Please stop flying your personal drones over wildfires. They can ground or collide with our firefighting aircraft, disrupting time critical firefighting and threatening people’s homes. Your photos are not worth someone’s home. If you fly, we can’t.

The mountain is not out here in Tacoma this evening as wildfire smoke from the Inland Northwest starts to accumulate in the Puget Sound lowlands. 73°F / 24°C #WAwx #PNW

Good morning. The past 42 hours have been something. Spokane Transit has been assisting with evacuations, from the VA Hospital to assisted living and retirement centers as recent as this AM. Multiple employees have lost their homes. I appreciate the thoughts and prayers for Spokane.

My first job out of college was working at the FTA on a post-9/11 transit security and emergency preparedness program where we traveled around the U.S. helping local transit agencies prep for disaster response. Great work by STA in Spokane amid volatile circumstances getting people to safety!

Spokane Rising@spokanerising.com · 4d ago

STA’s mutual aid today, assisting with evacuations, is another good reminder of why we should support Proposition 1 on August 4.

This is a nightmare situation unfolding in Spokane.

Spokane Rising@spokanerising.com · 4d ago

Holy crap. Level 3 (GO NOW!) zone now includes urban Spokane, south of Francis to Wellesley. Level 2 (GET SET!) zone now extends east of Division. Not to be alarmist, but at this rate, it’s not inconceivable that the Old Trails Fire merges with the Fairview Fire.

UPDATE: After the publication of this piece, Google sent 404 Media a statement saying it was “rolling back this feature in Google Earth while we work on implementing stronger guardrails.” www.404media.co/google-earth...

Google Earth’s New AI Lets Anyone Fabricate Completely Bullshit Satellite Images

"Tonight I typed just one sentence into Google Earth and put refugees near the Mexican border. Then I planted a nuclear plant in Iran. Then I put a fatal crash on a street in Amsterdam."

404media.co

@katestarbird.bsky.social is my hero. @ic2s2.bsky.social

You shouldn't have to work twice as hard to get around Pierce County just because you can't drive. The transit measure on the ballot this November would add more bus routes, more often, at more times of day. It's urgent that it passes. transportationchoices.org/transit-is-o...

Transit is on the Ballot in Pierce County. Here’s What You Need to Know.

The “More People. More Places. More Often” proposal would increase service by 47% and make fares free for seniors.

transportationchoices.org

oh for crying out loud [you'll never guess what technology generated the map! Oh, no, wait, you will.] www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

US government map of Africa mislabels every country at global conference

State department ‘takes full responsibility’ for erroneous, widely shared chart displayed at Aids conference in Brazil

theguardian.com

Why use Senator Dodd when you could feature former Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz?

Shabazz Stuart@shabazzstuart.bsky.social · last wk.

Still the best barbershop flier I’ve ever seen. Yes that’s Chris Dodd. No idk why they used that image 🤣 (From my BID days)

Good commuting deed of the day: At the International District/Chinatown Link station in Downtown Seattle this morning, I encountered a perplexed tourist couple trying to make sense of platform wayfinding. What were they looking for? The "train to Ballard."

Just like last year, it's important for King County voters to mail ballots in early. How early? Why not today? Due to mail processing delays by Trump's USPS, ballots mailed just before or on Election Day are at rick of not being counted. If you do wait until the last minute, just use a drop box!

Superman has been on duty in Downtown Tacoma at Commerce Street & S. 9th Street.

Paper birch trees across Western Washington have been facing major threats from bronze birch borers in recent years. This paper birch in Tacoma's Wright Park, one of many birches planted in the arboretum in 1895, was taken down last week. Other birches in the park look to be in bad shape.

Tons of peoples' Claude chats are exposed on Google. Cryptocurrency keys, API keys, login credentials, legal discussions, more. This happened with ChatGPT last year. And Claude too. There's clearly an ongoing issue with search engines indexing peoples' AI chats www.404media.co/tons-of-peop...

Tons of Peoples’ Claude Chats and Creations are Exposed on Google

Claude users are creating public share links, but probably don't realize that means their chats are now ending up in Google searches where anyone can dig through them.

404media.co

In recent weeks, there has been a remarkable surge in large, intense, fast-moving, and unfortunately in many cases destructive/deadly wildfires in multiple Northern Hemisphere regions spanning a wide range of climates & ecologies, but they all share one key commonality. [Thread]

Last week, I started Thursday bright and early to catch a new @amtrakcascades.wsdot.wa.gov Siemens Air trainset pass through Tacoma Dome Station during a test run from Seattle to Eugene. I'm looking forward to riding these new trainsets! #newtrain #AmtrakCascades #Tacoma

Since it's been a few years I've played #waterpolo, I enjoyed watching the replays of the World Aquatics Water Polo World Cup in Sydney since water polo is rarely on TV. First off, the USA women's team continues to be amazing and beat Spain 13-9 for the gold! 🤽‍♀️🥇🇺🇸 usawaterpolo.org/news/2026/7/...

USA Women Win Gold Medal At 2026 World Cup Final With 13-9 Victory Over Spain - USA Water Polo

Sydney, Australia - July 25 - The USA Women won the gold medal at the 2026 World Aquatics World Cup Final today with a 13-9 victory over Spain. Emily Ausmus was

usawaterpolo.org

The extraordinary wildfire outbreak across Oregon, eastern Washington, and southern British Columbia has become even more alarming amid critical fire weather conditions. Over 500,000 acres have already burned in OR & WA alone, and that number could be >1 million acres by Mon.

For World Cup fans in Tacoma looking for intel about how crowded Doyle's is before the 12 noon (Pacific) start of the final, it's mostly empty (around 8 a.m.), but there are a few folks here who are already stationed for the match. Doyle's breakfast, per usual, is delicious.

Tacoma Porchfest is great! The streets aren't closed; they're open to people to enjoy.

Overheard an elderly passenger on a Route 1 bus in Tacoma talking to nobody in particular on my way from breakfast downtown: "I'm from Aberdeen, 'Come As You Are.' Kurt Cobain. Nirvana! ... If he had married my daughter, he'd still be alive because I would have been around to supervise him!"

The City Attorney’s Office sent the tech giants cease-and-desist letters this week telling them to stop profiting from 13 “face-swap” apps that are overwhelmingly used to target women and girls. www.wired.com/story/san-fr...

San Francisco Demands Apple and Google Delete AI ‘Nudify’ Apps From App Stores

The City Attorney’s Office sent the tech giants cease-and-desist letters this week telling them to stop profiting from 13 “face-swap” apps that are overwhelmingly used to target women and girls.

wired.com

With Trump’s speech tonight about alleged foreign interference in the 2020 (!!) election, the @cip.uw.edu and @katestarbird.bsky.social can already predict tropes he may repeat. So much so we made a bingo card. Watch and play tonight! bingo.cip.uw.edu

"Rigged Election" Bingo

Spot the tropes before they spread. Recognize the common storylines behind election rumors — can you get BINGO?

bingo.cip.uw.edu

Thank you to @cip.uw.edu for helping kick off 2026 Election Season with a thoughtful conversation between Dr. Kate Starbird and Director Wise last night. We were glad to listen in as they talked about online rumors and shared the reality of how elections in King County actually work!

I helped organize "Elections Explained: Rumors and Reality," a great conversation that our @cip.uw.edu team co-hosted tonight with King County Elections and the League of Women Voters Seattle-King County and featuring King County Elections Director Julie Wise and @katestarbird.bsky.social [1/2]

Voters across Pierce County will officially be asked to approve the first transit funding measure since 2002 in November after a unanimous vote of the Pierce Transit board just now. If approved, bus service would jump by more than 40% thanks to an additional 0.3% sales tax increase.

Ryan Packer@typewriteralley.bsky.social · 4w ago

Monday is going to be a huge day: Pierce Transit is set to send a funding measure to voters for the first time since 2012. The added funding would dramatically improve transit service in Tacoma and environs after the agency has had a stagnant funding rate in place since 2002.

🧵 There was a mid-2000s D.C. blogger kerfuffle I remember where a certain figure in today's discourse got into a ridiculous, stubborn spat with other bloggers around how to pronounce "bruschetta." I decided to poke around to see if there was any remaining online evidence of bruschetta-gate. [1/3]

I normally don't work from Seattle on Mondays, but the Sounder train from Tacoma Dome isn't nearly as crowded as it is midweek.

What a nice afternoon for Tacoma Pride in Wright Park, which compared to Pride in other cities (e.g., Seattle), has shady spots to escape the sun and watch Pride-goers promenade.