The Star Princess cruise liner dwarfs the smaller tanker ship refueling it with LNG in Seattle on May 17, 2026. The LNG tanker is not all that small, as seen in relation to the passing pilot ship at right. Credit: Tom Banse
Early this month, a mobile floating gas station of sorts pulled up alongside the towering cruise ship Star Princess at Seattle’s Pier 91 terminal. For the next eight hours the refueling crew made news by pumping a large volume of super-cooled natural gas into the bowels of the cruise liner.
The newest cruise ship operated by Princess Cruises is the first oceangoing vessel to be refueled in Seattle with liquefied natural gas (LNG). It could be the start of a new way of fueling the Alaska cruise ships that operate out of Seattle all summer.
“I’m just delighted to see there’s no smoke coming out of the cruise ship. We’re plugged in. We’re burning the cleanest gas you can right now,” Port of Seattle Commissioner Fred Felleman said while observing from an adjacent pier. “Right now, this is about as good as it gets in the industry.”
The steadily-growing fleet of mammoth cruise ships that ply the Inside Passage have a sizable carbon footprint – ship fuel being the biggest single component. Cruise line executives acknowledge that they need to do their part to soften the environmental impact. The major cruise lines in the Alaska market, through their trade association, have committed to net zero greenhouse gas emissions from ship operations by 2050. The challenge until now has been finding an alternative fuel that is cost-competitive and available at scale locally.
Felleman said the Port of Seattle is striving to be the “greenest” cruise homeport. The gleaming floating palace over his shoulder demonstrated a fuel technology that the maritime industry appears to be coalescing around to improve air quality in port communities such as Seattle, Tacoma and Vancouver. But the lengthy transition is accompanied by some sniping and griping. (continued on Page 2 or here)
Ship-to-ship refueling with liquefied natural gas happened for the first time at the Port of Seattle in early May and again on May 17, 2026. Credit: Tom Banse
The super-chilled natural gas arrives on a specialized small-scale tanker ship from British Columbia in a multiday journey that underscores the novelty of the alternative marine fuel. Vancouver-based Seaspan Energy acquired three refueling tankers (commonly called bunkering vessels) from a Chinese shipyard to offer ship-to-ship LNG refueling along the West Coast.
“We’ve been held to a very high standard, not only in the construction of these vessels, not only in the crewing and the credentials of the people operating on these vessels, but in the actual play-by-play operations,” said Seaspan Energy President Harly Penner during an online roundtable hosted by the Port of Seattle. “We’re going to make sure it’s done safely.”
Penner appeared to anticipate LNG’s detractors who portray the fuel as acutely risky if spilled, due to its very low temperature. Critics also worry about the wide, devastating impact if an LNG cargo ignited, which Penner said has never happened during ship-to-ship refueling elsewhere in the world.
The U.S. Coast Guard and Seattle Fire Department reviewed and were satisfied with Seaspan’s LNG bunkering plans. A Star Princess passenger posted the safety instructions applicable to passengers on board. The cruise line handout told people assigned to staterooms overlooking the Seaspan tanker to stay off their balconies during the refueling operation and that smoking in the Star Bar would be forbidden while fueling was underway. A Port of Seattle police boat also kept watch a couple hundred yards off the stern of the cruise ship, which has a 4,300-passenger capacity.
Overall, Port of Seattle officials appear to be giving a tempered welcome to LNG as they celebrate what is anticipated to be the busiest Alaska cruise season in port history. Maritime Division Managing Director Stephanie Jones Stebbins said the port is interested because of the “tremendous” reduction in air pollutants, such as diesel particulates and harmful sulfur and nitrogen oxides. But port staff pointedly avoided claiming a global warming mitigation benefit and also told elected commissioners that there are no plans to invest in local infrastructure to supply LNG from shore.
“We know LNG is ultimately a fossil fuel. We view it as a transition fuel,” Jones Stebbins said. “We are looking beyond that to renewable fuels – options like green methanol, renewable natural gas, ammonia, drop-in synthetic fuels, electrification.”
Shipping line TOTE Maritime converted two large cargo ships on the Tacoma-Anchorage circuit to LNG propulsion in 2022. The ships refuel from an adjacent Puget Sound Energy liquefaction and LNG storage facility that remains controversial in Tacoma and has so far failed to attract other marine users.
Climate protection campaigners and some political conservatives take issue with the maritime industry’s fuel transition, but for very different reasons.
The environmental group Seattle Cruise Control urged the Port of Seattle to reject LNG-powered ships. The group labels LNG as a “false promise” because activists calculate the carbon footprint of natural gas from “well to wake” to be as bad or worse for the climate than traditional marine fuels. (The math varies in the industry, and some like Penner claim a positive greenhouse gas benefit.)
“The use of LNG will continue harming the climate, lock in obsolete technology, and delay the necessary transition to zero-emissions fuels,” Seattle Cruise Control co-founder Elizabeth Burton said in an email.
Conservative voices meanwhile, including at the highest levels of the Trump administration, are pushing back on maritime decarbonization because of the potential pass-through costs to consumers.
“Popular fuel alternatives, such as liquefied natural gas and hydrogen, require double to more than triple the tank size of oil. In an industry that monetizes every square foot of space, it’s a costly gamble for regulation that may not come to pass,” wrote opinion columnist Kate Farmer in the Wall Street Journal last month.
Princess Cruises spokesperson Negin Kamali described LNG as “the best readily available fuel that significantly reduces direct greenhouse gas and other emissions and particulate matter now.” Notably, the cruise line barely mentions the dual-fuel capability of its newest vessel in marketing and advertising. The Love Boat’s other amenities get all the love – such as the restaurants, stage shows and luxury staterooms.
This summer, Star Princess is scheduled to refuel with LNG in Seattle every other weekend. Kamali said that should be sufficient to operate the big ship on LNG throughout the season. When LNG is unavailable, Star Princess’ engines burn traditional marine gas oil.
Star Princess was mistakenly credited by a port and a chamber of commerce in southeast Alaska as the first LNG-powered cruise ship to visit the Last Frontier. That title actually belongs to Silver Nova, which was refueled by Seaspan with LNG in Vancouver before an Alaska sailing last year in May. The dual-fuel luxury liner is being relocated to the Mediterranean for this summer by its operator, Silversea Cruises.
Ademonstration last summer in Seattle involving another cruise line, Holland America, showed the multiple challenges and cost barriers involved with decarbonizing large ship operations. For this project, Holland America and the port teamed up to refuel the cruise liner Eurodam with renewable diesel made from vegetable oil.
A port memo described the three refuelings as a bit cumbersome, but ultimately successful from an operational point of view. However, the biofuel netted out to triple the cost of conventional low-sulfur marine fuel. So, the bottom line was that the experiment would not be repeated until biofuel costs come down and availability improves.
Bud Darr, CEO of the trade group Cruise Lines International Association, said it takes “an awful lot of courage” for ship owners to spend as much as $2 billion on new dual-fuel cruise ships designed to burn various kinds of climate-friendly fuel that cannot be procured today.
Darr said there is not much uptake on methanol because the industry is still waiting for bio- or synthetic forms of the fuel to become available at scale. Darr said “the safety case” for carbon-free ammonia is not strong enough to work as cruise ship fuel because of the high toxicity of the gas were it to leak.
That basically leaves LNG as the preferred alternative marine fuel, Darr said during the Port of Seattle’s industry roundtable in April. He said no ship owners had told him that the fossil fuel LNG was their final answer.
“Really, we’re looking to progress from the fossil form of LNG,” Darr said, “on to a renewable version of that.”
Port of Seattle Commissioner Fred Felleman. Credit: Tom Banse
Commissioner Felleman is also zeroing in on renewable natural gas as the way to have a thriving cruise industry and protect the climate. Renewable natural gas – aka RNG or bio-LNG – is most commonly derived around here from the breakdown of landfill waste, municipal sewage or feedlot cow manure. Felleman said he is encouraged that the steep price premium for RNG is slowly coming down. Other branches of government are trying to spur greater supply with carbon credits.
“The fastest way to make progress with the existing and growing fleet of vessels is to incentivize the use of alternative fuels,” Fellman said.
In this article Elizabeth Loggers and I report on twenty patients who pursued VSED while enrolled on EvergreenHealth Hospice. Although it’s a relatively small number of patients, it’s the first US case series on patients pursuing VSED reported in the literature, and contains some findings that surprised me: 100% of those who started VSED completed it, death occurred in under 10 days, and complications like severe anxiety and delirium and the need for medications were no different than those of the average hospice population at the end of life. I hope this will be followed by further studies and reporting from other areas of the country as we learn more about VSED.
The article has been published via Open Access and is intended to be accessible to patients/families as well as professionals, so feel free to share widely. The print journal version is still in pre-publication; when that’s complete, a final pdf version will also be available at the link above.
A micropantry in Seattle’s Beacon Hill neighborhood is stocked with nonperishable food for neighbors in need. In a new study, UW researchers launched an experimental mapping app designed to help users find nearby pantries and communicate with one another about sharing food. The team also outfitted several pantries with sensors that anonymously track usage and stock levels. Photo: Giacomo Dalla Chiara
Micropantries — commonly called “little free pantries” — and community fridges are a frequent sight throughout Seattle and the greater Puget Sound region. One estimate suggests that they supply around 4 million pounds of food per year to neighbors in need in the Seattle area, more than the state’s largest food bank. The curbside cupboards are a decentralized, community-driven effort to fight food insecurity and reduce food waste at the neighborhood level, but their ad hoc nature limits their dependability — users don’t know when food is available without repeatedly checking, and donors don’t know what foods are needed most.
Now, anyone who interacts with micropantries or community fridges in the Seattle area can try out an experimental app, made by University of Washington researchers, that brings a suite of new features to the micropantry network. The app, called PantryMap.org, maps many local pantries across the region. The app also gives each pantry an activity feed where users can share food they’ve donated, report on stock levels, add requests to a wish list, post photos and leave other notes. The research team also retrofitted some pantries with sensors that anonymously auto-report their usage and stock levels to the app in real time.
“This is an effort to document and quantify the phenomenon of micropantries,” said Giacomo Dalla Chiara, a senior research scientist at the UW Urban Freight Lab. “Lots of micropantries and community fridges popped up around the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, and I was curious about who uses them and how they are used.” (continued on Page 2 or here)
History of Robert E. Lee’s property becoming Arlington Cemetery as the dead piled up during the civil war. Commentary by Heather Cox Richardson.
President Donald J. Trump’s proposed triumphal arch would sit at a rotary on the Virginia side of the Arlington Memorial Bridge between Arlington National Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
The proposed arch obscures the Lincoln Memorial, built to honor the president who steered the country safely through the Civil War, but perfectly frames Arlington House, the mansion built by enslaved Americans and once owned by Confederate General Robert E. Lee. The arch does not frame the nation’s honored dead, but frames instead the home of the man who led the armies of the Confederacy that killed them.
Secretary of War Edwin Stanton approved the land that had been Lee’s plantation as a national burying ground for soldiers on June 15, 1864. After 32 years in the U.S. Army, Lee resigned his commission and took over command of the Army of Northern Virginia in 1862, fighting across the state.
In early 1864 the U.S. government bought Lee’s property at public auction after Lee defaulted on property taxes, and months later it became the logical place to establish a national cemetery after the U.S. Army under General U.S. Grant began its spring 1864 offensive to crush the Confederate forces once and for all.
As the army advanced the Wilderness Campaign, grinding through the Battle of the Wilderness, the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, Cold Harbor, and on to the siege of Petersburg, the dead piled up.
The Army buried the dead and sent the wounded back to Washington, D.C. Journalist Noah Brooks wrote: “Maimed and wounded…. arrived by hundreds as long as the waves of sorrow came streaming back from the fields of slaughter…. They came groping, hobbling, and faltering, so faint and so longing for rest that one’s heart bled at the piteous sight.” For many, that rest was forever. In the era before antibiotics and modern medicine, the soldiers died in the summer heat.
Cemeteries in the city quickly became overwhelmed and Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs proposed to Stanton that the government begin burials at the Lee property. The National Republican newspaper called it, along with the establishment of a village of formerly enslaved Americans, “righteous uses of the estate of the rebel General Lee.”
By August 1864 the government had buried the bodies of twenty-six U.S. soldiers around the perimeter of Mrs. Lee’s rose garden, and it continued to bury bodies around the house to make sure Lee would never again be able to live there. By the end of the war, more than 16,000 Civil War soldiers were buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
It was there, on May 30, 1868, that the first official Memorial Day ceremony took place. In those days the observance was called “Decoration Day” and was widely celebrated after the war as people put flowers on the graves of the war dead. At the 1868 event, the newly organized Grand Army of the Republic honored the occasion with a speech by then-congressman James Garfield, who had served as a major general and seen action across the war, including at the battles of Shiloh and Chickamauga.
Garfield, who would later be elected president and lose his life to an assassin, told his comrades that the men buried at Arlington had “summed up and perfected, by one supreme act, the highest virtues of men and citizens. For love of country they accepted death, and thus…made immortal their patriotism and their virtue.“
They had fought, he said, to defend the fundamental principle of the United States. Before the war, Garfield said, “[t]he faith of our people in the stability and permanence of their institutions was like their faith in the eternal course of nature. Peace, liberty, and personal security were blessings as common and universal as sunshine and showers and fruitful seasons; and all sprang from a single source, the old American principle that all owe due submission and obedience to the lawfully expressed will of the majority. This is not one of the doctrines of our political system—it is the system itself. It is our political firmament, in which all other truths are set, as stars in Heaven…. Against this principle the whole weight of the rebellion was thrown. Its overthrow would have brought…ruin.”
And so, he said, “[t]he Nation was summoned to arms by every high motive which can inspire men. Two centuries of freedom had made its people unfit no for despotism. They must save their Government or miserably perish.”
For those who had died to defend the nation, he asked: “What other spot so fitting for their last resting place as this under the shadow of the Capitol saved by their valor?”
“Seven years ago, this was the home of one who lifted his sword against the life of his country, and who became the great Imperator of the rebellion. The soil beneath our feet was watered by the tears of slaves, in whose hearts the sight of yonder proud Capitol awakened no pride and inspired no hope…. But, thanks be to God, this arena of rebellion and slavery is a scene of violence and crime no longer! This will be forever the sacred mountain of our Capital….
“Hither our children’s children shall come to pay their tribute of grateful homage. For this are we met to-day.”
Garfield’s grand words obscured the extraordinary human cost of the war to defend the U.S. government. Almost seven years before, on July 14, 1861, at the very beginning of the conflict, Major Sullivan Ballou of Providence, Rhode Island, wrote his final letter to “My Very Dear Wife,” Sarah. Ballou anticipated the First Battle of Bull Run, the first major battle of the war, and wanted to explain why he was willing to give up his life for his country, and what it would cost.
“If it is necessary that I should fall on the battle-field for my country, I am ready,” he wrote. “I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in, the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how strongly American civilization now leans upon the triumph of government, and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution, and I am willing, perfectly willing to lay down all my joys in this life to help maintain this government, and to pay that debt.”
“Sarah, my love for you is deathless. It seems to bind me with mighty cables, that nothing but Omnipotence can break; and yet, my love of country comes over me like a strong wind, and bears me irresistibly on with all those chains, to the battlefield.
“The memories of all the blissful moments I have spent with you come crowding over me, and I feel most deeply grateful to God and you, that I have enjoyed them so long. And how hard it is for me to give them up, and burn to ashes the hopes of future years, when, God willing, we might still have lived and loved together, and seen our boys grow up to honorable manhood around us.”
Ballou fell at the Battle of Bull Run. Sarah never remarried.
from The Formula by Tom Frieden — Thanks to Kate B.
In 1990, stroke killed South Koreans at a rate of 248 per 100,000. By 2023, that rate had fallen to 32. That’s an 87 percent drop. A generation ago, only about one in twenty Korean adults with high blood pressure, which is still the world’s biggest killer, had it under control. Today, six in ten do.
I’ve worked on health programs in dozens of countries over four decades, and I can’t think of a single example of more impressive progress against cardiovascular disease. Korea didn’t get lucky. It made a series of deliberate choices, sustained them across changes in government, and watched as its people stopped being hospitalized, disabled, and killed by preventable strokes and heart attacks.
The story deserves to be much better known—both because Korea has earned the credit and because every country in the world can make progress at least this fast. Here’s what happened.
To support health progress, please become a paid subscriber.Subscribe
Korea got there by doing something most countries still haven’t done. It made sure that every adult has a regular medical provider whose job is to keep blood pressure in check and whose performance is measured on whether they do. (continued on Page 2 or here)
The new CEO of Kroger, parent company to brands including Fred Meyer and QFC in Washington state, is looking to compete with Walmart and other companies by lowering prices. This is a QFC in the University Village… (Erika Schultz / The Seattle Times, 2024)More
By Jaewon Kang(Ed note: Here’s the good news, but see the next article!)
Kroger’s new CEO is looking at big price cuts in order to win back market share and take on his former employer, Walmart Inc., and other competitors.
The largest US grocery company, which owns 21 chains including City Market and Fred Meyer, is laying the groundwork for lower prices across product categories, CEO Greg Foran told Bloomberg News in his first interview since taking the role in February. Management is currently making plans to test price cuts and then phase them in.
Kroger is looking to compete more fiercely with Walmart and other companies that have gained ground in recent years at the expense of traditional grocery operators. Across food retail, businesses emphasizing value are outperforming those seen as offering higher prices, Foran said, pointing to Walmart, Costco Wholesale Corp., Trader Joe’s, Aldi and Amazon.com Inc.
“I think about our business a bit like a Formula One race. There’s a lead group of cars that are doing a very good job,” Foran said. “Our objective is to get out of the midfield and start lapping faster, make up the gap on the first-group cars and then ideally pass them.”
In addition to cutting prices, Kroger is working to make service in stores friendlier and faster. It also wants to accelerate new store openings.
The company is forging a new path under its first external CEO following a failed deal with competitor Albertsons Cos. and the abrupt departure a year ago of long-time leader Rodney McMullen. The company is now contending with increasingly cautious US consumers, escalating inflation worries and GLP-1 drugs that are reshaping eating habits.
Foran, 64, said Kroger will look to trim expenses in part by importing merchandise directly and using technology more effectively, and then put savings toward price cutting. Items across the store will get cheaper, he added, while declining to quantify the investment.
‘Thousands of Products’
“The reality is, the basket has to come down. And not everyone’s basket is the same,” Foran said. “It needs to be across thousands of products, and it has to be something that passes the commonsense piece with customers.”
Retailers, especially grocery chains that operate on relatively thin margins, typically don’t disclose their tactics to lower prices for merchandise. Walmart said Thursday that it’s cut prices on about 7,200 items, up more than 20% from a year ago. The world’s largest retailer said low prices are helping it gain market share across income levels.
“This is a competitive market and has been for all the years that I’ve been in retail,” Walmart CEO John Furner said on a call with analysts, in response to a question about other retailers’ push to cut prices. “This is an industry, particularly in food, where everyone is looking for value and has been for a really long time.”
Walmart said it will continue to prioritize low prices, especially as higher gas prices squeeze shoppers’ budgets. Inflation has accelerated with the conflict in Iran pushing up fuel prices, and the tightening of government benefits has also led some households to pull back.
Kroger’s Foran said consumers are “wary of what they’re seeing at the gas pump. They’re wary of some of the commentary about what might be coming down the line in terms of some increases.” While they are not changing habits in a notable way and grocery spending has remained healthy, affordability concerns could worsen if macroeconomic challenges persist, he added.
Cincinnati Roots
Kroger started as a single store that Barney Kroger opened in Cincinnati in 1883. As the company grew, it broadened its assortment and added services like in-store bakeries before acquiring various chains over the years. It now generates nearly $150 billion annually in revenue.
Foran, who was born and raised in New Zealand, has returned to the U.S. — and the retail industry — after about five years running his home country’s national airline. Before leaving for the airline in 2020, he was credited with whipping Walmart’s US stores into shape.
At the big-box retailer, he was known for visiting stores frequently, studying their performance and asking specific, detailed questions to field staff. He made stores cleaner, friendlier and easier to shop, in addition to lowering prices and zeroing in on the fresh food assortment. During his tenure, Walmart’s US division generated three straight years of increases in quarterly same-store sales and his departure was seen as a blow to the company.
Delivered weeknights, this email newsletter gives you the day’s top stories and need-to-know news, as well as intriguing topics to spark conversation as you wind down from your day.
Foran, who went to Air New Zealand to try his hand in a new industry, said he wasn’t aware of the Kroger opening when he stepped down as CEO of the airline, but he became excited about the prospect as he learned about it.
The Five Fs
While price is a key component of making Kroger more competitive, Foran said it also has to offer strong service, fresh food, popular products and e-commerce to win over shoppers. Part of that effort involves staff training to improve consistency.
Internally, the company has been discussing what he said are the five Fs: fresh, fast, affordable, friendly and for you. The last item speaks to Kroger’s ambitions to offer greater personalization and tailor its stores to their specific neighborhoods.
“Our objective is to execute what we think is a very clear, sensible plan. We want to be America’s best grocer,” he said.
Kroger is planning 70 to 80 new stores next year, double the amount being opened in 2026. While it is closing some locations as well, Kroger said its store count is positive on an overall basis, and that trend is accelerating. The new locations will play an important part of e-commerce operations that continue to expand as consumers prioritize speed.
The retailer will be thoughtful about opportunities to further grow through acquisitions, Foran said. The company sees room in the Northeast where it doesn’t have a strong presence, as well as markets with strong population growth such as Texas, the Carolinas and parts of Florida.
(Updates with Walmart comments beginning in ninth paragraph.)
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
Story by Alix Martichoux Published in “The Hill” Washington D.C.
(NEXSTAR) – Federal inflation data confirms what you may have been feeling already: Groceries are getting more expensive. Unfortunately, things may be about to get a whole lot worse, economists are warning.
The price of groceries rose 2.9% in April compared to the same month a year earlier, according to government figures released in May. That was the highest year-over-year inflation rate for the category since August 2023.
When compared to the same time last year, fruits and vegetables have seen some of the biggest price hikes. Tomatoes are 40% more expensive now than they were this time last year. Bad growing weather, tariffs, and rising fuel prices have all contributed to the huge change in tomato prices, reports the New York Times.
Coffee, another imported product, is 19% more expensive than it was last spring.
You’re also likely seeing inflated prices at the butcher counter. Meat is up 9% overall, but beef has grown even more expensive. Ground beef is about 15% pricier, beef roasts are 18% more, and steak is up 16%.
What’s contributing to the price spikes? Fuel prices have soared while the Iran war prevents cargo ships from passing through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital corridor for global oil supplies. Diesel fuel powers fishing boats, tractors and the trucks that ship 83% of U.S. agricultural products.
Just as you’re paying more at the pump, so are truckers who transport goods all around the country. Some vendors and suppliers are adding fuel surcharges to make up for the increased cost of transporting and delivering their goods.
Weather is also to blame in some cases. Dry weather in the West is making things harder for cattle ranchers, therefore driving up beef prices. Global drought is affecting coffee production.
Bad news may soon get worse, experts warn. The full impact of rising energy costs on food likely has not hit retail grocery prices yet in the U.S., according to Purdue University economists Ken Foster and Bernhard Dalheimer. Higher costs to produce, process, store, and transport food can take three to six months to show up on supermarket shelves, where prices typically fall slowly once increased, they said.
“Most of what we’re seeing now in the food price chain probably predates the conflict,” Foster, a professor of agricultural economics, said. “We’re cautiously waiting to see what the June numbers and the May numbers might show as they come out in terms of … the extent to which energy shocks in the Strait of Hormuz and shipping blockades and so forth are going to impact food prices.” “The big story right now is oil, the next story is food,” economist Justin Wolfersagreed in an interview with MS Now.
“You see fuel prices rise, that’s the rock hitting the pond. And then the ripples are that jet fuel prices rise, and air fuel prices rise, and then the price of trucking your groceries to the grocery store rises. That’s the full set of ripples out of this,” Wolfers explained in another segment on the network.
If fuel prices remain high, we could see more issues “seep down the supply chain,” Foster said. Fertilizer could be more expensive, for example, since about 30% of the world’s supply of fertilizer moves through the Strait. That would make growing food more expensive for farmers, and those costs would eventually get passed on to the consumer.
If you’re looking for a silver lining in these tough economic times, check out the egg aisle. Eggs are 39% cheaper than they were this time last year, thanks to some normalization following last year’s avian flu crisis.
SW Washington, Columbia Gorge: — Length 6.0 miles, roundtrip — Elevation Gain 2,800 feet — Highest Point 2,948 feet (thanks to Sharon L.)
The slopes of Dog Mountain rise steep and rocky above the Columbia Gorge, exposed to hard wind, summer drought, and intense sun. Soil slips downhill and roots struggle to hold the mountain in place. Fire has long moved through the Gorge during dry seasons, while erosion and unstable ground repeatedly disturb the slopes.
After the last Ice Age, grasslands and flowering plants spread across these warm south-facing hillsides. Winter rain still sinks deep into the volcanic soil before spring sunlight quickly warms the earth. Each May, balsamroot, lupine, paintbrush, and phlox bloom across the open slopes. Forest competes constantly with these meadows, but the mountain’s harsh conditions prevent trees from fully taking over many of the flower fields.
Iberá National Park and Iberá Provincial Park are home to sweeping grasslands, marshlands, forests, and 4,000 species of flora and fauna. Together, they form the largest park in Argentina.
In early May, tour guides were leading tourists through the park when they spotted a jaguar resting on the trail. It was Ombú, a young male born in Iberá Park in Corrientes, Argentina.
He marked the first wild jaguar sighting in 70 years.
“Since we dedicate ourselves to this work and know what the jaguar represents in Iberá, throughout the province of Corrientes, and here in Argentina, it really fills us with joy,” park ranger Víctor Cereal said in an audio testimonial.
“And being able to share it with visitors makes us extremely, extremely happy,” he said. “It’s a mix of many emotions, and honestly, I’ll never forget this. It’s like the greatest reward someone can have as a guide.”
Seven decades ago, jaguars were driven out of Argentina by twin forces: logging and poaching. As hunters killed them for their pelts, the forest shrank around them.
The sighting comes after decades of hard-fought conservation work, education campaigns, and rewilding efforts.
Image via Mario Martins / Rewilding Argentina
Thanks to Rewilding Argentina working in tandem with local institutions, scientists, park rangers, and ranchers, Corrientes went from having no free-roaming jaguars to now containing 50.
That’s nearly 20% of all the jaguars currently living in Argentina.
“After more than 70 years without the presence of the jaguar here in the wetlands, seeing it again in its natural habitat, as I said, is truly historic,” Cereal said.
“The arrival of the jaguar to this place is very important, especially at this stage of conservation, because it’s a predator that we were missing here in the wetlands,” the park ranger continued. “We’ve been seeing many capybaras, caimans, and different animals that complete the ecosystem, but we were missing him, the top predator. And well, honestly, that was what we lacked.”
Jaguars play a critical role in forest health. As an apex predator, they regulate the populations of other species, sending positive ripple effects down the food chain.
Mario Martins, a recently retired tour guide with a deep love for photography, recalled the moment that he saw the jaguar and captured it on camera.
Image via Mario Martins / Rewilding Argentina
“That fleeting glimpse, that sign that the lord of the forest was there, was the moment when it really dawned on me just how significant what was happening was,” Martins said in an audio testimonial. “It was a face-to-face encounter between two beings in absolute silence.”
Martins added that the moment was bigger than a single jaguar — it was what it represented.
“This sighting is living proof of the success of a collective effort,” he emphasized. “The fact that a jaguar… roams the region shows that the ecosystem is regaining its health.”
Soon, the jaguar moved on, leaving Martins awestruck.
“[I] make the most of the experience,” he said, “knowing that the real magic lies in the animal continuing to feel free.”
Ed note: This article highlights the dangers and pitfalls of the corporate takeover of healthcare. There are perverse incentives when medical care may be compromised by preference being giving to stockholder’s interests. However, there is no perfect set of incentives. Should physicians charging fee for service be given complete control? Or should physicians, like nurses, be salaried and in a non-profit structure like Kaiser. Should a government entity run the whole thing–and put limits on expensive procedures and technology? One thing for sure, the current direction isn’t working to improve healthcare. Dr. Hartsock has a point, but the ultimate answers aren’t that clear. When I worked at Group Health, administration reported to a lay board. The agreement with the medical staff was that they would not interfere with the practice of medicine. That was not a perfect system, but it was a non-profit with built-in checks and balances.
By Jenny Hartsock Special to The Seattle Times
Healthcare in America should not be a monopoly. (It shouldn’t be a business at all, but that’s a battle for another day.) Nevertheless, regional and national corporate monopolies are taking over healthcare. This means decisions about how our hospitals operate are often not made by local clinicians, but by nonclinical administrators hundreds or even thousands of miles away.
In Eugene, Ore., a local emergency medicine group was recently fired by PeaceHealth. The administrators claimed the emergency department doctors were not qualified to do their jobs, despite having served their Lane County community well for 35 years. Leaked records show that PeaceHealth dismissed the group after doctors called out its CEO for trying to influence medical decisions made for hundreds of patients at a local hospital.
PeaceHealth then attempted to hire a national staffing company, Atlanta-based ApolloMD, to replace the local doctors. It claims to be physician-owned but is in part funded by private equity. That’s illegal in Oregon, thanks to a state law banning corporations from “exerting authority over a physician’s medical judgment and clinical practices in the state.” ApolloMD created a shell company “owned” by a physician to try and skirt the law.
This did not go well. The physicians who testified for ApolloMD when the dispute reached court were accused of misrepresenting themselves by a judge. PeaceHealth and ApolloMD came out looking terrible, and immense pressure was put on PeaceHealth by the local medical staff, the state nurses union, state legislators and the media to undo its decision … and it worked. PeaceHealth has now signed a three-year contract with Eugene Emergency Physicians.
As a physician (full disclosure: I work at a PeaceHealth-owned facility and a corporate-owned medical group in Washington, which is the only way I can practice my specialty where I live) this gives me some hope. Hope that other states, like ours, can pass similar legislation. Washington in fact had an anti-corporate medicine bill that was voted down earlier this year, Senate Bill 5387. The bill would prohibit unlicensed corporate entities from controlling or influencing clinical decisions, and require healthcare companies to be majority-owned by licensed clinicians. The bill didn’t get a vote, largely due to corporate lobbying.
I encourage everyone in Washington who wants to see medicine shift back to local, physician-led management to write your state representative. You can find your representatives at st.news/find. We need to let our representatives know that we want this bill back next session. We want corporations blocked from dictating how patients are cared for in Washington state and we want healthcare that prioritizes patients and people over profits. We shouldn’t let corporations on the other side of the country decide what is the best medical care in Washington.
Jenny Hartsock is a physician practicing hospital medicine in Bellingham.
The organization will continue to lead the Bellevue Arts Fair and expand its role, bringing the arts to spaces and events throughout the city.
BELLEVUE, Wash. — May 18, 2026 — Bellevue Arts Museum (BAM) today announced it has finalized the sale of its building at 510 Bellevue Way NE to KidsQuest Children’s Museum, a fellow Bellevue-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit. The transaction marks a new chapter for both organizations and launches BAM’s next phase as an agile, community-embedded arts nonprofit that brings exhibitions, programs, and artist-led experiences to audiences across the city.
As part of this transition, BAM will continue its role as a leading arts organization in the Puget Sound region. The organization will produce the beloved Bellevue Arts Fair and expand flagship programs such as curated installations, educational workshops, and other community-centered initiatives that support artists and connect residents and visitors to the arts. The move reflects BAM’s evolution — trading a single address for a citywide footprint that meets audiences where they live, work, and gather. (continued on Page 2 or here)
BREAKING: Pope Leo XIV Answers Barack Obama’s Call — And What Happened Next Left the Nation Silent Before It Rose in Applause
Just hours after Barack Obama publicly urged Americans to come together in the fight against hunger, something unexpected unfolded—quietly, without announcement, without anticipation.
Pope Leo XIV didn’t respond with a speech.
He responded with action.
Behind the scenes, a $12 million donation was transferred to the JBJ Soul Foundation—a move that would go on to fund millions of meals for families struggling to get through the night.
There was no press conference.
No headlines—at first.
Only impact.
Then, at a small gathering inside Soul Kitchen in New Jersey, Pope Leo XIV said something that no one in the room expected to carry so far… yet it did.
“If I can help even a few families feel safe tonight,” he said quietly, “then that is a greater legacy than anything I have ever been called.”
It wasn’t the amount that stunned people.
It was the intention behind it.
Because in that moment, the focus shifted—from power to purpose.
Within hours, word spread. And then came a response no one saw coming. (see Page 2)
This is a brief follow-up to my recent post about government statistics and economics — a post which proved, embarrassingly, to be timely. No sooner had the ink dried than the government announced that the inflation rate had “ticked up” to 3.8%. The economists were shocked. The pundits were shocked. Headlines across the entire media sphere erupted in coordinated disbelief: unexpected, higher than estimated, defying projections. One cable news anchor looked as though he might need a moment alone.
“Ticked up.” I want to dwell on that phrase for a moment, because it is doing heavy lifting. It suggests a modest, even dainty movement. Not a lurching, stomach-dropping leap in the cost of living. Somebody in a communications department earned their salary that day.
Now, I have a question. Where, exactly, do these economists live? Because it is clearly not anywhere near a supermarket, a gas station, a hardware store, or any establishment that sells goods to actual human beings. They appear to inhabit a parallel universe where numbers drift gently across screens, and no one has ever stood in a checkout line doing silent, horrified arithmetic.
The average consumer, not a credentialed expert in anything, knows about inflation weeks or months before the economists get around to measuring it. We know because we buy things. Radical concept, I realize.
Let me offer some data points from my recent fieldwork at a local grocery store conducted without a research grant.
Radishes. A humble bunch of radishes averaged somewhere between 95 cents and $1.10 for as long as anyone could remember. Dependable little things. Yesterday: $1.95. That is not a “tick.” That is closer to a full-throated leap, and radishes have not, to my knowledge, done anything to deserve it.
Gasoline jumped from roughly $2.80 a gallon to well over $4.00. I will leave the percentage calculation to the economists, since arithmetic appears to be their primary skill set, and even they seem to be struggling.
The one-pound bag of frozen, sustainably harvested, certified Wild Gulf Coast shrimp, a product I have watched with the devotion held steady around $9.00 for what felt like geological time. Yesterday it was $12.98. I stood there in the frozen foods aisle holding it at arm’s length as though it had personally wronged me.
A box of breakfast cereal of the middling kind, not the fancy kind with the dried fruit that falls to the bottom, is now $7.49. It contains, by weight, approximately as much air as cereal. The manufacturers have also quietly made the box narrower, apparently believing we won’t notice. We notice.
A rotisserie chicken, long celebrated as the great democratic protein of the American table, has crossed the $10 threshold in some places. The chickens themselves are the same size they always were. They have simply become more expensive through no fault of their own.
Coffee. Don’t get me started on coffee. Actually, let’s: a one-pound bag of mid-range ground coffee that once cost $8.99 is now nudging $14. There are people being paid to study inflation who cannot afford to stay awake long enough to understand it.
And so it went, down every aisle — condiments, bread, pasta, paper towels (paper towels!) — each item up anywhere from 5 to 25 percent. The sole exception, that defies all logic and provides no comfort whatsoever, was eggs. Eggs, after their own adventure in the stratosphere last year, have come back down to earth. I suppose we are meant to be grateful. I am choosing, instead, to be suspicious.
This chasm between what we are told and what we actually experience is not merely annoying. It corrodes something. Trust, though, that particular resource has been running low for some time. When the official version of reality and the lived version diverge badly enough and often enough, people stop bothering to reconcile them. They simply conclude that the official version is for someone else, describing some other country populated by economic abstractions who do not buy shrimp or fill their tanks or notice that the cereal box has gotten smaller.
I was so angry that when I came home from the store, I made a pot of soup from items I usually discard. Asparagus bottoms, the stems of watercress and arugula, a potato with developing eyes, the stems of parsley, and an onion. After blending, it was delicious. Next, I will attend to my victory garden and perhaps buy Eugenia Bone’s book, The Kitchen Ecosystem.
The TV analysts will continue to pontificate. They will talk about “core inflation,” which is inflation minus the things that actually went up; food and energy being the classic exclusions, presumably because no one eats or drives. They will reference “base effects,” “supply chain normalization,” and other phrases designed to make the incomprehensible sound merely technical.
Meanwhile, the rest of us will stand at the checkout, watching the numbers climb, and do the math ourselves.
The famous “Recombobulation Area” signs are located at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport (MKE) in Wisconsin. These signs are placed immediately following the security checkpoints to provide a designated space for travelers to get “recombobulated”—put their shoes back on, gather belongings, and reorganize—after going through TSA screening.
Ed note: Where does discombobulate come from anyway? A quick search provides the following: Origin: Originated in the United States in the early 1800s, with finding the first recorded use in a Maryland newspaper in 1825.“Mock-Latin” Fad: It was part of a popular trend of creating elaborate, absurd, and pseudo-Latin words (“Dog Latin”) to mock educated, high-society speech. Bottom line: You might as well have a smile as you recombobulate! Kudos to Milwaukee.
From US Fish and Wildlife Service – notes & picture
Golden paintbrush adds splashes of bright yellow to the prairies of the Pacific Northwest when it flowers in late spring. This vibrant perennial plant is native to the prairies of Washington State, Oregon and southern British Columbia. As those prairie ecosystems were dramatically fractured and reduced in size by development, agriculture and fire suppression, golden paintbrush too became increasingly rare. However, a suite of public and private partners have worked hard to help populations rebound in recent years. At the time the species was federally-listed as threatened in 1997, fewer than 20,000 plants remained at just 10 sites. By 2018, hundreds of thousands of plants could be found at 48 sites.
Ed note: Here’s a few pictures from a friend celebrating Prarie Appreciation Day in SW Washington.
Reload document 
Open in new tab 
— Length 6.0 miles, roundtrip — 
Elevation Gain 2,800 feet — 
Highest Point 2,948 feet (thanks to Sharon L.) 
BREAKING: Pope Leo XIV Answers Barack Obama’s Call — And What Happened Next Left the Nation Silent Before It Rose in Applause
