A giant red crane began lifting Berthas cutterhead and drive unit out of the rescue pit on Monday afternoon. By Monday night, it had been rotated over a repair platform like this.
A giant red crane began lifting Bertha's cutterhead and drive unit out of the rescue pit on Monday afternoon. By Monday night, it had been rotated over a repair platform like this. Washington State Department of Transportation

Bertha's 2,000-Ton Cutterhead Has Risen from the Hellmouth: The biggest, baddest piece of Bertha's front end was lifted out of the tunnel-boring machine's rescue pit on Monday. Workers suspended the unit above a repair platform overnight to wait for a fresh morning crew to arrive. Seattle Tunnel Partners has said before that it expects to resume tunneling in August, but no one's really sure whether that estimated schedule will hold up.

Governor Inslee Follows Seattle and Implements an Indiana Travel Ban: Now there's no state money that will fund traveling to Indiana, land of a new "religious freedom" law that strongly suggests a flimsy cover for discriminating against LGBTQ people.

Sherman Alexie Has Also Canceled All His Indiana Gigs: "I can only hope that a huge group of like-minded folks also boycott these states and influence them with our collective political and economic power."

Speaking of Canceling:

And Look at What Indiana "Religious Freedom" Law Hath Wrought: The First Church of Cannabis Inc.

Exploding Head Syndrome Is Real: And "nearly one in five" college kids may have it, the Seattle Times reports. A new Washington State University study found that "exploding head syndrome"—a disorder characterized by hearing extremely loud noises just as you're falling asleep—isn't as rare as once thought.

You Can Now Buy Household Labor on Amazon: Amazon launched its "Home Services" platform on Monday, a new feature that allows customers to hire people for things like goat-herding around the home and garden. The Los Angeles Times reports that Amazon's home service venture faces competition like Angie's List, Yelp, and Craigslist.

PLEASE LIVE, LIL L POD CALF. (This is an image of the L pod calf. We want the J pod calf to live, too.)
LIVE, LI'L L POD CALF! LIVE! (We want the new J pod calf to live, too.) Candice Emmons/NOAA Fisheries

Another New Baby Orca! The Good News: Just last month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that L pod had produced a new, orange-looking calf. Yesterday, the Pacific Whale Watch Association found another new bb in J pod. That's the fourth new calf born to Southern Resident killer whales in the last few months.

Another New Baby Orca! The Still-Bad News: The last time we heard about a new baby orca, we also reported on the odds that it would not survive for very long. And resident orcas still face considerable threats in the Salish Sea, like stormwater pollution and prey unavailability.

Average Rent for a King County One-Bedroom Grew 8 Percent Last Year: The Seattle Times has a new report that shows fewer landlords plan on jacking up the rent this year, but that rent is still being jacked up.

WTF with Mike McGinn... is not the name of the former mayors podcast.
WTF with Mike McGinn... is not the name of the former mayor's new podcast. Kelly O

Former Mayor Mike McGinn Has a New Podcast on KIRO: In which he interviews Seattleites "who try to change things." This interview he does with civil rights activist Bob Santos is delightful, and hopefully we'll get to hear more of McGinn's record collection, too.

The White House Wants to Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions by 26 to 28 Percent in 10 Years: The president submitted this plan to the United Nations before international leaders gather in Paris at the end of 2015 to, once again, attempt to do something about climate change. (Follow-up: How does that square with opening up the Arctic to oil and gas exploration?)