The latest and most comprehensive coverage of local News, Sports, Business, and Community News stories in the Klamath Basin, Southern Oregon and around the state of Oregon from Wynne Broadcasting’s KFLS News/Talk 1450AM / 102.5FM, The Herald and News, and BasinLife.com, and powered by Mick Insurance. Call them at 541-882-6476.

 

Monday, March 3, 2025

Klamath Basin Weather

 

 

Pet of the Week from Klamath Animal Shelter

This week’s pet is a dog named ” Dutton “

 

 

Around the State of Oregon

With Democratic support, former Oregon Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer cleared a key hurdle Thursday morning in her quest to become the nation’s next Secretary of Labor. 

Three Democratic senators — Tim Kaine of Virginia, John Hickenlooper of Colorado and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire — joined 10 of the 12 Republican members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in voting to advance Chavez-DeRemer’s nomination, giving her the support she needed despite one Republican senator’s absence and another’s opposition. 

Chavez-DeRemer, a one-term congresswoman from Oregon’s 5th Congressional District, built a closer relationship with some trade unions than other Republicans in Congress.

Her father was a Teamster, and the union’s leader urged President Donald Trump to nominate her. If the full Senate confirms Chavez-DeRemer, she’ll be Oregon’s first cabinet member in decades.

 

An Eagle Point man is dead after hitting a semi-truck head-on near milepost 6 on Highway 138W in Douglas County early Wednesday morning.

Oregon State Police’s preliminary investigation shows that a Ford Escape, driven by 38-year-old Carl Gregory Miller, was traveling eastbound just before 5 a.m. when it veered into the westbound lane and hit a Kenworth semi-truck head-on.

Police say the Ford immediately burst into flames. Other drivers in the area were able to pull Miller from the burning SUV, however, he died at the scene. The driver of the semi-truck was uninjured. OSP says the highway was impacted for approximately five hours. The agency also believes fatigue may have been a factor in the crash.

 

Through the first month of the 2025 tax season, thousands Oregon taxpayers have electronically filed their income tax returns directly with the state using Direct File Oregon.

Many state returns were filed in combination with federal tax returns using IRS Direct File. The option to use the combination of IRS Direct File and Direct File Oregon to file both federal and state income taxes is new this year.  The department has released a helpful video with tips for using the federal and state direct file combination. 

Taxpayers using the combination of IRS Direct File and Direct File Oregon have been completing their Oregon returns in about 16 minutes, she said. Taxpayer response has been positive with survey feedback averaging 4.5 on a five-point scale. 

IRS Direct File does not support all return types. Specifically, taxpayers with dividends reported on Form 1099-DIV and capital gains or losses are not supported. Income from pensions, reported on Form 1099-R, won’t be supported until later in March. To use IRS Direct File taxpayers must have an IRS online account.

Taxpayers who don’t already have IRS online account should sign up with ID.me and create an account before beginning the filing process. Taxpayers who want to import their federal return information into Direct File Oregon must have a Revenue Online account to file their state income tax return. Taxpayers who don’t already have a Revenue Online account can create one by following the Revenue Online link on the department’s website.

 

The Internal Revenue Service and Oregon Department of Revenue has released its list of tax scams people should watch out for in 2025.

Topping the list are phishing scams, where fraudsters pose as legitimate organizations in the tax and financial community. Unsolicited texts or emails are sent to lure unsuspecting victims into handing out their personal or financial information. Another growing concern involves incorrect tax information on social media.

The IRS warns this can mislead people into bogus tax avoidance strategies and sometimes result in identity theft. While many of these scams occur throughout the year, they peak during filing season.

 

In a state known for liberal protests, the recent demonstrations around Oregon continue like the always do.

People at the University of Oregon last week marched against President Donald Trump’s immigration policies. Others gathered along the streets of Hermiston in Eastern Oregon on Presidents Day, saying the nation’s poor are at risk. They crossed a bridge in downtown Portland, surrounded a local Tesla dealership, and filled the sidewalks near the Oregon State Capitol in Salem.

President Trump’s actions during his first month in office have sparked an uproar throughout the Pacific Northwest. People are protesting the administration almost every week, and the political frustrations seem to be growing.  No single cause unites the protesters, not war, police brutality or the chase for climate change. Instead, people of all ages are rising up against a wide range of the Trump administration’s policies, and what they call an unconstitutional power grab by the president and his billionaire ally, Elon Musk.

Protestors seem all in on the status quo for decades of government spending waste, fraud and abuse, while Musk and his team have found billions of dollars in fraud and waste of all kinds, saving taxpayers hundreds if not thousands of dollars.

Oregon’s congressional delegation faces mounting pressure to act. Thousands of people have recently packed their town halls — from La Grande to Hillsboro. At least twice, the gatherings grew so large that people were turned away, according to local news reports.  Lawmakers say their offices are being flooded with complaints from

Oregonians alarmed by the mass firings of federal employees and funding cuts to public agencies. Those include workers who fight fires for the Forest Service, and they could include people who forecast the weather for the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration. The cuts come amid Trump and Musk’s efforts to dramatically downsize the federal government work force.

 

Though the Oregon Employment Department does not have a count of how many federal workers have applied for unemployment benefits so far, they’re tracking and preparing.

In Oregon, there are more than 29,000 people in the state who work for the federal government — including 7,000 in the U.S. Postal Service; 6,400 in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs; and 3,400 in the U.S. Forest Service. Department leaders say they are ready to help, no matter how Oregonians lose their jobs.  The earliest the department thinks it will see those numbers will be in late March.

The Oregon Employment Department will also be looking for other workers affected by funding cuts in groups that rely on federal dollars, like researchers at universities and other organizations. But specifically for federal workers, there is a page on the Oregon Employment Department website meant to help them go through the process if they lose their jobs.

 

Oregon has thousands of federal jobs across the state, and state economists are shedding light on what areas will be hit the hardest amid federal layoffs. In the first quarter of 2024, Oregon had a total of 28,750 federal jobs and the sector made up 1.5% of the state’s employment.

While it remain unclear how many job and which agencies would see cuts due to the Trump administration’s efforts to scale back government spending, impacts of job revenue loss may be felt more heavily in rural areas according to a report from Oregon State Employment Economist. 

The report notes that across Oregon, federal jobs pay 36% more than the average wages, but the gap is even more pronounced in rural areas.  It is unclear which agencies would be impacted, the memo excludes the US Postal Service, the Military and Federal Law Enforcement. It directs agencies or components that provide direct services to citizens (such as Social Security, Medicare, and veterans’ health care) to delay implementation of staff cuts until the plans are approved.

 

A state-commissioned school finance report that found Oregon needs to spend even more per pupil to achieve better reading and math results came in for pointed, and sometimes skeptical, questioning this week from key Democratic lawmakers.

At a three-hour hearing that stretched late into Wednesday evening, legislators on both the House and Senate education committees tried to wrap their minds around the American Institutes for Research’s detailed analysis of the state’s decades-old funding formula.

The six-volume study from the nonpartisan thinktank is the first time in decades that the formula has gotten a top-to-bottom look by school finance experts from outside Oregon.

They concluded that the typical school needs about 33% more funding per student to give every child a shot at academic success, or about $3 billion above planned spending levels.

And the report found the additional funding should be heavily weighted toward schools with lower family incomes, more students with disabilities and more students learning to speak English as a new language.

 

The average price of gas in Oregon held steady over the last week. Triple-A reports Oregon’s average remained at three-77 after increasing nearly a quarter over the last month.

Problems with West Coast refineries have been resolved and the supply of gas has increased, which took pressure off prices. Nationally, the average declined two cents to three-14 a gallon. The switch to summer blends of fuel will cause prices to rise through summer.

 

A new startup is seeking to revive the Jordan Cove liquefied natural gas export terminal and its 230-mile pipeline here in southern Oregon.

Developers abandoned plans for the controversial terminal and Pacific Connector Pipeline in 2021 after failing to secure necessary state permits. The $10 billion project, at the time backed by Calgary-based Pembina Pipeline Corp., was met with 17 years of opposition from landowners, environmental groups and tribes citing health and safety risks and impacts to climate change and the environment, among others.  The project would have involved creating a 36-inch pipeline crossing four southwestern Oregon counties to transport natural gas to a Jordan Cove liquefaction plant in Coos Bay. From there, the gas would have been loaded onto ships for export to Asian markets. Earlier this week, Arizona-based OA Partners LLC filed a petition with the The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to retroactively force the approval of Jordan Cove. The group bills itself online as “America’s newest LNG Transportation Company” and cites President Donald Trump’s executive order and “America First” investment policy as its guiding light. Environmental groups and local landowners said the attempt to revive Jordan Cove has no merit and called it “an absurd nothingburger.”

 

Seasonal flu is causing a second peak of illness and hospitalizations in Oregon this month, in what may end up being the worst flu season in the past decade. That’s part of a national trend. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is classifying this flu season as high severity for all age groups.

That means flu is responsible for a higher-than-usual percentage of doctors visits, hospitalizations and deaths so far this season. Flu can cause previously healthy people to become extraordinarily sick, according to Dr. Wendy Hasson, medical director of the pediatric ICU at Randall Children’s Hospital at Legacy Emanuel in Portland. Hasson said that during her shifts this month, she’s treated several children who were critically ill due to the flu “that I have had to put on a ventilator, and on heart support, and sit bedside to manage them moment-to-moment.”

In Oregon, the flu season started out normally. Transmission appeared to peak, as it often does, in late December. Public health officials use the percentage of flu tests ordered by hospitals and doctors that come back positive as an indicator of how widespread a virus is in the community.

 

Oregon Has Over 23,000 Homeless.  62% Lack Shelter at night.

After years of increased state funding to address homelessness and ever-growing numbers of homeless Oregonians, lawmakers and Gov. Tina Kotek are pushing for more state oversight and coordination for homeless shelters. 

Gov. Kotek’s office and Rep. Pam Marsh, D-Ashland, have spent months working on plans for a statewide homeless shelter program. The result, House Bill 3644, would require regional coordination and a focus on getting homeless Oregonians into their own homes, formalizing the regional approach shelter providers and local governments scrambled to put into place after Kotek declared a homelessness state of emergency in 2023. 

The proposal — which accounts for almost $220 million of the $700 million Kotek wants lawmakers to spend to help shelter homeless Oregonians and prevent people living on the brink from falling into homelessness — comes as the state continues to grapple with a growing crisis. 

Nearly 23,000 of Oregon’s roughly 4.2 million residents were homeless in January 2024, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. About 62% of those individuals lacked shelter. 

More Oregonians were homeless in 2024 than when Kotek took office in 2023, despite the state’s record spending on shelter programs, eviction prevention and other homelessness prevention efforts. But Kotek and legislative allies say things are better than they would have been without her actions: By July, they estimate that 3,330 families will have moved off the streets and into permanent homes, 24,000 families will have received state aid to keep them from becoming homelessness and 4,800 new shelter beds will exist across the state as a direct result of her emergency order and state funding. 

Kotek told lawmakers on the House Housing and Homelessness Committee that the framework created by the bill would help make sure that when someone experiences homelessness anywhere in the state they’ll know where to go for help finding shelter and get the services they need to move back into housing. 

 

The long-delayed deadline for REAL ID is now just three months away. There’s a chance that full enforcement may get gradually rolled out, but May 7, 2025, is the changeover deadline.

Starting then, state-level ID cards, such as driver’s licenses, won’t be accepted for federal purposes, namely getting through airport security, unless it’s REAL ID-compliant. If you plan to catch a domestic flight on or after May 7, you will be required to use a REAL ID. A little gold or black star in the upper right-hand corner is one of the easiest ways to know you’re holding a REAL ID.

In Oregon, it’s a black star. A REAL ID is an identification card that serves all of the same purposes of a standard drivers’ license or state-issued identification card. A federally-mandated switch to REAL ID for federal purposes, such as flying domestically, was originally signed into law by Congress in 2005.

The purpose is to establish “minimum security standards for license issuance and production,” according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security website. The law, established four years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, came in response to federal calls for higher security standards in the U.S. Originally, the law mandated the switch to REAL ID by 2008, but it has been pushed back for various reasons due to logistical hurdles and later the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

New Edition of the Oregon Blue Book Highlights John Day Fossil Beds and the Great Comet of 2024

Every odd-numbered year since 1911, the Oregon Secretary of State’s office has published the Oregon Blue Book, our state’s official almanac and fact book. Each edition of the book features beautiful, new cover images of Oregon captured by the winners of the Oregon Blue Book Cover Photo Contest.

The 2025-2026 Oregon Blue Book front cover features a stunning capture from the Painted Cove in the Painted Hills Unit of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, near Mitchell. Photographer Matt Straite of Keizer made the image which he titled, “The Many Sides of Oregon.” The back cover includes an amazing astrophotography shot titled “Comet/C2023 A” by Nathan Rohde of Shady Cove.

“The Oregon Blue Book is an invitation to learn more about Oregon, engage with your neighbors, our government and our state’s history. It helps us understand what it means to be an Oregonian. The artists who’ve created these cover images captured some of that spirit, and I’m thrilled they’re a part of my first Oregon Blue Book as Secretary of State,” said Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read.

“So many people look right past the desert areas of the state, but there is so much beauty there,” said Straite. “I have always been drawn to images that show the work of mankind in nature, particularly when that work has been added to help others see the nature, like the work of the Civilian Conservation Corp. The way this trail bends at the end is such a strong draw to want to explore more.” Straite also said that he shot this image from the boardwalk, which is there to take people through the sensitive clay hills without harming them.

Nathan Rohde’s image of Comet/C2023 A3, also known as the “Great Comet of 2024” was made near his home. He said he’s always been fascinated by astrophotography and loved trying to capture the Milky Way and the Aurora, but after seeing posts online of other peoples’ images of the comet, he thought he could capture it too: “Living in Southern Oregon affords access to some relatively dark areas. On a tall clearing not far from Lost Creek Lake, I got set up about an hour before sunset and began scanning the sky with my lens fully extended. About 45 minutes after sunset, conditions were perfect and the pictures started coming through!” Rohde said the rolling hills in the foreground were an excellent way to provide scale and accentuate the sky.

The 2025-2026 Oregon Blue Book is available for presale purchase now at bluebook.oregon.gov/shop. These limited-edition books are $30 for the hardcover and $18 for the paperback, plus shipping and handling. A downloadable copy of the full cover for use by the media can be found in Oregon Blue Book Assets and Information here.

 

Oregon Lottery is focused on increasing awareness of problem gambling and safer play in March — also known as National Problem Gambling Awareness Month (PGAM). By participating in this annual, grassroots campaign, Oregon Lottery collaborates both locally and nationally to promote prevention, treatment, and recovery services.

This year’s theme, “Seeking Understanding,” focuses on increasing awareness of problem gambling as a serious but often misunderstood mental health condition. By fostering a deeper understanding of the issue, the goal is to encourage empathy, reduce barriers to treatment, and provide support to those affected by gambling-related harm.

“Problem Gambling Awareness Month is a critical time to highlight the realities of gambling addiction and break down the stigma that often prevents individuals from seeking help. In Oregon, it provides an opportunity to recognize the impact of gambling-related harm and ensure that those affected receive the support and resources they need,” said Glenn Yamagata, executive director Oregon Council on Problem Gambling (OCPG). “This year’s theme, ‘Seeking Understanding,’ aligns with OCPG’s mission to foster awareness, compassion, and meaningful access to care.”

Oregonians can access online tools and connect with free, professional counseling year-round by going to the Oregon Problem Gambling Resource (OPGR) website. In 2024, Oregon Lottery worked with the Oregon Health Authority to enhance the OPGR website with additional resources designed to reduce stigma and reach more people at more points on their help seeking journey. This included a link for free access to EVIVE — a first of its kind digital health app, offering solutions for quitting, moderating, or simply playing safer.

“This year’s PGAM theme really resonates for us,” said Stacy Shaw, who leads Oregon Lottery’s Safer Play Program and is an OCPG board member. “We know that stigma is one of the biggest barriers to treatment, and we’re working to normalize both safer play and help seeking in our marketing outreach.”

Since 1992, one percent of Oregon Lottery profits have funded problem gambling treatment and prevention efforts throughout Oregon. Since that time, over $148 million in Lottery funds has supported those services.

About the Oregon Council on Problem Gambling

The Oregon Council on Problem Gambling is the state affiliate to the National Council on Problem Gambling. Its purpose is to promote the health of Oregonians by supporting efforts to minimize gambling related harm. Board members include individuals from the gaming industry, the treatment and prevention field, the recovery community and state and county administrators.

About Oregon Lottery

Since the Oregon Lottery began selling tickets on April 25, 1985, it has earned more than $16.5 billion for economic development, public education, outdoor school, state parks, veteran services, and watershed enhancements. For more information on the Oregon Lottery or to read the Responsible Gaming Impacts Report, visit www.oregonlottery.org.

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