Petraeus, schma-trayus. Our news surge works on a weekly basis.

[September 12th, 2007] One of the cops accused in last year’s killing of James Chasse Jr. while he was in police custody is named in a new lawsuit alleging police battery. Portland police officer Christopher Humphreys and three other officers are accused of beating a suspect named Charles Manigo during a May 4, 2006, arrest at the Rose Quarter TriMet transit stop. Humphreys alwas one of the three officers named in a federal civil-rights lawsuit over the death of Chasse, a 42-year-old schizophrenic who died Sept. 17, 2006, from injuries he sustained during his arrest. An earlier WW investigation found Humphreys has one of the highest use-of-force rates in the Portland Police Bureau. In the new lawsuit, filed Aug. 21 in Multnomah County Circuit Court, Manigo seeks $135,000 from the City of Portland for alleged injuries, pain and suffering, and malicious prosecution. The police and city attorney’s office declined to comment.

The two initiatives atop the November state ballot must be going pretty well for proponents. Murmurs expected a regular dose of campaigning from Gov. Ted Kulongoski in support of Measure 49, a land-use fix, and Measure 50, a tobacco tax for kids’ health insurance. We based that on Kulongoski telling the O in late August, “All of the available time that I don’t have to use officially as governor, I’m going to be devoting to these two measures.” But last week, the gov left for avacation in Eastern Oregon and Wales and won’t be back in the office until Sept. 24. Liz Kaufman, who’s running the Yes On 49 campaign, says despite the time off, the state’s top pol is more than pulling his weight .

Say goodbye to one of the most familiar names in Oregon’s environmental movement. For more than a year, Maureen Kirk , statewide director of OSPIRG since 1994 , has been living and working in Colorado. That’s news because her name and photo have continued to be featured on the OSPIRG website and annual report. Although OSPIRG’s website still lists her as executive director, Kirk stepped down as of July. “We all miss Mo’s leadership, but OSPIRG and Environment Oregon are thriving,” says Jeremiah Baumann , of Environment Oregon, which split off from OSPIRG in May.

The attorney for ex-Portland resident and restaurateur Rose-Marie Barbeau Quinn is still trying to help his client return. The feds deported Quinn in October 2005 to her native Canada after a 15-year battle to stay in Portland, where she’d started the Vat&Tonsure with her late American husband, Mike Quinn (“Widows’ Lament,” WW , Sept. 21, 2005). Her attorney, Brent Renison, filed a class-action lawsuit Aug. 30 in a California federal court trying to get immigration laws changed for widows like Quinn, who was deported because she hadn’t been married to her American spouse for two years before he died . The suit, which names U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff as a defendant, says widows should be treated as “immediate family members” by immigration authorities.

Karaoke crooner Michael Wedel-Durrow has ended his monthlong protest in front of the Alibi Restaurant and Lounge in North Portland (“The Day the Music Died,” WW , Aug. 29, 2007). The diminutive ditty-lover says he ended his sign-carrying outside the Alibi last week because WW’ s coverage gave him the attention he craved and because “the heat was taking too much out of me. It was really tough. I only have one kidney.” The African-American songster claimed racial and economic discrimination after Alibi management tossed him for photographing female Alibi customers. He now takes his act to Chopsticks Express II on East Burnside Street; see a video of Wedel-Durrow singing the hits at wweek.com.