Author Neal Stephenson defends utopian fiction; COVID-related staff shortages affect schools, bus service, and more; three more state senators test positive; two Cascade passes still closed.

Guild 45th theater sign comes down, but will the building also go?; Snohomish Co. exec has COVID (along with many others); SPD spread misinfo during CHOP; one year since you-know-what.

Harrell’s inauguration speech rejects arguments made by some of his own election supporters; AG Bob Ferguson recovering from COVID, as quarantine facility opens in Auburn; Kent mayor wants apparent neo-Nazi cop to resign.

Back to regular (albeit wild) local winter weather and its side effects; school and other COVID test sites reach max capacity; UW researchers’ union drive proceeds; Duwamish Tribe gets a little more land in a community donation.

Photo book recounts the Bertha tunnel project and its many complications; climate change’s role in our current cold snap; “Hoarders” reality-TV creator will work for Bruce Harrell; more proof that music streaming sucks for artists.

Local deep freeze continues; WA COVID cases skyrocket, as King County buys 300,000 home tests; would-be customer lacerates bartender who asked for vax proof; Beacon Hill Garden House saved.

Deep freeze follows snow, with expected impacts; King County COVID cases double in a week; a local law firm may open its own coffee house as it downsizes its offices; WSU football gets a bowl game after all.

Longtime local artist Carl Smool’s got a crowdfunding drive; Tim Eyman’s assets to be liquidated; serious cold (and maybe snow) on tap for holiday weekend; state AG Bob Ferguson isolating with COVID, as omicron variant takes hold in western WA.

A new book pays tribute to Seattle architect Paul Hayden Kirk; we’ll get very cold temps (and maybe also snow); Seattle grocery workers’ ‘hazard pay’ won’t end after all; UW modelers predict a massive COVID wave by February.

Ex-Seattle singer Mark Lanegan tells of his COVID nightmare; BC partly locks down again; two Tacoma officers exonerated over Manuel Ellis’ death; Seahawks clinch their first losing season in a decade.

A local Japanese American painter’s posthumous comeback; anti-vax state Senator dies of COVID; Seahawks, Kraken games postponed; Boeing sells its Longacres office complex for ‘transit oriented development.’

There’s a new local-arts mag (on paper!); some retail storefronts are going delivery-only; one year of COVID vax shots in WA; Boeing sells two Renton office buildings cheap.

The ‘revered and reviled saxophonist’ gets an HBO doc; Space Needle fireworks will be back (sort-of); full hospitals can’t send folks to full nursing homes; Bruce Harrell’s niece will be his chief aide.

New book recounts Boeing’s decline-n’-fall; new city attorney’s already making waves; two white dudes caught pretending to be Indigenous artists; Newport High School responds to accusations of abuse by punishing the accuser.

Sawant apparently survives another ouster attempt; one NY state Starbucks store votes pro-union; new owners save a theater and a music club; UW men’s basketball loses another game to COVID issues.