Local theater group’s Lego animation disses JK Rowling’s anti-trans Tweets; re-reading news stories from COVID’s beginning; WA reaches 2 million vaccine shots; Seattle schools might try to partly reopen even without a teachers’ contract.

A local vintage store’s pandemic survival story; pick for regional ‘homelessness czar’ turns down the job; court upholds city anti-eviction laws; we’re not an ‘Anarchist Jurisdiction’ anymore!

Jess Walter’s new novel of labor struggles and crackdowns in 1909 Spokane; Seattle home prices keep on inflatin’; non-police ideas to enhance public safety; more fallout from the ex-Mariners exec’s online speech.

Local indie-movie site’s now got original mental-health docs for young adults; SPD cop refuses to wear mask in hospital; promised federal COVID vaccine reserves don’t exist; what MLK Day means this year.

Two Bells demolished three years after it closed; SPOG head Mike Solan refuses to quit; activists claim the FBI had a role in suppressing local summer protests; a post-COVID national recession could make homelessness a whole lot worse.

Could John Roderick’s deleted Twitter thread affect Ken Jennings’ TV career?; Inslee announces new ‘reopening’ plan, restaurant trade org. hates it; Virginia Mason/CHI Franciscan merger moves ahead; pioneering local Black judge dies.

Seven Gables Theater movie memories; the local COVID curve’s still ‘flattening’ for now; Seahawks clinch division title; ‘excessive force’ lawsuit against the SPD could cost the city $600,000 or more.

On the day after the Seven Gables Theater burned, we look back on some recent local arts and culture stories, trends, and tales of survival.

Alaska Airlines’ suddenly popular ‘Safety Dance’ ad; Cal Anderson Park ‘reopens;’ an obscure part of the federal relief bill could threaten live-streaming; a holiday message for our time.

Where poetry, programming, and Amazon intersect; train cars with crude oil catch fire; homeless-services group refutes KOMO’s depiction of it; a few of the big COVID relief bill’s various pieces and their various effects.

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.’

‘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.

‘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?

After a lot of work, the Duwamish River’s a lot less toxic these days; Washington’s COVID cases surpass 100,000; the city’s LGBTQ Commission wants Durkan out; Seattle U’s getting its first non-priest president ever.

Wizards of the Coast sued over role-playing-game spinoff novels; a ‘fall surge’ in regional COVID cases could be here; Durkan asks Seattle cops to stay; ballots just keep a-coming in.