Good Morning! We’re looking at the kind of spring weather that out-of-towners don’t believe exists here: Highs in the mid 60s, partly cloudy, small chance of rain. I’m guessing even Charles Mudede can’t find a way to complain about it today. But before you get out and enjoy this perfect walking weather, let’s do the news.

The GOP Wants Us Pregnant and Barefoot: We already knew that JD Vance and Elon Musk were obsessed with us having more (white) American babies. But it’s also become clear that they’re not willing to increase access to childcare to support that spike in baby-making. Why? Because they want parents (women) at home. According to the New York Times, the White House is workshopping ways to encourage parents to stay home, including “giving more money to families for each child they have, eliminating federal tax credits for daycare, and opening up federal lands for the construction of affordable single-family homes.” This, of course, comes at the expense of programs that do support actual working parents. Which will still be the majority of parents. Because it’s not the 1950s, and we’re in late-stage capitalism over here. 

More Light Rail! The Two Line just got three and a half miles longer. Over the weekend, we got two new light rail stations, at Marymoor Park and downtown Redmond. But the connection between the One and Two lines is still a figment of Dow Constantine’s imagination right now. His best guess is that it’ll open in the summer of 2026.

Library Crisis: You know the Washington Talking Book & Braille Library in South Lake Union? That’s part of the Washington State Library system, and financially, they’re screwed. Trump has already yanked federal funding from library systems around the country, and now, according to the Washington Secretary of State’s Office, the state budget that’s sitting on Governor Ferguson’s desk doesn’t include any of the $6.7 million they asked for. Their office announced this morning that over the past two weeks, they delivered 47 at-risk-of layoff letters to Washington State Library (WSL) employees. The Talking Book & Braille Library, our state’s only accessible library service for people with print disabilities, faces some of the worst cuts—and may have to be closed to the public. Feeling good about not taxing the rich, Ferguson?

Tariff Update: Trump and China have finally gotten tired of their giant game of Uncle, and come to a temporary trade agreement. For the next 90 days, Trump is expected to lower the tariffs on Chinese imports from 145 percent to 30, and China will lower tariffs on American goods to 10 percent from 125. Maybe we’ll start seeing more ships in the port again. The grasshoppers are lonely.

Flying’s About to Get Weird: Newark Airport, one of the busiest airports in the country, has had two radar outages in as many months. And on Sunday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned that the same thing is likely to happen at more US airports as we head into the summer travel season, and said he would make a plan with major airlines to scale back the number of flights going through Newark. This seems like a good time to remind everyone that DOGE cut 400 workers from the FAA this year.

Trump Wants a New Jet: And the royal family of Qatar wants to give it to him. Specifically, they want to give him a $400 million super luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet that will serve as Air Force One during his presidency, and then be donated to his presidential library after his term. If (when) it goes through, it will be the largest gift ever given to the US from a foreign government. Is it legal to accept something so valuable from a foreign power? Pam Bondi and Pete Hegseth say it is, but everyone else is pretty worried. “Even in a presidency defined by grift, this move is shocking,” Robert Weissman, a co-president of Public Citizen, told the New York Times. “It makes clear that US foreign policy under Donald Trump is up for sale.” Need something from Trump? Give him something shiny.

A New Kind of “Refugee”: Remember how Trump wiped out our entire refugee program and then doubled down by defying a court order to help resettle the 12,000 refugees who had flights booked to the US when the ban went into place? Well this morning, 49 white South Africans will land in DC as the first wave of Trump’s brand new Afrikaner refugee program. Just to make sure we’re all on the same page: Afrikaners are about 7 percent of the population in South Africa, but they own three quarters of the private land in the country; and they were the beneficiaries of a half-century long Apartheid system that allowed the white minority to dominate the country. Unsurprisingly, aid groups, immigrant rights activists, and the South African government have all called the initiative an absolute mockery of our refugee system (which it is). But the Trump administration just loves themselves a little “reverse racism.” So they’ll be throwing these white folks a little party on the tarmac later today. 

Hostage to Be Released: Hamas announced yesterday that it’s going to release the last living American hostage in Gaza. The hostage, Edan Alexander, is an Israeli-American dual citizen who moved to Israel to serve in the military after high school, and he was captured from his military post during the October 7 attacks. This will be the first hostage release since Israel shattered the ceasefire in March. Trump will be in the Middle East on Tuesday, and Hamas hopes it’ll kickstart a new ceasefire before Israel makes good on its plans to seize the entire Gaza Strip. Israel, predictably, has no plans to stop bombarding Gaza during negotiations. More than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza.

Time to Ring in the 2025 Election: The filing deadline was on Friday, which means our city election season has officially begun! This year, we’ll be voting for mayor, city attorney, and city council districts 2, 8, and 9. This election has everything you’d expect from a Seattle showdown, from progressive challengers to shitty ballot initiatives from Brian Heywood. Check back in throughout the week—we’ll give you the full rundown of the candidates, the initiatives, and the races we’re really excited about.

Republicans Are Still Trying to Cut Medicaid: They released a proposal late on Sunday that would take coverage away from 8.6 million Americans and hike the costs for millions more. It requires people to pay more fees, adds more paperwork, and includes a work requirement for childless adults. The GOP has never seen a poverty tax it doesn’t love.

Watch Your Fingers: Igloo had to recall 130,000 coolers because they were taking off people’s fingertips. Apparently the tow handle can pinch your hand against the cooler, and it’s literally resulted in several amputations. No matter how many times I read that, I’m still not sure how that’s possible. But if you bought an Igloo cooler between January 2019 and January 2025, do your poor fingers a favor and ask Igloo for a free replacement handle.

Hegseth Still an Idiot: Some of the passwords that Defense Secretary Pete “Wanna Join My Group Chat” Hegseth used to register for websites were exposed in cyberattacks on those sites and are readily available on the internet. If he was using normal, secure channels to discuss war plans, that’d be NBD—he’d just be getting a lot of spam calls on his personal phone. But because he’s failed to use the safeguards that are built into our NATIONAL SECURITY SYSTEMS, there’s no telling what people can get access to.

Usually I want to give you something to ease into your Monday, it doesn’t feel like that kind of day. So here’s “Boss” by Little Simz, to get your energy up.