Everytime you see a generational moral panic, please step back from filtering through your own experience and fears and take a look at what is actually happening. What the panic over Gen Z’s reading habits gets wrong theconversation.com/what-the-pan...

What the panic over Gen Z’s reading habits gets wrong

Despite dire warnings of a ‘postliterate’ generation, data suggests Gen Z is still reading – just in ways many traditional studies fail to capture.

theconversation.com

Arson may have ignited the Old Trails Fire, but the article argues climate change made it far more destructive. Years of drought, hotter conditions and wind created tinderbox conditions, while critics wrongly framed arson as disproving climate change’s role. www.rangemedia.co/if-the-old-t...

If the Old Trails Fire was arson, climate change was its accomplice

Because of arson arrest, online pundits are mocking former Gov. Inslee's argument that fires show danger of climate change.

rangemedia.co

Shaped by an ancient glacial flood, Maytown, WA later hosted a dynamite plant, a 1960s rock festival, and decades of development battles. Today, plans have come full circle: mine the flood's original gravel deposits and eventually restore the land to wildlife habitat olympiatime.com/2026/08/01/m...

While it feels surprising to see conservative arguments against Flock, it probably shouldn't. Libertarian and constitutional right-wingers are waking up to government overreach and 4th Amendment violations. Mass surveillance could unite the left and right inlandnwreport.com/2026/07/30/f...

As local news corporate owners retreat from local editorials to avoid offending readers, journalists are being told to build direct social trust. You can't connect with a community if you refuse to stand for it. Real audience engagement requires having a voice theconversation.com/how-americas...

How America’s newspapers lost their voice

Despite the steady decline in daily newspaper editorials, a longtime editor suggests ways for news organizations to restore the spirit of editorials that can hold public officials accountable.

theconversation.com

This sounds like Asimov's Laws of Robotics, except it holds human creators legally accountable if they deploy engagement-maximizing features that foreseeably harm vulnerable users. Why Congress Must Codify a Chatbot Duty of Care techpolicy.press/why-congress...

Why Congress Must Codify a Chatbot Duty of Care

When it comes to the safety and well-being of America’s youth, a legally mandated chatbot duty of care is necessary, argues Brandie Nonnecke.

techpolicy.press

A local news website near me uses an AI too to write news summaries each day. Oftentimes they are so vague is barely counts as news. /1 www.thurstontalk.com/2026/07/25/t...

Honoring Whitman with a statue is built on a historic falsehood to bolster a white colonial history of Washington State. We should take this opportunity to remove the statue from the Capitol altogether and deconstruct it. washingtonstatestandard.com/2026/07/23/m...

Marcus Whitman statue will soon have a new home in WA Capitol • Washington State Standard

Visitors to the Washington state Capitol won’t be greeted by the towering figure of missionary Marcus Whitman much longer.

washingtonstatestandard.com

Olympia narrowly avoided a downtown I-5 in the 1950s, not for preservation, but because tunneling was too expensive. Had it been built, the city likely would've later needed a second bypass through rural south Thurston County, reshaping growth and doubling the damage olympiatime.com/2026/07/18/i...

Telegram channels tied to white supremacist “active clubs” rapidly reshared the same Patriot Front rally video after its July 4 march. The coordinated timing suggests these supposedly decentralized groups may be centrally organized and linked to Patriot Front blog.openmeasures.io/p/telegram-a...

White Supremacist ‘Active Clubs’ Might Be Less Decentralized Than They Claim

Findings suggest some clusters of Telegram channels affiliated with the groups may be working in tandem or centrally controlled

blog.openmeasures.io

Social Security's deficit is caused by inequality, not demographics. Policy-driven upward wealth redistribution stagnated wages and pushed high incomes past the tax cap. Aligning wage growth with productivity would eliminate most of the shortfall. www.nationalmemo.com/billionaire-...

Social Security Deficits Are Caused By Inequality, Not Demographics

The rich almost completely control debate in this country. There is no better proof of this fact than the current debate over the future of Social Security.This has been conveniently framed as a probl...

nationalmemo.com

Seattle’s World Cup win vs suburban stadium gridlock proves density rules. Urban stadiums integrated into transit grids aren't just better for fans; they're fiscally superior, yielding higher property tax per acre & avoiding the massive public cost of sprawl. www.theurbanist.org/how-seattles...

How Seattle’s Urban Stadium Brought World Cup Success, While Others Floundered

While other cities struggled to handle World Cup 2026 crowds, Seattle thrived, with pedestrians happily exploring and transit records being broken. Good planning and an urban stadium location was key ...

theurbanist.org

"Economists, policymakers and technology leaders must act now to understand the economics of transformative AI and to build the incentives, guardrails, and institutions needed to steer AI in a direction that complements humans and benefits society." We Must Act Now www.wemustactnow.ai

Social media harms kids, but broad age-gating risks ending the open internet. Age verification threatens anonymity and free speech, and instead we should target addictive algorithms, ads, and in-app purchases while giving parents better control tools. www.theargumentmag.com/p/jonathan-h...

Jonathan Haidt is wrong about age-gating the internet

Social media is bad but an internet ID is worse

theargumentmag.com

Thurston County is now majority incorporated, and annexations drove the shift. Plus: poetry, research challenging the phone-driven narrative, election skepticism reshaping politics, and religion across the Cascade Curtain. Subscribe: olympiatime.com/newsletter/ buttondown.com/OlympiaTime/...

John Wesley Powell, 2026

Psychologist Candice Odgers: there's little evidence smartphones are driving a youth mental health crisis. What is driving it is economic stress, opioids, and parents' mental health. youtu.be/dFKwpjKGYyU?...

Kids Aren't Addicted to Phones — Here's the Data

YouTube video by Taylor Lorenz

youtu.be

New data shows most of Thurston County now lives in a city but not because of a shift to urban living. Decades of annexations, driven by property-owner petitions and utility agreements, redrew boundaries. The result fits growth, even if the process often didn't. olympiatime.com/2026/07/11/a...

The University of Washington has some very detailed reports they have made about WHY this is happening. They are using Washington States DOL data. It’s illegal in WA, but the system is accessed via law enforcement and the Feds keep using it anyway. They are most likely doing this EVERYWHERE. 🧵

Finish Through Contact@finishthrucontact.bsky.social · 4w ago

"Unlike previous, more visible surges in Portland, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Minneapolis, the Dept of Homeland Security has changed its tactics, focusing on rapid, dispersed seizures, often on major roads and highways."

The world built by election skeptics to root out perceived "irregularities" has created a monster that local candidates can no longer control. The Torres-Galbraith race proves that "election integrity" has morphed into a standard political bludgeon. washingtonstatestandard.com/2026/07/09/a... /1

A WA state lawmaker says her opponent should end campaign amid stalking investigation • Washington State Standard

Where a Washington lawmaker lives is inciting debate and, police say, criminal activity in a race for Republican-held legislative seat.

washingtonstatestandard.com

Banning phones and AI protects a system of passive learning. If a chatbot can fake an assignment, it tested compliance, not thought. Instead of fighting tech to save dry lectures, schools must design compelling, active learning that an algorithm can’t replicate. theconversation.com/teachers-are...

Teachers are worried about students cheating with AI, but my survey suggests the deeper issue is learning

As schools consider AI guidelines, educators are also thinking about how they can adjust their assignments to accurately measure what students are actually learning.

theconversation.com

"The question becomes reasonable: Is the Democratic brand in Idaho simply too torched, too untouchable (for whatever reason) to succeed anymore in this state?' Whither Idaho Democrats www.ridenbaugh.com/index.php/20...

Whither Idaho Democrats

ridenbaugh.com

A car didn't kill someone; a person driving a car did. Yet headlines say "pedestrian struck by vehicle." This passive framing protects drivers, erases accountability, and treats traffic violence like a natural disaster. Media must stop hiding the driver. www.boston25news.com/news/local/i...

Investigation underway after pedestrian struck, killed in Boston

A pedestrian was struck and killed on Tremont Street in Boston Thursday morning.

boston25news.com

Norway's soccer team and Norway in general is proof that human society is not a zero-sum game. When everyone is taken care of, the best of us thrive. Erling Haaland is having the most fun at the World Cup. There’s a reason why. slate.com/culture/2026...

Norway’s Philosophy of Sports Is Very Different From America’s. Only One of Them Is Still in the World Cup.

We’re fundamentally misunderstanding the point of sports.

slate.com

The same political faction loudest about "government weaponization" and "censorship" is directing federal agents to act like the Gestapo, using armed law enforcement to hunt down and intimidate everyday Americans for simply writing critical emails or social posts. www.techdirt.com/2026/07/07/i...

ICE Rebuts Nazi Allegations By Going Full Gestapo To Hunt Down Critics

Oh boy do the Nazi-esque dudes running rampant in our country hate being called Nazis. They love the Nazi chic and the Nazi talk about securing the nation for white, blue-eyed males, but they hate …

techdirt.com

A judge dismissed a lawsuit against disinfo researchers, finding no evidence they caused social media moderation of conservatives The case chilled academic research, contributed to the closure of Stanford Internet Observatory, and functioned as censorship itself. www.techdirt.com/2026/07/06/c...

Censorship Lawsuit Against Disinformation Researchers Dismissed — After Succeeding At Actual Censorship

Trump-appointed Louisiana federal judge Terry Doughty has spent years bending over backwards trying to help some MAGA faithful manufacture nonsense claims about “censorship” for some gr…

techdirt.com

Prosperity Eastern Washington is shifting to digital outreach to warn rural communities about healthcare and economic impacts of federal policies. It also triedb(and failed for now) to build urban-rural church partnerships aimed at reducing divides. washingtonstatestandard.com/2026/07/06/f...

From billboards to bridge-building, eastern WA nonprofit challenges political divides • Washington State Standard

In eastern Washington, one small group of people has a big dream: to raise awareness about how federal policies are impacting people, especially healthcare impacts in small, rural towns.

washingtonstatestandard.com

Your annual overnight July 4-5 air quality check for Puget Sound

Washington’s years as a territory were defined by division. But after using outside corporate power to gain independence, the 1889 constitution’s Article XII moved quickly to rein in monopolies and protect self-government. olympiatime.com/2026/07/04/f...

Union journalists at five McClatchy newspapers, including The Olympian and Tacoma News Tribune, ratified a new contract after a year of bargaining. It includes 7.2–15.5% raises, a $52K salary floor, bans AI from replacing staff, and prohibits mandatory quotas. www.thestand.org/2026/06/work...

Workers at five PNW newspapers ratify contract

Collective bargaining agreement locks in industry-leading AI protections, wage gains, and raises the salary floor BELLINGHAM, WA (June 30, 2026) — The union newsroom workers at McClatchy Media-owned o...

thestand.org