It Takes Big Glass Balls to lay off 14,000 corporate employees, but that’s just what Amazon plans to do, according to an internal memo the company published online. Anonymous sources familiar with the matter told Reuters the company could cut up to 30,000 employees. It’s unclear who is getting the boot first, but the corporate layoffs are likely to touch every area of the company. Back in June, CEO Andy Jassy told the human world that AI could shrink the company’s workforce. Are progressive revenue taxes a threat to our little boomtown, or was it corporate greed all along?
Mail Those Ballots: A new USPS policy could tack on delays for ballots sent by mail, and today is the last day the postal service recommends dropping your ballot in a mailbox. After that, get your ass to a ballot dropbox. Before you do, read our endorsements and Nathalie’s idiot-proof guide to voting.
Weather: There’s a chance of rain before 1 pm, then a chance of rain after 2 pm.
Worse Weather: The UN’s World Meteorological Organization expects the Category 5 Hurricane Melissa to be a “storm of the century” for Jamaica. The nation has never been hit by a Category 5 storm. Jamaica’s climate minister said the island is at “extreme” risk of flooding. CNN is posting live updates here.
IT: Alaska Airlines’ IT grounded flights when it went kerplunk for 8 hours last week. A financial analyst told The Seattle Times it probably shaved about 15 cents off its share price, or a $26 million loss overall. Talk about fumbling in the fourth (financial) quarter.
ICE Detains Wrong Guy: In Oregon, the bumbling Feds arrested and detained a man named Victor Cruz because they thought he was another Victor Cruz with a history of driving drunk. Cruz is still in ICE detention and congressional Democrats in Oregon are demanding his release. He has a valid work permit and has a pending U visa, which allows crime victims to legally stay in the US. He doesn’t have a criminal record. He doesn’t have a deportation order. And though he was arrested two weeks ago, as of Friday he wasn’t in the detainee locator system. He’s supposed to be there after 48 hours.
USA Kills Another 14 People: Our military struck another four alleged drug boats in the Eastern Pacific yesterday, said Secretary of WAR Pete Hegseth. We’re up to 50 extrajudicial killings in our war on supposed drug cartels, or boats, it’s hard to say.
Seattle Judge Foils Trump Plan to Make More Children Mentally Ill: The Trump administration must release millions of dollars in grants to address a shortage of school counselors, psychologists and social workers. Congress funded the program after the Uvalde shooting, but Trump’s admin ended it over DEI considerations in the grants. The preliminary ruling in US District Court is limited, applying only to some grantees in the sixteen blue states that sued. The ruling will stay in place while the case moves on.
Trump Admin Fires Seattle Immigration Judge: It’s unclear why Judge Susana Reyes lost her job, or why any of the other federal judges who received termination notices on September 11 lost theirs. But most of them were hired when Biden was president. Without Reyes, the remaining eight immigration judges share a caseload of 50,000, reports KING 5.
Trump in Japan: The President met with the newly elected first female Prime Minister of Japan, Sanae Takaichi. She’s a heavy metal drummer, but not cool. She’s ultraconservative and her mentor was former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. They signed two trade agreements, including a less than one-page agreement for the golden age of our alliance and a framework for securing rare-earth minerals. Here’s the AP’s liveblog of the visit.
The Truck: To impress Trump, Japan floated the idea of purchasing a fleet of F-150s. They even parked a gold-hued one outside the Akasaka Palace where Trump is staying. When Takaichi said she might make the F-150 part of his trip, he said “she has good taste” … “that’s a hot truck.”
No It Isn’t: Ford F-150s were too big for the parking lot at my Texas high school, where everything is bigger, including parking lots. Japan is an island that already makes the Kei, the world’s greatest pickup.
Fork You: A Lufthansa flight from Chicago to Germany was diverted to Boston after a man stabbed two teenagers with a metal fork. The man, 28, was charged with one count of assault with a deadly weapon and intent to do harm. According to NBC News, the man stabbed one teen in the clavicle and the other in the back of the head. When the flight attendants tried to subdue him, he allegedly “formed a gun with his fingers, put it in his mouth and pulled the trigger.” He also slapped a woman. If those tray tables could talk.
MAHA Moment: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Tylenol maker Kenvue and its former parent company Johnson & Johnson on Tuesday, alleging they knew the painkiller could cause autism. Tylenol does not cause autism. Texas is the first state to file such a case. In Paxton’s defense, he’s very stupid.
MAGA Moment: Republicans are trying to undo every Joe Biden pardon signed by autopen. In a letter to US Attorney General Pam Bondi, the GOP-controlled House Oversight Committee alleged that Biden was in such a state of cognitive decline that he didn’t know what he was signing. They want Bondi’s lyin’ Department of Justice to launch an investigation. Biden has publicly disputed the claim and the report does not include any evidence that Biden wasn’t making his decisions. If the pardons are void, the administration could prosecute more of Trump’s political enemies.
