Week in Review: Most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of Dec. 19, 2021

Bill Gates is taking the action that many people are perhaps dreading themselves — canceling most of his holiday plans in the wake of the rapid spread of the COVID-19 variant Omicron. … Read More

A settlement between Amazon and the National Labor Relations Board will end a company policy that prevented workers from remaining in a non-working area of an Amazon facility for more than 15 minutes beyond their shifts. … Read More

Within the span of an hour last weekend, I went from holiday shopping at several small businesses in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood to getting my COVID-19 booster shot at Amazon’s headquarters downtown. … Read More

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers weren’t the only ones to get battered and beaten during a “Sunday Night Football” game this week. … Read More

The 110 Tacoma, Wash., families chosen to participate in a guaranteed income program received their first $500 check this month, according to MyNorthwest. … Read More

Uplevel makes software tools to help engineering teams better measure how developers use their time and how they could best avoid burning out. … Read More

Alexandria Real Equities, a life sciences real estate developer, has bought a 5.2-acre property in Bellevue, Wash., for $77.5 million. … Read More

The launch of NASA’s $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope from French Guiana could mark a triumph in a tale that thousands of astronomers have been following for a generation. … Read More

Rec Room, the Seattle-based development studio behind the fast-growing VR application Rec Room, has raised $145 million in new funding, bringing its current valuation to $3.5 billion. … Read More

Washington state public health officials are urging people to get vaccinated and boosted against COVID-19. … Read More