Good Morning! After another weekend of perfect weather, the late summer nonsense is officially upon us this week: Temps will be in the 80s and 90s at least until Thursday, and we’re expecting a blanket of wildfire smoke from the Canadian wildfires to finally hit Western Washington. Now is an excellent time to dust off that portable AC unit, check the filters in your air filters, and remind yourself that this only happens for a couple weeks out of the year.
In the meantime, let’s do the news.
Spain Wins! For those of you who stopped paying attention after Seattle’s last game, New Jersey hosted the World Cup final between Spain and reigning champs Argentina on Sunday. The game didn’t wow fans. One editor at the Athletic described it as “a fantastically entertaining tournament and a fantastically dreadful final.” But everyone who isn’t Argentina agrees that the best team won.
“Never-ending. Thrilling. Muppets”: Those were the three words Athletic editor Michael Dominski used to describe the tournament this year. Why? Because during the World Cup halftime show, we got appearances from: Madonna, Shakira, BTS, Ted Lasso, Justin Bieber, Coldplay, and yes, the Muppets.
Old Man Tries to Photobomb World Cup Winners: When Trump took the stage to participate in the trophy ceremony, the crowd booed so loudly you could hear it on the TV broadcast. And after helping FIFA president Gianni Infanti give the players their individual medals, he lurked on the platform like a kid trying to hang out with his older brother’s friends. Infanti had to gently herd him off the stage so Spain could do their ceremonial raising of the trophy without a confused old man in the shot.
Iran War Is Escalating: Iran and the US continued to trade attacks over the weekend and into Monday. Three American troops were killed over the weekend. Analysts told the New York Times that we’re at a turning point for this war. “This is the wake-up moment for both sides,” Ellie Geranmayeh, an Iran expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told the paper. “They either take the diplomatic off ramp now or risk allowing the war to spiral beyond managed escalation.”
Fill Up Your Tank: The Houthis, an armed faction in Yemen that’s backed by Iran, announced they would impose a blockade on Saudi ships entering and leaving the Red Sea. With oil already at $90 a barrel, expect gas prices to find new heights.
Meanwhile: The Trump administration seems to be trying to hide the human cost of this war. Before the three American deaths over the weekend, NYT reports that Iran carried out three other strikes against US forces in Jordan, injuring dozens of US service members and damaging several helicopters. But the Pentagon didn’t disclose any of it.
Diarrhea Lettuce Mystery Continues: Taylor Farms voluntarily recalled their lettuce after the FDA announced that they found the cyclospora parasite on a sample of their product. But there’s a twist! Turns out our underfunded FDA just realized that the test was a false positive. Apparently testing for these shitty little bugs is really difficult in a lab setting, even when the lab isn’t under the influence of RFK Jr. or torn apart by DOGE.
Eastern Washington Is Burning: As of Sunday evening, the Kaiser Canyon fire had burned 60,000 acres, and forced more than 1,000 people to evacuate their homes. As of Sunday night, zero percent of the fire had been contained by wildland firefighters.
Stop Driving into Public Transit: I’m not sure why I need to keep saying this. Three passengers and a bus driver were injured early Monday morning when a driver blew through a stop sign and got hit by a King County Metro bus in Burien, the Seattle Times reports. The driver ditched their car and tried to flee, but the King County Sheriff’s Office has since found and arrested them.
ICYMI: We have some less infuriating transit news, too. Despite dozens of proposed amendments and an unbearably long-winded speech from Councilmember Rob Saka, Mayor Katie Wilson’s plan to increase sales tax to bolster our public transit funding made it through committee in City Council relatively unharmed. It heads to a full council vote this week, and if it passes, We The People will be voting on it in the November election.
Jimmy Eat World came to Seattle on Saturday, and Seattleites knew what to do.
Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck will officially declare summer 2026 Jimothy Summer in Ballard this weekend. (This is not a joke.) All I ask is that people stop sharing the locations where they’ve seen Jimothy. Protect this perfect compact creature.
