Oh, Weekend Reader readers, just put all of my previous complaints about fall on hold, at least for a week or so. Now, if this glorious light only could linger – but we know that won’t happen. I guess that’s the point of autumn.

Nevertheless, I’m still not lining up for a pumpkin spice latte.

As you may have heard, Gov. Tina Kotek and state Sen. Christine Drazan faced off in a debate Thursday night, one of just two scheduled in this year’s gubernatorial race. One of the sponsors of the event, held at the University of Oregon, was Lookout Eugene-Springfield, my employer. Ben Botkin, one of our reporters, was on the panel quizzing the candidates. And Lookout’s Grace Chinowsky was in the room: Here’s her report on the contentious event. (These stories from debates are notoriously hard to write, because the events touch on so many different topics, but Grace did a nice job.) And here’s a fact-check on the debate, provided by the Oregon Capital Chronicle. 

A recent poll suggested that the race was a dead heat; I’m not sure I believe that, but I do think Drazan has a real shot to pull off the upset. (Of course, I thought that when Knute Buehler was looking to unseat Gov. Kate Brown, and we know how that turned out.)

But if you’re wondering how it could be that a Republican challenger even has a shot at toppling a Democratic incumbent in Oregon, here’s another story that isn’t doing Kotek any favors: You might remember a recent edition of the Reader mentioning an outstanding ProPublica story by Rob Davis about how hard it is to track the $1.4 billion the state has spent over the last five years on affordable housing. Davis is back in ProPublica now with a followup to that story: A lot of that money is funneled through a state agency, Oregon Housing and Community Services. Andrea Bell is the head of that agency. A portion of that $1.4 billion helps local housing authorities develop affordable housing. Bell’s husband, Joshua Crites, works for the consulting firm JH Brawner, which helps “local housing authorities develop subsidized apartment projects that receive a lot of money from Bell’s agency,” Davis reports. Bell has been sluggish at reporting this potential conflict of interest. 

Back in the golden days of yesterday, election officials would gather for tabletop exercises to consider how they would handle Election Day disasters such as tornadoes or power outages. These days, when they gather around those tabletops, they have to consider another potential disaster – what one county elections official terms “federal misbehavior.” There’s no telling what sort of mischief the administration may try to pull as Election Day draws closer, but as a States Newsroom reporter shows, election officials are worried – and trying to predict all the possibilities. Only about half of Americans believe the midterms will be free and fair, according to a recent poll. 

Here’s one of the reasons why election officials nationwide are worried: As Sarah Fitzpatrick reports in The Atlantic, there apparently is nothing that FBI Director Kash Patel won’t do at the behest of President Donald Trump before the midterms – now just one month away. “The president wants indictments,” a source tells Fitzpatrick. “He wants people in handcuffs.” The problem here is that there appears to be little, if any, evidence to justify indictments – but that hasn’t stopped the administration before.

In the wake of the lawsuit over the alleged gang rape at Cornell University, Sophie Gilbert at The Atlantic asks this question: “Is college getting less safe for women?” You know the answer: “If the explicit goal of tech companies and universities were to discourage women from going to college by creating a hostile environment for female students, I’d be hard-pressed to imagine what they could do differently,” she writes. (She also calls for universities to ban – or at least take control of – fraternities.) At Cornell, she reports, 35% of female undergraduates reported incidents of “nonconsensual sexual contact involving force or incapacitation.” A 2019 national student survey by the Association of American Universities found that rates of “nonconsensual sexual contact by physical force or inability to consent involving female undergraduates had risen 3% since 2015.

Remember when some Oregon farmers were touting the potential of the hemp industry, especially for the CBD products that came from hemp? Well, forget about it – the industry is set to wither away in December, thanks to Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell’s decision to close a loophole that he himself championed in 2018. The Capital Chronicle’s Mia Maldonado explains why in this story, which starts at an Albany retailer. 

I clearly have erred in not bookmarking Richard J. Tofel’s “Second Rough Draft” newsletter about journalism earlier, but I’ve rectified that mistake. This week, Tofel writes about the peril the White House press corps faces if it even looks as if it’s compromising with the Trump administration. 

A new report finds promise in the growth of independent local journalism outlets, like Brad Fuqua’s hyperlocal Philomath News and, well, Lookout Eugene-Springfield. But the people behind these efforts – often journalists who have been laid off from traditional newsrooms – tend to forget that other factors such as business acumen and community engagement are just as important as solid journalism, the report finds. And burnout remains a constant risk. Kristen Hare at Poynter has a Q-and-A with an author of the report. 

Wow: It says something that the most upbeat item this week ends with the words “And burnout remains a constant risk.” Let’s see if we can close with something more fun. Let me look.

Nope. The fun cupboard is empty this weekend. 

So let’s do a lightning round here of news that’s at least useful:

• The early days of October are ideal for getting your flu shot, The Associated Press reports. I was able to get a COVID shot this week as well. 

• Do you have a good photo of yourself? Do you need to update your headshot? Here’s advice from AP – and the truth is everyone needs to have a decent photo of themself on file. (Or you could do what I did back in 2020 and go to Jodi Herrling – and, in this small way, I hope to begin repaying the debt I owe Jodi.)

• “Thelma & Louise” is now a stage musical. I normally would not consider this good news, but singer-songwriter Neko Case is working on the songs, so there’s hope.

That’s it for this weekend. Enjoy the weekend. This golden light won’t last.