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AI-powered driver assistance technologies are becoming standard equipment, fundamentally changing how vehicle safety is assessed and validated. The recent recognition of the Mercedes-Benz CLA as Euro NCAP’s Best Performer of 2025 underscores this shift, as the vehicle combines traditional passive safety features with NVIDIA DRIVE AV software to achieve the highest overall safety score of Read Article

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…

On Wednesday, ESPN’s Pat McAfee of ‘The Pat McAfee Show’ and Visit Indy announced that the NFL Combine will remain in Indianapolis, and specifically, the host site Lucas Oil Stadium for the years 2027 and 2028: The city of Indianapolis and @VisitIndy have officially signed an extension with the @NFL to keep the NFL Combine in Indy for 2027 and 2028 That makes Indy the official home of the NFL Combine for over 40 years.. Our city is proud to host such a spectacular opportunity for so… pic.twitter.com/u3UrDY4rvn— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) January 21, 2026 The NFL Combine has been in Indianapolis since 1987, and it seems to work very efficiently from an annual event planning, logistical, and convenience perspective. Not to mention, the Colts have a temperate controlled indoor stadium during one of the coldest months of the year throughout the country. Further, Indianapolis has indoor skywalks, connecting directly to the Convention Center, with a very easy to navigate downtown (with renowned steakhouses, hotels, and hospitals for physicals) that are all right next to Lucas Oil Stadium. The NFL has recently toyed with the idea of having the NFL Combine be in a ‘destination’ city each year, similar to the changes made to the NFL Draft, having Indianapolis as part of the event site rotation rather than remain as the annual scouting event’s continued home and long-term fixture. However, Indianapolis has continued to get the call and an “extension” during the interim period of time. That speaks to the job that Indianapolis, event organizers, and planners continue to do at a very high level. I’ve always maintained that the event should be held in Indianapolis for its efficiency, and because if it isn’t broke why fix it here? I can understand the NFL trying to generate more buzz for the NFL Combine by attempting to make it into more of a marquee event, but at the end of the day, it’s NFL prospects performing drills and measurables in dri-fit tank tops and shorts. Some of the top prospects don’t even participate in the event’s drills. It doesn’t have the same intriguing narratives (i.e., guys sliding on the draft board and sitting in the green room), multiple trades, etc., that go hand-in-hand with NFL Draft weekend. It’s an interesting event for NFL fans by all means, but for a lot of other different reasons (i.e., look at Anthony Richardson blowing up and soaring up draft boards with his elite physical measurables back in 2023, ‘who can annually challenge the fastest 40 time ever?,’ or what does an elite wide receiver prospect think about catching passes from this star NFL passer?). It’s great to see that the annual rite of late winter will remain in Indianapolis for at least the next few years.

AI-powered content generation is now embedded in everyday tools like Adobe and Canva, with a slew of agencies and studios incorporating the technology into their workflows. Image models now deliver photorealistic results consistently, video models can generate long and coherent clips, and both can follow creative directions. Creators are increasingly running these workflows locally on Read Article