Virgin founder Richard Branson puts his feet up in advance of a “Business Is an Adventure” forum for entrepreneurs in Seattle. (Virgin Atlantic Photo)
Virgin Atlantic inaugurated its nonstop service between London and Seattle today with the glitz that’s typically associated with the airline’s billionaire founder, Richard Branson.
Flight 105 is due to land at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport a little after 3 p.m. today, almost 10 hours following its takeoff from London’s Heathrow Airport.
Among the passengers on the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner jet is British singer-songwriter Raye, and it’s clear from Twitter that she was part of the in-flight entertainment:
Branson himself will be in on the festivities in Seattle, headlining a forum on Tuesday for the region’s business leaders and entrepreneurs at Axis Pioneer Square. In emailed comments, Branson told GeekWire that he’s looking forward to the “Business Is an Adventure” session:
“Seattle is a dynamic city, especially when it comes to business, and so we set up our event to celebrate approaches to disrupt the status quo. We need more entrepreneurs to be brave and embrace global opportunities and approach business differently, purposefully.
“Virgin Atlantic and I relate to visionaries, rule breakers, people who aren’t afraid to fly in the face of naysayers. People like Nadia Shouraboura, a retail revolutionary changing the game with innovation, Jonathan Sposato, a serial entrepreneur who has turned his focus to empowering female entrepreneurs, and Chase Jarvis, who has taken his passion for creativity and turned it into the world’s largest live-streaming education company.
“They are just some of the people with inspiring stories to share on Tuesday. See you then!”
GeekWire will be passing along live video coverage of the panel discussion, which starts at 11 a.m. PT. Questions can be submitted via Twitter to @VirginAtlantic using the hashtag #HelloSeattle, or posted as comments on Virgin Atlantic’s website. (Full disclaimer: Sposato, who’s on the panel with Branson, Shouraboura and Jarvis, is GeekWire’s chairman. KING5’s Mimi Jung is the moderator.)
Branson and Virgin Atlantic are dishing up his week’s hoopla to call attention to the airline’s newly inaugurated nonstop London-Seattle service. Virgin Atlantic is flying the flag for Flight 105 as the result of a swap with Delta Air Lines, its joint venture partner.
Just last week, Branson had Seattle on his mind for another reason: Seattle-based Alaska Airlines announced that it would be retiring the brand of Virgin America, the airline it acquired last year.
Branson’s Virgin Group held a minority voting stake in Virgin America, due to U.S. regulatory requirements, and thus had no say in the acquisition or the brand retirement. Nevertheless, Branson wrote a “Dear Virgin America” farewell letter that wedged in a plug for Virgin Atlantic’s Seattle service.
What will Branson say about Virgin America’s passing while he’s in Seattle? And what will Virgin Atlantic do for an encore during the return flight from Seattle to London? Stay tuned for the next episode of “The Rebel Billionaire.”
SEATTLE -- Virgin Atlantic marked its new service between London Heathrow and Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Monday with a ceremonial flight that featured a live-streamed in-flight performance by up-and-coming UK pop-star Raye and an on-the-ground welcome of the Boeing 787-9 by Sir Richard Branson, president of Virgin Atlantic.
Virgin Atlantic’s service -- which launched Sunday before being celebrated with the ceremonial Monday flight -- replaces service currently operated by joint-venture partner Delta Air Lines. It will increase the annual capacity on the route by more than 40,000 seats, Virgin Atlantic CEO Craig Kreeger told Today in the Sky during the Monday flight to Seattle.
“The Seattle market also fits better with the Virgin brand,” said Kreeger. “Seattle is a young, entrepreneurial, innovative, outdoorsy risk-taking kind of city and when you think of the element of the Virgin Atlantic brand and who we attract, it just seems like a great fit.”
At a press conference following the arrival of the flight and the kick-off of several days of in-city celebrations and events, Kreeger noted the Virgin brand was already well known in Seattle and on the West Coast thanks to the airline’s U.S. sister, Virgin America.
Alaska Airlines (Delta’s major competitor in the Seattle market) purchased Virgin America last year for $2.6 billion and announced last week that while Alaska will adopt some of Virgin America’s amenities and some of its cool "vibe," it will retire the Virgin America name and brand by 2019.
Saying he prepared to be polite, but “decided not to be,” Branson shared his thoughts on Alaska’s decision at the post-flight news conference.
“It’s baffling and sad,” said Branson. "When I sat down with Alaska, I genuinely believed that they would treasure the brand, that they would treasure the people, that they would treasure the product and that they knew what they were buying, And that the last thing they would do would be to rip the heart out of it, which seems effectively like what they decided to do.”
“It just seems such a waste,” said Branson. “I wonder what it was that Alaska bought and why did they bother?”
Branson also noted that Alaska has to continue paying royalties on the Virgin America brand under the licensing deal until 2040, “despite what you might have been told.”
As for Virgin Atlantic's new route to Seattle (VS105), it departs Heathrow daily at 1:20 p.m. and arrives in Seattle at 3 p.m. and leaves Seattle daily at 5:50 p.m. and arrives the next day in London at 10:50 a.m.
The route is being served by a Boeing 787-9 aircraft with 264 seats, including 31 lie-flat “Upper Class” seats, 35 premium economy seats and 198 economy seats. Virgin Atlantic's 787 "Dreamliners" will replace the Boeing 767s that partner Delta had been flying on the route. Delta's 767s carried about 50 fewer passengers than Virgin Atlantic's 787s.
Harriet Baskas is a Seattle-based airports and aviation writer and USA TODAY Travel's "At the Airport" columnist. She occasionally contributes to Ben Mutzabaugh's Today in the Sky blog. Follow her at twitter.com/hbaskas.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (AP) — Austin Burton waited nearly 2 1/2 seasons to get his first Purdue start.
It turned out to be well worth the wait.
With Aidan O’Connell out with an undisclosed injury, Burton stepped in threw three touchdown passes and kept the Boilermakers in control throughout the second half and lead Purdue past Florida Atlantic 28-26 for a badly-needed victory Saturday.
“It was a century ago,” Burton joked when referencing his only other college start at UCLA in 2019. “As you get older, you learn more and you have a more calm feeling so I definitely felt ready to play. You just try to make the most of it and kind of maximize the moment.”
Coach Jeff Brohm said O’Connell was injured early in last week’s excruciating loss at Syracuse and was listed as questionable. As the week dragged on, though, Burton said he sensed he would get the start for the Boilermakers (2-2, 0-1 Big Ten).
He was ready — right from the start. He hooked up with Charlie Jones on a 7-yard TD pass on the opening possession and on a 12-yard TD pass with 18 seconds left in the first half to give Purdue a 14-13 lead. They never trailed again.
Burton finished 21 of 29 with 166 yards and one interception while Jones, his roommate, caught nine passes for 59 yards.
“He can throw the football, he can buy some time and he can slither through the hole,” Brohm said of Burton. “We just have to continue to mold this thing and make sure this package fits well.”
But he wasn’t perfect on a night Florida Atlantic (2-3, 1-0 Conference USA) nearly ended a 26-game losing streak to Power Five teams. Their only win came against Minnesota in September 2007 and they certainly had chances.
After Purdue took a 21-13 lead in the third quarter, the Owls converted Burton’s interception into a 16-yard TD pass from N’Kosi Perry to Lajohntay Wester to make it 21-20.
When Burton answered with a 4-yard TD pass to TJ Sheffield, Perry found Walker for a 5-yard score to make it 28-26. A trick play on the 2-point conversion attempt backfired as Wester’s pass was picked off in the end zone by Cam Allen.
Purdue closed it out with a fumble recovery in the final minute.
“Really happy with the way the guys competed in the ballgame,” Owls coach Willie Taggart said. “But we made some mistakes that really hurt us.”
THE TAKEAWAY
Florida Atlantic: The Owls played well Saturday, going toe to toe for four quarters against a bigger, faster, stronger opponent. Taggart and his squad will now focus on the Conference USA title chase and they could be a legitimate contender if they keep playing this way.
Purdue: After giving away two of their first three games in the final minute, the Boilermakers desperately needed a win. They got what they needed — though it was ugly at times. They ran the ball when they had to and pulled it out to give them some momentum heading into Big Ten play.
TOUGH BREAK
Taggart was unhappy with two calls but one in particular– an illegal block call that erased a 3-yard TD pass to Je’Quan Burton with 11:32 left in the game and wound up leading to an interception.
“Unfortunately that TD called back was a bad call and the official told me it was a bad call,” Taggart said on his postgame radio show. “That’s disappointing, a missed call. On the road against an opponent like that, we’ve got to play a clean game all game and we didn’t play clean.”
STAT PACK
Florida Atlantic: Perry was 18 of 30 with 230 yards, three touchdowns and one interception. He also had 13 carries for 93 yards. … Wester finished with nine receptions, 90 yards and was on the receiving end of all three scoring plays.
Purdue: Downing had 15 carries for 113 yards. The Boilermakers ran 36 times for 188 yards. … Chris Jefferson had his second interception this year.
PLAYING SHORT-HANDED
O’Connell was just one of Purdue’s missing starters. Injuries also forced running back King Doerue and receiver Broc Thompson to miss their second straight games. Linebacker-safety Jalen Graham hasn’t played since the opener and offensive lineman Cam Craig also sat out Saturday.
UP NEXT
Florida Atlantic: Takes next week off before visiting North Texas on Oct. 1.
Purdue: Heads to Minnesota next Saturday in a potentially key West Division contest.
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Five years ago, we would have laughed you out of town for suggesting this even be on the list, not to mention top five. But times have changed: there’s hardly a big-name chef or restaurateur in town without a spot here -- Tom Douglas has a half-dozen alone, followed by Kurt Beecher Dammeier (standout: Butcher’s Table), Ethan Stowell, Josh Henderson, and Dan Bugge. But, miraculously enough, small shops have held their own: Row House Café, Pam’s Kitchen, and Berliner Doner Kebab keep affordable lunch within reach, along with a daily dose of food trucks and the lovely Anar.
Plant-based poultry brand Skinny Butcher announces its line of Crazy Crispy Chick’n products are now available in hundreds of US Costco and Safeway locations, in addition to Walmart locations nationwide.
Shoppers can now find Skinny Butcher’s Chick’n in the following stores:
Costco – Northern California, Midwestern United States and select Utah locations
Walmart – all US locations
Safeway – Mid-Atlantic, Seattle and Intermountain
Love at first bite
According to Skinny Butchers, its breaded chicken products are consistently wowing key decision-makers at major retailers, who are excited to learn about and sample the brand’s proprietary recipes.
“Major chains were eager to learn about our proprietary formula of plant-based products that are virtually indistinguishable from their animal-based comparables,” explains Dave Zilko, CEO of Skinny Butcher. “Once they got a chance for a taste, we had them at first bite.”
An “unparalleled” product
Made with pea protein and a special strain of vegetable fiber, Skinny Butcher’s chicken was co-developed with Golden West Food Group specifically to “outcrisp the competition.”
“Our team of culinary professionals have created everything from classic favorites to trend-setting plant-based alternatives using the latest processing and cooking technologies,” comments Zack Levenson, COO of Golden West Food Group. “We are excited to share our collaboration with Skinny Butcher that showcases our continued innovation.”
This spring, the company thrilled the internet with the launch of Stranger Things-themed Crispy Chick’n Nuggets, featuring a specially designed box based on the hit Netflix show. According to the brand, Skinny Butcher’s combination of a delicious-tasting product with fun and cheeky branding is a winning formula.
“We are confident that consumers will be drawn in by the butcher’s endearing wink, but especially wowed by restaurant-quality food available at their favorite stores,” notes Zilko. “We promise that you will not only love the overall flavor profile, but also feel good about choosing a more sustainable option.”
He adds, “There are a variety of plant-based options currently on the market, but nothing that is sustainable, soy and palm oil-free, employs our unique breading system and is, above all, crazy delicious.”
Contingent from Tacoma SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) at anti-war rally, Judkins Park, Seattle, Washington, 27 October 2007. (Photo by Joe Mabel via Wikipedia)
Did you think the government stopped infiltrating peaceful anti-war groups in the ‘60s?
Think again.
One of the most important cases of domestic spying in decades just happened right here in the Pacific Northwest. The saga began in 2007 when activists began protesting the use of public ports in Tacoma and Olympia to transport tanks and other military equipment overseas.
John J Towery II, a civilian employee of the US Army working in the Force Protection Division at Fort Lewis, was tasked with making sure the shipments made it safely to port.
Public records indicate that he spied on Pacific Northwest activists for the US Army and for the Regional Intelligence Group 5 (RIG5) of the Washington State Fusion Center (WSFC), which serves as an information hub for federal, state and local law enforcement, allowing agencies to share information about threats, including domestic terrorism.
Between 2006 and 2009 Towery attended activist meetings, protests and social functions.
He became friends with other group members and would visit their homes, stepping outside occasionally to send email updates to his supervisors.
But then he got caught.
The activists who unmasked Towery used counter-surveillance tactics that could serve as a manual for other groups looking to weed out unconstitutional government spy operations.
Here’s how they did it: In the wake of a wave of mysterious arrests for “attempted civil disobedience” in November 2007, members of the peace activism groups Port Militarization Resistance and Students for a Democratic Society filed public records requests that ultimately resulted in the release of a trove of documents revealing that Towery had been attending meetings as a spy.
A group of activists filed suit against Towery in 2010, alleging that his infiltration of their peaceful political meetings violated their 1st and 4th Amendment rights and the Posse Comitatus Act, a law intended to keep the military from engaging in domestic law enforcement.
“JBLM does not have a comment,” wrote Joint Base Public Affairs Officer Joseph J. Piek in an email. “John Towery no longer works for the U.S. Army, and he is no longer at JBLM.”
Panagacos v. Towery was dismissed June 18 by U.S. District Judge Ronald B. Leighton, but the plaintiffs filed an appeal July 16th.
John Towery. (Photo courtesy of johntowery.com)
Five things we’ve learned about domestic spying from Panagacos v. Towery:
1) The intelligence community thinks all sorts of people are worth watching
If you’ve participated in a political action in the Pacific Northwest in the last decade, your name is probably on a list somewhere. Documents obtained by Drew Hendricks, a Pacific Northwest activist, show that Sgt. Chris Adamson and his colleagues at the Washington State Fusion Center targeted individuals for surveillance for many reasons, such as:
attending vigils outside the Northwest Detention Center
being romantically or socially linked to suspect groups
visiting houses where alleged anarchists lived
2) The army spied on peaceful activists on US soil
Towery originally denied engaging in spying in the course of his duties as an employee of the army.
“I went largely out of personal curiosity. I have a degree in psychology and have always had an interest in why people do the things they do,” he told army investigators when news of his infiltration first broke in 2009.
In a March 28 2014 deposition Towery changed his story, admitting that he was on the army payroll and working during the Port Militarization Resistance meetings that he attended under the alias John Jacob between May 2007 and July 2009.
Towery explained that Sgt. Adamson approached him at a meeting in 2007 and asked if he would be able to share information with the WSFC.
He agreed to do so in an email, later formalizing the agreement by signing on as a confidential source reporting to Adamson.
“The primary purpose of my attending [protests] was to develop threats or potential actions against soldiers and the movements [of military equipment],” said Towery in the deposition. “Any ancillary information that I received that could have been a possible officer safety issue or anything else like that, then, yes, I would report it to Detective Adamson.”
Adamson, who still works for the Pierce County Sheriff’s Dept., declined to be interviewed for this story.
3) The Washington State Fusion Center claims to know nothing
Section of a form used to add a new person to the terrorist watch list. (Via johntowery.com)
The whole idea behind the WSFC is to connect information between agencies. But as soon as this case came to light, the WSFC denied any connection.
The WSFC has consistently distanced itself from the Towery debacle since the story broke. Sgt. Craig H Johnson, a detective with the Washington State Patrol, said, “Adamson didn’t work for the Washington State Fusion Center, he was part of a regional intelligence group out of Tacoma.”
Johnson said he has some awareness of the Panagacos v. Towery suit due to media coverage, but he doesn’t believe that Adamson was directly affiliated with the WSFC or that they knew anything about Towery. Johnson was not working with the WSFC in 2009 and may not have been informed about the Towery case.
The links between Adamson and the WSFC prior to 2009 are rock solid, though. His employment history includes a past position as Director of the Regional Intelligence Group 5 for the Washington State Fusion Center.
An internal email sent in July 2009 reveals a degree of panic following the media debut of the Towery situation. The message was sent to various local law enforcement media contacts by from Department of Homeland Security Officer James Szrama.
“My comments have been we don’t know who this guy is (I assume this is still true),” wrote Szrama. “Second we don’t know why he would say he is reporting to the fusion center. Other then there may be regional guys (RIGS) who mayhave [sic] talked to him. THEY MENTION WAJAC in the text!”
WAJAC stands for the Washington Joint Analytical Center, the previous name of the WSFC. The name change occurred in 2009, after activists requested records revealing Towery was a spy but before they received them.
“This could kill us,” Szrama added before signing off.
4) Government agents trying to infiltrate political groups aren’t always smooth or sophisticated
Drew Hendricks, the activist who requested the public records that exposed Towery as a spy. (Photo courtesy of Panagacos v. Towery)
“I believe Towery was so low level as to be out of the distribution of the Army’s “real” spy network, so he went off on his own foolish efforts in coordination with the local “Fusion Center” sponsored intelligence group,” explained Drew Hendricks, the activist who requested the documents that exposed Towery.
“Because spying on U.S. Persons is not legal for the Army, and because spying on U.S. Persons is also so politically sensitive, I believe it is normally done mostly by Psyops troops,” Hendricks wrote in an email, noting that he suspects he has met between five and seven of the professional army spy types in the last decade, not including Towery.
Towery didn’t arouse Hendricks’ suspicion because he didn’t engage in tactics typically associated with infiltrators.
“Part of why I trusted him was that he never asked me to commit any criminal activity,” said Hendricks.
“I considered him a close friend, a fellow activist, a fellow organizer,” said Brendan Maslauskas Dunn, one of the activists who Towery spied on. “The revelation that he was an army spy hit me pretty hard.”
5) Activists can fight back by documenting everything
“Don’t tear groups apart out of fear of infiltrators, don’t let them take your focus off your goals,” said Larry Hildes, the National Lawyers Guild attorney representing the plaintiffs in the Towery case.
“Just be careful and don’t say anything you wouldn’t want repeated to law enforcement unless you really trust the people you’re talking with. Our discovery of Towery’s role has given us the tools to carefully document a much wider system of police intelligence in great detail.”
Hildes offered some advice for activists looking to avoid infiltration: “Make sure you know everyone. Check people out quietly, verify that people coming in actually know who they say they do. If you have suspicions about someone, do not make a public issue without proof; talk with someone you trust and quietly verify that they are who they say they are.”
What next?
An appeal was filed July 16 with the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the same court that found in Panagacos’ favor on a similar appeal in November 2012.
Hildes is hopeful about the appeal, saying, “we wouldn’t bring it if we didn’t think it would succeed.”
