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Good Morning, Portland! Get excited about sandwiches because the Mercury's Sandwich Week returns in early March. I have nothing to do with the food weeks—send your compliments to sales—but I do like a nice melt. Now, plz melt with me into some news.
IN LOCAL NEWS:
• 'T' is for Timbers, and it it is Time to Talk about Them again. After a humiliating playoff loss to the Vancouver Whitecaps last season, can the team manage to it around in 2025?Abe Asher has the read on what the team should make a priority. If you feel differently, write to us in all caps.
• There's a lot of development aspirations coming out of Old Town. Too bad none of it is housing. Last week, a Willamette Week article followed the ins and outs of a conflict between Society Hotel owner Jessie Burke and other members of the Old Town Community Association, of which Burke is board chair, over Burke's idea to build a skate park in Lot 25. This week, the Oregonian has a piece about Lan Su Chinese Garden's idea to expand into Lot 24, which is located to the garden's north and across NW Third from Lot 25. The garden's idea? An event center. So it'll be busy on the weekends and during the summer, then empty at all other times. That's certainly something Old Town needs—another mostly empty building.
• A person who appeared to be in crisis climbed a tower of the Hawthorne Bridge yesterday, leading to traffic congestion as Portland police and fire crews worked to deescalate the situation. UPDATE 10 am: After approximately 16 hours of crisis negotiation, the person agreed to come down Friday morning, and the bridge reopened at 9:30 am.
• A new six-page report from American Institutes of Research says that Oregon needs to reform the way it funds its school systems, and that the state should actually be spending much more money per student. This seemingly flies in the face of a report that Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University presented to the Oregon Legislature last month which said that increased spending has produced only marginal benefits. FIGHT! FIGHT!
• Throw this on another one of those Oregon is perfect for lists:
We're No. 1! And 2, 3, 5, 6....
— Ryan Haas (@ryanjhaas.bsky.social) February 20, 2025 at 7:51 AM
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• Pet owners who feed their companions raw food have to be some of the most invested caregivers one can imagine, and you absolutely have to stop doing it until the Bird Flu problem is more under control. Even the dry stuff.
• If you want to add some horror film catharsis (and more than a little humor) to your weekend plans, consider newly-released The Monkey—for more, read this review by Mercury critic Dom Sinacola.
Like many, I thought that The Monkey was just another Stephen King short story adaption, but @sinacolad.bsky.social points out its from the director of Longlegs, and where that film "gapes in horror at the meaninglessness of death, The Monkey gets a belly laugh out of the meaninglessness of life."
— Suzette Smith (@suzettesmith.bsky.social) February 20, 2025 at 12:13 PM
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• Test your memory of local news with the Mercury's Pop Quiz PDX:
IN NATIONAL / INTERNATIONAL NEWS:
• Bad news for those who were looking at asteroid 2024 YR4 to put us out of our misery in 2032. The odds, which ticked up to 3.1percent on February 18, have decreased to .28 percent. COME BACK, 2024 YR4! Come baaaack.
• Mitch McConnell announced Thursday that he won't run again for another term as a senator representing Kentucky. This had been surmised as likely since last February when McConnell said he would step down as Republican leader. In recent weeks, McConnell has been voting against some of the recent, ridiculously unqualified Trump nominees, such as Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. While we appreciate the symbolism of it, it's now apparent McConnell is just able to do this because he's not concerned about reelection, not because of any particular morality.
• Speaking of deeply unqualified people being confirmed to head massive governmental organizations, the Senate narrowly voted to confirm Kash Patel as FBI director Thursday. On a recent episode of On the Media. Atlantic staff writer Elaina Plott Calabro described Patel—who she profiled in August—as someone eager to cast himself as either "the ultimate hero or ultimate victim." A deep state conspiracy believer, Patel has notoriously labeled officials who have investigated Trump "criminal gangsters" and referred to the now-pardoned Jan 6 rioters as political prisoners. Despite earlier reports of Mitch McConnell's newfound conscience, he approved this confirmation. NYT reports that "Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska were the lone Republican holdouts."
• Another good podcast episode— guaranteed to make your heart race—from this week, there's a Science Vs special episode exploring some of the ways DOGE's illegal cuts are throwing government-funded research into chaos:
New episode out! 🧪 The Trump administration has thrown the science world into chaos. We talk to @maxkozlov.bsky.social at @nature.com and Jocelyn Kaiser at @science.org about what's going on. On Spotify or wherever you listen 👇 open.spotify.com/episode/56Co...
— Science Vs (@sciencevs.bsky.social) February 19, 2025 at 2:43 PM
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• Wired reports that widespread layoffs / firings at the Department of Agriculture have thrown off research on crops, pests, disease, and climate change, among others. But. We may not even need food anymore because the Ozempic shortage is ovvvverrrr.
• Something I love about humanity (even as I was calling for an astroid to smoosh me earlier in this section) is the misunderstood deep sad and hard-to-avoid tears that come from hearing someone offer compassion to another in their darkest hour. You'll hear that in this interview of NPR reporter Adrian Ma, by Mallory Yu. Ma's voice is a near-daily presence in my home because the show he co-hosts, The Indicator, is an easy, under-ten-minute listen offering bite-sized views of big ideas about the economy, business, and work. Yu and Ma's conversation unpacks a very personal and unfortunately topical tragedy: Ma's girlfriend civil, rights lawyer Kiah Duggins, was a passenger on the flight that crashed into the Potomac River on January 30. This conversation provides a human window into the surreal experience of sudden loss, which is a difficult thing to convey. Ma is brave to share, and Yu deft in the care they show their colleague.
• In closing, here is the vision I see before the astroid hits:
