The Weekend Wrap: Coyotes, Stem Cell Magic, and a Bank Seizure

Compared to the news from Haiti, the local stories feel a little trivial. But it's been a week of being overtaken by events.

Symetra's IPO got off well, and Starbucks got some mojo back, but the stock market as a whole had a terrible week. (Why? Bank trouble in big China.) Amazon announced developers can start writing Kindle apps. Adobe made tangential news when YouTube started using a non-Flash HTML5 video player. The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has learned how to do life-saving things with stem cells from umbilical cord blood. For some reason I didn't know that bankruptcy-filing Taco Del Mar was headquartered in West Seattle.

Seattle's 9.2 percent unemployment is bad, but less than Washington's overall 9.5 percent unemployment.

Seattle Bubble reports that the state's chief economist says if real estate will rebound, it won't be until 2011. Commercial real estate would take longer. Arun Raha also pointed out that the problem with losing our smaller regional and community banks is that they provide credit to small businesses--small businesses that we're counting on create new jobs. Regulators seized Seattle's Evergreen Bank ($482 million in assets) on Friday and sold it to Umpqua Bank in Oregon.

Regulators (of a sort) also trapped and killed an aggressive coyote in Magnolia. It had been stalking golfers. And our friend Charles.

Mayor McGinn and the City Council circled each other warily all week, probing, testing for weaknesses. In each other, not the seawall--that's been determined to be badly compromised for twenty years. McGinn will address the Council this Monday, but so far has given no indication on where he plans to send them. HEY-O! Maybe if we legalize pot the tension will ease. You can read McGinn's argument in his Seattle Times op-ed. He's also found 200 executive-level city jobs he'd like eliminated.

I couldn't find anyone who wanted to pay $4 each way to use a deep-bore tunnel, which is one way I differ from WSDOT, apparently. Their models show tens of thousands of people gladly reaching for their wallets. Possibly those are pre-Recession models. And if you don't think WSDOT won't push a $5 toll you haven't been reading the newspaper.

On the SunBreak, Seth stopped Snoopy-dancing long enough to report on the M's signing Felix Hernandez . RvO might see some coin from the Sonics lawsuit settlement. Jeremy loved Whim W'Him and Jihad Jones. Audrey watched our Seattle entrants on Iron Chef America, and started packing for Sundance--look for her reports here next week. MvB went to Watertown Coffee and played ping pong, and RvO and MvB dropped in at Cafe Flora for weekday breakfast. Clint covered Pyramid's new Fling pale ale and Soundgarden's return.