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Good Morning, Portland! My 'E' and 'H' keys are dying. Plas hang in with m as I writ a nwsblast that sounds lik that Frnch book that didn't us the vowel 'e.' Lol. Her's th nws.

IN LOCAL NEWS:
• Science says it’s perfectly safe to swim in the Willamette River, and efforts by local nonprofits are making it socially acceptable again too. Mercury reporter Taylor Griggs has a history of swimming in Portland's most obvious swimming spot.

• To paraphrase T.S. Elliot in his Four Quartets poem, "massive abandoned retail space to new building, old timber to new fires." To make more sense, a proposed new music venue project in the Lloyd Center Mall area could prove an answer to both Portland's need for a 2,000-4,500 capacity concert hall and a locally-tied competitor to Live Nation's presence in the city's local music economy.

• A landscaping truck caught fire on Wednesday and sparked a wildfire that has, thus far, burned to over 600 acres between Madras and Terrebonne in Central Oregon. While we are not interested in blaming anyone whose car suddenly catches fire, we are interested in what Jefferson County Fire Chief Jeff Blake told Central Oregon Daily News you could do in such a situation.

• ODOT has released another comical meme video, so you know they're about to close another local highway.

 
 
 
 
 
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• An update on Multnomah County's plan for a "deflection" drug treatment center, slated to open in 52 days on NE Sandy: The Oregonian reports that the center—which itself is a response to the new Oregon law re-criminalizing minor drug possession—will now require those who can be dropped off there, in lieu of arrest, to undergo substance abuse screening and referrals to treatment. The center will open in a number of phrases with the "bare bones" version available soonest. It won't care for those suffering from mental health crises or provide medications that help with treat opioid addictions, though it may do the latter later.

• Quiz time! Take the whole Pop Quiz PDX here!

 
 
 
 
 
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IN NATIONAL / INTERNATIONAL NEWS:
• Actress Shelley Duvall has died at age 75, according to an announcement from her longtime partner, Dan Gilroy. Regarded as one of cinema's most emblematic scream queens for her performance opposite Jack Nicholson in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, Duvall actually got her start in Robert Altman films—3 Women is especially good. She retired from acting in the '90s, citing the phoniness of Hollywood, but her pioneering work as a Femme Lead With Axe inspired scores of Femme Leads With Axe that followed.

• Speaking of a horror show, the Democrats are really giving us one as we approach the 2024 US election. Journalists love a bloodbath (I'm being metaphorical here) and so do politicians (being less metaphorical), so it's difficult to parse whether current hot spots of alleged rebellion within the Democratic party regarding President Biden's candidacy are truly as contentious as they seem. It's like asking cats what their fight was about. It sounded pretty bad, but now they're licking their private parts. You'll hear what really happened in a biography 40 years from now. Anyway, Biden has thus far said he's staying in the running for US President. He called Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky "Mr. Putin" and Vice President Kamala Harris "Trump" during a press conference yesterday, but the New York Times reporters thought his answers showed a "strong grasp of foreign policy"—which seems like a high bar to meet.

• In related news: the NYT editorial board—which is not its newsroom—have published an opinion piece on why Donald Trump is unfit to be President.

• Security services in Germany foiled an attempted assassination on a German arms manufacturer—Associated Press reports that Western intelligence says it was a Russian plotted to kill him because of his support of Ukraine. And they have more plots.

• In Gaza, a UK group providing humanitarian aid says one of its staff and three others from other aid groups were killed by an airstrike on a warehouse inside an Israeli-declared humanitarian safe zone, this follows yesterdays assurances that Israel would stop doing that.

• There's massive flooding in Houston and Vermont—somehow both are due to Hurricane Beryl.

• Your necessary Drew Magary infusion of sass and analysis, peer into the mind of "a smart, cool alpha male" as Magary drives a Cybertruck around San Francisco.

• Beastie Boys are suing Chili's.

• This is honestly me as soon as I can get all my emails answered today:

 
 
 
 
 
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