When I was working at the Gazette-Times, I occasionally would editorialize about scams — you know, the latest attempts by con artists to separate you or your loved ones from their hard-earned cash through nefarious schemes that prey both on people’s fears and their fondest dreams. I suspect readers sometimes wondered who would fall for some of the more obvious scams — I wondered that myself from time to time, but yet victims are still running down to the nearest department store to buy gift cards and read off their numbers to these crooks in hopes that they will free their grandchildren from arrest in Russia or whatever.

Back then, most of these scams followed a few well-worn patterns, but I figured that over time, the schemes would grow more sophisticated. Still, I read this story from The New York Times with astonishment: It’s about a retired attorney who essentially lost all his retirement money, some three-quarters of a million bucks, to an incredibly elaborate scam. I suspect that many of the Weekend Reader’s readers are people of a certain age (as I am now) and it’s worth remembering that we are prime targets for these crooks.

The recent drowning death of Portland chef Naomi Pomeroy on a stretch of the Willamette River near Corvallis has focused timely attention on water safety. So far this year, 19 drownings or presumed drownings have occurred in Oregon. Experts emphasize two points: First, wear a life jacket. Second, if you’re on a paddleboard, use a quick-release leash if you’re on moving water.

It’s official now. As of Aug. 2, Oregon State University and Washington State University are on their own; all the other schools in what used to be the Pac-12 Conference have departed for their new homes. So, what’s next for OSU and WSU? Jon Wilner, who was the best Pac-12 Conference writer in the days when there was a Pac-12 Conference, spells out some of the options for the Beavers and the Cougars in this column. But the clock is ticking: The schools are working under a two-year grace period from the NCAA to find a new home, and that expires in the summer of 2026.

Meanwhile, it’s redemption for Oregon State University gymnast Jade Carey: She captured the vault bronze medal in the 2024 Olympics on Saturday, some three years after tripping in the finals in Tokyo and finishing last. Someone named Simone Biles won the gold in the event and then probably provoked silent groans among her competitors by hinting that she might be back for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.

The Associated Press had this nice feature about Carey that appeared before she won the bronze in the vault and claimed a gold medal as a member of the U.S. women’s gymnastics team.

Carey isn’t the only person with an Oregon connection in France these days: Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum is among the 26 state attorneys general attending a trip to the country cosponsored by a group mostly funded by companies, including some under scrutiny of the state lawyers. Most of the attorneys generals on the trip declined to confirm their participation to The Associated Press and the Attorney General Alliance, the cosponsor, declined to name the attorneys general on the trip, so credit to Rosenblum for going on the record about this. She’s retiring from the position, but it might be worth asking the candidates for the job — Democrat Dan Rayfield and Republican Will Lathrop — what they think about these junkets.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Grants Pass homelessness case has cleared the way for states like California to move aggressively to clear camps sheltering people who are homeless. In Oregon, though, the ruling has had less impact, because Oregon is still governed by a state law requiring that any local regulations governing where unsheltered people can sleep be “objectively reasonable.” I expected that legislators would start calling for another look at the state law (House Bill 3115, which passed in the 2021 session) when they next gathered in 2025. And, in fact, some legislators already are agitating for that — but Democratic legislative leaders are showing little interest thus far, as Lauren Dake of OPB reports in this story.

Here’s this week’s long read: David Gelles from The New York Times has a piece about a scientist at the University of Chicago who believes we can at least buy some time in the face of climate change by shooting sulfur into the atmosphere. The idea is gaining some proponents — but also, as you might imagine, has also attracted fierce opposition. This caught my eye in part because the idea basically is the plot of “Termination Shock,” Neal Stephenson’s entertaining but unwieldy 2021 novel. The phrase “termination shock” appears in Gelles’ story, but the novel is not mentioned. I listened to the book on audio, and it eventually occurred to me that Stephenson was trying to write a comic novel about a very serious subject — and was mostly successful. I don’t want to give away too much about the book — but I will note that it ends with a covert attack by the nation of India on a Texas ranch owned by a billionaire.

“Termination Shock” also introduced me to the Zone of Actual Control, the notional boundary between India and China; in Stephenson’s novel, volunteer martial artists from India and China fight to move the line in skirmishes that draw huge audiences on social media. And if that seems weird to you (but it’s not really that far-fetched, is it?), it’s not that much weirder than what actually occurs along the zone, some of which towers 20,000 feet above sea level.

That’s it for this weekend’s Reader. Remember, if you get a call from a granddaughter saying she needs money to get sprung from a jail in Texas, it’s possibly a scam — especially if you don’t have a granddaughter. See you next weekend.