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Good morning, Portland! It's hot this week: so hot I've had this tasty Gerudo Valley theme stuck in my head all day. It'll get up to 92 today, but things should cool off by the weekend, and we may even have some rain next week. Let's get to the news!

US spies have confirmed that North Korea is still trying to make new missiles, despite Trump believing he has totally defeated their nuclear program with one meeting.

You know what we could use in a time like this? A good old government shut down!Trump demands one if his precious border wall isn't built, but Republicans are not really feeling it ahead of a midterm election. What a negotiator!


I suppose the government will need less money if it stops working for a while. Who should that money go to? Rich people, of course! Trump wants to cut the capital gains tax—a tax on stock market earnings—and his camp is talking about doing it without congress's help. Such a tax cut would help those who really need it, Trump's base: Nearly two-thirds of the benefits would go to the top 0.1 percent of American income earners.

Paul Manafort is about to go to court: it's the first such trial from the Mueller investigation. Oh, but collusion isn't a crime, so he has nothing to worry about!


About 650 immigrant children are still separated from their parents. With many parents deported, the US government has no idea how to get the families back together.

Zimbabwe's first election without Robert Mugabe on the ticket is too close to call, but we should know the results by Saturday.

Californian wildfires have killed eight people so far, including a grandmother and her two young grandchildren. A quarter million acres of California have burned so far, with no end in sight.


Southern Oregon is also ablaze, and those fires are really harming air quality down south. Some of that smoke has made its way up to Portland, causing a surreal haze in our skies. But don't worry, Portland's air is still safe to breathe.

Portland's biggest psychiatric hospital is under state investigation and won't be taking many new patients in the meantime. Staff at the Unity Center for Behavioral Health are in training to prevent assaults by patients, and the hospital should open back up once that training is complete.

Mayor Ted Wheeler got a cease and desist letter from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) union threatening legal action over his decision to tell police not to intervene at the ICE building during the Occupy ICE protest.

The US Supreme Court sided with children who are suing the US government, denying the Trump administration's motion to delay an October 29 court date at U.S. district court. The lawsuit, Juliana v. United States, alleges that the children's constitutional rights are being violated by a government that has known about the dangers of climate change for decades but still promotes the use of fossil fuels and fails to protect natural resources for future citizens. Many of the kids who filed the lawsuit are from Oregon.

That's all folks! Here's a scientific video about why it's so damn hot in the northern hemisphere lately. Spoiler alert: Global warming has a bit of a hand in it.