The Mercury provides news and fun every single day—but your help is essential. If you believe Portland benefits from smart, local journalism and arts coverage, please consider making a small monthly contribution, because without you, there is no us. Thanks for your support!

Good morning, Portland! Sunday marks the first day of fall. 🍂 Summer is officially fading away. Mourn its passing and get the last of your al fresco lunch and dinner dates out of the way. But first, check out tonight’s lunar eclipse which is the whole shebang- a harvest moon/supermoon and lunar eclipse occurring together. The moon will start to be visible around 7:30 pm, but viewers should check the sky around 10:15 pm and later for the full splendor.

We could be in for some rain this afternoon, so hopefully the clouds don’t screw up this moon viewing. 

Let’s check in on the news while we wait for the leaves to drop and the moon to pop.

In Local News: 

  • Yesterday, the Portland Auditor’s Office released its determination after an investigation into complaints of a campaign finance violation by City Commissioner Rene Gonzalez. Gonzalez, who is currently running for mayor, used city funds (AKA taxpayer money) to have his Wikipedia page cleaned up during the height of campaign season. Among the requested edits: he wanted a 2022 Mercury Good Morning News post (yes, the thing you’re reading now) scrubbed from the page, which is kinda funny when you consider how much renewed attention that story got because of this fiasco. Auditors found “insufficient evidence” of a campaign finance violation but said they’re still waiting on several documents related to the investigation and called the matter a “close call.”
  • What remains to be seen is whether the Oregon Secretary of State determines Gonzalez and his staff violated state laws that prohibit public employees from engaging in political activity during working hours.
  • Portland is teeming with nightlife, entertainment, award-winning dining and creative offerings. Need help deciding where to enjoy a cocktail or where to catch a live show? We gotchu. The Everout calendar never disappoints.
  • An Oregon tribe is suing the federal government over a planned wind energy auction. Yes. you read that right. The Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians, filed suit, alleging the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) “failed to take a hard look at the impacts to the environment from private offshore wind energy development,” the AP reports. The complaint comes after the US BOEM recently approved plans for floating wind farms off the Oregon coast in Brookings and Coos Bay.
  • We can stop calling Portland the “whitest city in America.” According to new census data, Portland’s population in 2023 was 64 percent white–just a peg lower than Colorado Springs, which is now the whitest city, at 65 percent. The same data shows our sister city to the north also got more diverse. Both Seattle and Portland are among 13 major cities whose populations are primarily made up of white people. 
  • And finally, Portland is getting a long-coveted staple of Japanese culture before any other American city. Randoseru bags are making their way to the Rose City, via downtown Portland retailer Frances May. As Melissa Locker writes: “The rounded-yet-blocky leather shape is on the back of pretty much every child in Japan.” The Tsuchiya Kaban-made bags, offered in a variety of shades from classic black to matcha green are so popular, the manufacturer made a version for dogs.  
 
 
 
 
 
View this post on Instagram
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A post shared by WeRateDogs (@weratedogs)

In National/World News:

  • The man behind the attempted assassination of Donald Trump at his golf course over the weekend is a 58-year-old with somewhat inconsistent political views who previously tried to recruit other Americans to help him fight with Ukraine against Russia. Ryan Routh waited roughly 12 hours at Trump International Golf Club in Florida before being intercepted by Secret Service agents. One fired a gun at Routh, but Routh fled. He was later arrested in a neighboring county. Agents later found a backpack, an AK-47 and a Go-Pro camera.
  • In other Trump-adjacent news: A woman in Springfield, Ohio who made a Facebook post claiming Haitian immigrants were eating pets now acknowledges she had no direct evidence of anything like that happening in Springfield. Shocking. The post got massive attention and stoked racist rumors of immigrants stealing cherished pets and local water fowl for food. Vice presidential nominee JD Vance fell for the bait, and so did Trump when he repeated it on national television during a televised presidential debate.
  • A recent ProPublica investigative report found that in states with strict abortion bans, rules around exceptions for the life of the mother are vague and difficult to interpret by medical staff. As a result, women have died due to lack of care. One such case in Georgia involved 28-year-old Amber Thurman, who had a rare instance of sepsis she developed after taking abortion pills. The reporting notes hospital staff delayed performing a critical procedure that could have saved Thurman’s life, likely because staff were fearful of potential prosecution for removing fetal tissue.
  • If microwaving food in plastic packaging leaves you unsettled, there’s good reason to trust your instincts. Scientists recently found that roughly a quarter of the chemicals found in food packaging stay in the human body. Samples from blood, hair and breast milk were examined by researchers who noted the presence of  things like “metals, volatile organic compounds, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS, phthalates and many others known to disrupt the endocrine system and cause cancer or other diseases.”Â