• Who owns the World (Cup)? The U.S. Women’s National Team. On Sunday, July 7, the U.S. beat the Netherlands 2-0. The Portland Thorns had four players representing the U.S. in the 2019 World Cup: midfielders Tobin Heath and Lindsey Horan, defender Emily Sonnett and goalkeeper Adrianna Franch. As you know, the U.S. women’s team is still fighting for equal pay. How can you help this pursuit for equal pay? Go to Portland Thorns games. Women in professional soccer have a pretty low salary range. If more tickets and merchandise sell, maybe the National Women’s Soccer League will get the message to raise the women’s salaries.  

• Downtown Eugene’s favorite public bathroom and watering hole, which also sells coffee, is closing. The Starbucks at 39 W. Broadway will close Sept. 1. The rumor of the location closing had been going around town for a while, but a Starbucks spokesperson confirmed the closure with EW. Say what you will about the quality of Starbucks coffee, but the loss of a public bathroom will hit downtown hard. Read more about the closure of the store at EugeneWeekly.com. 

• Seen on a bumper sticker: “I miss Nixon.”

• Westbound Franklin Boulevard between Onyx and Agate streets near the University of Oregon is shut down at night through Labor Day so that the UO can build its skybridge. The structure will connect the Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact to the Lewis Integrative Science Building. The good news is that with the road closed down the skybridge won’t smash people in cars as the one at Florida International University did when it fell down in March 2018. The bad news is local folks coming off I-5 late at night will be inconvenienced for a skybridge they don’t get to use — the UO has said it’s for university use only. Pick a different route home, plebes. Rich folks need their skybridge.

• The Eugene City Council payroll tax passed last month is still effective after Eugene-Springfield Solidarity Network (ESSN) failed to collect 6,000 signatures by the July 10 deadline. Lonnie Douglas, board member at ESSN, tells EW that there’s another plan to possibly work with local businesses to submit an initiative petition that, if passed by voters, would change the charter amendment so that City Council-passed payroll taxes are illegal.

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