It's only Friday? Feels like Monday. by Jeremiah Hayden

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Good morning, Portland! Here's comes the sun.

It's been a busy few days, let's get straight into it.

IN LOCAL NEWS:

An East Portland resident says he was ambushed by men in tactical gear who drew guns on him and tried to pry him from his vehicle. Home surveillance footage shows three men in plain clothes emerge from an unmarked SUV, then immediately indicate they mistook the man in the vehicle for someone else. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to questions asking whether the men in the footage were sworn agents or impersonators. The Mercury's Courtney Vaughn got a hold of the video, which you can read about and watch here. This happened the same day the city was considering a bill that would ban law enforcement officers from wearing masks in the city, which seems like a good thing to do for obvious reasons. Whether a secret police force will obey a local law intended to keep them not-so-secret is another question, but everything that isn't nothing seems worth trying.
Lil jaunt from Portland to Tacoma:

Americans can be awesome too.

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— Kevin Rothrock (@kevinrothrock.me) January 16, 2026 at 8:34 AM

This was a big week at Portland City Council. If you read Good Morning, News earlier this week, you know that a bunch of racist texts a local developer and some of his conservative activist friends sent in a group chat caused a bit of a stir during the election for a new council president. And you also know that one councilor, Dan Ryan, was publicly very upset about... oh, wait... the reporter? Not the texts, just the reporter? Well, he issued an apology to the Mercury on Thursday, and that is a tough thing to do. Note: It's never too late for public servants to hold themselves accountable, and if they decide not to, well, that's what we're here for!
In local environmental news and anti-environmental tech:

The Dalles, a rural city in north-central Oregon, wants to expand its reservoir in the Mount Hood National Forest to store more water. While city officials say the water is needed for a growing population, environmental advocates worry it's really for Google and its growing number of data centers.

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— OPB (@opb.org) January 15, 2026 at 7:30 AM

LOCAL CULTURE:

Kristen Stewart's first feature film—eight years in the making—is an adaptation of Lidia Yuknavitch's 2011 memoir, The Chronology of Water. It's an often brutal and often beautiful portrait of the Oregon writer's life, told through fragmented memories and dreamy 16mm. Our own Lindsay Costello has a gorgeous review of the film, in which themes of trauma and grief come in waves, but not without some levity.
Gus Van Sant’s first feature in seven years is an uncomplicated potboiler that returns the Portland director to his true crime roots. For the Mercury, Dom Sinacola describes Al Pacino’s accent in Dead Man’s Wire as “ambien’d-up Foghorn Leghorn” via this stunning review.

IN NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL NEWS:

Oh, come on. President Trump's war on Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil continues through an endless appeals process after a federal appeals panel ruled in favor of the Trump administration Thursday. The 2-1 decision could pave the way for Khalil's rearrest, after the court ruled that New Jersey didn't have the right to order his release because the case must go through the full immigration court process first. He isn't supposed to be, but the feds don't exactly follow this stuff very well. Importantly, the panel did not decide whether is was constitutional for the administration to throw him out due to his activism and criticism of Israel (ahem, it wasn't, and it isn't complicated). Some court will one day decide if violating the First Amendment violates the First Amendment, but for now we wait to hear if Khalil can freely live with his family in the "freest country in the world"—unlike the many tens of thousands of Palestinian people he was advocating for. Read more on the story here.

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The death of Geraldo Lunas Campos, a man who died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody in early January, may be investigated as a homicide. The local medical examiner in El Paso, Texas reportedly told the family that Campos' preliminary cause of death was “asphyxia due to neck and chest compression," quite the opposite of the government's story following his death. The Guardian reports that 2025 was the immigration agency's deadliest year in two decades, and Campos was the second death that that facility. This is obviously the intended outcome for people like Trump advisor and expired hemorrhoid sausage Stephen Miller, but abolishing ICE is an altogether moderate option as well.
Meanwhile, a Minneapolis church is demonstrating a parallel universe in which people simply take care of their neighbors. In response to the onslaught of Proud Boys, I mean, federal agents in the city, 400 mutual aid volunteers have delivered some 12,000 boxes of food, with 20,000 people registered to receive food, according to Minneapolis Public Radio. There's a good interview here with the pastor, who says he thought, "what's going on here with ICE, families might be afraid of coming out," and just started doing it. It's nice to see a church putting its nonprofit status to good use. This is also, by the way, called anarchism.
Bummer for someone, probably:

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— The Independent (@the-independent.com) January 16, 2026 at 7:20 AM

Sources told the Mercury early Friday that it is a "big deal" that George R.R. Martin has spoken out about his long overdue books, particularly for those who consider themselves "dragon nerds." The "Game of Thrones" author talked to the Hollywood Reporter about his empire of fantasy novels, HBO shows, and spinoff concepts and his "tortured inability to 'finish the book, George," as his fans (and people who have definitely written one good, effortless paragraph this week) say. You can read the full story here.
Sliding into the weekend like:

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