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Damian Lillard of the Portland Trail Blazers in December 2021.
Damian Lillard of the Portland Trail Blazers in December 2021. Katelyn Mulcahy/Getty Image

Good Morning, Portland! Good morning, haze! Enjoy your day of walking around, looking like you're in a 24/7 soft-focus glamour shot.

IN LOCAL NEWS:

• On Friday, Allen Alonzo Coe was sentenced to life, with possibility of parole after 25 years, for fatally stabbing Matt Choi in October 2020. Choi was a beloved local food world figure and co-founder of Choi's Kimchi, which he started with his mother in 2011.

• Blazers coach Chauncey Billups announced yesterday that the team's star player Damian Lillard won't return to the floor this season. He'll continue to recuperate from the abdominal surgery he had in January. "I’m happy that a decision was finally made to move on and let him get all the way 100 percent healthy and let the young guys still play,” Billups told the Oregonian.

• I see you out there, looking to scoop up some sea stars. NO MORE SEA STARS FOR YOU, Oregonians! A new rule went into effect on Friday, which makes taking home sea stars (also called "starfish") home. OPB reports that you can look, but DON'T FALL IN LOVE.

• Oregon Poet Laureate Anis Mojgani is really worth your time and I'm sorry to see his thoughtful tenure near its close. Mojgani has spent all of his term, thus far, constricted by the pandemic. He's held readings from his studio window and visited far flung areas across the state via Zoom. OPB profiled his unique experience as Oregon's pandemic poet.

IN NATIONAL / INTERNATIONAL NEWS:

• Ukrainians are fighting bitter battles in their major cities, retaking suburbs and losing others. Their "Top Gun" style aerial dogfights and anti-tank assaults have afforded the country's fighting forces a legendary status. This week, world leaders will convene at a NATO summit to speak of the ominous weapons Russia has yet to employ.

• A Russian court sentenced Aleksei Navalny—an opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin and long time subject of harassment and intimidation by Russian authorities—to nine more years, claiming he had embezzled from his foundation. Continuing the trend where people who stand up to Mr. Putin come off as impossibly cool, Navalny referenced a phrase from The Wire, saying: “‘You only do two days. That’s the day you go in and the day you come out."



• At long last someone is knocking paella off its haughty perch. Social scientist researchers in Valencia have complied an extremely serious list of what can and CANNOT be an ingredient in paella. Saffron is FINE. Lima beans are OKAY. Shellfish is probably just arroz con cosas (rice with things) and NOT PAELLA. The Guardian reports the whole list and backstory.

• It's the LAST WEEKEND to stream the hilarious, sexy, and hot HUMP! Film Fest 2022! Get those tickets here!

• And now for a song that speaks directly to my heart.

@loewhaley Fighting off the Sunday Scaries #wfh #corporate #worklife #relatable #letsgo ♬ It's All Coming Back To Me Now - Céline Dion