Well damn it. Turns out President Obama's National Security Agency is every bit as terrible as President Bush's. Wednesday we found out the NSA has been sifting through Verizon wireless records. Today: the revelation it's been sending out stealthy feelers all over the web, too. According to the Guardian, a program known as Prism collects information from the country's largest internet companies—providers like Google and Apple, which both denied assisting the NSA. The program is useful for "extracting audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track foreign targets," says the Washington Post. They're monitoring me even as I write this. Suck it, you guys.

Some Washington lawmakers, including Oregon's own Sen. Ron Wyden, have cryptically warned about the surveillance for years.

Meanwhile, Obama's first director of national intelligence explains to the New York Times that the administration just sort of blithely continued the questionable data-mining practices begun under President Bush. “In 2006 and 2007, everything was put under a legal basis. That looked pretty good to us, so we continued it.”

And by the way, Obama's just about to sternly warn China to stop its Internet chicanery. Good luck with that.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his wife are divorcing. But the guy cavorts with leopards and migratory birds. He'll land on his feet.

Science may soon be able to prevent PTSD.

A pair of NYC life coaches known for their radio show, "The Pursuit of Happiness," apparently committed joint suicide.

Pot isn't necessarily criminal in Vermont!

In this week's Bike Issue, I made what felt like not so bold a claim: That June would probably be drizzly. The Weather Widget wasn't having it. Touché.

Time to feel smug, everyone who isn't a Verizon customer! Because there's no way Barack Obama's national security apparatus is secretly collecting phone data from millions of other cell providers' customers, right? It's not as if his administration sees the routine hoovering of your personal data, absent any nexus of guilt or suspicion, as a legitimate national security tool, right?

Turkey's prime minister has clearly heard the sustained outcry of thousands of protesters expressing betrayal over broken promises of democratic change. He's just decided not to listen.

"There is not a good reason in the world for the horrible things I did,” says a staff sergeant admitting guilt in the slaughter of 16 Afghan civilians in March 2012.

Once politically powerful, but now just hanging around because it obviously doesn't make sense to give way to someone more engaged and relevant and steeped in the issues of the day, Michigan Democrat John Dingell, first elected 57 years ago, is about to set a record as the longest-serving member of Congress.

A collapsed building in downtown Philadelphia left six people dead and injured 13 more after debris smashed up a nearby Salvation Army store.

Whenever Dzokhar Tsarnaev, Boston bombing suspect, phones his mom from jail, the contents of the call are public. So now we know that people on the Internet have decided to send him money.

If three quarters of Americans, according to a recent poll, see marriage equality as inevitable, then WHY THE HELL ARE SO MANY OF YOU STILL MAKING IT SO DIFFICULT.

New York cops tackled a man who pulled a knife and tried to slit his wrists behind the Today show's live sidewalk studio. None of it was captured on live television—just on Matt Lauer's Twitter.

Wells Fargo is spending a relative pittance, $42 million, to squelch claims it allowed foreclosed homes in black and Latino neighborhoods to fester neglected for far longer than in perceived white neighborhoods.

The GOP cartoon character running to be Virginia's next lieutenant governor thinks yoga is a serious step toward full-on satanic possession. In reality, it's a step toward saying awful things like "namaste" devoid of irony. Yuck.

Closed-door talks in Salem, between Governor John Kitzhaber and legislative leaders, could hand billions of dollars to Oregon schools in exchange for deeper pension cuts than previously negotiated.

The two Koreas are talking to each other again. They're doing it right before the United States and China meet. that way, when the two bigger countries yell at them, they can act like rapprochement was already their idea all along.

NEXT YOU'LL TELL ME CATS AND DOGS WILL START MAKING GENTLE LOVE TO THE ENERGETIC STRAINS OF BAD CLUB MUSIC...

In this week's stellar issue of the Mercury, I examined whether Portland's Drug Impact Area's will be doomed by city budget cuts.

City Council opted not to continue funding a deputy district attorney dedicated to the program in this year's budget. The county, which has been willing to backfill some of the city's cuts, is apparently not budging on this one. So it falls to Multnomah County District Attorney Rod Underhill to decide whether he'll use existing resources to continue staffing what was a city-initiated project.

A quick rundown: The DIAs are used to keep drug offenders out of the city's narcotics hotspots. Depending on the substance they're caught with, people are ordered to stay out of certain areas— Old Town, downtown, the Lloyd District—as a condition of probation. Businesses love it.

Anyway, I was unable to get the most recent tally of exclusions by press time. It came through today, though. Since their inception roughly two years ago, the impact areas have resulted in 1,047 exclusions, according to the DA's office.

That's not to say 1,047 individuals have been excluded. According to Deputy District Attorney Shawn Overstreet—the guy who, depending on Underhill's decision, could be snatched from DIA duty in coming days—some offenders have multiple exclusions. One person has five.

Still, the number reflects how much the tool has been used in its two years.

Other figures [PDF] the DA's office provided aren't as fresh—they're current as of December 31—but show nearly one third of the county's drug distribution and possession cases from June 2011 to December 2012 originated in one of the drug impact areas. In that same period, police made 113 arrests for violations of orders to steer clear of an impact area. Nearly 55 percent of those arrested were Black.

Race has been a touchy subject in the impact areas. The program's predecessor, Drug Exclusion Zones, were discontinued in 2007 amid criticism they unfairly targeted minorities. But while the DA's report does a good job breaking down the criminal cases issued by race, it doesn't go the extra step to break down exclusions.

GOOD MORNING, BLOGTOWN! Lately, I've been thinking something's going wrong. 'Cause you got an attitude. And you're not in the mood like you used to. LET'S GO TO PRESS.

President Obama shakes up his foreign policy staff by replacing resigning National Security Advisor Tom Donilon with the American ambassador to the U.N., Susan E. Rice. It's also a big FUCK YOU to Republicans for criticizing her account of the Benghazi attacks. Cue the cry-baby antics!

According to a NBC/Washington Post poll, Americans are losing trust in the Obama administration... but not Obama himself.

A gay rights activist heckles Michelle Obama—and kind of made an ass out of herself. Today's lesson: Don't heckle Michelle!

A building collapses in Philadelphia, possibly trapping up to 10 people.

Instead of choosing a temporary replacement for the recently deceased liberal Democratic senator Frank Lautenberg, Gov. Chris Christie says he wants to hold a special election—which is making Dems scream and Republicans say, "Meh. We still hate ya guts."

Sen. Saxy Chambliss—a senator from (surprise!) Georgia—blames all that gol'durn military rapin' on hormones. Is there a Nobel Prize for idiots?

The Syrian government scores a big win over the rebels after taking over the critical city of Qusayr.

For very mysterious reasons the FBI raids the offices of California senator Ron Calderon and the Latino Legislative Caucus—but won't explain why. (Maybe they left some listening devices behind?)

Don't worry, America! Those Taco Bell taco shells that their employee licked? Those weren't intended for customers! PHEW! Now shove that fucking gordito in my mouth!!

The president of Ohio State steps down after making jokes about Catholics—but does not apologize THANK YOU.

Now here's what's going on in your neck of the woods: Sunny and 82 today, sunny and mid-upper 70s the rest of the week. WOO-HOO!

And finally, WHY JAMES CRYIN'? 'CAUSE HE JUST GOT DUNKED ON! (Or the hilarious new song from Froggy Fresh—formerly Krispy Kreme—and Money Maker Mike. Go on, James! CRYYYYYY!!)

No one really knows why baby boomers are killing themselves at such an extremely high rate.

The men who run the military, struggling to handle an "epidemic" or reported sex crimes, are bristling over a bill that would strip the power of investigation from commanders and hand it to independent prosecutors uncolored by rank-and-file politics.

Some House Republicans dislike each other almost as much as they dislike working with Democrats and that Muslim radical Americans re-elected as president.

Thousands-strong protests against the Turkish government's failed promise of democracy have led to a reported death at the hand of government forces. There are reports the country's deputy prime minister is trying to meet with protesters to calm what's spiraling into a full-blown revolution.

The American invasion of Iraq has finally begun producing a long-promised boom in oil profits. But for China.

In Afghanistan, protesters demanded the arrest of American soldiers—and dug up and paraded around corpses of people they claimed were torture victims.

Chemical weapons, a "red line" for America monitoring Syria's civil war, appear to have been used at least four times during the conflict, according to a United Nations commission.

A former Navy SEAL has come out as a woman—freed from having to pretend she was a "guy's guy."

The trial of Bradley Manning, held for months in grim, isolating conditions on suspicion he shared classified diplomatic cables with WikiLeaks, has begun.

Boston's fire chief has resigned after deputies went public with snarky complaints he failed to take command of his department's response to the Boston Marathon bombings.

About that IRS tax scandal... it seems maybe up to three-quarters of the groups selected for review weren't actually enemies of the White House.

Federal data shows a troubling disparity: African Americans are about four times as likely to be arrested on marijuana charges as whites, even though both groups use the stuff at the same rate.

Hey, Portland! Seattle wants your Loos!

GO HOME SEATTLE! BUILD YOUR OWN!

GOOD MORNING, BLOGTOWN! Now let me set it off in the right way. You got a bangin booty and a tight waist. I've been a fan since I met you in the lob-ay, and hopefully you'll end up over my place. LET'S GO TO PRESS.

The Supreme Court ruled today that police may now take DNA samples from you after you've been arrested for a serious crime. THE MORE YOU KNOW.

New jersey Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg has died after years of service fighting big tobacco and promoting such services as Amtrak.

A (locked) Chinese poultry factory bursts into flames killing at least 119 workers.

At least 300 seriously wounded people are trapped in the Syrian town of Qusair while fighting rages between rebels and government forces.

The U.S. is sending patriot missiles (remember them?) to Jordan for supposed "exercises" but probably to leave them there so the country can protect themselves against Syria.

The deadly MERS-CoV virus has spread to Italy, and officials are still at a loss to give the disease an easier-to-type name.

Politicians get NASTY in a claws-out Twitter fight over the IRS.

Headline of the day: "Baptists plan exodus from Boy Scouts." And don't let your homophobic wrinkly asses get hit by the door on the way out.

Speaking of the high price of homophobia, the NBA's Roy Hibbert was fined $75.000 for his explosive outburst which included an anti-gay slur.

Actress Jean Stapleton—most notably known as Edith Bunker on All in the Family—has died at the age of 90. :(

A U.S. Congressman investigates the Boston Marathon bombings... in Russia... with the help of Steven Seagal??? (!!!!!!!!!!!)

Actor Michael Douglas claims that oral sex caused his throat cancer... but is he right??

Now here's what's going on in your neck of the woods: Cloudy mornings lead to sunny days with highs in the mid-70s to 80 for the foreseeable future. YESSSSSS.

And finally, how was your weekend? Not as awesome as this guy's.

Oklahoma's having a dreadful May. Less than two weeks after a monster storm killed dozens, a fresh batch of storms has wrought fresh havoc.

As Salem squabbles over how best to alter the state's public pension system, the New York Times has this cautionary note: States around the country are, sort of disingenuously, padding their budget numbers with mercurial pension savings, meaning their money problems still exist.

And guess what? Portland's doing the exact same thing.

Shit is getting still-more bizarre in the case of a Chechen national—a suspected ally of the Boston Marathon bombers—gunned down in his kitchen by an FBI agent. First they said he had a knife. Then it turned out he didn't have a knife? Now, authorities say, he had a "metal stick." Seriously—read this Washington Post article— that's the only descriptor. Not a "metal rod," or one of those long, sort-of-pointy knife sharpeners you see. Just a "metal stick." What are our guesses on this? Maybe a kebab skewer? Or an actual stick, snapped off in a moment of confusion from a metal tree replica? This reporter's confused.

Protestors are clashing, sometimes violently, with Turkish authorities, calling for the country's Islamist prime minister to step down. The protests' potential spark? A law passed last week "restricting the sale and advertisement of alcoholic drinks."

Not that you require more proof our military is a disgusting, rapey mess, but here you go: The US Naval Academy is trying to figure out whether three of its football players sexually assaulted a female student/midshipman.

The deadliest fire in Houston Fire Department history killed four of the city's firefighters yesterday.

Oh look! Russia's getting worse on gay rights. Just sort of looking at what the West does and churlishly doing the opposite, at this point.

Just in time for the Golden Anniversary of the JFK assassination, a Dallas woman is graciously offering to sell her home, which housed Lee Harvey Oswald in the weeks before he pulled the trigger. The price? A fitting $500,000! You know, in light of the 50th anniversary and all! Because presidential assassinations are now a reason to stage cutesy deals on property affiliated with the assassin! God damn it, Texas.

Hey! Hey you! You're paying FAR too much for all those colonoscopies. (And everything else associated with your physical wellbeing.)

The terrifying octogenarian teeth of Mr. Dick Van Dyke? Solid titanium.

Weather Widget! Sweet, gift-bestowing lady! Paragon of virtue and beauty! We are shamed by your brilliance, awed by your grace! And I've been reading too much fantasy lately!

You guys need to find me today? Shouldn't be too tough. I'll be the dude PRANCERCISING all over town.

The rogue asteroid passing disturbingly close to the Planet Earth today (actually not that close, but still disturbing) is large enough to have collected its own orbiting satellite, according to NASA sensors.

Barack Obama's education reform plan—Common Core, it's called—is working like a little blue pill (AKA VIAGRA!) for the flaccid, spent Tea Party.

The discovery of GMO wheat in Oregon has trading partners Japan and South Korea grabbing for the garlic and crucifixes. Europe is also advising caution.

The EU economy remains in freefall—and record unemployment (one in four young person types is out of work) has fueled increasing bouts of anti-austerity protesting.

"Yes, we are Big Marijuana." Our kin in Seattle detail majorly ambitious and expensive plans to build a $100 million pot retail empire in the Shangri-La across the Columbia formerly known as Washington State.

A Michigan woman who joined up with Syria's rebels has died. The recent convert to Islam was 33 and leaves behind an 18-year-old daughter.

Murder charges have been filed against an off-duty sheriff's deputy accused of killing a PBS Newshour driver. The deputy said the man pulled a knife. But prosecutors say the only knife recovered was folded in the dead man's pocket.

Video proves there was no way an Arizona mom jailed in Mexico on drug charges could have possibly boarded a bus holding 12 goddamned pounds of pot.

A plane crashed into an apartment complex in Virginia. It was small. So no one died.

Justin Bieber's abandoned monkey will get to live in a wildlife park, where it will be properly cared for, and, again, not with Justin Bieber, who would have continued treating it like a toy and not a wild animal deserving of dignity and respect.

Someone else can live in the house where Lee Harvey Oswald used to live. Yay!

A back-and-forth Mars trip, which is still technically impossible, would probably expose you, all at once, to two-thirds of the radiation your body can safely absorb over a lifetime. Actually being on Mars would dose you even further. Fuck it. Eat your potassium pills and put your helmet on!

DO NOT BE AMUSED. BE EDIFIED.

The price of federal austerity: The economy grew at a slower-than-expected pace during the last quarter—better than the quarter before it, but not enough to reverse the years-long, post-recession morass we've been stuck in. Government spending—mostly the lack of it—deserves a big part of the blame.

A new bump in unemployment applications also has some people fretful—even if there's no reason to be. Not yet at least.

Barack Obama has decided that James Comey, a Republican prosecutor and Bush-era deputy attorney general, would be a good bipartisan choice to lead the FBI. Comey threatened to resign after Bush cronies tried getting his boss, John Ashcroft, to approve a more draconian form of warrantless wiretapping. But he also approved the version of the program we still have.

The FBI, meanwhile, has struggled to keep to a consistent message over the fatal shooting of a reportedly unarmed associate of dead Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

A strain of genetically modified wheat, despite not being approved for farming in Oregon or anywhere else in the country, has been found growing in Oregon. That's a problem, because Oregon sends 90 percent of its wheat crop to foreign countries, and those countries are pretty strict about only eating non-mutant crops.

China wants to spend billions acquiring an American pork producer, Smithfield Foods—the largest such enterprise in the world. The Chinese company offering the money is partly owned by Goldman Sachs.

An apparent typo on the sign of Oregon's teaching standards agency prompted a prank bomb threat (except no one's laughing) from a man who showed up carrying a pressure cooker with wires peeking out.

The dry ice explosion in Disneyland's "Toontown" sector was the work of a (creepily titled) "cast member" selling drinks at a nearby cart.

Syria's official president, Bashar al-Assad says he's received a shipment of anti-aircraft missiles from Russia. With love (and also an implied warning to Israel to back the F off.)

A 17-year-old girl in outer Southeast is expected to live after being shot through her apartment wall by a neighbor who told cops he was cleaning his gun.

Dennis Rodman's trip to North Korea almost didn't happen. VICE wanted to take Michael Jordan instead. Also, Kim Jong Un is maybe "socially awkward." And the whole visit was weird and choreographed.

A newspaper in Chicago, the Sun-Times, has reportedly fired its entire photography staff. Because anyone can make pretty pictures with a smartphone.

HEY, KIDS! SAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE DEAD MEL BLANC! (h/t to Carl Wolfson!)

• Alex Despain

The director of the Oregon Health Authority has directed his agency to look into whether staffers preparing a survey of children's oral health had inappropriate conversations with pro-fluoride advocates.

Dr. Bruce Goldberg tells the Mercury concerns raised about Upstream Public Health's access to OHA staff, first reported by the Oregonian, created questions about the run-up to the study's release.

"They came up," Goldberg says. "I think it's appropriate we look at them."

The questions arose from e-mails surrounding the release of the 2012 Oregon Smiles Survey, which documented the dental health of the state's school children. That study proved a flashpoint in the city's war over fluoride, since it found cavity rates had gone down statewide—even in unfluoridated Multnomah County.

The e-mails show no evidence that OHA workers colluded with fluoride advocates to delay the report—as anti-fluoride political action committee Clean Water Portland had initially suggested—but do indicate the state's oral health program manager and public health director met with Upstream prior to the study's release.

And when hard results of the survey came back to the OHA, Oral Health Program Manager Shanie Mason asked her boss, Public Health Director Mel Kohn, whether she should contact Upstream officials about the results.

Later, Mason would write: "I'm also getting a ton of pressure from advocates like Upstream Public Health that have very specific ideas about how we should present our information. Unfortunately for them I'm committed to maintaining the integrity of our work and we'll be presenting our data in the way that we see most appropriate."

In response to the e-mails, Clean Water Portland has called on the Department of Justice to investigate. Goldberg said he's had no indication another agency is checking into the matter.

"I’m having our [human resources] staff look into that to make certain that we behaved as we should," Goldberg says. "They have not completed their work."

News of the internal investigation comes as Kohn, the state's public health director for the past five years, announced Tuesday he would be stepping down from the position in August. Both he and Goldberg say the fluoride controversy had nothing to do with the decision, and that Kohn made the choice to leave on his own.