The Mercury provides news and fun every single day—but your help is essential. If you believe Portland benefits from smart, local journalism and arts coverage, please consider making a small monthly contribution, because without you, there is no us. Thanks for your support! 

GOOD MORNING, PORTLAND! It's supposed to be a little warmer and drier today than it was yesterday, but I'm not going to make any promises. It's May (!) in Oregon, after all! 

What I CAN make promises about, though, is that there are some very interesting news headlines for you to peruse below. ENJOY.

IN LOCAL NEWS: 

Portland State University administrators have closed the campus today (the second day in a row) due to the ongoing pro-Palestine occupation at the library. School officials say they've given Portland police the authority to clear out the library, and many students appeared prepared for a standoff with the cops last night...but it's unclear at this point what went down. We'll keep you posted, and I also recommend staying tuned to PSU's student newspaper, the Vanguard, for news

• In VERY EXCITING local train news (as opposed to the shitty local train derailment news from earlier this week): The Amtrak Cascades service in Oregon had its highest-ever ridership in March, with more than 14,000 riders taking the train in between Portland and Eugene. (This is a 57 percent increase over March of last year!) This is great for many reasons, and hopefully will be a wakeup call to the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) about how hungry the people of Oregon are for the train. About a year and a half ago, ODOT helped Amtrak slash Cascades prices by 30 percent, and it's clearly paid off. Let this be your official message that the Amtrak train is awesome. You can drink beer and eat hot dogs on it, among other cool things. Also, even though the Cascades line doesn't have an observation car (boo), it DOES have really nice bathrooms, so make of that what you will. 

• Last week (on Earth Day!) a 20-year-old man broke into a fish hatchery in Reedsport and poured bleach into a rearing tank, killing 18,000 young Chinook salmon. A sergeant with the Oregon patrol's Fish and Wildlife division called the killing "one of the most senseless acts" he's ever seen in his 25 years as a game warden.  It's unclear at this point what motivated this guy—while  there are wild fish advocates who strongly oppose hatcheries, I am very doubtful they would stoop to this level of criminal mischief in order to make a point, so it seems like this fish-killer just wanted to kill some fish. ??? Weird. 

• In more Southern Oregon environmental news: The Biden administration announced it's getting ready to accept proposals for offshore wind energy development off the coast of Coos Bay and Brookings. It will still be years until developers could build the floating energy sites, but if they get up and running, they could have the capacity to power more than one million homes with renewable energy.  

IN NATIONAL/WORLD NEWS: 

As pro-Palestine protests swell at college campuses the United States (and across the world), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is vowing to escalate the Israeli military attacks on Gaza with a ground invasion in Rafah. Rafah is the city along Gaza's southern border where more than a million Palestinians have fled—essentially, a mass refugee camp—and Netanyahu has been threatening a ground invasion of the area for months now, convinced there's Hamas battalions there. In a statement yesterday, Netanyahu said he would send the Israeli army into Rafah "with or without" a ceasefire deal—making any peace talks pretty much null and void. 

• Last night, more than 100 students protesting at Columbia University were arrested by the NYPD—some of them in very violent ways. Reports also indicated student journalists reporting on the occupation had their movement restricted by police and their own school administration. Columbia administration has stated that NYPD will remain on the campus for two weeks until after the university's graduation, much to the dismay of many students. 

• The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration will FINALLY move to reclassify marijuana as less dangerous and addictive. Weed has been federally classified as a Schedule I drug (accompanying heroin) for decades, which most people know is very unreasonable. Not to discount anyone with a real-life marijuana horror story, but TYPICALLY, the worst thing that happens from weed overconsumption is mild panic attack, eat an entire pint of Ben & Jerry's even though you're lactose intolerant, suffer stomachache, fall asleep for 14 hours. The DEA's decision is pending White House approval, but legal marijuana advocates are excited about the step.

• After climbing into an Amazon box, an Utah calico cat named Galena went on the adventure of a cat's lifetime, ending up at a warehouse in California before returning home. She made it for six days, trapped inside that cardboard box, without any food or water! But I'm sure she—and her owners—are traumatized. So...before returning a box to Amazon, DOUBLE CHECK THAT YOUR CAT ISN'T TRAPPED INSIDE! 

• Finally, happy MAY DAY—AKA International Workers' Day, a celebration of the struggle for the eight-hour workday. It's been erased in U.S. history, but we can keep its memory alive. Today, read about May Day and consider the revolution. (As if you're not doing that already.) XOXO!