It’s the end of January as we know it, but its not the first full weekend of February yet. As longtime Weekend Reader readers probably remember, moving to the Willamette Valley from Montana (now more than 20 years ago!) has caused me to rethink my attitude toward February, but I think I’ll hold off on that topic until next weekend.

And before we get going with this week’s Reader, a note about the last two editions: In my haste to fix an unexpected error, I apparently disabled the add-on that sends the Reader out via email. I believe I have this error fixed now, thanks to consultation with my web expert, but we’ll find out for sure in a couple of hours. In the meantime, I will consider refund requests from readers.

Here’s a long interview — part of The New York Times series dubbed, appropriately, “The Interview” — with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. (You also can listen to the interview wherever you get your podcasts.) During the interview, Frey cites an interview with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz that ran in The Atlantic, and you might say to yourself, “Gosh, I wish I had a link to that article in The Atlantic.” I’m here to grant your wish: Here it is. You may find yourself reacting to the Walz interview the way I did — by wishing Walz has talked more like that during the presidential campaign.

Speaking of Minneapolis, Bruce Springsteen has released a new protest song, “Streets of Minneapolis.” To my ears, it’s not The Boss’ best work — nor even his best protest song. In other words, listening to it made me think of Neil Young’s “Ohio,” the rare protest song that makes reference to specific events that still stands the test of time. I found this clip of Young performing the song solo (with an electric guitar) in 2018.

Speaking of music, the Grammy Awards air Sunday night. I used to think that this would be the year that Kendrick Lamar wins the album of the year award that he should have won for “To Pimp a Butterfly.” Now I think that the Bad Bunny juggernaut has just amassed too much momentum — and then I think, wow, I’m really out of touch with popular music these days — as you can tell from the fact that I just name-checked “Ohio.” But I wouldn’t be completely surprised if somebody performed “Ohio” Sunday night.

Just like cities throughout Oregon, Corvallis is facing what officials like to call a “structural deficit” — which is basically shorthand for saying that costs are rising faster than revenues and that state law dramatically limits how much governments can raise taxes. Corvallis officials now estimate that they’ll be looking at an $8 million budget hole in the 2027-29 budget cycle.

A pilot program in Oregon in which youths who were homeless received $1,000 a month for two years has shown signs of success in getting participants into housing. Mia Maldonado of the Oregon Capital Chronicle has the details.

In a related item: New data reviewed by The New York Times suggests homelessness might be declining nationally. But not so much in Oregon, The Oregonian/OregonLive reports.

You probably haven’t noticed this, but the federal government has partially shut down again. It might reopen next week, depending on whether the House of Representatives approves a funding package that already has passed the Senate.

So there’s probably no need to worry about the government shutdown. But maybe you should be more worried about the FBI search and seizure of election records from Georgia’s Fulton County this week. Said one Republican election official in Arizona: “It’s a five-alarm fire.” Did I mention that this was a Republican election official who said this?

Friday in the newsroom at Lookout Eugene-Springfield, one of my younger co-workers (and, frankly, just between the two of us, they’re all younger than I am) gasped: “Kevin McCallister’s mom is dead!” The news, alas, was true: Catherine O’Hara, the gifted comic actress and world-class improviser, has died at 71. The New York Times has compiled this list of where to stream some of her finest work. (I was thrilled to see that episodes of “SCTV,” where I first noticed her, can be seen on YouTube.)

We all know how hard it can be for some adults to make new friends. John Mulaney joked about how difficult it can be for men of a certain age to make friends in a “Saturday Night Live” monologue in 2020. (The bit starts at about the one-minute mark in the clip.) Now, here come our friends (and I use the word loosely) at The New York Times with a guide to how adults can make new friends. And it all seems like really sound advice … but it also seems like … so much work. Why can’t we just go to bed instead?

Meanwhile, you might be wondering: What’s it like these days to be a journalist? Well, to help answer that question, here’s a story from the Nieman Lab at Harvard that got a lot of attention this week in newsrooms.

That’s all for this weekend. But remember … as I write this, February is just a few hours away. We’ll gather next weekend to celebrate.