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Good Afternoon, Portland! Chocolate chip cookie, baked with the salt—with the salt—the whole club was in default. Let's hit the news!

IN LOCAL NEWS:

• On Monday, a Multnomah County grand jury declined to file criminal charges against a Portland police officer who killed a man in July. Mercury News Editor Alex Zielisnki has the brief.

• Today in how to save a life:

• There haven't been this many Portland homes on the market since 2019. Does that mean prices are going down? Not by much, KOIN's Amanda Arden reports.

• But you know what IS down? (Not you, 5SOS) It's Oregon gas prices! KOIN reports that in Oregon the average price for regular unleaded gas has dropped below four dollars a gallon.

• Today in WHAT'S WRONG WITH COOK'S?

• It's about to be January, Portland! Short days, cold nights—it's like what's happening now, but half your friends are staying sober for a month. Well, tell your seasonal depression to fuck off til February because the Mercury's live, local comedy showcase night— Undisputable Geniuses of Comedy—has returned. Tickets are on sale now and going fast!

IN NATIONAL / INTERNATIONAL NEWS:

• Today President Biden signed a new law—the Respect for Marriage Act—at a celebratory event on the White House lawn. The law repeals the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act and protects marriage equality on a federal level. The Hill reports that the new protection requires the federal government and all states to recognize any marriage that is legal in another state. This protection also applies for interracial couples. Until now, marriage rights for same-sex and interracial couples were both based on privacy rights won in Roe v. Wade, but the Supreme Court overturned that this year.

• Bahamain police arrested Sam Bankman-Fried—founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX—early Monday evening. The New York Times reports that the timeline on extraditing him to the US remains unclear, as the process can take weeks or longer, but the arrest appears related to a criminal inditement from US prosecutors for the DOJ. Today the SEC filed civil charges alleging SBF misled and defrauded investors. The CFTC also filed a complaint, charging him with fraud and misrepresentation.

• In the days leading up to SBF's arrest, he repeatedly gave interviews, against the advice of his parents (both Stanford Law professors). This New Yorker profile of a "will he, won't he" Zoom appearance at the DealBook Summit really captures the incredulity of the moment—"His parents must be, like, ‘Oh, my God."—and exposes that there is such a title as "president of the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association."

• So much for the old wisdom of "the quirky don't go to prison."

@morningbrew SBFs first day in prison #business #news #foryou ♬ original sound - Morning Brew