SO MUCH NEWS this morning, y'all.
The City of Portland is already facing a potential lawsuit over police use of force at rival demonstrations downtown on Sunday, after police shoved one of the green-hatted "legal observers" the National Lawyers Guild sends out to watch police activity.
For more on police tactics on Sunday, watch the Merc's own Doug Brown spitting realness from a park bench on KATU.
I-84's back! Sort of! The interstate's westbound lanes are no longer closed between Troutdale and Hood River due to the Eagle Creek Fire. Eastbound lanes are still out of commission.
BTW: The fire's now 17 percent contained, and there's plenty of rain on the way.
A drug charge against prominent homeless advocate Ibrahim Mubarak had no merit, prosecutors now acknowledge. Mubarak was helping a homeless person avoid being swept by police, he says, when he was stopped by police, who located meth in the vehicle. The district attorney's office first offered Mubarak a diversion and treatment program, then dropped the case when it became fairly apparent the stuff wasn't his.
Some asshole thought it would be cute to string up "trip wires" between trees at Portland's new mountain bike park. You suck.
The O takes a look at the widespread, wholly unquestioned practice of state legislators employing their own family members using state funds. "The Legislature passed a bill a decade ago granting lawmakers an exception to state anti-nepotism laws. Legislators defend the practice, noting that it has been something of a time-honored tradition to hire family members."
Want to target only the most virulent bigots with your $30 Facebook ad? The social media network is cool with that. Or it was, until ProPublica figured out it was easy to push content on people "who expressed interest in the topics of 'Jew hater,' 'How to burn jews,' or, 'History of "why jews ruin the world."'" Yikes, guys.
The Portland Bureau of Transportation says it's done investigating Uber's use of a tool called "Greyball" to evade regulators. But it stops there, revealing nothing about what the city turned up via subpoenas to the ride hailing giant. We wrote about the first audit of the practice earlier this year.
The disturbed teen who shot up his Spokane-area high school earlier this week—shooting four and killing one—told authorities he did it to "teach everyone a lesson about what happens when you bully others," according to police documents. Among the most chilling details of those documents: The student the shooter killed walked up to him when his assault rifle jammed and said something to the effect of "I always knew you were going to shoot up the school." The shooter got the guns from his father's gun safe, for which he knew the combination. A very safe household.
Terror in London: A makeshift bomb detonated on a packed London Underground train this morning. Thankfully it does not appear it was powerful enough to kill anyone, though 22 people were injured. It's the fifth terror attack in Britain this year.
North Korea shot another missile over Japan on Friday morning, and things are not getting any better with that whole situation.
Soooo now Trump's suggesting he's cool with a deal proposed by Democratic leadership that would allow protections for the "Dreamers" safeguarded under DACA, and wouldn't even mandate a border wall be part of the deal? “The wall will come later," he told reporters.
Broadway Bridge will be closed all weekend. To cars, that is. Bikes, as always, are Portland's cheat code.
Whatever mighty atmospheric dam has left us completely untouched by rain over the last three months is about to break in a big way.
