Winners

1. The Willamette is one of 10 American rivers on the way to presidential approval as American Heritage Rivers. One perk of the new federal program has local officials and environmentalists especially excited: A "river navigator" will be assigned to the Willamette, not to direct boat traffic, but to help local agencies negotiate the Byzantine federal regulations that govern the waterway. Given the probable listing of steelhead under the Endangered Species Act, we're going to need all the help we can get.

2. It didn't come easy, but widows of the King-56 crew prevailed in their push to recover all four engines of the Air Force C-130 that crashed in November 1996, killing 10 of the 11 crew members aboard. As recently as three weeks ago, the Air Force said it would retrieve only one of the engines sitting on the ocean floor. But after the widows applied political and public pressure--stressing that the engines might solve the mystery of the crash--the Air Force brass acquiesced, telling the widows last week that it hoped to salvage the engines in the next 30 days.

3. Oregon's 19,000 members of the fraternal order of Masons got bailed out last week. For years the Masons have been saddled with an aging retirement home in Forest Grove. Rather than tear down the historic building, they sold it to--guess who--the McMenamin brothers. The Forest Grove News-Times reported last week that Portland's brew bros plan to revamp the space into a combo pub, lodge and movie theater. The Masons plan to expand their newer Forest Grove retirement facility to make space for the old home's current 70 residents.

Losers

1. No wonder we all shop at Goodwill. The cost of living rose at a faster rate in Portland than in any other city during 1991-97, according to Business Week. The average Portland resident saw the prices of housing, food and other basics rise more than 25 percent, while prices nationally increased only about 15 percent.

2. Speaking of inflation, local Viagra poppers got bad news when Kaiser Permanente, the nation's and the metro area's largest HMO, decided not to reimburse men who take the drug. Locally, Kaiser covers 430,000 Oregonians, a group expected to inhale nearly $5 million of the potency drug next year.

3.Baristas at Starbucks will be digging deeper into the tip jar now that the company requires them to wash their own aprons. The new policy, based on a suggestion from a store manager in San Diego, will bring "substantial savings to the company," says a Starbucks spokesman--but how many baristas actually have laundry facilities?