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Good morning, Portland! Your eyes do not deceive you—WE HAVE A NEW WEBSITE! While change is exciting, we recognize it can also be difficult, so here’s a handy guide on how to navigate this shiny new space. Now onto the newz.

In local news:

• COVID infection levels later this month are expected to be comparable to the omicron spike in January—the highest COVID infections have ever been during the pandemic—according to a new model from OHSU. Wastewater testing shows that approximately 6 percent of the population has COVID. The spike is expected to peak by the end of July.

• Regional officials are planning to build Oregon’s largest landfill in Lake County, a remote area in the southern part of the state. The plans have been shrouded in secrecy with closed door meetings happening between county leaders, state officials, and a private consultant—offering no opportunity for public input—since last year. While the developers claim the landfill will boost the county’s economy, residents are concerned with the lack of answers on how the garbage dump will impact the environment and cultural resources.

• Over the next two months, Pink Martini pianist Hunter Noack will truck a 9-foot, 1912 Steinway & Sons grand piano to Crater Lake, Smith Rock, Kelley Point Park, and several other natural spaces as part of his In A Landscape concert series. Check out Ben Salmon's conversation with Noack about the project here. 

• An analysis by the Oregonian showed that the city’s new sweep-heavy approach to homelessness led to just 15 people entering a shelter per week—most of whom only stayed a single night. The story highlighted unhoused Portlander Mama Kat’s experience being repeatedly swept which Mayor Wheeler took issue with on Twitter, claiming the city helped Mama Kat relocate to a shelter. Oregonian reporter Nicole Hayden pulled an “Actually no, that’s not the truth Ellen” and presented the RECEIPTS:

In national news:

• The House January 6 committee will host its seventh hearing today at 1 pm EST. If you haven’t tuned into the hearings yet, this one might do the trick: The committee is expected to focus on extremist groups like the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and QAnon movement’s involvement in the attack. 

• NASA is revealing more stunning pictures from the James Webb Space Telescope, a telescope that is observing a portion of space formed 13.5 billion years ago.  Admittedly, I have zero understanding of the ✨science✨ behind these photos, so here's all of the photos with links to explanations of what you're actually looking at and a factsheet about the telescope itself. My two cents is that the Southern Ring Nebula is beautiful and amazing and awe-inspiring and... looks like a Ringworm rash. 

• Pulse oximeters—the small clip that is placed on the finger to measure the oxygen saturation in someone’s blood—often overestimate how much oxygen is in a dark skinned patient’s blood, new research shows. The device measures the amount of LED light absorbed by the blood to determine oxygen levels, but skin with more melanin can absorb more light overall, obscuring low oxygen levels. Physicians are ringing the alarm (amid a respiratory pandemic) and looking for solutions. 

• Crab-flavored whiskey—it’s a thing. Green crabs are an invasive species that eat native clams and mussels in North America. One distillery in New Hampshire is fighting off the little bastards by snatching them up and adding them to a spiced whiskey, aptly name “Crab Trapper.”

• Someone put the Jurassic Park music over this STAT: