What we’re reading: David Cay Johnston’s The Big Cheat: How Donald Trump Fleeced America and Enriched Himself and His Family. We know more than ever why Trump should not have been president and why he or any of his minions cannot be president of this democracy again. Johnston’s book is filled with amazing research. As legal expert Laurence Tribe says about him, “David Cay Johnston is a national treasure.”

• Oregon22 World Athletics Championships start July 15, the Lane County Fair kicks off July 20 — the summer festivities are getting hot. Hope you and our visitors enjoy Eugene Weekly’s guide to Eugene. Part 1 was this week, anything we left out? Let us know for Part 2, Editor@EugeneWeekly.com! 

• Speaking of Oregon22, Eugene Weekly received a letter from Lane Transit District (LTD) informing us we needed to remove our newspaper distribution boxes — aka those little red boxes you get your news, arts and crossword puzzle from each week — from “LTD facilities” before the start of the World Athletics Championships. LTD says it’s a safety issue. So if you are looking for your Weekly you can find a copy at many local businesses. We also have plenty at the office, so please drop by 1251 Lincoln Street and grab one or go online to EugeneWeekly.com/wheres-my-weekly!

• This local and vocal newspaper absolutely loves all the fabulous opinion pieces we get from readers in our letters and viewpoints. We run as many as we can fit, and as we noted in a comment on this week’s letters, we get a lot of letters from dudes. We want to hear from everyone but we’d love to see even more diverse community voices in our pages. You’ve got something to say and EW and our readers need to hear it! Send your 250 words or fewer letters to Letters@EugeneWeekly.com and potential viewpoints (500-750 words) to Editor@EugeneWeekly.com.

• Thumbs up for former Duck basketball star Sabrina Ionescu, who is making national sports news for her play in the WNBA and the fierce effort to give that league some equity with the NBA. She was pictured twice in a July 11 story in The New York Times about the WNBA All-Star game and more. Also in the NYT is the ongoing plight of fellow professional basketball star Brittney Griner, who pleaded guilty to entering Russia with vape cartridges containing 0.7 grams of cannabis oil. Griner said in her guilty plea that she packed in haste. Hopefully, the U.S. will move forward with bringing her home, as tensions with Russia and its ongoing invasion of Ukraine escalate. In happier women’s basketball news, Nyara Sabally — who played for the Ducks from 2018 to 2022 and was the No. 5 pick in the 2022 WNBA draft, though she missed her rookie season for a knee injury — was hired as assistant coach for the Sacramento State’s women’s basketball team. 

• Good news from the Park Bench, the fine quarterly publication from Friends of Hendricks Park. Volunteering at Eugene’s first park has bounced back from COVID restrictions to a record 6,528 hours in 2021. If you’re interested in joining the Eugeneans who keep that park so beautiful, check FriendsofHendricksPark.org/volunteer. Or visit (and volunteer at) any of Eugene’s parks to spend some outdoor time among the rhododendrons and roses this summer.

• It’s time to talk about “The Future of Community Colleges,” as Lane Community College deals with pandemic-induced low enrollment and budget woes. That’s the topic of this week’s City Club of Eugene gathering. Recently retired LCC President Margaret Hamilton speaks at noon July 15 at 1376 Olive Street. First questioner is Scott Coltrane, former University of Oregon provost and interim president. 

• Climate change, gun violence, loss of abortion rights — there’s a lot of chaos right now. If you need to take a step back from things, gaze with wonder at the images from Webb’s First Deep Field NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The first image, released July 11 by NASA, shows thousands of galaxies as they appeared 4.6 billion years ago. NASA has been using the Webb telescope to understand galaxy formations from billions of years ago. But that was just scratching the surface. The next day NASA released more images of our universe, showing us a world we could only imagine before. Hopefully, these images give us all the grounding — and desire to save the planet —  that NASA’s “Pale Blue Dot,” an image of Earth from 3.7 billion miles away, should have had when it was taken in 1990. 

• Hey podcast lovers and news junkies, check out the latest Oregon Rainmakers podcast from KLCC featuring a conversation with EW editor Camilla Mortensen at KLCC.org/podcast/klccs-oregon-rainmakers.

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