Good Morning, News: Ferguson Update, A Triumph for Anti-Vaxxers, and Some Shitty News for Ohio

In case you missed it, Nick Caleb, Concordia University professor and onetime challenger to Commissioner Dan Saltzman, says he’ll run against Commissioner Steve Novick in the upcoming city council race.

Oh hey, the Columbia Building cost $11.5 million to build and now it’s killing birds.

Oregon could have been the third state in the union to allow vaccine exceptions for medical reasons only. Kate Brown even thought it was a good idea! But we won’t be, because the proposed measure to do just that failed yesterday. So did a similar bill in Washington. It looks like an alternative bill that uses schools as an entry point into on-schedule vaccination may be on the table in Salem soon.

We’re number five! We’re number five! For voter turnout, that is. (Oregon was fifth in the nation last year too, if you care. CIVICS!)

In Ferguson, two police officers were shot amid protests. Their injuries don’t appear to be life-threatening.

A cement factory in Bangladesh has collapsed, trapping 100 workers.

In Syria: A new report from 20-plus aid groups says that the UN Security Council “failed to fulfill resolutions passed last year to increase humanitarian assistance to Syrians,” says the NY Times. The report’s numbers are awful, and would seem to back up that assertion: The report states that at least 76,000 civilians were killed in 2014, and over 200,000 since the conflict in Syria began four years ago.

Here’s some weird and horrible news: Texas just used one of its last two doses of the lethal injection drug pentobarbital—to execute Manuel Vasquez, on death row for a murder conviction. (The shortage of pentobarbital has led to horrors elsewhere, including a botched execution in Oklahoma, and Utah lawmakers’ recent interest in, um, reviving the practice of execution by firing squad.)

Also horrible: The state of Alabama is investigating a claim of elder abuse against author Harper Lee, reports the Guardian. The specifics of the claim aren’t available, but it is (not surprisingly) connected with the unlikely publication of Lee’s Go Set a Watchman.

Meanwhile, in the Midwest: Akron police are on the lookout for a “bowel movement bandit,” who’s so far pooped on 19 cars in Ohio. No one knows why.

Speaking of bad behavior, two secret service agents are currently under investigation after apparently crashing a car into a White House barricade after a party.

And finally, today, in things I will be humming quietly to myself all day, see below! Good morning!