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Good Morning, Portland: I write to you from Lake Smith, in my apartment building's basement, which I have claimed and which smells terrible. The good news! The skies are laying off rain for a couple days... it's a cool down, not abstinence... until Saturday night when RAIN IS BACK ON THE MENU. Now, let's get to the news!

IN LOCAL NEWS:
• If you are a local-online, you've seen everybody and their brother loudly announcing that THEY WOULD IN FACT LOVE TO USE the $21 million in unspent rental services funds that city administration reportedly hid from City Council for months, according to the housing bureau's ousted director's memo sent last week. Welp, on Tuesday, three East Portland city councilors brought a resolution urging Mayor Keith Wilson to get the dollars into rent stabilization. Mercury reporter Jeremiah Hayden unpacks the back n' forth.

• Portland confirmed its first long-term city administrator on Wednesday, marking a new chapter for the city's bureaucracy. Until now the position was held by interim city administrator Michael Jordan—who was tapped  by former-Mayor Ted Wheeler to help with the city charter transition—but Mayor Keith Wilson picked Lee, who brings experience as city manager in Greeley, Colorado to the role. While Greeley is one sixth the size of Portland, Lee has also held leadership roles in Dallas, and Amarillo, Texas. Once again, Jeremiah Hayden has your window into City Hall happenings.

• This morning, Multnomah County announced plans to offer more than 7,400 Preschool for All seats to early education providers for the 2026-27 school year. If the offer is accepted, it will nearly double the program's current enrollment capacity. This would go a long way to fulfill the program's goal of... well... preschool for all by 2030. This announcement comes on the heels of new analysis from a demographer who advises the program, showing that the area may have significantly fewer preschoolers by the goal's projected due date. Taylor Griggs sums it all up.

• In Eugene, a federal judge has temporarily blocked enforcement of a new regulation that criminalizes “creating a loud or unusual noise” near a federal building in Oregon. If they haven't been blasting Creed at 9 am, I don't want to hear the complaining, honestly.

• So far this year Oregon Health Authority says it's counted 1,475 cases of pertussis, colloquially known as  whooping cough, in the state. That puts Oregon at the ✨MOST CASES✨ of whooping cough, surpassing the state's previous record of 1,420 cases set in 1950.

• At a “Machine Nightmares” panel to discuss generative AI, a number of respected local artists and workers’ rights advocates got into everything from worries about job replacement to the enduring necessity of connecting with fellow human beings—even if they are annoying. Much like Krampuslauf, we definitely told you about this in Do This, Do That, but Taylor Griggs wrote up a thoughtful recap, in the event that you couldn't go!

• Thank you, Jebus (my friend's miniature pinscher, Jebus) that PDX Jazz Festival moved from February... TO MARCH. Honestly, it's better. Once in a while we'd get Jazz Fest during the February Fake Out, but usually it was just COLD. Music editor Nolan Parker has the rundown on the fest's move and baller lineup of jazz and jazz-adjacent acts-from St. Vincent to Mavis Staples, Roger Eno to SML.

IN NATIONAL / INTERNATIONAL NEWS:
• In the words of my esteemed colleague, "um wut." Footage uploaded by US attorney general Pam Bondi (to cursed social media site Twitter/X) supported claims by President Donal Trump that US forces have taken control of an oil tanker located off the coast of Venezuela. "A large tanker, very large, the largest one ever seized actually," the President said, not even parodying himself—just in total, unbothered innocence. Calling this an escalation doesn't feel like enough; catch up on this ridiculous and murderous crawl to war here. The New York Times reports that the tanker in question has a history broadcasting falsified location data in an attempt to conceal its whereabouts. Venezuela’s government put out a statement calling the seizure a "barefaced robbery and an act of international piracy” aimed at stripping the country of its oil wealth.

• THIS SEEMS IMPORTANT: New York Times reports that a federal judge issued a seizure warrant for the boat—two weeks ago—due to the ship's past smuggling activities, not because of links to the Maduro government. 

• Also poppin' off this morning: The House passed a big ol' defense bill and now its on to the Senate.

BREAKING: The House passes a sweeping defense policy bill that raises troop pay and sets military priorities, sending the measure to the Senate.

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— The Associated Press (@apnews.com) December 10, 2025 at 2:40 PM

• Congress will question Dept. of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem today.

Kristi Noem, the U.S. homeland security secretary, is set to appear before Congress on Thursday for a hearing that is likely to draw sharp questions about the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement tactics and efforts to upend legal paths for migrants to live in the U.S.

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— The New York Times (@nytimes.com) December 11, 2025 at 5:55 AM

• The Department of Interior announced a jurisdiction transfer Wednesday, handing most of California’s border with Mexico over to the Navy. Associated Press reports that "since April, large swaths of border have been designated militarized zones, which can add additional criminal charges to immigrants traversing them. Trump's actions continue to push the US military into politicized policing of migrant crossings, which flouts preexisting law about the use of US military forces on US soil. 

• Related to a recent editorial discussion where a coworker said she was making a police report because my ideas were such an affront to her basic sense of ethics and dignity, let us revisit this legendary vine: