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Good morning, Portland! We are set for another day of perfect (in my opinion) weather, with temperatures in the high 60s. The sun will come back, I promise, so enjoy the mild temperatures while they last.
Let’s get to the news!
IN LOCAL NEWS:
• Several members of Portland City Council are itching to draw money from the Office of Community Police Accountability to restore 30 city jobs, including several in the police bureau. This group of councilors, which includes Council Vice President Olivia Clark and Councilors Steve Novick, Loretta Smith, and Elana Pirtle-Guiney, have proposed a similar strategy in past, hoping to save some city jobs that were cut in Mayor Keith Wilson’s budget. But their previous efforts failed, with half of the City Council in staunch opposition to taking money out of the office, which Portland voters adopted in 2020 in an effort to better hold Portland police accountable. Yesterday, six members of the Community Board for Police Accountability (CBPA)—the independent governing body for the Office of Community Police Accountability—wrote to Wilson and Portland city councilors to state their formal objection to the ordinance. In the letter, the board members wrote the ordinance would “set a dangerous precedent for undermining the new police accountability system.” This would be the case “regardless of where the removed funds are spent,” the letter reads, but “transferring them in part to the police bureau looks especially bad and will further deteriorate public trust on this issue.” Clark and other councilors in favor of the decision say the money would be paid back. Find out more about this important issue in the Mercury, courtesy of my wonderful colleagues Jeremiah Hayden and Courtney Vaughn.
• Our Portland Fire has had a rough go of it on the road as of late, and continued their losing spree against the Washington Mystics over the weekend. Nevertheless, it was a history-making (and nerve-wracking) game, with the Fire continually battling back and taking the match into FOUR overtimes. Check out the Fire’s grit and determination in Stephanie Kaloi’s recap in the Mercury.
• In other Portland basketball news, the Blazers are adding Ja Morant to our roster (at the sad cost of Jerami Grant and Kris Murray). Morant comes from the Memphis Grizzlies, and the consensus seems to be that he’s a great player with some personal baggage (he appears to get up to some questionable shenanigans from time to time). Most Blazers fans seem pretty excited about this development…with the exception of Oregonian columnist Bill Oram, who seems much angrier about Tom Dundon’s involvement in acquiring Morant than he has been about Dundon’s decision to hold the city of Portland hostage over the Moda Center. Interesting take, dude. Anyway, we’ll see how the team does this year, especially with Damian Lillard back on the court. It’ll certainly be interesting!
• You’re probably looking for stuff to do this week, especially if you’ve got a long weekend in honor of July 4. If you’re not traveling to DC for the Freedom 250 celebration (LOL JK), the Mercury‘s Do This, Do That has you covered. Among this week’s picks: The Waterfront Blues Festival, a Dolly Parton bike ride (on Independence Day, of course), and a lavender festival! Check out more here.
• IN OTHER NEWS: The Mercury‘s Summer of Slushies begins tomorrow, July 1. The Summer of Slushies has previously inspired me to publish fan-fiction on this very website, so you know it’s good. Slushies are kind of the best thing ever created, and the addition of booze moves them into true genius category. I am eyeing the pineapple mango deliciousness that Moonshot Tavern will serve, and the Alibi’s “Lava Flow” also looks delightful. Drink responsibly, and if you get brain freeze, I’ve heard it works to press your tongue against the roof of your mouth. (It usually just goes away in a few minutes, though, which makes it hard for me to really endorse the efficacy of this particular #lifehack.)
IN NATIONAL/WORLD NEWS:
• The US Supreme Court is back again this morning dropping some pretty monumental decisions. Notably, in a 6-3 decision, the Court rebuked President Trump’s executive order banning birthright citizenship, upholding the broad concept that people born in the United States are granted citizenship, regardless of their parents’ national citizenship. Though the Court was expected to rule this way (the US Constitution makes it pretty clear birthright citizenship should stand), you never know with these people, so it’s a relief.
Here’s what Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his majority opinion: “Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights—to freely participate in our political community. The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land…We keep that promise today.
Three Supreme Court Justices—Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch—dissented. Thomas wrote the dissent, which was more than three times as long as the majority opinion. Here’s a tidbit: “The Court today takes the extraordinary step of holding facially unconstitutional the President’s Order excluding from citizenship the children of foreign temporary visitors and illegal aliens…In doing so, the Court adds to the sad history of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was designed and understood to secure equal rights for the freed blacks but has instead been repurposed for political projects that the Reconstruction Congress did not support.” Ok.
• However, the Supreme Court also dropped other major (and worse) decisions this morning, including one upholding states’ rights to ban transgender girls and women from playing on school athletic teams that align with their gender. This is a big, if expected, setback for trans people—the “women’s sports” argument is just the most currently acceptable way to discriminate against them. These people don’t actually care about women’s sports or rights. Don’t fall for it.
• Oops: NPR’s seasoned Supreme Court reporter Nina Totenberg dropped a story today announcing the retirement of Justice Samuel Alito. This was good news, because he sucks in a major way (although Trump’s choice to replace him could very well be even worse). BUT: NPR retracted the story shortly after publication, saying Alito had not, in fact, announced his retirement. It’s unclear if Totenberg has some inside info she was sharing too early, but to make the major call to retract an article is a pretty big deal. Not a good morning for that journalist.
• The US and Iran are holding peace talks this weekend, according to President Donald Trump. That means the US and Iran appear to not be holding peace talks this weekend, actually, according to an Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson on Monday night. Trump posted on his social media website that after a weekend of bombings in the Straight of Hormuz, Iran had agreed to meetings in Doha, Qatar this weekend. He said, and I’m paraphrasing, “AARRGHHH”—to which the Iranian official replied, “(w)e have not yet entered the stage of negotiating a final agreement … Over the coming days, we will not have any negotiation meetings with the US side at any level.” Meanwhile, the US Treasury Secretary is threatening fossil fuel companies if they don’t bring gas prices down, saying “we’re watching.” -Jeremiah Hayden
• The ACLU has been tracking police departments’ use of force in cities like Minneapolis, and Louisville, Kentucky, where the US Department of Justice had previously monitored police policies after alleged patterns of excessive force, particularly on people in mental health crisis. Sound familiar? Under Trump, the DOJ determined police reform and monitoring in those cities was “factually unjustified,” but the ACLU found police there have continued the same policing that landed them under federal scrutiny to begin with. ProPublica reports the ACLU “reviewed hundreds of police use-of-force reports in four communities” and found little to no improvement. In some cases, cops struck people in the head or body while they were handcuffed, and didn’t fully review the uses of force for potential misconduct. -Courtney Vaughn
• In footy news: Welcome to the knockout round of the World Cup, in which 32 teams battle against each other in a single-elimination free for all. And yesterday’s matches brought lots of surprises as well as disappointments (at least for the losers). Following their string of World Cup losses, Japan was summarily dismissed yesterday by Brazil in the second half, 2-1. Meanwhile, the underdogs from Paraguay held the Germans 1-1, forcing a razor-thin shoot off, resulting in a 4-3 win in penalties… as well as a national holiday being declared in Paraguay to celebrate their victory. In other shoot-offs, Morocco defeated the Netherlands in (what I would call) a very tedious match that ended with a far more exciting penalty shoot-off with the African nation emerging victorious with a final score of 3-2. More soccer fun continues today with matches between France and Sweden, Ivory Coast and Norway, and Mexico vs. Ecuador. -Wm. Steven Humphrey
• Finally, LOL. Have a good Tuesday, everyone.
