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Good morning, Northwest.
We’re back in your inbox after Veterans Day.
Events across the region honored those who have served in the military, including a powwow for Indigenous veterans in Salem on Saturday and a dedication ceremony yesterday in Hood River for a new highway marker for Japanese Oregonian World War II soldiers.
OPB’s Dirk VanderHart leads off the newsletter with a story about speculation that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is planning a new base of operations on the Oregon Coast.
We conclude the newsletter with an infamous anniversary: On this day 55 years ago, Oregon blew up a whale.
Here’s your First Look at Wednesday’s news.
—Meagan Cuthill
FILE - An undated photo of the Yaquina Bay Bridge in Newport. The city of Newport is exploring rumors that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement might set up a facility there.
Kristian Foden-Vencil / OPB
How an inquiry from defense contractor spurred concern about a possible ICE facility
A Texas-based company called Team Housing Solutions specializes in quickly standing up housing for troops and private-sector workers. In a Nov. 4 letter to the city of Newport, obtained via a public records request, the company signaled it might be needed soon at the Newport Municipal Airport.
While registering its interest in leasing a 4.3-acre-plot at the airport, Team Housing Solutions told city leaders it intended to “support federal operations commencing at the Newport Municipal Airport on or around December 1, 2025” and lasting at least six months.
In the week since the letter, local, state and federal officials have been trying to learn more about what the federal government is planning in Newport with little success. But there is growing concern that the small coastal city’s tiny airport has been tapped as the latest outpost in President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. (Dirk VanderHart)
Samson Garner testifies in Deschutes County Circuit Court in Bend, Ore. on Sep. 8, 2025. Garner was found guilty of 26 felony counts including attempted murder in the first degree.
Kathryn Styer Martínez / OPB
3 things to know this morning
- A Portland man has been sentenced to three decades in prison for plotting a mass shooting at Smith Rock State Park two years ago. (OPB staff)
- Gov. Tina Kotek announced on Monday that she signed the transportation bill passed by lawmakers more than a month ago. Now, opponents will spend the next month and a half trying to make sure much of it never takes effect. (Dirk VanderHart)
- While some states have taken a more active role in making improvements on school attendance,Oregon continues to struggle. In the 2022-23 school year, almost 4 in 10 Oregon students were chronically absent. It was the worst rate in the country that year. (Elizabeth Miller)
Hush season 2 explores how a young woman's death shook a rural Oregon community and the ways true crime media has helped keep answers out of reach.
Van Cooley / OPB
‘Hush’ Episode 6: Persons unknown
The “Hush” team digs into the medical examiner’s conclusions to uncover never-before-known details about Sarah Zuber’s death investigation. (Ryan Haas and Leah Sottile)
An undated photo of Mount Bachelor in Central Oregon.
Michael Clapp
Headlines from around the Northwest
- Central Oregon begins transition into winter wonderland (Kathryn Styer Martínez)
- Baby formula distributed out of Oregon recalled as infant botulism outbreak grows (JoNel Aleccia)
- Proposed cuts to Portland’s homeless camp removal program puts mayor on defense (Alex Zielinski)
- Salmon back in the Klamath River are finding their way into irrigation canals — something farmers and officials want to prevent (Justin Higginbottom)
- Portland metro counties release updated regional climate dashboard (Monica Samayoa)
- Vancouver garbage rates tick up slightly next year, but large water rate increases loom (Erik Neumann)
- Portland State University violated faculty labor contract amid budget cuts, independent mediator rules (Tiffany Camhi)
- ‘Honor the dead by fighting for the living’: Central Oregon celebrates Día de Muertos (Kathryn Styer Martínez)
Listen in on OPB’s daily conversation
“Think Out Loud” airs at noon and 8 p.m. weekdays on OPB Radio, opb.org and the OPB News app. Today’s planned topics (subject to change):
- Nonsense, absurdity and irony in the novels of Percival Everett
A screenshot of the moment of detonation of the rotting sperm whale as capture by KATU on Nov. 12, 1970, in Florence, Ore.
Courtesy of KATU
Today is Exploding Whale Day
In November 1970, a 45-foot, 8-ton dead sperm whale washed up on the shore of the coastal town of Florence, Oregon. It was huge. It was stinky. And it needed to be gone yesterday.
Back then the coast was managed by the State Highway Division, and agency officials figured the best way to get rid of the immovable mammal was by blowing it up with half a ton of dynamite.
And so, blubber went boom on Nov. 12, 1970.
We revisit this 2020 story about Oregon’s whale of a tale. (Tiffany Camhi)
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