Oregon was the first state to make Labor Day an official holiday in 1887. Oddly, lawmakers selected the first Saturday in June. Four other states created the holiday later that year. Labor Day was ...

On May 12, 1999, Ward, then a Curry County sheriff’s patrol deputy, responded to a call about a man who had fatally shot himself in an RV in Brookings, the county’s largest city. An Oregon state ...

Since 2020, only 1% of the land damaged by wildfire in Oregon is owned by the state. The bulk of the land that burns every year is federal, managed by either the federal Bureau of Land Management or ...

At an Aug. 13 summary judgment hearing, SEIU and the Oregon Department of Justice, which represented DHS, argued the names of background-check applicants should be a public record. The trade ...

Thirteen former Oregon Youth Authority staff have submitted sworn statements describing years of sexual abuse by a longtime agency physician and accusing OYA leaders of knowing about the abuse and ...

Curry County Sheriff John Ward faces allegations of misconduct, including mismanagement, potential financial fraud, and failure to supervise his deputies. Ward has defied a court order to release ...

Over the past decade, the growth in Oregon’s total state government spending has far outpaced inflation and population growth. That analysis comes from a new tool built by the Oregon Journalism ...

In 2021, Oregon lawmakers banned the use of fines as a last resort to get students to attend school. Malheur County said no to the ban and brought back truancy citations with a local ordinance. The ...

Last month, Oregon agreed to pay $49 million to COVID-afflicted state prison inmates. It’s the state’s biggest payout ever—and underscores an underlying liability that is far larger. The estates of 38 ...