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Good morning, Portland! It’s set to be another somewhat-drizzly, cool day, like yesterday. We could see some pretty heavy rain later in the week, most likely starting tomorrow and not today. But we are heading into a time of year with unpredictable weather, so it’s hard to say exactly what to expect. Don’t blame me if you get rained on (or if you don’t!) is what I’m saying.
IN LOCAL NEWS:
• The Mercury has obtained public records that provide a peek behind the curtain into the strange power dynamics at Portland City Hall. The records show the influence Northwest Oregon Labor Council executive Laurie Wimmer has on city politics, an influence she seemed especially keen on flexing during the City Council president election earlier this year. If you’ve never heard of Wimmer, it may be because she mainly stays behind the scenes—despite clearly having a lot of power in local politics, she isn’t even a registered lobbyist with the city. But Wimmer has done a lot of lobbying, including sending many texts to councilors’ private phones over the last year. The records, reported by our intrepid Jeremiah Hayden, reveal that even under a new government structure meant to increase transparency for Portlanders, some well-connected figures are quietly maintaining—and using—power. Read the full story here!
New public records give insight into a Portland city councilor’s idea to sue the city, let the mayor break a tie, and decide the council’s president in January. A longtime labor leader told the Mercury she was “an observer,” but public records starkly contrast her laissez-faire, big tent narrative.
— Jeremiah Hayden (@jeremiahhayden.bsky.social) March 9, 2026 at 9:01 PM
• Last month, Multnomah County Commissioner Shannon Singleton became the first major contender to declare her candidacy for the county chair position being vacated by Jessica Vega Pederson. She was quickly joined by her fellow commissioner, Julia Brim-Edwards. There are still several months for other potential contenders to file for the seat before November’s election, but whoever takes the helm faces an uphill battle marked by steep budget cuts, a homelessness crisis, federal overreach, and a drug treatment program that has tested voters’ confidence in county leadership. Find out more in Abe Asher’s story for the Mercury.
• A two-alarm (meaning, pretty bad) fire broke out at the flagship Elephants Delicatessen in northwest Portland early this morning. Reports indicate Portland Fire & Rescue responded to a fire at the restaurant on NW 22nd Ave and West Burnside around 1 am. The situation is still developing and the cause of the fire is currently unknown, but the structural damage appears pretty significant.
• Your weekly calendar is here! If you’re wondering where to watch the Academy Awards this Sunday among fellow lovers/haters of ballet critic Timothée Chalamet and cat critic Jessie Buckley, inquire within. But there’s other stuff going on this week, too: the Trail Blazers play the Charlotte Hornets TONIGHT, there’s Irish boxing at the Waterfront Park and Richard Hell is still cool (with a re-release by New York Review of Books). Find out more in this week’s Do This, Do That.
• New preliminary injunction just dropped:
BREAKING NEWS: A federal judge in Oregon just issued a preliminary injunction, blocking federal agents from using tear gas and other chemical crowd control devices on protesters at the ICE building in Portland. #orpol #breakingnews
— Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield (@agdanrayfield.bsky.social) March 9, 2026 at 6:37 PM
• Yesterday, PSU President Ann Cudd released her proposal for ending the financial crisis that has plagued the university for years at this point. Cudd announced that PSU is pursuing retrenchment, a formal downsizing process, which could result in major cuts to 19 departments at the university, including history, philosophy, economics, politics and criminal justice. PSU’s well-regarded university studies program could be eliminated entirely. The decision will have far-reaching impacts—of course, for faculty, staff, and students, but also for all Portlanders. Cudd said her proposals are far from final, and ultimate decisions will be made with input from students and the faculty union. But it’s not looking pretty. Bill Knight, president of faculty union PSU-AAUP, called the proposed cuts a “decimation of some of the most crucial forms of learning that we offer students here.” At a time when PSU’s enrollment is dwindling (a primary reason for its budget woes), these cuts could lead to a death spiral.
• Ok, here’s some good(ish) news…Leach Botanical Garden, the beloved outer Southeast Portland park, will remain open at least a few more months. Last month, Leach Garden Friends staff said the garden was on the brink of closure, warning the park didn’t have enough money to stay afloat even through March. But people stepped up and donated about $275,000 in just a month, providing the park with enough income to stay open at least until June. Hopefully, they can find a more sustainable revenue stream at that point.
IN NATIONAL/WORLD NEWS:
• Want to know what’s going on in Iran? Well, don’t ask President Trump. At a press conference yesterday, Trump shared some…words….about the ongoing US war on Iran, and they certainly didn’t inspire confidence, or really provide any understanding about what’s going on/what he has planned, if anything. Trump said the US military is “achieving major strides toward completing our military objective,” adding that “some people” could say the objectives are “pretty well complete.” Who are those people? It’s unclear. Trump said “we could call it a tremendous success right now” and leave, or “we could go further, and we’re going to go further.” Alright. Sounds like he’s making it up as he goes along, which is not so great when the lives of millions (or more) are at stake.
As for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth…he told reporters this morning that “today will be yet again our most intense day of strikes inside Iran.” He also said Iran has fired the “lowest amount of missiles they have fired yet” over the last 24 hours. So, the US is ramping things up as Iran attempts to de-escalate? Got it.
• Remember when Russia invaded Ukraine, and gas prices went up in the United States, and Americans freaked out so much they decided Trump should be president again? (To be fair, a lot of people were concerned about the price of eggs, too.) Republicans were happy to blame then-President Biden for the cost of living increases back then, but now that gas prices are rising because the US and Israel have started a war in Iran, the mood is a littleeee different. At a press conference yesterday, Trump said the spiking oil prices “don’t really affect us.” The day before, he said rising oil prices are a “small price to pay,” calling anyone who says otherwise “fools.” There’s so much to be said here about how the global petroleum economy has rotted everyone’s brains, but I’ll just say: If there’s anything Americans hate, it’s rising gas prices. So, this is bad news for our president, and he certainly knows it.
As the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran threatens global energy supplies and the broader economy, “What we’re seeing is just one of the clearest depictions yet of the frailty of a global order that is grounded in fossil fuels,” says @antoniajuhasz.bsky.social.
— Democracy Now! (@democracynow.org) March 10, 2026 at 6:56 AM
• All JetBlue flights were grounded for about 40 minutes early this morning as the airline dealt with a system outage. The information that the Federal Aviation Administration had grounded all Jetblue’s flights at the request of the airline was first reported with very little information, so this originally seemed like it could be a more interesting story, but as it turns out, it’s not that big of a deal. Good to know the Federal Aviation Administration is still responding to this type of thing, though.
• Northwest Georgia voters will decide who should replace former Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in a special election today. As some of you may know, Trump and Greene had a big falling out last year, possibly due to Greene’s criticism of Trump’s relationship with Israel and handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, but also because her feelings were hurt when he told her not to run for Senate. Anyway, I can’t say any of the candidates in this race seem amazing (this was Marjorie Taylor Greene’s district, after all), but Trump has only endorsed one of them, a guy named Clay Fuller. If Fuller wins, does that mean Trump is more influential than ever as a kingmaker? No—we’re talking about the district that elected Marjorie Taylor Greene. It’s not necessarily a bellwether for how the rest of the country is feeling. If Fuller loses, the analysis could be more interesting, but let’s not pin all our hopes and dreams on a random GOP race happening on a random Tuesday in March, ok?
• Finally, protect Puma at all costs!!!! And be nice to your sensitive colleagues and pals. And yourself. Things are hard. TTYL, xoxo!!!
