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GOOD MORNING, PORTLAND! We just checked the weather report, and YES, there WILL be weather today! Expect a wet, breezy day with a high of 53 degrees that will keep creeping up through the week until we hit a balmy 60 on Saturday. And lucky you, the weather report is also predicting an increasing chance of NEWS. Like... now!

IN LOCAL NEWS:

• Hundreds of students walked out of class Wednesday afternoon as part of a nationwide protest against gun violence in schools. As mass shootings plague campuses across the nation, Portland students have seen recent incidents of their peers being fired at just outside their schools. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re not doing much about it.

• America may not be taking action to save lives, but one Portland group is. Leaders at the Urban League of Portland said elected leaders’ failure to act humanely and effectively to get homeless Portlanders off the streets spurred them to take matters into their own hands. The Urban League, alongside Home Forward, celebrated the grand opening of the Hattie Redmond affordable apartments in North Portland Tuesday. Units are affordable to people earning roughly $22,000 a year, or less. The building is named after Harriet “Hattie” Redmond, a civil rights advocate and suffragist from Oregon. 

• Speaking of voting: Last year, Portlanders approved sweeping changes to the city’s form of government and method of voting in city races. The changes–which include updated ballot counting software that can handle ranked choice voting–must be in place in time for the November 2024 election. We checked in on how the charter reform implementation is going so far. 

• While the county’s elections office will get retooled software, the Portland Police Bureau will get... a dozen new drones? The City Council approved spending up to $80,000 on drones for the police to use at the scenes of crashes and major crimes—though critics suspect they might be used for more nefarious, civil rights-abusing purposes.

Look, if the cops want help at crime scenes, they should just recruit this guy:

IN NATIONAL/WORLD NEWS:

• Republicans in Wisconsin are FAH-URIOUS that a progressive judge will be the deciding vote on their state supreme court, and are reportedly already looking for ways to impeach her—even after she won... BY A LANDSLIDE. Huh. Turns out criminalizing abortion might not be the winning strategy that the GOP suspected.

• Meanwhile, Republican Governors / professional bullies in both Idaho and Indiana have signed into law bills that will deny gender affirming care to transgender kids, and Idaho's Brad Little is going as far to threaten doctors that treat such children with up to 10 years in prison. Meanwhile 12 other insecure, Republican-led states also have transphobic bills in the works.

• Just when you think Idaho Republicans couldn't get any worse, Gov. Brad Little has just criminalized traveling to sanctuary states (like Oregon) in order to get the abortion care they are happily denying.

• Just so much "unhinged Republicans" news! The judge who oversaw Trump's arraignment on Tuesday is already getting death threats from the MAGA faithful, who are also threatening to kill his family, as well as those working on the trial. 

• An enormous sex abuse case within Maryland's Catholic church is coming to light, as it's been revealed that more than 150 Catholic priests sexually abused over 600 (!) children in the Baltimore area over an 80 year period, along with countless attempts to cover up their crimes.

• Today in NOT SURPRISING:

• And finally.... don't you hate it when your best friend doesn't realize she's on the jumbotron?