Morning, all! We’re flipping the calendar to a new month, on Monday, April 1, 2019. The weather in Portland-town? Ooh. A 70% chance of rain, up to a quarter of an inch, with highs of 60, and either straight rain or occasional showers every day this week. Thursday and Thursday night could be extremely wet. Must be Spring Break in Washington! And there is a sneaker wave warning in effect on the south Oregon Coast from Florence to the California line. Sneaker waves have killed 22 people in Oregon since 1990. Sunrise 6:51 AM, sunset 7:38 PM.
Let’s begin with some great news. Confetti flew at the Moda Center as the University of Oregon beat top-seeded Mississippi State to claim the Ducks’ first spot ever in the Women’s Final Four. MVP Sabrina Ionescu scored 31 points, splashing down a three-pointer that gave her team a decisive six-point lead with a little over a minute left, and the Ducks finished an 88-84 win in the Elite Eight. Their opponent will be determined tonight.
Investigators are hoping home security video will help lead them to the cause of a ferocious fire at an apartment complex under construction in Wilsonville’s hilltop Villebois development. The three-alarm fire after midnight Saturday night destroyed not only the construction site but twenty nearby homes in the dense neighborhood, and blew out windows and bubbled siding on dozens of others. Some lost everything they owned, but I am so glad to say that nobody was hurt.
A woman started menacing people near Saturday Market with a gun that turned out to be fake. She was arrested.
It’s the first day back at school following Oregon Spring Break, and the beginning of Spring Term for community colleges around the area, Including PCC, CCC, and Mt. Hood Community College. Chemeketa too.
Today is April 1…are your studded tires off? If not, this may turn out to be a “fine” day! The snow level, by the way, is between 5 and 6000 feet.
If the morning commute from east Portland is even more fretful and throttled than usual, it’s because the inbound Burnside Bridge traffic is squeezed into just one lane–from now until Christmas.
Salem’s ban on plastic shopping bags at larger stores kicks in today. Bring your own reusable bags, or you get to pay a nickel for paper bags.
The bill to lower the blood alcohol definition of DUI in Oregon to .05% appears to be dead in the legislature. Same with the bill to legalize fireworks sales during several holiday periods, in addition to the 4th of July.
Say, the Market of Choice at Terwilliger and Taylors Ferry is closing in two weeks. That’s sad. Nice store. It took the place of another store whose owner burned it down in the days following 9/11, out of fear that business would tank.
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President Trump is threatening to close the southern border this week, and has cut off aid to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Pope Francis said that ” those who close borders will become prisoners of the walls that they build.”
What to make of the accusation that Joe Biden kissed a woman’s head without her consent, and sniffed her hair when she was running for Lt. Governor of Nevada five years ago? Perhaps pretty much what they both said. Her words: not sexual assault, but rather “an invasion of my personal space” and “a clear invasion of my bodily autonomy.” His words: “we have arrived at an important time when women feel they can and should relate their experiences, and men should pay attention. And I will.”
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The Blazers finish up their week on the road at Minnesota tonight at 5.
University of Oregon Ducks license plates go on sale today. There’s a $40 surcharge, and it goes to the alumni association.
Apple Computer was founded on this day in 1976. And now their products are at the core of our being.
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A little sweetness and light for your Monday? Right here:
—“Father and Daughter go to law school together, take bar together, and now sweat out the results together”
—“Girls earn plumbing merit badges for the first time as part of Boy Scouts”
—“Japanese sushi chain CEO literally lowers the piracy rate in Somalia by mass-training Somali pirates to become fishermen”
—“How real men settle who will get the parking spot'”
—“‘Google brain’ implants could mean anyone will be able to learn anything instantly”
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So it’s April Fools Day. I can pull a pretty good prank…long ago I tricked members of my news staff into grimly but gamely eating dandelions from my lawn, telling them it was a salad I’d made for them…and I used to pre-record the weather and play it back on the air while lip-syncing, then getting up and walking away in mid-sentence as Craig Walker gaped through the studio window. Now I have a great aversion to misleading people, but there are some great April Fools pranks out there. In London, where this is an art, the Duke of Portland (really!) won a bet with his friends when he claimed he could fill a performance hall by advertising that a man would squeeze himself into a wine bottle, and sing while inside it. The day came and the house was packed and when nobody appeared on stage, the poor duped people rioted. Are you particularly proud of a prank that you pulled, or chagrinned at having fallen for one? Share!
Hope you had a wonderful weekend!
Portland's Daily Drip 