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GOOD AFTERNOON, PORTLAND! Clean out your local storm drain, because an atmospheric river of RAIN is bearing down on Portland and the Northwest on Friday, with steady (sometimes heavy) downpours all damn day. And now, here's your atmospheric river of NEWS!

IN LOCAL NEWS:

• Potential bad news for Mayor Wheeler and Commissioner Ryan's purely political stunt plan to criminalize homelessness: The ACLU is first in line threatening to file legal action against the city for their attempts to ban homelessness without having a proper place for them to go—and they have some pretty persuasive arguments on their side! Our Alex Zielinski has the details.

• Very much related: Around 800 affordable housing units are about to go away, thanks to the expiration of tax breaks for developers who create affordable housing—that is, unless the mayor does something to stop that from happening. (But yes, by all means, he should continue making plans to criminalize these future homeless folks.)

• The wildly successful Portland Street Response team—which answers many mental distress 911 calls instead of occasionally trigger-happy cops—has been answering 20 percent more calls compared to a year ago, and have hired more than 50 new members to improve and expand this critical service. (BTW, you can thank Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty for getting this program off the ground. Meanwhile, you can thank her council challenger, Rene Gonzalez, for... *checks notes*... running a kids' soccer league? 😬)

• Which Portlander went on to join KISS? Will the zoo's giant lizard eat you? And who should replace Rene Gonzalez on the ballot? (Perhaps a 5 lb. bag of rancid potatoes?) Test your brain with the latest edition of the super-fun POP QUIZ PDX!  

• Listen up, music lovers! It's an all-new edition of Jenni Moore's HEAR IN PORTLAND! This week: Haley Heynderickx opens for Lucy Dacus, a Snugsworth side project which sounds like The Craft, and Digable Planets NYE tickets go on sale tomorrow! 

IN NATIONAL/WORLD NEWS:

• Paul Pelosi—the 82-year-old husband of Nancy Pelosi who was attacked with a hammer in their home by a right-wing domestic terrorist—has thankfully returned home from the hospital after a six day stay. His recovery is expected to be lengthy.

• Speaking of right-wing domestic terrorists:

• A judge has granted the New York State Attorney General's request, and has ordered an independent monitor to watch over Trump's sketchy financial statements after the former prez was credibly accused of inflating his financial worth to banks and insurers by billions of dollars.

• Oh, well, this isn't intimidating, like, AT ALL: Sheriff's deputies in Berks County, Pennsylvania have been stationing themselves next to public ballot boxes and questioning voters before letting them drop in their ballots.

• A former housekeeper of Amazon's Jeff Bezos is suing the billionaire for "unsafe and unsanitary" working conditions, as well as racial discrimination.

• And finally... OMIGOD, GET A ROOM YOU TWO.