Yes, someone in a hot dog costume just hand-delivered Councilor Green a hot dog before starting today's council chat on sidewalk vending.

BREAKING: Cascade PBS, which operates the website Crosscut, is laying off 19 people, reportedly including its entire news staff. In an email to staff, CEO Rob Dunlop blamed federal cuts, saying the nonprofit is "winding down our longform, written journalism."

1/ Help us shape the future of journalism in Oregon and Southwest Washington by joining the SPJ board!!! It’s never been tougher to be a journalist, but you CAN make a difference in the PNW. Email us a 150- to 200-word statement of why you should be elected to spjoregon @ gmail . com (no spaces)

Honored to share a birthday with one of the last good websites on the internet

Street Roots needs urgent support to raise $288,000 by September 30 to stabilize our cash flow and avoid cutting any services that our vendors and community rely on. Please visit our donation page where you can find more info and make a gift. streetroots.org/donate

happy labor day

The reveal: youtube.com/shorts/DLjo3...

One of the firefighters arrested is an Oregonian. My office has been in touch with his lawyer who says he can't locate his client. My office is working to get more information on his whereabouts ASAP.

Come work with us!

If you're an assigning editor looking for longform (and sometimes shortform!) dispatches on politics, religion and weirdos in the Western US, I'm looking to expand the roster of outlets I write for. I have more ideas than I know what to do with. Contact form here: www.leahsottile.com#Info

my roommate was trying to find the menu for a nearby bagel shop and instead found some of the most iconic slop I've ever seen. thanks food! :)

It's a familiar script. Visible homelessness rises amid a housing crisis. A business-backed group organizes to encourage harsher enforcement. But this time, it's not in one of the country's biggest cities, but in a town of 17,000.

A Rotary Club in rural Oregon is not high on the list of places I would expect a Republican politician to get booed.

Absolutely fascinating story www.propublica.org/article/iren...

In my inbox from @ucmercedclc.bsky.social: the last few months of intense immigration enforcement in California has caused a downturn in private sector employment "comparable with the Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic." Even citizens lost work. clc.ucmerced.edu/sites/g/file...

#Oregon and #SWWashington school districts! As we gear up for #backtoschool season, let me know what you've got going on. School supply drives? Free meal options? Information sessions for families on key issues facing them this school year? Email me at [email protected] 🤓 🍎 📝 📚

"The state’s unemployment rate is the highest it’s been since recovering from a COVID-19 shutdown spike."

apropos of nothing we are absolutely way the fuck overdue for George Michael to be recognized as one of the greatest pop artists ever

We're well over the 50 incidents documented in our investigation now. Here's one from this week from @opb.org, reporting that a young girl was also in the the van of Mam-speaking farmworkers from Guatemala when immigration agents broke the driver window. www.opb.org/article/2025...

A major arrest of farmworkers in the Willamette Valley has people on edge right as harvest season is in one of its peak times.

Oregon’s US Rep. Cliff Bentz outspent every House member on Trump inauguration weekend. buff.ly/pe5NOZR by @alexbaumhardt.bsky.social

Real Change confirmed today that two of our vendors have been detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This action is a direct attack on a protected community and poses a chilling threat to the safety and well-being of all individuals experiencing homelessness and poverty.

Forest collaboratives formed in the wake of the Pacific Northwest’s “Timber Wars” have become major power players operating largely out of the public eye.

Six years ago, a gunman in El Paso murdered 23 innocent people and wounded 22 others in the worst targeted attack against Latinos in U.S. history.

Oregon’s US senators split on weapons sales to Israel as Gazan death toll passes 60,000 and widespread, preventable hunger and malnutrition grow @oregoncapitalchronicle.com oregoncapitalchronicle.com/2025/08/01/o...

"The United States sent sent us to El Salvador so that El Salvador could do the dirty work that the United States couldn't." Listen to three men explain, in painful detail, what happened to them after we send them to a foregin prison. Powerful video. youtu.be/6KZRtCE2UcI

Join me tomorrow for @opb.org's Morning Edition. We'll talk to @tonyschick.bsky.social about Salem's potential water issues, hear @antoniosierra.bsky.social's conversation with Cliff Bentz, and check in on Portlanders during Trump's second term with @alexzee.bsky.social. 5am-9am. www.opb.org

"It doesn’t matter that the majority of us were born here and primarily speak English. These people don’t care that you served your country or that you wave its flag at protests. To them, we will always be Josés or Marias."

I guess now is as good a time as any to get a check from Columbia University.

I got my special morning milk

Good story about how a new bishop in rural Oregon could mean a policy shift out here. Always funny to me that the Diocese of Baker is headquartered 200 miles away in Redmond.

Hennen accepted the position, taking charge of a diocese larger in area than his home state of Iowa, yet home to only around 35,000 Catholics. He will also become the youngest bishop in the U.S. to lead a diocese.

Our readers and others benefit from reciprocal story sharing with OPB, and as corporate newspaper owners cut back in rural Oregon in recent years, OPB's expanded bureaus with local reporters filled gaps. From OPB's president after Congress voted to claw back funding: www.opb.org/pressroom/pr...

For reasons you umm, may have heard*, today is a great day to become a sustaining member of @opb.org! [*we just lost $5 million a year, 9% of our operating budget 😅] Click here to contribute:

Oregon's DOJ says public officials exploited a rural broadband nonprofit to cash in on Amazon data centers, reaping millions for themselves The agency's investigation began after @rogoway.bsky.social reported on the arrangement for @oregonian.com

OPB's flagship newsletter First Look has a new look! Starting this week, each edition will lead off with a note from me, @winstonszeto.bsky.social, @sukhjot.bsky.social or another producer. Our goal is to more vital, more personal and easier to read.

Two Democratic governors of Oregon are lobbying the only Republican in the state’s congressional delegation to vote against the multi-trillion-dollar reconciliation bill passed by the U.S. Senate this week.

WTF: during WW2 the US worked with 15 LatAm countries to arrest 6600 Japanese, German & Italian immigrants & their families (including some native-born spouses/kids), "deport" them to US, immediately incarcerate them in prison camp under the Alien Enemies Act, & use them to trade for American POWs.

“There was bipartisan support for that. There was time to do that,” Kotek said on Saturday. “What didn’t happen was support from Republican leaders who just wanted to go home.”

Here's a great @opb.org video from today's Yang Hansen presser in Portland, featuring part of @winstonszeto.bsky.social's one-on-one interview with Yang @trailblazers #ripcity www.youtube.com/shorts/WiSzU...

We are disappointed but undeterred. www.spjoregon.com/news/our-sta...

Republican Rep. Cliff Bentz joined the voices decrying the potential sell off of public lands in the West -- though he was clear to say he'd support more targeted privatization of public land.

Wrote about the the eeriness of living in LA amidst the ongoing ICE raids and the Saturday protest at Dodger Stadium, which was both against the raids and demanding the Dodgers do more. Gift link (but please contribute or subscribe to help keep us doing blogs like these!):

"Sen. Mark Meek, D-Gladstone, pointed to Meta’s decision to ban Canadian news on its platform, which caused issues for some local publications." I'd argue that news publications will have issues with Google and Meta regardless of whether this bill passes.

A bill that would require big tech companies to compensate Oregon newsrooms for sharing the local journalism on their platforms appears to be in jeopardy. In a 15-14 vote, Senate Bill 686 failed to pass the floor of the Oregon Senate on Tuesday.

Washington County is one of Oregon's most diverse, and lawmakers there gathered yesterday to state their opposition to ICE actions that are creating fear.

More difficult news for Oregon journalists, and journalism. There were several cuts at other Carpenter papers, too.

So ICE claims this business owner has a DUI charge from 1997, but no court in Oregon has record of it, and the local municipal court where it would exist (if real) says it destroys those records after 10 years. Burden of proof is on the feds here.

Crazy story from the Hermiston Herald. Incoming school board member cites a white supremacist while criticizing Oregon's education system. He's about to oversee a district that's more than 60% Latino. hermistonherald.com/2025/06/17/h...