Catch this (alleged) asshole, Portland.
Catch this (alleged) asshole, Portland. Portland Police Bureau

NO. Police announced last night that a man apparently stole the wedding ring and backpack of fallen TriMet hero Ricky Best. The mourning family, understandably, wants those items back. What the hell is going on?

Here's video:

UPDATE, 8:10 am: As I was writing this post, police announced they've caught the suspect. Good news!


In other news about the attack, the family of accused murderer Jeremy Christian put out its first statement yesterday, leaving no doubt it believes the man carried out the attacks and saying, "we cannot begin to understand this senseless act."

And the grandmother of stabbing survivor Micah Fletcher is begging right-wing and left-wing groups alike to cancel plans for opposing rallies in downtown Portland on Sunday. Alt-right organizer Joey Gibson has already said he won't, meaning counter-demonstrators almost certainly won't either. (BTW, we'll be out there. You can follow me at @dirquez for live coverage on Sunday.)

Meanwhile, the legal director of the ACLU of Oregon was giving an on-camera interview downtown yesterday when he says a man in the background began doing nazi salutes. Stop it.

Here's a good profile of stabbing victim Taliesin Myrddin Namkai Meche.

NO. It's hard to convey enough disgust with Donald Trump's decision to pull out of the Paris Climate Accords, a nonsensical, short-sighted kowtow to industry that the New York Times reports was (surprise!) based on flawed data.

We now join Syria and Nicaragua in the sad group of countries not on board with the agreement. Politico reports that EPA head Scott Pruitt, a lead voice in pushing Trump's decision, ate at a French restaurant in DC last night. This can't continue.

Some good news? Local and state governments are still trying to make things better. The City of Portland and Multnomah County adopted very ambitious goals yesterday to make ALL of the city/county energy use powered with renewable energy by 2050. I don't just mean county and city buildings. I mean your house, your car, local companies' energy use—everything. It won't be easy. As the Trib notes: "The most recent data shows coal power accounts for 43 percent of the electricity used in the county, and natural gas supplies another 24 percent."

The states of Washington, California, and New York are also teaming up on climate policy. They account for roughly 11 percent of the country's emissions.

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City of Portland

We reported yesterday on the potential costs of a massive new water treatment plant the city says it has to build, in response to tests earlier this year that turned up the parasite Cryptosporidium. Those costs will range from $100 million to $500 million, according to the water bureau director. We asked what it might cost to dramatically ramp up testing in an effort to avoid having to build a new plant at all, and the bureau came back with an estimate of $5 million (for costs it could control), but said it's more complicated than that.

Also: You might have missed an unprecedented City Council hearing last week, in which the family of Quanice Hayes, the 17-year-old Black Portlander killed by police in February, got two hours to speak their minds. We've posted the transcript.

A gunman stormed a casino in the Phillipines yesterday, but didn't shoot anyone. Instead, he set fires that wound up suffocating 36 people. Authorities believe the gunman, who killed himself, was motivated by mental illness and not terrorism.

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