Local News

Redmond High School students will learn in modular classrooms for the entirety of the 2026-27 school year after remodel construction shook loose dangerous amounts of asbestos from the building, the Redmond School District announced last week.   The district began construction this summer on a $53 million Redmond High modernization, funded by a taxpayer bond voters approved in 2024. The district planned on using a phased approach during construction, […]

Brad Boyd has endured his share of Central Oregon fire seasons. This one’s different, he said.   “This is the largest evacuation of homes I’ve seen in 37 years. There are certainly more evacuations than during last year’s Flat Fire. And in 37 years, I’ve never seen even half of town on a Level 1,” said Boyd, 64, from behind the counter of Eurosports, his bike and ski shop that also has a beer garden, food […]

Malheur County is about as far from the state’s centers of power as you can get and still be in Oregon. From Salem, it’s a 375-mile drive that crosses the Cascade Mountains and sweeping sagebrush and ends in a different time zone. Malheur’s residents are the poorest and least educated in Oregon. Yet an OJP analysis of […]

As the federal government pushes for more logging and grazing on Oregon’s lands, state climate commissioners are calling for more ambitious goals to protect the state’s land and water so they can capture carbon dioxide. The 13 voting members of the governor-appointed Oregon Climate Action Commission last week called to double goals they set just five years […]

Elijah and Xiomara Roy were at their grandparents’ house north of Sisters, about to drop the final antacid tablet into their fizzy homemade lava lamps, when they were told it was time to go.   “My grandma — we call her mi-ma — said it was time to go,” Elijah said. “I was asking what was going on, asking if it was a Level 3, and she said yes.”  He was referring […]

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality extended an air-quality advisory Friday to more than 10 counties across the state, including Deschutes and Jefferson. The DEQ originally issued the advisory on Tuesday with guidance that it might be lifted Wednesday. However, with wildfires burning around the state and subsequent smoke enveloping many places, the Air Quality Index has […]

Estheticians of Central Oregon are constantly finding ways to help residents achieve and maintain the appearances they want. While their services vary greatly, many of their techniques aim to serve a similar purpose; to keep skin looking healthy and youthful.  But what is currently trending in the beauty world? When interviewed, two local estheticians gave […]

The trend is so popular, you often see it in television shows, commercials and social media feeds. Blue or red light therapy masks are touted as a luxurious way to pamper yourself, unwinding the clock as you lay on a couch scrolling on your phone. Light therapy has a long-documented history. Danish physician Niels Ryberg Finsen began looking at the therapeutic effects of light on skin diseases in the 1890s. He observed that nine days […]

Scott Seaton, despite occupying high-octane posts that include being a firefighter with Bend Fire & Rescue and a longtime elite masters cyclist, knows what it’s like to live with low testosterone levels.  Even so: nope, no way — Seaton, who’s 66, ain’t takin’ no stinkin’ testosterone replacement therapy.  That, he considers, is performance-enhancing doping. So agrees the World Anti-Doping Agency and the domestic equivalent, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. The Oregon Bicycle Racing Association, which governs racing in the state and parts of Washington, has […]

Due to continued hot weather, extremely dry vegetation, and significant wildfire activity, the Deschutes National Forest, Ochoco National Forest and Crooked River National Grassland, and Prineville District Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will move into Stage 2 public use fire restrictions at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday, July 25. Stage 2 public use fire restrictions prohibit […]