Still angry about the "transportation utility fee" proposed, submitted for a city council vote, then hastily pulled back by Mayor Charlie Hales and Commissioner Steve Novick? Still grudgingly supportive of it? Still apathetic, but bored and surly on a Tuesday morning? Head down to the Oregon Convention Center now and be heard!
As Iraq continues to rend itself at the seams, it's no longer just Shiites and Sunnis and Kurds preparing to war. It's more complicated and dispiriting than that, with sects within sects—notably the fearsome Shiite militia of Moktada al-Sadr—cropping up to stake their own claims. Basically no one in Iraq likes anyone else.
While Washington weighs just how deeply to step into that looming quagmire, cities throughout the US are quietly grooming and bolstering their own mini armies. That, at least, is the finding of a new report [pdf] by the American Civil Liberties Union, which says police forces in the US are becoming quickly, threateningly militarized.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie—he of politically motivated George Washington Bridge closure infamy—now faces a criminal inquiry into more bridge-related antics. Turns out the governor might have improperly diverted funds to repair a span between Newark and Jersey City.
Boko Haram is back at its grim work. The terrorist group has kidnapped around 60 women and girls from northern villages. And 30 or so men/boys.
It's sad but predictable. With little backing from the American business community to reverse or stem the tide of climate change on the grounds of sensible, responsible, and vital ecological policy, a new report—backed by three business luminaries—is taking another tack. It attempts to show that the status quo is going to be worse than deadly and cataclysmic—it's going to be expensive.
An as-yet unnamed man shot a Rainier police officer in the hand and bullet-proof vest yesterday, before killing himself near a Columbia County barn.
Did you ever do that thing, as a youth, where you put tin foil and drain cleaner in a soda bottle and wait for the pressure to build until the bottle breaks open? WELL A TEEN IN WASHINGTON COUNTY DID THAT, TOO, AND HERE IS A POLICE SKETCH SO YOU CAN HELP CATCH HIM. (Admittedly, this kid sounds like a jerk.)
Your Starbucks is now more expensive, and while this USA Today writer puzzles over why the company could be upping drink and bagged coffee prices, rest easy knowing it's just arbitrarily wringing yet more from your addicted, caffeine-and-poverty-racked existence.
The FBI says it's gotten nearly 170 child sex trafficking victims off the streets in a massive nationwide operation. Thanks FBI.
That good old pre-July meteorological tailspin, coming right up, Portland. Damn it.
Here. You will like this.
