Good Morning, News: Trade Wars, Oregon's Mail Ballot Dilemma, and Who's Roaming NY Sewers? - Portland Mercury

Portland Mercury · Courtney Vaughn · September 9, 2026

An elections worker sorts ballots at the Multnomah County Elections Office in 2024. Oregon officials advise voters to drop off their ballots rather than mail them this November.

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Good morning, Portland! It’s still summer and don’t you forget it. Today’s gonna be sunny and hot, with a high of 87 degrees. The rest of the week will likely cool down and we could see rain and thunder this weekend.

There’s so much weird stuff going on. Let’s talk about it!

IN LOCAL NEWS:

• Students at Benson High School in Northeast Portland were evacuated Tuesday after what school officials and police vaguely described as a “chemical spill” caused by a student ingesting substances brought from home. In what sounds like a traumatic self-harm event for the student, school staff reported finding a 15-year-old in extreme distress in the cafeteria after mixing several chemicals in a liquid, and then ingesting them, causing a spill. The student received emergency medical evaluation on site before being hospitalized. Parents were offered an option to pick up their students if they wished. Portland Police Bureau (PPB) reported the teen boy was in critical condition Tuesday. Portland Fire & Rescue responded, along with PPB’s explosives disposal unit and the Bureau’s homicide unit “on the chance that there is a criminal nexus” to the incident. Neither the school district nor the Police Bureau have specified what chemicals or contaminants were present, but during a press conference Tuesday, fire officials advised anyone at the site who may have come into contact with the area to go home, take a shower, and change clothes. “This is devastating. It’s stressful, and it’s scary,” Portland Public Schools Superintendent Kimberlee Armstrong said Tuesday.

• The Benton County Sheriff’s Office faces a $3.85 million lawsuit from the family of a man who died 13 days after being pushed against a car and pinned to the ground by a Sheriff’s deputy over the man’s use of a barbeque grill on his property in rural Alsea. The Oregonian reports Dennis Sachet, 75, reportedly swore at firefighters and refused to let them on his property to inspect after neighbors called in complaints of him burning something in his yard during a burn ban. That led a deputy to confront Sachet–a man described as 124 pounds, who had a chest catheter and was hospitalized after the confrontation with the deputy. Body camera footage shows the deputy cuffing Sachet and forcing him to the ground, after the man was combative and refused to speak to the deputy initially. The deputy then rolled him over as he exclaimed he was in pain. A medic was called and Sachet eventually apologized to the deputy before he was cited and given a court date, but the next day, when Sachet was checked out at a local hospital, medical staff confirmed he’d suffered broken ribs. He died 13 days later at his home. The lawsuit asserts the medical examiner’s determination indicates Sachet’s lungs deflated and suffocated him due to complications from the injuries he sustained from the deputy.

• Federal and state legislators are advising Oregonians to drop off their ballots for the November election , rather than mailing them, after several ballots weren’t counted during the May primary election due to late postmarks. Recent delays within the US Postal Service, combined with threats to the state’s vote-by-mail system from the Trump administration have led state leaders to mount legal action against federal efforts to weaponize the USPS as a tool to restrict voting access. On Tuesday, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek, along with Secretary of State Tobias Read and US Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden vowed to protect Oregon’s voting system, but said changes at USPS could lead to longer mail delivery times and delay ballots from reaching local election offices on time. The state leaders have requested emergency funding for additional ballot drop boxes as well as funding for ballot tracking systems in rural counties that don’t currently offer the service.

Top Oregon elected officials on Tuesday urged Oregonians to use ballot drop boxes, not mailboxes, to return ballots in November as newly released data showed thousands of Oregonians missed having their May primary votes counted because of postal delays. buff.ly/eOCCvek — Oregon Capital Chronicle (@oregoncapitalchronicle.com) 2026-09-08T21:36:17.548Z

IN NATIONAL/WORLD NEWS:

• No more motorcycles, alcohol, or cheese from Canada. Sorry guys. Trump has started a trade war with our neighbors to the north , which means that starting September 29, the US will start banning the import of some dairy products and motorcycles made in Canada, along with most alcoholic beverages. After Trump imposed heavy, 50 percent tariffs on a fraction of Canadian goods, Canada clapped back with its own retaliatory tariffs, hence the ban of certain imports.

• In very unimportant news, it appears President Trump has dyed his hair a darker shade. The 80-year-old Home Alone 2 actor was spotted over Labor Day weekend with a noticeably darker coif atop that rotting brain of his, in what we can only hope will lead to a sweaty, summer meltdown moment akin to Rudy Giuliani’s infamous 2020 hair dye drip.

BREAKING Donald trump launches Just For Mentions hair dye range — Pup Fiction (@pupfiction.bsky.social) 2026-09-05T22:35:36.308Z

• A federal appeals court is set to hear a case from Louisiana that could potentially wipe out online and mail access to Mifepristone, the abortion pill, if a court rules in the state’s favor. Louisiana argues that federal rules that allow telehealth infringe on the state’s right to restrict abortion access. Five other states have filed similar lawsuits, Politico reports . It seems like a clear-cut “states’ rights” issue, but if the last year and a half have taught us anything, expect the unexpected.

• The New York Times reports at least four instances of people seen entering or emerging from the city’s sewers . Footage surfaced online last month showing a person in overalls peering up from a manhole cover before emerging with a headlamp, followed by another in the same gear, then another, in what looked like a scene from a Mario Bros game. These weren’t city workers. They weren’t sewer rats either. Is this a secret sewer-exploring society? Something more nefarious? In July, the Times reported, two men were arrested for criminal trespass for allegedly sewer diving in Brooklyn. The motives are still unclear. Experienced urban explorers say it could be just that–a thrill-seeking attempt. Others suspect the dirty divers might be looking for valuables, but that theory doesn’t hold up by those who’ve actually explored the sewer system and come up short. Are they looking for old copper to snatch and scrap? Maybe, but hauling it out of there seems like its own feat. A call to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was not immediately returned, because they are cartoon characters.

People have recently been recorded sneaking in and out of maintenance holes in New York City’s vast sewer system. Their motives have not yet been determined, the police said, but concerned officials warn of danger underground. — The New York Times (@nytimes.com) 2026-08-30T17:25:03.625192Z

And as long as we’re anthropomorphizing, let’s check in on the world’s most fascinating creature, the capybara…

@klrdubs And you gotta chop… the capybara, apparently 🎥 Source video: @capybarahouse.t ♬ original sound – KLR Productions

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