Sung Koo Kim

* The Multnomah County District Attorney's Office and the Portland Police Bureau are now looking at serial panty thief Sung Koo Kim as a suspect in the May 24 Corvallis disappearance of Brooke Wilberger. Informed little birds say security officials at Lewis & Clark College had been pressing those two agencies for a full investigation and prosecution of Kim for more than a year after red flags were raised by a questionable encounter with Kim on the L&C campus in Portland. The college also circulated Kim's description to other campuses, apparently playing a pivotal role in eventually bringing the full scope of his wide-ranging activities to authorities' attention.

* Will Fight Club be the new Hairspray? As odd as it might sound, Chuck Palahniuk announced at a recent reading that there is interest in turning his breakout novel (which, in turn, was transformed into a cult film) into a Broadway musical. Discussions are in the works with the film director of Fight Club, David Fincher. Prepare for reprises of "It's a Hard Knock Life."

* Déjà Drew: Former Assistant Police Chief Andrew Kirkland's checkered record in Portland included apparently sleeping with a girlfriend while on the clock ("Internal Affairs," WW, Jan. 15, 1997), mysteriously getting shot while visiting a woman--not his wife--late at night, and allegedly raping a prostitute ("Chief Concerns," WW, May 22, 2002). Two weeks ago, he was nevertheless named interim chief in Glendale, Ariz., but already trouble is brewing. Murmurs hears Kirkland's wife, a former Portland cop, has dumped him to return to the Rose City because Kirkland has reportedly been consorting with a female Glendale cop.

* Lots of personnel changes on the City Hall campaign trail: Ashley Henry, City Council candidate Nick Fish's campaign manager, has departed, as has Austin Raglione, who managed the primary campaign for Fish's opponent, Sam Adams. Both candidates say the partings were amicable. Mayoral candidate Tom Potter, meanwhile, has added Nancy Hamilton to manage his campaign, while keeping his other staffers in place. Hamilton, a leader in the K-12 funding battle and manager of City Commissioner Dan Saltzman's Children's Initiative, brings a potent Rolodex to Potter's campaign.

* This week the Portland Police Bureau will get its intelligence back by largely withdrawing from the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force. Since 2000, the bureau's seven-person criminal intelligence unit had been on loan to the JTTF, meaning the bureau--to many cops' dismay--had little idea what's actually going on in Portland's criminal underworld. On July 1, five of the seven intelligence cops will return to the bureau to focus on Portland.

* Rabid protesters swarm the streets. The president's safety, as he cruises in his limo to big-dollar fundraisers, is not guaranteed. The commander-in-chief manages to dodge the scrum of screaming leftists, only to find he must share a hotel with...raucous gay softball players! Such is the opening scene of Misunderestimated: The President Battles Terrorism, John Kerry, and the Bush Haters, a new book by Washington Times White House correspondent Bill Sammon. The sympathetic account of Dubya's tumultuous reign opens in Portland, during the infamous 2002 Hilton Hotel fundraiser for U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith that coincided with chaotic street protests and the Gay Softball World Series.