Latino culture is a colorful buffet of traditions and stories from across Latin America. Today's First Look newsletter features @sukhjot.bsky.social story on on La Guelaguetza, Hillsboro’s annual festival celebrating the music, dance and food of Indigenous Oaxaqueños. @opb.org

This is an essay of reflections on my first AAJA convention. At a time when DEI is under attack, the convention gala’s keynote reminded me why journalism matters: covering underrepresented communities isn’t window dressing — it’s democracy in action.

Thieves broke into a California store and stole thousands of dollars worth of Labubus — the trendy dolls — on Wednesday, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office.

This is the first podcast episode I ever produced. It’s so much fun to work with @jennchavez.bsky.social and Mia Estrada on this project, which allowed me to have some personal reflection on the reporting I had done: loneliness, DEI, and aging.

The State Department is warning U.S. diplomats of attempts to impersonate Secretary of State Marco Rubio and possibly other officials using technology driven by artificial intelligence.

PETA sued the American Kennel Club on Tuesday over its standards for some dog breeds such as the popular French bulldog, alleging that the requirements endorse unhealthy attributes that cause suffering.

Can’t watch the “unemployed flex” TikTok videos anymore as it’s closed after CBC’s revelations. But when I watched the snippets in the packaged news report, it looks so real unless you put laser attention on the imperfections.

After the first Trump administration, ex-DHS official Ken Cuccinelli and Project 2025 architect Russell Vought built a consensus among state GOP officials that immigration legally constitutes an invasion — and helped persuade Texas to try the theory in court. By @mtredden.bsky.social

Happy Canada Day!! 🇨🇦

Great way to practice my Mandarin 😁, which I don’t speak that often (but spoke it a lot during my years in Vancouver BC as a Chinese-language newspaper reporter covering the Mandarin-speaking communities in Richmond).

After more than three months in detention by the Trump administration, a judge ordered Mahmoud Khalil released on bail. He was met on Saturday at Newark airport by his wife, their son and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, along with other supporters. nyti.ms/44sUa1y

“It's not just human. It's very humanizing.” A dark sky full of stars has been fascinating the humankind since the beginning , but light pollution has been increasingly dimming the stars over the past decades. Fortunately, I was able to see a truly clear dark sky last month in the Oregon outback.

"Let me exercise my role as G7 chair" -- Carney steps in to stop Trump from taking more questions

Probably it gets easier to create animations like this in this election with AI, I guess.

And it happens in Pride Month.

One Hajj pilgrim, who currently has a green card, removed herself from all mosque, prayer and religiously oriented WhatsApp groups before traveling, saying that "there’s just too much uncertainty." religionnews.com/2025/05/30/h...

Both breeds have origins in Canada — and they fell in love in the U.S. Nothing more romantic than this. ❤️ Just saying. 😁

The more stories I tell about America, the more I find the deep connections between people on both sides of the border (esp among communities of colour) and — not sure whether paradoxically or not — and the more Canadian I feel I am.

New from me: Yat Sing Music Club in Portland, Oregon, is one of the longest standing Cantonese opera groups in North America. It was founded in 1942 by Chinese immigrants to raise funds for China’s defence against Japan during WWII. The group is still rehearsing every weekend.

Just watching this tragedy unfold. My condolences to the Filipino communities in Vancouver BC deeply impacted by this incident. As of early morning today, 9 have died as a result of an SUV plowing through a block party with hundreds of attendees yesterday evening.

This is one of my favourite photos I took during my CBC years in Kelowna. I’m glad that whoever picked it up for a story published today about the passing of the artist behind the iconic sails statue.

Just voted 🗳️🇨🇦 by sending out this mail-in ballot at a local post office in Vancouver, Washington. The postal staffer told me it should arrive in Canada in 7 business days. I trust her.

Portland pilot Hazel Ying Lee was among dozens of WASPs joining U.S. military in WWII. Under Trump’s DEI ban, memories of WASPs are under threat of erasure. Excellent tribute to the first Chinese American woman pilot, produced by my OPB colleagues Emily Hamilton and @aryasurowidjojo.bsky.social

Done watching Liberals’ leadership debate tonight. 4 Anglophones debated in their 2nd language (French) in Montreal. As expected, Trump was the biggest topic. No matter who’ll be the next leader and, per Westminster system, the next PM, I learned a lot of French by reading subtitles. #fiercanadien 🇨🇦

Anne Marie Hochhalter, who spoke publicly about the long-lasting effects of gun violence after she was paralyzed in the 1999 mass shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado, was found dead on Sunday at her home. She was 43. nyti.ms/3X8xaB0

New from me: Meal programs bring people together. Today Portland’s iconic Ikoi no Kai (meaning “a place of rest” in Japanese) celebrates 46th years of providing nourishing meals and recreational activities for seniors to socialize, helping to combat loneliness as a major issue in Oregon.

The end of an era… and I’m expecting to vote in a federal election soon. It’d be my first Canadian federal election to vote in.

This isn’t surprising…and the question is who will be the next Liberal leader and when the next election will be.

In his first term, Trump restricted access to foreign worker visas, and he has previously criticized the program. But during the 2024 campaign, Trump signaled openness to giving some foreign-born workers legal status if they graduated from a US university.

Truck driver Daljit Sohi drove hours tailing a car in order to return the purse to the car’s driver who dropped it at a parking lot. When the car driver gave him $500 as reward, he declined. Nice story from my CBC colleague Sohrab Sandhu — the power of connection to Punjabi speaking communities.

Conservatives win federal byelection in BC the day when Liberals are reeling from Chrystia Freeland’s resignation.

Canada’s Liberal minority govt has been thrown to crisis after Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, formerly managing editor of Financial Times in NYC, resigned just 7 mins after her scheduled start to announce her Fall Economic Statement to the press.

I interviewed him in 2019 while working with Ming Pao in Richmond BC. Kind man. RIP.

No googly eyes on public art! That’s the message Bend city officials conveyed to local residents on Facebook this week. They said, for instance, it’ll cost them $900 to climb to the lofted Rising Phoenix to remove the eyes and refurbish the red paint on the sculpture. Many residents disagree.

Murder, espionage, and a diplomatic rift: The assassination of a Sikh separatist in Canada is unravelling a crisis between India and Canada. Writer @sushantsingh.bsky.social explores the aftermath: thewalrus.ca/spies-gangst...

"It sounds like we're living in an episode of South Park," Immigration Minister Marc Miller dismissed Trump's comment.

The arrival of a Blackstone-backed data center in Georgia means landowners need to accommodate new high-voltage lines encroaching on their property. This AI power battle could come to your town next. Read The Big Take ⬇️

During the first Trump administration, immigration enforcement sowed chaos across PNW, spurring legal challenges and fear. Legal experts and immigrant communities expect that to happen once more when President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House in January. ✍️: Conrad Wilson. Design mine.

The 17-year-old me, with my high school principal (he passed away last December). I was in the students’ union room taking a final review of the school’s newspaper that was published twice every year.

Nail salons provide not only business opportunities for their owners, but also third spaces — outside of work and home — where they and their clients can feel connected and be themselves. Esp true for owners of color and LGBTQ in (still pretty white) Central Oregon. www.opb.org/article/2024...

Based in Vancouver, Washington School for the Deaf is the state’s only ASL-English bilingual school serving deaf and hard-of-hearing students preK-12. It was established in 1880s, before WA became a state. 📸✍️: Natalie Pate. Design mine. opb.org/article/2024...

On Golden Rescue is an accredited nonprofit sanctuary in Oregon’ Columbia County that’s currently home to a dozen of retired farm animals with serious medical concerns. It relies solely on donations and sets strict limit on the number of animals under its care. opb.org/article/2024...

Red-fleshed apples have been on Earth for centuries, but it’s only until ‘50s and ‘60s were they discovered in Oregon and began grown. Now it’s an apple variety well sought after by cider makers for its tastes likened to those of wines. 📸: Jeff Kastner (1,2) & Crystal Ligori (3,4). Design mine.

CBC and 10 other 🇨🇦 media outlets sue OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, for copyright infringement by using their articles to train the chat bot without their consent. This lawsuit happens about a year after New York Times and other U.S. media outlets took similar action. www.cbc.ca/news/busines...

CBC’s flagship investigative journalism program, The Fifth Estate, celebrates its 50th anniversary today. I’m honoured to have provided instrumental contribution to one of its episodes, on birth tourism among mothers from China, in 2019. I learned a lot from the experience.

My Thanksgiving dinner 🦃 …from Costco. The Riesling 🍷 is also from Costco.

St. Helens High School principal Katy Wagner faces 6 criminal charges following what the police said was her failure to report allegations of the school’s teachers’ sexual abuse against students. Meanwhile, the district’s acting superintendent, Steve Webb, vows to hire an acting principal soon.

Former Bank of Canada head Mark Carney blamed provinces for underfunding higher education, which pushed institutions to turn to foreign students to make money. He also criticized the Canadian govt for accepting more immigrants than it could absorb.

How Canadian provinces can learn from Washington state in providing involuntary addiction care.