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Good Afternoon Portland! And good riddance to the ding dang midterms. Some races are as yet undecided, but I encourage you to go into the weekend with clear eyes, full hearts, juice boop. Now, let's hit the news!

IN LOCAL NEWS:
•  How much will it cost the city to build sanctioned camps, patrolled by security (for whom tho?), to operate in conjunction with an impending citywide ban on unsheltered homelessness? Mayor Wheeler outlined his plan to fund the camps at a council work session Thursday. News Editor Alex Zielinski has the breakdown.

• Hard to forget the fine spring day when I was huffing my bike up NE 7th, and some men driving by in a car hit me in the head with a whiffle bat. It didn't hurt—might have, if I hadn't been wearing a helmet—but it did put me off the convenient cycling thoroughfare for several months. NE 7th has seen some safety upgrades in recent years, but this week PBOT removed one of the road's speed-reducing traffic circles, against the wishes of the surrounding neighborhood and its own word.

• While covering incumbent City Commissioner Rene Gonzalez's election night party, I heard a photographer told that the campaign's only request was not to photograph Gonzalez with his family. And while that seemed reasonable at the time, it also seems likely that this photo by OPB's Jonathan Levinson, of Gonzalez kissing his wife's forehead back in May, might be the reason why:

• If the season's increasingly chilly weather has you shivering and craving comfort food, you're in luck: This week's food news brings tidings of hearty options—house-cured pastrami at the new Jewish deli Jacob & Sons and brisket tacos at the newly opened Matt's BBQ Tacos location inside Great Notion Brewing, 

• ICYMI: Trimet explores luxury rebrand—embracing a "Gucci bus" approach to less but fancier ridership. I'm actually down to pay a 30 cents increase for our excellent transportation system, but with that 12 percent fare increase, Trimet can afford to withstand some gentle ribbing—especially since I'm going to be in debt forever.

IN NATIONAL / INTERNATIONAL NEWS:
• Why am I going to be in debt forever? Well, I'll tell you. The PLOT to stop the Biden-Harris Student Debt Relief Plan—and keep me in debt forever—is in full swing, after a federal judge in Texas to rejected President Biden’s executive action. The federal government has stopped taking loan forgiveness applications for the time being, and while I know you all like having me as the culture editor of this publication, I am now also considering a lateral move into setting myself on fire in front of whatever court the honorable Judge Mark T. Pittman presides over.

• The watermelon-smashing comedian known as Gallagher died today, following a series of heart attacks. He was 76. Throwing fruit on people can be fun performance art, but the dude was a racist homophobe, and a lot of other things too. I will not honor his memory.

•The schadenfreude that keeps on giving is Twitter's continued disintegration under ownership by thin-skinned brat billionaire Elon Musk—his hubris of "comedy is now legal" being mashed into a loose pulp.

• The hills of tech are alive with the strife of layoffs, and REI didn't give their union stores a chance to leave early to vote. Read the week's labor news, courtesy of our sister pub The Stranger.

• Bringing it full circle to that juice boop, this feels like a good time to revisit a Demi Adejuyigbe classic: