Here we are in mid-August — traditionally a slow time for news — but not this year. So let’s get started.

Let’s say you’re following the drama involving the Republican efforts in Texas to redraw the state’s congressional districts in order to flip as many as five seats to the GOP in the 2026 elections — and you’re saying, well, let them do that, because then California will do the same thing and it’ll all even out. That’s a reasonable thing to think, but there’s a catch that probably explains why Republicans are so eager to try this in Texas: As The New York Times explains, if the Texas effort leads to a nationwide redistricting war, the GOP holds a decided advantage.

And Randy Stapilus, writing for the Oregon Capital Chronicle, explains how partisan redistricting sometimes leads to unexpected results — and points to recent Oregon political history for an example.

City of Corvallis officials continue to try to make the case for a $200 million project for a new City Hall and police department headquarters — and got the same chilly response from attendees at a recent open house. A consultant for the city says he’ll have his final proposal for funding options out next month — but it’s hard to imagine that city residents will be willing to pay extra for these new facilities, especially with the county’s jail still in such dire need of replacement. The Gazette-Times’ Tom Henderson covered the open house.

Saturday, President Donald Trump backed off his insistence on an immediate cease-fire in the war between Russia and Ukraine. Instead, Trump backed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s proposal for a peace agreement based on Ukraine ceding territory it controls to Russia. Click here for the latest updates on the story, from The New York Times. If you’re surprised by Trump’s about-face, The Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum isn’t: In this new piece in The Atlantic, she explores how Trump’s coddling of Russia has left him with no leverage over Putin. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is due Monday at the White House; let’s hope he dresses exactly the same way as he did during his previous visit.

The fact that Putin apparently played Trump for a chump at their summit in Alaska could do damage to the president’s self-image as someone who can get deals done. But Chris Voss, an expert on negotiations — and a former hostage negotiator for the FBI — sees something unexpected in Trump: Voss says Trump’s secret weapon could be empathy. Yeah, that surprised me too. But I thought Voss’ interview with the Times’ David Marchese was surprisingly compelling. You can read it on the Times’ website, but you can also watch the interview on YouTube or check it out in podcast form — just search for “The Conversation” from The New York Times wherever you get your podcasts. (The printed version of the interview is abridged somewhat from the full conversation.)

Here’s what the Farmers’ Almanac has to say about the coming winter in the United States: “This winter’s shaping up to be a wild ride. It’s going to cool down, it’s going to snow, then it might warm up a little, then it’s going to repeat itself again.” Umm, OK — so, just like every winter? No, Almanac editors say — spiderwebs and onion skins this year predict a chilly and wet winter in the Pacific Northwest. OK, so that would be like — every winter? Sean Sterling at The Oregonian/OregonLive unpacks the prediction for us.

The Portland Trail Blazers basketball team has new ownership. Here’s a story from The Oregonian/OregonLive listing key points of the $4 billion transaction. Most important, perhaps: The new ownership has committed to keeping the team in Portland. Of interest: The Oregonian used AI to create this story, which presumably was based on Oregonian reporting. The story was then edited by humans.

Petunia, this year’s winner of the World’s Ugliest Dog title, hails from Eugene. It’s the second straight year that a dog from Oregon has taken top honors. Read more about Petunia in this story from Grace Chinowsky, with Lookout Eugene-Springfield (where I also work these days).

Lookout did another story this week that might interest Corvallis-area readers: It’s a profile of Corvallis artist and food writer Jan Roberts-Dominguez, who used to write for the G-T. Vanessa Salvia, who writes about food and drink for Lookout, caught up with Roberts-Dominguez.

A few words about the Darkside

I had to stop doing my curated (and updated daily!) calendar of arts events on my blog because I just didn’t have the time to maintain it properly, especially after I started working at Lookout Eugene-Springfield. But I do miss it, in part because I know arts-and-entertainment events don’t get the kind of coverage I think they should. (In part, that’s because news outlets know that these stories don’t draw big readership numbers on the internet — which, I have to be honest, still baffles me.) But I do miss doing arts-and-entertainment stories, and so when a reader asked me this week to write about Darkside Cinema, I thought I could oblige.

I suspect many, if not most, Weekend Reader readers these days prefer to watch movies at home, and I understand that. Regardless of the quality of your home entertainment complex, however, there’s nothing to match the experience of watching a movie with an audience (I assume here, of course, that your audience doesn’t blab throughout the entire movie — although, to be honest, the audience member who kept shouting “No! Oh no!” as the protagonist in “Friendship” kept doing one ill-advised thing after another added immensely to the experience — the movie is a comedy that plays like a horror movie). I will always remember the moment at the Darkside watching “Parasite” when everyone in the audience all figured out the big twist at the same time — and we all gasped.

So let me recommend that you make a point of adding a trip to the Darkside every so often to your arts-and-entertainment calendar. It’s not easy running a so-called art house in a small town like Corvallis, and Paul and Lainie Turner have done well over the years keeping the lights on and the air-conditioner working. Paul is working through a summer that also apparently includes his first bout with COVID, as he vividly describes in his blog. And this wouldn’t be a bad week to visit the Darkside, with offerings including the new Spike Lee film, “Highest 2 Lowest,” with Denzel Washington, a rethinking of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 classic “High and Low;” “East of Wall,” a family drama set on a South Dakota horse ranch; and documentaries on Jeff Buckley and Robert Reich’s last class. Also, the Darkside’s popcorn is great — and you can bring your own popcorn container. We prefer our official Scooby-Doo popcorn bin.

That’s it for this weekend. I’ll see you at the Darkside — schedules allowing, of course — and we’ll gather here next weekend.