Slog AM: US Shoots Down Another Unidentified Balloon Thingy, Rihanna Performs Super Bowl Halftime Show While Pregnant, Snow Is Possible for Valentine’s Day

China said the US has been floating spy balloons for years: At a Monday press briefing, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson accused the US of flying balloons over other countries’ airspace and using warships and planes to “gather intelligence on China 657 times since the start of last year.” According to NPR, the spokesperson also said the US should “first reflect on itself and change course, rather than smear and instigate a confrontation,” which has the most “I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed” parent vibes ever.

There have been more objects: On Saturday, an F-16 took out an “unidentified object” over Lake Huron! That’s the third spies-in-the-skies mystery in three days! 

🎯 • Bingo! https://t.co/drBTSdyFop

— Nathaniel E Burleson (@nateburleson) February 13, 2023

Okay, last thing about the football game: Those “He Gets Us” Jesus ads you’ve been seeing for months? The org behind the ads had TWO commercials air during the Super Bowl, costing $100 million bucks. Of course, folks started to do some digging, and CNN reports that the group behind the He Gets Us campaign has “connections to anti-LGBT and anti-abortion laws,” and one big donor is Hobby Lobby co-founder David Green. 

Fallout from train derailment in Ohio keeps getting worse. According to WKBN First News, the train that derailed in Ohio last week was carrying even more “dangerous” chemicals than initially reported. A letter from the EPA to Norfolk Southern said, “ethylene glycol monobutyl ether, ethylhexyl acrylate and isobutylene were also in the rail cars that were derailed, breached and/or on fire.” A hazmat specialist told the news outlet that ethylhexyl acrylate is a carcinogen and isobutylene causes dizziness and drowsiness. “There’s a lot of what ifs, and we’re going to be looking at this thing 5, 10, 15, 20 years down the line and wondering, ‘Gee, cancer clusters could pop up, you know, well water could go bad,” the specialist said. Cool, cool, cool.

Stop driving your cars into buildings! Reports the Seattle Times: “…vehicles have struck buildings nearly 700 times in the city since 2012. That is likely an undercount: Crashes that did not elicit a fire department response or news coverage aren’t included. … At 105 collisions, 2022 saw the most crashes for any year of the past 10.”

Every 3.5 days a vehicle runs into a building in Seattle. Questions:
-Was the building wearing dark clothing?
-Was it using the crosswalk?
-Did it dart?
-Was it looking at its phone?
People – it’s the street design!
Behavioral campaigns are not enoughhttps://t.co/nMKXLOKoDu

— Mike McGinn (@mayormcginn) February 12, 2023

There’s a new fentanyl mix. It’s called “tranq,” and a “mental health professional embedded with the Marysville Police Department” told Fox13 that it puts people in a “zombie-like trance, like staring through you as if like a horror film.” What a sound clip. Someone had some media training. Love it when news outlets report on drug issues as though we’re all living in an episode of The Walking Dead. GET BACK IN THE HOUSE, CARL.

ICYMI: Regal Meridian 16 downtown is (probably) not closing! Yay for comfortable reclining chairs that make it way too easy to fall asleep during a movie! 

Smoke day. Catharine Blaine K-8 school in Magnolia is closed today due to smoke damage. KOMO reports the fire was “limited to a storage area just inside the entrance. The SPD Blotter says it was an “encampment” fire, and a witness reported seeing a man set the fire “on the school property then leave once the surrounding building caught fire.” The school will likely reopen Tuesday.

Vote yes on I-135! Ballots are due tomorrow at 8 pm! “But that’s Valentine’s Day, Megan! I wanna eat lava cakes and French kiss!” That’s why you should #votefirst.

Dreaming of a white Valentine’s Day? Your dreams might come true! Seattle Times says, “Many of us across the Seattle area could wake up to a white Valentine’s Day, with a dusting of snow likely to cover rooftops and sidewalks before sunrise Tuesday.” Won’t be much more than that, though.

Rapper Trugoy of De La Soul died yesterday. He was 54 years old. RIP, legend.