Activist, attorney, and poet Nikkita Oliver enters the race for Lorena Gonzalezs open council seat.
Activist, attorney, and poet Nikkita Oliver enters the race for Lorena Gonzalez's open council seat. NATE GOWDY

Amazon's Bellevue love affair: Seattle's neighborhood bookseller/tech overlord just bought some new office space in Bellevue. Amazon called dibs on the new 25-story Artise tower across the water. The building won't be done until 2024, but Amazon plans to fill it at least partially with workers siphoned off from its Seattle workforce. By 2025, Amazon said it will have a Bellevue workforce of at least 25,000 workers.

Nikkita Oliver is running for Seattle City Council: Oliver, the community organizer and attorney who finished third in the 2017 Seattle mayoral race, filed their candidacy for Seattle City Council Position 9, according to filings posted on the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission site. The seat is citywide. This morning, Oliver made the announcement official with a campaign video and poem:

More on Oliver's candidacy: Oliver listed nine policy commitments on their campaign site. These include housing for all, divesting from police, supporting a Green New Deal, universal healthcare, protecting the arts, and more. They also have already received endorsements from current and former elected officials, such as Seattle City Councilmember Tammy Morales, Washington state Rep. Kirsten Harris-Talley, and former Seattle City Councilmember Mike O'Brien.

A good time to be Alaskan: The Last Frontier has already vaccinated 25% of its population. Yesterday, the state announced that anyone 16 years or older who lives or works in Alaska was eligible for vaccination. Here in Washington, we've only just greenlit the vaccine for teachers.

A vote for President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion relief package: Today is judgment day for the Biden relief package. The House is expected to pass the bill, which will provide $1,400 stimulus checks and will grant a $300 weekly unemployment payment boost until September. House Republicans have, unsurprisingly, sided against the package. If passed, this will be Biden's first legislative achievement in office.

But before that can happen, we must have drama: Politics is theater.

Panda Express employee sues after a "cultlike" training seminar: A Southern Californian woman is suing Panda Express. She was told by Panda management that attending a training seminar was her only path to a promotion. The seminar was held in a warehouse, and seminar staff yelled and berated attendees, the employee contends in her suit. She said she was forced to strip down to her underwear in a sort of trust exercise and "hug it out" with a male attendee who was also in his underwear.

More doses of Johnson & Johnson: Biden is planning to announce that he is securing 100 million more doses of the J&J vaccine. Those doses will be ready by the end of this year.

The Dutchman who invented the cassette tape is dead: Lou Ottens is dead at 94. He is best known for inventing the cassette tape in 1962. Sadly, his greatest invention is mostly dead, too.

A mild Wednesday is ahead:

Guam governor will send Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene some reading material: While speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference 2021 in Florida, the QAnon congresswoman listed Guam as a foreign country that shouldn't receive aid from "American tax dollars."

This is cute: The Seattle Times put together a guide to find match spring birdsongs with their correct avian singers.

Seattle's Lumen Field will become the biggest civilian-led vaccination site in the country: This morning, Mayor Jenny Durkan, Governor Jay Inslee, and Executive Dow Constantine are expected to announce the football and soccer stadium's conversion into a vaccine site. You can watch the press conference here at 10 a.m.

Some online creators are monetizing each action of their life: This New York Times article about the future of monetizing content creation is dizzying. One path forward, on a platform called NewNew, allows fans to vote in polls that dictate influencers' actions in their daily lives. Like, for instance, people can pay to vote on what a TikTok star should wear, what they should name their pet, or what food they should eat.

The last time the King County Council met in person was on this day a year ago: Here's a little meme Councilmember Claudia Balducci made to commemorate the occasion:

Vaccines for children and teens: Could be coming soon. An infectious disease expert told the Los Angeles Times that kids aged 12 to 17 could start getting the poke as early as fall. Younger children could receive vaccines in the first quarter of 2022.

A moment of silence, please: Gordon Ramsay's Dwarf Porn Double Found Dead In A Badger Den.

An excerpt from that article:

Percy Foster, star of X-rated movie Hi-Ho Hi-Ho, It's Up Your A**e We Go, was about to be rocketed into the ranks of celebrity porn lookalikes due to his resemblance to the Hell's Kitchen host when his partially eaten body was discovered in a badger's den.

Trump aide stormed the Capitol: U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui denied a request for pretrial release from Federico “Freddie” Klein, 42, who held an appointed position in the U.S. State Department and had top-level security clearance. The judge said that Klein “swore an oath to protect America” but instead “switched sides” when he participated in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. Klein allegedly assaulted police officers with a riot shield and jammed the shield into doors at the Capitol.

ICYMI: The Tokyo Olympics will go on this year. But, no overseas spectators will be allowed to attend:

A crossword for your Wednesday: Here you go.