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Good morning, Portland! Let’s cast our eyes skyward and peer at today’s WEATHER: Balmy temps continue through the week with the high topping out at 56 degrees today, with rain falling though much of the afternoon. Sounds like perfect weather to me to hunker down and purchase your tickets for this Friday’s (March 27) laugh-filled edition of the Mercury’s UNDISPUTABLE GENIUSES OF COMEDY! Ten of Portland’s finest comedic talents on one stage, along with our guest headliner, the absolutely hilarious MATT BRAUNGER. You need this type of joy right now, so snap up those tickets quick for the Geniuses show, coming at ya this Friday at Revolution Hall! And now? Let’s snap up some NEWS.
IN LOCAL NEWS:
• Local place of amusement Oaks Park reopened on Saturday, March 21 for a sun-saturated week of skree and wheee—in celebration of scholastic spring break (forever) season. The storied little spot for rollercoaster ride’n and rollerskate vibe’n is open for thrills from noon-5 pm all this week, through March 29, before dialing it back to just Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays until June 12. In June, Oaks Park rockets into six days a week of merriment and elephant ear consumption. Another INTERESTING DEVELOPMENT: This year Oaks Park is selling season passes—with UNLIMITED RIDES! Ten percent off on food and 20 percent off roller skating yada yada yada FREE RIDES! There are loads of exceptions, but I’m shocked that rides are not one of them. (But the Haunted House is.) Read more about season passes here. –SUZETTE SMITH
• Running a restaurant or food cart is hard enough without any major life obstacles getting thrown in your way. But Darell Preston of LoRell’s Chicken Shack and Jeff Chow of Mama Chow’s Kitchen both came back from personal tragedies and are not only surviving, but thriving. Mercury critic Andrea Damewood wrote about how these two made their comebacks, as well as the top-tier wings and fries from LoRell’s and the stellar wonton soup from Mama Chow’s. Is it lunchtime yet? –KATHERINE CHEW HAMILTON
• Two prestigious Portland theater companies are teaming up to stage a Tony-nominated Broadway show, reimagining Shakespeare’s sulky prince of Denmark as a queer Black teen at a backyard cookout. His mom is still marrying his uncle (!), but after that, things diverge from the expected route. Fam Ham is a test to see if this sort of collaboration can benefit all. And if audiences can accept “to be or not to be” happy endings. Read Joe Streckert’s piece in the Spring Arts Preview for the whole story on this impressive partnership. –SUZETTE SMITH
• Oregon needs to drastically, and quickly, reduce its greenhouse gas emissions in order for the state to ever hope to meet urgent climate goals. But powerful industry interests have gotten in the way, and threaten to continue to block progress. The Oregon Department of Energy recently made four dozen suggestions for measures the state could take to quickly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Oregon Board of Agriculture is evidently aghast at the DOE’s suggestions related to their industry, including one proposal that Oregonians reduce their beef, pork, poultry, and dairy consumption. Consuming animal products, particularly beef, is a very well-known and well-documented contributor to climate change, and cutting back is a reasonable suggestion to make if we are to seriously address this existential threat. With the Board of Agriculture demanding a “seat at the table,” it’s likely the DOE’s future suggestions will be watered down to meet their demands. Hell, let’s get oil and gas lobbyists in the room too, while we’re at it! That may be a little harsh—ideally, the state Department of Agriculture would be on board with big climate plans like this, so it’s a little weird the Department of Energy didn’t appear to consult them. It’s just extremely demoralizing to watch so many different groups bicker over the arrangement of deck chairs instead of trying to prevent the ship we’re all on from sinking. –TAYLOR GRIGGS
• Trash lovers, assemble! It’s time for another hilarious edition of the best gossip column in town, THE TRASH REPORT, by our own trash aficionado Elinor Jones. This week’s tea: Kash Patel’s sad little FBI sneakers, Babs Streisand calls Robert Redford “Bob,” Chuck Norris and the Jessica Simpson connection, Mormon housewife Taylor Frankie Paul gets the Bachelorette boot, and Scrubs actor Zach Braff INSISTS he’s not dating an AI chatbot. Sure, bro… surrrrrrre.
This week in THE TRASH REPORT: Kash Patel’s sad little FBI sneakers, Babs Streisand calls Robert Redford “Bob,” Chuck Norris and the Jessica Simpson connection, Mormon housewife Taylor Frankie Paul gets the Bachelorette boot, and Scrubs actor Zach Braff INSISTS he’s not dating an AI chatbot.
— Portland Mercury (@portlandmercury.com) March 23, 2026 at 12:34 PM
• Notice anything weird up in the sky yesterday morning? Residents across the West Coast—and yep, that includes Portland—reported seeing “a bright green fireball” in the early morning sky on Monday. For the uninitiated, fireballs are “meteors that can be seen from a distance of about 60 to 80 miles above,” according to Jim Todd of OMSI speaking with KOIN News. Around 5:55 to 6:20 am yesterday morning, the fireball was seen streaking across the sky from San Francisco to Seattle, prompting dozens of reports to the American Meteor Society’s fireball log—which sounds like the perfect next career for me, if for no other reason so I can randomly yell “FIREBALL!” (in the voice of Pitbull) on a regular basis. –WM. STEVEN HUMPHREY
• Speaking of the town’s best columns… you like “doing things,” correct? Then check out the best “doing things” calendar in town, the Mercury’s “Do This, Do That!” In this week’s picks: browse zines at Reed, cheer the Blazers at Moda, teehee with the Woman Who Made the President a Felon, and sup upon shucked oysters at a Bar Norman pop-up. And don’t miss the Mercury’s Undisputable Geniuses of Comedy, the shimmery-smooth samba of Sessa, or the last-ever Blow Pony dance party. Sooooo many things to do!
NATIONAL/WORLD NEWS:
• As Western states like Arizona and California are experiencing record-breaking early spring heat waves, the Trump administration is paying a French company $1 billion to abandon a clean energy project. The AP reports that the federal government will give TotalEnergies what amounts to a refund of its offshore wind leases off the coasts of North Carolina and New York, with the company agreeing to instead invest the money in fossil fuel projects. According to the report, TotalEnergies had already paused its two projects after Trump was elected in 2024, noting offshore wind development wasn’t in the country’s best interest. –COURTNEY VAUGHN
• The US Senate confirmed Markwayne Mullin on Monday to lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Two Democrats—John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico—joined all but one Republican to confirm Mullin for the position. The lone Republican no vote? Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who has longstanding beef with Mullin. As a Senator from Oklahoma, Mullin recently voted against Paul’s amendment seeking to remove funding for refugee welfare programs, and he called Paul a “snake,” saying he “completely understood why” Paul’s neighbor assaulted him and seriously injured him over a dispute about yard waste in 2017. (This is not satire.) During his confirmation hearing, Mullin refused to apologize or clear the record during a tense exchange with Paul, and it appears Paul has not yet apologized for trying to take away programs that help refugees either. Mullin is taking over for the embattled DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who Trump fired earlier this month. He will now head an agency amid a tense standoff with Democrats, who have partially shut down the government as they refuse to further fund the agency until it makes modest, but popular reforms. It is still unclear if Mullin, like Noem, will also be in charge of galavanting around the country, eating steaks and drinking fine wines on luxury jets with Cory Lewandowski. Read more on Mullin’s confirmation here. –JEREMIAH HAYDEN
Political Profile: Markwayne Mullin https://theonion.com/political-profile-markwayne-mullin/
— The Onion (@theonion.com) March 23, 2026 at 1:00 PM
• A California civil jury determined yesterday that Bill Cosby is liable for drugging and sexually assaulting a woman in 1972, awarding the woman more than $59 million in damages. The woman, Donna Motsinger, filed the lawsuit against Cosby two and a half years ago, after first making the allegations anonymously in another lawsuit in 2005. Cosby was once one of the most beloved figures in the country. He used his power and influence to drug and sexually assault dozens of women with no consequences, until the allegations against him were more broadly publicized in 2014. He served a brief prison stint for one such incident, but was released and had his criminal conviction overturned (not because the court found the assault didn’t take place, but because they found Cosby’s due process rights were violated).
Motsinger said the assault caused “mental suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, inconvenience, grief, anxiety, humiliation, and emotional distress,” and praised the jury’s decision to hold Cosby accountable after more than 50 years.“I hope this gives strength to other survivors who are still waiting for their moment to be heard,” Motsinger said. Cosby’s team apparently plans to appeal. –TAYLOR GRIGGS
• According to new analysis from NPR, ICE deployments in cities across the nation are not only draining federal resources, they are causing extreme financial burdens and chaos as well. Cities such as Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and (in case you didn’t notice) Portland, Oregon, found their police resources stretched thin, businesses and commerce were disrupted, and their city’s budgets drained in an attempt to repair the damage caused by the deployment of ICE—and that’s not to mention the mental, emotional, and physical toll on the citizens of these cities. Police departments were forced to pay officers overtime for responding to protests spending millions in the process. Los Angeles—already strapped for cash—found themselves paying $41 million in police spending in June 2025 alone, as compared to the $18 to $30 million they usually spend. In Portland, police officials recorded 38,213 overtime hours paid out to officers, as compared to 19,166 hours logged in 2024. And that pales in comparison to the emotional toll that ICE deployment inflicted on citizens. As Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey told NPR. “People were afraid to go out. Afraid to go to the grocery store. Terrified that their families were going to get ripped apart.” –WM. STEVEN HUMPHREY
And finally… Billy Eichner is the best interviewer in the world (fight me!) and, along with his subjects in the always hilarious Billy on the Street, he knows how to go “hard in the paint.” What follows are some very good examples.
@billyeichner #billyonthestreet #core ♬ original sound – Billy Eichner