Proposed by Mayor Katie Wilson and Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck, the legislation will require grocery stores with more than 20 locations worldwide to stop using personal data to set individualized prices and discounts. It would also apply to third party delivery apps such as Instacart, as well as mixed-used stores like Target.

The idea that grocery companies are charging different people different prices based on their past purchases sounds like a futuristic dystopia. But it’s not far off. The practice isn’t in brick and mortar stores yet, but it’s a widespread reality for online shopping. And they’ve already been hoarding your data for years.

Back in 2019, the marketing arm of Kroger, the supermarket giant that owns QFC and Fred Meyer, boasted about collecting more than 2,000 data points on customers using past purchasing history and information bought from data brokers. That data will feed the new pricing algorithms.

Those algorithms are designed to estimate a customer’s purchasing power and how willing they might be to pay more. As part of a Consumer Reports study last year, 39 volunteers loaded up virtual Instacart baskets of products from a Seattle Safeway store. They received a range of prices from $114 to $124 for the exact same goods. That study estimated that this type of price manipulation, if applied to a family of four, could result in cost differences as high as $1,200 a year.

While currently algorithmic pricing is mainly limited to online shopping and loyalty apps, it’s right around the corner for brick-and-mortar stores with the introduction of electronic price labels, which allow stores to instantly change prices of goods. The city council ordinance will require these labels to be the same for different customers.

Seattle has always been at the forefront of what's novel in the world of caffeinated morning beverages. But one of these "trends" is less trendy and more of a movement by café owners to share the non-Western coffee cultures they grew up in.

Along Georgetown's main drag, Voi Cà Phê sits at the corner of Airport Way and 13th Avenue. It's a small walk-up window without indoor seating, but there are public benches where people can enjoy their coffee and bánh mì.

The Vietnamese café opened in 2022, founded by the husband-and-wife duo Khôi Phùng and Hiền Đặng. Đặng's mom is the head chef.

"I was a barista at an independent Seattle coffee shop for a number of years," Đặng said. "I realized that there wasn't a lot of Asian coffee representation at that coffee shop."

Growing up, Đặng's family ran a small café off Martin Luther King Jr. Way where they offered coffee and bánh mì made by her mom, just like they do now at Voi Cà Phê. Her husband's family also ran a café in Saigon, where he grew up. His family still owns a coffee farm.

"It grows at lower elevation than the standard arabica bean that you see everywhere in the U.S.," said Đặng, explaining the nuance of the Vietnamese coffee bean. "It also grows in hotter climates and is more exposed to pests. Because of that, the plant has evolved to have more caffeine."

Keenan Charles Pearson, 47, was detained by Seattle Police and was in handcuffs when he lost consciousness. The manner of death is pending, according to the medical examiner records.

The case is under investigation by an independent police investigation team.

About 8:17 p.m., the man was spotted laying on the sidewalk in the 6000 block of Airport Way S. He was unable to clearly speak or care for himself, according to a press release by the Independent Force Investigative Team King County (IFIT-KC). Then:

• Seattle police escorted the man to a police vehicle and allowed him to sit on the front of it without handcuffs. Help was requested to evaluate the subject.
• The subject dropped to the ground and began rolling across the roadway. Police placed him in handcuffs. While waiting for aid, the subject lost consciousness.
• Lifesaving measures were attempted by first responders. They could not resuscitate the person.

Airport Way S was closed to traffic at the time because of Rainier Day festivities on the same street.

No timetable was given for how long the investigation might take.

Remember the World Cup? Streets closed to cars, joyful crowds, downtown exuberance. Wasn’t that great? It was, it was.

The Seattle Convention Center certainly thought so. That was the inspiration behind its Marquee at the Market event. All through August, the Convention Center shut down Ninth Avenue between Pike and Pine streets to host a weekly night market and pedestrian fair outside the Paramount Theatre.

There was music and vendors and food and there were no cars and — crucially — the Convention Center painted the street to make the environment more pleasant, more enticing, more vibey.

But now August has come and gone, it’s been three weeks since the last night market, and the street is still closed.

The paint won’t come off.

And until it does, the Seattle Department of Transportation says, the street cannot reopen.

This is not the busiest block in downtown Seattle. It’s often partially blocked by buses and trucks parked outside the Paramount, unloading musical acts and their gear. But its closure has blocked an entrance to the Interstate 5 express lanes. That entrance is still accessible from Pike Street, but drivers headed west on Pine (or south on Ninth) now have to circle around a couple of blocks to get on the highway.

While their donors may not shape coverage, perhaps the opinions and beliefs of the Center Square’s reporters do. At least, that’s what the Washington State Attorney General’s Office thinks. The Center Square and Attorney General Nick Brown’s office recently crossed swords over the non-work online activity of its reporter, TJ Martinell.

Martinell has written Center Square stories critical of the attorney general’s office, including how the office gave legal advice to the Democrats while they put together a millionaires tax; how publicly requested documents were distributed; and how many attorneys general, including Washington’s Nick Brown, coordinated lawsuits against President Trump before he was re-elected. Martinell also has a virulently racist and misogynic digital footprint that Brown’s office takes issue with.

On July 28, David Postman, Brown’s chief of staff, wrote a long letter to Center Square CEO Chris Krug complaining about Martinell. Postman acknowledged that the attorney general’s office is unhappy with some of Martinell’s coverage. But his letter focused on the reporter’s off-the-job activities, stating they weren’t a good fit with an office with a high number of women and people of color on staff.

“I am alarmed by the writings and comments by Washington State Center Square reporter TJ Martinell on multiple social media channels and blogs. … His stated views point to political biases, racial prejudices, misogyny, and conspiracy theories,” Postman wrote.

Mayor Katie Wilson released her "new approach to reducing gun violence," which brings various city departments, social services, and community groups under the direction of the Community Assisted Response and Engagement (CARE) Department. The plan will seek to deter a small group of individuals from committing violent crimes and will increase police patrols in several neighborhoods, including Little Saigon and Rainier Beach. It will also provide $600,000 for services for youth and young adults, including for an after-school program at Rainier Beach High School.

Meanwhile, the Seattle City Council approved its own proposal, which recommends that Seattle contract with a college in New York City to develop a plan to curb gun violence. The plan, proposed by Councilmember Maritza Rivera, passed 7-0, with Councilmembers Dionne Foster and Alexis Mercedes Rinck abstaining.

Both plans rely on a strategy known as "focused deterrence," which, according to the nonpartisan research organization RAND, seeks to deter criminal behavior, such as gun violence. The strategy uses warnings and sanctions, including enhanced criminal penalties, and provides opportunities such as job training, after-school programs, and other social services.

But how the mayor's plan and the City Council's plan would implement focused deterrence differ.

Guy got away with it, lol

The Austin, Texas-based company disclosed in an annual regulatory filing earlier this year that its total workforce decreased by roughly 21,000 employees from 2025, costing the company roughly $2.1 billion mostly through severance packages and contract terminations.

Those cuts affected 741 Seattle-area employees between August 2025 and March, which, coupled with this week’s layoffs, means 1,100 Oracle workers in Seattle have been let go since last summer.

In a quarterly regulatory filing, Oracle addressed its 2026 restructuring plan and said it took further action after the fiscal year ended on Aug. 31, costing an additional $700 million and causing this week’s layoffs.

Oracle did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The man arrested Monday in connection with a fatal shooting of a 23-year-old woman in Belltown over Labor Day weekend had been released from jail three days before the homicide, according to court documents.

The 44-year-old man, who had his first appearance hearing Tuesday, is accused of shooting and killing Tionna Simpson early Sept. 6 near Blanchard Street and Third Avenue. He remains in King County Jail in lieu of $4 million bail, according to the King County prosecuting attorney’s office.

The Seattle Times typically does not name people accused of a crime until charges have been filed. According to court documents, surveillance footage showed Simpson and a passenger in her parked car when another car stopped next to hers. The passenger stepped out and talked to the people in the other car, then the other driver pointed a gun at Simpson’s car. The gun appeared to malfunction, but the shooter then fired approximately six to eight times directly at Simpson. The passenger fled on foot and the other car sped away.

A Belltown resident heard the shots and found Simpson and began CPR until officers arrived. Simpson was taken to Harborview Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.

A witness provided the name of the suspected shooter’s girlfriend and said they knew the man had recently been released from jail. Seattle police officers found that the car had been in a recent hit-and-run and the registered owner is the alleged shooter. The car matched the description of the car in the shooting.

Police records showed the alleged shooter had been released from jail on Sept. 3. The man had pleaded guilty to third-degree domestic violence assault stemming from a November incident where he struck an intimate partner in the face and was sentenced to a month in jail.

A unanimous vote among the three members of the Seattle City Council’s Housing, Arts and Civil Rights Committee forwarded a proposal to the full council that would amend sections of the Seattle Municipal Code to “recognize genders outside the gender binary, recognize pansexuality and asexuality as orientations, and include consensual relationships with multiple partners as an element of attitudes, preferences, and practices pertaining to sexual orientation.”

The protections would apply to employment, housing, business licensure, places of public accommodation, park usage, and “bias-free policing,” according to the proposal.

Seattle would follow Portland, West Hollywood, Berkeley, California, and a handful of other cities in adopting the expanded protections against discrimination. Under the bill, residents facing unfair treatment could file complaints and seek remedy through Seattle’s Office for Civil Rights.

The discount grocery chain has submitted several permit filings over the last few weeks indicating renewed efforts to open a store at 13550 Aurora Ave. N. in North Seattle, the site of a former Sam’s Club location left vacant since 2018. Recently filed construction permits show plans for major interior renovation and a reduction in the building’s square footage.

A WinCo spokesperson told the Puget Sound Business Journal that it plans to open the store within a year. “We’ve put out the word, seen what people think and we’ve done it many times in (the Seattle area),” the spokesperson told the publication. “The shoppers there seem to be really hungry for WinCo and we’re really hungry to give it to them.”

That’s a relief for some who thought WinCo might abandon efforts after legal setbacks earlier this year, when a hearing examiner overturned the city’s determination that the project would have no significant environmental impacts.

The decision came in response to an appeal by Lake Washington Working Families, a group who argued that the neighborhood would be harmed by the WinCo.

Lake Washington Working Families claims to be “a coalition of King County residents, working families, environmental advocates, labor unions, and local merchants united in opposition to unchecked urban sprawl and overdevelopment.” But it has no website, is not registered with the state and has only made public appearances to challenge two WinCos, leading to much online speculation about who exactly is behind the group.

It took 85 days to reach the conclusion of the longest hotel strike in state history. The majority of the hotel’s roughly 115 workers at 255 S. King St. had been picketing since June 18, the height of the FIFA Men’s World Cup.

The contract with Hilton entails an agreement on year-round healthcare coverage, additional workload protections and improved rights for immigrant workers, per the union’s news release Friday.

And as of Jan. 1, the hotel’s housekeepers will be the highest-paid union housekeepers in Washington, Unite Here! said. The starting pay will rise to $31.03 per hour.

The boy’s journey from an encampment littered with rat droppings and urine bottles to a classroom began in October 2025, when Moreland and her team first visited the tent where he was alone. His mother was struggling with fentanyl addiction and being sexually exploited. His father refused offers of housing, food, and services.

Neighbors had called the Seattle Police Department and Child Protective Services repeatedly. Each time, authorities determined the boy was not in imminent danger.

“Everybody kept saying the same thing: He is OK. He is safe,” Moreland said. “We continued to show up at that tent, knowing that that was not the case.”

In December 2025, KIRO Newsradio reported on the boy’s situation, drawing widespread public attention to the case. Moreland was recorded offering the family immediate shelter — a private room available that day. The father turned her down.

“Not from you,” he told her.

But neighbors kept watching. Moreland’s team kept showing up. And in the early hours of New Year’s Day 2026, a Seattle police officer called Moreland to say the mother and boy were ready to accept help.

The mother entered care for active fentanyl addiction. The More We Love connected her with recovery services and arranged behavioral health treatment for the boy through Seattle Children’s Hospital. Moreland said the organization partnered with another mission for long-term housing, but that agency was unable to handle the boy’s behavioral challenges and released the family back to the streets.

“We said, not a chance,” Moreland said. “Our case managers have dug in day after day, helping this little man get through this.”

The mother remains in recovery, Moreland said, calling it “a big deal” while acknowledging the difficulty of learning to parent while breaking a generational cycle of trauma and addiction.

“She has been in the cycle predominantly her whole life,” Moreland said. “We really have to work on her traumas as well.”

....

The More We Love recently received a $500,000 matching donation from an anonymous donor to fund rescue efforts for women and children in encampments. Every dollar donated to the organization through its website, themorewelove.org, will be matched, Moreland said.

Wilson’s administration says the “Seawall” plan is to overhaul city permitting, deploy public assets for local business growth, and assemble a new economic task force as Seattle grapples with high living costs and heavy reliance on corporate giants.

“Businesses should be able to start here, grow here, and succeed here, and their employees should be able to build a life in the city where they work,” Wilson said in the announcement. “This assessment gives us an honest picture of where we are, and this Executive Order is how we start doing something about it. We are bringing Seattle’s business community in as genuine partners, and taking real steps to retain our strong foundation, diversify and grow our economic base, and make it simpler to do business in this city.”

Data released in the mayor’s announcement showed that companies with 100 or more workers drove 74.5% of Seattle’s net job growth between 2014 and 2023, well above the national rate of 68.5%. Mid-sized employers generated only 16.6% of local job growth, falling behind the national average of 22.7% and trailing cities like San Diego at 32.9%, Austin at 28.5%, Minneapolis at 28.4%, Portland at 25.5%, Boston at 23.7%, and Denver at 23.1%. Small businesses produced just 8.9% of local job gains.

The figures also showed that a Seattle couple with two young children needs 91.5% more income than a childless couple to cover basic household expenses. That family cost gap exceeds every peer city outside the Bay Area, outstripping Denver at 84.5%, Boston at 77.4%, Portland at 70.1%, Austin at 70%, and Atlanta at 50.2%.

Doctor Doom took the podium at a Public Safety Committee meeting on Tuesday to thank the council for covering the city in surveillance cameras. “Doom took over Axon enterprises [...] and now Doom will be watching you. Your continued cooperation expanding Doom’s surveillance network is required,” the Marvel supervillain said.

“This is the first of Doom’s gifts to the city of Seattle. The second gift is this: Doom will expand the real-time crime center to all neighborhoods with over 1,000 cameras watching every move,” Doom said. “Doom has total dominion over the city of Seattle. Doom will be behind the cameras watching those seeking reproductive or gender-affirming care. Doom will be able to find your immigrant neighbors and Doom will be able to ensure the safety of the women of Seattle alongside officers that stalk their exes.”

An investigation into complaints against the director of Seattle’s Office for Civil Rights (SOCR), Derrick Wheeler-Smith, found that Wheeler-Smith sexually harassed a male employee by accompanying him to a strip club during a city-sponsored trip to historic civil rights sites in Alabama in 2023.

The investigation was prompted by a memo from PROTEC17, the union that represents many SOCR employees, containing allegations that Wheeler-Smith and his deputy, Fahima Mohamed, had engaged in discrimination, harassment, and intimidation against civil rights office staff.

“The investigation included a review of OCR employees’ allegations that Wheeler-Smith and/or Mohamed engaged in unwelcome conduct or comments based on religion, sexual orientation, and gender identity” the investigation report says. “However, even assuming all the information provided during the investigation was true, those allegations did not rise to the level of conduct protected by” the city’s rule against discrimination and workplace harassment.

The investigation, which wrapped up in June, found that Wheeler-Smith sexually harassed his male employee, who was also a longtime personal friend, “by taking [the employee] to a strip club on a work trip.” The employee told investigators he didn’t feel he could say no to going to the strip club, given that Wheeler-Smith was his boss. Wheeler-Smith said he only went to the strip club because the employee said he wouldn’t go without him.

Investigators found that the misogynistic texts did not constitute sexual harassment because they were not “unwanted,” and that a change in the employee’s work assignment wasn’t retaliation for comments the employee made about trans women at a group training.

Nor, the investigators found, was it sexual harassment when Wheeler-Smith told a group of staffers a story about accidentally ending up a a swingers’ resort with his wife and being propositioned, or when he gave a toast at a work event that concluded, “May all your ups and downs be in bed,” which some staffers found offensive. (Wheeler-Smith told investigators that by “ups and downs in bed,” he meant getting up in the morning and going to sleep at night.)

Wheeler-Smith sent one of the memes we previously reported on—a fake image of Kamala Harris with bruised knees captioned, “CONGRATS to Kamala on her new promotion! I don’t know how you did it!”—with the message, “This innanet is undefeated.” According to the report, Wheeler-Smith told investigators the message was meant to “show his distaste for the vile and disrespectful meme,” but his employee said he took the comment to mean the meme was “spot on” and “accurate as hell.”

In another message, Wheeler-Smith sent an X thread by Kanye West that concluded, “WIVES SELL PUSSY FOR LIFE,” saying Kanye was “saying some wild shit but he got a point here.”

The texts Wheeler-Smith sent the employee also included a meme of a Black woman posting, “My throat hurt but my baby got uniform clothes,” and a screenshot that read, “12 years ago today. my friend Dave came out running and screaming ‘ITS A BOY!!!’ With tears streaming down his face…We never went back to Thailand again.”

According to the investigation, Wheeler-Smith said he exchanged texts with the employee, a longtime acquaintance, out of deference to an elder. “According to Wheeler-Smith, the Black community respected its elder members,” the investigators wrote. “[The employee] was a seventy-year-old Black man. As a result, [the employee] set the tone of their friendship.”

King County Superior Court Judge Cindi Port found that Alan Tagle and his company violated Washington employment laws, including by failing to pay minimum wage for all hours worked, according to findings of fact and conclusions of law signed Aug. 28.

The damages total about $1.85 million, according to calculations by the groups representing the employees, the Fair Work Center and Schroeter Goldmark & Bender. The groups said the figure includes damages for wage claims, which the judge ordered doubled, along with damages for other claims and prejudgment interest.

Liz Diamond, a spokesperson for Schroeter Goldmark & Bender, said Tagle operated five bikini barista stands in the Puget Sound area, most under the name “Beehive Espresso.”

Public records indicate Tagle has owned at least two companies with registered addresses associated with espresso stands in Bothell and Edmonds.

The ruling followed a 17-day trial between March and May, during which the court heard testimony from 18 current and former employees, Tagle and two expert witnesses.

The lawsuit alleged Tagle failed to issue paychecks or paystubs for several years and failed to adequately track employees' hours and payroll. Diamond said Tagle instead “instructed them to take their wages and tips from the till.”

“Because baristas work most shifts alone, we do not always know whether what is happening to us is happening to coworkers,” said Eilish Hoffman, a former Beehive Espresso employee, named plaintiff and class representative.

“As a result, breaking through that isolation and building trust was one of the first big barriers we had to overcome in order to join together for what we were rightfully owed,” Hoffman continued, adding that social media ultimately provided a way for employees to communicate with one another.

Niki Seligman, a spokesperson for the Fair Work Center, said the “confusing pay practices” made it “difficult for individual baristas to challenge what was happening.”

KING 5 was not able to reach Tagle through phone numbers associated with him or his businesses.

The messages, which do not include communications between SPD officials except where the mayor’s office was included, show two things. First, that the mayor’s office dithered and debated whether Wilson herself should go to the scene of the shooting for three hours before she finally went to Seattle Center, partly in response to TV reporters criticizing her for not being there.

And second, that the primary reason for the delay in information, as well as almost all of the delay in holding a press conference that night, was that SPD delayed the release of information repeatedly, withholding any new information information from the public and press until the press conference finally took place around 11pm.

SPD, the messages show, knew critical details about the shooting, including the fact that it was not a random mass shooting or terrorist event within an hour of the shooting—that is, before 7:30pm—but did not put any of that information out broadly until after 1:00 in the morning on July 27.

The messages include texts from mayoral communications staffer Jonah Spangenthal-Lee to SPD Chief Operating Officer Sarah Smith asking her why SPD had not provided any information since a tweet warning the public of a shooting with “multiple shooting victims” at Seattle Center at 6:29pm. “Sarah, where is SPD”s statement?” Spangenthal-Lee wrote at 8:36. “It’s been two hours since you guys have posted anything? Even some tweets at this point…”

A few minutes later, Spangenthal-Lee told other mayoral staffers in an internal Teams chat, “It’s fucking embarrassing that SPD has waited HOURS to put anything out. … I’m just saying this is a massive fucking disaster and hit to public trust.”

CHS reported here in July as a judge denied a bid by a group of neighbors and nearby property owners to close the park over complaints of public nudity, sexual activity, and disorder.

In his decision, Judge Samuel Chung sided with the City of Seattle and Friends of Denny Blaine in keeping the two-acre park on the shores of Lake Washington open — and nude — calling Denny Blaine “a limited natural resource that must be shared by the residents of the neighborhood and the Park’s visitors.”

The decision came with caveats after several findings that the court said justified the neighbors’ claims around lewd acts and criminal activity at the park. In the ruling, the judge said the city must implement and manage a previously approved abatement plan, and “develop and implement a park specific user plan and code of conduct to address overcrowding, safety, and prohibited and acceptable behaviors.”

The new guideline review runs parallel to broader community sessions starting late September regarding long-term park investments and improvements.

An estimated 2,000 fish, mostly non-native species, have died near the bridge. Exact counts are difficult, in part because many have decomposed, transit staff said. Sound Transit for months has hailed its innovative engineering to control electric current over the lake, so news that fish are being killed comes as a letdown.

The Washington State Department of Transportation discovered the problem Aug. 3 and notified Sound Transit promptly, according to transit CEO Dow Constantine.

“We are still in the discovery mode. Fish biologists and engineers are now busy analyzing photos and video collected by the divers,” Constantine told a transit-board committee. “Early analysis has shown that the majority of fish are non-native or invasive perch and bass, with a small number of salmon identified.”

The dead fish were clustered near the ends of the bridge, where cables to control electric current rested on the lake bottom, Constantine said.

WSDOT Secretary Julie Meredith, speaking remotely at Thursday’s meeting, said officials are working to find the cause, and are coordinating with environmental agencies, as well as tribes that monitor fish runs.

“The bridge remains safe for the traveling public, and WSDOT and Sound Transit are going to continue to share the responsibility for guaranteeing that, both now and over the long term,” she said.

The light rail tracks, where train service began March 28, run next to the westbound lanes of I-90. The water closest to the trains — between the westbound Hadley bridge and the nearby eastbound bridge — is a maintenance zone where the public doesn’t boat, swim or kayak.

Regardless, transit staff say electric current next to floating bridges isn’t powerful enough to harm someone in the water. Scuba diving to visit old sunken I-90 pontoons is “relatively popular,” said WSDOT communications director Ryan Overton. The eastbound bridge, even without trains, also has cables where low-level current travels, “and they are not a health hazard,” he said.

"I knew the money would go to my school, and I was very blessed to go to a school that has a lot of money and resources 一 but also, not a lot of Black kids and not as many students of color," said Johnson. "I was thinking about my piece and why I did it all, and I just [realized]: 'I should give this to a school full of kids who look like me 一 a school full of Black kids.' And immediately, I thought of Rainier Beach."

According to data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) for the 2024–25 school year, about 41% of Rainier Beach High School students identified as Black, while about 8% were listed as two or more races. In 2011, the school was nearly closed, as just 366 students attended classes in a building with a capacity of nearly four times that.

The school has come a long way since then. More than 900 students were enrolled at Rainier Beach High School in the 2025–26 school year, and the school had a four-year graduation rate of 83.8% in 2024–25, according to data from the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. On Aug. 28, the school held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the completion of its performing arts center.

After a quick Google search showed that Rainier Beach High School had the highest percentage of Black students among high schools in Seattle Public Schools, Johnson acted.

"I just came out and said I was going to do it. I also made it really public so that if my school went back on it, that would be a bad look on them," Johnson said.