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Good morning, Portland, and welcome to your gorgeous, mid-July weather. We’re in for another sunny, toasty day, with a high of 86 and an overnight low of 60. Don’t get too comfortable though. Tomorrow, we could be in for showers and thunderstorms in the morning.
Now let’s sink our teeth into a mid-week news update, shall we?
IN LOCAL NEWS:
• Not long before Trump took office for the second time, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) adopted a policy that centered conservation and ecological concerns in its management of public lands. It was heralded by environmentalists as a major step forward for the agency that had previously been unaffectionately called the “Bureau of Land Mismanagement” by those long frustrated over the government agency’s handling of federal lands. The Conservation and Landscape Health Rule, also known as the Public Lands Rule, aimed to restore degraded landscapes and put conservation on par with public use in terms of priorities, but now, under the Trump regime, that rule has been rescinded. The result is wilderness areas in Oregon being opened up for things like lithium mining and heavy logging. Conservation and wilderness protection groups now fear extraction and deregulation could take a front seat in the federal government’s land management approach. Abe Asher has more on the changes and what they could mean for Oregon and the rest of the West.
• A discrimination case against Nike will be decided in federal court in Portland by a jury of seven men and just one woman who describes herself as a member of Turning Point USA, the Oregonian reports. Jury selection wrapped in a sex discrimination suit against the Beaverton-based sportswear company that alleges women are “devalued and demeaned” at the company, and that the company maintains a culture that routinely pays women less, passes them over for promotions, and subjects them to sexual harassment. The lawsuit was filed in 2018. Lawyers initially filed the complaint as a class-action suit, but other plaintiffs in the case settled their claims against Nike last year and it’s now focused on one single plaintiff.
• Semiconductor manufacturing has been one of the largest segments of the Portland metro region’s employment sector, but recent layoffs at Intel have cratered confidence in whether Oregon can sustain its place in the tech industry. Yesterday, however, Oregon lawmakers announced a major infusion of cash to help grow and stabilize the chip making industry, as well as boost AI research via an initiative called the Frontiers of Advanced Semiconductor Technology, or FAST, which just got a national grant of up to $160 million over the next 10 years. As OPB explains, Oregon’s statewide effort includes “close to 100 partners, including state government entities, higher education institutions, workforce and economic development agencies, tech companies and community organizations” which will be led by Oregon State University.
• Earlier this year, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Portland seemed to be showing progress in its commitment to making the necessary renovations at the Moda Center, and sort of squashed the notion that the Blazers would be moved. Now, however, amid a looming deadline between the city of Portland and the Blazers ownership for a long-term Moda Center lease that will likely include hundreds of millions in renovations that the team’s ownership wants completed in rapid time, Silver is changing his tune. KATU reports the NBA commissioner now says Moda Center discussions have gone off track. Someone please tell him the city is still talking about it. Things are still happening, and no major renovation of a sports arena is going to be mapped out with funding in place in just six months. A tiny house remodel project often takes longer than the timeframe he’s expecting for a cash-strapped city to negotiate the scope of work and decide on a funding source for a taxpayer-funded renovation of this scale. Get a grip!
IN NATIONAL/WORLD NEWS:
• A third person has died due to ICE activity, this time in Florida. The Miami Herald reports a man fled on foot after an encounter with immigration agents in the parking lot of a gas station and convenience store in St. Augustine. The man, a 28-year-old from Mexico, was hit by a tractor trailer (semi truck) while running across the road. The Florida Highway Patrol is investigating the fatal incident. It’s the third time in the last week that someone has died during an encounter with ICE agents.
• Speaking of the antichrist, ICE has been ordered to pause most of its vehicle stops after the immigration agency shot and killed two people in the past week during traffic stops. Recently, a Colombian man—26-year-old Joan Sebastian Durán Guerrero— was fatally shot Monday in Maine. The week prior, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, was killed in Houston by ICE agents during a traffic stop. Now, agency officials say they will focus on carrying out criminal warrants and and only people alleged to have committed serious offenses, though several exceptions still apply.
• E. Jean Carroll, the woman Trump was convicted by a civil jury of defaming and sexually abusing, is finally getting the $5 million owed to her. NPR reports the writer has received the initial $5 million in damages awarded to her by a jury in 2023, plus interest, bringing the total to $5.6 million. A judge had to order Trump to pay the sum after the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of the case. Carroll accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in a department store dressing room in Manhattan in 1996. The allegation was made public in her 2019 memoir. Carroll has a separate defamation lawsuit against the president for $83 million that she also won, but has yet to receive payment on.
• And in other tech news, New York is the first state in the nation to put a moratorium on the construction of new large data centers. A new executive order from New York Governor Kathy Hochul orders a pause on the massive facilities that house computers, servers, and cooling mechanisms that typically use large amounts of water. The executive order pauses state permitting of the facilities, giving state officials time to craft land use standards that can address the water and energy consumption, and any other environmental impacts typically associated with the massive IT infrastructure sites.
• Oh, and we’re one step closer to never turning back the clock.
And just for shits & giggles, let’s make this the official city map that’s used on travel sites for visitors. Your move, Travel Portland.
