Moving imperiled sage grouse from one spot to another can be hard on the birds. But research from Washington State University suggests that after a restless adjustment period, the birds eventually get used to their new homes.Read More
Three Northwest states’ request to lethally remove sea lions from the Columbia River is now open for public comment. Read More
Oregon Senate Democrats announced Friday that they were abandoning a plan to fine Republicans $500 a day for the walkout, amid concerns over a protracted lawsuit and questions about how such unprecedented fines would work.Read More
If you were among the 1.7 million people who got a mysterious, unbidden $91.94 check in the mail recently, you may wonder if it is legitimate. It is! And the best news may be that recipients will get a similar check next summer.Read More
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, who included the $12 million in funding for the projects in her proposed budget last year, has told reporters the decision not to expand the early detection systems was one of the "biggest disappointments" of this year's legislative session.Read More
The head of the Oregon Republican Party on Monday took a first step toward forcing a recall election of Gov. Kate Brown, whose term expires at the end of 2022.Read More
Hyena-pig. Murder-cow. With no modern analog, scientists have resorted to combinations of common animals to describe it. Dug up decades ago in the Hancock Mammal Quarry near John Day, Oregon, the bone from this prehistoric creature languished, misidentified in museum storage, until Selina Robson pulled it from its drawer.Read More
The federal Bureau of Land Management will not pursue lethal measures such as euthanasia or selling horses for slaughter to deal with what officials say is an ecological and fiscal crisis caused by too many wild horses on rangelands in the U.S. West, an official said Thursday.Read More
Long-distance hiking can be the experience of a lifetime. It also can present dicey to mundane hurdles, like having to hike stretches along busy highways or logging roads. Trail crews are working this summer to improve some enticing regional routes -- that you may or may not have tried -- including the Oregon Coast Trail and the east-west Pacific Northwest Trail from Read More
Oregon lawmakers concluded their work for the year Sunday, marking the close of the most remarkable and contentious legislative sessions in modern memory. In a day filled with flaring tempers and frequent confusion, lawmakers in the House and Senate passed a completed state budget and a raft of policy bills just after 5:20 p.m., well before the midnight deadline set forth Read More
Senate Republicans will return to work Saturday following a nine-day walkout, setting the stage for a weekend where lawmakers sprint toward adjournment. That comes after Democratic leaders offered assurances a sweeping climate change bill, House Bill 2020, will not pass this session.Read More
The so-called “Stay Strong Stay Gone” rally marked the latest backlash over bills seeking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Oregon. Loggers, truckers, farmers and their supporters had all come, they said, to urge 11 Senate Republicans who’ve been absent from the statehouse since last week to remain in hiding.Read More
It’s hard not to notice that cougars are making it into the news these days. It’s also hard to miss how they’re getting there: by entering neighborhoods and putting residents on edge.Read More
Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, says Oregon’s sweeping plan for addressing climate change this legislative session does not have the votes to pass. But it’s not clear whether that will be enough to bring Senate Republicans back to work. Read More
In 2013, eight Oregon sheriffs sent letters to the Obama administration saying they wouldn’t enforce new federal gun laws. Two years later, the state legislature passed a bill requiring background checks for private gun sales. And again, Oregon sheriffs dug in. So it was already a well-worn path when sheriffs in Washington and Colorado started making similar assertions Read More
For the second time this legislative session, Oregon Senate Republicans prepared Thursday to stage a walkout, denying Democrats the ability to pass legislation. It’s the latest step in a standoff over sweeping climate change legislation.Read More
The Environmental Protection Agency has begun removing potentially contaminated barrels from Wallowa Lake. Despite initial fears, the barrels seem to have been full of lake water, though the EPA is waiting for test results to confirm that the water and barrels are indeed clean.Read More
The Supreme Court is throwing out an Oregon court ruling against bakers who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. Read More
Cormorants by the thousands have taken up residence under the landmark Astoria-Megler Bridge over the Columbia River. Their poop can corrode the bridge and that is unacceptable to the Oregon and Washington transportation departments. But what actions to take against the protected birds and whose responsibility that is are up in the air.Read More
A renewable energy project planned off the coast of Newport is taking a step forward. Oregon State University has submitted a final license application for a wave energy testing facility with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. If built, it would be the largest of its kind in the U.S.Read More
When states legalize pot for all adults, long-standing medical marijuana programs take a big hit, in some cases losing more than half their registered patients in just a few years, according to a data analysis by The Associated Press.Read More
A federal judge is set to hear arguments Portland this week from mental health advocates who say the state is failing dozens of criminal defendants in need of treatment.Read More
Oregon fish and wildlife commissioners approved a new management plan Friday for gray wolves, a long-awaited document that sets protocols for potential hunts and new thresholds for when the agency may kill wolves after attacks on cattle and sheep.Read More
Oregon lawmakers approved a measure on Thursday that could allow the state to adopt daylight saving time year-round. Washington legislators approved the change this year. In California, voters have approved year-round daylight saving time, but legislators have not signed off yet.Read More
U.S. Judge Michael H. Simon issued a temporary restraining order, blocking the grazing permits issued to Dwight and Steven Hammond by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke before he left the Trump administration at the beginning of this year. Read More
Oregon is awash in pot, glutted with so much legal weed that if growing were to stop today, it could take more than six years by one estimate to smoke or eat it all. Now, the state is looking to curb production.Read More
New technology could help a wind farm in Eastern Oregon work more efficiently. Officials are voting Friday on the updates to the wind farm. Wind turbines are expected to last about 20 years. Oregon’s Stateline Wind Farm is getting up there – construction started way back in 2001. That’s why the farm’s owners are asking to update part of the facility.Read More
The Bureau of Land Management re-published plans this week for an experimental study in permanent birth control for the horses, nearly identical to those stalled by a judge last year. The court’s injunction came after the BLM gathered about 900 wild horses and burros near Burns, Oregon, in October. Read More
Democratic leaders in the Oregon Senate have agreed to give up high-profile bills on gun control and vaccines in exchange for the end of a Republican walkout. Read More
In Oregon, GOP senators, solidly in the minority, left the Capitol this week before lawmakers could approve House Bill 3427, which would inject schools with billions in new funding to lower class sizes and boost graduation rates. The move denied Democrats a 20-member quorum, halting business in the Senate.Read More
With the stroke of the governor's pen Wednesday, Washington officially became the first West Coast state to ditch the twice-yearly time switch. But the end of "spring forward-fall back" won't happen until Congress gives the green light to all of the states moving toward year-round daylight saving time.Read More
A national advocacy group filed a class-action lawsuit Tuesday against the Oregon Department of Human Services, alleging the agency revictimizes children in its foster care system and has failed to address documented problems for at least a decade.Read More
Four years ago this month, Keaton Farris died naked, dehydrated and malnourished on the floor of an isolation cell in the Island County Jail on Whidbey Island. Farris, who was bipolar and in the throes of a mental health crisis, had been arrested 18 days earlier for failing to appear in court for allegedly stealing and cashing a $355 check. An investigation later found Read More
The Washington County sheriff in Oregon says there was nothing unusual about the call. Sure, it was broad daylight — 1:48 p.m. local time exactly — but "crime can happen anytime."Read More
For the first time, a proposal that Oregon honor the national popular vote in presidential contests got a vote on the Senate floor on Tuesday, passing easily.Read More
The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office began a coroner’s inquest Wednesday into the deaths of the Southwest Washington family who plunged off of a California cliff last year. Read More
Over the past decade, at least 122 people have died by suicide in county jails across Oregon and Washington. Suicide, specifically hanging, is by far the leading single cause of deaths in the region’s jails. It accounts for nearly half of all cases with a known cause of death.Read More
Across Oregon and Washington, at least 70 percent of the inmates who died since 2008 were awaiting trial, rather than serving time. Civil liberties advocates have long expressed concern over jailing people on low-level crimes that have root causes of mental illness, drug addiction or lack of stable employment.Read More
A former Navy landing ship commissioned during World War II could come to the rescue when a big Cascadia earthquake hits someday. A group based in Astoria, Oregon, envisions a new role in disaster relief for the storied vessel Salvage Chief.Read More
Incomplete data tracking hides a crisis of rising death rates in overburdened Northwest jails that have been set up to fail the inmates they are tasked with keeping safe.Read More
It's been 20 years since Carolyn DeFord, a member of the Puyallup tribe, last saw her mother, Leona Kinsey in La Grande, Ore. DeFord was raised by Kinsey in La Grande. She remembers her mother as independent and self-sufficient, working odd jobs to scrape by.Read More
Federal legalization of hemp arrived in the U.S. late last year and expanded an industry already booming because of the skyrocketing popularity of CBDs, a compound in hemp that many see as a health aid. But now, just a few months after Congress placed the marijuana look-alike squarely in safe legal territory, the hemp industry has been unsettled by an unexpected development.Read More
A proposal to raise the smoking and vaping age to 21 in Washington has passed the Legislature, putting the state on the precipice of becoming the ninth state to make such a change. Having previously passed the House, the measure now heads to Gov. Jay Inslee, who has said he supports the bill and is expected to sign it.Read More
Timber harvested illegally from African rainforests is being sold in the U.S. through Pacific Northwest companies and others are doing the same thing to get hardwood to customers throughout Europe.Read More
All this snow so late in the season prompts the much-asked question: Is this climate change? Kathie Dello, a climatologist with Oregon State University in Corvallis, says this late-winter snow is perfectly normal. But, it doesn’t mean the larger picture is all fine. Read More
As coal plants retire across the country, Portland-based NuScale Power wants to replace some of that electricity with its small-scale nuclear plants. Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems wants to build a 720-megawatt nuclear plant at the Idaho National Laboratory site in Idaho Falls.Read More
Some remote cabins are for solo retreats – not this one. Staying at Tilly Jane A-Frame is a shared experience. And sharing it has saved it.Read More
Democrats in the Washington Legislature want to revive a tax break for buyers of electric cars, which critics view as wasteful and unnecessary. Meanwhile, a publicly-financed rebate for battery-powered cars in Oregon is finding thousands of takers.Read More
Grape growers in southern Oregon thought they had already weathered one of the biggest challenges of the 2018 season — the Klondike Fire, which burned over 175,000 acres in July. But on Sept. 22, they faced even more devastating news: Copper Cane Wines and Provisions, a Calif.-based winery that contracts with numerous growers in the region, canceled grape orders mere Read More
A federal report shows that between 2015 and 2018 there were almost 6,000 reported complaints of sexual abuse at child migrant shelters nationwide. Documents show the non-profit Morrison Child and Family Services in Portland handled eight of those reports. Three of those incidents happened at other non-Morrison shelters the youth were previously at. Read More
