Category: Seattle, Washington Local News

IVF procedures start freezing in Alabama. After the Alabama Supreme Court ruled earlier this week that fertilized frozen embryos were considered life, the University of Alabama health system put a pause on its in vitro fertilization procedures for fear of criminal prosecution. The IVF process can continue through egg retrieval, a UAB spokesperson said, but “fertilization and embryo development is paused for now.” UAB is the first clinic to announce this IVF freeze, but more clinics are expected to follow in the wake of this ruling. It must be exhausting to be pro-life in this country considering all these mental gymnastics they do to fit a self-serving ideological agenda. 

In case you think I’m being dramatic about that last point: Alabama State Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Parker, the guy who handed down the opinion about fertilized frozen embryos being property, essentially said American law should be rooted in the Bible. He supports the Seven Mountains Mandate, “the belief that conservative Christians are meant to rule over seven key areas of American life, including media, business, education and government.” In an interview, Parker said, “God created government, and the fact that we have let it go into the possession of others, it’s heartbreaking,” and then he added, “That’s why he is calling and equipping people to step back into these mountains right now.”

Man arrested for stealing Magic the Gathering cards: Police arrested a 28-year-old man for allegedly stealing $40,000 worth of Magic the Gathering cards from the Ballard warehouse where he worked. The warehouse noticed discrepancies in its inventory and traced the stolen cards back to their worker after finding similar cards being hawked online. Police found the man’s address after buying a card and seeing the man’s name and return address on the delivery. Look, I don’t know much about this table top gaming world, but I know these cards go for a pretty penny. So, I’m hereby petitioning Hollywood to make an Ocean’s 11-style heist movie about Magic cards. 

Trump can’t delay penalties: In the conclusion of his civil fraud trial last week, Donald Trump “was ordered to pay a $354.8 million fine plus interest and was barred from leading any New York company for three years.” His defense requested a 30-day delay of the enforcement of the penalties to facilitate “an orderly post-judgment process.” Judge Arthur Engoron denied the request, telling Trump, “You have failed to explain, much less justify, any basis for a stay.”

Maybe some exciting weather on the horizon? 

It’s been a painfully dull winter for weather enthusiasts (🙋‍♂️), but next week offers some excitement!

Wet snow is possible Monday & Tuesday, along with graupel, small hail & breezy winds. ❄️

Time to get excited!

— Seattle Weather Blog (@KSeattleWeather) February 23, 2024

Having trouble filling your prescriptions? Maybe it’s because of all the fucking pharmacy closures in Washington. Last year, a record number of pharmacies—about 60—shut down in Washington state. More than half of the closed businesses were owned by Rite Aide, a company that filed for bankruptcy back in October. Rite Aide acquired Seattle’s Bartell Drugs chain back in 2020. Now, more than 20 Bartells have closed in Seattle. 

Digital media’s death rattle continues: Vice Media will stop publishing on its website and will layoff hundreds of staffers. The publisher’s new private equity ownership assessed that the way Vice had distributed its content was “no longer cost-effective.” The plan is to make changes to the “strategic vision,” and also maybe sell the company. This news comes at the same time as significant layoffs from BuzzFeed. All of this is sad. The weird, fun outlets who sculpted online writing into what it is today are crumbling. Having fewer voices to report on what’s going on in the world—and fewer non-establishment media voices—is a bad thing. 

I increasingly feel like the only or at least the most important story is how private equity is hollowing out and destroying every aspect of our existence https://t.co/BtcN6j82jz

— Sam Adams (@SamuelAAdams) February 22, 2024

High-speed rail plows forward: The plan to put a high-speed rail line between Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, British Columbia is chugging along—slowly, of course, but still chugging. Washington state recently awarded $500,000 in grant money toward the planning process, and the Legislature set aside $50 million for the line in the transportation budget. Half of that transportation budget money could go toward receiving $250 million in federal grant money to begin actual development. That grant requires a $25 million investment from the state budget. 

Car crash nightmare in China: A weather system of extreme cold snaps, freezing rain, and snow is sweeping across southern and central China. The conditions led to a 100-car pile up on an iced-up overpass in Suzhou. Remarkably, only three people were hospitalized from their injuries.

More than 100 vehicles were involved in this massive pile-up that happened on black ice in China’s eastern city of Suzhou. pic.twitter.com/2EB3Xj9Yrn

— DW News (@dwnews) February 23, 2024

And, now a word from Ashley. 

Thanks, Ashley! Back to me. 

US returns to the moon: For the first time in 50 years, a US craft has landed on the moon. This, time, however, the moon pursuit was funded and executed by a private company, Intuitive Machines. The lander, Odysseus, settled right-side-up on the moon, though its signal back to mission control was weak. Hopefully the lander is not plagued by the same obstacles as its namesake and can return home to its wife and son. 

THE SOURCES

WHAT WE FOUND

1. Does the Alabama Supreme Court ruling make IVF illegal in the state?

THE ANSWER

2. Have any Alabama clinics paused IVF treatment after the ruling?

THE ANSWER

3. Does the Alabama Supreme Court ruling impose criminal penalties? 

THE ANSWER

Culling the stockpile

While expired items could prove useful in another emergency, it costs the state money to store them. When deciding what stockpiled items to keep, the state looks at the level of demand for the item, its market value and whether it can be tested to ensure performance past its expiration date, said Portner of the Department of Health.

Once the department determines an item is worth zero dollars and is no longer in demand, the agency seeks to offload it. Hospitals can now source their own supplies thanks to an improved supply chain, Portner said, and some stockpiled N95 masks were made to fit larger face shapes than hospitals need. The state decided that any possible future use for the surgical masks, gowns and gloves was not worth the cost to store them.

“They are expired, there’s no demand, and ultimately they then incur a cost to the state because storage is not free,” Portner said. “At this point, with the market’s ability to support that demand, … expired versions which don’t have that manufacturer endorsement just aren’t sought after.”

The department held on to some items that could be tested and validated for use past their expiration dates, such as N95 masks approved by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. This process previously allowed masks left over from the swine flu/H1N1 outbreak in the 2000s to be used during the COVID-19 pandemic, Portner said. But there is not a similar process to verify the efficacy of expired surgical masks, he added.

The discarded items also included more than 70,000 expired N95 masks that were not approved by NIOSH. Scrambling to find whatever protection they could, states obtained these at the federal government’s suggestion in 2020, but the FDA no longer endorses their use.

Find tools and resources in Crosscut’s Follow the Funds guide to track down federal recovery spending in your community.

The agency first reached out to medical schools and community groups to gauge interest in the expired supplies, Portner noted.

The DOH maintains a warehouse of medical supplies in Thurston County. That stockpile currently includes pandemic supplies equivalent to 20% of peak demand during the worst COVID-19 spikes, Portner said. The state currently has more than 13 million N95 masks, about 2 million Antigen and PCR test kits, and more than 50 million gloves, according to an inventory report provided on Feb. 15.

For Alison Mariella Désir, birdwatching was never on her radar – not until 2020 when Christian Cooper, a Black birder, was harassed in Central Park by a racist white woman. For Alison it was yet another example of Black people harassed or killed for doing ordinary, mundane things – for daring to exist in the world.

All of this got Alison curious about the origins of birdwatching, which led her to the National Audubon Society’s website. The organization’s namesake, John James Audubon, was the author of seminal works like The Birds of America, a collection of 435 life-size prints that remains a standard against which 20th and 21st century bird artists are measured. The website goes on to state that Audubon was a complex and troubling character who did despicable things even by the standards of his day. He enslaved Black people and wrote critically about emancipation. He stole human remains and sent skulls to a colleague who used them to assert that whites were superior to non-whites.

And yet, despite American birdwatching’s racist past, Black people have found enjoyment in the activity. One such person is Armand Lucas, an environmentalist globetrotter and birder originally from the Bronx. In this episode, keeping their eyes and ears open for birds on a walk through Seward Park, Armand shows Alison the beauty and peace that comes with just being out in nature. From bald eagle nests to wigeon ducks, Armand shows why birdwatching is one of America’s most popular pastimes.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is heading to Ukraine on Friday to try to reassure President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other officials that Congress will deliver another round of U.S. aid, even as a package that would provide $60 billion to the war-torn country is stalled in the U.S. House.

Schumer’s surprise trip comes at a perilous time for Ukraine. Zelenskyy has said that delays in aid from the U.S. and other Western countries are creating an opening for Russia to make advances on the battlefield, with Ukrainian forces running dangerously low on ammunition and weaponry.

Lawmakers from both parties have traveled to Europe in the last week to promise that the United States will not desert Ukraine and other European allies. Yet the path ahead is far from certain. The Senate passed a $95 billion package to aid Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan last week, but House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has not yet put forward a plan for passing it in the House.

In an interview ahead of his trip, Schumer, D-N.Y., told The Associated Press that he plans to tell Ukrainian officials that “we’re going to win this fight, and America is not abandoning them.”

“I feel I have to be there because it’s so crucial,” Schumer said. “We are right at a vortex, a critical turning point in the whole West. And if we abandon Ukraine, the consequences for America are severe.”

The Senate passage of the aid package last week came after the collapse of a broader framework that would have combined the aid with changes to American border policies. The Senate quickly moved ahead with just the foreign aid portion, passing it on a 70-29 vote, with 22 Republicans in support.

But GOP opponents of aiding Ukraine are a vocal faction in the House, where Republicans have narrow control and former President Donald Trump, the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination, holds more sway. Trump has opposed the aid package and urged Republicans to vote against it.

Schumer is expected to meet with Zelenskyy. His visit comes days after senators and House lawmakers from both parties traveled to the Munich Security Conference to try to assuage European leaders, including Zelenskyy, who are closely watching the U.S. developments. The conference coincided with Ukraine withdrawing troops from the eastern city of Avdiivka after months of intense combat.

Johnson is caught between a wide swath of his Republican members who support the Ukraine aid and a vocal faction on the right who strongly oppose it. Some House Republicans have threatened to try to remove him from his job if he puts the aid package up for a vote. He has said he “ won’t be rushed ” into a decision.

House Republicans have floated possible ways to push the aid to passage, including by scaling it back, but no plan has so far emerged. It remains unclear how Johnson – only months into the job after replacing ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy — will navigate the deep divisions within his party.

Republicans who oppose the aid say that the money is better spent in the U.S. and that it should be paired with legislation to curtail record numbers of crossings at the southern border. They rejected the proposed Senate compromise on border policy, saying it was not tough enough, and some of them want to see the House try again to tackle that issue before moving to the national security package.

In the Senate, a group of Republicans opposed to the foreign aid kept the chamber open all night to rail against it before the final vote. Some of them echoed Russian President Vladimir Putin in calling for a negotiated end to the war.

Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, part of the increasingly isolationist wing of the GOP, traveled to the Munich conference to make his case. He countered Zelenskyy’s pleas by saying that additional money wouldn’t “fundamentally change the reality” on the ground.

“Can we send the level of weaponry we’ve sent for the last 18 months?” Vance asked. “We simply cannot. No matter how many checks the U.S. Congress writes, we are limited there.”

Schumer said opposition to the aid “may be the view of Donald Trump and some of the hard right zealots. But it is not the view of the American people, and I don’t think it’s the view of the majority of people in the House or Senate.”

He said he plans to tell Zelenskyy and other officials that he will push the House to act, and that “they shouldn’t give up and we’re not giving up.” He said he hoped to gather new detail on the trip that could help convince reluctant lawmakers.

President Joe Biden has continued to tell Zelenskyy that he will get the aid to Ukraine. But he has expressed concerns about whether the House would be able to pass the aid before Russia takes more Ukrainian territory.

“The idea now when they are running out of ammunition that we’re going to walk away, I find it absurd,” Biden told reporters after speaking to Zelenskyy last weekend.

Schumer said he is “greatly worried” about what could happen if Congress doesn’t act.

“They’re hurting,” he said of Ukraine. “And I think by us being there, we’re giving them strength and giving them hope that America is still fighting for them.”

Making another landing of sorts are the summer music festival lineups, which have started arriving in my inbox in recent weeks — as sure a sign of spring as Punxsutawney Phil’s prediction.

The Chateau Ste. Michelle Concert Series is still evolving, but starts off with Sarah McLachlan (May 25 & 26) and includes John Legend (July 20 & 21).

The Gorge Amphitheater’s lineup is filling in (May through early September), with tickets on sale for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, ODESZA, Blink 182 and Dave Matthews Band’s customary multiday stint.

The Marymoor Live summer concert series (at Marymoor Park in Redmond) includes The Avett Brothers (July 12), Blues Traveler (July 13), Melissa Etheridge with Jewel (July 17) and Primus (July 18). All on sale now.

Presale tickets are available starting today for the 40th anniversary of the insanely popular Zoo Tunes series (at Woodland Park Zoo, June 16 – Aug. 21). This year’s lineup includes Norah Jones, Car Seat Headrest, The Roots, Violent Femmes and The Decemberists. These will sell out fast, as usual!

Day In Day Out Festival (at Seattle Center, July 12 – 14), a relative newcomer of the summer bunch, will feature bands including The Head and The Heart, Bleachers, Carly Rae Jepsen and Sudan Archives. Tickets go on sale tomorrow (Feb. 23).

You can already buy tickets for the Northwest Tune-Up Festival (July 12 – 14 on the Bellingham waterfront), and while the music lineup is still TBD, the fest promises the bike races and beer/cider tastings.

Tickets for the popular Timber! Outdoor Music Festival (July 25 – 27 in Carnation) go on sale March 1 for a lineup yet to be announced.

And no details yet, but word has it that after last year’s well-reviewed revival, Bumbershoot will be back over Labor Day weekend.

Ah, I can almost feel the hot sun on my face … and the stranger spilling a beer on my backpack.