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Good morning, Portland! It’s staying hot today with highs of 84, but it’ll cool off for the next few days over the weekend. That’s the weather, now let’s get to the news 📰
IN LOCAL NEWS:
• Portland’s WNBA team is speaking out in favor of upgrades to the Moda Center, after mostly staying quiet about the deal since discussions began. OPB reports that the Portland Fire’s president spoke up at a Multnomah County board meeting Thursday saying the county should approve a $101 million investment in the arena. Portland Trail Blazers owner Tom Dundon is demanding hundreds of millions of public dollars for upgrades to the arena while saying he shouldn’t have to pitch in a dime—OR ELSE! The Fire president said the Moda Center upgrades are an equity issue, and the women’s team should have the same access to quality facilities that men do, which is obviously 100% true. If you think about it, the Blazers play there too, so the women’s team currently does have access to the same quality of facilities as the men’s team, upgrades or not, but point taken. Meanwhile, some Portlanders were a bit annoyed that a group of climate activists who showed up early to provide testimony about the county’s Climate Justice Plan were put off for hours so lobbyists for the arena deal wouldn’t have to wait to speak. It sends a certain message, doesn’t it?
• Lightning strikes sparked at least 35 new fires across Oregon this week. That’s on top of existing fires, which firefighters are working to contain while already stretched thin. A Central Oregon fire official said more fires could be identified soon, as fires from lightning strikes often can smolder for a period without any evidence. Read more here.
• The Oregon Climate Action Commission is recommending the state double the goals it set five years ago to capture carbon in its forests and other lands. This comes amid the federal government’s efforts to log Oregon’s forests, which are the lungs of the Northwest and greatly contribute to living beings’ efforts to, ya know, breathe oxygen. The recommendations are not enforceable, but if state lands managers and lawmakers take it seriously, it could stave off some of the timber industry’s worst instincts. The Oregon Capital Chronicle has a story on this, here.
• Douglas County, Oregon, which encompasses the Umpqua National Forest to Roseburg to Reedsport on the Coast, passed an anti-sanctuary resolution earlier this week that aligns with the Trump administration’s immigration agenda. Sanctuary laws prohibit local police from working with feds on immigration enforcement, and the resolution appears to flout Oregon’s strong sanctuary laws. An Oregon Department of Justice official told the Oregonian that no county law supersedes state law and that the agency would monitor Douglas County to ensure it complies with state law. There’s much more to this story, here.
• Oh, the World Naked Bike Ride is back, celebrating its 22nd year in Portland this weekend! The annual protest of reliance on fossil fuels and all around good time begins Saturday at 6:30 pm. Just bring your ass down to Wilshire Park and ride into dusk with some 10,000 other Portlanders. (As our managing editor notes, please wear underwear if you’re riding a Biketown bike. Now you can’t stop thinking about it, can you?) For this and more recommendations for your weekend, check out the Mercury’s Do This, Do That calendar here.
IN NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL NEWS:
• Former “The Apprentice” television star and the world’s most exhausting octogenarian Donald J. Trump on Thursday issued a bunch of new tariffs on over 80 countries, which took effect at 12:01 am. The tariffs affect Canada, Mexico, and China in addition to the 27 countries in the European Union, and more. Trump is rationalizing the move as an effort to combat “forced labor” but that doesn’t hold water coming from a county that imprisons at a higher rate than any other nation and forces prisoners to do labor. The Supreme Court has ruled that Trump illegally used his power as president to implement previous tariffs without congressional approval, but a previous Supreme Court decision that said a US president cannot be prosecuted for crimes committed while in office might undermine that tariff decision a little bit. No one could have seen that coming. More on the tariffs, a cost that consumers are expected to shoulder, here in the Guardian.
• The cyclosporiasis outbreak—that’s the diarrhea one—has expanded to a total of nine states as of Friday, according to the Center for Disease Control and reported by CNN. Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania have been added to the list of states with cases stemming from iceberg lettuce and probably Taco Bell. Health departments in these states have reported over 12,000 cases of the illness, but could be linked to other sources as well. It’s unclear if this is a planned part of the Trump administration and Robert F. Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again agenda or an unexpected side effect, but the Orwellian branding reportedly caused Orwell himself to exhale a brief “goddam” from the grave.
• The US and Israel’s war on Iran is nearing its sixth month, with the US attacking for the 13th consecutive night. Trump apparently said he’s considering a “massive attack” on the country, which has been launching retaliatory attacks on US bases in Iraq and Jordan today. Global oil prices are now over $100 a barrel, the highest price since May. The United Nations Secretary General said the region is “teetering on the edge of unimaginable,” according to NPR.
“The situation is getting out of control,” Guterres said. “The region is being pulled into an ever-widening circle of confrontation. One crisis feeds another. One escalation triggers the next.”
• In an attempt to leave you with a moment of levity amid all the dark news, here’s a video of piglets sliding on a slide and swimming around like cute little piggies in a little lake.
