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Here's your daily roundup of all the latest local and national news. (Like our coverage? Please consider making a recurring contribution to the Mercury to keep it comin'!)

In local news:

• A new study from Portland’s Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research looks into the effects of the mass use of tear gas from law enforcement against protesters last summer. One especially galling find: Among the respondents who menstruate, over half of them experienced some sort of menstrual irregularities after being gassed.

• The Oregon Health Authority reported 888 new COVID-19 cases and two new deaths today, as Oregon's "fourth surge" of the pandemic continues.

• Get ready for some tree drama: Local officials across Oregon claim that the Oregon Department of Transportation's efforts to remove fire-hazardous trees is being mismanaged, resulting in wide swaths of trees being cut down without good reason.

• Live music is starting to chart a post-pandemic comeback, and in Portland that means... tickets for Machine Gun Kelly go up for sale this Friday! Consider this your head's up, if you're into that sort of thing.

In national news:

• Three men have been charged with federal hate crimes connected to the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man who was chased and gunned down while jogging in Brunswick, Georgia last year.

• Oregon may be experiencing a COVID surge, but for most of the United States, the pandemic is calming down as more and more people get vaccinated. In more than half of all US states, case counts have dropped substantially in the last few weeks.

• President Joe Biden is giving a State-of-the-Union-that-isn't-technically-a-State-of-the-Union tonight. (In other words: He's giving a speech before Congress.) Here's what to expect and how to watch.

• Simon & Schuster is planning to publishing an upcoming rehabilitation propaganda campaign memoir from Mike Pence. The move is prompting many of S&S' employees with a conscience to petition their bosses to stop publishing books from people who were complicit in the actions of the Trump administration.

And just for fun:

• Here's a Refresh Playlist with two singles and one remix album with which to refresh your weary brain.

• And finally, no one says it like Liza can: