Seattle’s largest provider for homeless youth is in trouble: Publicola reported that YouthCare will close two shelters, two housing programs, and cut staff as part of a “strategic realignment to ensure long-term financial stability and enhance the effectiveness of our services.” YouthCare told stuff it’d shut the Catalyst Transitional Living Program and Home of Hope Bridge Program at the end of next month, plus youth centers in the University District and in South Seattle at the end of the year.

WSP shootout: The Washington State Patrol said a suspect who fired at WSP troopers yesterday is “no longer a threat” (translation: shot dead). According to police, the suspect fired from his moving vehicle yesterday morning at a trooper who was conducting an unrelated traffic stop in Lakewood. That trooper called in a description of the vehicle, and other troopers spotted it on Highway 507 in Spanaway. WSP said a chase ensued, and the suspect fired at the troopers in pursuit. WSP said the suspect exited their vehicle in a residential area and continued to shoot at the officers. The Pierce County Sheriff's Office said its deputies fired shots and confirmed the suspect died from a gunshot wound.

SCOTUS ruling won’t change how Seattle sweeps: Last week, the Supreme Court decided it was a-OK for Grant's Pass, Oregon to fine and jail homeless people sleeping in public, even if they have nowhere else to go. In response, Mayor Bruce Harrell told the citizens of Seattle not to worry, he wouldn’t change the way we do things around here, which is not reassuring. We're terrible at this. Hannah has more here.

ICYMI: I witnessed a heist on Capitol Hill, and I wrote about it. Yeah, sure, the heist was in a Dungeons & Dragons game for queer kids at Seattle’s LGBTQ+ Center and it wasn’t “real,” but it was a heist.

Hole-digger damages highway: Someone dug a tunnel and broke part of Highway 529 yesterday, shutting down passage between Everett and Marysville for half the day. Workers with the Washington State Department of Transportation noticed damage and a man they thought responsible for the hole walking nearby. The man’s impressive hole measured a foot across on the surface, and it bottomed out four feet down. Quite a hole! Crews cut the pavement to create clean edges, and then filled that big hole. No word on the hole man, but WSP is investigating because the repairs cost thousands.

Kill the owls: Federal wildlife managers have decided they’re sick and tired of invasive barred owls threatening the survival of the PNW's native spotted owls. After 15 years of study and collaboration, they’ve come up with a plan to blast them away with shotguns. If the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) carries out the plan, trained professionals would kill less than one percent of the North American barred owl population and possibly give the spotted owls a fighting chance. Still, that could be 500,000 birds over the next 30 years. Before training owl neutralizers, USFWS would need to obtain a permit under the Migrant Bird Treaty Act. Washington Commissioner of Public Lands Hillary Franz has expressed skepticism about the plan.

Is the Biden or bust dam … busting? Cracks are certainly inching up the wall. We just don’t know how big they are yet. Puck reported on a leaked Democrat polling memo that suggested support for Biden cratered in key battleground states after last week’s historically miserable debate performance, putting previously uncompetitive states like New Hampshire, Virginia, and New Mexico in play. Biden not only polled worse than Trump, but he polled worse than Kamala Harris, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigeig, and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in one-on-one matchups against Trump. Forty percent of 2020 Biden voters surveyed wanted the president to drop out. Meanwhile, a CNN poll found most voters believed a different nominee would have a better chance at keeping Dems in the White House. Of course, those are just two polls conducted shortly after the debate. Time will tell if voters stay freaked.

Some Dems are speaking up: Yesterday, Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Austin) became the first Democrat in Congress to call on President Joe Biden to bow out. Doggett said Biden failed to defend his accomplishments in the debate and that the risk of a Trump presidency was too great to say nothing. He’s not the only one. Senior Democrats had to intervene to keep West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin from publicly breaking with Biden on a Sunday news show. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a top Democrat who propped up a declining Dianne Feinstein in the months before she died, said it was legitimate to question Biden’s fitness on MSNBC. Big donors are turning on Biden. Officials told the New York Times his lapses are becoming increasingly common. Opinion writers at the Times, the Atlantic, and the New Yorker have called for Biden to go. But will he go willingly? The Times reported that Biden told a key ally he knows his candidacy is unsalvageable if he can't convince the public he's able to do the job. Seven senior sources at the Biden campaign told Reuters Harris is the top alternative candidate if he does. 

What are our local electeds saying? On Friday, they didn’t tell the Seattle Times much. But in an interview with Portland’s ABC station KATU, Washington Democratic Congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez said we all saw what happened on that debate stage, we can’t unsee it, and she thinks that Trump is going lick Biden in the general. “I know that’s difficult, but I think the damage has been done by that debate.” She didn’t call for Biden to drop out, though, and said Democrats should accept the results of the primary. 

They actually don’t have to. The Democratic party didn’t rely on primary elections to pick a candidate until 1972. Time is running out fast, but an open convention is possible. If you’re interested in what that could look like, the latest episode of Ezra Klein’s podcast was very informative.

Bernie Bros and KHive unite: In perhaps the first moment of collective levity on national politics Twitter, some lefties are having fun at the thought of a Kamala Harris/Bernie Sanders ticket, and it's kind of sweet. 

RFK Jr. and the barbecued dog: What in the fuck is wrong with this man? Vanity Fair’s new article about Kennedy uncovered two particularly awful stories about him. In 1998, he allegedly sexually assaulted the 23-year-old woman who babysitted his children. There’s also a photo that shows Kennedy clutching the charred remains of a dog and pretending to gnaw at its ribs.

They’re not even hiding it: Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, celebrated the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision with a frightening comment: “We are in the process of a Second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.” Is that a threat? It sounds like a threat. Roberts is right about recent court decisions helping their cause. Since taking over the conservative think-tank in 2021, Roberts has shifted the organization’s focus toward one goal: institutionalizing Trumpism. It is one of the principal architects of Project 2025, a plan to dismantle federal agencies, consolidate executive power, and fire federal employees who would resist Trump’s plans.

The NIH is developing a nasal COVID vaccine: The federal agency is sponsoring the first human clinical trials for a shotless COVID-19 vaccine administered up the schnoz. The proposed vaccine utilizes a live-weakened version of MPV, a virus that causes pneumonia in mice but does not sicken people, to deliver a stabilized version of COVID-19’s spike protein. That spike protein allows Sars-CoV-2 to penetrate and infect our cells. Universities are recruiting 60 adults, 18 to 64, in Texas, Georgia and New York.

Google not meeting climate goals: Three years ago, Google said it’d be carbon neutral by 2030. But a Tuesday report from the company shows it's not even close. Emissions have actually grown 48% since 2019 because the company decided to focus on AI tech, which consumes a massive amount of electricity.

Georgia (the country) moves to limit LGBTQ rights: Georgia’s parliament gave initial approval to a set of sweeping anti-LGBTQ bills that pretty much ban gay life beyond private relationships. The bills would outlaw “propaganda” about same-sex relationships, which includes lessons about queerness or depictions of gay relationships on television, public events promoting same-sex relationships like Pride, gender-affirming surgery, adoptions by same-sex couples, the ability to change your gender on ID documents, and the rainbow flag itself. Introduced by the socially right-wing Georgian Dream party, the bills must pass two additional readings to become law. If they pass, it’ll be hell for gay and trans Georgians.