Portland Mercury66%
Good Morning, News: Wildfires Everywhere, People Still Hate Data Centers, and Maybe Business People Trashing on Portland Was a Bad Idea After All. 32%
By Jeremiah Hayden43%
7/31/2026, 8:40:15 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 31 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Emotion, Biased Writer Voice, and Ambiguity (Equivocation), with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 29% saturation with 313 hits. Analysis detected 1,660 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,078 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 36.2% and a BS Rank of 32% (17,264 of 25,185 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 68.50% of the article peer group.
Firefighters work at the Rowe Creek fire, in Fossil, Oregon.
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Good morning, Portland!
July is wrapping up, and the hottest thing in town this August is the 10-day forecast.
These trends don’t appear to be changing anytime soon.
We’ve got a high of 86 today with a little relief tomorrow, then its’ 80s and 90s all through next week.
Don’t forget to stay hydrated.
Let’s get to the news 📰
• Oregon Governor Tina Kotek on Thursday said she plans to cancel the sale of state lands to a company from California wants to build a data center.
According to reporting by the Oregonian , Kotek will cancel the sale of 32 acres of land in Salem that Verrus where the company planned to build a $5 billion data center.
The move came days after a Salem City Council meeting on Monday, during which Salemites were reportedly outraged about the plan, in part because the deal had been made under a nondisclosure agreement.
City councilors had also been left in the dark, and on Monday were consider enacting a moratorium on new data centers in the city.
• Portland Trail Blazers (complimentary) top business officials (derogatory) appeared at City Hall on Thursday to continue their demand that the city enact socialism for the rich and pay millions in public funds to renovate the Moda Center.
But their demands didn’t stop at the city’s initial terms, which would address most of what Blazers officials have demanded publicly thus far.
The team also utilized some stereotypes about Portland that have gathered steam over the past few years, saying the city must address its reputation on the national stage (and of course, lower income taxes) if it wants a deal with the team.
Blazers businessman Dewayne Hankins said, “Portland’s current stagnant business climate, high income taxes, and divisive political environment make this a tough city to invest in,” according to this reporting by OPB.
Maybe six years of the local business community’s ad hominem attacks on our lovely city wasn’t such a good idea after all.
A total of 97 official complaints have been filed with the state regarding the Enhanced Community Safety initiative.
State election officials say that’s the most complaints they’ve seen on a single petition since adopting a record-keeping system seven years ago.
- OPB (@opb.org) 2026-07-31T14:41:54.641Z
• Fires are still burning all across Oregon, with no end in sight.
NPR reported earlier this week that Oregon is on track for its worst wildfire season yet .
About a million acres have been burned by 34 wildfires, many of them in Central Oregon.
Still, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has denied two requests from Governor Kotek for firefighting assistance grants.
(It approved three other requests.)
Oregon Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden are speaking out , saying the denials are a departure from past practices and that state resources are strained (more here ).
Meanwhile, the state is on a fire watch Saturday, and a statewide hotline for people impacted by wildfires is now active.
It’s worth noting that in the 1970s and 1980s, fossil fuel companies engaged in a disinformation campaign to downplay scientists warnings that burning fossil fuels causes climate change.
That was roughly 50 years ago.
(Good info to have if you’re looking for someone to rightly blame—then and now.)
• Pickathon is this weekend!
A Spice Girls bike ride too!
Also, a ceramics artist explores climate anxiety and eco grief , Northwest Hardcore Fest hits The Off Beat, and more.
Check out this week’s Do This, Do That column, the best music calendar in town, for more weekend recommendations.
IN NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL NEWS:
• President Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, Todd Blanche, is currently held up in the US Senate.
That’s because two Republicans and a bunch of Democrats have demanded assurances from Blanche that a $1.8 billion Internal Revenue Service slush fund won’t be activated, but the nominee has failed to do so.
Some senators are concerned that the money, which was created to pay out allies of Dear Leader, including those who attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Today, Trump is yelling about it on social media, saying Blanche “should be immediately approved.”
Blanche was Trump’s personal defense lawyer prior to his nomination.
More on this one in the Guardian.
We've gotta make the Monorail Simpsons episode required viewing for every city councilor in the country.
Every single thing he says here is a lie.
A Potemkin Village Imaginarium.
- Ben Collins (@bencollins.bsky.social) 2026-07-31T14:44:12.278Z
• Roughly 60,000 migrants have crossed from Morocco into Ceuta—a small autonomous territory in Spain—in the past day, and at least 41 have died attempting the crossing.
The Associated Press reports that half of the initial group has already crossed back into Morocco, but Spain is now facing a humanitarian crisis that its prime minister blames on human smugglers.
Pedro Sánchez said the smugglers “deceive so many young people, and ultimately lead many of them to their deaths.”
Migrants said they’re leaving Morocco because they work long days for “meager wages,” and are hoping for better opportunities in Spain.
The AP has more on this story here .
We messed up!
During a segment earlier this week about the risks of artificial intelligence, we shared a quote purportedly by author Naomi Klein that was itself AI-generated.
She joined us on today's program to discuss the viral spread of the words falsely attributed to her.
- Democracy Now!
(@democracynow.org) 2026-07-31T14:43:34.972079728Z
• Hamas is expected to hand over weapons to a new administration in Gaza, but the deal is contingent on Israel withdrawing its troops.
Hamas is reportedly to hand over weapons to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, which was established by the Board of Peace—a somewhat informal group of Trump cronies who are likely to use Palestinians’ land to do real estate deals.
The deal to remove weapons appears a bit unlikely to succeed, as Israel says it won’t leave Gaza until a “genuine disarmament” of Hamas.
Much more to the story here .
• Take care of yourselves, and each other.
Have a good weekend.
Analysis
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