A wobbly moon sucks for coastal cities and—I assume—astrological charts
A wobbly moon sucks for coastal cities and—I assume—astrological charts Jose A. Bernat Bacete/Getty Images

Finding the Red Apple fire culprit: The three-alarm fire has gobbled up thousands of acres of land between Wenatchee and Cashmere. The Chelan County Sheriff's Department obtained a warrant to search the home of the person who may have started the fire. We still don't officially know what caused the blaze. The fire is only around 10% contained.

Brush fires abound: Yesterday, firefighters rushed to put out around a dozen small brush fires along I-5 and Hwy 101 between Tumwater and Shelton. State troopers believe the fires may have been intentionally set. Please, everybody, no arson right now.

Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro is killing the Amazon: Academics and environmentalists warned that if Bolsonaro stayed president that he would destroy the Amazon rainforest. Under his presidency, his government has passed measure after measure to erode the forest's protections. This Guardian article is bleak. Deforestation is up, increased forest burning has tripled the amount of carbon dioxide sent into the atmosphere, drought is pervasive, and all of it seems destined to get worse in this endless positive feedback loop of climate destruction. Maybe Bolsonaro's hiccups will solve this problem for us.

Is a drizzle in our future?

Subway updated its menu: Maybe the reports that Subway bread wasn't actually bread or that its tuna wasn't actually tuna sent the sandwich store scrambling to fix a PR nightmare with a new menu. Either way, according to a food critic, the menu updates "taste just as vile" as the old menu.

The Seattle Times investigates the Best Starts for Kids Levy: King County's Best Starts for Kids Levy, a $400 million taxpayer-funded levy meant to improve children's lives from birth until college, is up for renewal this year. King County Executive Dow Constantine has celebrated the successes of the levy. According to the Times those success are: "Nearly $370 million invested so far. More than 550 programs funded. A half-million people served." But, those successes may be misleading. For instance, it's unclear whether the number of people the county claims to have helped with the program includes multiple counts of the same people. That's just one of the flaws in the data. Read the report here.

PAC spending ticks up in the mayoral race: Of the over $300,000 the Essential Workers for Lorena PAC has spent on Gonzalez's campaign, $110,000 of it was for fruit. The PAC bought $110,000 worth of dried cherries, according to the Seattle Times.

Look at this baby hippo:

Republicans might have to *gasp* support vaccination publicly: The Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus is ripping through states with low vaccination rates. Since infection is mostly running wild in Republican states, it's up to Republican leadership to figure out how to stop the spread and fix the messaging around vaccines. Many Republicans still won't speak out against their colleagues and the media personalities consistently spreading vaccine misinformation. The best Mitch McConnell did was talk about the polio vaccine and make a football analogy.

Meanwhile: Lindsey Graham says he'll "go to war" for Chick-fil-A values

Washington's COVID-19 lottery worked: According to Gov. Jay Inslee, the “Shot of a Lifetime” lottery boosted vaccination rates by 24% in the state. The state will pull the final lottery winner's name today. This winner will receive $1 million.

A wobbly moon could cause problems: NASA predicts that the moon's orbit will change slightly—or, wobble—in the 2030s. That will cause lots of high tide floods. Look out, coastal cities. Scientists expect that the flooding will be a big fucking problem. Personally, I'd love it if the moon would just chill and keep its orbit the same. We have enough going on as is, thanks.

For context: Climate disasters are here.

Flooding in the Netherlands: Here's a look at the flooding conditions in the Netherlands. Floods spread across Western Europe after heavy rains caused rivers to burst their banks. Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Belgium all face floods. Forty people have died due to the floods.

An 18-year-old will join Bezos in space: Jeff Bezos will launch himself, his brother, American aviator Wally Funk, and now an 18-year-old man named Oliver Daemen into space on July 20. It's unclear whether Daemen Daemen's parents had to pay an ungodly amount of money to put his ass in that Blue Origin seat.

Apparently the soundtrack for the new Space Jam movie sucks. This review calls John Legend a "brand ambassador... who hasn’t turned down a sponsorship since the W. Bush era" and spotlights a track with the lyrics “I’ma duffy-daffy duck, quack, quack if you buck.”

Australian prime minister has to set the record straight: Apparently, Australians believe that in 1997 Prime Minister Scott Morrison "soiled himself" in a McDonald's after a rugby team (the Cronulla Sharks, which sounds fake but whatever) lost its championship match. Morrison has lived with this "urban myth" for nearly a quarter-century. On a radio show this week, Morrison had to set the record straight that he didn't shit himself in a Mickeydees.

For your crossword today: Which free puzzle is better? This Vox crossword or this Daily Beast crossword?

Housekeeping: Some people are out on vacation, so no Slog PM on the blog tonight. We're back to normal programming tomorrow.