From safer buses to phone fixes: A rundown of new Oregon laws for 2025

January 1, 2025

By DIRK VANDERHART/Oregon Public Broadcasting New year, new rules. As Oregonians ring in 2025, nearly two dozen bills passed by lawmakers early last year will quietly take effect. From stricter penalties for drug use on transit, to an easier path to fixing your broken device, to nabbing drivers who don’t yield to school buses, these new statutes cover a lot

Oregon’s homeless population is 8th largest in the nation, 2024 federal count shows

January 1, 2025

By ANTHONY EFFINGER/Willamette Week Oregon finds itself near the top of another tragic list as the year ended. Oregon had the eighth-largest population of homeless people on a given night in January 2024, according to a “point-in-time” count released by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development last week. HUD counted 22,875 people experiencing homelessness in Oregon in January, up 13.6% from

Efforts to ban books in Oregon libraries on the rise; library patrons and supporters are pushing back

January 1, 2025

By AMANDA WALDROUPE/Oregon ArtsWatch In December the Grants Pass School District approved removing two books from the Grants Pass High School Library: All Boys Aren’t Blue – George M. Johnson’s memoir about the author’s black and queer identity, which is among the most frequently challenged and banned books in the country – and Lucky, Alice Sebold’s 1999 memoir about being sexually assaulted. The residents

New report projects number of Oregon high school graduates will decline almost 20% by 2041

January 1, 2025

By ELIZABETH MILLER/Oregon Public Broadcasting The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education has published an edition of “Knocking at the College Door: Projections of High School Graduates,” every four years since 1979. The 2024 edition of the report brings a bit of good news: Almost four million students will graduate from high school in 2025, the highest number recorded “since data have