Seattle Police Arrest About 30 Pro-Palestine Protesters at UW: A group called Students United for Palestinian Equity and Return UW (SUPER UW) occupied a campus building to protest the university’s ties to Boeing, which contracts with the Israeli military and has supplied bombs dropped on Gaza. The company also donated $10 million for the school’s new Interdisciplinary Engineering Building occupied by protesters last night. SUPER UW demanded the university cut all financial ties with Boeing, stop repressing pro-Palestinian activism on campus, and turn the building into a “community-controlled space with pro-people education.” The protesters hung a banner from the building with Shaban al-Dalou's name, a teenage engineering student killed in an airstrike on Gaza. A university spokesperson told CNN the student protesters blocked the building's entrances and exits with furniture and allegedly set dumpsters on fire. Police arrived in riot gear and arrested the protesters on charges of trespassing, property destruction, and disorderly conduct. We'll have more on this soon—keep your eyes on Slog.
Israel Vows to “Conquer” Gaza: Israel approved plans to expand military operations in Gaza and stay there for who knows how long. The military will mobilize tens of thousands of reservists. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that more than 2 million Palestinians “will be moved.” The country has already restricted Palestinians from 70 percent of Gaza. Israel has blocked aid for two months, and the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) says Gaza is at “extreme risk of famine.”
Sexist Pig: According to a KING 5 investigation, state records show Tacoma’s Deputy Police Chief Paul Junger was fired in March for gender discrimination and for creating a hostile workplace. The claims are supported by an outside investigation. In October, the department placed Junger on administrative leave. In February, his boss, Chief Avery Moore, resigned. Then, 12 days after the new Chief Patti Jackson was sworn in, she fired Junger.
Seattle Author Wins Pulitzer Prize: Tessa Hulls won the Pulitzer for memoir or autobiography for Feeding Ghosts, a graphic novel about family history and trauma. The story begins with her grandmother, Sun Yi, a journalist who escaped communist China in a false-bottom boat. In Hong Kong, Sun Yi wrote a best-selling memoir. Then she had a mental breakdown. Hulls spent 10 years on the book.
ICYMI: On Sunday, Seattle Police told a bunch of naked people at a nude beach to put their clothes on. When a trans woman wouldn’t, they told her not to come back to the beach for a week. The department hasn’t explained why it’s cracking down on a legal activity in Seattle. Read more here.
Trump Targets Funding for “Woke” Seattle Housing: President Trump’s initial budget proposal would cut funding for the Department of Housing and Urban Development by nearly 44 percent. Those cuts may include a Seattle program meant to help lower-income homeowners in communities of color cover the cost of developing more housing on their properties, according to The Seattle Times. HUD awarded the city $5 million for that program and another, but now it’s at risk because Trump thinks grants like this are way too woke.
Trump Says He’s Reopening, Enlarging, and Rebuilding Alcatraz: Why reopen a prison that closed in 1963? “Well I guess I was supposed to be a movie maker,” the President said at a press conference. “We’re talking—we started with the movie making [unintelligible]. It represents something very strong, very powerful in terms of law and order. Our country needs law and order. Alcatraz is, uh, I would say (his eyebrows shoot up) the ultimate, right? Alcatraz, Sing Sing and Alcatraz (smiling, laughing), the movies. But it's right now a museum, believe it or not.” The plan could cost hundreds of millions.
Another Day, Another Tariff: President Trump announced on Truth Social a 100 percent tariff “on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands.” This plan is supposed to fix the “DYING” American movie industry. Nobody seems to know what this means or how it would work. The White House says no final decisions have been made. It’s all Jon Voight’s fault.
Huh? The Trump administration asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit aimed at restricting access to the abortion pill mifepristone. It’s a little surprising that Trump, who has bragged about his Supreme Court appointees overturning Roe v. Wade, has taken a similar position to the Biden administration on this case. Don’t have to hand it to him. The administration didn’t say anything of substance about the case in its filing. Mary Ziegler, a University of California law professor and abortion expert, told the New York Times that they’re probably “just buying time to figure out what to do about mifepristone.”
Nice Try Trial, Diddy: Sean “Diddy” Combs's federal sex trafficking trial began in Manhattan yesterday with Judge Arun Subramanian asking potential jurors what they knew about the accusations against the hip-hop mogul. Of course, they’d heard about it. Who hasn’t? According to a New York Times reporter, they’d seen the case on TV at the gym, heard the “water-cooler talk” at work, and had seen a comedian joke about it on Instagram. None of this would be a problem, said Judge Subramanian, if they understood that only the evidence presented in the courtroom mattered to their decision. The trial should last eight weeks. Opening statements are scheduled for next Monday. Combs has pleaded not guilty.
Mark Carney Comes to the Carnival: A week after anti-Trump sentiment won his party the Canadian elections, Prime Minister Carney is meeting with Trump at the White House today. It’s a (modern) low point in our relationship with Canada and Canadians, who are rightly pissed that Trump started a trade war and keeps saying he’ll make their country the 51st state. According to Politico, the White House is not rolling out the red carpet for what was our closest ally, a relationship now “over,” Carney said during his campaign. The meeting is “really just to check a box,” one White House official said.
Second Time’s the Charm? Friedrich Merz was expected to “sail through” the vote to become Germany’s Chancellor, but suffered a historic defeat in the first round of voting. He needed 316 votes, but only got 310. In a second round, the veteran conservative politician won with 326 votes. The ballot is secret, so just who defected from Merz’s camp may never be known, the AP reports.
