We have some of the worst air quality in the world: Did you enjoy your smoky hell weekend? No? Me either! The Air Quality Index in Seattle reached around 190 at one point Sunday evening. Being outside felt like being a chimney sweep trapped inside a chimney in Victorian England. Changing winds started moving into the region Monday morning. Hopefully, the smoke will leave pretty soon. Wish for a strong onshore flow. Wish for rain.

Tell us when the smoke leaves, weather people of Twitter: According to the Seattle Weather Blog’s crystal ball, the smoke might linger most of Monday before it starts clearing out. However, the AQI was already down to 100 as of Monday morning. That’s still bad, don’t get me wrong, but it’s better than 190! It’s all about perspective. 

Best guess is that the Seattle area endures one more day of smoky conditions before influx of ocean air clears us out late Mon/early Tue.

— Seattle Weather Blog (@KSeattleWeather) August 21, 2023

Tokitae goes belly up in Miami: Tokitae, also known as Lolita, was the last remaining southern resident killer whale in captivity. She was supposed to make her journey home to the Pacific Northwest after 50 years, but she died Friday from a renal condition. Ted Griffin, the man who first started capturing killer whales to have them perform in captivity, bagged Tokitae and greatly depleted the southern resident orca population. He said he had “no regrets.”

Mass shooting in Mount Baker: A shooting in a hookah lounger along Rainier Avenue South in Mount Baker at 4:30 am Sunday killed three people and injured another six. Police recovered five guns from the scene. So far, in 2023, the Seattle Police Department has seized 869 guns, the highest amount in 13 years, KING 5 reports.

South King County has brain worms: Elected officials in Des Moines and Federal Way are working to shut down existing homeless shelters or deny permits to fully funded shelter projects because, as the Seattle Times reports, they “think shelter and housing exacerbate the effects of the homelessness crisis in their neighborhoods.” What???? I’m going to hazard a guess that giving people no shelter or housing will actually increase the visible signs of homelessness in your neighborhood and will not help find a solution to end homelessness at all! The state is investigating whether these practices are illegal since they may violate a 2021 law that requires cities have a certain number of shelter beds before regulating shelters or housing projects. 

Earthquake, hurricane tropical storm strikes California: A 5.1 magnitude earthquake struck Ojai, California on Sunday right as the tropical storm Hilary struck. Hilary’s path took her through the Inland Empire and then into the heart of Los Angeles, where she hovered above Dodger Stadium and Compton for a while. Then, she went back on her path up the border of LA and San Bernardino. The deserts are flooding, San Diego had the most rain in a single day since 1873, flash flood warnings abound. More storm updates here. 

Soggy Dodgers:

Dodger Stadium is an island. pic.twitter.com/g2mQrKzgS3

— Don Van Natta Jr. (@DVNJr) August 21, 2023

Here comes the mud: 

A wall of mud surged through California’s Sheep Canyon, carrying wood and debris along with it, as Hilary, then a tropical storm, dropped heavy rain across the region. https://t.co/Hlf8MSlN9S pic.twitter.com/mdtj3yWBEp

— CBS News (@CBSNews) August 21, 2023

Is your package late? I’ll tell you why. A historic drought hitting the Panama Canal means lower water levels and lower capacity for heavy ships. To conserve water, the Panama Canal Authority “reduced maximum ship weights and daily ship crossings.” The line to get through the canal earlier this month was “backed up 160 vessels and delayed some ships by as much as 21 days.” So crazy when climate change interrupts the profits of capitalism, the very thing standing in the way of stopping the impacts of climate change. 

Russia crashed into the moon this weekend: Russia bungled its first lunar landing attempt since 1976 when it lost contact with its unmanned Luna-25 craft and it crashed into the moon. 

In case you forgot, here’s yesterday’s hell sun: This apocalypse sun knows that things can only get worse from here if we don’t figure our shit out: 

Just an orb on the horizon for sunset tonight. And that’s not dust on the camera lens. The thick smoke is making sun spots readily visible without a filter. #wawx pic.twitter.com/Dk86n2j34y

— NWS Seattle (@NWSSeattle) August 21, 2023

Don’t read this if you’re a nervous flyer: The US hasn’t had a major plane crash in over a decade, but close calls are happening way more often than we think, and the problem seems to be getting worse. Just last month, the New York Times found “at least 46 close calls involving commercial airlines.” These close calls seem to all be potential collisions with other planes taking off or landing from airport runways. They’re the result of human error likely caused by understaffed and over-stretched air traffic controllers. “The close calls have involved all major U.S. airlines and have happened nationwide.” Air traffic controllers interviewed by the Times said “they feared it was only a matter of time until a deadly crash occurred.”

In Maui news: There are 114 confirmed dead from the Lahaina fires, with only 27 people identified so far. However, 850 people are still missing. 

Frugals in Tacoma linked to listeria deaths: Three people in Tacoma have died and three others have been hospitalized after drinking milkshakes from a contaminated ice cream machine at Frugals restaurant in Tacoma. 

Big news for organ lovers: Surgeons transplanted a pig’s kidney into a brain-dead man to see if the pig kidney would function. For a month, the pig kidney has worked like a normal human kidney and produced urine. Scientists will continue to monitor the kidney for a second month, but this is a huge scientific step for potentially easing shortages of transplantable organs with animal organs. 

Spain wins Women’s World Cup: Spain’s La Roja vanquished England’s Lionesses 1-0 to take home the Women’s World Cup trophy, the country’s first Women’s World Cup win. Olga Carmona, 23, was one of the breakout stars for Spain. She scored the game-winning goal in the final. Carmona’s father died from a battle with cancer two days before the match, but her family didn’t tell her until after she played. “I know you have been watching me tonight and that you are proud of me. Rest in peace dad,” Carmona wrote on social media. 

23-year-old Olga Carmona loves scoring a game-winner

Spain’s captain nets our Goal of the Day to secure La Roja’s first-ever FIFA Women’s World Cup title pic.twitter.com/Lb5AoZt2t2

— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) August 20, 2023

In other sports news: The Mariners are on a six-game winning streak and just finished a full sweep of the Houston Astros. Julio Rodriguez is so hot right now he’s had 17 hits in four games—that’s more than the entire New York Yankees team. Rodriguez broke a Major League Baseball record set in 1925.

The post Slog AM: Seattle Smoke Will Clear Quickly, Tokitae Kicks the Bucket, Spain Wins Ladies’s World Cup appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Larry “Bucket Man” Hunt, a familiar, noisy figure known for playing a bucket drum for passing tourists on Market Street in San Francisco, has died.

Brian Compton, a bassist, music producer and longtime friend of Hunt’s who played with him frequently, said the drummer died Thursday. Compton said friends would organize a memorial service later in the month that would include the pots and drums Hunt was famous for.

Officials at the Chief Medical Examiner’s office in San Francisco confirmed Hunt’s death in an email to The Chronicle. He was 64 years old. The agency did not name a cause of death.

A well-known Downtown personality, Hunt garnered national attention when he appeared in the 2006 Will Smith film The Pursuit of Happyness and America’s Got Talent. He also caused controversy among local businesses, who didn’t always appreciate his almost daily concert on the corner of Market Street near the Powell Street BART station.

But tourists often appreciated the performance and often stopped to take videos with their cellphones. Hunt told The Chronicle in 2016 that he “made San Francisco livelier.”

Hunt’s unique sound came from a drum kit he built himself from 14 5-gallon buckets, three saucepans, a cowbell and duct tape. The drummer, who played his last show in January, also had a following among local musicians.

“We’re all devastated,” said Compton, who first met Hunt near UC Berkeley in the late 1990s.

“Every time I saw him playing drums on the Berkeley campus,” he said. “As a bassist, I liked what I heard.”

Soon the pair began playing gigs at college parties. Compton told the drummer that busker money would be better in San Francisco.

“There are too many weirdos in San Francisco,” Compton recalled to Hunt.

“You fit right in,” Compton told him.

Like other buskers, Hunt filled downtown San Francisco with music and energy until the city went dark in the early months of the pandemic. Hunt would not reclaim his spot on Market Street until more than a year and a half later, when many street performers returned.

Writing about downtown San Francisco’s resurgence after the worst parts of the pandemic, Heather Knight, columnist for the Chronicle, described Hunt’s self-proclaimed “trademark”: setting fire to his drumsticks and licking the flames.

“It feels a lot more like San Francisco,” Knight wrote, “when you can once again encounter break dancing, singing, strumming guitars, juggling and, yes, even flame licking on the city streets.”

Reach Nora Mishanec: nora.mishanec@sfchronicle.com

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