pls help Credit: CENTER FOR WHALE RESEARCH
pls help
pls help CENTER FOR WHALE RESEARCH

Inbreeding, declining birthrate for Puget Sound orcas: The pod of southern residents has a small population of only 76 orcas. Now, scientists have discovered that two males in the pod are responsible for more than half the calves born since 1990. This inbreeding could be contributing to the pod’s difficulties. More worrisome to scientists, however, is that out of the 27 females, only 10 are producing calves. The future of the pod seems bleak.

Anti-gun violence rally planned for Friday: It’s the 19th anniversary of the Columbine shooting. Students are participating in another anti-gun violence march called “We Won’t Be Next.” This rally, however, isn’t just about school shootings; it’s about gun violence outside of schools that’s responsible for 99 percent of gun-related deaths. Seattle students from 30 schools in the area will be participating in walk-outs and joining a larger rally in Occidental Square on Friday.

Amazon has 100 million Prime members: That’s the ballpark amount that the company released for the first time yesterday. That means Amazon is raking in at least $9.9 billion a year in memberships. Prime keeps getting more and more perks that make the $99 annual fee more attractive. Soon, society will be divided between Prime members and non-Prime members (referred to as “the Others”). Just you wait.

Burien machete brawl: Two guys in Burien walked out of a restaurant and allegedly starting harassing a homeless man on the street. A bystander intervened. The two men attacked him with a machete and a chain. This is some Street Fighter shit. I’m assuming Street Fighter has weapons but have never played Street Fighter. Google says there are weapons in Street Fighter but I don’t know who to trust in this day and age. Anyway, some cooks from the restaurant held one of the guys down until police arrived. The bystander was sent to the hospital in critical condition.

Listen to Blabbermouth: This week the podcast is all Comey, Comey, Comey

Boat dealership from hell sued for $800,000: Fife’s Larson Power Sports Northwest is not a good place to work. A former employee, Gregory Corliss, was subjected to a sexually hostile work environment where the managers bullied him, made sexual innuendos, and comments about performing sex acts. On his orientation, Corliss was shown part of “Deliverance” where a man is sodomized. He was told that would happen to him if he didn’t make sales, according to the Seattle Times. He won the lawsuit.

Seattle’s Up house is safe for now: The plot of Disney and Pixar’s Up hit close to home for a Ballard woman. In 2006, Edith Macefield refused to sell her house to commercial developers, even when they offered her $1 million. Her little 1900-era house is now sandwiched between concrete walls. She died in 2008. Her house has remained. Rumors circulated that it would be demolished Friday at 6 a.m., but the developers said they had no plans to get rid of the house.

Nails on the road: The Northbound 167 near I-405 is a minefield of nails this morning. Flat tires are plaguing morning commuters.

The last Castro leaves the presidency: Raul Castro stepped down as Cuba’s president. He handed the role off to Miguel Diaz-Canel, a Communist Party loyalist. Diaz-Canel is the first person to assume the position outside of the Castro family in nearly six decades.

Puerto Rico hit by huge blackout: Still reeling in the wake of Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico’s power grid failed again yesterday leaving millions in the dark. As of last month, only 35 percent of residents had power on the island. It could take 24 to 36 hours to restore power.

Are we through the ringer? Dare we have hope?

Ex-Playboy Model free to talk about Trump affair: Karen McDougal signed over exclusive rights to her life story to The National Enquirer in 2016. This included her experience having multiple affairs with Donald Trump. McDougal received $150,000. She recently settled a lawsuit against The Enquirer’s parent company American Media, Inc. McDougal can speak freely now.

Standing room only for super-economy class: The Skyrider 2.0 is an innovation by Aviointeriors meant to pack more passengers into an airplane. The seats feature a saddle and high seat backs. The idea is that passengers will be virtually standing the whole flight. The seats are lighter and they take up far less space than regular airplane seats. File into your sardine can, you piece of shit, hope you stretched before the flight.

Michael Cohen could flip: Trump allies are worried that Trump’s longtime attorney could turn on the president if he’s threatened with serious charges. The concern is that, once confronted with a long prison term, Cohen will “turn into a canary that sings” and start cooperating with the FBI, Politico reports.

Neopets was run by Scientologists: The entertainment site pioneered online spaces for children and adolescents. Its colorful characters and educational games were famous back in the day and still exist now. But, the upper management the company was sold to in the early days was all Scientologists. It was run on a Scientology business model (called Org Board) and management wanted more of L. Ron Hubbard’s dogma to infiltrate Neopia’s fictional world. The founders fought tooth and nail against introducing a Scientology education program on the site. Neopets was sold to Viacom in 2005. That doesn’t change that its roots are intertwined with the Church of Scientology.

An update from my alley:

Awhile back there was a sweep nearby my house in the Ravenna Woods. The people who were displaced had nowhere to go. Some started camping out in the open area in my alley, the space that used to be an outdoor patio to a now-defunct and decrepit bar. They left after about a week. Some took up residence in the grassy median on Ravenna Avenue right next to Cowen Park. This is smack dab in the middle of a street lined with upscale Craftsmen houses. Those campers are still living on that median.

The Ravenna Woods encampment was swept again this week. Or, a sweep was planned. More than a dozen activists showed up to face off with Seattle’s Navigation Team.

The sweep was abandoned for now.

I cut through the area of my alley I mentioned before to get to my bus stop. Recently, the ground has been repaved. Where a couple of months ago there were shopping carts and tents there are now parking spaces marked with fresh yellow paint. It was never a permanent sanctuary, but now a temporary refuge is just another parking lot.

Tonight’s best Seattle entertainment options include: Debussy’s La Mer in concert, the Bibliophilia storytelling festival, and the Langston Hughes African American Film Festival.

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Local (and not-so-local) news from your favorite writers.

Nathalie Graham covers anything she finds fun, weird, or interesting. You can find a lot of that in her column, Play Date. Her work has also appeared around town in The Seattle Times, GeekWire, and the...