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Good Morning, Portland! Whomst amongst you is READY FOR SOME RAAAAAAAAIN? If you were out and about last night (on a Wednesday? You degenerate.) you may have caught a light sprinkle of that which graces us today. Expect some dang drizzle all morning and a scientifically perfect high of 76 degrees. Starting tomorrow, summer creeps back in, and by Sunday we’ll be back at a high of 90.
IN LOCAL NEWS:
• Shoutout to the various “thunder, I heard it; lightning, I seen it” threads on Reddit and other social media this morning. At 4:30 am, I also saw some shocks of light and thought: Is someone taking flash photos on my street? Because such a thing seemed more plausible than lightning and thunder in the Pacific Northwest. Fox 12 reports that lightning hit a PGE substation in Cornelius and hundreds of people lost power as a result. R/Portland celebrated the storms with an epic digression: At least five claimed that as the thunder rolled in their cat was throwing up🥂.
• Speaking of epic, Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey opens in theaters Friday (but a day early at the Hollywood and many theaters just show new movies on Thursdays now ¯\_(ツ)_/¯). Nationally recognized Mercury critic Dom Sinacola says the new Nolan is noice—if you were worried, I was worried, it just doesn’t seem like we could have a nice Odyssey. “As an adventure, The Odyssey is often astounding,” Sinacola writes in his review, “every new phenomenon Odysseus and his crew come upon is a chance for Nolan to masterfully balance horror, awe, action, and melodrama. As an adaptation of an ancient literary tome, The Odyssey is an incredible act of popular movie-making. Which has always been Nolan’s talent since his Batman days: He’s a high-brow auteur, an anti-streaming advocate for film stock, who cranks out well-loved blockbusters. If this film can get your Everyman Dumbass, in this age of overwhelming illiteracy, to pick up a book—an old book at that—then there is still beauty in this world.” Read the review, which he subtitled: “A long review of a long movie based on a long book from a long time ago.”
• Three of four plaintiffs in a sex discrimination lawsuit against Nike settled their claims with the massive sports accessories company last year. One remained to testify, speaking and answering questions for roughly four hours across Tuesday and Wednesday, including nearly two hours of cross-examination. The Oregonian‘s Matthew Kish reports that Nike’s lawyers successfully barred any evidence about sexual harassment being introduced at trial.
• Look in a big house: This particular Willamette Valley mansion isn’t really to my tastes, but I do like looking in a house (people say this about me). The seven-acre estate was formally owned by late Oregon author Melissa McPhail (Cephrael’s Hand), but sold for less than half its listing price.
• This week, in Corvallis, OR, the Oregonian and OPB-led High School Journalism Institute is underway—a crash course in interviewing, profiling, and reporting for high school age journalists and the journalism curious. This was something my family always planned our summers around, as my longtime partner Zane Sparling liked teaching the camp intensive and had participated for the last three years. He died in June of complications related to cancer treatment, and this year’s camp is apparently going better than expected. Tyson Alger writes “there’s fresh coffee in my cup and I’ve yet to see a student break under the immense pressure placed upon them by our increasingly powerful director, Elliot Njus… I can’t shake the feeling that Zane Sparling would have hated it.” It’s sweet to see people remembering Zane’s first HSJI blog, “I Have No Mouth and I Must Bean,” a light rant about how hard it was to get coffee on the camp campus after 9 am. Jonathan Bach has gone full Murakami mode, writing up a short piece about the gentle wooing of a hesitant cat.
• Before I jump into the national section, I am contractually obligated to remind you that the Mercury’s Summer of Slushies is body rockin’ for the entire month of July and invites you to a simultaneous buzz and brain freeze bliss.
IN NATIONAL NEWS:
• The public (well, a disinterested public) grilling of acting attorney general Todd Blanche continued Wednesday in a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing. The New York Times reports: “Even a single Republican ‘no’ vote on the Judiciary Committee would block Mr. Blanche’s nomination from consideration by the full Senate, which could sink his confirmation.” Blanche is already serving as US attorney general; he was moved into the position by President Trump after the president fired Pam Bondi in April.
• Trump plans to deliver an address tonight at 9 pm ET (6 pm PT for us). Topics include: elections, voting machines, conspiracy theories, Joe Biden, Dark Brandon, how he really feels about hash browns, that strange little critter they keep seeing in Seattle, whether or not such a critter could be AI, if AI would be a good girlfriend, a strange story about First Lady Melania for no apparent reason, and a call for tighter federal voting rules. Like, seriously. Where’s your ID, dude?
• Today in compensating, Pete Hegseth announced Wednesday that he plans to implement a new screening program to test US soldiers’ testosterone levels, as part of the annual medical checkups required for service members over 30 years. The secretary of defense said that the hormone screenings would be mandatory but any hormone replacement treatment would be voluntary (and also absolutely everyone would know about it).
• The World Cup is such a strange time for reporting. It leads to things like a BBC news video about King of England Charles III “pouring a pint” to mark England’s semi-final loss to Argentina.
• Sending you into Thursday, encouraging you to protect your peace.
