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Good morning, Portland! Here’s hoping your day is smooth, that the cafe line is short, the coffee is hot (or just icy enough if that’s your thing), the bus has open seats or your bike ride is dry. Earth is a shit show, and you deserve some good fortune.
📰 This just in, let’s go.
IN LOCAL NEWS:
- If Multnomah County isn’t careful, its Preschool for All program might end up creating universal preschool on or ahead of schedule. That’s despite ongoing attacks from local business interests and politicians who argue every which way that the big struggle families face in President Trump’s America is wealthy people paying too many income taxes in Oregon. (Why is it rarely mentioned that Oregon does not have a sales tax? Seems worth mentioning that Oregon does not have a sales tax would be useful when talking about local tax rates. Oh.) Multnomah County announced Thursday that the Preschool for All program will be able to offer 7,460 seats for families next year—nearly doubling the number of children currently enrolled. Seems good. Taylor Griggs has the scoop.
- Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested a father in front of his children Thursday morning in St. John’s. As it happened, neighbors confronted the agents, and endured pepper balls being shot at them, apparently saying they were “warning shots.”
“They’re not welcome in our neighborhood,” one neighbor told Fox12 Oregon. “They’re trying to tell us they’re keeping the neighborhood safe while they’re ripping families apart. It’s not okay.”
Neighbors: ICE agents arrest dad driving kids to school in N Portland, shoot pepper balls >> https://www.kptv.com/2025/12/12/neighbors-ice-agents-arrest-dad-driving-kids-school-n-portland-shoot-pepper-balls/
— FOX 12 Oregon (@fox12oregon.bsky.social) December 11, 2025 at 7:00 PM
- Oregon is beating records it set in the 1950s for confirmed cases of whooping cough, which is obviously a sign we are in the healthiest of American eras. This trendy little thing is making waves all across the nation. Now, you too can enjoy nearly eradicated diseases that lead to breathing struggles and fractured ribs from endless coughing. But OPB reports while it is certainly a factor, the rise in cases is a bit more complicated than the simple narrative of vaccine hesitancy and the work our Dear Leader is doing to keep the country in tip-top shape. It actually starts with the shots themselves, and the duration of their protection against a pertussis infection. There’s more to the story here at OPB.
• Local metalcore fans are lining up for a nine-band mini-festival at the Roseland TONIGHT. It’s called Wishmas, headlined by Nashville via Portland band Dying Wish. In advance of the show, Mercury freelancer Holly Hazelwood spoke with the band’s lead singer Emma Boster about the Blazers, homecoming shows, and the canned food drive at tonight’s show.
- The Albina neighborhood has been planning for big changes for years, and local organizations Albina Vision Trust and 1803 Fund are rolling out new details on the plans. Decades of dispossession and displacement of Black Portlanders through the city’s racist zoning policies can never be taken back, but the projects promise big new opportunities and a sense of justice. The city, private businesses, and local community members have poured their efforts into a massive plan to overhaul the neighborhood, centering the people who were displaced by decades of structural racism. The area promises new housing, businesses, a massive freeway project (maybe?), and education investments. At a recent press conference, the organizations revealed new details, and presented renderings of what the vision may look like. Taylor Griggs outlines what’s going on with the project.
IN NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL NEWS:
- Indiana lawmakers pushed back against Trump’s threats on Thursday by voting down a mid-decade congressional map that would have helped Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections. The Indiana Senate voted 31-19 to reject Trump’s demands to redistrict the state to his advantage. He’s tried this elsewhere, but after California said “anything you can do I can do better” with Proposition 50 last month, Trump has to lean on the US Justice Department and a mob mentality to make him look like a winner. Somehow, he still loses, bigly, in a state where 40 out of 50 senators are Republicans. Who’s gonna give Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries the playbook?
- So, now what?
unreal (but very real, of course)
— Taniel (@taniel.bsky.social) December 11, 2025 at 12:07 PM
- A federal judge on Thursday ordered the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Marylander who was illegally deported to El Salvador in March, and has been tortured by the Trump administration’s use of the so-called justice system. In previous events when a judge ordered his release, the federal government has arrested him again soon after his release. So, this time, the judge on Friday blocked immigration authorities from re-detaining him until the court conducts a hearing on a full temporary restraining order.
- While Garcia is free for now, Trump and Stephen Miller’s violent crusade against immigrants continues to have a deep impact on Latinos. While court cases play slowly, immigrants Latinos are reportedly carrying documents proving legal status more often and attending cultural events less often, according to a new study from the Pew Research Center.
U.S. Latinos are now more worried about being asked to prove their legal status during their daily activities (43% today vs. 31% in March), and roughly 1 in 5 have changed their daily routines because of it.
— Pew Research Center (@pewresearch.org) December 11, 2025 at 8:30 AM
- What in the (adjective) blunt rotation is this?
I mean, the Penn student newspaper isn’t wrong, but www.instagram.com/p/DSH1X4EDwP…
— Parker Molloy (@parkermolloy.com) December 11, 2025 at 6:23 PM
Have a good weekend!
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Jeremiah Hayden
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