News For Reasonable People

After KIRO Radio’s Gee and Ursula Show shared their own stories this week about visiting downtown Seattle, particularly in regards to the homelessness crisis, they heard from a local business owner who said “it’s never been so bad.” Marc McCann owns Butler Parking, which runs garages that offer valet and self-parking, and has been in business since 1987. “When I started in ’87, about the biggest i...

A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday denied a request by a group of landlords to resume evictions, leaving the temporary nationwide eviction moratorium intact for now. The ruling from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals is the latest twist in a multifront legal challenge to the eviction freeze that was enacted by federal public health officials as a way to keep financially distr...

Left-wing protesters chased down, attacked and unmasked a man they believe to be the right-wing author Andy Ngo in disguise during a downtown Portland protest on Friday, May 28. The Portland Tribune has not independently confirmed the fleeing man’s identity, and Ngo did not immediately issue any public statements on the matter. One longtime protest observer told the Tribune he saw Ngo working out...

Around the country where it’s estimated by Moody's Analytics that property owners are owed more than more than $70 billion by more than 10 million Americans who are behind on rent, but remain protected under the federal eviction moratorium set to expire on June 30. Just last month, a federal judge ruled the national eviction moratorium exceeds the authority of the CDC. But still, many are fig...

The dramatic rise of cryptocurrency has led to some spouses hiding those digital assets during divorce settlements, and tracking down the funds isn’t easy, experts say. More than 20 million Americans may own cryptocurrency, industry groups say, and digital currency market values grew to a record $2 trillion in April. These spikes may be enticing more spouses in divorce proceedings or those thinkin...

A man was killed in a shooting early Monday at a homeless camp in the Ravenna neighborhood at the north end of Seattle's University District, officials said. Police and medics responded to the scene, in the 1400 block of NE Ravenna Boulevard, at about 5:10 a.m. after receiving several reports of shots fired. A 31-year-old man was found with multiple gunshot wounds to the chest. Medics attempt...

Almost 275 police officers have left the Seattle Police Department since 2020. The staffing crisis has never been worse, with the lowest number of deployable staff since the 1980s. This year, a total of 84 officers separated from the SPD, with 18 leaving in May, according to a police source. A separation is an all-inclusive term that includes resignations, retirements, and lateral moves to other a...

With New York City’s restaurant scene coming back after ­COVID-19, there’s something new on the menu — bigger bills. Diners had better bring their cash as well as their appetites, as city restaurant prices  are going up thanks to rising costs in food, supplies and labor, restauranteurs said. “If we’re getting squeezed there’s only two ways to handle it, either cut costs or raise prices, there’s no...

City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty slammed a city contractor shown displaying a pro-police emblem while on the clock — but said there was little she could do after the company declined her request to remove the symbol. Hardesty released a statement on the matter after a photo surfaced on Twitter showing an Oregon Concrete Solutions-branded truck with an emblem of the “thin blue line” flag affixed t...

Cynthia Nixon has been slammed for suggesting CVS should let people steal from stores rather than locking up goods like laundry detergent, claiming 'desperate people shouldn't be prosecuted'. The former actress and failed New York gubernatorial candidate tweeted on Thursday that she had noticed her local CVS in SoHo had 'started' locking up 'basic items like clothing...

Facebook will no longer take down posts claiming that Covid-19 was man-made or manufactured, a company spokesperson told POLITICO on Wednesday, a move that acknowledges the renewed debate about the virus’ origins. A narrative in flux: Facebook’s policy tweak arrives as support surges in Washington for a fuller investigation into the origins of Covid-19 after the Wall Street Journal reported that t...

The housing market is hot as home prices continue to rise, but Nobel Prize winning economist Robert Shiller predicts prices will eventually drop. "They'll come back down, not overnight, but enough to cause some pain," Shiller told Yahoo Finance Live. The latest S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller national home price index posted a 13.2% annual gain in March, the fastest pace prices have...

Police declared a riot after a crowd smashed windows at City Hall after trying to set the Justice Center on fire in downtown Portland on Tuesday night, a year to the day since George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer. Officers said shortly before 9:30 p.m. that the crowd was yelling “burn the building down” and had pushed a burning dumpster against the Justice Center. According to...

Hiring is roaring back as we recover from the pandemic. Employers added more than 900,000 jobs in March alone, and a recent survey shows 52% of employees plan to job hunt this year, up from 35% in 2020.  At the nucleus of this turnover tsunami is a newfound awareness among employees of potential health hazards in the workplace. Health and wellness efforts to protect employees and customers are mor...

One year after the movement to “defund” law enforcement began to upend municipal budgets, many American cities are restoring money to their police departments or proposing to spend more. In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio said he would reinstate $92 million for a new precinct after scrapping the project last summer. The mayor of Baltimore, who led efforts as a city councilman to cut the police...

Starbucks employees say they are staging a “sick out” over the coffee giant’s loosening of its mask policy, and they are not alone. Customers are being asked to get their cup of joe someplace other than Starbucks Saturday. Employees posted on social media that they plan to hold a “sick out.” They’re protesting the company’s decision to drop its mask mandate for vaccinated customers. Join your host...

In Los Angeles, city officials grappling with an ongoing homelessness crisis have turned to an idea that for decades was politically unpopular and considered radical: a government-funded tent encampment. Other cities, including San Francisco, Seattle and Tampa, Fla., have opened similar programs in recent years. But the high public cost of LA's first sanctioned campground — more than $2,600 p...

Texas Governor Greg Abbott vowed he would sign legislation that would make it harder for communities to defund the police after a shooting Saturday in Austin. The Republican governor retweeted the Austin Police Association president's information about how long it took officers to respond to the the shooting, adding: "This is what defunding the police looks like." Austin Police Asso...

Retired Seattle police Chief Carmen Best says she warned before the CHOP formed last summer that ceding the Capitol Hill protest zone would be a threat to public safety. And she says she has no idea how her texts from that crucial time period were lost. In a new podcast episode released Monday and in a subsequent interview with The Seattle Times, Best publicly provided some of her most detailed re...

A multimillion-dollar home in Sammamish is at the center of an ongoing investigation, as squatters continue to break in and make the home their own. “The amount of guns, drugs, etcetera that were confiscated out of that place are not for personal use or for any good reason,” Sammamish Police Chief Dan Pingrey said. “I totally recognize how frustrating it is for the neighborhood and it’s just as fr...

This morning Ed wrote about the situation in Minneapolis where a surge in violent crime has created a sudden reversal in how many people, including some activists, feel about police. Yesterday the NY Times published a similar piece about Los Angeles which reveals that the city’s “defund the police” efforts have effectively been reversed as local leaders realize they need more cops on the street, n...

Five rural counties in Oregon voted this week to press forward with a plan to leave the state and merge with neighboring Idaho, the latest move in a long-shot campaign by conservatives who say they’re fed up with Oregon’s left-leaning politics. Voters in Baker, Grant, Lake, Malheur and Sherman counties — sparsely populated areas in the state’s eastern half — approved ballot measures Tuesday requir...

Power company PacifiCorp told employees at its Lloyd District headquarters Thursday afternoon that they must return to the office full-time on June 1 or take a 10% pay cut to continue working remotely. Several PacifiCorp employees told The Oregonian/OregonLive they were caught off guard by the sudden announcement and felt frustrated and upset that they were being given less than two weeks to eithe...

Seattle police should strongly consider eliminating traffic stops for minor, civil and non-dangerous violations, the city's inspector general wrote this week in a letter to Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diaz. Such stops should be discontinued "for the safety of both officers and the public and for racial fairness," wrote Seattle Inspector General Lisa Judge, who is charged by law with...

Families across the U.S. don't know if they're going to have a place to stay as states challenge the federal moratorium on evictions imposed during the pandemic. The trickle of evictions could soon become a flood as renters owe $53 billion to landlords.  Anthony Upshaw and his 17-year-old son are among those being evicted after Upshaw lost this job early in the pandemic and has been stru...