It’s Halloweekend, witches! Please don’t make fun of me for saying “witches” in place of “bitches.” Anyway! Today is the first day of Halloweekend. If you’re still scrambling for plans, you know I’m gonna recommend our sister site, EverOut. The staff over at EverOut always find the coolest (and cheapest) events in the city. We have no choice but to stan!

Not a big reader? Me either. You can listen to the silky smooth voice of Stranger writer Matt Baume recommend other Halloweekend festivities on KUOW radio.

The weather: I tried to figure out why the Seattle branch of the National Weather Service referenced New Order (I think?) but I couldn’t figure it out in under 20 minutes so I had to move on. Regardless, here’s what to expect when you’re out galavanting in your skimpy, little Halloween costume. But as a wise woman once said, "a hoe never gets cold." 

In other weekend plans: Vote! We are less than two weeks out from the midterm election, so prepare for me and just about every other journalist in the game to remind you to vote nearly every time we put our hands on a keyboard. If you haven’t been keeping up with all the many, many races on the ballot, the Stranger Election Control Board has you covered! Check out our endorsements here.

Monkeypox: Okay, another very important thing to put on your to-do list: see if you are eligible for the monkeypox vaccine. King County just lowered the bar to entry for the vaccine. It’s like when a frat party gets boring and they decide to let in people who didn’t pay the Panhellenic council for their friends. Anyway, now you can get the vaccine if you meet one of these three qualifications: you’ve been in “close or skin-to-skin contact” with someone with monkeypox, you’re a man or trans person who has sex with other men or trans people, or if you have transactional sex for money, food, or shelter regardless of your or your partners’ genders and sexual orientations. 

How is this man alive?? An intruder broke into Nancy Pelosi’s house and beat up her husband with a hammer this morning. The attacker struck the Speaker of the House’s husband several times in the head, leaving him with blunt-force trauma. He’s in the hospital and Pelosi’s spokesperson said he’ll recover. The motive is still being investigated. 

But here’s a preview: Fox News reporters said the attacker is someone who embraces conspiracy theories. Wonder where he learned all that!

Lessons from Walla Walla: Since 2021, the number of homeless kids and young adults in Walla Walla went from 81 to 39. The Seattle Times explains how the rural Washington county did it. 

Democrats, amiright: In yesterday’s (extremely long) budget committee hearing of the Seattle City Council, socialist Council Member Kshama Sawant introduced a walk-on amendment to fund all the abortions that happen in the city. It would only cost like, $3.5 million, according to a central staff estimate. Sawant said that the cost is far from “prohibitive,” but the policy’s passage depends on the will of her Democrat colleagues. But no one asked to co-sponsor the amendment or even commented on Sawant’s proposal in the council meeting. That doesn’t automatically mean the others wouldn’t vote yes to pay for every abortion in Seattle, but many council members already signed on to support Morales’s much smaller amendment to add $500,000 to the Mayor’s $250,000 allocation to the Northwest Abortion Access Fund. Tough luck, Sawant!

But hey! Council Members Lisa Herbold and Teresa Mosqueda signed on as co-sponsors to Sawant’s amendment to cut funding to a very controversial gunfire locating system known as Shotspotter. Thank God! Let’s hope the council will put that shit to rest. 

Other council things: Other important things happened at the council meeting yesterday. But guess what? I haven’t finished my story on it. But you can catch up on the splashiest amendments of Tuesday and Wednesday for now. Thanks!

Women hate approval voting: Haha, JK. #NotAllWomen, but the League of Women of Seattle-King County certainly does! Yesterday the League sent out a scathing press release (as scathing as those get I suppose) accusing Seattle Approves, which is pushing Approval Voting (AV) against Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV) for Seattle elections, of spreading disinformation in its mailers. The mailer claimed that RCV would take much longer to start up, which is not true. The mailer also claimed that only the city council likes RCV. Also a big lie. A bunch of organizations endorsed changing Seattle’s system to RCV. 

ICYMI: You heard it here first. Washington State Democrats are no longer ringing the alarm bell on a big red wave hitting the state legislature. Will Casey found that Democrats really only have to worry about holding onto three swingy Senate races and three swingy House races. Read the full story here. 

In other election news: Um… Leesa? 

Funeral shooting: Potentially more than one shooter opened fire outside of a funeral today, in Pittsburgh, injuring six victims who are all in stable condition. Authorities believe this is a targeted attack on the funeral service for John James Hornezes, Jr., who was one of three killed in a shooting earlier this month.

Brazil news: Brazil is electing a new president this weekend. Here’s everything you need to know and why it matters, as told by NPR. 

Happy Halloween, you freaking weirdo: