Seattle's first homicide of 2025: A fatal shooting in Pioneer Square on Saturday claimed the life of a 40-year-old man, marking Seattle's first homicide of the year. However, King County is currently investigating four active murder cases this year. Despite narratives pushed by conservative media, the number of murders in the county actually declined last year, totaling 120 compared to 141 in 2023. Seattle ended the year with 60 murders, a decrease of nine from the previous year's total.

Seattle's second homicide of 2025: A fatal shooting in Ballard on Sunday became Seattle's second murder of the year. Police are investigating. 

Open seat season: Today, the Seattle City Council will select a replacement for Tammy Morales' vacant District 2 seat. Meanwhile, the King County Council is a step behind in filling the District 5 seat left vacant by Dave Upthegrove, who now serves as the state lands commissioner. The three candidates King County Executive Dow Constantine chose to fill the opening are: "Karen Keiser, a former longtime state senator from Des Moines; Julia Patterson, a former County Council member and state legislator from SeaTac; and De’Sean Quinn, a current Tukwila City Council member," reports the Seattle Times. Whoever is chosen will oversee the lands, peoples, and concerns from SeaTac to Renton. 

Cheat Sheet Drops TODAY: Alright, alright, calm down, people! We get it. Your inbox tantrums have been noted. But hey, take a deep breath because the cheat sheet for the February 11th special election is coming today. That's right, TODAY. So you can quit hitting 'send' on those angry little emails.

Crisp and sunny: Enjoy the sunshine today, Seattle! It'll start off chilly, but temperatures will reach 45 degrees—just like they have for most of the month

 

 

Good news: Friday was the last sunset in the 4 pm hour until November. Longer days are ahead. Unclear if they will be better days, what with all of the horrors. We'll get into those in just a bit.

One man's trash... In Thessaloniki, Greece, a resident found a marble statue of a woman abandoned in a garbage bag. Police sent the statue for archaeological testing, though the initial expert assessment found the statue could be 2,000 years old. "Accidental archaeological discoveries are relatively common in Greece," the  Associated Press writes. "In December, workers installing natural gas pipelines near Athens uncovered a Roman-era statue of Hermes." Thessaloniki also found a trove of antiquities during the city's decades-long construction of its metro system which opened in November. Some notable finds include "a marble-paved Roman thoroughfare and tens of thousands of artifacts spanning the Greek, Byzantine, and Ottoman periods." The city has these displayed in its subway stations.

In sports news: The Philadelphia Eagles will face off against the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl. To that I say, go birds. Purely for the Philly culture, not the football.

 

 

This can't be good: Late Friday night, Donald Trump quietly fired at least a dozen independent federal watchdogs known as inspectors general (IG), via email. The dismissals affected multiple departments, including State, Agriculture, Interior, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Education, Labor, and Defense, as well as the Energy Department, the Small Business Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency, Politico reports. By ridding the departments of these people, Trump rids them of a layer of accountability. Trump will likely insert loyalists into the positions. However, one small glimmer of hope is that the firings appear to be illegal under a law requiring a 30-day congressional notification prior to the firing of an IG. "It risks changing forever what we have historically valued most about IGs—their independence, objectivity, and non-partisanship," a former IG told Politico. "Without it, the function would be gutted of its greatest value and the entire system will suffer."

Dog killer confirmed: The Senate confirmed South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, who killed her own dog, as the secretary of homeland security.  

Clashing with Colombia: The US and Colombia got into it on Sunday after Trump demanded the country accept two military aircraft of deported migrants. Colombian President Gustavo Petro rejected the flight on the grounds that Trump was not treating deportees with dignity. Trump threw a fit and threatened "visa restrictions, 25% tariffs on all Colombian incoming goods, which would be raised to 50% in one week" and more. Colombia responded by threatening its own tariffs on US goods. Ultimately, Petro agreed to accept migrants and his administration even offered to fly them in his presidential plane. Trump, meanwhile, declared victory, spelled "Colombia" as "Columbia," and said, while the tariff orders won't go into effect, they are close by in case he needs them. Yuck. 

Palestinians head home: After the passage of a "fragile ceasefire" agreement, Israel opened up Northern Gaza for the first time since the war began in 2023. Tens of thousands of Palestinians returned to their homes, though many will find them destroyed. 

 

 

 

 

Another thing to worry about: A tuberculosis outbreak in Kansas is now the biggest outbreak in US history.

Sanctuary cities at risk: As Seattle and other cities in Washington state refuse to follow deportation orders Trump has threatened to cut off federal spending and even prosecute local officials. So far, it seems Seattle and its leaders are standing tough. A slight comfort is how familiar our new governor, Bob Ferguson, is with suing the Trump administration. Back in Trump's first term, Ferguson sued Trump 99 times. His successor, Attorney General Nick Brown, has already sued Trump concerning his birthright citizenship executive order. So, perhaps we're in good hands? Though, Ferguson seems a bit more gun-shy in the governor position. 

Annnnd there goes the market: China's new, free open-source, and way-less-expensive-to-develop AI platform DeepSeek went live last week. In doing so, it upended the stock market by instilling fears that the AI spending boom to build big data centers and chip facilities and power sources may not be necessary since DeepSeek succeeded by doing it "faster, cheaper, and better with old hardware," according to Axios. The tech stocks known as the Magnificent 7 (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, Tesla) could lose more than $1 trillion. I am experiencing lots of delicious schadenfreude right now. 

A song for your Monday: Since I've only recently discovered I like Arcade Fire (yes, I know, late to the party), I am unencumbered with any knowledge about "how they used to sound" or whatever. That's all to say, I found this new-ish song by them and it's so fun. Old fans don't seem to jive with the "new" sound. Sucks to be them.