The ferry system has shrunk from 25 vessels in 2015 to 21 in 2025 because of retirements. Eleven ferries are more than 40 years old, including one that is 67 years old. State officials say Washington needs a fleet of 26 vessels to meet future service demands.

Eastern's contract to build the three ferries is valued at $714.5 million. When costs for owner-furnished equipment, construction management, Washington State Ferries crew training and contingency funding are included, the total project cost is about $1.15 billion, below the Legislature's $1.3 billion appropriation.

State officials said selecting Eastern over the competing Washington bidder is expected to save taxpayers about $360 million. They said the competing proposal would have totaled about $1.51 billion after additional project costs were included, exceeding the legislative appropriation by more than $200 million and limiting the state to building only two ferries.

The governor said he intends to use the savings to help fund a fourth ferry.

Before y'all get the pitchforks out and exclaim this has nothing to do with Seattle, it does and let me tell you why.

After hearing about this vulnerability a couple weeks ago I wanted to see if I could find the flaw and recreate the researchers' findings, they are going to be disclosing the details this week at DefCon, and after a few days of research I was able to verify this is indeed real and there are vulnerable vehicles in the Seattle area.

The worse part about this is that some people are completely in the dark about this issue, because even if you don't pay the up-charge to "activate" the system it remains installed and still "active", just not to the vehicle owner :(. The linked article provides details for how someone can go about updating the system that should address this flaw.

I'm posting this in the hopes of getting the word out before this gets into the hands of the wrong individuals, and I'd be naive to think that someone else has not already figured it out. I'd post this on reddit to get some more exposure but alas those privileges have been revoked for the time being, so please feel free to spread the word there if you so desire.

P.S. I developed an Android application that can scan and detect these devices out in the wild. It does not contain the exploit, cannot connect to or control these systems and only scans the airwaves for their broadcasts. https://github.com/0xD34D/KARR_Scan

Thursday, Jan. 21, 2027 7 p.m.

Suggested ticket price $10 Town Hall Seattle + Livestreaming

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/64609035

A former employee who filed the lawsuit as Jane Doe claims Pokemon failed to protect workers and visitors at its Bellevue, Washington office from Ben Tsai, the company’s former director of engineering.

According to TMZ, Doe worked for Pokemon for five years and is seeking to represent anyone who used its office bathrooms between 2017 and July 25, 2026.

Tsai first came under investigation after a manager found a small camera hidden beneath a sink and pointed at the toilet inside a Kirkland Starbucks in October 2025.

Investigators reportedly traced the device to Tsai through security footage and information connected to a $7.89 credit card purchase.

According to The Seattle Times, Tsai allegedly told police he had secretly filmed people “no more than fifty times” since 2017. He reportedly admitted placing cameras at his workplace, his home and two retail locations.

Tsai reportedly told detectives he was “mainly curious about transgender people” and acknowledged that transgender employees worked at the Pokémon office where he allegedly hid a camera.

A forensic review of devices seized from Tsai’s home reportedly uncovered hundreds of hidden-camera recordings. Investigators found 89 videos allegedly filmed in Pokemon office bathrooms inside folders labeled “Pokémon 29” and “Pokémon 27.”

Rep. Adam Smith, Washington’s longest-serving U.S. House member, was ahead in Tuesday’s primary, with Republican Doug Basler in second place, putting them on course for a likely November matchup. The result, if it holds, would end the political comeback attempt by Kshama Sawant, the socialist former Seattle City Councilmember, who was in third place.

Thousands more votes remain to be counted in the coming days. In Tuesday’s vote count, Smith, D-Bellevue, had 51% in the 9th Congressional District race. Basler, a perennial GOP candidate, was in second with 24%. Sawant was in third with 13%, barely ahead of Melissa Chaudhry, a Democrat challenging Smith from the left.

Sawant, speaking to about 50 people at the Casa Latina worker center, was defiant in the face of the results. She blamed union leaders for endorsing Smith and Chaudhry for splitting the leftist vote.

“Shame on Melissa Chaudhry,” she shouted, to boos and hisses from the crowd.

Zillow announced Tuesday it will lay off more than 500 employees as it restructures the company.

In a blog post, Zillow CEO Jeremy Wacksman said if the company will continue to grow at scale, it needs to eliminate some positions and make changes to its organizational structure.

“These changes are about ensuring we have a disciplined cost structure and getting more efficient, with the right people in the right positions,” Wacksman wrote.

The cuts represent about 7% of the Seattle-based real estate company’s roughly 7,000-person workforce, according to the workforce data and analytics company Revelio Labs.

Washington State voters will decide the fate of a ballot initiative that would require girls from kindergarten through high school to undergo sex-verification testing before playing school sports — a measure critics call the most extreme of its kind in the country.

IL26-638 would bar transgender athletes from girls' teams by mandating that a health-care provider certify a player's sex assigned at birth, using genetic screening, testosterone testing or an examination of reproductive anatomy as part of the annual sports physical every young athlete already undergoes, reported The Cut.

“This measure was clearly not written by somebody who practices medicine,” said Dr. Gina Martin, a family medicine physician who offers sports physicals to her patients. “Physicals focus on the two most important aspects of sports. First, musculoskeletal health — thinking about kids’ joints, bones, muscles, and tendons — and then cardiac health, looking into their heart health and finding out if we need to screen for additional cardiac risk factors.”

“What is certainly not medically necessary is for me to do an exam and confirm somebody’s sex, either through hormone testing, genetic testing or a non-indicated genital exam,” Martin added. “I don’t even know how it would work because I’ve never run those tests on a patient.”

The measure doesn't specify who would perform the exams, who would pay for them, or how schools would carry them out — leaving open questions about whether young girls could be required to disrobe, potentially in group settings where many schools currently offer free physicals.

A renewable energy developer has pulled its controversial permit application to build an industrial-scale solar facility on an Eastern Washington mountain sacred to Indigenous nations.

Avangrid, a powerful player in the Northwest’s push for green energy development, sought for at least five years to build a solar plant on Badger Mountain. The project site straddled private as well as public lands. The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation and the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation have protected rights to practice cultural traditions, such as food gathering and ceremonies, on Badger Mountain and other ancestral public lands.

A 2024 investigation by High Country News and ProPublica found that Avangrid and a consultant it retained, Tetra Tech, had omitted key archaeological and cultural information from a state-mandated review of the site, which would have been used for a solar farm. Avangrid continued pushing the project despite a state archaeologist’s warning that the planned development would threaten significant historic sites and current ceremonial activity. An elected member of the Colville Tribal Business Council told the newsrooms at the time that the project would destroy roughly half the root vegetable harvest in the area.

60,000 evacuated due to Spokane Complex Fire; Mayor calls it region’s ‘worst natural disaster’

60,000 people have been evacuated due to the Spokane Complex Fire, which has destroyed hundreds of homes in what Mayor Lisa Brown calls the region’s worst natural disaster.

“We’re here today to discuss, really, the worst natural disaster our region has faced, the Spokane complex of fires,” Brown said.

“Hundreds of homes and structures have been lost,” Brown said. “We are still assessing the potential for lives to be lost.”

As of Sunday, the Spokane fires had burned more than 5,300 acres. Statewide, more than 250,000 acres have burned.

... article continues ...

As best I can tell... this is still ongoing, and is essentially 0% contained, however that may be somewhat stale info.

I think this is at least a fairly recent overlay with evacuation zones:

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/64492843

There's 3 fires burning around 7,000 acres and they are completely uncontained currently.

Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown described the situation as "the worst natural disaster our region has faced", adding that authorities were assessing the extent of the damage and were "still discussing the potential for lives to be lost".

No deaths or injuries have been confirmed.

The fires in Spokane are among a total number more than a dozen wildfires in the state including 10 large ones, according to the dashboard on the state's department of natural resources.

The National Weather Service (NWS) had warned of "extremely critical" fire weather over the weekend, with strong winds and unusually dry conditions helping the flames spread rapidly.

Scientists have said that human-induced climate change makes the warm, dry conditions that lead to wildfires more likely - as well as leading to more frequent and intense heatwaves, and potential summer droughts.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

That's almost two years' salary for Barnes, who is also getting to keep a $50,000 hiring bonus intended for rank and file officers, which he received after former mayor Bruce Harrell hired him last year. Police officers have to return the bonus, on a prorated basis, if they leave before five years.

Today Mayor Katie Wilson announced she’s already fired Seattle’s next police chief after he somehow teargassed Capitol Hill, deleted public records, hired someone to have an affair on the job with, and threatened to fight a reporter all before 9 a.m.

RENTON, Wash. — Health officials are warning the public that a rabid bat was found near a popular park in Renton.

According to Public Health - Seattle & King County, the rabid bat was found on July 28 on the sidewalk at the south end of the park, in the area near the playground, south shelter and park restrooms.

Anyone who may have had physical contact with this bat (even if not bitten) could be at risk and should seek medical evaluation immediately or call Public Health at 206-296-4774 to determine whether rabies preventive treatment is necessary.

Rabies is fatal once symptoms begin, according to the health department.

“Rabies is treatable if it’s caught before symptoms begin, so it’s important to identify anyone who has had contact with the bat as soon as possible,” said Jocelyn Mullins, Public Health Veterinarian at Public Health – Seattle & King County. “Contact includes touching a bat, being bitten or scratched, or having any other bare skin touch a bat or its saliva.”

If you see a bat outside, do not touch the bat. If you are concerned that the bat is sick, call animal control at 206-296-7387 (PETS).

When sea water, or any liquid, gets warmer, it expands. It’s the main reason that climate change has been raising sea levels, along with glaciers melting.

The expected arrival of a strong, if not record-breaking, El Niño later in 2026 could further boost sea levels temporarily by heating up much of the Pacific Ocean.

Oceanographer Ian Miller with Washington Sea Grant at the University of Washington said strong El Niños in 1982 and 1997 raised sea level on the Pacific Northwest coast by almost one foot, while another big El Niño in 2015 raised it about 6 inches.

An El Niño in the winter of 2023-24 added six to eight days of high-tide flooding on the Oregon and Washington coasts and two to four days on Puget Sound, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Northwest Climate Hub.

National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration researchers say there’s an 80% chance of a very strong El Niño weather pattern by autumn.

Most global climate models, operated by scientists at different institutions, are forecasting an El Niño of unprecedented strength.

“The vast majority of models, about 90% of the runs now, expect a record-setting El Niño event, stronger than anything that we have observed since records began in the mid-1800s,” Berkeley Earth climate scientist Zeke Hausfather said.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/64240087

Go anti-woke, go broke. A planned anti-trans rally outside of a WNBA game in Seattle, of all places, appears to have been a major flop.

The “rally” took place outside the Climate Pledge Arena ahead of the Seattle Storm v. Indiana Fever game. Even calling it a rally is generous though — per a video posted to Instagram by local news outlet The Burner, attendance was sparse. According to ESPN, the crowd consisted of “a few dozen,” who were there to both voice support for Fever guard Sophie Cunningham and for legislation that would bar trans girls from participating in school sports in Washington state.

In a press conference on Tuesday, police said they have now recovered three weapons used in the shooting. The first, an illegal Polymer 9mm ‘ghost gun’ with an extended 33-round magazine, was found with 19 rounds left in the magazine on the 15-year-old-suspect.

A second gun, a Springfield RO 9mm, was discovered, but not used, according to Chief of Police Shon Barnes.

In addition, a third gun, a Glock .45 9mm pistol with an automatic switch and extended 40-round magazine, was discovered during clean-up on Monday ― hours after the shooting. The Glock had 21 rounds left in the magazine.

Both the Glock and the ‘ghost gun’ were believed to be used in the shooting, according to Chief of Police Shon Barnes.

A shooting killed two people and wounded five including a child on Sunday evening during a popular food festival near the Space Needle in Seattle, a city fire department spokesperson said.

Video of a vendor recording an ad as his coworkers and the public react to the shooting in real time: https://bsky.app/profile/candylovely.bsky.social/post/3mrm6lpc4zc2y

11:47 PM US Pacific: Edited title to reflect latest news. https://www.kuow.org/live-updates/live-updates-multiple-victims-shot-at-seattle-center

Several people died and some wounded. I just got word from my partner and they're okay.

Shout out to @specialseaweed@sh.itjust.works for updating the other post on this topic!

Transcript:

"Now Council is proposing to pull this funding from our general fund, which is already facing a $175 million deficit. I look forward to seeing which critical services they plan to cut from the general fund to make their numbers work."