Free Republic

A special education instructor placed on paid leave for allegedly abusing an autistic third-grader was elected president of the Seattle teachers’ union on Friday. Ibijoke Idowu-Holiday, a former Black Lives Matter organizer and special education teacher at Rising Star Elementary, won the election to lead the union representing 6,000 staffers in the Seattle Public Schools system. The educator rose to the top in spite of the disturbing accusations against her. Idowu-Holiday was accused of repeatedly abusing a disabled boy over the last school year by the student’s family, including one instance that was witnessed by his therapist. The child, who...

Federal authorities charged more than 25 alleged members and associates of Tren de Aragua (TdA), seizing more than 80 firearms, roughly 18 kilograms of drugs and more than $100,000 in cash as part of a sweeping crackdown on the violent transnational gang. President Donald Trump has helped unleash the full power of federal authorities by designating TdA a foreign terrorist organization last year. Now, more than 260 members and associates of TdA have been charged. "This FBI and our interagency partners continue to break violent gang networks all over America, and today’s massive takedown of 25 Tren de Aragua members...

The union representing thousands of baristas at Starbucks has bailed on its attempt to bring employees at the Pike Place Market coffeehouse into its fold. ... The coffeehouse’s baristas filed for union election on April 3, according to Workers United. At the time, barista Nailah Diaz pointed to “unfair treatment and operational issues without the support needed to succeed.” Not every employee at the Pike Place store agreed. Barista Derika Muna, 27, told The Seattle Times on Tuesday that she unknowingly went to a union organizing meeting at the behest of a co-worker, believing it to be a casual meetup...

SEATTLE, WA - Thousands of demonstrators gathered in Seattle on Friday to mark May Day, continuing a 140-year tradition of advocating for American workers' rights.While the day is rooted in labor history, this year’s participants also focused on immigration reform and opposition to current federal policies including the US's involvement in multiple wars.Participants at the rally spoke on how modern workers' rights are inseparable from immigration issues and international concerns.Many demonstrators voiced specific opposition to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the current presidential administration’s handling of immigrant labor.

At the end of Ayn Rand's novel, Atlas Shrugged, the main characters are in an airplane, fleeing New York City, which is undergoing an economic collapse after the left took over and all of the producers fled. As they pass over the city, the lights go out; all of them, plunging the city into darkness. One of the protagonists, railroad mogul Dagny Taggart, sees this and says, "It's the end." The main character, inventor John Galt, corrects her: "No. It's the beginning." Seattle's new socialist mayor, Katie Wilson, seems determined to replicate the ending from Ayn Rand's novel. Her lunatic...

TACOMA, Wash. - At least five people were injured after a stabbing incident at Foss High School in Tacoma, Washington on Thursday afternoon. Officers responded to a call of a possible stabbing stemming from a fight, and found four students and a security guard injured. Police said it remains unclear whether all the victims were stabbed or hurt by other means, such as falling, and the extent of their injuries is not yet known, though they are believed to be non-life-threatening. All five victims were taken to a local hospital, where officers are working to gather updates. Authorities said it...

When a group of engineers and researchers gathered in a warehouse in Mukilteo, Wash., 10 years ago, they knew they were onto something big. They scrounged up tables and chairs, cleared out space in the parking lot for experiments and got to work. They were building a battery — a vanadium redox flow battery — based on a design created by two dozen U.S. scientists at a government lab. The batteries were about the size of a refrigerator, held enough energy to power a house, and could be used for decades. The engineers pictured people plunking them down next to...

Seattle could lose hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue as Starbucks expands operations in Tennessee, a local outlet estimates. Fox 13 Seattle reported Tuesday that the Emerald City "could lose up to $750 million in tax revenue in the coming years as Starbucks expands in Tennessee instead of Washington." In a press release Tuesday, Starbucks announced it will invest $100 million and bring 2,000 new jobs to Nashville. "Starbucks has major plans for its newest business location, where it will employ up to 2,000 people over the next several years to serve in a variety of corporate-related operations,"...

A box containing hundreds of unopened Washington state ballots was reportedly discovered on the ground next to a dumpster behind a strip mall in Renton, raising serious questions about ballot handling and election security. Washington State Republican Party Chairman Jim Walsh said a concerned citizen brought the ballots to the GOP’s Bellevue headquarters after finding them discarded. “Earlier today, a concerned citizen contacted me and came and dropped off at the Bellevue headquarters a large box of ballots, Washington State ballots, specifically King County elections ballots, that were mailed to people and never received,” Walsh said in a video posted...

The Washington State Attorney General’s Office staff has billed more than 34,000 hours working on lawsuits filed against the Trump Administration since November 2024, according to records obtained by The Center Square. More than two thirds of those hours billed within a six-month period. The 34,000 hours represents a combined 1,416 days or 3.9 years of billable work. “That's a significant amount of time even for an agency with 800 lawyers,” Citizen Action Defense Fund Executive Director Jackson Maynard told The Center Square. “For comparison a lot of private law firms have billable requirements for lawyers in the range of...

Seattle is ramping up cleanup efforts as it prepares to welcome tens of thousands of visitors for the FIFA World Cup this summer, with a new report highlighting millions of pounds of waste removed, hundreds of thousands of sharps collected, and growing community participation across neighborhoods. The Seattle Clean City 2025 Community Impact Report, released April 14, outlines what the city calls a year of major milestones, stronger partnerships, and expanded, data-driven strategies aimed at keeping streets and public spaces cleaner and safer. In 2025, Seattle Clean City and its partners collected and removed 5.3 million pounds of waste from...

Two high-profile Democrats on Sunday called for Rep. Eric Swalwell to exit Congress as controversy continues to grow after sexual assault allegations surfaced against the California candidate for governor. Eugene Vindman said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union" that Swalwell should resign from Congress and drop out of California's gubernatorial race. "The accusations are absolutely heinous, and his admissions betraying his family are deplorable," Vindman said to host Dana Bash. "So Eric Swalwell needs to resign. He needs to drop out of the race… we should not tolerate this behavior, and Representative Swalwell needs to go." Vindman made the...

A Palo Alto father who has filed multiple lawsuits against major university systems over his son's college rejections says artificial intelligence has become the key to pursuing the cases after no law firm agreed to represent them. The legal fight stems from a 2023 ABC7 News story about Stanley Zhong, then an 18-year-old Gunn High School student with a 4.4 GPA and a near-perfect 1590 SAT score who was rejected by 16 out of the 18 colleges he applied to. Despite the rejections, he was later hired as a software engineer at Google. Two and a half years later, his...

A sickening discovery is under investigation after 20 dead “canines” — apparently skinned and with their front paws removed — washed ashore on a Washington State island in less than two weeks. The Skagit County Sheriff’s Office said deputies responded to the disturbing sight on March 26 when beachgoers discovered six carcasses on Guemes Island, about 85 miles north of Seattle, according to officials. --- Cole said she believes the carcasses may have been dumped from a boat with cinder blocks attached, noting that “the way that they all landed here on our beaches was such that they kind of...

Thirty-three people are now facing criminal trespass charges in connection with a pro-Palestine demonstration last year that caused an estimated $1 million in damage to a University of Washington engineering building. The 33 individuals arrested during the demonstration have been charged with criminal trespass, a gross misdemeanor. However, they are not facing felony charges tied to the property damage, as prosecutors say there is not enough evidence specifically linking any of them to that crime. Nearly a year after the demonstration, the defendants appeared before a judge to answer for their alleged actions, pleading not guilty to the charges. By...

The Thurston County Board of County Commissioners passed an ordinance requiring home sellers to conduct Home Energy Score assessments when listing a house for sale. The decision makes the county the first in the nation to mandate such a program, said Ashley Arai, Director of the county’s Community Planning and Economic Development Department. The board voted 4-0-1 to pass the ordinance on Tuesday, March 17, with Commissioner Wayne Fournier abstaining due to concerns about the county's legal authority to implement the program. A Home Energy Score is a U.S. Department of Energy standardized rating system that evaluates a home's energy...

Washington state Democrats are magicians! In the time it takes to say abracadabra, they made millions upon millions of dollars disappear just like that!As if it weren’t bad enough that Seattle is under the reign of a communist mayor, statewide radical Democrats passed a bill masquerading as a “millionaire tax,” ushering in the state’s first-ever income tax.As I reported in a recent West Coast, Messed Coast™ report, this "millionaire tax" was always going to change — POOF! — into a thousandaire income tax, and the Washington Policy Center has the email receipts. But now, as night follows day, as thunder...

Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is ditching his longtime residence in Seattle for Florida, just as Washington Democrats are nearing the finish line on a proposed "millionaires tax." Schultz, who served as board director of the coffee chain until 2023, said in a statement on social media that he and his wife are moving to Miami as part of the "retirement phase" of their lives. Schultz, who has lived in Seattle for more than four decades, purchased a $44 million penthouse in Surfside, Fla., according to reports, and will relocate his private family office to Miami. Schultz, who owns roughly...

Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a self-styled "working class" Washington Democrat, claims she worked in an "iPhone case factory" in college to pay her tuition after her father cut her off because she wouldn’t go to church. But the shop was actually a boutique artisanal workshop that made wooden, hand-crafted cases, according to her former roommate. Gluesenkamp Perez has repeatedly said she juggled the "factory" gig alongside her jobs as a nanny and a barista while attending Reed College, an elite and expensive private school in Portland, Ore. But no major phone case manufacturers operated in the area at the time—as...

CDC Update: Tularemia Outbreak in Prairie Dogs in Texas Tuesday, August 06, 2002 4:15 PM Eastern US http://www.videonewswire.com/CDC/080602/event.html?id=7237