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ABOUT RED BULL SOAPBOX RACE Not to be confused with the youth soapbox derby, Red Bull Soapbox Race is a national race for amateur drivers, which is fueled by creativity and competitive fun – not to mention the need for speed. This unique non-motorized racing event challenges both experienced racers and amateurs alike to design and build outrageous, human-powered soapbox dream machines and compete against the clock in a downhill race. Teams are judged on three criteria: speed, creativity and showmanship. This criteria has inspired a piano, a baby carriage, a rodeo clown, a massive cob of corn, a jail...

Between 1989 and 2010, Congress rejected nearly 700 cap-tax-and-trade and similar bills that their proponents claimed would control Earth’s perpetually fickle climate and weather. So even as real world crises erupt, President Obama is using executive fiats and regulations to impose his anti-hydrocarbon agenda, slash America’s fossil fuel use, bankrupt coal and utility companies, make electricity prices skyrocket, and “fundamentally transform” our economic, social, legal and constitutional system. Citing climate concerns, he has refused to permit construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, and blocked or delayed Alaskan, western state and offshore oil and gas leasing and drilling. He’s proud that...

ooks by megachurch Pastor Mark Driscoll have been pulled from 180 Christian stores. LifeWay stores have temporarily suspended sales of his books, including "A Call to Resurgence" and "Real Marriage." "LifeWay Stores and LifeWay.com are not selling Mark Driscoll's books while we assess the situation regarding his ministry," the company said in a statement. lRelated Lauren Bacall on writing: The most complete experience I've ever had Jacket Copy Lauren Bacall on writing: The most complete experience I've ever had See all related 8 Driscoll founded Seattle's Mars Hill Church in 1996; it has grown to a reported 13,000 attendees and...

Socialist Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant drafted a letter this week calling for an immediate end to all U.S. government military aid for Israel.

To understand the current unrest at Mars Hill Church, you have to go back to 2007. In the autumn of that year, Mars Hill was an emerging evangelical powerhouse, attracting national attention for its combination of ultraconservative theology and rock ’n’ roll posturing. It had grown over the previous decade from a Bible group in pastor Mark Driscoll’s living room to a multi-campus institution drawing 4,000 attendees to services every week. Paul Petry, Mars Hill’s pastor of families and member care at the time, says that roughly 1,600 of those 4,000 people had joined the church as full-fledged members—they’d taken...

After touching down around 3:15 p.m. at Boeing Field, Obama's first stop will be to a mansion in Seattle's Madrona neighborhood where 250 people will attend a fundraiser. From there, he'll head to former Costco CEO Jim Sinegal's Eastside home at Hunt's Point for a fundraiser there.

Man sets house afire trying to kill spider with lighter, spray paint SEATTLE -- Fire officials say a West Seattle man was using a lighter and a can of spray paint to kill a spider in his laundry room when the house went up in flames. Fire crews were called to a home in the 10200 block of 34th Avenue SW just before 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday. Firefighters originally battled the blaze from a distance after learning there may be ammunition inside. Crews were eventually able to extinguish the fire, but not before it did significant damage to the structure....

When Seattle passed their new city council ordinance mandating a staged increase in the minimum wage to $15.00 per hour, many local businesses – as well as observers across the nation – were left shaking their heads. The rules seemed to be unevenly applied, with some businesses having to comply but not others, as well has having a complete disregard for whether or not the job providing entities would be able to remain competitive and survive under the new rules. As Reuters reports, a coalition of business owners are now moving to exercise the power of public support to...

Ali Muhammad Brown was charged with executing two gay men in Seattle. Brown was previously prosecuted federally following an FBI probe into an Islamic group suspected of supporting jihadists overseas. This devout Muslim is also a registered sex offender for crimes against a 6-year-old girl, the same age as Aisha when Muhammad married her. He was previously prosecuted as part of a federal investigation into a sleeper cell thought by investigators to be linked to a terrorism funding organization. “One prominent member of the group is thought to have been killed waging jihad in Somalia after fleeing prosecution in the...

For LGBTQ couples who met that special someone over Pride weekend — or who already have but just haven’t set the date — Seattle’s tourism agency will be awarding four free wedding trips to LGBTQ couples in a sweepstakes that starts July 1. Sponsored by Visit Seattle, the hosted trips include the opportunity to be married by Seattle’s first openly gay mayor, Ed Murray, along with air transportation provided by Alaska Airlines, a four-night stay at the Renaissance Seattle Hotel, a wedding ceremony at Canlis restaurant, DJ and music, wedding photography, sparkling wine courtesy of Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery, beer...

Thieves attempt carjacking, but can’t get away in a stick shift SEATTLE – A 70 year old woman is stopped by three young men with a gun right outside her Seattle home. They got her keys, but they didn’t get away with her car. That’s because when the would-be thieves got in Nancy Fredrickson’s car, they discovered it was a stick shift. None of them knew how to drive a manual, so they ended up ditching the car and running away. Nancy Fredrickson had just returned home yesterday afternoon, after buying some things at a garage sale. She was getting...

Seattle recently raised the minimum hourly wage that employers in the city must pay to $15. That puts Seattle out in front in America’s Living Wage Derby – hooray! Mayor Ed Murray boasts that the high minimum wage makes his city “the model for the nation.” Not only that, but the big increase, over Washington state’s minimum wage of $9.32 per hour will, he says, enable the city to “regain economic strength.” Great objectives, Mr. Mayor, but I don’t know why you’re being so stingy. You have at best taken a baby step towards fairness for workers and economic vitality....

t's not like a player would ever forget winning the Super Bowl, but it's nice to have a giant diamond ring there to remind you. Seattle Seahawks owner Paul Allen revealed his team's ring. Unlike a lot of Super Bowl rings, it's kind of cool, or at least not overdone and as tacky as some of them are.

Jesse Brisbin, a 30-year-old twice-convicted sex offender allegedly attempted to abduct a six-year-old girl from a Seattle park on Thursday evening, but he picked the wrong park to act on his compulsion. According to witnesses, he made it about three blocks with the girl after grabbing her by the hand and wrapping his shirt around her face before a group of about 20 neighborhood children and adults caught up with him. According to the Seattle Police Department, the six-year-old girl broke free and Brisbin tried to run away. The men tackled Brisbin, who lives only about a half-mile from Benefit...

A federal lawsuit filed Wednesday challenges Seattle’s adoption of what would be the nation’s highest minimum wage as unfair to small franchises. […] In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle, the International Franchise Association, a Washington, D.C.-based business group, said the ordinance “unfairly and irrationally discriminates against interstate commerce generally, and small businesses that operate under the franchise business model specifically.” …

Mix-A-Lot invited women to join him onstage, where he was backed by an orchestra. "Since tonight is orchestral movements from the hood night, I'm going to leave some of this open if a couple of ladies would like to get up on the stage," he told the audience. "Many musical innovations have been made in hip-hop music that can bring new energy, sounds and rhythm to the classical world."

It didn’t take long after yesterday’s shotgun attack by a non-student at Seattle Pacific University for word to get out that the brave actions of students ended the attack before far more people could be injured or killed. The friends of the first man to go after the armed suspect quickly identified the bashful hero to the world via Twitter.

The gun lovers who preach that arming American citizens to stop even more violence always ignore the fact that Wayne LaPierre was wrong. “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” LaPierre, the National Rifle Association’s executive vice president, infamously said after a gunman in 2012 killed 20 schoolchildren and six adults in Newtown, Conn. Yet looked what happened Thursday. According to police, a student building monitor named Jon Meis used pepper spray to subdue a shooter who had already killed one student and wounded a couple others at Seattle...

Seattle police are investigating a shooting at Otto Miller Hall on the Seattle Pacific University Campus. Officials say there appears to be seven victims; no fatalities.

Hippie infestation. Seattle’s city council on Monday unanimously approved an increase in the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour, making it the nation’s highest by far. The increase was formally proposed by Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, and his spokesman said he intends to sign the ordinance on Tuesday. Apparently unaware that it doesn’t have the weather advantages that other places pricing themselves out of existence do (Los Angeles, anyone?), Seattle seems to be ready to set a record for how many businesses it can ruin. The earnest idiots who whip up this minimum wage frenzy always use big corporations...