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Good morning, Portland! Hopefully you got outside and frolicked in the sunshine while it lasted. After a couple of days with temps in the 80s, we’re back down to a forecast in the 60s for the next few days. Today, expect rain with a high of 64 degrees and an overnight low of 50.
IN LOCAL NEWS:
• You’ve probably heard lots of buzz about the public money going toward Moda Center renovations, but less has been said about where exactly the multiple millions of dollars would come from. A proposal from Portland Mayor Keith Wilson to use $75 million in Portland Clean Energy Fund money toward arena upgrades has raised eyebrows. Last week, during a city budget discussion, City Councilor Steve Novick grilled Mayor Wilson about how he planned to tap into PCEF funds, considering they’ve already been allocated to specific projects. Taylor Griggs has more on how that exchange went down.
• Torta restaurant Güero posted on Instagram on May 10 about the detention of their cook, Jose “Poni” Gongora Poot, and linked to a GoFundMe raising money to support his family in the legal fight to bring him home. According to the GoFundMe, ICE agents forcibly took Poni from his car while he was traveling to work on Friday, May 8, and he has been detained in Tacoma since then. The GoFundMe has raised over $30,000 since it launched. Read more about Gongora Poot in Katherine Chew Hamilton’s latest food news roundup.
• According to some pollsters, if 600 people answer questions, that represents an entire geographic area. Keep that in mind when you see news stories citing a new poll that indicates “more than 40 percent of Portlanders say they’re thinking about moving.” Here’s the deal: DHM Research, a respected public polling firm, polled about 600 people from the Portland metro region. About 300 people were from Portland and of those 300 people, 41 percent (which shakes out to about 123 people) said they’re considering moving out of the area in the next five years. Most of those polled across the region cited taxes as the top reason. For some perspective, a brief Census data sleuth and some basic math reveals there are roughly 1.48 million adults living in Multnomah, Washington, and Clackamas counties. Forgive me if I’m not convinced that 600 people is a big enough sample size to represent the entire Portland metro region–which no doubt has a diverse subset of income brackets, household sizes/family compositions, employment situations and other factors. But even if the poll is truly representative of the region, DHM Research’s own leaders caution “reading too much” into the data. No shade to people who are legitimately worried about finances and not sure if they can make ends meet in Oregon. You do you, boo. But when you see clickbait headlines about how badly people want to leave because the taxes are too damn high, or they hate the cut of everyone’s jib here, do yourself a favor and wait until we get reliable data on how many people are actually leaving the area.
• What are you doing this Thursday? If your answer isn’t “going to the Mercury’s music issue release party,” then you’re going about life all wrong. We’re celebrating the release of our new music issue with a party (that’s also a fundraiser for Ethos Music) featuring four bands (two for those of you under 21). Check the deets here.
IN NATIONAL/WORLD NEWS:
• To offset the horrible financial impact of his war with Iran that has caused the price of oil to surge, President Trump is considering suspending the federal gas tax (a whopping 18.4 cents per gallon) as if that’s going to make people forget that the price-per-gallon shot up more than 28 percent since last year. The federal gas tax accounts for about 4 percent of the total cost at the pump. Here’s why the move, which would need approval from Congress, is unlikely to help Americans much, if at all.
• After a rare hantavirus outbreak affected passengers on a cruise ship, it highlighted how recent cuts to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be biting us in the ass, and how unprepared US leaders are to deal with a serious virus outbreak. Luckily, hantavirus isn’t commonly spread between people, but the US lacks a reliable test to detect the virus. That could change, thanks to Nebraska. The state may be the first to offer a test that can detect the virus before the onset of symptoms.
• The state of Texas is suing Netflix over alleged surreptitious surveillance and data collection tools that violate the state’s trade practice laws. TIME magazine notes that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton accuses the streaming platform of spying on its users, including children. “When you watch Netflix, Netflix watches you,” the lawsuit claims. Netflix says the lawsuit “lacks merit and is based on inaccurate and distorted information.”
• In lighter news, anonymous protest art group Secret Handshake has released a new free online video game called “Epic Furious: Strait to Hell” which is exactly what you’d expect from a title that satirizes Trump’s war with Iran, from the same group that erected statues in the National Mall in D.C. of Trump and Epstein holding hands, and another of the two embracing in a Titanic-style pose. The game allows users to play as Trump, who, according to Wired, “is on a quest to collect barrels of oil and ideas for Truth Social posts with the goal of reopening the Strait of Hormuz and winning the war.”
Epic Furious includes current and former Trump administration officials (because, duh, of course we want to see this game maker’s portrayal of Hegseth and Patel) who aid the president in warding off enemy characters like the “Iranian schoolgirl” and “DEIyatollah.” Players can burn the Epstein files, at Melania Trump’s behest, or ask Melania if they can “hold hands” at which point, the game ends abruptly, according to Wired. Apparently, National Guardsmen were spotted playing the game via two arcade cabinets that were installed in D.C. for people to play in-person.
The life we have vs. the life we want…
