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GOOD MORNING, PORTLAND! It's been a cool couple of days with some intermittent rain (big win for anyone who doesn't like droughts and wildfires) and it'll be overcast again today. If gray skies have got you down, fear not, for you have the following NEWS ROUNDUP to read. (Plus, it'll be sunny again tomorrow, so just relax.) 

IN LOCAL NEWS:

• Looking for updates on Portland's charter reform? The Mercury has you covered with a news roundup of all the latest happenings within the city's process of transitioning to a new form of government. 

• LGBTQ+ youth are overrepresented in the foster system, where they often report being marginalized for their identities or abandoned by their foster families. In order to make the foster system better for these youth, Basic Rights Oregon will host a virtual event tonight all about the importance of affirming households for LGBTQ+ youth. We have the story HERE. 

• Yesterday, Oregon lawmakers added an amendment to an omnibus general obligation fund bill that would put our state on the hook for $1 billion to fund the controversial I-5 bridge replacement project. Critics say the proposed new bridge is just a de facto freeway expansion and a BAD WAY for Oregon to spend its money. But the bill is likely to be voted out of committee today, so we'll see what happens...

• Some interesting weather phenomena, courtesy of the hardworking folks at Portland's National Weather Service branch:

• Like sea otters? You might be pleased to hear about their potential reintroduction to the Oregon coastal landscape. Apparently, they were wiped out due to hunting in 1906, but there was an "haphazard and ill-fated attempt" to bring them back in the 70s. Hopefully this attempt would be better-fated, because look how cute they are!

 

IN NATIONAL/WORLD NEWS:

• A search is underway to find the missing Titanic wreckage site tour submarine, which is carrying five people, four of whom paid $250,000 for the experience. (The other is the operator.) This is genuinely terrible news, and reading about missing submarines has triggered my latent claustrophobia, so I can't imagine how those aboard the boat are feeling. Let's hope they are found, and also, like, maybe stop doing this kind of thing (visiting the resting site of Titanic victims, paying a quarter-million dollars for a single experience, deep sea exploration more broadly) going forward? 

• Apparently, there's some kind of gubernatorial rivalry going on between California's Gavin Newsom and Florida's Ron DeSantis. Their states both do have beaches, palm trees, and Disney Adults, but that's about where the resemblance ends. Actually, the governors seem to be duking it out over the national political stage, even though Newsom has stated there's no chance "on God's green earth" that he'll primary President Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2024, and DeSantis is currently humiliating himself in front of the entire country in an attempt to make it to the White House. 

• Horrible misogynist weirdo Andrew Tate has been indicted in Romania on human trafficking and rape charges, along with his less famous/still terrible brother. If you don't know who this guy is, don't learn. Just take my word for it: if you hear anyone defending him, RUN. If Tate has done one good thing for the world, it's serving as a human litmus test for identifying the worst people you'll ever meet. Throwback to when Greta Thunberg demolished him on Twitter last year:

• BRB, I need to go to New York to hang out with these sunbathing turtles: