🌱 Deadly Rabbit Virus In Multnomah+Portland Gas Gets Cheaper

Hello, Portland, and happy Wednesday. Ah, yes, the blandest of the weekdays. Not here, though, because the Bridge City knows how to spice things up. Here's what's happening today.

First, today's weather:

We've got sun all day and a high of 88. That's summer for you.

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Here are the top stories today in Portland:

1. Thousands of people live on the streets of Portland, yet some of the city's homeless villages consistently have empty beds. After reaching out to 10 organized homeless villages, KGW found it’s not uncommon for these types of emergency shelters to have empty beds, and the reason for this isn’t black and white. “Shelter doesn't end people's homelessness and not everybody wants to be in a shelter and it's not required for you to go through a shelter to be able to move back into housing,” said Shannon Singleton, the head of the Joint Office of Homeless Services. (KGW.com)
2. Vandals have struck the campaign headquarters of Portland City Council hopeful Rene Gonzalez. A pointed object or series of projectiles struck four windows displaying Gonzalez campaign signs at the office building on Southwest 11th Avenue near Salmon Street sometime between Sunday evening and Monday afternoon, said campaign manager Shah Smith. “I don’t think they’re supporters of our campaign, whoever it was,” Smith said. (OregonLive)
3. Rabbit owners beware! State officials on Monday reported that a disease which causes rabbits to die suddenly had been detected in Multnomah County. The Oregon State University Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory confirmed rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus 2 (RHDV2) in domestic rabbits living in Multnomah County after seven rabbits died over a 72-hour period. An ODA district veterinarian investigated, and OSU confirmed RHDV2 on July 28. (KPTV)
4. What's happening on Hayden Island? The Oregon Department of State Lands says it is considering whether to close a section of the Columbia riverbank on Hayden Island at night because of “uncontrolled fires, threats of violence, abandoned shopping carts and vehicles, and trash.” The land around it is owned by Thunderbird Hotel LLC. It was the site of the Thunderbird Hotel, which was built in 1971, abandoned in 2005, and went up in a five-alarm fire in 2012. (Willamette Week)
5. While gassing up your vehicle in Portland has gotten cheaper, the average price per gallon still remains above $5. GasBuddy, a tech company that monitors real-time fuel prices, said Monday that the average price per gallon of gas in Portland has fallen 11.7 cents in the last week and now averages $5.15. This price is 40.8 cents per gallon lower than it was a month ago, but still nearly $1 more than the national average gas price of $4.17 per gallon. (KOIN.com)

Today in Portland:

• Music on Main takes place downtown featuring Grupo Masato. Grupo Masato is a multi-ethnic Portland-based band that plays highly irresistible danceable music from Latin America! A powerful combination of chicha, cumbia and Afro Peruvian music that invites all ages to meet on the dance floor and celebrate our diversity. 5:00 PM.
• Rebel Rebel PDX presents Cabaret Queens, an all live singing drag show. Featuring Coco Jem Holiday, Autumn Rainz, Babylon Brooks, Sequin McQueen, Lexi Siren and the Taco Supremes. Doors open at 7:30 PM.
• The Church of Film presents THE WOMAN OF THE PORT at the Clinton Street Theater. THE WOMAN OF THE PORT is an early masterpiece of the golden age of Mexican Cinema, an intricate, beautiful, and shocking piece of cinema with striking influence from German Expressionism and the films of Sergei Eisenstein. Showtime is 8:00 PM.
• Come see Ha Vay at Kelly's Olympian in downtown Portland. Ha Vay is a San Francisco-based artist romanticizing her life to cinematic proportions. She'll be joined by indie dreampop artist Chipped Nail Polish and folk singer Mac Cornish. Showtime is 8:00 PM.
• If you're in a literary mood, swing by Powell's City of Books for a conversation between Chelsea T. Hicks and Trevino L. Brings Plenty. A member of the Osage tribe, author Chelsea T. Hicks’s stories are compelled by an overlooked diaspora happening inside America itself: that of young Native people. Hicks will be joined in conversation by filmmaker, musician, and poet Trevino L. Brings Plenty, author of Wakpa´ Wana´gi Ghost River and Real Indian Junk Jewelry. The talk starts at 7:00 PM.

From my notebook:

• Travel Portland: "The Bridge Pedal takes over Bridgetown on August 14 and there is still time to register! This annual event is family-friendly and includes riding options for all ages and abilities. Detail in the link in our bio. Let's go! #ThisIsPortlan..." (Travel Portland via Instagram)
• Portland Audubon: "Lazuli Buntings typically build their nests in dense vegetation around 3 feet off the ground, at the edge of a bush (like an Oregon grape). Leaves, grass, and strips of bark are gathered and then spiderwebs or caterpillar silk hold the m..." (Portland Audubon via Instagram)
• Portland Art Museum: "“Magnifying everything” is what Cornelia Parker does best, examining important issues through the lives of objects in her sculptural and installation works. In “Unsettled (Jerusalem),” Parker takes found wood from the streets of Jerusale..." (Portland Art Museum via Instagram)
• Public Service Announcement time! For people that witness an animal or child locked inside a hot car, an Oregon state law allows you to act quickly to save them. Oregon passed a law in 2017 that gives people the right to break into a vehicle to save the life of a child or animal trapped inside in imminent danger. But there’s a catch, you are supposed to call law enforcement first. (KOIN)
• Financially, the pandemic hit many families hard. Portland is trying to help those people, with the help of a federal grant, through the Afloat: Utility Debt Relief program. The Portland Water Bureau and the Bureau of Environmental Services used funding from the American Rescue Plan Act to give bill credits to qualifying households with debt related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The program was developed with the African American Alliance for Homeownership, the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization, the Native American Youth and Family Center (NAYA), and Verde. (1190 KEX)
• It's another Portland brewery tour. This time, it's two best friends, Scott and Aaron, from the YouTube channel Beers n' Buddies, visiting 8 different breweries. One of those breweries makes gluten-free beer, which is no easy feat. If you're familiar with these breweries, you can tell that this is an old video, because they walk through the 5th Quadrant (Lompoc Brewing) in North Portland, which is no longer there. (YouTube)

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Have a great day, folks. I'll be back tomorrow to catch you up on what's going on in Portland.

— Dominic Anaya

About me: Doctor, educator and now a writer/artist, I'm just chillin' in Portland, OR with my wife, our ferrets, our chickens and our goats.

Have a news tip or suggestion for an upcoming Portland Daily? Contact me at portland@patch.com