Bill Gates the Elder passes; Inslee bashes climate denial from the White House; Durkan-friendly ‘activist leader’ gets high-paying city job; Ms game called on account of smoke.

Waiting for our worst-in-the-world air to clear as wildfires slow down; Pier 58 couldn’t wait to be dismantled; the case for state deficit spending in a crisis; Seahawks win season opener while Storm drops to #2 playoff seed; steady COVID progress continues (so ‘why does it feel like we’re stuck?’).

Posed photos depict a Black Everywoman front and center; wildfires are still as bad while toxic smoke gets worse; who’s backing the ‘Recall Sawant’ drive?; 19 years ago today wasn’t the worst thing to happen in America in our lifetimes.

Wildfires bring still more destruction and foul air; Tim Eyman sends out phony ‘recall Durkan’ petitions; Pullman cites WSU b-ball coach for a ‘mini block party’; Ijeoma Oluo on raising kids to survive a racist nation.

A local sci-fi author imagines transforming ‘oppressors’ into ‘kin;’ a techie dad parses the tech glitches facing remote schooling; a wildfire destroys a small eastern-WA town; a local sports broadcasting legend dies.

Amazon’s big plans for Bellevue don’t mean it’s abandoning Seattle; remote school starts with some glitches; what SPD’s cutting to add to patrols; many area arts groups could go broke before year’s end.

Stage and live-event workers rally for ‘restart’ help; new police chief shuffles staff; a false COVID rumor spreads quickly from a local Twitter post; yet another bombastic White House threat against Seattle.

Sending WWII-era Japanese souvenirs back to Japan; Cal Anderson Park ‘swept’ again; police-oversight cases skyrocket; making a ‘City of Literature’ that tells more people’s stories.

Indigenous art meets Marvel; simple ‘social gatherings’ as COVID spreader events; city rejects Bayer’s PCB-pollution settlement offer; the trouble with ‘helpful’ white people.

SAM and (later) Frye Museum to reopen; more COVID cases among the unhoused; why the Seattle public-safety status quo isn’t working for many; authors and publishers complain to Congress about Amazon’s power.

More storefront murals (see ’em while you can); a harsh street life is now more visible; viral videos of threats against protesters; COVID antibodies found in the crew of a stricken fishing boat.

Temporary ‘Black Lives Matter’ art/slogans adorn a UW statue’s base; a virtual community meeting about SPD gets testy; the same city councilmembers issue differing statements about police chief Best’s departure; a very hot weekend’s coming.

Police chief Carmen Best retires, blames (minor) budget cuts by the City Council; there’ll be no Pac-12 football games this fall; the Seattle Storm as a model for political engagement; Kamala Harris’s VP pick shouldn’t be so novel.

Garth Stein’s graphic novel about a goat-boy on Seattle’s streets; City Council passes minuscule SPD cuts, Chief Best might quit anyway; a touring evangelist and his audience defy mask guidelines; the first use of Amazon-hosted podcasts: ‘don’t diss Amazon’.

Tri-Cities composer honors atomic bombings’ 75th anniversary; Cliff Mass goes anti-anti-fascist, loses radio gig; UW researchers’ ‘protein scaffolding’ could help make better vaccines; SPD responds to critics with a new web site.