The Stranger's morning news roundup. by Vivian McCall Boeing Machinists to vote on contract: Voting began at 8 am and closes at 5 pm. The Machinists union will announce the results at the company’s South Park headquarters after 9 pm. If they accept, the company would bump base pay for the 33,000 Machinists just shy of 40 percent over the next four years. In the last 10 years, union members only received an 8 percent wage increase. That awkward moment when you invest in racist pseudoscience: Look, tech entrepreneurs like Andrew Conru, an emerging local arts funder who founded Adult FriendFinder, have lots of money to sling around. Who can fault them for *checks notes* accidentally investing in scientific racism that promotes the genetic superiority of certain ethnic groups? Last week, the Guardian exposed Conru’s $1.3 million donation to the far-right Human Diversity Foundation in exchange for a 15 percent ownership stake in the organization. He told the Seattle Times he didn’t support hateful ideology and acknowledged that his vetting process could have been more thorough, a world-class understatement. But Conru wouldn’t say if he’d sold off his ownership stake. ICYMI: Mayor Bruce Harrell has proposed legislation to put blast balls, which are essentially little gas-filled grenades the cops use for crowd control, back into the hands of the Seattle Police Department. We took away their “less lethal” toys after their careless use during 2020 protests against racist policing stopped a woman’s heart, damaged a person’s hearing, and bloodied others. Ashley has more on the possible rollback. Soothsayers in our midst: According to KING 5, Clallam County, which is northwest of Seattle, is the only county in the US to vote for the winning Presidential candidate every single time in the last 40 years. Since 1920, it's only gone for the loser twice. Of the 19 other bellwether counties since 1980, all picked Trump in 2020 except Clallam. Bill Gates throws down fat stacks for Harris: The Microsoft founder privately donated $50 million to Future Forward USA Action, a nonprofit supporting Vice President Harris’s campaign, according to the New York Times. The donation was meant to stay under wraps, but since you’re reading it here, and I read it in The New York Times, obviously that did not happen. People familiar with the matter told the paper that Gates is privately worried about cuts to global health and family planning if Donald Trump is elected. In a statement to the Times, Gates did not address his donation or who he was supporting but said “this election is different.” One way it’s different: An NPR review of Donald Trump’s rallies, speeches, and social media posts since 2022 show the former President has made more than 100 threats to investigate, prosecute, and jail his enemies, including political opponents, journalists, and other private citizens. We have to stop being shocked by fascism in America. If Trump wins, we’ll have a president interested in the benefits of dictatorship who wishes he had the kind of generals Hitler had, and whose former chief of staff thinks he meets the definition of a fascist. If Trump loses, we cannot wish away the ideology that has infected his party, or his lasting impact on what’s morally acceptable—or even possible—to say and do in politics. The Russians went after Tim Walz: US Intelligence officials say fake videos claiming that Walz abused students as a teacher and coach were a Russian attempt to disrupt the upcoming election and encourage political violence before and after November 5. Reuters reports that, in addition to Russia, China and Iran are intent on spoon-feeding American voters divisive, rage-inducing, violence-enticing bullshit. Speaking of Walz… Walz: Look, I won't waste all of the time. I will talk about his running mate. His running mate, Elon Musk. Elon is on that stage jumping around skipping like a dipshit. pic.twitter.com/9beOlUedHA — Acyn (@Acyn) October 22, 2024 Not good: Secretary of State Lloyd Austin has confirmed what South Korean intelligence reported last week: There’s evidence North Korea has dispatched troops to fight Ukraine just five months after it signed a treaty of mutual defense and cooperation with Russia. Austin called the deployment a “very serious” escalation. Although South Korean intelligence says 3,000 troops have arrived and 7,000 more are expected to arrive by December, Austin did not confirm those numbers. Moscow and Pyongyang denied the claims, and as of today there’s no hard evidence of North Korean troops on the battlefield. With 1.2 million soldiers, North Korea has one of the world’s largest militaries, but the country has not fought in a major conflict since the Korean War. Antony Blinken met with Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday: Al Jazeera reported the US Secretary of State urged Prime Minister Netanyahu to “capitalize” on Israel’s recent killing of leader Yahya Sinwar and end its war in Gaza. Blinken also pressed Netanyahu to restore the flow of humanitarian aid to Palestinians. Today, Israel carried out multiple airstrikes in Tyre, a port city in southern Lebanon. The UN’s Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs arrived at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza to evacuate critical patients after Israeli authorities reportedly denied their request to supply the hospital with fuel, food, blood, and medicine. Former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO arrested on sex trafficking charges: Mike Jeffries, a man who made a fortune sexualizing youth, allegedly lured young men to druggy, coercive sex parties with his status and the prospect of lucrative modeling contracts. Prosecutors say that Jeffries, his partner Matthew Smith, and employee James Jacobson paying men to travel to cities around the world for sex and then working to keep it secret amounted to sex trafficking and interstate prostitution. According to the indictment, men were not told in advance what kind of sex they’d engage in, and some itineraries resembled ordinary modeling shoots. Jeffries’s attornies deny the claims. Arghh: Researchers in the US and elsewhere say scurvy, an ancient disease of mariners and scallywags, is making an unexpected, very low-level comeback in vulnerable groups unable to access fresh fruits and vegetables. Like worm-infested salt pork, hardtack, and conscription into the British Royal Navy, scurvy would be better left in the past. The result of chronic Vitamin C deficiency, which our bodies need to maintain immune systems and heal wounds, scurvy can cause skin lesions, loose teeth, internal bleeding, and ultimately death. Cases are by no means exploding—researchers in one study only found 265 instances in 20 million patients—but some doctors argue it may be under-diagnosed. New aircraft just dropped: The Federal Aviation Administration issued a final rule for how to operate and train pilots to use electric-powered air taxis, which take off vertically and then fly like fixed wing prop planes. FAA head Mike Whitaker said the “powered-lift” air taxis are the first new category of aircraft in nearly 80 years. Joby Aviation unveiled a model of their all-electric futuristic aircraft at Grand Central Terminal as it prepares to take flight in New York City. The air taxi could launch in the city as soon as next year. pic.twitter.com/OcL7a3A2ji — CBS Saturday Morning (@cbssaturday) October 5, 2024