Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2019-02-14
Defend Oregon, a union-backed political action committee supporting progressive ballot measures, is facing the second largest election penalty in state history for failing to properly submit 97 ballots its canvassers collected from Multnomah County voters on Election Day last fall. The state Elections Division, part of Oregon Secretary of State Dennis Richardson’s office, has assessed a fine of $94,750 for the elections violations. The maximum fine is $1,000 per count, and each ballot that
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2019-02-13
Nancy Rodriguez is glad to further her portrayal of Yazmin Ortiz in “The Happiest Song Plays Last,” the sequel to last year’s “Water by the Spoonful” at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Such continuance is rare in theater, she says. “Happiest Song” runs in the Thomas Theatre from July 7 to Nov. 1. Playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes’ trilogy, including the initial “Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue,” follows the life of Elliot
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2019-02-13
WASHINGTON (AP) — The climate in New York City in 60 years could feel like Arkansas now. Chicago could seem like Kansas City and San Francisco could get a Southern California climate if global warming pollution continues at the current pace, a new study finds. In 2080, North Carolina's capital, Raleigh, could feel more like Florida's capital, Tallahassee, while the nation's capital will have a climate more akin to just north of the Mississippi Delta, if the globe stays on its current carbo
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2019-02-13
WASHINGTON (AP) — The national debt has passed a new milestone, topping $22 trillion for the first time. The Treasury Department's daily statement showed Tuesday that total outstanding public debt stands at $22.01 trillion. It stood at $19.95 trillion when President Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20, 2017. The debt figure has been accelerating since the passage of Trump's $1.5 trillion tax cut in December 2017 and action by Congress last year to increase spending on domestic and military
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2019-02-13
WASHINGTON (AP) — Under mounting pressure from his own party, President Donald Trump appeared to be grudgingly leaning toward accepting an agreement Tuesday that would head off a threatened second government shutdown but provide just a fraction of the money he's been demanding for his Mexican border wall. Trump said he would need more time to study the plan, but he also declared he was not expecting another shutdown this weekend when funding for parts of the government would run out. He st
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2019-02-13
In the year since the deadly mass shooting at a Florida high school, more and more states have passed laws making it easier to take guns away from people who may be suicidal or bent on violence against others, and courts are issuing an unprecedented number of seizure orders across the country. Supporters say these "red flag" laws are among the most promising tools to reduce the nearly 40,000 suicides and homicides by firearm each year in the U.S. Gun advocates, though, say such measures undermin
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2019-02-13
A growing band of immunization detractors are driving a surge in measles cases from the Philippines to Washington State that threatens efforts to wipe out the disease. Worldwide cases of the viral illness increased by about 50 percent to 2.3 million last year, according to data from the World Health Organization, which included "vaccine hesitancy" in its list of top ten threats to global health this year. The contagion has cropped up in Israel, Greece, Madagascar, the Ukraine and Venezuela, amon
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2019-02-13
The explosion that leveled a hilltop home near Lost Creek Lake nearly three years ago had originated from a wide-open valve on a propane tank, prosecutors said Tuesday during an arson trial of the home’s occupant. Michael Charles McNall, charged with arson and attempted aggravated theft in the April 9, 2016, explosion, had been in a years-long property dispute with his stepmother over the 4,569-foot-home McNall had helped build with his father in about 2005, Jackson County Deputy District
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2019-02-13
A tiny house village for homeless people now boasts a larger community room to handle new residents who will move into the new shed-like shelters. Supporters of Hope Village have raised $224,000 of a $260,000 fundraising goal to add 16 units to the 14 units already at the tiny-house complex at the corner of McAndrews Road and Columbus Avenue. “We just received another $15,000 from the Raymond Family Trust,” said Matthew Vorderstrasse, development director for the homeless advocacy gr
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2019-02-13
After many fits and starts, major construction is beginning to transform the dilapidated Holly Theatre into a crown jewel in downtown Medford. At 1 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 19, an official groundbreaking will commemorate the project at the corner of Holly and Sixth streets, featuring movie star and comedian Jim Belushi along with Mayor Gary Wheeler and Brad Hicks, president and CEO of the Chamber of Medford/Jackson County. The renovation is expected to be complete by the middle of 2020. Workers from
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2019-02-13
Affordable rentals are hard to come by in Ashland, and two men took advantage and operated an illegal boarding house for at least nine months, according to Ashland Fire-Rescue. Derek Hinger, the property owner, and accomplice Rob Hisamoto converted a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house in the 700 block of Elkader Street into 11 rental spaces. They were confronted Monday by city staff, including fire, police, the Building Department and Code Enforcement. At approximately 1:15 p.m., the occupants we
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2019-02-13
On Monday, eight Ashland girls were the first to cross an old, wooden bridge traversed by countless boys before them. The girls arrived on the other side as official Boy Scouts of America, recently rebranded as Scouts BSA. Their steps were the first of many toward equity and inclusion for all genders in a 109-year-old male-only organization. "The bridging ceremony" is a time-worn tradition for Cub Scouts — kindergarten through fifth grade — to enter the Boy Scouts. Boy Scouts of Amer
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2019-02-13
The new Oasis Center will host an open house from 4:30 to 7 p.m. Friday to introduce the community to its services for pregnant women and parents trying to break the cycle of addiction. The center is located at the back of Addictions Recovery Center, 1025 E. Main St., Medford. The Oasis Center provides primary health care, medication-assisted treatment to reduce opioid withdrawal and cravings, social opportunities for families in recovery, as well as child development, cooking and nutrition clas
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2019-02-12
EL PASO, Texas (AP) — President Donald Trump charged ahead Monday with his pledge to build a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border, skimming over the details of lawmakers' tentative deal that would give him far less than he's been demanding and declaring he's "setting the stage" to deliver on his signature campaign promise. In the first dueling rallies of the 2020 campaign season, Trump's "Finish the Wall" rally in El Paso went head-to-head against counterprogramming by former Rep. Beto O'Rourke,
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2019-02-12
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional negotiators reached agreement Monday night to prevent a government shutdown and finance construction of new barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border, overcoming a late-stage hang-up over immigration enforcement issues that had threatened to scuttle the talks. Republicans were desperate to avoid another bruising shutdown. They tentatively agreed to far less money for President Donald Trump's border wall than the White House's $5.7 billion wish list, settling for
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2019-02-12
It looked like ride-sharing businesses Uber and Lyft were about to join Ashland roads, but Mayor John Stromberg has put up a stop sign. On Sunday, Stromberg vetoed the ordinance after the City Council had passed it Feb. 5 with a 4-2 vote. The vote would have allowed transportation network companies to operate in Ashland. After failed negotiations between the city and Uber and Lyft, city councilors finally agreed to draft the ordinance to better reflect the wishes of the TNC companies. Stromberg
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2019-02-12
NEW YORK (AP) — Mexico's most notorious drug lord, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, was convicted Tuesday of running an industrial-scale smuggling operation after a three-month trial packed with Hollywood-style tales of grisly killings, political payoffs, cocaine hidden in jalapeno cans, jewel-encrusted guns and a naked escape with his mistress through a tunnel. Guzman faced a drumbeat of drug-trafficking and conspiracy convictions that could put the 61-year-old escape artist behind bars for dec
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2019-02-12
Fuyumi Iimura has a message for whoever broke into her family's expansive garden outside Tokyo and made off with a small fortune's worth of some of the planet's most beautiful bonsai trees: Please water them. Over a period of several nights, a team of bonsai bandits stole the cream of Iimura's collection, regarded as some of the most exquisite in existence, CNN reported. It was like losing a child, Iimura said in a Facebook post. The only thing worse would be if the trees weren't properly cared
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2019-02-13
Every forest and fire management decision is a gamble. We should play to win. Some people would like to oversimplify the subject of managing our forests and fire. The truth is that this is a complex issue. Any honest discussion of forests and fire will include words such as likely, most, tend to, except, and trend. Arguments that overly simplify this issue fail to appreciate the complexity of our forests’ relationship with fire and are misleading when it comes to how fires behave on the la
Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)
· snapshot 2019-02-12
An Ashland woman is hoping to connect homeless horses with people who own pastures. "There are just a lot of horses out there that need a place to go, and there are no places for them to go," said Linda Davis, executive director and founder of the Equamore Foundation horse sanctuary outside Ashland. Davis said she fields phone calls on an almost daily basis from people who are looking to find new homes for their horses. But the sanctuary already houses 57 horses that were neglected, abused or ab