Good morning! These freezing cold nights might finally pay off with a snow day this weekend. The National Weather Service told the Seattle Times that the forecast is looking “increasingly interesting” starting on Friday, but it’s still a tossup. “Between 4 am Saturday and 4 am Sunday, there’s a 27 percent chance Seattle could see at least 1 inch of snow, and a 15 percent chance the city could see 2 inches of snow,” the Times reported. For today, we’re looking at a lot of the same: lows just below freezing, highs in the 40s. Enjoy the sun while we’ve got it!

Trump Keeps His Word: Trump signed a new batch of executive orders yesterday, including one that could ban openly trans people from serving in the military. The orders were similar to last week’s, which eliminated diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in the federal government, but this newest order authorized the Defense Department to bar transgender soldiers, arguing that identifying as a gender other than the one assigned at birth could undermine “the physical and mental well-being necessary for military service,” NYT reported.

The language of the order pulls directly from the playbook of the religious right: “Expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service. Beyond the hormonal and surgical medical interventions involved, adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life,” it reads. “A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.” As of this morning, though, there’s already a legal challenge to the order brewing.

Funding Chaos: Starting today, Trump is freezing all federal grants and loans. What does that mean? So far, no one has been able to capture the extent of the damage it could do, but it “could affect trillions of dollars and cause widespread disruption in health care research, education programs and other initiatives,” according to the Seattle Times. Congress has already approved this spending, and for that reason, several Dems in Congress are already saying that the order “blatantly disobeys the law.” The White House scheduled a press conference for later today, and we’ll watch this madness unfold!

City Council Does It Again: Yesterday, city council voted 5-3 to appoint Mark Solomon to the District 2 seat that Tammy Morales left earlier this year. Which means for the second time in a year, they appointed someone who lost to Morales (badly). It's clear that council is hoping to bring some fresh blood into the seat in November: Solomon said he will view the appointment as a "caretaker" role and not seek election when the seat's term is up in 10 months. In the meantime, though, we have a “law and order” council member currently on staff with the SPD. Read more about it here.

Handing it off to Marcus for a moment, who was at the Mayor’s press conference about Trump’s immigration orders yesterday:

A Squeak When We Need a Roar: If you were holding your breath for local leaders to form together some civil-disobedient Voltron and stand tall against ICE raids and their camera-ready agents, well, don’t pass out just yet, keep holding. On Monday, at an event hosted by One America at El Centro de la Raza, Gov. Bob Ferguson unveiled his big move: an Executive Order to create a Family Separation Rapid Response Team within the Department of Children, Youth, and Families. Their mission? To come up with recommendations (yes, recommendations) for dealing with family separation and its trauma on kids. It’s something, sure, like a band-aid on a bullet wound. Let’s be real: this is an indignant squeak when we need a righteous roar for our immigrant neighbors, friends, and coworkers living in terror while a Trumpian wrecking ball swings their way, hellbent on making scapegoats of them before shoving them out of the country.

New Chief Stepping In: Looks like we’ll have a new police chief by the end of this week. Shon Barnes, then the Madison, Wisconsin, police chief, drew national attention in December after a shooting at the Abundant Life Christian School killed three people. In his former role, Barnes was investigated at least twice: Once after he was sued over allegations of a false arrest; and once when he was accused of making comments about a female officer’s love life during an exit interview. In both cases, he was cleared of wrongdoing. He will replace ex-Chief Adrian Diaz, who was found to have had an inappropriate relationship within the department, and is now suing the city for wrongful termination. Good luck Chief Barnes! We’re watching you.

Seattlites Run Amok: Okay this story keeps getting weirder. Last week, a 21-year-old Seattleite was accused of starting a shootout at the Vermont/Canada border that killed a border patrol agent. Less than a year ago, the Seattle Times reported, her parents told police that “they were fearful she was in a controlling relationship and was being forced to cut off contact with her friends and family.” Then on Friday, a Seattle-area man was arrested in Northern California and charged with murder. Turns out, the two were high school classmates and Lakeside School, the shmanciest of Seattle high schools, and they’d applied for a marriage license in King County in November.

It’s Special Election Season: Remember those pesky ballot initiatives that city council didn’t want to deal with in the high-turnout November election? It’s time to vote on them! Most of you should have gotten your ballots in the mail already, and we know how you should fill it out. Read our endorsements, drop that ballot in the mail, and pat yourself on the back for doing your civic duty.

Eat Your Heart Out: Wanna spend a little time in a world that’s even more fucked up than ours? Yellowjackets Season 3 is coming back in just a little more than two weeks. Stranger contributor Megan Burbank is coming soon with a recap of everything you wish you could forget about Seasons 1 and 2, but in the meantime, sink into this trailer.

Happy Birthday, Dick’s! It’s Dick’s Drive-in’s 71st birthday, and that means today, you can get a burger for what it cost in 1954: 19 cents. So get digging in your couch cushions, and get yourself a tiny, tasty burger. But it’s 2025: we’re all eating our feelings, and we’re all broke. So expect to wait in line.

Microsoft to buy TikTok? According to known liar Donald Trump (not my president), Microsoft “is in talks to acquire TikTok” and Trump “would like to see a bidding war over the app,” Reuters reports. If Microsoft buys TT, will it become a local company? Can we tax them? How many of their employees take home more than $1m a year, do ya think? TikTok is back online after going dark for a brief period prior to the inauguration, and while the app is still accessible to its users, both Apple and Google have removed it from their app stores and new “US Smartphone users cannot download it,” writes the Guardian. That includes this writer, who just got a new phone and got TikTok-blocked by the app store.

In case you need a little nonsense in your day: I had a friend once who, every month, included a line item in their personal budget for pranks. Just sayin’.