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GOOD MORNING, PORTLAND! Start figuring out ways to cool your sweaty ass down NOW, because today’s temp is expected to hit 90 and get even hotter tomorrow with a high of 92! And if you’re already bemoaning this hot summer, here’s a sure-fire cool-down: the Mercury‘s SUMMER OF SLUSHIES, featuring frosty, boozy cocktails from 23 local bars (and only $8 each) throughout the entirety of July! Check ’em out here, and let’s read some partially frosty NEWS.
IN LOCAL NEWS:
• Women’s Strike this Monday: Portland activists will be taking over the Burnside Bridge this coming Monday, June 24, for the national Women’s Strike to protest continuing gender inequality and the loss of reproductive rights. And even if they’re unable to attend the bridge protest, organizers are asking supporters to refuse to go to work and school, and abstain from injecting money into the economy, unless it’s a women-owned business. Emma Ambroziak explains the history of the event and provides more details!
Portland City Council will discuss today whether it will continue overseeing the Joint Office of Homelessness w/ Multnomah County. Vote is next week.
As of last week, 3 council members were still uncommitted to extending the contract. Background: https://t.co/C00Ni8FJWq
— Alex Zielinski (@alex_zee) June 20, 2024
• On the subject of striking, more than 3,000 Providence nurses are walking off the job after months of contract negotiations with the hospital system have broken down. The bargaining committee says while Providence is offering an initial fair wage increase, the following yearly pay bumps won’t keep up with inflation. Meanwhile Providence says their hospitals remain open and will continue serving patients.
• Dude… maybe don’t drink so fast?
THE FIRST THC DRINK BOUGHT AT A SPORTS GAME EVER! We makin history in Walker Stadium today folks 🎉 pic.twitter.com/jAsxdjf1I5
— Portland Pickles (@picklesbaseball) June 19, 2024
• Already this summer, there have been several rides explicitly meant for Portland’s queer community—the annual “Pride Ride’’was on June 3, and the “Slut Pedal,” a ride centering queer and BIPOC sex workers, took place the day before—but there are plenty more to come, such as the Britney Spears/environmental education ride on July 12, that will combine pop music with helpful information about hazardous waste management (maybe the most Portland ride ever). Mercury reporter Taylor Griggs takes a look at the queering of Portland’s bike scene.
• The Clackamas County Commission, long known for their wise, thoughtful legislation (that is sarcasm), is at it again. Now they’re considering changing code in order to evict homeless people from their RVs if they are impacting “health and safety” (AKA annoying local Karens), thereby continuing the cycle of homelessness by making them more poverty-stricken than before. Sounds like a plan! (Again… sarcasm.)
Rapper Karma Rivera headlines a show on Portland Pride weekend, Wynne gives us “Rug Burn,” and a free Nonbinary Girlfriend show? Whoopee! All this and more in this week’s edition of HEAR IN PORTLAND.https://t.co/pEm1fLPQ2z
— Portland Mercury 🗞 (@portlandmercury) June 19, 2024
IN NATIONAL/WORLD NEWS:
• In their infinite wisdom, Louisiana Republicans have passed a new law requiring all public school classrooms to display a copy of the Ten Commandments—because as we know, the GOP loves teaching fairy tales as FACT. This new idiotic law will almost certainly be challenged in court due to its tenuous constitutionality… but with the current Supreme Court, don’t be surprised if eventually we all have to display the Ten Commandments in our living rooms.
Right-wing billionaires hoped an obscure legal case would blow up the tax code to avoid paying what they owe, but this effort failed at the Supreme Court.
The fight goes on to tax the rich, pass a wealth tax on ultra-millionaires and billionaires, and make the system more fair. https://t.co/cTaab6eEnz
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) June 20, 2024
• Democrats are seeking to repeal “The Comstock Act,” a law from the bad old days of 1873, which bans sending abortion-related information through the mail, and which they fear will lead Republicans to deny Americans access to abortion or ban it all together nationwide. This is especially important since Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito Jr. and Clarence Thomas have recently drooled over the old-timey law during recent oral arguments in which mifepristone, a key abortion drug, was challenged.
• Is Mount St. Helens “recharging”? Officials at the Cascades Volcano Observatory seem to think so, as 350 earthquakes have been registered under the volcano between February 2024 and this week. All this activity could signal the growth of magma, which could eventually find its way out in an explosive way… or perhaps not? As of now, conditions remain in the “normal” range, and scientists are keeping their eye on the situation.
• Coming to Portland on November 7!
TOUR ANNOUNCEMENT: Sabrina Carpenter has announced “The Short n’ Sweet Tour,” a 29-date North American headlining arena tour kicking off in September → https://t.co/Rs54MmSnFi pic.twitter.com/yzcg4miMGF
— CONSEQUENCE (@consequence) June 20, 2024
• Rapper Travis Scott was arrested in Miami Beach yesterday and charged with trespassing and “disorderly intoxication” after allegedly yelling from the dock at a bunch of rich people on a yacht. After posting bail and being released from custody, Scott did admit to drinking, but explained away his actions by shrugging and saying “it’s Miami.” (I smell a banger of a song coming our way!)
• And finally… welp, this is one way to cool off!
Grabbing some fresh air..🦝💨😅
📹evaracoon pic.twitter.com/S1RIFhPilX
— 𝕐o̴g̴ (@Yoda4ever) June 18, 2024
Wm. Steven Humphrey
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