Donate now—the local blood banks really need it.
Donate now—your local Bloodworks Northwest really needs it. Steve Debenport/Getty

Happy President’s Day everybody: It's a federal holiday so you have to believe Trump is taking the day off. Our President has had a stressful couple of days, but we’ll get to him in a minute.

If you have blood, give it away: The snowstorms last week hit Bloodworks Northwest hard, and they’re currently at “emergency levels” with only enough blood to last a day or two. All blood types are needed, but let’s be real, you don’t even know your blood type. They’ll tell you if you give them blood in return!

Foster kids who run away are arrested: But Nina Shapiro of the Seattle Times asks, “Is there a better way?” This practice has been going on for years and isn’t all that effective. Kids run away, they get arrested, go to jail for a night or two, and return to their foster care home. Rinse. Repeat. A new bill in Olympia would phase out arresting minors who run away from their foster placement and replace it with more empathetic approaches for dealing with runaways.

‘I don’t care. I believe Putin.’ This was allegedly said by our fearless leader, Donald Trump, in response to an intelligence briefing about North Korea’s intercontinental missile launches. Andrew McCabe was on 60 Minutes last night to speak about his experiences with Trump and his reported inquiry into whether Trump had committed impeachable offenses.


Jussie Smollett may have orchestrated the attack on himself: I’ve now covered this on Slog AM three times. Once when he was first allegedly attacked by two men shouting racist and homophobic slurs in Chicago, and then again when he was released from the hospital and gave his first TV interview since the incident. Now, new information has surfaced that the Chicago Police Department may believe that Smollett hired the two men, with whom he has had a previous relationship of some sort, to assault him. He is denying it and the Chicago Police have not confirmed that to be the case, but they did release the two brothers almost immediately after arresting them.

Trans woman successfully sues New York county jail for denying her hormone therapy: Jessica Sunderland is an army vet and served a prison sentence for burglary starting in 2012. The prison doctors refused to provide her with hormone therapy—one medicine to suppress testosterone and another to provide estrogen—so she took him to court. They awarded her $355,000 in damages, which is believed to be the first time the court had awarded punitive damages in a case like this one.

This happened: Shout out to my sports fans! I am not one of you.


No snow, no rain: But my ficus needs water! Guess I’ll do it my goddamn self. No rain today, but plenty tomorrow and maybe even snow in some lowland areas.


Australia will plant one billion trees by 2050: This is a good start but what’s really going to help is rapidly decarbonizing the economy. If you’re in a sinking ship, bailing water off the side can help but fixing the fucking hole in your boat works a hell of a lot better. I don’t mean to be cynical Australia, really, good job.

Tonight's best Seattle entertainment options include: A night of music and comedy with Fred Armisen, a poetry reading with Mia Ayumi Malhotra, Gabrielle Bates, and Jane Wong, and a concert with Ja Rule and Ashanti.