Climate: Glad new 12 months! Good to be again on Slog to inform you the unhealthy unhealthy information. At this time seems sunny with a excessive of 49. Tonight the clouds roll in and temps drop to the high- to mid-30s. Count on the solar to return Thursday. Pack an umbrella Friday to courageous the 40-percent probability of rain. I do know we’re too cool for these, however delicate chilly is rather more harmful if you’re moist. I got here residence from a stroll the opposite night time with purple lips and frost on my hat. I began shivering solely after I warmed up, so watch out!
Hi there, Apple: The tech firm signed a brand new lease to take over 193,000-ish sq. toes of workplace house at Arbor Blocks West in South Lake Union, beforehand occupied by Meta. It’s the biggest new lease in Seattle since earlier than COVID, when Qualtrics scooped up 275,000 sq. toes downtown in 2019.
Goodbye, business net-pen fish farming: The state board of Pure Assets banned the trade with a brand new rule yesterday. Supporters mentioned the ban would help salmon, orcas, and the tons of of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} we’ve already spent on aquatic species restoration. Jeremy Wilbur, chair of the Swinomish Tribe, mentioned salmon had sufficient challenges with out “aquatic feed tons.” The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe mentioned the observe was an essential financial useful resource as fishing continues to say no, reviews the Seattle Occasions. Greater than 80% of public feedback earlier than the listening to have been in help of the ban. Web-pen aquaculture existed in Washington for many years. In 2018, a web off Cypress Island negligently operated by Cooke Aquaculture, which operates Salish Fish with the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe, failed and 250,000 non-native Atlantic salmon slipped into the wild waters of Puget Sound. This isn’t a groundbreaking coverage. California and Alaska had already banned business net-pen aquaculture, Oregon doesn’t have net-pens, and British Columbia is phasing them out by 2029.
Seattle’s driver deactivation regulation goes into impact: The regulation makes firms like Instacart, Uber, and Postmates present at the very least two weeks discover and cheap justification when kicking drivers off their platforms, and giving these drivers alternative to grasp and enchantment what had been, with out oversight, opaque remaining selections. The regulation, a relic of a extra progressive metropolis council, handed in 2023 however was blocked in courtroom by a swimsuit from—guess who?—Uber. It is meant to maintain drivers secure from arbitrary selections based mostly on issues like turning down too many rides or falling beneath a minimal common buyer ranking after an unfair evaluate. It is unclear if the present Council will do something to roll this again.
ICYMI: Ashley’s first Dangerous Apples column of the 12 months has the Seattle Police Division firing the fast-driving officer who hit and killed faculty pupil Jaahnavi Kandula in a crosswalk, the SPD officer who pulled over a King County Metro bus driver, and two extra cops who beat a person suspected of arson. Charming. Examine it right here.
NEW: Newest Dangerous Apples column. This month we stay up for a number of the Seattle police misconduct circumstances we count on to resolve in 2025.
🍎 Jaahnavi Kandula’s killer fired
🍎 Det. who pulled over that Metro bus
🍎 That Sgt. who repeatedly hit that guyhttps://t.co/oodAQHDIKa
— Ashley Nerbovig (@AshleyNerbovig) January 7, 2025
Are you aware this wolf? The Heart for Organic Range and the US Fish and Wildlife Service are providing a mixed $20,000 reward for assist catching the particular person or individuals killing endangered gray wolves in Washington State. Three at the moment are lifeless. These animals want safety. The killings threaten the survival of this species. And it is an effective way to repay these pupil loans President Joe Biden couldn’t cancel. Hop to it, gumshoe.
most federal companies: if we work arduous, we will resolve this in simply 75 years
us fish and wildlife: to avoid wasting this owl, we should carry slaughter upon his brothers. one thousand gold items for the hides of those that slew the noble wolf, king amongst canines, in his arboreal area
— Vivian McCall (@vivmccall) October 30, 2024
LA is on fireplace: Wildfires in Los Angeles County unfold on a Tuesday windstorm, destroying properties and forcing hundreds to flee for security. Some escaping a hearth within the rich Pacific Palisades neighborhood deserted vehicles and ran when a site visitors jam clogged the highway. Officers haven’t mentioned what number of buildings the fireplace has destroyed to this point, however estimates 13,000 constructions have been threatened. The evacuation space included 30,000 individuals. CNN reviews the Palisades fireplace is burning by means of 5 soccer fields a minute. Two different fires are raging north: The five hundred-acre Hurst fireplace north of San Fernando, and the 1,000-acre Eaton fireplace in Altadena. The Related Press reviews winds might proceed for days, producing 100-mph gusts in day mountains and foothills that haven’t seen rain in months.
The wind is admittedly fucking nuts proper now. They count on the fireplace to unfold by means of the night time, into the morning and probably by means of the following few days. https://t.co/ahCiXj5ab6 pic.twitter.com/JVFoejeRsO
— Individuals’s Metropolis Council – Los Angeles (@PplsCityCouncil) January 8, 2025
Sorry, Canada: President-elect Donald Trump advised reporters in a information convention he wouldn’t take Canada by navy pressure, however he would economically subjugate our sovereign neighbor and ally to eliminate the “artificially drawn line” separating our nations. That’s fucking insane, what the fuck is he even speaking about? It is not regular that the US would purchase one other nation full of individuals with no need to be American—properly … that’s undoubtedly on model for us. Canadians feared this jingoist bullshit from the US earlier than we bought ourselves into the American Civil Conflict. (For extra on that, I’d counsel Alan Taylor’s “American Civil Wars: A Continental Historical past, 1850-1873,” among the finest books I learn final 12 months).
Additionally: Trump steered he’d use navy pressure and financial coercion to wrangle the Panama Canal from Panama, for delivery, and Greenland from Denmark, presumably for the uncommon earth minerals utilized in battery manufacturing and geopolitical dominance over China and Russia. Expansionist threats are harmful and unjustifiable. Fuck this man.
Clearing the way in which for mass deportations: The Home handed the Laken Riley Act yesterday, which directs the feds to detain and probably deport immigrants charged with nonviolent crimes like theft, housebreaking, larceny, and shoplifting. This regulation scapegoating determined immigrants handed the Home with the assistance of 48 Democrats, and will probably go the Senate with some Democratic help on Friday. This is the roll name.
Democratic no votes in Washington state: Representatives Pramila Jayapal, Suzan DelBene, Derek Kilmer, Rick Larsen, Adam Smith, Marilyn Strickland, Emily Randall.
Democratic sure votes in Washington state: Representatives Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Kim Schrier.
A very unhappy story: JetBlue discovered two our bodies within the touchdown gear compartment of a airplane that flew to South Florida from John F. Kennedy airport in New York Metropolis Monday night time. The airline says it doesn’t know who the persons are or how they bought there, however each are “believed” to be males. Particulars are scant, however detectives are on the case. Because the Related Press factors out, it’s unusual that they bought in there. Airports are imagined to be safe. It appears preventable.
Idaho *cough cough* No implication right here, persons are coughing. The biggest medical group within the state is monitoring an explosion of 525 flu circumstances within the first week of the 12 months. It’s additionally reporting a take a look at positivity fee of fifty% at its clinics, that means half of these examined for flu examined optimistic. (An outbreak is below management if that fee is shut to five%). Flu circumstances are spiking right here in Washington, too, the place the state division of well being circumstances have quadrupled between late November and late December. Get your flu, COVID, and RSV vaccinations. Should you’re good, the great man or woman or they/them gives you a lollipop. Flu may not be dangerous to you, however it will probably and does kill (principally older) individuals yearly.
Rights for jerks: As you realized in Slog AM yesterday, Meta modified up its harassment coverage to satisfy this meaner, dumber political period. The ramifications of which are it now permits billions on its world platforms Fb, Instagram, and the Metaverse to say girls are family objects, homosexual and trans persons are mentally sick, Chinese language persons are chargeable for COVID, and so forth, all topics the corporate says are in mainstream political discourse. This guidelines in case your pastime is being an asshole to strangers on the web and sucks for everybody who hates studying feedback from those that sadly by no means bought hooked on phonics. Firms should not our mates. They exist to generate profits and their obvious political values are an phantasm.
What’s your attractive secret? As Ashley reminded you yesterday, we’ve bought a intercourse survey cooking! Inform all, little pigs.
If in case you have a dumb job/hate conferences: Final week, my former bandmate Andrew H. Smith launched this humorous, catchy pop tune referred to as “Your Dumb Workplace Job,” which jogs my memory of each unhealthy job and coworker I’ve ever hated. I adore it. So does commenter @cursedsnail who says, I FUCKING HATE THE JIMMY JOHN’S I WORK AT THANK YOU ANDREW!!!
