Slog AM: Trump Shuts Down Asylum Claims, SNAP Benefits Are Under Threat Again, Women’s Hockey Finally Comes to Seattle

It’s December. Which is rude. Didn’t the election just happen? The weather got the memo, though. Expect clouds all week, and we’ll have rain off and on. But! We’ve got a break this morning, so get outside before the sun goes down at 4:20 p.m.

National Guard Shooting: On Wednesday afternoon, after driving across the country from Bellingham, a 29-year-old Afghan national named Rahmanullah Lakanwal allegedly shot two National Guard members in DC. One, Sarah Beckstrom, was killed, and the other, Andrew Wolfe, is still in critical condition. Lakanwal has been charged with first-degree murder. 

What We Know: Lakanwal came to the US during the chaotic troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, as part of a program to resettle Afghan citizens who had worked with the US military in the war. He’d been part of the Zero Units, military units that worked with the CIA, conducting night raids. His motive is still unclear, but it is clear that he was struggling with his mental health before the shooting. According to emails written by a caseworker who was helping him and his family settle in the US, he was struggling to find work. He’d isolated himself in his bedroom, even from his wife and five kids. And he had manic episodes where he would take off for weeks with the family car.

The Fallout: After the shooting, Trump said on Truth Social that he planned to “permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries” and “remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States.” He’s already stopped all asylum decisions, and yesterday, Trump told reporters that he expected the situation to last “for a long time.”

Just the (Unsexy) Tips: Trump followed through with his campaign promise to stop taxing tips, but now there’s a caveat: the IRS doesn’t want to give that tax break to anyone doing “pornographic activity.” And specifically, that means OnlyFans tips don’t count. On the bright side, though, some of the tax professionals think the IRS will have a hard time spotting porn in your tax filing.

Trump Doesn’t Know What Part of His Body Was Scanned: And he doesn’t know why. But he knows the MRI was “perfect.” He told reporters that if they wanted the MRI released, he’d release it. *crickets*

SNAP Benefits Are Under Threat: Again. The USDA seems to think they’ve uncovered “massive fraud” in the SNAP program, which currently helps feed 42 million people in the US, and says they’re releasing information about a massive restructure of the program this week. It’s not clear what those changes will be yet, but the USDA did submit draft regulation to the Office of Management and Budget that tried to roll back the long-standing rule that allows anyone on welfare to access the program.

Rubber Hits the Road: But not like that. Seattle is the first city to test out bike lane barriers made out of recycled tires. The barriers are made out of bricks of rubber, about 12 inches tall, and a few feet long. Each brick is about 100 pounds, and made from a whole car’s worth of tires. Turns out, most “recycled” tires are just burned or incinerated. Now, instead, they get to replace the flimsy barriers made of just paint and plastic bollards.

Some Bad News for E-Bike Riders: First, we found out that Rad Power Bikes is probably going out of business in January. Then we found out their batteries should probably be recalled for lighting on fire if they get too wet, but the company is too broke for a proper recall. And this weekend, NYT Magazine dove into the e-bike injuries we’re not really keeping track of. According to one hospital in California, their patients’ chance of dying in a conventional bike crash is less than 1 percent. But if you slap a motor on that baby, it goes up to 11 percent. Right now, e-bikes are allowed to go up to 20 mph and still stay in bike lanes. In Europe, it’s around 15 mph. “The technology has moved forward way faster than our ability to measure its impact or develop sensible regulation,” one public health officer told NYT Mag.

But Good News for Train Riders: Three new light rail stations are opening on Saturday, December 6: Kent Des Moines, Star Lake, and Federal Way Downtown. Our southern extension adds almost 8 miles to the 1 Line, and Sound Transit expects it to add as many as 23,000 riders on an average weekday. Maybe it’s finally time to visit the Masonic building in Des Moines that’s haunted by some ghost named George. 

Danny Westneat Keeps Saying Things: And this week, Seattle Times’ NIMBY columnist’s take is about King County’s plan to buy up hotels during the pandemic and house people there. The column fixates on one really bad purchase the County made: the Inn at Queen Anne. First, they overpaid for it, by some 75 percent. Then the hotel turned out to be in far worse shape than the County was originally told, and after closing it down room by room, the whole place is now shuttered and wrapped in razor wire. That sucks. A lot. But it’s just one building in a county-wide program. What seems far more important is that the program has fallen massively short of its promises. The county was supposed to have 1,600 units open by the end of 2022. As of now, they have 600 units open. With at least 9,800 people sleeping unsheltered in King County, we need those units yesterday.

Four teenagers were arrested after stealing a car and firing a gun at a cop on I-5. No one was injured, but a nearby car was hit, leaving bullet fragments in a witness’s lap. SPD is still looking for two teens who fled the scene.

Seattle’s Big One: The big race, that is. The Seattle Marathon was yesterday, and more than 8,000 runners took on the 26.2 mile route. This year’s map looked a little different. Instead of running through Capitol Hill, on the I-5 express lanes, and around Green Lake, runners looped around Magnolia. The Seattle Times cataloged some Facebook posts from residents who were not pleased about the traffic disruptions: “The reason for the ellipses in the excerpts from comments is that they contained, shall we say, unrestrained language?” 

The Torrent Comes Home for the First Time: Seattle’s brand-new professional women’s hockey team played their first home game on Friday. The Torrent lost 0-3, but in all fairness, the team has only existed for a few weeks, and they were playing the Minnesota Frost, who have won the Walter Cup (the Stanley Cup, but for ladies) both years that the PWHL has existed. And while we may not have won the game, Seattle fans showed up in force. We broke the league record with 16,014 people in the stands. Their next game is on Wednesday, December 3 against the New York Sirens. Get out there.

 

 

 

 

 

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