California condor - WINNER

Marshall High School snagged a plush grant from the Gates and Meyer philanthropic empires. Marshall will use the $750,000 to divide into four small, specialized schools--and aim to meet performance benchmarks. Students, teachers and administrators are beyond bullish on the change. Sadly, Roosevelt and Jefferson, Portland's two lowest-scoring high schools, weren't chosen for the revolutionary initiative.

The California condor doubled up its counterstrike against extinction this week when Tama, a condor at the Oregon Zoo, laid her second egg of the season. The previous egg was the first laid in Oregon in over a century; Round 2 just two months later leaves conservators at the Zoo with high hopes for a successful hatch this season. The first egg is due to hatch this week. So we'll soon see whether Tama will indeed "flip the bird," so to speak, to the icy hand of Death.

This week, megabucks mayoral frontrunner Jim Francesconi blanketed the airwaves with his TV commercials. His spare-change challenger, former Police Chief Tom Potter, received a needed shot in the arm with the endorsement of City Commissioner Erik Sten. Francesconi hopes to win more than 50 percent of the vote and avoid a November runoff. Potter yearns to put the kibosh on that effort and square off with Francesconi in the fall. See page 17 for our endorsement in the fracas.

LOSERS

The Portland Timbers drew an announced crowd of more than 6,000 to their season-opening win over hated Seattle last Saturday night--more than respectable for an A-League soccer franchise. Unfortunately, due to mind-blowing incompetence on the part of PGE Park officials, much of the crowd was still waiting in line when the game kicked off. Despite snaking lines outside its gates, the stadium failed to open most ticket windows, leaving hundreds of customers shuffling restively when the Timbers scored their first goal of the season.

Local salmon wriggled in protest at the announcement of a change in government policy that would seriously hurt their chances of recovery. Working overtime to erase a quarter-century of environmental progress, the Bush administration plans to count hatchlings in man-made pools as healthy salmon, thereby lifting the salmon protections that have long plagued energy companies.

Bad news for Oregon breathers: We've got one of the nation's worst cases of particle pollution. Though our air is generally quite tidy, a new American Lung Association report says that the burning of diesel, coal and wood, plus emissions from wildfires, lead to short-term bursts of lung-unfriendly particles.