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Good Morning, Portland: Portland Water Bureau's Drinking Water Quality Report has probably hit your real world mailbox—long story short, our water rules. Let's get into some news!
IN LOCAL NEWS:
• Portland is a sanctuary city in a sanctuary state—actually Oregon was the FIRST state to pass a statewide law prohibiting law enforcement from using state resources to detect or apprehend US residents with undocumented paperwork status. So, IS IT CHILL that Portland Police Bureau (PPB) patrols the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building in South Portland? Kevin Foster reports that PPB have responded to multiple nights of protest this week at the site.
• Yesterday's rumors of ICE raids in Newberg, OR appear to be, a t least partially, founded; KOIN and the Oregonian report two vineyard workers were secretively taken Thursday morning. According to KOIN authorities haven't released the names of the people they have, for all intents and purposes, disappeared, but reporters with the station confirmed the information with Congresswoman Andrea Salinas and the daughter of one of the people taken, who said she tracked her father's phone to Portland's ICE facility before watching it later move north to an ICE processing center in Tacoma.
• And while a federal judge ordered ICE to keep asylum-seekers in Oregon last week, the two taken in Newberg may not fall under the asylum-seeker status.
• Another rumor blowing up yesterday involved raids at Newberg schools, specifically an elementary school, but no reporting confirms that exact situation. Newberg-Dundee School District sent out a release saying that the district's leadership were "made aware of ICE activity in [their] community over the night and throughout [yesterday]."I think that means they're saying it didn't happen. Passive voice is no one's friend and this editor's particular hated foe.
• Saturday marks President Trump’s 79th birthday. AND it's Flag Day. And it's the Army's 250th birthday-thing. Trump is holding a big parade in DC, and massive nationwide "No King" protests are covering the country like a sanity blanket in response. There are plenty for Portland specifically and Statesman Journal listed them out. You can also find most of them at nokings.org.
• The Rowena Fire continues to burn in hillsides and homes in the Columbia Gorge; the Oregonian reports that "officials were still scrambling to assess the damage" Thursday afternoon and warning that Oregon’s fire season is arriving far earlier than normal. Governor Kotek invoked the Emergency Conflagration Act to lend more resources to firefighters in the area.
• Speaking of fire, the Mercury’s annual Nacho Week is June 23-30. Truly, I am the one who deserves to be disappeared for such a transition. Anyway: BIGGEST Nacho Week ever, $10 per full-sized plate of nachos, there's an entry for a $500 Visa gift card in the mix, and my personal best friend Hornitos supports it. (Love you, girl!)
• Also PASSIONATE, a new Portland theater company started off easy with some devastating Sam Shepard. Check out our review of Tour de Force Productions' Fool for Love. (Someone takes their shirt off.)
• How did you do on our EPIC PDX Pop Quiz this week? This week's trivia questions include: Deceptive Democrats, Uncle Sam billboards, and get ready for the Best... Auction... EVER! (See how well YOU score!)
IN NATIONAL / INTERNATIONAL NEWS:
• Israel bombed the shit out of Iran this morning, targeting the country's nuclear facilities and killing many of the country’s top scientists working on its nuclear program, New York Times reports. AP reports that the attack comes one day after "the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors censured Iran for the first time in 20 years for not working with its inspectors," raising concerns that Iran was hiding nuclear advancement that could lead to weapons.
• Trump's response? He urged the Middle East power to make a deal and promise to do less nuclear stuff, or risk “even more brutal” attacks.
• Speaking of diplomacy, California Senator Alex Padilla was tackled and handcuffed by federal agents yesterday, after trying to interrupt and ask a question of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem after a Los Angeles press conference.
Sen. Alex Padilla was just removed from Kristi Noem's press conference in Los Angeles (video: Bill Melugin/Fox News)
— Phil Lewis (@phillewis.bsky.social) June 12, 2025 at 11:09 AM
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• Aaaaand if you followed that reporting from CalMatters, Belling Cat, and Evident Media on warrantless immigration stops carried out by Gregory Bovino’s unit in California... he's now in charge of Border Patrol operations in Los Angeles.
• Also in [laughs nervously] civil rights? Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey said some shit yesterday that caused everyone to momentarily care about his lil swamp county in Florida:
A Florida sheriff warned protesters in a press conference on Thursday that "we will kill you, graveyard dead" if they throw weapons or point a gun at officers. Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey made the remark at an event with local law enforcement that declared Florida as "The Anti-Riot State."
— CBS News (@cbsnews.com) June 12, 2025 at 2:24 PM
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• In honor of Homeland Security forces—who do not read Good Morning, News, or I would already be down a mineshaft—let's revisit the classic That Mitchell and Webb Look comedy sketch, "Are We the Baddies?"