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GOOD MORNING, PORTLAND! 👋

Welcome to what will probably be the hottest day of the week, as temperatures could very well top off at a scorchin' 98 degrees, while only being slightly cooler tomorrow at 95, before returning to a far more manageable 87 on Saturday. Now let's read up on some partially scorchin' NEWS!

IN LOCAL NEWS:

• You may recall that on Tuesday, Multnomah County Sheriff Nicole Morrisey O’Donnell refused to jail a houseless person that had been cited by Portland Police (under the city's latest sure-to-fail plan to criminalize homelessness) because, as she rightly put it, jails are "for people who pose a genuine danger to the public, and that does not include individuals whose only offense is living unsheltered." So how did Mayor Wheeler respond to this on Wednesday? By telling his cops to cite them anyway, thereby referring them for prosecution in Multnomah County Circuit Court. (Apparently the mayor is unaware of Oregon's very well publicized public defender crisis.) Sounds like a great use of taxpayer money, and as we all know, nothing can cure a person of homelessness like giving them a stiff fine. 🙄

• It looks like Portland's plan to convert certain unused office buildings into housing isn't quite as dead as we imagined—on August 28, city council is scheduled to discuss a Housing Production Strategy Report that includes ideas to encourage skittish (sometimes just greedy) developers to invest in affordable places for folks to live. There are serious hurdles, which includes wildly expensive seismic retrofits, to consider though Commissioner (and mayoral hopeful) Carmen Rubio, who has been helming the project, notes the financial incentives within the plan, adding that "it's worth trying."

• Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson and other county and city leaders held a press conference yesterday to outline their plans for a new deflection center and how to keep people suffering from addiction out of jail, when new rules—created after conservatives pressured lawmakers to torpedo Measure 110 before it had a chance to work—kick in on September 1. Pederson pushed back on the insinuations that there is no plan (along with NIMBY concerns about the location of the deflection center), saying “...we are building a deflection system that includes mobile outreach, leverages peer support, and finally creates a dropoff center for law enforcement.” (This will not stop conservative fear mongers, who only want to see addicts behind bars, from jabbering—because for them, killing Measure 110 wasn't enough... they want to kill anything associated with it.)

• Up north in Seattle, authorities have determined that a motorcyclist was struck and killed by a driver who had switched his Tesla to autopilot. The driver was looking at his phone when the accident occurred, and the incident marks the second death (that we know of) caused by Elon Musk's self-driving system.

IN NATIONAL/WORLD NEWS:

• Let's kick off with some positive news: Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former US Marine Paul Whelan are among the two dozen people who have been freed from Russia prisons in the biggest prisoner swap since the end of the Cold War. The trade only came after years of back-channel negotiations, and while Gershkovich and others were confined due to trumped up charges, some of the Russian prisoners who were released are legit criminals. The release of the prisoners was reportedly one of President Biden's top foreign policy goals for his remaining time in office.

•  Trump really stepped on a rake this time: During a contentious interview in front of the National Association of Black Journalists in Chicago, the former president and current felon repeatedly insulted the interviewers, his audience, and went as far as to accuse his primary competition, Kamala Harris, of "turning Black," ignorantly insinuating that a person cannot be Indian and Black at the same time. HOO-BOY, it was a racist doozy, and here you can watch Trump losing the Black vote in 20 seconds flat:

• Oh, and the hits just keep on comin'!

• The alleged mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and two other defendants have agreed to plead guilty in a plea deal with the US government that takes the death penalty off the table. The three had been charged with the murder of 2,976 people.

• In sports fun: American Olympic gymnasts Simone Biles and Suni Lee will be facing off against each other in today's individual all-around competition, making it the first time the two gold medalists will compete against each other. (Holy cats, watching these two champions hit the floor is gonna be a banger!)

• And finally... I hate to be the jealous type, but when am I going to be sponsored by cheese?