Seattle School Board chooses first Native American superintendent: In a unanimous vote Wednesday night, Denise Juneau was selected to be the next superintendent. She previously served as Montana’s state superintendent. Juneau beat out 62 other candidates, including some high schoolers. She will be the first Native American in Seattle history to hold the position.
Washington’s distracted driving crackdown: Stoplight texters and gridlock glancers beware. Washington State Patrol and local law enforcement are dedicating resources and overtime hours to stopping your distracted driving habits. Your “I’m not distracted driving because the car isn’t moving” loopholes won’t work here. In fact, it’ll cost you $136. The first time. It goes up to $234 for a second offense. This focused effort started on Monday and extends through April 14th.
KUOW eliminates seven staff positions: The decision comes two months after the station chose to unionize. Employees hadn’t bargained a new contract with management yet. Seven staff positions were eliminated Wednesday to the shock of KUOW staff. Read more about it here.
Kent superintendent under fire: Things aren’t looking too hot for Dr. Calvin Watts. Kent teachers want him to resign. They are alarmed by prolonged financial mismanagement. Last month, Watts almost cut 127 jobs to make ends meet with the budget. Luckily, new state revenue gave Kent School District $75 million. It wasn’t enough to cover the district’s deficit completely. Watts determined he’d still have to cut 60 jobs. Teachers have had enough.
Can you hear the bells? UW has installed a carillon on top of Kane Hall. The instrument was a $1.1 million gift and includes 47 bells. Construction on the instrument started during fall quarter. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Kane Hall, but it’s ugly. I don’t know if you’ve seen the new carillon on it, but it somehow makes Kane Hall uglier. Also, who thought putting 47 bells on top of UW’s largest lecture hall was a good, non-disruptive idea?
Ancestry.com gets too real: A Washington woman’s Ancestry.com results said her father was not who she knew her father to be. According to the results, her real biological father was the man who had helped her parents conceive her all those years ago. The fertility doctor had used his own sperm to impregnate his patient. Now, his newly-discovered daughter is suing him.
Seaplane service to Vancouver starts this month: That’s right, starting April 26th you can make it to Vancouver, B.C. in under an hour via seaplane. It’s non-stop from Lake Union to downtown Vancouver’s Coal Harbour. Microsoft is jumping for joy since they have a big presence in Vancouver already. Fares can be located here and here.
New Blabbermouth! Reconsidering Roseanne, Boycotting Sinclair, and Building a Wall Against Trump’s Dangerous Nonsense
Black man holding silver firearm metal pipe fatally shot by police: Four NYPD officers fired 10 rounds at the man. They thought he had a gun. It was a metal pipe. The victim was identified by his father who said his son had no access to guns and suffered from bipolar disorder. He also said his son was kind.
The police force in Australia looks good: I want these guys guarding our streets.
POLICE PUPS’ FIRST DAY: The most adorable new additions to the Australian Federal Police’s K9 team “are fur-ociously keen to fight crime,” their human colleagues say. https://t.co/Ufcj8Bhxo3 pic.twitter.com/WoN5sUKi2H
— ABC News (@ABC) April 5, 2018
Is Google entering into the business of war? Thousands of the tech-giant’s employees sure hope not. But, Google is involved in a Pentagon program that uses artificial intelligence to improve drone strikes. Employees are protesting the company’s involvement and are urging Google to pull out of the program. However, Google says its work on the program is “non-offensive.”
A crack in Kenya: Geologists say Africa will eventually split into two parts. Not anytime soon, of course. We’re talking tens of millions of years. But, a new crack that opened up in Kenya, which collapsed a highway and continues to grow, confirmed theories that Africa will split.
A crack that opened up in Kenya’s Rift Valley, damaging a section of the Narok-Nairobi highway, is still growing… pic.twitter.com/T5YocDauYj
— BBC (@BBC) March 26, 2018
The surgeon general wants you to carry naloxone: It’s a drug that reverses an overdose. It has to be administered quickly. He said that we should start thinking of naloxone “like an EpiPen or CPR.” Carrying and learning to use naloxone don’t solve the opioid crisis, but it will save lives.
White House hosting opioid crisis memorial: It’s a memorial for victims of the opioid crisis sweeping the country. It’s called “Prescribed to Death” and will feature victims’ faces engraved on tiny pills. Critics say this is dehumanizing and that it assumes all of these deaths occurred via prescription pain medication not, say, street drugs like heroin. Trump’s administration has also done nothing to mitigate the crisis. His best idea is giving drug dealers the death penalty. Up until recently, the deputy chief of staff of the Office of National Drug Control Policy was a 24-year-old ex-frat boy.
An update from my alley:
Three of my roommates were in our kitchen. Each of them was in different stages of preparing breakfast. Dom was preparing coffee, Nicole was getting ready to fry an egg, and Ellisha, in the middle of tucking some toast into the toaster, screamed.
“Uh, guys,” she pointed out one of the windows the lined our kitchen on the side of our house. Dom and Nicole rushed over, leaving the French press unpressed and an egg sizzling.
Next door to us are townhouses. There are two units in front that face the sidewalk, two in back that face the alley. In between the four units is a private parking area (there are even two garages!). My roommates had a direct view of this from our kitchen window.
The three of them were crouched behind the microwave, taking turns peering out the blinds
“Are they about to…?” Ellisha whispered.
Two men were standing in the townhouse parking area. One had pulled out a spoon. The other had a lighter.
Tonight’s best Seattle entertainment options include: British pop-rocker Kate Nash in concert with Miya Folick, a comedy show with the Trailer Park Boys, and Cadence: A Video Poetry Festival.
