ADAM WICKHAM Today is the National Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day, a day when communities across the country gather to remember and honor the thousands of homeless people who die in the United States each year. Tonight, a coalition of local advocacy groups—including Right 2 Survive, JOIN, Sisters of the Road, and Operation Nightwatch—will host a […]
Blair Stenvick
Blair Stenvick is a former news reporter and culture writer for the Portland Mercury.
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Portland Environmental Groups Concerned About Possible Changes to the Willamette Superfund Cleanup
BRANCHE COVERDALE An Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) plan to clean up the Willamette River that has been in the works for almost two decades might soon change in scope, and some Portland environmental groups aren’t happy about it. In 2000, the EPA identified the Portland Harbor on the Willamette as a high priority on its […]
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Merkley Introduces Bill to Shut Down Detention Camps for Immigrant Kids
Tornillo Children’s Detention Camp is a tent encampment in the Texas desert that currently detains about 2,800 immigrant children. JOE RAEDLE / GETTY IMAGES Senator Jeff Merkley is trying to shut down two high-volume child immigrant detention centers. Merkley announced Thursday that he’s introducing legislation to the US Senate, aptly titled the “Shut Down Child […]
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Oregon Is a Safe Destination in a Country That’s Hostile to Abortion Rights
When Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court in October, abortion advocates across the country sounded an alarm: There were at least 13 abortion-related cases that the now majority-conservative court could immediately rule on. Many of those cases threaten to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark legislation that protects women’s rights to safe and […]
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Oregon Will Start Paying More Attention to Wage Inequities in 2019
RICARDOREITMEYER / GETTY IMAGES Oregon is going to start taking wage inequity seriously in 2019. The Oregon Equal Pay Act will go into full effect on January 1. The law, which passed in 2017, has two components: it prohibits employers from asking potential employees about their salary history during the application process; and it states […]
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Beaverton School District Under Lockout After Social Media Threat
BEAVERTON SCHOOL DISTRICT The Beaverton School District (BSD) announced Wednesday morning that it was placing all of its 53 schools on lockout after receiving a threatening message that mentioned a gun on Facebook. “Late in the evening of Tuesday December 18, 2018 Beaverton School District received a threat to harm our community via their Facebook […]
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Zoom+Care’s New Parent Company Has an Anti-LGBTQ History
HERO IMAGES / GETTY IMAGES Editor’s Note: This post has been updated to clarify how Zoom+Care is financially tied to certain organizations. It was announced today that Zoom+Care, the Portland-based urgent care empire that has come under legal and financial trouble in recent years after a failed foray into the insurance market, is being bought […]
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Good Morning, News: Russian Meme Update, One Year Since the Amtrak Tragedy, and It’s Raining!
Stay up to date on Portland news and politics. Looking for fun? Here are the best Things to Do in Portland today. It’s been exactly one year since an Amtrak derailment in Washington killed three people. STEPHEN BRASHEAR/GETTY IMAGES Good morning, Portland! There’s a lot of weather today, more than usual. In fact, Portland is […]
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Teen Vaping Rates Surge as Portland Vape Store Owner Fights New Regulations
Does this man look cooler to you than Joe Camel? DAN KITWOOD / GETTY IMAGES Teenagers across the United States are vaping more than ever, a report released today found. The news comes as a fight over vape advertising and labeling restrictions is set to play out here in Oregon. According to Monitoring the Future […]
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Merkley Heads to the Border to Investigate Child Prisons—Again
Senator Jeff Merkley will visit the Tornillo Children’s Detention Camp in Texas, pictured here, this weekend. JOE RAEDLE / GETTY IMAGES It’s been six months since Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley was denied entry to an immigrant detention center in Texas—and livestreamed it, adding fuel to the fire of a national outrage over the Trump administration’s […]
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OHSU May Be Reconsidering Its Objection to a Union for Grad Students
BLAIR STENVICK Wednesday was supposed to mark the beginning of a hearing—one that would determine if graduate students at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) would be allowed to unionize. As the Mercury reported last month, OHSU grad students made steps to unionize with AFSCME Council 75 in August, with students saying they needed collective […]
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Audit Finds Oregon Isn’t Doing Enough to Curb Opioid Over-Prescribing
MOUSSA81 / GETTY IMAGES Over the course of three years, one Oregonian was able to fill 290 prescriptions for Hydrocodone, a highly addictive opioid. According to a recent state investigation, this anonymous person obtained the prescriptions from 232 different prescribers, and 74 different pharmacies filled them. This person demonstrated an extreme case of over-access to […]