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Good morning, Portland! It's going to be cloudy today, with temps in the mid-60s. Pretty ideal weather, if you ask me.
Also...you excited for Pizza Week yet? Check out this map of all the participating locations, and you sure will be. (It's next week, BTW.)
IN LOCAL NEWS:
• A Southwest Portland family is suing the city's Urban Forestry office, along with forester Jenn Cairo, for $5 million after a tree fell on their home during last year's ice storm, leaving it uninhabitable. So, what, are these people trying to imply the city's Urban Forestry division is responsible for all tree-related events in Portland? Well, not exactly. Before the ice storm, the family requested a permit to remove the 150-foot Douglas fir tree from their yard in 2022, saying it was leaning toward their house. The city said the tree was healthy and denied their request. After the tree fell, however, an arborist confirmed it was in fact not healthy, suffering from a variety of maladies that made its fall more likely.
The family is specifically blaming Jenn Cairo, who leads Urban Forestry, for enforcing an overly-strict permitting system for tree removal. Cairo's thoughts on trees, as well as some of her alleged personal and managerial failings, were discussed in a March Willamette Week article that explored all the problems Urban Forestry is supposedly causing for everyday Portlanders.
I hope the city can reach a compromise on its tree code, as I don't want the onerous policies to swing completely the other way. But I totally get why this family is pissed.
• Oregonian reporter Zane Sparling went into THE Oswego Lake to discuss the ongoing battle between Lake Oswego residents and the rest of the public, who were recently given legal permission to swim in the now-public body of water. Sparling is the definitive source on this subject, so stay tuned.
• Here's some unfortunate news from Eugene: The CAHOOTS (Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets) program will no longer operate in the city, apparently due to a budget crisis impacting both the city of Eugene and the crisis response program. If you lived in the US and paid attention to the news during the summer of 2020, you've probably heard of CAHOOTS, which is Eugene's version of Portland Street Response. (Actually, Portland Street Response is our version of CAHOOTS, which has been around since the late 1980s as a police alternative crisis response program.) As the country reckoned with the past and future of policing that summer, following the murder of George Floyd, CAHOOTS became nationally recognized for pioneering a system that prioritized sending social workers to help people dealing with mental health crises.
The program, along with its host, the White Bird Clinic, has been suffering financially for some time. Apparently, the program will continue to operate in neighboring Springfield, but it's unclear how long it will be able to sustain that. This is a harrowing reminder that, no matter how effective and popular a program is, it can't succeed without investment. This is a very unfortunate turn of events that will have deep and lasting impacts for CAHOOTS and White Bird staff, the public in Eugene, and beyond.
This is tragic 😭 let's honor CAHOOTS by fully funding Portland Street Response 24/7!
— Candace Avalos (@candaceavalos.bsky.social) April 8, 2025 at 9:53 PM
www.opb.org/article/2025...
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• As usual, we've got some great Mercury music picks for you this week. On Friday, see Roseblood at Swan Dive. Etran de L’Aïr, a super-cool sounding band from Niger, will play the Wonder Ballroom on Saturday. Sunday, check out Death's Dynamic Shroud at Mississippi Studios. AND MORE! Read all about it here.
IN NATIONAL/WORLD NEWS:
• Last week, after Elon Musk failed to buy a Wisconsin election, there was some good national news to include here. Now, it's pretty much all terrible again. Let's do a quick rundown of stuff that happened yesterday:
- Yesterday, President Trump signed an executive order that aims to boost the production and use of coal, the highly-polluting, carcinogenic, and overall toxic energy source that nonetheless occupies a romanticized place in these idiots' brains. The good news is that he's going to have a tough time doing it, seeing as the US (and global) coal industry is all but heaving its final, ragged breaths, and there's really not much market incentive to reverse that. What it is is a distracting and harmful power play—and among the most impacted people are the coal workers themselves, who are being duped by "RETVRN" propaganda when they really just need a steady—sustainable—source of income.
- Trump issued another executive order on climate yesterday, this one even worse than the last. This time, the order attempts to block states from enforcing fossil fuel reduction laws and climate policies, like California's cap-and-trade policy and the New York law fining fossil fuel companies for their contribution to the climate crisis. According to the Trump administration, these policies are "burdensome and ideologically motivated," and "threaten American energy dominance and our economic and national security." Honestly? Fuck you, bro. I feel like there's really not much more to say other than that. This order is not only completely insane and out of touch with reality, it's also entirely unconstitutional. But what else is new? One thing that's not new, but is worsening by the day: My jaw clenching.
- The death of the American university continues, as the Trump administration freezes more and more federal funding for schools including Cornell and Northwestern in an attempt to get them to capitulate and help him with his fascist agenda.
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The Supreme Court halted a federal judge's ruling that required some federal agencies to reinstate workers who had been fired by the Trump administration. In other words, it's okay with the Supreme Court for Trump to illegally fire around 16,000 federal workers, at least for now. Litigation on this topic is still moving forward before a federal judge in California.
This new White House executive order says that the US Attorney General is going to prevent states from implementing democratically passed laws regarding climate change and clean energy. It scarcely needs stating at this point that this is wildly, unambiguously unconstitutional. Dictator shit.
— David Roberts (@volts.wtf) April 8, 2025 at 10:42 PM
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• Let's talk tariffs, shall we? (Ugh, I know.) Another set of tariffs has gone into place, this time implementing a combined 104 percent levy on Chinese imports. Global markets, including in Asia, are reacting accordingly—that is, shares are dropping. Car sales in the US and Canada are set to decrease by 1.8 million units this year due to the ongoing international trade war. Bike sales are going to be impacted, too. (As is everything.) And, unsurprisingly, some of Trump's little pals and supporters are watching this economic disaster unfold and rethinking things. The group of Trump supporters who have spoken out against the tariffs now includes Ben Shapiro, Joe Rogan, Dave Portnoy, and even Elon Musk himself. None of them are redeemable people, BTW. But maybe it's good they're raising some discontent among the ranks.
see, this is exactly what I’m talking about
— ceej (@ceej.online) April 8, 2025 at 9:43 PM
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• Here's something that's not terrible, I guess. A federal judge ordered the White House to let the Associated Press back in, after the Trump administration kicked the AP out of presidential press events when it decided not to rename the Gulf of Mexico the "Gulf of America" in its journalism and stylebook. The judge said the First Amendment mandates that "if the Government opens its doors to some journalists...it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints." It's unclear if the White House is actually following these orders, though.
Instead of cowing Canadians, President Trump’s threats to annex their country have unleashed a wave of patriotic fervor unmatched in living memory.
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes.com) April 9, 2025 at 9:01 AM
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• Alright, I'll leave you with this baby bear that changed my life. What is going on here!?? I don't know, but I like it.
