Good morning, Portland! Set a countdown clock for June 14—when Shun Fat finally opens on SE 82nd—and gather ’round.
Here are the headlines.
Climate, Change: Juliana v. US, in which a teenager sues the United States government for failing to act on climate change, will hit the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals right here in Portland this morning. The judge’s decision could determine whether or not the case lives to see another day.
Vote or No Vote? Little Big Burger employees in Oregon could have a chance to vote on unionization as early as next week—but union organizers actually aren’t happy about that. They claim LBB’s parent company is trying to force a premature, losing vote.
Trouble at White Owl: A trans person is speaking out about her experience being dragged out of a restroom by a security guard at Portland’s White Owl Social club. “It was scary and really an experience I don’t want anyone else to go through,” she told KATU.
UN commissioner says US abortion bans are ‘torture’ and ‘deprivation of a right to health’ https://t.co/xjPxuxuG3C pic.twitter.com/JBTIgLCFFT
— ThinkProgress (@thinkprogress) June 4, 2019
Con-Census: A nonpartisan think tank is predicting that the upcoming 2020 Census could have the worst undercount of Black and Latinx people since 1990. Trump’s attempt to include a citizenship question is one major obstacle—and even if that question doesn’t make its way onto the Census, it has already created a chilling effect.
New School: Over the last few years, Oregon schools have been implementing a new sex-ed curriculum that covers consent and LGBTQ issues. “One of my students who prefers the pronouns them/they came up to me after class, literally in tears, saying this is the first time they ever felt recognized in a health classroom,” one teacher tells OPB.
Cuts to #Portland’s parks department threaten to undermine some of the city’s publicly funded arts programs … unless they can secure alternative funding sources. https://t.co/JVJUmc14pO
— OPB (@OPB) June 4, 2019
Sentence of the Day: “Whether we’re worried about technology destroying us or whether we’re hoping it will save us, we’re all more or less convinced that it will be at the center of our future, and aliens in so many ways play the role of technological angels.”
Lots of rainbow washing in this town happens. I know a woman who went through this at the Triple Nickel, which also claims to be LGBTQIA friendly. I’ll take the word of a trans woman over any business.