News

Oregon has the highest rate in the country of babies who are given breast milk or colostrum in the first hours after birth, according to a new study.  The national average is 85.1%, according to America’s Health Rankings, based on 2023 data. Oregon’s average is 94%. The study looks at breastfeeding initiation rates, defined as […]

Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek is urging federal officials to help Oregon farmers and ranchers respond to, and rebound from, wildfires at the same scale and speed those officials delivered in Republican-controlled states hit by natural disasters this year. In a letter requesting aid that Kotek sent Thursday to Brooke Rollins, head of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, […]

It may seem counterintuitive, but local therapist Dasha Gousseva says the best way to manage stress levels heightened by Central Oregon’s wildfires is to focus on the things we can control. Fair-weather activities that ground us, such as socializing in person or devoting a few hours to hobbies, can help tamp down the adrenaline and […]

A faction of Multnomah County Democrats proposed a resolution July 30 calling on U.S. Rep. Janelle Bynum (D-Ore.) to resign her seat and drop out of the November general election. That’s a bold and surprising move at a time when control of Congress is up for grabs and Bynum, 51, a first-termer, is seeking reelection […]

Large and volatile wildfires burning across Central Oregon have destroyed homes, threatened thousands more and blanketed the region with smoke.   The blazes have consumed more than 1 million acres in Oregon — and about a month earlier than the state’s wildfire season usually peaks.  Earlier this month, a flurry of lightning strikes ignited tinderbox-like conditions across a Central Oregon landscape parched from a record-low snowpack.  “This year was poised to be a very active fire […]

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 […]