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Ivanka Trumps sage advice for the unemployed: Find another job, peons!
Ivanka Trump's sage advice for the unemployed: "Find another job, peons!" Doug Mills / Pool / Getty News

GOOD MORNING, PORTLAND! I'm in the phone booth, it's the one across the hall. If you don't answer, I'll just ring it off the wall. LET'S GO TO PRESS.

• Federal officers spent late Tuesday night/early Wednesday morning rousting, arresting, and firing munitions at protesters in downtown Portland. The evening started with a march with members from Rose City Justice joining the regular Lownsdale Square crowd, followed by a jam session, a barricade building party, and a planned campout in the parks across from the Justice Center. The voluminous tear gas and munitions attack from the feds started in the wee hours of the morning, and various arrests were made—some without any apparent reason. Portland Police largely stayed out of the fray, and about a dozen stayed the night camped in the park.

• The Mercury's Alex Zielinski wrote a banger of a new Hall Monitor column yesterday that sharply points out Mayor Ted Wheeler's seeming resistance to protecting peaceful protesters against Portland Police and federal officers. Don't miss it!

• Later Tuesday afternoon, Mayor Wheeler stepped up his normally tepid rhetoric a bit telling the feds to either "stay in their buildings or go home." Meanwhile state lawmakers took even more direct action:

• The Oregon legislature has approved more than $200 million in COVID-related funding for small businesses, those still waiting on unemployment checks, and financial help for music & arts venues, as well as people of color. Check out our story for more details.

• Suspicions are rising that the death count of COVID victims in the Pacific Northwest may be much bigger that originally thought.

• Portland Public Schools will be changing the name of Woodrow Wilson High School, named after the president that was an ally of the Ku Klux Klan and promoted segregation. Students will take the lead in helping decide the school's next name.

• HAPPY 30TH BIRTHDAY to Portland's beloved Damian Lillard.

IN NATIONAL NEWS:

• Researchers say that a new experimental COVID vaccine is getting a positive response in human trial studies according to the New England Journal of Medicine.

• In "DO NOT PANIC, BUT..." news: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg is in the hospital to treat a possible infection, BUT, BUT, BUT, is resting comfortably and is expected to be released in a few days. Again, DO. NOT. PANIC.

• As coronavirus infections continue to rise in America (65,000 new cases were reported just yesterday), the Trump administration continues to beat the drum to fully reopen schools in the fall—though the burden will fall on working parents who also rightly fear for their children's safety.

• In a clear attempt to screw with true virus numbers to help the president's campaign, state health authorities are being ordered to send local coronavirus data straight to the Trump administration, bypassing the CDC.

• Meanwhile in the middle of a deadly worldwide health crisis, Trump is spending his time weakening the National Environmental Policy Act that will stop the public from interfering with federal projects like freeways and power plants.

• Walmart is now requiring their customers in every one of their stores nationwide to wear masks while shopping. (Get your popcorn, this is gonna be a disaster.)

• One conservative shithead (Tommy Tuberville) has beaten another more well-known conservative shithead (Trump's former attorney general Jeff Sessions) in last night's Alabama primary for senator. Tuberville will go up against Democrat Doug Jones this fall.

• In the face of massive national unemployment, Ivanka Trump has arrived to inspire Americans with her new campaign: "Just find another job, dummies! If I can start an ugly clothing line with my corrupt dad's millions, so can YOU!"

• On the off-chance anyone gives a shit:

• And now, let's peer through the blinds at the WEATHER: Yet another sunny, gorgeous day with a high of 85.

• And finally... I was certain the big shock at the end would be this guy revealing himself as a floating Sir Patrick Stewart.