by Suzette Smith If you appreciate the Mercury's interesting and useful news & culture reporting, consider making a small monthly contribution to support our editorial team. Your donation is tax-deductible.  Good Morning, Portland! Plenty of peo ple have said this (Hannah Arendt , John Locke, Thomas Hobbes), but a major keystone of our civilization is the choice to reason with rhetoric and words, or rely on the rule of law to mitigate disputes that we once resolved with violence. If our leaders lie then they betray words. If they break laws, then they throw aside the rule of law. With this in mind, it's time to READ THE NEWS. [lololol] IN LOCAL NEWS:• Digging into the world of Portland skatepark proposals, a promising land swap between Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) and Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) portends progress for the project to build a Steel Bridge Skatepark. Mercury reporter Taylor Griggs has the latest on a park planned for the city's westside Old Town neighborhood. While plenty have expressed hopes that a westside park could open around the time the nearby DIY Burnside Skatepark would have to close for the Burnside Bridge's earthquake-ready rebuild (aaaand that did just get pushed back another year), the Steel Bridge park is aiming for a drastically different, far less intimidating feel. • Yesterday in the ongoing Zenith Energy saga that I have decided to spend the weekend writing a TV-style drama about: The Portland city council voted 11-1 to call for an investigation into Zenith Energy's dealings with the city. Councilor Steve Novick was the only no vote; he said he supports an investigation but didn't like how the resolution's text cast certain city staff as "knaves and liars."[image or embed] — Anthony Macuk (@anthonymacuk.bsky.social) March 20, 2025 at 6:37 PM • Contradicting existing reports from federal investigators, Oregon's forestry department is now saying that electrical utility company PacifiCorp was NOT the cause of the 2020 Santiam Canyon fires. PacifiCorp, you are NOT the father [thousands of displaced Oregonians throw chairs]. Oregon’s forestry department has concluded PacifiCorp didn’t spark any of the Santiam Canyon fires in 2020. #wildfires #santiamfire #utilities[image or embed] — OPB (@opb.org) March 20, 2025 at 7:30 PM • In this week's Pop Quiz PDX, Steve pretends that he and I aren't on a roadkill group text chain where people post humble-brag photos of their homemade squirrel hats. Do YOU know Oregon's rules around harvesting roadkill? • Portland made a list of happy cities! Let's not interrogate that at all and simply bask. • Artist-run galleries, studio collectives, residencies, and community engagement are just a few of the ways Portland artists show up for each other and our city. Check out the gallery round-up from our 2025 Spring Arts Guide! And check out the rest of the guide too!           View this post on Instagram                       A post shared by Portland Mercury (@portlandmercury) IN NATIONAL  / INTERNATIONAL NEWS:• Thousands of air travel passengers are pivoting this morning, figuring out ways around the closure of London's Heathrow airport. An early morning fire at a nearby electric substation cutt off power to the massive air travel hub. As of now, the airport remains closed and a message on its main page advises it will remain shut until 11:59 pm, March 21. •Another week, another veritable Santa's bag of illegal stuff from the trump administration. Yesterday, Trump joked about needing to find another job for creature-of-night-brought-to-light and unofficial representative for conservative femme makeup strategy Linda McMahon as he signed an executive order that essentially directed McMahon to dismantle the US Department of Education. Despite President Trump's overall misunderstanding of what the Department of Education does, it seems useful to point out that schools are overwhelmingly funded locally and by their respective states. What the Department of Education actually DOES is deal with student loans and financial aid (oh, you'd better believe we still owe'm),  distribute largely no-strings Title I grants to support schools in low income areas and services for students with disabilities, review college accreditations, and investigate civil rights issues and disparities. That last one is the one he hates. • One of several prominent law firms targeted by the Trump administration—for things like investigating allegations of the President's crimes in years past or employing a lawyer who worked on a lawsuit against the January 6 rioters—Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP reached an agreement this week to get Trump to drop the constraints he placed on it by executive order. It's not hard to see this as a part of a larger wave of revenge actions—many of which are likely illegal. NYT reports that Paul, Weiss has agreed to "agreed to a series of commitments, including to represent clients no matter their political affiliation and contribute $40 million in legal services to causes Mr. Trump has championed, including 'the President’s Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, and other mutually agreed projects.'” • Everyone continues to remember the COVID-19 pandemic in their own special way, and yesterday The Daily spoke with two Princeton University professors who co-authored a new book: In Covid’s Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us. Neither professor came off well—or maybe it's just that their book sucks. (When you're dealing with a university publisher that can often be the case—whomp whomp.) This will sound like pandering, but I think the New York Times piece along the same lines, which focuses more the all-in approaches government took to things it wasn't very sure about, is actually a great read. • This video was already removed so we have to watch the duet, berry-slicing version (don't mind if I do), but this joke set-up is so funny that it made me want to be a teacher, merely to be mercilessly roasted by the Gen Alpha. @hhxxttwl221 what is Twink Death?#students #fyp #foryou#teach #school #camera #illegal ♬ original sound - hhxxttwl221 ...read more read less