If you aren’t following @jakerugh.bsky.social, do yourself a favor & drop him a follow. Because man, something is COOKIN’ in Utah! 👀

Jacob S. Rugh@jakerugh.bsky.social · yesterday

1,080 new Utah voters registered Democratic *just last week* 2026 YTD (thru Oct 05) 🔵 DEM +12,504 (+5.0%) 🔴 REP -8,109 (-0.9%) 🟣 UNA +17,335 (+3.5%) 2026 is the first year on record in Utah where DEMS have outregistered REPS (never happened going back 12 years)

1,080 new Utah voters registered Democratic *just last week* 2026 YTD (thru Oct 05) 🔵 DEM +12,504 (+5.0%) 🔴 REP -8,109 (-0.9%) 🟣 UNA +17,335 (+3.5%) 2026 is the first year on record in Utah where DEMS have outregistered REPS (never happened going back 12 years)

Dang! I knew the 9th & 9th Whale was powerful, but they just *barely* unveiled the new paint job and already Hurricane Rachel is aimed straight for SLC!

I made another fun little @amtrak.com tool. This one shows you where along the long distance Amtrak routes it's daytime or nighttime, depending on the train and time of year! daynight.transittools.dev

Amtrak & VIA Rail - by Night and Day

Explore Amtrak and VIA Rail routes by daylight and nighttime

daynight.transittools.dev

Saying he'd be cool with Iran nuking my home city is pretty bad but not quite as bad as when Hillary said some trump supporters were deplorable so I can see why the media turned the latter into a major scandal and not the former

Bayliss Wagner@baylisswagner.bsky.social · 4d ago

BREAKING: In Nebraska rally, Trump just suggested he would be unbothered to see Iran "take out" LA or San Diego: “They could take out a city,” he said. “Let them take—Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego. That’s—this is a very small price to pay."

I was surprised by this on my recent first visit to Chicago. Why build multi-level streets if they're just going to be "Oops! All traffic!"?

Alex Black@imalexblack.dev · 5d ago

The crazy thing about downtown Chicago is there is a whole system of arterial roads and parking lots below street level, AND cars still dominate above ground. Like, can people have at least one of the levels?

Whale Fest in SLC's 9th & 9th neighborhood. We love the whale and we love the new mural, 'Open Your Eyes' by Jiyoun Lee-Lodge!

There's only one 'Jekyll & Hyde' musical in this house!

Sam Brunson@smbrnsn.bsky.social · last wk.

I kind of can't stop thinking about the musical I saw last night. But not because it was good or thought-provoking. It is literally the worst musical I've ever seen in my life, and I've been trying to figure out why.

🍂

They're holding up a major escalation in Iran and a crackdown on abortion until after the midterms to limit political damage. To the extent that the last two years have been a right-wing smash-and-grab operation, the next two will be worse.

Oriana González@oriana.bsky.social · last wk.

SCOOP: White House officials, led by Susie Wiles, have told DOJ to delay any abortion-related action until after the midterms Wiles suggested to Todd Blanche that an aggressive approach on abortion would be negative for the GOP in November @washingtonsun.com www.washingtonsun.com/campaigns/ab...

No Dem is in the race and I do think Alan is a good guy who stands by his principles. He’s giving his district a choice and if there were more people like him in the very red parts of Utah I think we’d all sleep much better at night

Alan Wessman@alanwessman.bsky.social · last wk.

Friends, I’m an independent candidate for Utah House 64, going head to head against the Republican candidate. The election is getting close and any donation now will be enormously helpful to reach voters via signs and mailers. Visit electawessman.com/contribute/ to give my chances a boost!

We both cried today at the Old Courthouse in St. Louis where Harriet & Dred Scott first sued for their freedom. Overwhelmed with sadness at how terrible the world was (and continues to be). And overwhelmed with gratitude for every single person striving to make it better.

Official monthly data is in, and US solar power generation hit a new record high, up 21% compared to this time last year!

Pretty cool to fly over Texas and see hundreds of wind turbines poking up through the clouds. Likewise for vast fields of solar panels.

This 95-year old eel ship still serves their eels the old fashioned way

Surprised Eel Historian, PhD@greenleejw.bsky.social · 2w ago

To get your eels, you took a boat out to the eel ships and bought them. The eel men would fish up your eels from the tank, give them to you, and off you'd go. In 1931, Charles Pathé made a short silent film of it! 4/5 www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfLK...

I'll be flying to St. Louis in the morning for a multi-day conference. Any recommendations for what I should see or do in my down time?

"You could see my hands were full. You couldn’t hear my husband offer to help or hear me tell him to eat. You couldn’t know he was grieving or that I wanted to take care of him that evening... "The benefit of the doubt is more than an expression. It is a life philosophy that asks us to be curious."

ryan cooper@ryanlcooper.com · 2w ago

great piece. man social media is a cancer themomoftheyear.substack.com/p/im-the-mom...

I just went downstairs, walked three minutes to a boulangerie, and got a warm baguette. Tell me again why 15-minute cities are bad.

well done youtu.be/6kZR638ARN8

How Many Kids Did DOGE Kill?

YouTube video by Adam Conover

youtu.be

This is the Stolen Neighbors Quilt. Each of the 11,000 squares represents a person taken by ICE in Minnesota.

I've been listening to a lot of @fallofcivilizations.com and it's so so good. Went looking for a map overlay of the Aztec empire on modern Mexico and was surprised and delighted to find this AMAZING 3d reconstruction of Tenochtitlan tenochtitlan.thomaskole.nl

a portrait of Tenochtitlan

a 3D reconstruction of the capital of the Aztec Empire

tenochtitlan.thomaskole.nl

Jana Riess did a superb job explaining what Diahan Southard and I are trying to do with our #BelongingBeyondBiology research study: religionnews.com/2026/09/18/w...

When DNA tests find skeletons in your family’s closet, these researchers want to know about it

(RNS) — DNA testing has upended some families by finding living relatives we never knew we had. Two Latter-day Saint researchers want to study how people cope with such revelations.

religionnews.com

I had to close my windows because my neighbor got a mini 4-wheeler, which is spewing smoke as the kids ride up and down the street. In our era of cheap, powerful batteries, a gas-powered toy feels backward & kind of medieval. Like how peasants used to dump sewage out their windows into the street.

IIRC, FDNY used to have some aerials with a 19’ jack spread, but I don’t know if they use those anymore. Today though, cities can buy 100’ aerials with a jack spread of just 11 feet.

Patrick Siegman@siegman.biz · 7mo ago

US fire truck makers are now building ladder trucks designed to work well on slender streets. This is a big step forward for traffic safety.😊🧵

They repainted the 9th & 9th Whale and now it's too powerful!

The Salt Lake Tribune@sltrib.com · 3w ago

A tornado touched down in Davis County Friday afternoon, part of a swath of storms that hit the area. Read more: https://www.sltrib.com/news/2026/09/18/tornado-utah-touches-down-davis/ 

one of the big frameworks I use for thinking about the W.E.I.R.D. world I live in is: For most of human history, labor was cheap and materials (and energy) were expensive, and relatively recently that changed to labor being expensive, and materials being cheap. This impacted pretty much everything

YIMBYonese Liberation Army@dingbattitude.bsky.social · 3w ago

For my entire career energy and materials have been so cheap that owners, codes/standards bodies, and architects/engineers could basically just say fuck it when it came to efficiency. Use all copper because we don’t like aluminum. Throw down another 6” of concrete. Etc.

Why did Seattle's former City Traffic Engineer sigh with exasperation in this tweet from 2019? 🧵

People change, you just need to find someone who will change WITH you. Happy 10 years, Kent!

Star Wars x MLB Jersey Concepts. Day 1 Echo Base Wampas The goal was to not use any gradients in the logos, letting or patches. Originally I was just going to design the hat icons but it kind of expanded out from there. (No, I didn't use any AI to make any of this.) ⚾

A statistic that haunts me because it is 100% true and shocking and useless in advocacy precisely because it is true and shocking: Policy that enables a 1-car lifestyle rather than 2 is equivalent to giving a family a $25,000 annual pay raise.

Peter Flax@pflax1.bsky.social · 4w ago

This story buries the lede, but if you pull out a calculator and do the math, AAA found that the average American spends $15,031 a year for a single car! www.cnbc.com/2026/09/14/c...