Good morning, Portland. Link time.
First up is this week's Mercury feature by Rachel Petrovich on an "existential clusterfuck" that led her to Muay Thai at the age of 44. Pick up a print copy (out as of yesterday) and read it here.
Also out in print as of yesterday is our story, by me, about how Multnomah County's jail capacity is at it's lowest point in decades, requiring 20 inmates to be released early last weekend to make room for new arrestees.
The current situation was expected after a jail dorm was shuttered last month. While it’s caused panic among law enforcement and those who believe larger jails lead to safer communities, some see it as an opportunity to implement alternatives pushed by anti-incarceration advocates.
“This isn’t a huge surprise,” said County Commissioner Lori Stegmann at last Thursday’s county board meeting. “By setting a hard number [for jail capacity] in the sand, we’re working backward to say we’ve got to figure out a better system.”
A few "cop watchers," who filmed at the homes of high ranking police officials and the district attorney recently, were arrested. The Oregonian's Maxine Bernstein has a good breakdown.
A North Portland house burned down the other day, killing two people inside. Investigators say it was was caused by a hash oil explosion after a "large concentration of butane ignited."
"As several wildfires burned across the state Tuesday, the Oregon Department of Forestry declared a high fire danger for rural areas in Douglas and Lane counties,"the O reports. "Northern Douglas County and western Lane County west of Interstate 5 to the coast range are at a higher risk of fires, the department said. Areas of Lane County west of the coast range are at moderate fire danger level."
The bronze "Umbrella Guy" statue, originally installed in 1984, finally returned to its home at Pioneer Courthouse Square after a six-month hiatus. It has a fresh paint job and wax coating.
Somebody used a tow truck to steal a car in Northeast Portland. It's kind of amazing this doesn't happen more often.
The Portland Mermaid Parade is on Saturday. The Portland Tribune has a profile on local mermaid culture...
"The City of Portland’s Bureau of Technology Services is prepared to stop using software from Moscow-based cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab,"OPB reports. "The move comes after Reuters reported the Trump Administration removed the company from its list of approved vendors used by government agencies because of concerns over cyber-espionage."
As you know, President Donald Trump took to Twitter to announce transgender people can't "serve in any capacity" in the military because the military "cannot be burdened" with them. His first tweet was "After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow......". He didn't post his second tweet, announcing the trans ban, until nine minutes later. In the middle of this Buzzfeed story about the ban, is this nugget:
At the Pentagon, the first of the three tweets raised fears that the president was getting ready to announce strikes on North Korea or some other military action. Many said they were left in suspense for nine minutes, the time between the first and second tweet. Only after the second tweet did military officials receive the news the president was announcing a personnel change on Twitter.
Chelsea Manning wrote an op-ed for the New York Times today:
Opinion: "We are neither disruptive nor expensive. We are human beings and we will not be erased or ignored"https://t.co/jR6t9T50lp
— The New York Times (@nytimes) July 27, 2017
This was an interesting one to follow on Twitter last night. Trump's communications people are bad at communicating. Who woulda thought.
Several White House staff members expressed astonishment at Anthony Scaramucci's public outburst https://t.co/rvCJnqyVVT
— The New York Times (@nytimes) July 27, 2017