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Good morning, Portland! Expect intermittent sunshine and rain showers today, with a high of 61 degrees and a low of 46.

Let’s jump right into the important stuff.

In Local News: 

• Did you vote yet? Reminder, today is Election Day. Multnomah County voters have until 8pm to get their ballots dropped off. We compiled a few helpful links to help you fulfill your civic duty and win the day.

Multnomah County voters have until 8 pm Tuesday, May 20 to get their ballots dropped off. Mailed ballots postmarked on or before Election Day will be counted.⁠

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— Portland Mercury (@portlandmercury.com)May 19, 2025 at 3:52 PM

• All aboard: Starting this weekend, you can take a bus from the Sunset Transit Center in Beaverton to several destinations at the coast. The new North Coast Express service will run through the end of August, giving travelers a car-free option to explore Seaside, Cannon Beach, Astoria, Rockaway Beach, and Tillamook. This isn't your standard TriMet-style bus experience. Buses are equipped with bathrooms, WiFi, panoramic windows, and reclining seats. Tickets are $50 each, or $60 for people bringing large items like surf boards or large coolers.

• “Once there were parking lots, now it’s a peaceful oasis” 🎶 If What happens when you tear out a 20,000-square-foot asphalt parking lot? You get gardens, grass, and children’s play areas, not to mention less trapped heat in the summer. That’s what happened when a local church partnered with nonprofit Depave. Oddly, while the church got millions from one city agency for eco-friendly upgrades at the site, another city agency held up the de-paving project for nearly two years for permitting and review. The scenario feels so emblematic of Portland, it's uncanny.

After almost two years of work led by Portland nonprofit Depave (including a spat with the city over convoluted zoning codes), an unused parking lot at a historically Black church in Cully is now a green oasis, complete with garden beds, a picnic area, play structures, and more.

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— Portland Mercury (@portlandmercury.com) May 19, 2025 at 4:40 PM

• Listen up!: Huge news- The Mercury just relaunched its Spotify playlists, so now you can sample bands coming to town, and other fun picks from Mercury music editor Nolan Parker. Enjoy!

We've relaunched our Spotify, Portland! Three playlists dropped today with many more on the way! Don't be shy, come say hi, and have a listen with us 🌻 Hit the link below for a rundown of the three new playlists, links to said playlists, and our call for Spotify to do better and pay artists more 💸

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— Portland Mercury (@portlandmercury.com) May 19, 2025 at 12:43 PM

In National/World News: 

• IVF clinic bombed: A man in Southern California who bombed a fetility clinic in Palm Springs last weekend doesn’t have any ties to the military, and embraced “fringe” anti-social beliefs like “pro-mortalism” as he battled with suicidal ideation, according to new reporting. Guy Edward Bartkus, 25, of Twentynine Palms is now confirmed to be the person who detonated a car bomb outside a fertility clinic on Saturday and died in the explosion. Four other people were injured by the bombing, but clinic staff said none of the embryos were damaged in the attack that blew out part of the building. Twentynine Palms is a small, quiet city that neighbors Joshua Tree about an hour northeast of Palm Springs. It’s also home to a massive Marine Corps training base and numerous military families. Investigators questioned whether Bartkus could have obtained explosives from the nearby Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, but he had no affiliation with the Marines. The bomber posted an online manifesto in the form of an audio recording before setting off the car bomb.

 

Speaking of deadly, fringe beliefs ...



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— 🦋FightForDemocracy!🦋 (@budahsbaker.bsky.social) May 13, 2025 at 4:41 AM

• ICE is sloppy: The Trump administration keeps botching immigration deportations and victims and their families have little to no recourse. In one of the most recent cases, ICE deported a Guatemalan man to Mexico based on faulty, false info entered into his immigration file by federal agents. Part of the reason is Trump’s “third country” rule that says if a person comes to the US because they don’t feel safe in their own country, they can still be deported to another country. A judge blocked that practice, which means deportations to El Salvador are supposed to be on pause, but that still hasn’t helped bring home wrongfully deported people.

 

• Beyoncé, call your lawyer: Speaking of that megalomaniac- nobody likes him and he’s not so secretly mad about it. While Bruce Springsteen may have no love for Trump (The Boss blasted him and US government leaders recently at a show in the UK), it’s clear Springsteen lives rent free in Trump’s head. Trump says he’s ordering an investigation into whether pop stars like Beyoncé and Springsteen were paid for their endorsements of Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign last year. Pssst…Mr. President, dude, these people have enough money. They don’t need secret campaign money. 😹

At 1:34 AM Trump called for DOJ to investigate Kamala Harris, BeyoncĂŠ, Springsteen, Oprah and others for crimes, he then made another deranged post about it at 9:11 AM, and the lead story of the day on MSNBC and CNN continues to be Joe Biden in 2023.

— Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social) May 19, 2025 at 6:48 AM

• Putin on a front: After Trump claimed Russia and Ukraine would “immediately” start negotiating toward a ceasefire deal, those plans seemed to be off by Tuesday morning. According to the Washington Post, European leaders were coordinating with the US government to put sanctions on Russia unless it agreed to cease fighting with Ukraine, but after a call with Vladimir Putin, Trump is carrying a different tone. Instead, he didn’t push back when Putin insisted Russia and Ukraine both need to draft memos on what a peace treaty would look like, with no time limit on when that should happen. Volodymyr Zelensky said that move only buys Russia more time to continue its attacks on Ukraine.

This dog is living better than all of us and it's charming.Â