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Good morning, Portland! Here are your weekend plans:
The Portland International Film Festival, starting this Friday, is mostly virtual this year. Here’s the Mercury’s guide on what to stream over the next couple weeks.https://t.co/Qvojr6zV2V
— Portland Mercury 🗞 (@portlandmercury) March 3, 2021
And here are the headlines.
• A new report from the city’s Independent Police Review (IPR) dives into the case of Michael Fesser—a Black man whom Portland police officers pulled over and arrested in 2017, despite no actual proof of wrongdoing. Instead, Portland cops arrested Fesser because a buddy in the West Linn Police Department had a grudge against him. Somehow, the report finds that Portland police did nothing wrong! Incredible. Well, nothing left to see here, folks.
• More than one million COVID-19 vaccine doses have now been administered to Oregonians, and about one in five eligible Oregonians have received at least one dose. This big milestone comes as Oregon is expecting a boost in vaccine supply from Johnson & Johnson this week.
• Students and professors at OHSU are rallying in support of the social worker who has accused the “TikTok Doc”—a social media star and former OHSU doctor—of sexual misconduct. Reporting shows that several members of the medical school faculty knew about the allegations, but never reported them.
• The US House passed a major election reform and voting rights bill yesterday, which includes giving voting rights to people with felonies, automatic voter registration, and making voter ID laws more uniform and less Byzantine. It will now go to the Senate floor, so we’ll see if Senator Joe Manchin and all the other moderate Democrats are good for anything, anything at all.
• The US House canceled its session today, following warnings from the FBI and Department of Homeland Security that extremists could again target the US Capitol today. That’s because Q-Anon conspiracy theorists believe March 4 is some magical date at which Donald Trump will finally become president again, and they could get angry when that inevitably doesn’t happen.
• Seems like an all-around chill dude:
!! WHOA: US Capitol defendant Richard Barnett — man accused of putting feet on Pelosi desk – is *screaming* at attorneys and judge during his court hearing right now.
Upset he’s been locked up “for a whole month”… “it’s not fair”
Judge just recessed hearing for “5 mins” pic.twitter.com/ayaO4d6lb0
— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) March 4, 2021
• A new report from the inspector general shows that Elaine Chao—who served as transportation secretary in the Trump administration—used her office to help family members who run a shipping business. This evidence of corruption was first brought up during Trump’s term, but authorities declined to investigate at that time.
• New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is sorry for the allegations of sexual misconduct against him, but he also denies ever touching someone inappropriately—even though there’s a photo of him touching someone inappropriately. Oh, and he’s not resigning. Doesn’t seem like he’s actually that sorry?
• We’re now a year into the pandemic, and I’ve never felt more like this snail in my life:
me doing my stupid little tasks as the world crumbles pic.twitter.com/EhNT2EUnCG
— Sophia Benoit (@1followernodad) March 3, 2021
