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As wildfires scorch the West, Eastern Oregon ranchers deal with major losses

Aug 9, 2024
It’s been a big fire season so far across the West, including in Oregon where more than 1.2 million acres have burned this season. On the eastern side of the state, the fires have left many cattle displaced or dead, leaving ranchers with significant losses.
Jared Smull points out burned land at the beginning of the drive into Rye Valley, where he and his family grazed their cattle for many years before the Durkee Fire on July 31. The Smull family lost thousands of acres of grazeable land in the fire.
Anna Lueck/OPB

For affected communities, wildfire recovery is a slow burn 

Jul 9, 2024
For those who choose to stay and rebuild after a devastating blaze, the experience can become a test of patience and endurance.
A destroyed homestead and car sit among the ruins of Blue River, Oregon, after the Holiday Farm Fire in 2020.
Brian Bull/KLCC

As opioid crisis rages, Oregon must decide how to spend its settlement dollars

Mar 12, 2024
States are allocating hundreds of millions. Officials weigh spreading it among treatment, recovery, prevention and harm reduction.
Fernando Peña shows NW Instituto Latino's supplies funded by opioid settlement money, including Narcan, which treats overdoses, as well as safer-use, safer-sex and wound care items.
Mitchell Hartman/Marketplace

To provide temporary shelter, Oregon launches hotel-to-housing program

Nov 22, 2021
Faced with an affordable housing shortage, COVID-19 restrictions and wildfires, Oregon started funding a program to purchase hotels and motels to shelter the unhoused.
Maria Caballero Rubio is the executive director of Centro Cultural de Washington County, the foundation that purchased the Forest Grove Inn to shelter displaced, low-income Latinx people.
Melanie Sevcenko

As rodeo returns to Eastern Oregon, plenty of broncs and bulls. Not so many masks.

Sep 24, 2021
The Pendleton Round-Up was canceled last year. It came back in the midst of a delta variant surge in the rural Oregon county.
The Pendleton Round-Up arena can hold about 16,500 fans — about the whole population of the town. On several days this year, ticket sales topped 10,000.
Mitchell Hartman

Oregon retirement savings program offers national roadmap

Economists found the automatic IRA program OregonSaves meaningfully increased retirement savings.
The success of OregonSaves, an automatic IRA program, suggests making it a national plan.
Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images

How one unemployed bartender is making ends meet

May 4, 2020
A government stimulus check, unemployment benefits and helpful roommates are keeping Neil Cairns afloat — for now.
Bartender Neil Cairns in Portland, Oregon, hasn't been able to work since mid-March.
Thomas Patteron

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Smoke from this season’s wildfires is worrying West Coast winemakers

Sep 29, 2017
Notes of ashtray or campfire in your pinot? Vineyards say smoky weather from this year’s wildfires could leave lasting mark on wines.
Jocelyn Bentley-Prestwich, the marketing manager at Cathedral Ridge Winery in Hood River, Oregon, tests the ripeness of the vineyard's Riesling grapes. 
Molly Solomon/ for Marketplace

The latest fight for employee rights: work schedule predictability

Sep 4, 2017
Worker rights advocates say unpredictable schedules, and dreaded "clopenings," take a toll on employees.
Nadine Vassallo, manager of independent bookseller Book Soup, in West Hollywood, California, schedules a 20-person staff with an Excel spreadsheet. 
Larry Buhl/ for Marketplace

New bike? In Oregon, that could mean a $15 tax

Aug 22, 2017
Cyclists in Oregon will soon pay a tax for their new wheels — the first bike tax in the nation.
Bike mechanic Barb Bohm-Becker hopes Oregon’s $15 sales tax will diffuse claims that cyclists don’t pay their share for infrastructure. 
Amanda Peacher/ for Marketplace