1. In a new Gallup poll ranking of "livability," Washington State doesn't rank in the top ten. But there's a big problem, Eric Scigliano writes at Crosscut: The rankings don't consider the impact of climate change. "If a place gets too hot and dry and storm-wracked, or becomes inundated by rising seas, it won’t support the same life and lives it does now. And dental visits and bosses’ attitudes will seem like trivial matters or fond memories."

2. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jay Inslee has released five years of tax returns, the Seattle Times reports ; his Republican opponent, Rob McKenna, remains reluctant to do the same. (Inslee's royalties last year from sales of his book, Apollo's Fire? A whopping $14.)

3. Former City Council member Cheryl Chow, who is dying of brain cancer, comes out as gay to KING 5 , saying she was afraid to come out for more than 60 years (Chow is 66) and that "those years were wasted."

4.  Here in Washington State, bike and pedestrian safety activists failed to convince the legislature to pass a bill allowing cities to lower their own speed limits to 20 mph. In Portland, meanwhile, they're doing it, BikePortland reports.

5. It's a bad time to be a renter. According to the Puget Sound Business Journal , the average rent in Seattle is now almost $1,700, and rising, even as home prices are falling.

6. Finally, Rachel Maddow has this to say about Todd Akin's and Paul Ryan's views on abortion: "Think about the big picture between those two guys, Akin and Ryan. Which one is worse? Saying you want to force a woman who has just conceived against her will to also give birth against her will by order of the government, or telling yourself a fake science fairy tale so you can pretend those women don't exist? ... They both want the same policy. It's just that in the newfangled Republican Mike Huckabee way of justifiying it, they drop the fake science fairy tale. They don't bother trying to make it iseem less barbaric."

Akin, of course, infamously suggested that women who are raped can't get pregnant; both Akin and Ryan support outlawing abortion even in cases of rape or incest.