Good neighbors.
Also, we know which one of these guys ordered the evacuation of the East Precinct. 400tmax / Getty Images

So it’s arson, then. King County Sheriffs slapped a sign on the door of The Lumber Yard today, declaring that the fire that started in the basement was, in fact, deliberately set. This is a reversal of what a spokesman told me on Tuesday, that there was no sign of foul play. The Lumber Yard declared on Instagram “this most likely is also a hate crime,” but there’s no word about what clues might’ve been found regarding the cause of the fire, which started sometime after a several-hours-long power outage. This is all turning into quite the mystery, isn’t it?

The fire impacted several businesses in White Center and you can find out how to support them here.

Assistant Seattle Police Department Chief Tom Mahaffey gave the order to abandon the East Precinct. After a loooong year+ of contradictory statements and pointless skullduggery, KUOW has managed to piece together a timeline of the decision that led to the Seattle Police Department leaving the East Precinct during the protests last year. The short version: The whole thing was a colossal mess, with city and police leaders failing to communicate, changing their minds, and clueless finger-pointing. Why do we even have cops?

It’s all an elaborate chess game, and nobody’s on nobody’s side: Today Councilmember Kshama Sawant called a press conference and put her own name on the petition to have a recall vote against her this November. Why? Well, her campaign suggests that the Recall Sawant campaign is more likely to fail if it makes it on the ballot in November, rather than delaying it to a low-turnout special election later in the winter. Also, her Solidarity campaign believes the Recall campaign has no intention of actually trying to get this election on the November ballot, so they're daring them. "There’s really no reason they shouldn’t make a November 2 general election ballot," Emily McArthur, the campaign manager for Kshama Solidarity, told The Stranger's Nathalie Graham. "We’re concerned that they have no real intention of doing so."

As Sawant said during today's presser: "Our message to the recall is 'put up, or shut up.'"

Seattle Waterfront schedules traffic jam, pollution for Saturday from 4 to 7 pm. The Friends of Waterfront Seattle are throwing a little block party this weekend, which would be very nice if they hadn’t gone and immediately ruined it. The organization is encouraging people to drive to the event by giving away vouchers to cover certain parking costs. Hey, got any vouchers for people who take transit? Use a bike share? Ride a scooter? Hm, weird. Guess we’ll clog some streets and cause some climate change.

Another heat dome is coming this weekend. This time it’ll be centered a bit south of us, so we won’t bear the worst of it, but this weekend Nevada and eastern California could hit 115 to 120 degrees. Fun! Let’s just keep giving people free parking and surely all this climate change will go away on its own.

Terrible new scooters are on the way. I adore those zippy little scooters that make it possible to get from place to place without having to get in a car — that is, when you can find one that works. For a moment, I was delighted to hear that a fourth company is about to launch a scooter share in Seattle; but then I saw that the scooters will use “artificial intelligence” (ughhhhh everything sucks) to detect when riders are on the sidewalk, and nag them to get into the street instead. There is a zero percent chance this technology will work as intended, especially since many streets simply aren’t safe for scooting. This tech should be shelved until Seattle can make every street safe and accessible to anyone who walks or rolls.

Chong the Nomad has released a new video. I have no idea who that is, because I am old, but I am told that you young people will appreciate the news.

A bunch of money guys just bought $1.2 billion worth of wine. Tobacco company Altria just sold Ste. Michelle Wine Estates to a private equity firm called Sycamore Partners, which also invests in Hot Topic, Staples, and Ann Taylor. Ste. Michelle is an absolute giant in the wine industry, and represents a hefty chunk of Washington’s economy with about 800 WA employees. As we all know, nothing bad has ever happened to a company after being purchased by a private equity firm.

Somebody attacked the windows of Fuji Bakery in the ID this morning, shattering glass— but bakers are resilient, and they remained open all day. According to the bakery’s Instagram story, it was “some guy w a golf club." If there’s to be a battle between bakers and golfers, I certainly know which side I’m taking.

Q is back. And not just on Star Trek! The nightclub sandwiched between a frame store (???) and a glass shop reopens tonight, and tickets are sold out. Sorry party animals, you snooze you lose.

What if we got married at Pike Place? Just kidding, unless … Congratulations to the lovely couple who stopped traffic at Pike Place today, blocking vehicular traffic while they took photos. Though I do not normally concern myself with the affairs of heterosexuals, we clearly have a mutual enemy in the idiots who want to take their cars down a street that should be restricted just to essential delivery vehicles. More people should decide to just spontaneously block this street.

Ladies and gentlemen… the weekend.