ASSOCIATED PRESS: The police are reopening an investigation into a Portland massage therapist’s allegations that former Vice President Al Gore groped her at a hotel in 2006. In a brief statement Wednesday, the Portland police did not say why they were reopening the investigation. They earlier said they considered the case closed because there was no evidence. The masseuse told the police that Mr. Gore made unwanted advances during an appointment on Oct. 24, 2006, at a downtown hotel. He was in Portland to deliver a speech on climate change. Last week, the Portland police said that the woman’s lawyer came to them in 2006 but that the masseuse canceled appointments with detectives. The case was reopened in 2009, when detectives interviewed the woman. They determined that there was insufficient evidence. MORE

NATIONAL ENQUIRER: AL GORE SEX SCANDAL ACCUSER reveals shocking NEW EVIDENCE  — ONLY to the NATIONAL ENQUIRER in a bombshell world exclusive interview! “AL GORE is a pervert and sexual predator,” declares MOLLY HAGERTY, 54, the massage therapist who told Portland, Ore. police that the ex-VICE President sexually assaulted her. “He’s not what people think he is – he’s a sick man!”  When the ENQUIRER first broke the world-exclusive story last week her name was withheld as the victim of a possible sex crime.  NOW, Hagerty has bravely gone public – AND on the record-  only to The ENQUIRER –  to demand police launch a full investigation. “I want justice served,” Hagerty said as she reveals the key witness who could blow the case wide open, the secret hotel video surveillance and  the DNA evidence! MORE

OREGON LIVE: So, how much did the National Enquirer pay for the allegations by a Portland massage therapist against former Vice President Al Gore  — $1 million? How about — $0. Yep. That’s what the tabloid says. Zero. Zilch. Nada. In an interview in the Washington Post, the Enquirer’s executive editor Barry Levine says the publication did not pay the woman — or anyone for the story. In fact, he says the therapist came to them, seeking $1 million for her allegations of being sexually assaulted by Gore during a massage session at the Hotel Lucia in October 2006. […] The National Enquirer may have broken the story this week, but the Portland Tribune got the first hot tip in early 2007. What’s up with that? Cover-up? Not so reports Salon.com. The free weekly spent a year investigating the story but found, in the end, that what it dug up just didn’t pass journalistic muster. “The truth is we very much wanted to report the story on Al Gore,” Mark Garber, executive editor of the Tribune tells Salon.com. “We worked on it for a year so that we could report the story. There’s nothing we would have liked more.” The Tribune’s police reporter talked to the victim, interviewed Gore handlers and even posted ads on Craigslist in cities he had visited, looking for other potential victims. No one turned up. MORE

SALON: Last week, Salon spoke with the executive editor of the Portland Tribune, a free weekly newspaper that learned of Hagerty’s charges more than three years ago. The editor, Mark Garber, detailed the fairly exhaustive (and, at times, creative) efforts that the Tribune made to verify the story. Ultimately, after a two-year probe, the paper declined to print a single word on the matter. “There were things that we discovered throughout our investigation that raised serious questions in our mind,” Garber told Salon. MORE

GORE FAMILY SPOKESPERSON: “Further investigation into this matter will only benefit Mr. Gore. The Gores cannot comment on every defamatory, misleading, and inaccurate story generated by tabloids. Mr. Gore unequivocally and emphatically denied this accusation when he first learned of its existence three years ago. He stands by that denial.”