Were going to stand up until Barack Obama makes a choice: Arrest an entire movement for standing and defending our environment and in defense of the treaty rights of indigenous people, or end Arctic drilling now, Annie Lukins, 24, said.
"We are going to stand up until Barack Obama has to make a choice: Arrest an entire movement for standing in defense of our own environment and in defense of the treaty rights of indigenous people, or end Arctic drilling," Annie Lukins, 24, said. SB

I'm Writing Morning News Using a WiFi Hotspot Next to a Person in a Tripod Blocking a Shell Fuel Transfer Station Exit on Harbor Island: I'm sitting in a parking space near Annie Lukins, 24, who is perched on a couch cushion roughly 15 feet above the ground. She's been harnessed up there since 6 a.m., in front of an exit from the facility. Port police and the Seattle Police Department are here, monitoring; activists from Rising Tide Seattle have told them that Lukins is waiting for more media to arrive and then going to get down. SPD's Sergeant Nadia Fiorini said they are not going to call in the fire department at this time.

Lukins has been in a tripod since 6 a.m. As of 7:51, when Im writing this, shes still there.
Lukins has been in a tripod since 6 a.m. As of 7:51, when I'm writing this, she's still there. SB

The Port Will Decide What to Do About Shell and the City Today: After holding a closed-door legal meeting last week, today the port will hold a 1 p.m. public session regarding the city's new challenge to hosting Shell's Arctic drilling fleet in Seattle (and Foss Maritime's plan to appeal that decision).

Also, Mayor Murray Responded to That Cranky Seattle Times Editorial on Shell: In a letter to the editor, Murray writes that he's not fickle or anti-maritime industry because of his stance on Shell's Arctic drilling rigs, as suggested by the Seattle Times editorial board last week.

Kshama Sawant Qualifies for the Ballot with More Than 3,000 District 3 Signatures: She's the only incumbent to qualify for the ballot this way instead of paying the $1,200 filing fee.

It Just Got a Lot Harder for Washington Law Enforcement to Use Stingrays: On Monday, Governor Jay Inslee signed a law that limits the use of Stingrays, a type of tool that emulates a cell phone tower to harvest data from nearby phones. While local police have, in the past, gotten judges to unwittingly sign off on Stingray authorizations, the new law requires police to write specific warrants for them and delete the data collected if they don't find anything. But that doesn't mean that the Feds can't use Stingrays and share the information generated by them with local law enforcement, Brendan Kiley writes. Read more!

Nine Tribes Are Joining Forces to Fight Proposed Coal Terminal: First, the Lummi Nation invoked its treaty rights to ask the Army Corps of Engineers to reject a plan from Pacific International Terminals (parent company: SSA Marine) to build a coal export terminal at Cherry Point. Now, eight other tribes are backing the Lummi people in telling the Corps to dismiss the idea. The new alliance plans to meet with environmental groups this week.

A Ton of Money Is Spent Lobbying the State Legislature in Washington: Just look at this map the Washington Post created about state-level lobbying. According to the Post, Washington state has 1,033 registered lobbyists; more than $110 million was spent lobbying Washington politicians in 2013 and 2014. Oregon, by comparison, only has 847 registered lobbyists and spent $60.7 million influencing politicians in those years.

Inslee's Cap-and-Trade Plan Is Back from the Dead: House Democrats didn't include Inslee's ambitious plan to tax the state's biggest polluters for their carbon emissions in their budget proposal, but a new bill has resuscitated the idea. The new proposal still sets a limit on overall emissions—and requires that polluters buy and trade credits for those emissions—but now subsidizes fuel suppliers to keep gas prices low, gives tax credits to the lumber industry, and funnels more money to education and fighting wildfires.

Central Seattleites Prize Walkability Over Affordability: While most of the Seattle area ranks affordability as its number one priority, people living in the heart of Seattle care more about walkability, Gene Balk writes. This could be because they're richer, but not always—sometimes people give up a number of luxuries to be able to live in denser, more urban areas.

Nepal Struck by Another Earthquake: Less than a month after a devastating earthquake rippled through Nepal and killed more than 8,000 people, a 7.3 magnitude quake hit near Everest today. Nepal's Home Ministry has put the death toll at 42 and says that more than 1,000 have been injured.

Scientists Discover Menagerie of Strange, New Life on the Seafloor Near Puerto Rico: An underwater robot took images of previously undiscovered life found at 20,000 feet below the surface.

UPDATE: After more than two hours, Lukins got down. No arrests were made, but SPD took the tripod poles as evidence.