Too many grazers, too little range. That’s the bottom line from the Bureau of Land Management about wild horses and burros. On Monday, the BLM put out a call for contractors to provide pasture for thousands of excess animals.Read More
The Natural Resource Management Act includes a little of everything — meant to satisfy public land interests all over the country.
The land-conservation measures have received a lot of attention. But there are other provisions in the bill concerning the Northwest, among them wildfire risk, research and air quality resources, hunting on public lands, water management for Read More
A 36-hour ordeal that saw 183 Amtrak passengers languishing on a stalled train in Oakridge, Ore., appeared to be coming to an end Tuesday morning, after a rescue train began pulling them toward Eugene located about 45 miles away, officials said.Read More
Thousands of old brick, stone and concrete buildings in the Pacific Northwest could crumble in the next strong earthquake. To face that challenge, measures pending in the Oregon and Washington legislatures would set up grant programs to help owners of dangerous buildings make seismic safety upgrades.Read More
Oregon’s rugged coast is poised to grow even more inhospitable to oil and gas interests in coming days under a bill that passed the state Senate on Tuesday.Read More
Eastern Oregon may soon be home to a next-generation renewable energy project. Portland General Electric is making plans to build the country’s first large-scale energy facility that combines wind turbines, solar panels and battery storage.Read More
With the threat of right-wing violence on the rise, some activists on the left are taking a page out of the 1960s civil rights movement: armed self-defense. Read More
Climate change is playing out in significant ways in Oregon, with evidence in the form of more severe wildfires, lower summer stream flows and diminishing winter snowpacks, according to the state’s fourth annual climate assessment report.Read More
Latest school closures and delays from our area. You can also report closures and delays on this page by filling out the form located at the bottom of the page.Read More
In 2002, Grant County, Oregon banned the United Nations by citizen initiative. The referendum wasn't close: 58 percent of voters said to keep the United Nations out of Eastern Oregon. The sponsors asserted the United Nations sought to impose "world taxation," take away guns and private property and bring about "one world controlled education."Read More
As the number of cases and geographic reach expands in Southwest Washington’s measles crisis, state lawmakers are looking to revisit who can opt out of vaccinations.Read More
As the number of confirmed measles cases in Southwest Washington and Oregon grew to 36 cases, health authorities said Monday that their biggest concern is low vaccination rates in schools and the possibility that the crisis could stretch out for months. Read More
Oregon’s bottle deposit system is recycling more containers than ever before despite major disruptions in global recycling markets.Read More
Washington may soon copy a rural wildfire fighting strategy that Oregon, Idaho and Nevada already employ: letting private ranchers attack range fires before the blazes get big.Read More
For years, Oregon and Washington have been searching for the best way to catch more hatchery fish while letting the wild fish return unharmed to their spawning grounds. Now, one group says they’ve found it.Read More
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has started killing sea lions below Willamette Falls to protect a fragile run of winter steelhead.Read More
A commercial crabbing boat capsized in rough waters off the Oregon coast, killing the three men aboard and sending a shock wave through a seafaring community already struggling from a monthlong delay to the annual crabbing season.Read More
Environmental groups have withdrawn from an effort to update Oregon’s plan for managing gray wolves days before a final meeting of stakeholders, throwing the future of negotiations over wolf management and protections into question.Read More
In a recent study of patients treated by emergency medical responders in Oregon, black patients were 40 percent less likely to get pain medicine than their white peers. Why?Read More
A decommissioned chemical weapons depot and a lone biologist might be the last hope for a population of burrowing owls.Read More
There are already federal and state laws that try to shrink the pay gap among genders. But this new Oregon state law expands gender protections to include things like race, religion, marital status or age.Read More
Colin O’Brady is a professional endurance athlete, a motivational speaker, a world record holder and, now, the first person in history to cross the continent of Antarctica alone and without wind assistance. He spoke with Oregon Public Broadcasting ahead of the finish.Read More
Federal fishery managers are increasing the catch limits for several West Coast species that were overfished and severely restricted for years. Surveys show depleted populations of yellow eye and bocaccio rockfish, cow cod and ocean perch — all classified as groundfish — are rebounding decades ahead of schedule.Read More
The severity of the officer shortage varies by location, but the national trend is clear: Since 2013, the total number of working sworn officers has fallen by about 23,000. The number of officers per capita is down even more sharply, from 2.42 per 1,000 residents in 1997 to 2.17 officers per 1,000 in 2016.Read More
Congress has agreed to make it easier to kill sea lions threatening fragile runs of salmon in the Northwest. A bill approved by the House this week changes the Marine Mammal Protection Act to lift some of the restrictions on killing sea lions to protect salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River and its tributaries.Read More
Journalist Leah Sottile covered the 2016 Malheur Wildlife Refuge occupation and its aftermath with the Bundy family. This year she released a deeply reported podcast about the Bundys – called 'Bundyville,' a collaboration between Longreads and Oregon Public Broadcasting. Read More
With harvest wrapped up, the regional apple industry is in prime packing time. But growers and shippers are nervous. The fruit isn’t moving to international markets as quick as usual because of the trade wars. Read More
Apparently, salmon don’t like the smell of watercress. The aroma of shrimp doesn’t pique their interest either. And the fragrance, eu de steelhead? A definite no-go.Read More
Washington utility regulators say the Canadian utility Hydro One may not acquire the Spokane-based utility Avista. In a statement, the state Utilities and Transportation Commission said "the proposed merger does not serve the public interest."Read More
The Northwest is already seeing the effects of climate change, according to a new national climate assessment. Read More
According to some Oregon and Washington legislators, it's high time to get rid of the twice-yearly ritual of changing clocks. This past month, 60 percent of California voters approved Proposition 7, a ballot proposition to make daylight saving time permanent. Read More
If you've traveled the central Oregon coast, you might remember the signs marking Depoe Bay's claim to fame: the "World's Smallest Harbor." But now that harbor is getting even smaller because of accumulating silt. City officials are on tenterhooks because of the problem. Silt buildup renders the fuel dock inaccessible at low tide.Read More
A dream to make rural Pendleton, Oregon into a drone testing mecca is becoming very real. It's so real, in fact, that the city-owned airport has run out of hangar space to rent to global aerospace companies. Now, the Pendleton airport is seeking millions more in public funding to help expand.Read More
Groups of Oregonians, particularly hound hunters, say that Oregon’s cougar population is growing out of control. Cougar advocates, on the other hand, say that Oregon is over-hunting cougars, which research suggests can lead to an increase in problem encounters.Read More
Democratic Gov. Kate Brown defeated Republican state Rep. Knute Buehler in the race to see who will hold Oregon’s highest office.Read More
For the last 40 years, something has been missing from Oregon’s Lostine River: coho salmon. Now, 42 coho have made it to the waters in the last two weeks.Read More
A troubled mega-dairy in Oregon has announced its plans to shut down. After racking up multiple environmental violations, Lost Valley Farm’s owner has been fired and a trustee wants to sell the property.Read More
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has all but abandoned its use of federal prisons to house detainees. Three ICE detainees that remain are inside the federal prison in Sheridan, Oregon.Read More
It's a sad fact of life that K-12 students must practice for calamities such as earthquakes, fires, lockdowns or active shooters. Now a few public schools in the region are roping in parents and guardians to practice for the aftermath.Read More
Construction begins soon in eastern Oregon for the first commercial-scale "torrefaction" facility in the country. If you don't know what that word means, you're in good company. But the process itself isn't all that exotic. Think of how your coffee beans get crispy.Read More
Grazing restrictions on public lands may have unintended consequences for greater sage grouse, according to a recent study. The imperiled birds depend on habitat on both public and private lands, and much of that habitat can be lost when ranching operations go under.Read More
Oregon’s sanctuary law for immigration is simple on paper. It says no law enforcement agency can use its money, equipment or personnel for the purpose of detecting or apprehending people whose only violation is being in the country unlawfully.Read More
The new trade agreement signed Sunday at midnight called the USMCA short for the U.S. Mexico, Canada Agreement by the Trump Administration, could change things on some Northwest farms. Farmers are hopeful this new agreement will lift their commodity prices -- many of which are low right now. Read More
When toxins from algae made Salem’s drinking water potentially hazardous earlier this year, the city was unprepared to deal with both the public relations fallout from the breach and the more concrete matter of helping citizens access clean water.Read More
The search is on for the cougar suspected of killing a hiker near Mount Hood. It is the first confirmed fatal attack by a wild mountain lion in the state. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife plans to use mules and dogs to search for the mountain lion.Read More
How to get away with murder? Maybe don't write a blog post about getting away with murder.Read More
More than a dozen states offer what are known as free college programs. But a new review finds states vary wildly in how they define both "free" and "college."Read More
Authorities say a dead hiker whose body was recovered this week was likely killed by a cougar, marking the first fatal attack by a wild cougar in Oregon and the second in the Northwest this year.Read More
The U.S. is in the middle of a steep and sustained increase in sexually transmitted diseases. So how are public health officials responding?Read More
Attorneys and lawmakers in Oregon say the state is violating the U.S. Constitution because of laws that require juveniles convicted of murder to be sentenced to what amounts to mandatory life imprisonment.Read More
