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Good morning, Portland! We have survived the rainiest recorded April in Portland history! Donât take too long to towel yourself offâthe first week of May brings more wet weather, starting with a 61 percent chance of showers today.
- Data shared in court Friday showed that police use of force against mentally ill Portlanders has only increased since the US Department of Justice (DOJ) sued the city in 2012 for Portland Police Bureauâs (PPB) disproportionate use of violence against people with a mental illness. Itâs not clear how this will impact the future of the settlement agreement reached between the city and the feds following the lawsuit, but it is clear that this data is not great.
- A rally for Republican gubernatorial candidate and Sandy mayor Stan Pulliam attracted a group of counter-protesters Saturday, leading to a brief confrontation. Pulliam, an anti-trans, anti-abortion, pro-Trump conservative, happily used the interaction as a tool to accuse anti-fascists of trying to silence his campaign. Pulliam is now furiously refreshing his inbox to see if he's received an invite to Tucker Carlson's show yet.
- May Day came and went in Portland without much hubbub, despite the cityâs long history of fiery May Day demonstrations. This happened, though:
Ainât no power like the power of the people cos the power of the people donât stop âđżâđ˝đĽ
â Portland Jobs with Justice đ˘âď¸âď¸âď¸ (@JwJpdx) May 1, 2022
Up, up with liberation!
Down, down with deportation! pic.twitter.com/Wkpcr8Kw39
- At least two Portland-area movie theaters are offering film screenings with captions to their audiences, opening the door to hearing-impaired customers.
- The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde are working with Oregonâs congressional delegation to overturn a federal agreement that restricts tribal members from fishing and hunting outside of their reservation. A bill in the US Senate, introduced by Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, could lift these sanctions.
- Itâs been one month since the mask mandate was lifted in Oregonâs public spaces, and medical experts say things are going as expected. This means that, while COVID cases are rising across Oregon, the severity of the virus is lowâand a whopping 76 percent of Oregonians are fully vaccinated. In the comforting words of Dr. Paul Cieslak, the medical director for communicable diseases and immunizations at the Oregon Health Authority: âIâm very optimistic that weâre not going to see the kind of surges in hospitalized patients that we saw with omicron and delta.â
- In national COVID news, former White House COVID task force member Deborah Birx says Americans should be âpreparing right now for a potential surge in this summer across the southern United States.â Do what you want with that information.
- A state audit of five large police departments in California found evidence of officer bias against women, people of color, immigrants, and LGBTQ peopleâand no department plans to address it. Systemic racism: still hard for law enforcement to quit.
- The White House Correspondentsâ dinnerâcolloquially known as ânerd promââ returned Saturday! Here is one burn I endorse:
Major development in fight for better journalism on crime & public safety. @Trevornoah last night on copaganda: "The NYT has some of the most accurate reporting. You never fail to write down *exactly* whatever the police have given you to say." More: pic.twitter.com/K5Aa0UlZQi
â Scott Hechinger (@ScottHech) May 1, 2022
- Some 100 people who had been holed up in a vacant steel plant in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol were safely evacuated Sunday. This positive news coincided with US House Speaker Nancy Pelosiâs visit to Ukraine to show the USâ support for the country under siege by Russia.
- May Day demonstrations were decidedly more lit in Paris, where activists protested against the labor-related policies of newly re-elected President Emmanuel Macron. According to Reuters, thousands of protesters flocked to the streets âcalling for salary increases and for Macron to drop his plan to raise the retirement age.â