The press release, sent out on Thursday, explained that the program has allowed anyone aged 13-26 to check out books from an electronic library, regardless of where they are located.

Brooklyn Public Library started Unbanned Books in 2022, citing increased efforts to remove books from shelves in schools and libraries across the country. SPL was the second library to join, launching its own program with donor funding in 2023. Since then, the coalition has grown to include Boston Public Library, San Diego Public Library, LA County Library, and Long Beach Public Library — directly inspired by the success and encouragement of Brooklyn and Seattle.

The foundation has contributed nearly $900,000 in philanthropic funding to sustain and grow the program, the library says.

“I think about the kid I was, looking for a book that would tell me it was okay to be who I am. That’s exactly who this program is for. We’re proud to fund a program that puts a book in the hands of a young person who needs it, no matter where they live or what their local library can offer,” said Brian Lawrence, CEO of The Seattle Public Library Foundation. “I’m so proud that our donors have stepped up to provide 100% of the funding for more than 1 million checkouts. It says so much about our values as a community.”

According to BannedIndex, a real-time database of books banned in the United States, as of October 1, 45 of 50 states are impacted by book bans.

In Washington, 5 books are banned. In Florida, a law prohibits the reading of over 9,500 books.

Throughout the United States, 146 laws ban books. Alabama recently signed into law the ban of books that talk about diversity, equity, or inclusion. The law also jointly bans unisex bathrooms.

“My high school removed its library, and my local library branch is very small with a limited selection. This card will help me access more books,” a 17-year-old from West Virginia said about the Unbanned Books program.

Many of these bans focus on removing books with sexual content or content that acknowledges LGBTQIA+ relationships. This type of content is often framed as “harmful” to children.

“There are books I can’t read in my local state, and liberties taken away from me due to politics. I appreciate the ability to read what I choose. Thanks,” a 19-year-old from Washington said about the program.

“I think it is important to form your own opinions based on the knowledge and life experiences you take in. The fact that people are trying to prevent me from reading something is absolutely outrageous. I applied for this library card to expand my knowledge and come to my own conclusions about what is good for me. That is up to me to decide, not anyone else,” added a 20-year-old from Georgia.

Dozens of unionized Seattle Times workers picketed near the newsroom on Denny Way yesterday after they say the newspaper’s owners refused to satisfactorily raise wages or agree not to replace workers with AI during contract negotiations.

The picket is the Seattle Times’ first big labor action in decades, and a sign that disagreements between those who make the newspaper and the company that profits off them has reached an inflection point.

One main point of contention in ongoing contract negotiations is something any working Seattleite can understand: Seattle Times journalists say the company doesn’t pay them enough to live in our expensive city.

According to the Seattle Times Union, which is repped by the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild, as are Noisy Union workers at The Stranger, the company’s most recent offer would raise wages for the more than 160 represented employees by only $1,250 a year, or $48 per paycheck before taxes—that’s two quarters and a dime per hour. That’s a less than 2 percent raise for most union members, which alongside the region’s high 4.4 percent inflation (per the Seattle Times own reporting) means the company is offering workers a pay cut to their real wages.

For contrast, Seattle’s minimum wage is tied to inflation and set to increase by 3.9 percent in 2027, meaning Seattle Times workers have been offered percentage raises below what Seattle is required to pay its poorest workers.

Ryan Nguyen, an education reporter who has been at the Seattle Times for 5 years, says affordability has been one of the newsroom’s main pillars of coverage for the past year. He recently reported on the Seattle teachers union’s struggles with wages that didn’t keep up with costs, a topic that can feel strange to cover as an important issue when the company doesn’t deem its own employees underpayment noteworthy.

“There is a lot of cognitive dissonance between the topics that we cover and our day-to-day lives,” he says.

Seattle’s workforce has shrunk by 18,605 jobs since 2024, according to a new report from the business and urban advocacy group, the Downtown Seattle Association. Over the same period, Bellevue added 5,375 jobs and Tacoma’s labor pool increased by 662.

The organization says the largest job losses were in the information, technology, professional services, and construction sectors.

“We're in a very different place than we were five, six, seven, eight years ago when Seattle was rocking and rolling and it was boom times,” said Downtown Seattle Association CEO Jon Scholes. “We're not growing jobs at a strong rate, and not at a rate relative to other cities in the region and other cities around the country.”

In July, U.S. Rep. Adam Smith, a Washington Democrat, voted to block $3.3 billion in military assistance to Israel.

That was a major shift for Smith, who previously had supported Israel and received an endorsement from the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC.

Speaking to KUOW’s “Soundside” Tuesday, Smith said, while he initially supported the military package for Israel, he had changed his mind.

“I was persuaded by a number of my constituents that, given what Israel is doing in Gaza, and the West Bank, and in Lebanon right now, anything that signals that we want to strengthen that relationship before Israel changes its behavior on that is the wrong thing to do.”

This was part of a larger conversation on “Soundside” with Smith that also addressed AI regulation, the war with Iran, and the midterms.

The City of Seattle says they learned of overpayments for 900 police department employees who were members of the Seattle Police Officers Guild. They learned of the error in mid-July, finding the overpayments totaled more than $13 million.

The city alerted City Council in early August, and sent an email to police staff last week alerting them of the error.

By the numbers: The city was required to pay negotiated retroactive wage increases of 6% for hours worked in 2024. In calculating the backpay for the beginning of 2024, staff used base rates from 2020 rather than 2024. This caused employees to receive the difference between their 2020 rates and their new 2024 rates, resulting in a significantly larger payment.

Officials confirmed the mistake was a manual data oversight and not a system glitch.

The Seattle Police Department for the first time revealed its Real Time Crime Center has access to hundreds more cameras than it previously reported.

Since launching last year, the number of surveillance cameras feeding live footage into the center has swelled to 427, even as concerns and debate over surveillance technology intensified. Those cameras comprise 308 installed by the Police Department, 96 operated by the city’s Transportation Department and 23 owned by three unidentified business owners in the East Precinct, police officials said Wednesday in a phone call.

An additional 893 privately owned cameras are registered with the crime center, allowing analysts to see the cameras’ locations and contact their owners to request footage when responding to a 911 call or during an investigation.

The Police Department’s use of private cameras caught the attention of Lisa Judge, the city’s inspector general for public safety, who flagged concerns in an annual review of police surveillance technology.

“(The Seattle Police Department’s) position now is they’re going to try to integrate cameras from anywhere in the city privately,” said Dan Pitts, an audit supervisor for the inspector general’s office. “They need to have clearer structure around the organization and criteria and retention.”

SEIU 925 represents nearly 7,000 workers at University of Washington and says 83.3% of its members voted "no" on the school's latest contract offer that was presented on Sept. 21.

Unionized workers include laboratory technicians, campus security personnel, medical interpreters, social workers, researchers, administrative staff and other essential employees.

SEIU 925 said UW's "last, best, and final" contract offer lacked wage increases, additional paid time off and artificial intelligence protections, prompting them to hit the picket lines on Thursday, Oct. 1.

Pickets are planned across all UW campuses, including at UW Medical Center at Montlake and Pacific, Harborview Medical Center, and Red Square on the Seattle campus.

Lynch also talked about arriving in Seattle in October 2010 after he was acquired from the Bills. He told Ward it wasn’t his first trip to the city, but he was unaware of the diversity of culture in Seattle. “I didn’t really know that they really had movement and action,” Lynch said. “And they had a chapter of the Black Panthers up there between Seattle and Tacoma.” Lynch said he went to a bar after he arrived in Seattle. There, other patrons recognized him as the player that the Seahawks had just traded for. “‘This on us, don’t worry about it,'” Lynch recalled them saying. “I’m like, man this different, because where I come from in New York … they still got confederate flags at some of the bars that I was going to,” Lynch said. Lynch said despite the fact that it rained for 31 straight days after he arrived in the city, it was “love off the rip.”

A Seattle Police Department officer, Adam Sun, is on administrative leave after using a pair of AI smart glasses to record a promotional video for a Chinese company, Rokid Global. The film, taken from Sun’s POV while wearing the glasses, showed scenes inside of a police precinct, at a police investigation, in and around the department’s weapons lockers, and inside Sun’s police car while he’s driving, among other locations. The footage is frenetic and Sun hypes the glasses throughout. At one point, Sun daps a man holding a tiny goat.

Rokid posted the video next to other promotional videos on its Facebook page and other social media sites earlier this month. Since then, the post has been removed, and I was unable to locate another version of it online; my description is based on my own recollection from multiple viewings. On September 10, someone filed a complaint against Sun with the city’s Office of Police Accountability and SPD put him on administrative leave—a reaction that shows SPD considers the incident serious.

Security experts have identified specific concerns about Chinese smart glasses (as well as those produced in the US by companies like Meta.) If a police officer in the US received money to promote a Chinese company, that could raise additional concerns. China, politically a US adversary, heavily surveils its citizens in what has been described as a surveillance and digital “police state.”

A longtime Boeing employee is suing the company, alleging it retaliated against him after he reported safety, quality and compliance concerns involving military aircraft to Boeing leaders and federal agencies.

Randall Fauver filed the complaint Friday in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. The lawsuit brings claims under federal whistleblower, false claims and family medical leave laws.

The minimum wage in Seattle will rise to $22.14 per hour at the start of next year, the Office of Labor Standards announced Monday.

That’s an increase of 3.9% from the current minimum wage of $21.30.

The city’s minimum wage ordinance requires the minimum wage to be raised annually to reflect local inflation.

Today’s announcement means that Seattle’s minimum wage will remain one of the highest in the nation.

In Washington, the 2026 minimum wage is $17.13 per hour. Federally, it’s been set at $7.25 since 2009.

For years, people in the Seattle area have faced higher inflation rates than the national average. In the year ending in August, the consumer price index for Seattle, Tacoma and Bellevue rose by 4.4% — a whole percentage point higher than the U.S. average.

Defense tech powerhouse Shield AI is establishing a massive advanced manufacturing hub in Washington state, tapping the Seattle region’s deep aerospace and tech roots to build a next-generation autonomous fighter jet called the X-BAT.

The project could transform the regional labor market: Shield AI says it expects to have 4,000 workers in the region by the early 2030s as it ramps up mass production of the AI-piloted, 26-foot long aircraft.

It marks a major expansion of advanced aerospace manufacturing in the Seattle region, bringing autonomous military aviation directly into Boeing’s backyard and cementing the state’s position at the center of the AI-defined defense era.

The San Diego-based company, valued at $12.7 billion following a $2 billion venture capital round earlier this year, is looking to complete construction on a 420,000-square-foot facility in Des Moines, Wash., just south of Seattle, next spring.

That physical footprint is expected to grow quickly. Armor Harris, senior vice president of aircraft at Shield AI, told GeekWire that the company is actively looking to add another 1 million square feet in the region to support its long-term manufacturing push.

A King County court found the man accused of killing a University of Washington student in May still incompetent to stand trial Monday afternoon.

Christopher Leahy, a 31-year-old man from Bellevue, is charged with killing 19-year-old Juniper Blessing, a transgender woman, on May 10 in a laundry room in an off-campus apartment complex. Leahy allegedly stabbed Blessing more than 40 times.

Leahy did not appear in court Monday. The presiding judge ordered a second period of competency restoration and a reassessment Dec. 22.

In June, a court-ordered evaluation found that Leahy was diagnosed with schizophrenia and psychosis and had been receiving care on and off since 2011, including outpatient services and medication. He had auditory hallucinations and believed he was working for the CIA at times.

He said he suffered a head injury in a car crash — though the most recent incident of which, when he totaled his father's BMW by driving into a concrete barrier in Bellevue at 130 miles per hour, did not indicate any head trauma — and experienced seizures.

Throughout the document, direct quotes from Leahy demonstrate the suspect's challenges with tangential thought and recollection of information, evaluator Dr. Jessica Hart wrote. His statements are mostly sentence fragments interspersed with long pauses and confused remarks.

A hospital intake report from 2017 described a similar communication style: medical personnel wrote that Leahy was "very formal, almost robotic, w[ith] a blunted, almost flat affect and monotone voice. He is very difficult to get consistent information from, either unable to elaborate on symptoms, confusing details repeatedly, or forgetting completely what we were talking about."

At the time, Hart wrote that she was "unable to form an opinion regarding Mr. Leahy's current capacity to understand the nature of the proceedings against him; however, it is my opinion that due to his psychotic symptoms, he currently lacks sufficient capacity to assist counsel in his defense."

She added that there was reasonable probability that Leahy would be able to regain competency with treatment.

Blessing's 20th birthday would have been last week, her family said in a statement.

"Our focus remains on Juniper, whose 20th birthday was last week, whose ashes we spread earlier this month, and whose love is everlasting. Everywhere we go, we see the kindness of Juni’s spirit and revel in its legacy," the Blessing family wrote. "Given Juniper’s beautiful spirit, talent, and intelligence, we cannot help but wonder what more she might have accomplished, and what the world would have gained, had she been able to live the full life she deserved."

Dan Wilson will not return as the Seattle Mariners’ manager next season, he and the team said Sunday.

Wilson made the announcement shortly after the Mariners finished off a 7-3 win over the Los Angeles Angels, the ending to a disappointing 76-86 season that began with World Series aspirations after Seattle reached Game 7 of the American League Championship Series last year.

“Collectively we failed to meet our own expectations this season,” Mariners President of Baseball Operations Jerry Dipoto said in a statement. “Dan and I both care deeply about this organization, these players, and the future of the Mariners. After much discussion it was concluded that a new direction is best for 2027 and beyond.

“I want to thank Dan for his efforts over the past two years and specifically recognize his role in our club advancing to Game 7 of the ALCS in 2025.”

David Arellano Tapia was sentenced in King County Superior Court for hit-and-run resulting in death in connection with the Feb. 1, 2025, death of Richard “Ole” Ward. Tapia was 18 at the time of the crash and had no prior criminal history.

Tapia entered an Alford plea, which allows a defendant to plead guilty while not admitting guilt. Prosecutors and the defense jointly recommended a sentence of 31 months, the low end of the standard sentencing range of 31 to 41 months.

Ward’s family urged the judge to reject that recommendation and impose 41 months.

“We do not forgive Mr. Tapia. We never will,” Ward’s mother, Sue Ward, told the court. “Today, however, we are here asking the court for accountability.”

Ward was walking across Northwest Market Street at 15th Avenue Northwest when he was struck. His mother told the court Friday that he had nearly made it across the six-lane road when he was hit. She said witnesses described the truck as traveling very fast and that the impact threw her son approximately 70 feet.

Ward’s family told the court he remained conscious after the collision and cried out for help. Two people stayed with him during his final moments, his mother said.

“Mr. Tapia did not stay with Ole. He did not call 911. He fled the scene,” Sue Ward told the judge.

Ward had celebrated his 39th birthday two days before his death. His family described him as intelligent, adventurous and intensely curious. He loved skiing, cycling, the outdoors and ancient history and earned the rank of Eagle Scout.

...

During her statement, Jillian Ward described the family’s efforts to find the driver after the crash. She said the family hired a private investigator, pursued media coverage and established a tip line while seeking information about her brother’s death.

According to Ward, an employee at the repair shop where Tapia’s damaged truck had been taken saw the media coverage, recognized the vehicle and contacted law enforcement.

“The defendant was not identified because he surrendered or accepted responsibility,” she told the court. “He was identified because my family refused to let Ole become another unsolved hit-and-run.”

Starbucks is closing another 250 stores across North America, meanwhile several former locations in the company’s hometown are finding new tenants in local coffee shops and bakeries.

The Seattle-based coffee giant said the latest closures are part of a review of its North American portfolio. Starbucks told KING 5 two of the 250 locations closing are in Seattle.

The latest cuts come after Starbucks closed 627 stores across North America and Europe last year.

Starbucks said it evaluates individual coffeehouses based on their ability to deliver the customer experience and long-term performance the company expects. Customers will see signs at affected stores this weekend notifying them of the closures.

For employees at closing locations, Starbucks said it will look for opportunities to transfer workers to other coffeehouses. Employees who cannot be placed at another location will receive severance support.

As Starbucks closes some stores, several of its former Seattle locations are being filled by local businesses.

At least six former Starbucks locations around Seattle that have become, or are becoming, local coffee shops and bakeries, one of those is Petit Pierre Bakery.

In Ballard, a former Starbucks is now under construction to become the French bakery and pastry shop's third location.

Owner Pierre Poulin said a friend who lives in Ballard spotted the former Starbucks listing and told him about it. Poulin spent time in the neighborhood and talked with other nearby business owners before deciding to move forward with the location.

“We just decided to jump into that new challenge for us,” Poulin said.

Poulin said moving into a former Starbucks offers some advantages for a smaller business because much of the infrastructure needed for a food and beverage operation is already in place.

“It’s slightly easier for us to move in because there is all that infrastructure in place in the space,” Poulin said.

The Ballard location will also allow Petit Pierre to begin making its own bread in-house. The bakery currently sources its bread locally because its Magnolia kitchen does not have enough space for bread production.

“We were debating going to the Eastside, but now that we found Ballard, we are excited to introduce our bread program and stay in Seattle,” Poulin said.

The new bakery is also expected to have about 40 seats, offer weekend brunch and add some table service.

On Monday, a King County judge will reexamine whether Christopher Leahy is now competent to stand trial for the May 10 stabbing death of 19-year-old University of Washington student Juniper Blessing.

Leahy is accused of first-degree murder with a deadly weapon in Blessing’s death. He has no previous criminal history. King County prosecutors accused Leahy of "viciously" murdering Blessing in the laundry room of her Seattle apartment building on May 10. A medical examiner reported that she was stabbed more than 40 times.

A psychologist’s June evaluation of Leahy described a “lengthy and well-documented history of severe mental illness, primarily of a psychotic nature,” and said at that time he was not competent to stand trial.

A 36-year-old woman has been charged with second-degree assault after prosecutors say she used racist and homophobic language before biting a chunk of flesh from another woman’s forehead in downtown Seattle.

Charging documents filed by the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office identify the defendant as Kamilia Chadli. Police said the victim, Diana Gonzalez, was left with permanent injuries and required a skin graft to close the wound.

The attack was reported about 3:45 p.m. Sept. 18 near Third Avenue and Marion Street. Gonzalez was walking to a 7-Eleven for a beverage near her workplace when the attack happened, according to charging documents.

“This was a totally random attack," said Gonzalez. "She started yelling racist things after throwing trash and spitting on me. Then she bit my face — she bit a piece of my face off.”

Gonzalez told officers she was walking past a woman, later identified as Chadli, when Chadli threw a food wrapper at her. When Gonzalez asked why, Chadli yelled, “You’re the inferior race,” used a homophobic slur, and spit on the victim, according to charging documents.

Andrew Rubinstein, owner of the wildly popular Hey Bagel in U Village, announced Wednesday on social media that he is opening a second location in West Seattle.

“I want to let you know that I just signed a lease for a West Seattle location,” Rubinstein said in an Instagram video. “I can't tell you how psyched I am to be part of West Seattle. It is one of the coolest parts of the city. I love the culture there. I love the vibe. I love the views. It's beautiful. And this makes me really proud that we can do that.”

Rubinstein added that the shop is expected to open in May 2027.

“So, in May, we are going to be opening up our West Seattle location,” he continued. “I know that's far away, but still, it'll go by really quick, at least for me. It's just north of the Alaska Way Junction on California Avenue. Couldn't be more excited. Can't wait to see you there.”

For the first time, the Seattle City Council formally recognized Denny Blaine Park’s decades of queer history and its importance to gay and trans Seattle. The council passed a formal resolution Wednesday, showing where the city stands after years of attempted erasure of the iconic nude beach.

The park is a lively third space where respectful nudity is valued by working-class visitors, but not by its affluent neighbors, who sued to shut the park down under the moniker Denny Park for All, which might as well have been called Denny Park for None.

Sponsored by Council President Joy Hollingsworth, whose district includes the beach, comes three years after then-Mayor Bruce Harrell tried to hijack the park on behalf of a wealthy friend, Stuart Sloan, who lives in the roomy waterfront mansion next door, by adding a children’s playground. The conflict is nakedly obvious. (ICYMI: Mayor Bruce Harrell Met with Denny Blaine Donor at a Key Moment During Controversial Playground Proposal).

Last year, state officials added Denny Blaine to the Washington Heritage Register, according to a release from Friends of Denny Blaine ( link with butts).

A court ruling earlier this year clarified the park will stay open, though the city needs to better enforce rules against the odd instances of “lewd behavior,” masturbation, and peeing . For now, a chain link fence bisects the park, into an upper, grassy clothed area, and a nude beach area. (Though nudity remains legal in Seattle).

City departments have enforced the wrong rules at the park in recent years. The court found that Seattle Parks and Recreation department employees cannot confront or document people getting naughty. Meanwhile, Seattle Police Department officers were threatening and kicking out people for being nude, which is legal. (The police chief eventually apologized).

The city council resolution suggests some kind of physical symbol of that like a pride flag at the park. Can you think of anything a bit more creative (or wet and wrinkly)?

The future of the park will be determined in part by an upcoming round of public comment. Per Friends of Denny Blaine, you can weigh in on that future by submitting written comments to the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation before October 5th.

Trailing by a run in the bottom of the 10th, Julio Rodríguez worked a bases-loaded walk against Astros closer Josh Hader, who was in his second inning of relief, and Josh Naylor sent the Mariners to a 6-5 walkoff victory with a single to center, giving the what was left of the crowd of 24,802 something to celebrate on chilly Wednesday night at T-Mobile Park.

How can the Mariners still be alive in the American League West?

Well, it’s complicated. It involves equations, fractions and possibly a riddle. Ok it’s not quite to that level. But mathematically they are still alive for a postseason spot.

Could they win the American League West?

It’s possible in the same way you believe winning the Powerball is a possibility. Here’s how it would need to happen:

The Mariners would need to win sweep their four-game seriesl against the Angels that starts on Thursday night. The same Angels team that beat them two out of three games a week ago in Anaheim.

Then they would need the Astros to lose their four remaining games against the A’s in Sacramento. Houston is 4-5 against the A’s this season and is limping toward the end of the season.

And then they would also need the Rangers to lose their four remaining games. Texas has one game left vs. the Mets at Globe Life Field and then finishes out the season with a three-game series vs. the Twins at Target Field.

If all that happened, it would leave all three teams with identical 78-84 records for a three-way tie atop the division. Since none of three teams hold series wins against the other two, which is the first tiebreaker, the division would be decided by the second tiebreaker — combined head-to-head records.

In this far-fetched scenario, the Mariners would be the American League West champions since they would have the best combined head-to-head records against the other two teams at 15-11 while the Rangers would be 12-14 and the Astros 12-13.

The shop, located at 1700 Seventh Ave., is in a buzzy part of Denny Triangle, one block from Pacific Place. Its final day will be Sunday, a barista confirmed Tuesday. The Starbucks website also shows the coffeehouse will be closed Monday.

The Seattle-based coffee giant didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

The location is not listed as a unionized coffeehouse on the website of Starbucks Workers United, which represents thousands of baristas. This latest shuttering follows a store closure over the summer at the Docusign Tower on Third Avenue.

It also comes amid CEO Brian Niccol’s “Back to Starbucks” plan, which focuses on reviving the company’s traditional coffeehouse experience with upgraded stores, more staffing, smoother operations and reduced consumer wait times. A slew of layoffs and store closures, including in Seattle, have accompanied that plan.