Sub Pop retail shop opens beneath a mostly-empty Amazon tower; WA records its lowest new-COVID-case count of the year; a Native-homeless advocate runs for mayor; no, Bill Gates doesn’t want to kill you on behalf of any lizard men from outer space.

The dawn of a new DC administration draws reactions from friends and foes (who aren’t all on the right); vaccine progress remains slow; UW men’s basketball finally wins a conference game; is Olympia Beer going away?

City asks artists and others to ponder their communities’ future; remembering one year of COVID in WA (and in the US); state makes a new vaccine distribution plan; man arrested at DC riot had tried to join Seattle protest groups, but was suspected of being a right-wing infiltrator.

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.

‘Mario’ games you’ve probably never seen; state tries to speed up vaccination pace; ‘Twin Peaks’ Roadhouse might close for good; Nikkita Oliver to teach Seattle U law students about ‘abolition.’

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.

Canadian artists depict Seattle’s CHOP protests; still more local fallout from the DC coup attempt; a quiet but ‘weird’ opening to WA’s legislative session; how the Storm’s Sue Bird helped get Raphael Warnock into the US Senate.

More calls by local pols for an early White House removal; should Seattle divorce King County?; new light-rail construction could cost lots more; Tim Eyman court case nears its end after several years.

Local reactions to the DC coup attempt (plus a smaller break-in at the Governor’s Mansion in Oly); UW expert on predicting the pandemic’s decline; Teresa Mosqueda won’t run for mayor; one of the last 747s is being sold as parts on eBay.

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.

Remembering past women’s-rights leaders; WA’s got the nation’s 3rd lowest COVID rate (though WA GOP apparently wants to make it worse); regional cooperation on homelessness goes awry; can Seattle get real police oversight?

Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic leader quits, claims systemic racism at parent organization; a local singer becomes a social-media meme as ‘Bean Dad’; local Catholics want archbishop to speak up about abusive priests; some computer-animated New Year’s weirdness fictionally set at the Space Needle.

Mukilteo’s new longhouse-inspired ferry terminal opens; the state’s COVID restrictions are re-renewed; homeless advocates kicked out of Fife motel; how to move forward from an awful year (not just ‘back to normal’).

Alternative (and distanced) New Year’s ideas; homeless advocates stage an occupation at a Fife motel; probable arson totals a Lake City strip mall; Seattle home prices just keep rising.

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.