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Good morning, Portland! Stay hydrated and hunker down in a place with air conditioning. We’re still in an extreme heat wave and temperatures will creep up to the high 90s today. Things should be back to our blissful normal by Wednesday, until this weekend, when we could be in for a nearly 30-degree temperature drop with possible rain and highs in the low 70s.

Will the Democrats who supposedly control the weather please make up your goddam minds?!

In Local News: 

• Oregon is good at many things, but producing weird dogs might be the state’s superpower. For the second year in a row, we are home to the World’s Ugliest Dog. I'm so proud of us! Petunia, a hairless English-French bulldog mix, took first place in the contest, beating out a hideous Chihuahua. 

You're beautiful You're beautiful You're beautiful, it's true I saw your face in a crowded place And I don't know what to do 'Cause I'll never be with you🎶🎵

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— Foxy (@foxylustygrover.bsky.social) August 9, 2025 at 1:10 PM

• Treasured film director Francis Ford Coppola recently visited the Portland Art Museum's Tomorrow Theater for a stop on his Megalopolis tour (yes, a tour!). In case you were wondering what the "interactive audience discussion" entailed, film critic Dom Sinacola managed to capture the rambling, strange essence of Coppola.

Inside Francis Ford Coppola's Portland stop on his Megalopolis Tour and the Q&A that wasn't! www.portlandmercury.com/movies-and-t...

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— Portland Mercury (@portlandmercury.com) August 12, 2025 at 7:09 AM

• Former public officials in Morrow County are at the center of an Oregon Department of Justice complaint alleging they abused their positions of authority by using inside knowledge to buy up a local telecommunications firm that had lucrative contracts with local Amazon data centers. Those same officials had granted Amazon hundreds of millions in tax breaks to locate the data centers in the rural county. As reported in The Oregonian, “the state alleges that public officials pocketed several million dollars by arranging to buy a local telecommunications business from a Morrow County nonprofit.” The officials, “allegedly paid far less for the telecom business than it was really worth by hiding the value of its contracts with the tech giant.

• Last week, Portland City Council approved nearly $4 million in settlement payouts to resolve two lawsuits involving the Portland Police Bureau. One was filed against a particular PPB detective who ordered the arrest of a woman in 2019 for spitting–not on police–but in their general direction during a protest. The other was much more serious and involved a $3.75 million settlement with the estate of Immanueal "Manny" Clark-Johnson, who was shot and killed by police in 2022 after he was mistaken for a robbery suspect. The settlements, particularly the wrongful death claim, left councilors incensed at the fatal mistake and lack of consequences for the officer who fired the fatal shots (he was never disciplined and is still employed with PPB.) It marked the first time that nearly the entire Council seemed to agree on the need for a change of policy and/or culture within PPB.

• In case you’ve been living under a rock, it’s Burger Week! That means you get to take your pick from more than 100 restaurants serving up specialty burgers for just $10 this week through Sunday. And yes, the plant-based people have a solid spread of options, too. 

In National/World News:

• National Guard troops are arriving in Washington, D.C. today, after Trump, while making false claims about crime in the area, announced he's placing D.C.'s police department under the control of the National Guard. The Associated Press reports Trump "said he was declaring a public safety emergency and his administration would be removing homeless encampments." He says the move is an effort to "take our capital back" and "get rid of the slums." The move is being coordinated by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who recently doubled down on the notion that women shouldn't be allowed to vote. Here's more coverage about how the president's rhetoric around crime stems from racist narratives.

• In related news, the Pentagon has reportedly created a plan for a military "reaction force" to quell protests and other unrest in US cities using National Guard troops.

• Last Friday a gunman targeted the Centers for Disease Control buildings in Atlanta, killing a responding police officer after firing 200 shots at several buildings. The shooter, 30-year-old Patrick Joseph White, died by suicide at the scene. CDC employees blame a lack of security and leadership for the deadly incident, but more broadly, employees blame US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for stoking anti-vaccine hysteria and drumming up fears about the healthcare system that are mostly rooted in junk science. The shooter apparently blamed COVID vaccines for making him depressed and suicidal, and had espoused anti-vaccine complaints to neighbors and elsewhere. 

The CDC Shooter Was Obsessed With Vaccine Conspiracy Theories. RFK Jr. Was Predictably Slow to Respond. Trump’s health secretary shared photos of himself fishing before he offered any thoughts about the attack.

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— Jon Cooper (@joncooper-us.bsky.social) August 9, 2025 at 2:50 PM

• Instagram recently rolled out some creepy new features in its app, including one that allows your followers to track your location in real time. The Washington Post has a handy guide on how to disable the feature, which "nudges you to opt in to a new form of passive location sharing—letting friends see wherever you last opened the app, even just to scroll through it."

As you're sweating it out today, just remember Halloween decorations are already out on store shelves. 

 

 

 

 

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