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GOOD MORNING, PORTLAND! You can expect light rain on and off today with a high of 66 degrees—which would be the perfect drinking weather if the Mercury's HIGHBALL week started today... but it doesn't! It starts next Monday (June 3), featuring delicious, fresh, boozy creations from 29 of the city's best bartenders... and for only $8 each! So maybe use this week to dream about Highball and dry out your liver... because next week will be VERY busy! 🍸 Now, let's get busy with some NEWS.

IN LOCAL NEWS:

• The mysteries keep piling up on the Oregon coast: First beachcombers noticed blobs of sticky tar washing up on shore (under investigation), then a dead humpback whale was found on the beach near Manzanita (also under investigation). Now at least 20 people or more have become sick after eating mussels they harvested on the coast that carried a potentially deadly foodborne illness, and (you guessed it) the situation is under investigation. Diagnosis? NOT GOOD.

• An interesting story with a cover photo that should make your skin crawl:

• Court documents reveal that Jesse Lee Calhoun, recently indicted after being charged for the murder of three women whose bodies had been moved to rural areas, allegedly committed the crimes over a span of just 50 days. This indictment contains some of the only information that grief-stricken family members have learned about the death of their loved ones since the investigation began.

• Cheers to Andrea Damewood, who has been writing stellar food and restaurant reviews for the Mercury and others for the past ten years! Check out this roundup of some of her fave places, as well as a (hilarious, and not-at-all-half-hearted) apology for a place she claims she got "wrong." (See... the thing about Andrea is, that even when she's wrong? She's absolutely right.)

IN NATIONAL/WORLD NEWS:

• Today is the day when the jury will start making their closed-door deliberations in the hush money criminal trial of Donald "Orange Turd" Trump. If he is convicted of a felony, that will open up another new host of questions including, "will he, like normal people, be sent to prison?" (Yes, this is a question that is unfortunately being asked.)

• In other courtroom drama news, investigators are reportedly preparing to bring victims of rap mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs before a federal grand jury, which means that the feds are preparing to launch an indictment of Combs, who has been accused by multiple women of sexual assault.

• Even after an airstrike that murdered dozens of Palestinians, including civilian women and children, the US says that Israel still has not crossed the "red line" that would trigger a change in the way America is currently ignoring the genocide that's happening in Gaza. Wonder if that has anything to do with the bombs—which were used in the latest deadly Israeli airstrike—that were provided by the United States?

• I'm just going to leave this horrifying statement (that shouldn't surprise you) right here: "A WhatsApp group chat used by the Mississippi sheriff’s deputies who dubbed themselves the 'Goon Squad' shows members swapping pictures of corpses, making racist comments, and encouraging each other to brutalize suspects, reports say."

• Good news: At long last, the statistics from baseball's Negro Leagues will be incorporated into Major League Baseball's historical record books, bringing light to the 2,300 players from the 1930s and '40s whose sporty accomplishments have been largely ignored.

• And finally... me, trying to make it through the week following a Memorial Day holiday.