Seattle

Shout out to @specialseaweed@sh.itjust.works for updating the other post on this topic!

Transcript:

"Now Council is proposing to pull this funding from our general fund, which is already facing a $175 million deficit. I look forward to seeing which critical services they plan to cut from the general fund to make their numbers work."

The mayor’s office had argued that universal school meals would help out more than 6,800 students whose family income barely exceeds federal thresholds. But Hollingsworth and Foster said equity should come first with additional aid to Seattle’s poorest youth. The question of whether to siphon off funds from one food program to another started a bitter zero-sum debate between proponents of means testing and universalism.

The vote did not fall neatly along progressive and centrist lines. Foster, a sponsor, is one of the council’s three progressives, while the centrist Saka gave an impassioned speech about how his childhood experiences motivated him to oppose any delay.

“We qualified for free and reduced lunch, which means we also would have likely qualified for Medicaid,” Saka said. “But I never went to the dentist and only went to the doctor a handful of times in nine years because of the severe, significant, non-trivial, and substantial administrative paperwork burden imposed on people that need these valuable resources.”

In a press statement, Wilson pledged to work closely with the council and city departments to implement the programs funded by the FEPP levy.

Washington joined the ranks of states like Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Maine in enacting a so-called millionaires tax. It places a 9.9% levy on households earning more than $1 million per year. The tax doesn’t apply to the first $1 million of income — only the income beyond that threshold.

Supporters of the tax argue that it affects only a sliver of households in the state, while opponents warn it threatens opening the door to a broader statewide income tax.

Let’s Go Washington, a political action committee sponsored by hedge fund manager Brian Heywood, put forward the repeal measure. “We are proud to lead the fight to protect families and small businesses from Olympia expanding their state income tax on all Washingtonians,” he said in a statement July 15, when its initiative met the signature threshold for appearing on the ballot.

Meanwhile, a campaign urging voters to reject the repeal bid has won the backing of some high-profile Washingtonians, including travel writer Rick Steves and “Jeopardy!” winner-turned-host Ken Jennings.

Gov. Bob Ferguson (D) signed the bill creating the tax in March. It takes effect in 2028, with the first taxes due in 2029.

cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/c/news@lemmy.world/p/2230332/a-bad-week-for-flock-but-a-good-week-for-privacy-and-local-organizing-in-washington-sta

As the pushback against Flock and other ALPRs grows all around the country, Washington state is doing its part!

The Seattle area job market appeared to improve over the last quarter, with the unemployment rate declining and job openings increasing slightly. But those averages obscure a significant restructuring that may reshape the regional labor force.

Job growth is shifting away from the tech industry — once seen as the unstoppable economic engine of the region — toward healthcare and frontline services. That’s according to new data compiled by the Workforce Development Council (WDC) of Seattle-King County, a nonprofit that helps set employment strategy for the region.

The Seattle City Council approved a beefed-up renewal of the city's dedicated transit funding measure Tuesday on a 9-0 vote, giving voters the chance to sign onto a major expansion of city-funded King County Metro service. If approved in November, the refreshed Seattle Transit Measure will generate around $138 million per year, the vast majority of which would maintain and expand supplemental bus service across the city to increase Seattleites' all-day access to transit.

Increasing the Seattle Transit Measure's funding source from its current 0.15% sales tax rate to 0.3% will allow the City of Seattle to purchase around 100,000 more bus trips per year, ramping up from the 180,000 provided today. That will mean 10-15 routes see increased frequencies, particularly on nights and weekends, with the exact corridors determined using existing equity criteria in place at the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT).

SR3 believes the shootings may be fueled by the “dangerous myth” that harbor seals are primarily responsible for declining salmon populations, according to the petition.

However, harbor seals eat a wide variety of prey, including sole, flounder, sculpin, cod, herring, octopus and squid.

Researchers have also found that eliminating seals and sea lions from Washington waters alone would not restore salmon populations because habitat loss and other human-driven factors remain the primary causes of salmon declines, SR3 said.

Harbor seals are common throughout Washington’s nearshore waters, including Bellingham Bay, Hood Canal and the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

The 300-foot-long wetland, anchored along a dock in Ballard, is designed to give young salmon some of the calm, shaded, shallow habitat they’ve lost along the city’s hardened shorelines. “They need every help they can get to survive,” said Nancy Rottle with the University of Washington’s Green Futures Lab.

Since 2022, the Green Futures Lab has partnered with the nonprofit EarthCorps to study whether a constructed floating ecosystem can survive in saltwater and help salmon do the same. “To our knowledge, no one had tested them in salt water,” Rottle said.

Researchers say more than 75% of Seattle’s shorelines have been altered by development, making it harder for young salmon to find the protective nearshore waters they need to grow. The floating wetland tries to bring some of that habitat back by providing shade, food sources and other ecological benefits right at the marina.

“The perfect place to provide habitat that would provide shade for salmon, food for salmon, other aquatic advantages, ecosystem services,” Rottle said.

His wife had been contemplating a separation and told him on the night of the altercation that she was leaving him. At Williams-Booth’s insistence, she always carried her firearm when she left the house. She was grabbing her laptop from the home office when he came in and blocked the only exit.

He asked her if she was carrying, and she patted the belly holster where her 9mm pistol was kept. Then, she said, Williams-Booth lunged at her and pinned her up against the wall. He pulled the gun from the holster, grabbed her by the hair, and took her to the ground.

While they were on the ground, Williams-Booth had the frame of the gun pressed against the side of her throat. It had a loaded magazine but not a round in the chamber. She tried to take her phone from her purse to call 911, and the two struggled over the purse until the strap ripped. Eventually, she double-kicked him in the chest and escaped out the window, leaving behind her weapon and purse.

A Thurston County detective investigated the incident and found the evidence was consistent with his wife’s account. The detective found clumps of hair where the struggle occurred. Her purse strap was ripped, as she described. His wife had injuries on her lip and nose.

The Thurston County Sheriff’s Office developed probable cause to arrest Williams-Booth for misdemeanor domestic violence assault and unlawful imprisonment.

Previously, Washington’s rental laws didn’t have much guidance on new cooling units. Slatter said that landlords could refuse to let a tenant install one. The new law, by contrast, states that renters can now install a portable AC unit, as long as a landlord hasn’t explicitly written a ban into the lease.

The law, which went into effect in June, includes specific restrictions depending on the kinds of AC units a tenant is looking to install. For a window unit, here are the restrictions:

• A tenant must give the landlord two days’ notice before installation.
• The device cannot prevent a window accessible from the outside to be locked.
• It cannot require excessive brackets that would damage the window frame warranty.
• The device must be safely secured from falling out of the window.
• The landlord’s insurance policy must allow window-mounted units to be installed.
• Landlords can require inspection of window-mounted units after installation.
• Fewer restrictions apply to other types of AC units, like floor-mounted devices and saddle-mounted units.

For two sisters raised in a family of 11 children that moved back and forth between Washington state and South Dakota, danger didn’t come from outsiders like they’d been warned by their church.

It came from their brothers in the next bedroom.

Federal prosecutors say the owner of Capitol Hill’s Single Shot Kitchen and Saloon did not pay the IRS more than $1 million in employee taxes over a ten-year period beginning with the restaurant’s 2014 debut on Summit.

Federal prosecutors have charged Rory McCormick with one count of Willful Failure to Pay Over Tax in the case that includes allegations of $1,027,362 in unpaid employee taxes and another $418,979 in employer-side payroll taxes owed to the IRS.

The pest control company I've been using (Purcor) has been disappointing me for a while. Who do you use, and what do you pay for recurring service?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/49593018

Source: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/meet-jimothy-seattles-internet-famous-raccoon/

Looks like a suicidal person might have been in crisis and either jumped, shot himself or something. There's multiple police agencies with snipers ready. The bridge is closed and there's a ton of cars diverted to the street exit before the bridge. Some of the people are going back to Kitsap or to the ferrys which basically will take an additional hours. Or you can go to Olympia and go around.

This is freaking crazy. I didn't even want to drive here and now I'm stuck overnight.

cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/c/offbeat@lemmy.ca/p/2218315/seattles-newest-cryptid-is-actually-just-a-very-round-raccoon-named-jimothy

Amanda Knox and stand-up comedy are likely two phrases that don’t go together for most people. Almost 20 years ago, Knox was in the spotlight in connection with a salacious murder mystery in Italy. Now, she’s on the stage in a one-woman standup show called “Cartwheel,” and her public and private story, which she explores and ponders, is getting laughs.

Back in November of 2007, no one was laughing when Knox, a University of Washington student spending a year abroad in Italy, was arrested in connection with the violent death of her roommate, Meredith Kercher.

Twenty years old at the time, Knox became the focus of an international media frenzy. Over the months that followed, she was prosecuted and convicted of murder. She spent nearly four years in prison before being set free and later exonerated.

We say it every year, but we really mean it this year: It’s a great year to wade into politics and vote like your life depends on it.

cross-posted from: https://discuss.online/post/42703568

Washington state domestic workers will now have statewide labor protections under the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, signed into law Monday by Gov. Bob Ferguson.

House Bill 2355, sponsored by Rep. Brianna Thomas (D-Seattle) and championed in the Senate by Sen. Rebecca Saldaña (D-Seattle), who sponsored the Senate companion bill, ensures that nannies, housekeepers, cooks, home care providers, and other domestic workers receive fair pay, written agreements, privacy protections, and legal recourse — rights they have been denied for decades.

At 7:40 a.m. Wednesday, federal judges in the Western District of Washington swore in former King County Superior Court judge and federal prosecutor Roger Rogoff as their pick for U.S. attorney.

Fifty-four minutes later, President Donald Trump fired him.

Rogoff, who recently resigned as director of the state office of independent investigations, formed to investigate police killings, is now the rope in a tug-of-war with the Trump administration. The district’s 17 sitting federal judges began looking for a replacement for Neil Floyd in January after the president failed to formally nominate him, instead appointing Floyd as interim and later as a “first assistant” U.S. attorney in order to sidestep the nomination process.

Rogoff said he was waiting in the lobby of the U.S. District Courthouse downtown to meet with Floyd, and presumably take Floyd’s office, when he got an email saying he’d been fired.

“We are working on legal action right now,” Rogoff said. “The rule of law requires that prosecutorial decisions remain free from political interference, and that lawful judicial appointments be respected. I remain grateful for the confidence placed in me and proud of the career professionals who continue to serve the people of Western Washington.”

Rogoff’s firing sets up a legal battle over a federal statute that gives a district’s federal judges authority to appoint a U.S. attorney if there is no formal nomination or Senate hearing.

An Amazon software engineer in Washington state is accused of strangling his wife — whom he viewed "as an obstacle" to being with a woman he loved from India — just months after their "arranged marriage," according to police.

Avinash Narne, 30, of Bellevue, is charged with murder for the October 2025 death of his wife, whose name is being withheld at the request of her family.

Police say Narne, who is originally from India, married the victim through an arranged marriage in June 2025 and they moved in together in July 2025. Narne claimed he was out running errands when his wife was strangled to death inside a bathroom in their home. He told investigators that he came home to find her locked in the bathroom.

"Officers forced entry into the bathroom and located [Narne's wife] laying prone on the bathroom floor," a probable cause affidavit says. "Medics removed [Narne's wife] from the bathroom and positioned her in the living room while they attempted lifesaving procedures."

Narne's wife was pronounced dead at the scene and her autopsy report listed the manner of death as "homicide" and the cause of death as "asphyxia due to strangulation." Traces of THC were detected in her urine.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/63394849

How do you enforce who is “girl enough” to play sports? In my home state of Washington, the most extreme proposal of its kind is before voters on the November ballot. Measure I-638 would require all girls—but not boys—to be medically sex certified before they can play sports.

In a country rife with sexual assault, young girls would have to undergo invasive inspections of their genitals, or pay for a DNA or hormone test, as part of their school sports physicals. Doctors say genital inspections are not only medically unnecessary to play sports, they can traumatize and physically harm young girls.

I saw this article at BoingBoing, and had to look it up.

From Wikipedia:

The Aroma of Tacoma, also known as the Tacoma Aroma, is a putrid and unpleasant odor associated with Tacoma, Washington, United States.[1] The smell has been described as similar to the odor of rotten eggs.[2] The odor is not noticeable throughout the city, but is rather concentrated in the Tacoma tideflats and is frequently smelled by motorists traveling that section of Interstate 5.[2]

Crossposted from til@lemmy.world: https://lemmus.org/post/23788650

I'm looking to do a bathroom remodel and am interested if anyone can recommend independent contractors in the area.

It's too easy to find those big companies that charge a lot and don't particularly care about their work. I'm more interested in the small operations. Who do you know?