Boeing Lost Another Major Defense Contract: The Boeing Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS), the radar-dished plane you may remember smoldering on a Middle Eastern tarmac after the US Air Force gravely underestimated their Iranian counterparts, is on the way out for NATO, Reuters reports. The US-dominated alliance chose Swedish manufacturer Saab as a replacement for their aging fleet of flying radar bases. Sweden abandoned its long history of neutrality (they didn’t fight the Nazis) to join the aging anti-communist alliance after Russia expanded its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and this continues to have unintended consequences for America’s gold-plated weapons industry.
Far-Right Pierce County Sheriff Might be Voted Out Early: Former Seattle cop Keith Swank narrowly won the sheriff’s election in Pierce County in 2024, and immediately started pissing off the greater Tacoma community, the state government, human rights groups, all sorts of people really. He publicly defied Washington’s law barring local law enforcement from working with federal deportation police, and later threatened the legislature during a Senate hearing on a bill to give the state police training commission the authority to remove elected sheriffs (it passed). But the voters might kick Swank out before the state can. Last month, the delegates rewriting Pierce County’s charter greenlit an amendment to make the office of sheriff appointed by the county executive, not elected by the public. If voters ratify the amendment in November, Swank could be out of a job fast. The Tacoma News Tribune has details on the bureaucratic battle and subsequent public fallout.
Canada Announces Tar Sands Pipeline Terminating Less Than a Mile From Washington Border: Late last week, the prime minister of the three mining companies in a trench coat known as Canada and the Premier of Alberta revealed their next disastrous plan to export the nation’s vast oil reserves to market: a massive pipeline over the Rocky Mountains terminating at an export terminal near Vancouver, BC within a mile of the US border. Environmentalists are horrified, the Washington State Standard reports. The conundrum for Canadian oil producers is that despite having so much oil, it comes from poor-quality bitumen sand that requires a lot of chemical treatment and lies deep in the heart of North America far from coastal ports.
There’s a fortune to be made if only they can lower transportation costs; replacing rail cars with pipelines has been their solution. They tried expanding tar sands pipelines through the US to the Gulf Coast with plans like Keystone XL, but the tribes and environmentalists in remote Northeast Montana stopped them, and they have to look elsewhere. The next battle may be here.
Belgium Euthanizes USA: You don’t have to know soccer to see how badly America embarrassed itself yesterday. Luckily next year’s FIFA World Cup will see the US women’s team compete, and they have historically outcompeted America’s men. But for now the World Cup in Seattle is over, and the tourism industry can rest as the city returns to our traditional industries of real estate speculation and weapons manufacturing.
Almost Heaven, West Jamaica: Take Me Home, Country Roads, the abominable John Denver country song, somehow became the unofficial anthem of the US men’s national soccer team at this year’s World Cup. If we’re lucky, the only version we’ll ever have to hear again is the cover by Toots and the Maytals.
Seattle a “city of zombie office buildings”: That’s how a development and affordability expert (whatever that means) at the Sightline Institute described our city’s record surplus of office space in a recent deep dive into the overbuilt commercial real estate industry by the Seattle Times. It’s a familiar story by now—commercial real estate speculation skyrocketed during the tech boom, and now there’s an oversupply—but the details are worth digesting. Most office towers can’t simply be remodeled into housing either, and in fact “Seattle now has just four major office conversions, representing 400 housing units, at various stages of development.”
Is Mitch McConnell Dead? The 84-year-old Kentuckian has been in the hospital for 3 weeks after a heart attack and his Senate staff refuses to provide updates. MAGA chuds are demanding proof of life, Laura Loomer says he’s brain dead, it’s not a good scene. This was supposed to be the long serving Republican Senate leaders last year on the hill, but it’s shaping up to be his last year on Earth.
Graham Platner Supporters Call on Him to to Drop Out After New Sexual Assault Allegations: Maine Democrats pulled their endorsement of the insurgent progressive U.S. Senate candidate yesterday when the news broke in Politico, and the movement calling on Platner to step aside in favor of a different candidate is growing by the hour. Platner has survived many scandals so far, some of them unfair attacks by centrist Democrats and allied media, others the kind of things that are hard for progressives to ignore, such as his Nazi SS concentration camp guard tattoo, or his work for infamous mercenary company Blackwater. His political career seems unlikely to survive this time.
Millions Attend Funeral for Ayatollah Khamanei, Iranian Leader Illegally Assassinated by US and Israel: The supreme leader of Iran died a martyr’s death and his country soundly defeated the United States. He got everything he wanted.
Xbox Collapse Means Some Beloved Game Studios Cut Loose: Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo went on a buying spree in the late 2010s to snatch up prominent studios to develop games exclusively for their consoles’ subscription streaming services. As Microsoft liquidates assets to free up money for risky AI investments, some of those studios are being set free, so to speak, including one of my favorites, Arkane Studios, who spent years in Redmond’s content mines chasing doomed trends after delivering Prey, one of the best games I have ever played. Exactly how Microsoft’s divestment shakes out and whether the developer survives are serious questions. Details at Polygon.
Did you ever play Nidhogg? Its developers, Messhof, have a frantic-looking new game in development, Blood Dungeon, and the demo is out now.
