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.

Thoughts on the re-released ‘Streetwise’; the regional heat-wave death toll climbs; a heat-stricken BC town succumbs to wildfire; Microsoft rebrands itself as ‘the anti-Apple.’

Banksy ‘repurposes’ an old Mt. Rainier painting as a climate protest; day one of WA’s ‘reopening’; a Seattle cop shoots a suspect in a Puyallup home; a GOP politician compares vaccine guidelines to the Holocaust.

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.

A big picture book of local storefront murals; a major heat wave’s still on the way; an early state reopening’s unlikely; a longtime social worker’s past and present battles.

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.

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?

Ballard’s new marine-themed fence mural; a UW psychology prof predicts post-pandemic hookups; Portland’s protest-response cops resign en masse; Megan Rapinoe will help Victoria’s Secret ‘rebrand’ itself.

Local biopic on ‘Claymation’ maker Will Vinton; frustration at the ‘two-yard line’ for reopening WA; Durkan blames protesters for leading her to quit; Showbox won’t reopen this weekend after all.

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.