The weather: Don’t let the gorgeous Seattle weather (60s, sunny, almost October?) fool you, it’s freezing up in the mountains and stormy out in the ocean. A kayaker needed a rescue after capsizing out in the San Juan Island and a hiker almost froze to death. We were celebrating the fall with cocktails on Friday or curled up on the couch while two weekend warriors were fighting for their lives in unrelated storms. More on that in a bit…
Is Iran Cracking Back? We’re watching the news from BBC that five men in their 20s were arrested outside a Royal Airforce base in the UK where the US Airforce has staged while bombing Iran. The men are being held on terrorism charges after a farmer reported a suspicious late night assemblage of three white vans. That reminds me of the news back in July that Iran’s military threatened retaliation against British bases just like this one. There’s a lot we don’t know this morning however.
No Iran connection has been confirmed: The suspects are all UK citizens, and no motive has been released. A police bomb disposal unit was at the scene, according to NPR, but no explosives were immediately confirmed. And it looks like the suspects are being released on bail, BBC says. The UK has been charging everyone with terrorism lately, including pro-Palestinaina protesters.
Boeing has admitted new software problems to the Wall Street Journal: The 737 Max has been rolling out since November 2024 with a software flaw with disputed crash potential. The glitch can happen when flight crews change their flight path after a missed approach. It could force more manual flying, with unclear safety risks. Airlines that operate the 737 Max—Alaska, American, Southwest, and United—old the WSJ they are not flying planes with the flawed software. “We shared information with operators that reinforced existing pilot procedures for safely handling such cases,” Boeing said, adding that they are working on a software update. Crashes of the Boeing model due to more severe software issues killed a combined 346 people in 2018 and 2019. Back then, the formerly Seattle-based airplane company’s PR team bet on racism being more powerful than the fear of flying, blaming those crashes on the pilots.
Back to the PNW outdoorsmen who got their asses saved out in nature after: After misreading the weather (happens) they were saved. In both cases it was because they had backup communications devices.
Little boat, big rescue: An apparently responsible kayaker radioed the Coast Guard for help in San Juan Islands on Friday when the weather turned rotten and his craft capsized. The man had his radio, lifejacket, and drysuit, according to photos and audio released by the Coast Guard.
Mountain rescue: Another PNW outdoors enthusiast got caught by weather on Friday night in Lewis County. Luckily, he activated an SOS device. He was rescued among wind and snow at 7,000 ft on the Pacific Crest Trail, according to a Facebook post from Tacoma Mountain Rescue, and confirmed by KING5. The volunteer rescue squad marched eight miles up the trailhead, because high winds grounded the helicopters. Around 1:30 a.m. they found the freezing man in his 20s. How amazing are search and rescue volunteers? Two of the rescuers cuddled up with him in a tent and warmed him up with their body heat until the morning. Then they walked him down, Tacoma Mountain Rescue said in a statement. Talk about good, giving, and game!
Not everyone is so lucky: Sadly, two other hikers have already died in the region this season. Be careful out there!
Here’s something to chew on: The Washington State Food Truck Association has announced a Food Truck Finder for its members, which include a very limited number of established food trucks. I know there are a lot more food trucks out there not included on the finder. Ever notice how the best food trucks are parked at gas stations? Tell me about your favorite food truck (be sure to drop a pin or mention the cross streets) and maybe I’ll visit.
Ferry nice! My family accounted for 12 of what KOMO reports was a record 7 million ferry rides this summer. Washington State Ferries said it completed 500 more trips this summer, an increased on-time-ish departure (within 10 minutes) from 72 percent (2024) to 77 percent (2025) to 80 percent this year. It’s the most trips since 2019. (Hey Nathalie Graham, are we out of the pandemic-era ferry chaos yet?). That doesn’t mean it’s all smooth sailing, something families-of-toddlers-driving-to-Olympic National Park travelers can empathize with. Ferries can be on time, but that doesn’t mean you get the first one. My family spent around three hours waiting in ferry lines this summer.
Nerd alert! KUOW explains why Washington’s Secretary of State—who oversees elections—also gets involved in promoting board games at international conventions. The Legislature authorized the Secretary to go on trade missions for everything from the local friendly military industrial complex to the no-unions-allowed agricultural sphere, but the state also backs booth space at tabletop gaming conventions for analog innovators like SPIEL in Essen, Germany, and Game Market, in Tokyo, Japan. Indie boardgame developers get to sit at the Washington state booths at these events for free to promote their games. That’s great if you lack a Wizards-of-The-Coast-sized budget.
AI for Dummies Capitalists: Settlers of Catan player, bridge enthusiast, and Mercer Island pensioner Bill Gates took to the Sundays to explain that AI companies are not funding linguistic equity for almost half the world, so he will, he told NBC’s Kristen Welker. Basically, he’s helping the big three AI companies train better responses for critical language. He also broke down how an AI “kill switch” won’t save us from an AI apocalypse and—obviously—needs government regulation. “No one thinks self regulation is enough.”
Donald Trump, who thinks self-regulation is enough, sent DOJ chief and personal henchmaen Todd Blanche to Fox News to illustrate how far the administration can bury its head into the sand, saying, “Everybody’s saying more laws, more laws, more regulation, but we don’t need it. We don’t need it right now.”
House Republicans are Cooked: Democratic control of the house is looking more and more likely according to authoritative analysis from the Cook Political Report. But Republicans have a tiny chance to win back a congressional seat in Southwest Washington, the Seattle Times reports in part because Democratic leaders in Olympia did not join Texas and California’s gerrymanderpalooza.
The Senate, meanwhile, looks like a coin flip, and Washington state won’t be a factor.Cook Political Report founder Charlie Cook told ABC it was now “very realistic” that the Senate could go either way. Washington state voters could decide how big the wave is in the House, and in the local races. But Cook assesses that the Senate will hinge on Alaska, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, and New Hampshire.
