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Good Morning, Portland!

IN LOCAL NEWS:
• Reporter at The Stranger, Vivian McCall, has been keeping readers of our sister publication appraised of how President Trump's executive orders targeting trans people might impact readers in the State of Washington. Now she's helping us clarify this for those in Oregon as well.

In addition to scrubbing mentions of trans people from government websites, the Trump administration is blocking changes to gender markers on federal documents. Here's what you can change right now, and what you can't.

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— Portland Mercury (@portlandmercury.bsky.social) February 6, 2025 at 6:45 PM

• In response to "scheduling delays, cost overruns and other glitches" that Portland Public Schools saw during the renovation of the now-reopened Benson High School, PPS board members are considering whether to change construction firms for the district's plans modernize Jefferson. The same construction company won that bid as well. The Oregonian's Julia Silverman reports.

• I'm sorry—adults are letting OpenAI called their data centers Stargate?

OpenAI says it toured an Oregon site this week for a possible Stargate data center. Business Oregon said it hadn't applied for the project but has set up time to talk with the company about it.

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— Mike Rogoway (@rogoway.bsky.social) February 6, 2025 at 4:00 PM

• Check on the Mercury's Free Ticket Thursday to score seats at Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark [that's how they spell Maneuver in the UK -eds], Theory of a Deadman, and comedian Maddie Wiener.

• This week's Pop Quiz PDX is hole-related.

IN NATIONAL / INTERNATIONAL NEWS:
• Welcome to day 18 of the second Trump presidency. On day 17, the Trump administration attempted to walk back the thing President Trump said on Tuesday, about the US taking over Gaza. Trump's people also offered fork-in-the-road "deferred resignations" to CIA employees and sent an unclassified list of recent CIA employee hires up for cutbacks consideration. President Trump revoked federal security protection for former defense secretary Mark T. Esper—Trumps' nominee from his first term—who famously disagreed with the President over his desire to use active duty troops to put down the George Floyd protests of 2020. Trump fired Mr. Esper by tweet shortly after Biden won the 2020 election. Trump's administration also claimed that Panama would stop charging fees to US vessels traversing the canal. Panama is like no we didn't.

•The USPS went back on its decision to momentarily pause package deliveries from China and Hong Kong, believed to be a response to Trump's tariffs on all goods from China and end to an exemption on parcels of very little value. The tariffs aren't off, but the decision may be related to USPS competitors like FedEx and UPS continuing deliveries.

• Those "creepy 22 year olds working for Elon Musk"—to quote Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut—broke into National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) computer systems for as-yet-unknown reasons. Reports inside NOAA have described attempts at finding and removing mentions of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Even before this, there was an ongoing attempt to privatize the National Weather Service (NWS) in the works, and some who've been following the situation have pointed out that the infamous Project 2025 calls for "fully commercializing" NWS' forecasting options. So, privatizing. It's also worth noting that Trump has once again nominated an NOAA leader from his first term who famously changed a visual rendering of a hurricane's path with sharpie, which the NOAA found to be in violation of its ethics.

• This morning, a memo from the newly-confirmed transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, directed the Transportation department’s grant and loan programs to prioritize projects in “communities with marriage and birthrates higher than the national average."

•THAT TOOK TOO LONG: On Thursday, a federal judge in Boston paused implementation of the Trump administration's plan to push out federal workers, just as the deadline to apply for "deferred resignation" was about to pass. In response to lawsuits from several unions the judge paused implementation until Monday afternoon—when he can hear arguments from both sides. The judge also directed the administration to extend the deadline until then.

• Sending you into the weekend with this Chappell Roan x the Hives mashup, “HOT TO Say I Told You GO!”Â