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GOOD MORNING, PORTLAND! šŸ‘‹

Get ready for another hot spell as temperatures rise to 95 todayĀ and ... squints... 102 tomorrow?!? Yipes, almighty! And while you're at it, get ready for a hot spell of NEWS, from Courtney, Suzette, and yer boi Humpy (that's me).Ā 

IN LOCAL NEWS:

ā€¢Ā Fred Meyer grocery employees have returned to the job after their Labor Day weekend-long strikeā€”caused by management's reported refusal to hand over bargaining data and address grievancesā€”however! Now the employees are asking shoppers to boycott the chain of stores until they start treating their workers fairly.

ā€¢ Sortis Holdings, the investment group that bought up several seminal, but struggling Portland businesses during the pandemic, is now in bankruptcy. Sortis (now SoHi Brands) is the owner of restaurants and cafes like Water Avenue Coffee, Sizzle Pie pizza, Ava Geneā€™s, Bamboo Sushi, Tusk, and several other Portland eateries. The private equity firm also bought Rudyā€™s Barbershop and See See Motor Coffee Company. Not long after buying up every struggling business it could, the company ran out of money and stopped paying bills, leaving its multiple local businesses in a serious bind. Now, the company is belly up, with lawsuits stacking up. As OPB reports, several of those companiesā€™ founders have since been ā€œfired, laid off, or forced out.ā€

ā€¢ According to the National Transportation Safety Board, the small Cessna plane that crashed into a townhome in Fairview on Saturday had trouble controlling the aircraft right before it crashed. The Cessna 421C was reportedly on a maintenance test flight out of the Troutdale Airport when it crashed around 10:20 am, killing both people on board and a person inside the house. Local fire and law enforcement agencies have yet to release the names of those killed by the crash. The NTSB says it could take up to 18 months for the agency to wrap up its investigation into the cause of the accident.

ā€¢ Hey Travel Portland! Stick this headline in your upcoming shout-outs to lure more people to the city: "Multnomah County home to highest concentration of lesbian couples of any large or medium size U.S. county."

ā€¢ On February 19, 2022, an angry man shot at a group of street safety volunteers before an evening protest against Police violence in Northeast Portland's Normandale Park. He killed June Knightlyā€”T-Rex to her friendsā€”and wounded several others. One of those he wounded was paralyzed by the attack; she never recovered feeling below her shoulders. She waited "for more than 850 days" hoping to recover and waiting to see justice. This recent piece from the Oregonian describes the life of "Deg," what she lost, and how she said goodbye.

ā€¢ Yes, that's a hard (but important) story to follow. Should we watch Oregon Senator Merkely lay some VPF flooringĀ to return to center?Ā 

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A post shared by Senator Jeff Merkley (@senjeffmerkley)

ā€¢ If you're looking for information on all the dance parties, itty bitty music collages, and complete cacophonies of sound at this year's Time Based Art festival, look no further than this collection of picks, by arts writer Martha Daghlian. You might say that planning your TBA 2024 itinerary is an art form in itself.Ā 

IN NATIONAL / WORLD NEWS:

ā€¢ In election news (you're obsessing over), a new poll shows that half of Gen Z voters are supporting Kamala Harris in the upcoming election, while only a third plan to vote for Trump. However, while Kamala is leading among Latino households who are bilingual or Spanish-speaking, she's faring less well among those who are English-speaking. Meanwhile, Trump continues to lead in the area of big fucking lies, now attempting to claim that the Arlington National Cemetery incidentā€”where his staffers roughed up an employee while the convicted felon was there for a cynical photo opā€”never happened. I was going to say that perhaps he believes his own lie because he lives in a different dimension than the rest of us... but unfortunately that isn't true. šŸ˜”

ā€¢ Another great day for ineffectual government posturing dawns, and the United States Justice Department has charged Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and several of the terrorist organization's other senior leaders with criminal counts. The Associated Press reports "conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization resulting in death, conspiracy to murder US nationals, and conspiracy to finance terrorism" are among the complaints. The AP continues that these complaints were actually filed a while ago, but recently unsealed due to lessened security concerns.

ā€¢ I'm starting to lose count of the times Trump's lawyers have asked higher courts to set aside / overturn / postpone his criminal cases. A Manhattan Federal District judge rejected Trump's "claims of presidential immunity" Tuesday, and dismissed the idea that the trial, which rendered Trump guilty of 34 felonies, had been biased. The judge noted that the hush money payments were private and "outside the bounds of executive authority."

ā€¢ ICYMI: Elon Musk, who now owns X, the social media platform we all still call Twitter, is lambasting a decision by Brazil's Supreme Court to uphold a ban on the social media site nationwide there. The court ruled unanimously that the platform will be suspended over "misinformation concerns" and because X never appointed a legal representative in Brazil.

ā€¢ Ā Rachael Gunn (AKA "Raygun" who... let's say "amused" the world with her breakdancing performance which was awarded ZERO points at this year's Paris Olympics) has apologized to the breaking community for the backlash surrounding her routine. In much better news, we can now shove this memory to the deepest recesses of our minds, and never think of it again.

ā€¢ Five meetings in one day would have, at one time, killed meā€”but not anymore (!) now that I know this sparkly "hydrating" secret!