Howdy, partner!
Howdy, partner! Janny2/Getty emoji by me

Seattle lowers traffic speeds: After a year of pedestrian deaths, Mayor Jenny Durkan has announced that all arterials—any busy street that has a dividing line—will have their speed lowered to 25 miles per hour. There have been 25 deaths on Seattle streets this year and 153 serious injuries, the Seattle Times reports. There will also be an increase in enforcement with Seattle police officers donning regular clothes and crossing streets to see who does and doesn't yield to pedestrians. It's a Vision Zero (no traffic deaths by 2030) crackdown, and I bet drivers are gonna fume!

It's articles of impeachment time, baby! The third impeachment of an American president is under way. The House Democrats announced Tuesday that they will be bringing two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, one for abuse of power and the other for obstruction of Congress. The Judiciary Committee could start debating the articles by Wednesday and vote as soon as Thursday. It's all happening!

"Women's rights" talk feels the heat: The Seattle Public Library is hosting a talk by the Women’s Liberation Front in February. The group and its scheduled speaker Meghan Murphy allegedly use their feminism to perpetuate anti-trans views. While they think the term "TERF" (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) is offensive since they aren't "exclusionary," they don't believe trans men are men and insist they are women. Which is wrong. Also, it's exactly what a TERF would say. The library is being inundated with calls to stop the event and also calls from people who insist the library has a duty to be a bastion of free speech.

The rodeo is in town: Someone keeps putting tiny cowboy hats on Las Vegas's pigeons. Members of a local pigeon advocacy group, Lofty Hopes (whose slogan is "A pigeon positive movement"), are concerned. Lofty Hopes insists they're going to track down the culprit.

Flint officials knew about poison risk in city's water: According to e-mails, senior employees knew about the potential for residents to get lead poisoning from the city's water supply months before the problem was acknowledged.

Whistle-blower says Whatcom County school restrained special-needs boy: A mother couldn't understand why her 7-year-old son was terrified of school all of a sudden. Then she got a call from a whistle-blower; educators at Sumas Elementary School had restrained her son—who is deaf and autistic—by strapping him to a chair for hours at a time.

Two teens arrested for string of robberies The teens, 17 and 18, were arrested in West Seattle. The 18-year-old suspect had a .38 caliber revolver in his pocket upon arrest. Police believe that the teens were involved with around a dozen armed robberies across the region. They're still looking for any accomplices.

Here comes the rain (do-do-do-doo): Rain should be sliding our way by late morning and early afternoon.

Total precipitation amounts looking kind of scary: So far, the total amount of rain in Seattle for 2019 is at 26.29 inches. According to the National Weather Service, there have been only six years in the 74 years that weather records have been kept here that have fallen below 30 inches of annual rainfall. Oh, climate change, you tricky minx. With rain on the way, let's see if we can get over the hump to 30 inches.

A Ballard water taxi? King County wants to know if people are interested in taking the passenger-only water taxi that currently operates between downtown, West Seattle, and Vashon Island, to Ballard. They also are exploring a Kenmore to Seattle route. Here's the survey.

Tell him it's carol singers: British prime minister Boris Johnson is somehow—despite not getting Brexit done by the October 31 deadline, lying a lot, and just generally being a bit of a buffoon—the favorite to win the UK election on Thursday. To really cement his win, Johnson released an ad that parodies that creepy scene in Love, Actually where guy who played Rick in the Walking Dead tells Keira Knightley's character, who is his best friend's wife, that he's secretly in love with her.

Michigan sure loves its weed: It's been eight days since Michigan started selling weed legally. The state has raked in more than $1.6 million.

Berkeley has a class on "adulting": The student-run class teaches undergrads life skills like budgeting and cooking and dating in today's online world. A lot of young adults don't feel prepared for adulthood and don't know simple things like how to grocery shop for an entire week. Stop scoffing, older Stranger readers, I know you're scoffing. I know I'd benefit from this class. Though I did just make this salmon dish for dinner last night, and it was easy-peasy and delicious. Although my dad was the one who texted me this article and said "for you!" so maybe I don't have my life all that together after all.

WE NEED THE STORY:

A Chilean military plane just disappeared: It had 38 people on board and was en route to Antarctica. The plane didn't activate a distress signal. The plane disappeared around the Drake Passage, a route known for hazardous weather. Though the weather was clear while the plane was flying.

Die for the domain: "A 27-year-old social media influencer was sentenced to federal prison Monday for an armed plot to threaten a man in an effort to obtain a website domain name," NBC News reports. The domain? "Doitforstate.com," an unsanctioned Iowa State University site.

Today's EverOut picks are: A Town Hall talk on the history of xenophobia in the US with Erika Lee, Mark Morris's contemporary holiday ballet The Hard Nut, and Kenny G with the Seattle Symphony. See more on our EverOut Things To Do calendar