The Spokane Area Complex Fires have left parts of northwest Spokane (particularly Indian Trail and Five Mile) in ruins. Take a few minutes this morning to flip through The Spokesman-Review’s excellent reporting and photojournalism. I’ll post today’s updates in this thread.

Wildfire leaves Northwest Spokane in a 'war zone'

Droves of people on Sunday witnessed the historic devastation left behind after a raging wildfire raced into the city of Spokane, reducing neighborhoods to piles of charred brick and twisted metal.

spokesman.com

this is not true. there was no conspiracy. it didn't matter whether the streetcars were publicly owned (seattle, detroit) or private (los angeles, atlanta). a thread (because i wrote a whole-ass book on this): 1/?

David Ho@davidho.bsky.social · 3d ago

Is everyone aware of the General Motors streetcar conspiracy? In the mid-20th century, auto and oil interests bought up electric streetcar systems across the US and systematically replaced them with bus routes and paved roads, funneling commuters toward private cars.

Good summary of the effort that goes into reporting out something that might even sound straightforward like public records.

Abby Vesoulis@abbyvesoulis.bsky.social · 3d ago

I first got 1000+ pages of court documents from Miller & Moreno's custody case. Anybody can request these from Cuyahoga County. I reviewed those by myself, one by one—no AI involved!—and the filings pointed to police reports. I then sought those out separately and spent days combing through them.

Autopsies of Black Lives Matter and George Floyd protests often conclude that movements produced tough-on-crime backlash. My new study in Work and Occupations finds a different kind of movement outcome: BLM changed how local reporters cover cops and jails. 🧵 journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

NYT: "A freelance reporter has been fighting a subpoena from the Trump administration seeking to force him to reveal his sources for a New York Times article about a failed top secret mission in North Korea, according to people familiar with the matter." www.nytimes.com/2026/08/01/u...

Justice Dept. Subpoenas Times Freelancer in Effort to Identify Sources

A previously undisclosed subpoena, involving reporting on a failed SEAL Team 6 mission in North Korea, reflects the government’s expanding campaign to investigate leaks of secrets.

nytimes.com

I used to do some work on the ethical use of satellite and drone imagery for aid and disaster response, and it is genuinely hard to express in words what a dangerous, stupid thing Google is doing by making it easy to use GenAI to create faked satellite imagery:

How to plant a nuclear plant in Iran

The question is: what on earth is Google doing?

digitaldigging.org

Agencies are lagging on FOIA and resorting to extremes to close requests. The EPA even rejected our request for an email for being too broad. They relented when we objected to the absurdity of that claim. It shouldn't have come to that. More in @nytimes.com:

Federal Agencies Face Record Backlog of Public Records Requests

A Times analysis of 16 years of available federal data shows federal agencies lag in processing requests for government records.

nytimes.com

Deepfakes are everywhere, but digital forensics investigators are fighting back. Learn more: https://scim.ag/42dMPBg

Out for dinner and hear across the patio “yea, it’s a full suspension cargo bike.” My ears perk up and I try not to eavesdrop too hard.

CANADIAN TRAVEL TO THE UNITED STATES FELL 25 PERCENT IN 2025 as Trump returned to the White House and Canadians opted to spend their vacation dollars elsewhere, Statistics Canada reports. The trend continued into early 2026, “signaling a persistent shift away from the United States”

Canadian visits to U.S. plummet amid Trump tariffs, ‘51st state’ talk

"Canadian travel sentiment shifted abruptly" after President Donald Trump returned to office, analysts said.

washingtonpost.com

Rogue River Blue stands out on many a cheese plate. Thanks to a random encounter with a Whole Foods cheese buyer long ago for that recommendation.

Tom & Lorenzo@tomandlorenzo.bsky.social · last wk.

People on Bluesky sigh and talk about The Discourse as if it were something required of them instead of something they opt to partake in, day in and day out. You really don't have to. Post about your favorite cheese

The Trump administration is sitting on more than $7 billion meant for big transit construction projects around the country: www.nytimes.com/2026/07/27/u...

Congress Budgeted Billions for Big Transit Projects. Trump Isn’t Spending It. (Gift Article)

“It’s hard to look at the last year and see anything other than a deliberate slowdown of these grants.”

nytimes.com

Canadians spent $3.3 billion less on travel to the U.S. last year: nationalpost.com/news/canada/...

Canadians spent $3.3 billion less on travel to the U.S. last year: StatCan

Canadian's spent $3.3 billion less on travel to the U.S. in 2025 compared to 2024, according to data from Statistics Canada.

nationalpost.com

67 boat strikes 221 people killed EXCLUSIVE: Operation Southern Spear has not reduced the volume, availability, purity or price of cocaine arriving in the U.S., according to an internal DEA assessment and a closed-door Pentagon briefing for senators, and has made enforcement more difficult

67 boat strikes. 221 dead. The cocaine hasn’t slowed, officials report.

The president says Operation Southern Spear has virtually ended drug trafficking by sea. Pentagon and DEA analysts have concluded otherwise.

washingtonpost.com

So here's a piece about a long-running Jedi Knight fansite that's also kinda about the Internet as a whole, charting the boom and bust of the dotcom era, and mourning a web that doesn't really exist any more. www.pcgamer.com/games/action...

Conceived in a secure military facility, this Jedi Knight fansite has been running consistently for almost 30 years: 'It looks really close to what it did back in 1998'

The story of The Massassi Temple.

pcgamer.com

Kaya gave a helping paw on new saddle day for the mountain bike.

Our two investigations into Madison Square Garden are now unpaywalled and free for anyone to read.

WIRED@wired.com · 3w ago

Yesterday, WIRED learned that Madison Square Garden was suing us for our accurate reporting. We stand by our work. That’s why we’re removing the paywall from two of the MSG stories they don’t want you to read, making them free for everyone.

Jimothy looks like he could spin dash Sonic the Hedgehog style

A mosaic of him needs to go up at Cal Anderson stat so he may be formally canonized as St. Jimothy, patron of all thriving with disabilities. Hot short-spined summer is here, folks.

Karl Bode@karlbode.com · 3w ago

meanwhile...

New: Our visual analysis of the ICE shooting in Maine, from the available video and audio available. There is no footage showing the shooting itself, but we obtained audio near the scene from immediately before the vehicle rolled into an intersection. 🎁 Free Gift Link www.nytimes.com/2026/07/14/u...

Kirby’s a good Ride or Die buddy.

Mickey Osterreicher, the general counsel for the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA), which is also pushing back…said that “photographers should be asking whether those protections are contractual and enforceable or simply a matter of current practice that could change over time.”

Exposure to Risk: Freelance photographers vs. the Wall Street Journal.

Freelance photographers are organizing against a new contract at the Wall Street Journal that they say opens their work up to AI training.

cjr.org

Discontinuing Google Earth desktop does not come unexpected, but it's terrible news. The web tool is utterly useless for me and many geo folk. There'll be workarounds for most features, but not for 𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘆 3D view of historical imagery and for sharing placemarks.

Eliot Higgins@eliothiggins.bsky.social · 4w ago

Google Earth Pro will be no longer avaliable for download from June 2027 onwards. It's one of the tools that made my early work possible, so it's really sad to see it go. support.google.com/earth/thread...

This weekend DoorDash tweeted about the World Cup but repeatedly tagged T-Pain, as if they were mixing him up with NZ soccer player Tim Payne. T-Pain got in on it too, acting confused. Turns out it was all a "partnership." No ad disclosure on any of the posts. www.theverge.com/news/954145/...

clickhole.com/do-not-pub-1...

DO NOT PUB

clickhole.com

Unofficial BBCNews (UK) Bot@bbcnews-uk-rss.bsky.social · last mo.

DO NOT PUBLISH UNTIL NEWS IS CONFIRMED A look back at the PM's political career

WELCOME TO WASHINGTON, SOCCER FANS. Get acquainted with our state via this highly accurate and mostly-to-scale map.

Today is the deadline for this survey! A Copyright Alliance Survey: U.S. Copyright Office Fees (Part 2)… Your feedback is important. Link to survey here: www.surveymonkey.com/r/97KJ67S

A Copyright Alliance Survey: U.S. Copyright Office Fees (Part 2)

Take this survey powered by surveymonkey.com. Create your own surveys for free.

surveymonkey.com

The driver that doored Riley didn’t have car insurance, was driving on a suspended license, was parked in a no-parking zone, and opened his door in Riley’s path without looking. www.chicagotribune.com/2026/06/06/b...

Bicyclist killed in Bridgeport crash was CDOT employee devoted to bike infrastructure

A day after his death in Bridgeport, colleagues remembered Riley O’Neil as devoting his life “to making cycling better and safer,”

chicagotribune.com

A fairly large crowd is here at 12th and Yesler for a ceremony to place a ghost bike in honor of Christian Salyer, who was killed on Monday at this spot after being hit by a Recology truck driver while on his bike.

Based.