respond if ICE and the public get into conflict.

Hey, get off of there! A person in Spokane hitched a ride on an ambulance, clinging to the back of the emergency vehicle on eastbound Interstate 90. That's not the suggested way to get to the hospital.

The EPA Is Done Regulating Greenhouse Gases: Hahaha. We are so boned. On Thursday, Donald Trump repealed the bedrock scientific finding that greenhouse gases endanger human life, thus ending our government's capacity to legally control pollution. This sweeping move means the Environmental Protection Agency can no longer regulate emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases. It's a rejection of science and an absolutely dismal backslide as the US faces the realities of climate change: more intense storms, wildfires, droughts, and natural disasters. This, of course, is only good for "billionaire polluters," reports The Guardian.

"Jayapal Pramila Search History": Attorney General Pam Bondi had a piece of paper titled "Jayapal Pramila Search History" detailing the un-redacted Epstein files Washington state Rep. Pramila Jayapal accessed in her review of the documents. This outraged House members since it showcased the Department of Justice's alleged betrayal of the separation of powers. The DOJ confirmed it is keeping tabs on what searches lawmakers are doing in the disgusting pit that is the trove of Epstein files."It is an outrage that [the justice department] is tracking members’ investigative steps,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin. He plans to open an inquiry into this "abuse of power."

Antitrust Dust Up: Gail Slater, the head of the Justice Department's antitrust unit, announced her resignation. This shake-up comes as the DOJ is set to deal with corporate mergers like the tug-of-war battle between Netflix and Paramount Skydance over ownership of Warner Bros. Discovery. Slater's deputy in the antitrust unit also left this week.

DHS Shutdown Imminent: With Democrats saying they won't approve more funding for DHS, funding for the department is expected to run out on Saturday. Democrats are holding out until Republicans agree to implement more stringent restrictions on ICE. Agencies under DHS like ICE and TSA could be affected. Will the Gestappo work for free?

Honoring the Dead Is Politics: Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych was disqualified from the Winter Olympics because he insisted on wearing a helmet honoring the athletes killed during Russia's war in Ukraine. His tribute apparently violated the Olympics' athlete expression guidelines. "I believe I am right in this case," Heraskevych told NBC News. "For me to back down is betraying [the people pictured on the helmet]."

Ukrainian skeleton slider withdrawn from Olympics after insisting on wearing helmet honoring dead athletes killed in Ukraine https://cnn.it/3ZtrjXN

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— CNN (@cnn.com) February 12, 2026 at 12:47 AM

Blood Moon on the Rise: A big, red Blood Moon—which is not just a fun way of saying having your period—will gush all over Washington night skies on March 3.

Oh Deer: The Michigan town of Iron Mountain has a deer problem. One of its parks has had a deer enclosure for 75 years. This is an odd choice since wild deer are prevalent. It's not like these people are lacking access to deer. Anyway, the enclosure is in dire need of upgrades. Like, $22,000 in one-time fixes and $16,000 in annual upkeep. The city council voted to close the pen. But, what to do with the deer? They are inbred, stupid, and diseased. They cannot be freed. So, they must be shot and killed. The people do not like this. Can't they save the deer? Probably not.

Good for Them: The Winter Olympic village ran out of condoms in three days. More are on the way.

A Long Read for Your Friday: You liked that Atlantic deep dive on Attorney General Pam Bondi? Then you'll love this Wall Street Journal story about what craven ghouls Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and her advisor Corey Lewandowski are. A tidbit: Noem fired a US Coast Guard pilot after he left her blanket on a plane, but reinstated him when she realized there was no one else to fly her home. Plus, Lewandowski has been really trying to get someone to issue him a gun.

Happy Almost Valentine's Day: Here is a date idea. If you're looking for gifts, or a gesture, I recommend heading to Salmonberry Goods Green Grocer in Crown Heights and buying some of their handmade Valentine's Day pastries. Also, buy a bouquet while you're there.

A Song for All You Lovers:

Slog AM: ICE Out of MN, Seattle Hosts Big-Ass Parade, Bondi Snubs Epstein Survivors

Micah Yip — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 09:20:00 -0800

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Micah Yip

Thank Fuck: After two months of federal officers terrorizing, brutalizing, arresting, and killing people in Minneapolis, the Trump administration will end its “largest immigration enforcement operation ever,” border czar Tom Homan announced today. Homan touted the whole operation as a win that leaves Minnesota safer, “less of a sanctuary state for criminals.” A win? After two months of arresting more than 4,000 people, killing Alex Pretti and Renee Good, causing mass protests? The surge leaves Minnesota shaken, not safer. And though that operation is ending, immigration enforcement will continue, Homan pledged.

A Big-Ass Parade: I don’t give a fuck about football. But I have to say, the Seahawks’ massive party downtown yesterday sounded pretty sick. The team was paraded down Fourth Avenue in big military transport trucks, starting near Lumen Field and ending near the Space Needle, as an estimated 750,000 to 1 million cheered them on. People of all ages came from all over the state, with some claiming spots on the street the night before.

We Posted Some Rad Photos on Our Instagram Yesterday: Check ‘em out.

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DwTF (Down With the Fence): Remember when the city fenced off Seven Hills Park in September due to homeless encampments? That park will finally reopen on February 26, park department officials said at a community meeting Tuesday night. There are plans for a new sign, “human and hound fitness installations” (which sound suspiciously furry-coded), and a little facelift, fixing infrastructure and trimming trees. Why they couldn’t do that while keeping the space open is a mystery. It’s not like the fence kept people out, meeting attendees said.

Gallup Gallops Away: From tracking presidential approval ratings, that is. Gallup announced yesterday that after 88 years, it will no longer measure presidential approval. The switch comes as President Donald Trump continues throwing temper tantrums over any media outlet/poll/person/anything that’s less than fawning, reality be damned (Trump’s Gallup approval rating fell to 36 percent in December). Still, Gallup insisted its decision was “solely based on Gallup’s research goals and priorities.” It sucks though — the Gallup Presidential Approval Rating is one of the most cited measurements of public opinion on presidents since Harry Truman was in office, The Guardian reported.

Gallup Has Scaled Back for Trump Before: In 2017, Gallup went from daily to weekly presidential approval tracking. A year later, they went down to monthly.

If you saw today's headline that Gallup will stop measuring presidential approval, they did the same thing in 2018. They do it whenever Trump is president.

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— Brandon Friedman (@brandonfriedman.bsky.social) February 11, 2026 at 11:27 AM

Two Actors Died: James Van Der Beek, known for his roles in Dawson’s Creek and Varsity Blues, died yesterday morning after battling stage 3 colorectal cancer. He was 48. Bud Cort, known for starring in Harold and Maude, also died yesterday after a long illness. He was 77.

Weather: Mostly cloudy with a high of 53. The sun will slowly break through as the day progresses. Tonight, temps will drop to a low of 43. There’s a 30 percent chance of rain.

Pam Bondi’s Testimony: Attorney General Pam Bondi hurled insults and dodged questions at yesterday’s House Judiciary hearing on her mishandling of the Epstein files. The stand out moment was when Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal asked Epstein’s victims in the audience to stand and raise their hands if they had not been able to get an appointment with the DOJ. All of them did.

This photo of Attorney General Pam Bondi looking down after the Epstein survivors in the room were asked to raise their hands if the current Justice Department has failed to speak with them is some fine photojournalism.

AP Photo by Tom Brenner.

Story: www.mississippifreepress.org/bondi-clashe...

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— Ashton Pittman (@ashtonpittman.bsky.social) February 12, 2026 at 8:11 AM

What I Learned About Bondi from The Atlantic’s New Article: (1) Earlier in life, she was allegedly once so kindhearted she earned the nickname “Pambi,” like “Bambi.” (2) Foreshadowing her transformation from Pambi to MAGA ghoul, she once refused to return a dog she adopted to its rightful family, even after the four-year-old grandson begged her to. She instead hired a lawyer and accused the family of abusing the dog. (3) She has called reporters crying and begging them not to publish stories about her. There’s a lot more you should read.

This is some genuinely psycho shit...

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— brian pillion (@anaphoristand.bsky.social) February 11, 2026 at 12:02 PM

Amtrak Death: An Amtrak train on route from Portland to Seattle struck and killed a person south of Tukwila at about 9 p.m. Wednesday evening. Nobody on the train was injured.

Jaahnavi Kandula: The city will pay a $29 million settlement to the family of Jaahnavi Kandula, the 23-year-old graduate student from India struck and killed by a speeding Seattle officer Kevin Dave at a South Lake Union crosswalk in 2023. Dave was going 50 miles over the speed limit. He was cited for negligent driving, paid a $5,000 fine, and subsequently fired from the department, but was never criminally charged. The Seattle Times has the story.

False Alarm: Or should I say “False Package”? Yesterday, the 1 Line’s Lynnwood City Center Station closed around 5 p.m. while authorities responded to a report of a “suspicious package.” Riders were asked to leave the station and the King County Sheriff’s Office dispatched its K-9 bomb detection unit to the scene. But they didn’t find anything, and the station reopened about an hour later.

To the woman I saw belting “Pink Pony Club” on a Lime scooter late Sunday night in Capitol Hill, this one’s for you:

Slog AM: Ten are Dead After Mass Shooting in Canada, the Trump Administration Can’t Make Up Its Mind About the El Paso Airport, and It’s Super Bowl Parade Day in Seattle

Megan Seling — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 10:01:00 -0800

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Megan Seling

Today, Seattle Celebrates: It’s parade day for the Seattle Seahawks, who defeated the New England Patriots 29–13 in Sunday’s Bad Bunny Bowl. The morning begins with a trophy ceremony at Lumen Field at 10 a.m., and the parade will start at Fourth Avenue and Washington Street at 11 a.m. Officials say it should take approximately two hours for the parade to make its way down Fourth Avenue to Cedar Street. SPD is expecting about a million people, and they started closing roads at 6:30 a.m. It’s gonna be nuts. Either rush down there now and embrace madness, or avoid the area completely. There is no in between. Just stay off the pergola!

Mass Shooting in Canada: Ten people are dead, and more than 25 are wounded after a shooting at a small school in northern British Columbia. Police say the alleged shooter died by suicide. Two of the victims were found at a home believed to be connected to the incident. It’s the deadliest mass shooting in Canada since a shooter killed 13 people in Nova Scotia in 2020, and, as AP reports, “Canada’s government has responded to previous mass shootings with gun control measures, including a recently broadened ban on all guns it considers assault weapons.”

Meanwhile, in America: According to massshootingtracker.site, which is a real website, there have already been 45 mass shootings in the US this year (we’re on day 42), with a total of 62 people killed and 137 wounded. Your thoughts and prayers are bullshit.

Trump Administration Shuts Down El Paso Airport: Or not. Hard to say! On Tuesday night, Real World Boston star and the Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy claimed Mexican cartel drones breached US airspace, so he grounded all flights for 10 days. This morning, though, the Federal Aviation Administration rescinded that order and said the shutdown was “prompted by the Defense Department’s use of new counter-drone technology.” America: We’re doing a great job!

Tax the Rich! Hundreds of union members rallied at the Capitol in Olympia yesterday to demand that local lawmakers pass the millionaires tax, which “calls for a 9.9% tax on Washington residents making more than $1 million a year beginning in 2028.” Why wait until 2028? Tax those fuckers now, I say! Unfortunately, I am not in charge. Our own Nathalie Graham will have more about this Senate bill later at the stranger dot com. Stay tuned.

In Other Lawmaker News: Gov. Bob Ferguson is working with state lawmakers to add "mental health safeguards to AI chatbots.” The policy would “require companion chatbots to notify users they are interacting with AI and not a human at the beginning of the interaction and every three hours,” according to the Seattle Times. But why just every three hours? Make the robots say it every 30 minutes! Every three minutes, even! In fact, melt the robots! Burn OpenAI to the ground! Hack the planet! I have had too much coffee!

If You’re Wondering Why People Turn to Robots for Help: It’s because our city (our state, our country, our world) is terrible at offering people meaningful mental health support when they reach out for help, and a new report on King County’s lack of mental health referrals proves it. The King County sheriff’s 911 center has zero standard procedures to help people in crisis, and apparently don't refer them to the 988 suicide hotline either. Instead, they just send officers and hope it works out?

Strange Case Gets Stranger: Last night, police announced that they detained a person of interest in Rio Rico, Arizona, in connection with Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance. This morning, that person was released. Nancy, the 84-year-old mother of Today host Savannah Guthrie, has been missing for more than a week, and for several days, Savannah and her siblings have been releasing videos to Nancy’s believed captors, who allegedly asked for $6 million in Bitcoin.

And Stranger Still: Kash Patel and the Go Get ‘Em Kids released video footage yesterday of a masked person captured on a doorbell camera outside Nancy Guthrie’s home on the same night she went missing. According to one expert CNN interviewed, this person’s behavior is “impressive,” and they clearly did a “certain amount of planning.” What? Are we watching the same video? Dude looks like a bumbling idiot, rolling up to the house with a gun holstered directly above his crotch like someone said, “Put this on,” and he was like, “Okay, yeah, because I have definitely worn a gun before. I will just point it directly at my dick.” Then, guy was so ill-prepared for the presence of a very common doorbell camera that he paused to grab some weeds from the garden and attempted to fashion them into some kind of curtain, all the while staring directly into the camera lens at close range. And you want me to believe this is the same brilliant criminal mind capable of kidnapping the 84-year-old mother of a high-profile journalist and leading the FBI on a nationwide goose chase for more than a week? Sure, Jan.

Speaking of Kidnappings: ICE is still at it! Locals in Minneapolis shared this scene after the fact.

This is the aftermath of an ICE kidnapping a few blocks from my home in St. Paul—an hour ago. A quiet street full of broken glass and at least three wrecked cars. The target of the kidnapping was taken away by ambulance. He was on a stretcher and covered by a sheet, though a cop said he was alive.

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— Andrew Karre (@andrewkarre.bsky.social) February 11, 2026 at 8:46 AM

In Local Film News: Yesterday, The Stranger reported that the Boeing IMAX theater (the biggest IMAX theater in the state) is expected to be sold to the Space Needle Corporation. The theater is closed for now for a “brief renovation focused on improving the concessions and arrival experiences, scheduled to end in May.”

And now, I leave you with some of my favorite things to happen at the Olympics so far:

🥌 Commentators constantly referring to the US mixed doubles curling teammates as Girl Cory and Boy Korey. (Congrats on the silver, buddies!)

🏒 The US women’s hockey team allowing their opponents exactly one goal in four games, including a 5–0 victory over Team Canada. Even better, it’s the Torrent players who are leading the team in points! Hilary Knight has two goals and three assists, Alex Carpenter has three goals and two assists, and Hannah Bilka has three goals and one assist. (Britta Curl has zero goals, which is what she deserves, because she’s a transphobic asshole.)

😭 Ilia Malinin skating to the sound of his own voice in the ultimate masturbatory figure skating performance, which I actually hated very much but had a lot of fun laughing at. Just some of the lines the 21-year-old recites during his program: “The only true wisdom / Is in knowing you know nothing.” “You are something / But not nothing.” lol ok quad god

Slog AM: Millionaire Tax Advances, Trump’s Consumer Protection Bureau Lost Us $19 Billion, EPA to Revoke Legal Basis of Clean Air Act Protections

Vivian McCall — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 09:09:00 -0800

The Stranger's Morning News Roundup by Vivian McCall

Senate Committee Passes Millionaire’s Tax: The 9.9 percent income tax on people making more than $1 million a year is moving forward with a tax break for small businesses. Businesses making $300,000 or less won’t have to pay a dime of the state’s business and occupation (B&O) tax, while those making below $600,000 will see limited relief. The state Senate could vote on the bill as early as next week.

Party Fouls: Police arrested several people after the Seahawks won the Superbowl Sunday night. For having a good time? No, for DUI, assault, and weapons violations.

Not the Olympic Marmot! Our local whistling rodent isn’t on the endangered species list yet, but the US Fish and Wildlife Service has determined a petition to list them warrants further review. As temperatures warm, trees are advancing up the mountain, destroying the alpine meadows they call home. There’s no place else for them to go.

Fortunately, climate change is not real. Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency will revoke the “endangerment finding” this week, an Obama-era policy that determined that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide threaten public health. The finding is the legal basis for nearly all regulations under the Clean Air Act.

At least we have our health? Roughly 19,000 fewer Washingtonians signed up for health insurance through the state’s online marketplace this year. The drop isn’t as bad as the state predicted (80,000), but decidedly not good either. The state’s Cascade Care Savings plan for people who make up to 250 percent of the federal poverty line helped mitigate the loss of federal subsidies this year, but it won’t last.

At least we have … capitalism? Trump’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has largely stopped protecting us, a decision that has cost Americans about $19 billion in the last year. The report says in the last year the CFPB has abandoned major consumer protections, stalled investigations, and dismissed lawsuits. Last year, Trump announced that he wanted to essentially pull the plug on the agency, reducing staff from 1,689 to 207, a move mercifully blocked in the courts.

Um, chat? Next month, default gamer messaging app Discord will automatically set user accounts to “teen-appropriate” experience, unless they can verify their age with a government ID or an AI face scan. This is the same company that exposed the government IDs of 70,000 users when a third party service it used for age verification was hacked.

Hostage Situation: Trump posted that he won’t open the Gordie Howe International Bridge between Detroit and Winsor, Canada until Canada has “fully compensated” the US for “everything we have given them.” “With all we have given them, we should own, perhaps, at least half of this asset.” Trump also said that if Canada made a trade deal with China, “the first thing China will do is terminate ALL Ice Hockey being played in Canada, and permanently eliminate The Stanley Cup.” What?

Rare W: The Republican Governor of New Hampshire vetoed her party’s anti-trans bathroom bill for a third time. Here’s the state’s motto: Live Free or Die.

ICYMI: If you miss rooting for the home team, you could watch Seattle drag queen Jane Don’t compete on Drag Race. Stranger contributor Mike Kohfeld has another RuPaul recap.

Phone … wallet … keys, and OH NO! A Louisiana National Guard soldier left his AR-15 in a hotel bathroom on Bourbon Street while on patrol in the French Quarter. “I kind of feel bad for him because that's one of the main rules of being in the Army I would think is you're always supposed to have your weapon in your hands and not in somebody else’s,” said French Quarter performer Nervous Dwayne.

I know nothing gets past you. But the less observant people in your life will appreciate this explainer of the political and cultural references in Bad Bunny’s Superbowl performance.

I believe many, many things get past this guy:

It literally had a heterosexual wedding, dude

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— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona.bsky.social) February 10, 2026 at 5:21 AM

Liar: Trump has maintained he knew nothing of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex crimes. But in 2006, he told the then-chief of the Palm Beach police department Micahel Reiter that Epstein’s “activities” with teenage girls were well known in New York and Palm Beach. “Thank goodness you’re stopping him, everyone has known he’s been doing this,” Reiter recalled Trump saying in a 2019 FBI interview released in the Epstein case files.

A song for Trump:

Slog AM: The Seahawks Won, Bad Bunny Won More, and Trump Had a Terrible, No Good Sunday

Hannah Murphy Winter — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 09:47:00 -0800

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Hannah Murphy Winter

The Seahawks Won Benito Bowl LX: They did it. On Sunday, for the second time in the franchise’s 50-year history, Seattle won the Super Bowl. They beat the New England Patriots 29-13 and got to have their redemption arc after losing to the Pats in 2015. Get ready for the parade downtown on Wednesday! Not a football fan? Hometown pride not enough for you? Let me offer you this: Thanks to the Seahawks, Trump had a bad day on Sunday. He wanted the Pats to win so badly.

Benito Also Won the Benito Bowl: Thanks to Trump’s hissy fit about having a Spanish-language performer for the halftime show, Bad Bunny’s performance was always going to be political, and holy shit did he kill it. The entire performance was a love letter to Puerto Rico. The only English he spoke in the whole show was to say “God Bless America,” before listing all of the countries on the American continent. And when he appeared on stage with the Puerto Rican flag, it was the one with the light blue triangle—the independence flag. And on top of that, it was an impeccable performance. The set was a series of vignettes—including Benito giving a 5-year-old Latino boy his Grammy and an actual fucking wedding—and it was without a doubt the most lush, joyful performance I’ve seen on the Super Bowl stage. Watch it in full here.

Meanwhile, at the “All-American Halftime Show”: Because watching a Puerto Rican perform might make conservatives’ dicks fall off, TurningPointUSA hosted an “alternative” to the Super Bowl halftime show on YouTube. Apparently, about 2 million people streamed the pre-taped TPUSA fundraiser on YouTube, filling the live chat with American Flag emojis while Kid Rock, Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice, and Gabby Barrett performed. Pete Hegseth threw a football. And that’s about all that happened.

Ring Tries to Pup-Wash Surveillance: In their 30-second Super Bowl ad, Ring cameras highlighted “Search Party,” a way to trigger all of your neighbors’ cameras to look for a dog if it’s gone missing. Sweet, right? But the system could have just as easily been called “Manhunt.” As USA Today put it, it’s The Dark Night brought to life. “Indeed, the Ring camera technology that uses AI to track multiple cameras in a vicinity to locate a lost dog is basically the same function that Wayne used to hack people's cell phones to create a high-frequency generator receiver to pin down the location for Gotham City's Clown Prince of Crime.”

Weather: Looks like the weather gods are smiling upon the Super Bowl parade. We’ll likely have some rain today, but Tuesday through Thursday should be sunny and in the 50s.

Got a spare $5 mil? Bill Gates isn’t selling Xanadu 2.0 (his megamansion) in Medina, but he is shedding one of his bonus houses around it. For a man worth more than $100 billion, selling a multi-million-dollar house is sort of like selling books to a used book store for the rest of us. For the low, low price of $4.8 million, you can be Bill Gates’s neighbor. But considering how many times his name has shown up in the Epstein files (namely for trying to sneak STI medication to his wife after he caught something from “Russian girls”), that might be bringing the price down a couple mil.

Speaking of Epstein and Microsoft Execs: It looks like Nathan Myhrvold, the chief tech officer for Microsoft from 1986 to 2000, did some time on Jeffrey’s island. He also emailed Epstein about how hard it is to “FedEx pussy,” and Epstein offered to “leave” a girl for Myhrvold at his lab.

The DOJ’s Hiring: But no one wants the job. Chad Mizelle, a former chief of staff to US Attorney General Pam Bondi, posted on the porn site formerly known as Twitter that “if you are a lawyer, are interested in being an AUSA, and support President Trump and anti-crime agenda,” you should slide into his DMs. Once a coveted position for lawyers around the country, the application questionnaires now include questions like: “How would you help advance the president’s executive orders and policy priorities in this role?” And prioritizing loyalists has meant that they’re hiring shittier lawyers. I’m sure Nick Brown doesn’t mind.

Here's that Ring #SuperBowl commercial: pic.twitter.com/1gAxIJATdz
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) February 9, 2026

Two Million Souls: According to a recent study, after almost four years of fighting, the death toll in the Ukraine War is nearing 2 million. Two-thirds of those deaths are Russian, who lost about 35,000 troops a month in 2025.

Here’s a Dystopian Headline for You: “Chatbots Make Terrible Doctors, Study Finds.” Apparently, ChatGPT and other LLMs could theoretically get into medical school, but diagnosing real humans is a whole other matter. Sometimes the chatbots generated information that was just wrong—fixating on elements of the patient’s descriptions that were irrelevant, providing a partial US phone number, or telling them to call the Australian emergency number. “In an extreme case, two users sent very similar messages describing symptoms of a subarachnoid hemorrhage but were given opposite advice,” the study’s authors wrote. “One user was told to lie down in a dark room, and the other user was given the correct recommendation to seek emergency care.” I know insurance is hell, but go to the doctor.

Biiiiig Hug: It’s been an unusually warm winter, even in Spokane, so when a deer was spotted stranded on the ice on top of Loon Lake, it was never going to be an easy rescue. Firefighter Gavin Gallagher scooched out to the center of the ice, lassoed her neck, and bearhugged her to keep her secure while the folks on land reeled them in. Rudely, she didn’t say thank you. “She ran off as, as expected,” one of the rescuers said, “to do deer things.”

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News We Didn’t Know We Needed: 404 Media published a roundup of studies about sex in space. Key lesson: Don’t make babies in space.

Because there’s no such thing as too much Bad Bunny today:

Slog AM: Oregon's Attorney Crisis, Gov. Bob Ferguson Meets with NBA, Olympic Penis Acid Scandal?

Nathalie Graham — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 09:30:00 -0800

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Nathalie Graham

Tacoma Detention Facility Sued: Three Black men detained at Northwest ICE Processing Center are suing the facility's owner, GEO Group. They claim guards "engaged in sexual assault, violent beatings and retaliation" and that the Tacoma Police Department deferred abuse complaints to GEO Group, allowing the company to investigate itself, according to KING5. A 2025 report from the University of Washington's Center for Human Rights affirms the claims about TPD. According to that data, out of 150 reports of abuse at the facility, only two led to prosecutions. But in both cases, the alleged victims were GEO group employees.

Waterfall for Sale, Heftily Used: The owner of Oregon's iconic Abiqua Falls plans to auction it off . A private buyer could restrict public use of the waterfall and that state isn’t in the market for more land.

Public defenders needed: Oregon is so short on public defenders that 1,400 criminal cases may need to be dismissed, ruled the Oregon Supreme Court. The accused simply have no one to represent them. Should the state scrounge up the lawyers, the dismissed cases could be refiled.

A Date with Destiny: Gov. Bob Ferguson had an "introductory Zoom meeting” with NBA commissioner Adam Silver yesterday. Could the Sonics be coming home? The Zoom took place almost exactly a year after Bruce Harrell did that stupid fucking basketball gag where he proved he did not achieve the one thing tacked onto his vision board: bringing the Sonics back. Well, that, and we aren’t One Seattle yet.

Speaking of Sports: There's a big game this weekend. The Seattle Seahawks vs. the New England Patriots. A re-do of that dreaded 2015 showdown. We just need to figure one thing out: Who's bringing the dip to the Super Bowl party?

Athletes Abound: It's Winter Olympics time, baby. Time to remember how much you love to watch ice dancing. The opening ceremonies are today! If you watch them live on Peacock, that'll be at 11am PST. You can watch the official NBC broadcast on delay at 5pm.

Dicking Around: Size doesn't matter... unless you're an Olympic ski jumper. One way to get ahead in the sport is to have a bigger dong. It’s science: If you're toting a larger package, you get a larger suit. With a bigger suit, there's less drag and more lift. There’s no hard evidence yet, but supposedly to juice their suit sizes, some ski jumpers have been injecting hyaluronic acid into their junk. The World Anti-Doping Agency says this is not allowed. They're firm on this and are investigating.

Times article has an incredible illustration

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— honeybakedsam.bsky.social (@honeybakedsam.bsky.social) February 5, 2026 at 11:45 AM

Hey, That's Good: King County reported a 35 percent decline in shots fired incidents between 2024 and 2025. We also saw a 22 percent reduction in shooting deaths—58 people died and 177 survived.

You'll really be saying "wow" after you hear who's running for Congress in Texas. It's Vince "ShamWow" Shlomi, the infomercial star who hawked super absorbent pads to handle spills and messes. Now, he's got his eye on "soaking up the swamp." Don't get it twisted, Shlomi is an anti-woke warrior whose slogan is "Make America Grow Some Balls Again." His campaign promises to "slap chop the nuts out of the 'woke,' making less blue-haired commies and more red-blooded Americans." I miss Billy Mayes.

DHS Shutdown Nears: Congress’ stopgap deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security lapses on February 14. So they’ll have to do what they do worst: reach another deal. Democrats, who are still busy putting up missing posters for their spinal cords, have said they refuse to authorize more spending toward DHS without new regulations on the agency. You’d think immigration agents killing Renee Good and Alex Pretti would’ve been a step too far. Republicans have already rejected demands to ban ICE agents from wearing masks, to have them display identification, and to have them obtain warrants before they arrest people. All bottom of the barrel stuff.

Heavy is the head that wears the sad ugly crown: The Louvre thieves dropped Empress Eugénie of France’s crown as they made their escape last fall. It got all fucked up. Now, the Louvre is looking for someone to restore it to its former glory. Napoleon III, who commissioned the crown for his wife, would be so sad.

The crown of Empress Eugénie was one of nine invaluable royal ornaments snatched by burglars during the Louvre heist in October, but the thieves dropped it on the sidewalk before making their escape. The Louvre announced it will soon invite restorers to submit proposals for the crown’s repair.

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— The New York Times (@nytimes.com) February 5, 2026 at 2:50 PM

92-year-old Driver Kills Three People in LA: A 92-year-old driver hit a cyclist and then crashed into the front of 99 Ranch Market in Westwood, trapping people under her car. Three people died. All of them had been in the store's bakery section. Two people were taken to the hospital. Four sustained less serious injury.

Weird: Nancy Guthrie, mom to Today Show anchor Savannah Guthrie, was likely kidnapped last weekend. As of Thursday, authorities have no leads. They found blood on Guthrie’s porch, but a DNA test found it was hers. Guthrie is 84, has a pacemaker, and could die without access to her heart medication. Authorities say they have verified a ransom note from the alleged kidnapper demanding the Guthrie family fork over money in exchange for Nancy's return.

Yoo-hoo, renters! Mayor Katie Wilson wants to hear from you to make your life better. Take the renter’s survey. The landlords are quaking in their big, home-owning boots.

The weather: Partly sunny with highs reaching toward 60.

Sounds good, right? Wrong. This mild winter has led to the third-thinnest snowpack in 40 years. For the last three years, Washington's less-than-ideal snowpack levels led to drought. Three years of drought was unprecedented, but, as the Seattle Times reports, we're headed toward a fourth. While there's still hope for more winter weather, climatologists aren't optimistic about where the current trends are heading. In other words, don't listen to that hack groundhog.

A song for your Friday: Some are calling Sunday the "Benito Bowl" because of the Bad Bunny half-time show (Benito is his real name). I have high hopes. Remember this banger?

Slog AM: Homan Pulls Out, Anti-Trans Hate Crime Trial, Harris Returns?

Micah Yip — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 09:55:00 -0800

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Micah Yip

Pullout Game Weak: Border Czar Tom Homan is withdrawing a quarter of the immigration officers in Minnesota in exchange for immigrants in the state’s jails. Roughly 2,000 agents and officers will continue to Surge the Metro.

Big Brother: The Washington State Senate passed a bill to regulate automated license plate readers yesterday. Cops use ALPRs like those made by the company Flock Safety to grab plate numbers from passing vehicles, data they sometimes share with feds hunting immigrants and abortion seekers. A University of Washington report last year found that at least eight local law enforcement agencies shared their ALPR data with Border Patrol. The House will take up the bill later this month.

The FloodGates Open: The latest Epstein drop included a curious email ol’ Jeff sent to himself about computer man Bill Gates. The email implied Gates contracted an STI from Epstein’s “Russian girls,” and had asked Epstein for antibiotics for his then wife Melinda French Gates, in case he passed it on to her. Gates denied this Wednesday. The day before, his now ex-wife French Gates told NPR the email stirred up “very, very painful times in [her] marriage.”

Shooting Victims Identified: We now know the names of the high schoolers shot and killed in South Seattle last Friday: Traveiah Houfmuse, 17, and Malik Stewart, 18. Police haven’t made any arrests. Houfmuse and Stewart were shot standing at a bus stop near South Shore K-8 and Rainier Beach High School.

Hate Crime Trial: Andre Karlow is in court for allegedly beating a trans woman in the University District last March with a group of other men, bruising the victim and breaking her teeth. Another trans woman Karlow attacked while at her Sound Transit job in 2024 will testify against him today.

This Group Beatings Was Part of a Pattern: As Vivian reported last year, the Seattle area saw a spate of men in groups viciously attacking trans women. The county’s bias crimes prosecutor told Vivian at the time: “I don’t have any other category, I don’t have any other protected status, I don’t have any other marginalized group that is being attacked in this pattern, in this egregious way where a group joins in.”

Weather: The day started very Twilight, but the lifting fog has shifted the vibe to a sunny 10 Things I Hate About You, with a high near 60.

Kamala Harris Faked Me Out: Former Vice President Kamala Harris posted this cryptic clip yesterday:

pic.twitter.com/SuJgYZ64XV
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) February 4, 2026

I thought she was going to announce her campaign for California governor or something. I was wrong. Under the updated handle, a new video of Harris was posted, where she announced the account will now be a “new Gen-Z led progressive content hub.” …That’s it? Harris flubs the election, disappears for a year, and comes back with new social handles and “content”?

Welcome to Headquarters, the new Gen-Z led progressive content hub. pic.twitter.com/7EQyz3DFpd
— HQ (@headquarters_67) February 5, 2026

Oops: Washington’s decision to tax digital ads, IT, temp staffing, and live presentations is screwing over the K-12 schools that depend on them. Highline School District alone is facing a $500,000 loss tied to one special education staff contract. The Leg is working on a solution to either partially or fully exempt schools.

Can You People Do Anything?: The spineless Democrats backed off their promise to unmask ICE. At a press conference yesterday, House and Senate Minority Leaders Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer said agents could wear masks in "extraordinary and unusual circumstances.” What those are we do not know. They’ll lay out their formal demands today.

Annoying: Republicans in Olympia held a hate-filled “listening session” on the two conservative ballot initiatives to ban trans girls from school sports and hand over kids’ school counseling records in the name of parent’s rights. Those who spoke shared Republican-friendly, hateful views.

Florida Man Campaigns for Governor on Tinder: Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate James Fishback is “[meeting] young female voters where they are,” on Tinder. He claims to have matched with 2,000 potential voters before Tinder banned him, which was, of course, “ELECTION INTERFERENCE!”

I’ve joined @Tinder to meet young female voters where they are, and share my plan to make it easier for them to get married, buy a home, and raise a family. pic.twitter.com/9y2VgP7is2
— James Fishback (@j_fishback) February 2, 2026

Here’s Some Music:

Slog AM: Route 8 Needs More Than Just a Bus Lane, Trump Reduces Number of ICE Thugs in Minnesota, Layoffs at Washington Post Have Begun

Charles Mudede — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 09:30:00 -0800

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Charles Mudede

I’m not against Mayor Katie Wilson’s directive to place a bus lane on Denny Way to help Route 8 meet its schedule. But the deeper problem with that route is that its service area is too large: from Mount Baker all the way to Lower Queen Anne. So, the addition of a bus lane, though welcome, may prove to be inadequate. What’s also needed to make trips on Denny Way more dependable is an additional route that only runs between Lower Queen Anne and 15th Ave on Capitol Hill. This is the fact of the matter: The bulk of the riders who use Route 8 board in South Lake Union (the tech center) and exit around Broadway (where a lot of tech workers live). After those key points, the line is rarely crowded or faces bad traffic.

CHARLES MUDEDE

The weather? Not looking good, mate. Expect a fucking high of 60 (in early February!), a little wind here and there, and, if lucky, a few scattered clouds. It seems we hardly had a winter this time around, and the days are already getting longer, and the chances of snow are being tossed into a furnace like that sleigh in Citizen Kane.

Trump badly wants to shred to pieces an EPA report that was completed in 2009 and contained hard, scientific evidence of how “greenhouse gas emissions, including from vehicles and fossil fuel power plants, [negatively impact] public health and welfare.” What we must ask ourselves, however, is this: Can Trump’s ferocious determination to pollute our environment as much as possible be entirely reduced to the goal of increasing profits for fossil fuel capitalists? Or is there something more to it?

The key concept presented in a 2008 book, Malfeasance: Appropriation Through Pollution, by the late French philosopher Michel Serres, is this: Pollution is a form of ownership, a form of property. Structurally, this is one of the most original economic concepts conceived by a thinker who wasn't a Marxist. Quickly as possible: Serres asserted that pollution is a form of ownership because it's a form of power. Trump, for example, represents the capitalist’s right to pollute, the right to destroy trees, the right to make water undrinkable, to produce acid rain, to fill the sky with carbon. And so resistance to this less recognized form of property (“I can trash this, therefore it's mine”) also challenges the other and more conventional form: “I paid for this, therefore it's mine.”

CNN reports that the Washington Post, which is owned by Jeff Bezos, who paid $75 million for a worthless documentary about Melania Trump, laid off a third of its newsroom. The paper is dismantling much of the paper’s sports section, entirely gutting its books section, and reducing the size of its international coverage. What’s this about democracy dying in darkness? Look at the bright side: We still have Melania.

New: Washington Post Executive Editor Matt Murray and HR Chief Wayne Connell tell employees to stay home for a zoom webinar ahead of “significant actions across the company.” Widely expected layoffs are scheduled to begin today.

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— Ben Mullin (@benmullin.bsky.social) February 4, 2026 at 3:13 AM

Say It Ain’t So: Sir “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,” the late Robin Leach, is in the Epstein files. He is alleged to not only have participated in orgies from hell but strangled a girl to death. One thing is for sure, if you are rich and famous, then tentacular Epstein likely had one or two or three or four or more hands in your business. The amazing celebrities and billionaires will be those who somehow managed not to be sucked into this gigantic-sized black hole, which, for the elite, has a satanic island as its center or power. This cosmological metaphor is reinforced by the good number of world-famous physicists who were attracted to Epstein.

Into the Epstein black hole also goes one of my favorite Sesame Street sketches, “Lifestyle of the Big and Little.”

Trump plans to reduce the number of ICE thugs in Minnesota from around 3000 to around 2300. Tom Homan, the border czar, stated that the reduction is due in part to an agreement he struck with state and local officials. They will now turn over arrested immigrants to ICE. But the real reason for the deescalation is found in the fact that Trump thought Minneapolis would be a walk in the park. But instead it became a right mess: people blowing whistles all of the fucking time, people resisting on every level, thugs killing US citizens. Why didn’t these city people just roll over like regular Democrats?

Seattle

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— The Web Optimist (@weboptimist.bsky.social) February 3, 2026 at 10:17 AM

Speaking of Dems. The spending bill that ended a partial government shutdown yesterday, basically kicked the ICE can down the road. Dems and the White House now have two weeks to figure out the future of Trump’s private army. Will it be fully funded? Will it be somewhat defanged? We can be certain of one thing: it will not be abolished.

A friend who self-identifies as “dirty little rat, scurrying about looking for a community (and cheese),” has this to say to me and my city, Seattle: “Call the homies, they need you as much as you need them. Even unseen, we are all struggling and need each other. Full homo.”

Let’s conclude Slog AM with some cold dub tech by Iceland’s Yagya:

Slog AM: ICE Body Cams, Washington’s Millionaire Tax, Good Seattle Movie Theater News

Vivian McCall — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 09:26:00 -0800

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Vivian McCall

ICE Cams: In an attempt to save her head, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced that DHS will strap a body camera to every federal agent in Minneapolis, and expand that program nationwide when “funding becomes available.” President Donald Trump is in favor. “They generally tend to be good for law enforcement because people can’t lie about what’s happening,” said the President, who has consistently lied about what’s happening, at a Monday news conference.

This isn’t much of a reform. It’s a new camera angle. These immigration agents are being filmed constantly, and clear footage of Jesus Ochoa and Raymundo Gutierrez shooting Alex Pretti 10 times didn’t stop the government from lying about his killing. Hell, Jonathan Ross was filming when he shot Renee Good in the face. For all the administration’s supposed “concessions” in Minneapolis, ICE is still wilding out in the streets.

The admin is also wilding out in the courtroom. As the Minnesota Star Tribune and Mother Jones have both reported, federal prosecutors in Minnesota are “demoralized” and “pissed” that their DOJ handlers have asked them to charge anti-ICE protesters without appropriate evidence, so they’re quitting in droves. According to the Star Tribune, eight more prosecutors quit the US Attorney’s Office yesterday. Will the last prosecutor please turn off the lights?

This morning, the House will try to pass a deal to end the government shutdown. The bill would fund important stuff —defense, healthcare, labor, education, housing—and temporarily extend DHS funding while legislators negotiate changes to immigration enforcement. Far-right Republicans are threatening to tank the bill unless they tuck in new voter ID laws.

School’s Out for ICE: Hundreds of high school students in Highline and Renton School Districts walked out of school Monday morning to protest ICE. Highline senior Andre Gordon, the 17-year-old son of immigrants, told the Seattle Times: “We shouldn’t have to be scared to live in our own country. We shouldn’t have to do this.”

The millionaire tax has been revealed. The proposal would impose a 9.9% income tax on people earning more than $1 million a year (an estimated 20,000 households statewide) and eliminate a sales tax on personal hygiene products. Wow, somewhat: This tax on the wealthy will be offset with cuts to the business taxes the Legislature passed last year. Most of the $3 billion in annual revenue would go to the state general fund and pay for things like education and healthcare. Dems are going to hold a press conference today. There’ll be a public hearing Thursday. Tim Eyman’s squires are armoring him as you read.

Weather: Patchy morning fog followed by a pleasantly cool high of 58, clouds and a light wind. The clouds will stick around through Wednesday and clear out for a sunny Thursday and Friday. Rain will kill the vibe Saturday and Sunday.

I have good news about a Seattle movie theatre? Shocking, I know. What was years ago the Ark Lodge, is now the Tasveer Film Center, a new Columbia City spot to catch artsy South Asian films. Two of the theatre’s four screens will open for public screenings next week. A third screen will open later, once Tasveer remedies some ambiguous technical issues. Tasveer bought the building last March for $2.85 million. It wouldn’t have been possible without the 4Culture Doors Open funding I wrote about in 2024.

If I were Mark Zuckerberg, I’d be pale and scared. For he’s stolen a VR fitness routine from muscular, middle-aged women.

Bob the Builder: A state bill backed by Gov. Bob Ferguson could force local governments to open dying strip malls and office parks for redevelopment as shiny, new mixed-use buildings.

Mamdani Opens Up: Mayor Wilson, the gauntlet has been thrown. Raise the portcullis; let the children play in the Great City Hall Pit.

It’s your city, from the sidewalk to the skyline. The David Dinkins Municipal Building’s rooftop is open & free to everyone, starting this June.

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— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@mayor.nyc.gov) February 2, 2026 at 12:25 PM

Jeb Bush’s proudest moment turned 10 yesterday: Please clap.

What if they had?

gazing longingly at the timeline where they clapped

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— Brendan O’Kane (@bokane.org) February 2, 2026 at 4:44 PM

Slog AM: Everyone Protested ICE This Weekend, Liam Ramos Is Home, and the Department of Homeland Security Is Afraid of Memes

Hannah Murphy Winter — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 09:43:00 -0800

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Hannah Murphy Winter

Good Morning and Happy Groundhog Day! Phil saw his shadow this morning, so the fates have promised us another six weeks of winter. Which makes sense. It’s February.

ICE Out: From New York to Kansas City to Portland to Seattle, everyone hit the streets this weekend. The marches came out of an amorphous social media call for a “general strike” on Friday, but after spending the entirety of January watching ICE brutalize Minnesota on the screens in our pockets, people needed to shout about it. In Seattle, we had a critical mass bike ride, and three separate rallies held by tech workers, healthcare workers, and educators. It all came together to mean thousands of people were in the streets telling ICE to fuck off.

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Best News All Week: Five-year-old Liam Ramos is home. After immigration agents took the Ecuadorian preschooler and his dad from Minneapolis more than a week ago and shipped them 1,300 miles to an ICE detention center in Texas, a judge ordered their release this weekend. His written decision is brief, scathing, and sassy. “The case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children,” US District Judge Fred Biery wrote. “Apparent also is the government's ignorance of an American historical document called the Declaration of Independence. Thirty-three-year-old Thomas Jefferson enumerated grievances against a would-be authoritarian king over our nascent nation…We the People are hearing echos of that history.” He then goes on to cite “that pesky inconvenience called the Fourth Amendment.” Read the full text below.

ProPublica Does the Government’s Job: For the last week, the government has protected the identities of the two agents who shot Alex Pretti 10 times while he was pinned on the ground. ProPublica’s editors said, in their much more diplomatic way, that that’s bullshit. According to the investigative outlet, which identified them based on government documents, the two men are Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raymundo Gutierrez. They are both from South Texas, and neither are new recruits—Ochoa joined in 2018 and Gutierrez in 2014.

A note from our editors:

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— ProPublica (@propublica.org) February 1, 2026 at 1:10 PM

Speaking of the Government’s Job: We’re back in a partial government shutdown. Dems finally refused to fund ICE, which means, as of this weekend, we’re working with the backup generators. On Friday, the Senate did pass a two-week patch to fund DHS and give Republicans time to offer an alternative that doesn’t fund Trump’s personal secret police, but its future in the House is uncertain. Fortunately, this shutdown won’t impact essential services like SNAP benefits, but this spending bill does include FEMA and TSA.

Trump Doesn’t Want You at His Arts Center Anyway: Nobody wants to perform at the Kennedy Center after Trump gutted its board and scribbled his name on the side of it, so he’s closing it down for two years for "renovations." He’s closing it on July 4, the country’s 250th birthday, presumably so he doesn’t have to remember another date. And he says he’ll make it “new and spectacular.” Tell that to the East Wing.

He Did Not Have Sexual Relations With That Plane Broker: Like every other filthy rich person you’ve ever heard of, the former Seahawks quarterback’s name cropped up in the Epstein files, apparently trying to buy one of his planes. Wilson hopped on the porn generator formerly known as Twitter to set the record straight: “NOPE!!! ABSOLUTELY NOT! Not TODAY satan!,” he wrote. “Some Random plane broker tried to sell me a plane. I had no idea whose plane and never bought the plane. Never talked nor Never met the man. Thank God!!!”

Beware the Memes! There’s a massive winter storm getting ready to wallop most of the US, which means most of our roadways are going to be covered in warning signs. But the DHS has asked FEMA to pretty please avoid the word “ice” in their warning, because they just can’t handle the memes. They’ve asked FEMA to use “freezing rain” instead. Snowflakes.

Would Ya Lookit That: The Grammys still happen in an autocracy. A lot happened at the award show last night, I think, but I really only want to talk about Chappell Roan’s nipples.

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In Non-Nipple Related News: Bad Bunny won Album of the Year last night for Debí Tirar Más Fotos, the first all-Spanish album to win the award. In front of a crowd full of musicians wearing “ICE OUT” pins, he was the first to actually say the thing out loud. “Before I say thanks to God, I’m going to say ICE out,” he said. “We’re not savage, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens. We are humans, and we are Americans.”

What’s it like outside? We’ve got soft weather today. Standard drizzle. Highs in the 50s. Lows in the mid 40s. Like Punxatawney Phil said, it’s still winter.

Bus Stop Shooting: Four Seattle schools are starting late this morning after two teenagers were killed at a Rainier Valley bus stop on Friday, right after school let out. The kids haven’t been identified by the coroner’s office yet, but about 100 friends and loved ones gathered at a vigil at the bus stop on Saturday. “He didn’t deserve this,” said one of the victims’s moms. “He was a great kid. He’s my only child, and he’s gone.” SPD thinks the shooting was targeted, and doesn’t believe that the community at large is in danger, but they have increased patrols in the area.

Evictions Are Up, Again: They’ve been climbing up consistently since the pandemic, and 2025 was no different. Both Washington State and King County recorded more evictions last year than they ever have before. Almost half of renters in Washington pay more than 30 percent of their income on rent, which means they’re often just one setback away from an eviction notice. And with the rise in corporate landlords, they’re less likely to negotiate with tenants who are behind on rent.

A Few Suggestions to Take That Edge Off: In San Francisco, if you make $230,000 or less, childcare is now free. And if you make up to $310,000, you still have access to a 50 percent subsidy. And in Massachusetts, Governor Maura Healy announced her plan to ban medical debt from being reported to credit agencies. Alright, Mayor Wilson, you’re up!

I’m not saying we made this happen, but…: In December’s complaints issue, The Stranger’s Nathalie Graham put her foot down. “Around the world, transit riders are waving their phones or gently tapping their credit cards to enter the glorious universe of a bus, a train, a ferry. In some parts of China, people pay for transit with their palms. Meanwhile, in Seattle, we are stuck in the past,” she wrote. Not anymore! The RapidRide G Line is soft-launching a Tap-to-Pay system on Monday. Riders can use debit cards, credit cards, or their phones to pay the $3 fare. The program should expand to the rest of the system by the end of the month, but don’t worry, your ORCA card won’t have to retire anytime soon. It’s still the system’s “preferred” payment method.

A Song for Your Monday: Sometimes you want your morning to sound like the beginning of a jolly adventure. Haruomi Hosono will always deliver on that.

Slog AM: Feds Arrest Don Lemon, Seattle to Pay $30 Million in CHOP Death, Who Is Going to See Melania?

Nathalie Graham — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 08:45:00 -0800

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Nathalie Graham

Don Lemon Arrested: Federal agents arrested journalist Don Lemon in Los Angeles on Thursday where he was covering the Grammy Awards. Lemon's crime? The feds believe Lemon was “connected” to the anti-immigration protest that disrupted a Minnesota church service because a pastor at the church has a little sidegig—leading the local ICE field office . The protest happened almost two weeks ago. A magistrate judge previously rejected the case brought against Lemon by the Department of Justice due to insufficient evidence. Lemon says he was simply doing journalism. The DOJ claims Lemon was trespassing and his presence at the church interruption "may have impeded... churchgoers’ constitutional rights to express their religion." Constitutional rights for me but not for thee, hm? Independent journalist Georgia Fort, who filmed the church demonstration, was also arrested. Aside from journalists, feds arrested two other people involved in the church demonstration. Cool First Amendment we've got here. Strong. Sound. Unbiased.

The Feds Showed Up at Fort’s Door:

Georgia Fort, an independent journalist and vice president of the Minnesota NABJ chapter, was also arrested by federal agents this morning

I was sent this video of agents at her door:

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— Phil Lewis (@phillewis.bsky.social) January 30, 2026 at 6:58 AM

$30 Million for CHOP Death: The City of Seattle must pay $30.5 million in damages to the father of Antonio Mays Jr., the teenager shot and killed inside 2020's autonomous Capitol Hill Organized Protest. A King County jury found the city was negligent in its response to Mays' shooting and that negligence caused his death.

Wilson Preps for ICE: Mayor Katie Wilson laid out several actions to get Seattle and its residents ready in the event of an ICE surge. Her orders include barring federal “civil immigration enforcement activities” on Seattle property, directing the Seattle Police Department to investigate and verify reports of ICE activity, doling out $4 million to immigrants support organizations, and creating a community hotline. She hasn't said anything about those pesky police CCTV cameras, though.

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The Weather: It's going to rain.

Measles, Shmeasles: That's the attitude some of you have about vaccinating your little gremlins. Snohomish County just reported three more measles cases, bringing the county's total cases this month to six. The most recent case involves an unvaccinated twerp who went to a church service while infected.

Congrats: Washington state now has a population of 8 million people. Between 2024 and 2025, the Evergreen State added more than 73,000 people—ranking our state sixth for population growth—and pushed us over that sweet, sweet, 8 million line.

Today's the Day We've All Been Waiting for: The Melania documentary is coming out! Amazon spent $40 million for the rights and then spent $35 million marketing the movie about Melania Trump in the days leading up to her husband's second inauguration. The director is Brett Ratner. This is his first film since he disappeared after six women accused him of sexual assault back in 2017. Disaster has already struck. The first screening of Melania in the United Kingdom was cancelled because distributors allegedly forgot to send the film. That's okay, people can just read the erotic parody Melania Devourer of Men which is currently topping Amazon charts.

Not Melania Fans? That aforementioned $35 million Amazon-funded ad campaign paid for a bunch of Melania posters at Los Angeles bus stops. The bus-going public in Tinseltown did not appreciate this. They scribbled Hitler mustaches on the Melania on the Melania poster, writing "Eva Braun" around her head, the name of Hitler's wife. Others gave their local Melania posters devil horns or left a note that the film's subject was in the Epstein files. Fearing more unsanctioned art by this city of artists, LA Metro, which has buses plastered in Melania ads as well, opted to relocate the buses to different routes away from hot graffiti zones.

Eva 'Melania' Braun

...being in a position to know and nevertheless shunning knowledge creates direct responsibility for the consequences...

- Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich -

Inglourious Basterds - The Verdikt
(Dopo La Condanna) Ennio Morricone 🎼

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— Nicky Schwenzer (@nickyschwenzer.bsky.social) January 29, 2026 at 2:07 AM

Boston, You Could Earn $50: Someone is supposedly paying people to see Melania in Boston. It's on Craigslist, so it's probably real.

Federal Reserve Gets New Dad: Donald Trump nominated former Federal Reserve governor and outspoken critic Kevin Warsh to run the whole thing. Warsh will replace Jerome Powell as the chair of the Fed. This could be good for Trump who was beefing with Powell who wouldn't cut rates. In the past, Warsh has echoed Trump's frustrations about the Fed's resistance to cutting interest rates. The financial tea leaves (the strength of the dollar) seemed to approve of Warsh.

No Death Penalty for Luigi: A federal judge ruled that prosecutors won't be able to seek the death penalty in their case against 27-year-old Luigi Mangione who is accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. The judge dismissed two counts against Magnione, “including murder through use of a firearm… and a weapons charge,” according to The Guardian. Mangione still faces two federal stalking charges and the possibility of life in prison without parole.

Can You Be Addicted to Hair Transplant Consultations? My child, you can be addicted to anything.

A Long Read: Remember when that army helicopter crashed into a passenger plane in D.C.? Here's what went down in that cockpit.

Waymo Hits Kid: A Waymo robotaxi struck a child near a Santa Monica, California elementary school. The kid is okay and only suffered minor injuries. Waymo has started a probe into the incident to see what went wrong. I have an idea: No one was driving the car.

Downhill Doozy: Olympics-bound skier Lindsay Vonn, 41, crashed in the final World Cup downhill in Crans-Montana, Switzerland due to bad conditions (snow everywhere). The decorated Olympian came out of the crash clutching her knee. She was airlifted from the slopes via helicopter. She is due to compete in the Milano Cortina Olympics that start next week. Crans-Montana has seen far worse this month.

A Song for Your Friday: You've probably heard this by now. The tradition of protest music lives on. Bruce Springsteen has carried that torch for decades. He cannot snuff it out yet.

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that a King County judge found the city negligent in the Antonio Mays trial. This was a jury trial, and a jury found the city negligent. We regret the error.

Slog AM: Liam Conejo Ramos is Sick, State Senators Vote to Lower BAC Limit, 12saquah Returns

Micah Yip — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 10:00:00 -0800

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Micah Yip

Liam Conejo Ramos, the five-year-old taken by ICE in Minneapolis, is sick behind bars, according to his school’s superintendent. Liam reportedly is vomiting, feverish, experiencing stomach pain, and doesn’t want to eat, his mother told the superintendent. All this is due to the abysmal conditions and bug-infested food at the South Texas Family Residential Center, where Liam is being held with his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias. The father and son entered the country legally.

Mask Off: Law enforcement officers in Washington state may soon have to show their faces while performing public duties. Yesterday, a bill banning face coverings for on-duty officers advanced out of the state Senate. The Democrat-backed substitute Senate Bill 5855 is meant to unmask masked federal agents in Washington state. Federal authority takes precedence over states. Enforcing the law could be difficult, possibly rendering it useless, reports the Seattle Times.

Want to Support Minneapolis Protests? These 30+ Seattle businesses are donating their proceeds to support restaurants in Minneapolis participating in a nationwide economic blackout tomorrow to protest ICE.

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Trump Insults Denmark, Part Infinity: On Tuesday, the U.S. Embassy in Denmark removed the 44 Danish flags placed in planters outside the building meant to honor 44 Danish soldiers killed in Afghanistan (about 9,500 Danish troops were sent to Afghanistan). Danish veterans placed them there after President Trump, fixated on taking control of the semiautonomous Danish territory of Greenland, said in a recent interview that the US “never needed” the country’s help. A State Department spokesperson claims there was no ill intent—just regular, post-demonstration maintenance.

Weather: It’s kinda rainy, pretty gray, about 50 degrees…what more is there to know?

Buzzed: The state might lower its legal blood alcohol concentration limit for Washington drivers from 0.08% to 0.05%. Yesterday, the state Senate passed SB5067—the result of a years-long effort by Democratic Senator John Lovick, a former state trooper and county sheriff. If the House passes the bill, Washington would lower the threshold on July 1. The only other state with such a low legal limit is Utah, but from a global perspective, 0.05% isn’t low at all. Last year, The Stranger conducted a semi-scientific experiment using alcohol and Mario Kart 64 to test the difference between the current limit and Lovick’s limit.

A vacant lot in West Seattle could become a “religious-controlled emergency transitional housing site.” A proposal submitted to the city on January 16 includes space for 20 tiny homes and parking for up to 72 recreational vehicles. The Low Income Housing Institute would operate the site. District 1 Councilmember Rob Saka says it’ll be a “common-sense solution to help bring people indoors.” A formal permit application needs to be filed before any actual change happens.

12saquah: That’s what Issaquah Mayor Mark Mullet has officially renamed the city 12saquah—a nod to “the 12s” nickname for Seahawks fans—to honor the Seahawks return to the Superbowl. Issaquah changed its name to 12saquah in 2015, the last time the Seahawks went to the Super Bowl.

The Broadview Six: The six protesters who blocked an ICE vehicle outside an immigration processing facility last fall were charged with federal conspiracy during Operation Midway Blitz, the massive ICE operation in Chicago. Yesterday, their attorneys argued to keep evidence in their case public, against prosecutors' proposed protective order that would limit access to discovery materials. The defense argued that growing national scrutiny of ICE warrants the materials to be public, and that secrecy makes little sense in a case centered on protest, policing and free speech. The judge ordered the Department of Homeland Security to preserve five days of surveillance footage from the Broadview ICE facility surrounding the protest. The case is headed to trial this spring.

Tech So Bad Even Techies Are Worried: Amazon has been dumping billions of dollars into its artificial intelligence infrastructure. Worker advocacy group Amazon Employees for Climate Justice issued an open letter to the company, saying employees are worried that the company’s push for energy-guzzling AI push is detrimental to its goal of reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2040. “The AI race is widening this gap,” read the letter.

This song has been stuck in my girlfriend’s head, which means it’s been stuck in my head, which means I must pass it on to you. Sorry or you’re welcome.

Slog AM: A Tacoma Children's Hospital Is Closing Their Gender Clinic, Amazon Is Closing Their Grocery Stores, and the Department of Homeland Security Will Investigate Their Own Shooting

Megan Seling — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 09:48:00 -0800

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Megan Seling

Good morning. It rained. That was nice. But the news is still terrible. So I’m going to try something a little different for today’s Slog AM. For every dose of bad news I deliver, I will also provide a bit of ✨good news✨. I simply cannot continue living in this waterfall of tragedy and chaos. It’s all about balance. Let’s begin.

DOJ to Investigate Themselves: Trump says there’s a “big investigation” underway for the shooting of Alex Pretti. But it’s not what you think. Unless you think Trump is a lying, immoral piece of shit. Then it’s exactly what you think. The Justice Department has decided they don’t need an independent civil rights investigation into the fatal shooting of Pretti. Instead, they’re gonna have the Department of Homeland Security investigate their own guys. Sounds totally fair and legit and not at all fucking corrupt as hell.

✨In the Land of Good News: In August, a cat named Filou escaped from a camper while his vacationing owners had stopped for fuel in Catalonia. Kitty, no! Patrick and Evelyne Sire searched for Filou for weeks and even involved the Spanish police, but they eventually had to return home to France, heartbroken. Then, weeks ago, five months after Filou went missing, a woman spotted an exhausted cat just 500 meters from the couple's home. It was Filou! Vox says, “She had traveled 250 kilometers on foot, crossing mountains, rivers and a state border between two countries to return home.” Look at her delightfully grumpy face. Quick! Sufjan Stevens, write an album about her journey!

Parce qu'on a besoin de belles histoires :

Perdu en Espagne, Filou le chat a parcouru 250km en 4 mois pour retrouver sa maison. Bravo Filou !

www.leparisien.fr/herault-34/q...

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— Chloé Woitier (@chloew.bsky.social) January 17, 2026 at 1:11 PM

Local Gender Clinic Shutting Down: Yesterday, the Seattle Times reported that Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital in Tacoma plans to shut down its gender clinic. In a memo to staff, hospital leaders explained that “recent developments at the federal level” threaten to halt Medicaid and Medicare payments if it continues to offer gender-affirming health services to minors. Stranger News Editor Vivian McCall reported in September that the clinic axed its waitlist and stopped providing medical care for new patients due to “changing federal expectations,” but said they would continue providing hormones and puberty blockers to trans kids already receiving them. The gender clinic's closure will leave 320 young people, more than half of whom are under 18, without care.

✨ Supporting Trans Youth Is Delicious: It’s Girl Scout cookie time! And if you’re looking for a cookie hook-up, independent journalist Erin Reed has a list of trans and non-binary Girl Scouts you can support here. They ship the snacks right to your door! I am eating a new “rocky road ice cream inspired” Exploremores as I type. It’s pretty good! The chocolate cookie is crispy and crumbly, almost like a shortbread, and the filling has a nice almond flavor. But the Samoas will always be my favorite. Fuck Trump, buy cookies!

This Is Normal, Right? The US is going to “conduct military exercises” in the Middle East in the coming days. Trump has told Iranian leaders that if they don’t stop killing protesters and come to the negotiating table, “the next attack will be far worse” than when the US blew up those Iranian nuclear facilities last year. According to CNN, 5,800 protestors have been killed so far and the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said an additional 17,091 deaths are still under review.

✨Something to Look Forward To: No, it doesn’t change the impending war and horror of thousands of dead protestors, but Lucy Daucus is playing some shows in the Pacific Northwest in May. She’ll be at Mount Baker Theatre in Bellingham on May 10 and Vancouver, BC on May 12. Is there anything more romantic than fleeing the country to sing-scream along to “Night Shift”? I think not.

Amazon Cuts 16,000 Jobs: The Seattle Times is calling it a “historic wave of layoffs.” The company cut 14,000 jobs in October, blaming a parfait of corporate buzzwords: “reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy” in their corporate structure. No word yet on how many of these cuts are employees in Seattle. In other news, Jeff Bezos has become the third-richest man in the world again, reclaiming the spot from Sergey Brin. Isn’t it so fun to watch those guys battle it out? Which one will violate labor laws and human rights in order to squeak out a billion more bucks? You never know with those wild 'n' crazy guys.

✨ Dicks for Dimes: To celebrate their 72nd anniversary, Dick’s Drive-In is hawking $0.19 burgers at select locations all week long. Today, you can grab a Dick for less than a quarter at the Queen Anne and Lake City locations. With his $250 billion, Bezos could buy 1.3 TRILLION BURGERS! Just kidding. One per customer, please.

Amazon’s Shutting Down Stores, Too: Amazon announced yesterday that it will close all Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh locations, including 11 stores in Seattle. Many stores will close as early as this Sunday, February 1. Some locations will eventually reopen as Whole Foods, but the company didn’t say how many. Charles Mudede called it in 2024. The closures will leave some serious grocery gaps in the city. The Amazon Fresh on 23rd Avenue, for example, built on the old Red Apple lot, is one of the only full-service grocery stores in the Central District. In semi-related news, it’s not just your imagination: Groceries are getting more expensive in Seattle at a concerning rate.

✨ Fresh Bucks Expands Programming: More than 4,500 households on the Fresh Bucks program waitlist have been enrolled in the program, and as of January 1, low-income households now get $60 a month (up from $40).

Government Shutdown Update: We’re days away from another partial government shutdown. Last week, the House passed the funding bill that would give more money to homeland security, including ICE and Customs and Border Protection. But that was before federal officers shot Alex Pretti, who was the second US citizen killed by federal officers in Minneapolis this month. Now, Dems are feeling even ickier about giving more money to ICE, and they’re demanding that the DHS funding be stripped from the bill. The Republicans are like, “No way, we don’t care that federal officers are gunning down Americans, it’s totally fine, we love it actually, more money plz.” If they don’t advance the measure by Friday, the shutdown will begin at 12:01 EST Saturday morning.

✨National Shutdown Update: Speaking of shutdowns, General Strike US is organizing a national shutdown on January 30. No work, no school, no shopping. If striking isn’t an option, consider calling the seven dum-dum Dems in the House who voted to push that Department of Homeland Security funding through. One of them is Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, from right here in Washington! WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK, MARIE?!

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When Rhetoric Becomes Reality: Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Somali immigrant who is constantly being verbally attacked by Trump on social media because racism was physically attacked during a town hall in Minneapolis yesterday when a man in the front row charged at her and sprayed her with a liquid that smelled like vinegar. A security guard tackled the man, and he was arrested. Officials haven’t said what the liquid was, and Omar continued the event, posting on social media later that she was fine and “this small agitator isn’t going to intimidate me from doing my work. I don’t let bullies win.” On Monday, Trump posted on Truth Social about Omar, accusing her of “deflecting from your failures with lies and conspiracy theories about me” and said that the Justice Department is “looking into” her for “fraud,” but really because—say it with me—racism.

✨Put Your Morals Where Your Mouth Is: Graham Granger, a performing arts student, was arrested for criminal mischief after eating an art exhibit at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The exhibit was a collection of 160 Polaroid pictures that artist Nick Dwyer created with the help of AI. Police say he destroyed about 57 images. Granger said he did it because “AI chews up and spits out art made by other people.” According to The Nation, a witness said “he was tearing them up and just shoving them in as fast as he could. Like when you see people in a hot-dog eating contest.” I don’t know if this truly counts as good news, but I find the whole debacle to be downright delightful.

Let the Record Show: On Monday, a judge ruled that the Seattle Police Department has “routinely” violated Washington’s Public Records Act by “grouping” public records requests and therefore unofficially limiting the number of requests a person or an outlet can submit at a time. According to Publicola, the SPD has been “refusing to work on more than one public disclosure request by the same requester at a time” for years, so last year the Seattle Times sued ‘em. Journalists suing cops is my love language.

Also My Love Language: Gwar covering “Pink Pony Club.” This video has brought me so much joy in recent days. What Gwar song will you cover, Chapell? May I suggest “Pussy Planet” from America Must Be Destroyed? Just an idea.

Slog AM: Bovino’s Boned, Government Union Pressures Noem and Miller to Resign, Scarecrow Video Buys Its Building

Vivian McCall — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 09:21:00 -0800

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Vivian McCall

Broken Cog Replaced: Two days after Alex Pretti was shot and killed in the street, Border Patrol “commander at large” Gregory Bovino was frogmarched from the proverbial building and demoted to his former post in California. He’ll soon retire. White House Border Czar Tom Homan will take Bovino’s place.

This is the Trump administration equivalent of sending someone to the gulag.

www.cnn.com/us/live-news...

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— hannah gais (@hannahgais.bsky.social) January 26, 2026 at 6:29 PM

Don’t Cream Yet: Bovino was nothing to Donald Trump or the brainchild of this operation, Stephen Miller. These abuses are sure to continue in Homan’s thumbfingered hands. And when the amoral immigration apparatus burns up Homan, another man will step up to be burned in his place.

Hope? The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE)—which represents both VA nurses like Pretti and Border Patrol officers—want Noem and Miller gone. “Our demand is clear: Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who was responsible for carrying out the policy that led to Alex’s needless killing, and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, the architect of that policy, must resign immediately,” the statement read. “If they refuse, President Trump must dismiss them.”

Meanwhile, in Maine: ICE watchers say federal agents are showing up at their homes to intimate them or threaten them with arrest. Apparently, the same thing is happening to observers in Minneapolis.

Trump Has Lost the Big Dick Community: From r/Military to cats subreddits, Reddit is ablaze with ICE-melting fervor. Vein-popping anger has even reached r/MassiveCock, an apolitical subreddit for penis pics. As user and dick poster tomatoe1987 told The Verge, “I hope at least a few people that pay attention to me see that you can be ‘manly’ and still have compassion for fellow human beings.” I have only one thing to say.

Sorry for Calling Redditors Cringe: In the last month, r/Minneapolis has become a critical source of information for residents and outsiders alike. As one user told Wired, “I just wanted a local subreddit to know what was happening in my city, and now all of a sudden, we’ve turned into this de facto hub of information for basically how to fight fascism.” When ICE comes here, post on r/Seattle, not r/SeattleWA. (r/Massivecock is also an option).

ICE Out: Last night, hundreds of protesters gathered at the federal building downtown to protest ICE and urge Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell to vote against a key funding package for the Department of Homeland Security that includes $100 million for ICE. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer says Dems won’t provide the necessary votes, but predictably, he had no specific demands for the bill, saying only that it needed to be rewritten.

Nurses’ Honor: Standing quiet in “frigid air Monday evening, many in their scrubs, surgical masks, and caps,” nurses at Harborview held a vigil for Pretti on a grassy spot a few feet from the hospital’s entrance, reported KUOW.

Unlike its planes, Boeing is no longer falling apart. The company saw a $2 billion profit last year thanks to a fourth quarter recovery driven by sales of its flight navigation unit Jeppesen.

Almost Intelligent: The State Legislature is considering 14 bills to regulate AI, including statewide rules for student privacy protections, a bill requiring chatbots to remind users they are chatbots, and a challenge to AI-driven retail surge pricing. More from the Urbanist here.

I’ll Believe It When I See It: Gov. Bob Ferguson and Attorney General Nick Brown said at a Monday press conference that they’ll take legal action against Trump and individual ICE agents if federal agents violate the rights of Washingtonians. I’d love to be wrong, but I have zero confidence Democrats will do what they say they’ll do until they actually do it.

Something Sweet: Scarecrow Video bought its building in the University District. Equity, baby! According to county records, Scarecrow purchased the building for $5.5 million dollars last month, a bag filled by personal loans from more than two dozen diehard supporters. “In an era when cultural spaces are routinely priced out of the cities they help to define, Scarecrow’s acquisition represents long-term stability, preservation and renewed possibility,” Scarecrow said in a statement.

Also Sweet: The Vera Project told The Stranger it's opening a new all-ages venue in Georgetown. Their goal is to raise $2.5 million dollars by early 2027, when the yet-to-be-named venue is set to open. And they're well on their way—they've already raised more than half of it. Dave Segal has more here.

See BS News: After several months’ hard work besmirching the network’s good name, CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss held an all-staff meeting to announce that she’s cutting news staff and hiring 18 paid commentators. At this rate, the remaining alienated staff will need Whiskey Monday with Tony Dokoupil.

ICE’s European Vacation: ICE agents will have a “security role” at the Milan Cortina Winter Games, according to the AP. Officials told the AP ICE would support diplomatic security details and would not conduct immigration enforcement actions. ICE’s presence was confirmed by Italian state TV shortly after Italian state TV broadcast a video of ICE agents threatening to break their crew’s car window in Minneapolis. Buon viaggio!

Slog AM: ICE Executed a Man on the Street in Minneapolis, the Government Is Lying About It, Abolish ICE

Hannah Murphy Winter — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 09:43:00 -0800

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Hannah Murphy Winter

Good morning. We have to stop meeting like this.

Okay let’s start with what you’ve surely already seen with your own eyes. On Saturday, ICE agents executed a man on the street in Minneapolis. Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old who worked in the intensive care unit at a VA hospital, was part of a small group of demonstrators protesting around federal agents on the street. At the time, he had a handgun in a holster on his waist, which he had a permit to carry. Pretti was trying to help another protester who’d been pepper-sprayed by the feds when agents tackled him to the ground. Agents shouted that he had a handgun on his waist, and one agent pulled it out of the holster and moved away from the scene. Less than a second later, while Pretti was firmly pinned to the ground, agents started shooting him. They shot him at least 10 times in five seconds.

The Government Is Still Lying: Just like the Renee Good shooting, the federal government is counting on their ability to spin a narrative that their base can sink their teeth into. They immediately pushed the story that agents fired on civilians because they feared for their lives. DHS claimed that Pretti approached agents with the gun, and that he responded violently when they tried to disarm him. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem claimed he was committing “domestic terrorism,” trying to inflict “maximum damage” and “massacre law enforcement.” But also, just like the Renee Good shooting, the New York Times has already done a frame-by-frame analysis that proves this is all a lie. When challenged with this readily available video, head of Border Patrol Dan Bovino interrupted CNN’s Dana Bash by saying, “Let’s not freeze frame adjudicate this now.”

Bovino then claimed that the shooting was Pretti’s fault, because he “meant to be there beforehand” and knowingly inserted himself into an “active law enforcement operation.” “With respect, it feels as though in some ways you’re blaming the victim here,” CNN’s Dana Bash said. “The victims are the border patrol agents,” Bovino replied. “It’s too bad the consequences had to be paid because he injected himself into that crime scene.”

And if It’s Not Pretti’s Fault, It’s the Dems: Over the weekend, the Trump administration insisted that Pretti’s killing should be blamed on the Democrats, particularly Governor Tim Walz and Mayor Jacob Frey, because of their “violent and heated rhetoric” about ICE’s actually violent actions. “Democrat run Sanctuary Cities and States are REFUSING to cooperate with ICE, and they are actually encouraging Leftwing Agitators to unlawfully obstruct their operations to arrest the Worst of the Worst People!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “By doing this, Democrats are putting Illegal Alien Criminals over Taxpaying, Law-Abiding Citizens, and they have created dangerous circumstances for EVERYONE involved.”

What’s Next? As of Monday morning, lawyers for the State of Minnesota and the City of Minneapolis are arguing in front of a federal judge that Trump’s immigration surge violated the state’s sovereignty. The Trump administration calls their case an “unprecedented case of judicial overreach,” which is pretty rich.

Trump’s “Secret Weapon”: Meanwhile, in foreign policy news, the New York Post reported that Trump told them about his secret new weapon that he called “The Discombobulator,” that he says the US military used in their mission to snatch Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. “I’m not allowed to talk about it,” he told the Post, after explaining that US military personnel “pushed a button” that kept any of Venezuela’s missiles from launching. This Scooby Doo-ass story sounds like something Trump’s decaying brain would make up, but there might be some truth to it. A senior official told CNN that the president may be conflating several things into a single weapon. US forces did use “cyber tools” to disable Venezuela’s defense systems, and used an acoustic weapon to disorient personnel on the ground. Our military also has a literal heat ray, but it’s not clear if they used it in Venezuela.

Weather: Twenty states got more than a foot of snow over the weekend, from New Mexico to Maine, and more than 80 million people are still under extreme cold warnings this morning. The storm has already killed at least 11 people, knocked out power, and led to thousands of cancelled flights.

As an incentive to keep New Yorkers out of the dangerous weather, Mayor Mamdani announced that the New York Public Library is making Heated Rivalry available on e-book or audiobook for anyone with a library card. The People’s Mayor, ladies and gentlemen.

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Meanwhile: Seattle’s in one of the country’s rare mild pockets today. Our highs are in the high 40s, with some possible frost overnight.

The Hawks Are Going to the Super Bowl! On Sunday, the Seahawks beat the Los Angeles Rams to become the NFC Champs, and now they’re headed down to the Bay Area to play the Patriots in a rematch of the 2015 game. The Seattle Times’s Matt Calkins says that if we could beat the Rams, the Patriots should be a walk in the park. Bad Bunny will play the halftime show, but lest that be a little too “challenging” for the average football fan, never fear: Green Day will be the opening act before the game.

Loser has to paint a bus lane in the winning other city
— Gordon Padelford (@gordonofseattle.bsky.social) January 25, 2026 at 8:32 PM

Transit Board Shakeup: King County Council’s Claudia Balducci is likely the reason that the 2 Line exists at all. She championed it through legal challenges, mapping fights, the works. Then, on the heels of the announcement that the 2 and 1 lines will finally connect in just two months, Balducci was just booted from her position as chair of Sound Transit’s expansion committee, which she’s led since 2018. She was also removed from the Executive Committee. The board chair, currently Snohomish County Executive Dave Somers, officially makes those assignments, and didn’t offer The Urbanist or public commenters any explanation for the changeup.

Star-Crossed Lovers: Speaking of the cross-lake connection—when the connection date was finally announced last week, The Stranger’s Nathalie Graham did some essential sleuthing. The Cross-Lake Connection is an Aries. And she might not vibe with the 1 Line, a Cancer. “To be honest they probably shouldn’t date,” Nathalie’s sister-in-law told us. Dive into their birth charts here.

Adios to the PacSci Gates: As part of the City’s plan to integrate Seattle Center and the Pacific Science Center into one big public space, PacSci started taking down the big metal gates that partitioned off the science center last week. Now we can all reflect beside the pools that leak 26 gallons of water each year. (They say they’re fixing that too.)

Some Music for Your Monday: I’d forgotten about this 2017 song from Olympia’s CCFX until it popped up on a playlist this weekend. Figured I’d do you the same favor.

Slog AM: Amazon Plans More Layoffs, Minnesota Is on Strike, Hockey Podcast Busted for Queer Baiting

Nathalie Graham — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 08:55:00 -0800

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Nathalie Graham

The Shareholders Are Hungry: They must feast on livelihoods! And bones! And they demand more! More! More! Amazon is planning to cut thousands more corporate jobs next week, according to a report by Reuters. Back in October, Amazon trimmed 14,000 jobs. The plan, supposedly, has been to cut around 30,000 jobs. Why? Not because of artificial intelligence, or earnings, but "culture," as per CEO Andy Jassy. Too many people? Too much bureaucracy. Sorry, tech brethren.

Save the Date: Sound Transit is going to announce when it's going to open its Crosslake Connection and knit together the spine of the 1 line with the east side 2 line. They'll make that announcement at 10 a.m.—which is in the future at the time of this writing. I will update this if I remember.

Two Hikers Dead on Mount Rainier: Two backcountry hikers on Mount Rainier were reported missing earlier this week. Rangers found them, both dead, on Wednesday.

Timber: A falling tree on Lena Lake Trail in the Olympics hit and killed two women in their 70s.

ICE Out Act: Down in Olympia, Rep. Tarra Simmons, D-Bremerton has introduced a bill that would bar anybody who became an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officer during Donald Trump's second term from ever becoming a law enforcement officer in Washington. "I don’t want people that are trained in that culture to come and infiltrate our culture," Simmons said. Rep. Shaun Scott, D-Seattle, is the only other sponsor of the bill.

The Weather: Another crisp, sunny day. Meanwhile, seemingly everyone else in the country is going to get rocked by a dramatic winter storm. Texas and Oklahoma are preparing for snow! The storm will stretch from the southern Rockies up through New England. You know who is not included in that? Us. It's so lonely in this mild winter. Though, maybe I should be grateful. Dozens of states have issued states of emergency in advance of the oncoming storm.

White House Uses AI-altered Photo as Propaganda: The Justice Department arrested demonstrator Nekima Levy Armstrong for the crime of interrupting a church service in St. Paul, Minnesota because of the pastor's alleged ties to ICE. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted a photo of Armstrong's arrest to X. In it, Armstrong looked calm, composed, stoic. Later, the White House posted its own photo showing Armstrong open-mouthed sobbing, tears streaming down her face. The picture was manipulated with generative AI tools. In a response to questions about the doctored photo, Kaelan Dorr, the deputy communications director for the White House, said, “Enforcement of the law will continue. The memes will continue.”

This is the first example I’ve seen of an American government using AI to meaningfully misrepresent actual events with the intent to deceive the public. We are at Stalinesque levels of propaganda.
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/past-the-b...

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— Don Moynihan (@donmoyn.bsky.social) January 23, 2026 at 6:23 AM

There's a Big Game This Weekend: The Seahawks will play in the NFC Championship game in Seattle on Sunday. As the old adage goes: Fuck the Rams.

Minnesota on Strike: The Day of Truth & Freedom general strike is on in Minnesota this Friday. To protest the ICE killing of Renee Good, Minnesotans are participating in a "no work, no school, no shopping" blackout. It's been endorsed by the Minneapolis City Council. Businesses around the state are shutting down in solidarity. The demands of the action are simple: ICE needs to GTFO, Jonathan Ross—the agent who killed Good—needs to be held accountable, Congress needs to stop federal funding for ICE, and there needs to be an investigation into the agency's actions.

JD Vance Pins Blames on Minnesota Officials: Vice President, expectant father, and couch lover JD Vance told the press that the one thing that would "lower the temperature" in Minnesota is if local officials cooperated with federal law enforcement by "helping ICE identify and arrest violent criminals so that the operation could be more targeted," as The Guardian reports. In fact, the federal government suspects Minnesota officials are conspiring to impede federal efforts in the state. The US Justice Department subpoenaed local officials like Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz this week to investigate these conspiring claims. Walz called it "political theater."

Good's Autopsy: Renee Good's autopsy—which was commissioned by her family—showed she was shot four times. Once in the forearm, once in the right breast, and once in her head near the left temple. That bullet exited through the right side of her head. She also sustained a graze wound. Why the fuck did that man shoot her at close range four times?

Everyone Has a Role in Resistance: A Minnesota man offered up his screen printing talents and studio to help stand up to ICE.

You don’t know your role yet maybe, but we are all finding out just what we have to offer.

In Minneapolis, one man knew immediately what he could offer and said “Bring me your clothing”.

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— LorennaCleary.bsky.social (@lorennacleary.bsky.social) January 22, 2026 at 6:57 PM

Deuces: Trump has officially pulled the US out of the World Health Organization since the organization is, as he says, "straying from its core mission." That's surely a sign of our country's good health, right?

Good News for Brainrot: TikTok finalized a deal to create an American entity, a move that circumvents the national security concerns that threatened a ban of the app. US investors in the new joint venture include Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX. President Donald Trump praised the deal, thanked China's President Xi, and said he hopes, "that long into the future I will be remembered by those who use and love TikTok."

Hell Is Also Elsewhere: Wildfires are raging in Chile. They've gobbled up record 45,700 hectares of forest which is the equivalent of a 176 square miles. The fires have killed 21 people so far. While firefighters are trying to stop the blazes, people are trying to hurt them. There have been two attacks on firefighting brigades—one of which included gunfire (it's unclear why they were attacked). Plus, arsonists are having a field day. At least 70 people have been arrested for setting or attempting to set new fires this fire season.

A Food Review: Have you seen the ads for the new Applebee's cheeseburger sitting open-faced in a pile of cheese? This man has. "The O-M-Cheeseburger, the purest distillate of Americana yet produced."

Queer Bait: The straight ex-hockey player brothers behind the hockey podcast "Empty Netters" are in hot water after publicly praising the steamy gay hockey show Heated Rivalry but bashing it in private. Their episodes praising Heated Rivalry have hundreds of thousands of more streams than their regular content. The hosts, realizing the grift at their disposal, started hawking Heated Rivalry t-shirts. Too bad they actually hate the show.

A Song for your Friday: Marty Supreme gave me a new appreciation for this song. Sad that the soundtrack was snubbed from the Oscar nominations, but ya can't win 'em all, right? Which is probably one of Marty Supreme's themes.

Slog AM: ICE Detained 5-Year-Old Near Minneapolis, Chicago Children’s Hospital Pauses Trans Care, Anti-ICE Protester Arrested for Disrupting Church Service

Micah Yip — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 09:58:00 -0800

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Micah Yip

ICE Detains a 5-Year-Old near Minneapolis: And tried to use him as bait to catch his family. On Tuesday, Liam Conejo Ramos had just been picked up from school when masked agents apprehended him and his father in the driveway. MPR reported that another adult living at the house begged agents to let the boy stay. The agents then marched Liam up to the door and made him knock, hoping this would lure his family members out of the house. Nobody answered the door, and ICE took Liam and his dad away. Their lawyer thinks they’re in a family holding cell in Texas, but isn’t entirely sure. Liam is one of four students in the same school district north of Minneapolis that have been detained by ICE over the last two weeks.

ICE at Our Own Schools: Seattle Public Schools (SPS) is dealing with the aftermath of at least six schools sheltering-in-place Tuesday after unconfirmed reports of ICE activity in South Seattle. At last night’s school board meeting, half a dozen parents, teachers and community members spoke about how stressful that day was. Interim Superintendent Fred Podesta said district policy tells principals when they should order a shelter-in-place, which has worked well for local law enforcement activity. But federal law enforcement? Folks were having to make decisions on the basis of unconfirmed information and little risk assessment. Podesta thinks SPS hasn’t given its school leaders the tools needed to deal with ambiguous ICE reports, and they’re going to correct that. It’s unclear how the district will correct that.

More Local ICE Stuff: The feds have a plan to expand Tacoma’s Northwest ICE Processing Center, adding five courtrooms, airport services for deportation, and 60 additional beds for detainees. It hasn’t been approved yet.

Open Up: For years, legal aid groups have advised immigrants not to open the door for ICE unless agents have a warrant signed by a judge. But according to a May 2025 memo obtained by the Associated Press, ICE claims it doesn’t need a warrant and can forcibly enter certain homes. The memo permits ICE to enter based only on a narrow administrative warrant for a final order of removal. But without the judicial warrant, the arrest is unconstitutional, as it violates the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unlawful search and seizure. But ICE has been violating the Fourth Amendment for years, so this memo just validates that.

Minneapolis Church ICE Protester Arrested: On Sunday, activist and civil rights attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong led a protest to disrupt service at Cities Church, where one of the pastors is also a local ICE official. Now, she’s been arrested, according to an X post by US Attorney General Pam Bondi, writing, “WE DO NOT TOLERATE ATTACKS ON PLACES OF WORSHIP.” It’s unclear what crime Levy Armstrong has been charged with, but the Justice Department has said they’re considering prosecuting her under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which prohibits physically interfering with a person seeking reproductive services or trying to participate at a house of worship.

‘Catch of the Day’: That’s what the feds have named their newest ICE operation in Maine. Yesterday, the Associated Press reported a surge of ICE arrests in the state, stoking fear in larger cities likePortland and Lewiston. Maine doesn’t have a large undocumented population, but it does have thousands of African refugees, particularly from Somalia, who’ve been targeted by this administration. Portland’s mayor, Mark Dion, said the city council stands with their immigrant communities, and citizens have formed ICE alert networks.

Chicago Hospital Pauses Trans Youth Care: Housing one of the oldest gender-affirming care programs in the nation, Chicago’s Lurie Children’s Hospital won’t issue new prescriptions for puberty blockers and hormones to children and teens. The switch comes less than a week after the Trump administration announced Lurie, along with five other hospitals, including Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in Oregon, was being referred for an investigation by the Department of Health and Human Services. A Chicago trans advocacy group called the hospital’s decision “pre-compliance,” pointing out that no funding had yet been pulled.

Kidfluencers: State Rep. Kristine Reeves wants to prevent another Ruby Franke (the Utah family vlogger who ran the popular YouTube channel “8 Passengers” before being arrested for severe child abuse) in Washington. She’s sponsored House Bill 2400, which would establish legal protections for child influencers, like trust accounts for their earnings and the ability to remove their content from the internet once they become adults. Think of them like Hollywood’s child actors, Reeves said: these kids are working and deserve the same protections from exploitation and long hours.

FEMA Flood Aid: Yesterday, Gov. Bob Ferguson asked the Trump administration for $21.3 million in FEMA assistance to help people whose homes were damaged by last month’s flooding. If Ferguson’s request is granted, the program would provide up to $43,600 for housing, repairs, and other needs. But it could take months. Though Trump did approve FEMA search-and-rescue help in the immediate aftermath of the floods in December, the President likes to withhold aid from blue states.

2 Line: A Seattle Times reporter joined South Transit and Mayor Katie Wilson for a practice trip on the new 2 Line across Lake Washington. Sound Transit CEO Dow Constantine said the route connecting the International District to Bellevue will open this spring. Officials will share the launch date tomorrow.

Key Takeaways From Trump’s Davos Speech: Trump is obsessed with Greenland, and droned on about how the US needs the semiautonomous Danish territory for national and international security because Denmark is too weak to protect it. He claimed he wouldn’t use force to take Greenland, but the man’s a known liar. He said some other annoying shit, which you can read about here.

A Reminder That It’s Thursday. We’re almost to the weekend, guys. Hang in there. This morning, we’ll see freezing fog, before a chilly day with sun and clouds. KUOW reported that yesterday was Seattle’s ninth straight day without rain, and it looks like we’re going into our 10th. The high will be 42 degrees and the low will be 33.

Now, a word from Megan:

Don’t Forget to Send Us Your Valentines! We’re filling our February issue (on stands February 4!) with hundreds of your love notes! Just head over to thestranger.com/valentines and spill your heart in 150 characters or less and we’ll put it in the pages of The Stranger! For FREE! But you gotta hurry. Only the first 500 entries are guaranteed to appear in the paper, and submissions must be received by 5 pm on Friday, January 23, for possible inclusion. And new this year: The first 20 people to purchase a new one-year subscription to the print edition of The Stranger can get a super-sized valentine! Just buy your subscription here, and then forward your receipt to valentines@thestranger.com using the same email address you used when submitting your valentine message, and we'll display your message in larger font with an extra cute design! Cuuuute!

Slog AM: Three Area Fires Happened Last Night, Unconfirmed ICE Sightings Unnerve Seattle Schools, Canada Says the US Is a Goner

Charles Mudede — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 09:35:00 -0800

by Charles Mudede

To celebrate MLK day, my family and I had lunch at a superb soul food restaurant, Paschal’s, in Atlanta, Georgia. There’s a lot of good history in this place. MLK and other civil rights leaders regularly dined here in the 50s and 60s. But what caught my attention during my visit was the robot that served our food. Pictures of MLK on the wall; a robot bringing soul food to the table. What to make of this? Beats me. But I enjoyed my fried chicken sandwich, which came with a bowl of greens. The robot was silent.

Seattle area firefighters faced three fires last night. One happened in Kent, another near Woodland Park Zoo, and a third in Tacoma. The Seattle Times reports that no one was injured in the first fire, a person was injured in the second one, and the third destroyed an abandoned house. All fires are under investigation.

Vivian McCall and Nathalie Graham reported yesterday that “at least 6 Seattle public schools sheltered in place” because of a number of reports from our community of ICE activity. These reports were not confirmed, but they did reveal a level of real fear in this and other cities that have yet to experience the nightmare Minneapolis is presently going through. ICE is not about capturing criminals but making all of us scared of the power that is now concentrated in the hands of the White House.

In short, Trump has his own secret police, and such an organization works by the power of what the 18th-century English philosopher Jeremy Bentham called panopticon. The basic idea isn’t that the secret police is always watching people, looking for people, kidnapping people (that’s an impossible task) but instead wants you to believe in its ubiquity. The Seattle schools that locked their doors yesterday made it clear that we’ve now entered this state of mind.

Is Seattle next? This is a tough call, and this administration is intentionally unpredictable. But I do know that Seattle, San Francisco, and New York City are at the center of an AI bubble that’s keeping the US economy above water. As Ruchir Sharma of the Financial Times put it back in October: “AI companies have accounted for 80 percent of gains in US stocks so far in 2025.” This is serious business. And if that bubble pops, then you don’t even want to know. This is why Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recommended, during a speech he delivered at 2O26 World Economic Forum at Davos, the expansion of AI into more and more domains of life. If it stops growing, if the investments cease, if the fantasy evaporates, then Wall Street will experience a fall that puts Icarus to shame. At that point, what protected Seattle and San Francisco from Trump vanishes and we become no better than Portland, Chicago, Minneapolis, and Los Angeles. This, mind you, is just an idea. I could be wrong, very wrong.

Another important speech at the World Economic Forum at Davos was delivered by the Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. He basically said it like it is: the US is cooked, a joke, a thing of the past. And what countries in a post-Trump world must figure out is who is sitting at the table, because if you are not, then you’re on the menu. Canadians aren't having it. They know the US like a wife knows an abusive husband, and are now telling the world that nothing can be done to appease that madman in the White House. Just think about it. Who in their right mind comes up with the idea to invade Greenland in this day and age? An age where capitalist time dominates capitalist space? And so this lebensraum stuff is so primitive and tiresome. In the words of Slick Rick, we are “in a madman’s dream.”

Trump on NATO: "Until the last few days when I told them about Iceland, they loved me. They called me daddy."

(He means Greenland.)

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) January 21, 2026 at 6:19 AM

What’s frog activism about? You have ICE on the one side and the inflated frog on the other. What is the meaning of this? Simple enough: ICE is reduced to a performance that's as bad as a $70 inflatable frog. But the performances were not identical in nature. One, ICE, is a show; the other, frog, a critique of what's shown. The latter ultimately evaluates a performance, but (and here comes the complexity) not in the belief that there's a real ICE, a real Ross, a real Noem, and so on. Any enforcement of immigration laws requires the fiction of a performance.

Let’s revisit this horrible incident that occurred in St. Paul on January 19. ICE smashed the door of a home, and dragged ChongLy Scott Thao, a US citizen, into the freezing cold. He only wore boxers, crocs, and a thin blanket. According to several reports, ICE drove Thao from here to there and then from there to here for almost an hour, and in-between photographed him, fingerprinted him, determined they had the wrong guy, dumped him at his house and bounced. Stop and think about this for a moment. No accountability, no report, no internal investigation. Even the secret police in the dystopian film Brazil (1984), provided a receipt for kidnapping Buttle, who turned out to be (like Thao) the wrong guy (they were after Tuttle). This rudimentary record, provided after the secret police destroyed Buttle's home and traumatized his family, is nowhere to be found in ICE's real and present dystopia.

Octavia Butler for the Win: University of Washington researchers determined from Seattle Public Library's checkout data that Butler's Parable of the Sower and Kindred are among its "most read titles." Now and then, Seattle knows what time it is.

Seattle may have nothing going on in the Oscars this year but the James Beard Awards, "considered the Oscars of the restaurant world," named two of its restaurants, The Wayland Mill and Little Beast, as contenders for Best New Restaurants. Bellingham's Starla—the new bar from the owners of Capitol Hill's bygone Blotto—is also in the running. As we say in Shona, makorokoto!

Did I even talk about the weather? I did not. Today, I’m just going to look out my window here in Columbia City, and like that famous “Fast Song” skit on In Living Color, tell you what I see. Fog, which is slowly lifting. Across the street there’s a huge apartment complex under construction. It’s not as ugly as the one in Ballard, Urbana. Next to the construction site are some birds that appear to be bickering. European Starlings? The members of that featured class seem to never get along. They are always going at each other about something or another. They fly to this tree and bicker. Then they fly to another tree and continue bickering. If reincarnation is a thing, my hope is to return as a European Starling so that I can finally learn what the fuss is all about.

That said, let’s end AM with that priceless Living Color skit.

Slog AM: Trump Still Insists Greenland is His, The Crocodile Up For Sale, WA Again Considers Lowering BAC Limit

Vivian McCall — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 08:59:00 -0800

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Vivian McCall

For Sale, Venue, Unprofitable? After its owners closed its smaller rooms Madame Lou’s and Here-After and laid off half its workforce, the Crocodile is up for sale. The financial picture must be bad, because the sale is being handled through a receivership process, an alternative to bankruptcy. According to the National Independent Venue Association, only 40 percent of the state’s independent venues and festivals are profitable. It does not bode well that the Croc, an iconic venue that’s been independent for 35 years, is struggling this badly.

For Sale, Thrift Store: The University District’s Red Light Vintage is up for sale, and the store’s original owner, Tacee Webb, is trying to buy it back. Webb has applied for a small business loan, but the funds won’t be available for a few months, so she’s asking for public support to keep the home of Seattle’s bygone naked shopping spree running in the meantime. The store was featured in Macklemore's “Thrift Shop” video. It’s all we have.

Weather: First the morning’s patchy fog will lift, then the clouds, for a partly sunny day with a high near 48 degrees. Tomorrow, it’ll be sunny, followed by a checkerboard week of sunny and cloudy days.

Once again, lawmakers are considering lowering the legal blood alcohol content limit for drivers from 0.08 percent to 0.05 percent. As we, and particularly me via Malort, discovered last year, 0.08 percent is definitely impaired, so this might be a good idea.

We’re Watching: The Washington State Legislature is considering a bill to regulate how data from automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) is stored and shared, so it doesn’t end up in ICE’s hands. Considering the unaccountable and untrustworthy handling of these digital spyglasses by police and the ALPR company Flock, we’d do well to ban this surveillance technology outright, but at least it’s something. Almost half the country has already regulated this technology.

Speaking of Surveillance: Seattle has entrusted its police CCTV camera network, already an inexcusable idea if you truly believe the federal government is authoritarian, to Chief Shon Barnes, who, as The Stranger reported last week, ignored multiple guardrails around Madison, Wisconsin’s body camera pilot.

ICYMI: Nathalie profiled Imraan Siddiqi, the director of Washington’s Council on American-Islamic Relations running to replace Democratic State Rep. Lauren Davis in the 32nd District.

Portland Shooting: Police were searching northeast Portland last night for a man suspected of shooting two police officers, reports The Oregonian. Police say the officers responded to a call of a person brandishing a knife near the city’s Lloyd Center, and were shot after making contact with the man. Portland’s Police Chief Bob Day wouldn’t say if the officers fired at him.

Secret Police, Open Up: Mischief, a toy store in St. Paul, Minnesota, was interviewed by ABC News about distributing free whistles for citizens to alert their neighbors of ICE activity. Three hours after airtime, two plainclothes ICE agents arrived at their door and demanded proof that the store’s employees could legally work in the country.

Band of Brothers? The Pentagon has ordered 1,500 active duty paratroopers to prepare to deploy to Minnesota to stop people protesting the federal intervention that terrorized immigrants and killed Renee Good. The two battalions in the 11th Airborne Division are trained to fight in the Arctic.

“No Going Back”: President Donald Trump said there’s “no going back” on his plan to wrestle Greenland from Denmark, claiming that “only power that can ensure peace throughout the world—and it is done, quite simply, through strength.”

Blowback: The World Economic Forum has become an emergency summit for the EU in Davos, Switzerland. The Union’s top official called Trump’s plan to punish eight European countries for standing up for Greenland with a 10 percent tariff a “mistake especially between long-standing allies.” Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, promised an “unflinching, united, and proportional” response from the EU.

More Blowback: Also speaking at Davos—in aviator sunglasses, to underscore the seriousness of the situation—French President Emanuel Macron said we’re experiencing “a shift towards a world without rules, where international law is trampled underfoot and where the only law that seems to matter is that of the strongest.” In a private text Trump shared with the world, Macron wrote: “I do not understand what you are doing on Greenland.” (Politico has this unnecessarily detailed breakdown of the text’s obvious meaning.)

Goddddddd: In a shockingly stupid text to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, Trump wrote: “Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.” Støre said he has “several times clearly explained to Trump” that an independent Nobel committee, not the government of Norway!!!!!!!!!!!, awards the prize. A Nobel “snub” really could unravel our European alliances.

God: Timothy P. Broglio, the Catholic Archbishop of the US Military, said it would be “morally acceptable” for troops to disobey orders as Trump prepares to take Greenland and deploy troops to Minnesota. “Greenland is a territory of Denmark,” Broglio said in a BBC interview Sunday. “It does not seem really reasonable that the United States would attack and occupy a friendly nation.”

Relaxing Music to Lower Your Blood Pressure:

Slog AM: Women Don't Want to Work at SPD, Trump Has the Nobel Peace Prize Now, ICE Teargassed Six Children in Minneapolis

Nathalie Graham — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 09:01:00 -0800

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Nathalie Graham

911 Calls from Good Shooting: The New York Times obtained the 911 calls and first responder reports from the day an ICE officer shot and killed Renee Good. The first ones came in at 9:38 a.m., moments after Good was shot. “There’s 15 ICE agents, and they shot her, like, because she wouldn’t open her car door,” one caller reported. According to the Times, Good sustained two gunshot wounds on the right side of her chest, one on her left forearm, and a possible fourth gunshot wound on the left side of her head. She was not breathing, but had an irregular pulse when paramedics arrived at 9:42 am.

Video Analysis Confirms What We Already Knew: The NYT analyzed videos from Good's killing and determined that she did not run over her killer, ICE agent Jonathan Ross, will her car.

Congress Will Give Us Money After All: Despite Donald Trump's attempts to cut deeply into the spending of a new federal funding package, a bipartisan effort in Congress kept things mostly intact. The three-bill package will funnel money toward energy and water projects, scientific research, weather programs, and more. It includes $5 billion for Washington state projects like cleaning up the Hanford nuclear site, salmon recovery efforts, and a dam on the Green River that won't hurt fish. “I said I would tear up Trump’s budget and write a new one—and I did,” Sen. Patty Murray told the Seattle Times. "These are not the bills I would have written on my own; they are the result of tough bipartisan negotiations with Republicans who control every branch of government. But these bills ensure that Congress—not Donald Trump—is deciding how taxpayer dollars get spent."

Sausage Fest at SPD: The Seattle Police Department is a long way off from its goal of having a recruit class that's 30 percent women by 2030. In 2025 only 10 percent of SPD's 165 new hires were women, according to Publicola. In 2024, the numbers were marginally higher with 14 percent of 84 new hires. The boys club is staying for the boys.

L8 No Longer: Mayor Katie Wilson announced one of her first executive orders as mayor will be to speed up the King County Metro line 8 bus, one of Seattle's most in-demand and unreliable routes. To fix the bus, Wilson is directing the Seattle Department of Transportation to "add bus lanes or other transit-priority infrastructure along Denny Way." Wilson's other executive order directed city departments to speed up the creation of emergency shelter and housing options to get people off the streets.

Road Rage: I-5 drivers are fuming over the Northbound Ship Canal Bridge lane closures. Sure, winnowing down northbound traffic to two lanes is a headache, but it's the southbounders who are stuck in bumper to bumper traffic. That's because the Washington State Department of Transportation has Seattle's express lanes open northbound 24 hours a day. Those headed south are pleading for a shred of express lane relief. They better get used to this—or ditch their cars—since the construction on both sides of the bridge will take two years to complete.

The Weather: Could it be...? A sunny day? Don't believe it 'til you see it, but I would not be surprised given this mildest of mild Januarys. There will be hell to pay later, I'm sure.

Is This Bad News for Your Big Game? Seahawks fans are sweating after quarterback Sam Darnold appeared on the injury report for an oblique injury ahead of Saturday's big game against the dreaded San Francisco 49ers. Darnold assured people he'd be just fine on Saturday. But, you gotta worry a little, right Hawks fans?

Sam Darnold said he felt a little something in his oblique early in practice, but said he expects to play Saturday.

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— John Boyle (@johnpboyle.bsky.social) January 15, 2026 at 1:41 PM

RIP: Alaska's third-largest political party, the Alaskan Independence Party, is dead. Its leaders announced last month that the party, which has been advocating for private landownership and against taxation since 1970, would dissolve. The party's more than 19,000 registered members will need to find a new home. But the leadership doesn't give a shit because they view its members as apathetic or confused, assuming the independent party is just an arm of the Republican party. But, some say the party was goalless and directionless since its founder Joe Vogler died in 1993. A ship without a captain. Vogler had dreams of Alaska seceding from the US and becoming its own country.

Vagrants, Misery, and Despair! Oh My! Doing important journalism, the Daily Mail sent a reporter to hang out at the 3rd Avenue and Pine Street McDonald's—or McStabby's, as they gleefully report the locals call it— and write tragedy porn about a fast food restaurant so wracked by crime it doesn't even have a door. It's written so seriously it almost feels like satire, but I know the Daily Mail and its readership were not smiling one bit.

Who's the Participation Trophy Generation Now? After a lot of whining and kidnapping a Venezuelan dictator, Trump might have actually gotten his mitts on a Nobel Peace Prize. Did he win it? No. Venezuela opposition leader María Corina Machado, who actually won the prize, reportedly gave her prize to Trump. The worst part is he accepted it, as if that counts and he now is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate (the Norwegian Nobel Institute was very clear that that isn't how this works). Machado bequeathed her prize to Trump behind closed doors with no cameras around, a rarity for Trump. Despite debasing herself, Trump still won't let Machado lead Venezuela. He doesn't believe she has the support. Sad.

FOX & FRIENDS: In spite of the Nobel Prize Committee saying you couldn't transfer your Nobel Prize to anyone, especially to President Trump, you did. Why did you do that?

MARIA CORINA MACHADO: Because he deserves it. It was a very emotional moment.

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) January 16, 2026 at 6:23 AM

Airball: An alleged point-shaving scheme to fix games ran from September 2022 through February 2025 and involved 17 college basketball players including All-American Antonio Blakeney, a man whose name I've never heard of but maybe you have. In total, 20 people have been indicted for fixing NCAA and Chinese Basketball Association games in exchange for bribes. The operators of the scheme then placed sports bets on the outcome of the games. If anyone is concerned about fairness in competition in this country they should swivel their little microscope around to focus on sports betting.

Trump Sucks: The majority of Americans—58 percent to be exact—think Trump's first term was a failure. You'd like it to be more than 58 percent, but we are surrounded by idiots. Only 36 percent of Americans think Trump has the right priorities, which is a decline from the 45 percent who thought so in the beginning of last year. His overall approval rating is 39 percent. Again, high enough to baffle me, but low enough to rankle him.

A Solution: Who cares about the bad optics when you can do whatever you want? In an interview with Reuters, Trump suggested that we shouldn't even have the midterm elections this November since he's already accomplished so much. Don't worry, he was "just joking."

Q: Americans for generations have fought and died for democracy. Are you saying the president finds the idea of canceling elections funny?

LEAVITT: Where you in the room? Only someone like you would take that so seriously

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) January 15, 2026 at 10:43 AM

More News from Minneapolis: ICE terrorized a family driving home. They were caught in the middle of a clash between the feds and protesters when ICE agents allegedly threw a flash bang and tear gas into their car that had six children in it. The flash bang caused the six-month-old baby to stop breathing and lose consciousness. The mother of the kids performed CPR on her baby while protesters poured milk into her other children's eyes to stop the burn of tear gas. Three of their six children aged six months to 11 years old were hospitalized. The mother said she didn't have the urge to protest ICE, but this radicalized her.

Community Steps Up: Mutual aid networks in Minneapolis are helping neighbors in hiding. Since ICE rolled into town in December, the church that's been a hub for grocery deliveries has given out 12,000 boxes of food to families in hiding. They have around 20,000 families registered to receive food donations.

A good read for your Friday: A very vocally anti-ICE reporter went to an ICE recruitment event to write about it. They didn't bother to look her up. She got the job.

Slog AM: US Terrorizes Greenland, US Terrorizes US, Washington Sheriffs Yell on Facebook

Micah Yip — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 10:00:00 -0800

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Micah Yip

“Momgate” Strikes Back: Remember during Mayor Katie Wilson’s campaign when former Mayor Bruce Harrell’s team tried to turn getting financial support from her parents for her toddler’s childcare into a scandal? It’s back. Wilson was fined $250 by the city for not reporting the $10,000 given to her by her parents, which the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission decided should've been reported as in-kind contributions. Wayne Barnett, the commission’s executive director, said child care help hadn’t come up in past campaigns, which makes sense. Most campaigns in this city are run by wealthier people and men. Wilson cooperated fully with the commission and promptly paid the fine, he said.

One Less Sweep in the City: Yesterday, Mayor Wilson visited an encampment in Ballard scheduled to be swept by the city, took a look around and decided to stop that sweep (temporarily), so they could take more time to “improve outcomes” for the residents, which presumably means getting them sheltered. And shortly after that, the Mayor sent out an alert that this morning, she is making a major announcement about her emergency housing plan. We’re watching for updates later today. Sidenote: We Heart Seattle’s Andrea Suarez was also at the encampment, making videos about how annoyed she was that Wilson didn’t agree that treatment should in fact come first (studies show it shouldn’t).

Off the Menu: The Washington State legislature is considering a bill that would ban the sale, possession, transport, and distribution of farmed octopus in the state. “Octopus are intelligent creatures. They’ve shown aptitude for problem-solving,” said Rep. Adam Bernbaum, a Dem from Port Angeles. And a 2021 study showed that they can experience distress and happiness. (Maybe they can solve our budget problems, which certainly distress them.) Now don’t worry, the bill isn’t meant to keep you from your favorite grilled octopus if that’s your jam. “But if we can make sure that its harvest is done in a more compassionate, less painful way with fewer ecological impacts, we should do so,” said Bernbaum.

Again: A week after ICE shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis, a federal officer shot a man in the leg in the same city. DHS said the officer was attacked with a shovel while trying to make an arrest. After a car chase involving a Venezuelan national ended in a crash, DHS claims the driver and two other people attacked the agent. An ICE agent and the man ICE shot were taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries. Minneapolis officials said on X: “The City of Minneapolis again demands that ICE leave the city and state immediately.”

Now to Vivian, for more bad news.

Very tough, Tim: Trump is threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act to stop people from protesting and/or filming his ICE agents in Minneapolis (which VP Vance has said are allowed to operate with “absolute immunity”). Trump wrote on Truth Social: “If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State.” Minnesota Governor Tim Walz posted a “direct appeal” to the President, asking him to “turn the temperature down.” “This is not who we are,” Walz wrote. Seeing as this keeps fucking happening, I think it is exactly who we are!

Yesterday, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and Greenland Foreign Minister Vivian Motzfeldt at the White House to talk about the future of the semiautonomous Danish territory Trump is threatening to take by force. Rasmussen said there’s still a “fundamental disagreement” over Greenland and that it was “clear that the president has this wish of conquering over Greenland.” Trump didn’t take part, but said after the meeting that “We need Greenland for national security … We’ll see how it all works out. I think something will work out.”

At Denmark’s request, NATO allies Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Canada are deploying troops to Greenland for a joint exercise, the pointedly named “Operation Arctic Endurance.” In a speech today, French President Emmanuel Macron said his country would be sending “land, air, and sea assets” to Greenland. Denmark’s army chief says he’s ready to defend Greenland. Breaking with our NATO allies to seize Greenland’s mineral resources and Trump’s refusal to accept the territory is not for sale is serious shit. It could cause global conflict, maybe wars. It is absurdly dangerous

In a CNN interview earlier this year, Trump’s aide Stephen Miller said Greenland rightfully belonged to the US and that nobody would fight us militarily for it. His quote has been echoing in my head since: “We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,” he said. “These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”

Alright, back to me!

Fucking with the Fourth Estate: The FBI raided the home of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson and seized her devices as part of a leak investigation tied to a Pentagon contractor. Natanson wasn’t accused of any wrongdoing, but agents took her phone, laptops, and Garmin watch. They said they were in pursuit of a government employee who was accused of improperly retaining classified material. Executive Editor Matt Murray said the search was “deeply concerning and raises profound questions and concern around the constitutional protections for our work.”

Border Patrol Shooting Victim in Court: Luis David Nino-Moncada was one of two people a Border Patrol agent shot in a car last week in Portland. Agents claimed he’d repeatedly slammed into their car. After being hospitalized for several days, he pleaded not guilty yesterday to aggravated assault on a federal employee and damaging federal property. His passenger, Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras, is being held at an immigration detention facility in Tacoma, facing a charge of illegal entry into the U.S. The DHS claims both were affiliated with the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.

Megadonors, Megacuts: The Gates Foundation is going on a $9 billion spending spree this year to fund for global health, vaccines, women’s health, education, and AI (?????) while quietly shrinking its workforce by up to 500 jobs.

Emergency: Seattle’s emergency management system is stretched thin ahead of a season of storms, floods, and the World Cup. Officials told city leaders the city lacks the staff and solid crisis plans to handle co-occurring disasters, from power outages to transit shutdowns, without buckling. Aging infrastructure and climate change adds to the strain. City leaders now face pressure to patch long-neglected holes in the safety net.

The Girls Are Fighting: Boomers posting bad takes on social media is annoying enough. But when they’re boomer cops posting bad takes on Facebook about an ICE agent shooting and killing a woman? Pierce County Sheriff Keith Swank posted “PSA: if law enforcement tells you to stop. STOP,” he wrote. Thurston County Sheriff Derek Sanders called him out on Facebook, saying it’s “disturbing that we have an elected sheriff in our state mocking Renee’s death on social media.” Swank shot back and called him an “altruistic narcissist.” What?

News Bad, Weather Fine: Cloudy. High of 46, low of 42.

Slog AM: Varsity Theater Will Close This Week, Bob Ferguson Grows a Spine, Maybe, and Trump Keeps Making Moves on Greenland

Megan Seling — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 09:49:00 -0800

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Megan Seling

Today Will be Gray: What you see outside right now is what you will get for the day—it won’t get brighter, it won’t get warmer, it won’t get colder, but it also won’t rain, probably. Those clouds in the sky will remain in the sky. It’s the big nothing. It’s like living under a weighted blanket. I love it so much.

Bobby Is Back! Yesterday, Gov. Bob Ferguson delivered his first State of the State speech, and in it he called out the “horrific and unjust” actions of the Trump Administration, and praised Dems’ efforts to tax the rich. A nice thing to see after he spent the first year of his term appeasing Republicans. Still, words are cheap. Now we need action. We’re watching, Bob.

King County Prosecutors Won't Charge Pedro Gomez: Cheryl Delostrinos, a local organizer, says Gomez raped her in 2024. In the story published on The Stranger yesterday, “KCPAO didn’t decline to charge Gomez because they doubted her account. In fact, in a written response to The Stranger’s questions, the prosecutor’s office emphasized on five separate occasions that they do believe her.” But “prosecutors concluded they could not prove the elements of rape in the second- or third-degree beyond a reasonable doubt when weighed against what they described as the ‘most plausible, reasonably foreseeable defense.’” Read the whole maddening story here. Then join me in screaming into the void for the rest of the day.

Another Theater Bites the Dust: The Varsity Theater in the U District is closing. Their last day of operations will be tomorrow, January 15. In a press release, Jeff Brien of Far Away Entertainment (which took the theater over in 2015 after Landmark Theaters closed it) said: “We have never fully recovered from the pandemic when we were forced to close for almost a year. Since then a series of Hollywood labor disputes, reduced film releases from major studios and increased operating expenses have prevented us from generating sufficient income.” Far Away also runs Historic Admiral Theater in West Seattle, as well as theaters in Anacortes, Bainbridge Island, Stanwood, and Lynnwood, among others, but they say that none of those theaters are in danger. “We are leaving all operating equipment behind in the hope that the theater remains available to show digital movies with digital sound,” Brien added. “We are anxious to identify any interested parties who may want to exhibit film, live entertainment or special events.”

President Pedophile Protector: Yesterday, while Trump toured a Ford plant in Michigan, a line worker allegedly yelled out to Trump, calling him a “pedophile protector.” TMZ has shared a couple of videos in which Trump appears to say “fuck you” to the employee while flipping him off. The employee told The Washington Post that he’s been suspended from work pending an investigation and, “As far as calling him out, definitely no regrets whatsoever.” Yes, there is a GoFundMe in case he loses his job.

“I don’t feel as though fate looks upon you often, and when it does, you better be ready to seize the opportunity,” said TJ Sabula, the UAW worker who heckled President Trump and who Trump flipped off and cursed at. “And today I think I did that.”

Gift link: wapo.st/4sG38CD

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— Mike Madden (@mikemadden.bsky.social) January 13, 2026 at 5:40 PM

A Spine? In This Autocracy? The opening paragraph of this New York Times story reads like Antifa fan fiction: “Six federal prosecutors in Minnesota resigned on Tuesday over the Justice Department’s push to investigate the widow of a woman killed by an ICE agent and the department’s reluctance to investigate the shooter, according to people with knowledge of their decision.” As of Monday, just four prosecutors had resigned. More of this, please! Don’t play their fascist games!

That Dirty Work: Officials continue to look for ways to make it appear as though Renee Good deserved to be shot in the face three times by an ICE agent. Their latest attempt is releasing “new documents [that] shed light on Renee Good’s ties to ICE monitoring efforts in Minneapolis.” First of all, that shitty CNN headline buries the lead. Those documents? They were shared with parents at her kid’s school and appear to recommend that people keep an eye on ICE activity in the area through “nonviolent civil disobedience tactics practiced at American protests for generations.” Makes sense! ICE activity has time and time again led to violence, so parents should be aware of it when en route to pick up children, right? And before you get all “Leave ICE alone! Let them do their jobs! Don’t interfere and don’t get hurt!” here’s the thing, and maybe I’m yelling at the choir here, but WE CAN DO THAT. We can film cops and federal agents carrying out their duties in public places, and they ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO SHOOT US IN THE FACE WHEN WE DO. All these alleged documents suggest is that she was killed by the very people she warned everyone about. Horrifying.

Trump Thinks He Can Just, Like, Take Greenland: Today, VP Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are meeting with Greenland’s prime minister. Yesterday, Trump said that the US “needs” Greenland, which is the same terminology used by seventh-grade boys when telling their girlfriend they “can’t” dump them. “Anything less than” getting Greenland would be “unacceptable,” he said. PM Jens-Frederik Nielsen has told them that Greenland needs to remain part of Denmark. Whose needs will win? And am I naive for hoping that if Vance and Rubio fail to walk away with Greenland in today’s meeting, Trump will deem them both “losers” and the dramatic infighting will begin?

Death Toll Climbs in Iranian Protests: The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency says more than 2,500 people have died in nationwide protests in Iran. Weirdly, Trump has been freaking out on Truth Social about it, telling protesters to “keep protesting” and claiming he has “canceled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY.” Are you as confused as I am? JD Vance is saying Renee Good was “disorderly” and the officer who shot her has “actually done a very, very important job for the United States of America.” Is it opposite day? Did I wake up in the upside-down? WHAT IS HAPPENING?!?

Because Look at This: The Trump administration is escalating arrests and “aggressive tactics” in Minneapolis, including against people protesting last week’s shooting. The New York Times has compiled several videos showing agents breaking car windows and pulling people out of their cars, assaulting people who are standing near them, and intimidating people filming any incidents. Trump says they’re there to round up “murderers” and “convicted criminals,” but we know that’s not true. And a recent ProPublica investigation found “more than 40 cases of ICE agents using banned chokeholds.” That is illegal. They’re breaking the law. The hypocrisy is making me crazy.

But What About Freedom of the Press? The FBI has executed a search warrant at a WaPo reporter’s home, seizing her phone, two laptops, and a watch in an “investigation into a government contractor accused of illegally retaining classified government materials. “It's worth reiterating, though we shouldn't have to, that journalists have a constitutionally protected right to publish government secrets,” said Reporters Without Borders in a statement. The journalist, Hannah Natanson, was told she’s not the focus of the probe.

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Slog AM: DOJ Resignations Over Good Case, Deadly Pecorino Romano, and Cal Raleigh’s Ass

Vivian McCall — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 09:04:00 -0800

by Vivian McCall

Wow: At least four attorneys in the US Department of Justice have resigned over the government’s political decision not to investigate ICE agent Jonathan Ross for shooting Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis last Wednesday. Instead, the FBI is examining Good’s “ties” to activist groups after wrenching investigative materials from the state level investigators in Minnesota. The Justice Department claims the attorneys had requested early retirement before the shooting and “any suggestion to the contrary” is false. Suuuuure.

Plants, huh? To his neighbor in Chaska, Minnesota, Jonathan Ross was Jonathan Ross the botanist, not Jonathan Ross the ICE Agent. At least, that’s what he told her when they met at a garage sale in 2020, reports People. So it was a bit of a shock for her when she saw him on the news after he killed Good.

Fear the Cheese: Check your fridge right now for cups or bags of grated Pecorino Romano cheese from Locatelli, Boar’s Head, Pinna, Ambriola, or Member’s Mark. It could be contaminated with listeria. A recall was first issued back in November, but today the FDA upgraded the situation to a Class I recall—meaning this cheese has a “reasonable probability” of hurting or killing anyone who eats it. The recall affects 20 states, including Washington and Oregon. If you find a cup or bag from these brands, compare its expiration dates with these expiration dates on the Oregonian’s website.

Fergilicious: Gov. Bob Ferguson will let us know how we’re doing in his state of the state address to both houses of the Legislature at noon. He’s expected to talk about the state’s $2.3 billion budget gap. In December, ol’ Ferg said he’d support a tax on anyone making more than $1 million a year, butttt that’s not going to help us right now, because, if adopted, it wouldn’t kick in until 2029.

Less than a week into her new job as Seattle’s lawyer, City Attorney Erika Evans sat down with Nathalie to talk about her ambitious plan for a more progressive office, and the misinformation shitstorm swirling around her office’s policy on drug users and possessors before she even started.

I’ll Take Ass for 500: Cal Raleigh’s big dumper was on Jeopardy. “Referring to his physique, it is the nickname of Cal Raleigh, the new record holder for home runs in a season by a catcher,” asked host Ken Jennings.

Contestant Melanie: “What’s Big Dumper?”

Jennings: “He has a big dumper.”

Weather: Get outside to show SAD who’s boss. It’ll be partly sunny with a high near 57. Looking ahead, it looks like a sunny weekend, too.

Dilbert Creator Dies: Scott Adams has died of metastatic prostate cancer. He was 68. Over 10 years, the cartoonist was sucked down an extremist drain of Holocaust and vaccine denial. In 2023, newspapers across the country dropped Dilbert when Adams called Black people “a hate group” on livestream. Adams revealed his cancer diagnosis in May.

Lives, Schmives: For decades, the EPA has estimated the health benefits of curbing fire particulate matter and ozone, but President Donald Trump has seen to it that it stops immediately, counter to the agency’s core mission of protecting human health and the environment, the New York Times reports. This step is brought to you by greed, for the change will make it easier for coal power plants, oil refineries, steel mills, and other industrial facilities to operate unimpeded by the trivial concern of human life. Dirty air must be worth an industrialist’s heavy pocket, because long-term exposure to these pollutants is linked to asthma, heart and lung disease. "Over the past four decades, different administrations have used different estimates of the monetary value of a human life in cost-benefit analyses. But until now, no administration has counted it as zero,” wrote the New York Times.

Iran: At least 2,000 people have been killed during protests against the country’s theocracy and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Images obtained by the AP show graffiti and chants calling for the 86-year-old’s death, which is itself punishable by death in Iran. Trump has said the US military may intervene to protect the demonstrators. The death toll will likely rise, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency, the activist group that reported the numbers.

More Horse’s Ass Than Horse Trainer: The man who rode a dapple grey horse outside Portland ICE facility, Mexican flag waving over his shoulder, told ICE that he wasn’t scared of them, and reporters that his name was Mateo Garcia, a horse trainer with a ranch in Washington state, the son of Mexican and Russian immigrants, and the nephew of a man detained by ICE. The horse was his, and he may have access to a ranch, but according to his family, he isn’t Mexican, all his uncles are dead, his real name is Matthew Karl Hofmann, and he works at Jiffy Lube. Records and photos obtained by the Oregonian back this up. Over the phone, he answered to Matthew, but had “no clue” why anyone would accuse him of not being Mateo Garcia, the horse rancher.

Fine Idea: President Donald Trump is threatening to take Greenland (and end NATO) the “hard way,” so Republican Congressman Randy Fine of Florida wanted to make it a little easier for him. He introduced a bill that would authorize Trump to “take whatever steps necessary to annex or acquire Greenland,” which is semiautonomous and part of fucking Denmark. Taking it would be insane.

Meanwhile: Rep. Jimmy Gomez of California introduced the “Greenland Sovereignty Protection Act,” a bill blocking federal money from funding Trump’s imperialist ambitions for Greenland.

Lest We Forget: We talk a lot about Trump’s fascism, gluttonous ego and moral decrepitude, which, really, sells him short. People are complex, many-layered. He’s a dork loser also.

Drink up, America.#DrinkWholeMilk 🥛 pic.twitter.com/eemI31G1wx
— Dept. of Agriculture (@USDA) January 12, 2026

One Last Thing: The Stranger’s video guy, Dave, is looking for volunteers to answer questions from our Love & Sex issue on camera. If you have sexual thoughts, please email video@thestranger.com.

A Song for You:

Slog AM: Trump Wants Greenland for His Mental Health, Portland Shooting Victim Arrested, and I-5 to Be Congested for Two Years

Hannah Murphy Winter — Mon, 12 Jan 2026 09:44:00 -0800

The Stranger's Morning News Roundup by Hannah Murphy Winter

Good Morning! We’ve got a mild one today: highs in the low 50s, no rain. The sky’s bright, even if it’s gray. If you’ve been complaining about the Big Dark, today’s the day to walk that extra couple blocks to the next bus stop or keep your coat on and drink your coffee outside.

But in the meantime, let’s do the news.

Trump Surprises No One: Four New York Times reporters sat down with Trump for a two-hour interview, and the paper has been talking about it nonstop for four days now. (Did you know the transcript is 23,000 words? We do, for some reason.) The interview was, as usual, unsettling for readers who are typically grounded in even the loosest understanding of facts. Trump said that the Civil Rights Act was “reverse discrimination,” claimed that his administration “didn’t even know about all the oil” in Venezuela, said he captured Maduro because too many Venezuelans were coming into the US, and that he doesn’t need international law to govern his decisions because he had his “morality” and “that’s very good.” Oh, and he said that it was very “psychologically” important for him to own Greenland.

Crush ICE: Thousands of people hit the streets across the country this weekend to protest ICE and memorialize the people that have been killed by the agency since Trump started his anti-immigration campaign. In Seattle, Mayor Katie Wilson spoke to the crowd gathered at Cal Anderson Park. “I grieve with the people who have lost their lives this week in Minneapolis, the people who were snatched away from their lives in Seattle,” she said. “And all of those in our history, who have been subject to violence and oppression from a government that should belong to them, too. So today we grieve, and we mourn, and we organize.”

Meanwhile, in Portland: Luis David Nino-Moncada, the man who Border Patrol Agents shot in the arm while in his on Thursday, was arrested and booked by the feds yesterday. Court records don’t show his charges, but they claim they’re investigating an assault, so it appears that they might be setting up another “self-defense” claim for the officer who shot him. Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras, the passenger in the car, was shot in the chest and is still in the hospital.

ICYMI: On Friday, Rep. Emily Randall co-sponsored articles of impeachment against DHS head Kristi Noem. “Kristi Noem’s lawless agents are out of control,” Rep. Randall wrote. “We cannot have rogue government agencies killing its own people in our communities.” The Hill reported that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said that he hasn't ruled out impeaching Noem—if Democrats win the House in the 2026 midterms, as if protecting citizens is a treat we only get if we do what he wants.

Case in Point: A Guatemalan family in South Seattle “self-deported” last week, and a reporter for KUOW followed them throughout the process. Diland, the family’s 10-year-old boy, had never been on a plane before, and sobbed through his time at the airport. “Thanks for being my best friend,” he wrote in a letter to his classmates, “and I will never forget that time that you gave me snacks.” His mom, who left Guatemala in 2021 after getting robbed and physically threatened, cut off her immigration ankle monitor with scissors she borrowed from a desk agent. It took ICE 12 hours to get her travel papers, and now she and her two kids have to start over. “She's gonna need to get set up with a job, long-term housing, children need to get enrolled in school,” said Raiden Kallberg, with the advocacy group that helped the family plan the trip and get a motel room in Guatemala City. “There's not, like, people waiting for her there necessarily in Guatemala.”

Trump Still Fighting the Fed: On Sunday, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said that the DOJ served the central bank with a subpoena, and threatened a criminal indictment. Theoretically, this is about the fact that the Fed remodeled their offices, covering them in white marble. But it’s actually about the fact that Trump doesn’t like that the Fed is an independent entity that doesn’t do what he says.

The Golden Globes Still Happen in an Autocracy: And they were weird. The award show was the weekend after the United States invaded Venezuela and an ICE officer shot and killed Renee Good in her car, but speakers “kept it festive.” Producers booted “Best Score” from the broadcast to make space for the new podcast category which, inevitably, rewarded a celebrity showing up in a studio with their friends (Amy Poehler’s Good Hang), and gave journalism (NPR’s Up First) a shrug. The audience seem to be the only people in the country who haven’t watched Heated Rivalry. And announcers spent a weird amount of time talking about Polymarket betting on the award categories.

Plus, whatever this was:

Leonardo DiCaprio during the commercial break at the Golden Globes

#GoldenGlobes2026 #LeonardoDiCaprio

[image or embed]
— Every Film Now (@everyfilmnow.bsky.social) January 11, 2026 at 11:57 PM

Oh, and the Winners! One Battle After Another and Adolescence swept the show. The Pitt and The Studio both took home fresh, shiny Globes. And for some reason, they gave Ricky Gervais the award for stand-up comedy? You can see the full list here.

Nurses on Strike: Almost 15,000 nurses went on strike today in New York City. Let this be a warning to Seattle Children’s Hospital, whose nurses already approved a strike if execs refuse to come to the table with a real offer. Don’t fuck with nurses.

White Out: Two skiers died in an avalanche this weekend in the Cascades. Four skiers had snowmobiled about 10 miles out into the backcountry at Longs Pass, just south of the Enchantments. Two were fully buried by the avalanche and killed, while the other two survived and were rescued. It’s the first deadly avalanche of the year.

Let the Race Begin: Seattle Port Commissioner Toshiko Hasegawa announced in The Stranger this morning that she’s throwing her hat in the ring for Girmay Zahilay’s old seat on King County Council. She’s running against State Sen. Rebecca Saldaña, who announced in December. Hasegawa is ambitious and really pissed off about ICE. “I want to see King County arrest, prosecute, and convict Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers who should be equally as afraid that when they break the law that somebody is going to come knocking at their door,” she told The Stranger’s Nathalie Graham.

WTF: Six puppies survived a suspected fentanyl overdose in Gold Bar on Saturday when firefighters gave them CPR and administered Narcan. The pups are now at an emergency clinic and looking for their forever homes. The lesson: Narcan works on puppies, and not everyone is allowed to have a dog.

Buckle Up: Seattle has some fun new traffic for you. This weekend marked the start of two years of lane closures on the Ship Canal Bridge. The 65-year-old bridge needs a lot of love, so we’ll be playing this game for most of 2026 and 2027. “I think if you are leaving your house and going somewhere, you are probably going to be affected by Revive I-5,” said Tara Peters, communications director for Commute Seattle. She is urging businesses to let employees arrive before 7 a.m. or after 10 a.m., and to provide carpool parking, secure bike storage, and transit fare cards. If you aren’t already a light rail/bus rider, now seems like a great time to start.

A Song for Your Monday: If you’re not already listening to Cate Le Bon, now’s the time to start. This Welsh alien queen is coming to Seattle at the end of the month—first at KEXP and then at the Neptune—promoting her new album. Here’s one of my favorites from it. It sounds like it could be a B Side from Ziggy Stardust.

Slog AM: Border Patrol Shoot Two People in Portland, An ICE Raid on Aurora, QAnon Shaman Enters Arizona Gubernatorial Race

Nathalie Graham — Fri, 09 Jan 2026 09:30:00 -0800

The Stranger's morning news round-up. by Nathalie Graham

Feds Shoot Two People in Portland: On Thursday afternoon, US federal agents conducting a "targeted vehicle stop" opened fire on two people in a car after the agents say the driver tried to run them over. We have heard that line before, like, maybe a day before when Immigrations and Customs Agents lied about Minneapolis' Renee Nicole Good attempting to run them over, thus allowing them to kill her. According to a Border Patrol spokesperson, the agents in Portland were targeting an undocumented immigrant and alleged member of Tren de Aragua, a gang tied to a Venezuelan prison. Trump has claimed (newly-captured) Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro directed the gang to infiltrate the US and commit crimes here.

Of course, there is no evidence. The victims were able to drive away, both wounded and found by police. They received emergency medical attention and were rushed to the hospital. Local Portland cops showed up on the scene, but the FBI is taking over the investigation. Portland Attorney General Dan Rayfield said he's launching an investigation into the shooting.

Six People Arrested in Portland Protests: After the shooting, hundreds of protests flocked to the Portland ICE facility. Protesters at times blocked the road in front of the facility. Police arrested six people for disorderly conduct.

Back in Minneapolis: The ICE agent who killed Good has been identified. In an attempt to explain the agent's actions—shooting a woman in the head, in case you forgot—the Department of Homeland Security explained that the agent had been involved in an incident in June where "a child sexual predator [was] trying to evade an immigration enforcement arrest" and "dragged" him with their car. He had to get stitches. DHS Director Kristi Noem first released that information which was enough for the Star Tribune to uncover the agent’s identity, which DHS confirmed. He is Jonathan Ross, doxxed by his own agency.

"You’re white, you won’t be any fun anyway:"ICE agents arrested Pastor Kenny Callaghan while he was protesting in Minneapolis after Good's killing. He intervened as agents were "circling" a young Hispanic woman, telling them to arrest him instead. He described an ICE agent putting a gun in his face and asking if he was afraid. He said he wasn't. The agents arrested him and threw him in an SUV. They came back several times asking if he was afraid yet. "I’m not afraid of you, and I’m never going to be afraid of you," he replied. After a while, the agents let him go, saying, according to Callaghan, "You’re white, you won’t be any fun anyway. You can get out of the car.”

Doubling Down: The Trump administration is deploying more than 100 more Border Patrol agents to Minnesota from operations in Chicago and New Orleans to Minnesota. In fact, they're pausing all operations in Chicago to send a chunk of those agents and all their nonlethal weapons up to Minnesota instead. This means they are not listening to the pleas from Minnesota elected officials urging ICE to get the fuck out of there.

Jobs: The jobs report is here. It's weak. Trump's Labor Department reported that employers only added 50,000 jobs in December, a dismal cherry on top of a dismal year for job growth. Unemployment is at 4.4 percent, which is marginally lower than November's 4.5 percent. This is the first "clean" jobs report in three months. The government didn't initially put anything out in October during the shutdown and November's numbers were impacted by the closure, too. Both of those reports were revised retroactively to show bigger declines than initially reported

The Weather: Cloudy. Maybe a chance for a sliver of sun in the afternoon if we are good.

ICE Raid on Aurora: On Wednesday, ICE agents detained people in North Seattle near Evergreen Washelli Cemetery, Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes confirmed. Barnes said the Seattle Police Department does not have authority over federal agents, but documents all ICE incidents. In a statement, he promised that SPD was "here to keep people safe, regardless of anyone's immigration status." Mayor Katie Wilson responded to the incident in a social media video saying it is "unacceptable to kidnap people going about their lives" and that she's working with other city leaders on how to best protect Seattleites.

View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Mayor Katie B. Wilson (@mayorofseattle)

Citizenship Interviews Cancelled: Washington state green card holders are in limbo as their naturalization interviews have been abruptly cancelled without cause the last few weeks. Trump stopped accepting immigration applications from citizens of "high-risk countries" after an Afghan national shot two National Guardsmen in November. Yet, lawful permanent residents from countries not on those lists are seeing their citizenship interviews cancelled. Oath ceremony appointments, citizenship interviews, and naturalization interviews have been cancelled across the board for Washington immigrants since early December.

Coug Suit: Families of the four University of Idaho students stabbed to death in 2022 are suing Washington State University claiming the school failed to act on reports that Bryan Kohberger, the criminology student and teaching assistant at WSU who pleaded guilty to murdering the students, was stalking other students before the murders. WSU did not comment on the suit. Kohberger is spending life in prison with no chance of parole.

Iranian Leader Promises Crackdown on Protests: Protests in Iran are reaching historic levels. They started on Dec. 28 when protesters took to the streets over the sudden tailspin of the country's currency, but quickly became about much more. Protesters demanded political reform. On Thursday, the son of the exiled shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, called for protests. This is not a great thing for Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who is calling for a "greater crackdown" on these "vandals" and "saboteurs." He's blamed the US for fanning the flames of the demonstrations. Meanwhile, despite a harsher, militarized response, the threat of serious consequences, and a country-wide internet shutdown, more Iranians joined protests around the nation.

The scale of the protests in Iran are absolutely unbelievable. Hard to quantify, but I've seen some speculation that this uprising is more significant than the 2023 protests (themselves the largest challenge to the regime since it came into power in '79.)

(Video from @AmirMiresmaeili on Twitter)

[image or embed]
— Justin Ling (@justinling.ca) January 8, 2026 at 12:27 PM

A Real Sentence: The QAnon Shaman is running for governor of Arizona.

Isn't Efficiency Beautiful? An analysis from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Peer) shows that destructiveness of the Department of Government Efficiency's cuts. Peer estimates that DOGE's assault on the federal workforce placed 154,000 employees on paid leave and that all the paid leave cost taxpayers about $10 billion. “Spending over $10bn of taxpayer money to prevent people from working is a hell of a way to run a railroad,” Peer senior counsel Peter Jenkins told The Guardian.

A Song for You: Does this help?

Slog AM: DHS Killed a Woman and Lied About It, Protests in Seattle and Elsewhere, Seven Hills Park Still Closed

Vivian McCall — Thu, 08 Jan 2026 09:30:00 -0800

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Vivian McCall

I’ll start with the basics, as outlined by 404 Media, which wrote the most straightforward account I’ve read. During a blitz of 2,000 federal immigration agents in Minneapolis, a silver Nissan Titan was driving up a snow-covered city street, but stopped when it encountered a maroon Honda blocking its way. Two agents exited the Nissan and walked toward the car. Someone shouted “get out of the fucking car,” and one of the agents rattled the Honda’s handle. The rest from 404 Media:

“The driver of the Honda reverses and turns, getting straighter with the road. The driver then slowly accelerates and starts to turn to the right, leveling the car out with its front pointing away from the two officers.

A third officer, who has been standing on the other side of the road, pulls out a firearm while the car is turning away from him and fires into the car three times. The officer fires two of the shots when the vehicle is already well past him. He is not in front of the car, but to the side. The officer calmly holsters his weapon.

The Honda, now straight on the road and its driver shot, rolls up the street and collides with a vehicle and electricity pole. The woman driver died. The driver's airbag is covered in blood.”

I’ve watched videos from three different angles. 404 Media’s description is accurate. As The Washington Post wrote this morning, “ICE agent was not in the vehicle’s path when he fired at driver, video shows.” The New York Times also has this video analysis disproving the government’s claim that the agent was hit. The videos are here, here, and here.

After the shooting, the woman’s sobbing wife cried: “They killed my wife. I don’t know what to do. We stopped to videotape, and they shot her in the head.” Photos of the inside of the vehicle showed a bloody airbag, and a glovebox overflowing with a child’s stuffed animals. A witness, 39-year-old Emily Heller, told NBC News that watching the woman die would change her life forever. “They were on foot when they got through, and they carried her body out, just like by her limbs, they didn’t even have a stretcher," said Heller, who estimated that EMS took about 15 minutes to arrive. "She was carried out like a sack of potatoes."

I’ll move on to the government’s lies. On X, child pornography website formerly known as Twitter, DHS said the driver was a “violent rioter” who “weaponized her vehicle,” attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them—an act of domestic terrorism.” There were no violent rioters, and that DHS called the incident “domestic terrorism” before any investigation had taken place. The statement continued: “An ICE officer, fearing for his life, the lives of his fellow law enforcement and the safety of the public, fired defensive shots. He used his training and saved his own life and that of his fellow officers. The alleged perpetrator was hit and is deceased. Thankfully, the ICE officers who were hurt are expected to make full recoveries.”

At a press conference, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem also called the incident an “act of domestic terrorism.” “A woman attacked them and those surrounding them and attempted to run them over and ram them with her vehicle. An officer of ours acted quickly and defensively shot to protect himself and the people around him.” Again, no real investigation had taken place at the time she made this claim.

On Truth Social, President Donald Trump wrote “the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self defense. Based on the attached clip, it is hard to believe he is alive, but is now recovering in the hospital.” It is not hard to believe the officer is alive, because he was not run over. On video, he’s seen walking away from the shooting.

Who was this woman? According to her mother, Donna Ganger, speaking to the Minnesota Star Tribune, the driver was 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good. Ganger said her daughter lived in the Twin Cities with her wife. According to Good’s instagram, she was a “poet and writer and mom and shitty guitar strummer from Colorado.” She had a 6-year-old son, whose father died in 2023, and two children, 15 and 12, from a previous marriage, according to the AP. According to her family, she was not an activist, or involved in the protest movement.

Who was this agent? We don’t know yet. But the BBC reported that he’d been hit by a car on the job in June.

At a news conference, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey told ICE to “get the fuck out of Minneapolis.” He continued: “They are already trying to spin this as an action of self-defense. Having seen the video myself, I wanna tell everybody directly, that is bullshit.” In a joint statement, 11 of the city’s 13 city councilmembers demanded that ICE leave Minneapolis.

Gov. Tim Walz issued a “warning order” to the Minneapolis National Guard, which is now preparing to deploy, according to the agency’s Joint Staff Director Simon Schaefer. “From here on, I have a very simple message: We do not need any further help from the federal government,” Walz said. “To Donald Trump and [Homeland Security Secretary] Kristi Noem, you’ve done enough.” Noem said that ICE isn’t leaving Minneapolis, and lied again: "People need to stop using their vehicles as weapons ... it's clear that it's being coordinated. People are being trained.” Rich, considering that cars became a deadly anti-protest weapon in 2020, and Republicans passed bills to absolve motorists who hit them.

Illinois Congresswoman Robin Kelly intends to impeach Noem: “I am impeaching Secretary Kristi Noem, who is an incompetent leader and a disgrace to our democracy,” she wrote on Bluesky. “She wreaked havoc in the Chicagoland area and has brought her reign of terror to Minneapolis. One of her rogue ICE agents shot and killed an innocent woman today. It must come to an end.”

In a video posted on Bluesky, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara told a civilian that he’d “of course” abide by a warrant for the agent’s arrest if one is issued. Whatever bullshit the Trump administration spouts about these agents being immune to prosecution, Minnesota can absolutely prosecute this agent. As Bryna Godar writes in Slate, states have long prosecuted federal agents who allegedly use excessive force.

Outside I ran into Minneapolis Chief of Police Brian O’Hara who says he will abide by an arrest warrant should it be issued.

[image or embed]
— Eli Sherman (@elitalksmpls.bsky.social) January 7, 2026 at 1:38 PM

These lies from DHS, Noem, and the President remind me of Marimar Martinez. In October, she was shot by a US Customs and Border Patrol Agent several times for allegedly ramming her car into theirs while armed with a gun during an immigration enforcement blitz in Chicago, and indicted on federal charges. The case was extraordinarily weak. Martinez’s lawyer alleged that it was the agent who sideswiped her, and that her gun was securely in her purse when she was shot. Texts showed that the agent had apparently bragged about the shooting. A judge dismissed the charges.

And as my former colleague Shannon Heffernan noted on Bluesky yesterday:

One thing that was really notable to me during Operation Midway Blitz (similar to what is now happening in Minneapolis), was how often officers pointed guns at civilians. A few examples that stood out to me...
— Shannon Heffernan (@shannonheffernan.bsky.social) January 7, 2026 at 10:49 AM

Good and Martinez are hardly the first people shot by ICE. The Trace has identified 28 incidents in which federal agents shot someone or held them at gunpoint during an immigration raid. Agents have killed at least four people, and injured five more.

And oh, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension has “reluctantly withdrawn” from the investigation after the FBI abruptly cut its access to interviews and evidence.

In Minneapolis, school is cancelled for the rest of the week after federal agents showed up at a high school during dismissal Wednesday. Last night, hundreds gathered for a vigil to memorialize Good. This morning, protesters gathered outside the city’s federal building.

About 200 protesters also gathered at the federal building in Seattle last night, unfurling a large banner that read “ABOLISH I.C.E.” More on that later from Micah.

On Monday, Pavel Kolchick, who spent 18 years of his life in state-run psych hospitals, was found dead by construction workers at Western State Hospital. After disappearing during an authorized grounds walk Sunday morning, Kolchick had apparently climbed a construction crane before either jumping or falling to his death. Kolchick’s attorneys say three months ago, the hospital stopped his trauma therapy despite recommendations from hospital staff to continue his treatment, according to King 5.

During his arraignment in King County Superior Court Wednesday, Kamario Washington Onaki, 17, pleaded not guilty to allegedly beating, trafficking and killing 15-year-old Azjanae Brooks, a Bellevue High School freshman found dead in June. Prosecutors accused Onaki of beating Brooks and another 15-year-old girl between May and June, and shooting Brooks in the face after attempting to force her into sex work.

That fenced-off park Nathalie and I wrote about last year, Seven Hills Park in Capitol Hill, is still fenced off. The closure began on August 28, and was supposed to end around Halloween, but it’s been extended past Valentine’s Day. Capitol Hill Seattle Blog has more.

As a poet once wrote, “It's just one of those days when you don't wanna wake up/Everything is fucked, everybody sucks.” And fuck ICE.

Slog AM: West Seattle Bald Eagles Fight to the Death, Ken Jennings Wins a Local Award, Trump Eyes Greenland

Charles Mudede — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 09:40:00 -0800

by Charles Mudede

People keep moving to Washington State, according to U-Haul data examined by Gene Balk. And what do these people hope to find in this corner of America? Mainly “jobs and outdoor recreation.” And exactly what kind of people are moving here? Younger types. And where exactly are they moving to? The Seattle area. If this is a fact, then our city, and our new mayor Katie Wilson, must focus on affordability. We should do whatever it takes to avoid becoming another San Francisco, a city whose sustained affordability crisis keeps pushing its former greatness deeper into the past.

All I can say about the weather is that it’s still too warm. Yes, the rain is wonderfully dreary and the days are long and dark like the mind of a person whose consciousness is in that diminishing region between life and death. But Seattle needs to be colder, particularly at night. We need ice in the mornings, frozen fingers warmed by a cup of coffee, and some snow, which our mountains are enjoying. Will we always have warm winters like this? Is the real Seattle Freeze now history? How I hate global warming.

Ken Jennings, the current host of Jeopardy, was recently awarded a “customized Seattle Mariners jersey” by the Metropolitan King County Council for just being an outstanding person. He also informed the council that has no plans to leave the Emerald City. LA-LA Land is not for him. He loves it here (the rain, the trees, and all of those pretty things) and will continue to commute to Los Angeles, by Alaska Airlines, to record the popular show. Meanwhile, local director and writer David Lewis recently discovered that Jeopardy is less about your knowledge of the world and more about your command of the buzzer.

On January 5, two bald eagles decided it was on; one of them had to go; either me or you “gotta die.” The beef was apparently over a territory that included West Seattle’s Lincoln Park, the location of the battle that involved powerful talons, rock-hard beaks, a fall from the sky, and bursts of black and white feathers. One eagle had the clear advantage when concerned and alarmed parkgoers broke up their “fight to the death.” The winner flew to a nearby tree and watched, with a “now you know” attitude, his fallen enemy “oozing life.” Later that day, the humans at PAWS Wildlife Rehabilitation Center decided the loser was a goner and did the humane thing: euthanized the badly damaged bird.

Bystanders break up bald eagles' 'fight to the death' in Seattle park

www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news...

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— KT (@ktblondie.bsky.social) January 7, 2026 at 7:02 AM

Are Coyotes Taking Over Volunteer Park? Possibly. And, according to MyNorthwest, many were spotted “in the park on New Years Day,” of all days. The nerve of these uncouth, kitten-munching hounds. Next, we will spot them in the park on Independence Day. The wild animals, which are simply adapting to our built environment, have so far paid the humans of Volunteer Park little to no mind. You do you and I do me, appears to be their present attitude.

A major part of my philosophy concludes that the appearance of nature is more illusive or more a mirage than what we make of it in the city. There, we see a nature that's already complete, as scores that have long been settled. Here, in the city, we can finally see what makes nature extraordinary: its creativity. A coyote, for example, in the wild tells us the same-old, same-old—the cycle of life as far as we can see. But such is not the case when it's roaming our streets, or passing our shops or homes. In fact, synanthropic animals subtract, reduce, diminish the human in our conception and construction of culture. Here, we really see animals adapting, reclaiming, recreating, rethinking the nature of culture. The forest buries this Whiteheadian/Bergsonian creativity; the city exhumes it. Here, a non-human animal walks on the stage (the urban and theater sets are closely related) and we watch it rearrange the setting, the setting rearranges it in real time.

morning at carkeek Park report: bald eagles, hummingbirds, sea lions barking, sail boats, mountains, probably a whale, beautiful park. no place like Seattle. also I hate drones.
— mattoak (@mattoak.bsky.social) March 30, 2024 at 10:42 AM

The thing about mainstream and even the majority of leftist accounts of recent international developments related to Trump is they consistently lack an existential context. In the past, it was not surprising for a president to have a long view of their plans, projects, and politics. They saw themselves above the natural limits of their own existence. The president would see himself as historical. This is not the case with Trump. He lives by the day, if not by the hour. And so this bizarre business of raising tariffs is not complemented by a long-term industrial policy or import substitution program or job training initiatives.

In fact, the US, under this administration, is waiting on fickle foreign direct investment (FDI) to resuscitate the Rust Belt. This is just plain nuts. Why? Because FDI, like government investment, takes time to realize. But the latter is far less reliable than the former. And a long-term plan must be, if anything, reliable. It requires years, even decades to complete and turn a profit. This kind of time, waiting, must naturally extend far beyond what’s left of Trump’s existence. And as he gets older, expect him to place more and more emphasis on the now, the present, the ticking of 60 minutes. So, consider this existential dimension when trying to make sense of Venezuela, whose oil might be plentiful but demands, for its extraction, huge investments that will not relieve the pain at the pump any time soon.

What matters to Trump is not the US but the headlines: “Trump discussing how to acquire Greenland; US military always an option, White House says.” Indeed, the headlines on the New York Times website this morning are all about oil, oil tankers, Venezuela, Greenland, Cuba, and American imperialism. Trump is winning.

And what’s not winning? Our job market. American employers are not feeling it at the moment. As a consequence, we’ve reached the “low hire, low fire” stage, which, of course, is just around the corner from the “no hire, high fire” stage.

With the bald eagles fight still in our minds, let’s end AM with Notorious Big’s ”Somebody’s Gotta Die”:

Slog AM: Maduro Pleads Not Guilty, ICE Swarms Twin Cities, WSF Low on Ferries

Vivian McCall — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 09:33:00 -0800

The Stranger's Morning News Roundup by Vivian McCall

It’s January 6th: Five years ago today, a far-right mob of Trump zealots and anti-Democracy extremists stormed the Capitol in Washington DC to keep Trump in power and stop Congress from certifying the 2020 election results. Gallows were erected on the lawn as a throng of people chanted “Hang Mike Pence!” President Donald Trump had goaded this mob into action, and for 187 minutes, did nothing as it unfolded on television. Four people died, and the coup failed. For a moment there, it seemed possible Trump would face serious consequences, and that at the very least, he’d never be President again. It feels almost like a dream now.

In a New York court room days after US Special Forces abducted him from Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro pleaded not guilty to narcoterrorism charges. Maduro said he was a prisoner of war. His wife, Cilia Flores, also pleaded not guilty. Trump’s siege was likely illegal, and while his administration will argue Maduro’s was a law enforcement operation that did not need Congressional approval, the President himself admitted in a news conference that this was about oil. Delcy Rodríguez was sworn in as interim president of Venezuela yesterday.

subtle

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— Steve Mullis (@stevemullis.net) January 5, 2026 at 12:41 PM

The judge presiding over Maduro’s case, 92-year-old Clinton appointee Alvin Hellerstein is, according to one former federal prosecutor who spoke to Politico, defined by not giving a shit about what anybody thinks of him. He’s ruled against Trump before, rejecting the President’s two attempts to move the Stormy Daniels case to federal court and the administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport immigrants without due process.

CDC “Updates” Childhood Vaccination Schedule: Under the control of anti-vax Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cut the number of vaccines recommended to all children from 17 to 11, removing from the list those for hepatitis A and B, rotavirus, RSV, flu, and meningitis. The decision was not scientific, and made without public or expert input. While the vaccines are still available, weakening the institutional support for vaccines undermines the public’s confidence in a safe and effective medical practice, endangering the lives of children at large.

The Washington Department of Health wrote in a statement that this increased the likelihood of preventable, sometimes deadly, outbreaks. “In Washington, our commitment to evidence-based public health has not changed. State immunization recommendations, aligned with the American Academy of Pediatrics, are based on decades of research showing vaccines are effective and essential for protecting health.”

Don’t Let the Door Hit You: Our maligned loser of a City Attorney Ann Davison is now our former maligned loser of a City Attorney. Erika Evans took the oath of office yesterday. It was her birthday. Micah has more.

You Know What, Do Let the Door Hit You: Mike Solan, dick and president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, has dropped his reelection bid. He’ll be out next month. He won’t be missed, but I can’t say I’m optimistic about who SPOG will choose to replace him.

Without a Paddle: A third of the state’s 21 ferries can’t sail. Three are out over mechanical issues and four are out on planned maintenance, cutting some routes’ daily sailings by half. Washington State Ferries officials said some of the vessels should return as soon as this week.

Oops: Last week, SPD Chief Shon Barnes sent this memo to officers: Effective immediately, all charges related to drug possession and/or drug use will be diverted from prosecution to the LEAD program,” Barnes wrote. “All instances of drug use or possession will be referred to Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD)—a program designed to redirect low-level offenders in King County from the criminal justice system into supportive social services.” But as Publicola reports, this appeared to be a misreading of a new policy from City Attorney Erika Evans, who will have an internal team review drug use and possession cases to see if they’re eligible for diversion. KOMO blew up the announcement with an inaccurate story, and the right-wing had a field day. Nature is not healing.

Weather: Rain and a high near 45, what a surprise. We’re likely to get between a tenth and a quarter inch today. Tonight, there’s a chance of rain before 7 p.m., then showers into early tomorrow morning. We’ll stick in the wet 40s into the weekend.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which has funded PBS and NPR stations for decades, voted itself out of existence Monday. The CPB’s been winding down since last summer, when Congress defunded it at Trump’s behest, to knife news coverage critical of his administration.

Minneapolis/St. Paul is experiencing an immigration blitz. The Trump Administration is deploying 2,000 federal agents to the Twin Cities for a 30-day surge operation. The foolhardy Feds are focused on Minneapolis because, over the holidays, a YouTuber (who’d posted anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim videos before) posted a video claiming, with little evidence, that area Somali-run child care centers had fraudulently taken state childcare funds for low-income families. JD Vance and Elon Musk boosted the video, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security started targeting Somali immigrants, and the Federal government quickly froze the state’s childcare funding. State investigators visited all the child care centers accused of fraud and found they were operating normally, though the investigation continues.

Meanwhile, Gov. Tim Walz dropped his third term bid, partly over this. “Every minute I spend defending my own political interests would be a minute I can't spend defending the people of Minnesota against the criminals who prey on our generosity and the cynics who prey on our differences,” he said Monday. When Gov. Walz told Sen. Amy Klobuchar of his plans to drop out, she shared her interest in running to replace him. Mike Lindell, the unsettling, sweaty MyPillow CEO and Trump ally, will also run, but his chances aren’t great. Republicans haven’t won a statewide race in Minnesota since 2006, but the party insists that, this year, it’s different.

Editor's note: In the second blurb about Nicolás Maduro, we misspelled Delcy Rodríguez's first name as "Delcey." We regret the error.

Slog AM: Trump Chooses Oil Over the Constitution, Ferry Service to Kitsap Is Screwed, and the Seattle Times Has a New Blethen in Charge

Hannah Murphy Winter — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 09:41:00 -0800

The Stranger's Morning News Round-up by Hannah Murphy Winter

It took three days. Three days into 2026 for Trump to do something absolutely batshit crazy. Welcome to the first full week of 2026, and I’m already sorry about the news you’re about to read.

Political scientists today

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— Melissa Baker (@melissabaker.bsky.social) January 3, 2026 at 9:18 AM

Let’s start with the news that you’ve surely already heard. Late Friday night, President Donald Trump ordered the US military to disable the country’s air defense and capture President Nicolás Maduro and his wife. At least 80 people were killed, including a large part of the president’s security team. Shortly after the attack, Trump posted a photo of Maduro being transported, cuffed and blindfolded, to New York, and Trump announced that he now “runs” Venezuela.

View this post on Instagram
A post shared by The White House (@whitehouse)

Can we just… kidnap a president? Good question. Theoretically, Trump brought Maduro to New York to face drug trafficking charges: narco-terrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine. Marco Rubio claims that this was a law enforcement action, not a military one, which means it would require a smidge less congressional oversight. Meanwhile, Trump told Fox & Friends that everyone should stop their whining. “They should say, ‘Great job,’” he said. “They shouldn’t say, ‘Oh, gee, maybe it’s not constitutional.’” The UN Security Council was called to emergency session on Monday morning to discuss the attack after UN chief António Guterres told ambassadors that the US had set a “dangerous precedent” for global order.

So why did Trump really do it? Oil. Venezuela has about 17 percent of the world’s untapped oil reserves, and Trump wants them. In a speech on Saturday from Mar-a-Lago, he told reporters: “We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies—the biggest anywhere in the world—go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure.” Since the attack, he’s casually threatened Colombia, Cuba, and Greenland with a similar fate.

Don’t mistake this for a madman’s whim. This strike has been in the works for months. A team of CIA agents started tracking Maduro’s movements in August, and offered a $50 million reward for information that led to his capture, which paid off.

What about Venezuela? Secretary of State Marco Rubio keeps trying to claw back Trump’s claim that he now “runs” Venezuela, but Rubio is Charlie Brown, Trump is Lucy, and he’s not gonna let Marco kick that football. Venezuela’s interim leader, Delcy Rodríguez, has tried to offer to work with the US “on a cooperative agenda,” but Trump just reiterated that he’s “in charge” of the country.

What’s next? Maduro and his wife were reportedly brought to the federal courts in downtown New York to be arraigned on Monday morning. The New York Times has live updates here.

Walz Is Out: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz announced on Monday morning that he’s dropping his reelection bid, blaming the current political climate. “I came to the conclusion that I can’t give a political campaign my all,” he said. “Every minute I spend defending my own political interests would be a minute I can’t spend defending the people of Minnesota.” The MAGA-sphere has been obsessed with Minnesota for a few weeks now, after a video from right-wing influencer Nick Shirley went viral, claiming that there was widespread fraud in the state’s childcare facilities. This all seems to stem from an old 2022 indictment, during the Biden administration, in an alleged $250 million fraud scheme. And because some of those defendants were of Somali descent, it’s been catnip for Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric.

Hammer Time: A 26-year-old man brought a hammer to JD Vance’s home in Cincinnati and broke his windows. Vance and his family were in DC at the time, so the house was empty. But after Vance spent a news cycle mocking the Pelosis for the attack in their home, the internet is having a field day.

as I learned from our discourse, the responsible thing to do is to mock JD Vance and theorize this guy was his lover

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— jesse (@jesseltaylor.bsky.social) January 5, 2026 at 7:12 AM

Your Least Favorite Initiative Man Is Back: Tech millionaire Brian Heywood’s org, Let’s Go Washington, filed signatures for two anti-LGBTQ initiatives. One continues his obsession with the Parents Bill of Rights, restoring parts of the bill that were undone by the state legislature last year because they were illegal in Washington state. The other would bar trans girls from sports. Let’s Go Washington says they collected over 400,000 signatures for both initiatives, which, if certified, would be enough to put the initiatives in front of the state legislature when the session starts on January 12. No one’s asleep at the wheel, though. The Gender Justice League, SEIU 775, the ACLU-WA, and the state’s teachers union are all backing WA Families for Freedom, which is lobbying against the initiatives.

More Ferries Sidelined: Good luck getting to Kitsap this week. The Seattle-Bremerton and Seattle-Bainbridge ferry routes are both down to one boat. The Tacoma, one of the state’s biggest boats, was taken out of service over the weekend because of an issue with an oil tube. And last Thursday, the Walla Walla had to be benched because of a damaged propeller. Has anyone told the orcas that these aren’t yachts?

New Year, New Government: In case you missed it, Katie Wilson was sworn in as Mayor of Seattle on Friday in a packed ceremony at City Hall. But that’s not all! Today at noon, Erika Evans will take her oath of office. And tomorrow at 2 p.m., Councilmembers Alexis Mercedes Rinck and Dionne Foster will be sworn in.

The Seattle Times Has a New Blethen: On January 1, Ryan Blethen took over as publisher for the Times, following his father Frank’s retirement. He’s the fifth Blethen generation to run the paper. Frank famously shot his neighbor’s 11-month-old yellow lab with a pellet gun, so here’s hoping Ryan’s a different breed.

The End of an Era: There are only five Sears stores left in the country, and none of them are long for this world. The store that once sold the American Dream in the form of mail-order houses is expected to be sold off for parts as soon as possible.

A Song for Your Morning: This was a lot, so here’s a little groove out of PDX to help shake it off.

Slog AM: Katie Wilson Gets Sworn In as Mayor Today, Swiss Resort Fire Kills 40, RIP to NASA's Biggest Library

Nathalie Graham — Fri, 02 Jan 2026 08:38:00 -0800

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Nathalie Graham

Welcome Back to Reality: Happy New Year to everyone and welcome back to consuming the news to those of you who vanished from regularity and routine (which means consuming all information at all times) during the purgatory between Christmas and 2026. To everyone who couldn't fuck off, sorry about that. Today we will start answering the question on everyone's lips: Is 2026 bad yet? All I can offer you is this: I don't know, probably? Make your own assessment.

Mamdani Is the Mayor: On New Year's Day, Zohran Mamdani became mayor of New York City, the first Muslim and South Asian person to do so and the youngest in a century. And, he's the first mayor to be sworn in as a Democratic Socialist. Mamdani maintained that he would not be shying away from his Democratic Socialist priorities like making New York more affordable and focusing on improving lives for working class New Yorkers. “I will not abandon my principles for fear of being deemed radical," Mamdani said in a speech. Sen. Bernie Sanders did the swearing in while Mamdani placed his hand on a Quran. People in the crowd—which numbered in the thousands at City Hall plaza with 40,000 others gathered in the streets of lower Manhattan—started chanting "tax the rich." Now, the Mamdani era begins. The world is watching the example he sets.

Bernie Sanders publicly swears in Zohran Mamdani as NYC mayor

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) January 1, 2026 at 11:44 AM

Katie Wilson Is the Mayor: It's the new year and we are all getting new mayors! Katie Wilson will officially be sworn in as Seattle's mayor in the City Hall lobby at 10 a.m today. We'll be there. The weather calls for socialist hellfire to rain down on the city in the immediate aftermath.

Just Kidding: It'll be cloudy with a smattering of rain expected throughout the day. Same old story, except the temperature is in the mid-to-high 40s in January? Wilson may be the last mayor we have before the world ends. More serious rain and wind will come this weekend.

On the Other Hand, Holy Fire: A New Year's Day fire burned up Amsterdam's 19th-century Neo-Gothic Vondelkerk church. The blaze collapsed the tower, but the church's structure is expected to remain intact. Officials still don't know the cause of the fire.

Swiss Fire Kills 40: A fire ripped through a bar at the Crans-Montana, a Switzerland ski resort, less than two hours after midnight. The flames took 40 souls and altered the trajectory of the year for 119 injured. The Associated Press reports most of the injuries were serious. Many of the victims were international tourists, most were young. And many of the dead have yet to be identified due to the severity of their burns. Officials say waiters carrying bottles with sparklers in a basement where people were dancing caused the ceiling to catch fire. Authorities suspect a "flash over" occurred, a phenomenon where a fire in an enclosed space engulfs the area in moments. A crush of revelers attempted to escape the bar, crowding the only stairway up and out. Switzerland will hold five days of mourning due to the tragedy.

SPD Arrested Man with Guns on NYE: Seattle police arrested a 21-year-old man near the Space Needle at around 7:20 p.m. on New Year's Eve. He was carrying a shotgun, pistol, and multiple rounds of ammunition near where many people were gathering for a fireworks display. (Yes, despite all that fog.) He was clad in all black and wore a red hat with "WAR" on it. Witnesses spotted him holding the partially concealed shotgun and called the cops who recovered the gun and found a handgun, which the suspect had a valid concealed carry permit for.

A Clogged Polar Plunge: Around 1,800 Seattleites dipped in the waters of Lake Washington surrounding Matthews Beach for the annual New Year's Day polar plunge. That's too many people. Just jump off a dock somewhere else and avoid the crowds if you want to do all that.

New Minimum Wage Alert: The Washington state minimum wage rose as 2026 dawned. It's now $17.13 an hour. That's 47 cents more than it was in 2025.

Weekend Light Rail Station Closures: Starting Friday at 11 p.m. until Monday at 4 a.m., Westlake, Symphony, Pioneer Square, and International District/Chinatown light rail stations will be closed. Good luck, those of you flying home this weekend. Sound Transit crews are going to work on the Automatic Train Protection system which, as the Seattle Times reports is something that "will prevent trains from encroaching on each other once the Eastside’s 2 Line crosses Lake Washington to merge with Seattle’s 1 Line, increasing train volumes." Seems important. Sound Transit estimates trains could be in service across Lake Washington by May. I'm knocking on wood.

Mercer Island Man Allegedly Kills Three Family Members: According to police, a 45-year-old man killed three of his family members and then himself in December 30 shootings at a home on Mercer Island and one in Issaquah. The man, an unemployed computer engineer, allegedly killed his wife, his disabled younger brother, then his mom, and then himself. Hours before police found the bodies, the man sent an email to friends about his firearms, informing them that "if any or all of you want to make some effort to recover my guns and associated property then you are welcome to it,” the email read. “It may require you to go into my house and see some things that you would prefer not to." Last year, the man's mother filed and won a protection order against him which required him to turn over 53 firearms to the Issaquah Police Department. The protection order was dropped three weeks ago.

Trump Threatens Intervention in Iran: Political demonstrations in Iran escalated this week when several protestors died during clashes with police. These protests, over worsening economic conditions after the collapse of the country's rial currency, is the first major protest since Iranians took to the streets in 2022 after a young woman detained for not wearing her hijab was killed in police custody. After news of this year's escalating protests, Donald Trump entered the fray, posting on Truth Social that if Iran kills more "peaceful protestors" the US "will come to their rescue." Trump ended with: "the US is locked and loaded and ready to go." It is always good to threaten war on a social media site.

A Silver Lining: One of the South Park founders, Toby Morton, bought the domain for the Trump Kennedy Center. If you go to trumpkennedycenter.org, you'll see that the "Epstein Dancers" have an upcoming performance. Apparently, Morton bought the domain back in August, predicting Trump would slap his name on the Kennedy Center.

Something to Take the Edge Off: ICYMI here is what Americans got stuck up their orifices in 2025. I have questions for whoever stuffed an apple core in their penis. I respect the out-of-the-box thinking of the woman who shoved two diamond rings up her vagina at a party because she thought they would be stolen. I don't want to know anything about the person who got a corncob pipe stuck up their ass.

Pour One Out for the Space Library: NASA's biggest library and central research hub since 1959 is closing today. The closure is part of "reorganization drive" which will see "13 buildings and over 100 science and engineering laboratories" at NASA's at Goddard Space Flight Center shut down by March. NASA will review the library's holdings over the next two months and determine what material should be stored in a government warehouse. Everything else will be "tossed away." Seven other NASA libraries have closed in the past three years. Three of those closures happened last year.

Something for Your New Year: I don't have a song for you. But, uh, how about you start the new year by perfecting your egg cooking?

Slog AM: CIA Strikes Venezuela, Trump Threatens Hamas, and the New Year Brings Good News for Washington Workers

Marcus Harrison Green — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 10:10:00 -0800

The Stranger's Morning News Roundup by Marcus Harrison Green

If you were worried the dead zone between Christmas and New Year’s didn’t have quite enough aggressively-unnecessary holidays, congratulations: today is Falling Needles Family Fest Day, an internet-invented occasion where you’re supposed to turn the emotional collapse of your Christmas tree into “family fun.” Suggested activities include recycling it, feeding birds, creating a fish condo, or dancing barefoot around it like a Hallmark movie. No tree? Shame a friend, an ex, or a relative you already resent into participating.

Now, let’s get to the news!

CIA Drone Strike Signals a Dangerous Escalation in Venezuela: The US has crossed a new line in Venezuela: a CIA drone strike on a port facility—reported as the first publicly-known US attack inside Venezuelan territory. And it’s happening alongside a widening campaign of lethal “drug war” strikes at sea. US officials told CNN the CIA hit a remote dock on Venezuela’s coast last week—an escalation inside the country itself. That same week, US Southern Command announced another strike on a boat in the eastern Pacific that killed two people—without providing evidence of trafficking.

Since early September, the Pentagon says it has carried out 30 attacks on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, killing at least 107 people. The ramp-up tracks with the Trump administration’s military buildup in the region as it intensifies pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Trump has publicly touted the Venezuela strike without evidence. “There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” he said, insisting the target “is no longer around.”

Trump’s Gaza “Peace Plan” is Disarm or Be Wiped Out: At his Mar-a-Lago estate on Monday, Donald Trump used his sit-down with international war-crimes fugitive Benjamin Netanyahu to issue an explicit threat to Hamas: disarm—fast—or "there'll be hell to pay." Trump said he wants to move to "phase two" of the Gaza ceasefire agreement "as quickly as we can," but only if Hamas disarms, claiming they'd get "a very short period of time" to do it. He also suggested that countries backing the deal were prepared to "go in and wipe them out" if Hamas doesn't comply. The threat lands as Israel continues attacking Gaza daily throughout the supposed ceasefire, and as Trump signaled support for Israel launching new attacks on Iran, echoing Netanyahu's claim that Iran is rebuilding its nuclear facilities.

Artists Continue Bailing on Renamed Kennedy Center: The Kennedy Center’s rebrand into the “Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts” is doing what vanity projects do best: driving people away. Artists are canceling shows in protest, calling it an ego-driven takeover of a public cultural institution. Jazz group The Cookers pulled their New Year’s Eve performances, saying they won’t be part of anything that “deepens divisions.” Doug Varone and Dancers canceled their dates, saying they can’t ask audiences to enter “this once great institution” after Trump renamed it after himself. Folk singer-songwriter Kristy Lee called the move part of a broader authoritarian impulse to “ban, erase, rename, or rebrand” history. Kennedy Center president Richard Grenell dismissed the cancellations as “derangement syndrome,” accusing the previous leadership of booking “far left political activists,” which is actually a pretty fun way to describe jazz musicians and modern dancers.

Call Him Monsieur Clooney: George Clooney and his family are now officially French citizens, because even movie stars look at America these days and say, “non.” France granted citizenship to Clooney, his wife Amal, and their kids, who’ve been living there to escape Hollywood’s paparazzi-industrial complex. Clooney says France offers something truly luxurious: privacy, normal childhoods, and kids who do chores instead of branding deals. Local officials describe the Clooneys as low-key neighbors, which may be the most unbelievable part of this entire story.

Thief Returns Stolen Mandolins Due to Viral Shaming: A guy brazenly stuffed two mandolins into his jacket at a New Jersey vintage guitar shop, got caught on camera, and immediately underestimated both security cameras and the internet. After the owner posted the footage and it went wildly viral, the thief apparently experienced a Christmas miracle of conscience and returned the instruments four days later with a note that read like a chaotic apology text: “Sorry I’ve been drunk. Merry Christmas.” Cops may still press charges, but the shop says the online pile-on clearly did its job.

Oregon’s Immigration Arrests Surge: South on I-5, Oregon has gone from barely being on ICE’s radar to ground zero for Trump’s immigration crackdown. They’ve arrested at least 1,100 people in 2025, up from just 113 in all of 2024. The surge hit hardest in the summer and fall, putting Oregon among the top five states for year-over-year increases and making clear this is about hitting numbers, not public safety. Despite ICE’s tough-on-crime framing, only about a third of those arrested had criminal convictions, meaning most were just living their lives until quotas showed up at their door.

Father Released From ICE Custody But Not Free: A Puyallup father walked out of an immigration detention just before Christmas and into his family’s arms after more than two months behind bars, then clipped on an ankle monitor as the price of being home. Julian “Vicente” Ortiz Velazquez had been arrested by ICE outside a Lowe’s in November, part of the aforementioned Trump administration’s push to boost arrest numbers by targeting big-box parking lots. He has no criminal history and was actively pursuing legal status, yet was detained for weeks after doing little more than buying lumber. It’s a terrifying reminder that in this system, doing nothing wrong is not a defense.

Voters Said Climate. Ferguson Heard “Optional”: Washington Governor Bob Ferguson wants to plug a budget hole by rerouting more than $500 million meant for clean energy, transit, and climate resilience into an existing tax credit. The move raids Climate Commitment Act funds voters just defended at the ballot box, prompting environmental groups to call it an unprecedented sweep of money meant to cut pollution, not patch spreadsheets. Ferguson says it wasn’t his first, second, or third choice. But it was apparently the “uh-oh, we’re out of options” choice. The proposal now heads to the legislature, where it’s expected to get the “so you do know what climate money is for, right?” treatment.

Speaking of Climate Change: Washington is on pace for its warmest December ever, beating a record that was set just last year. Temperatures are averaging nearly 46 degrees, even as La Niña was supposed to deliver a colder winter. Instead, a parade of atmospheric rivers dumped massive rain, causing flooding while simultaneously rescuing the state from severe drought. Experts say a slow, boring drizzle would’ve been ideal, but instead, our state got chaos with few benefits.

Man Accused of Courthouse Assault Found Competent to Stand Trial: The man accused of a violent, random attack on a 75-year-old woman outside the King County Courthouse in Pioneer Square earlier this month has pleaded not guilty after the court ruled he’s competent to stand trial. The man faces a first-degree assault charge for allegedly beating Jeanette Marken with a wooden board, leaving her with broken facial bones and permanent vision loss. While his public defender flagged long-standing mental health struggles, a state evaluation cleared him to proceed, and court records show a history of prior assault convictions. A pretrial hearing is set for January 15, as the victim’s family says the attack permanently altered her independence.

Your friendly reminder that new state laws kick in January 1, and they’re mostly good news for workers. Workers who go on strike or get locked out can now receive up to six weeks of unemployment benefits, so standing up to your boss doesn’t automatically mean financial free fall. The state is also pulling more revenue from big businesses and tech giants, while passing a “right to repair” law that lets people fix their phones, laptops, and appliances instead of being forced into pricey replacements. Add new movie theater captioning requirements and easier access to emergency medical info on IDs, and Washington is incrementally rolling out changes that make daily life a little more survivable for working-class and disabled people.

To close things out, here’s my favorite New Year’s song that Christmas fully stole, slapped a Santa hat on, and pretended was theirs all along: “Deck the Halls.” The melody comes from a Welsh New Year’s carol about drinking and end-of-year chaos called Nos Galan. Only later was it Christmas-washed by a guy who was like, “What if we added holly?” to the lyrics. So anyway, enjoy the smooth neo-soul Musiq version, which is perfect for ringing in the new year, making merriment, or possibly making babies.

Slog AM: Highway 2 Will Partially Reopen, Ukraine Deal is "95 Percent Done," and Brigitte Bardot Is Dead

Marcus Harrison Green — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 10:02:00 -0800

The Stranger's Morning News Roundup by Marcus Harrison Green

Congrats, folks! You’ve made it to the final week of 2025: the year that felt less like 12 months and more like a long, haunted hallway where every door led to another novel horror. Your prize? Oh, we had one. It was hope-shaped, very small, and tragically backordered. For now, please accept this complimentary mix of step-dad humor, emotional scar tissue, and the quiet pride of knowing you outlasted whatever the hell that was.

Now take a deep breath, unclench your jaw, and welcome to a recap of the weekend that just was.

The Deal Is 95 Percent Done. The War Is Not: While Zelenskyy made the rounds in Canada and the US this weekend, Putin sent Kyiv a Saturday-morning greeting: airstrikes. At least two people were killed, 20 injured, homes were hit, and roughly a third of the city lost heat—in a week when the high temps are consistently around 25 degrees. Hours later, Zelenskyy handed Trump a revised 20-point peace plan. As of this morning: no deal. Trump keeps insisting it’s “closer than ever” and “95 percent done,” but the “thorny” part—Donbas—still hasn’t moved.

A $250 Million Scam, 78 Indictments, and Somehow It’s the Immigrants’ Fault: The FBI says it's flooding Minnesota with agents to "dismantle large-scale fraud schemes" after busting a $250 million Covid-era food-aid scam that led to 78 indictments. FBI Director Kash Patel says this is "just the tip!” The Trump regime is using the investigations to frame Minnesota's Somali community as a fraud hub. Patel has floated denaturalization and deportations, while Trump has gone back to a racist standby—calling Somali immigrants "garbage" and accusing the state of rampant money laundering. Rep. Ilhan Omar, who’s Somali American, says the community is being scapegoated and warns this may only be the beginning.

Dead, Canonized, and Still Racist: Brigitte Bardot is dead. Cue the weepy animal montages, carefully sidestepping the part where she spent decades using her fame to go after immigrants and Muslims. Bardot was a real pioneer—of being rich, famous, and relentlessly racist. French courts convicted her five times for inciting racial hatred, fining her again and again for anti-Muslim screeds, immigration panic, and racist insults. She wasn't "complicated." She was an unrepentant racist who loved animals and loathed entire groups of people. But sure—she was once fine as hell.

Kidnapping Foiled by a Dad With Zero Chill: A Texas father used the parental controls on his daughter’s phone to locate her after she was allegedly kidnapped at knifepoint while walking her dog on Christmas. He tracked the phone to a wooded area a couple of miles away and found his 15-year-old daughter and her dog inside a pickup truck with a partially nude man, at which point she escaped and her dad called the police. The man is now being held without bail.

At least 13 people were killed and nearly 100 were injured after an Interoceanic Train carrying about 250 passengers derailed near Nizanda in Oaxaca, Mexico. It’s a grim reminder that a “major infrastructure project” still has to, you know, safely work. President Claudia Sheinbaum said several victims remain in critical condition as federal officials rush in and an investigation gets underway. The train is part of the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, a flagship effort to turn southern Mexico into a global trade artery—now under scrutiny after the deadly derailment.

State officials will partially reopen about 20 miles of Highway 2 starting today, rolling out a pilot-car system from Coles Corner to Stevens Pass during daylight hours, weather permitting. The road has been wrecked since December 10 by severe flooding, debris slides, and washouts that destroyed sections of roadway and damaged bridges, particularly near Skykomish. The west side remains sealed off, with repairs expected to take weeks or months. The prolonged closure has been a financial gut punch to ski operations and tourism-dependent towns, where businesses are watching peak season slip away.

Impairment Starts Early. The Law… Does Not: State lawmakers are once again dusting off the very radical idea that maybe people shouldn’t be impaired while driving, reviving a push to lower the blood alcohol limit from 0.08 to 0.05 percent as traffic deaths keep climbing. State Sen. John Lovick says 2026 might finally be the year, with lawmakers who previously clutched their pearls now admitting they’re on board. More than 150 countries already use this standard, and the science is deeply uncontroversial: impairment starts well below 0.08. Or, as we proved last summer in our very unscientific experiment: the legal limit is too damn high, and fewer people would die if we lowered it.

About 2,855 pounds of Forward Farms grass-fed ground beef are being recalled after routine testing by the USDA found possible E. coli contamination. The recall covers 16-ounce bags made by Mountain West Food Group LLC with a “use or freeze by” date of Jan. 13, 2026, shipped to six states, including Washington and California. No illnesses have been reported, which is great news, but also a strong reminder to maybe double-check your freezer before taco night.

Seahawks Tie Record for Franchise Wins: They beat the Carolina Panthers 27-10 for their sixth straight win, despite quarterback Sam Darnold spending much of the first half, to quote my father’s colorful commentary, playing like “straight ass.” Luckily, Seattle’s defense showed up in full “absolutely not” mode, setting a franchise record by holding opponents without a 100-yard rusher for 25 straight games and limiting Carolina to a bleak 139 total yards. The offense sleepwalked through the first half (again), then woke up after halftime, set a franchise record for points in a season with 470, and pushed the team to 13 wins, tying the best regular season in Seahawks history, which last time ended in a Super Bowl run. Next up: a winner-take-all road finale Saturday at 5 p.m. against the San Francisco 49ers, with the NFC West and the top seed on the line.

Relationship Pruning Time: Because nothing says “fresh start” like end-of-year relationship pruning, a very Pacific Northwest, passive-aggressive way of saying breaking up. The New York Times rounded up 52 truly elite breakup lines to help you rip off the emotional Band-Aid. Washington state shows up strong: Seattle goes for the jugular (“It’s not me—it’s 100% about you. Unless you turn into a different person, this will never work”), while Spokane opts for the quieter devastation of a breakup that sounds like a LinkedIn recommendation (“You were a great boyfriend. I mean, I’d even write you a letter of recommendation”). Together, they perfectly capture the PNW vibe: blunt, restrained, and just polite enough to haunt you later. The takeaway? Breakups are universal, but the delivery is deeply regional, and we apparently specialize in emotional efficiency.

Slog AM: Trump Exports the War on Christmas, California Gets Another Atmospheric River, and a West Seattle Homeless Shelter Might Close Its Doors

Marcus Harrison Green — Fri, 26 Dec 2025 09:49:00 -0800

The Stranger's Morning News Roundup by Marcus Harrison Green

Happy first day of Kwanzaa! (If you don’t already know, let Michael B. Jordan and Elmo tell you all about it.) Here’s hoping everyone’s X-mas holiday was safe, full of holly, and at least one moment that reminded you why not all of us need to be around our families all the time.

Let’s rip the band-aid off the gaping nightmare national news cycle first.

Exporting the War on Christmas: On Christmas Eve, Trump ordered U.S. missile strikes on alleged Islamic State-linked militants in northwestern Nigeria's Sokoto State, framed as payback for killing "innocent Christians"—a religious-persecution storyline that plays better in US politics than it does in Nigeria. Sokoto sits in the country's Muslim-majority northwest, and as Al Jazeera's Ahmed Idris noted, it's "probably the last place many Nigerians would think" an alleged Christian genocide is happening.

US Africa Command initially suggested Nigeria requested the strike, then walked it back. Nigeria called it "ongoing security coordination"—bureaucratic fog that can mean whatever you need it to. So maybe counterterrorism. Maybe a culture-war headline delivered by missile, timed for the holiday. Maybe both. Either way, Nigeria gets flattened into a backdrop for an American story: The War on Christmas goes global.

Another atmospheric river slammed Southern California over Christmas, killing at least three people. Roads became rivers. Trees came down. Floodwater submerged cars and tore through neighborhoods. Los Angeles County officials urged residents near recent burn scars to brace for debris flows and mudslides—the kind of rain that doesn't just fill reservoirs, it strips hillsides bare. California isn't "the rainy state" the way Washington is. It's becoming the state of sudden, violent deluges: storms that blow through like a firehose, destroy what's in front of them, then disappear—leaving floods, wreckage, and a climate that only works in extremes.

A Ballroom Fit for a Lawsuit: On January 8, the White House will present plans to the National Capital Planning Commission for Trump's proposed 90,000-square-foot East Wing ballroom—a project Reuters pegs at around $400 million that’s already facing lawsuits and preservationist fury after the East Wing was quietly demolished in October. Oversight is flexible: the commission has sidestepped reviewing key parts of the project, including historic-impact questions, even as it barrels ahead. A fuller public process has been pushed to later—which is to say, after the decisions are made. What $400 million buys remains to be seen, but if Trump's taste is any guide: expect gold fixtures, gold signage, and enough self-portraits to fill a small museum.

Someone in Arkansas is flush with Christmas cash after winning the $1.817 billion Powerball on Christmas Eve, ending a three-month lottery dry spell and instantly becoming capitalism’s chosen one. A surge of last-minute, “sure, why not” ticket buying pushed it into the second-largest jackpot in U.S. history, with an $834.9 million cash option for anyone who prefers instant wealth, zero patience, and maximum chaos. The win snapped 46 straight drawings with no jackpot, proving once again that hope is a renewable resource and odds are merely a suggestion. Congratulations to our winner, who beat 292 million to one odds, while the rest of us chipped in $2 a ticket to fund public services we refuse to tax the rich for.

Now buckle up for the emotional whiplash of some mostly hopeful local news. Emphasis on mostly.

West Seattle’s only overnight homeless shelter might shut its doors at the end of the year because, brace yourself, we live in a society that can’t reliably scrape together enough money to keep 36 people from sleeping outside. The volunteer-run Westside Neighbors Shelter has been feeding about 80 people a day for six years and, during winter, offers the only overnight option in the area, but a 40 percent drop in donations has pushed it to the brink. It costs roughly $6,000 a week to keep the overnight shelter open, most of that for city-mandated security. If it closes, people don’t magically disappear; they just reappear in parks and on sidewalks, which somehow everyone agrees is worse but keeps choosing to do nothing about.

Love, Served Hot: While the rest of us were negotiating family trauma over the dinner table, Nana’s Southern Kitchen in Kent epitomized the season of giving. For the sixth straight year, the Minor family (four generations deep, plus volunteers) served up nearly 1,000 free plates of soul food on Christmas Day: no questions, no judgment, just “you hungry?” Fried chicken, catfish, pork chops, mac and cheese, the works, flowed to long lines of cars because feeding people turns out to be more urgent than pretending scarcity is natural. The tradition honors the legacy of the restaurant’s namesake, Nana, who believed in showing love and hospitality through food, especially for those in need.

Who doesn’t love a little holiday joyriding? Though preferably not involving assault and a stolen police cruiser. A suspect is in custody after shoving a Washington State Patrol lieutenant to the ground and stealing her patrol car near Northgate. The lieutenant had responded to reports of someone running across I-5, at which point the suspect apparently decided chaos, violence, and grand theft auto were the vibe. Troopers, with help from Seattle police, chased the stolen cruiser south until it was stopped in Lynnwood, and somehow, miraculously, no one was injured, suggesting the universe briefly clocked in and did its job.

Last Call, for the Last Roadhouse: After 64 years of pouring beers, booking bands, and holding court at the edge of Lake City Way, Seattle’s Shanty Tavern, the so-called last roadhouse, served its final round. On its closing night, the 94-year-old owner John Spaccarotelli, aka the patron saint of cold beer and dirty jokes, presided over a packed dance floor, a brass band going full throttle, and a roomful of people saying goodbye to a version of Seattle that keeps getting priced out. Regulars, family, and musicians mourned not just a bar, but a disappearing kind of place, one where community wasn’t a branding exercise, and everyone had a stool. Make no mistake: an era clocked out at last call.

Life Finds A Way: Elsa, a prematurely born miniature donkey, began life literally freezing in a Monroe barn, and somehow survived thanks to frantic humans, a hair dryer, and sheer spite for the odds. After losing her mother and then nearly losing her life to a horrific leg infection, her humans were handed the most American choice imaginable: euthanasia or radical, borderline-miraculous medical intervention. Cue Washington State University veterinarians saying “absolutely not today,” amputating her leg, and fitting her with a custom prosthetic. It proved yet again that when people actually try, miracles look suspiciously like competence.

Slog AM: A Windy Christmas Eve, ICE Santa, Bill Clinton Wants All Epstein Files on Bill Clinton Released

Vivian McCall — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 09:21:00 -0800

by Vivian McCall

I’m Dreaming of a Wind Christmas: Break out the candles, Christmas fans. A windstorm could knock out the power around dinnertime tomorrow, the Seattle Times reported. Gusts could clock above 55 miles per hour. The storm could last a few hours. After all that rain, the soil is moist, so don’t hang out under any tree outside of the living room. They could fall.

It’s Beginning to Not Look Like Not Christmas: Today will be cloudy with a high near 45. Tomorrow, expect rain in the daytime before the winds pick up. On Christmas Day, there’s a 30 percent chance of rain, mostly after 10 am. Rain is likely this Friday. Saturday should be partly sunny.

Zahid Chaudhry Released from ICE Custody: After almost four months at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, the Pakistan-born US military veteran has returned to his family. As The Stranger reported yesterday, Chaudhry was taken into custody during a citizenship interview in August. He came to the country legally, but has faced deportation for years after allegedly omitting an Australian criminal conviction from his visa documents. Chaudhry denies misrepresenting himself. He’ll be free as his case proceeds in the Ninth Circuit. The family expects a final ruling in a month or so.

Tainted Teriyaki: Seattle & King County Public Heath are investigating a possible E. Coli outbreak at Tokyo Stop Teriyaki in Bellevue. After eating likely tainted food, five of its customers between November 24 and 26 became ill, and four of them landed in the hospital. The county closed the restaurant on the 12th, and in a health inspection the next day, saw kitchen staff washing raw meat and vegetables too close together. The restaurant reopened three days later. If you ate at this restaurant, and developed E. Coli-y symptoms like nausea, fever, vomiting, and the shits, the county wants to hear from you.

Casino Death in Tacoma: Evan Potifara’s family want answers and accountability after the 37-year-old fell to his death from the upper level of the Emerald Queen Casino in Tacoma Saturday night. His grieving aunt told KING 5 that they’re “putting together some meetings with people” to make sure the casino fixes the structure. The family is raising money to ensure public safety, though it is unclear from KING 5’s reporting and the GoFundMe exactly what the casino has yet to do. Puyallup Tribal Police and Emerald Queen Casino did not respond to the station’s request for comment.

Seattle Children’s Strike Vote: After seven months of stalled negotiations over pay, sick leave for injuries sustained in violent workplace incidents, and breaks, the hospital's 2,100 nurses voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike. It could be the first in Seattle Children's 118 year history. If an agreement can't be reached at the table, the nurses will issue a 10-day strike notice. Last week, Nathalie wrote more about why nurses may strike.

He Did Not Have Sexual Relations, Apparently: Bill Clinton, who is in the Epstein files, wants more Epstein files. A spokesperson for the former President called on the Department of Justice to release all materials referencing, mentioning, or containing a photograph of Bill Clinton. “What the Department of Justice has released so far, and the manner in which it did so, makes one thing clear: someone or something is being protected,” the statement read. “We do not know whom, what or why. But we do know this: We need no such protection.”

One Thing in the Files: Jeffrey Epstein appears to have sent this letter to Larry Nassar, the US Gymnastics doctor convicted of sexually abusing hundreds of young gymnasts:

“Dear L.N. as you know by now, I have taken the “short route” home. Good Luck! We share one thing … our love & caring for young ladies at the hope they’d reach their full potential. Our president also shares our love of young, nubile girls. When a young beauty walked by he loved to “grab snatch,” whereas we ended up snatching grub in the mess halls of the system. Life is unfair. Yours, J. Epstein.”

The letter was postmarked August 13, 2019, three days after Epstein was found hanging in his cell.

C(Bari)S: On Sunday, CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss spiked a 60 Minutes segment about the Venezuelan men the US deported to the brutal El Salvadoran mega prison CECOT. By Monday afternoon, people noticed the story was streaming on Canada’s Global TV app; and to watch, all one needed was a Canadian IP address or a VPN. Activists, archivists and journalists uploaded clips to a variety of social media and file sharing sites where they’ve propagated faster than they can be struck for copyright. It should not be this hard to watch the news.

Like Ten Thousand Columnists When All You Need is a Journalist: The irony here is that by holding the story, Weiss drew attention to it. As Hannah wrote yesterday, Weiss claimed the story needed additional reporting. But it had gone through all the usual legal and fact checks, and in a private email to her colleagues, Sharyn Alfonsi, the veteran 60 Minutes correspondent who reported the story, said the decision was “political.” The story is not a bombshell. We’ve known the conditions at CECOT are abominable. But from a journalistic perspective, the story was totally unobjectionable. That’s exactly what stands out. I’d love an episode of 60 Minutes on this.

Hi I’m Bari Weiss and Welcome To 60 Minutes *Corona by Minutemen starts playing*
— metal dot txt (@metaltxt.bsky.social) December 22, 2025 at 4:59 PM

IDK, Seems Like a Relevant Story: On Monday, a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration must give due process to the Venezuelan migrants deported to CECOT. The men were removed with no notice and no opportunity to contest their removal. To send the men to the notorious prison, the Trump administration accused the men of being gang members and removed them under the 18th century Alien Enemies Act. Two planeloads of these men were flown to the prison, despite the judge’s verbal order to turn the plane around.

Santa’s Milk <3: In the mid-300s, Christian pilgrims began to collect a mysterious liquid leaking from St. Nicholas’ tomb. They believed this “manna” had healing powers. They still extract it, mix it with holy water, and offer it to believers. There’s a claim circulating the internet that this font is seeping from Santa’s bones, but according to the killjoys at Snopes, we don’t actually know that. We only know it’s coming from his tomb, and also, it’s not so mysterious. In the 20’s, Italian scientists determined this “manna” was just water, quite possibly condensation from inside his tomb.

That Christmas Spirit: Florida’s Catholic bishops asked President Trump Monday to pause raids and deportations during the Christmas holiday. “Such a pause would show a decent regard for the humanity of these families,” wrote Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski. The White House said Trump was elected to “deport criminal aliens,” and that’s exactly what he’d keep doing. Are Scrooge’s ghosts just … not interested in this guy, or is work on that lengthy chain behind schedule?

What Santa Isn’t Doing: The Department of Homeland Security posted an AI video of Santa deporting people. A few problems:

Santa is a charitable spirit.
Even if he were evil, his December is simply too busy.
He’s in his grave, secreting.

I know these videos are not new. But let’s really appreciate how weird it is for a government agency to post like the uncle you’re planning to avoid this Thursday.

This is just so freaking fascist. These people are unapologetic irredeemable Nazis.

[image or embed]
— David Neiwert (@davidneiwert.bsky.social) December 22, 2025 at 5:41 PM

Slog AM: Trump Blocks an Oil Tanker, MAGA Fractures at AmFest, and DC Had a Funeral for the Penny

Hannah Murphy Winter — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 09:50:00 -0800

The Stranger's morning news round-up. by Hannah Murphy Winter

Good Morning! We did it. We survived the Longest Night. Today, the sun rose at 7:56 a.m., and we’ll get fractions of a minute back every day. We still have to get through the sneakiest part of winter—February and March—which somehow feel darker and colder than December, but that’s a problem for future us. But for today, we’ve got highs in the 40s, lows in the 30s, with a 100 percent chance of rain.

Let’s do the news.

Trump Blocks Another Oil Tanker: Last week, Trump announced “a total and complete blockade” of oil going in and out of Venezuela, claiming (without evidence, naturally) that Venezuela is stealing American oil to fund narcotraffickers. But he followed that by saying that they’d be blocking sanctioned vessels, which is not a complete blockade, so no one seemed to know exactly what he was going to do next. Then over the weekend, the US Coast Guard chased and boarded a private supertanker carrying Venezuelan oil. That boat, called the Centuries, was headed to Asia and was not on the sanctioned vessel list. The Venezuelan government called it “theft and hijacking,” and the “forced disappearance of its crew.”

Pound the Alarm: This weekend, in the third level of Hell (Phoenix), all of the fascist talking heads gathered for the Turning Point USA annual conference, AmFest. Attendees posed in the same kind of tent that Charlie Kirk was shot in. Erika Kirk walked on stage with literal pyrotechnics, flanked by Nicki Minaj, and they hugged before diving into a Q&A on stage. I’ll just leave these two quotes from Minaj here for you:

“I have the utmost respect and admiration for our president. He has, I don’t know if he even knows this, but he’s given so many people hope that there’s a chance to beat the bad guys and to win, and to do it with your head held high and your integrity intact.”

“I can relate to them when I hear them speak, I know that they’re one of us… They haven’t lost touch of the world. You know, they’re still connected to the world. And what’s happening in the world, with the younger people and older people, with the richer people and not so rich people—they have the ability to still connect and be real and make us feel proud to be American.”

Girls Fall Like Dominos: The big takeaway from AmFest, though, is that the MAGA acolytes are fracturing. Under Trump, the conservative “big tent” has included conspiracy theorists, bigots who sell antisemitism, and white supremacists. And now, as they’re trying to figure out what the future of the MAGA party looks like, they’re all swinging at each other. Ben Shapiro went for Megyn Kelly, saying she’s “guilty of cowardice” for not denouncing Candace Owens for spreading conspiracy theories about Charlie Kirk’s death, and called Tucker Carlson’s decision to host Nick Fuentes on his podcast “an act of moral imbecility.” Megyn Kelly literally laughed at Shapiro, saying, essentially, I made you, bitch. Steve Bannon called Shapiro a cancer.

Do We Have a Problem?: Now, the party’s heir-apparent, JD Vance, has to decide if he wants to continue that legacy. At AMFest, he decided to lean into the bickering. “I know some of you are discouraged by the infighting over any number of issues. Don’t be discouraged,” Vance said. “Would you rather lead a movement of free thinkers who sometimes disagree than a bunch of drones who take their orders from George Soros?”

Actual Censorship: Just hours before 60 Minutes aired this weekend, new CBS head Bari Weiss pulled a segment about Venezuelan men deported by the Trump administration to what the program called a prison in El Salvador, claiming that it needed “additional reporting.” The story had gone through all of the program’s typical checks and balances, including reviews from their legal and Standards and Practices departments. Sharyn Alfonsi, the long-time 60 Minutes correspondent who reported the segment, accused CBS of pulling the segment for political reasons (duh). After viewing the segment, Weiss had demanded that they include a voice from the Trump administration (who had previously declined to comment) and questioned their use of the term “migrant,” because, she said, they were in the country illegally.

Even Fascism Doesn’t Kill Frippery: Hundreds of people attended, mourned, and grieved at a funeral at the Lincoln Memorial this weekend. For whom, you might ask? The penny. The Trump Admin discontinued the coin—which has long cost more to produce (four cents) than it’s worth (one cent)—in November, and hundreds of people gathered to say goodbye to our one-cent piece. The funeral started at 1:01 p.m., and included interpretations of Mary Todd Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington, and so many top hats.

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The Kennedy Center Needs a Shower: Maybe in the fetal position. At the end of last week, the Kennedy Center board voted to add Trump to the center’s official name. The renaming is very likely illegal without an act of Congress, but within hours, “Donald Trump” had been added above John F. Kennedy’s name on the side of the building. But to take the edge off: the domains TrumpKennedyCenter.org and TrumpKennedyCenter.com aren't available. MadTV and South Park writer Toby Morton bought them months ago.

ICE Hires Bounty Hunters: US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has hired BI Incorporated, a surveillance company, to track immigrants to their homes and places of work so federal agents can easily swoop in and make arrests. The company is a subsidiary of GEO Group, the for-profit prison company that operates our ICE detention facility in Tacoma. According to records obtained by the Intercept, ICE has already paid BI $1.6 million, and the contract could grow to as much as $121 million by the time it ends in 2027.

“It Really Comes Down to Speed”: Washington State Trooper Tara-Marysa Guting was investigating a two-car crash on Highway 509 on Friday night when she was hit by two different cars. The 29-year-old was killed in the crash. “It’s a very dangerous part of our jobs,” Rick Johnson, a State Patrol spokesperson, told the Seattle Times. “It’s a tough place to be in on the freeways, when you have 4,000-pound vehicles out there.” Police are looking for any information you might have on the second driver, who hit Guting between 7:20 and 7:30 p.m., near mile marker 2. They’re looking for a dark four-door pickup, either a Chevrolet Avalanche or a Cadillac Escalade EXT. Tacoma police are urging anyone who witnessed the collision, has dashcam footage, or has seen the pickup to contact 1-800-222-TIPS.

She’s Not Alone: A trooper was hit and injured on Highway 512 on Sunday, and a driver fleeing from cops ran a red light and crashed into a car carrying a family of four. All four family members were hurt, including a 4-year-old critically injured kid. Slow the fuck down. And I know the holidays feel like fantasy land, but you still can’t get behind the wheel if you’ve been drinking. (We tested it.)

Snoqualmie’s Open for Business: The back-to-back atmospheric rivers may have trashed our local infrastructure, but they did dump a bunch of much-needed snow in the mountains. Crystal Mountain opened on Saturday, Mount Baker opened on Sunday, and now Summit at Snoqualmie is catching up, opening tomorrow.

Meanwhile: Renton residents are taking kayaks into the Cedar River, using axes and rakes to try to break up logs and other flood debris clogging up the river. It’s cold, heavy, stinky work, but someone’s gotta do it.

Some Music for Your Morning: KEXP released their 2025 top albums, ranked by their listeners, and local faves Deep Sea Diver made Number Two with their album Billboard Heart. Here’s one of their singles from that album.

Slog AM: Ferguson Has a Ferry Plan, Brown Shooting Suspect Found Dead, Don't Go to the Patrick Mahomes Steak House

Nathalie Graham — Fri, 19 Dec 2025 08:47:00 -0800

The Stranger's morning news round-up. by Nathalie Graham

Bob's Billion Dollar Boats: Gov. Bob Ferguson announced via his supplemental budget plan that he intends to buy three new ferry boats ($1 billion) and spend cash ($150 million) to keep the current aging fleet alive. It's not cheap to save the Washington State Ferry system, but, in spite of all bad budget news, Ferguson thinks it's possible through the magic of selling bonds.

Shred Season: The good news from all this weather is snow finally fell in the mountains. Crystal Mountain Ski Resort will open on Saturday after being graced with over a foot of snow. Getting to the slopes should be fun—the main route to Crystal Mountain, Highway 410, was damaged in the weather and will be operating a single lane of alternating traffic.

It's easy to forget now that we have snow, but this past fall was the warmest ever on record for the Pacific Northwest. The lack of snowpack accumulated throughout these last few months is alarming.

Speaking of the Weather: It should be chilly and dry today. Maybe we'll even see our old pal the sun again. Don't get too used to that guy, though. Rain returns Saturday.

Rachel Savage Shutters Shop: Failed Republican candidate and incense maven Rachel Savage announced her crystal shop, The Vajra, will be closing its one Broadway location in Capitol Hill at the end of this year. “We’re not really going anywhere. We’re just going virtual, baby,” Savage said. To be fair, she probably read this in her tarot cards. If anyone wants some discount candles, the store is having a clearance sale.

Oh, That Explains It: In Seattle, 32 percent of the adult population is made up of millennials. It's the most represented generation here.

Suspected Brown Shooter and MIT Killer Is Same Guy: Police found the man suspected of carrying out the mass shooting at Brown University last weekend, killing two students and injuring another nine. Police also believe the man was responsible for the killing of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor two days after the Brown shooting. They found the man dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a New Hampshire storage facility. A Reddit tipster helped identify the man. His motives are unclear but he attended Brown University decades ago and appeared to have known the MIT professor who he allegedly killed.

The Suspect Was a Portuguese National: He studied at Brown University starting in 2000. Eventually, in 2017, he received a green card through a lottery program. Learning all of this, Donald Trump used the man's immigrant status as an excuse to suspend the green card lottery program which issues 50,000 each year to countries not well represented in the US. The suspension will likely trigger a legal challenge.

Pause for One Sec: I want to do the New York Times' faces of 2025 quiz and then I'll get back to writing the news.

Need a Last Minute White Elephant Present? Several hundred thousand files Epstein files are getting released today. They'll come in all different forms, like photographs and "other materials," according to deputy attorney general Todd Blanche. Some files will be held back to protect victims, Blanche said. That might only be temporary, though. Blanche said the department plans to release even more documents in the coming weeks.

Because I Know You Care: The Seahawks had a crazy come-from-behind victory last night in overtime against the dreaded Los Angeles Rams. They're now sitting pretty at the top of the division. Here is the weird, wonky moment that tied the game for the Hawks even though their 2-point conversion attempt failed:

THIS is how the Seahawks tied things up against the Rams:

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— Dianna Russini (@diannarussini.bsky.social) December 18, 2025 at 8:04 PM

That Sounds Familiar: Trump announced that next year, in celebration of America's 250th birthday, he'll be hosting the first ever Patriot Games. No, not the 1992 Harrison Ford thriller. This will be a four-day tournament where high school athletes—one boy, one girl—from each state or territory compete. Sounds a whole lot like The Hunger Games, huh? Supposedly, this will not be a fight to the death, but I guess we'll see.

Blaze It: Trump reclassified marijuana from a Schedule I drug to a Schedule III drug. This doesn't really do anything—it doesn't legalize weed or stop people from getting arresting for having it in place where it's still illegal—but it makes it easier to conduct research on the drug.

No, Really, Blaze It: But also water your tree. Or, if yours is like mine and it refuses to drink water, hope for the best?

You might be thinking, "CPSC, does a dry Christmas tree really burn that much faster than a well-watered tree?"

Friend, let's find out together by watching this PSA.

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— U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (@cpsc.gov) December 19, 2025 at 6:31 AM

Do You Want to Know What It's Like to Eat at Travis Kelce's and Patrick Mahomes' Kansas City Steakhouse? Well, you don't have to wonder anymore. This Defector restaurant review dives into all the weirdness at 1587 Prime, the hot new fancy steakhouse by the Kansas Chiefs superstars.

FBI Investigates Domestic Terrorism From Anti-ICE Protests: The FBI is busy conducting "criminal and domestic terrorism investigations” into anti-Immigrations and Customs Enforcement protests. A memo from Trump in the wake of far-right podcaster Charlie Kirk's death steered the FBI to stop “violent and terroristic activities” associated with “anti-fascism," according to The Guardian. Ah, yes, the domestic terrorism of checks notes fighting fascism. Anyway, anything seen as “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism and anti-Christianity” could warrant an anti-terrorism investigation. So far, the FBI has launched investigations in 23 regions and seems to be focused on anti-ICE actions.

Is That Enough News? Okay, good. If you need me, I'll be over here learning about animal sleep.

A Song for your Friday: I like a holiday song that makes me want to cry.

Slog AM: The President Yells at Us, Power Outage in Snohomish County, Rep. Dan Newhouse Won’t Seek Reelection

Micah Yip — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 10:00:00 -0800

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Micah Yip

Lights Out: 400,000 residents lost power in yesterday’s high winds, and nearly 50,000 remain in the dark. The Snohomish Public Utilities District said it could take multiple days for power to be restored due to “extensive and spread out” damage in the service area. Snohomish County is also one of the areas hit hardest by the floods.

The King’s Speech: President Donald Trump spoke loud, fast and angry during his 18-minute address last night. He insisted his economic plans were working despite the economy and job market we’re all experiencing. He blamed former President Joe Biden, saying he “inherited a mess.”

$1,776: Trump also announced what he called a $1,776 “warrior dividend”—bonus checks for troops, totalling $2.6 billion—granted in the One Big, Beautiful Bill and funded by tariffs. It’s just smoke. The check is a rebrand of congressionally approved money for military housing.

Wilson Appoints SDOT Director: Mayor-elect Katie Wilson appointed Angela Brady as interim director of the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT). Brady, who’s worked with the city since 2004, most recently led the Office of the Waterfront and helped oversee the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement project. The project has been well-received, but has been criticized for prioritizing cars over walking, biking and commercial use, making Brady a “somewhat controversial pick” for the progressive Wilson, according to The Urbanist. Brady will replace interim SDOT director Adiam Emery, who was previously one of Mayor Bruce Harrell’s deputy mayors.

Lockdown: Evergreen High School entered lockdown early yesterday morning after the King County Sheriff’s Office received a report of a person with a weapon on campus. Deputies detained three students at the scene and recovered two handguns. Two were sent to a juvenile facility, the other sent back to the school. No injuries were reported.

Tit for Toy: Strippers donate more toys to Portland’s Doernbecher Children’s Hospital than anyone else thanks to their annual event “Tatas for Toys.” Over the past 14 years, they’ve donated a total of $183,000 worth of toys. This year, they brought in $60,000 worth, breaking previous records.

Oldhouse: Rep. Dan Newhouse, one of the two Republicans representing Washington state in Congress, announced that he will not run for reelection next year. The six-termer was first elected to Congress in 2014, but his political career began in 2003 when he began his first of four terms in the Washington House of Representatives. He later directed the state Department of Agriculture under former Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire. Newhouse was one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after the January 6 insurrection, and is one of only two in that group still serving in Congress.

Seattle Sonics Return? NBA commissioner Adam Silver is again teasing Seattle with possible league expansion next year. Speaking at the NBA Cup championship game in Las Vegas, Silver said the board is “gauging the level of interest” and getting “a better understanding of what the economics would be.” There have been talks about the NBA’s possible return to Seattle for the last 18 months. But expansion fees are high (possibly $6-7 billion) and the NBA is trying to launch a Europe league, so there’s no guarantee we’ll be seeing a team back here soon.

Weather: Lots of rain and winds of 9-16 mph, with gusts as high as 46 mph. High near 53 degrees, low around 38.

Seattle Public Library Wrapped: Need some new reads? The Seattle Times compiled a list of the top 10 checkouts from the Seattle Public Library across five genres. They include “The Emperor of Gladness” by Ocean Vuong, “Fourth Wing” by Rebecca Yarros, “One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been against This” by Omar El Akkad, and more.

More ‘Drug Boat’ Strikes: The US military blew up another alleged drug boat yesterday in the eastern Pacific as part of Trump’s pressure campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Defense secretary Pete Hegseth said the “lethal kinetic strike” killed four people, bringing the death toll to 99 since this started inSeptember. Trump said he’d blocked all sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela. The President accused the country of using oil to fund drug trafficking and other crimes. He’s promised even more military force.

His Personal Taxonomy: Trump installed new plaques along the Presidential Walk of Fame at the White House describing his predecessors in a way only he can. A sample: “Sleepy Biden,” “Divisive Obama,” and Reagan as a fan of young Trump. He’s declared himself the creator of “the Greatest Economy in the History of the World.” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called them “eloquently written descriptions of each president.” All plaques are haphazardly capitalized.

No Care for Trans Kids: The Trump administration announced today that it would take steps to ban the use of federal funds for gender-affirming care for minors. If the new rules pass, hospitals would be prohibited from providing puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgeries to minors as a condition to receiving Medicaid and Medicare funds, and would bar Medicaid funds from being used for gender-affirming care. Cisgender kids, however, will still be able to receive similar treatments for things like hormone production conditions.

Slog AM: Floods Claim First Life, Leavenworth Is Hurting, the US Is Bleeding Jobs

Charles Mudede — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 09:17:00 -0800

The Stranger's Morning News Roundup. by Charles Mudede

After days of real rain, the real wind came and annihilated many trees and cut power for an estimated 300,000 humans in the water-clogged region. “O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark,” howled wind gusts that, in some parts, reached 112 mph. This morning, Seattle’s sky is almost calm and few of the brightest stars are visible. As for the rest of the day, expect some showers, strong and cold breezes, and a high of 47.

The Washington floods death toll is now 1. It happened in Snohomish not long after Tuesday completed its first hour. A 33-year-old man, whose state of mind (sober or not) is unknown at this point, drove past signs that clearly told drivers to turn right back and make other plans. Soon after the young man made his last and very bad decision, he plunged into a ditch filled with "six feet of water." When rescuers retrieved him from the submerged car, he was no longer among the living.

I moved to this part of America 30 years ago to avoid real weather. Yes it rained here, but rarely heavily. Yes it got cold here, but nothing like Detroit or Chicago cold. It was just perfect for me. Now look at what anthropogenic climate change has done to my little paradise. We get weather in the summer (too many hot days) and weather in the winter (rain that doesn’t fuck around).

A second Pacific cold front will cross the Pacific Northwest Wednesday followed by another atmospheric river event. These will mean additional periods of gusty winds, mountain snow, and heavy to excessive rainfall with a renewed flooding threat. Make sure to check weather.gov for the latest.

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— National Weather Service (@nws.noaa.gov) December 16, 2025 at 7:59 AM

Real talk: Rain or no rain, Metro's 60 bus is going to be late leaving Capitol Hill. In fact, though not as bad as the 8 (the bus that knows only its own time), it's less dependable than the Seattle Streetcar, which, despite being stuck on tracks that are not separated from traffic-generating cars, still manages to meet much of its schedule. The 60 is such a mystery to me.

The replica of a Bavarian village called Leavenworth is asking the Lord of Lords and King of Kings (mother nature) why the floods had to happen now, during the one time of the year its economy, which is centered around Christmastown, gets a good blast of much-needed tourist cash. First, the snow doesn’t fall like it used to. It’s been replaced by rain. Then came the floods, which closed the town’s lifeline (US Route 2) for five whole Christmastime days. The mayor of Leavenworth, Carl Florea, said to KIRO Newsradio: “[The holiday season is] really important for our retail establishments, it’s when people do a lot of their buying, a lot of their shopping, and a lot of that we’re dependent on. Our economy is a tourism economy.”

Speaking of the Christmas economy: Artificial Christmas trees, which are popular and mostly made in “the factory of the world,” China, are now demanding more cash from cash-strapped American consumers because of, yes, Trump’s tariffs. And it’s not just the trees; it’s also the decorations. Spectrum News: “The US Census Bureau estimates that nearly $3 billion in Christmas decorations are imported annually from China.”

But what do these Nordic trees have to do with the birth of Jesus anyway? Well, Christianity appropriated them from a bunch of German heathens (Leavenworth’s dark secret). Now is a good time for a little and relevant detour into European history. During the period, the early Middle Ages, that saw the replacement of tree-worship (arborolatry) with monotheism in Germany, a popular method of converting German pagans to Christianity was to chop down their sacred trees. In Willibald’s Life Of St Boniface—an account of the Anglo-Saxon missionary, Boniface, who killed his earthy Germanic name and adopted a dead Latin one—you will find this description of his felling of a huge pagan tree, The Oak of Thunor, in AD 723:

"Taking his courage in his hands (for a great crowd of pagans stood by watching and bitterly cursing in their hearts the enemy of the gods), [Boniface] cut the first notch. But when he had made a superficial cut, suddenly, the oak’s vast bulk, shaken by a mighty blast of wind from above crashed to the ground, shivering its topmost branches into fragments in its fall. As if by the express will of God… the oak burst asunder into four parts, each part having a trunk of equal length. At the sight of this extraordinary spectacle the heathens who had been cursing ceased to revile and began, on the contrary, to believe and bless the Lord." Boniface did not stop with just cutting down the tree; he used the dead oak to build a chapel, which he dedicated to Saint Peter.

This primitive business of worshiping trees was eventually Christianized, and entered British and American culture in the 19th century by way of Prince Albert, the German prince who married Queen Victoria.

Fine, now back to the regular economy: The Bureau of Labor Statistics finally released jobs data after two months of nothing doing. And what did it come down to? The Trump economy is losing more jobs than it's creating. October saw 105,000 jobs go up in smoke; November saw 64,000 jobs reappear. And unemployment ticked up to 4.6%, its highest level since 2021. So, these are not, after all, the golden years, the golden years.

When the American economy tanks, the first to go under are always Black people. This fact was, of course, confirmed in the jobs data released on Tuesday, which said that the unemployment rate for Black people hit 8.3 percent in November. It hasn't been this high since 2021. And it will, at this pace, only get higher. Black folks have been here before and they will be here again because, in the words of that 80s hit tune, "somethings just never change."

oh look a real unemployment problem

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— jamelle (@jamellebouie.net) December 16, 2025 at 12:28 PM

The GOP has wasted our time again. It has no real plan to improve the health care system. It only wants to take money from those who don’t have it and give it to those who have way too much of it. There’s nothing much else to see in their politics than that. But the health care issue is proving to be dangerous at a time when the economy is unraveling and Trump is growing more and more unpopular. And so, some moderate Republicans have decided that political survival is the order of the day and joined Democrats to require a vote on extending health care credits for three more years. First Indianapolis, and now this! Trump must be livid. The vote, however, won’t come until January, after the ACA subsidies have expired.

Let’s close AM with a broken heart in the rain:

Slog AM: Bad Weather, Broken Levees, and “Slop” Is Word of the Year

Vivian McCall — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 08:56:00 -0800

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Vivian McCall

We’re too soaked for our own good. And it’s not stopping. Rain is in the forecast today through at least Monday. There’s a flood watch in effect through Thursday in parts of northwest and west central Washington.

Feel the Earth Move: All this rain is making the land fall apart, so watch out for landslides along Interstate 90 and Highway 2, said the state department of transportation. Yesterday morning, a landslide closed the right two lanes of I-90 between North Bend and Snoqualmie summit, the third such collapse in the span in a week’s time.

Feel the Bridge Move, too: Extreme winds closed the floating Hood Canal bridge Monday afternoon. It’s open now, but according to WashDOT’s website, winds and strong tides have the potential to close it again.

A levee failed along the Green River: At first, the GO NOW order seemed catastrophic for Tukwila, Renton and Kent. But it turned out the breach was more trickle than burst. Soon enough, the situation was under control, officials said at a Monday afternoon press conference outside the King County Emergency Operations Center in Renton.

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Another Breach: A levee on the White River broke this morning, prompting a “GO NOW” order for 2,100 Pacific residents in South King County. Authorities went door to door to warn residents, the Seattle Times reported.

Damn Dams: The state department of ecology’s dam safety division is actively monitoring two dams for cracks and breaches: the Lake Sylvia dam in Montesano (risks have lessened in recent days, the Seattle Times reported) and the privately-owned earthen Tortorice Dam near Sultan. The dam’s spillway was clogged with debris, so the state installed pumps to prevent spillage. They’re working. If either dam breaks, there’d be property damage.

Kombucha Crash: Police told Capitol Hill Seattle Blog that the driver of the car that crashed into the self-serve kombucha taproom SOMA Kombucha on E Pike Street was fleeing her pimp. There were reports of gunfire, but nobody was shot.

Tell-all: In a series of interviews with Vanity Fair, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles revealed the obvious: Trump is prosecuting his political enemies (in part) for political reasons. Apparently, the two struck a deal that he’d end his retribution streak after 90 days in office, but obviously that didn’t take. He’s not constantly thinking about retribution, she said, but “when there’s an opportunity, he will go for it.” He has an “alcoholic’s personality” like that, she said. She attributes her ability to work with Trump to dealing with an alcoholic father.

A Few Highlights From These Wildly Open Interviews:

Contrary to Trump’s claims, there’s no evidence that Bill Clinton visited Epstein’s island.
Vice President JD Vance is a conspiracy theorist whose conversion to Trumpism was “sort of political.”
DOGE’s Elon Musk is an “avowed ketamine user.”
Russell Vought, budget director and architect of Project 2025, is an “absolute right-wing zealot.
In her opinion, Attorney General Pam Bondi “completely whiffed” the release of the Epstein files.

You’d think such candid interviews would be a private and anonymous affair, but the Trump team cooperated with the magazine, even posing for glamour shots.

Double Down: When asked if he stood by his comment blaming Reiner’s murder on Trump Derangement Syndrome, President Trump responded in the third person: “Reiner was “deranged as far as Trump was concerned… I was not a fan of Rob Reiner at all, in any way shape or form. I thought he was very bad for our country.” Thanks, Oh Great Leader.

Q: A number of Republicans have denounced your statement on Rob Reiner. Do you stand by it?

TRUMP: Well, I wasn't a fan of his at all. He was a deranged person as far as Trump is concerned.

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) December 15, 2025 at 12:48 PM

Dumb Down: Words have meaning, unless you live at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, in which case words can mean whatever you want them to mean. In an obvious attempt to justify his administration’s extrajudicial murders of suspected drug smugglers on the high seas, Trump designated fentanyl as a chemical Weapon of Mass Destruction.

The Statue of Liberty Crashed to the Ground: You know, the one in Brazil? In a bit of heavy-handed symbolism, the 115-foot replica blew over in a windstorm in Southern Brazil. There’s something cathartic about watching her fall.

WATCH: Replica of the Statue of Liberty topples due to strong winds in Guaíba, Brazil

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— BNO News (@bnonews.com) December 15, 2025 at 1:26 PM

Brown University Shooting Update: Law enforcement released photos and video of who they suspect of shooting up Brown University over the weekend.

Idaho School Bus Crash: Two school buses crashed head-on in southwestern Idaho yesterday, putting both drivers and four children in the hospital. Police said the students’ injuries were not life-threatening. The crash may have been the result of fatigued driving, officials said.

Slop is Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year: “Slop” is defined as “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.” I guess that makes us little piggies. Last year, the word du jour (année?) was Polarization. Not encouraging.

Hotdogcostume.jpeg: Massachusetts man and art fraudster Brian Walshe was found guilty of murdering and dismembering his wife Ana in 2023. Walshe sealed his fate when Googled the following:

Best way to dispose of a body
How long before a body starts to smell
How long does DNA last
Can identification be made on partial human remains
How to dispose of a cell phone
My wife is missing what should I do
Can I use bleach to clean my wood floors from blood stains
How to remove a hard drive from apple laptop
How to saw a body
Hack saw the best tool for dismembering a body
Can you be charged with murder without a body
Can you identify a body with broken teeth
Disposing of a body in the trash
How to remove a hard drive from apple laptop
Body found at trash station
Can a body decompose in a plastic bag

And, the pièce de résistance

Can police get your search history without your computer

Nice flash fiction, dude.

A song for you: Tis’ the season.

Slog AM: A Mass Shooting at Brown University, More Flooding in Washington, and Some Fresh TSA Hell

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 09:55:00 -0800

It was a violent, horrifying weekend. A mass shooting at Brown University during a study session in the school’s engineering and physics building left two people dead and nine injured. The university was locked down for 12 hours, with students crouched under desks and inside locked classrooms. As of this morning, the shooter is still at large. Police had arrested a person of interest over the weekend, but they released them on Sunday, saying that evidence pointed in a “different direction.” The university cancelled classes and exams for the rest of the semester, and encouraged students to go home.

Halfway around the world in Sydney, a father and son opened fire on a Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach, killing at least 15 people. The youngest victim was a 10-year-old girl named Matilda. Mass shootings are extremely rare in Australia because the country has some of the strictest gun laws in the world, but the Australian prime minister has pledged to tighten their gun laws even more after this shooting. Sure beats thoughts and prayers.

In Los Angeles, director Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer, were stabbed and killed in their home on Sunday. Police haven’t formally announced an arrest, but the New York Times says that the couple’s son Nick Reiner has been arrested and is being held on $4 million bail.

You know Reiner’s work because it’s simply some of the best. As a director, you can thank him for A Few Good Men, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally…, and This Is Spinal Tap, just to name a few. His production company, Castle Rock, took a chance on a show called The Seinfeld Chronicles, even though it tested terribly, and now we’ll always have Seinfeld. He met Michele while he was working on When Harry Met Sally…, and falling in love with her quite literally changed the film. She’s the reason Harry and Sally get together in the end.

My Favorite Rob Reiner Fact: The “I’ll have what she’s having” line from When Harry Met Sally… was delivered by Reiner’s mother.

Dick Van Dyke turned 100 over the weekend. The Dick Van Dyke Show was created by Rob Reiner’s dad, Carl Reiner. Van Dyke, Reiner, and Mel Brooks were constant collaborators and friends. In honor of Van Dyke’s birthday, Here and Now’s Robin Young was supposed to interview him at his home, but when she got there, he was under the weather. So instead, she interviewed the 99-year-old Mel Brooks about the legendary entertainer. When asked what Van Dyke’s secret to longevity is, Brooks told her: “I don't know, because the angel of death said, ‘Ah, let's give this guy a break. He's such a sweetheart.’” As for him? “Well, I hide. I'm never in one place for very long because I'm not looking for this guy to catch up with me.”

Trump blamed Reiner's death on "Trump Derangement Syndrome," which even his supporters found disgusting.

Weather: After a brief break, the rain is back. The flooding isn’t expected to be as catastrophic as last week’s, but it’s a one-two punch that our region never needed. Over the weekend, Auburn city officials issued a “get out now” evacuation order. Farms throughout Snohomish and Skagit Counties are underwater. The Nooksack River swept away an entire two-story home. Christmas was cancelled in Leavenworth. Even Trump had to acknowledge that this is an emergency.

Fuck Cars: A 38-year-old cyclist was hit by a car and killed on Sunday. The driver took off, and there’s no public description of the car yet, but the police are asking for tips if you’ve got them.

A Headline to Make You Smile: “Donald Trump wax figure removed from museum after being repeatedly punched in the face.”

Fresh Hell: TSA has been providing names of all air travelers to ICE to help them intercept immigrants while they’re in the airport. The program has been active since March, but hadn’t been known to the public until now. It’s not clear how many arrests have been made thanks to this collab from hell, but one former ICE official told the New York Times that in their region, if a name was flagged in a TSA list, it led to an arrest 75 percent of the time.

Murray Takes on AI: US Senator Patty Murray plans to introduce legislation Monday that would halt the six-state federal pilot program adding AI reviews to Medicare approvals. Until now, our state’s Medicaid recipients didn’t need prior authorization for most services. But under this program, on January 1, the robots will help determine whether or not patients qualify for services like pain management. Even better, the program sets up a financial incentive for the AI providers to deny approvals: they get a cut of the money they save the government.

The News Today Sucked: Here’s one more bit of love for Mr. Reiner.

Slog AM: Skagit County Flood Risk Persists, a Ghost Ship in Mukilteo, Indiana Republicans Vote Against Trump Plan

Nathalie Graham — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 08:34:00 -0800

The Stranger's morning news round-up. by Nathalie Graham

Listen to the Evacuation Orders! Around 78,000 people live in the Skagit River's flood plain. While the rain has lessened, flood waters are still accumulating. The water level is rising in the river and testing the limits of a series of dikes and levees. The crest of the water should arrive in Mount Vernon this morning, a foot higher than normal. Despite officials issuing evacuation orders, many haven't left. Not to get all Led Zeppelin about it, but... some of that infrastructure is over 100 years old. The National Weather Service even issued a flash flood watch in the event the levees fail. Get outta there!

Won't Anyone Think of These 68 Miniature Donkeys? A Mount Vernon woman owns a farm of 68 miniature donkeys. They're only three-feet tall and would not fare well in a flood. She posted on Facebook asking her community for help getting all 68 donkeys out of harm's way. It is hard to evacuate with 68 miniature donkeys. The Seattle Times does not currently have an update on if she found a solution and it is, frankly, killing me.

More to Come: The rain has stopped for now, but more is on the way. Another wet storm will hit Washington on Monday.

What's next for the Pacific Northwest?

Unfortunately, another big rainstorm, fueled by an atmospheric river targeting British Columbia this weekend before it dips toward Washington by Monday. The orientation of the moisture plume will be different, putting new rivers in the crosshairs.

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— Anthony Edwards (@edwardsanthonyb.bsky.social) December 11, 2025 at 10:46 AM

Stay Away from Snoqualmie Falls: All that rain water has made Snoqualmie Falls a roaring, thundering, spectacle. But the Snoqualmie Tribe wants people to stay away until it calms down.

An Omen? You best start believing in ghost stories, Washington State Ferries. You're in one. An unlit "ghost boat" drifted through the Washington State Ferries' Mukilteo docking as a ferry was coming in. Nobody was hurt by the wayward vessel.

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A post shared by Washington State Ferries (@wastateferries)

Indiana Breaks with Trump: Republican state senators in Indiana broke with their party and voted down a new, redrawn congressional map that would win them more seats in the US House of Representatives. The 19 to 31 was a shocking rebuke of Donald Trump and his priorities. In recent weeks, Trump had put serious pressure (blasting them on social media) on these state senators to vote the way he wanted them to. While Trump failed here, the fact that the Indiana Senate even held a vote at all is evidence of the power Trump still holds. Many senators didn't want to discuss it since the redistricting came "outside the usual once-a-decade redistricting cycle," according to the New York Times.

Undetainable: A federal judge has ruled that immigration officials cannot detain Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the US citizen mistakenly deported to an El Salvador prison earlier this year. The Trump administration begrudgingly brought Abrego Garcia back to the US in June, but arrested him on trafficking charges later in the summer. Abrego Garcia pleaded not guilty to those charges. This newest ruling released Abrego Garcia from detention. Immigrations and Custom Enforcement agents cannot detain him again until a court conducts a hearing on the motion. He's a free man for now.

Time Magazine's Person of the Year Sucks: The coveted honor for 2025 went to... "The Architects of AI." To that I say: boo, hiss. The stock market agrees. On the same day of Time's announcement, AI-company Oracle's shares were down by 14 percent. Additionally, amid fear that the AI bubble is going to burst, "Chip makers Nvidia and AMD, as well as tech conglomerates Microsoft and Meta all fell Thursday," reports CNN. In hindsight, these gooners perfectly exemplify the year 2025.

I guess it's fitting that it's a reimagined, worse version of someone else's artwork

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— Thor Benson (@thorbenson.bsky.social) December 11, 2025 at 8:00 PM

No Corruption Here: Trump signed an executive order that blocks any state laws that limit AI and prevents states from limiting its use. Don't worry, the executive order also establishes a federal task force with the sole purpose of fighting any state AI regulations. Hell is empty and the devils are here.

Arkansas Sends Sesame Street Packing: The state is the first to sever ties with PBS after the eight-member Arkansas Educational Television Commission staffed entirely from governor appointees decided the annual $2.5 million membership dues were "not feasible.” (In previous years, the state has gotten about that much funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, but Trump took care of that.) No more Sesame Street or Antiques Roadshow for people in Arkansas. I'm sure they will become worse people because of this.

Self-Plug: Nothing to do tonight? How about you come to a science-themed improv show at the soon-to-be-dead Here-After in Belltown? Full disclosure: I'll be in it. Will I be funny? TBD. But, maybe you'll learn something from our scientist presenter who is an expert in landslides. Topical!

A Big Wall: French marine archaeologists (a real job!) found a massive undersea wall they think dates back to 5,000 BC and might have belonged to a sunken stone age city that was overtaken by rising seas. The 394-foot-long wall is off the coast of Brittany and is the biggest underwater construction ever found in the area. The marine archaeologists believe it was used as "a fish-trap or a dyke for protection against rising sea-levels." Hm, guess that didn't work out.

A Song for your Friday: I've finally gotten around to listening to Rosalía's new album "LUX." And it's a masterpiece.

Slog AM: Flood Evacuations, Mayor-Elect Wilson Keeps SPD Chief, Wild Waves Is Closing

Micah Yip — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 09:34:00 -0800

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Micah Yip

Flood Watch: Gov. Bob Ferguson declared a state of emergency yesterday over record flooding in Western Washington, activating the National Guard and sending calls for help to the federal government. An estimated 100,000 people could face evacuation orders. Evacuation orders have been issued in Skagit County for people living within the 100-year floodplain (an area with a 1% annual chance of flooding), in Concrete, Sumas in Whatcom County, Mount Vernon, and others. Rising rivers could spill over levees. The dam in Grays Harbor is “showing signs of distress.”

The National Weather Service warned the flooding could be “catastrophic” and “life threatening.” Major General Gent Welsh said more than 300 National Guard members will be deployed by the end of today, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is sending response teams to the state. The Seattle Times has live updates.

How to Protect Yourself: Seattle isn’t at high risk of flooding, but for locations that are, KING 5 has steps you can take to keep yourself safe in the storm. This includes making sure storm drains are clear, preparing an emergency kit and putting up barriers. The county is also handing out free sandbags at these locations. The Seattle Times has a list of shelters and links to sign up for emergency alerts here.

Some Pawsitive News: As floods threaten Snohomish County, the Everett Animal Shelter pulled off a massive rescue operation yesterday, evacuating all 120 dogs and cats before rising water could reach its building. After receiving an evacuation order Tuesday night, the shelter put out a call for community help. Within hours, all the animals had been placed in foster homes.

Hmm: Mayor-Elect Katie Wilson is keeping Police Chief Shon Barnes when she takes office next month. Barnes stepped into the interim chief role in January and was sworn in in July, after leaving his post as police chief in Madison, Wisconsin. Before leaving Madison, Barnes was accused (and later cleared) of creating a hostile work environment. In Seattle, he’s fired key civilian oversight staff and surrounded himself with a tight inner circle that some say has hurt morale, insiders told Publicola.

The U.S. military seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, marking a major escalation in President Trump’s months-long antagonization of President Nicolás Maduro. Trump confirmed the operation yesterday, saying it was “a large tanker, very large, the largest one ever seized, actually.” US Attorney General Pam Bondi said they seized the tanker because it was transporting sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran. Since August, the U.S. has launched the largest naval deployment in the Caribbean since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, enacted airstrikes on alleged drug vessels that killed more than 80 people, and put out a $50 million reward for the arrest of Maduro.

DHS posted an edit of the seizure footage to LL Cool J’s Mama Said Knock You Out. Sorry you have to see this:

KNOCKOUT.

If you threaten our nation, or break the law, there is no place on land or sea where we won’t find you.

Thank you to the brave service members from @USCG, @ICEGOV, @FBI, @DeptofWar, and @TheJusticeDept. pic.twitter.com/KUCRjES267
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) December 11, 2025

New Militarized Zone Just Dropped: The Trump administration has militarized another stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border in California. It extends from almost the Arizona state line to the Otay Mountain Wilderness, covering the Imperial Valley. It’s a strategy. Troops can apprehend immigrants in militarized zones and accuse them of trespassing on military bases, which can carry criminal charges.

Sheriff’s Car Kills Pedestrian: A 26-year-old woman died Tuesday morning after a King County Sheriff’s Office vehicle hit her on Highway 2. She was pronounced dead at the hospital. Preliminary findings indicate the woman was hit in a part of the highway with no stop signs or traffic lights, said police.

Wave Goodbye: Federal Way’s Wild Waves Theme Park will close after the 2026 season. The park, which opened in 1977, has lost “millions” in revenue from COVID-19 pandemic impacts, said officials. Property owner Jeff Stock said future plans for the site are in the early stages.

Green Card but “Better”: President Trump just announced his new “gold card” program, which offers legal status and an eventual pathway to U.S. citizenship—basically a green card “but much better,” said Trump. It costs immigrants and their employers $1 million each. The “gold” card will replace EB-5 visas, which were created by Congress in 1990.

Meanwhile, Trump is on a racist, anti-Somali rampage. He’s called the country a “shithole,” and says he’s permanently paused “Third World migration, including from hellholes like Afghanistan, Haiti, Somalia and many other countries,” while pleading for European immigrants instead. On Tuesday, ICE agents tackled and arrested a Somali American man, detaining him for about two hours for no reason other than his ethnicity.

Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson will reprise their roles as Katniss and Peeta for Sunrise on the Reaping next year. Here’s a piece of pop culture history to celebrate:

Slog AM: City Council Approves Police Contract, First Black Woman Appointed to County Council, Too Much Water

Vivian McCall — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 08:47:00 -0800

The Stranger's Morning News Roundup by Vivian McCall

Spoggers: Seattle City Council approved the city’s contract with the Seattle Police Officer’s Guild (SPOG) in a 6-3 vote. Seattle police officers remain the highest paid in the state, and we didn’t get any significant accountability measures in the contract. The CARE team is expanding, but not much. Micah will have more on this later. SPOG celebrated victory with this dorkass tweet.

Seattle City Council ratifies the SPOG contract. Moderates 1 - Socialists 0. Public Safety for the win! pic.twitter.com/4xNGVZ9VTs
— Seattle Police Officers Guild (@SPOG1952) December 10, 2025

In County Council news: Zahilay’s former chief of staff Rhonda Lewis was appointed yesterday to his old District 2 council seat. She’ll hold the seat until the November election. Lewis is the first Black woman to serve on the council. Women now hold a majority of council seats for the first time. Before working in Zahilay’s office, Lewis was the county’s chief of operations under former executive Dow Constantine.

One Seat, Never Cooled: Washington State Sen. Rebecca Saldaña (D-Seattle) is running for Girmay Zahilay’s newly old county council position in District 2. Nathalie has more here.

Some Atmospheric River We’re Having: See for yourself. It’ll be raining here until at least Thursday. This record river is one of the biggest and longest-lasting we’ve seen since 1959.

Uh Oh: Skagit County’s Emergency Management Office is “a little alarmed” that the Skagit river could crest 15 feet over the major flooding threshold, obliterating a previous record. Residents in the lowlands need to stay informed and be prepared to evacuate, the office told The Seattle Times. The National Weather Service has issued flood warnings for several rivers in Western Washington. The Times has more on when they could flood.

Flooding in Gaza: Flash floods, strong winds, and hail are projected in Gaza through Friday evening. Thousands of displaced people living in crowded, weakly-built shelters are vulnerable. Some tents have been completely submerged, the Mayor of Gaza City says.

Freedom: A proposed Trump Administration policy would require tourists to digitally disclose their social media activity for the past five years before visiting our county. The public has two months to comment on the policy. Tourism to the US has already dropped significantly since Trump took office. I wonder why?

More Freedom: US regulators are going to reexamine the safety of RSV shots, despite there being no reports of safety issues. Unless RFK Jr. is trying to make gains on our infant mortality rate, there is no reason to limit access to the shot. We’d ask him, but he’s probably doing pullups at the airport.

In line for the TSA behind this guy

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— Razzball (@razzball.bsky.social) December 8, 2025 at 2:48 PM

Un-Secret Transcripts: A federal judge ruled that sealed transcripts from Jeffery Epstein’s 2019 sex trafficking case can be unsealed. Though, don’t expect much. The judge had previously ruled against unsealing the records, and only reversed that decision after Congress passed a bill to release the files. He said they were hardly revelatory.

Blue Miami: Democrat Eileen Higgins beat a Trump-endorsed Republican in the Miami mayor’s race, breaking her party’s three-decade losing streak. Her campaign focused on Trump’s reckless immigration crackdown, which has cost him the support of Latino Americans, polling shows.

Heartless in the North of Texas: Arlington, Texas had the honor of becoming one of the first cities in the country to kill its LGBTQ non-discrimination ordinance. The ordinance had been suspended since September because officials claimed Arlington could lose federal funds for having it on the books. Yesterday, the city council voted 5-4 not to reinstate it.

A New Casualty in the War on Woke: Marco Rubio and the State Department claimed a decisive victory over people with dyslexia and impaired vision Tuesday when it “returned to tradition” by switching its official font from Calibri to Times New Roman. The 2023 change was a DEI recommendation, so obviously this is a big moment for the citizens of Timewastington. “Tradition” is misleading, anyway. The department only used Times New Roman for 20 years. Before that, it was using Courier New.

Fuck it, Diamond Jubilee: Just listen to the whole thing.

Slog AM: Australia Kicks Kids Off Social Media, More Rain Is Coming to Seattle, Trump Bails Out Farmers

Megan Seling — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 09:45:00 -0800

The Stranger's Morning News Roundup by Megan Seling

About That Weather: Monday’s heavy rain was just the beginning. Rivers are flooding all over Western Washington—the Snohomish River is expected to reach a record high—and the Seattle Times says a “stronger surge of subtropical moisture is on track to arrive Tuesday night.” Keep your phones charged, make some hot chocolate, and get comfortable, it’s gonna be a wet night.

Get ‘Em, Valdez: Seattle Senator Javier Valdez introduced a bill yesterday that would ban law enforcement officers and ICE agents from wearing face-concealing masks. “If a law officer is stopping or questioning you, you have the right to know who they are. Anonymous policing erodes trust, invites abuse, and threatens the safety of everyone involved,” said Valdez. Sounds good! But can we also just ban illegal ICE raids? That would be even better!

Jayapal Has New Legislation, Too: The Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act, co-sponsored by Adam Smith, would, among other things, repeal mandatory detention, create a presumption of release, impose a higher burden of proof to detain primary caregivers and vulnerable populations, and phase out the use of private detention facilities and jails. But can we also recognize the illegal aspect of ICE’s unlawful (and very racist) detainments and hold those criminals accountable for what is essentially kidnapping? I want to see more officials blocking ICE raids and suing those fuckers!

The American people have been clear: they are not okay with Trump’s cruel kidnappings and disappearances of immigrants across the country.

Congress must hear their pleas to push back against this lawlessness and pass my Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act.

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— Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (@jayapal.house.gov) December 9, 2025 at 6:30 AM

Easier Said Than Done: Speaking of stopping ICE, yesterday, former Spokane City Council President Ben Stuckart pleaded guilty to “impeding the duties of immigration officers.” Stuckart allegedly blocked a transport bus carrying two men who came into the US legally through a government-regulated humanitarian program. It’s a felony, so he faces up to six years in prison and thousands of dollars in fines. SO! FUCKED!

Arts News You Can Use: Common AREA Maintenance saved the El Rey! As Stranger writer Audrey Vann reported yesterday, the local arts collective bought the historic Belltown building for “the symbolic price of $20, with the Office of Housing agreeing to forgive the $2.2 million loan if CAM can get the El Rey structurally sound and in compliance with fire codes.” CAM plans to use the building for affordable housing for artists, as well as a cultural space. Read all about it!

It Ain’t Over: Paramount launched what the finance world calls a “hostile takeover” bid (unnecessarily dramatic, imo) by offering to buy Warner Bros. Discovery for $108.4 billion after WB had already agreed to an $83 billion sale to Netflix. But wait, how does Paramount have that kind of money? Didn’t they just lay off thousands of people? Yes! According to Variety, Paramount’s deal is partly backed by “three Arab sovereign wealth funds and Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners.” 👀👀👀

David Ellison knows what Trump wants on CNN—and he’s willing to give it.

If Paramount acquires Warner instead of Netflix and the Ellisons fulfill their promise to Trump, we could see Trump blatantly using them to shape the entire media landscape—from CNN to TikTok—in his own image. trib.al/Qmi31pW

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— The New Republic (@newrepublic.com) December 9, 2025 at 7:21 AM

Trump’s Giving Farmers $12 Billion: Remember when Trump started a trade war, and fucked over a bunch of farmers? Some of those who supported him were starting to question their loyalty. Others began referring to their Trump-induced financial woes as “farmageddon.” Well, Trump announced yesterday he’s rolling out $12B in financial aid for farmers across the country. He says the money is from all the extra dough the US is raking in from tariffs, but that is a lie—the money is coming from the Agriculture Department’s Farmer Bridge Assistance program, and, as the New York Times points out, “The total payout to farmers could be far less than their recent losses.” Way to go, dummy.

Ten Days: The Justice Department has until December 19 to release the Epstein files, and yesterday, a Manhattan federal judge granted a motion to unseal the grand jury investigation of Ghislaine Maxwell, too. But in the ruling, Judge Paul Engelmayer pointed out that the newly unlocked files "would not add to public knowledge."

The Battle of the Boat Footage: In September, the US military attacked an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean, killing 11 people on board. As lawmakers began to investigate the attack, it came out that two people allegedly survived the initial hit, so the US struck the boat again. Legal experts say that is a BIG FAT CRIME, despite Pete Hegseth citing “fog of war.” (Sounds like an Iced Earth album.) Seeing video of the second strike could, of course, help clear this up, and last week, Trump said there should be “no problem” in releasing that footage. Surprisingly transparent, right? Well, yesterday he backtracked on that statement and called a reporter “obnoxious” and “terrible” for saying otherwise. The AP says at least 87 people have been killed in 22 similar strikes in recent months.

Australia Launches Social Media Ban: Australia is the first country in the world to ban kids under 16 from using social media platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, Threads, X, TikTok, Reddit, and more. Parents and kids won’t be punished for breaking the rules, but corporations could be.

Let’s End with Something Delightful:

Because I’m bored: Professional Athletes as Public Transit Vehicles
— Brittney Bush Bollay (@brittneybush.bsky.social) December 8, 2025 at 11:34 AM

Slog AM: The Senate Still Doesn't Have a Plan for Healthcare, the Race for D2 Has Begun, and an Atmospheric River Is Coming

Hannah Murphy Winter — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 09:50:00 -0800

The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Hannah Murphy Winter

Good morning! It might be two weeks until the Winter Solstice, but by my metrics, winter is already here. The weather is moody. The sun sets at 4:18 today. The storm drains are full of that sticky batter of dead leaves, mud, and dog poop. It’s hibernation time.

Speaking of Weather, She’s Comin’: We’ve got an atmospheric river on the way. The National Weather Service says the mountains could see up to 10 inches of rain. It tapers off as it gets closer to the water, but even in Seattle, we’re looking at two to three inches of rain from Monday to Wednesday. Rivers will flood. Highways will pond. Be safe out there.

Heavy rain is expected to begin across the Pacific Northwest tomorrow and linger through the week. Rainfall amounts up to 10" are possible within the Olympics, Cascades, and coastal ranges. 🌧️

Check conditions before traveling and never drive across a flooded roadway.

weather.gov

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— National Weather Service (@nws.noaa.gov) December 7, 2025 at 7:20 AM

The ACA Blues: The ObamaCare healthcare subsidies are still set to expire at the end of the month, and so far, there’s no good plan to stop it. Republicans and Dems haven’t even tried to come up with a bipartisan option. Senate Democrats proposed a straight-ahead three-year extension that isn’t likely to get enough votes when it hits the floor on Thursday. Republicans haven’t offered a counter-plan yet, but GOP Senator Bill Cassidy is trying to push a high-deductible alternative that converts ACA money into health savings accounts for anyone on Marketplace plans. And so far, Trump is simply staying out of it.

The Race for D2 Begins: With Girmay Zahilay officially in the County Executive’s office, his seat in the county council is wide open. Yesterday, Seattle Port Commissioner Toshiko Hasegawa announced that she’s “strongly considering” running for the seat, which represents south King County. Like everyone else in the Democratic party, she seems to have realized that running on affordability works. “People are fighting to remain in the neighborhoods that shaped them,” she said in a statement. “They are fighting rising housing costs, displacement, and uncertainty. Affordability is not an abstract issue for me. It is the story of my family’s survival.” This promises to be just the first (not quite) announcement. In the meantime, Zahilay has nominated three people, all Black women, to take his seat for now. One of them will be appointed by the County Council on Tuesday, but they’ve all promised that, if appointed, they won’t run in the election next year.

Tacoma ICE Facility Still a Nightmare: Three weeks ago, ICE lured Wilmer Toledo-Martinez, an undocumented immigrant who’s lived in the US since he was 15, out of his home by posing as construction workers, and telling him that they’d accidentally hit his car with their truck. When he stepped outside, even though he wasn’t resisting arrest, they released a dog that mauled his arm and torso before they arrested him and took him to the Northwest ICE Detention Center in Tacoma. There, he waited hours without proper medical care, and according to his attorney, he has struggled to get the medication he was prescribed for the injury. This weekend, after seeing the pictures of his wounds, Senator Patty Murray made a public call for his release.

PSA: Don’t chop down trees from public parks, even if it’s Christmas. We didn’t think we’d need to say this, but some genius decided to cut down a small cypress tree in Miller Park last week. Don’t do that.

Here’s a Headline for Ya: “‘I’m Not Fleeing’ — Alleged Antifa Cell Member Says He Was Accidentally Released From Jail.” Daniel Sanchez Estrada was arrested for transporting “anarchist zines” from one Dallas suburb to another. The day before Thanksgiving, he was released without explanation. He figured it was a mistake, so he spent the week enjoying time with family while he could, and willingly turned himself back in when the jail realized what they’d done. He could wait in jail for months for his trial.

LOYALTY! He Says: After pardoning Dem Representative Henry Cuellar for taking $600,000 in Azerbaijani bribes, Cuellar is planning to run for his seat again as a Democrat. Trump was shocked and appalled to find out his pardon wasn’t enough to radically transform his politics and turn him into a Republican. The rest of us are appalled that taking $600,000 in bribes isn’t enough to run someone out of politics.

SCOTUS Update: This morning, the Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments about Trump’s decision to fire the FTC director, a position that’s usually protected from political whims. The New York Times is live-reacting here. So far, the conservative justices seem very skeptical that Congress should be allowed to limit Trump’s ability to fire anyone in the executive branch.

Rest Well, Shanty Tavern: After winnowing down their hours for years, the Lake City roadhouse will host its final show on December 19 before the Tavern’s 94-year-old owner and bartender John Spaccarotelli plans to retire and shut down the venue. "Although the Shanty is my sweetheart, she does require a lot of time and attention," he told KING 5. He says he's still in good health, but wants to do different things with his time in 2026, like play piano and gather with family. The goodbye party will be sometime in January, and he said he’s still open to renting the space out for parties.

It’s Moira Rose’s Favorite Season: The full list of Golden Globe nominees came out today. One Battle After Another snagged the most with nine noms, followed closely by Sentimental Value. But there’s more! For the first time, the Globes include a podcast category, which so far appears to just be a place to reward celebrities like Dax Shepard and Jason Bateman for sitting on a couch once a week.

A Wild Longread for Your Monday: A Chinese virologist was convinced the Chinese government created COVID in a lab and released it intentionally. Her husband, also a virologist, with more experience in the field, insisted that she was mistaken. Then one day, she disappeared, and reappeared as a talking head on Fox News, backed by the Trump administration. Her husband and her parents haven’t been able to find her since.

A Chinese virologist fled to the U.S. in 2020, aided by President Trump’s powerful allies who sought to promote her unproven theories about the origins of Covid-19. Her husband still can’t find her. In interviews, she made clear that she does not want to be found.

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— The New York Times (@nytimes.com) December 7, 2025 at 10:10 AM