Trump: 'I had nothing to do' with Cruz tabloid story alleging affairs – as it happened

A tiny bird interrupted Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ rally in Portland, Oregon on Friday afternoon. It flew up to the Democratic presidential hopeful’s podium, “I think there may be some symbolism here,” the Senator said, adding although it didn’t look like it, the bird was a dove “asking us world peace.”

The crowd erupted into thunderous applause.

Or, it could be symbolic of something else. Welcome to Portland, Sen. Sanders, where the sketch comedy Portlandia popularized the refrain, “put a bird on it” as a way to describe the city’s aesthetic.

Thousands listened Sanders speak in Oregon on Friday afternoon. Large crowds have turned out for Sanders’ rallies throughout the Pacific Northwest this week.

The Senator is on a mission to capture delegates from his rival and Democratic frontrunner Clinton. This Saturday, Washington state will hold its caucuses, with 101 delegates at stake. Oregon’s primary is in May.

Sanders hit familiar themes during the Portland rally; he spoke of making college and universities tuition free by taxing Wall Street speculation, he mentioned taking on the fossil-fuel industry, and of raising the national minimum wage to $15.

“The truth is, if you work 40 hours a week, you should not be living in poverty,” he said.

He spoke of the Iraq war and noted Clinton’s vote in favor of the war.

“She was wrong. I was right,” he said.

When he spoke of universal health care, saying health care is a right for all people, the crowd broke into chants of, “Bernie! Bernie! Bernie!”

Sanders also touted paid family leave, demilitarizing the police and respecting people’s choices to love whomever they choose.

Retired millworker Gary Johnston attended two Sanders’ rallies this week. He noted the Clinton campaign’s criticism of Sanders, calling him a single-issue candidate. But Johnston, 71, said its the presidential hopeful’s commitment to his message the country needs right now.

“He’s what you might call anti flip-flop,” Johnston said of the presidential candidate.

Sanders closed the rally urging people to vote.

“It is my hope and my belief both Washington and Oregon are prepared to help lead this country into a political revolution,” Sanders said.

The city’s famous Voodoo Doughnut shop had a large doughnut made in Sanders’ likeliness, presumably for him to enjoy after the rally.

Actress Rosario Dawson has taken to task workers rights activist Dolores Huerta – who Dawson once played in a movie – over comments she made about Vermont senator Bernie Sanders.

In an open letter to Huerta, who is campaigning for Hillary Clinton, Dawson methodically picks apart a piece Huerta wrote for Medium titled: On Immigration, Bernie Sanders Is Not Who He Says He Is.

“I, too, believe in the American ideal of reasonable and robust debate between opposing viewpoints in order to move a discussion forward and ultimately arrive at a sensible resolution,” Dawson, a Sanders supporter, wrote. “This becomes impossible, or at least unnecessarily difficult, when one of the parties involved is purposefully trying to obfuscate the facts. I recognized that very same tactic that the mainstream media has been using when I read your opinion piece, where the details of Bernie Sanders’ voting record and positions were misrepresented.”

In her Medium post, Huerta argued that as a United States senator, Sanders was no friend to the Latino community. His positions, she said, have shifted now that he’s running for president and seeking support from Latino voters.

“From the letter he sent to Barack Obama last week, to the work he, his campaign, and surrogates have done attacking other candidates’ positions, you would think that he has been a lifelong champion on issues that matter to Latinos and immigrants,” Huerta wrote in the piece, which was published in February. “But here’s the truth: Candidate Bernie Sanders, advocate for immigrants, is not the same as Senator Bernie Sanders.”

Both Clinton and Sanders have been vying for support from the Latino community. They both recently attended a debate in Florida hosted by Univision, where the candidates clashed over their records but mostly agreed on immigration policy.

North Carolina’s new discrimination law could be violating the US constitution, in addition to dealing a serious blow to LGBT people by preventing any city from creating anti-discrimination protections, experts have warned.

The law, which was rushed through on Wednesday, requires public institutions to designate bathrooms and locker rooms to only be used by people in accordance with their biological sex, which violates constitutional privacy protections.

“If they [transgender people] comply with the law every time they use the bathroom they will be outed because their outward gender expression conflicts with the gender assigned at the bathroom and that could expose them to violence and discrimination,” said Scott Skinner-Thompson, an acting assistant professor at New York University’s School of Law.

The US constitution prevents the state from disclosing information such as a person’s LGBT identity, which is why similar laws are now being challenged in court.