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Good morning, Portland! Hopefully this city is spewing enough holiday cheer to keep your spirits bright. At this point, we’re in the storm before the calm. Hanukkah is underway until Monday, and we’ve got just eight days until Christmas, which means hell is the Post Office and every grocery store on Sunday. Hang in there. 

As for today, expect clouds and an afternoon drizzle, with a high of 50 degrees and a low of 45.

Now’s your chance to brush up on current events so you and your relatives have something to talk about. The Mercury news team's got yer back.

IN LOCAL NEWS: 

• Years after unionizing, New Seasons grocery workers have finally secured their first labor contract. The news comes as unionized workers at 10 stores had threatened to strike during peak holiday grocery shopping season if they didn't secure a fair labor agreement before then. Now, they're celebrating higher wages, including a $19 hourly starting wage, better scheduling, and more robust health care protections. Abe Asher has more. 

After threatening to strike, unionized New Seasons grocery workers voted Monday to ratify a contract with increased wages and better health insurance protections.

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— Portland Mercury (@portlandmercury.com) December 16, 2025 at 2:13 PM

• Yesterday, students from Lincoln High School walked out of class and rallied downtown against ICE. While some students seemed like they were just along for the walkout, many spoke about the injustices they see and the friends and family impacted by family separations due to ICE. At least one other school on the city's east side had also planned a walkout. 

 

• The city of Portland is expected to face another $67 million shortfall next budget season, city economists say. That’s after a nearly $100 million shortfall during the last budget season, which went into effect just six months ago. The trend isn’t specific to Portland, apparently, but it certainly is concerning for anyone anywhere in the US. The city’s economist said the federal government is the main cause of the troubles after it gave a bunch of money away to corporations and billionaires this summer. Surely some will argue that the root cause of the city’s challenges is its progressive reputation though. Expect a hotly debated budget season next year, as officials search the couch cushions for those pesky little rent assistance dollars so they can increase the police budget once again, as nature would have it. Read the full story at OPB here. -JEREMIAH HAYDEN 

Portland is facing another challenging budget year, according to city economists. According to the city’s revenue department, Portland is facing a budget shortfall of roughly $67 million next fiscal year.

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— OPB (@opb.org) December 16, 2025 at 7:30 PM

• Oh look, another out of state investor who definitely totally wants to help Portland meet its renewable fuels goals! How nice of them. Let’s check it out. A private equity firm from Miami called I Squared Capital (cool name!) announced on Tuesday that it’s acquiring Zenith Energy’s fuel terminal, which sits just precariously between Forest Park and the Willamette River in Northwest Portland. Their global chief investment officer and managing partner (a made up name for a guy in a penguin suit) told The Oregonian that they “see a significant opportunity for the Portland facility,” and that it could be “one of the West Coast’s leading renewable fuels hubs.” I wonder where they got that idea, and I wonder if Portlanders are asking for that. Oop! Sounds like environmental advocates who talked to The O said they'll keep pushing until the dangers posed by liquid fuels are removed. Read the full story here. - JEREMIAH HAYDEN

• As the Oregon Legislature’s 2026 short session draws near, a group of lawmakers are planning to advance another bill that would raise money for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife with a slight increase to the state’s lodging tax. (A similar bill almost made it through the Legislature at the end of the last session, but died in the Senate after a few Republican lawmakers revolted.) This time around, the bill would set out to increase the state’s Transient Lodging Tax, which is charged to people staying in hotels, AirBnbs, or renting camping spots, from 1.5 percent to 2.75 percent. While a small group of Republican obstructionists got in the way last time, the bill actually has bipartisan support—both from within the Legislature, and from advocates outside. The plan is supported by wildlife advocates, who want the ODFW to be able to increase its conservation and wildlife protection programs, as well as hunting groups. (The plan has specifically found support from amphibian advocates, one of whom shared their thoughts in the Mercury recently.) If approved, the tax increase could raise tens of millions of dollars annually, mostly by taxing tourists. Seems like a win-win. -TAYLOR GRIGGS

IN NATIONAL/WORLD NEWS: 

• You might not have heard of Susie Wiles, but if you’re a person who reads news online, you’ll probably know her name by the end of the week. Wiles, President Trump’s chief of staff, gave a series of remarkably candid interviews to Vanity Fair for a two-part series published yesterday, which led to a meltdown at the White House. Presumably, someone in Trump’s inner circle (perhaps JD Vance or Stephen Miller?) read VF’s piece on Wiles to Trump like a bedtime story as he nodded off for his afternoon nap…err…meetings. Wiles slammed the reporting as a “hit piece” that left out crucial context from her interviews. Here are just a few nuggets from the profile piece:

“Wiles described Musk as something akin to a jacked-up Nosferatu,” Chris Whipple writes. “‘The challenge with Elon is keeping up with him,’ she told me. ‘He’s an avowed ketamine [user]. And he sleeps in a sleeping bag in the EOB [Executive Office Building] in the daytime. And he’s an odd, odd duck, as I think geniuses are.’”

“Wiles said Trump has ‘an alcoholic’s personality.’ He ‘operates [with] a view that there’s nothing he can’t do. Nothing, zero, nothing.’” 

Throughout the first year of Donald Trump’s second administration, Vanity Fair writer Chris Whipple has interviewed Susie Wiles, White House chief of staff, amid each moment of crisis. His insider’s account of Trump 2.0 joins the photography of Christopher Anderson for a portrait of power—and peril.

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— Vanity Fair (@vanityfair.com) December 16, 2025 at 3:53 AM

• Speaker of the House Mike Johnson doesn’t care about American healthcare costs OR vulnerable members of the GOP caucus. That’s clear by his steadfast rejection of any proposal to extend Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax credits, which benefit millions of Americans and are set to expire at the end of this year, raising monthly premiums by thousands of dollars for some enrollees. Extending the tax credits, which have helped reduce healthcare costs for people ensured by the ACA for years now, was at the heart of the government shutdown earlier this fall. Democrats ended up agreeing to reopen the government without securing the extension, which is bad, but the imminent rise in healthcare costs is really on Republicans—and voters know it. Recent polling showed many people enrolled in ACA insurance will be strongly influenced by spiking healthcare costs when making decisions at the ballot box in next year’s midterms. Some Republicans lawmakers from competitive districts, sensing political blowback, have pushed for a vote on extending the tax credits. But it appears Johnson won’t let that happen, opting instead to push for other healthcare reforms that aren’t associated with Obamacare. I’d say it’s the GOP’s funeral, but unfortunately, they’re dragging innocent Americans down with them here—some of whom will die as a result of their actions on this. -TAYLOR GRIGGS

• Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is many things–insecure, wormy, homophobic, transphobic, and unabashedly Islamophobic. Now, the Florida man is facing a federal lawsuit from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) after he labeled the Muslim civil rights group a “foreign terrorist organization.” As the AP reports, a federal judge in Florida will decide whether DeSantis’s order is unlawful and unconstitutional, as alleged by CAIR.

Now that we reminded you how wild the world is, enjoy this NSFW reminder that it's also childishly hilarious. Cheers!

@caliexandria

Okay then Lowe’s!

♬ Dick In A Box - Album Version - The Lonely Island