Week in Review: Loan forgiveness, voting, and Sue Bird

Guest host Zaki Hamid discusses the week’s news with Seattle Met’s Allison Williams, Seattle Times’ Jonathan Martin, and political analyst and contributing columnist Joni Balter.

President Biden announced this week that qualifying borrowers could receive up to $10,000 in student loan forgiveness, and up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients. Additionally, the pause on federal student loan payments was extended through the end of the year. How will this impact Washingtonians?

The Washington State primary election vote was certified, with 40.4 percent of registered voters returning a ballot. Some conservative press suggested that the number was because voters didn’t trust the vote-by-mail system, despite Washington having the third highest voter turnout in the nation, and no evidence of any problems. Why is the voting process such a huge concern when we continue to not see evidence of voter fraud?

The number of people returning to the office in Seattle continues to be low, and there hasn’t been much improvement in the last four months, according to the Downtown Seattle Association. Additionally, there is no shortage of finger pointing for rising crime rates. How big of a factor is crime downtown when it comes to people not wanting to return to the office?

Zeek’s Pizza allegedly failed to disclose how much of its delivery charge to drivers and will pay $409,000 to delivery drivers. This is the second settlement Zeek’s has agreed to facing the same issue. Restaurants are required to let customers know on receipts and menus how much of the delivery charge goes to employees. Do we recognize when servers and delivery drivers get a tip, or has the snowballing add-ons and charges confused people to the point they don't care about figuring out what to give to front-end workers?

Sue Bird will retire at the end of the season, after 19 seasons in Seattle. A Sports Illustrated articled asked if she was the most impactful athlete in the history of Seattle. Has she been celebrated like she should be?