Warm Springs radio station KWSO gets nearly $160,000 infusion from FEMA
Central Oregon Daily A community radio station owned and operated by the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs is getting a financial infusion from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA is granting $158,749 to KWSO-FM. This will be used to upgrade the station’s broadcast transmissions and warning systems, which are needed
Oregon leaders call on U.S. government for help, flexibility to help ranchers
Oregon Capital Chronicle The wildfires this season have scorched a record 1.5 million acres, forcing ranchers to move their cattle as flames approached while also fighting fires to save their homes This summer’s historic wildfires in Oregon have taken a toll on ranchers and their more than a million cows and
Klamath Community College receives grant to aid veteran students in obtaining commercial driver’s licenses, safety training
Herald and News Oregon’s U.S. senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden announced this week the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) is awarding Klamath Community College and Linn-Benton Community College a combined total of $265,829 to grow their commercial driver’s license (CDL) programs. A CDL is needed for careers operating large
Newport Coast Guard helicopter station gets a reprieve, will remain open until January 2016
Members of Oregon’s and South Carolina’s congressional delegations found a way around the U.S. Coast Guard’s internal budgeting process Wednesday, passing a bill that blocks the agency from closing its helicopter air stations at Newport and Charleston, S.C. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., called the Coast Guard authorization bill “a literal
Sen. Merkley doubles down on LGBT nondiscrimination law
Rather than trying again to pass a law banning workplace discrimination, Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley plans to introduce a broader measure in 2015 to outlaw discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in employment, housing and public accommodations. “Oregon and the nation are on a trajectory towards equality, and
A Comprehensive LGBT Nondiscrimination Bill Is Coming
A bill that would make it illegal to discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in hiring and firing has been introduced in some form — and then failed to become law — in nearly every Congress for the past two decades. On Wednesday, a champion of that bill,
Senate Dems to EPA: Make climate rule stronger
A group of Senate Democrats are pressuring the administration to make its controversial climate regulation on carbon pollution from existing power plants stronger. In a letter to Environmental Protection Agency chief Gina McCarthy on Tuesday, the senators called on the administration to strengthen the requirements in its proposed rule and finalize a
U.S. Labor issues anti-discrimination rule
Washington • The Labor Department issued a rule Wednesday to protect employees of federal contractors from discrimination based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. The rule would carry out terms of a workplace anti-discrimination law signed by President Barack Obama on July 21. “Americans believe in fairness and opportunity.
Filibuster reform, one year later
WASHINGTON — In the year since Senate Democrats — led by Oregon’s Jeff Merkley — changed the rules on filibustering executive nominees, including federal judges below the U.S. Supreme Court, the number of empty judgeships has dropped to the lowest level since the first year of Barack Obama’s presidency. As