Silver Wave Alert: We hate kids in Washington. And we love old people. At least, that’s what I’m inferring from this data about how older adults are outnumbering children in 24 Washington counties. While we still have more youths than elderly as a whole in Washington, this current demographic shift signals a narrowing gap that could spell trouble for our aging state. Make it easier to buy a home, fund schools, and have well-paying jobs and maybe my generation will start reproducing. Just maybe though. Sorry to my mother-in-law.
Love City Love Claims Another Corpse: For now. The nomadic art venue is camping out inside the shell of the former catch-all convenience store, ShopRite (or the Shit Shop as some Capitol Hill lifers I know dubbed it), which closed on 15th Avenue E earlier this year after 30 years in business. Between now and whenever the investment firm that will redevelop the building gets its act together, Love City Love is filling the space with open mics, sewing classes, and a cafe. It joins the Punk Rock Flea Market which has taken over the old QFC just down the block as it awaits its own redevelopment fate.
The Weather: The warm and dry will return today. Sun should make an appearance again, too.
Fire Season Comes Early: A red flag warning plagued Central and Eastern Washington earlier this week before a spell of cool, drizzly weather swept in on Wednesday. But don’t worry, the dry, tinderbox conditions will return for the weekend. Fires are already burning, too. One blaze between Kettle Falls and Northport “looked like a volcano,” according to onlookers. A human-caused fire burned on the Olympic Peninsula earlier this week near Lake Cushman. It is so good living in a climate change apocalypse.
Salt in the Wound? Over the last two months, Microsoft cut 15,000 jobs. While the powers that be blamed the cuts on general efficiency, slimming down teams and the like, many suspect the cuts came from eliminating AI redundancies. A week after the most recent layoffs, Microsoft announced a $4 billion investment in AI education over the next five years. With the influx of billions comes the establishment of a new “org,” as the tech workers say, called Microsoft Elevate. There, 300 employees will help 20 million people earn AI credentials.
Bob’s Big, Beautiful Backfill: Gov. Bob Ferguson announced on Wednesday that, if it comes to it, Washington state will backfill the $11 million in funding to our state’s Planned Parenthood facilities expect to lose in President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” which cuts Medicaid reimbursement for one year from organizations providing abortions. Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit earlier this week alleging the bill unfairly targets them, but regardless of the outcome, Ferguson says Washington state’s checkbook is ready to support any federal funding shortcomings in abortion care. Don’t ask him about the broader federal cuts to Medicaid, or as we know it, Apple Health, in the state. When those billions of dollars in cuts hit in mid-2026, we’re fucked.
At Least 80 Washington Lawmakers Sign Letter Opposing Trump’s Bill: The letter opposes the bill, calling it and its cuts to Medicaid and food assistance an “attack on the working class.” The letter calls out Ferguson’s austerity budget earlier this year, and functions as a call to action on the local level, rallying lawmakers behind plans such as the new Seattle Shield Initiative proposal which would change B&O taxes to help small businesses and to protect services and programs at risk under a Trump administration. The signatories from the Seattle City Council include Councilmembers Alexis Mercedes Rinck, Joy Hollingsworth, Dan Strauss, Mark Solomon, and Rob Saka. The mayors of Bothell, Kirkland, Olympia, SeaTac, Shoreline, and Kenmore also signed on.
Missing Signatures: Mayor Bruce Harrell, who supposedly supports the Shield Initiative, is noticeably absent from the list. Councilmembers Sara Nelson, Maritza Rivera, and Bob Kettle also chose not to sign. When PubliCola asked them why, they all insisted that they believed in the spirit of the letter, but still wouldn’t sign it. Kettle said he’s “not one to sign on letters like this… just as a matter of fact of how I do business.” Rivera said, well, nothing that explains why she’s not signing it. Nelson said that she was “uncomfortable calling out the governor” because the bill came from the legislature, (even though they were responding to his threats to veto a bill with progressive revenue), and said that she didn’t want to encourage other governments to enact progressive revenue like the Seattle Shield proposal.
Trump’s No Good Judicial Nominee: Emil Bove, a top Justice Department official gunning for an appellate judge appointment in Philadelphia, may have defied federal court orders to block the deportation of Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador earlier this year. A fired DOJ attorney turned over emails and text messages to corroborate the claims. According to the documents, Bove allegedly told colleagues they would have to tell the courts “fuck you” and move ahead with the deportation flights.
Hey, want to see a cool cloud? Look at this one.
🌩️ INCREDIBLE SHELF CLOUD seen over Bowie, Md.
Captured tonight by Camryn D, this stunning video shows a dramatic shelf cloud rolling in ahead of strong storms.A shelf cloud is a low, horizontal cloud formation along the leading edge of a thunderstorm.
📹 Watch it here 👇
— Capital Weather Gang (@capitalweather.bsky.social) July 9, 2025 at 6:36 PM
Yeah, That’ll Show ‘Em: Six Republican lawmakers penned a letter to Canada telling our neighbors to the north how the smoke from the 2,672 fires so far this year is “ruining” Americans’ summers. The lawmakers blamed Canada for not managing its forests and cited arson as a cause. They wanted to know Canada’s plan to ameliorate the smoke. I have an idea. Maybe if, say, the United States of America took climate policy seriously we could stave off global—and national—impacts of worsening natural disasters.
Death Toll Reaches 120 in Texas Floods: The floods in Kerr County, Texas killed at least 120 people over the Fourth of July weekend and over 170 are still missing. The dead include dozens of young campers at Camp Mystic, a for-profit Christian camp that built structures in the Guadalupe River’s flood plain. In the wake of the tragedy, news surfaced that Kerr County refused to spend $1 million to establish a warning system complete with sirens in an area known as “flash flood alley.” The monitoring system would have included blaring warnings near Camp Mystic for a cost that made up only 1.5 percent of the county’s budget. Instead, the county invested in a warning system without sirens (too loud) and opted to have local authorities warn residents instead. That worked out well.
Some Hope: Solar power is working. It’s growing faster than any other energy source in the world. Wind power is following closely behind. According to the New Yorker, “in March, for the first time, fossil fuels generated less than half the electricity in the U.S. In California, at one point on May 25th, renewables were producing a record hundred and fifty-eight per cent of the state’s power demand. Over the course of the entire day, they produced eighty-two per cent of the power in California, which, this spring, surpassed Japan to become the world’s fourth-largest economy.” Battery storage for that renewable power is better than ever. China is using more solar power than anywhere else, so much so that the country actually decreased its total climate emissions in the first part of the year. “Globally, roughly a third more power is being generated from the sun this spring than last.” This is good. This is hope.
Enough of That Hope Shit: Preventable disease is back, baby. Forget the measles outbreaks, whooping cough cases are rising and killing babies. You can thank falling vaccination rates and the Trump administration knee-capping public health infrastructure. Vaccinations against measles, mumps and rubella, pertussis, diphtheria, tetanus, hepatitis B, and polio are down in kindergartners in half of US states. Measles vaccine rates fell below herd immunity in most states in 2023, according to ProPublica. We’re cooked.
A Song for Your Thursday: Does everybody like the new Lorde album? Just me?
