A quiet, (very) socially distanced holiday time; COVID cases cancel a UW football game (and maybe the rest of the season); 45 percent of state’s restaurants could fold within a year; new push for NW light rail.

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.

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.

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.

New statewide closures and restrictions announced as COVID cases skyrocket; Inslee may be sticking around; Microsoft says Russian hackers seek vaccine-research data; lotsa little earthquakes on Vancouver Island.

The 50th anniversary of the ‘exploding whale’ film; Inslee wishes you’d spend T-Day at home; where I want new arts spaces to go when we can have them again; UW football season starts (finally) (maybe).

Author Ted Chiang on how sci-fi doesn’t always mirror science and vice versa; how this cultural era can end (and why it must); a fatal police shooting in Woodinville; the city starts a real-estate entity to save and nurture art spaces.

Local filmmaker fictionally stages her (real) dad’s death; parsing the local election results; ‘Every Vote Counts’ protests draw hundreds; a new one-day Washington record for new COVID cases.

Pre-election jitters and reassurances all around; UW researchers claim to have developed a better potential COVID vaccine; legal settlement in case of Alaska crab-boat sinking; NY Amazon warehouse workers’ safety lawsuit dismissed.

A singularly 2020-appropriate Halloween suggestion; Amazon surges while Starbucks struggles; Redfin’s accused of redlining; West Seattle’s got another broken bridge.

Anchorage mayor quits in weird sex scandal; would Durkan’s plan for minority communities help them or just bring more bureaucracy?; remembering a pioneer female judge/lawmaker; the UW doc who’s all over national TV.