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Michael Grass

@mgrass.bsky.social
837 followers 1.1K following 477 posts

WA via DC, NYC and MI | Asst director for strategic comms at @cip.uw.edu | Former journalist | Car-free living | 🚎 🚇 🏊‍♂️ ✍️ 🌲🗺

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Reposted by Michael Grass
Cascadia Daily News @cascadiadaily.com · 29/09/2026
U.S. border officials reportedly are questioning Canadian citizens with U.S. permanent resident status about whether they've voted in U.S. elections, using state public records to identify the alleged violations. A 61-year-old Point Roberts woman now faces an immigration hearing.
cascadiadaily.com
Feds using Whatcom County voting rolls to ramp up deportation efforts | Cascadia Daily News
Permanent resident detained at US border for 6 hours, questioned about voting history
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Michael Grass @mgrass.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Here's the latest analysis from our @cip.uw.edu election rumor team that took shape over the weekend ...
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Michael Grass @mgrass.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Our local stratovolcano seems to have seen a good amount of new snow. #Tacoma #Tahoma #MtRainier
Mount Rainier peeks above homes in Tacoma, covered in snow.
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Reposted by Michael Grass
ProPublica @propublica.org · 26/09/2026
Hey, ProPublica reporter Jake Pearson here. I’m taking over the account to tell you about my new story. For months, I posed as a problem gambler on DraftKings to test the company's "responsible gaming" safeguards. Spoiler alert: They made me a VIP — and I lost $10K. Here's how it all went down. 🧵
Selfie taken by ProPublica reporter Jake Pearson, a man wearing a backwards baseball cap and an orange T-shirt.
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Reposted by Michael Grass
Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
This news out of California is another troubling example of how the “rigged election” conspiracy theories have been mobilized into policy, including (illegal) ballots seizures. But it’s REALLY IMPORTANT to stress that the seized ballots are from a 2025 special election, not the current election.
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Michael Grass @mgrass.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Coming up on October 7, I'm excited to co-present @cip.uw.edu research and insights with @danielletomson.bsky.social at Digital Day, a professional development conference for Seattle-area government communicators. www.pnwdigitalday.org
pnwdigitalday.org
Digital Day – Engage, Inform, and Innovate
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Reposted by Michael Grass
A. Zivarts @nondriver.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Lives don't happen just between 9 and 5. Hear how King County Metro and elected leaders across our region are working to create the all-day network riders dream of and how #WeekWithoutDriving can help us understand the needs of those of us who rely on transit.
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Reposted by Michael Grass
Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Rumors about “rigged elections" are now a fixture of U.S. elections, leading to diminished trust in election results & democracy (broadly). These rumors can sometimes be hard to debunk, esp. in their early stages. Our UW team has identified the 6 common ways that election integrity rumors mislead:
Infographic titled "Six Ways 'Rigged Election' Rumors Mislead." A two-column table pairs six labeled categories with descriptions. The first three categories are:

No Evidence: The rumor is entirely unsubstantiated. There's no evidence to support the rumor.

Fake/False Evidence: The rumor is based on fake or synthetic evidence (e.g. AI-generated content), manipulated evidence, or false witness testimony.

Misinterpreted Evidence: This rumor is based upon real evidence that has been misinterpreted or intentionally mischaracterized to create a false impression.

A black banner then introduces the final three categories: "Real Evidence, Real Voting Issue, False Narrative."

Exaggerated Impact: The rumor centers on a real issue with voting but falsely insinuates or exaggerates impact on election results.

Ignored Remedies: The rumor centers on a real issue with voting but ignores and/or obscures the remedies that would address this problem

False Blame: The rumor centers on a real issue with voting but either falsely attributes intent for an accidental issue or places blame on an innocent party.

Source: UW Center for an Informed Public, September 2026.
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Michael Grass @mgrass.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Does anyone's cat like to ride the bus? We're headed to the vet for a routine check-up, but my sweet, well-mannered tabby seems to enjoy the ride and the adventure of the Route 1 bus in Tacoma.
A cat in a cat carrier looks out into the interior of a bus.
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Reposted by Michael Grass
Taniel @taniel.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Important: the USPS rule that SCOTUS blocked tonight was Trump’s big plan to control and restrict mail voting. But a separate policy remains in place: USPS is no longer postmarking mail as soon it gets it, which is hugely important for deadlines. So people must mail back with plenty of time.
boltsmag.org
In an Intense Election Year, New Post Office Rules Could Trip Up Voter Registration - Bolts
A change in how mail is postmarked could lead some voters to miss key deadlines, including voter registration. Advocates worry the people most affected will be those already facing voting barriers.
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Michael Grass @mgrass.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Good evening, Tacoma!
An orange tram on the T Line in Tacoma departs the Old City Hall Station with a senior citizen walking down the platform with a walker.
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Reposted by Michael Grass
Daniel Swain @weatherwest.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Fielding questions re: this article w/bizarre factual errors. First, there's no "Montecito County" in CA. Second, 2 fires are actually in *Monterey,* & 3rd in *Mendocino*. Third, 60k ac have *not* burned in either fictional Montecito nor real Mendocino.🤨
latimes.com
Three Montecito County fires near Big Sur have burned nearly 60,000 acres
In Mendocino County, the total area burned by three fires grew to nearly 60,000 acres on Saturday.
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Reposted by Michael Grass
The Urbanist @theurbanist.org · 11/09/2026
NEW STORY// New Airo Trains Start Rolling on Amtrak Cascades September 30 By Ryan Packer via @theurbanist.org
theurbanist.org
New Airo Trains Start Rolling on Amtrak Cascades September 30
The new trains feature ergonomic seats, upgraded WiFi, and a sleek new cafe car. They'll go into service on both the Seattle to Eugene and Seattle to Vancouver, B.C. routes. More trains are set to arrive by the end of the year, dramatically increasing Amtrak Cascades capacity.
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Reposted by Michael Grass
David Zipper @davidzipper.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
New study finds the social cost of driving a car 1 km—including pollution, crashes, infrastructure, and noise—is more than *triple* the private cost paid by the car owner. doi.org/10.1016/j.tr...
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Reposted by Michael Grass
Yonah Freemark @yonahfreemark.com · 10/09/2026
The latest transit data, for July, show that the Seattle urban area now has the best ridership recovery of all large US regions. That's especially true over the past few months, as the region has had routinely higher ridership than pre-pandemic. www.thetransportpolitic.com/databook/us-...
Transit ridership recovery from January 2020, on a rolling 12-month basis.
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Reposted by Michael Grass
Martin Austermuhle @maustermuhle.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
NEWS, as they say: @notus.com is no longer; say hello to The Washington Sun! 🌞 Oh, and: We’ve struck a deal to carry daily weather reports from @capitalweather.com! www.nytimes.com/2026/09/08/b...
nytimes.com
Politics News Site NOTUS Rebrands as The Washington Sun
A trademark dispute scuttled its plans to relaunch as The Washington Star, so the site chose a different name.
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Michael Grass @mgrass.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
It's going to a busy fall for our @cip.uw.edu team ...
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Michael Grass @mgrass.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
It's a pleasant Saturday in Tacoma. 71° F / 22° C #PublicTransit #Tacoma
A bald dude in sunglasses takes a selfie with a T Line train in Tacoma.
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Michael Grass @mgrass.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Good evening, Tacoma. The mountain is out!
A snow-capped Mt Rainier stands out amid the Downtown Tacoma skyline with the Old City Hall clocktower at left.
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Michael Grass @mgrass.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
The mountain may not be out tonight in Tacoma but what about this rainbow? 🌈
A vivid rainbow set on cloudy skies.An arcing rainbow over a cityscape with telephone wires.
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Reposted by Michael Grass
Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Great analysis by Jared Holt (@jaredlholt.bsky.social) of social media discourse around the WNBA — revealing how right wing media have converged onto the league, bringing their culture wars with them: blog.openmeasures.io/p/sophie-cun...
blog.openmeasures.io
A Player's Anti-Trans Remarks Kicked Right-Wing Attacks on the WNBA into Overdrive
Sophie Cunningham’s comments drew the WNBA deeper into the crosshairs of right-wing media’s ‘culture war’
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Reposted by Michael Grass
David Zipper @davidzipper.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
This is a wild statistic (from IIHS, a very reputable research org): "Cellphone use prior to crashes is undercounted in police reports by a factor of at least 7."
iihs.org
Study shows police reports undercount cellphone use before crashes
Police usually fail to note drivers talking, texting or fiddling with their phones in crash reports, a new IIHS study shows.
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Reposted by Michael Grass
Robert Kelchen @robertkelchen.com · 29/08/2026
I don't think that enough people realize how big of an issue sports gambling (including so-called "predictions markets") are on college campuses. Take a few minutes and read through this family's challenge with gambling addictions that led to stopping out of college and a mountain of debt.
espn.com
'We are broken': One family's fight against gambling addiction
For Amit, it all started with a college poker game. Now he's in recovery from a gambling addiction that consumed him and his parents.
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Reposted by Michael Grass
Goldy @goldy.horsesass.org · 29/08/2026
How accurate is vote-by-mail? Whatcom County, WA just conducted a hand recount of 50,451 ballots in a race separated by just 4 votes: "In the end, it was a 100% match. Every vote came out the same, every time. There were no allegations of lost or fraudulent votes, or missed votes in the machines."
seattletimes.com
‘Zero doubt’: The story of WA’s 100% accurate mail-in election
President Donald Trump and the Republicans keep maligning mail-in voting, saying it's slipshod and corrupt. But one such local election just got a perfect score, Danny Westneat writes.
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Reposted by Michael Grass
Yonah Freemark @yonahfreemark.com · 28/08/2026
In some big cities—like New York, Seattle, DC, Boston, SF & Portland—commuters are less & less likely to drive to work. The transformation was underway pre-Covid. The share of commuters driving in Seattle declined from 58.7% in 1990 to 36.6% now! www.thetransportpolitic.com/databook/us-...
Share of commuters traveling to work by driving alone, 1980–2024, New York, Seattle, DC, Boston, SF, and Portland.
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Michael Grass @mgrass.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Although I have a three-train commute from home to my office in Seattle, I get so much reading and writing done en route. I couldn't do that driving on I-5.
Bald guy in sunglasses wearing a purple polo shirt.
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Reposted by Michael Grass
Rick Hasen @rickhasen.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
What the Supreme Court just did in the larger context of the Trump voting order is complicated and may really mean nothing in the end. I try to lay it out in clear terms in the post linked below.
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Reposted by Michael Grass
International Conference on Computational Social Science @ic2s2.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
IC2S2 2026 Keynote from Kate Starbird, "From Rumors to Influence: Participatory Propaganda to Policy": youtu.be/B5a651PKTN0
youtu.be
2026 IC2S2: Keynote Presentation by Kate Starbird
YouTube video by Vermont Complex Systems Institute
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Reposted by Michael Grass
Hansi Lo Wang (he/him) @hansilowang.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
NEW: Today is Day 3 of the Census Bureau's homepage, census.gov, featuring an unauthored report with analysis that @npr.org found was conducted not by career civil servants, but a team that included individuals affiliated with a President Trump-aligned think tank, the America First Policy Institute
npr.org
Experts raise alarms over Census Bureau report Trump is touting on noncitizen voting
A Trump-aligned think tank has ties to a highly unusual Census Bureau report that the president is using to renew false claims of widespread voting by non-U.S. citizens in 2020, NPR has learned.
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Reposted by Michael Grass
Center for an Informed Public @cip.uw.edu · 20/08/2026
A recent @brennancenter.org expert brief co-authored by @cip.uw.edu graduate research assistant @zarine.net explores how attacks on legitimate polls and the rise of fake polls make it challenging for voters to know what to believe. Read more: www.brennancenter.org/our-work/ana...
brennancenter.org
How Polls Can Help or Hurt Democracy
Attacks on legitimate polls and the rise of fake polls make it hard for voters to know what to believe.
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Michael Grass @mgrass.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
🧵 🚍🚉 In my spare time, I maintain an independent photoblog-newsletter sidehobby covering Tacoma-area transit, the result of my career jumpstarting local news publications. (That's how DCist, RIP, started in 2004 back east in the Other Washington.)
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Reposted by Michael Grass
Jarrett Walker @humantransit.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
What navigation software took from you. theconversation.com/taxi-drivers...
theconversation.com
Taxi drivers rarely die of Alzheimer’s – how complex mental maps and spatial reasoning protect your brain
Working with and living in spatially complex environments may help delay cognitive decline, though more research is needed.
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Michael Grass @mgrass.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
A random person on my commute into Seattle came up to me on a moving express bus saying: "I trust you. ... I read in the news that King Charles died. You look like someone who can figure out whether that's true." Related: people.com/king-charles...
people.com
King Charles’ Death Report Mistakenly Airs on Radio Station After Staffer Played Announcement ‘Out of Curiosity’
A U.K. radio station mistakenly aired statements saying that King Charles had died during a broadcast in May. The U.K. media regulator said the incident breached to broadcasting codes.
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Reposted by Michael Grass
Washington State Dept of Natural Resources @wadnr.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Please stop flying your personal drones over wildfires. They can ground or collide with our firefighting aircraft, disrupting time critical firefighting and threatening people’s homes. Your photos are not worth someone’s home. If you fly, we can’t.
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Michael Grass @mgrass.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
The mountain is not out here in Tacoma this evening as wildfire smoke from the Inland Northwest starts to accumulate in the Puget Sound lowlands. 73°F / 24°C #WAwx #PNW
A hazy sky with homes in the foreground.
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Reposted by Michael Grass
Karl Otterstrom @pedestrianman.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Good morning. The past 42 hours have been something. Spokane Transit has been assisting with evacuations, from the VA Hospital to assisted living and retirement centers as recent as this AM. Multiple employees have lost their homes. I appreciate the thoughts and prayers for Spokane.
Bus on Spokane Transit Route 4 approaches bus stop in a noticeable haze of wildfire smoke
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Michael Grass @mgrass.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
My first job out of college was working at the FTA on a post-9/11 transit security and emergency preparedness program where we traveled around the U.S. helping local transit agencies prep for disaster response. Great work by STA in Spokane amid volatile circumstances getting people to safety!
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Michael Grass @mgrass.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
This is a nightmare situation unfolding in Spokane.
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Reposted by Michael Grass
404 Media @404media.co · 31/07/2026
UPDATE: After the publication of this piece, Google sent 404 Media a statement saying it was “rolling back this feature in Google Earth while we work on implementing stronger guardrails.” www.404media.co/google-earth...
404media.co
Google Earth’s New AI Lets Anyone Fabricate Completely Bullshit Satellite Images
"Tonight I typed just one sentence into Google Earth and put refugees near the Mexican border. Then I planted a nuclear plant in Iran. Then I put a fatal crash on a street in Amsterdam."
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Alex Engler @alexengler.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
@katestarbird.bsky.social is my hero. @ic2s2.bsky.social
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Reposted by Michael Grass
Transportation Choices Coalition @transpochoices.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
You shouldn't have to work twice as hard to get around Pierce County just because you can't drive. The transit measure on the ballot this November would add more bus routes, more often, at more times of day. It's urgent that it passes. transportationchoices.org/transit-is-o...
transportationchoices.org
Transit is on the Ballot in Pierce County. Here’s What You Need to Know.
The “More People. More Places. More Often” proposal would increase service by 47% and make fares free for seniors.
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Reposted by Michael Grass
Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
oh for crying out loud [you'll never guess what technology generated the map! Oh, no, wait, you will.] www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
theguardian.com
US government map of Africa mislabels every country at global conference
State department ‘takes full responsibility’ for erroneous, widely shared chart displayed at Aids conference in Brazil
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Michael Grass @mgrass.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Why use Senator Dodd when you could feature former Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz?
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Michael Grass @mgrass.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Good commuting deed of the day: At the International District/Chinatown Link station in Downtown Seattle this morning, I encountered a perplexed tourist couple trying to make sense of platform wayfinding. What were they looking for? The "train to Ballard."
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Erica C. Barnett @ericacbarnett.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Just like last year, it's important for King County voters to mail ballots in early. How early? Why not today? Due to mail processing delays by Trump's USPS, ballots mailed just before or on Election Day are at rick of not being counted. If you do wait until the last minute, just use a drop box!
kingcounty.gov
Ballot drop boxes - King County, Washington
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Michael Grass @mgrass.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Superman has been on duty in Downtown Tacoma at Commerce Street & S. 9th Street.
A man in a Superman costume waiting at a crosswalk.
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Michael Grass @mgrass.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Paper birch trees across Western Washington have been facing major threats from bronze birch borers in recent years. This paper birch in Tacoma's Wright Park, one of many birches planted in the arboretum in 1895, was taken down last week. Other birches in the park look to be in bad shape.
The remains of a Paper Birch tree chopped down in a park with dried-out grass.A tree marker for a Paper Birch tree that was chopped down.
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Reposted by Michael Grass
Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Tons of peoples' Claude chats are exposed on Google. Cryptocurrency keys, API keys, login credentials, legal discussions, more. This happened with ChatGPT last year. And Claude too. There's clearly an ongoing issue with search engines indexing peoples' AI chats www.404media.co/tons-of-peop...
404media.co
Tons of Peoples’ Claude Chats and Creations are Exposed on Google
Claude users are creating public share links, but probably don't realize that means their chats are now ending up in Google searches where anyone can dig through them.
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Reposted by Michael Grass
Daniel Swain @weatherwest.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
In recent weeks, there has been a remarkable surge in large, intense, fast-moving, and unfortunately in many cases destructive/deadly wildfires in multiple Northern Hemisphere regions spanning a wide range of climates & ecologies, but they all share one key commonality. [Thread]
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