Heatwave-decimated snowpacks on Mt. Rainier; King County to require vax proof for many indoor and outdoor public spaces; waiting for the big rain/wind storm to show up; Inscape art studios endangered.

Seattle’s ‘biggest band’ (by number of members) has never all met in person; COVID hospitalizations ‘level off’ at a still-too-high mark; big construction-workers’ strike starts; Macklemore’s golf-themed apparel brand has a pop-up store.

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.

A neighborhood tree that didn’t deserve to die; remembering the chaos that was Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’ release party; city council diverts some SPD budget savings to other uses; WA hits another grim COVID milestone while ID’s gov fiddles.

Local 9/11 remembrances; autumnal weather’s welcome return; a passenger’s anti-mask tirade stalls a Fauntleroy ferry run; Wilson and Seahawks’ triumphal season debut.

A Tacoma park’s old storybook statues are up for auction; Cafe Racer’s ready for its re-re-reopening; Microsoft’s keeping office workers at home for ‘the foreseeable future’; and, yes, there’s that grim anniversary.

A network-TV tribute to Bam Bam singer Tina Bell; a ex-Amazon worker admits to “rigging” third-party sales platform; cops and crowds at a nighttime Pike/Pine arrest scene; an officially anti-vax-mandate county needs to rent a morgue van.

New nonlinear film explores Billy Tipton’s life and secrets; hospitals overflow with COVID patients again, as local sports teams demand attendees be vaxed; Rep. Jayapal wants to declare Amazon an ‘illegal monopoly.’

Beth’s Cafe, just reopened, is now re-closed; Proud Boys use anti-vax/anti-mask excuses for their hostile ‘rallies;’ a tentative union pact over state-worker vax mandate; ‘Compassion Seattle’ city-charter campaign dead (again).

Panama Hotel’s preserved artifacts from WWII internment victims; Children’s Hospital promises to become anti-racist; Amazon’s on another hiring spree here and worldwide; what if COVID doesn’t really ‘go away’?

Local artists’ big metal bird with movable wings; charter-amendment backers appeal court ruling to remove it from Nov. ballot; school starts today amid precautions and fears; Children’s Hospital’s first COVID death.

Remembering a local icon of cartooning and TV; why one Black activist won’t back Bruce Harrell for mayor; court upholds state ban on forced ‘conversion therapy’ against gays; Pacific Galleries antique mall might be saved.

Judge tosses shelters-and-sweeps charter amendment initiative; Seahawk-turned-doctor hospitalized with COVID, as cases exceed region’s hospital capacity again; Oly protest derides mask/vaccine mandates.

Rare/important John Coltrane Seattle live set unearthed; UW team predicts a not more US COVID deaths; trouble for Puget Sound’s underwater ‘forests;’ what the homeless crisis isn’t (or shouldn’t be) really about.

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.