Planet Seattle

This roundup is designed for advance planning and features events taking place in Seattle and the surrounding area from December 2 through 6, 2026. There’s something for everyone, from stand-up comedy and rock concerts to ballets, musicals and festive evenings at some of the city’s top venues. Some events take place at multiple venues, so it’s worth checking the dates in advance and choosing what best fits your plans. If you want to catch the weekend’s biggest events, consider booking tickets...

In West Vancouver, a creek has been named after conservationist Hugh Hamilton; a CityNews story about “Gastown ghosts” is actually about a series of pedestrian collisions in Metro Vancouver, two of them fatal; and sleep experts are criticizing British Columbia’s decision to adopt permanent daylight saving time, warning of disrupted circadian rhythms and winter sleep loss. West Vancouver creek named after conservationist Hugh Hamilton West Vancouver has dedicated an unusual memorial to a man who...

This roundup covers British Columbia’s decision to stop changing its clocks and the technical challenges that come with it, a CFL semifinal in Vancouver amid worrying pedestrian collision statistics, and the designation of the Vancouver port expansion as a project of national interest to diversify exports. British Columbia skips the clock change for the first time in decades: What it means for residents and technology For the first time in decades, residents of the Canadian province of British...

The Supreme Court of Canada overturned the acquittal of a driver who struck and killed a child in Vancouver, and ordered a new trial. Jennifer Whiteside became interim leader of the B.C. NDP after its defeat by the Conservatives. The Holdom Overpass in Burnaby received Envision’s Platinum certification for sustainability. Supreme Court of Canada overturns acquittal of driver who killed child in Vancouver The story began in July 2021 at one of downtown Vancouver’s busiest intersections and...

Vancouver is preparing for changes in city leadership: Robert Weeks will head the fire department, while mayor-elect Pete Fry is assembling a transition team and appointing a deputy mayor. Meanwhile, a woman was fatally struck by a cement truck near the airport, renewing questions about pedestrian safety. Robert Weeks to lead Vancouver Fire Rescue Services, bringing experience and continuity The City of Vancouver has announced the appointment of a new fire chief. Robert Weeks will officially...

In this edition: a scandal at a Vancouver school, where a teacher crossed professional boundaries with a seventh-grade student and was suspended; a cooling housing market in British Columbia, where sales are falling, prices are sliding and construction is rising amid economic uncertainty that could last until 2027; and a roundup of family-friendly Halloween events across Greater Vancouver from immigrant services organization ISSofBC, with six ideas ranging from a “pumpkin train” and a glowing...

A political conflict is heating up in British Columbia over the repeal of DRIPA, the law on Indigenous rights. Meanwhile, two pedestrian collisions have occurred in Vancouver within days of each other, one of them fatal, and a humpback whale has collided with a BC Ferries vessel in Howe Sound. British Columbia changes course: what lies behind the promise to repeal DRIPA British Columbia’s incoming Conservative government is reaffirming its intention to repeal the Declaration on the Rights of...

News roundup: Uniqlo will open in downtown Vancouver in the former Nordstrom space, the B.C. Greens held on to two seats in the legislature, and Vancouver rock bands raised money to protect bats. Uniqlo heads to downtown Vancouver: Japanese retailer to take Nordstrom’s place at Pacific Centre The opening of the first Uniqlo store in downtown Vancouver is more than just another expansion by the chain. It signals tectonic shifts in Canada’s urban retail landscape, where Asian brands are moving in...

The British Columbia election ended in a crushing victory for Lorne Doerkson’s Conservative Party, which is forming a provincial government for the first time since 1928. The Conservatives won 48.1% of the vote and 64 seats, taking 15 Metro Vancouver ridings from the NDP. David Eby held on to Vancouver-Point Grey but resigned as NDP leader, accepting full responsibility for the failure of the snap election. Bowinn Ma was re-elected in North Vancouver, but her party is heading into...

British Columbia has drawn attention on several fronts at once: the province’s resorts dominated a prestigious Condé Nast Traveller ranking, with eleven of Canada’s top fifteen located there, while a tense campaign is underway ahead of the snap election on October 24. Voters will have to navigate 93 electoral districts, and five on Vancouver Island could change political colors. The NDP’s traditional stronghold may swing to the Conservatives, making the coming vote especially...

In the final days before the U.S. Senate election, the Michigan campaign has become more than a debate over candidates and policy platforms: it is also a test of how durable party loyalty and ties between communities are. Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens’ decision to endorse Republican Mike Rogers has intensified her conflict with Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed. At the same time, his team is trying to build support among Black voters in Detroit, a group that is crucial to the Democratic...

The United States and Iran are negotiating an end to the conflict while preparing for a possible resumption of military action. Mediators from Qatar and Pakistan are trying to agree on terms for de-escalation, but the future of the Strait of Hormuz, US sanctions and Iran’s nuclear program remain sources of acute confrontation. Sharp statements from Donald Trump and Iranian leaders show that the diplomatic channel is open, but both sides are trying to negotiate from a position of strength....

Across three stories, Nintendo Switch 2 emerges in several roles at once: a platform for reviving classics, a home for indie games, and the subject of a technical experiment. Nintendo is promoting a new version of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and showcasing a selection of independent games for Switch and Switch 2, while the arrival of an early emulator shows that interest in the console’s hardware extends beyond the official ecosystem. Together, these stories reflect different aspects...

In the days before the U.S. midterm elections, two trends intensified at once: early voting reached record levels by the standards of recent midterm campaigns, and tensions grew over who controls the election process and how. National polls show Democrats holding a significant lead over Republicans in preferences for the House of Representatives, while the outcome of the Senate race remains less clear. Against this backdrop, the Justice Department sent all states warnings about criminal...

The stories cover different markets, but they share one question: how much are companies and consumers willing to pay for a technological edge? Samsung touts its longstanding leadership in foldable phones while releasing an especially expensive model for China. In artificial intelligence, by contrast, investors are demanding ever stronger evidence that record investments in infrastructure will pay off. Together, these stories show how technological promises become marketing arguments and...

Three articles describe different threats: possible measles exposure at a store in Pennsylvania, the spread of bird flu among dairy herds in Washington state, and a drop in technology stocks amid rising AI spending. They share a broader question: how to respond to a risk that grows faster than society can assess its consequences. The first two cases concern the spread of infectious diseases; the third involves financial losses and investor confidence. But the events cannot be directly compared:...

Two of the three articles describe the same dangerous moment: the United States and Iran are signaling that they are open to negotiations while preparing for a possible resumption of hostilities. US Vice President JD Vance’s letter and the visit to Tehran by representatives of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey show that diplomatic channels remain open. But they have yet to resolve the key disagreements or remove the threat of a new strike. The third article, about the dwarf planet candidate...

Ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, the political landscape in the United States looks both favorable to Democrats and uncertain. Their advantage in the race for the House of Representatives is bolstered by dissatisfaction with the Donald Trump administration and concerns about the cost of living, but the Senate map gives Republicans a chance to hold on. Meanwhile, the information environment is also changing: Samsung is shutting down its own news feed, which failed to compete with Google...

The Federal Reserve faces a difficult combination of risks: the investment boom surrounding artificial intelligence is supporting economic growth and markets, while also intensifying inflationary pressures and resource shortages. Market participants are divided over whether high interest rates can cool the boom. Fed Chair Kevin Warsh believes borrowing costs affect AI investment, while those taking a more radical view argue that the technology’s enormous potential returns could weaken the usual...

The focus is on four highly secure military headquarters, presented here as symbols of preparations for a redistribution of global power. Two are in East Asia, a third in the heart of Europe, and the fourth in a city straddling two continents and bordered by two seas. Their locations and personnel, the author argues, help explain how major powers are taking on roles once reserved for Washington. The argument draws on a long-running debate over the decline of American hegemony. In The Rise and...

María Corina Machado’s return to Venezuela after 319 days in exile has shaken the country and exposed the tensions at the heart of Venezuelan politics today: who is really running the transition — Washington, Delcy Rodríguez’s interim government, or the crowds who turned out to welcome the Nobel Peace Prize laureate? At the same time, the country is recording a record increase in oil exports to the United States following the easing of sanctions, while the trial of Nicolás Maduro continues in...

The purchasing power of Syrian families has fallen significantly in recent months: the gap between wages and the cost of living is widening, fuel is getting more expensive, and local production remains weak. As a result, even meeting basic needs—food, housing, transport and medicine—has become a struggle for many households, while constant efforts to save are changing their way of life. Against this backdrop, Syria’s economy presents a mixed picture. Official forecasts promise growth of more...

Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez announced on October 31 that 1,157 renovated homes had been handed over in the states of La Guaira and Miranda, as well as in Caracas. During a visit to the Terrazas del Aeropuerto housing complex in La Guaira, she reviewed the construction of housing for families affected by the June 24 earthquakes and the restoration of four towers containing 102 apartments. According to Rodríguez, more than 21,000 homes are being repaired for 87,000 people under the...

On September 14, Syria’s Ministry of Energy raised the prices of petroleum products by 25–40%. The price of a liter of 95-octane gasoline rose from 152 to 195 Syrian pounds, 90-octane gasoline now costs 185 pounds, and diesel costs 175 pounds, up from 125. With the exchange rate at around 143 pounds to the dollar, the decision quickly affected residents’ day-to-day expenses. Students, civil servants and low-income families have felt the impact most acutely: fares for city transport and...

María Corina Machado’s return to Caracas after ten months in exile, and the appointment of a new foreign minister almost simultaneously, who met with a U.S. diplomat the next day, saw Venezuela lay out the full spectrum of its relations with Washington over the course of two days: from gratitude for a military operation to sharp criticism of an oil deal. The focus of local media and experts is not so much the fact of rapprochement with the United States as the question of who will manage the...

Fierce clashes between illegal armed groups broke out in Syria’s southern Suwayda province, leaving members of the groups and civilians wounded. According to the SANA news agency and the provincial information office, gunfire spread from the city’s eastern neighborhoods toward Suwayda’s market and other areas. A lawyer was among those injured. Preliminary reports indicate that the dispute began as a personal quarrel at a fuel station between members of the Abu Sarhan and Radwan clans. One side...

The Venezuelan government has launched the “Renace Team” program, with 244 crews set to work across the country repairing problems in public utility infrastructure. President Delcy Rodríguez said their work would be directly linked to residents’ reports: complaints about outages submitted through the VenApp platform are to be promptly forwarded to field teams. The crews will address problems with electricity, drinking water and household gas, and respond to weather emergencies such as heavy...

The U.S. Department of Justice said a federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia sentenced 32-year-old Syrian national Ahmed Omar Agha to 42 months in prison. He was convicted of taking part in cyberattacks on American and allied media outlets, companies, organizations and governments that prosecutors said were carried out on behalf of the regime of ousted President Bashar al-Assad. According to the department, Agha, known by the handle TH3 Pro, took part in attacks on around 47...

Every May, a cheerful parade takes place on the streets of Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood. Children wave flags, wear bright traditional costumes, and follow a marching band through town. It’s a Norwegian celebration—Constitution Day, marked on May 17. But how did this northern tradition take root in an American city? It turns out that behind it was not one major event, but many small groups of ordinary people. Let’s find out who they were and why we know so little about some of them. How...

Do you know where great success begins? Not in huge stadiums, but in small, cramped rooms where there’s barely enough space for a drum kit onstage. Seattle was full of places like that. It was in these rooms that bands who would later be heard around the world began playing in the 1990s. But what happened to those venues afterward? Far fewer people know, and the story is much quieter than the music that once filled them. How it all began: a stage the size of a rug Imagine an art club at school....

Long ago, in the 1940s, there was a street in Seattle where lights glowed in the windows at night, trumpets and pianos played, and people of different skin colors sat side by side, listening to the same music. Back then, that wasn’t easy in America, where many places followed unfair rules. But Jackson Street showed that music can bring people together. What segregation was and why it was unfair The word “segregation” sounds complicated, but it’s easy to explain. Imagine that some children at...

Imagine building a big city out of building blocks with your friends. Every time you build a school or a bridge, you set one block aside out of every hundred—not for a wall or a roof, but to make the city beautiful. That’s exactly what Seattle came up with in real life. In 1973, the city launched its “1% for Art” program, and ever since, sculptures, mosaics, and unusual benches have been brightening its streets. How It All Began Seattle is a large city in the northwestern United States, with...

Imagine you had to build a home but had no money at all. All you had were boards found along the shore, rusty sheets of metal, and a couple of old barrels. Could you make anything out of that? More than ninety years ago, in the American city of Seattle, hundreds of people faced this challenge in real life, not in a game. That’s how Hooverville came to be—a remarkable settlement that was considered a real city, even without a mayor or brick walls. When the Jobs Disappeared In 1929, the Great...

Picture an ordinary rainy evening in Seattle. A mother walks by with a bag, schoolchildren hurry past with backpacks, and the window of a small café glows on the corner. Inside, pieces of chicken sizzle on a hot griddle, and the whole street smells of sweet sauce. It’s a teriyaki café—and in Seattle, these places seem to be on almost every block. The story began with one small kitchen and one person who came up with a simple dish. What Is “Teriyaki,” and Who First Made the Seattle Version? The...

Imagine a big hill right in the middle of a city. Now imagine that adults decided to get rid of it not with shovels or explosives, but with... water! That’s what happened in Seattle more than a hundred years ago. A hill called Denny Hill literally dissolved under powerful jets of water and washed into the bay. This story is about boldness, ingenious engineering, stubborn residents, and how even the smartest ideas can sometimes come at too high a cost to nature. Why the City Needed to Remove the...

Imagine enormous rusty towers, pipes and strange metal structures that look like sets from a science-fiction movie. Nearby, children are flying colorful kites on a green hill. This isn’t a movie set: it’s Gasworks Park in Seattle, America. This was once a dirty, unhealthy site, but now it’s a favorite place for local residents. How did that happen? It all began with one bold architect and the people who believed in his unusual idea. When the Gas Plant Was Here More than a century ago, in 1906,...

Imagine that your school suddenly banned the sale of ice cream. Would anyone want ice cream less? Probably not: someone would start selling it secretly out of a backpack. That’s what happened in Seattle a hundred years ago—except that instead of ice cream, the product was a strong drink for adults, and instead of a backpack, there was an entire sea route through foggy straits. A Ban That Came Early Many people think that Prohibition began everywhere in America at once, in 1920. But Washington...