I’m penning this at 7 am and there’s nonetheless no signal of daylight. We’re formally within the deepest of the Massive Darkish—5 days away from our shortest day. Behind right now’s rain clouds, we get lower than eight and a half hours of daylight right now. It’s gonna be raining and within the 40s, however when the solar is up, go outdoors anyway.
Talking of climate: Who saved their lights on this weekend? Saturday’s windstorm knocked out energy for about 78,000 individuals. The worst of it was on Bainbridge, Whidbey, and Camano islands, however as of Sunday, most individuals had their energy again. Now we simply must prepare for the incoming atmospheric river. Local weather change is enjoyable.
Sara Nelson fires again: The Council president was on KUOW on Friday to reply to Council Member Tammy Morales’ description of the council as “poisonous.” Nelson claimed she needed to “keep above the tit for tat allegations” however that she “had a accountability” to “reply to the assaults on the integrity of the physique.” She defended the physique, denying Morales’s claims about bullying, and her worries that the council “is sliding in direction of actually undemocratic habits.” Sounds to me like she’s anxious nobody will need to work with them after Morales shared her expertise: “One of many causes that I needed to be on this present is as a result of I do not need anyone who’s desirous about serving District 2 to be discouraged from making use of due to how the Council dynamics have been characterised by Councilmember Morales,” she insisted. “This can be a optimistic work atmosphere.” And naturally, she nonetheless skirted the query of whether or not she’s going to attempt to appoint Tanya Woo once more.
Let the D2 appointment race start: Randy Engstrom, a 20-year Beacon Hill resident and former head of Seattle’s Workplace of Arts & Tradition, has formally introduced he’s going for the District 2 Metropolis Council seat Tammy Morales is stepping down from. In an e mail to supporters over the weekend, Engstrom touted his many years of civic work targeted on fairness, and creativity, versus the everyday political faucet dance. He says he goals to guard susceptible communities whereas giving Seattle a shot at being a real cultural and progressive trailblazer. Although he is the primary to toss his hat within the ring, the D2 appointee race is prone to get crowded earlier than the January 9 deadline.
Folks hold clocking an extra-fluffy coyote in Capitol Hill. However it seems that coyote sightings are on the rise typically, which is uncommon this time of yr. If you wish to see the place they’re popping up, the Woodland Park Zoo and Seattle College present a Carnivore Spotter map. (Although it does present one sighting in the midst of Elliott Bay, which I’ve…questions on.) And bear in mind, coyotes are cute however they most likely don’t need to be your buddy. Go away them be, and hold your cats inside.
Years within the making: The Freeway 520 bike-and-pedestrian bridge opened this weekend! It connects Washington Park Arboretum trails with Montlake and the College District. The town additionally opened the 3-acre Montlake Lid. Possibly we’ll lid I-5 subsequent!
Separate however equal: Including to our early-season anti-trans Christmas presents, a number of Washington faculty districts are pushing the Washington Interscholastic Actions Affiliation (WIAA) to implement guidelines about how trans athletes can take part at school sports activities. Presently, the WIAA permits athletes to take part on groups that align with their gender identification, however Modification No. 7 would particularly ban transgender ladies from taking part in ladies’ sports activities, or ladies’ sports activities divisions with athletes assigned feminine at beginning. As an alternative, they might make a separate, third division that trans athletes might compete in. On high of the truth that checking children’ genitals earlier than they compete at school sports activities introduces an entire mess of privateness points, this all sounds a little bit Plessy v. Ferguson to me.
Washington will get a model information Superfund web site! For nearly 100 years, a Canadian smelting firm referred to as Teck Metals dumped poisonous “slag” into the Higher Columbia River, and final week the EPA formally named it a Superfund web site. By making it a Superfund itemizing, the EPA can use federal funding to scrub up the river. However even higher, it additionally permits the company to compel polluters (on this case, Teck) to pay for the clear up (like how Boeing, King County, and the Port of Seattle are paying about $1 billion to scrub up the Duwamish.) Boeing fought tooth and nail to keep away from paying their fair proportion, so we’ll see what sort of combat Teck places up!
Extra issues to be happy with: Washington is residence to one of many first sexual harassment convictions because the army reclassified it as a legal offense. Lt. Col. Herman West of Joint Base Lewis-McChord was discovered responsible of repeatedly sexually harassing a feminine officer in his command. It is thought of a felony-level offense.
Ho ho ho: SantaCon was this weekend. To all those that rejoice, I want you a lot Gatorade. I’m comfortable to report that each one of my favourite bars had “No Santa-Con” indicators on the door.
The mistaken type of zoning: Capitol Hill Seattle Weblog reported that the Seattle chapter of the Nationwide Alliance In opposition to Racist and Political Repression was planning a protest and flyering rally on Saturday at Cal Anderson Park to protest in opposition to the neighborhood’s new SODA zone. D3’s Pleasure Hollingsworth led the hassle so as to add a Capitol Hill SODA zone to the record in September, although SPD Chief Sue Rahr has explicitly mentioned that the zones are “not very best” for treating a “medical drawback.” Cool.
Again to Fundamentals: Washington has a brand new assured primary earnings program, concentrating on indigenous mother and father. Hummingbird Indigenous Household Providers will give 150 pregnant individuals who establish as American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander $1,250 a month, no strings hooked up. “This program goes to construct Indigenous generational wealth,” Tia Yazzie, Hummingbird’s Abundance Auntie, instructed the Seattle Instances. “It’s not simply cash wealth, however cultural wealth, therapeutic wealth.” Analysis overwhelmingly reveals that UBI works, and we not too long ago had a profitable pilot program down in Tacoma. Plus, the Heritage Basis thinks UBI is BS, which simply makes me need it extra.
McConnell does one thing we don’t hate: Senator Mitch McConnell is a polio survivor, so RFK Jr.’s petition to withdraw the polio vaccine from the market didn’t sit effectively with him. He teeeechnically didn’t identify names, however he issued a thinly veiled menace to incoming Trump admin members who is likely to be, let’s consider, science-hostile: “Efforts to undermine public confidence in confirmed cures will not be simply uninformed—they’re harmful,” mentioned McConnell. “Anybody in search of the Senate’s consent to serve within the incoming administration would do effectively to keep away from even the looks of affiliation with such efforts.”
Main information shops fawn over CEOs: This weekend, the Seattle Instances revealed a syndicated Washington Submit article concerning the late UnitedHealth CEO, Brian Thompson. (They actually used the phrase “bootstrapped” to explain Thompson’s background.) Apparently, he was conscious that the corporate had a critical PR drawback earlier than he was killed. “He was actively articulating a imaginative and prescient that helped higher educate and assist individuals higher perceive what the corporate is doing,” one supply instructed the paper, which sounds an terrible lot like company PR spin to us. In the meantime, the New York Instances revealed an OpEd by the corporate’s new CEO, saying: “We all know the well being system doesn’t work in addition to it ought to, and we perceive individuals’s frustrations with it.” However they didn’t design the system, and healthcare is tough, so don’t blame them, he mentioned. Inform that to the $23 billion UnitedHealthcare netted final yr.
In the meantime: ProPublica discovered that UnitedHealthcare had a “playbook for limiting psychological well being protection,” which impacted the therapy of kids with autism on Medicaid. Cool.
Similar playbook, simply extra of it: We’re weeks away from the brand new Trump administration, and he’s already threatening the press. The New York Instances referred to as it a “small flurry” of defamation lawsuits, geared toward information shops that dared to criticize him or his cupboard picks. ABC Information has already been cowed, coughing up $15 million to Trump’s presidential library fund to settle a defamation go well with—which means some within the Fourth Property are actually sponsors of the MAGA empire’s best hits assortment.
What we’ve been ready for: Texas Lawyer Basic and all-around rubbish pile Ken Paxton is suing a New York physician for prescribing abortion drugs to a girl close to Dallas. It’s one of many first challenges to protect legal guidelines that Democrat-controlled states handed after Roe v. Wade was overturned. There are numerous methods to work round state legal guidelines and get abortion drugs by mail. As a result of abortion is neighborhood care.
A tune in your Monday: My new favourite, if kinda unsettling, cowl of Black Gap Solar.
