Did you hear the big news? Taylor Swift released her new album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” this week.

And we’ll get to that. But there was other news this week: Portland is preparing for an influx of new residents, with hundreds of National Guard troops on their way to finally clear up that hellhole. A congressional deadlock closed the federal government — possibly paving the way for another Project 2025-inspired wave of layoffs. And the administration has an offer that universities and colleges across the country likely would be wise to refuse.

But let’s start this week in Portland:

The Atlantic has a detailed report from the “war zone” in Portland, where protesters outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement building have prompted President Donald Trump to mobilize 200 or so Oregon National Guard troops to the site. It’s more like a carnival these days than a war zone, but that could change.

Meanwhile, Shane Dixon Kavanaugh at The Oregonian/OregonLive tracks how Gov. Tina Kotek and other state officials have been preparing — for months now — for the possibility that Trump would send National Guard troops to Portland.

As you might have heard, a deadlock in Congress has closed the federal government. Senate Democrats are holding out in hopes that they can make a deal to protect health-care subsidies. My guess here is that they’ll eventually fold, but we’ll see. In the meantime, it’s worth looking at this shutdown in the light of Project 2025, as The Atlantic explains in this useful story. A couple of notes of interest: There’s little doubt that all the states will suffer in the shutdown, but it’s very clear that Democratic-led states like Oregon will suffer more than their red counterparts. Also, I believe Trump when he says he never read Project 2025, because he’s not much of a reader and that’s one thick document. But he knows who wrote it — and many of those authors now work in the administration.

The Oregon Journalism Project explains how Oregon will be affected if those health-care subsidies fade away — and which of the state’s counties will be most affected.

Are you curious about the details behind the Trump administration’s alleged “compact” with universities, promising “substantial and meaningful federal grants” to universities that sign on the dotted line? The New York Times reports that all schools have to do is “promise to limit international students, protect conservative speech, generally require standardized testing for admissions and to adopt policies recognizing ‘that academic freedom is not absolute,’ among other conditions.” It will be interesting to see which universities decide that this is a good deal. One would hope the answer would be “zero,” but we know better by now.

Nieman Lab is reporting that Elon Musk has announced plans to launch Grokipedia, a rival to Wikipedia, as “a necessary step toward the xAI goal of understanding the universe.” Also, because of longstanding complaints among conservatives that Wikipedia is biased. Maybe the next time you run into one of those Wikipedia donation drives, you should consider chipping in a few bucks. Just a suggestion.

The Nieman Lab also has a fascinating story about new research into how local-news providers can best make their cases to potential supporters. Among the findings: Talk about “local” news and not so much “community” news. And it doesn’t do you much good to talk about “democracy” while making your pitch — that whole “democracy” business is so over now.

That new Taylor Swift album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” was released Friday, and the reviews were mixed. The New York Times loved it. The Atlantic’s Spencer Kornhaber is less convinced. As for me, I haven’t heard it yet, and am counting on Weekend Reader readers to leave me a comment below on whether I should give it a listen.

This weekend’s Reader is shorter than usual, and I apologize for that — and I’ll explain why next week. And not to kill the suspense, but it’s nothing to worry about. See you next weekend.