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Good Morning, Portland! The solar eclipse occurring on Monday, April 8 is still happening nowhere near us. Let’s hit the news!

IN LOCAL NEWS:
• Remember those scammers that bilked the Housing Bureau and Central City Concern out of nearly $1.5 million in 2022? They gott’m. Well, they got the one in Florida. 

• Local environmental advocates are hopeful that the city’s new Sustainability and Climate Commission will not be total weak sauce. To read more about a hearing… about the ordinance… to create it… check on this story by Mercury reporter Taylor Griggs.

• Longstanding vegan stronghold Blossoming Lotus closed the doors of its Irvington-neighborhood restaurant yesterday… a little earlier than the owners originally planned. There was such a strong turn out for live nachos nostalgia that they ran out of product. Yeah, closing the NE Portland location is the end of an era, but you can still go to the cafe in Slabtown. They don’t have those dang raw crackers covered in cashew cheese, but IDK maybe that’ll change.

• Speaking of vegan options:

PIZZA LOVERS REJOICE! 😍 The Mercury’s annual (and delicious!) PIZZA WEEK is heading your way starting April 15 with $3 slices from more than 50 (!!) local pizza geniuses! Omilord, take a peek at those pies! 🍕https://t.co/ZyBKZDXEV9

— Portland Mercury 🗞 (@portlandmercury) April 4, 2024

• Now, putting a word like “peaen” in a piece, let alone in a headline, is not something I do lightly, but it’s the right word to describe Dev Patel’s directorial debut Monkey Man—which critic Dom Sinacola describes in his review for the Mercury. “From Buster Keaton breaking his neck on Sherlock, Jr., to Johnny Knoxville breaking his neck on Jackass Forever, cinema is, down to its bones, an art of violence,” Sinacola writes. “Dev Patel seems to know this intuitively. Monkey Man, the British actor’s directorial debut, is a paean to the transformative, spiritual power of cinematic violence.”

• As internet culture newsletter Garbage Day reported earlier in the week, data from a hedge fund that invests in the New York Times shows that the nation’s leading newspaper is actually… less popular than its games. It actually makes sense to me that reading the news and doing a puzzle would go together nicely—in a pop psychology conjecture way—because keeping up with events often creates feelings of passive, observatory powerlessness. So, by all means, get puzzlin’. Thank goodness that our EiC’s Pop Quiz PDX provides both benefits.

• Your Friday morning ticket drop is arriving shortly and the Portland Mercury EverOut calendar team has drawn up a list of shows hitting the streets. The crop looks pretty mid, but feel free to angrily email that I’m wrong about that.

IN NATIONAL / INTERNATIONAL NEWS:
• On Monday, seven World Central Kitchen aid workers were killed by an Israeli strike after a food drop in Gaza. Yesterday, President Biden spoke with Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and according to a press release from the White House, “emphasized that the strikes on humanitarian workers and the overall humanitarian situation are unacceptable.” Sure, that should have been obvious from the beginning. But the Biden administration is at least now saying that US policy regarding Gaza, going forward, will be based on what Israel does now, and the US “assessment of Israel’s immediate action on these steps.”

• This morning Israel’s military announced it would fire the senior military officers involved with the strike and that the officers would be reprimanded.

• Related / unrelated? McDonalds is buying back 225 of its franchised businesses in Israel.

McDonalds will buy back all of its 225 franchised restaurants in Israel, the company said on Thursday. The deal comes after franchises there donated thousands of meals to Israeli soldiers after Oct. 7, which set off boycotts that have hurt its business. https://t.co/5xI3XbR88q

— The New York Times (@nytimes) April 5, 2024

• Associated Press national political reporter Michelle Price has collected “a striking chorus of detractors” who don’t support a second term for former President Donald Trump. The twist? A “mind-boggling” number of them come from Trump’s first term cabinet and White House team.

• British billionaire Joe Lewis received a judgement this week—of $5 million in fines and three years of probation—for spilling insider trading stock tips. A US judge handed down the decision yesterday. “I am here today because I made a terrible mistake,” he told the court. CNBC reports that Lewis “pleaded guilty in January to one count of conspiracy and two counts of securities fraud.” Lololol, listen to this. “The judge agreed that Lewis could leave the US on his private aircraft on Thursday night, though his yacht, the Aviva, will be held until his fine is paid.” 💁

• Beyoncé has revealed the full credits for her new album Cowboy Carter on her site. We’d heard that Jean Dawson worked on one of her songs, but hadn’t looked into which one—turns out it was “Flamenco.”

• And now to greet the day:

 

 
 

 
 

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