News Portland Mayor Charlie Hales promised upon taking office to cut non-essential expenses out of the city budget.
This afternoon, he announced the first one he's cutting: a public-private partnership to give summer jobs to teenagers.

Hales' office said today it will not bring to City Council two items it removed from the agenda earlier this month: A grant and a contrac...   More

News City Commissioner Amanda Fritz spent her nest egg last year—more than $375,000 of her own money—to buy four more years in Portland City Hall. “Most people could not and would not do what   More

News For five months, it's been clear that the only operational American-made streetcar has a list of glitches.Now Portland knows the bill.
In a contract amendment that goes before City Council on Wednesday, Portland Streetcar is asking the City of Portland for $145,000 to fix a malfunctioning propulsion system on the only streetcar that manufacturer United Streetcar has ...   More

News Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden sent a letter yesterday to President Barack Obama's nominee to lead the Central Intelligence Agency. The letter asks for the secret legal opinions that say when the president can kill Americans with drones.
That letter is getting    More

News For six years, Portland Fire & Rescue has been waging a border war against illegal fireworks from Washington state. Now it's looking to Washington, D.C. to fund that war.

Portland City Council will vote Wednesday to approve an application by the fire bureau for $120,000 in Federal Emergency Management Agency money.

The Assistance to Firefighters, Fire Preven...   More

News Update, 10:30 am: Sitting at his desk in the mayor's office, Hales repeated his call for weapons bans at the state and federal level.

"Every potential common-sense step ought to be considered," Hales said. "I don't believe we are without options here."

But the mayor's bully pulpit was interrupted by conservative talk radio host Lars Larson, who provided some soapboxing of his own in...   More

News Last month, WW spent a weekend at the Collectors West Gun and Knife Show, and reported that sales of AR-15-style semiautomatic rifles skyrocketed in the wake of mass shootings in Oregon and Connecticut.
“This is the busi...   More

News The Portland Building is notorious worldwide for the garish pastel facade towering over the Portlandia statue. Now the city worries it won't have the savings to keep the building and others owned by the city running as they should be.A city fin...   More

News Portland filmmaker Matt McCormick has discovered a real estate offer too good to exist: The owners of the defunct roadside attraction North Fork Survivors Gift Shop—which memorializes the 1980 explosion of Mount St. Helens and the subsequent death of Bigfoot—   More

News Mayor Charlie Hales has promised to shake up the city bureau that is supposed to maintain Portland’s streets—and the   More