illustration by alex despain Bowing to community discomfort, as well as their own unease, Mayor Charlie Hales and three city commissioners have vowed to rethink the city’s role in an FBI-led anti-terrorism task force as soon as this fall—another potential turnabout in what’s been a years-long saga over the protection of Portlanders’ civil liberties. The […]
Denis C. Theriault
Denis C. Theriault is the Portland Mercury's News Editor. He writes stories about City Hall and the Portland Police Bureau, focusing on issues like homelessness, police oversight, insider politics, and civil liberties. Before arriving in Portland, Denis wrote and edited for the San Jose Mercury News, covering the California Legislature and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, as well as the city of San Jose—a real-live million-person town.
Posted inNewsblast!
Good Morning, News!
Good day, Blogtown! Save yourself nine years of TV watching! Read this spoiler-filled article about a somewhat popular gimmick-driven sitcom’s final episode! Speaking of nausea, let’s revisit yesterday’s news about the CIA and torture, and how torture didn’t help American troops capture Osama bin Laden. The 6,300-page Senate report with that finding also says the […]
Posted inNews
Novick Gets a Public Conversation on Cutting Cops’ Drug Unit
It’s been nearly two months since Commissioner Steve Novick raised eyebrows in Portland City Hall with a memo urging his colleagues to consider millions in additional cuts to the police bureau’s budget—leading with a call to cut the bureau’s mounted patrol, but tacking on an equally sensitive call to whack back its drugs and vice […]
Posted inNewsblast!
Good Morning, News!
The Korean Peninsula was good for a few modest “boom-boom-booms” this weekend. But nothing got nuked! So far! Right after warning it was mulling over a new kind of nuclear test (AKA bombing Seoul), North Korea casually “allowed” a few live shells to land over its disputed sea border with South Korea during a training […]
Posted inNews
Labor Unions, a Week after Strike Vote, Strike Tentative Deal with City
The District Council of Trade Unions—seven unions representing some 1,600 frontline workers for the city of Portland—sent a powerful message this winter about their distaste for a proposed new contract some two years in the making, a contract many members felt didn’t do enough to keep the city from outsourcing their jobs. First, member unions […]
Posted inNewsblast!
Good Morning, News!
Don’t freak out. Not yet. It’s totally true that there have been more than over more than 30 earthquakes on Mount Hood since Sunday. But geologists are pretty sure nothing awful’s about to happen, like an eruption. Or a BIG earthquake. Saudi Arabia has been increasingly sore at us Americans, for being nice to the […]
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More Trouble for Cover Oregon: Secret (Maybe Even Illegal!) “Oversight” Meetings
The Cover Oregon saga has already brought several loyal state aides’ heads to the chopping block—the latest execution orders coming last week after a damning report exposed senseless lapses in the oversight and management of a tech project that should have a major political priority. But somehow the awfulness keeps getting worse. In a shockingly […]
Posted inNewsblast!
Good Morning, News!
Barry and Frankie, American president and Roman Catholic pontiff, had a nice long meeting! It was at the Vatican! They talked about poverty! (They both like to talk about that) Maybe they talked about birth control! (Barry would rather not talk much about that.) It doesn’t really matter! This might matter. Maybe. The president has […]
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Mayor’s Lack of “Secret” Clearance Could Doom Portland’s Work in Terror Task Force
As you’ll read in today’s paper (online later today, in newsboxes right now!), Mayor Charlie Hales has explained why the FBI decided not to give him a “secret” security clearance—a key provision in the controversial 2011 arrangement that partly rejoined the city with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. That issue flared up in the […]
Posted inPolitics
Bare Minimum
A Radical City Council Candidate Finally Has Us Talking About the Minimum Wage—But How Far Will It Go?
A radical city council candidate finally has Portland talking about the minimum wage—but how far will it go?
Posted inNews
Hall Monitor
A Fired Bureaucrat’s Battle
A “name-clearing” hearing for Jack Graham captures the mayor’s attention.