Free Republic

Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc said on Sunday it had closed all its restaurants in two West Coast markets due to a reported outbreak of E. coli bacteria that is being investigated by the company and health authorities. "After being notified by health department officials in the Seattle (Wash.) and Portland, Ore. areas that they were investigating approximately 20 cases of E. coli, including people who ate at six of our restaurants in those areas, we immediately closed all of our restaurants in the area out of an abundance of caution," Chipotle said in an emailed statement. The company said the...

The owners of a Portland-area bakery are refusing to pay $135,000 in state-ordered damages to a same-sex couple who were denied service. [....] The Kleins have filed an appeal of the ruling and are defying the order to pay. They're claiming financial hardship although crowdfunding efforts have brought in over $500,000 on their behalf, The Oregonian reported. The couple closed the Gresham store in 2013 and operate the business from home.

Full disclosure, I have no clue if this is legit or not. But I wouldn’t be surprised at all if it turned out to be real, because Portland.To the residents of the People’s Republic: if you’re out and about and you see this thing on cars, let us know.Dieselgate, everybody!     Hat tip to Will Kinton in Oppo!

Oregonians are fed up with the rising home prices in Portland and seem to think Californians are to blame. "No Californians" stickers are mysteriously popping up on for sale signs in front homes that are on the market. The stickers resemble a no smoking sign with a silhouette of the Golden State slashed out in red.

program. A judge on Monday unsealed the court documents of a grisly murder of a Christian man, allegedly at the hands of three Muslim immigrants in Portland, Maine. In those documents, which had been sealed since the three men were charged Aug. 11, police said they found the brutally beaten body of Freddy Akoa lying on the living-room floor in his apartment. He was the victim of a savage attack that took place over several hours. According to the autopsy report, he had cuts and bruises all over his body, with the fatal blows coming to his head. Akoa, who...

The media can’t stop talking about the crowds Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is attracting. There are reports that his crowds in California and Portland, Oregon were both larger than 27,000. They breathlessly report on this, while forgetting to mention Sanders is a self-described socialist. But what Donald Trump and his campaign has planned for TONIGHT in Mobile, Alabama could blow those numbers out of the water. Initially planning for a rally of 2,000 people at a small venue, tickets were grabbed so quickly that major changes had to be made.Now, the event will be held in the Ladd-Peeles Stadium, a football...

Just a little more than a year after it opened, the Moreland Farmers Pantry is closing. Residents of Portland's Westmoreland neighborhood were originally excited for the arrival of a 5,000-square-foot store stocked -- as it advertised -- with non-genetically modified products. But excitement turned to anger for some after comments on the owner's personal Facebook page were made public. In a 2013 post by owner Chauncy Childs, operating under a pseudonym, she said that although she doesn't judge gay people or their desire to be married, and it isn't her place to form opinions about their lifestyle, she thought gay...

Christians preaching the Gospel outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Portland, Oregon, on Wednesday were doused with scouring powder by a man who apparently had police protection since a police officer on duty just stood by and did not stop, much less arrest him.The Portland Police Department later said it would not press charges against the assailant as the incident was deemed "a private criminal complaint."The preachers were taking part in activities at the Biblical Church Evangelism Conference hosted by Beaverton Grace Bible Church, according to Christian News Network.About 20 Christian preachers were on the public sidewalk preaching and holding...

PORTLAND, Ore. — At least six Christians were attacked with a cleansing agent on Wednesday while preaching the gospel and standing for life outside of a Planned Parenthood facility in Portland, Oregon, but the man who committed with the act was not arrested and was let go without charges. The pro-life outreach was part of the Biblical Church Evangelism Conference hosted by Beaverton Grace Bible Church and organized by its pastor, Chuck O’Neal. As over 20 Christians stood on the public sidewalk to proclaim the word of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ through preaching and the holding of...

U.S. authorities are seeking to revoke the citizenship of an Oregon imam who they say tried to conceal past associations with radical Islamic groups. Mohamed Sheikh Abdirahman Kariye raised money, recruited fighters and provided training for insurgent groups battling Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s, the U.S. Department of Justice says in a complaint filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Portland. Kariye was one of more than a dozen people who filed a lawsuit challenging the no-fly list, winning last year a court order saying the government must provide information about why people are on the list. The...

PORTLAND, Ore. (Reuters) - Hundreds of phallic sex toys have been seen hanging in recent days from power lines across Portland, Oregon, provoking laughter, blushing and lots of photos.

<p>In the above picture of Portland, Ore., from Dustin Cable's breathtaking Racial Dot Map, each blue dot represents a white resident counted during the 2010 census. The city itself is about 76 percent white, making it the whitest big city in the U.S. And diversity has been dwindling in the neighborhoods close to the center of town, as minorities have increasingly moved out to the city's edges.</p>

PORTLAND, OR (KPTV) - A porta-potty was tipped over. There was a man trapped inside. And police said witnesses did it on purpose because the man was touching himself while holding the door open. It was not your everyday call for assistance at the foot of the Hawthorne Bridge on Thursday morning. An officer was flagged down about a man trapped in a portable toilet near the Eastbank Esplanade at 8 a.m. The Honey Bucket's door was against the ground, so Portland Fire & Rescue personnel responded to lift it back up and free the man who was inside. The...

Turon Lamont Walker is accused of shooting three people after someone "eyed" him at the Last Thursday street fair on Thursday, May 28, 2015.Sgt. Don Livingston, a supervisor of the city's gang enforcement team, and his investigators were still busy gathering police reports and examining evidence from last week's shootings when bullets scattered the crowd and wounded three people at the jampacked Last Thursday street fair in Northeast Portland. "We're playing catch-up here," Livingston said in the aftermath of the latest violence. "They're coming in so fast." The shooting Thursday night pushed gang violence response calls to 64 this year...

The 41-year-old recently completed a master's degree at Seattle University's School of Theology and Ministry, where he was the first Muslim to ever enroll. "I was looking for a place to be accepted as myself and to be the true face of Islam, though I am not the best follower," Polovina said. . . . . Studying the Bible with the other students, almost all Christians, was a little uncomfortable at first, he said. But he quickly settled into sharing his own perspective and appreciating the overlaps. There are many similarities between Islam and Christianity, he said, from moral values...

(CNSNews.com) - President Barack Obama said at a fundraiser in Portland, Ore., yesterday that young foreign nationals who are in the United States illegally but on whose behalf he has decided not to enforce the immigration law are “Americans just like our kids, except they don’t have the right documents.” “We still got to make sure we get comprehensive immigration reform passed in this country,” Obama said . “ I couldn’t be prouder of the work that we’ve done through executive actions to make sure that our young DREAMers--young people who were brought here as children and are Americans...

Portland police used tear gas, flash bangs and what they called "noise distractionary devices" to try and disperse protesters in downtown Portland Friday evening. At least one officer was injured during the clashes. No arrests were made. The group Don't Shoot Portland, protesting excessive force by law enforcement, marched through downtown Portland Friday afternoon and joined an unrelated May Day rally for immigrant rights. Hundreds of marchers began winding their way through downtown Portland at 4:30 p.m., but some protesters disregarded the planned route and walked against traffic. TriMet buses and MAX trains were delayed.Streets in downtown Portland were blocked...

A 19-year-old was banned from the discussion portion of a humanities class at Reed College after students complained that his opinions on sexual assault made them feel uncomfortable. He doesn’t want to keep quiet. Reed College, a small liberal arts school in Portland, Oregon, attracts students who want to speak their mind. But when Jeremiah True wouldn’t stop talking about his controversial opinions on sexual assault in his required freshman humanities course, his professor banned him from the discussion segment of the class for the remainder of the semester. The 19-year-old told BuzzFeed News that his professor, Pancho Savery, warned...

Surprise, surprise: statistics show Portland is the most religiously-unaffiliated metro area in the United States. About 42 percent of residents in the City of Roses and surrounding suburbs self-identify as religiously unaffiliated, according to a survey released this week by the Public Religion Research Institute. That's nearly 10 percentage points higher than Portland's West Coast peers and runner-ups Seattle and San Francisco, which both came in at 33 percent.

Like many residents of Northwest Portland, Matthew Hale doesn’t own a car. Instead, he prefers to walk or ride the bus to the city’s innumerable coffee shops and breweries and live-music spots. On weekends, he and his wife have no problem hitching rides to the Pacific Coast or the Cascade mountain range. Everywhere he looks, Hale told me, there are people just like him — bearded, on skateboards, brewing kombucha. “It’s really chill,” he says. Portland has taken hold of the cultural imagination as, to borrow the tag line from “Portlandia,” the place where young people go to retire. And...