Murmurs Mayoral candidate Jefferson Smith has released a 1994 settlement agreement that got him off the hook for a misdemeanor assault charge. Smith, then a University of Oregon student, injured a woman   More

Murmurs It’s election season, so you can expect campaigns to be making stuff up. But the Measure 79 campaign is the worst in a long time. The measure would amend the state constitution to ban real-estate    More

Murmurs It’s rare for charitable groups to make political contributions—federal law discourages them from converting donations (deductible to the giver) into political cash. But a couple of local 50   More

Murmurs Metro has said publicly that a new headquarters hotel at the Oregon Convention Center would get a $10.4 million cash subsidy from the regional government and the City of Portland. But documents    More

Murmurs One Portland politician isn’t softening his stance toward Walmart as the retail giant hires local software talent (“Value Shopping,” WW, Aug. 29, 2012). City Commissioner-elect Steve Novick says   More

Murmurs Gov. John Kitzhaber keeps rolling the dice on Elisa Dozono. In May, WW reported that Kitzhaber submitted Portland lawyer Dozono’s name for a vacancy on the Oregon Lottery Commission, then withdrew i   More

Murmurs The U.S. Department of Agriculture has fined Oregon Health & Science University $11,679 in the 2009 deaths of five monkeys at the school’s Oregon National Primate Research Center. Two died aft   More

Murmurs For the first time in recent memory, The Oregonian is taking a pass on the presidential race. The daily told readers Aug. 14 it won’t endorse a candidate for president. Insiders say Publisher N. Chr   More

Murmurs Diane Roark says she’s the victim of retaliation by the U.S. government for allegedly blowing the whistle on illegal wireless wiretapping by the Bush administration. Roark, a former House Intellig   More

Murmurs An ex-employee at an R.B. Pamplin Co. subsidiary says the company fired him after he threatened to report its practice of sending false test results to the Department of Environmental Quality and Or   More