Wind Weary: Speedy gusts swept through Western Washington Monday and Tuesday, toppling trees, downing power lines, leaving hundreds of thousands of residents in the dark. Early Tuesday, 150,000 households were without power. By Tuesday night, 61,000 remained powerless—the majority were Puget Sound Energy customers, about 1,000 were Seattle City Light. For now, the wind has died down and the rain seems to have abated. 

Market Stalemate: Remember how Pike Place used to have that park at its north end overlooking the Puget Sound? You could go sit in the grass with a hot piroshky and watch jugglers and dancers and tourists eating their own piroshky. The park, known as Victor Steinbrueck Park, has been closed for renovations since 2019. Even though the construction has been done, the grass overlook is locked behind a chainlink fence. Why? A standoff. Its original, iconic totem poles—the sources of their own controversy about indigenous art—are undergoing restoration by the Seattle Parks and Recreation. Parks is down to reopen the Victor Steinbrueck Park without the poles, for now, but the Pike Place Market Historic Commission refuses to let that happen. We just want our piroshky bench back.

Seattle Judge Blocks Trump Refugee Ban: U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead temporarily blocked Donald Trump's executive order freezing refugee arrivals and federal funding for organizations who serve refugees. Whitehead's preliminary injunction stops the executive order from taking place nationwide, until the court case ends, or until the injunction is overruled by a higher court. Whitehead said the injunction was warranted because the plaintiffs are likely to show that Trump's order “has crossed the line from permissible discretionary action to effective nullification of congressional will.” He said Trump's "authority is not limitless." This is the second time that a Washington state judge has blocked one of Trump's immigration orders. 

Shooting at Renton Transit Center: A man was shot yesterday afternoon outside of the Renton Transit Center. The gunman allegedly pulled out a gun, shot the victim in the abdomen, and then jumped on a King County Metro bus and traveled one mile north. Police arrested the suspect. The victim is in critical condition.

Wanna See Something Scary? Check out this AI video Trump posted on Truth Social about "Trump Gaza," which looks like a version of Gaza that's also a Trump resort and Elon Musk is there eating a lot of bread. 

Complete batshit lunacy on the president's Truth Social account. Yes, he really posted this.

[image or embed]

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) February 25, 2025 at 9:11 PM

Bad News at the CDC: Mass firings at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could be bad news for confronting infectious disease threats. Bird flu keeps spreading around the country, there's a measles outbreak in Texas, tuberculosis is en vogue again in Kansas, meanwhile polio, mpox, and ebola are circulating in other countries and we've thinned the ranks of the people who will defend us against these threats. Plus, the threat of more cuts and the impacts of an anti-vax secretary of HHS have made the work culture hell. It's hard to save lives when your job is a pit of despair and with the sword of Damocles hanging over your head. 

Not So Anti-Vax Now, Huh? That measles outbreak in Texas has infected around 124 people, most of them babies and children. One person has died—an unvaccinated child. Nearly all of those infected are unvaccinated or hadn't finished their vaccines against measles. The threat of the disease is changing anti-vax parents' tunes—they're lining up to get their unvaccinated kids vaccinated. "About half of the approximately 100 doses of measles-mumps-rubella vaccine (MMR) given at the health department last week were to kids who were unvaccinated," according to a Texas public health official. You know what, good for them. I support anyone who can stop being a fucking idiot for a second to save their kids. Now, let's see if their newfound belief in science and facts will stick. 

House Passes Framework for Trumps "Big, Beautiful Bill": Spoiler alert: It is not beautiful. In fact, it is terrible. The "big beautiful bill" is Trump's budget, which contains $4.5 trillion in tax cuts and calls on the federal government to reduce its spending by $2 trillion over the next decade. The budget plan narrowly passed yesterday in a 217-215 (vote with all Democrats and a singular Republican voting against it) after conservatives raised hell to try to increase the spending cuts. The plan should smooth the process of passing Trump's big fiscal plan "by using a process called reconciliation, which allows such bills to steer clear of a filibuster and pass the Senate on a simple-majority vote," according to the New York Times. The budget will be disastrous. Those $2 trillion in spending cuts will mean the gutting of Medicaid and SNAP benefits among other federal funding priorities. 

Bezos makes changes at WaPo opinion page: The Washington Post's opinion editor, David Shipley, has resigned after Jeff Bezos announced a new vision for the section. The change comes after Bezos stopped the opinion section from endorsing Kamala Harris for president, ending presidential endorsements at the paper in the process. Bezos only wants opinion pieces that fall under the "two pillars" of "personal liberties and free markets" and anything else will be published "by others." I'm not totally clear what Bezos's goal is here, but I can only imagine it as something sinister and bad for democracy. 

SCOOP: WaPo Opinion editor David Shipley is out. Jeff Bezos emails staff about a change to Post Opinions: "We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets."

[image or embed]

— Ben Mullin (@benmullin.bsky.social) February 26, 2025 at 6:39 AM

Speaking of the Press: Trump announced yesterday that it would start handpicking which media outlets were allowed to participate in the presidential press pool. The pool is a small, rotating group of reporters who cover the president's day-to-day activities, and for decades, the pool has been chosen by the White House Correspondents’ Association. "No politician should get to decide which journalists get to cover them, let alone the most powerful politician in the country, but President Trump keeps opening new fronts in his war on the press," Reporters Without Borders said in a statement. "At the end of the day, freedom of the press is about every American's right to access information about their government and their society, so the White House's attacks against press freedom are not just directed against journalists, but against every American's First Amendment rights."

At least the oligarchs haven't taken the stars from us yet. They're trying, of course. For now, though, you can look skyward and know that no one owns space. Do it at the end of this month, and you may be able to see all of the planets lined up at once. Astrologers, is this a good thing or a bad thing? 

Sell Your Tesla and Your Tesla Stock: Tesla shares dropped 8 percent Tuesday. It's market cap is now below $1 trillion, the lowest its been since the November election. 

Republicans Cower from Constituents: House Republicans are afraid of holding town halls after crowds of rightfully-angry constituents have flocked to the events and yelled at their lawmakers for being complicit pushovers. Now, party leaders are suggesting only doing tele-town halls or pre-screening attendees for in-person events. Hopefully, Democrat challengers for these seats can seize upon this moment. 

Dead Air: After a passenger passed away during a flight from Melbourne to Doha last week, Qatar Airways  flight staff decided to put her corpse in the seat next to an Australian couple. They actually asked the the man to move over a seat and put her dead body in what was his seat. He sat next to her body for four hours. “It wasn’t nice," he said.

A song for your Wednesday: Singer and musician Rhiannon Giddons announced she won't perform at the Kennedy Center this year after Trump's takeover of the organization. Here's her NPR Tiny Desk Concert: