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Good morning, Portland! Believe it or not, it's going to be nice outside today. 60 degrees and sunny! And the trend will continue through the end of the week, so if you can't get outside today, you still have time. 

By the way, please get hyped for the Mercury's SANDWICH WEEK, which begins next Monday, March 3. Does that also happen to be my birthday? MAYBE! But even if your birthday doesn't happen to line up with sandwich week, I think you'll enjoy some of the delicious, $10 concoctions chefs will be spinning up across the city. The sandwich calling my name right now is the baked ziti and burrata on garlic bread at Sit Tite in Arbor Lodge, but there are many more very scrumptious looking sammies available. So start preppin' your bellies, and a big thanks to the Mercury's amazing sales team for this wonderful birthday present that keeps on giving (plus all the fab small businesses partaking, and sponsors Travel Portland and Jim Beam). 

Sorry about all that. Mostly, I just wanted to coyly disclose that I'm a Pisces. Will spill other birth chart details upon request. 

Let's get to the news now, if you still think I'm a worthy source to tell it (don't worry, I'm not really that into astrology! I BELIEVE IN SCIENCE!!). 

IN LOCAL NEWS:

• President Trump has renewed his war on undocumented immigrants with a fervor, putting many people across the country in a terrible position of fear. The risk of detention and deportation has been heightened by the passage of the Laken Riley Act and new Department of Homeland Security rules that enable ICE officers to swiftly deport people in the US without documents, even if they don't have criminal records. Though Portland is a sanctuary city, it's unclear how much of an impact local measures can have in the face of a hostile federal government. And across the city, anxiety has surged within migrant communities, with people reporting ICE sightings in various places including TriMet. Learn more about what ICE and federal immigration officers may be able to do in Oregon by reading Kevin Foster's latest story for the Mercury, which takes a deep look into the important topic. 

• Oregon's flu season has been particularly bad this year, with some experts calling it the worst in a decade. And it's climbing late in the season. Flu usually peaks in late December, and rates were fairly high then, but positivity rates have begun climbing higher once again in the past few weeks. This has sent thousands of people, including dozens children, to the hospital, and a few children have died. 

What gives? Are people not getting their flu shots, or what's going on? According to health experts, less than half of Oregonians usually get their annual flu shot, and that number is dwindling year after year. While flu shots don't prevent all cases of the flu, medical experts still say they're effective for avoiding severe cases that require hospitalization. And they're very safe and don't even really hurt that badly, especially if you don't get it on the same day as your Covid vaccine. (If you do that, it might hurt a little bit, but not as bad as getting Covid or the flu.) So if you haven't gotten a flu shot yet, reconsider! And maybe you wanna grab a mask before heading into a crowded place...? Just sayin'. 

• Speaking of crowds (but not the flu), the lineup for this summer's Project Pabst just dropped—and it's gonna be a banger, y'all. The Project Pabst music festival officially returned to Tom McCall Waterfront Park last year after a seven year break, but some people (like our music editor Nolan Parker) weren't as happy with the artists who played in 2024. I won't make judgments about that (I didn't go last year, but I like STRFKR, ok?!) but I can definitely say that the 2025 event, which will take place on July 26 and 27, has some must-see headliners. AMONG THEM: Iggy Pop, Deco, Death Cab for Cutie, Built to Spill, and Oregon hero Japanese Breakfast. Read Nolan Parker's big Project Pabst scoop for more. 

• If you can't get enough of music news, check out this week's Mercury Music Picks, which highlights upcoming shows including Glixen at Polaris Hall on Thursday, Steve Reich: Different Trains/Natalie Joachim/Oswald Huynh at the Patricia Reser Center for the Arts on Friday, and Ravi Coltrane performing the music of Alice Coltrane at the Newmark Theatre on Saturday. Even if you don't go to any of these shows, it still makes me feel IN THE KNOW to read about what's happening around town. You never know when such knowledge will come in handy. 

• BIG NEWS: The Mercury is officially AWF Twitter, AKA X, AKA the website that was previously bad for being super addictive and perpetuating "doomscrolling" but also pretty good in many other ways, and then it became actually horrible and mostly useless after Elon Musk bought it and ran it into the ground, as he's currently doing with our entire country. TL;DR we're no longer posting on Xitter. If you haven't found us on Bluesky yet, do so NOW, HERE. 

Dear Elon Musk: The Portland Mercury no longer requires your services and is terminating our relationship with you effective immediately. Longtime followers can now find us on Bluesky, and no, don’t bother asking us for a reference. Find us here: https://t.co/IhBTZPvMqo">https://t.co/IhBTZPvMqo https://t.co/2DUvQ6Sy1m">pic.twitter.com/2DUvQ6Sy1m

— Portland Mercury :rolled_up_newspaper: (@portlandmercury) https://twitter.com/portlandmercury/status/1894515394875932790?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 25, 2025

IN NATIONAL/WORLD NEWS: 

• Did you know Elon Musk has Canadian citizenship? I didn't either, especially because he's been talking shit about our neighbor to the north along with all his stupid friends (in a recent, now-deleted X post, Musk said "Canada is not a real country"). As it turns out, Musk has citizenship in the country through his mother, who was born there. But hundreds of thousands of Canadians want that credential REVOKED, saying Musk has been acting against the country's interests and undermining national sovereignty. They signed a petition demanding this, which has received support from a member of Canadian parliament. Although it's clear Musk has no regard for the law or common decency anywhere, and seems convinced Canada will become the 51st American state soon enough, I can only imagine revoking his citizenship would inflame the tensions between the US and Canada in an already-heated time. It would be funny, though.  

In a seemingly AI-generated video that the president posted on social media, images of destruction due to the war in Gaza are transformed into a glitzy resort called "TRUMP GAZA."

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— NPR (@npr.org) February 26, 2025 at 8:15 AM

• In other Musk-related news (sadly, his antics are currently impossible to avoid—but in all fairness, he IS the unelected President of the United States of America), 21 federal employees whose jobs were recently folded into the Department of Government Efficiency resigned Tuesday. In a joint letter, the employees—who seemingly could've kept their jobs if they'd gone along with Musk's plan to purge the government of necessary federal workers—said they can "no longer honor" their commitments to the American people and the Constitution while at DOGE. 

"We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans' sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services," the resignation letter states. "We will not lend our expertise to carry out or legitimize DOGE's actions." 

It's unclear what effect this resignation will have on DOGE's ability to blindly take a machete to core parts of American government, but it was the right move nonetheless. 

• Now, for a lesson in cowardice: Despite knowing how uniquely damaging Trump's administration has been over the past month or so, rank-and-file Republicans in Congress still voted overwhelmingly yesterday to support a horrible budget reconciliation bill. The House has a razor thin Republican majority, but House Speaker Mike Johnson was able to find 217 Republicans (one voted against) to support the budget bill, which sets out to make major tax breaks and spending cuts that (guess what!) will benefit the rich and hurt the poor. The bill includes hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to the committees that fund Medicaid and food stamps, which will undoubtedly cause pain for millions of Americans, including those in rural, Republican districts.

SO. The next time Oregon Rep. Cliff Bentz (our state's sole Republican US representative) holds a town hall in Eastern Oregon—if he ever does a public event again, considering what happened last week—I pray his constituents will GIVE. HIM. HELL. And, if we still have a country with a semblance of a fair voting system come the 2026 midterms (seriously debatable, IMO) we can only hope this decision comes back to bite Republican lawmakers, HARD. Maybe some of these lawmakers are banking on the country falling apart at the seams before they have a chance to run for reelection? If that's the case, consider how they're spending their last days in power: Literally taking medicine away from the sick and food away from the hungry. Jesus wept. 

 

"The crowd again started shouting 'tax Elon,' 'tax the wealthy,” “tax the rich' and 'tax the billionaires.'" The county went 68% for Trump
www.lagrandeobserver.com/news/local/r...

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— David Dayen (@ddayen.bsky.social) February 21, 2025 at 2:57 PM

 

• I know this is the last thing any of you need to hear right now, but there's a new deadly disease spreading in northwestern Congo, and health experts have no idea what it is. They do know the disease was first discovered in children who ate a bat, and that it's killed more than 50 people in five weeks, with most people dying within 48 hours of symptom onset. First of all, this is a tragedy for the people who have died in Congo—a point that will no doubt be obscured amid the fears of the disease spreading beyond Central Africa. But such fears are valid, especially as the US government lays waste to world-renowned teams of infectious disease experts, withdraws from the World Health Organization, and abandons its international aid programs. 

• Finally...you think we should switch to doing this kind of important journalism? (Give this a watch, it's worth it!) BYE! XOXOXO

 

 

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