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People eating at tables in the street
Diego Fedele / Getty Images

Good morning, Portland! Expect some spotty showers throughout the day with a high of 54 degrees. And here’s the latest news!

In local news:

• Following overwhelmingly positive community feedback from community members and business owners, the Portland Bureau of Transportation is planning to make COVID-era street seating a permanent city program. Sustaining the program into next year will require approval from Portland City Council later this year.

• Pedestrian advocacy group Oregon Walks teamed up with the Alzheimer’s Association to create a dementia-friendly walking group during the pandemic. Dementia patients are usually elderly, which makes them more vulnerable to catching COVID-19, but, due to their memory loss, they often don’t remember why they aren’t receiving visitors or can no longer do the social activities they enjoy. Participants in the walking group said the activity has provided community connection in a COVID-safe setting.

• School districts throughout Oregon have reported that students are exhibiting significant signs of pandemic-related stress, social immaturity, and inappropriate behavior since returning to in-person learning. This deep-dive from the Portland Tribune takes a look at the variety of ways students are hurting, and explores some solutions.

• Everyday Music will close its sprawling Eastside location on Sandy Boulevard in early May, store co-founder Sarah Hefte announced recently. According to Hefte, the closure isn’t pandemic-related or due to the rise of streaming services that have decreased demand for physical CDs and DVDs. The building Everyday Music rents has elevated levels of carbon tetrachlorine in the air, prompting the landlord to demolish the building after no potential buyers were interested in improving the building’s air as part of a sale. Everyday Music’s downtown location will remain open.

In national and international news:

• NATO leaders are concerned Russia is trying to create a pretext to use chemical weapons in Ukraine by claiming that Ukraine has its own biochemical labs and weapons that would warrant a chemical attack. Those claims appear to be baseless, according to international leaders and Ukraine's own government. Russia has increased its attack on Kyiv with a series of strikes that hit a residential neighborhood in the city.

• A bill banning abortion after six weeks passed Idaho’s House of Representatives Monday and is on its way to the governor's desk. The bill is modeled after the Texas law passed in September 2021 and also permits any family members of the fetus to file a lawsuit against anyone who helps someone get an abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy. Local abortion advocates have vowed to fight the bill in court if it gets signed.

• Stroke rates among young people have been on the rise over the past 30 years while rates have declined amongst people 75 and older, according to the American Heart Association. The conversation about stroke symptoms and causes reentered social discourse this week after model Hailey Bieber (who is famously married to pop star Justin Bieber) shared with her 41.8 million Instagram followers that she experienced stroke-like symptoms due to a blood clot in her brain last weekend. Bieber has since recovered.

• President Biden directed the federal government Tuesday to consider banning federal contractors from reviewing a job applicant’s previous salary history in an effort to reduce pay disparity based on gender, race, or ethnicity. In 2020, the average full-time woman worker earned 83 cents on the dollar in comparison to her male counterpart—that gap is noticeably bigger for women of color, particularly Black, Latino, and Native American women.

• Need happy hour plans this week? Then check out the boozy fun of the Mercury’s HIGHBALL—a week of specialty cocktails mixed by the city’s best bartenders… and for only $6 each!

• And finally, who got this footage of me trying to adjust to Daylight Savings Time?