✏️ How often are Oregon students absent!?

Oregon Students Missed Less School

Slightly over a third of Oregon students missed at least one out of every ten school days last year, according to new data. Still, that represented a 4-percentage-point improvement in the state’s chronic absenteeism problem from the 2023-23 school year when 38% of students were absent that often. [Oregonian 🔒]

Latest Downtown Fentanyl Market

Police have been making repeated arrests this month at an open-air drug market at Southwest 13th Avenue and Yamhill Street. That’s close to The Portland Clinic, which announced this week it would close its downtown location over safety concerns. Over the past few years, police have effectively shut down previous open drug markets, but dealers simply moved to a new location. [Oregonian 🔒]

The Kicker Grows

On the Friday news roundup, another larger-than-expected kicker is headed to Oregonians on their income taxes in 2026. The new state economist this week projected the state would send $1.8 billion back to taxpayers — an $800 million increase from the previous estimate. [City Cast Portland 🎧]

The 30-foot-tall sculpture across West Burnside from Powell’s landmark location is officially called “Pod.”

“It’s a kinetic pendulum representing Portland’s energy!” writes reader Alexandra Welker Hoxey.

Some readers said it looks like a whisk or, as reader David Oster put it, a “​​giant metal hair follicle on wheels that are facing in different directions so it can't roll.”

It’s also had some crude nicknames.

“We used to call it the testicle,” wrote Lani Bauer. “[That location] used to be home for a big pile of bikes zoobombers used to use back before the testicle was there.”

A shoutout to the rest of the first 10 readers to respond with the correct location: Ben Lynch, Roxanne Thomas, Philip A Hubert III, Tom Hastings, Jim Tung, Joan Simko, Derek B., and Joe Gordon.

This week’s entry is a newer sculpture:

Do you know the location? Do you have an opinion on this one?

(Note: we won’t have this segment next week, so look for answers and a shoutout to the readers who identify the location two weeks from today — Fri., Dec. 6).

📸 Want to submit a photo? Send me a snapshot of somewhere in the Portland metro area, and I’ll consider it for an upcoming Where Is It? segment!