The Mercury provides news and fun every single day—but your help is essential. If you believe Portland benefits from smart, local journalism and arts coverage, please consider making a small monthly contribution, because without you, there is no us. Thanks for your support!

GOOD AFTERNOON, PORTLAND! First let's hit up some WEATHER: Expect a touch of rain to return this weekend, but otherwise it will be cloudy, in the 40s, and... you know... January. Now let's jump into a touch of NEWS!

IN LOCAL NEWS:

• Our beloved former news editor Alex Zielinski has a banger of a story over at OPB about the recently fired City Hall adviser Sam Adams and why his abusive style of bullying that ultimately led to his termination—more than a year after the first complaints were lodged, as our Isabella Garcia reported—was tolerated for so long by the Wheeler administration. (Fun footnote: Wheeler shares a lot of the blame for City Hall's toxic work atmosphere that was well in place before Adams' arrival.) Anyway, lots of juicy context here, so check it out!

• A Portland man stands accused of shooting another man in the back four times, after being scolded for parking in a space reserved for disabled folks. While watching a video of the incident, a member of the murdered man's family correctly identified exactly who this suspected shooter is by saying aloud, "COWARD." 

• The much beloved Akadi PDX restaurant is now in their new SE Division digs! And you'll be happy to know that the menu retains customer favorites, like the spectacular suya chicken wings and pepper fish, while expanding to offer new tastes like smoked goat egusi stew and purple cabbage fufu. Please continue to read Jenni Moore's review if you are a fan of a) drooling, or b) running out of the house in your pajamas in order to beat the Akadi dinner rush.

• New Oregon custom license plate just dropped! This one is "bee-themed" and sales of the plate will go to the OSU’s Pollinator Health Lab and Honey Bee Lab programs who research the 600 (!) kinds of native Oregon bees! (Don't try to get them to print "HNY H4M" on your plate... they've already rejected me. 😞)

IN NATIONAL/ WORLD NEWS:

• The person in charge of investigating the Supreme Court leak—which revealed the Roe decision months before they went through with it—is now saying that the justices WERE interviewed by investigators, and were cleared. (Look, we all know Clarence Thomas left them on his kitchen table for his wife Ginny! GET A CLUE, ENCYCLOPEDIA BROWN!)

• Related: The life-hating supporters of anti-abortion group March for Life are descending on Washington this weekend, and NO... having the Supremes overturn Roe was not enough. Now they're focusing on getting their Republican buddies in Congress to push for an all-out abortion ban in every state.

• Today in "Gov. Ron DeSantis is a Racist Butthole": The governor's racist butthole administration is being correctly labeled as racist buttholes for refusing to allow Black history to be taught in public schools because they think it "lacks educational value"?!? (I think there's a term for these types of actions... oh, yeah! RACIST BUTTHOLES!

• According to prosecutors, Theranos' turtleneck wearing founder Elizabeth Holmes bought a one-way ticket to Mexico shortly after being convicted of fraud in an obvious attempt to flee the country. (That's why I have always have a one-way ticket to Mexico handy... never know when you might need it!)

• And finally... I was thinking, "This is super funny!" until I realized, "Wait... this is me at the Mercury's last staff meeting."