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Good Morning, Portland! Bus in the snow / way to go. It only happens once a year / it only happens once a lifetime / make the most of it. 

IN LOCAL NEWS:
• People of Portland! If you are able—PLEASE SHOVEL AND SALT YOUR SIDEWALKS. You can use kitchen salt! If you don't have a shovel (because you live in Portland), you might have a garden shovel (because you live in Portland). Other things you can repurpose into shovels: cardboard, small garbage cans, pots and pans! When I was a lazy teen in Detroit, I used to just pour hot water on my front steps (and salt after).

• Plenty of schools are closed today. However, in most cases, online classes continue as scheduled—natch.

• The Timbers season opener game scheduled for Saturday—POSTPONED. Now the season will open on Monday, with tickets for Saturday honored.

• Portland Parks & Rec community centers, swimming pools, arts centers remain closed today. Just all of it. All of it. The tennis center. All of it. 

• The Oregon Zoo will also be closed today, but they put up a cute video of polar bears and otters playing in the snow (not together).

• Okay, I know that the Portland Business Alliance paid for a report that says Portland's economy isn't looking too great. The good news is that—when it comes to Oregon—data on the state's economy shows notable gains over the past decade. For the Statesman Journal, Tim Nesbitt reports "gains were achieved by low- and middle-income families." So that could explain why the wealthy are stressed.

• The OHA recently announced that if the state’s respiratory illness trends continue to improve, it will likely lift its mask mandate for healthcare settings. While there were many (this reporter) who thought widespread masking would lead to more general mask-wearing when ill, like other countries, Multnomah County thinks that removing emergency measures will improve public trust. Abe Asher reports this follow up story.

• On March 24, Walmart will close its stores at Delta Park and Eastport Plaza. The Oregonian's Kristine de Leon notes that the chain pulled out of many proposals to build those stores in the first place. Delta Park didn't even manage to stay open a decade. Between the stores, 580 employees are expected to lose their jobs. The unrepresented workers were offered the option to apply to work at other locations.

• Hey also. It's fucking FRIDAY, so tickets are going on sale this morning. Our Everout team has your calendar fucking HANDLED, with this rundown of shows you will want to scoop:

IN NATIONAL / INTERNATIONAL NEWS:
• Today marks the one year anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. History Professor Timothy Snyder gave some extremely listenable lectures on the history of Ukraine at Yale this fall, and the college has made them available to the public. You can also find them on most podcast apps—highly recommend.

• Cartoon villain Marjorie Taylor Greene said yesterday that she will introduce a bill to force an audit of the aid the US has sent to Ukraine.

• The brouhaha over Kevin McCarthy releasing tapes of the January 6 insurrection attempt exclusively to Tucker Carlson has just begun to brouhahaha. 

• And now, another long con—but this one only lasts a minute:

 
 
 
 
 
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