President Trump wants private companies to hack the hackers.

In a memo issued late Wednesday, the Trump administration announced a program that could authorize some U.S. businesses to pursue government-selected foreign cybercriminals.

In the past, that work has been performed by government agencies.

The presidential memorandum doesn’t fully explain how it would allow a private business to take the lead on work traditionally performed by the U.S. government, like spying or disruptive cyber operations.

U.S. anti-hacking laws broadly bar people and businesses from hacking digital infrastructure, with some exceptions to allow law enforcement work. This memo does not change those laws, but it mandates any participating company be contracted with the federal government.

Nevertheless, the memo presents a dramatic departure from the way America’s private sector currently behaves in cyberspace. If implemented, it would allow some private businesses to disrupt foreign organizations the government says are cybercriminals or gather intelligence on those groups.

“There’s a range of potential targets … like organized crime … people doing money laundering or other criminal activity,” said Joshua Steinman, who served as senior director for cyber policy on the National Security Council during President Trump’s first term.

Since the Trump administration took power last year, two Republican congressmen put forward legislation that would call for cyber “privateers,” a term that draws from 16th century naval warfare, to take the fight to foreign hackers. This memorandum does not give private businesses that ability, though it elicited online praise from proponents of the idea.

The nitty gritty

It’s unclear what companies might want to take the government up on this opportunity.

Private corporations have long worked with the federal government to help disrupt cybercriminals, but largely as contractors fulfilling a support role, not digital saboteurs handed a target.

“There are going to be a lot of people out there who see this as an onramp to doing additional work for the United States government,” said Steinman.

That could include smaller firms, venture capital backed startups, and companies looking to get in on potentially lucrative government contracts.

“I’m sure a lot of these companies will see this as a potential opportunity to … improve their visibility or directly command resources from the government,” said Arthur Tellis, a former Department of Defense staffer and current fellow at the Institute for Progress.

Tellis said these private companies would likely be better at surveillance than actually disrupting criminal enterprises.

Participating companies would enter contracts with the Department of Justice or the Department of Homeland Security, undergo “rigorous vetting” and set aside $1 million the government can collect if a company doesn’t meet its obligations.

These companies would then get permission to attempt to access the computer networks of foreign groups and take actions that “result in the manipulation, disruption, denial, degradation, or destruction of information systems,” according to the memo.

Much of what that vetting would look like, and the process by which potential targets would be selected, isn’t described in the memo. Nor are the types of disruptive attacks or the legal justification for them.

Stacy O’Mara, chief policy officer at the cybersecurity company Armadin, said the document has her in “wait and see” mode. She believes any company that does decide to sign up would have to answer a number of legal questions.

“There are all these other components that are still outstanding,” O’Mara said. “Especially around the legal authorities and protections.”

The memo gives DOJ and DHS two months to resolve some of these open questions.

Opposition from industry

Some in the cybersecurity industry think the memorandum takes the country’s digital defenses in the wrong direction. Paul Rosenzweig is in that camp. He leads a consulting firm in Washington, D.C., and was deputy assistant homeland security secretary for policy under President George W. Bush.

“It’s not an incomparably bad idea, but it’s a bad idea,” said Rosenzweig.

He also says the order doesn’t address the number of practical and legal issues any private actor would have to deal with if they hacked a foreign organization.

“Anything that our new cyber-enabled private sector actors do overseas will assuredly be against the domestic law of a host of countries wherein they act,” Rosenzweig said. “The internet is not bounded in by sovereign borders in the same way that physical space is.”

The memo wouldn’t allow private businesses to launch cyberattacks on other governments, but many foreign cybercriminals operate in a grey area between state-sponsored and not. Targeting the wrong group could end up inciting an international incident.

Chris Wysopal, a veteran cybersecurity professional and co-founder of the security firm Veracode, told NPR he’s not interested in taking part in the kinds of operations laid out in the memo.

He’s worried about potential liability. What if something goes wrong? What if an attack targets a U.S. company by mistake? What if a counterattack goes too far?

“You don’t want to have collateral damage when your blast radius is too big at the data center you were trying to take down, and you took down a transportation company or hospital’s servers,” Wysopal said.

The risks of cyberattacks

Americans lose billions of dollars every year to cyberattacks.

Cybercriminals break into private businesses and public utilities alike, threatening to hold data hostage or leak it if they aren’t paid. They steal personal information from victims and manipulate people into transferring them money.

“Ransomware and scams are getting worse and worse,” said Wysopal. “I have a mother who sends me emails asking me, ‘Is this real? Is this real?’ And I just imagine that is happening everywhere.”

Cyberattacks are also a national security threat. Just last month, Minnesota reported dozens of local water systems had been targeted in a coordinated attack, which American intelligence links to Iran.

Steinman, the former Trump official, said a faster paced private sector can help the country’s offensive cyber capabilities, as long as it’s done carefully.

“The point of this is to get started,” he said, “And I trust that the people that are running it are going to be very measured in their initial efforts to try and build out this capability.”

But others say even if the legal and technical issues in the president’s memo are resolved, it still won’t fix the growing threat of cybercrime — especially in the short term.

“I don’t think you can sort of offense your way to security,” said Wysopal. “There’s always going to be yet another threat actor … the idea that this is going to solve the problem seems really foolish.”

U.S. negotiator and President Donald Trump ‘s son-in-law Jared Kushner held a rare meeting with the Hamas chief on Sunday in a new diplomatic effort to make progress in the stalled Gaza ceasefire. Kushner will meet with Israel’s prime minister on Monday.

The talks aim to salvage the new 15-point, U.S.-backed road map for Hamas to disarm in Gaza and Israel to withdraw from the Palestinian territory shattered by war.

At stake are the lives of some 2 million people in Gaza and the reconstruction of the crowded enclave now largely controlled by Israeli forces, more than 10 months since the ceasefire ended major military operations. A meeting between Kushner, fellow envoy Steve Witkoff and Hamas leaders in Egypt last year helped clinch the ceasefire, whose progress until now had been stalled over the key issue of Hamas’ disarmament.

The rare meeting in Egypt with Hamas’ Khalil al-Hayya was confirmed by a regional official and a Hamas official, both speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters. Kushner was one of a trio of envoys meeting with al-Hayya, with officials from mediating countries Egypt, Qatar and Turkey also there.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week rejected the 15-point plan in a rare public show of defiance against the Trump administration, Israel’s closest ally.

Now Kushner, former British prime minister Tony Blair and the director of the U.S.-created Board of Peace overseeing the ceasefire, Nickolay Mladenov, are set to meet with Netanyahu on Monday, according to a source familiar with the plans and a diplomatic source. Both spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a closed-door meeting.

Regional powers accuse Israel of obstructing peace effortsAhead of Monday’s meeting, several regional powers including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates issued a statement condemning Israel’s rejection of the road map, saying that “Israel now bears responsibility for obstructing the efforts to bring peace in Gaza.” Other signers included Jordan, Pakistan, Indonesia and the ceasefire mediators.

The statement by foreign ministers also called on the Board of Peace and the U.S. to take “immediate and concrete measures” to keep any party from obstructing the plan’s implementation.

Kushner’s meeting with the Hamas leader aimed at ensuring the militant group’s commitment to the road map, particularly disarmament, before his meeting with Netanyahu, the regional official said.

The Hamas official said the group is committed and waiting for mediators to start the 14-day negotiation period to work out a timetable for implementation. That period requires all parties’ approval of the road map to begin.

The Hamas official also said the Hamas leader demanded that Israel halt its attacks on Gaza and withdraw to the so-called “yellow line” dividing the territory before beginning implementation. The yellow line was never precisely defined. Israeli forces have moved beyond it and now control about 60% of Gaza.

In May, Netanyahu said the next step was to move to 70% control, with Israel “tightening the grip” on Hamas “from every direction.”

The White House had no comment on the talksThe White House referred questions about Kushner’s meetings to the Board of Peace, which did not immediately comment. The Tony Blair Institute did not comment.

Under the road map, Hamas would hand over weapons to the Palestinian technocratic committee meant to oversee daily operations in the territory. The committee has not yet entered Gaza. But Hamas has linked the surrender of its heaviest weapons to the creation of a Palestinian state, something Israel’s current government rejects.

The road map involves Hamas gradually giving up its weapons while Israeli forces halt attacks and begin withdrawing from Gaza. But Netanyahu says Israel will not retreat from any position in Gaza until Hamas has been completely disarmed.

That stance leaves other elements of the ceasefire, including reconstruction and the deployment of international forces to separate Israeli forces from committee-controlled areas, on hold.

Netanyahu faces a challenging election on Oct. 27 as he tries to hold on to power with a coalition that includes ministers taking a harsh line on Gaza, and it’s not clear whether he will take decisive steps on the ceasefire before then. Also coming up is the anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that sparked the war.

Netanyahu’s Likud party on Sunday responded to the statement by regional powers by claiming that “Arab states want to topple” Netanyahu so that centrist challenger Gadi Eisenkot and center-left party leader Yair Golan “will give them everything they want. That will not happen.”

Coos County expects to see increased timber revenue, but county officials are waiting before deciding how to spend the additional money.

The increase comes as the county continues to navigate budget challenges that led to staffing and service cuts last year. The higher payments could give the county some breathing room, although the county won’t know exactly how much it will receive until next year.

The bump comes after counties’ share of receipts from timber harvested on federal O&C lands within their borders increased from 50% to 75% under a provision in the 2026 federal spending law.

But Coos County Treasurer Megan Simms said the county will not budget that money until it’s in hand.

“I’m a bit of a pessimist just because I’ve kind of been through some of this stuff before, where I get optimistic and then I’m disappointed,” Simms said.

The O&C lands are federally owned forests managed by the Bureau of Land Management under the O&C Act of 1937.

Simms said the county will not know the exact size of its payment until spring. The county will budget that money for the following fiscal year.

Coos County has made major cuts in recent years, eliminating roughly 20 positions in 2025. The county also reduced jail capacity and public access to some offices, while consolidating some management roles.

Coos County entered the 2026-27 fiscal year without another round of layoffs. Simms said services will remain at last year’s levels.

Theo Greenly is a reporter with Jefferson Public Radio. 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.

When Juanjo Coronado wrote back to NPR, two weeks after the July 30 mass border crossing in Ceuta, to send an update on how he and his daughter were doing, he sent just one line: “same, which means worse.”

Weeks after the mass crossing, in which more than 140 people died, Spain is trying to close the chapter. The government says that most of the over 70,000 migrants who crossed into Ceuta the week of July 27 are back in Morocco, and that they returned of their own accord.

The caveat is that “most” is not “all.”

Thousands of migrants, many of them unattended minors, remain in Ceuta, while the local population adapts to their presence: from helping with food or shelter, to organizing neighborhood watch groups with aggressive tactics. Or in the case of Juanjo Coronado, simply not going outside.

The images of tens of thousands of migrants crossing into the small Spanish enclave came as a shock to Spanish leaders, who had been busy responding to some of the largest wildfires in Spain’s history. The event was also a shock, and a cause of division, in the European Union.

Many world leaders, such as President Donald Trump and Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni, quickly pointed at the event as the exemplification of the global anti-immigration movement’s worst nightmare.

But it was not a shock to Teresa Pardo and Juanjo Coronado, who have lived in Ceuta their entire lives, a territory of roughly 7 square miles, much of it surrounded by a fence.

And not just any fence. It’s a 5-mile long double fence, as tall as 30-feet, equipped with the latest technology designed to stop sudden crossing attempts by migrants from the other side of the border.

Pardo and Coronado have both seen enough throughout their lives in Ceuta to understand that events at the border always happen for a reason. But what happened on July 30 was not “normal,” both tell me. And they are living the consequences, Pardo says:

“We feel a sense of helplessness. There are shortages in the supermarkets, with limits on how many loaves of bread each person can buy. Even at 30 years old, I find myself having to call my parents to let them know I got home safely from work.” Both Pardo and Coronado say that they simply want Ceuta to go back to what it was three weeks ago.

And despite their desperation, past experience tells us that Ceuta can recover from these kinds of episodes.

“What past experience shows us that there are always three steps involved,” says José Bautista, lead researcher at the non-profit organization porCausa, and investigative journalist.

Bautista adds: “First, Morocco creates a migration crisis in Ceuta, Melilla, or the Canary Islands. Second, Morocco negotiates with Spain to secure some form of concession. And third, Morocco creates a problem again — another migration crisis. But this time, instead of letting the crisis play out, Morocco presents itself as the solution.”

In this instance, the first step of this pattern that Bautista describes took place on July 30. The second step is often invisible, or rather, not officially communicated. The third step of the pattern could be witnessed on Saturday Aug. 15, when a rumored mass crossing in Ceuta was successfully suppressed by the same Moroccan law enforcement that apparently could not stop more than 70,000 people from entering Ceuta about two weeks before.

Before they point the finger at anyone in particular, Teresa Pardo and Juanjo Coronado use the exact same words to describe how they feel: “the people of Ceuta… we feel abandoned, exposed.”

Two exposed territories

Ceuta and Melilla have been Spanish territories for centuries, and they both precede the state of Morocco, which gained independence in 1956, having been a protectorate of France and Spain.

The two “autonomous cities,” as they are called in Spain, are a proud mix of four cultures: Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Hindu — and their population overwhelmingly supports being part of Spain, despite Morocco’s long-standing sovereignty claims over both territories.

But today, Ceuta and Melilla are two “de-facto islands,” says José Bautista. Decades ago the flow of people from Morocco to these two cities was constant. But in the 1990s the mostly free flow of people ended, as Spain started to build what today is a complicated border fence complex to separate the European territories from Africa.

Bautista believes Ceuta and Melilla are two laboratories for global migration control.

“The border fences in Ceuta and Melilla are big business for a very small group of companies,” Buatista says. “These companies not only profit from those two militarized border fences but also conduct technology trials and tests that they subsequently export to other countries,” he adds, citing his non-profit’s recent investigation on technology being used at Spanish borders.

But despite the technology, Ceuta and Melilla’s borders are nearly impossible to protect only from the Spanish side. There is only one solution to this problem. Bautista explains: “European governments are ceding their border sovereignty to third countries so that they can do the dirty work and crack down on migration flows.”

Morocco finds itself with the kind of leverage any country with imperial aspirations would dream of. And Morocco has been vocal about its territorial ambitions in Ceuta, Melilla, the Canary Islands, and the disputed former Spanish territory of Western Sahara.

That’s how we get to July 30, 2026, the day of the mass border crossing.

Why July 30 was different

Soraya Aybar Laafou had been following the increase in social media activity in Morocco since late June. On Facebook, and Discord, many of the young Moroccans who had also been involved in a series of Gen Z protests in 2025 were talking about a mass border crossing brewing at the border with Ceuta. On Instagram, young people were sharing videos about how to swim into Ceuta.

Aybar, a political scientist and journalist based in Casablanca, decided to go find out what was happening. She left for Castillejo, a city on the other side of the border from Ceuta. But that’s when she noticed something strange — train tickets were selling out. It turned out, thousands of young people were traveling there too.

In the days leading up to July 30, border crossings started to increase. Local authorities in Ceuta were aware, and had notified the Spanish central government.

On the Moroccan side, law enforcement, vastly experienced in controlling migration flows towards the border, appeared to be missing this time.

That slow increase in border crossings became the event that Aybar thinks will mark a before and after in the history of Ceuta. For hours, thousands of people crossed from Morocco to Ceuta with no apparent obstacles or law enforcement restrictions. In fact, Aybar says she witnessed people flowing in until the next morning.

In the days after, the Spanish and Moroccan governments said they were acting in coordination towards the crisis, which was exemplified by their shared message about the culprits: the human trafficking networks, a recent Spanish Supreme Court ruling that said that migrants arriving in Ceuta by swimming could not be immediately deported back to Morocco, and social media.

But when Aybar talked to dozens of youths who crossed the border that day, none of them seemed to be aware of the Supreme Court ruling, or any human trafficking “mafias” involved. She observed something very different about this particular mass crossing.

“There are a number of factors driving many of the young people who attempted to cross — or who did cross — out of pure necessity,” she says. “Yet, there is also a segment of that group who will tell you themselves: they did it for the adventure, to understand the process, or simply to join in.” An adventure that proved to be a deadly one.

The uncomfortable aftermath

When we spoke with journalist Barbara Ayuso, on Monday, Aug. 10, she had just come back from Ceuta. She said that, despite the Spanish government claim that only a few thousand of the tens of thousands of migrants who crossed on July 30 had remained in Ceuta at that point, her reporting for the Spanish daily El País told a different story:

“There were 2,000 people on the Trampolín beach alone. To that figure, we must add the impromptu headcount conducted by local residents of minors, over 4,000. Then there are all the people hiding in the hills, and those who have taken refuge in the homes of Moroccan relatives in Ceuta. Based on this, we arrived at a rather revealing estimate: we are talking about a minimum of 8,000 people.”

Spanish authorities are just now beginning to report higher numbers of migrants in Ceuta, with nearly 6,000 having now received medical attention. Ayuso explained that the main issue is the lack of proper attention. Migrants on Trampolín beach are enduring high temperatures, with no protection from the sun, and no running water. And there is a particularly vulnerable group, dozens of Moroccan girls, wandering around on their own. Ayuso says the police was investigating seven reported cases of sexual abuse at the time of speaking with NPR.

In Ceuta, citizens are enraged. They have taken to the streets to protest what they say is a lack of appropriate response from the Spanish government. Resident Juanjo Coronado openly blames the Spanish prime minister and the interior minister: “I am singling out Pedro Sánchez or [Fernando] Grande-Marlaska for their inaction, or perhaps for overconfidence. It is clear that these two gentlemen have not risen to the occasion.”

The Spanish government, however, is caught between a rock and a hard place, as it tries to strike an impossible balance to make sure it doesn’t antagonize Morocco.

One last word: Pegasus

Ignacio Cembrero has been publishing article after article since the July 30 crisis. He is a veteran journalist who specializes in geopolitics and the Maghreb region, which includes Morocco.

Cembrero is one of the hundreds of people whose phones were hacked some years ago, by a state actor using a hacking tool called Pegasus, which he argues played a role towards the border crossings on that day.

Pegasus, which is an advanced spyware developed by the Israeli cyber-arms company NSO Group, is officially sold exclusively to national governments, military, law enforcement, and intelligence agencies.

In mid-July 2026 Cembrero’s publication, El Confidencial, along with Le Monde, The Guardian and other international outlets, published an in depth investigation on the use of Pegasus by Moroccan intelligence services.

In 2021 – in the midst of a diplomatic crisis between Morocco and Spain – Moroccan authorities allegedly ordered the use of Pegasus to target the phones of the Spanish Ministers of Foreign Affairs, the Interior, and Defense. It also allegedly spied on Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and even French President Emmanuel Macron.

Cembrero says the release of the investigation on the use of Pegasus by Moroccan intelligence services angered Morocco:

“Morocco is always careful about its image in the eyes of the West — Europe, the United States, and nowadays Israel, with whom it also maintains a privileged relationship. So, for a country that seeks to protect its reputation, the large-scale use of a spyware program like Pegasus over the years is, in my view, damaging to its image.

Cembrero argues the July 30 mass crossing was allowed by Morocco’s authorities as retribution for the publication of the investigation into its alleged use of Pegasus. But he also adds that things might have not have developed exactly as expected:

“I believe the King of Morocco was angered by the scale of the influx into Ceuta, which had far exceeded expectations. The situation was out of control, and the images circulating worldwide threatened to damage his image.”

Cembrero is a lone voice when it comes to making a direct connection between the alleged use of Pegasus by Moroccan intelligence agencies to spy on journalists and politicians in Spain, and the mass crossing of July 30 in Ceuta.

Riccardo Fabiani, Project Director for North Africa for the International Crisis Group, says the mass crossing seen in Ceuta on July 30 is by nature impossible to blame on a single actor or state. “You cannot confidently say there was involvement by a state, it’s plausible deniability.” Unless, Fabiani says, that actor is an enemy, which is not the case with Morocco, officially an ally of Spain.

And we may never find out what really happened in Ceuta that day, because those who could answer that question are likely only interested in one thing: turning the page.

Hurricane Lala weakened to a tropical storm Sunday after skirting Hawaii without making landfall, but it wasn’t done punishing the Big Island with hurricane-force gusts. Total rainfall of nearly three feet (one meter) was expected on the higher windward slopes, turning rivers into raging torrents and threatening mudslides.

Tropical storm conditions were spreading westward Sunday from Maui to Oahu and then Kauai, and the National Hurricane Center warned that wind speeds atop mountains and on the windward and leeward slopes are often up to 30% stronger than the near-surface winds used to categorize storms.

Powerful waves pounded the Big Island’s coast as Lala slowly passed by. Howling winds whipped palm trees and waterways swelled with fast-moving runoff from relentless rain that blew nearly sideways.

More than 130,000 households were without power Sunday morning across Hawaii’s three largest islands, according to the utility tracker poweroutage.us. At least three hospitals were operating on generator power, Gov. Josh Green said.

At least one person died in a car accident in the South Point area of the Big Island, while 19 roofs were lost in the “enormous storm,” the governor said Saturday evening. “There have been a lot of roads impacted, our crews have already been out to more than 30 sites.”

A search-and-rescue mission including Civil Defense, the National Guard and Coast Guard was launched after flash floods apparently swept several occupied homes off their foundations in the coastal communities of Na’alehu and Wai’ohinu, near the island’s southern tip, Hawaii County Mayor Kimo Alameda said early Sunday.

“What makes this very challenging is that there’s rushing water, there’s debris, and there’s boulders on the road and it’s dark,” Alameda said.

What’s next for Lala

Tropical storm warnings were in effect for the islands of Maui, Molokai, Lanai, Kahoolawe, Oahu, Kauai and Niihau as the storm moves west, raising the possibility of destructive flooding and even wildfires kicked up by strong winds.

As of 2 a.m. Sunday in Hawaii, Lala was centered about 105 miles (170 kilometers) west-northwest of Kailua-Kona and about 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Honolulu, with tropical-storm-force winds extending as much as 175 miles (280 km) from its center.

Lala was sustaining top winds of 70 mph (110 kph) and moving northwest at about 15 mph (24 kmh). Forecasters expect it to regain hurricane strength midweek once it’s well west of the island chain.

By the time Lala’s completely gone, some higher-altitude places on the Big Island, dominated by the towering Mauna Kea volcano, will have been hit with as much as 35 inches (89 centimeters) of rain, forecasters said, enough to loosen steep slopes where some of the 210,000 islanders live off the grid in improvised housing.

Residents prepared for worst

As the hurricane approached, shelters were opened, events were canceled and ranchers were urged to leave their cattle in pastures rather than structures that might collapse. Many residents are still dealing with the aftermath of devastating floods in March and were taking precautions.

Bobby Camara, a 75-year-old lifelong resident, said he planned to “hunker down, cross my fingers, hope the lights don’t go out” at a care home just outside Hilo. He said gas stations were busy as people sought fuel for chain saws and vehicles.

“I think stocking up is part of life over here. ... You learn to be self-reliant,” Camara said.

Mike Caputo, who lives in Keaau, near the Big Island’s east coast, said his power generator was ready and a 10,000-gallon (37.8 kiloliter) home water tank was full. His main concern was flash flooding and fallen trees, especially albizia, a common tree.

“They’re not very sturdy, but they grow extremely large,” said Caputo, 50, a local fire captain. “They can make roads impassable.”

Warnings posted everywhere

Christine Matsuda, who lives in Waimea, on the northern side of the island, said “big gusts every few minutes rattle the whole house.”

“We’re finding unexpected leaks in places that don’t see water under normal conditions,” Matsuda said.

The hurricane center predicted 8 to 12 inches (20.3 to 30.5 centimeters) of total rainfall across Maui and the lower elevations of the Big Island, and 4 to 6 inches (10.2 to 15.2 centimeters) across the island chain.

The good news came first.

In late March, a gang used a tractor to batter down a fence before two masked burglars broke into the Magnani Rocca Foundation, a private museum about 12 miles from the northern Italian city of Parma. They climbed in through a window door, and grabbed three paintings off the wall before disappearing – the whole operation caught on camera, yet completed in under three minutes.

The roughly $10 million haul included Cézanne’s Still Life with Cherries (worth an estimated $7 million), Renoir’s Les Poissons (with an approximate value of $3.5 million) and a Matisse aquatint, Odalisque on the Terrace ($23,000). It was the latest in a run of high-profile thefts that have hit museums and galleries across Europe.

This past Friday, officials said the paintings had been recovered during some searches that prosecutors had ordered. That investigative effort was led by the Italian police branch known as the carabinieri, working alongside a specialist team focused on cultural heritage protection.

Yet authorities gave few further details, and the investigation remains open.

A new theft

Then came the bad news.

The following night, a Saturday, was an Italian holiday known as Ferragosto, when much of the country was out celebrating. In the Sicilian city of Messina, a major religious festival held every August 15, called La Vara, had also drawn thousands to the streets.

While attention in the city may have been elsewhere, thieves got past the alarm system at Messina’s Museo Interdisciplinare Regionale (MuMe), and broke open a security case. They soon left with four wooden panels by the city’s famed Renaissance painter, Antonello da Messina.

Antonello, born around 1430 and trained in Naples, absorbed influences from Provençal and Flemish painting styles that remained visible in his own work.

In Saturday’s heist, thieves made off with three of the five surviving panels from an altarpiece by Antonello known as the Polittico di San Gregorio. The work originally had six panels, but one was destroyed along with the monastery that housed it in the 1908 Messina earthquake. It was the only work by the artist that had never left his home town.

The thieves also purloined a small double-sided painting, with the Virgin and Child on one side and Christ on the other, that the Sicilian regional government had bought from the auction house Christie’s back in 2003.

Antonello’s work is highly prized in his home country. Just this February, the Italian government spent $14.9 million at a New York auction to bring another Antonello work, called Ecce Homo, back home. That portrait of the suffering Christ is believed to date to around 1460, and was purchased at Sotheby’s. It will be housed in a museum in Abruzzo, on the mainland.

Giving further details on the March theft, authorities explained that nine people of Moldovan nationality have been placed under investigation. They had experience in stealing, police said in a statement, but knew too little about the art market to sell the works.

Two thefts, a growing trend

The two incidents highlight a recent spate of art thefts across Europe.

More than a dozen major art heists have been recorded since January 2025 alone – prompting the International Council of Museums to team up with Interpol in response.

Among them: an October 2025 raid in which thieves spent less than eight minutes stripping the Louvre’s Apollo Gallery of jewels worth more than $100 million, an incident whose fallout eventually pushed out the museum’s director.

And earlier, in January 2025, a gang had used explosives to blast apart a door at the Netherlands’ Drents Museum, before stealing a loaned 2,500-year-old Romanian gold helmet. The national heirloom was only returned to the Romanian authorities 14 months later.

Late last year, Interpol’s Stolen Works of Art database contained more than 57,000 listed items, and the agency itself has warned that plenty of stolen art never makes it into that count at all.

For expectant parents, having additional support during labor is important — whether it’s from a doctor, a nurse, even your mom … or someone like Lyndsey Petrino.

Petrino is a doula based in Vancouver, Washington. She’s been a postpartum doula for years and became a birth doula in 2024.

A postpartum doula supports parents after birth, while a birth doula provides prenatal support and is present in labor. A doula isn’t a medical professional — they can’t deliver babies — but they can provide support and advocate for birthing parents.

“I offer support for women emotionally, physically… spiritually during birth and then in the postpartum period,” Petrino said.

What made you want to become a doula?

“I became a postpartum doula probably before I even knew what a doula was,” Petrino said.

According to Petrino, her parents would lend their guest house to the midwives at their church. She would “jump out of the bushes” as new parents walked back to their car, and offered to help them with their babies, starting as young as 12.

Petrino saw her first birth when she was 16 years old, and said that “something cracked inside” of her. That was when she knew that she wanted to do this kind of work.

Within a few years, Petrino got formal training and began working professionally as a postpartum doula, helping new parents after birth. Later, she took a pause in that career path.

“I walked away from doula work for a while, because life had taken me in a different direction,” she said.

But after some time away, a new opportunity drew her back in.

“I met a doctor in Vancouver, she’s the lead over at the Bloom Clinic.” Petrino said. That clinic works with families in active addiction or recovery. “She was looking for doulas. I told her when I met her that I’m not a birth doula, and she said she’d sponsor me and help move me into that role.”

Petrino said she felt very aligned with birth work, especially with supporting parents like the ones served by the clinic, who she felt “need as much care as anyone else.” She was inspired to start back up with birth doula training.

”It was a very full-circle moment,” she said.

Today, Petrino provides prenatal, birth and postpartum services through her own business, LlaMamma Mothercare.

What new or unexpected things come up each day in your work?

“I love this work because I have to be adaptable,” Petrino said. “Every birth is different. Every postpartum is different.”

There’s no typical day in the life of a doula, according to Petrino. She said that some parents might need their floors mopped, while others need time to catch up on sleep, or help breastfeeding their baby.

“I think a lot of people complicate things,” Petrino said. “There’s so much information. If we just slow down and stop stressing, we usually just need to listen to ourselves and our babies.”

According to Petrino, sensitivity and empathy are important skills for a doula.

“They have to be able to stand up for their clients,” Petrino said. “Not creating controversy, but also being like ‘Oh, no, that’s not something she planned’ or ‘are you sure that’s what you want?’”

Do you have any tools?

Petrino has two bags: One is for postpartum visits, the other is for births. The postpartum bag includes supplies like tea, epsom salts for foot baths, plus brown rice and vegetables in case there’s no food at home.

At her home, where she often works when she’s not supporting a birth or visiting a client, she dug through her bag to pull out a measuring tool used to calculate the correct size for a breast pump piece called a flange.

“Most people have the wrong flange size,” Petrino explained, holding up two unused flanges. “If we can’t find the correct size, and they don’t have the correct insert, then I’ll usually leave [a flange] with them.”

She brought her birthing bag in from her car, where it stays at all times, in case she needs to drop what she’s doing to help one of her clients. This bag holds a variety of items — a scarf to “heat up the ligaments,” massage tools, hair ties, disposable toothbrushes and more.

Petrino also brings Vicks and rubbing alcohol pads with her to every birth. According to Petrino, sometimes a birthing parent needs to smell something fragrant in order to fight off nausea.

How do you build a relationship with your client’s partner?

Petrino said that there are times when she won’t meet their partner until the person is already in labor.

“How close I get with them depends on how often I see them,” Petrino said. “I do my best to try and support them the same way I’m supporting mom. Give them something to research, or show them how to do a hip squeeze.”

What do you wish more people knew about pregnancy and labor?

“I wish women and birthing people just knew that our bodies were built to do this, and they can trust their bodies,” Petrino said. “Our culture tends to collect. ‘Oh, we need this bassinet and this and this.’ In reality we don’t need most of that stuff. What we do need is support, care and knowledge.”

Is there something you want to say to people you’ve worked with, or others embarking on parenthood?

“If I’ve worked with you, then I am just so grateful for the experience,” Petrino said. “And if you’re going through it, I know it’s hard. There is support out there if you need it.”

Are there services you would like to see become accessible to people who give birth?

Oregon was the first state to offer birth and postpartum doula benefits through Medicaid, beginning in 2011. Medicaid began covering doula care in Washington in 2025.

“That was when I was like, ‘Oh, I can help a broader range of people, I can actually make a change in my community,’” Petrino said.

Washington’s coverage includes 20 hours of postpartum care for new parents.

“A lot of the moms who have done it before, they save those postpartum hours,” Petrino said. “They know how hard it is.”

She said she wishes that doula care was covered like this nationally, rather than state-by-state.

“When a mother is nourished, she nourishes her baby,” Petrino said. “It’s very important that mothers are cared for.”

What is your favorite part of your job?

Petrino said she loves it all.

“Every single time I leave the hospital after a birth, I cry,” Petrino said. “It’s so amazing. Watching women birth themselves and turn into mothers is… it’s probably the most beautiful thing you could witness.”

She said it’s a gradual change, but sometimes she’ll hear someone’s voice drop an octave during labor, or something changes in their eyes.

“Once you become a mother, you walk around and you look at mothers [and think] ‘Wow, what a badass,’” Petrino said.

“I say it all the time when I have a mom who’s scared, and I’m like ‘No, you’re going to walk away from this and… you are going to find out why moms are badass right now.’ And then they do.”

The Corvallis School Board has voted to send a local option levy renewal to the November ballot.

In 2006, voters first approved the current local option levy, at a rate of $1.50 per $1,000 of assessed property value. Local option levies can only run for up to five years at a time, and the current version will expire next June. According to the district, the levy covered about 10% of the district’s operating budget last school year.

Corvallis Superintendent Ryan Noss said the levy supports additional programs in the district, including STEM extracurriculars, arts, counseling services and the people who staff those programs.

“We are able to have additional teaching staff, so additional classroom teachers. As a result of the levy, it is the equivalent of 67 full-time positions in our school district,” Noss told KLCC.

The Corvallis School District recently made the decision to close two schools this upcoming school year. Noss said the funds from the levy are for these additional school programs, while the money saved by closing the schools will allow the district to reallocate state funding.

“The school consolidation allowed us to better utilize the resources that we have that were provided at the state level,” said Noss. “The levy allows us to enhance what we’re able to do through local community support.”

The levy will be on the November ballot, and if passed will be renewed for another five years.

Macy Moore is a reporter with KLCC. 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.

Portland’s Mt. Tabor Park was the scene of arts, crafts and a little bit of chaos Saturday for the annual PDX Adult Soapbox Derby. Thousands lined the extinct volcanic butte to watch elaborate vehicles from 42 teams compete in one of the city’s more unusual races. Each team fielded two or three riders and at least one pusher to get their soapbox moving.

Small, motorless carts, some built for speed and others for style, flew past spectators, powered only by gravity and makeshift steering wheels. Some racers reached speeds of up to 50 mph.

Competitors risked life and limb hauling their engineering marvels through a looping track lined with large Douglas fir trees, bright-orange cones and miniature hay bales. Prizes included “crowd favorite,” “road warrior” and “lame duck.”

Inspired by an illegal punk-filled dash held in San Francisco in the ’90s, and by youth races popularized in the 20th century, Portland’s soapbox derby has taken place in some shape or form for nearly 30 years. It is funded by donations and sponsors, and staffed by a small army of volunteers.

The 2026 soapbox cars included prairie schooners, oversized shopping carts, a giant Nike ankle sock and more.

On Friday, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Commission revised rules to strengthen the department’s efforts to reducing whale entanglements in Oregon’s Dungeness crab fishery.

The revised rules include electronic vessel monitoring, including the installation of devices that provide a vessel’s location and other data. This requirement will take effect in February 2027.

The Commission also established additional criteria and guidelines for approving experimental fishing gear permits, allowing the exploration of alternative gear for the crab fishery that needs to be tested off the Oregon coast.

The new permits could be issued as soon as spring 2027.

Minor changes were also made to allowances for commercial crab buoys and floats, also known as surface gear.

The Commission also adopted new rules for trap checking for nuisance cougars and bears, approved funds for a wildlife crossing project along Highway 101 northwest of North Bend, and recognized members of the Oregon Hunters Association and others for their work on various wildlife and land stewardship programs.

ODFW stated that the Commission meeting will be available at ODFW’s YouTube channel.

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.

Ukraine launched hundreds of drones across Russia Sunday, killing at least six people in one of Kyiv’s largest aerial attacks of the war.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense said that it had destroyed 822 Ukrainian drones overnight. Some 600 drones were detected headed toward the Russian capital, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said, with a third destroyed over the Moscow region itself.

An 83-year-old man was killed after a Ukrainian drone hit a private home in the Moscow region, local Gov. Andrey Vorobyov said. He also confirmed that a Ukrainian attack had sparked a blaze at a warehouse belonging to Russian retail giant Wildberries in the town of Podolsk, where images shared by Russian media outlets showed columns of black smoke .

A drone attack targeted three towns in Russia’s southwestern Rostov region, killing five people, local Gov. Yury Slyusar said. The attack, with more than 150 drones, damaged several homes and a railway station and sparked a forest fire.

Ukraine has stepped up its attacks on Russia this year, with long-range missiles and swarms of drones increasingly targeting military industries and energy facilities. It has also increasingly pummeled giant Wildberries depots, burning billions of dollars’ worth of merchandise and bringing the war home to the Russian public nearly 4½ years into Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Russian strike kills 3 in Ukraine

A Russian missile attack on Ukraine’s Kryvyi Rih killed two people and wounded 14 others, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on social media Sunday. He also said that one more person had been killed in the city of Sumy.

Meanwhile, a Russian attack on Kyiv sparked fires throughout the Ukrainian capital and injured six people.

“Wherever the Russians can reach with their ballistic missiles, they strike civilian infrastructure,” Zelenskyy said. “Since this morning, air raid alerts have continued in many regions – the Russians launched another wave of drones.”

On a spring morning so blustery that the National Weather Service issued a small craft advisory, a Samish Indian Nation research boat, called the Chinook (Yómech), set out from Anacortes, Washington, just east of the San Juan Islands.

A team of divers crammed into the cabin as the small craft bounced and slammed across Rosario Strait. They were on their way to pick up precious cargo: 20 endangered sunflower stars, raised by hand in a lab at Friday Harbor on San Juan Island.

Sunflower stars are one of the Pacific Ocean’s most endangered sea creatures. For the past year, University of Washington researchers have worked closely with the Samish Indian Nation to bring this 24-armed creature back from the brink of extinction after a vast underwater pandemic nearly wiped it out.

The choppy waters of Rosario Strait were only the latest obstacle in the tribe’s effort to bring sunflower stars back to traditional Samish territory.

“I’ve had dreams about this day. I’ve had nightmares about this day,” said Samish Nation biologist Sam Strauss. “Many things have already gone wrong that I didn’t anticipate, and I’m sure there will be a couple more.”

The stars were supposed to be turned loose last October. Then divers found the deadly sea-star wasting disease — the cause of the species’ near-annihilation — surging throughout the San Juans. They called off the release. Six months later, it was back on.

A deadly outbreak

Sunflower stars can grow more than 3 feet wide and are the fastest of all sea stars. They cruise the seabed at up to 5 feet per minute in search of sea urchins or sea cucumbers to grab for a meal.

They’re considered a keystone species, whose presence or absence can reshape a whole ecosystem.

But the speedy predators have been unable to outrun a wasting disease that’s killed billions of sea stars. It took researchers a decade to pinpoint the Vibrio bacteria behind the disease that dissolved sea stars into goo.

Researchers say ocean heat waves, amplified by climate change, helped the bacteria grow.

“We definitely have lost a lot of sea stars,” University of Washington research scientist Jason Hodin said. “We’ve lost 90% of our sunflower stars, we think.”

Hodin runs the sea star lab at the university’s Friday Harbor Laboratories.

“This was a really, really big outbreak,” Hodin. “It spread from northern Mexico all the way to Alaska, affecting dozens and dozens of sea star species.”

No species was harder hit than the sunflower star.

International scientists declared the once-common species critically endangered, and Canada declared it endangered.

The Biden administration proposed protecting sunflower stars under the Endangered Species Act, but the Trump administration has not taken action on that proposal. A spokesperson with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, which is responsible for protecting ocean species, said the agency was prioritizing other “mission critical” work.

In June, the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity sued to protect the sunflower star.

Underwater charisma

Inside the sea star lab, tanks of filtered seawater harbor hundreds of sunflower stars, from microscopic larvae up to adults as big as stop signs.

The researchers have figured out by trial and error how to breed these little-studied animals. They’ve also cured some of them when wasting disease got into the lab.

“It’s not a pretty death,” explained research assistant Chloe Schwab, “and it’s really sad to see.”

It was an emotional day for the researchers as they prepared to send some of the lab’s three-year-olds — each a bit larger than a human adult’s outstretched hand — off into the world.

They loaded four sloshing tubs of stars onto the Samish boat.

“I really am close to them,” said research assistant Julia Knopf.

She and others in the lab have given each sunflower star a name. Nacho, Baby Carrot, and Pluot were inside the tubs, among other stars named after snack foods.

“I do feel like a parent,” Knopf said. “You raise them, you take care of them, you want the best for them, but then you know the best for them is letting them go out in the wild, just like letting your kid go out into the world.”

These invertebrates have no faces, blood, or brains, yet they have personalities, according to their caretakers.

“They’re very charismatic,” said research assistant Tess Chapman. “They have little eyespots at the end of their arms. They’re always looking at you.”

The stars usually cuddle up with their tank neighbors. Some are feisty. Some are docile.

“They don’t have a centralized brain,” Knopf said, who calls the animals “amazing.”

“They’re also so beautiful that it’s hard not to love them,” she said.

Protecting a kelp goddess

Sunflower stars were never a big part of Samish culture, unlike salmon.

“We’re the salmon people, for sure,” said Samish tribal chair Tom Wooten.

But the stars have played a supporting role in Samish culture by protecting kelp. Many kelp forests on the West Coast have been stripped bare by sea urchins. Sunflower stars prey on urchins, which protects kelp.

“That’s why those starfish are so important, because they munch those green urchins!” Wooten said. " You need those predators."

A 24-foot cedar pole looms above Wooten at Rosario Beach in Deception Pass State Park in traditional Samish territory. The carving depicts a female figure holding a salmon above her head: a Samish deity named Ko-Kwal-Alwoot.

On one side she is human. On the other, she is a sea creature, her hair turned to long fronds of bull kelp.

In Samish legend, Ko-Kwal-Alwoot was a young woman from Rosario village who married the king of the sea and became immortal.

“If you look into the water, you’ll see the bull kelp swirling around in the tide. That’s her out there,” Wooten said. “That’s her hair, letting us know that she’s still there.”

“She’s the protector of our people,” Wooten said. “She ensures that waters are clean and the fish are there, and the clams are there, the crab, all the things that we rely on.”

The Samish belief mirrors biologists’ knowledge that kelp forests protect coastlines from erosion and nurture popular species like salmon and orcas.

“They harbor an incredible amount of biodiversity. They protect shorelines. They support local fisheries,” Hodin said. “It’s almost like, what do kelp forests not do?”

The Samish Indian Nation Department of Natural Resources closely monitors the health of local kelp forests and, in February, replanted a kelp bed, a first for the San Juan Islands.

Sunflower stars are such voracious consumers of sea urchins that the Friday Harbor sea star lab struggles to keep up with their appetites. Even tiny, young stars will eat up to 18 juvenile sea urchins each day.

“We’re urchin farmers,” Hodin said. “We’re farming them, constantly producing thousands and thousands and thousands of urchins in buckets to be able to feed these hundreds of sea stars.”

“It’s insane,” he said.

Making a tribal home

Protecting kelp beds is part of the Samish tribe’s efforts to make a home for itself.

The tribe never got a reservation.

“We were scattered to the winds, and we’re in an effort to bring people back home,” Wooten said.

The Samish also never got the valuable fishing rights that most tribes in Washington state have, due to a clerical error at the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

In 1969, a clerk left the Samish Nation off of a list of recognized tribes. Five years later, a U.S. district court judge ruled that tribes in the state were entitled to half the fish and shellfish in their traditional areas. But the Samish were “left on the beach,” Wooten explains, and even though the tribe regained its federal status as a recognized tribe in 1996, it still lacks fishing rights.

The few Samish tribal members who fish for a living do so in Alaska.

“For all of our ceremonies and gatherings, we purchase fish just like everybody else,” Wooten said.

The tribe has been buying land, developing low-income housing, and restoring habitats on land and at sea to build a home for the community.

“It’s really nature that we live in,” Wooten said. “We have to do what we can to preserve, protect, and restore that to have a place to come home to.”

To help fight the climate change that is making ocean life more susceptible to disease outbreaks, the Samish commissioned a zero-emission, electric research boat, with delivery expected in 2027.

Gliding to freedom

The Chinook (Yómech) research boat reached a sheltered cove off Decatur Island – the future home of the sunflower stars.

“Pool’s open!” boat captain Elena Fischer announced.

Divers jumped into the waters, carefully swimming the four plastic tubs to the sea floor, where they pulled the lids off and waited for the sunflower stars to glide to freedom.

“They left their bins incredibly quickly and started exploring the environment and finding different rocks to hang out on and kelp fronds to hide under,” Strauss said.

For a while, he lay on the sea floor, just watching.

“Got to see a star fully exit one of the totes and touch actual, natural substrate for the first time,” Strauss said. “I was just so grateful to see these stars, healthy, happy in the water.”

What’s next

By May, the site off Decatur Island had been inundated with fresh kelp growth. Divers found 14 of the 20 lab-raised stars and no signs of disease. They consider that a success.

Researchers say the release will help them figure out what works before releasing sunflower stars on a larger scale.

In May, Hodin’s lab released thousands of poppy-seed-sized juvenile sunflower stars off San Juan Island to assess whether it might be more efficient than raising them to maturity in tanks. It’s hard to know how well those stars have fared. Hodin said they were too tiny to track.

A dozen labs up and down the West Coast are currently raising sunflower stars, with small releases planned later this year in California and Oregon.

It is unlikely biologists will ever raise anything close to the 5 billion sunflower stars lost to wasting disease.

But they hope to raise enough of them to point the species, and kelp forests, toward recovery.

The free market has no income requirements and offers necessities to anyone who needs them. Tammy Wilder, director of the nonprofit Worthwhile Talent, said demand continues to grow as working-class residents, seniors and people affected by the Almeda Fire contend with the rising cost of food, housing and other necessities.

Wilder said customers frequently ask whether everything really is free.

“You don’t have to look at the cost of that organic pasta,” she said. “You just get to take it if you want it.”

There are limits on how many of some items shoppers can take. Wilder said the goal is to help people make it through the week rather than stock up for a month, so some items are divided into smaller portions.

Most of the market’s supplies come from donations, including produce from home gardens.

“The biggest problem we’ve ever had is having too much stuff donated and not knowing how we’re going to keep it,” Wilder said. “People’s generosity in this town is just unending.”

Talent resident Jakari Limahai uses the market to supplement her meals with items such as beans and soup stock. But not everything she finds there is a necessity.

“The other day I was here and I saw a necklace that was donated, and it’s now my favorite piece of jewelry,” she said. “I wore it like every day for two weeks.”

Shopper Cindy Aragon said the market complements what she buys at the grocery store, where a trip regularly costs her about $100.

“If I can find some fresh eggs and some bread, it’s wonderful,” she said. “You can find specialty things that you wouldn’t maybe normally purchase at a grocery store because they’re too expensive, like plums or some produce.”

Worthwhile Talent is run entirely by volunteers. Wilder said she hopes to build a system that can provide resources consistently, rather than primarily responding when a major event creates an immediate need.

She also hopes to expand the nonprofit’s services, including by offering home deliveries.

“There’s enough people in the community that will support their neighbors,” she said. “This is possible anywhere. Free stuff is possible.”

Jane Vaughan is a reporter with Jefferson Public Radio. 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.

Traffic deaths on stretches of Martin Luther King Jr. Way in Seattle have doubled in the last five-year period, despite the city’s goal to reach zero traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2030.

A KUOW analysis of recent city data shows how a city-wide push to lower speed limits can improve some elements of safety — but experts say there is still work to do when it comes to slowing drivers down and keeping pedestrians safe.

Throughout the Rainier Valley, MLK Jr. Way has 4 to 5 lanes of traffic and an at-grade light rail line, making it a wide, fast-moving arterial.

From 2015 to 2020, five people died in crashes on that stretch of MLK Jr. Way. The speed limit for the corridor — which includes busy transit stops, neighborhood hubs, and residential areas — was 35 mph during that time.

In 2020, the speed limit dropped to 25 mph. Despite the change, city data shows that the same stretch of MLK Jr. Way saw 11 deaths between 2021 and 2026. While deaths doubled after the speed limit change, crashes and injuries declined significantly — by 37% and 25%, respectively.

The increase in fatalities on MLK Jr. Way and similar busy arterials stands in stark contrast to Seattle’s goals under its Vision Zero program, a global road safety initiative to eliminate all traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2030. The city adopted Vision Zero in 2015. In the decade since, Seattle has invested hundreds of millions of dollars into making its streets safer, including programs that lowered speed limits on almost every road in the city.

Can Portland eliminate traffic deaths? An East Coast city could be a model

Despite these efforts, traffic deaths are up across Seattle — 219 people were seriously injured and 27 people died on Seattle streets last year — prompting city councilmembers to call for an audit of the program.

An emphasis on lowering speed limits gained popularity with transportation experts following a study by The Washington, D.C.-based AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety in 2011. A pedestrian hit by a car going 20 miles per hour has a 90% chance of survival, according to the study. A pedestrian’s odds of survival drop to 50% if the car is traveling at 40 miles per hour.

Venu Nemani, Chief Transportation Safety Officer and City Traffic Engineer at Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT), told KUOW that this and similar data prompted a new focus on slowing drivers down to minimize injuries.

Last year, the Seattle Department of Transportation commissioned six speed tests along MLK Jr. Way in the Rainier Valley. The tests tracked driver speeds after the speed limit was reduced to 25 miles per hour.

Portland traffic deaths on track to drop to lowest level in years, city says

Despite added signage reminding drivers of the new limit, drivers averaged 30 miles per hour or higher on most stretches of the road. While drivers were far from following the new 25 miles per hour limit, SDOT says the number of people speeding above 40 miles per hour — an important safety statistic — did decrease.

 ”Those speeds have dropped anywhere from 12% on the corridor to up to 50% on some parts of the corridor. So we are definitely seeing a slowing down of speeds on MLK with just the change in the posted speed limit,” Nemani said.

In response to rising fatalities on this same stretch of road, transportation experts told KUOW that lowering speed limits without making ‘traffic calming’ redesigns to roadways can only do so much to slow down drivers. Nemani described roadway redesign as the next step in Vision Zero’s work.

That philosophy is evident on MLK Jr. Way near the newly opened Judkins Park light rail station, north of its intersection with Rainier Ave. The city narrowed the road to one lane, and added protected bike lanes and more crosswalks. Preliminary data from SDOT shows the redesign has resulted in traffic moving more slowly on this stretch of road, including a drop in drivers speeding at 40 mph or more.

As Portland recommits to ending traffic deaths, a key tool is unplugged

Clara Cantor — a Columbia City resident and community organizer with safety advocacy group Seattle Streets Alliance — said speed and safety are still significant issues on most of MLK Jr. Way and design changes further south could improve those issues.

Columbia City resident and Seattle Streets Alliance volunteer Michael Smith echoed the desire for a redesign on the southern stretch of MLK. One suggestion Smith has: Narrow the width of traffic lanes to slow drivers down.

“The wide lanes and the few turns in the road itself make it extremely easy to almost accidentally speed, because it feels like a road that you should go fast on,” Smith said. The city could remove one of the travel lanes on either side of the road, and that would prevent people from swerving in and out between cars since everyone’s in the same lane going the same direction.”

Clare McGrane and Teo Popescu are reporters 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.

Thousands of people packed the Lloyd Center on Aug. 8 to celebrate and mourn 60 years of history for the large shopping mall on Portland’s East Side. Homemade signs hung from the mall’s three-story atrium and parking garage, proclaiming “Lloyd’s Not Dead.”

For three businesses, Lloyd actually isn’t dead — they are still operating on the 30-acre site.

“We’re one of the few businesses not leaving,” said Roshan Fernando, the co-owner of Jumbo’s Pickleball. “We’re sticking around and want folks to know if they want to come have a good time, we’re still here.”

Jumbo’s Pickleball moved into the former Regal movie theater on the third floor of the Lloyd Center in late 2024, building out eight regulation-sized pickleball courts. Fernando said they now have hundreds of people coming to play at the Lloyd Center location each month.

“I understand why there’s been so much press about the mall closing for good reason. Lloyd Center’s meant a lot to a lot of people and that doesn’t go away,” Fernando said. But fanfare around the mall’s closure means that many customers are confused about Jumbo’s Pickleball, said Fernando, “We’ve done our best to let people know, ‘no, we’re not leaving.’ We have no plans to leave.”

Fernando said that Jumbo’s Pickleball team always had clear communication from the mall’s management, Urban Renaissance Group, about future redevelopment of the site.

“We get along with them really well. They want us to succeed. We want to succeed,” said Fernando.

That relationship is part of why Jumbo’s Pickleball is staying put. And it’s not the only business with plans to remain.

Trackers Earth, a camp focused on survival skills, has operated in the former Marshall’s department store since 2023, with over 1,200 campers coming through each summer. Tracker’s founder Tony Deis said the store’s big, open spaces are perfect for archery and indoor play during bad weather. The Lloyd Center’s extensive parking lots and loading docks make it easy for the camp’s buses.

Tony Deis said the camp’s creative spirit made it a perfect fit for the recent iteration of the Lloyd Center, which reinvented the mall with local, independent businesses.

“All the business owners, everyone there, they’re incredible people,” said Deis. “The entrepreneurial spirit has been phenomenal to see and be part of.”

Trackers Earth is staying in the space, which has its own utilities and a private entrance separate from the rest of the mall. Trackers Earth has planned programming and camps through next year and they’ve even told the mall owners they’d be interested in buying their portion of the building, but said conversations are “still evolving.”

“We are not going anywhere for the foreseeable future,” said Deis.

The final remaining tenant has had a less congenial relationship with the mall’s owners. Dermatologist Claudia Taylor has operated her solo practice, Dermatology Professionals, in the mall for 14 years.

Taylor hired a lawyer who specialized in tenant law when the owners tried to unexpectedly end her lease after the mall’s foreclosure and transfer to KKR Real Estate in 2021. She said her lawyer believed the mall’s owners wanted to clear out tenants ahead of a potential redevelopment.

“They’re trying to strong-arm you out so they can say, ‘Look, we have no leases hanging over this property. It’s free and clear. You can invest in it. Everything’s ready to go for a potential buyer,’” Taylor said.

As the plans for the Lloyd Center became public, Taylor started to realize she needed to find a new space and hired a real estate broker to find a new clinic location. “It’s like losing something that’s extremely important to you. This kind of thing is like death in a way and I was in extreme denial,” she said.

Eventually, Taylor and the property owners reached an agreement that will allow her to remain through the end of her lease in April 2027. The owners agreed to changes that will allow patients to reach her office from an external entrance, while partitioning her space from the closed mall.

Taylor is now looking for a new clinic property and hopes to stay nearby in the Lloyd District. “It’s a wonderful place to practice because it’s the confluence of many different freeways. People can get here so easily. That was one of the reasons I chose this place,” said Taylor. “It would be lovely to be in the Lloyd District because of that. It’s quite central for a lot of people coming from a lot of different places.”

That accessibility is also one reason Trackers Earth and Jumbo’s Pickleball are hoping to stay at their locations on the Lloyd Center property long-term.

Roshan Fernando, co-owner of Jumbo’s Pickleball, is even thinking about adding a bar or mini-golf alongside the courts.

But for Fernando, the future of the space is less about what gets added than about what already exists: a place where people can come together.

“I promise you’ll come meet great people and it’ll be a ton of fun,” he said.

Families of sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln are condemning President Trump’s comments on the ship’s record deployment.

A U.S. defense official not authorized to speak publicly told NPR the USS George Washington is en route to relieve the USS Lincoln, which has been at sea for nearly nine months

Trump was asked by reporters Friday whether the USS Lincoln’s deployment had gone on too long.

“No, not nearly long enough,” Trump said.

His comments come amid reports of food shortages, plumbing problems and declining mental health among crew members. There have even been some reports – which NPR has not been able to independently confirm – that sailors have attempted to jump overboard.

Karen Bramlett’s grandson is on the ship. She asked NPR not to use his name for fears he could face repercussions or harassment from the military.

Bramlett said she is able to communicate with her grandson via Instagram about once a week.

“He’s saying he’s good mentally and physically, thank God,” Bramlett said. “But he’s just depressed. With the conditions over there you really can’t blame him.”

Bramlett said her grandson enlisted in the Navy about two years ago. She said it was a dream for him.

“But now he’s like, he just can’t wait to be done,” Bramlett said. “Those dreams have been shattered.”

“Donald Trump needs to be ashamed of himself to let them suffer the way that they’re doing,” she continued. “They’re over there fighting for our country. And this is the thanks they get? They can’t even get help from him or his administration.”

Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Chao said in a statement Friday that the USS Lincoln’s mission was extended because the conflict with Iran demanded it.

“It is also true— a small number of mental health cases were treated with no loss of life,” Cao said. “Meal plans were adjusted when fresh resupply was unavailable, without a single meal being missed. Calls home were limited when the operational threat was too high.”

Cao said those aboard the USS Lincoln are the “epitome of American strength and resilience.”

“There is no question our young men and women have been pushed to their limits—but they have never broken,” Cao said. “They are rightly tired—but have never been out of the fight.”

Democrats demand investigation

Democrats are calling for the Pentagon to investigate and take accountability over the conditions.

Speaking to NPR’s Morning Edition Friday, Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) accused the Trump administration of not having a plan.

“They’re just kind of winging it right now,” he said, adding he felt that the Pentagon’s handling of the deployment itself was “not proper leadership.”

Gallego also said he had spoken to some of the crew aboard the ship.

“We are able to talk to a lot of these sailors,” Gallego said. “We are able to talk to their spouses. And this is why I think it’s important they allow us a bipartisan group of members of the House and the Senate to go and visit these sailors - something that has happened before - to make sure that we know that they’re doing well and that the secretary of defense is not lying to us.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said media reports about the conditions on the ship are “misrepresented” and said the U.S. can indefinitely maintain a naval blockade on Iran.

Speaking to NPR’s All Things Considered, Julie Roland, a former Navy helicopter pilot, said there needs to be care given to the roughly 5,000 sailors returning to the U.S. from the USS Lincoln.

“I don’t think anybody wants to be stuck in their office for 200 days without being able to see their friends or family no matter how good your job is,” Roland said. “Some people do really struggle with the mental health of just transitioning from life on board to coming back home. When they return, we have to embrace them and take care of whatever might be the residual effects of having gone through this.”

A British sociologist who resigned last week from the University of Cambridge following weeks of public accusations of plagiarism and media scrutiny was found dead Friday.

Jason Arday, who was 37 when he became Cambridge’s youngest Black professor in 2023, resigned after he came under intense media pressure, with weeks of allegations about plagiarism in his academic work and questions surrounding claims about his athletic and fundraising accomplishments.

The Times and Telegraph newspapers, along with the BBC and Sky News, reported that Arday, 41, was found “unresponsive” inside a home in Battersea, south London, on Friday afternoon.

News of his death comes the same week as the release of his memoir, “Great and Unfortunate Things,” a highly anticipated work that Simon & Schuster had decided to release despite the doubts about his credibility. In a statement issued through his publisher, Arday’s family said that they were “in shock to have lost this amazing father, partner, brother, uncle and son.”

“The campaign of misinformation was too much for Jason, who was a gentle man and who always wanted to see the best in everyone,” the family said, adding that for three years Arday was “subjected to a campaign of sustained abuse ... by those who would leave no stone unturned in their quest to undermine him.”

The Metropolitan Police said only that a 41-year-old man was pronounced dead in Battersea, without naming the man, in accordance with its policy.

“At this time his death is being treated as unexpected, but is not believed to be suspicious,” the police statement said.

Cambridge Vice-chancellor Deborah Prentice, who earlier announced that the university will investigate the circumstances around Arday’s employment, said she was “desperately saddened” by the news.

“Our heartfelt sympathies go to Jason Arday’s family and friends at this incredibly difficult time,” she said.

In resigning as professor of sociology of education, Arday wrote in a statement that “the relentless accusations, speculation and public commentary have taken a profound toll on me and on those I love.”

He said his stepping down should not “be mistaken for an acceptance of the narratives that have surrounded me.” He has denied plagiarism, but admitted to some mistakes when working on his doctorate.

Supporters, including more than two dozen academics and politicians, had described the plagiarism allegations as a “smear campaign” designed to undermine Arday and other Black people who hold “positions of influence.”

Arday’s appointment at Cambridge highlighted his personal story of overcoming dyslexia, developmental delays and autism that he said left him non-verbal until the age of 11 and illiterate until his late teens.

Cambridge has opened investigation into plagiarism accusations

In his memoir, Arday wrote of himself as born to achieve and born to struggle. He remembered a family “legend” that the 1980s hit “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” was on the radio at the time of his birth. He described how a midwife noted his long fingers and told his mother that it was a sign he was meant for greatness. In his early 20s, he recalled, he was on a relief mission in Brazil when an aid worker placed a hand on his arm and also predicted an extraordinary life.

“But I also believe you’re destined for very sad and difficult things as well,” she warned him.

Questions about Arday’s qualifications were raised publicly last month by Nathan Cofnas, a one-time Cambridge philosophy researcher who left the university after his critique of diversity, equity and inclusion programs sparked widespread protests.

On July 24, the Times of London published an analysis of Arday’s 2015 Ph.D. thesis highlighting what it said were multiple examples of passages that were “identical or near-identical” to an earlier paper written by another researcher.

British media also raised questions about Arday’s claims that he had raised 5.5 million pounds ($7.4 million) for charity through feats such as running 30 marathons in 35 days and 600 miles in six days.

Dozens of Cambridge academics had signed a letter calling for an independent inquiry into how Arday was appointed. Cambridge initially stood by Arday, saying that the plagiarism allegations had been investigated by Liverpool John Moores University, which awarded Arday’s doctorate.

The university then changed its stance and said it opened an investigation “following new information about Professor Arday’s qualifications and honorary appointments.”

Prentice, the university’s vice-chancellor, said this week that Cambridge will run a review of its hiring processes. She stressed that “our staff of color are highly valued, for their scholarship, their achievements and the contributions they make to the institution and the wider academic community.”

“This particular case is an aberration and should not be used to cast aspersions on their work or the legitimacy of their roles at Cambridge,” she said Thursday.

A powerful magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck off the coast of Indonesia early Saturday, killing at least 38 people, collapsing buildings and homes as well as causing panic in a region prone to deadly quakes. Authorities said more than a dozen residents were injured.

Authorities issued a tsunami warning and urged coastal residents to move to higher ground, but later lifted the warning when Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency said monitoring showed no significant sea-level changes that would pose a threat to coastal communities.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake hit Indonesia’s Flores region with a depth of 10 kilometers (six miles) at 5:58 a.m. local time. Its epicenter was 68 km (42 miles) north-northwest of the city of Ende in East Nusa Tenggara province. The initial quake was followed by several aftershocks.

The head of the National Disaster Management Agency, Suharyanto, said rescuers have recovered at least 38 bodies, mostly in the three devastated regencies of Sikka, Manggarai and East Manggarai, including 16 bodies that were pulled from a landslide in the village of Reok in Manggarai. At least 13 people were rushed to nearby hospitals, including two with serious injuries.

Suharyanto, who like many Indonesians uses a single name, said three helicopters and a rescue vessel were deployed to assist with logistics and support emergency response operations, including possible evacuations if needed, given East Nusa Tenggara’s geography, which consists of numerous islands and presents significant transportation and access challenges.

He said about 2,000 villagers in Nagekeo regency fled their homes to temporary shelters.

East Nusa Tenggara Police Chief Rudi Darmoko said the earthquake caused severe damage and collapsed buildings. He said power outages in cities and villages have hampered the flow of information and complicated search and rescue efforts.

“We are continuing to collect reports of damage and casualties, but there are communication disruptions,” Darmoko said. He said that landslides in Ende regency triggered by the earthquake also cut off the Trans-Flores highway, a roughly 700-kilometer (435-mile) paved mountain road spanning Flores Island, from Labuan Bajo to Larantuka.

Footage on local television showed patients at several hospitals being evacuated from buildings as a precaution following the quake. Hospital staff moved equipment outdoors, including beds, IV stands and oxygen cylinders, and set up temporary treatment areas to adapt to emergency conditions.

Quake felt on Flores island and other areas

The quake was felt across much of Flores island with initial reports indicating heavy damage.

Yohanna Embu, a resident of Sikka regency, said a number of buildings were damaged by the strong shaking and panicked people ran to higher ground.

“Many buildings here were damaged ... I saw that the waiting room at the port terminal in Maumere had collapsed,” she said.

Students at St. Peter Major Seminary in Sikka who were attending morning Mass fled in panic when the roof of an assembly hall collapsed, said the Rev. Guidelbertus Tanga, rector of the seminary, which is known locally as Ritapiret Seminary on the predominantly Catholic island of Flores.

“Our students and nuns ran out in panic beneath a collapsing roof,” Tanga said. “At least one priest suffered a broken leg after jumping from the second floor of a building during the quake.”

The quake also reportedly caused panic in Labuan Bajo, a gateway town to eastern Indonesia’s Komodo National Park, one of the country’s best-known attractions. Damage was also reported in Bima, a city in neighboring West Nusa Tenggara province, and in some parts of southern Sulawesi island.

Indonesian authorities initially issued a tsunami warning for parts of East Nusa Tenggara, West Nusa Tenggara, South Sulawesi and Southeast Sulawesi provinces, and urged residents to stay away from beaches and riverbanks. The agency located the shallow undersea quake near Flores island.

Indonesia prone to earthquakes

Indonesia, a vast archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, is prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity because of its location on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin.

A powerful earthquake caused a tsunami in 1992 that killed about 2,500 people on Flores, part of a group of islands in the eastern half of Indonesia.

In 2018, a magnitude 7.5 quake spawned a large localized tsunami that wiped out coastal areas, while liquefaction caused by the shaking turned entire neighborhoods into rivers of sludge in the eastern Indonesian city of Palu, on the Palu-Koro Fault. The disaster killed more than 4,400 people.

In 2010, a 10-foot (three-meter) wave struck the Mentawai Islands, off the western coast of Sumatra in Indonesia, just minutes after a massive offshore earthquake. More than 400 people were killed and hundreds of homes were destroyed.

In December 2004, a massive magnitude 9.1 earthquake off Sumatra in western Indonesia triggered a tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen countries.

Homero Calderón used to spend his days training at the gym and on the soccer pitch. The professional soccer player built a long career, playing for clubs in Venezuela, Portugal, Cyprus and, most recently, Italy.

But for the last five months, Calderón has spent his days inside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Folkston, Ga.

He’s a father of two U.S. citizens, ages 1 and 3. Stuck in detention, his family says he’s growing despondent. He recently missed his daughter’s first birthday.

“I’ve been 17 years with Homero,” his wife Daniela Molina said in a video published on social media. “I had never heard him cry or ask for help like he has.”

Calderón was driving to a car shop in Florida in late February when he was pulled over for speeding by the Marion County Sheriff’s Office and arrested for driving without a valid Florida license, the Department of Homeland Security told NPR in a statement. Molina said her husband had a valid international driving permit.

Calderón was eventually transferred to ICE custody. He’s been in detention ever since.

In a statement to NPR, DHS said Calderón had “permission to stay until September 5, 2025” but that “he overstayed his welcome in violation of our nation’s laws.”

But Calderón was in the middle of two pending immigration cases when he was detained: he had applied on Aug. 25, 2025 for an extension of his tourist visa, and had also applied for a visa for people with extraordinary abilities. Called EB-1A visa, it allows people with extraordinary ability or achievement in fields including athletics, science, arts, education, and business to stay in the U.S. with a green card.

Neither open case kept him from being swept up in President Trump’s immigration crackdown. His case represents a broader pattern, said Shev Dalal-Dheini, the senior director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

“His case is symbolic of so many other individuals who are stuck in processing backlogs at USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) — individuals doing the right thing by filing their applications timely,” Dalal-Dheini said. “But it’s taking many, many, many months, if not in certain instances years, to have a case processed.”

She believes the slow pace is by design.

“It’s an easy way for the government to meet their quota to detain and deport individuals when they know who individuals are because they’ve done the right thing and applied for something,” Dalal-Dheini said.

The backlog of cases at USCIS now stands at a staggering 11.3 million pending cases. The backlog was already high before President Trump took office, but since 2025 it has increased by more than 1.6 million cases, according to an analysis by the American Immigration Council.

And even though USCIS has received fewer immigration petitions, it also processed about 41% fewer cases at the beginning of the 2025 fiscal year, the group found.

“As the government takes longer to process applications, that means people are vulnerable to being arrested by ICE because they don’t have a set status approved by the federal government,” said Adriel Orozco, a senior policy counsel with the American Immigration Council.

According to Homero Calderón’s family, the man has never committed a crime in the U.S. or in any other part of the world. NPR found no evidence of any past or pending criminal cases.

In the past, people like Calderón with pending USCIS applications or immigration court cases weren’t priorities for detention.

“The government would allow those individuals to continue to follow that process,” Orozco said, adding that going after them is “a waste of resources because at the end of the day, those individuals could be potentially approved for those statuses.”

But Orozco says under the Trump administration that has shifted. Now every immigrant — despite the status of their immigration case — could be detained.

Waiting for his release

Ramón Calderón told NPR his brother Homero is disciplined, a skill honed after years of playing soccer professionally.

“When he was 2-years-old I remember when I used to play, he was running around the field,” Ramón Calderón said.

At 16, Homero Calderón signed his first professional contract with Sport Club Guaraní in Venezuela, his brother said. Most of his career he’s played midfield.

He last played professional soccer last year for the Italian team A.S.D. Arboris Belli 1979.

Throughout his life, his brother said, Homero Calderón has always followed the rules and laws no matter in which country he was.

That’s what he did when he came to the U.S., Ramón Calderón said.

“He followed every single step of the process legally to obtain the legal status,” he said.

Ramón Calderón himself is a U.S. citizen. He said his brother and mother have been coming to the U.S. since they were little kids. They never overstayed their visas, he said.

“We’ve done everything under the legality of what the immigration laws are,” Ramón Calderón said. “So it’s very, very hard and very difficult for our family to see him go through this nightmare.”

It’s unclear for how long Homero Calderón will remain in detention.

In a statement, DHS said Calderón will remain in ICE custody “pending the outcome of his immigration proceedings.”

His brother hopes a resolution comes soon.

“We thought his case was strong, that we will get him out on bail and then follow his process and everything was going to be good there, but it’s been six months,” Ramón Calderón said. “We just need his process to have an answer, a final answer on his visa and his residency case. Whatever that result is going to be, we will accept.”

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Hundreds of Afghans who fought alongside U.S. troops and supported the U.S. government in Afghanistan are now worried their green cards could be revoked.

In Afghanistan, their efforts ranged from custodial jobs at the U.S. embassy, to technology and engineering roles with U.S. contractors and companies. Some were on the frontlines of combat as interpreters.

In the years leading up to the U.S.’s chaotic 2021 withdrawal from Kabul, Congress and the Biden administration facilitated several programs for Afghans involved in military efforts to come to the U.S. with their families. Among them is the Special Immigrant Visa for Afghans, which was authorized in 2009. Since then, the State Department has issued 160,000 of those visas. More than half of them were granted since the U.S. closed its embassy in Kabul in 2021.

But now, five years after the U.S. left Afghanistan, hundreds of people who came on SIVs and now have green cards have received notices from the federal government warning them that the basis for their visas has been revoked or denied.

Families, many of whom were having children, learning English and enrolling in college, are now scrambling to find answers on the best way to respond to the government’s letters.

“We are trying to work, study, raise our children and build a normal life in the U.S,” said M., who asked NPR to refer to him by his first initial because he’s concerned that speaking to the media could affect his green card. “But now we are also trying to find lawyers, contact congressional offices and understand what may happen to our green cards. It is very stressful because even immigration lawyers give different opinions.”

The notices themselves are not necessarily new. The federal government began sending some out at the end of the Biden administration because they suspected some of the supporting documents for Afghans’ SIV applications were not collected through the correct processes, potentially amounting to fraud.

But advocates, lawyers and Afghan nationals who spoke with NPR said the letters appear to be sent at a higher frequency and volume than what advocates expected, and are leaving some of these U.S. allies at risk of being deported. Over the last year, those helping allies settle into the U.S. noticed an uptick in the letters and a lack of pattern as to who was receiving them. The letters have added to the dwindling pathways for Afghans to become U.S. citizens and settle into their new lives.

“What we have seen specifically with the SIV program is people who are issued these visas and come to the U.S. have built lives here, gotten jobs, their kids are in school, they’ve integrated into their communities and are living their lives,” said Jennifer Patota, deputy director of U.S. legal services at the International Refugee Assistance Project. “To get a withdrawal of approval letter years after the actual visa has been issued is something we haven’t ever seen before.”

The State Department and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services branch of the Homeland Security Department, which are sending the letters, did not respond to requests for comment.

Fraud detection efforts combine with a mass deportation strategy

The first stage in the process of applying for the SIV is to get what is called a “Chief of Mission” approval. It involves providing an employer verification letter — letters of recommendation from a supervisor and proof that shows the employer was either the U.S. government or a contractor with the U.S. government, among other things.

Such verification became more difficult after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

“Especially after the withdrawal of troops, many companies were shutting down, destroying all of their records, making it impossible in many cases to verify someone’s employment,” Patota said.

And then there was a concern of fraud — particularly that these immigrants, even unknowingly, had paid for letters of recommendation. In one case prosecuted by the Justice Department, a man was sentenced to 30 months in prison for a years-long bribery scheme where he accepted payments from Afghan nationals in exchange for drafting, submitting and verifying fraudulent letters of recommendation for Afghan nationals who applied for SIVs.

To combat the risk of fraud, the Biden administration created a plan to verify SIV information of individuals who could have connections to employers later suspected of such schemes. Shawn VanDiver, president of AfghanEvac, advocates for Afghans who worked alongside U.S. troops. He said his organization was notified by the previous administration that the notices would be going out.

“When this started, it had nothing to do with the Afghans. It was very much about the letter writers and companies,” VanDiver said. “There were some companies and some letter writers that were up to no good – like selling letters and every single case associated with those companies or letter writers then got poisoned.”

The expectation, he said, was that if the SIVs were fully revoked, individuals could still apply for, and would be likely to receive, asylum. But now, his organization and others are hearing from hundreds of people and believe the scope of the revocations is much larger.

Under this Trump administration, the letters and revocations come at a time when Afghan nationals feel particularly left out of the legal immigration system. The U.S. has paused other avenues for legal immigration available to Afghans, including the refugee resettlement program, which Trump halted on the first day of his second term, and the processing of other types of visas. Those already in the country on programs like Temporary Protected Status have also been stripped of that permission to stay.

“When the Department of State initiated a re-review of Chief of Mission applications in 2024, we understood the importance of that effort,” said Jill Marie Bussey, director for legal affairs at Global Refuge. That group has been helping hundreds navigate this visa issue, as well as resettlement in the U.S. “The correspondence we saw at that time was generally tailored to the individual case and provided applicants with enough information to understand the decision and any available next steps.”

But she says more recently, “there is a decline in the quality and clarity of some Department communications, including final appeal decisions that appear to raise questions about factual accuracy and provide little explanation for the outcome.”

For now, it does not appear that Afghan nationals who received letters have had their green cards or citizenship revoked at scale. But advocates like VanDiver said the letters, alongside the crumbling of other programs like Temporary Protected Status and immigration application pauses, cause confusion and fear.

“These folks were on the frontlines of our war. They were interpreting. They were enabling our mission,” VanDiver said. “Now it feels like it’s all coming crashing down and they get no explanation of what to do.”

Families fear for their futures

Across the country, Afghan nationals who helped the U.S. and their families are grappling with stress, confusion and potential financial instability after receiving the notices. Several asked that NPR use only their first names because they fear their immigration status could be affected by speaking to the press.

One of those people is Abdul who lives in Texas and was an engineer working with the U.S. Army in Afghanistan from 2017 to 2021. He was evacuated from Kabul to Qatar by the State Department and eventually got his SIV approved and came to the U.S. with his wife and two young kids.

“Most of my friends living in the U.S. three or four years, all of them receive a letter,” he said. “All my friends are very depressed, most of them very worried about this issue. What will happen to us? What should we do?”

The letters are reaching people who had a long history of working alongside American efforts. Sasad, who lives in Washington state and is a former engineer, worked with the U.S. government in 2014 until the withdrawal. He began his visa process in 2019, before the fall of Kabul.

He lives with his wife, and they have U.S.-born children, including one with health issues that has required surgery and regular hospital visits. Sasad will soon be eligible to apply for citizenship, but after receiving his letter, he is afraid to begin the process.

“I’ve been here for more than four years, and then in the next year, I am eligible to apply for my citizenship. But when I go to the USCIS [United States Citizenship and Immigration Services], I’m stressed that they will detain me,” he said, adding that his plans to go back to school and work are less certain now that he fears losing his legal permission to stay.

The Afghan nationals NPR spoke to described returning to Afghanistan as unimaginable, stressful and a death sentence. The country, which has been under the complete control of the Taliban, has also experienced deadly strikes from Pakistan, earthquakes and widespread hunger and malnutrition.

“When I came here, I thought that all my problems were solved, that now is the time to build my future right here,” Sasad said, adding that he is concerned about his ability to stay in school, have a career or even travel outside the U.S. in an emergency. “What now? I cannot focus on my long-term goals. Now all of my thoughts are ‘what if?’ situations. A lot of ‘what if?’ situations [are] giving me anxiety and depression.”

Good morning, Northwest.

The Centennial Mills warehouse is easily noticeable when you walk around Portland’s Pearl District. But as the century-old building is slated for demolition after it caught fire two weeks ago, some local residents are using this as an opportunity to remember the city landmark.

OPB’s Riley Martinez took the chance to speak with these people as the warehouse’s days are numbered.

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

— Winston Szeto

Top story

Portlanders gather to remember Centennial Mills as demolition gets off to slow, quiet start

For the 75 years Diane Lewis has lived in Portland, she’s seen the derelict Centennial Mills warehouse on Northwest Naito Parkway not as an eyesore but a landmark.

She set up a lawn chair behind the chainlink fence now blocking The Fields Park to paint a watercolor of the charred and hollowed-out 116-year-old building before it’s demolished.

The Centennial Mills warehouse caught fire on Aug. 2, sending out huge plumes of smoke that were visible from miles away. City officials announced that its demolition is expected to begin in earnest on Monday.

Throughout yesterday, people continued passing by to see what progress had been made on the building. (Riley Martinez)

Learn More

3 things to know

1. About a thousand people have been ordered to evacuate their homes between Grants Pass and Medford after a wildfire grew rapidly overnight near the rural community of Rogue River. Meanwhile, more than 6,000 personnel have been deployed to other fires burning across Oregon. (Courtney Sherwood)
2. An investigation into the former head of the state’s human resource department, spurred by a litany of wide-ranging anonymous complaints, alleges Jessica Knieling did not always follow the state’s own rules around hiring and disciplining employees. (Lauren Dake)
3. Last night at Springfield’s City Hall, various activist organizations held a rally after a local resident was detained by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement earlier this week. (Julia Boboc/KLCC)

Northwest headlines

• Lloyd’s not dead yet, at least for these businesses (Lillian Karabaic)
• Proposed changes to the National Historic Preservation Act could make tribal consultation optional (Mackenzie Olivo, Underscore Native News)
• Lane Community College receives accreditation warning over governance (Rebecca Hansen-White, KLCC)
• Kalshi ordered to sharply curtail operations in Washington state (Jake Goldstein-Street, Washington State Standard)
• The Bateman Island Causeway is gone. Now, there’s a ‘surprising’ number of sockeye returning to the Yakima River (Courtney Flatt, Northwest Public Broadcasting)
• Ashland chiropractic clinic faces another lawsuit over former employee’s alleged sexual abuse (Jane Vaughan, JPR)
• ‘Every day is harder.’ Dad killed at Seattle Center is laid to rest (Casey Martin, KUOW)
• Holly Winterburn scores season-high 20 and the Fire build early lead before holding off Storm 84-82 (Associated Press)

One more look

Superabundant recipe: Tamalito-stuffed sweet peppers are the tamale-chile relleno mashup you didn’t know you needed

Tamales and stuffed vegetables have been around for thousands of years in the New World and Old, respectively.

But stuffed peppers like chiles rellenos are a relatively recent addition to the Mexican culinary landscape.

Why? And why aren’t there already a dozen different types of tamales stuffed *inside* chiles?

This week’s Superabundant newsletter might not have a good explanation, but at least it includes a recipe for these tamalito-stuffed sweet peppers. (Heather Arndt Anderson)

Learn More

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

For the 75 years Diane Lewis has lived in Portland, she’s seen the derelict Centennial Mills warehouse on Northwest Naito Parkway not as an eyesore but a landmark.

On Friday, she set up a lawn chair behind the chainlink fence now blocking The Fields Park, to paint a watercolor of the charred and hollowed-out 116-year-old building before it’s demolished.

“I love the connection to history,” Lewis said. “I think it’s really cool looking, including all the graffiti.”

The Centennial Mills warehouse in Portland’s Pearl District caught fire on Aug. 2, sending out huge plumes of smoke that were visible from miles away. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

As the blaze grew, the building’s floors collapsed, raising concerns that the building — which had already been deemed unsafe — would fall.

Demolition of the warehouse was set to begin Friday morning — but it was slow going.

Onlookers craned their necks to look at the water tower on top of the building, only to see there were no giant cranes or other machinery — just a cherry picker lowering steel plates onto the adjacent road.

Celine Stroinski, who was watercoloring alongside Lewis, injected some humor into the underwhelming situation.

“I’m hoping to be here when Supergirl and Superman come and pick up that tower and fly it away,” Stroinski said.

On Friday afternoon, city officials announced that the demolition is expected to begin in earnest on Monday, Aug. 17, and would start with a controlled demolition of the building’s water tower before the rest of the structure was dismantled.

Officials said nearby residents and property owners will be notified before any explosives are detonated — and cautioned that the blast would be loud.

They also noted that the building has tested positive for lead and asbestos, and warned people to remain inside until the dust clears.

“We realize there is a desire to see this building come down quickly,” Eric Kutch, director of the city’s permitting department said in the news release. “Safety is our highest priority. We ask for the public’s patience as we work to bring this building down as quickly as we can in the safest manner possible.”

Throughout Friday afternoon, people continued passing by to see what progress had been made on the building.

Robert Baert, a Portland resident who came out early that morning to watch, said he was surprised the building hadn’t already collapsed.

He reflected on what the loss of the building means for the neighborhood.

“It’ll be an empty spot in the little skyline that we have going on down here [in the Pearl District].”

“For me, is that a significant loss of a building architecturally? No,” he said. “Culturally, in a way, as far as its relation to the waterfront? Yes. So it’s kind of sad to see it go.”

The city has not yet provided a precise timeline for how long the demolition will take, but Kutch offered some clues at a Friday press conference.

“Based on the contractor’s current estimate, the building could be reduced to approximately 50% of its current height within about two weeks,” he said.

City officials have previously noted that the demolition is atypical due to the building’s current risk of collapse. In a press release earlier this week, the city warned that vibrations from rail cars passing through the area could increase that risk.

That risk has caused tension between Portland city officials and Union Pacific over the railroad’s decision to allow rail cars through the area, including some containing hazardous materials.

Portland City Administrator Raymond C. Lee III sent a letter to Union Pacific on Aug. 11 alerting the railroad that 13 rail cars carrying residual hazardous materials had passed the warehouse.

The city said it confirmed this using the AskRail app — which allows first responders to know what rail cars are carrying — and immediately notified Union Pacific. “That immediately raised serious concerns, particularly given Union Pacific’s previous commitment to restrict moving hazardous materials through the collapse zone,” city spokesperson Dan Douthit said in an email.

Even if a car is empty of hazardous chemicals, a small percentage of the tank’s volume can still contain residual chemicals, the email said, citing Portland Fire & Rescue’s Hazmat Coordinator. If the building were to collapse, it could damage the train, potentially releasing those hazardous chemicals into the air.

“A release of that magnitude would produce a hazardous plume requiring immediate emergency response and posing a severe health and safety threat to the surrounding area,” Douthit wrote.

Union Pacific said in an email Friday morning it “has suspended running ‘loaded rail cars’ transporting toxic and poisonous inhalation hazards,” but did not respond to OPB’s additional questions about the safety of the rail cars that have passed through the area since the fire.

For now, some Portlanders, like Lewis, will use the demolition as an opportunity to remember what’s left of the historical port area.

“I’m sad that it’s going away — and that’s life,” Lewis said. “Cities change, I know that, but I really like the old buildings and I hope we can preserve those that are left.”

Knieling was fired in June. The report was recently completed and released on Friday.

“The complainants alleged that Ms. Knieling abused the power and authority of her position and manipulated or violated the very HR policies her office was responsible for overseeing,” the report states.

Of the 22 complaints raised against Knieling and other staff, the independent investigator hired by the state, Heidi Mason, said three of the complaints against Knieling were fully or partially substantiated.

In a previous interview with OPB, Knieling said she was fired after refusing to resign. She said she was trying to hold public officials accountable.

On Friday, Knieling’s attorney sent a statement, saying Knieling believes the investigation was “deeply flawed.”

“Ms. Knieling is disappointed that the investigation does not present a full and accurate picture of her work, her dedication to employees and the state, and the decisions she made in order to hold public officials accountable and uphold the public trust,” wrote Whitney Stark, Knieling’s attorney.

Knieling also did not have an opportunity to review the report before it was released to the public, her attorney noted. She said she looks forward to providing a detailed response, including to what she called factual inaccuracies and omissions.

Some of the complaints in the investigation deal with Knieling’s hiring practices and allege she appointed three staff without all the appropriate documentation.

In one instance, even when the then-head of the Department of Administrative Service approved a hiring, Knieling went through several of the required steps but didn’t document the “applicable policy criteria” nor explain the individual’s qualifications in written documents. The investigator found that complaint to be partially substantiated.

The second complaint says Knieling blocked a former employee from gaining future employment. There is documentation showing that Knieling wrote to the employee in question, who is not named in the report, in October 2023.

“Unfortunately, my confidence and trust in you has been severely compromised,” Knieling wrote. “I invite you to provide other insights or information that you think I am missing in my assessment of this situation. Absent some reasonable explanation, I struggle to see a successful path forward for you in the (state’s human resource office).”

Oregon’s top human resources official fired; says she tried to hold state leaders accountable

The report goes back and forth over whether Knieling proactively called this employee’s future employers at the Oregon Youth Authority or if officials there called Knieling seeking a reference. The report also states that by one account, Knieling was “aggressively advocating” for this employee’s removal from a temporary job at the youth authority. Either way, Knieling did not offer a positive review of the employee and the employee did not get the job.

The investigator notes that state law allows a former employee’s job performance to be given to a prospective employer “upon the request” of the employer. Mason, the investigator, substantiated this complaint, saying she believed Knieling proactively reached out.

Finally, the third complaint alleges Knieling inappropriately denied an employee’s Americans with Disabilities Act accommodation request. The state employee in question lives in Idaho and was having a difficult time attending in-person monthly meetings and quarterly all-staff meetings.

The investigator also found that complaint to be substantiated noting, “(nobody) considered modifying Ms. Knieling’s in-office policies as a form of reasonable accommodation, even though technology was available to support remote attendance.”

Some of the other complaints against Knieling and her deputy, Kyle Weraky, who resigned, were unfounded, including using certain derogatory language against employees.

“I observed multiple instances of Mr. Weraky ranting and speaking unkindly about employees,” Mason wrote. “But I did not observe Mr. Weraky use language like “crazy”, “hysterical”, “incompetent”, “trash”, “arrogant”, or “slow in the head” to describe any employees.”

Mason interviewed more than two dozen people for the report and reviewed internal emails and documents. The report was 69 pages.

At Springfield’s City Hall on Friday evening, people took turns writing messages on a sign that read, “Stop the fear.”

The rally was organized by various activist organizations after a Springfield resident was detained by ICE earlier this week.

People at the rally said, since then, immigrant families in the area have been scared to leave their homes or send their kids to school after summer ends.

Johanis Tadeo, with La Gente Unido de Lane, said the rally was a chance for community members to show they have their neighbors’ backs.

“A lot of the time, folks don’t really have an insight of what’s going on in our communities, and sometimes people turn away,” Tadeo said. “This gives them an opportunity to be able to see, hear, direct from families, and be able to find ways that they could be able to help and support, because it does feel like a really lonely time right now to live in Springfield.”

Albany mom released after four months in ICE detention

In a speech at the rally, Miguel Rivas with the Party for Socialism and Liberation and the Lane County Immigrant Defense Network said community education and organization are vital.

“A threat to one of us is a threat to all of us. The same mechanisms that allow for ICE to instill fear in our community can be used against anybody. Our greatest strength is to organize and communicate with one another,” he said. “This rally is a reaction … it’s a reminder that we will show up and that we will be here. We will learn how to fight against this.”

Organizers of the event said they hope to continue gathering the community for proactive opportunities to learn about and support residents in need.

Rivas said people will be able to learn more about how they can help from activist group tables at the Springfield Block Party on Sept. 12.

Julia Boboc is a reporter with KLCC. 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.

Holly Winterburn scored 18 of her career-high 20 points in the first half, Bridget Carleton had 14 points and nine rebounds, and the Portland Fire beat the Seattle Storm 84-82 on Friday night to secure a four-game season sweep.

Winterburn, who went into the game with 49 career points in the WNBA, made 8 of 14 from the field and finished with

Karlie Samuelson made Portland’s 12th and final 3-pointer with 5:20 remaining for a 79-66 lead. But the Fire did not make another field goal until Emily Engstler’s driving layup with 2:07 left made it 82-75 and Carla Leite, an 89% free-throw shooter, went 2 of 4 at the stripe in the final 15 seconds.

Natisha Hiedeman sank a 3-pointer with 6.2 seconds left to cut the deficit to 83-82, but her 3-point attempt at the buzzer hit hard off the backboard.

Leite and Megan DiLeo each scored 14 points for Portland (14-20). Winterburn, who missed last season due to injury, made 8 of 14 from the field and finished with seven rebounds, five assists and three steals in about 21 minutes off the bench. Winterburn went into the game with 49 career points in the WNBA.

Rookie Awa Fam led Seattle (7-29) with 20 points and nine rebounds off the bench. Ezi Magbegor added 13 points, Jordan Horston had 12 points and 11 rebounds, and Jade Melbourne also scored 12. Dominique Malonga, Seattle’s leading scorer at 17.4 points per game, scored nine points on 3-of-15 shooting and grabbed 12 rebounds.

Up next

Fire: At Phoenix on Sunday.

Storm: Host Chicago on Sunday.

___

AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball

It’s been about six months since excavators scooped out the dirt and rock that made up the Bateman Island Causeway. The stagnant water behind the landbridge could get really hot in the summer. It also created space for predators to snack on salmon.

Now that the water is no longer blocked, biologists said they’ve seen an increase in sockeye salmon in the lower Yakima — nearly 400 sockeye as of today, said Zac Zacavish, a research biologist with the Yakama Nation.

He said it’s likely the highest percentage they’ve seen since the Yakama Nation first released sockeye for its reintroduction program in 2009. Biologists had predicted removing the causeway would be a ‘huge step’ for salmon in the Yakima River.

“ This is a really good return comparatively to the Columbia River return,” Zacavish said.

Sockeye fisheries on the Upper Columbia had to be canceled because of low sockeye numbers.

Biologists want sockeye to move quickly during the hot months of June and July. That’s when most of this sockeye run made it to the mouth of the Yakima River.

“Having that causeway out allows them to just queue in and boogie,” Zacavish said.

In addition, he said, a cool spell a couple of weeks ago helped cool water temperatures. So did the smoke, which decreases solar radiation.

Now, summer Chinook are moving into the Yakima River, Zacavish said.

A lot of salmon work is ongoing on the lower Yakima, he said. Along with the Bateman Island Causeway deconstruction, tribal, local and state partners have worked to remove stargrass. Larger projects are in the works as well, he said.

“The Lower Yakima River is a huge bottleneck for smolt survival and adults coming up with the thermal block that sets up. So a lot of effort over the last few years and into the future is going to actually be on the lower river projects,” he said.

And there’s more work to be done with the now free-flowing mouth of the Yakima, Zacavish said. Biologists are planning to study what routes young salmon are taking now, and how that compares to the routes they took before the causeway was removed.

Read the audio transcript here.

Courtney Flatt is a reporter with Northwest Public Broadcasting. 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.

The tall, broad-shouldered dad is almost protecting them from this force of evil.

“His pride and joy was his children,” Sandra Frausto Reyna, Sanchez Villalba’s wife of 18 years, told KUOW.

“I’m devastated. Every day is harder — just to think about the future without him is hard, especially for my children.”

They had three kids: two daughters, ages 16 and 7, and a son, who is 11.

Sanchez Villalba framed houses for a living, working long, hard days on construction sites. But after work, Frausto Reyna said he always had time for his kids.

“My son would meet him at the door and, ‘Dad, let’s play, let’s kick the ball.’ And Carlos would say, ‘Yeah let me take off my shoes.’ He would change his boots into his tennis shoes and kick the ball with his son,” Frausto Reyna said. “Never said no, never said ‘I’m tired,’ never said ‘later.’ It was always a yes.”

Sanchez Villalba was from Mexico, and moved to Washington about 20 years ago.

Frausto Reyna said he loved to travel. He took the family on one big trip every year, showing them the world beyond Yelm, where they live.

“We liked to go to Lake Tahoe a lot, you know, he would take his boat,” she said, “Mexico to visit his family, Colorado. He liked to see new places.”

Shannon McIntyre, who worked with Sanchez Villalba on homebuilding, said he was an essential part of the team who framed the company’s last three houses before he died.

“Carlos was a framer who you could call and he would answer on the weekends,” McIntyre wrote on Facebook. “Whenever you needed something, he went above and beyond.”

Friends of Sanchez Villalba said he was a funny guy with a quick sense of humor.

“He was always willing to help no matter what it was,” said Tommy Evans, who called Sanchez Villalba one of his best friends. “The nicest guy I’ve ever met.”

Washington state gun law could be rewritten after Seattle Center shooting

He fished, hunted, and was a big foodie. That’s what took them to the Bite of Seattle last month.

Frausto Reyna said they’ve gone to the festival before, and this year, they decided to go on a whim — a Sunday trip for the five of them to be together.

“Like, ‘OK, yeah, let’s take the trip to Seattle.’ You know, there’s going to be a lot of food. It’s a family thing,” she said. “So, you know, why not?”

Sanchez Villalba, always looking for new foods to try, had some vendors in mind.

“Mexican style seafood, cocteles, and shrimp and octopus and a whole bunch of stuff,” Frausto Reyna said. “That was kind of his main reason of going, because he wanted seafood.”

The family was standing in line to order food when they first heard gunshots.

They all turned and ran, Frausto Reyna said.

Sanchez Villalba grabbed their older daughter, who is in a wheelchair because of a disability.

“He was trying to get away with his daughter,” Frausto Reyna said — once again, protecting his children.

Sanchez Villalba was shot in the chest and died at Seattle Center.

Seattle police say the shooting may have been gang related. And it left several innocent bystanders among the victims. Two other people were also killed, and multiple others injured.

“Wrong place at the wrong time,” Frausto Reyna said.

Now, she’s trying to raise her children without her husband.

“I stay strong for my kids,” Frausto Reyna said.

A shootout that killed 3 at a food festival near Seattle's Space Needle may have been gang-related

The family held a memorial service for Sanchez Villalba about two weeks after the July 26 shooting.

At the memorial service, she was surrounded by friends, family, and Sanchez Villalba’s co-workers. Many brought coolers full of homemade tamales. Sanchez Villalba’s huge pickup truck, with fish stickers in the back window, was parked out front.

They held a rosary service by his open casket and a Catholic priest gave a prayer with Frausto Reyna by his side.

During the prayer, she looked down at 44-year-old Sanchez Villalba — the dad that took his kids on adventures, out to ice cream, and kicked the ball in the yard.

“He was just amazing,” she said. ”I don’t know why all the people that are amazing are the ones that go first.”

Casey Martin 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.