It will take almost as long as the hearing itself. But if you fee like punishing yourself, take some minutes and read through our exhaustive live blog of yesterday’s “Portland Street Fund” hearing. (You should also read the Oregonian‘s recap of the nearly five-hour affair.) Dozens of opponents—and some supporters, too—got their first crack at lecturing and hectoring and pleading with city commissioners over road maintenance in six months. And now it’s up to Mayor Charlie Hales and Commissioner Steve Novick to decide what, if anything, will change in the next several days—like, maybe whether to add a sunset clause and maybe even whether they’ll still come back for a vote December 3.
Yes, other Important Things happened nationally yesterday. But some of you might be thrilled to know, right now, that the construction-blocked Sellwood Bridge is on schedule to reopen earlier than usual.
Also? Alfalfa farmers in Jackson County are suing to toss out a ban on certain kinds GMO crops approved in May—on the grounds that a 1995 state law protects farmers from nuisance regulations.
“We shall not oppress a stranger for we know the heart of a stranger—we were strangers once, too.” President Obama found the occasion to quote the Christian Scriptures in laying out a long-expected set of executive orders on immigration—sparing millions from immediate threat of deportation and greasing the skids for high-tech workers who want to work in the United States. (Some 64,000 immigrants in Oregon alone could find themselves protected.) That’s a defiant slap at ascendant Republicans in Congress, who’ve accused the president of “damaging” his office by doing something every other modern president has done way more often.
About the same time as the president was giving his big immigration speech, Secret Service agents were arresting a woman standing outside the White House fence with a gun.
What’s the actual goal in nuclear talks with Iran? The United States wants a buffer. Basically, if Iran ever decides to break the deal, the hope is it would take at least a year before it had a working bomb in hand.
The vanishing and massacre of 43 student-teachers, allegedly at the hands of government officials, has served as a boiling point for Mexican citizens long vexed by corruption and crime. They’ve hit the streets by the tens of thousands—leading to a political crisis for Mexico’s president.
SCANDAL! The White House was mistaken when it said 7.3 million people enrolled in health plans under the Affordable Care Act. The real number, after people who merely signed up for dental plans were subtracted? Oh. It’s still big: 6.9 million.
It might be as soon as today. A CNN report out of Ferguson, Missouri, suggests a grand jury’s likely decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of unarmed teenager Michael Brown is beyond imminent. Protests have already been flaring back up—and now there’s word that Wilson is in quiet talks with the Ferguson police department to resign.
Yet another woman has publicly accused Bill Cosby of rape.
The Florida State gunman—in an apparent mental health crisis—mailed several packages before an attempted rampage that left just three people injured. One of those packages has arrived at its destination in Texas.
Smoking a hookah when it’s not culturally relevant doesn’t just make you look kind of silly. It also might give you and the people near you a better chance of growing leukemia cells.
BACK WHEN DANCING SUITS WERE WOVEN FROM PURE POWDERED COCAINE.