Le Journal

by Suzette Smith If you appreciate the Mercury's interesting and useful news & culture reporting, consider making a small monthly contribution to support our editorial team. Your donation is tax-deductible. You can also subscribe and have our papers delivered! Good Morning, Portland! The cold continues this week and into next with low lows of 24 and 25 degrees possible. When it gets more reasonable, we get more rain. You've got two options, cold and bright or dank and wet. I know that I prefer dank and wet—let's hit the news! IN LOCAL NEWS:• Multnomah County leaders announced in a memo on Wednesday that they do not plan to install metal detectors in the Multnomah County's Central Library downtown. The library's research does not indicate metal detectors would meaningfully impact the "most frequent security incidents or alleviate community concerns,” County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson wrote. • Today in homegrown true crime horror: A jury in Clark County found 52-year-old Kevin West guilty of his wife's murder, after swift deliberation on Tuesday. Medical evidence suggested that West strangled his wife, but he tried to explain away the bruising around her neck and the back of her head as the result of a “deep and firm” massage that the Wests’ 22-year-old son gave to his mother the day before her death. At the time of Marcelle West's murder, Kevin West was battalion chief at Camas-Washogual Fire Department, and he made several strange remarks to some of his firefighter colleagues around the time of his wife's death, which they testified about in court. • Today in LOGS ON LAKE, heavy flooding of the Clackamas River has left the North Fork Reservoir, above the Faraday Dam, cluttered with logs and log-adjacent debris. Portland General Electric has made plan to clear the logs in February. That's leaves plenty of time before the boat docks reopen, you waterways weirdos. • No one has been awaiting this, but I AM PERSONALLY EXCITED that Art Snack is back. Portland's art, culture, and food scenes are super messy, and they get all over one another. Could one ambitious culture editor round-up stuff you should know about? I made a newsletter like this during the pandemic, and now I'm doing it again here. This week we've got three artsy and two foodsy—and one of the foodsy is paczki. • Women's basketball team Portland Fire (not Portland Fire and Rescue) announced its game schedule for its 2026 season, with an opening game at Moda Center on May 9. They'll face off against the Chicago Sky. Wait, are all the Women's Major Basketball Association names like... ponderous? View this post on Instagram A post shared by Portland Mercury (@portlandmercury) • Table tennis is an allegedly deep and entertaining sport that's popular overseas, but in the US it's been relegated to mere club enthusiasm. Earlier this month—infused with enthusiasm from viewing Marty Supreme—writer and photographer Corbin Smith attended a Major League Table Tennis event in Portland, which attracted players from all over the world. • The James Beard Awards has announced businesses and chefs that made its semifinalist round for the competition's annually awarded titles. While semifinals are still two rounds away from winning an actual award, this is your early early warning that an already busy restaurant in Portland could become impossibly busy very soon (June). This could also be a romance win, if you can get reservations at one of these spots for Valentines or the night of the month we set aside to picture Timothée Chalamet in our minds and manifest his greatness or whatever the kids are doing. Like notorious fuckboi Enya always says, "it could impress bae." The Portland restaurant semifinalists are (find the complete list here): Le Pigeon - semifinalist for outstanding restaurantCoquine - semifinalist for outstanding wine and other beverages program Scotch Lodge - outstanding barJoel Gunderson, Heavenly Creatures - outstanding professional in beverage service There are 20…

AI has taken center stage in financial services, automating the research and execution behind algorithmic trading and helping banks more accurately detect fraud and money laundering — all while improving risk management practices and expediting document processing. The sixth annual “NVIDIA State of AI in Financial Services” report, based on a survey of more than Read Article