Inslee keeps restaurants, bars, etc. closed three more weeks (restaurant industry assn. doesn’t like it); Seattle School Supt. Denise Juneau won’t ask for another contract; big-biz group wants city’s big-biz payroll tax tossed out.

Mayor Durkan’s not running again; SPD ruled in contempt of protest-response court order; 16 new COVID cases at King County Jail; GOP legislators want to rein in governor’s emergency authority; Sounders FC’s final-minutes comeback means another MLS Cup match.

Getting young adults to take masking/distancing seriously; end to federal aid could imperil local COVID response; Seahawks’ and Huskies’ late-game comebacks fail; Olympia MAGA rally member shoots at counter-protesters.

An old idea about why Seattle attracted Scandinavians; a ‘Nation’ article disses the UW’s ‘modeling team’ org. and the Gates Foundation; King County to partly bail out Convention Center expansion project; ‘rapid response teams’ going to understaffed nursing homes.

Space Needle New Year’s fireworks are canceled (again), to ‘go virtual’ this year; COVID outbreak at a WA Frito-Lay plant; police pepper-spray and topple an old man with PTSD at a Capitol Hill protest; can the unfinished Convention Center expansion plan be redirected?

Local photog’s shots of national racial (and racist) historic sites; Amazon warehouse work is officially riskier than logging; pandemic economy hits nonprofits (and their clients) very hard; historically comparing COVID, AIDS, and the ‘eugenics movement.’

New kids’ book ‘Panda Demick’ looks on (and for) the bright side; state starts COVID tracking phone app; Tacoma ICE jail uses solitary confinement heavily; make your own ‘restoration of federal sanity advent calendar.’

Microsoft’s business-meeting surveillance and ‘scoring’ plan; local doctor’s COVID precautions pay off; Amazon accused of warehouse-safety cover up; UW football’s big comeback win.

Woodland Park Zoo’s new walk-thru light show; where most new COVID infections occur in King County; Amazon Web Services has a big outage in the east; a street sign honors a late local Black theater producer.

Iconic car-wash sign gone; another one-day COVID case record as hospitals fill up; a unionization drive at an Alabama Amazon warehouse; what Thanksgiving means this year (or could).

‘Cascadia’ group wants four big, all-new cities; City Council passes budget with some SPD cuts; a massive (but multi-day) state COVID case count; an appropriate Christmas carol for this ‘bleak” year.

Art posters remember ICE detainees; COVID cancels college football’s Apple Cup; homeless advocates try to squat empty Tacoma school building; Seattle seafood co. accused of horrid working conditions and wage theft.

Big new book captures old local metal bands; Seahawks’ stadium has its fourth name (but only one ‘name sponsor’); SPD budget to be cut but not ‘defunded;’ West Seattle Bridge to be fixed (but it won’t be quick).

A bizarre concept for an imagined futuristic high-rise; 737 MAX is approved to fly again; state budget forecast improves; state officials really want you to stay home for Thanksgiving.

‘Sonics Forever’ podcast gathers basketball memories; another record day for COVID cases in the state; Amazon enters the prescription-drug biz; sex robots for old folks?