Supreme Court to hear abortion pill case: The court will decide on the availability of mifepristone, a drug the FDA approved 20 years ago and is used in half of all US pregnancy terminations. The Biden administration asked the court to hear the case after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decided to restrict the drug. The Alliance Defending Freedom, one of the most powerful anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ advocacy groups in the US, is behind the challenge.

UN General Assembly calls for a ceasefire in Gaza: Fewer and fewer countries are on the US and Israel’s side in this conflict—153 representatives in the 193-country body voted for a ceasefire. Arab countries called for a vote after the US vetoed a cease-fire resolution in the UN Security Council. Even Biden is changing his tune. Before the vote, he said Israel was losing support over its “indiscriminate bombing” of Palestinians that have killed 18,000 people, according to the latest numbers.

About those numbers: Even though public officials, including our own President, have speculated, there is no reason the cataclysmic number of adults and children killed in Gaza coming from Palestinian sources is untrue, according to a new paper published in the Lancet (the most prestigious medical journal in the world). 

Researchers found the Gaza Ministry of Health has a proven track record of publishing accurate mortality numbers in past conflicts that differ only slightly from the UN’s numbers. The researchers also analyzed data from October 7 to November 10 and found no evidence of inflated rates. “Public scepticism [sic, British] of the current reports by the Gaza MoH might undermine the efforts to reduce civilian harm and provide life-saving assistance,” researchers wrote.

Sound Transit CEO out: Next month, after just 16 months on the job, Julie Timm will head back to the East Coast to “take care of family matters,” according to the Seattle Times. Her contract, which paid her $375,000 this year, was supposed to expire in 2025. Sound Transit will soon begin its second nationwide search for a CEO in two years.

Carbon monoxide leak at Evergreen State College? One Evergreen State College student is dead, and two are in hospital with symptoms of poisoning from the deadly gas. Monday night, an Evergreen State College police officer broke down the door of the student housing unit where the victim lived and began performing CPR. He, too, was hospitalized but released yesterday morning, reports KING 5. The Washington State Patrol is investigating. 

Good news for people who like bad news (about Tesla): The company will recall nearly all its 2 million cars on US roads after a two-year investigation found the autopilot feature was involved in 1,000 crashes. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said the system gives drivers a false sense of security. A software update will warn drivers when they aren’t paying attention and don’t have their hands on the wheel. (The autopilot is kind of the justification for the high price, unless you really like the idea of dying in a battery explosion).

Don’t sign those ballot initiatives, people: As Hannah reported yesterday, Let’s Go Washington ballot initiatives, bankrolled by billionaire Republican megadonor Brian Heywood, has collected 2.4 million signatures as of December 8. That's just 520,000 shy of a goal Democrats think can be hit before the Sunday deadline. Paid signature gatherers, who cost Heywood $5 million, have apparently been disseminating misleading information, so Dems are asking anyone who sees one to call their new hotline. Read more about it here.

More self-promotion: Ashley’s latest Bad Apples column is a doozy. Four cops bullied a 13-year-old kid, the cops caught one of their own in an underage sex sting, and a couple wild pursuits in violation of department policy. The details here.

Zulily sues Amazon: Online retailer Zulily is going out of business and blamed Amazon in a last-dying-breath anti-trust lawsuit. The suit is the first to use information from the FTC’s suit against the company’s allegedly anti-competitive business strategy. Zulily, which targeted families with young kids, bragged about beating Amazon’s prices. According to its lawsuit, Amazon bullied companies to raise their Zulily prices to match theirs.

An interesting read: The Washington Post published a story on how Discord, the chat platform for gamers, became a popular spot for extremists—like the right-wingers who used Discord to plan the Charlotteville Unite the Right Rally in 2017, and a National Air Guardsman shared classified documents for more than a year on the platform. Read more here.

Home Alone, in Tacoma: Two reporters at the Tacoma News Tribune, playing off a TikTok trend, calculated how much Kevin McAllister would have spent on his 10-item grocery trip in the film if he'd been living in Tacoma in 2023. In 1990, he paid $19.83. The reporters compared prices at Fred Meyer, Safeway, Target, and Walmart and it ended up being nearly triple the price.

E3, first dormant, is dead: The Electronics Entertainment Expo was canceled indefinitely after more than 20 years. As Polygon reported, E3 was once the gaming industry hype fest of the year where the new console, the big game, or the next weird Nintendo peripheral would make its debut. But in 2019, Sony Interactive Entertainment pulled out; during the early pandemic, other big game makers like Nintendo and Microsoft realized they could do their own version of E3 presentations online and make big announcements on their own schedule. E3 went digital in 2021, but canceled a virtual conference in 2022. In March 2023, organizers canceled E3 for the second year in a row.

Russia suffered massive casualties in Ukraine: US intelligence found that 315,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded since February 2022. Russia had about 360,000 ground troops before the war. NBC reports the Biden administration declassified these numbers to help persuade Congress to give Ukraine additional military aid.