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Good morning, Northwest.

Federal agents’ use of tear gas and other crowd control measures against Portland protesters will be the subject of court hearings set to begin today.

The evidentiary hearings will function as a mini-trial, in which protesters, law enforcement and other witnesses will testify under oath and face cross-examination. OPB’s Conrad Wilson previews the proceedings to start today’s newsletter.

Also this morning, Iranian Americans gathered in Portland to celebrate the toppling of the Iranian government.

Here’s your First Look at Monday’s news.

—Bradley W. Parks

After months of tear gas outside Portland ICE building, protesters go to court

For months, federal law enforcement officers at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland have liberally used tear gas and other crowd control measures to push protesters away from the property.

In their efforts to protect the building, those chemicals have found their way into nearby apartments and businesses.

Federal officers have also hit nonviolent protesters exercising their constitutional rights.

Today, some of those demonstrators are headed to court, where they plan to argue before U.S. District Court Judge Michael Simon that officers violated their First Amendment rights to free speech and protest. (Conrad Wilson)

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3 things to know this morning

• Hundreds of Iranian Americans met at Portland’s Pioneer Courthouse Square on Sunday to celebrate this weekend’s military strikes against the Iranian government, which they say has been the source of brutal repression for decades. (Joni Auden Land)
• Legislative budget writers propose leaving more than 130 state jobs vacant, spending less on services and supplies and moving around money within public agencies to rebalance Oregon’s budget and close a large funding gap at the transportation department. (Alex Baumhardt)
• Yachats was officially named a bird city yesterday, becoming the first city on the entire Pacific Coast to earn the designation, and so far only city in Oregon listed on the Bird City Network website. (Karen Richards)

Ghost town offers a window into Oregon’s multiracial logging history

When Gwen Trice dug into her family history, she learned that her father had come to Oregon from Arkansas in a boxcar to live and work in the logging town of Maxville, a segregated logging town that defied Oregon’s racist laws. This week’s episode revisits this part of Black history in Oregon. (Julie Sabatier and Eric Cain)

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Headlines from around the Northwest

• ‘This is not an empty field’: How these 2 artists remember Chinese ancestors at Portland’s Lone Fir Cemetery (Winston Szeto and Lillian Karabaic)
• Popular Oregon camping destination for off-road vehicles switches to reservation-only system (Tiffany Camhi)
• Bill moving through the Legislature would ease Eugene annexation in some instances (Zac Ziegler)
• Washington lawmakers move forward with guardrails on AI detection, chatbots (Nate Sanford)
• Washington state lawmakers strike big business tax break from ‘millionaire’s tax’ (Sarah Mizes-Tan)
• Opinions differ on proposed motorized boat ban on upper Siletz River (Brian Bahouth)
• Tacoma gets grant to plant trees around where kids walk to school (Lauren Gallup)
• Hawks get off to hot start, never look back in 135-101 rout of Trail Blazers (Bill Trochi)

Listen in on OPB’s daily conversation

“Think Out Loud” airs at noon and 8 p.m. weekdays on OPB Radio, opb.org and the OPB News app. Today’s planned topics (subject to change):

• New OHSU study reveals low rates of routine patient screenings for anxiety and intimate partner violence across Oregon
• Oregon programs facilitate care for pregnant women with substance use disorders
• Why a Bend resident spent more than 4,000 hours to become a certified cheese professional

The Oregon Zoo gets creative in effort to recover endangered tropical bird

Male sihek of a feather flock together — at least, that’s what’s happening at the Oregon Zoo. It’s a discovery upending previous beliefs about a territorial and critically endangered bird species.

Sihek (pronounced “SEE-hek”), also known as Guam kingfishers, are brightly colored, long-billed birds endemic to Guam. Zoo scientists have long believed that males couldn’t be housed together without risk of infighting.

But the Oregon Zoo has kept its three males in the same aviary for about two years without incident. It’s a promising finding for zoologists across the U.S. and Guam who are trying to revive the species with limited space. (April Ehrlich)

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News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/03/02/tear-gas-portland-court-hearing-first-look/