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Good afternoon, Portland! I hope you're celebrating President's Day appropriately (whatever that may look like... what does it look like?), and ready to tuck into some NEWS.
IN LOCAL NEWS:
• Progressives are out of luck at City Hall right now, but that could change when the council expands in 2025—and a new Candidate School debuting this summer, from the political action committee Our Portland, is designed to help teach potential progressive candidates and campaign workers what it takes to get elected.Â
Eyeing the expansion of Portland City Council in 2025, former mayoral candidate Sarah Iannarone and Our Portland, a political action committee, are launching a school for prospective candidates this summer. https://t.co/NpxyEhCKEo
— Portland Mercury 🗞 (@portlandmercury) February 20, 2023
• New data provided by Multnomah County and reported by the Oregonian on Monday found that of the roughly 1,700 houseless Portlanders offered shelter during sweeps of encampments over the last ten months, fewer than one percent are permanently housed today. A really solid showing from our data-driven city government here.Â
• Mayor Ted Wheeler declared that he's "made for this moment" in an Oregonian profile over the weekend, which presumably caused uproarious laughter and spit-takes around kitchen tables all over the city.Â
Through training and local fire prevention projects, Firewise USA encourages property owners to take measures to prevent fires from destroying their homes and businesses.
— OPB (@OPB) February 20, 2023
Many of Oregon’s smallest and most isolated communities have become Firewise sites. https://t.co/ZDS30uUHpq
• Portland State University is moving closer to hiring its next president, with the board of trustees set to meet on the matter tomorrow (which is when, I presume, they will solicit my input). Current president Stephen Percy is retiring at the end of the current academic year.Â
• Are you ready for a new week of hot goss? This week in THE TRASH REPORT by our Elinor Jones: A trashy investigation into President's Day, education for cops, and Bruce Willis' uncanny ability to surf a crashing plane.
If you're already in the mood for a stiff drink, you're in luck: The Mercury's HIGHBALL WEEK is now underway and you can get a week's full of creative cocktails from Portland's best bartenders... and only $8 each! https://t.co/CagHN6YoAq
— Portland Mercury 🗞 (@portlandmercury) February 20, 2023
IN NATIONAL NEWS:
• Joe Biden marked President's Day by making an unannounced visit to Kyiv, where he met with Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the eve of the first anniversary of Russia's invasion. Here's a look at how the White House made the clandestine trip happen.Â
BREAKING: New lawsuit says Norfolk rail's outrageous decision to detonate 1 million tons of cancer-causing vinyl chloride in Ohio created a new chemical warfare gas so deadly it is outlawed by the Geneva Convention.
— Steven Donziger (@SDonziger) February 19, 2023
EPA has not tested for this new gas.https://t.co/inQpL1FQg1
• Two more powerful earthquakes hit Turkey on Monday, just two weeks after the earthquake that left thousands of people dead there and in Syria. These earthquakes struck the southern province of Hatay on Monday, killing three people and leaving more than 200 others injured.Â
• Israel continues to see massive street protests, with more than 100,000 people gathering outside the Knesset in Jerusalem on Monday to protest the Benjamin Netanyahu government's proposal to severely limit the powers of the country's independent judiciary. The opposition in Israel is claiming that the proposals would be anti-democratic, which is only slightly rich given that Human Rights Watch already considers Israel an apartheid state.Â
After nearly two years on the picket line, the Warrior Met Strike draws to an end. Despite their brave fight for dignity on the job, the country’s “most pro-union President” was nowhere to be found. https://t.co/FWqz9fC6Tp
— In These Times (@inthesetimesmag) February 20, 2023
• Enough with global politics, let's get into some juicy WEATHER NEWS: The Twin Cities are expecting between 19 and 25 INCHES of snow between tomorrow and Thursday! Wow! That's a lot of snow!
BY FAR, THEE absolute highest NWS snow forecast I have ever seen for the city of Minneapolis. pic.twitter.com/QZ9V57nkc6
— Tanner Verstegen (@VerstegenWX) February 20, 2023
• Marjorie Taylor Greene came out in favor of the dissolution of the United States, calling for the country to be separated by "red states and blue states." Hard to know how this would work for Marjorie given that her own home state has two Democratic senators and voted for Joe Biden.
• Finally...Â
Happy anniversary to the moment when Elizabeth Warren ended Mike Bloomberg’s campaign pic.twitter.com/4ywZOEW9r4
— Jordan Meehan (@JordanMeehan) February 20, 2023