Attorney General Jeff Sessions is emerging from his cozy, cookie-scented tree bole to visit our fair city today, in what looks like it'll amount to a push for more stringent crackdowns on undocumented immigrants. There's a protest planned, of course.
Rainnnnn. We got drenched yesterday, and that means Multnomah County residents who've been displaced by the Eagle Creek Fire get to go home.
OH SNAP: Looks like Paul Manafort, a former top Trump aide, was wiretapped before and after last year's election.
You read this story about two Trump lawyers openly and loudly discussing sensitive White House business in a DC restaurant, right? They were sitting next to a New York Times reporter. "A reporter who happened to be at the next table heard Mr. Cobb describing varying views of how to respond to [Special Counsel Robert] Mueller’s requests for documents." Beautiful.
Speaking of White House attorneys, they're trying to force US Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley to accept Trump's choice for a new federal appeals judge. The two senators have said they'll block the nomination (using an informal process it's not clear Republicans will abide by).
ICYMI: The Merc's Doug Brown broke news on Friday that the secretive grand jury process is on its way out in Multnomah County. Instead of getting the thumbs up to try people for crimes in secret, local prosecutors will now have to convince a judge, in open court, that they have probable cause to move forward with a case.
A Washington State board has thrown a kink into the plan to build a massive gas-to-methanol plant in Kalama. From OPB: "In its summary judgement, the board wrote it is 'troubled by the project’s emission of greenhouse gases without further evaluation of potential mitigation measures...'" Makes sense.
A new Amazon warehouse is coming to North Lombard street—in an area of town that might offer the retailer a five year reprieve on real-estate taxes, according to the O.
Speaking of Lombard, it was the site of an awful crash last night that left two people dead and four more seriously injured.
Oregon legislators called three former state health officials to testify about an agency scandal yesterday. None showed up.
Protests continued in St. Louis yesterday over the acquittal of a police officer who killed a Black man. They were toned down compared to the weekend. Meanwhile, protestors there are calling foul on St. Louis police's use of a "kettle" to arrest them on Sunday. That practice has been used in Portland—most recently in an early June demonstration.
Donald Trump addresses the UN General Assembly today. And down in Washington, the latest effort to dismantle Obamacare might have a shot.
Now get out there in that rain!
