Ed. note: Ever wonder what happens to stories after they make the news? Where old stories go to die? We'll track ongoing stories, scandals, legislation, and other hard-to-follow-in-the-mainstream-media developments in this section regularly.

Anti-Postering Law Upheld. After three months of arguments and judicial consideration over a ticket for postering, Vivian McPeak has lost his challenge to the constitutionality of Seattle's anti-postering ordinance.

McPeak promises to appeal--and to keep postering. But this was at least the third well-argued attempt to challenge the law, which mandates fines of up to $250 for each and every handbill posted in the city by an identifiable sponsor or postperson. (Unless, of course, you can afford billboards or commercial signs, or unless you're the city itself.) It seems more likely that any future chance to overturn this law--another in a long line of censorious attempts to hide evidence that young and poor people live in Seattle--will need to come via political pressure.

Among the law's political champions, Jane Noland is running for Mayor, and both Margaret Pageler and Mark Sidran may yet change their minds and jump in. All need to be held accountable. Meanwhile, as in other cities (like New York) where Seattle has inspired similar ordinances and resistance, te best way to fight this law is to break it. Often.

No Justice, No Peace Alley. Remember the new "cop shop" substation and private SPD security force being retained by the University District's Chamber of Commerce? The plan is a misguided and futile attempt by yuppie- craving businesses to rid the Ave of the "undesirable" homeless and otherwise commercially unattractive kids who hang out there. (Imagine! Youth! In the University District!) It was passed by Seattle's liberal-led "let's throw all the homeless in jail" gestapo--City Council Division--with virtually no opposition last fall.

To add ironic insult to injury, it appears now that said cop shop is going in at the Ave. building formerly known as "Peace Alley." The storefront, at 4534 Univ. Way, was for many years home to numerous small non-profits, including Physicians for Social Responsibility, Oxfam, United Nations Association, Conscience & Military Tax Campaign, Freedom Fund, and many others. The groups, some of whom had been there over a decade, were unceremoniously given 30 days' notice two years ago when a resume-writing franchise, The Write Stuff, decided it needed a storefront on the main business drag adjacent to campus so badly it offered to pay the building's owner three times the then-current rent plus all remodel costs to move in.

The Write Stuff--exactly the sort of clean-cut, youth-irrelevant business the Chamber loves--predictably closed its doors two months ago. Entre cops. With any luck, the surveillance devices used on the previous tenants will still be there, and the police will be listening to themselves.

More "Community" Policing. Another example of SPD priorities is the report last week in the African-American newspaper The Medium that the annual Black Community Festival has fallen out of the hands of the community activists who have traditionally organized it, and is instead being coordinated this year by an SPD member--reportedly with "Weed and Seed" money.

The use of large sums of federal and local money in Weed and Seed to selectively pursue the drug war in Seattle's poorest (and blackest) neighborhoods has been at least as bad as critics feared. The top-down cooptation of "community" events for ham-fisted anti-drug programs (and failure to show up when SPD is invited to genuinely community-run events) betrays how out of touch with communities--indeed, how utterly disinterested in communities--SPD is. It's also, in the case of the BCF, a useful illustration of just which communities Norm Rice and friends feel the greatest need to weed. And cede.

Cops Lose One. Charges were quietly dropped last month against Critical Mass bicyclists charged with assault (i.e., stopping the pavement with their faces) when a Jan. 31 police riot interrupted their monthly downtown protest. As documented at length in ETS!, dozens of witnesses were on hand to testify to the opposite of police and media reports: it was panicking SPD officers, not bicycle riders, who practiced mass thuggery. Naturally, no charges, disciplinary action, or even investigations against those clearly identified officers are pending.