TV puppets teaching local youth of color; COVID transmission rate eases a bit in WA; even a temporary end of extra unemployment aid could hurt thousands; Amazon just keeps growing.

More pix of quarantiners at home; KEXP’s widened spectrum of sounds (and voices); Durkan says she’s not responsible for SPD’s actions; COVID modelers say schools should only open if case counts go down.

Luxury residential tower would have a private ‘park’ halfway up; Durkan would transfer some current functions out of SPD; 1/5 of Seattle kids are in private schools; state revises total COVID death counts down.

Meet one of the Black photographers of Black Lives Matter; Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda proposes a ‘payroll tax lite’; CHOP protest site gets a little more official; there’s no Comic-Con or PAX this year.

Umbrellas as the next big activism icon; protests continue without (much) over-reaction; Staten Island warehouse workers sue Amazon; the Seattle ‘progressive’ mindset as ‘American exceptionalism squared.’

‘Twin Peaks’ diner’s new caretakers; a dance director says we should preserve artists, not just arts institutions; there’s a backlash to the state’s ‘contact tracing’ program before it starts.

Legendary DJ/performance space won’t reopen (at its current spot); King County counts its 500th COVID death; more anti-quarantine protests, lawsuits; Pramila Jayapal wants a Paycheck Guarantee Act.

A few of the storefront murals bringing a little life to our streets; starting Phase 1 of the reopening while wondering when Phase 2 might start; another GOP suit against stay-home orders; giving a local street a more appropriate namesake without changing its name.

More photo portraits of local folk surviving; Inslee says we still need mass testing; a new PBS documentary compares WA’s and DC’s COVID responses; Earth Day turns 50 as the air gets temporarily cleaner.

Speculation on the stay-home regime’s next stages and eventual end; Boeing’s small-scale restart; what it’ll take to revive live-music spaces; a local author’s tale of tattooed pigs gets the LeVar Burton treatment.

Artists put reassuring slogans on Seattle’s nighttime walls; state Supreme Court nixes city’s high-earner income tax; locals sue Fox News for allegedly lying about COVID; mixed predictions about the post-virus economy.

A hotel’s message to the caregivers; the state will be shut down for another month; Boeing wants to buy out workers’ contracts; Amazon’s plan to bad-mouth a labor advocate.

Seattleites “make a joyful noise”; the Kingdome implosion’s remembered as another joyful blast; unemployment applications go way-way up; Gov. Inslee and Bill Gates both say we may have to shut down longer (maybe a lot longer).

Local/global music legend Bill Rieflin passes; Seattle cruise-ship season put on hold; Microsoft imports 240,000 face masks from an unnamed country; Steve Ballmer won’t move basketball’s LA Clippers here.