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Good morning, voters! Wait⌠what do mean you havenât filled out your May primary ballot yet? Well, no worries, the Mercury has you covered with our handy endorsement guide! Now, onto the news.
In local news:
â˘Â Multnomah County officials are encouraging everyone to wear a mask indoors until COVID cases and hospitalizations start to decrease. The county has been recording approximately 350 COVID cases per day, up from less than 100 per day in the beginning of April. According to the Oregon Health & Science University, the current surge of cases is supposed to peak in early June.
â˘Â Can you make flower flavored ice cream without it being impossibly boujie and annoying? At Salt & Straw, the answer is yes. Our Suzette Smith tried all five of the ice cream shopâs seasonal flower flavors and ranked them for your convenience.
Portland's public campaign financing system is an effort to limit the role big $ plays in city politics. But developers & business leaders have found a huge loophole to help one of Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty's major challengers. https://t.co/PTJ6WPgRl5
â Anna Griffin (@annargriff) May 12, 2022
â˘Â The Oregon Court of Appeals affirmed the city of Portlandâs ability to deny Zenith Energy a land permit Wednesday by upholding a previous land use boardâs ruling. Thatâs another win for the city in the ongoing legal saga against Zenith, a crude oil transportation company that has a facility along the Willamette River in Northwest Portland. Itâs all very legal and convoluted, but the general takeaway is that, so far, things are looking good for Portland as the city takes an unprecedented step in challenging the oil industry.
â˘Â Have you noticed that the DMV lines seem extra long recently or the soonest appointment is more than a week away? It may be because Oregon DMVs are facing a significant worker shortage, with some regions operating at a 25 percent worker deficit. Rural areas of the state have been particularly impacted by the shortage.
Harriet Tubman Middle School students are calling on Portland Public Schools to reinstate their suspended teacher and address the staffing crisis at the school. https://t.co/SPJrJOUnEr
â Portland Mercury đ (@portlandmercury) May 11, 2022
In national and international news:
â˘Â A man opened fire in a Dallas hair salon in Korea town Wednesday afternoon and shot three Korean women before fleeing. Police are still looking for the suspect and they have not ruled out that it was a hate crime. Violence against asian people has be rising over the past few years, but particularly during the pandemic. All three women are in the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
â˘Â North Korea reported its first-ever outbreak of COVID cases and went into a nationwide lockdown Thursday. North Korean leaders have claimed that they have been able to keep the virus out of the country for the past two years, something that has been highly doubted by pretty much every other world leader given the fact that the virus has spread globally and isnât stopped by imaginary country borders. Itâs unclear how large the viral outbreak is in the country.
â˘Â Hi class, todayâs lesson is about instant karma:
Police in South Carolina believe a 60-year-old man killed a woman in his backyard â then suffered a heart attack and died as he attempted to bury her.https://t.co/fzkldDnppN
â NPR (@NPR) May 12, 2022
â˘Â London police have fined more than 100 government officials and their friends for breaching COVID regulations by attending parties and gatherings while the country was in lockdown, AKA âpartygate.â Prime Minister Borris Johnson admitted last month that he was one of the people fined, which makes him the first British leader to be sanctioned for breaking the law while in office (what an honor). Nearly 200,000 people have died from COVID in Britain, the second highest death toll in Europe.
â˘Â The conservative movement to ban books is now targeting e-readers and reading apps. In Nashville, Austin, and some areas of Florida, schools districts have cut off students' access to e-reading services that became vital during the pandemic. The school districts claim that they donât want students having access to materials that havenât been vetted by the districtâs own librarians. In Nashville, a superintendent cut e-reading access for 40,000 students after a parent found books supporting gay pride.
â˘Â SPACE!
BREAKING: Astronomers have unveiled the first wild but fuzzy image of the supermassive black hole at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy. https://t.co/CnR1hVLUOj
â The Associated Press (@AP) May 12, 2022