Protect the gators. Credit: BIRDIMAGES/GETTY IMAGES
Protect the gators.
Protect the gators. BIRDIMAGES/GETTY IMAGES

A car crashed through an LA Fitness window this morning: And landed in a pool. There were three swimmers doing morning laps at the time of the crash but no injuries, reports KING5. Seattle Times reports that a 70-year-old man attempted to set the parking brake but instead hit the gas. No charges or citations are expected.

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses “who can stand on their own two feet”: The Trump administration is restricting legal immigrants’ access to federal aid programs, announced Kenneth T. Cuccinelli, director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, at the White House this morning. The new rule means that the “financial well-being” of immigrants attempting to stay under a green card will now be heavily scrutinized. The quote from Cuccinelli:

“The benefit to taxpayers is a long-term benefit of seeking to ensure that our immigration system is bringing people to join us as American citizens, as legal permanent residents first, who can *stand on their own two feet*, who will not be reliant on the welfare system, especially in the age of the modern welfare state which is so expansive and expensive.”

More announcements from the White House: The Trump administration announced today that they will be significantly changing weakening the Endangered Species Act. The new rules make it easier to remove an animal from the list. That Act has been credited with rescuing the bald eagle, the grizzly bear and the American alligator from extinction, reports the New York Times.

PROTECT THEM: What elegant dorks.

Former porn paradise sold by Verizon: Tumblr, the personal blogging site formerly known for the best and kinkiest amateur porn on the web, has been sold to Automattic Inc., the owners of Wordpress. Tumblr, originally known as a “social media unicorn,” was originally sold to Yahoo for $1.1 billion dollars even though it had no clear way of making revenue or being profitable. A year later, Yahoo wrote down the platform by over $200 million. The total amount of the sale to Automattic is currently undisclosed.

Local media update: Crosscut’s former managing editor, Florangela Davila, was suddenly dismissed from her position, according to Crosscut’s newly formed union. They posted their letter to management today on Twitter.


An update from Crosscut: Two hours after this tweet the account tweeted an unrelated video featuring Florangela, which was sorta tragic.

Republicans back Hong Kong protests: As #MoscowMitch says, “The world is watching.” (My anxiety typing here: What happens if China does do a “violent crackdown”? Plz no WWIII!)

Jeff Bezos has some wonky ways of managing philanthropy: Here it is… He. Doesn’t. Manage. It. Brilliant! Recode has a great piece on the way he manages charity this morning. As Stranger Calendar Editor Kim Selling said over my shoulder, “Isn’t charities doing whatever they want usually a road to embezzlement?”

Do you watch The Weekly?: It’s a relatively new show on FX and Hulu that transforms long, investigative reporting from the New York Times into 30-minute episodes of TV. Since we’re on the West Coast, it goes live around 9 p.m. on Sundays. This week: How YouTube Radicalized Brazil. It’s shocking. (Watch it after Netflix’s The Great Hack and you’ll be ready to burn all your social profiles.) Some excerpts from what they found:

Have you caught up on Seattle’s newest hero?: Charles wrote about her earlier today. Here she is:

Her fame is growing: This tweet thread from Heidi Groover is incredible.

UPDATE: Summer is over.

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Bonus! Some blurbs from Rich Smith: We thought we’d throw these in here rather than make a separate ballot drop post.

Ballot drop update: With only 600 votes remaining to be counted, the primary election results reveal more of the same. Very little has changed. In Districts 1-3, the face-offs stay the same. Council Member Lisa Herbold holds with 51% of the vote, Tammy Morales keeps her 50%, and incumbent Council Member Kshama Sawant seems to have tapped out at 37%. In District 4, Alex Pedersen, who opposed Sound Transit 3, dropped to 40% of the vote share, giving him a steep 17 point lead over second-place finisher and socialist, Shaun Scott. Incumbent Debora Juarez still leads Safe Seattle person Ann Davison Sattler 45% to 27% in District 5, it’s still 34% to 21% between Dan Strauss and Heidi Wills in District 6, and it’s still 32% to 25% between Andrew Lewis and Jim Pugel in District 7. The Stranger still rules the school, and the question still remains: Will Tim Burgess’s bet that Seattle will pick Amazon’s candidate over the people’s candidate—especially in districts 3 and 4—pay off?

Council overrides Mayor Durkan’s veto on the soda tax: This afternoon six council members overrode Mayor Jenny Durkan’s veto of legislation that requires soda tax money only to fund programs it was intended to fund. Council Members Debora Juarez, Abel Pacheco, and Sally Bagshaw voted not to cross Durkan, which is kinda funny considering that Bagshaw had voted for the bill, which was spearheaded by Council Member Mike O’Brien, last July. Council Member Teresa Mosqueda gave a speech challenging the Mayor’s divisive moves and bad budgeting. “We are not going to engage in an austerity budget,” she said. “The soda tax was a public health intervention, it was always a bill to be a public health harm reduction strategy, not to foot the bill for general government.” Watch:

Rich Smith is The Stranger's former News Editor. He writes about politics, books, and performance. You can read his poems at www.richsmithpoetry.com

Chase Burns is The Stranger's former editor. He's covered everything from gay luchadores to chemical weapons to Isabella Rossellini's favorite pets.