This is Garrison Hardie with your CrossPolitic Daily News Brief for Thursday, May 11th, 2023. 
 
https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2023/05/09/israel-kills-three-islamic-jihad-terrorist-commanders-in-strikes-on-gaza/
 
Israel Kills Three Islamic Jihad Terrorist Commanders in Strikes on Gaza
 
Israel killed three senior commanders of the Iran-backed Islamic Jihad terrorist group in targeted airstrikes early Tuesday.
 
AP reports the targeted air strikes hit the top floor of an apartment building in Gaza City and a house in the southern town of Rafah.
 
The Palestinian Health Ministry said 20 people were wounded and ambulances were continuing to evacuate people from the targeted areas.
 
Israel’s Home Front command ordered the closure of schools, beaches and highways in cities and towns in southern Israel, and limited public gatherings ahead of anticipated retaliatory strikes.
 
The military said the three men targeted in the counter-terror operation had been responsible for recent rocket fire toward Israel.
 
It identified them as Khalil Bahtini, the Islamic Jihad commander for northern Gaza Strip; Tareq Izzeldeen, the group’s intermediary between its Gaza and West Bank members; and Jehad Ghanam, the secretary of the Islamic Jihad’s military council.
 
Their funerals were planned for later in the day.
 
The bombings came days after Gazan terrorists led by Islamic Jihad fired 104 rockets toward Israel in response to the death of an alleged senior member of the group who had been on hunger strike in Israeli prison, the Times of Israel reports.
 
Several rockets struck during the May 2 clash, injuring three workers and damaging homes and cars.
 
Islamic Jihad, which is smaller than Gaza’s ruling Hamas group, confirmed the three were among the dead. The Palestinian Health Ministry said that along with the three commanders, their wives, several of their children and others nearby were also killed — 13 in all.
 
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh warned that Israel will “pay the price” for the killings. “Assassinating the leaders with a treacherous operation will not bring security to the occupier, but rather more resistance,” Haniyeh said in a statement.
 
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/crime/portland-revives-police-unit-traffic-deaths-surge
 
Portland revives police unit as traffic deaths surge
 
Portland, Oregon, police will announce the reinstatement of their traffic division on Tuesday after facing one of its deadliest years for pedestrians in 2022.
 
After dissolving its traffic division in 2020, traffic deaths broke a 70-year record. In 2022, 63 people were killed in traffic crashes, equal to a 30-year-high record in 2021. Those deaths included 31 pedestrians who were killed, reaching historic high levels.
 
Police Chief Chuck Lovell blamed historically low staffing numbers and said the bureau needed to focus on 911 calls as reasons to disband the division in 2020.
 
Lovell and Mayor Ted Wheeler were united on the narrative that cutting out the traffic division was due to staffing decreases and funding concerns.
 
However, Jo Ann Hardesty, the former commissioner of the Portland Bureau of Transportation, saw this measure as a political measure to gather public sympathy.
 
Hardesty described the narrative around the police as pushing that their only problem is a lack of officers and money, when the issue lies much deeper than that, pointing to a rise in violence and pushing to keep the Portland community safe.
 
In the past, Portland has taken measures to increase pedestrian safety, including implementing a "left-turn calming" tool aimed at making intersections safer for walkers by slowing turning speeds. Starting in 2020, the initiative takes after New York City’s "turning calm" project.
 
Lovell is expected to make an announcement Tuesday afternoon after the two-year hiatus made Portland one of the largest cities in the nation to lack a traffic division.
 
https://thepostmillennial.com/oregonians-blast-lawmakers-over-pro