Suzette Smith by Suzette Smith If you appreciate the Mercury's interesting and useful news culture reporting, consider making a small monthly contribution to support our editorial team. Your donation is tax-deductible. You can a lso subscribe and have our papers delivered! Good Morning, Portland: Courier Coffee pranked me pretty good yesterday, when they said they were closing due to the snowstorm. Thirty minutes later—my arms full of stolen kale—I actually checked the weather, and (while it's definitely cold out) it's not anywhere freezing. Coffee shops are not the news. Instagram is not the news. So let's hit the news. IN LOCAL NEWS:• Oh, I guess that's why odd-numbered voting bodies can be useful. Because even a body of 12 people can deadlock when six Portland city councilors support one person for council president and six select another. Despite burning in the fires of a nearly seven-hour meeting last night, Portland City Council did not succeed in approving a new council president. The vote remained evenly split between incumbent Elana Pirtle-Guiney and challenger Sameer Kanal. We published a primer on what to know going into the vote yesterday, and we'll have more when/if/while they make a decision. • In the fall, a group called Literary Portland for Palestine asked Portland Book Festival to divest from Wells Fargo sponsorship funding. They've since grown into a collective of writers and local arts organizations working to raise awareness. And because they're a literary organization, they're doing it with poems. A leeetle spicy: The poems will be read across the street from Literary Arts—the nonprofit that has put on PBF since 2015—at Mother Foucault's Bookshop. And an upcoming event presents the opportunity to hear the winner of the 2024 National Book Award for Poetry. • A man who served prison time for drug charges related to heroin distribution, nearly a decade ago, says he was told that the drugs led someone to overdose and die. That information determined the severity of his prison sentence, but just last month he filed a lawsuit against the Multnomah County DA’s Office and Portland Police Bureau because it turns out the person never died! Courtney Vaughn has more. • Meanwhile, Oregon's attorney general is back on his lawsuits.   Oregon’s attorney general is suing six of the nation’s largest pharmaceutical companies and pharmacy benefit managers for conspiring to artificially inflate insulin prices and other critical diabetes medications for years.[image or embed] — Oregon Capital Chronicle (@oregoncapitalchronicle.com) January 8, 2026 at 8:27 AM IN NATIONAL / INTERNATIONAL NEWS:• An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in Minneapolis, Minnesota shot and killed a 37-year-old woman named Renee Good on Wednesday morning. The killing happened on a neighborhood street, where ICE agents appeared to have stopped a car. In widely circulated video from the scene, Good can be seen waiting in an SUV. Agents approached Good and one pulled on the handle of her vehicle. Another walked around in front of her car. When Good turned to drive away, the agent who had walked in front of the car shot her. And while the Trump administration are no strangers to falsehoods, the lies from them in this situation  remind me of the old Michigan saying: "You can't lie about stuff we can see." They are lying though, with President Trump vociferously stating that Good "violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE officer." Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem gave an address, saying the ICE agent "defensively shot to protect himself and the people around him." 😑 Perhaps in response to those lies being super duper obvious, Noem followed up with another press conference on Wednesday evening, saying the as-yet-unnamed ICE agent "used his training to save his own life and that of his colleagues." Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey called attempts to frame the shooting as an act of self defense "bullshit." Minnesota governor Tim Walz announced he had "issued a warning order to prepare the Minnesota National Guard." It was not immediately clear what Walz was warning the guard to be ready for, but he said: "Minnesota will not allow our community to be used as a prop in a national political fight." • You've probably seen at least 20 "breakdowns" of the Minneapolis shooting, but the NYT video analysis is good. • Crowds of thousands gathered to mourn in Minneapolis on Wednesday night. In Portland, approximately 250 people held a candlelit vigil in Terry Schrunk Plaza. I am horrified by ICE's killing of Renee Nicole Good on Portland Avenue in Minneapolis today. ICE has no authority, legally or morally, to play judge, jury, or executioner, yet they continue to act as all three. #ICEOutOfMinneapolis #ReneeNicoleGood 1/2[image or embed] — Councilor Sameer Kanal (@councilorkanal.bsky.social) January 7, 2026 at 8:01 PM • Continuing to follow the ongoing story of US forces kidnapping Venezuela's president, it appears that President Trump's claims about the raid "left out key details that underscored the risks US troops faced," according to an investigation by NYT. And US service members were injured in the mission. • For now, it seems, the US will refrain from attacking Colombia. • Even more reasons why we are not invading Colombia, for now. BREAKING: Senate advances a war powers resolution to limit further attacks on Venezuela and sets up a vote for final passage.[image or embed] — The Associated Press (@apnews.com) January 8, 2026 at 9:02 AM • NYT journalists sat down with President Trump for two hours on Wednesday night, and the results are not very illuminating and quite a frustrating read. At one point, reporters pointed out that video of the Minneapolis shooting does not show the ICE agent being hit by Renee Good's vehicle and Trump "called for a staff member to bring a laptop and stand behind the Resolute Desk to show the reporters what he said would be evidence of Good’s wrongdoing." They all watched video of the killing together, and Trump said: “It’s a terrible scene... I hate to see it.” • The US Dept. of Agriculture and US Dept. of Health and Human Services released new nutrition guidance yesterday, and the nation is going low carb? Red meat, cheese, vegetables, and fruits appear at the top on an inverted pyramid, while grains—even whole ones—are slotted slim into the bottom. "I'm very disappointed in the new pyramid that features red meat and saturated fat sources at the very top, as if that's something to prioritize. It does go against decades and decades of evidence and research," Christopher Gardner, a nutrition expert at Stanford University, told NPR. US Dept. of Agriculture and US Dept. of Health and Human Services • Okay, listen. I know we love to hyperventilate about the children, but this NYT piece on how "the age of the book may be fading" is more than a little hyperbolic and frankly makes them look foolish. How many complete books did you personally read in high school? Granted I went to school in Michigan, but I was required to read, like... four. And one of those was Romeo and Juliet, which is a play and not very long. It's nothing new that students read textbook collections of literature. However, I will agree that Beloved is one of the most profound books every written, and folks should read all of that one.  • Sending you into Thursday with a pretty simple but well-executed joke.           View this post on Instagram                       A post shared by Jennifer Ann Counseling (@jenniferanncounseling) ...read more read less