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Good morning, Portland! Consider yourself warned:
🚨 ALERT 🚨 This Friday is the LAST DAY you can buy our limited edition Mercury "TP" T-shirt! Help support journalism AND look like a million bucks!https://t.co/gkqIHyRxdq
— Portland Mercury 🗞 (@portlandmercury) April 15, 2020
Here are the headlines.
• The $350 billion Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) administered by the federal government has already run out of money. Here's an analysis of the PPP that gets to the root of the problem: Republicans just didn't want to fully fund it.
• Trump had another White House press briefing yesterday, and it was markedly measured and reasonable and—just kidding! He said the United States has passed its COVID-19 peak and should be reopening soon. Well, I guess that's good news for the thousands of Michiganders who protested their state's stay-at-home order yesterday.
Oh, and it's also good news for these two empty skin suits!
Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner traveled to New Jersey for Passover despite federal guidelines: report https://t.co/eXwQPxC7wG pic.twitter.com/3c9tPBwKEX
— The Hill (@thehill) April 16, 2020
• US unemployment numbers grew by another 5.2 million people last week, effectively erasing the last 10 years of job growth.
• According to new data from the Oregon Health Authority, Oregon Latinos continue to be disproportionately affected by COVID-19. You can learn more about that and more coronavirus news in our daily roundups.
• Oregon childcare workers protested in Salem yesterday, saying that the state's new rule allowing "pop-up" childcares for the children of essential workers have put them in a tough position, and that they're losing revenue from children kept home because of the coronavirus. They're asking the state to provide relief.
With heavy hearts, we share this story: Oregon students face profound learning losses from school closures, especially in math, new research conducted in Portland indicates https://t.co/BVvavhpXlS
— Oregonian Ed Team (@chalkup) April 16, 2020
• Despite sharing a border with China, Vietnam has only reported 268 cases of COVID-19 so far. Why? According to NPR: "Experts say experience dealing with prior pandemics, early implementation of aggressive social distancing policies, strong action from political leaders and the muscle of a one-party authoritarian state have helped Vietnam."
• The Oregonian is the latest local media organization to feel the economic impact of the coronavirus. Yesterday, the newspaper of record announced that it is reducing staff salaries and asking employees to take furlough days—but it hasn't laid anyone off yet. Here's some interesting commentary from a former O reporter:
The Newhouse family, which owns The Oregonian and many other publications, sold a stainless steel bunny sculpture for a ridiculous $91 million last year (https://t.co/XHyPNOw86L).
— Gordon Friedman (@gordonrfriedman) April 15, 2020
Maybe they've got a little extra cash laying around to avoid journalist furloughs and pay cuts. https://t.co/CAmlfjsIMV
• FINALLY, SOME GOOD NEWS! We thought that these 10 pioneer-era apple types were extinct—but a group of retirees have rediscovered them growing in the Pacific Northwest! Yes!