What we know (and don’t know) after the primary election’s first ‘ballot drop’; local COVID conditions return to ‘substantial transmission’ level; rain’s brief return may re-return; an old (but fake) totem pole is taken down at a Tacoma park.

Local band Prom Date’s new Britney Spears tribute EP; new COVID case counts are close to last summer’s; Boeing ‘ekes out’ its first profits since ’19; southern resident orcas are finally back in WA waters.

Familiar Pike/Pine flower vendor recovering after being struck by a car; more responses to last weekend’s many shootings; more counties want everyone back in masks (at least while indoors); rural schools have more anti-LGBTQ bullying, and more faculty apathy toward it; Mariners go down 6-0 in first inning, go on to win.

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.

A rare sign of beauty amid the heat-borne misery; it likely won’t get this hot again this year; Councilmember Mosqueda wants to rename the city’s ‘single family’ zones; today’s mask-off day in King County.

It’s beyond swelter-y out there, just in time to keep folks home who’d been aching to get out and about at last; other things also happened.

An ‘excessive heat watch’ is here; the state eviction moratorium’s renewed with changes; Uber to pay $3.4 million in unpaid sick leave and back pay; an uptick in air travel means an uptick in pollution at Sea-Tac.

Another big historic U District church is razed; ‘critical race theory’ isn’t what the far right says it is; south King County’s vax rate still lags; online petitions ask Jeff Bezos to go into space and stay there.

The meaning(s) of Juneteenth; Portland wants our tourist $ (and a more positive image); Durkan extends eviction moratorium; has the Gates Foundation’s money/influence hurt global vaccination drives?

The new novelty of real museum-going; King County goes maskless on 6/29; from whence Seattle’s primary-campaign money is coming; remembering Vancouver’s 2011 hockey riot.

Really big container cranes show up; a mayoral candidate’s past DC lobbying work could haunt him; restaurant sexual-misconduct claims could widen to more places; what the city-charter amendment campaign won’t answer.

Lumen Field vax site closes; the annual prediction of a center-right ‘backlash’ in Seattle politics; major local chef accused of sexual misconduct; remembering a film nut (in a town of film nuts).

Will Central Disrict’s library ‘Soul Pole’ come back?; 100,000 drivers’ licenses to be restored; Idaho’s battle between the far-right and the farther-right; KingCo’s small-business contracts ‘overwhelmingly’ go to white-owned companies.

Longtime TV-radio combo divorcing; 40 years since AIDS pandemic’s start; Neptune Theatre’s reopening date; Seattle nears 70 percent fully vaxxed.

Yep, WA’s getting a lottery for the vaccinated; Jazz Alley reopens next week; Bitter Lake encampment residents speak out; Microsoft’s software revenue gets virtually funnelled through Ireland and Bermuda, ends up untaxed.