Its cold enough for Minehaha Falls in Minnesota to be frozen again.
It's cold enough for Minnehaha Falls in Minnesota to be frozen again. Getty

Record Low Temperatures Are Happening Across the U.S.: And the brutal chill—in some places 40 to 50 degrees colder than normal this weekend, with the nation's average low hovering around 10 degrees on New Year's Day—could continue past the holiday and well into the first week of January.


In Seattle, we had our first ever back-to-back snowy days over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but we're in for a pretty standard stretch of Seattle weather ahead: a front brings rain through today and tomorrow, then things dry up and get mild (highs in the 40s, lows in the 30s) the rest of the holiday weekend.

Because Football Players Don't Make Enough Already: The season is drawing to a close, which means stats are almost finished being calculated and certain NFL players are nearing performance bonuses for doing the jobs they were drafted (and are already paid a shitton of money) to do. The Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski is expected to get a $3 million bonus, Raiders running back Marshawn Lynch is up for $1.4 million, while the Seahawks' Michael Bennett, Bradley McDougald and Luke Wilson are up for $200k, $100k and $125k respectively, if each achieves the numbers they need during Sunday's season-ending game against the Cardinals.

Speaking of Money, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates Are Still Rich as Fuck: Seattle Times reports that the richest people in the world became $1 trillion richer in 2017, and among those, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos clocked in the highest numbers with a $34.2 billion gain, replacing now second-richest-person Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates (who'd held the the spot since May 2013 despite donating much of his fortune to charity). Bezos's net worth is now $99.6 billion compared to Gates's not nearly as impressive $91.3 billion.

Two Seattle Area Companies Did Better Than the Rest in the 2017 Stock Market: It's been an exceptional year for the stock market; Dow Jones industrial averages are up more than 25 percent since last January (and Trump has taken credit for it all the while). Mega e-commerce company Amazon.com Inc. gained 58 percent in 2017, and aerospace giant Boeing jumped 90 percent, one of its best years on record.

Did You Know That Horses Could Get Herpes?: Not only can they get the uncommon EHV-1 virus, which affects the central nervous system, but it can be deadly, and an outbreak at at Gold Creek Equestrian Center in Woodinville resulted in seven horses being euthanized after they contracted it. The remaining 40 horses that are boarded at the center have been quarantined.

Roy Moore Is Still Being a Sore Loser: Now he's filing a lawsuit to block the Alabama Senate result, and block the state from certifying Democrat Doug Jones as the winner of the Dec. 12 special election. Despite his defeat by slightly less than 21,000 votes (a margin of 1.5 percent), he isn't conceding. In fact, he's fundraising for his “election integrity fund,” and has vowed to pursue “voter fraud and other irregularities at polling locations throughout the state.”


Obama Beats Trump: In the latest Gallup "admired titles" poll, at least: "Americans once again are most likely to name Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton as the man and woman living anywhere in the world they admire most ... Obama edges out Donald Trump, 17% to 14%, while Clinton edges out Michelle Obama, 9% to 7%." Gallup has asked the most admired man question 71 times since 1946; the incumbent president has won 58 of those times. This is not one of those times.

Eater.com Asks Seattle Food Writers to Weigh in on Favorite Restaurants of 2017: The results aren't that surprising, but a few of the places mentioned deserve an end-of-the-year shout out here, too, namely Chef Edouardo Jordan's Southern/Northwestern fusion spot, JuneBaby, Chef Soma's new Soba joint, Kamonegi, "inauthentic Eurasian food" spot Cook Weaver, and French-inspired seafood eatery L'Oursin.