Ugh, for a couple of reasons. First, a man and 4-year-old girl were found dead last night in North Portland. Second, this lead from the KOIN story: "A 34-year-old man and a 4-year-old girl were found dead inside a North Portland home in what detectives confirmed to KOIN 6 News was a homicide investigation." Thanks for the crack reporting, KOIN! Except for police confirmed to the entire world it was a homicide investigation a good 20 minutes before the station posted that news. Here's the headline from the press release: HOMICIDE DETECTIVES CONDUCTING A DEATH INVESTIGATION IN NORTH PORTLAND'S PORTSMOUTH NEIGHBORHOOD. Ugh.

It feels stupid linking to one of the Oregonian's many news "roundups" in our own morning news digest, but Brad Schmidt's this morning is topped by an interesting (if a bit confusing) look at Mayor Charlie Hales' plan to revamp Portland's urban renewal areas. Read it!

If you've written off local government meetings as boring, self-congratulatory affairs, you're often right. But as a counterpoint, I recommend you attend the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners meeting next time Sheriff Dan Staton has to come and request overtime funds. That can get interesting.

Justice for Kutai: What, exactly, was so shady about an Oregon Zoo orangutan's death that the zoo's director and senior veterinarian had to be let go? Metro's not saying much.

Pretty sure Vladimir Putin just Godwinned Crimea. The Russian president traveled to the newly-annexed peninsula today in order to commemorate "Victory Day." According to the New York Times, "he used the anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany to assert that Moscow had the right to take over the Black Sea peninsula."

Perfect. Republicans are using the awful abduction of 200 Nigerian schoolgirls to foist some sort of Boko Haram-gate on Hillary Clinton.

A new low for North Korea: It's co-opted the language of internet message boards. The country's state-run news agency posted a bizarre screed May 2, containing a bunch of passages like this: “It would be perfect for Obama to live with a group of monkeys in the world’s largest African natural zoo and lick the breadcrumbs thrown by spectators.”

Mitt Romney, who no longer has any actual political power, supports a minimum wage hike and is urging his fellow Republicans to join him. It's a start?

The post office closest to my home is cozy and rarely busy, and its staff is a delight. Easily the best post office I've been to. But the US Postal Service is hemorrhaging money, and nothing gold can stay. It'll be closed before the week is out.

It was sunny when I began writing this. It's cloudy now. It will be pouring by the time I hop on my bike and head downtown.

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An important reminder North Korea's got more going for it than a racist state news agency. Yes, I'm talking about swagger.