The Kraken’s real (away) debut at last; state, county, and hospital workers are almost all vaxxed; the Sawant recall drive has many national counterparts; a man at a convenience store buys Laffy Taffy with counterfeit money.

The history and possible future of WA’s oil refineries; A Day Without Facebook; some state workers will get a vax-mandate extension; SPD overseers find no official wrongdoing from last summer’s East Precinct abandonment.

Light rail expands to U District and Northgate at last; Mariners almost make the playoffs; harassment scandal roils women’s pro soccer; Anchorage’s mayor supports ‘vaccine mandates are like the Holocaust’ BS while its health-care system’s in collapse.

More light rail (at long last); Ms have a real playoff chance (at long last); UW study shows a lot more people are killed by cops nationally than are officially counted as such; Rep. Jayapal’s personal abortion story.

Recalling a scandalous 1935 kidnapping case; 30 years of a Seattle ‘alternative’ institution; the city eviction moratorium’s extended until mid-January; no more ‘764-HERO’ (the phone hotline, not the local band).

Montlake highway ‘lid’ project to get bigger in nine years; WA hits another cruel COVID mark with over 7,000 deaths; is Rep. Jayapal a cruel boss or a victim of sexist double standards?; how ‘hesitancy’ can be manipulated, exploited.

Locally-made, no-budget ‘Hunting Bigfoot’ film now showing; Boeing safety engineers speak out against management; philanthropist-arts promoter Kay Bullitt dies; when the delta variant (and the pandemic) just might finally end.

Artistic mini-golf at Olympic Sculpture Park; City Council passes JumpStart payroll tax; why hasn’t county rent-relief money come through yet?; a summer of ‘frustration’ and ‘rage’.

New life (and maybe a new club) in R Place’s old building; Jeff Bezos had his costly li’l suborbital space trip; the Kraken’s about to have its Expansion Draft party/telecast; OR’s Bootleg Fire is so big, it ‘makes its own weather.’

Performers and others re-gather in Chinatown-International District; Canadian border reopens Aug. 9; some of Durkan’s ‘missing text’ recipients identified; Bezos will go into space today (and, yes, come back).

Tlingit art on a new postage stamp; how Amazon affected Seattle and vice versa; big Pentagon cloud contract rescinded; state of emergency declared over WA wildfire danger.

White Center gay bar destroyed by fire; new Amazon CEO enters as worker-organizing drives continue; activists sort out how to make Aurora Ave. less pedestrian-hostile; still waiting for the border to reopen.

Locally-written opera explores Tacoma’s 1885 anti-Chinese expulsion; more music clubs and other spots reopen; payroll-tax opponents appeal the court dismissal of their suit; the pandemic slowed but didn’t stop local population growth.

Continuing impacts of the scorching weather abound, as the state finally reaches The Big Reopening; the state bails out Point Roberts’ only grocery; a brutalist UW dorm tower won’t get razed for now.

Online educational TV show for kids of color wins national awards; Black UW Police officers claim racist abuse; a major city landmark reopens at last; Microsoft hits $2 trillion in total stock valuation.