The Stranger’s morning news roundup.

by Vivian McCall

Diaz is out: Ashley reports that Seattle Police Department Chief Adrian Diaz will no longer lead the department, according to a source. Sources told Fox 13 station that he cleaned out his desk last night, and that Mayor Bruce Harrell re-assigned him to special projects. The City will reportedly hold a press conference around 1 pm today. Ashley will have more on this developing story later.

Library cyber attack: Someone hit the Seattle Public Library system with a ransomware attack over the holiday weekend. It shut down several online services Tuesday. The attack affected staff and public computers, library loaning, access to the online catalog, e-books, e-audiobooks and the main website, which is now back online. Buildings remained open, allowing people to check out regular-ass books with old-school paper forms, which, if anything, should bolster your stalwart faith in our greatest public amenity.

Shame on you: City Council Member Maritza Rivera introduced a last-minute amendment to pull funding for a City initiative that empowers BIPOC-led community groups to build capital projects, and BIPOC-led organizations shamed her for about three embarrassing hours. They called Rivera, her amendment to pull funding, and her supportive colleagues racist, and a lot of other adjectives Hannah reported here. The council voted 6-3 to delay a vote on the amendment until next week.

Council delays Rivera’s attempt to gut equitable development initiative so she can combat “disinformation.” It is unclear how she will convert the three hours worth of public commenters who accused her of balancing the budget on backs’ of Black people. https://t.co/E8nl81LanC

— Hannah Krieg (@hannahkrieg) May 29, 2024

Why are there so many migrants in Tukwila? Spoiler, it’s not because Tukwila is (or isn’t!) awesome. According to the Seattle Times, it all started with a 911 call about six Venezuelan migrants on Jackson Street in the summer of 2022, who were the first of more than a dozen referrals to Riverton Park United Methodist Church, an institution that actually has provided a response to clear community needs. Seattle, meanwhile, has taken no ownership of a crisis it helped start.

Brouwer’s Café is closing after 19 years: The Fremont bar’s general manager told the Seattle Times that the rising costs of food, beer, labor, and shortages of servers and low foot traffic led to its demise. It opened in 2005 as a marvel, with West Coast beer dorks coming from as far as California to ogle its 64-tap, 400-bottle selection. The lights go out for good on June 29.

Air Force awarded Boeing $7.5 billion guided bomb contract: Under the contract, Boeing will build kits that convert “dumb” bombs into “smart” guided bombs known as Joint Direct Attack Munitions. The company will also provide spares, repairs, and technical assistance to the US government until February 2030. The US sends JDAM-equipped bombs to Taiwan, Ukraine, and Israel.

BUI: As Ashley wrote yesterday, a woman fell off a boat into Lake Washington Monday night. Seattle Police have since impounded the boat and arrested the 46-year-old man who owns it, who they suspect of boating under the influence. The woman is feared dead. The US Coast Guard stopped searching yesterday, but the Seattle Police Department’s Harbor Patrol Unit is still looking. 

Israel intensifies attacks on Rafah in Gaza: Israeli tanks are advancing further into Rafah in a ground invasion that is drawing widespread international condemnation. Israel shelled a tent camp in the “safe zone” west of the city, killing at least 21 Palestinian civilians. Over the weekend, another Israeli bombing on the outskirts of Rafah killed 45 and injured 200 in an ensuing fire, most of them women and children. Al Jazeera reports Israeli air raids and artillery have killed 15 people today. The UN says only 170 trucks have made it to Palestinians in the last three weeks, when 500 are needed daily. There’s no indication that the Rafah crossing will open to allow more aid any time soon. President Joe Biden says Israel has still not crossed a “red line,” which he defines as a mass troop invasion. 

Jury deliberations begin in Trump trial: In the seventh week of Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial, prosecutors spoke to the jury a final time, urging them to convict the former president for allegedly falsifying 34 business records to cover up his former lawyer Michael Cohen’s hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels. The defense called Cohen a liar and said the payment was just business, not a crime. As the jury deliberates, the wait for a verdict now begins.

RFK Jr. doesn’t stop lyinggg: First he claims a worm ate part of his brain, and now he’s out with a pretty fake story about indigenous Peruvians ambushing him with bows drawn while on a whitewater rafting trip in the 1970s. Kennedy told the story in a 1984 book, claiming that he and his cousin Christian Kennedy Lawford fought back with a stick of dynamite. His cousin told a more realistic version in his 2005 memoir: drunk villagers once shot an arrow from the shore in their general direction. Kennedy’s campaign did not respond to Huff Post’s request for comment.

Not a slay, Francis: Earlier this month, Pope Francis and a few bishops were yakking it up about whether or not to admit gay men into Catholic seminaries in preparation for the priesthood. Francis wasn’t into it and said that there was already enough “frociaggine” going on there, the Italian equivalent to faggotness or faggotry. He apologized.

I can’t get a bead on his Holiness and gay stuff, and neither can queer Catholics. This year, he said that “sex change” surgery and “gender theory” were grave threats to human dignity, but he’s also said that trans people can be baptized and serve as Godparents. Last year, he told priests they should bless people in gay relationships but not the relationship.

Pope Francis is queerbaiting again

— Lolo (@LolOverruled) May 29, 2024

World’s longest-serving flight attendant dies: Bette Nash died at 88 after serving as a flight attendant for 67 years. Nash started her job at the now-defunct Eastern Airlines in 1957, when airlines treated women terribly. Some companies still put age caps on the “stewardesses” they advertised as would-be brides for horny executives. She must have had an iron will; I can only hope she did it for love of the game and not an inability to retire.

Say cheese or die: People are filming—or pretending to film—Chipotle workers because they think the restaurant is directing employees to skimp out on portions. Chipotle denies this. Delish asks, “genius” or “greedy;” I ask, “What the fuck is wrong with you psychopaths?” Making workers’ lives even worse for one extra spoonful of wet slop meat is certifiable. You’re not sticking up to a corporation. You’re ruining a teenager’s afternoon.

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