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! After a partly cloudy morning, the sunny sun returns today with temps popping up to 81, and 87 on Saturday! (So I guess you gloomy Gus winter-lovers will have to bide your time a bit longer.) Now let's read some only partially gloomy NEWS!

IN LOCAL NEWS:

• You've probably noticed the intense efforts to revoke the voter-approved Measure 110 which prioritizes drug treatment over criminalization (a method that has never, and will never, work). However, Portland City Council certainly didn't get that memo, and on Wednesday voted 5-0 to shove through an illegal ordinance that would criminalize public hard drug use, thereby pushing it back into the shadows. (As you know, Council is much more interested in hiding problems from their rich benefactors rather than working to solve the city's most pressing issues.) Did I mention hard-liner Commissioner Rene Gonzalez was behind this new ordinance? Right... you correctly assumed that already. In any case, can't wait to vote every one of these willfully ignorant, blustering, theatrical show-ponies out of office! JOIN ME, WON'T YOU? (Our Courtney Vaughn has all the details in her banger of a story. Read it, and be educated.) 

• Speaking of rich people problems, three shitty rich white guys from the Lake Oswego investment firm Aequitas Capital have been sentenced to federal prison for bilking millions from their investors, and attempting to cover up the company's crumbling financial situation. YAY! More of this (sending shitty rich white guys to the slammer), please! 

• SHOCKING TAKE!! If the below is true, then why am I paying for meth?

• A judge in Harney County, Oregon gave the state some good news in his ruling on Measure 114, one of the toughest gun restriction laws in the nation. Instead of granting gun-lovers wishes to invalidate the measure due to questions on how it will be put into effect, the judge will only hear if the gun control measure is lawful as written. The trial is set to start on September 18, and will only last a few days, thank god.

• Black Artists of Oregon, a PAM exhibition of more than 200 works from 67 artists, is the "first of its kind to consider the work of Black artists collectively in Oregon." While that's a little shocking, the show’s curator Intisar Abioto has a beautiful outlook on it. Don't miss this great piece from our Fall Arts Guide! 

• Portland-based Family Worship Center preaches the gospel of rock 'n' roll. And their new album, Kicked Out of the Garden, is music for the weary travelers, the aimless ramblers, the unrepentant sinners, and the true believers. Check out the review (and this weekend's show preview) from Karly Quadros!

IN NATIONAL/WORLD NEWS:

• According to a new biography about Twitter-ruiner Elon Musk, the tech billionaire allegedly and unilaterally decided to cut off Ukraine's internet during a planned attack on Russian ships last year. The reported reason? Musk thought the attack might lead to nuclear war. WHY DO I NOT BELIEVE HIM, LIKE, AT ALL?

• Pop up some corn, the special grand jury report which recaps the case against Trump in Fulton County, Georgia, has just been released, and we're due to find out which of the other Trump co-conspirators were recommended by the jury to be indicted. (Someone should really put out a series of baseball cards of these people—with their criminal stats—so we can tell them apart.)

• Danny Masterson, one of the stars of the sitcom That ’70s Show, has been sentenced to 30 years in prison after being found guilty of raping two women in his Hollywood Hills home in the early 2000s. The women, as well as Masterson, were members of the Church of Scientology, whose spokespeople quickly and vehemently denied that they tried to cover up Masterson's crimes, adding that the church had absolutely NOTHING to do with this situation, like AT ALL, in a suspicious statement that one might say "doth protest too much."

• Hurricane Lee is gathering steam in the Atlantic Ocean and has grown into a dangerous Category 5 storm—though it's too early to tell whether it will cause widespread damage to the eastern US.

• Headline of the day: "Coast Guard arrests a man trying to run a giant hamster wheel across the Atlantic." Ummm... why can't they just let people live??

• And finally... hope your weekend is filled with sneaky (consensual) kisses.