The Stranger’s morning news roundup.

by Nathalie Graham

Fire in the ID: A vacant two-story building on the 1000 block of South Jackson Street caught fire late Sunday night. It’s been burning through the night and will likely burn well into Monday morning. More than 85 firefighters are working to stifle the flames. Roads around the fire are closed, including Jackson Street between 8th and 12th Avenues.

Swimmer in critical condition: A 30-year-old man leaped off a pedestrian bridge in South Lake Union near the Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI) on Sunday. He went under the water and never resurfaced. Three rescue swimmers hauled him out of the lake. He is currently in critical condition. Just because it’s nice and warm outside for the first time this year doesn’t mean the lake water is warm. Cold water is dangerous to swim in, you freaks! 

Protect our Bulldogs: The Garfield High School community mourned the tragic loss of 17-year-old Amarr Murphy over the weekend. Murphy, a linebacker and defensive end on the football team, broke up a fight at school on Thursday afternoon and was shot multiple times. Aside from football, people at Garfield knew Murphy as an aspiring rapper, known online as Babyyanks. He was apparently getting ready to release an album. The community is still reeling after Murphy’s death. The school remains closed on Monday. When students return on Tuesday, they will do so with a heavy Seattle Police Department presence. 

Wildfire season is already cooking: A fire in the Lake Chelan area has ballooned to 300 acres in size. Fire crews are battling the blaze.

Ground and air crews have continued work on the #PioneerFire today with new resources arriving. A Complex Incident Management Team (CIMT) has been assigned. NW Team 13 will assume command on 6/10. Further updates as conditions change. https://t.co/Qp6Qx28317 pic.twitter.com/9Dospps9W7

— Washington State DNR Wildfire (@waDNR_fire) June 10, 2024

Marijuana-less Martha’s Vineyard: The dispensaries on Martha’s Vineyard, the island off the coast of Massachusetts, is running out of weed. Despite the state giving ganja the green light, Massachusetts’ Cannabis Control Commission recently decided transporting pot across the ocean was a violation of federal law, thus leaving Martha’s Vineyard and its 230 registered medical users and thousands of recreational users in the lurch, weedless. One pot shop owner has filed a lawsuit against the commission. 

Today’s weather: Will be scrumptious. Some clouds, but mostly sun, and a high of 71 degrees.

I am not going to pretend I understand the EU parliament: But scary things seem to be happening over there. It seems as if the European Union held elections and far-right parties gained a ton of parliamentary seats. Far-right parties in Italy doubled their representation, and Germany’s extreme far-right party now holds more seats than its Social Democrats party. The showing was so bad for French President Emmanuel Macron’s party against competitor Marine Le Pen’s conservative faction that Macron “immediately dissolved the national parliament and called for new elections to start later this month.” All of this is bad for climate, agriculture, and immigration policy. 

This is the future liberals want: 

“It’s all the same train!”

The engine in the foreground is pulling the cars on the viaduct.

From #Switzerland — at 2 kilometers, the longest passenger train in the world.

pic.twitter.com/arYpPmhRlb

— 𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 (@grescoe) June 10, 2024

San Juan Islands plane crash kills famous astronaut: Apollo 8’s William Anders died Friday when the plane he was flying around the San Juan Islands plummeted into he water. Anders, who snapped the iconic “earth rise photo,” was 90 years old at the time of his death. 

Clamming ban: Stop! Put that razor clam down! The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has expanded a coastal ban on shellfish harvesting to include razor clams and bay clam. Previously, the ban only included mussels. The ban is meant to protect people from “a marine biotoxin known as paralytic shellfish poisoning” that has wormed its way into this year’s population of shellfish. In Washington, similar bans are in place along the state’s Pacific coastline. 

Think you’re safe from wildfires? Think again! Just because your house didn’t burn down during a wildfire season doesn’t mean the fire didn’t put your life in jeopardy. A new study out of California shows that “more than 50,000 people died prematurely” between 2008 and 2018 “due to exposure to toxic particles in wildfire smoke,” according to The Guardian. One of the biggest issues is how wildfire smoke contains PM2.5, a tiny pollutant that can embed itself into human lungs and bloodstreams. To make you feel even worse about this, I should point out, while you can attempt to protect yourself against smoke, the real way to protect yourself is to have our governments invest in “forest management, wildland urban interface management, and climate change mitigation.”

Bad balls news: The 40 semen samples used in a Chinese study all contained microplastics. How does having minuscule bits of plastic knocking around with your swimmers impact fertility? Unclear! Can’t be good! That’s just my professional, non-scientific opinion. 

Positive penis news: Apparently, Viagra improves blood flow to the brain and improves blood vessel performance in people with a risk of vascular dementia. 

Tokyo creates government dating app: Marriages are down in Japan, so Tokyo city hall created a dating website and is currently making a dating app version. The goal is to convince people to get hitched and have more kids as Japan’s birth rates keep dropping. Details for the app aren’t set in stone, but it seems users will need to upload driver’s licenses to confirm identities and tax forms to confirm income, as well as a signed form signifying a user’s readiness for marriage. 

More possible abortion restrictions: Overturning Roe v. Wade and curtailing abortion access wasn’t enough for these ghouls. A conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation, wants to limit private insurance coverage of abortions in states with abortion restrictions. This would make it far harder for people traveling out-of-state for abortions to actually get the abortion. Additionally, the think tank wants to rescind a new federal rule that requires most employers to offer “reasonable accommodations” when it comes to their workers and pregnancy, childbirth, and abortions. The Heritage Foundation has Trump’s ear, and the fear is he could move any of these issues forward if he’s elected, though his stance on abortion remains unclear. 

A long read for your Monday: Washington state law considers any assault on a health care worker a felony. While the law was made to protect workers, it has the unintended consequence of penalizing mentally ill people, throwing them in jail and delaying much-needed treatment. Read the new Seattle Times investigation into the law and its impacts. 

Here’s a song for you: Listening to this on a sunny day is the secret to happiness. Possibly.

The Stranger