Author: Isabella Garcia

Good Morning, News: Explosive Ping Pong Balls Fight Fires, Portland’s Art Scene is Back, and What Went Down at the Emmys

by  • 

by Isabella Garcia

The Mercury provides news and fun every single day—but your help is essential. If you believe Portland benefits from smart, local journalism and arts coverage, please consider making a small monthly contribution, because without you, there is no us. Thanks for your support!

Goooood morning, Portland! Let’s get right into it.

In local news:

• The city is planning to pay $84,000 to a current Portland Police Captain to settle a 2020 lawsuit. Police Captain James Crooker sued the city for $3 million, alleging the city failed to give him preferential treatment as a veteran (per Oregon law), didn’t promote him because he is Hispanic, and retaliated against him for making a complaint to the department. After the city’s risk assessment office determined that a jury may side with Crooker, the city opted to settle for the lesser amount.

• Do you like fall and art? Then you’ll lovvveeee the Mercury’s Fall Arts Guide! Read all about how the Portland arts scene is back in a big way.

• There are over 140,000 acres of fires burning in Oregon right now—some of which are being fought with explosive ping pong balls! In an effort to preemptively burn dry vegetation in a blaze’s path (thus eliminating its fuel), Oregon firefighters are using drones to fly over the areas and drop ping pong ball-like spheres containing explosive material into the fire’s path. 

• Cherries are in short supply this season—specifically about 80,000 tons short. Farmers say that this year’s regional cherry harvest was the smallest in 14 years due to the odd snowstorm the Pacific Northwest saw in April, which occurred during the cherry blossom bloom. 

In national news:

• Consumer prices, previously thought to be on the decline, rose by 0.1 percent in August compared to July. Year over year, inflation is 8 percent higher this year than August 2021. “We were hoping for something more positive, but [the August data] is not,” economics professor Sung Won Sohn told CNN. “I think inflation is certainly alive and well.”

• The Emmys were last night and LOTS of pop culture things happened. Succession won Outstanding Drama Series. Quinta Brunson won Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series for Abbott Elementary and Jimmy Kimmel laid on the stage during her entire acceptance speech as some kind of unfunny bit (wtf Jimmy). Bowen Yang gave us a new reaction GIF. Sheryl Lee Ralph was the second Black woman in history to win Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her role in Abbott Elementary and delivered this BADASS acceptance speech. 

• Runners competing in the Boston Marathon will now be able to register as nonbinary, race organizers announced Monday. Organizers said they are still determining qualifying times for nonbinary participants; currently, men 18 to 34 years-old must run a marathon in 3 hours or less while women in the same age range must run it in 3 hours and 30 minutes or less.

• Alex Jones is back in court today over his Sandy Hook shooting conspiracies. A Connecticut jury is deciding how much money Jones owes 14 family members of Sandy Hook victims after claiming that the shooting was a hoax. That’s on top of the nearly $50 million a Texas jury ordered Jones to pay to a shooting victim’s family in August.

• Hey can I get, uhhh, 12 piece McLizzy with honey mustard?

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Good Morning, News: Fire Bureau Falls Short, Twitter Teases Edit Button, and Louis Vuitton’s Taxes

by  • 

by Isabella Garcia

The Mercury provides news and fun every single day—but your help is essential. If you believe Portland benefits from smart, local journalism and arts coverage, please consider making a small monthly contribution, because without you, there is no us. Thanks for your support!

Good morning and happy September, Portland! Wow, time really flies when you’re devastated by the state of the world. Welp, onto the news!

In local news:

• Portland Fire and Rescue’s response time to fires and medical emergencies are lagging behind national standards, according to an analysis of the department. Without a permanent increase in staff, the construction of new fire stations, and organizational restructuring, analysts say the city could be in grave danger. 

• Louis Vuitton owes the city and Multnomah County $42,000 in taxes after failing to pay a local business tax and licensing fees in 2020, according to a lawsuit filed against the company last week. It’s unclear why Louis Vuitton allegedly didn’t pay its taxes given that a mere $42k is pocket change compared to the $71 billion (with a B) the luxury brand raked in last year,

• Despite temperatures rising to the mid-90s Wednesday, PGE decided to shut off power to nearly 300 people in the Salem area to install a new underground wire that is expected to improve service reliability in the area. According to KGW, several residents of a mobile home park who were impacted by the shut off said they were not notified they would be without power during the heat. The power was shut off at 8 am and restored by 3 pm Wednesday.

• The Rum Creek Fire in Josephine County had grown to 14,000 acres and about one percent contained as of late Wednesday morning, according to officials. The fire has destroyed one home and two structures and is threatening 7,000 additional structures and homes. Level 3 “Go Now” evacuations are in place for dozens of homes in Rand and Galice.

• The chances of home prices in Portland dropping over the next year? Very high, according to some real estate data analysts:

In national news:

• Four families are suing the US Navy after thousands of gallons of jet fuel from a military storage facility in Hawaii near Pearl Harbor leaked into water wells last year, triggering a water crisis. The families allege the Navy “harbored toxic secrets” about the spill and that they are suffering from seizures, gastrointestinal disorders, and neurological issues after drinking the tainted water. The Navy attributed the spill to shoddy management of the fuel tanks and human error. 

• Twitter announced Thursday that it’s testing an edit feature that will allow people to revise their tweets after publishing. However, the company said it plans to roll out the feature for subscribers of its Twitter Blue service later this month—AKA it won’t be for us regular folk. If a user edits their tweet, the tweet will be labeled as edited and timestamped, and other users will be able to read previous iterations of the tweet by tapping the label.

• Eight years ago, a meteor flew into the Pacific Ocean so fast that some astronomers believed that it came from another star system (because of scientific calculations). Now, astrophysics professor Avi Loeb is planning a private expedition to retrieve the pieces of the meteor, which he believes could be a technological object created by aliens. “If you ask what my wish is, if it’s indeed of artificial origin, and there was some component of the object that survived, and if it has any buttons on it, I would love to press them,” Loeb told NPR. It’s worth noting that some other astronomers think Loeb’s beliefs are severely lacking evidence, so… take this story with a grain pinch of salt.

• A federal judge approved the legality of New York City’s new gun restriction laws Wednesday, hours before the rules were slated to go into effect. The laws restrict guns—including concealed carry weapons—in “sensitive places” like Times Square, parks, churches, and theaters. The law also strengthens the standards for issuing a concealed carry permit, requiring 18 hours of training and a review of all social media accounts for the past three years.

• Toad looks like a poorly-folded bottom sheet and I love that for him.

• A federal judge approved the legality of New York City’s new gun restriction laws Wednesday, hours before the rules were slated to go into effect. The laws restrict guns—including concealed carry weapons—in a sweeping list of “sensitive places” like Times Square, parks, churches, and theaters. The law also strengthens the standards for issuing a concealed carry permit, requiring 18 hours of training and a review of all social media accounts for the past three years.

https://apnews.com/article/us-supreme-court-travel-manhattan-gun-politics-legislature-507daf2e3b85e72af606b4f44ef2ceab?taid=630fff79a2fab900019c00f5&utm_campaign=TrueAnthem&utm_medium=AP&utm_source=Twitter

• Toad looks like a poorly-folded bottom sheet and I love that for him.

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