Seattle news

• Tim Minchin Goes Where No American Artist Would Go

  19-02-2016 23:33 via thestranger.com
  Tim Minchin released a new song earlier this week—a fucking scathing and fucking brilliant attack of a song—and it's making news all around the world. Sydney Morning Herald:
  Comedian Tim Minchin has taken aim at Cardinal George Pell in a provocative song in which he calls Australia's highest-ranking cleric in the Catholic Church scum, a coward and a pompous buffoon. The musical attack aired on Network Ten's The Project on Tuesday night and immediately attracted a swell of support fr
  
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• I, Anonymous: Under the Needle

  19-02-2016 23:15 via thestranger.com
  
  STEVEN WEISSMAN
  Okay. I grew up around here. And I recently found myself alone at the base of the Space Needle. At 3 a.m. Hammered. I said, "Fuck it." I hid behind the old ticket offices, listened to "Hearts" from the old Yes album 90125 for some ungodly reason ("Love me, teach me, know me"), and had an awesome wank, gazing past the Space Needle into space. It was so bitchin'…
  
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• 2 Central Washington deaths likely linked to botulism

  19-02-2016 22:32
  
  Home canning may be the culprit, though the cause of the deaths has not been confirmed.
  
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• Add Touched with Fire to the Burn Pile of Terrible Movies About Writers

  19-02-2016 22:25 via thestranger.com
  
  Within the first 10 minutes of this film, Paul Dalio—who wrote, directed, edited, and scored this debut rom-dram about two poets with bipolar disorder—employs all known clichés used in movies about writers and movies about people with bipolar disorder. He does that work over the course of two parallel sequences.
  Sequence one: Carla (Katie Holmes) wakes up in the middle of the night burning with poetic inspiration. There's a metaphorical Holy Ghost devil flaming through her mi
  
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• Ed Murray proposes naming city park after Donnie Chin

  19-02-2016 22:19
  
  Seattle Mayor Ed Murray has proposed renaming International Children’s Park in the Chinatown International District after the slain neighborhood-safety activist.
  
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• 200 tents counted in sprawling encampment called The Jungle

  19-02-2016 22:12
  
  Local officials have released results from their assessment of The Jungle, a Seattle homeless encampment where two people were shot to death last month.
  
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• Seattle Public Schools sends 348 test results to wrong families

  19-02-2016 22:07
  
  Seattle Public Schools said that a database error connected student names to the wrong addresses.
  
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• Seattle part of new White House effort to lower school absenteeism

  19-02-2016 21:36
  
  The White House and U.S. Department of Education has announced new efforts to reduce chronic absenteeism among K-12 students in 10 cities, including Seattle.
  
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• Suspect, 16, arrested in slaying of Federal Way teen

  19-02-2016 21:29
  
  Police have arrested a 16-year-old boy in connection with the fatal shooting of a Decatur High School student in a parking lot at a Federal Way Taco Bell on Saturday.
  
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• Pony Bar to Host Medical Records Rx, a New, Deep Italo-Disco/Synth-Pop Night

  19-02-2016 21:27 via thestranger.com
  
  Dr. Troy (center, with members of Severed Heads) plots his next move to keep Seattle's electronic-music underground healthy. Stephen Jones
  Starting March 24, Medical Records boss Dr. Troy Wadsworth will run a monthly DJ night at Pony called Rx that focuses on the niche genres Italo disco and synth pop, with the occasional detour into other "leftfield dance" styles. (There's some overlap with the False Prophet and Aesthetic Mess events at Kremwerk and Chop Suey Den, respectively.) The plan is to
  
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• Another Foreclosure Suicide in Washington State

  19-02-2016 21:00 via thestranger.com
  
  Phyllis Walsh killed herself two days before her eviction in South Seattle in 2013. Brenda Fasoli
  This happened on Sunday, reports the Wenatchee World:A major police operation Sunday to get a 66-year-old Wenatchee man to vacate his home that had been foreclosed upon and sold ended in the man’s death by apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.Police responded to the Marilyn Street home at 1 p.m. after the home’s new owners reported they were at the home and heard two gunshots inside whi
  
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• Fat's Brings Southern Food—and Soul—Back to the Central District

  19-02-2016 20:52 via thestranger.com
  
  The Fat’s Crew: Erika White, Cory Alfano, Marcus Lalario, and chef Patrick Dours. KELLY O
  For nearly 30 years, the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Cherry Street in the Central District was synonymous with one thing: catfish. It was here that Woody and Rosemary Jackson opened their restaurant Catfish Corner in 1985, serving the fried catfish and gumbo that Woody ate as a boy in Louisiana.
  Eventually, Woody and Rosie retired and sold the restaurant. In 2014, Catfish Corner closed. (
  
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• Police Reports Illustrated: Another Weirdo Waving Around a Knife, This Time in Ballard

  19-02-2016 20:32 via thestranger.com
  
  Callan Berry
  Last week's Police Reports Illustrated? A woman waving around a knife in Belltown.[ Comment on this story ][ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]
  
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• Which Republican Candidate Has the Worst Taste in Music? (All of Them)

  19-02-2016 20:14 via thestranger.com
  
  "God Bless America, and God Bless Parookaville." Christopher Halloran / Shutterstock.com
  I'm not saying that musical taste alone should dictate how you should cast your vote. (Hairstyle is important too, and let's not forget the swimsuit portion of the competition.)
  But when deciding which of the candidates are most deserving of your derision, there is perhaps no better indicator than their terrible taste in music. It is something to which they freely admit, because it makes them seem "fun," and
  
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• This Week on Blabbermouth: Ceasin' and Desistin' with the Director of That'swhatshesaid and Jen Graves Talks Kehinde Wiley

  19-02-2016 19:54 via thestranger.com
  
  Kehinde Wiley's Napoleon Leading the Army Over the Alps (2005, after turn-of-the-19th-century French painter Jacques-Louis David).
  Eli Sanders is still out promoting his magnificent book, While the City Slept. In the meantime, Stranger Arts & Music Editor Sean Nelson fills in one last time faith an all-arts edition, including an interview with Hatlo, director of the controversial theater show That'swhatshesaid. Stranger art critic Jen Graves stops by to talk about the the Kehinde Wiley show
  
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• 18 Movies to See in Seattle This Weekend

  19-02-2016 19:54 via thestranger.com
  
  Catch a Midnight Adrenaline screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show at SIFF on Saturday.
  We're only a month away from the official beginning of spring, so if the cold and rainy winter makes you want to hide out inside a movie theater, this weekend is a perfect time to indulge in that feeling. Our critics have picked the best options this weekend, from horror films like The Witch to Who Framed Roger Rabbit to How to Be Single. Zoolander No. 2 is also out this weekend, but, according to Elinor
  
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• Record number of astronaut wannabes apply to NASA — 18,300

  19-02-2016 19:41
  
  CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Space travel never looked so good. NASA announced Friday it received a record number of applicants — some 18,300 — for its next astronaut class. That’s more than double the previous record of 8,000 for the first space shuttle astronaut class in 1978. This time, NASA hit social media hard […]
  
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• Kanye West's SNL Rant Recontextualized as Mental Health Crisis

  19-02-2016 19:41 via thestranger.com
  
  SNL, "FML," etc. Tinseltown/Shutterstock
  The two poles of commentary about Kanye West—he is a genius v. he is a monster—have reached a frequency and a pitch that makes both more or less inaudible. Luckily, the feedback loop of hysterical hatred and overcompensatory defense leaves a lot of room in the middle for more nuanced reads.My favorite recent example is this week's installment of My Philosophy, by Larry Mizell, Jr., "The God Dream of Kanye West," in which he gets to a very pers
  
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• State must repay ex-UW student found not guilty in stabbing

  19-02-2016 19:38
  
  A judge ruled Friday that the state must reimburse a former UW student more than $45,000 in legal expenses after a jury found him not guilty of assault in January and ruled he acted lawfully in defending himself against a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity.
  
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• Seattle breaks winter rain record set in 1999

  19-02-2016 19:35
  
  The National Weather Service says Seattle has broken a record for winter rainfall.
  
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• Harper Lee Is Dead

  19-02-2016 19:21 via thestranger.com
  
  One of the South's greatest writers dies at 89. Here's Lee as a young'n. Michael Brown
  The mayor of Monroeville, Alabama confirmed it: Harper Lee has died. Monroeville was Lee's birthplace and deathplace, as well as the basis for Maycomb, the fictional town where Lee set her novels To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman.Lee's description of Maycomb in TKAM is one the best paragraphs anyone's ever written:
  Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy we
  
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• Person of Interest: Benjamin Verellen, Renaissance Rocker

  19-02-2016 19:08 via thestranger.com
  
  KELLY O
  
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• 1 dead in Kirkland house fire

  19-02-2016 18:49
  
  An early Friday morning fire in Kirkland has claimed the life of one person.
  
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• Police identify Tacoma officers involved in fatal shooting

  19-02-2016 18:42
  
  Police have released the names of two Tacoma officers involved in a fatal shooting last month.
  
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• Auburn police: Man fatally stabs girlfriend’s adult son

  19-02-2016 18:34
  
  A man fatally stabbed his girlfriend’s adult son after he tried to break up a heated argument between the couple, Auburn police say.
  
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• Quirky Nest Houses Are Killing Birds and They Also Remind Us Why the Beacon Hill Library Is So Bad

  19-02-2016 18:27 via thestranger.com
  
  Beacon Hill Library is quirky architecture at its worst. MALCOLM SMITH
  The Guardian reports that over the past five years there has been a spike in the number of quirky nest houses in the UK. But quirkiness turns not only to be bad politically, as the Beacon Hill Library makes clear (white architects turned to quirkiness because they could not honestly represent the racial and cultural diversity of that neighborhood), but also bad for young birds.Boxes that have bright colors draw predators (cat
  
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• Police investigate shooting death in White Center

  19-02-2016 18:18
  
  Police are investigating the death of a man in White Center who appeared to have suffered a gunshot wound.
  
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• The Morning News: BMW Tests Car2Go Rival in Seattle, "To Kill a Mockingbird" Author Dead at 89

  19-02-2016 17:54 via thestranger.com
  
  These cars are little more upscale compared to Car2Go smart cars. Frederic Legrand - COMEO / Shutterstock.com
  BMW Appears to Be Testing Car Sharing Service in Downtown Seattle: The service is called DriveNow, it's more expensive than Car2G0, but the cars it uses are lovely electric BMW i3s. I saw a few of them parked in Belltown earlier this week. The City of Seattle has given 63 vehicle permits to the company, but BMW would only tell Geekwire it's "exploring the potential" of launching DriveNow
  
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• Bernie Sanders Reminds Me of My Family

  19-02-2016 17:22 via thestranger.com
  
  Harry and Molly Brounstein.
  "Nine months ago, we began our campaign here in New Hampshire.”
  Bernie Sanders, the 74-year-old, Brooklyn-born Democratic senator running for president, was speaking on the night of his New Hampshire primary win. He gripped the podium with both hands, and pronounced “our” like ow-wah and “here” like hee-yuh. The septuagenarian clearly still had the fight in him, a fight he seemed to be enjoying very much.
  The crowd screamed with excitemen
  
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• That Report About Awful Conditions in "The Jungle" Exposes a Key Failure in How Seattle Is Dealing with Homelessness

  19-02-2016 16:45 via thestranger.com
  
  In a new report about the homeless encampment known as The Jungle, city officials write that many residents of the camp have lived there for years. City of Seattle
  "Extreme" conditions, "open sewers", "significant public health, fire, safety, structural, and environmental risks."These were all things city officials wrote in a report released this week about the homeless encampment under I-5 known as "The Jungle." These are the types of things some media outlets are enthusiastic to cover.
  But the
  
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• UN climate chief Figueres to step down in July

  19-02-2016 15:47
  
  STOCKHOLM (AP) — U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres says she will leave her post in July after six years in charge of the diplomatic effort to fight global warming. The Costa Rican diplomat’s announcement Friday comes two months after a historic international agreement on climate change was adopted in Paris. In a letter to governments […]
  
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• Nearly 1 in 6 students in Washington considered chronic absentees last year

  19-02-2016 15:02
  
  Across Washington, 16 percent of all students missed 18 or more school days last year.
  
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• Space station astronauts give huge trash can the boot

  19-02-2016 13:29
  
  CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The International Space Station just got a whole lot tidier. A pair of NASA astronauts released a capsule loaded with 1.5 tons of trash Friday as the space station soared over Bolivia. The capsule should re-enter the atmosphere and burn up harmlessly over the Pacific on Saturday. NASA supplier Orbital […]
  
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• I Still Can’t Believe There’s a Jewish Democratic Socialist from Brooklyn Who’s Already Won a Presidential Primary

  19-02-2016 13:00 via thestranger.com
  
  I Still Can’t Believe There’s a Jewish Democratic Socialist from Brooklyn Who’s Already Won a Presidential Primaryby Sydney Brownstone"Nine months ago, we began our campaign here in New Hampshire.”Bernie Sanders, the 74-year-old, Brooklyn-born Democratic senator running for president, was speaking on the night of his New Hampshire primary win. He gripped the podium with both hands, and pronounced “our” like ow-wah and “here” like hee-yuh. The septu
  
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• I Still Can’t Believe a Jewish Democratic Socialist from Brooklyn Is Winning Presidential Primaries

  19-02-2016 13:00 via thestranger.com
  
  I Still Can’t Believe a Jewish Democratic Socialist from Brooklyn Is Winning Presidential Primariesby Sydney Brownstone"Nine months ago, we began our campaign here in New Hampshire.”Bernie Sanders, the 74-year-old, Brooklyn-born Democratic senator running for president, was speaking on the night of his New Hampshire primary win. He gripped the podium with both hands, and pronounced “our” like ow-wah and “here” like hee-yuh. The septuagenarian clearly still had
  
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• Virgin Galactic to roll out new space tourism rocket plane

  19-02-2016 08:07
  
  LOS ANGELES (AP) — Virgin Galactic will roll out a new version of its SpaceShipTwo space tourism rocket Friday as it prepares to return to flight testing for the first time since a 2014 accident destroyed the original, killed one of its pilots and set back the nascent industry. The space line founded by Sir […]
  
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• Can scientists prove Zika virus is causing birth defects?

  19-02-2016 07:03
  
  NEW YORK (AP) — Scientists suspect an outbreak of the Zika virus is behind a surge in a rare birth defect in Brazil. But how are they going to prove it? Authorities in the South American country were quick to make the link last fall. The health minister last week said he was “absolutely sure” […]
  
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• 520 bridge nearly ready for traffic

  19-02-2016 05:19
  
  Work on the new Highway 520 bridge is progressing toward its April opening schedule.  At 7,710 feet, it will be the longest floating bridge in the world, surpassing by 132 feet the old Highway 520 floating bridge built in 1963.
  
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• Police locate man who flashed, attacked woman on First Hill

  19-02-2016 04:38
  
  A sergeant with the Clallam County sheriff's office recognized the man in a photo Seattle police released Wednesday.
  
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• Initiative sought to keep guns from those posing extreme risk to themselves, others

  19-02-2016 04:24
  
  A gun-safety group announced Thursday it is going back to voters after Washington state lawmakers failed to pass a bill creating extreme-risk protection orders that take guns from people who pose a serious risk of hurting themselves or others.
  
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• Hidden donors poured $11M into food fight over labels

  19-02-2016 04:10
  
  A food-industry group tried to shield identities of major corporations that spent $11 million to defeat a 2013 food-labeling initiative in what Attorney General Bob Ferguson argues is among the worst cases of concealment in state history.
  
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• Teensy water bears, frozen for a generation, spring back to life

  19-02-2016 03:34
  
  Meet the latest darlings of the biology world: indestructible creatures that resemble a cross between a caterpillar, a hippopotamus and Jabba the Hutt.
  
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• Washington stroke survivor blames Monster Energy drinks

  19-02-2016 02:42
  
  A southwest Washington man who claims to have suffered a stroke after drinking four 16-ounce cans of Monster Energy drink has sued the energy drink maker.
  
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• GET refunds running three months behind

  19-02-2016 02:36
  
  A state agency that originally planned to send $51 million in Guaranteed Education Tuition refund checks in November is running about three months behind.
  
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• From Mount St. Helens to J.P. Patches, reporter Jack Broom reflects on 39 years at The Times

  19-02-2016 02:25
  
  In nearly 39 years at The Seattle Times, general-assignment reporter Jack Broom, retiring Friday, has seen many people, places and things — and a great deal of change in journalism.
  
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• House Democrats seek alterations of big-business tax breaks

  19-02-2016 02:24
  
  A group of House Democrats on Thursday announced measures that would eliminate, narrow or change tax breaks for big businesses in Washington such as the Boeing Co. and banks, saying the state’s tax system unfairly favors wealthy corporations.
  
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• Hey, There's a CNN Town Hall on with Donald Trump, Jeb! Bush, and Some Other Guy—Let's Watch Together

  19-02-2016 01:46 via thestranger.com
  
  These two guys absolutely love each other's company. You can just tell. Joseph Sohm / Shutterstock.com
  4:36 pm: The show doesn't start til 5 pm but I am chomping at the bit to see Donald Trump talk about how high his poll numbers are in Heaven today. You heard about all the crap he flung at the pope, right? Granted, the pope started it.
  4:45 pm: CNN's idea of "breaking news" cracks me up. They just started a segment by saying "Breaking news: The CNN Town Hall is going to begin in 20 minutes." In
  
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• Ruined Heart: Another Lovestory Between a Criminal & a Whore Is a Film Mixtape

  19-02-2016 00:42 via thestranger.com
  
  The 19th-century culture critic Walter Pater famously said that all art aspires to the condition of music. With Khavn de la Cruz’s feature Ruined Heart: Another Lovestory Between a Criminal & a Whore, cinema, an art born in the previous century, aspires to the condition of a mixtape.
  Set in Manila’s seedy underworld, Ruined Heart has no real plot and almost no dialogue. What it presents instead are sequences (often violent, often erotic, always impressionistic) set to different
  
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• Capitol Hill assault investigated as hate crime

  19-02-2016 00:16
  
  Seattle police are investigating a possible hate crime after a 26-year-old man was assaulted early Wednesday by assailants who yelled homophobic slurs.
  
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• We Are Twisted F***ing Sister! Exhaustively Traces Glitter-Metal Band’s Workmanlike Ascent

  19-02-2016 00:08 via thestranger.com
  
  If one sign of a great music documentary is to sway people who are apathetic toward the subject to care about it, then Andrew Horn’s We Are Twisted F***ing Sister! probably fails. But at least it’s long (136 f***ing minutes). In overly thorough detail, Horn traces Twisted Sister’s struggle from mediocre glitter-rock group to their rise to the summit of the New York City-area club/casino scene in the 1970s to multi-platinum heavy-metal muthas who earned Lemmy’s respect in
  
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