Ben Watanabe

Been drafting this for a while but finally I'm ready to publish

Internal messages from Live Nation reveal two execs talking about "robbing [fans] blind." “These people are so stupid. I almost feel bad taking advantage of them," one says. That man is now the head of ticketing for the unit responsible for Live Nation's 150 amphitheaters.

Asked whether Americans should be worried about retaliatory attacks at home, Trump acknowledges the possibility: “I guess,” he says “Like I said, some people will die. When you go to war, some people will die.” time.com/7382697/trump-…

US immigration officials picked up a blind Rohingya refugee last week in Buffalo, NY. Then, realizing they had no basis to deport him, they released him five miles from his home. He needed a walking stick and died trying to make his way back to his house: investigativepost.org/2026/02/25/bli…

NEW: No one has heard from Seattle organizer Frank Gabriel Yzaze Yegres since Friday when he said he would be deported this weekend. ICE lookup system says he's in custody, but won't say where. Advocates demand WA congressional delegation step in theburnerseattle.com/post/seattle-o…

The Snohomish County Council is starting a page program for high school students! This year's program will run the week of April 27th - May 1st. If you know of a high school student who might be interested in participating, please scan the QR code below.

"As her 13-year-old son wailed and her older daughter produced paperwork proving her mother was in the United States lawfully, the agents shackled Ms. Mehari and took her away." nytimes.com/2026/01/26/us/…

Drop Site obtained harrowing footage of the latest killing which appears to be from the perspective of the woman in pink filming from the sidewalk

Trump’s paramilitary forces just shot and killed another person in Minneapolis. vox.com/policy/476374/…

Food is further out of reach for more Washingtonians as SNAP funds wither on the vine. 🥫🫰 Just who those Washingtonians are is a question Uncle Sam made a lot harder to answer as federal data on the matter disappears. 💸 #waleg washingtonobserver.substack.com/p/the-best-foo…

ICE agents in Minnesota detained at least four children from the same school district, including a 5-year-old, deepening skepticism about the Trump administration’s claims of targeting violent criminals. wapo.st/3Ny2xmD

The Empire is a disease that thrives in darkness, it is never more alive than when we sleep.

Breaking News: The EPA will stop considering lives saved when setting pollution limits and instead calculate only the cost to businesses. nyti.ms/45RcBNE

Someone who got too paranoid and the man responsible for the Miracle over the Mojave

My last story published last week, as Cascade PBS sunsets its investigative team desk -- ending coverage of a company with egregious safety violations developing a $44 million Port of Longview project. One that's already had an excavator fall into a pond.bit.ly/4hf2Ey7

Breaking News: The Supreme Court lifted restrictions on ICE agents in Los Angeles, allowing them to make indiscriminate stops based on factors like ethnicity. nyti.ms/4geESSt

In 2019, on Trump’s orders, a @USNavy SEAL Team snuck into North Korea to try to plant a device to monitor Kim Jong-un’s communications. A wild story about how the mission went wrong, leaving unarmed North Koreans dead, but no listening device in place. nytimes.com/2025/09/05/us/…

Today’s Daily Cartoon, by Paul Noth. #NewYorkerCartoons

BREAKING: The Israeli military says its strike on a Gaza hospital that killed 20 people, including five journalists, was aimed at what it believed was a Hamas camera. apnews.com/article/israel…

BREAKING: Four journalists, including a freelancer who worked with AP, are among eight killed by an Israeli strike on southern Gaza's Nasser Hospital. apnews.com/article/mideas…

Months after a cognitively impaired New Jersey man died while trying to meet up with a flirty Meta AI chatbot, ‘Big sis Billie’ was still romancing users, tests by Reuters show reut.rs/45DQIRj @JeffHorwitz