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Good morning, Portland! It's been one year since we had our last 'normal' week before a pandemic stopped Oregon in its tracks. Rain's coming, but so are cherry blossom blooms. Here are your Monday news headlines:


- President Biden’s $1.9 trillion economic stimulus bill passed the US Senate this weekend, and is now headed to the House for a Tuesday vote. The massive bill broadly supports American families that were hardest hit by the pandemic's financial toll, but the specifics have shifted over the past month. Here's an overview of what this stimulus bill will actually do.

- A highly anticipated Oprah interview with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry Sunday evening revealed that the royal fam not only drove Markle to contemplate suicide, but voiced concerns about the color of her unborn child's skin. Here's Oprah's reaction to this revelation:

- Jury selection is scheduled to begin today in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer charged with George Floyd's death in May 2020. It's still unclear if the judge overseeing the case will drop Chauvin's second-degree murder charges to third-degree, a switch that could further delay the trial. The entire trial (including jury selection) will be livestreamed here.

- New York Senate's Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins—the top Democratic lawmaker in the state—called for the resignation of Gov. Andrew Cuomo Sunday over allegations of sexual harassment and an investigation into under counted COVID-19 deaths in state nursing homes. (He said 'nah'.)

- When Texas Gov. Greg Abbott lifted the statewide mask mandate last week, a Houston Mexican restaurant decided to keep its mask requirement in place to protect the health of staff and customers. In response, some darling anti-maskers threatened to call immigration officers to report the restaurant's undocumented staff.

- Related Idaho content:

- Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler announced late Friday that he's calling for an investigation into how City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty was named a suspect in a hit-and-run she wasn't involved in—and how that information was leaked to both the press and right-wing trolls. The Portland Police Association is mad about it.

- Your favorite radio station XRAY.FM has severed ties with its co-founder Jefferson Smith after staff, DJs, and community members raised allegations of Smith's financial mismanagement, bullying, and general unprofessionalism.

- The Oregon Legislature is considering a bill that would axe a legal defense that protects people who assault or kill LGBTQ+ people. The so-called LGBTQ+ panic defense—also known as the gay panic defense or trans panic defense—allows for violence against LGBTQ+ people if the perpetrator says it was the result of their shock of learning that someone was queer or trans.

- Oregon Gov. Kate Brown issued an executive order Friday calling on all Oregon school districts to offer full in-person or hybrid instruction to K-5 students by March 29, and grades 6-12 by April 1 (despite vaccines not being fully available to Oregonians until July 1).

- The Oregon potato lobby is facing off against #TeamOnion in the state legislature to determine which produce item will be Oregon's state vegetable.

- Oh, and Mazel Tov to my fellow womens: