Raise your hand if youre a transplant
Raise your hand if you're a transplant ALFSnaiper / Getty Images

Seattle is this decade’s fastest growing city: Move over, Austin. Seattle has taken first place for fastest growing big city this decade. Since 2010, Seattle has added 114,000, an 18.7 percent growth rate as of last year. Maybe one of you reading this is among the number of newcomers. Hello.

Fuck off, Phoenix: The city is trying to snatch Seattle companies in the wake of the head tax. There’s a plan in place to get 30 Seattle companies to move to Phoenix or expand there. The Greater Phoenix Economic Council says some Seattle companies have reached out to them already. Yeah, okay, Phoenix. It’s going to be 98 degrees there today. Good luck on that sell.

Space Needle “space-lift” almost complete: Wow, this new Space Needle is slick. A real cool guy on the block. Looks like this new Space Needle would have a Tinder bio about loving the gym and the Chainsmokers.


More on that construction worker who died at a job site in Bellevue: Walter R. Burrows, 62, was a seasoned worker at Kiewit, the construction company building the elevated light rail on the east side. He fell to his death while guiding concrete girders onto trackway columns. It was 2:40 a.m. when the accident occurred. Work will resume on the site next week.

The rapper Common will be educating Starbucks employees on racial bias: Their training is set for Tuesday. It came about because of the racial profiling that went on in Philadelphia where a Starbucks employee called the police on two black men waiting for a friend and refused to let them use the bathroom. Starbucks executives and Common, the hip-hop star, will supply video messages for the training.

Breaking: Morgan Freeman is allegedly a shitty human being, too. He has been accused of harassment and inappropriate behavior by multiple women.

Here’s some magma: I could watch this all day.


Well, that was fast: Donald Trump has canceled the June 12th summit with North Korea. So much for that Nobel Peace Prize, eh? This comes right after North Korea said it had destroyed its only nuclear test site. In his letter canceling their plans, Trump cites the “anger and hostility” in North Korea’s most recent statement. Yesterday, North Korea voiced second thoughts and also called Mike Pence a political dummy. Sure, that's probably true. What's also true is that I rated him second sexiest in the Trump cabinet in The Stranger’s sex survey.


Alex Jones keeps getting hit with lawsuits: Six families of Sandy Hook victims have filed a defamation suit against Alex Jones. For years Jones has called the massacre a hoax and accused families broken by unconscionable horror of being actors. The suit alleges that Jones did all of this out of pure greed and that this rhetoric has brought him business. Maybe we should douse him in hot coffee again, just for good measure.

New Blabbermouth podcast! Is the Stacey Abrams Strategy the Model for Democratic Victory?

Guy who crashed his drone into the Space Needle pleads guilty: It was New Year’s Eve 2016 and Cole Kelly from Pasco crashed his fucking drone onto the roof of the Space Needle. He pled guilty. His 364 day jail sentence was suspended as was $4,750 of his $5,000 fine. He will not be allowed to operate drones and he must hand over his drone, though. The ultimate payment for a drone aficionado in this day and age.


Stormy Daniels gets the key to the city of West Hollywood: They also made May 23rd “Stormy Daniels Day.”


Local group wants to bring back Seattle trolleys: Back in the day, Seattle’s Waterfront Trolleys traversed the city’s busy streets. They were in service for 23 years. A local group wants to revive the trolleys and have them run on the modern street car tracks. How San Franciscan, how quaint. The trolleys have to be modified slightly so they can run on the newer tracks. Here’s the Kickstarter if you want more trolleys in your life.

Big win for black women in Georgia: Democrat Stacey Abrams became the first black woman from a major party to be nominated for governor. In another Georgia race, Lucy McBath, running for Georgia’s sixth congressional district, didn’t top 50 percent of the vote and will be included in a runoff vote in July. McBath is a first time candidate, a black woman, and a gun safety advocate. She decided to run in April.

Drug ring at nuclear missile base: About a dozen U.S. Air Force airmen in charge of the base that operates nuclear missiles face disciplinary action for their involvement in a drug ring. The airmen at the Francis E. Warren Air Force Base outside of Cheyenne, Wyoming either used or distributed LSD, a drug the Pentagon had stopped testing for.

Scientists on the hunt for Loch Ness monster: Real or fabled, scientists are going to scour Loch Ness using environmental DNA to finally put the monster story to rest. Previous searches have failed. Maybe that was because those researchers were using sonar instead of eDNA. Maybe it was because there is no Loch Ness monster.

An update from my alley:

Last week, shortly after writing the alley story, I got this text from my roommate:

Excuse the typos, she doesn't use autocorrect which I think is equal parts dumb and bad ass.
Excuse the typos, she doesn't use autocorrect which I think is equal parts dumb and bad ass.

Sure enough, this character was pacing back and forth behind our house. I peered through my blinds to watch him. He kicked the dumpster, it clanged angrily. Then, as if defeated, he sank to the ground and sat criss-cross-applesauce in the middle of the alley. He softly removed his purple cowboy hat, revealing some grade-A hat hair. He set it gently in front of his feet, leaned over as if he was doing a butterfly stretch, and let out a blood-curdling scream. He stopped, inhaled, and screamed again. I’m guilty of hyperbole, I know this, but I’m not kidding when I tell you this happened off-and-on for two hours.

Tonight's best Seattle entertainment options include: A spooky Literary Horror Reading featuring Stranger arts calendar editor Joule Zelman, a Transit Talk regarding the future U-District light rail station, and the opening of Solo: A Star Wars Story.