I saw two crows playing with a tin can in a parking lot, and I suggested they support the Portland Mercury’s editorial team financially because they were birds, and birds only hoard human money for shininess. Now I know what you’re thinking, of all birds, crows, ravens and blackbirds are the most likely to be monied, but they also would only ever spend their script on shiny things. Despite our best efforts, the site is not shiny, but on the day it is possible to make is shiny YOU KNOW WE WILL PURSUE A SHINY, SPARKLY SITE. Contribute to a hypothetical future sparkly website and quality reporting that is good and not a huge waste of time here. We thank you.

Good Morning, Portland! Do you want to know what I did yesterday? I misspelled Guinness in the ding dang headline of a pretty great theater review by Mercury contributor John Rudoff. It's fixed now, and sure, I hear you saying there are worse crimes, but I may never live this down with the guys. And by guys I mean the crows I hang out with in the parking lot behind Grocery Outlet. Now, why don't I stop ramblin' and tell you some news?

IN LOCAL NEWS:
• We're two weeks into a partnership between Portland Police Bureau and Oregon State Police to more studiously patrol Portland's downtown. The effort is part of Gov. Tina Kotek's initiative to impact a perceived fentanyl crisis in the area specifically. News Editor Courtney Vaughn takes a brief look at what the combined organizations have reported so far. It's a fentanyl bust, folks.

• It's going to be cold this weekend, which means it's going to be sunny. By next Thursday, we're expected to get back to the regular Pacific Northwest 50-degree rain days.

• Today in big melon news:

• Some days I just stare out the window and ponder, what CAN'T they ask Mike Reese to do? On Tuesday, Kotek announced Reese—a former sheriff of Multnomah County and chief of the Portland Police Bureau—will be the next director of the Oregon Department of Corrections. OPB's Conrad Wilson has the story.

• We wrote about QDoc very briefly in our Fall Arts Guide piece about Portland Film Festivals—it kicks off next weekend and runs November 3-5.

• It's Friday, and therefore it's time to plan for future fun.The Mercury's calendar team has your Friday morning list of shows about to drop tickets on our poor, unprepared credit cards. This morning, seats for Say She She and Michael Flatley’s Lord of the Dance both hit the streets. Yolo.

IN NATIONAL / INTERNATIONAL NEWS:
• Here's your morning beautiful treatise on the futility and cruelty of war:

We found ourselves in the middle of some poorly thought-out counterinsurgency strategy, propping up a corrupt government that collapsed almost as soon as the United States left. We were protecting each other. That became a binding ideology, all the clarity we could summon in the puzzle our politicians in Washington handed us. We stumbled through exhausted, mouthing our lines, until our tours ended and we were discharged.

• "Children in both Israel and Gaza have taken an outsized share of the toll from the Hamas massacre and the intensifying Israeli bombardment of the tiny enclave," the Associated Press reports.

• Former President Donald Trump has already been fined for violating "a very limited gag order" that specifically bars him from publicly criticizing the staff of a Manhattan judge on social media. Vice News has your Trump Schadenfrude morning read.

• The Biden administration released a plan to try to get property owners to convert empty office space into apartments. Yes, dad is just learning about "out of pocket," and we're going to have to let him use it if we want him to drive us to the beach.

• It's been a yeaar since Elon Musk bought Twitter and while many have left the platform the New York Times reports that sports fans are like, "What? Don't talk to me during the game."

• Here's your energy for the weekend, girls (and all the other genders)!

 
 
 
 
 
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