Let’s Start With Good News: The Woodland Park Zoo announced its gorilla, Jamani, gave birth. BABY GORILLA, Y’ALL!!! The precious bundle of best news all week was born May 18 at 5:50 a.m., and yes, I have asked Stranger Arts Editor Emily Nokes if she would read the baby’s birth chart. Another Woodland Park Zoo gorilla, Olympia, is also pregnant and due any day now. View this post on Instagram City Council Approves Shelter Expansions: Yesterday, the Seattle City Council approved Mayor Katie Wilson’s bill to increase capacity at emergency shelter sites to 150 beds. After the vote, Wilson says, “This is another big step forward towards my highest priority: rapidly expanding shelter and emergency housing so we can bring people inside.” The Seattle Times notes that the upped capacity is temporary, “and the council will have to return to make the changes permanent in a few months.” RIP: Rep. Barney Frank, the first gay member of the House to come out voluntarily, died yesterday. He was 86. The New York Times obituary is worth a read—he was a smart, funny, take-no-shit politician. This Advocate piece from a couple of weeks ago is worth a read, too. Frank was a champion for gay rights, but not necessarily all LGBTQ rights, as the headlines are saying, because he wanted Dems to roll back their support for trans rights in order to appear more moderate to Republicans.  Go Away, DOJ: The US Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division is investigating Washington for placing transgender women in the Washington Corrections Center for Women. Apparently, there are allegations that the other inmates are being deprived of their Eighth Amendment protections (“nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted”) for being jailed with a transgender woman. Charles Neil Floyd, the First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington, said, “Washington State must protect women inmates from the inherent dangers of incarcerating them with biological men.”  Who’s Charles Neil Floyd, You Ask? He’s not a good guy! He’s a former immigration judge (who loves detaining people!), and Trump appointed him interim United States Attorney for the Western District of Washington in October. Usually, the position has to be confirmed by the Senate, but Washington Senator Patty Murray does not like Floyd. She promised to block his confirmation, saying his “extreme right-wing views are far out of step with the people of Washington state.” So when the 120-day interim window expired in February, those weasels skipped the confirmation process and gave Floyd a new title, First Assistant U.S. Attorney. And now he’s working with the Department of Justice to push Trump’s transphobic agenda in Washington.  More Department of Justice Madness: The DOJ has granted Trump and his family and businesses full immunity from pending tax audits. Al Jazeera says experts and lawyers are calling the move everything from unprecedented to unconstitutional. And yet. About Yesterday’s Primaries: Several states had primary elections yesterday. The big race was in Kentucky, where Republican incumbent Congressman Thomas Massie lost to Trump’s BFF Ed Gallrein. Massie pissed Trump off by being critical of the Epstein files and the Iran war, among other things, so Trump went all in on Gallrein, who will likely proudly be his puppet if he goes on to win in the fall (and he will—he racked up 130,000 more votes than the Democratic victor, Charles Booker). Why Is No One Talking About This? None of the national outlets are seeing the real story in Kentucky’s race, though. George Washington also ran! According to NPR’s results, one George Washington received more than 7,000 republican votes. Ever the journalist, I did some light investigation to see if this was, in fact, the George Washington, and oh goodness, did I fall down a fascinating rabbit hole. “George Focking Washington” appears to run a “movie” “studio” where he makes no, not movies, but RICE, aka “Real Interactive Cinematic Experiences.” Interactive? Like a video game? No. “Interactive, because if you pay attention and are one of the first 20 people to find the hidden message in each movie, you will receive an equal share of 1 million dollars from the proceeds of the movie and get to be in the next movie,” he writes on his website. “Yes, you get paid not laid, this is not Hollywood. I want to reshape the cinematic experience to give back to the people making the movies possible and bring them into the movies in a way that has never been done.” It is AI slop to the max. I can’t look away.  Meta Keeps Promise to Cut Jobs: It’s May 20, the day Meta warned in April that they’d lay off 8,000 employees and, according to the New York Times, “another 7,000 employees would be reassigned to new AI initiatives.” Employees told the Times that Meta has been jumping feet first into building an Applied AI and Engineering team, which “will use the data gathered by the employee tracking program to create AI tools. Sounds a whole lot like saying, “We’ll continue to use you to gather data as we build the tools that will eventually render you obsolete.” Speaking of AI Slop: Oh no, a community college in Arizona used AI to read the names at graduation, and it glitched and skipped dozens of names. The students were pissed, and I get it. If I dedicated years of my life to something and paid thousands of human dollars, I would expect a human to say my fucking name. View this post on Instagram Just the Escape I Need: The first trailer for the Summer House reunion dropped yesterday, and I can’t wait. It’s like Vanderpump all over again. It’s the perfect drama-filled, juicy distraction that has nothing to do with me in the slightest. The reunion will air in three parts every Tuesday starting May 26, and some local bars are hosting watch parties, including Rough Tumble. Support Local Journalism: Are you caught up on recent Stranger headlines? I know I’m biased, but we’ve been doing a kick-ass job covering local news, politics, and arts. Vivian McCall and Hunter Pauli have been following developments in the murder of trans UW student Juniper Blessing. Election season is upon us, and the Stranger Election Control Board research has begun, so Nathalie Graham spoke with District 5 City Council candidate Nilu Jenks. We’ve had stories about Neumos workers organizing and Seattle Art Museum employees unionizing, and an in-depth review of artist Joe Rudko’s latest exhibit. And did you see photographer West Smith’s delightful photos of Furry Night at the Seattle Opera? Anyway, we’re always posting links to other news outlets in Slog AM, so I wanted to brag about my colleagues a little, too. Cool Art Alert: I leave you with today’s Stranger Suggest, the Monochrome: Calder and Tara Donovan exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum. Amanda Manitach says, Tara Donovan’s “sculptural installations are made from (roughly) hundreds of thousands of individual, tiny things—Styrofoam cups, drinking straws, toothpicks, Slinkys, Mylar, and hot glue—to create masses that undulate like oceans or resemble mountainous biological and geological formations.” Look how cool!  View this post on Instagram The post Slog AM: The DOJ Investigates Washington Corrections Center, Trump’s BFF Wins Kentucky Primary, and Barney Frank Dies appeared first on The Stranger. ...read more read less