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Good morning, Portland! It's Sept. 10, which means it's now an acceptable time of year to break out the fall decor. In a few weeks we'll all be swimming in pumpkin spice.

Spice up your life with some news.

In Local News:

• Three Portland candidates vying to be the city’s next mayor apparently have crappy driving (and parking) records. Two of them evaded court fines and fees. Willamette Week reports Rene Gonzalez had his driver’s license suspended twice, and accrued seven speeding tickets since the late ‘90s, one of which was dismissed. Gonzalez was also cited for riding a MAX train without a ticket in 2014. 

Looking over Keith Wilson’s records, the business owner and mayoral candidate appears to have racked up 13 tickets since 1992, one of which was dismissed and eight of which were parking tickets. Court records indicate Wilson invoiced a parking ticket he received in 2018 to his own business, Titan Freight Systems. His latest brush with parking overlords came in April, when he was cited for not paying a meter downtown.

 Rubio’s record is a little more noteworthy, especially since some of the infractions occurred during her current term on Portland City Council. As reported by The Oregonian, Rubio has had her driver’s license suspended six times, mostly for unpaid tickets. 

A standout segment of the report: “Rubio often parked her car in places she was prohibited from parking altogether … This July, she was ticketed for parking in a truck loading zone on Southwest Fourth Avenue a block from City Hall. In February 2022, during the Timbers’ season opening game, she was ticketed for parking in a no parking zone four blocks from Providence Park.”

Rubio is also among the thousands of state residents who drove around with expired registration for a preeeetty long time.

Hey, at least she never chainsawed the head off a whale.

• Fentanyl isn’t just a scourge on Portland’s streets, it’s also made its way into Oregon’s prisons. Overdoses in state correctional facilities have spiked, but solutions for prevention either haven’t been implemented or haven’t been effective. Donny Morrison recaps the tragic deaths of two men, one of whom was born in prison and went on to spend his last days in state custody before overdosing.

• In other criminal justice system news, Portland Police identified the officer who shot and wounded a man in North Portland last month. On Monday, PPB also released body camera footage from the incident, which was the first deadly use of force to have video footage, mostly due to a slow rollout of body camera use by PPB.

• Congressman Earl Blumenauer, who’s set to retire from his gig as a lawmaker, will now become an employee of Portland State University. On Monday, PSU announced that Blumenauer will be the university’s senior fellow and special advisor to the PSU president, and a presidential fellow at the Institute of Portland Metropolitan Studies. PSU says Blumenauer “will focus on harnessing the research and expertise of Oregon’s urban research university to help address Portland’s most pressing challenges.” One can only wonder how Portland’s beloved bowtied politician will respond to things like protests over genocide. 

• The weather is cooling off and we’ve got the rundown on cool things to do in and around the city over the next week, including a tomato festival, a historical exhibit about the lives of transgender people long before anyone ever uttered the word "trans", and a comedy stint at Revolution Hall this Friday with actor and comedian David Cross.

@gentalkmedia Have you come across a NEVER-NUDE?? #arresteddevelopment #davidcross ♬ original sound - GenTalk Media

In National/World News:

  • Tonight’s the night. Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are scheduled to take part in a debate aired on ABC. It’ll be the first presidential debate since Trump faced President Biden in June in what many say was the event that ultimately ended Biden’s reelection campaign. Should be…interesting?
  • There are nearly 70 wildfires burning across California, Oregon, Nevada and Idaho. A massive fire in San Bernardino County, Calif. has forced 11,000 people to evacuate and led California Gov. Gavin Newsom to call in the National Guard for help. In Oregon, the state’s forestry department reports 24 active, large fires. This analogy will never get old.
  • James Earl Jones, the actor whose voice was among the most distinct in Hollywood, has died at age 93. Jones was the voice of Mufasa in Disney’s The Lion King in 1994. He was also the voice behind Darth Vader. During his acting career, he won two Tony awards and an Oscar nomination, as well as an honorary Oscar in 2011.
  • News outlets are discrediting recent claims made by US Senator and Trump lackey JD Vance, who said some dumb shit on the internet. On Monday, Vance suggested Haitian immigrants were taking pets for their own consumption. In a post, he wrote: “people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country.” Police in Springfield, Ohio, where he suggested that was taking place, confirmed they’ve received no such reports of pets being abducted.

 

Speaking of "never Trump" guy JD Vance…Sound on for this one!

@amandala11 Drop the beat! 🔥 #dance #foryou #foryoupage #dancechallenge ♬ Never Trump Guy JD Vance House of Evo Remix - CasaDi