Quinton Smith

By DIRK VANDERHART/Oregon Public Broadcasting With an addiction and drug crisis top of mind for many, homelessness and housing programs clamoring for money, and looming unrest in the state’s K-12 schools, Oregon lawmakers suddenly have another $335 million to spend. But that news comes with a caveat: Lower revenues are now expected in coming budget cycles, tempering the long-term ambitions

By LYNNE TERRY/Oregon Capital Chronicle SALEM — Oregon House Republicans called for the state’s Democratic leaders to make several changes to Measure 110, the state’s drug decriminalization law. In a letter Tuesday to Gov. Tina Kotek, Senate President Rob Wagner and House Speaker Dan Rayfield, all House Republicans but one called the measure an “abysmal failure” that needs to be

By BEN BOTKIN/Oregon Capital Chronicle More than 1,100 Oregon households have received help from a $150 million wildfire recovery program the state set up after residents lost their homes during the devastating 2020 Labor Day fires. Three years later, the area is still recovering from the wildfires, which burned more than 1 million acres and destroyed or heavily damaged

By ALEX BAUMHARDT/Oregon Capital Chronicle For several decades, many coho salmon returning to waterways around Seattle to spawn have died mysteriously following heavy rains. In some urban streams, nearly all of the coho returning from the ocean died. It wasn’t until 2021 that scientists figured out what was behind what they called “urban runoff mortality syndrome,” and it was not