by Suzette Smith The Mercury provides its readers with interesting and useful news & culture reporting every single day. If you appreciate that, consider making a small monthly contribution to support our editorial team. If you read something you like, something you don't like but are glad to know about, and/or something you can't find anywhere else consider a one-time tip. It all goes in the same pot and it all goes to the editorial team. Thanks for your support! Good Morning, Portland! And bless this Second Rain Event, following quickly on the heels of the Bomb Cyclone we weathered earlier in the week. The good news is that we may be headed the direction of chilly and dry, just in time for SOME PEOPLE to have the day off. Let's hit the news! IN LOCAL NEWS:• Northwest neighborhood residents were asked to shelter in place yesterday—from early afternoon until 4 pm—as Portland police conducted a perimeter search for a breaking and entering suspect who appeared to be armed with a gun. Police said the suspect was known to the person who made the report, she was uninjured, and the suspect had already left her home. Police forces set up a perimeter around NW 19th and Upshur where they surrounded a tent, decided there was "no safe way to know if the tent was occupied with an armed suspect," and called Special Emergency Reaction Team (SERT) and Crisis Negotiation Team (CNT), who determined no one was in the tent. The suspect is still being sought. • FROM THE INBOX: An Amtrak train hit a tree on Tuesday, during the bomb cyclone weather event and as it was traveling between Vancouver, Canada and Seattle. The tree actually went through the engine room window(!) but a release from Amtrak reported that the engineer was treated at the hospital and released. The 48 passengers on the train also appeared unharmed, and were "provided alternate transportation to their final destinations."  • According to Portland Police Bureau, the scale of our city's sex trafficking is significant. The Bureau says it offered assistance and resources to roughly 30 people during a two-month effort from PPB’s Human Trafficking Unit. They also arrested 27 people for prostitution-related charges. And one of the people they arrested was a recently retired Portland police sergeant named Christopher Kenagy.  Mercury news editor Courtney Vaughn has more. • Also troubling, bird flu is back! Bird flu is racing through farms, but Northwest states are rarely test workers[image or embed] — Ryan Haas (@ryanjhaas.bsky.social) November 22, 2024 at 7:09 AM • The news is kind of ALL SAD lately so here's a humor post from Cheese & Crack for your sanity preservation.           View this post on Instagram                       A post shared by Cheese & Crack (@cheeseandcrack) • Dominic Sinacola's review of Gladiator II doesn't pull any punches, declaring that Ridley Scott's follow up to his ultra-masc 2000 hit is an essentially meaningless "series of heroic fights" with "jacked-up howler monkeys and ravenous sharks swimming alongside mock battleships in the flooded Colosseum." In a response to a rousing speech about Rome's lost honor, Sinacola writes "one wonders what honor he's talking about. These other guys are hanging on his every word because he ripped a howler monkey’s throat out with his teeth?" And now I want to see the movie even more. • Before you step into the deluge that is national / world news, get quizzy with this week's Pop Quiz PDX, wherein Wm Steven Humphrey asks if you remember what the Roseland Theater did to honor Price performing two sold out shows there in 2013? WELL, DO YOU KNOW? IN NATIONAL / WORLD NEWS:• Wow, this bullshit with Matt Gaetz has been a journey. After being appointed for the position of Attorney General by impending president Donald Trump, Gaetz stepped down from his position as a congressman, representing Florida in the House. It turned out he abandoned his post just two days before the House Ethics Committee was slated to produce a report that may have included information about Gaetz paying underage people for sex at drug-fueled parties. Though he thought that dipping out of House-town meant the report was no longer necessary, it turned out that both Republican and Democratic Senators were demanding to see the report before they would confirm him to the position. ANYWAY, on, Thursday Gaetz ditched again and withdrew his name from consideration. This isn't the last we've heard of this ween, but in the meanwhile... can't wait to see what other nightmare Trump can appoint. • Following up what the NYT called "the earliest such failed cabinet pick in modern history," (Fuck you; you're historic—NYT) Trump's administration had another idea just hours later, announcing Trump's new nominee is Pam Bondi, who was Florida's attorney general from 2011-2019. Now, people are going to be weird about the fact that she's a lady, blonde, and shares the physical features that Trump constantly talks about, BUT what we should really pay attention to are things like her financial backing from the Church of Scientology, illegal donations Trump made to her campaigns (which may have influenced the Florida AG office's decision to ignore fraud complaints about Trump University), her support of Trump's false voter fraud allegations in the 2020 election, and her dutiful filing of lawsuits—leading up to the 2024 election—seeking to create roadblocks to certifying votes. She's a lot.  • As you may know, Delaware recently elected the first trans woman to serve as a US Representative, Sarah McBride. True to form, the House is welcoming her with historic levels of crocodile tears. Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina introduced a resolution Monday to restrict McBride from using women's restrooms at the US Capitol. House Speaker, Mike Johnson responded by decreeing "that lawmakers and staff will have to use restrooms corresponding with their biological sex." To be clear, Sarah McBride won't begin her term as a representative for SIX MORE WEEKS, and these people are losing their shit over nothing. Mace in particular has a solid reputation as a politician motivated primarily by an inexhaustible appetite for attention. McBride responded with the coolest head out of any, calling the effort a way to “distract from the real issues facing this country." LA Times reports, McBride said “I’m not here to fight about bathrooms. I’m here to fight for Delawareans and to bring down costs facing families." • Just want to signal boost my thoughtful colleague Vivian McCall on this: Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) introduced a bill to ban trans people from using the bathroom, locker room, or changing facility on all federal property. This will not protect anyone, but it is an attempt to push trans people out of public life. pic.twitter.com/P9rko7Esqj — Vivian McCall (@vivmccall) November 20, 2024 • You gotta love a company as petty as American Air, because they looked around at how grumpy and traumatized their airline is decided to make the boarding pass gate scanners buzz in a mean way if you board before your section is called. Yes, queen. Exercise your small power over others. • As Wm. Steven Humphrey noted yesterday, International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's former defense minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Mohammed Deif, accusing all three of crimes against humanity. Aside from the idea that Deif might already be dead—Israeli forces claim they killed him in July—does that... DO ANYTHING? I found this NPR breakdown useful because I am not convinced it does anything. Still, it's good to say "yo, those are crimes against humanity, dawg." • And finally, some helpful tips for defusing and distracting a cryptobro—I used a variation of this on a guy trying to sell me obviously stolen baseball cards. It's. the. same. Remember. If you talk to a grifter, you're ALREADY IN THE GRIFT.           View this post on Instagram                       A post shared by Morning Brew (@morningbrew)