Earlier today in Barcelona, a van drove into a crowd, killing 13 people and injuring more than 100 others. In what police are declaring is a terrorist attack, the white van plowed through Las Ramblas, a popular tourist area. This occurred less than a week after a similar tragedy in Charlottesville, Virginia. Two people have been arrested, but authorities are still not sure how many people were involved in the attack. ISIS has claimed responsibility in a statement released through the Islamic State Amaq News Agency. Protocols for a terrorist attack in the city have been activated. Civilians are being evacuated from the area as police launch a man hunt for the attackers. This is the deadliest terror attack to occur in Spain since 2004, when bombs were placed on commuter trains in Madrid. In that incident 191 people were killed and 1,800 others were injured.
Last weekend a march in protest of the removal of Confederate statutes in Charlottesville, Virginia was heavily attended by white nationalists and members of the alt-right, and turned violent as protesters attacked counter protesters, killing Heather Heyer and injuring nineteen others. Confederate statues have remained a contentious over the next several days with activists in Durham, North Carolina among other cities, tearing down statues themselves. Twenty-two year old Takiyah Thompson was the first person charged with taking down a Confederate statue, shortly followed by Dante Emmanuel Strobino, Ngoc Loan Tran and Peter Gilbert. Meanwhile President Donald Trump, who has over the course of the week faced harsh criticism over his comments about the violence in Charlottesville, has expressed over Twitter his wishes for the Confederate statues to remain.
Portland City Commissioner Nick Fish announced that he has been diagnosed with stomach cancer, after experiencing unexplained weight loss and stomach pain. The city servant of nine YEARS stated that, “I am in good hands at the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute. My doctors have prescribed regular outpatient chemotherapy treatments. The medicine will weaken my immune system, but should not prevent me from continuing to serve on the City Council.” Fish helped create the Portland housing bureau, and headed Portland Parks and Recreation up until 2012. He is currently the head of the Portland Water Bureau, the Bureau of Environmental Service and serves as a counsel liaison to the organization Elders in Action.
- KBOO