Rapinoe lives in Queen Anne, practices in Tacoma, and is the greatest soccer player in the world.
Rapinoe lives in Queen Anne, practices in Tacoma, and is the greatest soccer player in the world. MAJA HITIJ / GETTY IMAGES STAFF

Pete Buttigieg will open his fundraisers to the press: Elizabeth Warren—along with a lot of other people, even kids (see below)—has been taking Buttigieg to task for holding closed-door fundraising events. Warren has banned closed-door fundraisers from her presidential campaign because, she told reporters, of "conflicts being created every single day when candidates for president sell access to their time to the highest bidder." Today, Buttigieg's campaign announced that "he will open his private, high-dollar fundraisers to the press and publicly disclose the names of his top financial supporters within the week."

Megan Rapinoe is Sports Illustrated's Sportsperson of the Year: "She is just the fourth woman in the award’s 66-year history to win it unaccompanied, a feat that is both a remarkable athletic achievement and a reflection of entrenched gender biases," reads the feature.

No wintertime evictions? As Rich wrote in Slog PM last Thursday, Sawant has called for a moratorium on evictions in the winter. The council member introduced legislation today "that would ban residential evictions during the colder months of the year," writes Daniel Beekman at the Seattle Times. Seattle would be the first city to enact a law like this, according to Sawant, who wants to "keep neighbors from being displaced to the streets during the months with the harshest weather and poorest living conditions." Sound off in the comments.

FBI director says the FBI isn't harboring a secret, liberal deep state operation: Which is apparently a thing an FBI director needs to clarify. Thanks Trump! Additionally, a newly released report by the Justice Department’s inspector general showed there was "no anti-Trump plot" in the investigation into connections between Russia and Trump campaign aides in 2016. Unfortunately, the director's statement and the new report probably won't debunk the wild conspiracy theories the GOP has recently adopted.

Sharks and stingrays get a new home in Seattle: Today, the Seattle City Council unanimously approved a $34 million contribution toward a $113 million new Ocean Pavilion along Seattle's waterfront. The renderings look trippy. As Nathalie noted this morning, most of the fundraising for the pavillion will come from private donors.

The man who was the inspiration for the Ice Bucket Challenge has died: Do you remember 2014? It was a simpler time. People were dumping ice on themselves and everyone was quibbling over the nature of virality. Those ice dumps raised $115 million to fight ALS, and it was all inspired by Pete Fras, a former Boston College athlete. He died at 34.

The Golden Globes 2020 nominations dropped: People are pissed.

An impeachment inquiry update: In case it wasn't clear, gassy Eric Swalwell helped clarify that "as it related to this scheme, the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, knew everything."



A tale of two holiday bonuses: In Wisconsin, one company gave every one of their employees a handgun for Christmas. In Utah, a company announced it was splitting its $10 million holiday bonus between its 198 employees. That averaged out to about $50,000 per employee. Video of the employees receiving the bonuses went a little viral today. I know, I know, the gun gift is hard to beat.

Honolulu has signed one of the strictest bans on single-use plastic in the country: The Honolulu City Council just passed Bill 40, which bans "businesses and restaurants from nearly all takeout plastics, rolling out over a 2-year period." It will "apply to both polystyrene foam and single-use plastics, including plates, bowls, cups, utensils, straws, foam containers, and other foodware items," writes Mic. (Tangentially, for the current issue of The Stranger, Jasmyne Keimig wrote about an exhibit at the Bellevue Art Museum that is made up of "nonrecyclable plastics and single-use items mostly generated by [the artist] and her family of four over the course of nine months." It's "weirdly alluring," Keimig writes.)

Amazon is still trying to get the Defense Department to overturn the major cloud contract it gave to Microsoft: The tech giant "accuses President Donald Trump of influencing the Depart of Defense as it made its decision," reports GeekWire. New updates here.

ICYMI: There's a Twin Peaks VR game on the market. I might be too scared to play it.

And, finally: Snow-cocaine. Santa loves it. Walmart's shoppers do not. They've canceled a Santa sweater which featured Santa snorting what appears to be cocaine made of snow. "These sweaters, sold by a third-party seller on Walmart.ca (our website in Canada), do not represent Walmart's values and have no place on our website," Walmart said in a statement today. When will the war on Christmas end?! Let Santa live!!