BEND, Ore. (AP) — A special-needs teacher and student wounded in a deadly shooting at an Oregon elementary school remained hospitalized Saturday. But friends said their survival was a spot of hope in a community in mourning.

The youngest shooting survivor, 7-year-old Saylor Graham, is a feisty, vibrant fighter with a sweet nature whose story inspired other children, said Matt Sampson, executive director of Sparrow Clubs, where she was a member. She has a genetic disorder, usually uses a wheelchair and is non-verbal, but “she doesn’t even need words to connect with people,” he said.

“She’s just an amazing spirit who just immediately draws people to her and you just feel inspired by Saylor when you meet her,” Sampson said. “And she’s always wearing these iconic glasses, whether they’re pink or they’re red. She’s just such a cutie.”

Teacher Becky Drury, 54, is recovering in a Bend hospital with wounds to her arm and hand but hopes to go home soon, said Zack Hall, a family friend who is serving as her family’s spokesperson.

Three children — ages 5, 8 and 11 — and a teacher were killed at the Silver Rail Elementary school in Bend, Oregon, Thursday when a former student there, 16-year-old Griffin J. John II, entered a special needs classroom and began firing with a shotgun.

One teacher was grappling with John for the weapon when the father of two students came in and shot him to death. They were credited with stopping the rampage and saving many people’s lives.

While police continued to investigate John’s motive, distraught parents, teachers and others gathered outside the school Saturday to leave flowers, pray and cry.

Savannah Patton, a mother who has a 1st and 4th grader at the school, sat on the grass Saturday across from a memorial of flowers, stuffed animals and balloons, and wiped tears from her eyes.

She told an Associated Press reporter that the teacher who died, Megan Lambert, 25, had been a substitute for her daughter’s class last year.

Patton said she has struggled to explain what happened to her daughter, who asked her, “Mommy, why would someone want to take a gun and kill us at school?” Patton said it was a question she didn’t know how to answer.

Physical challenges won’t keep her from “living with joy”

For several years, Saylor worked with students from Bend High School through the Sparrow Clubs, a volunteer group whose mission is to empower “kids to help kids in medical need” through kindness and community service, according to their website.

In a video on the Sparrow Clubs page, Saylor introduces herself, saying she loves watching Bluey and being around other kids, especially her brother. She said that while she is challenged by physical and cognitive issues, she can communicate with her eyes and a computer tablet.

“I prove every day that I’m a fighter who doesn’t give up,” she wrote in the video. ”Living with CASK-related challenges is full of unknowns, which can be very hard and scary for my whole family,” she said, “But it doesn’t keep me from smiling, laughing and living with joy!”

Some of the high school students who worked with Saylor said helping her gave them hope that there is still humanity in this world.

After the shooting, she was taken to a hospital in Portland. A Go-Fund-Me for her family has raised almost $400,000.

“We will not let her name be forgotten”

Devon Johnson visited the memorial outside the school Saturday morning. Her husband teaches at Bend High School, and she is a volleyball coach at High Desert Middle School, so they are close with many of the staff at the elementary school.

“It’s just hard to take in,” she said. “I’m so glad to see that Bend is rallying and just wrapping their arms around this community, but it’s going to take a long time to get through this.”

Heidi Wood, the director of the Central Oregon Volleyball Club where Lambert coached, said in a social media post that she was “an amazing coach, ”an amazing teacher” and “an amazing person who would do anything” for her students.

“To the shooter, she would have given you the shirt off her back,” Wood said. “But you didn’t give her a chance.”

Wood said that Lambert wouldn’t take her volleyball coaching pay in her first year so the money could be used for scholarships for players who couldn’t afford to play instead.

“That was her, and that is her,” Wood said. “We will carry on her love, her passion and we will not let her name be forgotten.”

___

Bellisle reported from Seattle. Associated Press writer Haven Daley contributed to his report.

Fire crews in Southern California gained ground Saturday on a wind-driven blaze that charred hills and damaged or destroyed at least six large coastal homes, allowing evacuation orders to be lifted and thousands of people to return home.

The fast-moving Norte Fire sparked the previous day in San Clemente amid hot, strong Santa Ana winds that drove it into San Juan Capistrano, prompting the evacuation of about 16,000 residents.

Hundreds of firefighters were deployed to combat the blaze in the hills of Orange County. At one home engulfed in smoke and fire, photos showed them using hoses to try to douse the flames.

Most of the evacuations were lifted Saturday evening, except for one street in San Clemente.

The Norte Fire was one of several in the region hit by the Santa Anas, which blow from the interior and toward the coast.

The strongest winds hit the area Friday afternoon, but conditions of increased fire risk were expected to last through Saturday night, with a heat advisory in effect until 8 p.m. on the coast of Orange and San Diego counties, the National Weather Service said.

The blaze area remained under 1 square mile (2 square kilometers), and Chief TJ McGovern of the Orange County Fire Authority said crews increased containment to 25%.

Braden Atkinson threw for 347 yards and three touchdowns and Oregon State established early control to beat Washington State 48-30 on Saturday.

Running back AJ Newberry ran for 105 yards on 11 carries and had 120 yards receiving on five receptions and a touchdown for the Beavers.

Jesse Legree had 108 receiving yards on eight receptions and two touchdowns for the Beavers (5-2, 3-0 Pac 12). Legree is the first wideout to 1,000 yards receiving yards this season.

Jake Reichle added two rushing touchdowns for Oregon State.

Reichle’s 1-yard touchdown run gave Oregon State a 7-0 lead. Atkinson followed with a 90-yard touchdown to Legree, and Caleb Ojeda’s 48-yard field goal before the end of the first quarter made it 17-0.

The Beavers went to halftime up 27-10.

In his first career start, redshirt freshman quarterback Owen Eshelman threw for 289 yards and two touchdowns and ran for 136 yards on 15 carries and a touchdown for Washington State (1-6, 0-3).

Branden Granashamoorthy had 147 yards receiving on a 11 receptions with a touchdowns.

Eshelman led three-straight touchdown drives late for the Cougars whose 30-point effort was the highest against an FBS program this season.

Up next

Washington State hosts 23rd-ranked Boise State on Saturday.

Oregon State is off next week before traveling to face Fresno State on Oct. 31.

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BEND, Ore. — It’s been just days since the shooting at Silver Rail Elementary School rocked the community of Bend. As residents across the city grieve the three students and teacher who were shot and killed in a special education classroom, many are still left with questions about the motive behind the attack.

Little has been confirmed about the suspected shooter, 16-year-old Griffin J. John II, or a possible motive. Bend police confirmed Friday that John had previously attended Silver Rail but was not enrolled at Bend-La Pine schools. A law enforcement official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told OPB that John has no known previous juvenile criminal history.

The investigation into the shooting is ongoing. At a press briefing Friday, Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz said they may never know the full answer.

“I think that’s one of the most challenging parts of these types of investigations and cases is determining ‘why’ in the motives,” Krantz said. “It will require substantial investigative time to continue that. But that is the answer we’re seeking as well.”

In Bend on Saturday, many families were trying to return to a sense of normalcy. The city’s Park and Recreation District canceled events throughout the weekend in light of the tragedy, but kids still played at the park and attended birthday parties.

Stephanie Day, a teacher at Trinity Lutheran School who lives near Silver Rail, said she didn’t know what to do with herself.

“We were roaming aimlessly around our house trying to figure out why we can’t figure out what to do,” Day said, as she walked with her daughter and husband to a memorial outside the school.

Day’s daughter, Poppy, a fifth-grader at Trinity, described feeling “sad and angry.”

How the shooting unfolded

The first 911 call came in at 12:59 p.m. Thursday, when the driver of a passing pickup truck told Deschutes County dispatchers someone was shooting at them, Krantz said. At least two drivers reported seeing John approach Silver Rail Elementary School with a gun. The teen threw the weapon over a fence and climbed the fence onto the campus. When the driver of the pickup verbally confronted him, the suspect fired at the truck, hitting it at least three times. The driver continued down the street to call 911.

The driver of the second vehicle, 36-year-old Kaylub Giamanco, the father of two Silver Rail students, followed the suspect into the school’s parking lot, Krantz said. Giamanco grabbed a .40-caliber pistol from his vehicle and followed the teen inside. The suspected shooter had gotten into the building by shooting out the windows on its locked doors. He entered a classroom immediately to the left of where he came in and fired as many as 15 rounds.

A teacher in the classroom threw her cellphone at the suspect, tackled him and fought to take his gun, Krantz said. Giamanco entered the classroom while the two were struggling and shot and killed the 16-year-old shooter. Police arrived less than five minutes after the first call, and the suspect was already dead. Investigators found a Maverick 88 pump-action 12-gauge shotgun and 44 rounds of ammunition with him.

Three students and one teacher were killed during the attack, while another teacher and student were seriously injured.

One of the students killed was 5-year-old Rhoam Summer. In a GoFundMe set up to support the Silver Rail school community, Summer was described as “a very happy little boy, a ball of energy from the day he was born, an incredibly fast runner and a fearless climber.”

“He loved to read, and he believed every stuffed animal needed to be rescued and cared for, especially his sharks, dinosaurs, and other creatures he considered misunderstood,” the post detailed, citing Summer’s aunt. “He wanted all of his stuffed sea creatures to be rainbow, his favorite color.”

The teacher killed, 25-year-old Megan Lambert, was described in the same GoFundMe as “funny and outspoken, someone who brightened any room,” according to her family. “She always stood up for the underdog and for children with special needs.”

54-year-old Becky Drury of Bend was identified by Bend police as the teacher injured in the shooting. Drury was taken to St. Charles Medical Center in Bend, where she is recovering from her injuries.

The names of the two other students killed Thursday, and the student injured, have not been officially released, according to the families’ wishes.

OPB reporter Joni Auden Land contributed to this report.

Protesters across Oregon rallied Saturday for the fourth iteration of the “No Kings” protest since President Donald Trump returned to office. The focus was to get out the vote.

In Oregon’s fourth-most populous city, Gresham, Latino civic leaders spoke to constituents, particularly addressing fears of voter intimidation at the polls. The week prior, OPB reported a jump in immigration arrests in East Multnomah County. About one in five residents in Gresham identify as Hispanic.

¡Sí se puede! ¡Sí se puede!” said State Rep. Ricki Ruiz, D-Gresham, as he led a crowd of over 300 people in a chant outside Gresham City Hall. People brought colorful hand-drawn signs with anti-Trump and anti-Elon Musk slogans while sporting pins that stated, “I voted.”

Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson shared her pride at being the first Latina elected to her position, telling the rally that her grandfather immigrated to the United States from Mexico to realize his American dream. “There is so much fear because of the intimidation that is happening,” Vega Pederson said of ICE’s aggressive tactics in profiling and arresting people.

She hopes that by speaking out about her identity and family’s immigration story, residents will see themselves reflected in her experiences. “I want people in the community to understand that folks are welcome here.”

A handful of counterprotesters, one wearing a sweater that read “King Trump,” carried selfie sticks as they chanted “God Bless Donald Trump” and “God Bless ICE.” But neither the heated confrontations nor the rainy weather deterred the festivities of the Latino cohort that had gathered at Gresham City Hall.

The main contingent of “No Kings” demonstrators marched into the intersection of Eastman Parkway and Division Street to raise their protest signage as a group of Latina joggers finished a 5K run to the cheers of onlookers and live music by a Portland-based Mexican band.

“More than ever our community is feeling unsafe being out and about,” said Saray Garcia, a Gresham resident who is part of the running crew, Latinas Run Across Portland.

Garcia said running together carries safety in numbers as women of color take up space together. On the running club’s pink T-shirts was the phrase in Spanish, “juntas somos más fuertes,” or “together we are stronger.” At least two people Garcia knew stopped coming to the running meetups because of recent ICE activity in the Portland metro area, she told OPB.

“We’re representing our culture, and we’re showing up for the community that’s not able to vote,” she said. Garcia and others celebrated the end of the 5K by dropping off their mail-in ballots at the nearby East County Library. “We want to be the voice for them.”

Ruiz’s office had organized the performance by the band Clave 503 as well as the vendor Sabor Valdex, who served up infused Red Bulls and bagels with cream cheese. Heavy on Ruiz’s mind was the recent school shooting in Bend, where three children and a teacher had been killed. To him, it felt all the more important to get out the vote in this upcoming midterm to create change.

“A lot of these things that we’ve seen happening across the state and across this nation are policy decisions that are made at the congressional level,” Ruiz said. “We do our best to respond with action, and I think part of that is turning out to vote.”

U.S. Rep. Maxine Dexter, D-Portland, who is up for reelection, also spoke at the protest, encouraging people to make sure their voices were heard through their votes.

She told OPB that she visited Portland’s ICE detention center with her colleagues Sen. Jeff Merkley and Rep. Suzanne Bonamici last week, trying to track down one of her constituents who was arrested.

“They’re going straight to Tacoma,” she said of detainees picked up in the Portland metro area. She called it a denial of due process.

“People are feeling targeted,” Dexter said. “The worst part of this, though, is that people are afraid to reach out to the government right now.”

Dexter said she was committed to challenging the Trump administration’s immigration campaigns and to visiting immigration detention facilities to oversee them as her right as a member of Congress.

A passerby in a pickup truck, a local father, and an elementary school teacher all acted quickly and likely prevented an even worse tragedy at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, where three students and another teacher died in a shooting in a special education classroom, Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz said Friday.

“The teacher in the classroom threw her cell phone at the suspect, then tackled him and fought to take the firearm from him. She was not injured in that incident, but she almost certainly helped prevent more bloodshed,” he said in an emotional press conference.

Live updates: Police share details about how the shooter at a Bend elementary school gained access

“The teacher who was willing to stand, fight for her children: incredible. And I think we all recognize that that is true heroism,” he said.

Of the person who intervened to stop the shooting, Krantz said, “We owe you a debt of gratitude.”

A 7-year-old child and a 54-year-old teacher were seriously injured in the attack Thursday, authorities said. The shooter, a 16-year-old boy who had attended Silver Rail Elementary, was killed at the scene by a bystander who followed him into the building and confronted him. He was not currently enrolled in Bend-La Pine public schools.

Krantz identified 5-year-old Rhoam Summer, a kindergartener, and 25-year-old Megan Lambert, a teacher, among the dead. He did not release the names of the other boys, ages 8 and 11, who died, at the request of their families.

The deadly shooting at Silver Rail unfolded in mere moments. The first call to Deschutes County dispatchers came in at 12:59 p.m. from the driver of a passing pickup truck outside the school who said somebody was shooting at them. Less than five minutes later, police were on the scene and the suspected shooter was already dead, Krantz said, repeating details police previously shared on Thursday.

In that short time period, multiple people attempted to intervene, he said on Friday.

At least two drivers saw Griffin J. John II, a 16-year-old who previously attended Silver Rail Elementary, approach the school with a gun, Krantz said. The teen threw his weapon over a fence, then climbed that fence to access the school campus, he said.

One driver, in a pickup truck, verbally confronted the suspect, who then shot at the truck and struck it at least three times, he said. That driver proceeded down the street to call 911, while the driver of a second vehicle, the father of two students at Silver Rail, followed the armed teen into the school’s parking lot, Krantz said.

That man, who the Associated Press has identified as Kaylub Giamanco, grabbed his legally secured .40-caliber pistol and followed the teen into the school, Krantz said.

The gunman gained access to the school by shooting out the windows on its locked doors, then went into a classroom immediately to the left of where he’d entered the building, and fired as many as 15 rounds, Krantz said.

Teachers responded immediately. By the time Giamanco entered the classroom, one teacher, who had thrown a cell phone at the suspect, was fighting with the teen, said Krantz, noting that this teacher was not seriously injured.

That’s when Giamanco shot and killed the 16-year-old shooter, Krantz said.

Investigators say they found a Maverick .88 pump-action 12-gauge shotgun and 44 rounds of ammunition with or near the teen.

Specifics about the shooter’s motivations still unclear, though Krantz said Friday he was previously a student at the school.

A law enforcement official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told OPB that John has no known previous juvenile criminal history.

Krantz said the injured 7-year-old received life-saving care at the scene and is now in serious but stable condition at OHSU in Portland, and the 54-year-old female teacher who was seriously injured is being treated at St. Charles Medical Center in Bend.

Zack Hall, who is acting as a family spokesperson, told OPB that the teacher, Becky Drury, is expected to survive. She worked in special education, he said.

The family is “incredibly grateful for the outpouring of support, prayers, and well-wishes” since the shooting,” her husband, Will Drury, said in a statement provided to OPB.

Remembering the dead

Surviving family members of teacher Megan Lambert issued a statement about the 25-year-old through Bend police.

Lambert was a 2019 graduate of Bend’s Mountain View High School and a 2023 graduate of Boise State University, they said.

“Her goal was to be an educator and teach in the school district she loved,” Lambert’s family statement said. She worked at Silver Rail Elementary as a substitute teacher before the school hired her for her first teaching position.

“She loved Silver Rail. This was her dream job,” the family said in the statement.

Brad Jolly, grandfather of 5-year-old Rhoam Summer, told OPB his grandson was a bright, playful “lovely little kid.”

“He had a scooter he would run up and down the hallway of our house,” Jolly told OPB. “We talked about many things. Read books together. He always gave me a big hug when he left.”

People in the community have been quick to praise Giamanco for preventing further tragedy.

Giamanco’s mother, Kenda Freeman, confirmed his role, the Associated Press reported Friday.

“He is not seeking recognition, but instead wishes to express his gratitude to the first responders, school personnel and community for the outpouring of love and support,” Freeman said, reading from a prepared statement to reporters outside her son’s residence near the school.

Freeman declined to speak with OPB on Friday morning. She told reporters the family is not granting interviews.

Thousands have attended vigils in Bend over the last two days, including 19-year-old Matthew McCarthy.

He lives just two minutes from Silver Rail Elementary School, where his mom is a teacher.

When he learned about an active shooter at the school, his first reaction was to get there as soon as he could. But he called his mom first.

“She didn’t know what was happening so she told me to lock the doors,” he said.

“I locked the doors.”

He said he could tell from her voice that she was safe.

“Right when she told me I can come, I went and found her,” he said during a vigil Friday night in downtown Bend. “She was with the whole kindergarten class, helping them.”

In the aftermath, he said his mom is “getting through it,” and the school district has been supportive.

For 80-year-old Inge Fryklund, the vigil reminded her of a previous shooting that happened four years ago at a Safeway in Bend.

Until then, “It seemed like Bend was a fairly safe place,” she said.

“Like every school since Columbine, somehow you keep going, and then there’s going to be another one,” she said. “We’re just the most recent.”

Across town at Silver Rail Elementary Friday night, dozens of people gathered on the other side of yellow crime scene tape. They brought heart-shaped balloons and candles. They placed crayons, children’s books and stuffed animals in honor of the victims.

Most were completely silent, except for some children in the crowd, like a toddler eventually carried off by an adult.

People wrote out messages of hope, love and mourning on a giant piece of white paper laid out in front of the sidewalk. One young boy wrote with marker, “I hope this never happens again.”

This story was reported by Jireh Deng, Jen Baires, Holly Bartholomew and Joni Auden Land in Bend and Dirk Vanderhart, Troy Brynelson, Bryce Dole and Amelia Templeton in Portland. It was written by Courtney Sherwood in Portland.

A big takeaway from mental health and trauma experts is that everyone processes and grieves in their own way, in their own time. But opening the door to that conversation, especially right after an incident, is key.

Here’s how local experts, including counselors with Oregon’s nationally renowned Dougy Center for Grieving Children and Families, recommend working through these challenging times together.

Regulate yourself before having these conversations

Olivia Gordon equated this to an airplane mask: “You put your own mask on before you help your kiddo.”

Gordon is a licensed marriage and family therapist. She also directs the residential services program at Stronger Oregon, which provides in-person and remote mental health services statewide, including in schools in Central Oregon.

A parent herself, Gordon knows the idea of caring for yourself first can feel wrong. But she said it’s important to take what time you can to process your own emotions before starting the conversations with your kids so it’s not too overwhelming.

That doesn’t mean you can’t show emotion.

As Donna Schuurman with Dougy Center explained it: “We can model for children that feeling sad, scared and upset is normal after tragedies. But we don’t want to overwhelm them with our emotions, or put them in the position of having to ‘parent,’ or take care of, the adults around them.

“Make sure you also model taking care of yourself, by sharing with trusted and supportive adult friends, eating (and drinking) healthfully,” she writes.

Stepping outside, drinking water and taking a few deep breaths can help you feel more grounded and prepared for the moment.

Start with a question. Then listen

Start by asking: “What have you heard? What are you thinking or feeling?”

Adults sometimes know more details and conceptualize them much more deeply, Gordon said. But for a kid, they might have a more surface-level understanding. Simply opening the door to talk about the incident might be enough.

“Getting their perspective before we give them a perspective gives you a good starting point,” she said.

Alysha Lacey, Dougy Center’s chief program officer, said they ultimately want kids to lead the conversation. Hear what the kids know, then invite them to ask questions.

“Some kids might not want to talk about it, and that’s OK too,” she said. “If it’s not the time right now, you’re not … forcing them or coaxing them into having a conversation they’re not quite ready for.”

Acknowledge that the tragedy happened

Oregon had not experienced a school shooting in over a decade before the attack at Silver Rail Elementary School on Thursday. In the timeline below, hover over the dots to expand the information on recorded school shootings in the state.

Research shows that early intervention after a traumatic event is most helpful because it reduces the risk of things like post-traumatic stress disorder, Gordon explained.

That’s why she says parents should validate that the event happened, and not try to say, “Nope. We’re just going to ignore it and pretend like it didn’t happen.”

For older kids, especially those with their own phones or access to social media, she said they may have more detailed information. Like adults, they might have heard more details in the news or rumors circulating online.

If you hear embellishments or details you know are not true, she said, it’s OK to correct the information.

Consider your kids’ ages when deciding what details are appropriate to share about the incidents. Generally, Lacey said, parents might keep it shorter and simpler for younger kids, and have more in-depth conversations with older kids.

For older kids, Lacey says it’s worth a conversation about whether limiting how much news they see would be helpful. It’s not about controlling their feeds, but collaborating with them to create a healthy environment.

And for all kids, answer questions honestly — even if that means the answer is “I don’t know.”

Kent McIntosh, a University of Oregon professor who specializes in school violence, added that adults shouldn’t assign blame, but should share the facts they know.

“Talk about what is likely versus possible,” McIntosh said, “and gosh, you know, giving them big hugs and making sure you let them know that you love them.”

Validate the emotions they’re feeling

From sadness and fear to anger or withdrawal, Gordon said reactions will look different child to child, teen to teen.

“Especially in younger kids, it’s not necessarily going to sit at the forefront of their mind, especially those on the periphery or who are in different schools, and maybe not understanding the full context of what happened,” she said. “Just offer that space to process as it comes up.”

Some younger children might revert to earlier developmental behaviors, she said, like clinging to a parent or being less willing to go out in public.

They may want to carry a comfort object, like a stuffed animal or blanket. They may become hypervigilant, have nightmares or become afraid of the dark again. They may become more attached to a certain piece of clothing. They may do more “safe space” check-ins, like when a kid runs off on the playground but comes back for a hug or hand squeeze to make sure the parent is still there.

“I don’t want to pathologize somebody suddenly having a favorite sweater or something, but just to kind of monitor for, like, ‘That’s a little unusual,’ or ‘That’s a little more than normal,’” Gordon said.

Experts are looking for changes and persistence. Reassuring kids that you’re there to support them through those responses is key.

“Not every little change means this huge trauma or this huge concern,” Gordon added. “It’s just something to watch for, and it’s normal.”

Remain truthful and neutral. Do not make promises of safety

Some children, especially those who attend the school where a tragedy has taken place, may be scared to go back. Gordon said parents are likely to get a lot of “what if” questions. What if that happens at my school? What if that happens to my friends or me?

Her biggest piece of advice is not to promise safety.

“As we’re learning with each of these events, nothing is guaranteed, unfortunately,” she said.

Instead, Gordon said to remain as truthful and neutral as possible. Parents can say something like, “Everyone at your school is doing everything they can to keep you safe.”

She said this offers reassurance without a potentially false promise.

Dougy Center counselors also recommend talking with kids about what safety plans you and the school have in place.

“Being able to articulate … what adults are doing to keep them safe can be reassuring,” Lacey said. “Sometimes it’s, ‘We might find this out together,’ or ‘That’s something I’m going to look into.’ But it’s OK to not always have the answer for everything.”

McIntosh said that most of the time, in the first 24 or 48 hours, schools focus on physical safety. Then districts focus on welcoming students back and reestablishing familiar routines, which he said can also reassure members of a school community.

“Many of our students and our educators can find comfort in returning to established routines and continuing with schooling,” he said. “And obviously, some are going to need a little bit more, and so that’s always something important to pay attention to.”

Don’t stop finding moments of joy

Gordon said it’s important to keep doing enjoyable activities through times of trauma.

“As adults, I think we get kind of sucked into that feeling, and that it’s so emotional, and we just want to stay in that place,” she explained, adding that while kids are sad and upset, they don’t always show those feelings for long.

Kids are still going to want to be kids. Much like McIntosh points out the value of resuming routines at school, Gordon says familiar patterns can help kids at home, too.

“[We] need to make it OK for them to have fun and to laugh and to run and be silly with them because that’s going to be one of the most healing things: to have some level of normalcy in there,” she said.

Still, it’s possible in the middle of that enjoyable activity, a child might get upset or start crying.

It can feel like whiplash to adults, Gordon said, but “that’s kids.” Her advice is to roll with those emotions and mood shifts as they happen. They will come and go, and kids need support throughout.

Lacey added that adults should model how humans can hold both sadness and happiness at once.

“It is important to find joy and beauty and connection in the small things in life,” she said, “and be able to hold on to those things to kind of keep pulling us through the tough moments as well.”

As Bend residents come together to mourn and ask what comes next, OPB journalists are in Central Oregon. This story reported updates and dispatches throughout Friday, Oct. 16, the day after the shooting.

9:59 p.m. — Hundreds of people gathered as night fell in Bend on Friday. They filled the sidewalks in a part of downtown known as Peace Corner. A woman began to address the crowd in a voice cracked by emotion.

“This is something that none of us should ever have to go through,” said Marissa Hurley, one of the vigil’s organizers. “We just want to grieve together, find community and maybe some bit of hope that we’re going to make it through this.”

The crowd stood in silence as cars rumbled past. Some wept and held each other. There were kids ranging from babies to high schoolers. The silence was occasionally broken by songs like “Amazing Grace.” When they started singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” sobs rose up over the melody.

Emily Medlock was among the crowd with her school-aged son. She was born and raised in Bend and attended elementary school in the city, at a different school near Silver Rail.

“It’s hard, you know, knowing little innocent children had...” Her eyes filled with tears and her voice faltered.

“They were just starting,” she said.

A short way down from the crowd, Tiffany Fortier watched the vigil with her 18-month-old baby, Ellie, in her arms.

“I know that nothing is gonna make it better for those parents whose lives have been changed, but I’m hoping that this love and outpouring from the community will at least help in whatever way that it can,” she said.

Next to her was a table full of warm homemade chocolate chip cookies she brought.

— Jen Baires

3:09 p.m. — Police on Friday offered more details about what happened in the moments before a 16-year-old opened fire in a Bend elementary school.

In a press conference, Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz said a motorist in a red pickup confronted the shooter after seeing him climb a fence onto the grounds of Silver Rail Elementary with a shotgun. The teenager opened fire on the pickup, hitting it at least three times, Krantz said. The motorist, who was not identified and was not injured, continued up the street and called 911.

In the meantime, another driver passing by saw the incident. A 36-year-old who family have identified as Kaylub Giamanco had two children at the school, and immediately turned into the Silver Rail parking lot. He pulled a legally owned .40-caliber handgun from his car, Krantz said.

Giamanco heard shooting, and entered the school where the 16-year-old had shot through a pair of glass double doors, Krantz said. He saw a teacher attempting to wrestle a shotgun out of the shooter’s grasp and opened fire, killing the gunman.

Krantz praised both Giamanco, whom police have not officially named, and the teacher, whom he said threw a cell phone at the attacker before grappling with him.

“I don’t think we can underestimate or underappreciate that courage,” Krantz said. “When someone is willing to risk their own life for others, we recognize that.”

— Dirk VanderHart

2:41 p.m. — The teacher killed in Thursday’s attack has been identified by police. Megan Lambert, 25, was killed in a special education classroom alongside three students.

A volleyball coach as well as a teacher, Lambert grew up in Bend, and substituted at Silver Rail Elementary for years before securing her first teaching position there, according to a statement from her family.

“She loved Silver Rail,” the statement said. “This was her dream job.”

Family recounted a woman who “always fought for the underdog and those with special needs.” They described Lambert turning down pay during her first season as a coach to allow low-income families to participate.

The family also had a message to Kaylub Giamanco, the 36-year-old Bend bystander who engaged and then killed the shooter, according to his family.

“We want the bystander who intervened to know we know he’s going through a rough time, but we are grateful and we think he’s a hero,” Lambert’s family said in their statement. “You selflessly put yourself at risk for others.”

— Dirk VanderHart

2:12 p.m. — A teacher at a Bend elementary school threw her cell phone at a 16-year-old attacker, then fought to remove his weapon after he shot his way into the school Thursday, police revealed Friday.

The teacher, who was not named by police, was not injured in the shooting that led to the deaths of three students and a 25-year-old teacher, Police Chief Mike Krantz said at a news conference.

Krantz also identified the attacker as 16-year-old Griffin J. John II at the press conference. John, a former student at Silver Rail Elementary, climbed a perimeter fence to get onto school grounds and shot his way into the building, he said.

Krantz said John fired as many as 15 rounds overall from a pump-action shotgun, and had 44 more rounds on his person. The shooter was killed at the scene by a bystander who followed him into the school and shot him, police have previously said.

The entire incident unfolded in a classroom near where he entered the building, Krantz said.

— Dirk VanderHart

1:03 p.m. — A 54-year-old teacher who was shot during the attack on Silver Rail Elementary School on Thursday suffered “serious injuries” but is expected to live, according to a family friend.

Zack Hall, who is acting as a family spokesperson, told OPB that Becky Drury, who works in special education, is recovering at St. Charles Bend. He did not know anything more about what happened at the school.

“She is going to live and she knows what’s happened,” Hall told OPB.

In a statement, Will Drury, her husband, said the family is “incredibly grateful for the outpouring of support, prayers, and well-wishes” since the shooting.

“We live in a truly special community,” Drury said. “Right now, our focus is on my wife, Becky, and her recovery, and on supporting our family through an unimaginably difficult time. We respectfully ask for privacy and space as we navigate the days ahead.”

— Bryce Dole

1:00 p.m. — Tina Pesenti lives two doors down from the family of Kaylub Giamanco, who has been identified by the AP as the bystander who shot the suspected 16-year-old gunman at Silver Rail Elementary School.

Pesenti and her teenage granddaughter were making cookies Friday to take to the library in Bend. It’s one of the places affected community members are gathering.

“It’s all we can do right now — is do something to support those who are grieving,” Pesenti told OPB. “They’re having grief counselors there all day, so we just came up with that idea.”

Each year, Pesenti says students from Silver Rail leave little presents and messages on her doorstep that reflect what they’re learning.

“This one is a flower pot that says welcome,” Pesenti said while pointing to the gift. “It has hearts and flowers, and it was drawn by a first grader.”

Pesenti has also gotten a birdfeeder, wildflower seeds and bird seeds from the first grade classes over the years. The gifts make the neighborhood more colorful, she said.

Living near the school means Pesenti frequently interacts with the students. Kids will stop and ask to pet her dog, and one even offered to shovel snow from her driveway.

Pesenti said she’s still processing the violence that happened at the school this week.

“I just — I can’t wrap my head around it yet.”

— Jireh Deng and Kyra Buckley

12:30 p.m. — The man who intervened to stop Thursday’s deadly shooting is a father of two students at Silver Rail Elementary School, where the attack took place.

Kaylub Giamanco is the person credited by police with confronting and killing the shooter shortly after the incident began. Giamanco’s role was confirmed by his mother, Kenda Freeman, on Friday, the Associated Press reported. Giamanco’s two young daughters attend the elementary school, the outlet said.

“He is not seeking recognition, but instead wishes to express his gratitude to the first responders, school personnel and community for the outpouring of love and support,” Freeman said, reading from a prepared statement to reporters outside her son’s residence near the school.

Freeman declined to speak with OPB on Friday morning. She told reporters the family is not granting interviews.

— Dirk VanderHart

11:30 a.m. — The grandfather of the 5-year-old killed during the Silver Rail Elementary School shooting said his family is devastated by the tragedy.

Bryan Jolly, of Bend, said his grandson Rhoam Summer was a “lovely little kid” who was playful, bright and “busy.” He and his wife regularly babysat Rhoam, he said.

“He had a scooter he would run up and down the hallway of our house,” Jolly told OPB. “We talked about many things. Read books together. He always gave me a big hug when he left.”

According to Jolly, the school remains an active crime scene and the family has not yet been able to retrieve Rhoam.

Jolly said he thought Rhoam may have been outside a classroom when the shooting began because he “likes to play games with the teacher, like running out of the classroom.”

Police Chief Mike Krantz said at a press conference later Friday that all the victims were found in a classroom near where the shooter entered the school.

Jolly criticized the online discourse around the shooting, saying people are quick to “get their opinions in there.” Born in West Linn, the 76-year-old said he has been a hunter all his life.

“People are too anxious to jump on social media and make hay out of something like this, get their opinion in there. ‘Guns save lives,’ whatever (expletive),” he said. “I’m a hunter. I own hunting weapons. I would never own a man-killing weapon.”

— Troy Brynelson

10 a.m. — Officials in Bend are planning a public update at 2 p.m. Friday about the Silver Rail Elementary school shooting.

Leaders from the Bend Police Department are expected to discuss the latest in the investigation. Representatives from the Bend-La Pine school district and Deschutes County Behavioral Health Services are planning to share resources for community members.

The public update will be streamed on City of Bend’s YouTube page.

— OPB staff

9:45 a.m. — The teen suspect in Thursday’s deadly shooting at Silver Rail Elementary school was using a shotgun, law enforcement sources confirmed to OPB.

The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the investigation ahead of official statements. Law enforcement agencies are expected to meet this morning for a briefing.

According to the Associated Press, the shotgun was a pump-action shotgun that was bought by the suspect’s mother. OPB has not been able to independently verify that detail.

— Troy Brynelson

8:28 a.m. — Public safety reporter Troy Brynelson discussed OPB’s latest reporting on “Morning Edition” Friday. “What ended the attack, it seems, according to Bend police, is that a bystander who saw the attack entered the school — followed him in — confronted him, and fatally shot him,” Brynelson said.

“Right now we can report that the suspect is a 16-year-old, but as of this morning, the Bend Police Department has not identified the shooter nor given us really any information about what cause or motivation maybe led to the attack,” Brynelson continued. “We don’t know if he had any connection to the school or why he opened fire on at least one vehicle in the area prior to going into the school.”

Push play below to listen to the full discussion, including comments on the politics of responding to a shooting, and what we know about what comes next.

— Troy Brynelson

Oct. 16, 6:50 a.m. — All classes in the Bend-La Pine school district are canceled this morning.

Specifics about the shooter’s motivations and relationship to the school are still unclear, leaving grieving residents with more questions than answers. Last night, hundreds of Bend residents sought solace at a candlelit prayer vigil led by local clergy at Drake Park. People sang Christian hymns together as Gov. Tina Kotek and the mayor of Bend offered their condolences.

Local mom Kyra Peterson said that, as a new mother, she wanted to show support that night for the parents who had lost their children.

“It’s very heartbreaking to kind of understand what it’s like to be a parent and to think about losing the life of your child,” Peterson said, as her 1-year-old son cooed in the arms of his grandmother.

Peterson reflected on a previous deadly shooting in Bend at a local grocery store in 2022.

“Our family members were working at Safeway when it was shot up,” Peterson said. But even with past experience, she still was caught off guard by the sudden bloodshed at a local school.

“You never think that something like this would happen in your hometown where you live,” she said. “It’s just very shocking.”

Local Mountain View High School student Payton Stewart said threats of school shootings have become normalized as a part of her everyday school experience as a Gen Z student.

“Every kid has to have a conversation that their parents have to talk to them, ‘Hey this might happen,’“ Stewart said. “We have to have drills about it.” She said she’s seen her own classmates struggle with trauma after surviving shootings.

Gracie Cromie, a local nanny, arrived at the vigil with her friends and said she struggled to explain the violence to her 7-year-old charge after he overheard the news from a stranger while they were visiting a museum.

“We didn’t want to leave him in the dark,” Cromie said. “But he understands what’s going on and it was a hard conversation.”

Cromie and her peers attend nearby Eastmont Church, one of the local assemblies that had canceled services so congregants could attend the vigil. She said local pastors had rallied together their faith communities to offer spiritual counseling and support to victims and Bend residents.

“There is real evil in this world,” she said. One by one, pastors prayed over distraught families. “But that doesn’t mean that God isn’t with us in these times.”

Bend is a tight-knit community that’s “not too small, not too big,” and tragedies like this hit hard, Cromie said.

“It’s the type of place where every time you go out you’re guaranteed to run into someone,” she said.

— Jireh Deng

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Correction: This article originally misstated when Kenda Freeman declined to speak with OPB. It was Friday morning.

Correction: This story has been updated to remove the photo of Megan Lambert provided by the Bend Police Department because her name was misspelled in the image by police, and in the photo caption as a result. OPB regrets the error.

Correction: This article originally incorrectly named Bryan Jolly as Brad Jolly. OPB regrets the error.

Good morning, Northwest.

Oregonians are expecting more details to emerge this weekend and beyond about the shooting at a Bend elementary school. Yesterday, police revealed that multiple people tried to stop the suspect and prevent further bloodshed. OPB reporters in Bend and Portland documented what unfolded on Day 2 of the tragedy at Silver Rail Elementary School.

And while families across the state are still processing the trauma, OPB’s Natalie Pate spoke with mental health experts who offered advice for parents on how to talk to their kids during this challenging time.

Here’s your First Look at Saturday’s news.

— Winston Szeto

Top stories

In the first full day of loss, Bend learns more about Silver Rail shooting

A passerby in a pickup truck, a local father, and an elementary school teacher all acted quickly and likely prevented an even worse tragedy at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, where three students and another teacher died in a shooting in a special education classroom, Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz said yesterday.

At least two drivers saw Griffin J. John II, a 16-year-old who previously attended Silver Rail Elementary, approach the school with a gun, Krantz said. The teen threw his weapon over a fence, then climbed that fence to access the school campus, he said.

One driver, in a pickup truck, verbally confronted the suspect, who then shot at the truck and struck it at least three times, he said. That driver proceeded down the street to call 911, while the driver of a second vehicle, the father of two students at Silver Rail, followed the armed teen into the school’s parking lot, Krantz said.

That man, who the Associated Press has identified as Kaylub Giamanco, grabbed his legally secured .40-caliber pistol and followed the teen into the school, Krantz said.

Teachers responded immediately. By the time Giamanco entered the classroom, one teacher, who had thrown a cell phone as the suspect, was fighting with the teen, said Krantz, noting that this teacher was not seriously injured.

That’s when Giamanco shot and killed the 16-year-old shooter, Krantz said. (Jireh Deng, Jen Baires, Holly Bartholomew, Joni Auden Land, Troy Brynelson, Dirk VanderHart, Bryce Dole, Amelia Templeton and Courtney Sherwood)

Learn More

How parents can talk with their children about the Bend school shooting

In the aftermath of the deadly school shooting at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend this week, families near and far are navigating how to talk about the tragedy with their children.

A big takeaway from mental health and trauma experts is that everyone processes and grieves in their own way, in their own time. But opening the door to that conversation, especially right after an incident, is key.

Here’s how local experts, including counselors with Oregon’s nationally renowned Dougy Center for Grieving Children and Families, recommend working through these challenging times together. (Natalie Pate)

Learn More

Northwest headlines

• Portland superintendent: ‘Leaning into Scenario B’ on school closure plans (Elizabeth Miller)
• Oregon’s off track in reducing emissions from the transportation sector (Monica Samayoa)
• Drought, heat wave leaves Mount Hood barren by early fall (April Ehrlich)
• Department of Justice sues Portland over mask ban (Alex Zielinski)
• Citizen panel rejects pay hike for Washington governor (Jerry Cornfield, Washington State Standard)
• Wondering where your ballot went? A new Oregon tool helps you keep track (Shaanth Nanguneri, Oregon Capital Chronicle)

Subscribe to OPB’s First Look to receive Northwest news in your inbox six days a week.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged supporters Saturday to speak out in defense of new U.S. sanctions against Russia, hours after President Donald Trump signed an executive order pausing a sweeping package of restrictions targeting the Russian economy.

The White House decision has further raised fears that Ukraine could be left exposed to Moscow’s escalating assaults with winter approaching.

Russian attacks overnight killed at least four people, including an ambulance driver, and wounded dozens, officials said. Ukrainian drones killed a woman in a Russian border region and disrupted flights at Moscow’s airports, according to Russian authorities.

In a statement on social media, Zelenskyy described Trump’s move to put sanctions on hold as unfortunate, but did not directly criticize the U.S. leader despite deepening tensions between Ukraine and Washington in recent days.

“A decision was unfortunately made in America to completely disregard the Lindsey Graham Act, which was supposed to impose truly effective pressure on Russia to bring this war to an end,” Zelenskyy wrote.

Later, in audio clips answering journalists’ questions, Zelenskyy thanked Democrats and Republicans who backed the legislation and praised its bipartisan support. He said blocking it would encourage Russia to continue killing and do nothing to bring the war to an end.

He also added that limiting Ukraine’s ability to retaliate against Russian attacks would not bring peace.

“Nevertheless, we very much hope — and I personally hope — that the president of the United States of America will do everything possible to make Putin stop the killing, stop the attacks on our energy infrastructure, and end this war,” he said.

Critics say Trump’s decision helps Putin

Named after late South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, the legislation had sought to clamp down more quickly on the flow of financial resources fueling Russia’s 4 1/2-year-old war against Ukraine. The bill had sought to sanction Russian officials, banks and a shadow fleet of tankers that keeps Russian energy moving.

Trump personally signed the legislation just last month and his move came just two days before a deadline set in the law itself for its implementation.

The president told Congress that the pause was in the national interest but gave no further details.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who co-drafted the bill, said in a statement that Trump was turning his back on “the majority of Americans, their representatives in both houses of Congress, and our European allies.”

“These waivers have nothing to do with our national security, and everything to do with sucking up to Vladimir Putin,” Blumenthal said.

Trump’s unexpected decision comes a week after he stunningly said the U.S. had agreed to purchase diesel from Russia to try to bring down global energy prices, despite that potentially hurting Ukraine in its war with Russia.

Trump said Russia would immediately supply more than 300,000 tons of diesel, followed by an additional 500,000 tons in November and 1 million tons “immediately thereafter.”

The decision has been pilloried by Republicans and Democrats alike who say it will help Russia execute its war against Ukraine — without making a difference to global fuel prices, which are elevated mostly due to Trump’s war on Iran.

Kyiv says Moscow carried out a ‘massive’ energy strike

Zelenskyy also said Saturday that Moscow had carried out a massive strike on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, targeting more than 15 sites across the country.

“The sheer scale and unrelenting pace of Russia’s strikes, specifically against our energy sector, are unfortunately having severe consequences,” he said.

Ukraine’s air force said that Russian forces launched four cruise missiles and 332 attack drones overnight. All of the missiles and 289 of the drones had been suppressed or destroyed, it said.

Russia’s heavy bombardment of the power grid ahead of winter has been an annual feature of the war, aimed at wearing down Ukraine’s appetite for the fight by denying civilians heat and running water. Ukrainian officials have warned that Russia is stockpiling ballistic missiles for more attacks in the coming months.

Russian attacks killed three people in the Ukrainian city of Sloviansk, Vadym Liakh, head of the city military administration, said Saturday. Writing on social media, Liakh said that two apartment blocks were partially destroyed and other homes damaged.

A Russian strike also killed an ambulance driver in Ukraine’s Kherson region, head of the local military administration Yaroslav Shanko said. The strike, which used guided bombs, wounded at least 33 others, he said.

Ukrainian drones kill 1, ground hundreds of flights at Moscow airports

Elsewhere, a Russian woman was killed in a Ukrainian drone attack in the Russian border region of Belgorod, local officials said.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense said Saturday that its forces had shot down 610 Ukrainian drones overnight over 15 Russian regions, as well as the annexed Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea and the Black Sea.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that more than 100 drones were shot down en route to the Russian capital. More than 350 flights were canceled or delayed at Moscow’s airports, local media reported, as planes were grounded in response to incoming drones.

The Kremlin announced Saturday that Russian President Vladimir Putin had approved a government program to help restore trade and logistics facilities damaged in drone attacks.

A car and a newspaper kiosk were set on fire in Paris as police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse violent groups of protesters, while similar tensions erupted Saturday in other big cities on the fringes of nationwide demonstrations against rising living costs and in support of high school students’ grievances.

Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez’s office described “a growing number of violent incidents,” including assaults on police officers, looting or attempted looting of shops and damage to public buildings. Authorities reported at least 272 arrests across the country, including in Paris.

In the French capital, police used tear gas and water cannons to push back people wearing hoods and masks and throwing fireworks and other objects at officers in the Place de la République, northeast of the Paris city center. Large numbers of riot police were deployed in the square and surrounding streets.

The majority of peaceful protesters joined a march that moved toward northwestern Paris. The crowd chanted France’s national anthem as French flags were waved. The chants were accompanied by people playing trumpets and violins.

Meanwhile, police were working to prevent other small groups of protesters from converging on government buildings, Nuñez’s office said.

Many metro stations were closed Saturday at police request, including those around the Champs-Elysées and near the presidential palace, parliament and government offices.

Violence hit Lyon, Marseille and other cities

In Lyon, France’s third-largest city, where about 20,000 protesters joined the march, fire broke out inside a tourist office. Smoke and flames were seen rising from the building.

In the southern port city of Marseille, some shops and a municipal police station were damaged, while some protesters briefly forced their way into the lobby of City Hall.

“This is unacceptable,” Marseille Mayor Benoît Payan told BFM TV, describing the damage in City Hall as “limited.”

Nuñez’s office also reported violence by masked groups in Rennes, Toulouse, Montpellier and Grenoble, among other cities.

Protesters across France responded to calls on social media to revive the “yellow vest” movement, which emerged in 2018 against social injustice. Demonstrators expressed widespread frustration and anger at the government as gasoline, energy and food prices have spiked in recent months.

Saturday’s protests follow weeks of school blockades

Student groups protesting since mid-September through school blockades have urged supporters to join them.

The CGT, one of France’s major labor unions, also backed the protests, calling for “higher wages and pensions, lower prices and the protection of public services that meet people’s needs.”

In recent weeks, France has seen thousands of arrests, hundreds of injuries and schools set on fire as the new school year descended into nationwide student protests that are influencing the country’s presidential election campaign and drawing international attention.

Among protesters, particularly gruesome wounds suffered by some teenagers have been blamed on police riot-control weapons. Nuñez suspended the use of a type of police stun grenade against the young demonstrators after a 15-year-old lost a hand.

On Tuesday, climate and social justice activist Greta Thunberg joined students at a high school in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis.

Paulina Mathinye gestures with anguish at the rows of garbage-strewn graves, overrun with weeds, in the cemetery where her father is buried.

“Look at that, where they sleep,” she says of the dozens of Black protesters buried here, all of whom were killed when police opened fire on March 21, 1960 in what became one of the bloodiest days in apartheid history.

“Why are they dirty? It’s a disgrace,” says the 71-year-old grandmother, who wears a floral dress and a smart sunhat.

The cemetery, like much else in this visibly poor township about an hour’s drive from Johannesburg, has been left to decay. But Mathinye notes that for one day a year at least, when South Africa’s political elite descend to commemorate the massacre, the graveyard is spotless. The anniversary is a public holiday known as Human Rights Day.

“I’m still angry. My anger comes out because that’s the day my father was shot,” says Mathinye, who was just five years old at the time.

She says her father’s part in what became a turning point in the struggle against apartheid has not been sufficiently recognized by the current democratic government.

And she says she wants justice – however delayed.

That’s why she’s signed up to take part in a potential class action lawsuit 66 years later, along with Sharpeville survivors and the families of Sharpeville victims.

At least 69 people were shot by police that day. They had been demonstrating against the country’s pass laws – which restricted black people’s movements and where they could live and work.

While it’s unclear if any perpetrators are still alive, those taking part in the case hope it could lead to reparations.

But first, the group’s lawyers must challenge an apartheid-era law that continues to block their efforts to seek legal redress. The law remains in force decades after apartheid ended and a Black-majority government took power.

In September they filed an application in the Gauteng High Court challenging the continued existence of the Indemnity Act 61 of 1961. If the court finds the law unconstitutional, and also certifies a class action for survivors and dependants of those killed, then claims for individual damages could follow.

Mathinye says the repercussions of that day in 1960 have affected her whole life.

Without her father, the main breadwinner, she couldn’t finish school. That, in turn, affected the lives of her children and grandchildren.

“So we struggled a lot. And we are still struggling now, because nothing has been happening,” she told NPR.

If the case goes ahead and succeeds, Mathinye says she’ll use any money from reparations to fix up her modest home and pay for her four grandkids’ educations.

Part of a wider trend

The Sharpeville case is just one in a new wave of legal efforts that are seeking truth, accountability and reparations for apartheid-era crimes before it’s too late.

“It’s crucial that these issues of deep injustice are properly dealt with and that South Africa confronts them and does not sweep them under the carpet,” says Daniel Leader, an international human rights lawyer advising the South African legal team representing the Sharpeville survivors and families.

Other cases include a court ruling last year that found South Africa’s first Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Chief Albert Luthuli, was beaten to death by apartheid police in 1967.

Luthuli, the former leader of the African National Congress — Nelson Mandela’s party — had previously been ruled to have died after being struck by a train. The new ruling overturned the finding of an earlier inquest.

The inquest into the 1985 killings of four anti-apartheid activists known as the “Cradock Four” has also been reopened. The activists were abducted and killed by apartheid security forces near the Eastern Cape town of Cradock. Although the officers involved are all dead, the victims’ families hope the inquest will establish who ordered the killings.

And the inquest into the torture and death of Steve Biko, the iconic Black Consciousness leader who died in police detention in 1977, has also returned to court.

“It’s very clear that the murder of Steve Biko was exactly that, murder,” Biko’s son Nkosinathi told media in September at the reopened inquest. “We hope that this inquest will eventually get to this very certain, unambiguous finding.”

The original inquest in 1977 heard from members of the security branch who said Biko had fallen and hit his head in a “scuffle with security police.”

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), a court-like restorative justice body set up in the 1990s to uncover the truth about human rights violations during apartheid, re-examined the Biko case.

It denied amnesty to security officers who testified, saying they hadn’t been truthful. That essentially cleared the way for possible prosecutions, but they never happened.

In fact, hundreds of the TRC’s recommendations for prosecutions were delayed or never pursued. Last year, President Cyril Ramaphosa established a formal inquiry to investigate whether the recommendations were deliberately shelved.

The inquiry is looking into whether there was a secret deal between the old leaders of the apartheid regime and the country’s new Black leaders not to prosecute cases in the interests of reconciliation. Its findings are due in December.

Back at the Sharpeville cemetery, Paulina Mathinye and three other descendants of those killed in the massacre, pause in front of a memorial plaque before exiting the graveyard.

Vincent Thamae, from the NGO, Voices of Sharpeville which works with survivors and descendants asks that they take leave of the dead.

“We ask of those who are sleeping here to be with us as we pursue justice for them,” he says.

📲Follow the midterms & more in the NPR App

Early in September, President Trump gathered Republicans running in competitive races for a dinner in the White House Rose Garden. Prime aged beef burgers were on the menu as the president made a pledge to spend the final month before the midterms campaigning for the approximately 30 Republican candidates in attendance.

“I’m going to go to every one of those 35 places and we’re going to see if we can get everyone elected,” Trump said confidently.

The White House hasn’t clarified which 35 places the president was talking about that night. Since then, Trump has campaigned with fewer than a third of those candidates. Rather than focus on swing states and swing districts as the president said he would, his travel schedule has taken him to a lot of Republican territory.

Trump’s itinerary is both a reflection of where he can help (and where he can’t) but also of a shifting landscape where even red state Republicans need a boost.

On the tarmac between rally stops in Arizona and Montana this week, Trump attempted to spin his visits to states he won decisively just two years ago as a matter of gratitude.

“So, I do it to thank them,” Trump said. “I also do it because we have some great people there that are running and I want to make sure they win.”

He went on to bemoan the drop in Republican turnout in years when he isn’t on the ballot, something Trump and his team are trying to counteract with an October campaign rally blitz that has taken him to Ohio (twice), Texas (twice), Oklahoma and even Tennessee.

“What the hell am I doing in Tennessee?” Trump mused from stage to wild cheers.

Earlier this week, the president took an eight hour flight to Alaska to campaign for Republicans, Sen. Dan S. Sullivan and Rep. Nick Begich, both of whom face races that are too close for comfort in a state Trump won by 13 points in 2024.

“This is worth the 8 hours in a plane,” Trump said to an adoring crowd. “And don’t forget I’ve got 8 hours going back. Give me credit for that.”

In fact, he made two more stops on the way back and spent the night at the Trump hotel in Las Vegas.

The Republican National Committee has announced he’ll be campaigning in Kansas Monday, which has a toss-up U.S. Senate race, something few would have anticipated even a month ago.

Republicans are on defense in a lot of states where they’ve traditionally won without much trouble. Trump’s team is picking locations where he can activate the Republican base in places where he’s done well in the past.

“Just a lot of excitement, a lot of momentum building up on the ground here,” said RNC Chairman Joe Gruters in a call with NPR from a Trump rally in Arizona. “It’s turnout, turnout, turnout. How do you get the base to show up? You put the president on the ballot. You put him out there.”

Trump frequently implores his supporters to vote as if he were on the ballot. It’s a novel political strategy that runs counter to the norm for unpopular presidents whose parties face significant midterm headwinds. Trump claims the polls are wrong about his underwater approval rating.

As for Trump’s message, it doesn’t change much from stop to stop. There are the greatest hits: his past election wins, his One Big Beautiful Bill, and a walk down memory lane from right before he launched the war with Iran when gas prices were cheaper. He teases a $5,000 dividend to every American adult if Republicans win the House and the Senate, an idea he first rolled out at the unconventional Republican midterm convention, but has faced resistance from elected Republicans. On most stops he talks about a specific project or deal he has planned for the state.

On Tuesday, Trump is set to campaign in Greenville, North Carolina. Republican campaign committees have already started canceling ad reservations meant to help Trump’s handpicked Republican Senate candidate there, Michael Whatley. It’s a sign they see that race as moving out of reach.

There’s also a congressional district in Eastern North Carolina that was redrawn to favor Republicans as part of Trump’s mid-decade redistricting push. It shouldn’t be competitive, but it’s now rated a toss-up by the Cook Political Report.

“I think it’s going to backfire on them this year in every way shape and form,” said Anderson Clayton, chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party. “He’s trying to drum up any amount of support that he can at the last minute. But I don’t think that North Carolinians are going to fall for it again.”

Pope Leo XIV left Rome’s Gemelli Hospital on Saturday afternoon and returned to the Vatican after doctors said he was well enough to be discharged following surgery that removed part of his right lung.

The Vatican press office released a statement outlining details from Dr. Luigi Carbone,the Pope’s personal physician, and Professor Stefano Margaritora, Gemelli’s chief of thoracic surgery who led the team that operated on Leo. The two doctors said the pope had undergone blood tests and a chest X-ray that morning, with the results confirming his clinical condition meant he could leave hospital.

They said he was expected to lead the Angelus prayer from the window of the papal apartment on Sunday.Video showed Leo waving to well-wishers outside the hospital as he walked out without physical support, flanked by officials and security guards in dark suits.

Before leaving, the pope had celebrated Mass in a room set aside for that purpose on the hospital’s 10th floor, according to the press office.

Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni said “the estimated post-operative recovery time will be about one week.” Leo’s discharge came on his fifth day in hospital and was sooner than had been expected at the time of the operation’s announcement.

A diagnosis made public

Leo, 71, had told crowds in St. Peter’s Square last Sunday that doctors had discovered a “localized nodule” in his lung at a “very early stage.”

“Following their advice, I have therefore decided to undergo an operation to remove it,” he said.

The surgery on Tuesday went further than the nodule, however, with surgeons using a video-assisted technique to remove the lower lobe of the pope’s right lung in an operation that lasted about 90 minutes. His doctors said lung tissue examined afterward confirmed a diagnosis of lung adenocarcinoma. With adenocarcinoma making up about 40% of all lung cancers in the U.S., it is the nation’s most common form of lung cancer, according to the Lung Cancer Foundation of America.

That is true among nonsmokers too, according to Dr. Otis Brawley, an oncologist at Johns Hopkins University and former chief medical and scientific officer of the American Cancer Society.

Leo is not known to have smoked, but cancer does run in his family. His mother, Mildred, died of cancer in 1990, and on Tuesday the Vatican announced that his older brother Louis, who lives in Florida, has been hospitalized with a form of cancer.

Encouraging signs

Doctors not involved in the pope’s care say the treatment so far points to a cancer that has been caught early.

“The fact that surgery was the first tool that they utilized is a really good sign,” Dr. Vin Gupta, a pulmonologist and board member of the American Lung Association, told NPR. “It suggests that they think this is early stage.”

Gupta said the fact that doctors removed a larger portion of the lung than first announced is not in itself a bad sign. “People have parts of their lungs removed all the time for all sorts of reasons, and they recover just fine,” he said. “And in his case, he’s pretty robust at baseline from a health standpoint.”

Leo still exercises regularly, playing tennis each week with his personal secretary and riding horses at Castel Gandolfo, the papal retreat to the south of Rome.

The Vatican has not announced any further treatment.

Travels ahead

Leo’s office has cleared his public schedule until at least Oct. 20. His next major international trip, set for early November, includes Uruguay, Argentina and Peru, where he lived on and off for two decades and holds citizenship.

“He had a minimally invasive surgery,” said Dr. Jonathan Villena Vargas, a cardiothoracic surgeon at Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City. “Because we do this all the time, most patients are allowed to travel about two weeks after the surgery.”

Brawley from Johns Hopkins agreed. “I think he can do it,” he said, adding that patients in good physical shape who have this type of procedure “very frequently are back to normal in seven to 10 days.”

No Kings, the coalition known for organizing anti-Trump protests, is trying a different democratic tactic: increasing voter turnout.

On Saturday, grassroot groups across the country will hold over 3,000 “No Kings: Vote Early” marches and other events. Organizers say these events are a nonpartisan effort to promote early voting in the midterm elections, and will involve helping people check their voter registration, make a plan to cast their ballot and understand their voting rights.

The voting push effort marks a pivot for the No Kings coalition, which comprises hundreds of partner organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and Black Voters Matter.

No Kings has previously held three days of nationwide protests since the start of Trump’s second term because organizers say Trump’s actions in office are more akin to those of a monarch than a democratically elected head of state. Trump has previously rejected the idea that he is behaving like a monarch.

“The first three No Kings were designed to send a message,” says Ezra Levin, the co-founder of Indivisible — one of the major organizations within the No Kings network. “We’re done sending a message.”

Now, he says, they want people to vote.

There are two main goals for the event, says Levin, the first is to help facilitate what he hopes will be the largest number of midterm early voting numbers in the country’s history.

The second goal is No Kings groups getting volunteers trained as poll watchers, an endeavor Levin says is in response to efforts by the Trump administration that he views as threats to election integrity. Levin points to the failed SAVE America Act that would have required voters to show a document proving their U.S. citizenship, such as a passport or a birth certificate, when registering to vote. He also raises concerns that federal immigration officers will be sent to the polls, and President Trump’s attempted restrictions on voting by mail.

What do organizers expect nationwide?

Saturday’s events vary widely across the country, from block parties to cookouts to rallies. In Golden, Colo., a “Paws to the Polls” event invites people to bring their dogs on a march. Organizers in Everett, Wash., planned a “concert for democracy,” featuring an environmental troubadour.

All events will share similar restrictions, Levin says, including a rule against political endorsements and inviting current candidates to speak.

Superhero capes and masks will be a staple of Cammy Dunford’s event in Frisco, Texas. Dunford, a co-leader of Indivisible Frisco, plans to hold a “voting is your superpower” gathering. She will be wearing a red and blue cape (to embrace the political spectrum of voters) and will give away other superhero capes and masks.

“I don’t care if you’re an independent, first-time voter, Democrat, Republican,” Dunford says, “if you are eligible to vote, you need to get out there and vote. Because without everybody voting, we don’t have a democracy.”

Early voting in Texas does not start until Oct. 19, but Dunford and a group of her neighbors put together 500 mini goodie bags to hand out — filled with QR codes linking to voting information and voting resources. They will also wave bright signs with superhero-shaped images urging people in passing cars to vote.

Dunford says that her group has two people already trained as poll monitors and is hoping to recruit more on Saturday. She says poll monitors are trained by Common Cause, a government watchdog group that equips them to answer questions from voters. They have T-shirts that identify them at the polls, she says, so voters can find them and ask questions.

At a Wyandotte, Mich., event, Christy McGillivray, the executive director of Voters Not Politicians, a nonpartisan advocacy organization, is scheduled to speak to a No Kings crowd about the history of fighting for democracy in the U.S. She says the organization of grassroots events across the country is inspiring.

“It makes people feel like they’re a part of something bigger than themselves,” she says. “And that’s what democracy is. Democracy is about working with each other and for each other.”

Shane and Jenn DeGross, a married couple from Port Orchard, Washington, became foster parents in 2013. At the time, they were in their late 30s, and their own two kids — who have since grown up and moved out — were still at home. They said their faith as reformed evangelical Christians inspired them to foster children.

Over the course of nine years, the DeGrosses cared for four foster children, one for almost two years.

Then, in 2022, the DeGrosses’ license came up for its next three-year renewal. That’s when they saw new questions on the application.

“Saying that we would love and care for any child was not enough,” Jenn DeGross said. “They were asking us then to be very specific: ‘Will you use their preferred pronouns? Will you take them to Pride parades? Will you take them to [gender-affirming] medical appointments?’ Things that, as Christians, we could not be supportive of or affirm.”

The DeGrosses refused, and the state declined to renew their license — raising questions about the religious freedom of foster parents, the role of Washington state in protecting youth in care, and how best to manage the shortage of qualified foster parents.

The Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal advocacy organization, sued on the DeGrosses’ behalf, saying the new license requirement violated their constitutional rights to free speech and free exercise of their religion. The organization has brought similar lawsuits in Massachusetts and Vermont.

Washington state chose to settle and agreed to remove the requirement that people who want to be foster parents support children’s gender identity and sexuality.

Thousands of children are in foster care in Washington state. They enter the system after a state department verifies reports of abuse, neglect, or abandonment. If they don’t have family members who can care for them, they’re often placed with a licensed foster caregiver.

No one tracks how many of Washington’s foster children identify as LGBTQ+, but about a quarter of young adults under 30 do, and children in foster care are more likely to identify as LGBTQ+ than the population as a whole.

Unlike biological parents, who have broad discretion to raise their children in accordance with their beliefs, foster parents must follow state requirements. That’s because the state is ultimately responsible for foster children’s wellbeing, and pays the foster parents to provide care.

For example, foster parent applicants have to meet minimum income requirements and have enough bedrooms in their home. They have to participate in training programs and agree to use positive discipline methods, not physical punishment.

For a few years, before the DeGrosses sued, the state added a new requirement: that prospective foster parents agree to use a child’s preferred name and pronouns, and take them to medical appointments for gender-affirming care.

Nathan LaChine, a longtime foster parent near Tacoma, said he agreed with that requirement.

“Everything as a foster parent is relationship based,” LaChine said. “The basic principle of a relationship is correct name and correct pronouns. And how do I build a parent-child working relationship with a kid if I’m not using the correct name and correct pronouns?”

Because Washington state chose to settle the case, the constitutional question at its heart is untested: Is the foster parents’ right to free exercise of their religion more important, or the children’s right to a home environment that affirms and supports their chosen identity?

LaChine said he knows where he lands on that.

“What we’re talking about is [the] religious freedom of a foster parent who chooses to be involved in the foster care system versus youth that, through no fault of their own, did not choose to be in foster care,” he said. “And now their rights and safety aren’t being [protected].”

But the lawyer for the DeGrosses, Johannes Widmalm-Delphonse, said in an interview the settlement is good regardless of people’s beliefs about affirming LGBTQ+ identity, because Washington state does not have enough foster parents.

“You could still see how letting families into the system would be beneficial,” he said. “There’s still all these other kids who are not LGBT, and no one would dispute they could safely be placed with [families who do not agree to affirm LGBTQ+ identity].”

Washington’s child welfare agency declined KUOW’s interview requests but did release a statement about the settlement. The statement emphasized that the agency still chooses which children go to which foster parents, and they will not place kids they know identify as queer with foster parents who wouldn’t support them.

The welfare agency statement said the “agreement respects the religious beliefs of foster parents, while ensuring LGBTQIA+ youth are placed in an environment that is safe and supports their well-being.”

The agency said in a follow-up email that they plan to add a new question to a foster parent intake form starting in 2027; the purpose would not be to deny some licenses, but rather to gather information. The wording of that question will be: “Explain how you will support the following characteristics of children and youth in care. If there are areas you feel you cannot support, explain why.” The characteristics listed will include sexual orientation, and gender identity and expression.

That’s how the state plans to identify foster parents who would not be supportive of LGBTQ+ youth. But experts noted that finding youth needing that support could be more challenging.

Bailey Peterson is with Washington state’s Office of Civil Legal Aid.

The state is now “ relying on a large and constantly turning over base of frontline workers to constantly assess the evolving sexual orientation, gender identity and expression needs of children in care,” she said. “ That also requires a level of trust to be built up between the social worker and the child.”

LaChine, the foster parent, also noted that a pitfall of the state’s strategy is that a child’s identity could change or evolve over time.

“It’s a journey of self-discovery,” he said, “and we need to support that journey at all times, and allow the youth to learn who their true authentic self is.”

Eilís O’Neill is a reporter with KUOW. This story comes to you from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.

It is part of OPB’s broader effort to ensure that everyone in our region has access to quality journalism that informs, entertains and enriches their lives. To learn more, visit our journalism partnerships page.

President Donald Trump on Friday signed an executive order that puts on hold a sweeping new sanctions package targeting the Russian economy, telling Congress the pause was in the national interest.

Trump personally signed the legislation just last month. Named after late South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, it had sought to clamp down more quickly on the flow of financial resources fueling the war against Ukraine.

Trump’s unexpected move comes a week after he stunningly said the U.S. had agreed to purchase diesel from Russia to try to bring down global energy prices, despite that potentially hurting Ukraine in its war with Russia.

An AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll published Oct. 1 found that Americans disapprove of the president’s handling of the Iran war and blame him for higher prices. Trump’s approval ratings have sunk to near-historic lows and pressure is mounting as Republicans try to hold control of both chambers of Congress on Election Day on Nov. 3.

Sanctions were seen as part of Graham’s legacy

Graham, a close ally and friend of the president, had just returned from Ukraine when he unexpectedly died in July. He had advocated for stricter U.S. sanctions against Russia as a way of pressuring it to end its war in Ukraine.

His colleagues in Congress responded with bipartisan support after his death and Trump attached his signature to the legislation — then changed his mind Friday.

The package had been meant to starve Putin of the resources Moscow needs to continue its war in Ukraine after invading its neighbor more than four years ago. The bill, also drafted by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., sanctions Russian officials, banks and a shadow fleet of tankers that keeps Russian energy moving.

It also directs Trump to impose up to 100% tariffs on the top five importers of Russian oil or natural gas, with an exception for countries that import less than 15% of Russia’s natural gas exports and have taken significant steps to reduce those imports.

The White House did not immediately explain how pausing the sanctions was in the national interest. The decision was posted on the White House website late in the evening, and the notification noted that the report explaining the decision had been submitted to Congress.

Still, it comes as Trump has increasingly lashed out at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, blaming him for failing to make a deal with Putin to end the fighting.

The Trump administration, meanwhile, had remained mostly quiet since the passage of the bill with large majorities in the House and Senate following Graham’s sudden death — with lawmakers urged ahead by Zelenskyy.

Trump’s action follows announced diesel deal with Putin

The president’s latest action also followed him announcing last week that he had reached an agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump said Russia will immediately supply more than 300,000 tons of diesel, followed by an additional 500,000 tons in November and 1 million tons “immediately thereafter.” Russia will deliver an additional 3 million tons “within a short period of time” after that, he wrote.

Trump’s decision to strike a deal with Putin on diesel on the world market has been pilloried by Republicans and Democrats alike who say it will help Russia execute its war against Ukraine -- without making a different to global fuel prices, which are elevated mostly due to Trump’s war on Iran.

The sanctions that Trump has now suspended, meanwhile, also had become a campaign centerpiece for Sen. Darline Graham, the late senator’s sister who was appointed to serve out the remaining months in his current term. She is now running to replace him in the Senate more permanently.

Darline Graham said in a statement after Trump signed the bill, “I wish Lindsey were here to celebrate this historic day.” In a debate earlier this week with Democratic nominee Annie Andrews, Graham — who has Trump’s endorsement and is expected to campaign with him in South Carolina next week — said she had been “so proud” to help get the measure passed.

She acknowledged, however, that it was the president’s purview as to how he implemented it.

“It gives the president tools that he can use if he so chooses, to end the war through economic sanctions,” Graham said Sunday during a debate in Columbia. “So that’s up to him as to whether or not he wants to use it, or whether he wants to use something else, but I think the purpose of it is to bring down the gas prices and ultimately end the war. And when the war ends, gas prices will fall.”

Sixteen people were rescued from the Pacific Ocean off Mexico’s Baja California coast on Friday after the U.S. Coast Guard responded to a mayday call reporting their boat was sinking. Another 11 people were believed missing.

The people rescued were Mexican nationals, according to the Mexican consulate. But the boat’s origin, destination and what it was doing were not clear.

It went down in an area frequented by smugglers transporting migrants to the U.S. It’s also popular with fishing and leisure boats.

One survivor was being treated for a suspected shark bite and two were in critical condition, authorities said.

A rescue helicopter reached the site about two hours after someone on the boat transmitted a mayday call at about 1 a.m. to say it was sinking, said Coast Guard Lt. Santiago Tamburini. It took about 90 minutes for the crew, which included a rescue swimmer, to pull the 16 people from the water, Tamburini said.

“People were holding onto each other, to debris, just treading and trying to stay above water before being rescued,” he said.

The boat went down about 140 miles (225 kilometers) west of Ensenada, Mexico.

The search for more survivors across some 950 square nautical miles (3,200 square kilometers) was to continue overnight, officials said.

Survivors clung to debris, but the boat was gone

No vessel, only debris, was found and it was unclear what type of boat was involved, the Coast Guard said.

“Boats in that area can be for fishing, leisure, personal recreation. We just don’t know what they were doing out there. We all know it’s a suspected smuggling route,” Tamburini said.

“The sea is unforgiving” in that area, he added, and it was unclear if the vessel got lost, had engine failure, was swept out to sea or meant to go that far.

Survivors said as many as 27 people had been on board, officials said. Some but not all of the people rescued were wearing life vests.

The rescued were flown by helicopter to San Diego and transported to hospitals. The Mexican consulate in San Diego said they were offered consular assistance.

Three were taken to Scripps Mercy Hospital San Diego, including the person with a suspected shark bite and two people treated for cold exposure, said hospital spokesperson Janice Collins. Three others were evaluated at Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla and later discharged, said Steve Carpowich, a Scripps Health spokesperson.

Two patients were in critical condition, said Matt Hoffman, a spokesperson for the city of San Diego. It was not clear if that included the suspected shark bite victim or the two people with cold exposure.

The search continues for 11 missing people

The Coast Guard and U.S. Navy were searching the area with two helicopters, a fixed-wing plane, a cutter and a Navy combat ship.

The Mexican Navy also launched a search and rescue operation from Ensenada, which is about 80 miles (130 kilometers) south of San Diego by road.

“As long as we think it’s viable, we will continue to search,” said Coast Guard Capt. Rob Tucker.

Conditions on the water at 1 a.m. Friday appeared to be windy but fairly typical for the area, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Jonathan Suk in San Diego. Winds out of the north and northwest measured about 10 knots (18.5 kilometers per hour) and waves measured 5 feet (1.5 meters) at a buoy north of Ensenada, he said.

“I wouldn’t want to be out there in a sea kayak,” Suk said. “For the vessels that usually operate out there, they’re usually built to handle things like that.”

The water temperature measured 68 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius) -- fairly warm for the Pacific -- and the air was 70 degrees Fahrenheit (21 degrees Celsius), Suk said.

Deadly smuggling accidents have struck these waters before

Migrants are increasingly turning to the risky alternative offered by smugglers to travel by sea to avoid heavily guarded land borders. Small boats called pangas leave Baja at night and sometimes travel hundreds of miles (kilometers) north.

There have been several episodes where migrant vessels capsized en route to California in recent years.

In May of 2025, at least three people died when a panga flipped off the coast about 35 miles (56 km) north of the U.S.-Mexico border. In 2023, eight people were killed in one of the deadliest maritime smuggling accidents off the U.S. coast, when two boats approached a San Diego beach in heavy fog and one capsized in the surf.

A federal judge sentenced a San Diego man to 18 years in prison in 2022 for piloting a small vessel overloaded with 32 migrants that smashed apart in powerful surf off the coast, killing three people and injuring more than two dozen.

__

Watson reported from Los Angeles and Brown from Billings, Montana. Amy Taxin in Santa Ana, California, Fabiola Sanchez in Mexico City and Laura Turbay in Little Rock, Arkansas, contributed to this story.

State officials say federal funding cuts toward climate action, reversals in supporting the adoption of electric vehicles, and a lack of dedicated state funding have significantly set the state back.

On Friday, the Oregon Climate Action Commission heard updates on the Statewide Transportation Strategy report. The report provides progress on the state’s effort in reducing emissions from the transportation sector, which accounts for 35% of the state’s overall emissions. The main goal is to reduce these emissions by 80% relative to the state’s 1990 levels by 2050.

The report, led by the Oregon Department of Transportation, showed the state was on track and close to meeting that projection in 2022, estimating a 60% reduction by mid-century. Those projections were tied to federal and state efforts that included rebates for electric vehicles as well as strict federal vehicle emission standards.

2 years in, Oregon still has no electric vehicle fast-charging stations through a $52 million federally funded program

But that projection drastically dropped last year.

“Unfortunately, we’re no longer on that path,” ODOT’s Climate Impact Analysis Program Lead Tara Weidner said. “Reporting on the 2026 forecast, we’re revealing a significant setback, and if current conditions continue, we will be on track to around only 10% reduction relative to 1990. That’s a big change.”

Federal government actions that rescinded funding toward climate action programs and gutted some emission regulations are among some of the reasons for the setback, according to the report.

But it’s not all related to the federal government’s actions — a lack of sustainable state funding towards emission reduction goals, like increasing public transit options, is also among some of the reasons why Oregon is no longer on track.

“Through 2024, things were really looking quite good,” Weidner said. “Oregon was aligned on an electric future. Federal and state regulations were pushing these automakers to offer attractive EV options, and people in Oregon were buying them with encouragement from purchase incentives and new public EV chargers that were going out. New state policies mandated the clean electricity generation for that electric future.”

Now, Weidner said all those gains are nearly lost, with the exception that Oregon still offers rebates to purchase or lease an electric vehicle to Oregonians that can afford to make the switch.

Oregon to miss its 2035 greenhouse gas reduction benchmark by 2 years, report says

State Rep. Mark Gamba, who is part of the Oregon Climate Action Commission, said he was not surprised to hear the state has fallen behind. He also believes the new estimated projection may be less.

“I feel like it might be a little optimistic given the current status quo,” he said.

Federal and state setbacks

On Day 1 of Donald Trump’s second presidential term, programs aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector and boosting renewable energy were in peril. Trump signed executive orders cutting billions of dollars in funding for these programs, essentially reversing the Biden administration’s work toward climate action. The administration said the orders would drive down energy costs for consumers.

The cuts reverberated across several federal programs. For example, the administration challenged tail pipe emission standards and a mandate that would require any new car sold starting in 2035 to be a zero-emissions vehicle.

While Oregon worked to position itself as a leader in reducing overall emissions by adopting ambitious standards five years prior, it’s not only fallen behind in the transportation sector. The state is projected to miss its overall emissions reduction 2035 target by two years.

And its transportation department faces steep budget gaps and has yet to figure out ways to balance its budget. That’s hurting the state’s effort in providing alternatives like public transit, Weidner said, which could see severe cuts.

“Currently, we do have a lack of sustainable state funding, especially for transit, that limits our progress on encouraging alternatives to driving,” she said.

Kotek pledges to continue climate change fight as Trump seeks to rescind EPA rules

And while the state’s department of environmental quality offers Oregonians rebates to purchase or lease an electric vehicle through a Vehicle Privilege Tax, the program has become so popular it consistently runs out of funding, leaving out many who may want to make the purchase.

Back on track

There are areas for improvement, according to the state agencies. They identified a short list for “restoring lost ground.”

Some actions that can help get the state back on track are working with other states in fighting to maintain vehicle and fuel standards through lawsuits, providing more funding for rebate programs, and expanding EV public charging systems.

There’s still time to get there by 2050,” Weidner said. “If you look back at the past 15 years, it’s been a slow progress, sort of two steps forward, one step back.”

But as a critical 2030 climate benchmark approaches, Commissioner Nora Apter said these numbers are a “wake-up call.”

“The targets that this analysis are based on are already outdated. They’re not in line with the best available science and what we need to achieve to avoid the most catastrophic climate impacts,” she said. “We’re not off by a few points, we’re off significantly.”

The public can provide feedback to the Oregon Department of Transportation at climate.office@odot.oregon.gov.

That’s what Superintendent Kimberlee Armstrong told OPB Think Out Loud host Dave Miller on Friday.

“B’s magnitude and complexity of change isn’t as great as Scenario A,” Armstrong said, “but it still gives the opportunity to have 70% of our students or above in schools that are sustainable.”

Oregon’s largest school district is at the beginning of a school consolidation process. After years of declining enrollment, PPS announced plans last week to close up to 14 schools beginning next fall. The plans have been met with pushback and questions from school communities, with a packed house at last week’s school board meeting and strong attendance at community engagement events this week.

Students, parents and staff are asking the district to slow down on its “rightsizing” process. Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek jumped into the conversation this week, sending a letter to district leaders suggesting they take their time “to get this right.”

On “Think Out Loud,” Superintendent Armstrong said she doesn’t understand concerns about the “pace” of the process, noting that conversations have been ongoing since April.

When asked about proposal “C,” which would mean doing nothing, she said that’s not going to be a permanent option; the district has to do something.

“I’m not into delaying the inevitable,” she said.

Earlier this week, concerned parents called into Think Out Loud to ask board chair Eddie Wang about the process. Armstrong said she wants to keep hearing from families in this feedback stage of the process. Engagement sessions continue Saturday morning in Northeast Portland.

Portland schools board chair hears from parents on school closure plan

“We’re wanting families to show up and share their concerns, give their ideas,” Armstrong said. “The whole purpose of getting the scenarios out is so that our family, our communities, and our staff can react to it.”

But Armstrong pushed back on some of those concerns, including doubts about the accuracy of the district’s enrollment data. While Armstrong said there’s been “fluctuation” in specific school enrollment numbers, she said she trusts Portland State University’s data and projections.

Another point of contention in the district’s process is what constitutes a “well-resourced” or “sustainable” school. PPS officials have cited a June report from Havala Hanson and self-described “rightsizing consultant” Terrance Green to explain the minimum school sizes of 360 students for elementary and 500 students for middle school. According to PPS, these “sustainability thresholds” mean students will have art, music, and library classes available.

But these closure scenarios wouldn’t get every school to a “sustainable” level. About a quarter of students would still be in schools with enrollment numbers under the “sustainability threshold.”

Armstrong says once schools are “stabilized,” resources can move around. She added that district officials will share a staffing plan when her recommended proposal is shared with the school board next month.

Hanging over all of these conversations is the effect large-scale school closures will have on families. Some have warned that families will leave PPS because of this “rightsizing” process, leading to further declining enrollment. When asked about this, Armstrong said the district built in a “percentage of loss,” but did not say much more.

“I don’t think it will be as significant as people are saying,” Armstrong said.

Some families have asked why PPS hasn’t done more to recruit families who have left the district. According to a PPS enrollment forecast from PSU’s Population Research Center, 74% of kindergarten students in the PPS district area attend public school. That’s up from a low of 68% in fall 2020.

PPS is far from the only school district considering school closures. Oregon’s second largest district, Salem-Keizer, announced plans last week to close six elementary schools. Beaverton and Medford leaders are beginning similar conversations. Nationally, the Los Angeles Unified School District is planning a yearlong process to “build stronger schools together.”

The first call to Deschutes County dispatchers came in at 12:59 p.m. from someone in a vehicle outside Silver Rail Elementary School. Someone was shooting at them with a long gun in the parking lot of a Bend grade school, they said.

Then more calls, dozens of them: A shooter had entered the building at the school, Police Chief Mike Krantz recounted at a press conference Thursday, just hours later.

At 1 p.m., a minute after the initial call, the alert went out to all law enforcement in the area. Within another minute, the school was in lockdown.

Erin Johnson was in the house next door when she heard it all unfold: gunfire, where usually she hears children play. “Three shots and then two shots.” A familiar sound from her time in the military — but here in Bend, at the neighborhood school her children used to attend. “Then my neighbor began to scream,” she said, and she heard sirens.

At 1:02 p.m., the first officers arrived on the scene. But someone else had responded first, before the first responders, Krantz said.

“A community member who had seen the suspect” entering the school followed him, Krantz said, and shot the 16-year-old boy. Three children — ages 5, 8, 11 — died in the shooting, and so did a teacher. A 7-year-old and a 54-year-old teacher were critically hurt and taken to St. Charles Medical Center in Bend.

Silver Rail Elementary is in a quiet residential neighborhood on the east side of Bend surrounded by new houses, large open spaces and the omnipresent juniper trees. On a normal day, kids ride their bikes through these areas.

But Thursday afternoon, the school was cordoned off with yellow tape. For hours, officers moved from classroom to classroom, escorting children to buses to be taken to their families. Other officers walked shoulder to shoulder in a line outside the school, searching for evidence on the campus grounds.

Word of the shooting spread quickly through Bend, a city of about 100,000, as police started their sweep of Silver Rail.

Within an hour of the shooting, hundreds of parents and community members were flocking to Journey Church — the designated “reunification center” for children bussed away from Silver Rail. There, they were met by more police, more yellow tape as officers managed access — helping family members park as they sought updates about their children.

By evening, the people of Bend came together to mourn.

A dozen local clergy members were among the first to arrive at Drake Park’s amphitheater, circling together for prayer.

Then more people arrived. Individuals, families, friends, strangers, adults and children.

Adam Jorgensen attended with two friends.

“We’re here doing the Lord’s work, being here for people who need hope and need understanding of why tragedies like this happen,” Jorgensen said. “The entire city of Bend is here together.”

Hundreds of people filled the park as the sky fell into darkness. They held candles and huddled together, filling the air with hymns and prayers — a tight knit community, gathering together to mourn.

Kevin Desrosiers, who was there with his two daughters, said he knew the grandparents and parents of the 5-year-old who died. He had attended a birthday party for the only child a couple years ago, he said.

“They’re a great local family, been here for years,” Desrosiers said, choking back tears, as clergy members spoke in the background.

“It’s super tough to know that it could have been your kid’s school or campus,” he said. “You never want to say goodbye to your kids in the morning and even assume that you wouldn’t see them again at the end of the school day.”

This story was reported by Emily Cureton Cook, Jireh Deng and Joni Auden Land in Bend and Troy Brynelson in Portland. It was written by Courtney Sherwood in Portland.

Katie Zacharia is “transitioning out” of her role as press secretary, according to a White House official not authorized to speak on the record, marking a stunning turn of events for the spokeswoman who officially started Monday and is out by Friday.

Zacharia’s first briefing was Tuesday morning where she faced scrutiny both over her performance – during which she delivered a lengthy and halting opening statement read from notes and called on only three reporters – and her legal credentials.

President Trump on Friday cast doubt on the future of Zacharia, saying he had a discussion with her just before leaving for a campaign rally in Georgia.

“I just spoke to her about it. I said, ‘Katie, is this for you?’,” he told reporters. “She’s been treated, I would say, pretty nastily. And I said to Katie just two minutes ago, I said, Katie, you know, you don’t have to do this if you don’t want.”

He said he was leaving the decision up to her but advised her “you should reconsider” serving in the position.

The 41-year-old graduate of Pepperdine Caruso School of Law and self-described attorney had stepped in as Trump’s chief spokesperson at a moment when his popularity has fallen to record lows and Republicans are scrambling to limit potential losses in the midterm elections.

Much of the scrutiny of Zacharia focused on her credentials as an attorney. While standing with Trump, she was asked by reporters where she passed the bar exam.

“When I moved to China,” Zacharia answered, an apparent reference to what she has described on her LinkedIn page as a period of time from 2011 through 2013 spent working for a prominent Beijing-based law firm called Zhon Lun.

NPR asked the White House to clarify whether Zacharia is a licensed attorney in the U.S. In a statement provided to NPR, Zacharia said she “practiced international transaction law, with all the appropriate credentials.”

More recently, Zacharia has served as a communications advisor for the Trump Media & Technology Group, the firm that operates Trump’s Truth Social platform. She has also been a frequent pro-Trump commentator on conservative outlets including Fox News and Newsmax.

NPR’s Brian Mann contributed.

A towering white Mount Hood has long defined Portland’s eastern skyline.

But for the last few weeks, the peak has looked less like a glacier-topped mountain and more like a large, gray rock.

The view has sent some people to social media, sharing photos of the barren peak and debating the future of northwest Oregon’s iconic mountain.

Most striking is the view of Mount Hood’s Palmer Snowfield, where skiers and snowboarders can typically practice well into summer. While it hasn’t been a natural year-round snowfield in many years — Timberline Lodge harvests snow from elsewhere on the mountain — people are used to seeing more snow sticking around.

“It looks like there’s nothing there, and pretty much there is nothing there,” said Robin Cressy, who has spent just about every summer stomping through Mount Hood snow since the 1980s.

Cressy is a videographer who films skiers during summer camps at Palmer Snowfield, as well as winter races elsewhere on Mount Hood.

While the view of the mountain may be shocking, Cressy said he’s seen it before.

“Winter has a way of turning that thing around and we end up skiing the following summer,” he said. “It’s always made a comeback.”

That’s not to say that he isn’t worried about this snow season — especially after the 2025-2026 winter snow drought.

“After last year, of course we’re worried,” Cressy said. “We just want a normal winter. Just average. Mother Nature is the ultimate ruler on this.”

Oregon broke records for lowest snow levels last winter. Local researchers say that snow drought, as well as a summer heat wave, resulted in this fall’s bleak view of Mount Hood.

Is it climate change?

Although Mount Hood has been nearly barren before, researchers also say this is part of a broader trend as a warming planet leads to less snow and smaller glaciers. That trend is being driven by humans burning fossil fuels.

“The trends are absolutely that we’re losing snowpack,” said Mark Carey, professor of environmental studies and geography at the University of Oregon. “We’re losing ice. That’s absolutely shown in all the evidence.”

While most researchers are hesitant to directly attribute any one weather event to climate change without running complex climate models that consider a web of factors, climate change is shifting the Earth’s temperature baseline. Heat waves and snow droughts are becoming more frequent.

That’s not to say that Mount Hood and Oregon’s other peaks will look gray every year moving forward. Year-to-year snow levels can vary depending on precipitation, which is difficult to predict and can change suddenly.

“It’s a complicated world and climate change influences a lot of things, but it doesn’t fully cause any one thing,” said Oregon State University climate science professor Philip Mote.

Are Mount Hood’s glaciers disappearing?

The short answer is yes, glaciers on Mount Hood and elsewhere are shrinking as a result of global warming, and many glaciers around the globe have disappeared entirely.

But just because Mount Hood is gray now, doesn’t mean glaciers aren’t there.

“Glaciers aren’t like snow that appear and disappear every year,” said Andrew Fountain, geology professor emeritus at Portland State University. “Glaciers are there for a long time. On years like this year, they’ll just get smaller.”

Glaciers are essentially really thick ice. They can appear white when they’re covered in snow. But sometimes, they’re covered in rock and debris, making them appear gray from a distance. That’s likely what Portlanders are seeing when they look toward Mount Hood this fall: Two glaciers, known as Sandy and Reid, covered by rocks.

Oregon’s glaciers have shrunk substantially over the last few decades, and some have disappeared. Oregon has 25 glaciers that are mostly clustered on Mount Hood, Mount Jefferson and the Three Sisters Mountains. That’s down from 36 glaciers in the 1980s.

Oregon’s glaciers play an important role in the region’s environment. They help regulate river and stream temperatures by releasing near-freezing meltwater over the summer. That keeps water cool enough for fish to survive, and provides clean drinking water to nearby communities.

But if Oregon’s glaciers melt too suddenly, they can add sediment to nearby rivers and streams, which is harmful to fish and people’s drinking water. Melting glaciers can also trigger flooding, though Oregon’s glaciers are small enough that they wouldn’t cause something as catastrophic as the flash floods in Nepal and Tibet this summer.

What can we expect this winter?

This year’s “super El Niño” complicates this winter’s snowpack forecasts, particularly for Oregon, which sits between two regions that experience El Niño in different ways.

Washington and British Columbia typically see drier-than-average winters during El Niño, while California tends to see more precipitation than usual.

“Sometimes Oregon goes with California, and sometimes it goes with Washington,” Mote said. “Sometimes we’re in the middle.”

The latest weather predictions suggest this year Oregon is likely to take that middle path, at least in terms of precipitation.

“But what it is telling us is that we’re in for an unusually warm winter,” Mote said.

That’s a bad indicator for how much snow could stick to Oregon’s mountaintops.

“We could be looking at another pretty bad snow year,” Mote said.

And that could mean another gray rock next year when Portlanders look east toward a snow-packed peak.

The Portland Public Schools proposal to close up to 14 schools is getting a lot of pushback. Earlier this week, School Board Chair Eddie Wang answered questions from parents who would be affected. He emphasized that even though the district has had to make a series of significant cuts over the last several years, the closures would not be helping fill a budget gap. Instead, they are aimed at better serving more students in fewer schools with the district’s limited funds.

As first reported by The Oregonian/OregonLive, Gov. Kotek sent a letter to Armstrong and Wang Tuesday, urging them to “take the necessary time” for families to understand and give feedback on the plans. In a statement, a spokesperson said the district is holding regular sessions for public feedback in the coming weeks and is “expanding those efforts to give families, students and staff additional opportunities to share their perspectives.” The board vote on the school closures plan is currently scheduled for mid-December.

We talk with PPS Superintendent Kimberlee Armstrong about the plans for school closures, the data used to formulate them, and how she’s responding to the concerns of parents, students and staff.

“Think Out Loud®” broadcasts live at noon every day and rebroadcasts at 8 p.m.

If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983.

In 1948, when the FCC was making an attempt to promote new FM radio, they created the Class D radio license, which allowed stations to operate with less expensive equipment and made the campus station a more accessible venture for students to take up. Now, they’re mini-hubs of music, talk and sports culture on college campuses, and the students that steward the stations can be found fighting to keep the medium alive.

We’ll hear from three students from campus radio stations across Oregon: Maddie Brabo, the general manager of KPSU at Portland State University, Miles Sadler, the music director of KBVR at Oregon State University, and Sam Polis, the music director of KWVA at the University of Oregon. They join us to discuss how the medium has evolved, what place it has on campuses today and their personal interest in keeping the medium interesting and accessible for their communities and peers.

Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. We end this week of public radio with college radio. In 1948, when the FCC was trying to promote the newfangled FM dial, they created the Class D radio license. That allowed stations to operate with less expensive equipment and made campus stations more accessible. Now, even in the age of streaming algorithms and commercial consolidation, college stations remain mini-hubs of music, talk, sports and community on campuses all across the country, including in Oregon.

[Various college radio station recordings playing]

Miller: I’m joined now by three of the folks who keep these stations going in Oregon. Maddie Brabo is the general manager of KPSU at Portland State University. Miles Sadler is the music director of KBVR at Oregon State University. And Sam Polis is music director at KWVA at the University of Oregon. It’s great to have all three of you on the show.

Maddie Brabo: Thank you so much. Glad to be here.

Miles Sadler: Thanks for having us.

Sam Polis: Thank you so much. It’s an honor.

Miller: Maddie, first – how did you first get interested in college radio?

Brabo: It was actually quite a divine circumstance. I wasn’t initially planning to get into college radio, but it just fell in my lap. I was like, oh, I would love to have a place to play my own music and also talk about the things that I love to talk about. And it’s also in a funky studio downstairs with an eclectic sort of people. From there, it just kept growing. My love grew as soon as I joined, and I became a station manager eventually.

Miller: Miles, what about you? Was this a long standing dream for you?

Sadler: Actually, my situation is pretty similar to Maddie’s. I grew up on radio. My dad was always playing radio in the car, so I always had a sort of appreciation for the medium, all the time. And I was really unsure of where I was going to go to college, but I remember very clearly, it was orientation. Well, it was pre-orientation, it was like a tour. We’re walking around and someone asked, “Hey, do you wanna go see the student media hub?” We go upstairs. I see the radio station, and it was love at first sight. I asked over a million times, “Can anybody get involved?” And they said yes, and I went, “Sign me up.”

Miller: Can you describe what you saw?

Sadler: Well, they showed us the booth, so they showed us the microphone and the whole setup we had, and then they showed us their vault – the vault of thousands upon thousands of CDs, vinyl from different artists, different ages. I think both of those things combined is what made me truly fall in love with it, the fact that they had everything I needed to get myself out there and then a bunch of music that I loved that I’d love to share with other people. It was the combination of accessibility and the variety of music that just made me realize that it was something that I really wanted to do. I really love expressing myself, so being shown that medium was really eye opening.

Miller: It also sounds like if you kept saying, “really, I can do this, anybody can do this,” that on some level it was a surprise that you would even have access to this, that they would just let you do it.

Sadler: Absolutely, yeah, I thought that when I went up there, I had the idea of like, oh, do I need to be in the new media communications major? Do I need to be involved with something else in order to get in? Is there some sort of barrier to entry? But they said, “No. You show up to orientation, then some training, and that’s it.” And, I was surprised.

Miller: Sam, what about you?

Polis: I found my way, one, through “Pitch Perfect,” which I had so much fun in high school watching Anna Kendrick join the radio. It always just looked so cool. But I just always loved vinyl and CDs. I got my first record player when I was like 8 years old. So I just wanted to have a connection to tangible music. And at KWVA we have the most massive music library. It’s absolutely beautiful. We still get a lot of CDs sent in the mail from record labels and promoters. I loved the idea of being a DJ, being able to curate a show and have my hands in the music.

Miller: Can you describe your show?

Polis: So my show is called “The Abstract.” It’s actually airing today at 4 [p.m.]. I did a pre-record. It’s primarily jazz, hip hop and soul, but to promote independent artists and new music, I like to sprinkle in a lot of the new stuff I get sent as music director. And I love getting thank you letters and postcards from small artists that are really grateful to have their music put on air.

Miller: Miles described what the station is like a little bit physically, what he saw and what lured him. What is yours like? What does it look like?

Polis: Our station is gorgeous. There’s no white space at all. It’s covered like floor to ceiling in stickers and old records, posters from local house shows in Eugene. We’ve got a massive music library that’s just thousands of CDs, and then we have our two big air studios, which have a lot of great space for bringing on guests. Sometimes I have professors on my show. We talk about journalism and advertising within music. Sometimes we do specialty shows. I did a Black History Month series.

Then we have our production studios because we also do live sessions. So that’s great for bringing in local bands as well. And then my office is in the very back rooms and it’s also covered in CDs. We’ve got a lot of great equipment.

Miller: Maddie, can you describe the stations at PSU?

Brabo: Yeah, it’s very similar to Sam’s, I would say – floor to ceiling, covered actually in a couple of murals that are over 20 years old. And then there’s a pretty iconic red couch that’s really beat up and the bottom is sunken down. But it’s also a smaller place. There’s only a couple offices. The entire station is – I don’t really know square footage – [is] similar to actually the room we’re in here now. So sorry, for listeners. It’s pretty small, but we still are able to hold live performances in there, like live bands will go in the station and it gets pretty packed pretty quickly. It’ll get really warm down there. And we’re in the sub basement, which is the basement below the basement. They just shoved us down there.

We also have a broadcast booth, a production studio, which is where our tech director will hold the live music, or run the cables and whatnot to check for live sound. And then there’s the manager’s office, which is very cluttered at the moment, full of CDs and boxes. We don’t have a storage space, like a closet, for all of our CDs. It’s more just in these cabinets, file cabinets and cardboard boxes everywhere. So it’s very unorganized, but that’s kind of the charm of the station.

Miller: What is your show like?

Brabo: My show is called “Hectic Eclectic” and my DJ name is DJ Goof. And basically, I just like to play a whole lot of hectic and eclectic genres. Typically, I’ll just make a theme for each show and it can range from … I was telling Sam and Miles earlier that I did a situationship-themed show, one hour. And then also, I’ve done a Black History Month theme show. Oh, I also did a show for Bob Dylan’s birthday. It just kind of depends, like it can be really straightforward themes or just really vague ones, but it ranges.

Miller: Miles, what’s that freedom like for you? What Maddie is describing right now is basically she can do whatever she wants. Do you feel that same way? And I’m just curious about what that freedom is like.

Sadler: Absolutely. At KBVR specifically, we emphasize that we give the DJs room to play whatever they want. So besides FCC regulations that we have to follow, we don’t have any restrictions on genre, what people can play, when they can play it (again, besides FCC). People have room to build whatever show they want, so I know friends who exclusively play EDM at 5 o’clock. I know people who play rock music at like 9 in the morning. I personally play a lot of classic rock, but I get the chance to play whatever I want. I’m only restricted by the amount of time I have per week, not the music I have or get to play.

Miller: Sam, earlier, Miles was talking about realizing that he could do this. He didn’t need to be in a certain major and this was open to him. Earlier this morning, I was talking with Gemma, one of the producers on the show, and she and I both said that neither of us did college radio. And she reminded me that technically we might have been allowed to, but it was sort of a little bit scary because the people who did it were really cool. It seemed like technically we could do it, but socially it seemed hard. I may be putting words in her mouth, but that’s certainly the way it felt to me.

Do you welcome that vibe? And if not, how do you push against it?

Polis: We have a lot of alumni who talk about DJing in the ‘90s, and how it was a little exclusive, and it was like you couldn’t play anything that was mainstream, and it was almost like a competition to be super niche.

Miller: Exactly.

Polis: And KWVA is definitely fighting against that. We do try and provide music and content that you can’t find in the top 100, but the goal isn’t to exclude anyone’s certain tastes or preferences. It’s more so to just bring people stuff that they might not have seen before, but in a really open and welcoming way. And our lovely DJ director, Avi, teaches you the ropes, so you don’t have to have any prior knowledge of programming beforehand.

Miller: Maddie, you’re the general manager of the station. What does that entail?

Brabo: Basically, I get to boss everyone around. No, it’s more of a collaborative effort, but I kind of will set the tone in terms of what we expect for the year, what kind of events we might want to hold. But I like to hear my staff’s ideas in terms of what they want to see. But mostly it’s just a lot of delegating and logistics, also a lot of the back work like budgets. Budgets are really nasty work. I actually have a budget report due today, so I have to get on that. But working with the dollar amounts, working with other clubs and kind of being the figurehead for people, like the go-to person that people go to. And then also, if people are having issues, being the mediator.

Miller: Is it your responsibility to make the case to the administration for why college radio should exist, why they should keep the lights on?

Brabo: In a sense. We get our funding from the SFC, which is like the student fee committee, and essentially they’re in charge of all the money for all the clubs. But every quarter we are checking in saying, hey, we’re doing X, Y, and Z, and we’re doing this amount. We’re doing these events with all the dollars that we have and we could do more events with even more money. And if you cut our budget, then we are virtually nothing. And also, we provide a sense of community for all of these people and here are the ways that they show.

Miller: Miles, what do you think students who are behind the mic or behind different aspects of the station are all getting from taking part in this? What are you learning?

Sadler: Well, just to clarify, do you mean us as DJs or us as like the staff?

Miller: I mean, all of you, the folks who are making it happen.

Sadler: Well, I think the big benefit a lot of people get is just the innate benefit of being able to express themselves in a very free way. We live in an age where social media is very censored, in a way, by the companies that run them. People can’t say certain words or talk about certain topics, or their posts get suppressed. Radio isn’t like that. We give people the freedom to talk about whatever they want pretty much. And people will take that self-expression and run with it. People talk about all sorts of topics that are very important to them. They talk about their favorite bands and artists, current events, their favorite foods. I think that’s the biggest benefit all of us get out of it.

The benefit that I get as a music director is being able to help facilitate that by supplying DJs with new music. Maybe they find their new favorite artist out of something I give them, or I give them a new album by an artist they already love, and they get to go on their show and talk about it for an hour, and share that music with the world. I think that’s the big benefit that everyone at KBVR gets out of being a DJ, being a staff member, is just being able to experience, facilitate and participate in that self-expression.

Miller: Sam, what do you think you’re getting out of this?

Polis: Well, the act of curation is so important, learning to be an individual, especially if you’re in a journalism field or career. I’m in the school of journalism, so becoming an individual through that curation of preference and likeness, figuring out what it is you want to do, who you are. It is so important. And then too, in a professional sense, you get knowledge of FCC guidelines, knowledge of programming, knowledge of broadcasting. All of that is very important, no matter if you want to go into publishing, advertising or public relations, and it’s just a great segue into how you want to act in the professional world.

Miller: It’s really common now for commercial DJs to not be in the places where their shows are being broadcast and for them to maybe simultaneously, sort of quietly, be theoretically from 10 different markets at the same time through the magic of various audio processing and editing. They’re just voice tracking out of the market and then it shows up wherever they seem to be. Given that, what does it mean to you that your stations are real people choosing music that means something to them in a real place?

Polis: Yeah, I think so many algorithms, they recommend music based on what you’ve already listened to. So radio kind of gives you the opportunity to hear something new. Universities, especially UO, have so many people from such diverse backgrounds, so it’s like this beautiful cultural melting pot and the stories are real. I think it’s also really crucial that it’s student-run because we’re not doing it for the sake of trying to appeal to what’s mainstream. We’re not really doing it for profit in any way at all. So, just the fact that it’s authentic and it’s a genuine want to share your passions and interests.

Miller: Well, Maddie, the other way to think about that is I’m curious how much you think about, how much you care about audience numbers? Because we’ve been talking largely about the experience of the DJs, the people creating the radio. How much do you care about the audience?

Brabo: Well, I think when I first started, I was really, really concerned with audience numbers because you’re like, “Oh, I really want people to listen to what I have to say.” But we have such a small radio station. We also are not on AM/FM. We’re just completely online. So our numbers are pretty low. I will say my average was like 15 listeners per show sometimes. Lately, it’s been a lot larger, which is very unusual for us. But I would say, if anything, we DJs are not necessarily there for the listener numbers. It’s for the experience of them being able to get to play what they want. And they kind of accept the fact that, oh, it doesn’t really matter if I’m speaking to a large audience. It’s what I’m getting out of this by being able to play what I want, talk about what I want.

Miller: Miles, do you think that you’re going to want to keep doing radio after you leave school?

Sadler: Oh, honestly, I think so. I’ve very much enjoyed my time at KBVR-FM, and I want to be able to take that experience and run with it. I would definitely say that right now, personally, I’m still trying to figure a few things out, but radio is definitely one of my top career plans after I get out of KBVR-FM. I want to take what I’ve learned and bring it to other places, and spread my music tastes and my love for the medium to the world. So honestly, yeah, I’d love to keep working in radio after college.

Miller: Sam, what about you?

Polis: I have really enjoyed publishing in A&R. I think that is kind of the field that I’m looking towards, especially –

Miller: The music business side of this.

Polis: Exactly. And I have really enjoyed scouting, listening to demos, and providing feedback for independent artists and record labels. The contractual side of music publishing as well is very interesting to me. So that A&R path has been one that I’ve been interested in. I’m going into my third year at UO, so I’m leaning towards the music publishing side of things after I graduate.

Miller: Sam, Maddie and Miles, it was a pleasure talking with all three of you. Thanks so much.

Polis: Thank you.

Brabo: Thank you so much.

Sadler: Thank you so much.

Miller: Sam Polis, music director of KWVA – that’s the University of Oregon’s campus radio station. Maddie Brabo is general manager of KPSU at PSU. And Miles Sadler is a music director at KBVR Beaver, the Oregon State University’s campus radio station.

“Think Out Loud®” broadcasts live at noon every day and rebroadcasts at 8 p.m.

If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983.

Hunter Bledsoe, Shaunak Deshpande and Evan Decker all serve on the Clark County Youth Commission. They join us to talk about the biggest concerns they have for young people in Southwest Washington and some possible solutions.

Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.

Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. For almost 30 years, the Clark County Youth Commission has given young people a way to express their concerns and hopes directly to members of the county council. Every year, the commission, which is made up of students ages 12 to 19, chooses a topic to dig into and then prepares a set of recommendations. Their work typically, and in recent years, has focused on mental health, but the commission has also explored youth homelessness, violence prevention, community resilience, among other topics.

I’m joined now by three current members of this commission. Hunter Bledsoe is a senior at Hockinson High School in Brush Prairie. Shaunak Deshpande is a junior at Camas High School, and Evan Decker is a sophomore at Henrietta Lacks High School in Vancouver. It’s great to have all three of you on the show.

Hunter Bledsoe: Thank you.

Shaunak Deshpande: Thank you for having us.

Evan Decker: Thank you.

Miller: Evan, first – I want to start with the work that you all did last year. The focus was on mental health and relationships. How did you all decide on that in particular?

Decker: Yeah, so we have sort of a process where we’re deciding what we’re going to focus on for the following year, and it mostly pertains to what we were working on the previous year. So for example, we had resiliency and then we had something like intergenerational connection. It really comes down to what we find important from our last topic and what we want to focus on more for our next topic.

Miller: Hunter, what does relationships mean in the context of the work you were doing? What fell into the umbrella of relationships?

Bledsoe: Relationships kind of encompass many things, like relationships between different youth but also adults within our community. One of the topics that we specifically explored with relationships was kind of abusive, non-abusive and healthy relationships. We specifically had guests from YWCA and they came in and gave us information about those topic areas. And from there, we kind of developed recommendations that could support healthy relationships with youth, but also how to navigate unhealthy and possibly abusive relationships.

Miller: Shaunak, so Hunter was talking there about talking to some adults in the community to get information. How does this work? I mean, you come up with this topic and then how do you proceed?

Deshpande: Yeah, one of the things that’s really useful for us is that we have a really good mentorship system through Elizabeth and a few different members who work at the Clark County Youth Commission. So essentially, once we get a topic done, we’ll eventually work through a lot of fun breakout groups. Like we’ll be with a couple of people in a group focusing on a specific thing, and then we’ll add some recommendations or ideas, and eventually everything kind of comes together. And throughout the year, we’ll meet with different organizations like the CHIP organization, which is a Committee of Health Improvement Plan. Then we also met with YWCA. And those will be split throughout the year, so we’ll get more opinions and more perspectives into our final recommendations.

Miller: When you call up these various groups and say, “hey, we’re with the Youth Commission,” do they say, “great, we’ll talk to you?” Or do they say, “we’re busy, we don’t need to talk to a bunch of kids right now?”

Deshpande: Based on all the years that I’ve been on the Youth Commission, everyone is very positive towards it. Every time people have come, they’ve all been like, oh wow, this is amazing work that you guys are doing. I feel like everyone has a very high level of respect for youth’s voices, especially.

Miller: How much did COVID come up, Evan, in your conversations and your research over the last year?

Decker: Yeah, COVID was a really big topic, especially for last year, which our topic was relationships. A really big shared thing we wanted to focus on was how COVID impacted our ability to make relationships. A lot of people were sharing that they felt COVID had kind of stunted their growth and how they would naturally make relationships. So COVID was definitely a big part of how we wanted to go on trying to figure out how that affected relationships and stuff like that.

Miller: Hunter, if my math is right based on the years all of you are in high school now, in March of 2020, you all were between third and fifth grades at the beginning, and then a couple more years, crucial years of elementary school or middle school, that were super disrupted in terms of social distancing and screens. How do you think about those COVID years now in terms of social connection? It’s been six years now, more than six years since March of 2020, a long time, but also those were crucial years, especially for young people. I’m just curious how you think about it now?

Bledsoe: Yeah, absolutely. I know from both personal experience but also experience that I’ve heard from other youth, really during those crucial development periods during our life, it’s really hard to kind of recover from that and build in social connections. And I know a lot of us had to kind of relearn those social aspect skills of how to be in a room together and how to even hold a conversation with one another. So I know, as we were thinking about relationships, some of our recommendations were just even, how can we teach or possibly educate young people in being able to make those social connections with one another? Because a lot of those crucial years of getting to know one another in those elementary years really impacted our ability to connect with one another.

Miller: Shaunak, what do you see as some of the other important recommendations that came from last year’s work?

Deshpande: Yeah, our work of relationships kind of split into three different areas. There were relationship skills, which usually talked about COVID isolation as one factor, and another thing was about healthy versus unhealthy versus abusive relationships. Then our second area was around environments and surroundings. So we really talked about third spaces for that. That’s something actually we’re focusing our next year on because that was a topic that we all found really interesting. And then the third area was more around mental health, and we talked about different academic pressures and stuff like that. So I guess the other work that comes to our recommendations would be stuff related to mental health and stuff related to unhealthy versus abusive relationships, because that was a huge factor of it.

Miller: Why did you want to be on this council?

Deshpande: Yeah, I think one of the main reasons that I wanted to be on here was just actually making a difference. I think when I joined the youth commission, it was because my sister was on the commission previously and she had told me how much of an amazing experience it had been in terms of actually making a difference. And I feel like every time that I’ve been on this commission, and we’ve presented to the actual county council, we’ve had stuff like this. It’s almost like validation to me that, yes, we are actually making a difference. All these recommendations are actually making their way out and actually making a difference.

Miller: Hunter, what about you? Why did you want to join this commission years ago now?

Bledsoe: Yeah, I wanted to join the youth commission both because it was … I joined kind of in 2020, so it was a year of struggle for both me but also students that I was seeing at my school. But also, I wanted to join to be able to develop my own ability to develop socially and build skills of communication that I could take away for the rest of my life.

Miller: Do you think that’s happened?

Bledsoe: I personally believe that I’m able to communicate far stronger, especially with a meeting with the county council, on specific ideas and recommendations. And I really feel like they’ve valued youth voice and input, and that it is actually making a difference.

Miller: And Evan, what about you? Why did you want to join this?

Decker: Yeah, I was always interested in leadership, and I feel like a really integral part of any leadership or community is being able to recognize and make people feel seen. So I joined after I was nominated for a Youth Achievement Award, which is an award we give out to youth in our county to recognize them [in] categories from education to leadership to environmental stewardship, family life. And I got nominated for leadership and I just felt really seen after doing that, and I felt like the stuff I was working towards actually mattered. I really wanted to give that opportunity to other youth and do some more outreach work.

Miller: Hunter, one of the things I was struck by is just the really broad age range of the members of this commission: 12 to 19. There are huge differences between 12-year-olds and 18- or 19-year-olds. What do you see as the benefits or the challenges of that age range?

Bledsoe: Yeah, absolutely, I think there are many benefits that we’re kind of hearing from a wide range. This both comes from middle school but also high school students. So the perspective and also the challenges and barriers that each age group faces is more adequately represented within our group.

That being said, it is kind of different and difficult, especially as we go from middle school to high school, because some of the issues and conversations might differ a little bit, especially when we think about certain topic areas, possibly like substance use, that may be more applicable for high school students. But in general, our recommendations address both middle school and high schools. And I really do think that the benefits of our age group significantly outweigh any sort of consequences of that.

Miller: Shaunak, we were talking before about your conversations with these adult leaders or adults in the community. What are the internal conversations among commission members like? What kinds of things do you talk about among yourselves?

Deshpande: I think there’s a wide range of things that we talk about, and I think this really connects to Hunter’s point of having such a broad range and having such a diverse group. Whenever we have … Let’s say for example, on the agenda, it will be a round robin discussion, so everyone will try to share something and obviously you can pass. But I think when we have something like that, everyone’s perspective gets shared. So internally, we have these systems like a round robin that are throughout our meetings, where everyone gets the opportunity to share and it’s like a completely open space. That’s where the diversity really shines of having everyone’s different barriers, everyone’s different ages and even different locations where they live in Clark County,

Miller: That last part … I’m curious, Evan, about geographic diversity. Do you see major differences in the concerns among the members who come from more urban areas and more rural ones?

Decker: That’s a really good question. I don’t know if I see different concerns. I think there’s definitely different ways people approach things based on where they’re from. So that could be put into like a difficulty, but I think that the geographic diversity that we have, it really helps us way more than it hurts us. It just gives so many new voices, and it allows us to consider more issues that we need to talk about. So I think it’s a really helpful part of our commission.

Miller: I want to turn to the effects of the work, or the ripples that you hope to see or actually do see after you put these recommendations out. Because you’ve all made it clear that you feel like, first of all, when you invite adults to talk with you, to share their expertise, as you’re sort of preparing, as you’re researching, they say yes, they’re happy to talk with you, and it seems like you’ve also gotten serious audiences from the members of the county council, the elected leaders of the county; they’re happy to talk to you.

I’m curious what happens after that. How much are youth commission recommendations actually enacted? Hunter, are there examples of that happening in recent years?

Bledsoe: Yeah, absolutely. I know every year we, of course, present our work to some capacity to the county council. And I know specifically from one year when we were working on resiliency, some of our recommendations made it into Clark County’s 20-year Comprehensive Plan.

I think it’s important to highlight that with a lot of our recommendations, it takes a lot of time to make it into policy. So while one group’s work might not initially see a great impact, usually years down the line, some of those recommendations make their way to the surface and adjust things at the county level for recommendations and how they’re able to support youth in our community. So I think that there’s a lot of examples that, with time, have definitely grown into what we’ve seen in our community.

Miller: I want to turn to the work that you’re doing for this year. As you noted, the current year’s work sort of piggybacks on the previous one, and this year you’re focusing on space, on places. Shaunak, what’s the focus, in your words, for this year?

Deshpande: This year’s focus is on third spaces, which is really an area classically defined as outside of school or outside of your home where people are able to go, especially in their teen years, to really express themselves. So that’s kind of where our focus lies. We’re trying to see different research around making sure that there’s more third spaces, because a lot of the barriers include that they’re expensive to go to or people don’t have transportation to go to them.

So far this year, we’ve had some good work on that. We even recently talked to someone from Public Works where we talked about parks and how different greenery areas can also help for a lot of people’s third spaces.

Miller: Evan, are there enough third spaces in Clark County for young people? I guess I’m thinking about parks, libraries, coffee shops where you have to pay, a mall where you may or may not have access to one, or maybe I’m just thinking about what things were like a long time ago when I was your age.

Decker: I think it really depends on the person. One thing we’ve noticed is that the definition of third spaces really varies from person to person. So for one person, it might be a large group of people or, for example, maybe at a sporting event, something like that. Or it could be somewhere like you said, like a cozy cafe or something like that.

So, it really comes down to what the individual is looking for. One of our recommendations, in our previous year when we were looking at mental health and third spaces, was making sure different types of third spaces were available and were easy to find. I think a large part of our work is also going to be about trying to bring up more spaces so that there’s more variety for kids and teens to choose from.

Miller: Evan, Hunter was saying that he feels like among other skills he’s gained from his work on the commission is public speaking. What do you feel like you’ve gotten from taking part in this?

Decker: I definitely say public speaking as well. I think us three and a couple other youth commissions have gotten such great opportunities to be able to talk publicly. But I think the biggest takeaway for me has actually been my ability to recognize other people’s points of views and use them to create a more cohesive community. And like you asked, are there downsides? Sure you can look at different views as downsides, but that is only a downside if the two groups aren’t able to come together and see that they have a shared goal. And my biggest takeaway has been my ability to be able to have a shared goal and know that our goal is more important than our clashes.

Miller: And Shaunak, what about you? What do you feel like you yourself have taken away from participating in this over the years?

Deshpande: Yeah, I agree with both of them, a lot of public speaking, a lot of access to opportunities. I thought one thing I’d mention as an actual learning point that I learned throughout this year was, a lot of the stuff that we talked about, like COVID and how it impacted teens, I feel like one key takeaway is that a lot of the ways that teens are acting right now is a product of all the environmental stuff that’s going – environment, as in the surroundings, such as COVID and stuff like that.

Miller: Shaunak Deshpande, Evan Decker and Hunter Bledsoe, thanks very much.

Decker: Thanks for having us.

Bledsoe: Thank you.

Deshpande: Thank you for having us.

Miller: Hunter is a senior at Hockinson High School – that’s in Brush Prairie. Shaunak Deshpande is a junior at Camas High School. Evan Decker, a sophomore at Henrietta Lacks High School in Vancouver. They are all members of the Clark County Youth Commission.

“Think Out Loud®” broadcasts live at noon every day and rebroadcasts at 8 p.m.

If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983.

Immigrants’ rights advocates report a rise in the number of arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Portland metro area in the last week.

Immigration arrests peaked in November of 2025 with “Operation Black Rose.” They decreased dramatically earlier this year, but numbers surged again in the summer.

The Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition told OPB that there was a “sharp uptick” of arrests Tuesday. And advocates fear that another federal enforcement operation is coming.

OPB’s Public Safety reporter Troy Brynelson has been following this story and joins us to share more details.

Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. We start today with an apparent increase in immigration enforcement in Oregon. Immigrant rights advocates say they’ve seen a rise in the number of arrests by ICE agents in the Portland metro area this week. OPB’s Public Safety reporter Troy Brynelson has been following this story and joins us now. It’s good to have you back on the show.

Troy Brynelson: Thanks for having me, Dave.

Miller: When did you start hearing about an uptick in immigration enforcement actions?

Brynelson: Yeah, it was on my way to work on Tuesday morning. I started getting phone calls from some of my sources who pay very, very close attention to immigration enforcement activity in the Portland metro. They’ve been regularly clueing me in when they see things around the community, but the phone call came out, and they just said it’s very, very active right now. I called around, confirmed with a couple of other people, and next thing I know, I’m just getting inundated with reports about activity around town.

Miller: Where was this enforcement concentrated?

Brynelson: Tuesday was very concentrated in East Multnomah County – so a lot of Gresham activity, Troutdale area. But that shifted Wednesday, noticeably to predominantly Washington County.

Miller: What have you been able to learn about what these arrests have been like?

Brynelson: Well, part of the reason why we were informed of this in the first place was it seemed like it was sort of a throwback to the tactics we were seeing in 2025. So, a lot more footage anecdotes of people getting detained in traffic stops, windows getting broken, people getting pulled out of their cars at busy intersections near high schools. So I think the context to a lot of this is that tactics seem to have been much quieter for so long and then suddenly it felt like we were seeing the ICE of 2025 again.

Miller: I want to hear more about that for folks who’ve maybe forgotten some of that, I was gonna say history, but relatively recent activity. But just to stick with what’s just been happening, what we know about this week, do you know anything about the people who were picked up?

Brynelson: A little bit. So the most concrete numbers we have right now is that according to immigrant rights groups, there were at least 21 people detained around Oregon. So not just the Portland Metro, but also down in Eugene and Medford. But that’s about where the current information ends. So we’ve asked questions about, are there any sort of commonalities in criminality of these individuals, of nationality, ages and types of legal status? Are we seeing people with certain kinds of visas, for example? But it still seems very early to tell right now.

Miller: Can you describe the informal network or networks that have developed here and in other cities to monitor ICE activity and to share information?

Brynelson: Yeah, it varies from place to place, but there’s a lot of commonalities. And what I’m about to describe is like an outgrowth of the second Trump administration. So in 2025, you saw a lot of these immigrants’ rights groups start developing systems and developing trainings of how to teach people to be immigration enforcement observers. So, people who are trained to go out to a scene quickly if they’re hearing about activity, to how they interface with immigration enforcement folks, and how they ask questions of people being detained, for example.

So actually, there’s a pretty large network of people who are doing this, and it’s spread over time. There are people who are still connected to these like nonprofit agencies, and then there are people who do it purely as mutual aid, kind of off-book, if you will. And a lot of the people that I talked to are in both of those spheres. It’s a lot of information sharing. You’ll see on social media where they’re sharing license plates of confirmed ICE vehicles, and that’s information that travels across state lines through the internet and just rapid communication.

Miller: What has that network been like this week?

Brynelson: Just very active. So, on Instagram and in chats, we’ve seen a lot more posts. I’m seeing a lot of conversations with my sources, and just a pretty frenetic activity trying to identify where activity is occurring and to go out and document it.

Miller: So let’s go back to that context that I was mentioning earlier because we’re talking about this recent uptick in activity, but that’s after an earlier surge. Can you remind us what “Operation Black Rose” was?

Brynelson: “Operation Black Rose” was Portland’s version of a crackdown that the Trump administration has been deploying in various cities and states across the country. They all have different sorts of operation names, code names. Portland’s was “Black Rose,” and it started last fall around the time that the Trump administration was also attempting to send in the National Guard to Portland. There were a lot of protests at the Portland ICE facility against Trump’s deportation agenda, and there was then this response that I just described.

So “Operation Black Rose” specifically was … In addition to the protests, there was a massive upswing in immigration enforcement in the Portland metro area.

Miller: How many people were being detained or taken into custody at the peak of those efforts?

Brynelson: It peaked around October and November. October had more than 400 apprehensions or detentions that month, and November had nearly 500. And then it fell pretty sharply around late December in 2026.

Miller: How much did that go down over the course of this year?

Brynelson: Well, it was pretty common for each of those months, according to the data that we find to be most reliable, that we would see fewer than 100 detentions in Oregon from late winter all the way through midsummer.

Miller: And just to be clear, it’s not just that the overall numbers were down, right? It’s also that enforcement tactics changed.

Brynelson: Yeah, yeah, what we were seeing here in Portland was similar to what was being seen across the country. It’s been described as sort of this silent surge. It was not that the tensions had disappeared, but that tactics had been noticeably less visible. There’s a lot of reasons, I think, why that happened, but it was very clear that these high-visibility traffic stops, attempts to detain people at certain busy intersections in certain busy locations like schools, those tactics largely disappeared in favor of other quieter tactics. And then that’s sort of what we’re describing now, this return to that playbook.

Miller: Did the federal government explain why it was taking a different approach, or was it more of a tacit, quiet shift after the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota.

Brynelson: Yeah, the timing there is important, and some of it was tacit. But they were very clear about, around the time of those killings, there was also a change in leadership [when] then-Secretary Kristi Noem departed the agency and in came now-Secretary Markwayne Mullin … Some of the first things he was describing was we’re going to reinstitute stronger trainings, but we were also going to shift tactics away from these things that were drawing attention in maybe a more controversial way than they liked at the time, at least up until what we’ve been seeing this week.

Miller: Right. Does it feel like a return to the days of “Operation Black Rose?”

Brynelson: Just in terms of that high-visibility nature and the tactics we’ve seen. But I think the difference is that “Operation Black Rose” and some of these operations, like Minneapolis, were going on for days and days, weeks. Right now, we saw a lot of activity Tuesday and Wednesday. There was activity in Salem and Marion County on Wednesday, but we haven’t quite seen that sustained amount of activity to make that call, I think.

Miller: Have ICE officials or other federal officials said anything about increasing their enforcement actions in Oregon?

Brynelson: Yeah, I think that was [also] part of the reason why some of these watchers that we’ve been talking about were primed, in a way, to be observing immigration enforcement activity, because there were some really recent statements by the federal government about surges incoming. So, I think it was a week ago that the Department of Homeland Security’s official social media team posted that ICE had initiated a nationwide public safety surge in sanctuary cities. So, on the heels of that, that’s also been confirmed to us through spokespeople, that this is part of that.

Miller: What have you been hearing from immigrant communities themselves about what this new increase means to them?

Brynelson: Yeah, there was a press conference yesterday, in fact, with several of these groups that I’ve been mentioning where they’ve very clearly said that they are communities in pain because it’s been, I think, easy for a lot of the media attention to go away from the immigration enforcement in favor of other things going on, even as the surge became quieter. But this was a pretty stark reminder of the importance, in their view, these immigrant rights communities, of seeing their local officials stand up for them and to stand up against these efforts.

Miller: Finally, I want to turn to what happens to people now after they’re picked up, because you reported this week that new detainees in the Portland metro area may have fewer opportunities to get legal representation, to get lawyers. Why is that?

Brynelson: It’s interesting because there are so many different ways, when we’re covering these types of stories, that we’re seeing little bits of differences each time about the ways in which somebody might find themselves detained – that might be different week to week – to how they end up in a facility like the Northwest [ICE] Processing Center in Tacoma.

One of the little wrinkles that we were noticing this week was according to the attorneys who were stationed there, that they were getting absolutely zero access, they said, to detainees at the Portland ICE facility. That’s different from the past, even two weeks ago, where they would get not uniform guaranteed access, but certain amounts of access. They’d be allowed to get in there and talk to somebody who’s detained, explain their rights and make sure they’re getting phone calls. Those attorneys told us that that had not been happening at all this week. They don’t necessarily know why. There’s been some lawsuits around this that are up in the air, but it is certainly a development that has drawn the attention of our local officials who said that they want answers to why people aren’t getting access to their attorneys.

I think it’s also worth noting that we reached out to ICE to ask them about the level of access detainees are getting to legal counsel, and they did not answer that question.

Miller: Troy, thanks very much.

Brynelson: Thank you.

Miller: Troy Brynelson is OPB’s Public Safety reporter.

“Think Out Loud®” broadcasts live at noon every day and rebroadcasts at 8 p.m.

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Se acercan las elecciones de medio término, que se celebran el martes 3 de noviembre.

Los votantes de Oregón elegirán al nuevo gobernador. La gobernadora actual, Tina Kotek, del Partido Demócrata, busca la reelección para un nuevo mandato de cuatro años, mientras que la senadora Christine Drazan aspira a convertirse en la primera gobernadora republicana del estado desde 1987.

A nivel nacional, la atención estará puesta en el equilibrio del poder en el Congreso. Una contienda en el noroeste del Pacífico podría inclinar la balanza.

La representante Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez, del Partido Demócrata, se enfrenta al senador estatal republicano John Braun para representar al suroeste de Washington en el Congreso. Es una de las elecciones más reñidas y observadas del país.

A continuación, encontrará información sobre cómo votar en Oregón y Washington.

¿Cómo funciona la votación por correo postal en Oregón?

Oregón tiene una larga historia de votación por correo postal que se remonta a décadas. Si usted está registrado para votar, recibirá su boleta de votación entre 14 y 18 días antes de la elección, por lo que los votantes deberían recibirla a mediados de octubre. Diligencie su boleta, firme la parte posterior del sobre y envíela por correo postal o deposítela en un buzón electoral de su condado antes de las 8:00 p. m. del día de la elección.

¿Cómo registrarse para votar?

Los habitantes de Oregón pueden registrarse para votar en el sitio web de la Secretaría de Estado de Oregón, donde pueden acceder a la información en el idioma de su preferencia.

Para registrarse, usted debe tener al menos 16 años, ser residente del estado y ciudadano estadounidense. Sin embargo, para votar en una elección debe haber cumplido 18 años. En Oregón, la fecha límite para registrarse para votar es el 13 de octubre.

¿Cómo puedo verificar mi registro electoral?

La Secretaría de Estado de Oregón es la entidad encargada de supervisar las elecciones. Verifique su registro o cambie su afiliación política en el sitio web del estado.

¿Dónde está mi boleta de votación?

Usted puede verificar el estado de su boleta de votación en el sitio web de la Secretaría de Estado de Oregón. Las oficinas electorales de los condados a menudo ofrecen servicios gratuitos de confirmación a través de mensajes de texto, por lo que usted puede optar por recibir un mensaje de texto o un correo electrónico cuando su boleta de votación le haya sido enviada. También puede verificar si su boleta de votación ha sido recibida y contabilizada.

¿Cómo voto por correo postal o cambio mi dirección postal?

Visite el sitio web de la Secretaría de Estado de Oregón para cambiar su dirección postal. Usted puede hacer ese cambio incluso hasta el día de las elecciones, es decir, el 3 de noviembre. Tenga en cuenta que, si actualiza su registro cerca de la fecha de la elección, es posible que deba votar en la oficina electoral de su condado.

¿Cómo puedo obtener una boleta de votación y una guía electoral en un idioma diferente al inglés?

Las oficinas electorales de los condados deben proporcionar a los votantes materiales informativos, o parte de ellos, en diversos idiomas.

¿Cómo puedo votar después de la fecha límite para votar por correo postal?

Usted puede enviar su boleta de votación por correo postal incluso el mismo día de las elecciones, pero esta debe tener el sello postal con fecha de ese mismo día, por lo que es importante planificar con anticipación para asegurarse de que sea recibida y procesada a tiempo. El estado de Oregón recomienda a los votantes enviar sus boletas de votación a través de los buzones electorales autorizados tan pronto como estén listos para votar, para garantizar que sus votos se contabilicen.

¿Dónde está el buzón electoral más cercano?

La Secretaría de Estado de Oregón es el mejor lugar para encontrar información precisa y actualizada. Los buzones electorales autorizados pueden haber sido cambiados de ubicación; además, el estado autorizó recursos para instalar buzones electorales adicionales este año, en medio de las amenazas de la administración Trump de restringir la votación por correo. Verifique la ubicación más reciente de los buzones electorales autorizados en el sitio web de la Secretaría de Estado de Oregón o en la oficina electoral de su condado. Un localizador de buzones electorales estará disponible en el sitio web del estado antes del día de las elecciones.

Si vivo en el suroeste de Washington, ¿qué debería saber?

En el estado de Washington también se puede votar por correo postal. Visite el sitio web de la Secretaría de Estado de Washington para registrarse para votar, actualizar su registro, obtener más información sobre los buzones autorizados para depositar su voto o encontrar otros recursos. La fecha límite para el registro en línea o a través de correo postal es el 26 de octubre, y el registro en persona se puede hacer hasta el 3 de noviembre.

The fall midterm election is coming up on Tuesday, Nov. 3.

Oregon voters will choose their next governor. Incumbent Gov. Tina Kotek, a Democrat, is vying for another four-year term while challenger state Sen. Christine Drazan tries to become the state’s first Republican governor since 1987.

Nationally, attention will be on the balance of power in Congress. One race in the Pacific Northwest could tip the scales.

Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a Democrat, is facing Republican state Sen. John Braun to represent Southwest Washington in Congress. The contest is one of the closest and most closely watched in the country.

Below you’ll find information on how to vote in Oregon and Washington.

How does Oregon mail-in voting work?

Oregon has a decades-long history of vote-by-mail. If you’re registered to vote, a ballot arrives roughly 14 to 18 days before an election, so voters should expect them in mid-October. Fill out your ballot, sign the back of the envelope and drop it off in the mail or at an approved county drop box by 8 p.m. on Election Day.

How do I register to vote?

Oregonians can register to vote on the Oregon secretary of state’s website. You must be at least 16 years old, a resident of the state and a U.S. citizen. Voters must be 18 years old to vote in an election. The voter registration deadline in Oregon for this election is Oct. 13.

How do I check my registration?

The Oregon secretary of state’s office oversees elections. Check your registration or change your party affiliation on the state’s website.

Where is my ballot?

You can check the status of your ballot with the secretary of state’s office. County elections offices often offer text confirmation services for free, so you can opt to receive a text or email when your ballot is on its way to you. You can also find out when your ballot has been counted.

How do I vote by mail or change my mailing address?

Head on over to the secretary of state’s website to change your address. You can do so right up to and including Election Day on Nov. 3.

How do I get a ballot and voter guide in languages other than English?

Your county elections office should provide voters’ pamphlets or portions of them in numerous languages.

How do I vote after the mail-in deadline?

You can mail your ballot on Election Day itself via the post office, but the ballot must be postmarked on that day, so make plans to ensure that’s possible. The state of Oregon has strongly encouraged voters to submit their ballots to approved drop boxes as soon as they are ready and able to vote to ensure their votes are counted.

Where is my closest ballot drop box?

Again, the secretary of state’s office is a good place to find accurate, up-to-date information. Ballot drop boxes can change location, and the state approved money for additional drop boxes this year as the Trump administration threatened to curb vote-by-mail. Check the secretary of state’s website or with your county elections office to find the latest ballot drop box locations. The secretary of state’s office will launch its drop box locator Oct. 14.

I live in Southwest Washington. What do I need to know?

Vote-by-mail is the way in Washington as well. Head to the Washington secretary of state’s website to register to vote, update your registration or find more information about drop boxes or other important resources. The online and mail voter registration deadline is Oct. 26 and the in-person registration deadline is Nov. 3.

Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson, who did not offer raises to thousands of state workers in recent contract talks, will not get one himself for the next two years, under a recommendation adopted by a citizen salary-setting panel on Thursday.

Salaries for the attorney general and lieutenant governor will be frozen too, with the proposed schedule drawn up by the Washington Citizens’ Commission on Salaries for Elected Officials at a daylong meeting in an Olympia hotel.

Commissioners did agree, however, to give state lawmakers, along with the superintendent of public instruction, treasurer and commissioner of public lands, increases of 2% on July 1, 2027 and another 2% on July 1, 2028. Judges, including state Supreme Court justices, would also receive 2% hikes next July and 2% a year later.

And, in one of their final votes, they agreed to boost the salaries of the offices of the secretary of state, insurance commissioner, and state auditor by 5% in each of the next two years.

“We have salaries that will not attract the best candidates available in our state,” said Commissioner Steve Smith in explaining why these state executives should receive a greater bump in their annual earnings.

Thursday’s action stood in stark contrast to the last round of salary setting in 2024, when the commission raised pay for the jobs of governor and attorney general by 14% over two years. Cost of living adjustments made up a third of the total with the rest intended to account for growing duties of the elected positions and rising costs of living.

On Thursday, commissioners balked at boosting their salaries in light of the state’s strained fiscal condition and the belief that their job responsibilities haven’t noticeably changed from that last round. Ferguson earns $234,275 a year while Brown hauls in $221,614, making him one of the nation’s highest-paid attorneys general.

Commissioner Melody Adams-Forsstrom made the motion to freeze the salary for the governor’s job.

“He got a huge increase last time,” she said. “Though I am speaking for myself, I think we really represent the taxpayers of the state and what they’re facing and their circumstances.”

Throughout the day’s discussions, members made references to new two-year contracts Ferguson’s staff negotiated with state workers’ unions that contain no across-the-board wage increase or cost of living adjustment.

“In my view if public workers don’t get that I’m not comfortable giving it to elected officials,” said Commissioner Sarah Tucker.

One of the day’s closest votes was on a motion to not give a raise to legislators, who earn $72,494. The motion garnered seven votes of support but needed 9 of the 15 present.

The commission will spend the next four months gathering comments on the recommendations. Virtual public hearings are planned Nov. 12, Dec. 10 and Jan. 7. A final hearing is set for Feb. 10 in Olympia, at which commissioners could revise the schedule before taking final action.

Voters established the salary commission in 1987 to end the practice of politicians deciding their own pay. Though funded by the state, it operates independent of the legislative, executive and judicial branches.

Its 17 unpaid members include residents from each of the state’s 10 congressional districts plus representatives of business, organized labor and higher education. Also represented are the legal and human resources professions.

Every two years, this panel comes together to consider salary changes. Commissioners are supposed to base decisions on the duties of the job — not the man or woman doing it at the time. They don’t have to give any raises, but they cannot lower the salary of anyone in office.

Elected officials and judges cannot alter what the commission approves.

Washington State Standard is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501(c)(3) public charity.

This republished story is part of OPB’s broader effort to ensure that everyone in our region has access to quality journalism that informs, entertains and enriches their lives. To learn more, visit opb.org/partnerships.

The community gathered for a candlelight vigil Thursday night where hundreds of people gathered to mourn the loss of the three children and the teacher.

OPB’s Emily Cureton Cook has been on the scene since yesterday afternoon, and she joins us to share what she knows. You can find live updates of OPB’s coverage here.

“Think Out Loud®” broadcasts live at noon every day and rebroadcasts at 8 p.m.

If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983.

The images will be collected from Oct. 17 to Oct. 25 and uploaded to the iNaturalist community science platform.

The advocacy nonprofit Environment Oregon Research & Policy Center is organizing the Roadside Wildlife Count, as previously reported by Oregon Capital Chronicle. Volunteers can sign up at any point to help during the 9-day count.

The collected data will contribute to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s existing projects that also engage the public’s help to share wildlife sightings and roadkills they encounter.

Justin Boyles, conservation advocate for Environment Oregon Research & Policy Center, says its count aims to also raise awareness of the thousands of collisions between vehicles and large animals like deer and elk in Oregon each year and the importance of wildlife crossings to help wildlife safely traverse roads and highways.

Boyles joins us to share more details about the Roadside Wildlife Count and similar surveys organized by the Environment America Research & Policy Center and other state affiliates.

“Think Out Loud®” broadcasts live at noon every day and rebroadcasts at 8 p.m.

If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983.

Manhattan’s Upper West Side has been reveling in the company of its latest celebrities: A family of barn owls nested in a water tower atop a building near Central Park.

This is the first documented instance of barn owls nesting in Manhattan in modern history, according to one expert, and the owls have attracted nightly crowds of people in the street eager to get a glimpse of the elusive birds.

“It was, like, totally shocking,” Andrew Farnsworth, a migration ecologist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, said of the barn owls. “To the best of our knowledge, like the collective birding knowledge, there hasn’t been a nest in, you know, in Manhattan, at least in recorded history.”

Word of the barn owl family didn’t get around until last week, when Elisabeth Williams, an Upper West Side resident, notified a local news outlet on Oct. 6 that she and her husband saw multiple owls at the water tower atop a building on West 75th Street close to Central Park West.

The couple had previously seen a single owl on an apartment windowsill a few days earlier and were shocked even then, Williams recalled.

“In a place like Manhattan, you normally really have to go out of your way to encounter nature,” she said. “And here it was, just sort of right outside our window.”

Barn owl sightings are rare in New York City

It’s not the first time that birds have captivated New Yorkers. Residents have fallen in love with American woodcocks, who are known to stop in Midtown Manhattan’s Bryant Park every year as they migrate north in early spring.

After Flaco the Eurasian eagle-owl died in 2024, dozens of mournful fans gathered to say goodbye to the beloved creature who flew around Manhattan and became a joy to many after someone let him out of his zoo enclosure the previous year. Then there was Pale Male, a red-tailed hawk who nested above Fifth Avenue for three decades before dying in 2023.

But barn owl sightings in New York City parks are very rare, according to the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. New York is at the northern fringe of the barn owl’s range and the barn owl population has declined “at an alarming rate” over time, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

“There’s lots of excitement among New Yorkers, both birders and non-birders alike, about these owls because owls really capture the attention,” said Jessica Wilson, executive director of NYC Bird Alliance. “They’re magical, they’re nocturnal, they are secretive, they’re not commonly seen, especially on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. And to have this chance to see these birds is really thrilling.”

Photographers and casual onlookers have gathered on the street on a nightly basis to spot the owls.

“I’ve only seen one barn owl ever, and that was in California,” said Val Coleman, a retired New York City resident who was on the Upper West Side earlier this week trying to spot the owls. “At dusk, we hope they will come out to hunt. We hope they don’t eat poisoned rats with rodenticide in ‘em.”

David Barrett, a Manhattan-based birder who runs the popular social media account, Manhattan Bird Alert, said he’s observed at least one adult barn owl and five fledglings at the water tower. He’s also seen an adult owl carrying rodents back to the water tower. There are believed to be two adult owls, and some photographers have claimed to have seen six fledglings, Barrett added.

“Having one barn owl is a rarity, but it’s not national news. Having a family, for the first time ever, breeding in Manhattan in recorded history, that’s special news,” Barrett said.

Screeching was heard by residents

Before the recent barn owl sightings, Williams and her husband heard periodic screeching noises outside going back to early September. They initially assumed it was a bird of some kind but were skeptical when a phone app indicated the noise was from a barn owl.

Thomas Obersteiner said that he first heard bizarre screeching and wailing noises from outside one evening in mid-September. It sounded like someone was “being murdered outside,” he said.

“That lasted for two or three weeks, every night, sometimes more, sometimes less, coming from different directions,” Obersteiner added. “But I had no idea what that was.”

On multiple occasions, Obersteiner or his wife ran into their children’s bedroom after mistaking the owls’ screech for a child in pain, he said. It wasn’t until he saw a news report that he realized that owls were making the sounds.

Farnsworth said the screech is typical of barn owls, who use it to communicate with one another. The screech is like a “horror movie kind of experience,” he said.

Obersteiner, who said his roof deck is “probably the best location in town right now” to watch the owls, has been letting nature photographers access that perch to observe the owls “almost every night” since news of the barn owls spread. On one night last week, 20 people had gathered.

“We can’t say no because it’s so much fun and these people are so serious,” Obersteiner added. “It’s beautiful.”

Williams and her husband were not bird watchers before the barn owl family moved in to the water tower. But that may change soon after their “delightful” experience.

“I think we’re about to become birders,” Williams said.

Masked Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians as they were harvesting olives in the occupied West Bank on Friday, injuring several people including an American photojournalist.

The Washington Post said photographer Heidi Levine was reporting in the West Bank, wearing a protective vest clearly marked as “press,” when she was beaten.

“Today I was brutally attacked,” Levine said in a video filmed at a hospital and posted online.“We saw in the distance, in the hilltop, I would say at least 50 masked men, slingshots. And when they came running down, I was attacked, pushed to the ground,” she said, “they just kept kicking me and kicking me.” They also stole her cameras and phone.

She said medical workers rushed her in an ambulance to a hospital. Washington Post Executive Editor Matt Murray said in a statement the paper was relieved that Levine received medical care and is safe, but denounced the violence against her.

“We are outraged by this unwarranted attack on a journalist doing her job and urge a thorough investigation and follow-through from authorities,” Murray said.

The Post said the attack happened when Palestinians were trying to harvest their olives. It said settlers set Palestinian olive groves on fire and hurled stones using slingshots.

Israeli police issued a statement acknowledging reports that a foreign journalist was injured and said it would investigate the incident and “bring those involved to justice.”

The U.S. State Department said it was aware of the reports and contacted The Washington Post to offer consular assistance. “We condemn criminal violence by any party in the West Bank and support appropriate investigations as well as legal accountability for those responsible,” the State Department said, without mentioning the assault of the American photojournalist.

There were two dozen settler attacks on Palestinian olive harvesters Friday, leaving 20 people injured, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society.

The United Nations’ humanitarian office for Gaza and the West Bank said settler attacks during the olive harvest season have killed one Palestinian and damaged more than 2,500 olive trees or saplings.

The attacks came as groups of Israeli settlers have stepped up their assaults on Palestinians in the West Bank. They also follow another assault earlier this month, when Israelis beat Agence France-Presse photojournalist Jaafar Ashtiyeh as he was covering settler violence against Palestinian olive farmers in the West Bank.

Sara Qudah, who handles the Middle East for the Committee to Protect Journalists, said Levine’s beating was not an isolated incident for journalists covering the West Bank olive harvest. “It’s part of a disturbing pattern of violence and harassment against journalists regardless of their nationalities,” she said.

She added that the attackers have no reason to fear consequences because Israeli authorities fail to do anything to stop the violence.

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate also condemned the attack as an “assault on press freedom” and a violation of rules protecting journalists during conflicts.

Nuha Musleh contributed reporting from Ramallah, West Bank.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump signaled Friday that his embattled new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, may be on her way out — a mere week after he picked her for the post.

Speaking to reporters on the White House lawn as he left for a rally in Georgia, Trump said he’d spoken to Zacharia and that he felt she didn’t deserve what he called negative media coverage.

Recounting what was said in that conversation, the president added, “I told her, ‘I think you’re better off being happy.’”

“We’re talking about -- I want her to have a good life. I don’t want her to have a life like she’s led the last three days,” Trump said.

He added, ”I said, ‘Katie, do you need this? I don’t think you need this.’”

The president said he’d make a final determination later, perhaps after his campaign travel, adding, “When I get back, we’re gonna talk.”

He also said, “I told Katie, in my opinion, she was treated very unfairly.”

Trump noted that Zacharia has been “brutalized by the media.”

The federal government is taking Portland to court over its recently adopted policy banning law enforcement from wearing face coverings and requiring officers to wear clear identification.

The complaint filed Thursday accuses the city of unconstitutionally enacting a law that regulates federal law enforcement.

“Laws like these impede federal law enforcement’s ability to keep Oregonians safe and endanger the brave men and women of federal law enforcement,” U.S. Attorney Scott Bradford for the District of Oregon said in a press release. “It is unfair and improper to vilify them for political purposes.”

The news comes a day after a federal appeals court struck down a California law requiring U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to show visible identification. The court ruled that the state was in violation of the Supremacy Clause, a section of the U.S. Constitution that says state law cannot override federal law.

Portland’s policy, adopted with an 8-4 vote in May, intended to protect the public from people who may impersonate a federal immigration officer (an alarming trend that had grabbed headlines earlier this year).

Councilor Sameer Kanal introduced the proposal. On Thursday, Kanal said he couldn’t comment on the litigation, but added, “We strongly believe that law enforcement officers who are easily identifiable promote transparency in their duties and strengthen trust between agencies and the communities they serve.”

Both Mayor Keith Wilson and the city’s rank-and-file police union opposed the proposal this spring, suggesting it violated labor laws and would only attract litigation.

The policy’s supporters didn’t discount the legal threat in May.

At the time, Councilor Steve Novick said he believed there was a “high likelihood” the policy would be struck down in court.

“But we do have strong legal arguments, and it’s an important cause, so I think it’s worth taking a chance that we might prevail,” Novick said, who ultimately voted to pass the policy.

Notably, the complaint doesn’t address Oregon’s new law that also bans facial coverings for law enforcement.

The Department of Justice filed a similar lawsuit against St. Paul, Minnesota, Thursday for adopting a law enforcement mask ban and identification policy in February.

The DOJ has filed similar lawsuits in New York, Virginia, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, Philadelphia, Denver and Milwaukee.

Irish author Sally Rooney has long been described as “the voice of a generation” for her best-selling novels that are ostensibly about millennial relationships but also explore deeper questions of class, gender and politics.

Now the 35-year-old writer’s books will no longer be sold in the UK because of her own closely-held political beliefs. She had promised to donate the revenues to a pro-Palestinian group that the UK has designated a terrorist organization.

In a statement this week, her publisher explained:

“Current legislation in the UK has led to circumstances where Faber cannot pass on UK earnings to Sally Rooney for her work. To sell a writer’s work and not be able to pass on earnings is an unconscionable situation for a publisher.”

“As such, and in full agreement with Sally, we have taken the decision that we can no longer supply her works in the UK in any format,” Faber said.

The move comes after Rooney — who has said she believes Israel is committing genocide in Gaza — announced last year she would be donating funds from the proceeds of her books to Palestinian Action, which was controversially banned in the U.K. under terrorism legislation.

Israel vehemently denies allegations of genocide.

UK-based Palestinian Action says on its website it uses “disruptive tactics” to target “corporate enablers of the Israeli military-industrial complex and seeks to make it impossible for these companies to profit from the oppression of Palestinians.”

It has targeted facilities linked to an Israeli weapons manufacturer and, in a major security breach, last year managed to break into Britain’s largest air force base. The activists spray-painted two aircraft at the base blood red, in what the group said was a protest against Britain’s military support for Israel.

Palestinian Action was also responsible for vandalizing one of President Trump’s golf courses in Scotland in March last year, when activists painted the course with the words “Gaza is not 4 sale.” Reacting on social media, Trump called those responsible “terrorists.”

When the British government banned the group in July last year, it said it was on the grounds that Palestinian Action is responsible for “serious damage to property.” It was the first time a terrorist designation had been given to an organization that does not call for violence against people.

“Its activity has increased in frequency and severity since the start of 2024 and its methods have become more aggressive, with its members demonstrating a willingness to use violence,” the British  government said at the time.

The government also said that the group’s “activities meet the threshold of being concerned in terrorism as set out in the Terrorism Act 2000.,” adding that it assessed “that Palestine Action commits and participates in acts of terrorism.”

Free speech concerns 

But critics questioned this assessment, saying it raised concerns about freedom of speech.

U.N. Human Rights Chief Volker Türk urged the U.K. government to rescind the decision, saying it “appears disproportionate and unnecessary.”

“It limits the rights of many people involved with and supportive of Palestine Action who have not themselves engaged in any underlying criminal activity but rather exercised their rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association,” Türk said.

Amnesty International UK also raised concerns, saying “the UK has a deeply flawed and overly broad definition of terrorism.”

Under the U.K. law, anyone who provides financial assistance to the group could face up to 14 years in prison.

For fear of arrest, Rooney says she has stopped traveling from her home in Ireland to the U.K. to attend award ceremonies and other events since the law came into force.

But the novelist has defended her support of Palestinian Action, saying in an opinion piece in The Irish Times last year: “if this makes me a ‘supporter of terror’ under UK law, so be it.”

It was in that op-ed that she announced she would use the British proceeds of her work “as well as my public platform generally, to go on supporting Palestine Action and direct action against genocide in whatever way I can.”

Now however, her books won’t be sold in Britain at all, so there will be no further proceeds.

The Normal People author was undeterred, saying in a statement shared with NPR: “I have made every effort to be honest with the public about my beliefs and intentions, and I am wholly prepared to accept the consequences.”

Since the ban on Palestinian Action, several thousand people in the UK have been arrested for supporting them, mainly for carrying placards and wearing T-shirts.

The ban has been challenged in the courts, with the UK’s high court ruling against it in February. A court of appeal later overturned that decision. Next month, the case heads to Britain’s highest court.

In August, the U.S. Department of the Treasury followed the UK’s lead in sanctioning Palestinian Action, calling them “far-left terrorists.”

In Christine Drazan’s most recent advertisement, the Republican gubernatorial candidate looks directly into the camera and promises she won’t ban abortions, she won’t cut healthcare, and she won’t let Washington, D.C. control Oregon.

The subtext: Drazan is not MAGA.

Much of the 2026 race for Oregon governor has been defined by the Democrats’ efforts to tie Drazan to President Donald Trump and his policies.

Drazan has tried to walk a fine line all Republicans running for statewide office in Oregon must overcome: To get elected, she can’t alienate her base but she must also appeal to more moderate voters who are persuadable. It’s been more than 40 years since a Republican running for governor has managed to succeed.

If elected, Drazan promised to continue enforcing the state’s sanctuary state laws. She doesn’t believe the 2020 election was rigged. And she said she believes in the integrity of vote-by-mail. All of this messaging is aimed at those moderate voters who have historically voted for Democrats but are tired of Oregon’s struggling schools, persistent housing problems and rising costs.

But mostly, Drazan has tried to pivot from Kotek’s messaging — a near constant drumbeat of pointing to the Trump administration — by focusing on Oregon’s persistent struggles under one-party rule by Democrats.

Her pitch has been fairly straightforward: The state is missing the right leadership. As House Republican Leader, Drazan wasn’t afraid to use procedural maneuvers and walkout tactics to slow the Democratic majority’s policies. As governor, she said she would improve schools, cut taxes and make the state business friendly.

For Ryan Duale, 38, who is an automotive collision repairman, in Milwaukie, Drazan’s message is resonating. Duale, who voted for Kamala Harris in 2024, said he’s still digging into Drazan’s stances on the environment. But he’s optimistic the state senator could help give the state’s economy a jump start.

“I’m tired of hearing people saying Gov. Kotek is going to fight Trump. And I didn’t vote for Trump, but I just think it’s a talking point and I don’t agree so much with what the President stands for and does, but I want to focus on what we can do,” Duale said.

Duale said he feels left behind by Democrats who appear to be veering further away from working class people.

“It’s no secret Oregon isn’t a super business-friendly state and I would love to see it thrive, because it’s such a beautiful place,” Duale said.

Duale is the type of voter Drazan is hoping to win over.

Kotek, who is seeking a second four-year term, is not polling well. She’s almost as unpopular in the state as Trump. All public polling so far in the race has suggested it’s nearly deadlocked. The most recent polls suggest Kotek is gaining slightly more momentum.

Drazan and Kotek are familiar political opponents. Drazan was the Republican nominee in 2022, when she lost to Kotek in a rare three-person race that included former state Sen. Betsy Johnson. The two served overlapping tenures in the state Legislature. Drazan was House Republican Leader while Kotek was House Speaker.

In one of her behind-the-scenes videos posted on YouTube, Drazan enters a classic Northeast Portland home in Irvington where a couple who described themselves as “mostly lifelong Democrats” hosted the state senator and perfectly echoed her talking points.

“Considering changing parties and voting patterns is not an easy thing to do,” said Harry Bray, who co-hosted the party with his wife.

“We think [Drazan] is something special. We heard her speak before,” he said on the video. “Her vision is clear and being loyal Oregonians, we felt at a time like this, one needs to think of change.”

Drazan couldn’t have said it better herself.

Whether there are enough Harry Brays to win the governorship remains unclear,

OPB recently sat down with Drazan to talk about her vision for another term. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

In the last four years since you last did this, since you last ran for governor, what would you say is your most significant policy achievement?

I’ve been back for one session and I would say that in that session, it was a session that was dedicated primarily to that gas tax conversation. I am incredibly proud of the work that’s been done over time around wildfire response and homeless youth and a range of other policy issues that I’ve been engaged in and care deeply about. But in that last session that I was in the house, I would say having the ability to be able to stand up on behalf of Oregonians and ensure that a very, very, very expensive, unaffordable gas tax didn’t actually pass through the legislative session is something that I’m actually proud of, which is kind of a backwards and upside down thing to be proud of. But the responsibility fell to me and to our caucus to do that in the house, and we really didn’t have an alternative to that.

Here’s a question I know you’ve been getting a lot. I think that there are Democratically-leaning voters who are considering voting for you, but they are reluctant because they are worried about what your response will be to the federal administration. I’m sure you’ve heard that over and over. So let’s go through some of those. Let’s start with SNAP benefits and healthcare. The federal H.R. 1 bill would slash both of those benefits for low income Oregonians. Is that something that you stand behind, H.R. 1 in general, and what is your response to seeing Oregonians lose their food benefits?

I think it’s important to kind of level set a little bit from my side of how I look at these issues. I was raised in a family that was dependent on food stamps, and the social safety net is really, really important to Oregon families. It was important to my family, and I do not take lightly any changes to these programs. They are federal programs that have a state partnership level to them, and for SNAP in particular, that program has always included a work requirement, and they’re now taking a keen eye to what Oregon’s error rate looks like for SNAP benefits. Oregon needs to be accountable with its money, and so we are delayed in having any impact from how bad our error rates are because our error rates are so bad we’re actually being given sort of a safe harbor period to fix it. But for the federal government to demand that states that are implementing a fully federal program where we don’t actually have the kind of match in SNAP we do for administration, but not for match the way we do for Medicaid, for them to say you need to use that money wisely so that the most vulnerable citizens have access to it, I think is fair.

Democrats have spent a lot of money calling you MAGA. They’ve basically based a lot of their campaign on that. Are you MAGA?

I’m Christine Drazan, an Oregon Republican. I have been in politics in Oregon in one capacity or another since I was fresh out of college. I am not new to public service and I certainly am my own person. I always think the thing about the sort of quick and easy limit who you are as a person and give you a label is intended to divide us. I’m tired of being divided, period. I’m sick of it. I think it’s beneath Oregonians. I don’t think that it’s what most Oregonians want for themselves and their relationships at work or in their neighborhoods. I think that people are tired of feeling like we’re all opposing each other all the time. We’re not at war with each other. We’re fellow Oregonians. We all want this place to be better. We love living here. And so for my part, I talk about it all the time.

I am my own person and I have held my own party accountable and I have held the Democrats accountable in equal measure. As governor, I will serve the people of this state no matter who’s in the White House and no matter what brand of Republican comes out next. A few years ago it was the Tea Party. There’s always something.

One thing on your record that I’m a little unclear on is vote by mail, which is another topic that is big at the national level, obviously. You supported a bill that would have made in-person voting the default. Let’s just kind of dig into your stance on vote-by-mail because I have seen you also say that you are not opposed to vote-by-mail, but there’s been a little bit of conflicting information. You voted by mail for years.

So I also voted to make every mailbox a ballot box. I voted for paid postage and Tina Kotek voted against it.

That bill [you sponsored] that would’ve made vote by mail a default also included getting rid of the paid postage. So that’s where I get a little bit confused.

I’m going to chalk that up too at drafting error … I still stand by paid postage. But let’s talk about vote-by-mail. When I was a staff person in the Legislature, that’s when vote-by-mail was instituted. Republicans had control. They thought vote-by-mail would serve their communities and everybody across the state. Regardless of whether you could still vote, you didn’t have to brave ice storms in Eastern Oregon, you could still vote. And so that’s my background on vote-by-mail is an appreciation for how it makes voting easier. And since that time, I know Oregonians love vote-by-mail. Now, fast-forward all the way to 2024. So when we’re in the 2024 election cycle, we find out that part of the state never received ballots. The Postal Service didn’t deliver ballots to, I think, Curry County. I was the minority leader and serving on the rules committee.

The Postal Service never gave an answer for why or how that happened. And so I started to get curious and try to understand what’s happening to voting. I found out that there was a city in Douglas County that asked people not to put their ballots in the mail because someone had stolen a key to their post office and they didn’t feel like it was going to be safe. All of these little random things happening. Along the way, we found that the Postal Service, as it gets less and less stable financially and more and more frail because fewer people send their bills out by mail, fewer people send holiday cards, and this is an agency that’s constantly struggling to balance its own budget. In Oregon in particular, they changed how they function here. So we now have one sorting facility. It’s in Portland. That means our mail from all over our state once a day goes to Portland, may or may not be postmarked locally, might not be postmarked till it gets to Portland, might not be postmarked at all, and then it comes back to their counties for counting.

We also know that they don’t pick up mail as often if you’re outside of a 50 mile range of the Portland sorting facility. So if you’re within 50 miles of the sorting facility, you get mail pickup twice a day, regular routine like you’ve always experienced. Everybody else, it’s less consistent now, less reliable now. They did a test. They mailed two pieces of mail from the rural and remote parts of the state. One of them went up and back within four days. The other one went up and back within 11. We’re talking about inconsistency across the system with the changes that have happened in the postal service. So in the same year that I did a bill to say vote by mail or voting in person would be the preferred avenue, I also did a bill that was to study the impacts of the changes in the postal service on voting in Oregon.

So if you were elected governor, what would voting look like for Oregonians?

It wouldn’t change. I’m not the secretary of state, but I do think it’s important that all Oregonians pay attention to whether or not voting in our state is as stable as we believe. I think that there’s no system that’s perfect and that we should always be paying attention to the details and we should always be trying to perpetually improve and strengthen. My interest is as an all approach to voting. If somebody loves to vote by mail, then they have that option. If somebody would rather vote in person, if that would give them more confidence, I don’t know why they’d be prohibited from doing that. Right now we don’t have that. Oh, there’s only one kind of voting that we can do in the state of Oregon. I think that that makes some people feel disenfranchised. I want everybody to feel like their vote’s going to be counted and their vote is going to make a difference.

OPB: I’ll ask this one quickly because I think it’s the last one in this vein of sort of responding to what’s happening on the national stage. In the primary, I think you sent out mailers that were very clear that you were pro-life. And I think that that’s something that, again, we’re hearing from those voters who are sort of on the fence. What changes with reproductive healthcare if Senator Drazan is elected governor?

No, I appreciate this question because it’s so personal. Obviously I have come to my views in this regard because I’m a person of faith and other people arrive at their views about abortion and their choices there based on a different set of factors. And I respect the distinctions and the differences. And I think it’s important that women know that I respect them and that I would hope that we could respect each other and that there’s a way to approach this issue that allows for people to have differences of opinion. And I think that that’s healthy and not everybody lives the same kind of life. Not everybody has the same kind of values. And so I suppose I start this conversation recognizing, and I also know this, I am in the deep minority in my conscience-related perspective on this for myself. And also any changes on this issue at all would have to come through a Democrat majority in the Legislature.

I don’t know how a DSA increasingly left Legislature in Salem is going to suddenly choose to change their perspective on abortion in the state of Oregon. And those are just sort of the civics lessons and the functional reality of shared power is balanced power. It means that there are things that I will be able to do as governor and there are things that the Legislature has responsibility to do through the legislative branch.

That is what we’re talking about when we’re talking about abortion. It would have to originate with the Legislature to come to me to the governor’s desk. And so as people look at their legislators and they look at the balance that’s in the state Legislature right now, I really think it’s incredibly highly unlikely that anything comes to me. But I also think it’s important to say I have never supported a ban on abortion and that perspective and that language is always intended to be incendiary and it’s never been accurate. And at the same time, I’ve never been ashamed of having my own morals and values on this issue for myself. And I certainly am not going to start sort of reevaluating my own points of conscience just because I’m running for governor, but it’s important that people know that I respect their perspective and I am not a person of faith to impose my faith on someone else.

I’ve adopted a faith to define how I live my life, not how you live yours.

Good morning, Northwest.

Three children and one teacher died in a shooting at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend yesterday afternoon. The suspected shooter also died at the scene at the hands of a bystander, according to police.

Schools in the Bend-La Pine district are closed today, and all activities and athletic events are canceled as the community grieves.

Today’s newsletter focuses on OPB’s coverage from Bend, starting with last night’s vigil for victims in Drake Park. OPB will continue to report this story throughout the day, which you can follow here.

— Bradley W. Parks

Top story

Bend reels after 3 children, 1 teacher killed in school shooting

People gathered to share songs and prayer at a vigil in Drake Park in Bend hours after yesterday’s deadly shooting at Silver Rail Elementary School.

A total of five people, including the suspected shooter, died at the school earlier Thursday.

A dozen local clergy members were among the first to arrive at the park’s amphitheater last night, circling together for prayer. Then more people arrived. Individuals, families, friends, strangers, adults and children.

Hundreds of people filled the park as the sky fell into darkness. They held candles and huddled together, filling the air with hymns – a tight-knit community, coming together to mourn. (Emily Cureton Cook, Jireh Deng, Joni Auden Land, Troy Brynelson and Courtney Sherwood)

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4 things to know

• Officials confirmed three children — ages 5, 8 and 11 — are dead. A teacher died as well. A 7-year-old and 54-year-old were treated at St. Charles Medical Center in Bend.
• The suspected shooter, a 16-year-old boy whom officials have not identified, used a “long gun,” a category of firearm that includes rifles and shotguns, during the attack. His connection to the school — if any — wasn’t clear.
• A bystander who saw the 16-year-old suspected shooter enter Silver Rail Elementary School followed him, confronted and fatally shot him, Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz said during a press conference yesterday.
• Bend-La Pine Schools canceled classes districtwide today, including scheduled activities and athletic events.

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NEW DELHI — Thousands of Indians thronged a bustling thoroughfare in the heart of the capital, waving the national flag and demanding the resignation of the country’s election chief, the latest show of public dissent against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.

The protesters rallied in Connaught Place, one of New Delhi’s busiest commercial districts, responding to a call by the youth “Cockroach” movement, whose leader Abhijeet Dipke was detained by police ahead of the demonstration. Protesters spanning generations joined the rally, reflecting broad public anger and intensifying pressure on the country’s top election official.

Protests by the youth and opposition parties have intensified over an ongoing review of voter lists that has removed more than 130 million names since last year. Critics say the exercise is politically motivated, threatens to disenfranchise millions more, and has disproportionately affected minorities, particularly Muslims. They have demanded the resignation of election chief Gyanesh Kumar.

The Election Commission and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration deny the allegations and say the revision is intended to remove duplicate and ineligible entries.

Friday’s protest was part of a growing campaign that has put Modi’s government under pressure and comes a week after a police crackdown on protesters in New Delhi.

The demonstrators vastly outnumbered the security personnel lining the road, while columns of riot police stood watch.

Police had earlier asked people not to join the rally and offered to let a small group gather to wave the national flag and sing the national anthem. In anticipation of the protests, authorities also closed Central Park, a green space surrounded by Connaught Place’s white colonial-era buildings, on Friday and Saturday.

Modi has not publicly commented on the protests. Some of his party leaders have dismissed the demonstrators as “anarchists” and suggested, without offering evidence, that they are backed by foreign powers.

Police detained Dipke, the founder of the “Cockroach” movement, ahead of the demonstrations. He had urged supporters unable to travel to New Delhi to raise the flag and demonstrate in their own communities.

A live video posted on the movement’s Instagram account showed Dipke leaving a house and heading toward the street, where police officers intercepted him. After a brief exchange, officers hauled him into a police vehicle and drove away.

“Waving the tricolor (Indian flag) is not a crime,” he told reporters Thursday.

The “Cockroach” movement began as an online satirical campaign this summer after India’s chief justice compared unemployed young people to parasites. Many young Indians embraced the remark, adopting the cockroach as a symbol of resilience. It has since expanded into a nationwide protest movement of young people. Protests led by the group forced the resignation of Modi’s education minister in July, a rare setback for the prime minister, who has been in power for more than 12 years.

It remains unclear whether the protests will grow into a wider political movement. Modi’s government remains electorally strong, and anger over voter lists may not necessarily translate into support for the opposition, which has used the issue to criticize his Hindu nationalist government.

Three children and a teacher are dead in Bend after a 16-year-old with a long gun shot them at Silver Rail Elementary School, police said Thursday. The suspected shooter, who has not been identified, is also dead. Police said a community member shot the alleged assailant after seeing him enter the school.

Another child, age 7, and a teacher are being treated at St. Charles Medical Center Bend. The children who died have not been identified, but police said they were 5, 8 and 11 years old.

Live blog covering shooting at Silver Rail Elementary School

According to Bend police, initial calls reported that an unknown man had shot into a car at the school, where more than 400 students are enrolled. Subsequent 911 callers said somebody had entered the school and started shooting.

“Our officers were on scene at approximately 1:02 p.m. Seconds later we received word over the radio that the suspect in this incident was down,” Sheila Miller with the Bend Police Department said at a media briefing.

“I heard what I thought was gunshots,” said Erin Johnson, who was visiting her parents next door to the school. “Then my neighbor began to scream shortly thereafter — her kids go to school there, at Silver Rail. Then I heard the police coming in.”

Johnson was able to confirm that her neighbor’s children are OK, but said she mourned for the community. “It’s heartbreaking. I don’t know any details right now about who was injured. But they’re babies.”

Hundreds of parents and other community members flocked to Bend’s Journey Church, where officials set up a reunification center, as news of the shooting spread.

Bend police said law enforcement officers took hours to clear the school as they moved from classroom to classroom. Officials said they expect a heavy law enforcement presence to remain at the school for the indefinite future.

Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek said in a statement that she’s carefully monitoring the situation, and said she’d share more as she learns more. The Republican candidate for governor, state Sen. Christine Drazan, expressed horror at the incident and said she is praying for those affected.

“We are stunned and heartbroken by this senseless tragedy,” said Bend-La Pine Schools Superintendent Steven Cook. “Our immediate priorities are caring for our students and staff and assisting law enforcement and emergency responders.”

All classes in the Bend-La Pine school district are canceled Friday.

Deschutes County is assembling mental health professionals to support children and the broader community in the aftermath of the shooting, commissioner Phil Chang told OPB by text message. Local clergy have planned a vigil for 7 p.m. Thursday at the city’s Drake Park.

This story was written by Courtney Sherwood with reporting from Emily Cureton Cook in Bend, Joni Auden Land, Troy Brynelson, Jen Baires and other OPB staff.

5:30 p.m. — A bystander who saw the 16-year-old suspected shooter enter Silver Rail Elementary School followed him, confronted and fatally shot him, officials said during a press conference Thursday.

Officials confirmed three children — ages 5, 8 and 11 — are dead. A teacher died, as well. A 7-year-old and 54-year-old were hospitalized, officials said.

The details emerged during a press conference at Bend City Hall hours after the attack.

The suspected shooter, who officials have not identified, used a “long gun” during the attack, a category of firearm that includes rifles and shotguns. His connection to the school — if any — wasn’t clear.

The incident unfolded in the early afternoon. At 12:59 p.m., a person in a vehicle called 911 to report being shot at multiple times.

A dozen 911 calls quickly followed reporting that a “shooter had entered the building” of the elementary school, according to Bend Police Department Chief Mike Krantz. Dispatchers alerted law enforcement at 1 p.m.

The school went into lockdown at 1:01 p.m., Krantz said. He said the suspected shooter gained access to the school by firing at locked doors. It wasn’t clear where in the school he went before being killed.

The first officers arrived at 1:02 p.m., Krantz said.

“Moments later, an officer reported that the suspect had been shot by a community member who had seen the suspect enter the school, and pursued him into the school and engaged him,” Krantz told media.

The identity of the bystander was not immediately clear.

Officers then confirmed the suspect’s death, cleared the scene, and ultimately confirmed the fatalities, Krantz said.

5:15 p.m. — The suspect in a Thursday shooting at a Bend elementary school was a minor, four sources confirmed to OPB.

All four individuals who spoke to OPB are law enforcement sources with knowledge of the investigation. One of those sources said the suspected shooter, who died at the scene, was 16 years old.

It remains unclear what motivated the attack and how the suspected shooter was killed.

The sources also confirmed that one adult is among those killed, bringing the total number of fatalities to five. That includes the previously reported three children and the suspected shooter.

All four sources requested anonymity because the information has not yet been made public.

4:10 p.m. — Three children were killed in Thursday’s shooting at a Bend elementary school, three sources confirmed to OPB.

Police said earlier Thursday that the suspected shooter was killed at the scene. The total number of fatalities and injuries have not been officially confirmed by law enforcement.

All three sources OPB spoke to were close to the law enforcement investigation and requested anonymity because the information had not yet been made public.

A press briefing is set for 5:30 p.m.

2:45 p.m. — Sheila Miller, a spokesperson for the Bend Police Department, told reporters at the scene that the shooting suspect was fatally shot.

Details about the suspected shooter’s death remained unclear, but Miller said that the suspect was “possibly” shot by a bystander.

Miller said that emergency dispatchers first received calls around 12:59 p.m. The caller reported a shot fired into a vehicle near Silver Rail Elementary School.

Officers first arrived around 1:02 p.m., Miller said. The shooter reportedly had entered the school and begun shooting.

First responders transported at least two people to an area hospital. Their conditions remain unclear, according to Miller.

2:20 p.m. — A Bend Police Department spokesperson confirmed multiple victims at Silver Rail Elementary School, including children.

According to the spokesperson, the status of the victims wasn’t yet clear. The spokesperson confirmed that the shooting suspect has died.

2:02 p.m. — Police in Bend said Thursday afternoon that they’re responding to reports of an active shooting at Silver Rail Elementary School.

The Bend-La Pine School District said on social media Thursday that there was an active lockdown at the school, and that police were on the scene.

A press release issued this afternoon says there is a large police presence in the area. The public should avoid the area.

Multiple law enforcement agencies are on the scene, according to law enforcement officials, including the Oregon State Police and local agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Further details have not been released.

Gen Z Americans were a key part of President Trump’s winning coalition in 2024. Nearly two years later — and with early voting underway in multiple states for the midterms — some of that youth support has faded.

That sentiment was on display in a focus group, conducted last week, of eight Generation Z Trump voters, who reported varying degrees of unhappiness and disappointment over the state of politics, with some going as far as to say they regret supporting Trump in 2024.

The conversation was conducted virtually by Navigator Research, a left-leaning polling group. Participants ranged in age from 20 to 29 and spanned five states: Florida, Mississippi, Ohio, Texas and South Carolina — places Trump won by double digits in the last election. Two of those states, Texas and Ohio, are home to competitive races that could be key to control of the Senate.

For participants who now regret their vote for Trump, much of their frustration centers on what they see as a string of failed promises. When asked to give the president’s job performance a letter grade, a majority of participants, 6 out of 8, assigned him a grade of either D or F, while two selected C.

“I just feel like nothing went correctly. I just feel like everything got worse,” said John, a 29-year-old Black man from Florida. (Participants agreed to be part of the focus group on the condition that they be identified by only their first names.)

John, who identifies as a Republican and has voted for Trump since 2016, gave the president an F and said he now plans to support Democratic candidates this fall, in large part because of the strain he has felt from rising costs.

“I’m willing to give the other side a chance,” he added. “I don’t think they’re going to make a total change. But things are just horrible right now for me. So I feel like even if they make one or two small changes, it will probably benefit me.”

Though the focus group is not a nationally representative survey, the frustrations shared by participants echoed Navigator polling released in August, which found that nearly a third of Gen Zers — those under age 30 — regret voting for Trump, higher than older generations do.

Trump’s rising unpopularity among young voters isn’t in a vacuum. He has also lost ground with other key groups that shifted right in 2024, notably independents and Latino voters — and in a year when the Republican Party is facing political headwinds, it’s unclear whether that expanded coalition from two years ago can show up at the same strength now.

Shifting toward Democrats, or not

While some voters, like John in Florida, do feel compelled to vote blue this cycle in response to Trump, 4 of the 8 who took part in the focus group said they still planned to back Republicans this year. Three said they’d vote for Democrats; one participant said she was still deciding.

Matthew, a 25-year-old Black man living in Texas, said he doesn’t regret his support for the president and gave him a C grade.

“I feel like he’s done a really good job closing the border,” he said. “I also do appreciate his efforts in trying to end some of the conflicts that began under the last administration, besides the fact that the Iran conflict hasn’t really worked the best, from my perspective.”

He plans to vote in the midterm elections and argued that Trump will be able to carry out more of his agenda if Republicans can secure a larger majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, although national polls indicate that the GOP is more likely to lose seats.

But enthusiasm is a different question.

Courtney, a 20-year-old white woman based in South Carolina, said she doesn’t regret her vote for Trump in 2024 and overall aligns with Republicans, but she did admit she has grown more distrustful of both major political parties, particularly on foreign policy.

“I just really do feel like we would be in this situation either way. … Education, the economy, everything else would be so much better if we weren’t pumping money out into other countries that aren’t ours,” she said, referring to U.S. aid for Israel and the decision to go to war with Iran.

“I don’t think it matters what side you vote on — that’s why I voted red, because I agree with those policies more — but at the end of the day, what we do in the Middle East is going to be not at all up to [the] party [in power],” she said during the focus group.

That sense of political disaffection may underscore a growing challenge for both Republicans and Democrats moving forward as both try to repair ties with this generation.

“As we see people regret their vote for Trump, sour on the Republican Party and Republican policies, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re swinging right over to Democrats,” said Melissa Toufanian, the managing director at Navigator.

Toufanian points to Navigator’s own polling, which has found that even as the GOP has lost trust on economic issues, “it’s not a one-for-one with Democrats gaining that trust.”

“A lot of people are moving to this middle, this category that ‘I don’t trust either party,’” she said. “We are seeing people who are becoming increasingly pessimistic about our political parties and our political system, and they’re not feeling strongly that either party can really deliver for them.”

President Trump has famously pushed the bounds of executive power since he returned to the White House.

In arguments Friday before a federal appeals court in Washington, administration lawyers will make an especially bold claim: that papers created in the White House belong to Donald Trump, not to the American people. The move comes amid a series of actions under Trump’s second term to test the limits put in place after the Watergate scandal, and could be another case that ends up at the conservative-leaning Supreme Court.

Six months ago, the Justice Department moved to invalidate the Presidential Records Act, a federal law in place since 1978. Conservative lawyer Michael Edney cast the move in a long line of other attempts to pare back statutes from that era.

“This is a story about a post-Watergate, overbroad statutory incursion into the prerogatives of the executive branch,” Edney said in a recent webinar sponsored by the Federalist Society.

For some 200 years, presidents could decide for themselves what to do with the papers they created in office, until disputes with Richard Nixon prompted Congress to weigh in. Every president since then has complied with the records law, until this year.

“The Presidential Records Act is unconstitutional and a clear violation of the separation of powers,” said White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis.

The White House’s reinterpretation of the act comes after Trump was indicted on obstruction of justice charges for allegedly stockpiling classified documents in a bathroom, ballroom and office at his Mar-a-Lago resort. A federal judge threw out the case for technical reasons, related to the appointment of the prosecutor, and the Justice Department ultimately dropped the case after Trump won reelection.

Question about the public’s right to papers

Nikhel Sus is chief counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group that sued over the Trump move.

“If the courts were to accept it, and we are hopeful that they will not, it would mean the people really have no right of access to the president’s papers and that would be a major loss for archivists, historians and to the American people writ large,” Sus said.

Senior U.S. District Judge John Bates, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, ruled against the Trump White House this year, in a decision that opened with a passage from George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984: “Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past,” the judge wrote.

Three judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will consider the issue on Friday.

The Trump administration said in court papers that keeping all those records imposes a burden on the White House and that it could chill advisers from having honest conversations with the president.

Continuity of government

But former government officials say being able to consult these papers is essential.

“Access to the records on national security issues of former presidents is really vital for the continuity of our government,” said John Bellinger, who served as legal adviser to the National Security Council under George W. Bush.

Bellinger said he and other members of Bush’s staff sometimes requested the papers of President Bill Clinton, to understand conversations Clinton had with world leaders and members of Congress.

“Often the only record of what a president has said to a foreign leader — or perhaps even more important, what a foreign leader, friend or foe, has said to the president of the United States — is in a written document,” Bellinger said.

To not be able to see those papers, he said, will leave future presidents at a “terrible disadvantage.”

Edney, who also worked for Bush’s National Security Council and Justice Department, said he believed that Congress could probably pass a “thoughtful” records preservation statute. He said parts of the current Presidential Records Act that provide Congress with automatic access and presume the records will be publicly disclosed are “constitutionally problematic.”

Edney said he has some doubts about whether the watchdog groups suing to challenge Trump’s move actually have legal standing to proceed.

But the Trump administration appears to have breezed past those concerns, because they have a higher goal in mind.

“They want this to go to the Supreme Court,” Edney said. “I think they want this resolved at a time of their choosing, with arguments of their choosing, and a court of their choosing, and with the Solicitor General’s office that’s making their arguments, as opposed to a subsequent administration.”

The FBI and U.S. Postal Inspection Service are looking into a series of suspicious mailings sent to state election officials and congressional offices. Officials say some of the mailings contained a powdery white substance.

It is not clear who sent the mail, which was sent to election officials in states including Louisiana, Ohio and Oklahoma as well as congressional offices. According to a statement from Louisiana Secretary of State spokesperson Trey Williams, an employee who opened a letter sent to the office on Tuesday was not injured but was taken to the emergency room as a precaution. Law enforcement found no evidence of harmful substances.

In a statement to NPR, Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., said his office was among those targeted.

“My office is in touch with the FBI, U.S. Postal Service and Senate security officials following a suspicious package the U.S. Postal Service intercepted before reaching our office. Thankfully, no threat was posed to my staff or our office,” Padilla said.

“Still, this incident is a stark reminder of the very real dangers facing those who serve the public and who help administer our elections in the face of increasingly hostile political rhetoric — especially from Donald Trump,” he added.

According to a communication from the Senate’s Sergeant at Arms (SAA) to congressional staff and obtained by NPR, law enforcement officials are “working to intercept any additional letters before they are delivered, however, it is possible that some letters may reach their destinations.”

Deputy Chief Inspector Brendan Donahue of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service says that the organization was able to stop the delivery of at least one of the mailings.

“Some of the letters have contained an unknown substance, and we’re working closely with our law enforcement partners to respond to each incident,” Donahue said.

The SAA’s note to staff said that all suspicious letters, packages or substances “should be treated as potentially hazardous and handled in accordance with established safety protocols,” and warned staff not to handle suspicious letters and leave the area where they are discovered.

The note said the mail could be indicated by discoloration, powder emanating from the envelope and postmarks that do not match the return address. An image included in the communication had a return address labeled “DSA” and a New York City return address.

The U.S. Capitol Police and SAA did not return requests for comment. The FBI said that the organization is “investigating a series of suspicious mailings sent to various addresses nationwide, including Secretary of State offices and their related election offices.”

“Some of the letters contained an unknown substance and we are working closely with our law enforcement partners to respond to each incident,” the agency said. “We are also working with our partners to identify the individual or individuals responsible for the letters.”

The investigation mirrors 2024 incidents in which more than 15 state election offices received suspicious mailings.

Now, with less than three weeks until Nov. 3, voting officials around the country are working to carry out the midterm elections. In a statement, the National Association of Secretaries of State and the National Association of State Election Directors said that “those who administer our elections should never fear for their safety while carrying out their essential duties.”

LOS ANGELES — After 44 years, the Milwaukee Brewers are finally going back to the World Series.

Propelled by a lockdown bullpen and repeated comebacks, the young and fearless Brewers swept the two-time defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers out of the playoffs Thursday with a 6-4 victory in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series.

“We weren’t coming in to play patty-cake,” manager Pat Murphy said. “We were hungry, and as long as it’s an even playing field, we’re going to come in and give it our best shot to win. That’s exactly what we did.”

Garrett Mitchell hit a go-ahead homer in the sixth inning and Milwaukee’s brilliant relievers slammed the door late, giving a vocal contingent of Brewers fans their chance to celebrate in the Dodger Stadium stands.

Now, the Brewers get an opportunity to win their first title after topping the majors with 103 wins during the regular season. Milwaukee has a week off before hosting Cleveland or Tampa Bay in the World Series opener on Oct. 23.

“I’m excited that we’ve got a few more games to play and get to go home with the fans and celebrate there, too,” Mitchell said.

Shohei Ohtani’s first home run this postseason helped put the Dodgers ahead 4-0 in the second inning before the Brewers came back to complete a four-game sweep.

No. 9 hitter David Hamilton’s two-out solo shot off Edwin Díaz gave Milwaukee a two-run cushion in the ninth. Hamilton had just four homers in the regular season.

“We got down early tonight and we were like, it’s going to be a great story,” Brewers captain Christian Yelich said. “We’re going to come back and win this. Like, stay together, start chipping away. And that’s exactly what they did.”

Aaron Ashby pitched three scoreless innings for a save as the Brewers won their first NL pennant and second overall. Milwaukee was in the American League when the franchise made its only previous World Series appearance in 1982, a seven-game loss to the St. Louis Cardinals.

The Dodgers’ goal of a three-peat — not done since the New York Yankees from 1998-2000 and never by a National League team — died with their anemic offense and injuries to Ohtani and others on their aging roster.

“I’m not used to those consolation speeches,” manager Dave Roberts said. “Those guys played flawless. You got to sometimes tip your cap.”

Milwaukee became the first major league club to finish a postseason sweep after getting swept by that same opponent in the previous postseason. Los Angeles took all four NLCS games against Milwaukee last season.

“They may have a bunch of Hall of Famers, but we’ve got a bunch of gamers — and the gamers won this week,” Murphy said.

“I think the Dodgers figured out that we came in here with a little different attitude this year.”

The Brewers also are the first team to sweep a best-of-seven postseason series in which it trailed in every game.

“There was never a doubt in that dugout what was going to happen tonight. We knew we were going to win that game,” said first baseman Jake Bauers, the NLCS MVP.

With the score tied 4-all, Mitchell fell behind 0-2 before reliever Tanner Scott threw three straight balls for a full count. Mitchell’s 409-foot leadoff drive to center field — the first homer of his career on an 0-2 count — put the Brewers ahead for the first time. Mitchell also homered in their 6-2 victory Wednesday.

“It’s absolutely surreal,” Mitchell said. “You talk about the battle-tested Brewers. We went down early and the belief in that dugout got stronger and stronger.”

The Brewers’ bullpen coolly turned away multiple threats when the Dodgers had the potential tying run on base.

Winning pitcher JoJo Romero struck out Max Muncy with Kyle Tucker at third to end the sixth.

With one out in the seventh and a runner on third, Ashby struck out Ohtani swinging before Mookie Betts grounded out to end the inning. Will Smith doubled to right with one out in the eighth and was safe at third when the ball got away from Sal Frelick for an error before Ashby got Tucker to fly out and Teoscar Hernández to strike out.

“Playing with that chip on our shoulder,” Ashby said. “You don’t ever know what to expect going into a series like that last year (against the Dodgers). You don’t know how bad it can be, and then it was as bad as it was. And we came out and we survived, and we came back this year, and those guys played their tails off.”

The Brewers tied it in the fifth, when the Dodgers bullpen issued four walks and Milwaukee stole two bases. Hamilton’s single chased starter Tyler Glasnow and scored Frelick, who walked and stole second, to pull Milwaukee to 4-3.

Alex Vesia came in and promptly walked Brice Turang and William Contreras to load the bases. Vesia then walked Bauers with two outs to force in Hamilton with the tying run.

Glasnow retired his first 10 batters — six on strikeouts — before the Brewers got to him in the fourth. Turang walked, Contreras hit a ground-rule double and Bauers followed with another ground-rule double that closed Milwaukee to 4-2.

Ohtani broke out of his postseason slump with a three-run homer after Andy Pages’ RBI single in the second. The four-time MVP released weeks of pent-up frustration by raising his arms and yelling and the crowd of 49,104 joined him in celebration.

But the Brewers wouldn’t be denied. And when it was over, owner Mark Attanasio thought of Milwaukee’s longtime owner and beloved late broadcaster.

“It’s so important for the community, the entire state of Wisconsin,” Attanasio said. “We’re standing on shoulders of Bud Selig and Bob Uecker.”

Gov. Tina Kotek does not share Oregonians’ dim view of her last four years.

Polling shows a majority of voters don’t like where the state is heading, and a similar number don’t have a positive impression of the governor. Even some allies have scratched their heads at her first term.

Kotek’s explanation? She hasn’t marketed herself well enough.

“I’ll be honest, I’ve probably done a subpar job talking about what we have been doing and so people don’t know,” Kotek told OPB in an Oct. 6 interview. “I’ve had my nose to the grindstone looking down, working on the job and trying to get sure we can have the outcomes we want.”

A former nonprofit advocate who rose to prominence as the state’s longest-serving House speaker, Kotek took office in 2023 pledging major movement on Oregon’s biggest problems. She is convinced progress is beginning to show as she wraps up her fourth year in Mahonia Hall.

Oregon is on track to produce fewer units of housing this year than when Kotek assumed office, but the numbers are now trending upward. The state’s schools continue to post some of the bleakest testing outcomes in the nation, but Kotek points to recent, modest improvement. Billions spent to better serve houseless Oregonians are showing results in some parts of the state, even as homelessness has appeared to grow statewide.

Meanwhile, the state’s economy has lagged, prompting Kotek to switch her focus toward wooing business in the last 10 months.

“I’ve learned in this first term the wheels of change are probably a little slower than I am happy with,” she said in an interview from Medford. “We need to work harder to continue to make that progress for folks.”

Kotek has also spent much of the last two years parrying policies handed down from the administration of President Donald Trump – from attempts to send National Guard troops into Portland, to aggressive immigration enforcement, to changes that will deny federal food and health benefits to some Oregonians.

Trump’s impact has Kotek betting voters will opt to stay the course rather than yank the steering wheel of the state by electing Republican state Sen. Christine Drazan.

The Democrat’s strategy is based more on talking up the transgressions of the president – possibly the only high-profile politician less popular in Oregon – than her own success. And her plan relies on voters like Carol Hickman.

Hickman, a 60-year-old who cares for her elderly mother in Grants Pass, has spent most of her life in Oregon. These days she’s not happy with what she sees.

“I feel like we have great hearts in this state,” the nonaffiliated voter and self-described moderate recently told OPB. “But we keep misusing money, and I’m deeply frustrated by that.”

Hickman says she’s watched homelessness explode, basic road maintenance go undone, and state funds dumped into nonprofits that don’t deliver. As a result, she is one of roughly 60% of likely voters who told OPB in a recent poll they have a negative impression of the governor.

But that won’t matter much when Hickman’s ballot arrives.

“I’m feeling defeated at the moment,” she said, “but I will only vote for Kotek.”

Hickman says her vote is “100%” based on opposing Trump, who’s not on any ballot this year, but whose policies she says have put her health plan at risk. “My soul is gutted,” she said.

Hickman is far from alone in not loving her options. In a recent OPB poll of 915 likely voters, 47% said they are likely to vote for the governor on Nov. 3. But fewer than 80% of those voters said they have a favorable impression of Kotek.

Robert Lindstrom, a nonaffiliated voter from Eugene who identifies as liberal, told OPB he’s been dismayed to see the governor put forward “radical left” policies that he feels are aimed at pleasing her political base and not the state as a whole.

Democratic tendencies he views as soft on crime are one reason the retired electrician refuses to visit Portland anymore. But it’s Trump’s impact on national politics that has so dismayed Lindstrom that he says he may move out of the country.

Before he goes, the 59-year-old plans to vote Kotek.

“I remember being the working class,” Lindstrom said, adding that Democratic policies are often better for laborers like him. “So I will vote for the Democrat, even though I think they are pushing too far.”

OPB recently sat down with Kotek to talk about her vision for another term. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

What’s the greatest accomplishment of your first term?

There’s no one thing. I’m very proud of the work we’ve done in education: Investing in early literacy early on, three consecutive summers of literacy-focused summer programming – very important. While we can also talk about adequacy, we have provided more certainty and stability. And the other things: stopping the bleeding on instructional time and banning cell phones.

All those things come together. We’re seeing better numbers and graduation rates are up. As a whole, very proud of the work we’re doing on education. But like anything, we’re not done. These problems didn’t come in overnight. They’re not going to be solved in one term, but we are making progress. There is momentum.

I would also add housing to that. We’ve been trying to get more housing into production and we are finally seeing some really strong numbers in terms of our housing starts compared to the rest of the country. Every part of this country is dealing with high interest rates and supply chain and costs in construction, but we are up 11% since the beginning of last year and our housing starts where most of the country is down or flat. So our work is making things happen and so we have to stay on that.

And then we can talk about homelessness and mental health and addiction. But in each of these areas that I promised to work on, we have seen progress and we’ve put building blocks in place that I think are going to show more progress over time. And I don’t want that to be interrupted by someone who can’t work across the aisle, who doesn’t have the budget background that I have. We need a governor like me who can continue to move that progress forward so people can have what they need in the state and we can have the best schools and better paying jobs so people who can afford to live here.

We’ve heard you say a lot: “We have seeded the ground for progress. The things we are doing will make a difference.” Voters are probably not seeing or feeling that progress. What are you promising if you get another four years?

I’m impatient as well as everyone else. We have to be persistent and things do take time. If anything, I’ve learned in this first term the wheels of change are probably a little slower than I am happy with, and we need to work harder to continue to make that progress for folks.

I don’t think anyone can say in the last two years that they feel like anything feels good. And again, I know people have said, ‘Why do you talk about the federal administration so much?’ I think if we are all honest, the amount of chaos and disruption caused by the guy in the White House has made us all feel uncertain and nothing feels good. And the numbers that we can show say we are making progress, we are building a strong foundation that we will then continue to build on.

So in terms of a second term for me: obviously moving on the progress that we’ve made on mental health and addiction care, housing and homelessness and education, but it’s bigger things. We can be bolder. We can get, I believe, to universal preschool across the state of Oregon by the end of my second term. We know that families and employers and the kiddos need high quality care. It shouldn’t just be the most populous county in our state that has a transformative program that is helping families today. We should have that across the state. So I have a roundtable of experts. We’re plotting out a plan. We’re going to try to figure out how to fund it. We can get there by the end of my second term.

Your opponent says your answer to everything is a new tax. You’ve been critical of the way Multnomah County funds its own universal pre-K program with a tax on high income earners, and now you’re saying, “Let’s do it statewide.” How are we going to fund statewide pre-K?

Well, we’re going to figure it out. The reason we have as much early childhood education across the state is that we passed the Student Success Act, which is providing almost $3 billion a biennium now for K-12, for early childhood. Is there something we can do there that could allow us to do more in early childhood? There’s a maybe. I know people want to change the Corporate Activity Tax. Well, let’s put it all on the table. What we need to talk about is: What is it that we want to have in the state? If we can agree on that, then we have to have some agreement at some point in time to say, ‘This is how we will resource it.’ Maybe we have to stop doing some other things to get there, but that’s the kind of conversation I want to leave with Oregonians.

You stood up recently at a rally where people were calling for a three-year moratorium on data centers. You said, “I like a moratorium.” That was a change. How long should a moratorium be for? Are you talking about three years? And what do you say to the rural places that have found real economic benefit from these and might not like the inflexibility that a moratorium imposes?

You hear from rural Oregonians who don’t feel like they are benefiting from these data centers. None of us could have anticipated the exponential growth in data centers because of artificial intelligence. And the way that the speculative nature of putting more data centers all over the country is happening, we all have to take a pause. So I do support a moratorium because we have to get it right.

In terms of how long, I will have a bill at the start of session, along with a lot of other people apparently. My bill will be like, ‘Here’s what criteria you’re going to have to meet if you want to build a new data center in our state, and you’re going to be responsible and you’re going to meet these goals and you’re going to have these standards before you even get a chance to break ground.’ However long that takes to put in place and put those rules in place, I don’t know, but we can’t have new centers being built without those standards.

A big factor in this year’s race is the dissatisfaction that Oregonians are feeling. It’s not just about the state and it’s not just about the Trump administration. Your approval ratings are pretty low. Why do you think that’s the case? Where does this come from and how do you turn that around?

I think outcomes matter, and I’ll be honest, I’ve probably done a subpar job talking about what we have been doing and so people don’t know. I’ve had my nose to the grindstone looking down, working on the job and trying to get sure we can have the outcomes we want. If you look at my homelessness emergency that has been declared for several years now, I said to folks, ‘You get money in your community, you need to produce.’ And people have produced more shelter beds, keeping more people from experiencing homelessness in the first place, getting more people rehoused into more permanent housing. We’re doing that across the state, and I’ve done, frankly, obviously not a really great job talking about it.

So in my next term it’s being a better communicator, spending more time out there with folks, talking to them. I’d love to come back out and visit all parts of the state.

There is an idea out there that unchecked Democratic control for this state has not been good and that it has led to some of the negative outcomes people are feeling right now. I wonder how you feel about that. You’ve had a lot of sway for a long time. Has that been a good thing for Oregon?

I’m very comfortable and have a long track record of working with folks across the aisle. I don’t think a lot of issues in our state are partisan issues. Now, there’s some very partisan issues where I think voters come down voting for Democrats: reproductive healthcare, and other things about who we are as a state and who we welcome here. I’m going to be really honest, those are ideological divides sometimes.

Democrats have not been in charge forever. We had a 30-30 split House in the middle of the Great Recession when we could not get foreclosure protections passed. If Democrats had been in charge, I can tell you foreclosure protections during the Great Recession would’ve happened much faster and fewer people would’ve lost their homes.

I was able to make sure we got Paid Leave Oregon in the state. Lots of families now benefit from the idea that they can stay home and have a little bit of income when they’ve had a baby, when they need to take care of their aging adult parent or themselves. That’s something we have done here in the state, and I think that’s a good thing.

So I guess when people say all these things have been bad, well, which part has been bad? Up until the pandemic, we had significant wage growth. We are challenging ourselves now to be more competitive, to be a state where we can have higher wages and better paying jobs so everyone can have the type of prosperity they want. And I’m looking forward to being a governor for four more years to focus on that type of prosperity for everyone because we want people to be able to live here, thrive, and that kids have what they need.

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The first time I saw a chanterelle in person, I was a forestry student at Mt. Hood Community College (shout-out to the first home of KMHD!) We had weekly field labs at nearby Larch Mountain, and one time, while we were measuring DBH on a stand of doghair timber, there they were, winking through the duff, the most storybook-looking mushroom since the fly agaric.

There were so many of them that I was able to fill a bag without even putting away my spherical densiometer (as you can see, I’m getting quite a bit of mileage out of that associate’s degree.) But their ubiquity does nothing to diminish their splendor — they’re such an attractive mushroom that their impeccable flavor is almost overkill.

That’s why what I’m about to share is so difficult. Apparently, in Germany, chanterelles were once so underfoot that “Pfifferling” idiomatically means worthlessness — you “couldn’t give a chanterelle about it,” like how one might say something “isn’t worth a fig” in more Mediterranean climates.

Worthless? I just saw chanterelles at the market for $30 a pound.

Watch “Superabundant: Chanterelle”

We’re talking about a country where potatoes, cabbage and the occasional sun-starved asparagus are what pass for produce. Maybe chanterelles just aren’t white enough for Germany? (As a German American, I drag the food of my people with love. And I’d keep roasting German cuisine, but it might add too much color.)

Like forests, chanterelles have become rarer in Germany, and Pfifferlingszeit, or chanterelle season, is celebrated the same way we in the Northwest truly cherish local strawberries. Just as seeing the first Hoods means summer has arrived in Oregon, summer has officially ended when the Pfifferlinge appear in markets.

You don’t have to go to the woods if you’d rather just buy them (bougie!), but if you want to pick your own, this is a good year for it — they’re everywhere right now! This recipe skips the cream usually found in German Pfifferling recipes, which keeps the chicken skin crispy while giving the chanterelles more of the spotlight they deserve. Serves 4

Ingredients

4 skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs

Salt

½ pound chanterelles, cleaned well and torn into bite-sized pieces

1 shallot, thinly sliced

A few cracks or pinches of black pepper

½ teaspoon caraway seed

½ teaspoon sweet paprika

A couple of sprigs of thyme

½ cup dry white wine or cider (or the juice of half a lemon)

2 tablespoons softened unsalted butter

8 ounces Spätzle (store-bought or homemade)

Chopped fresh parsley

Instructions

1. Season the chicken thighs generously on both sides with salt, then place them skin-side down in a large skillet. Turn the burner to medium and let the chicken cook (without touching it!) until the skin is brown and crisped up, about 20-25 minutes (turn the heat down a little if it starts to get smoky). Flip and cook the thighs on the other side until the meat is cooked through (165 F near the bone), another 8-10 minutes or so. Remove the chicken thighs from the pan and set aside on a plate loosely draped in foil.
2. Add the chanterelles and shallot to the pan of delicious, hot chicken schmaltz and give them a fat pinch of salt. Stir in the pepper, caraway, paprika and thyme and cook, stirring occasionally, until the shallots are translucent and the chanterelles are becoming tender, about 8-12 minutes. (Note: The mushrooms will release a lot of moisture, which you can stir around to deglaze the pan’s delicious browned bits.)
3. Add the wine or cider (or lemon juice) and simmer until the liquid starts to look like a silky sauce, another 5-7 minutes or so. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed, then whisk in the butter.
4. While the chanterelles are cooking, cook and drain the Spätzle according to the directions on the package (or make it while the chicken is cooking if you’re doing it from scratch). Stir the Spätzle into the pan of chanterelles, then return the chicken thighs (along with any collected juices) and sprinkle with parsley.

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