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Good afternoon everyone on this, the Mondayest Monday of the year. Solidarity with everyone out there living with children/animals who don't understand the abrupt change in their schedules. On to the news!

IN LOCAL NEWS:

• The national discourse over which books school libraries should have on their shelves is gaining traction in Oregon—specifically, in the West Linn-Wilsonville school district. KGW reports that a group of busybodies has been demanding schools remove some books with LGBTQ and/or racial content, and bless those souls at KGW for taking the space to point out that neither woman leading the movement even has children attending a West Linn-Wilsonville school. LOL.

• Also from KGW: The man responsible for the way most people jump over a high jump is from Oregon! I didn't know that. His name was Dick Fosbury and the move is known as the Flosbury Flop; before him, people used to fling their bodies over the bar sideways or scissor-kick over it. Fosbury passed away last week at the age of 76 but his legacy will live on forever, or at least as long as the high jump is in the Olympics.

• The University of Oregon has announced that its new president will be John Karl Scholz. As a University of Oregon alum myself, my reaction is: colleges have presidents??

• It's getting harder for Portland to keep up with our emergency shelter system during extreme weather events when climate change is making it so extreme weather events are happening all the time. Our Abe Asher has a much smarter and thorough breakdown of the concurrent crises, but be warned that it might make you want to punch a wall.

• Speaking of climate change: OPB reports that Oregon researchers are figuring out how to help endangered sea stars that have been suffering in warming seas. I learned in that linked article that sunflower sea stars can be "four feet across with 26 arms," and I'm all for them being saved from extinction despite that being an ungodly amount of arms for one creature. 26?? Come on.

• Related:

• According to the weather app on my phone, we're gonna get a break from rain for a few days starting tomorrow, but I kinda believe my app is setting me up for disappointment and it will never stop raining.

IN NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL NEWS:

• House Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has been released from the hospital following a concussion and rib fracture he got after falling down last week. Hopefully the fall knocked loose a bit of his soul and he starts governing with compassion, thus introducing a new era of hope and prosperity in America! Or maybe he'll retire early. Either way.

• The Silicon Valley Bank crisis is WILD and messy. I don't understand it—my knowledge of bank runs is limited to what was portrayed after the stock market crash in It's a Wonderful Life—but Slate has a great piece about why the all-caps tech bro tweeters are big ol' babies.

• Relations between Greece and Turkey have been a bit crunchy since that whole fall of the Ottoman empire business, but since the recent dual disasters of Turkey's earthquake and Greece's train derailment, the countries are becoming friends again, and I think that's nice!

• The government of Nepal has announced that nobody will be allowed to go hiking there alone anymore because people keep disappearing. If this news bums you out, consider therapy? It's a lot cheaper than a trip to Nepal, and you won't vanish.

• The Academy Awards were last night! Hmm, I wonder if anybody cute wrote anything about it...

• Truly, the one thing carrying me through this grimy excuse for a weekday is the breathless coverage of Oscars fashion, which was truly excellent this year. My best-dressed? Freaking Malala!! It's exactly how I will dress when I attend the Oscars as a Nobel Peace Prize winner (date tbd.)

• When I read the first part of this People Magazine tweet about Jennifer Garner making homemade Snickers, the first thing that popped into my mind was "but how does Ed Helms feel about them?" Fortunately, I read to the end of the tweet:

• And finally... I wrote this entire news roundup with my dog resting her face on my arm and her expression really nails today's vibe. Bye!