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Good Morning, Portland! The weather is rain and the temps are low. Seems like a good time to smash—the Mercury's hot new Love & Sex Issue!

IN LOCAL NEWS:
• Accounts of Wednesday's bus hijacking have been harrowing, but a new story from the Oregonian reveals that the TriMet operator driving that bus, Mike Perrault, behaved like an absolute hero: He de-escalated the tense and violent situation and likely saved not just his own life but the life of the accused hijacker. After a 12-minute drive that felt, Perrault told the Oregonian, like hours, Perrault received permission to leave the bus, but paused to talk the alleged hijacker until he gave Perrault the gun, which Perrault says he threw out the window. The accused, Hosea Chambers, remained on the bus for hours after, until police used a flashbang and a smoke bomb to enter and arrest him. Chambers faces charges of robbery and kidnapping. 

In other, excellent Portland news:

 

"Portland celebrated a big achievement this week: Going a whole year without sending poop and other sewage into the Willamette River."

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— Ryan Haas (@ryanjhaas.bsky.social) January 31, 2025 at 8:30 AM

 

• Also good: The city of Portland has been in the midst of contract negotiations with three of its labor unions since last spring, and some of those unions are getting close to going on strike! The city narrowly avoided a strike from AFSCME Local 189 and are close to an agreement. But WHAT ABOUT DTCU? Courtney Vaughn has some acronyms to better understand your city with (and the story).

• PGE wants to remove nearly 400 trees from an area of Forest Park so it can run 1,400 feet of new transmission lines and serve increased demand in residential and commercial areas of North and Northwest Portland. Environmental advocates and conservation groups do not like it. Does this piece by Mercury reporter Taylor Griggs include the phrase "missing the forest for the trees?" You better bet your bippy it does.

• If you ever milled around art openings downtown for First Thursday show openings, you probably remember the Everett Station Lofts—where artists and curators in work / live spaces would open the doors of their first floor apartments for gallery shows. For the Mercury, Adlai Coleman reports that tenants are saying the owners have allowed the building to fall into disrepair and have loosened the once-strict artist requirements. And the rent is too damn high! Tenants believed it had gotten so bad that it was violation of local housing law.  Portland Housing Bureau was like: Yeah? No.

• Check on local music news and events, in Jenni Moore's regular column, Hear in Portland:

 

In our music column, Hear in Portland, this week!
• Mal London's surprise “Outta Sight // Mind”
•Julimar headlines the Thesis
•The Blacker the Berry II celebrates Black creatives

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— Portland Mercury (@portlandmercury.bsky.social) January 30, 2025 at 6:29 PM

 

• I am bound by my oath to remind you that we're running out the clock on Wiener Week, which ends Sunday.

• If the US Department of Transportation can really play favorites and “give preference to communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average”—uh, Oregon will not be getting much.

 

Ah well

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— iain (@maccoinnich.bsky.social) January 30, 2025 at 3:26 PM

 

IN NATIONAL / INTERNATIONAL NEWS:
•
We're learning more about those who were killed in a passenger jet and an Army helicopter collision over the Potomac River on Wednesday night. 

 

A number of passengers who were killed in Wednesday night’s tragic crash were part of the region’s figure skating community, including accomplished skaters, coaches, and family members. (1/4) 

🔗 inquirer.com/news/nation-...

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— Philadelphia Inquirer (@inquirer.com) January 31, 2025 at 7:26 AM

 

 

A Harvard Law School graduate on the verge of joining the faculty at the nation’s most prestigious historically Black law school was killed in the D.C. plane collision.

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— The Boston Globe (@bostonglobe.com) January 31, 2025 at 9:45 AM

 

 

The Skating Club of Boston said Thursday that two local skaters, their parents, and two coaches were killed in the plane crash at Reagan National Airport. 

Follow live updates. trib.al/4heeCxe

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— The Boston Globe (@bostonglobe.com) January 30, 2025 at 7:24 AM

 

• And while the blame and side-eye has been free flowing—hey, the US hasn't had a passenger plane crash like this since 2009—President Trump's assertions that somehow this is DEI's fault have been debunked (duh). Trump acknowledged that he had no evidence for these statements, and explained he was instead relying on “common sense,” which is the opposite of evidence.

• The Trump administration has made this a confusing week for EVERYONE, (EVERYONE!) including non-partisan federal workers who may or may not be in the midst of a hiring freeze, no longer able to work remotely, and / or finding their positions reclassified. NPR has tried to tease out what readers need to know about the federal workforce, even as the ball keeps moving and changing shape.

• Norway has seized a Russian-crewed ship suspected of doing intentional damage to an undersea cable in the Baltic Sea, between Sweden and Latvia. It is but ONE of several recent incidents targeting cables in the Baltic—which facilitate communication and electricity distribution.

• The FDA approved a new medicine Thursday that can potentially work as well as opioids at blocking pain without side-effects like opioid ick (nausea and drowsiness) and of course, the larger problem of drug's addictive qualities. Vertex Pharmaceuticals says suzetrigine, which will be sold as Journavx, blocks pain signals between nerves and the brain, making it as effective as a combination of acetaminophen and hydrocodone to trauma and surgery pain. Researchers herald it as the first in a new generation of non-addictive painkillers. Huge if true.

• Following an early January announcement from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg that the company's platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Threads would stop paying people to fact check information on the various social media platforms and instead rely on "community notes," plenty of people you know have posted on Instagram about leaving Instagram. This week, local illustrator Carson Ellis was one of them:

• Even as comedian (and former local film critic!) Alex Falcone opines about media bias, we are actually feeling very seen by this "on-learning" rant. Take this truth (and vulture-appreciation, we love vultures here at the Mercury) with you into the weekend.