by Courtney Vaughn The Mercury provides news and fun every single day—but your help is essential. If you believe Portland benefits from smart, local journalism and arts coverage, please consider making a small monthly contribution, because without you, there is no us. Thanks for your support! Good morning, Portland! You’ll need a raincoat today, but you may not need a ton of layers. We’re in for a high of 53 degrees and a low of 49.  In Local News: • Portland Fire Chief Ryan Gillespie, who took the helm in spring 2023, will retire next spring. Gillespie, who hardly looks a day over 40, has already put in enough years of service to retire from Portland Fire & Rescue. After Gillespie’s departure, Portland will have had three fire chiefs in two years.    • ICYMI: a recent grand jury report released by the DA’s Office found Multnomah County’s jails and one prison are nearing a crisis point due to understaffing and an ongoing shortage of public defenders. As Street Roots summarized, “The report found issues with facility maintenance, health care and staff to prisoner ratios, exacerbated by the ongoing statewide public defender crisis.” • New Year’s Eve is just a couple of weeks away, and TriMet wants to remind you not to be an idiot. In an effort to discourage drunk driving, the transit agency is offering free bus and MAX train rides on Dec. 31, starting at 8pm. You’re not a true Portlander unless you’ve been at least a little tipsy on a MAX train (or had to suffer the obnoxious drunks) at least once. • Speaking of planning ahead, if you’re looking for things to do this week, check out the best little entertainment calendar in PDX!           View this post on Instagram                       A post shared by Reductress (@reductress) In National/World News: • A teacher and teen were killed Monday at a private school in Wisconsin. The school shooting happened in a small study hall at Abundant Life Christian School. According to media reports, a 15-year-old girl killed two and wounded at least six others in the shooting, before shooting herself. She died en route to a hospital. The incident marks the 83rd school shooting this year, according to CNN. • The Ohio State University is leaning on a recent federal court ruling to yank away pay raises promised to more than 300 salaried employees. Earlier this year, the US Department of Labor published rules limiting the exemptions for salaried employees, in an effort to prevent employers from exploiting salaried workers with grueling hours and no overtime pay. The Department of Labor’s ruling said any employee making less than $43,888 a year should receive overtime pay if they work more than 40 hours a week. In 2025, that threshold for OT pay was scheduled to jump to $58,656. But in November, a federal court in Texas struck down the Department of Labor’s rules, saying the pay threshold was too high (GTFOH!) After the November ruling, the Ohio State University sent notices to hundreds of employees that the recent pay raises they’d gotten as a result of the Biden administration’s rules would be reversed.  • Despite a recent Supreme Court ruling, a New York judge upheld a jury’s decision that Donald Trump isn’t protected by presidential immunity in his hush money trial just because he will soon be pooping in a White House toilet again. The decision is a blow to Trump’s efforts to shield evidence from being used against him. The ruling doesn’t address Trump’s request to have the case dismissed entirely. They mocked our space lasers, but look who needs them now.[image or embed] — Woodrow Peel                                  🆗🆒 (@woodyluvscoffee.bsky.social) December 16, 2024 at 9:27 PM • Bacteria is generally bad (except the good kind?), but a group of nearly 40 scientists across nine countries is warning of the potentially deadly consequences of “mirror bacteria.” In a report published in Science, they say researchers are already looking at ways to create synthetic organisms with unnatural molecular structures that are essentially the inverse of those found in nature. The technology isn’t currently available to make mirror bacteria, but some scientists are already moving in that direction, sparking major concern. “Driven by curiosity and plausible applications, some researchers had begun work toward creating lifeforms composed entirely of mirror-image biological molecules,” the group writes. Keep your Frankenstein Petri dish away! The world has enough problems.            View this post on Instagram                       A post shared by WeRateDogs (@weratedogs)