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Ballots in a box
Today is the last day to change your voter affiliation before the May primaries. Motoya Nakamura / Multnomah County

Good morning, Portland! It’s set to be another rainy day, so dress accordingly. Onto to the headlines!

In local news:

• DEADLINE ALERT: Today is the last day to register to vote or change your party affiliation before the May primary! It also doesn’t hurt to double check your info here.

• COVID-19 cases increased for the fourth consecutive week in Oregon last week, but both case numbers and hospitalization remain far below the recent omicron surge. Because of the increased availability of at-home tests and the number of people who don’t get tested at all, health officials acknowledge that the number of COVID cases is a significant undercount. Instead, hospitalization numbers are a more valuable metric. Hospitalizations rose to 144 Monday. Comparatively, state leaders required hospitalizations to drop below 400 in order to remove the mask mandate in March.

• The city of Eugene recently purchased part of an old golf course in preparation to turn it into a neighborhood park for a fast growing residential neighborhood. The neighborhood will now have a 12-acre park, already complete with mature trees and walking trails.

• ICYMI: Over the weekend, University of Oregon students had a party so massive that it made the news, resulting in this gem:

In national and international news:

• Russia launched a spate of attacks against rail and fuel lines in Ukraine Monday in an attempt to disrupt Ukrainian supply chains. The US is moving to supply more weaponry to Ukraine to bolster the country’s military forces. “Russia is failing. Ukraine is succeeding,” said the US Secretary of State.

• After being diagnosed with very rare brain tumors, an environmental scientist in New Jersey went looking for answers. The scientist discovered at least 115 people who went to his former high school also developed the same brain tumors, both malignant and benign. The findings triggered an investigation by the mayor’s office, state Department of Health, Department of Environmental Protection, and the Federal Agency for Toxic Substance.

• Ultra-rich guy and Tesla CEO Elon Musk just bought Twitter for a cool $44 billion Monday. My thoughts exactly:

• The world’s oldest person, Kane Tanaka, died last week at 119. Tanaka lived in Japan, was born the same year the Wright brothers developed the motorized airplane, and attributed her age to family, sleep, hope, and faith. The oldest person alive is now a 118-year-old French nun.

• And finally, the most important news of the day. This is what an armadillo yawning looks like: