AmbiguousProps

Intriguing match-ups in the fall elections emerged Friday as Democrats look to retain control of several seats in the Washington state Legislature.

Two Senate contests should provide a test of voters’ views on new laws, higher taxes and spending decisions pushed through by the majority Democrats over the objections of Republicans.

Races for two other legislative seats will showcase strains within the Democratic Party between its progressive and moderate factions.

Three appointed Democratic lawmakers are breathing easy. They drew no challengers before the filing window closed Friday.

This all but assures the trio — state Sens. Tina Orwall of Des Moines and Emily Alvarado of Seattle, and Rep. Brianna Thomas of West Seattle — will retain their seats for the 2026 session.

Here’s where things stood Friday. Candidates have until Monday to formally withdraw from any of the races.

More details in the article.

Archive link: https://archive.is/r8s9n

A major part of NASA's nearly complete Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope just passed a lengthy thermal test to ensure it will function properly in the space environment.

"This milestone tees us up to attach the flight solar array sun shield to the outer barrel assembly and deployable aperture cover, which we'll begin this month," said Jack Marshall, who leads integration and testing for these elements at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "Then we'll complete the remaining environmental tests for the flight assembly before moving on to connect Roman's two major assemblies and run the full observatory through testing, and then we'll be ready to launch."

Prior to this thermal testing, technicians integrated Roman's deployable aperture cover, a visor-like sunshade, into the outer barrel assembly, which will house the telescope and instruments, in January, then added test solar panels in March. They moved this whole structure into the Space Environment Simulator test chamber at NASA Goddard in April.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has warned the National Weather Service of possible attacks from an armed conspiracy group targeting Doppler radar stations, according to a report from CNN. The group, Veterans on Patrol, is going after government radars because it believes they're being used as "weather weapons."

CNN learned of the possible attacks through NOAA emails warning NWS staff that Veterans on Patrol was planning to conduct "penetration drills on NEXRAD sites to identify weaknesses," with the ultimate goal of destroying NEXRAD. Despite its cooler-than-average name, the NWS uses NEXRAD or "Next Generation Weather Radar" for a fairly mundane purpose: detecting precipitation in the atmosphere. NEXRAD plays a vital role in locating thunderstorms and tornados, making it easier to evacuate vulnerable communities before disaster strikes.

Archive link: https://archive.is/GVsgP

Wildfires driven by climate change contribute to as many as thousands of annual deaths and billions of dollars in economic costs from wildfire smoke in the United States, according to a new study.

The paper, published Friday in the journal Nature Communications Earth & Environment, found that from 2006 to 2020, climate change contributed to about 15,000 deaths from exposure to small particulate matter from wildfires and cost about $160 billion. The annual range of deaths was 130 to 5,100, the study showed, with the highest in states such as Oregon and California.

“We’re seeing a lot more of these wildfire smoke events,” said Nicholas Nassikas, a study author and a physician and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. So he and multidisciplinary team of researchers wanted to know: “What does it really mean in a changing environment for things like mortality, which is kind of the worst possible health outcome?”

Archive link: https://archive.is/rMgUB

Wildfires driven by climate change contribute to as many as thousands of annual deaths and billions of dollars in economic costs from wildfire smoke in the United States, according to a new study.

The paper, published Friday in the journal Nature Communications Earth & Environment, found that from 2006 to 2020, climate change contributed to about 15,000 deaths from exposure to small particulate matter from wildfires and cost about $160 billion. The annual range of deaths was 130 to 5,100, the study showed, with the highest in states such as Oregon and California.

“We’re seeing a lot more of these wildfire smoke events,” said Nicholas Nassikas, a study author and a physician and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. So he and multidisciplinary team of researchers wanted to know: “What does it really mean in a changing environment for things like mortality, which is kind of the worst possible health outcome?”

Archive link: https://archive.is/rMgUB

Two Bremerton women face 14 federal charges in connection with a “massive” identity theft scheme involving over 270 victims, acting U.S. Attorney Teal Luthy Miller announced Tuesday.

Investigators believe Heather Marquis, 36, and Emily Vranic, 33, defrauded at least 278 people across Kitsap and Mason counties from April 2019 to November 2024. Authorities say they stole about $620,000.

Marquis and Vranic used mail and personal documents to access credit cards and online bank accounts, according to a news release.

“The pair would have documents related to their activities mailed to a third-party victim’s address, where they would intercept the mail again,” the release reads. “Once they had fully taken over a stolen identity, statements and other records were mailed directly to their own Bremerton address.”

Archive link: https://archive.is/UCf8k

Two Bremerton women face 14 federal charges in connection with a “massive” identity theft scheme involving over 270 victims, acting U.S. Attorney Teal Luthy Miller announced Tuesday.

Investigators believe Heather Marquis, 36, and Emily Vranic, 33, defrauded at least 278 people across Kitsap and Mason counties from April 2019 to November 2024. Authorities say they stole about $620,000.

Marquis and Vranic used mail and personal documents to access credit cards and online bank accounts, according to a news release.

“The pair would have documents related to their activities mailed to a third-party victim’s address, where they would intercept the mail again,” the release reads. “Once they had fully taken over a stolen identity, statements and other records were mailed directly to their own Bremerton address.”

Archive link: https://archive.is/UCf8k

SEATTLE — Washington landlords can no longer raise rents by more than 10% per year under landmark legislation Gov. Bob Ferguson signed into law Wednesday.

Effective immediately, House Bill 1217 caps residential rent hikes during a 12-month period at 7% plus inflation, or 10%, whichever is lower. The limit will last 15 years. The bill also restricts manufactured home rent increases to 5% with no expiration date.

“I’m confident that this legislation is going to work for everybody in our state,” Ferguson said Wednesday at Blake House, the first affordable high-rise apartment building constructed in Seattle in half a century, which opened in 2023. “Too many folks are getting priced out, and we can’t have that, right? That’s not an option.”

Rent increases are also prohibited for the first year of a tenancy under the new law. But when a renter moves in, landlords can set the initial rate however they please.

Archive link: https://archive.is/GuAWH

Tesla has confirmed its latest bait-and-switch: Cybertruck owners will not get the Autosteer feature they paid for.

Instead, they will get a year of ‘Supervised Full Self-Driving’.

When Tesla started delivering the Cybertruck in late 2023, the software was incomplete, especially regarding its Advanced Driver Assist System (ADAS) features like ‘Supervised (FSD) Full Self-Driving’, which was included in the price of all early Cybertrucks.

It took Tesla almost a year to start releasing its FSD on the Cybertruck.

After Tesla stopped making new Cybertruck Foundation Series, which are fully loaded with all options, buyers started to have the option of buying the $8,000 FSD package or keeping only the Autopilot package, which is included in the price.

Autopilot’s two main features are Traffic Aware Cruise Control and Autosteer. The first is self-explanatory, while Autosteer is Tesla’s name for active lane keeping.

The vast majority of Tesla vehicle owners don’t buy the FSD package.

As of now, 16 months after Tesla started delivering the Cybertruck, the automaker has yet to deliver Autosteer on the electric pickup truck.

Today, Tesla started reaching out to Cybertruck owners to let them know that it won’t make Autosteer available for Cybertruck owners who haven’t bought FSD:

“As we improve our Autopilot technology, our feature sets will change. Accordingly, Autosteer will not be available for Cybertruck outside of Full Self-Driving (Supervised).“

Instead, Tesla offers a year of free FSD trial to Cybertruck owners.

More details in the article.

My favorite part is how they're now saying both "full self-driving' and "supervised".

Archive link: https://archive.is/1w64R

Tesla has confirmed its latest bait-and-switch: Cybertruck owners will not get the Autosteer feature they paid for.

Instead, they will get a year of ‘Supervised Full Self-Driving’.

When Tesla started delivering the Cybertruck in late 2023, the software was incomplete, especially regarding its Advanced Driver Assist System (ADAS) features like ‘Supervised (FSD) Full Self-Driving’, which was included in the price of all early Cybertrucks.

It took Tesla almost a year to start releasing its FSD on the Cybertruck.

After Tesla stopped making new Cybertruck Foundation Series, which are fully loaded with all options, buyers started to have the option of buying the $8,000 FSD package or keeping only the Autopilot package, which is included in the price.

Autopilot’s two main features are Traffic Aware Cruise Control and Autosteer. The first is self-explanatory, while Autosteer is Tesla’s name for active lane keeping.

The vast majority of Tesla vehicle owners don’t buy the FSD package.

As of now, 16 months after Tesla started delivering the Cybertruck, the automaker has yet to deliver Autosteer on the electric pickup truck.

Today, Tesla started reaching out to Cybertruck owners to let them know that it won’t make Autosteer available for Cybertruck owners who haven’t bought FSD:

“As we improve our Autopilot technology, our feature sets will change. Accordingly, Autosteer will not be available for Cybertruck outside of Full Self-Driving (Supervised).“

Instead, Tesla offers a year of free FSD trial to Cybertruck owners.

More details in the article.

My favorite part is how they're now saying both "full self-driving' and "supervised".

Archive link: https://archive.is/1w64R

Tesla has confirmed it has given up on plans to make a Cybertruck range extender to achieve the range it originally promised on the electric pickup truck.

It started refunding deposits for the $16,000 extra battery pack.

When Tesla unveiled the production version of the Cybertruck in late 2023, two main disappointments were the price and the range.

The tri-motor version, the most popular in reservation tallies before production, was supposed to have over 500 miles of range and start at $70,000.

Tesla now sells the tri-motor Cybertruck for $100,000 and only has a range of 320 miles.

The dual-motor Cybertruck was supposed to cost $50,000 and have over 300 miles of range. In reality, it starts at $80,000 and has 325 miles of range.

Archive link: https://archive.is/CGbaE