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In local news:
• Portland anti-fascist activist Alexander Dial was released of charges stemming from a 2019 clash with attendees of a right-wing demonstration in downtown Portland Friday. Alex Zielinski breaks down the details of the ruling, and how Dial sees the conditions of his probation as a trap.
• The Gresham-Barlow school district’s school resource officer program—police officers stationed in public schools—will undergo a review by a third-party consultant, the school board announced Thursday. The decision to review how the program impacts students comes after several Gresham High School students spoke out about their negative experiences with the school’s police officer earlier this month.
The first time someone sees one of our articulated buses, they often ask us, “How is that massive bus going to be able to turn on our tight streets?”
So, we put it to the test.
We made as tight a turn as we could with a “regular” 40-foot bus and with a 60-foot articulated bus. pic.twitter.com/wy6Vjw68Tm
— TriMet (@trimet) November 19, 2021
• The US Senate unanimously approved Chuck Sams as the National Park Service Director Thursday evening. Sams is a former administrator for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation near Pendleton, Oregon, and the first Native American to hold to the position.
• Spice up your playlist and get in the know with the latest edition of Hear in Portland!
Hear the latest hot music and get your tix for the hottest upcoming shows with @JenniferKayMo‘s consistently excellent weekly music column, Hear in Portland!https://t.co/AhGDk0o1yy
— Portland Mercury 🗞 (@portlandmercury) November 19, 2021
In national news:
• A jury found Kyle Rittenhouse not guilty for shooting three people, two fatally, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last year during a protest against police brutality. Rittenhouse’s lawyers argued that the 18-year-old was acting in self-defense.
• The defense attorney for one of the three white men on trial for killing Ahmaud Arbery, a Black jogger, compared a rally in support of Arbery’s family outside the courthouse to a “public lynching” of the three defendants and called for a mistrial. The prosecutor in the case has repeatedly accused the defense attorney of intentionally provoking Black pastors and civil rights activists in hopes of garnering enough of a reaction to disrupt the trial and, in turn, create a mistrial. The judge dismissed the motion for a mistrial.
Vaccine mandates for schools have existed since 1818, but they’ve always brought pushback.
Here’s a look at the history of mandates, vaccine hesitancy — and what the future might look like. https://t.co/y2dgQPC2z5
— NPR (@NPR) November 19, 2021
• *Oprah voice* You get a booster shot! And you get a booster shot! The CDC director is expected to sign off on booster shots for people 18 and older this afternoon, paving the way for tens of millions Americans to add an additional layer of protection against COVID-19 this winter. Following the CDC approval, Oregonians must waited for the state’s regional immunization board to agree with the federal booster approval (which they always have) before additional doses will be fully approved for anyone 18 and older.
• What will it take for a woman to serve as President of the United States (if only for a brief moment)? A routine colonoscopy, apparently:
Kamala D. Harris on Friday became the first woman to serve as acting president of the United States, as President Biden was briefly placed under anesthesia for a routine colonoscopy https://t.co/27gKCFqNn0
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) November 19, 2021
In lighter news:
For World Toilet Day, we asked our NPR readers to send in photos of the wackiest toilet signs they’ve encountered.https://t.co/2awCxBnmW4
— NPR (@NPR) November 19, 2021
• You want to find the perfect gift while also supporting local businesses, yes? YES! Then don’t miss the Mercury’s Holiday Gift Guide, featuring only the coolest gifts and where to find them… locally!
• And finally, congrats to Peanut Butter and Jelly, the two turkeys pardoned by President Joe Biden ahead of Thanksgiving.
Peanut Butter and Jelly won’t be at the Thanksgiving table this year.
That is: two national turkeys, named Peanut Butter and Jelly, have been given a presidential pardon. https://t.co/0ne1Pe1mas
— NPR (@NPR) November 19, 2021
It is incomprehensible that Rittenhouse got off. What he did was more deliberate and illegal than what Jeremy Christian did on the MAX here in Portland and Jeremy Christian is serving two consecutive life sentences with no possibility of parole.