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Tanks of fossil fuel along the Willamette River.
Tanks of fossil fuel along the Willamette River. AARON LEE

Good morning, Portland! Did you sense a giant cloud hovering above you last night? Perhaps it was the estimated 3.9 million birds in the air migrating through the Portland metro area Sunday evening. Big enough to be caught on a weather radar! (Perhaps this explains why your car is doused in bird poop.)

Enough about birds. Time for today’s headlines:


- Portland Japanese Garden has purchased a house on the edge of Forest Park with intentions to turn it into a center for teaching Japanese art techniques, including gardening, photography, and ceramics. The new space has been dubbed the “Japan Institute.”

- On Earth Day, a coalition of nearly 90 organizations from across the state demanded the Oregon State Treasury reconsider the estimated $5.3 billion of public funds invested in fossil fuels. State Treasurer and current gubernatorial candidate Tobias Read appeared to shrug.

- Dispatch from Saturday’s Timbers game:


- President Biden has endorsed Rep. Kurt Schrader, a centrist Democratic in the pocket of big pharma, in the congressional race for Oregon’s District 5.

- Good morning to this headline: “Corvallis shelter cat competes in national high-five contest”

- Goodbye never talk to me again to this headline: “Washington woman rescued after falling headfirst in pit toilet trying to retrieve phone”

- RIP, Wynn:

- Russia’s attack on Ukraine has passed the three-month mark. On Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy met with US defense secretary Lloyd Austin and secretary of state Antony Blinken in Kyiv to discuss US aid.

- In other terrible wartime news, those who’ve fled the city of Mariupol describe the “filtration camps” that Russians hold them in during the evacuation process. It sounds an awful lot like another type of camp.

- French President Emmanuel Macron has won his reelection campaign, beating out far-right candidate Marine Le Pen with just 59 percent of the vote. He’s the first French leader to win a second term in office in 20 years.

- No showers, no communication, no flushing water, freezing temperatures, a shared bedroom… and getting paid to count penguin chicks?!? A remote post office in Antarctica is hiring for what it calls a “dream job” working at its gift shop and helping count penguins for a UK research project.