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GOOD MORNING, PORTLAND!👋
Expect cooler and cloudier weather today with a high of 78—but be on the lookout for showers tomorrow! In the meantime? Eat your fill of the world’s most delish burgers with the Mercury‘s BURGER WEEK running through this Sunday! Check out all the yummy burgs here and plan your gustatory journey with the Burger Week map. And now let’s choke down some NEWS.
IN LOCAL NEWS:
• Excellent news, sports fans! After years of uncertainty, the Portland Trail Blazers reportedly have a new owner! Multiple outlets (including our own) are reporting that the Paul Allen estate has agreed to sell our beloved team to a group headed up by Carolina Hurricanes CEO Tom Dundon. Even better? Dundon reportedly wants to keep the Blazers right here in Portland, where they belong. Get all the good news deets and find out more about Dundon from our Abe Asher.
After years of uncertainty and months on the market, the Portland Trail Blazers reportedly have a new owner.
— Portland Mercury (@portlandmercury.com) August 13, 2025 at 2:46 PM
• THIS IS JUST A TEST! So don’t freak out because today at 2 pm, Multnomah County will be testing its Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) system, which will make your phone go BUZZ-BUZZ and WHEEE-WHEEE-WHEEE. This is one of those rare tests to make sure our area’s emergency alert system is working in case the worst happens. (I’ll let your imagination run wild with that one.) But while today’s test is just that, one of the most terrifying things that could very well happen during the predicted Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake is the potential spillage of millions of gallons of fuel into the Willamette, currently being stored at Portland’s CEI Hub. A study concluded that such a disaster could possibly be 17 times worse than the disastrous Exxon Valdez spill of 1989—BUT! There are things we can do besides having buzzy test alerts: Check out this excellent video called “Stop the Spill” from Re:Solve NW, and if you love Portland? Get involved in protecting her.
• QUERY: If you were the CEO of a major corporation (bear with me), and one of your divisions cost the company $22.6 MILLION over the past five years, what would you do about it? I ask this because, according to this article from our Courtney Vaughn, the Portland Police have cost the city $22.6 MILLION over the past five years in legal settlements largely thanks to their violent actions, which they apparently are incapable of correcting. Find out about the latest $4 million payout the city was forced to make in this latest (and infuriating) Mercury news report.
• Surprise! Local conservatives were wrong again. According to a new study from PSU, the much maligned Measure 110—which decriminalized small amounts of hard drugs and put money into recovery centers, before it was torpedoed by conservatives and rolled back by a spineless Oregon legislature—did not overly contribute to overdoses and crime. Researchers showed that the overdoses and criminal activity that were happening during the rollout were mostly driven by Covid and the unexpected rise of fentanyl—directly contradicting the narrative of local conservatives whose loud braying consistently hurts our community instead of helping. We hate to say “we told you so,” but we did. So maybe don’t listen to them next time?
• Note to river swimmers (both people and dogs): A harmful algae bloom has sprung up in the Ross Island Lagoon, and thanks to warm weather (and Oregon legislators who refuse to fix the problem) has spread north to Kelley Point Park—covering most of the Willamette River in Portland. The toxins caused by the bloom can be deadly to dogs and can sicken humans who ingest or inhale it, so stay out of the water until further notice… which may be soon as this weekend because the coming rain is expected to wash much of it away.
Hear In Portland is back, baby! It’s been a couple months since music writer Jenni Moore has dished up the best in Portland music happenings—we’re so thrilled to have her back 🌚🌝
Link below for the tea on two North Portland summer events, and a new single from goddess Zyah Belle 💯— Portland Mercury (@portlandmercury.com) August 13, 2025 at 4:31 PM
IN NATIONAL/WORLD NEWS:
• King Fool is scheduled to have a sit-down with his puppet master/cuddle buddy Vladimir Putin on Friday in Alaska, in which the president will be played like a violin and give in to most of the Russian president’s demands try to broker a deal to end Russia’s annexation of Ukraine. Only days ago, Trump was talking tough and threatening vague consequences if Putin did not end his war, but now in true TACO fashion, the president is referring to the meet ‘n’ greet as a “feel-out meeting” to gauge Russia’s openness to a cease fire. Naturally, no one from Ukraine has been invited to this summit which could very well lead to their downfall.
Another potential disaster for Trump.
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast.bsky.social) August 14, 2025 at 7:24 AM
• As protests heat up in Washington, DC, over Trump’s forced militarization of the city, and ICE agents pulled over drivers for minor taillight and seatbelt violations, a DC man has been charged with a felony for… *checks notes, rubs eyes*…. throwing a submarine sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection agent to protest the takeover. To make matters worse, the autocrat-in-chief is asking congress to extend his 30-day takeover of the city for the longterm, though the request is expected to fall flat since it would require the approval of at least seven Democrats.
• Taylor Swift joined boytoy Travis Kelce for a two-hour long interview on brother Jason Kelce’s podcast, which… did not sound all that interesting to me, but I’m sure juiced up her mega-fans for Swift’s upcoming album, The Life of a Showgirl, set for release on October 3. The best news to emerge from the podcast is that she’s been reunited with her producers from the wildly popular Red, 1989, and Reputation albums, and it’s truly gratifying to know that she is once again the owner of her entire music catalog after six looong years of battling a record company for its return.
Katie Miller reveals that her husband, Stephen Miller, only eats mayonnaise
— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes.bsky.social) August 12, 2025 at 11:07 AM
• Good news: Dumbass conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is now closer than ever to losing his Infowars broadcast, company, and brand name after a Texas judge has ordered the lying butthole to turn over all his assets to a newly-appointed state receiver, who will then sell the properties in order to pay what is owed to the surviving family members of the Sandy Hook shooting. The families are owed $1.3 million billion in settlement money after Jones spread countless lies about Sandy Hook victims, saying the shooting was staged and that the grieving families were actors. (Just wondering… do they have food stamps in hell?)
• And finally, ME going into the final part of the workweek like….
@allsortsofstuffandthings
