Make the McKenzie Connection!
Make the McKenzie Connection!
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Oregonians who are ready to leave the hospital but still require care do not have enough places to go, affecting providers and patients at all levels. The average hospital stay has increased to nearly five days, according to the Hospital Association of Oregon. With nowhere to send discharged patients, hospitals can end up boarding them, which hurts hospitals financially and means fewer beds are available for people who need them. Sen. Deb Patterson, D-Salem, was part of a task force which...
A new bill aims to further reduce investments in fossil fuels by Oregon’s Public Employee Retirement System. The Pause Act would impose a five-year ban on new investments by the system in private fossil-fuel funds. Supporters believe this move will help lower emissions and keep wealth in Oregon communities. Andrew Bogrand, volunteer communications director for the advocacy group Divest Oregon, helped draft the bill. The group found the system’s fossil fuel investments have underperformed the...
Many folks are still expecting holiday packages this week, and the United States Postal Service is warning customers not to fall for what are known as smishing scams. Smishing, said John Hyatt - a strategic communication specialist with the USPS - is the practice of sending fake text messages to smart phones, asking users to click on a link to resolve a zip code or other issue with a pending package. He warned that personal data is what the sender is after. “Basically, criminals trying to obtain...
The American Postal Workers Union is pushing back against proposed changes to the Postal Service they said would slow delivery. Among other things, the proposal aims to cancel afternoon deliveries and pick-ups for areas more than 50 miles from a regional hub. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said elimination of night pickups could save the post office more than $3 billion a year. Daniel Cortez, director of industrial relations for the Oregon Postal Workers union, said reducing services does not...
Oregon is losing local media outlets quickly, echoing a national trend. This year alone, 130 newspapers nationwide shut down, according to a new report from Northwestern University. Bob Singer, president of the Oregon Association of Broadcasters, said readership is low for local papers, which leads to a loss of advertising revenue. He pointed out local radio stations in Oregon have stepped in to fill in the gaps left by print media, and those stations are doing OK. “It’s not the robust ind...
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and its partners have received a $4.5 million grant from the federal America the Beautiful Challenge program to restore more than 2,000 acres of oak and prairie land up and down the Willamette Valley. The project will draw on partnerships across 22 public, private and tribal sites to restore native plant species such as camas, and reduce fuel for wildfires. Lindsay McClary, restoration ecologist with the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, said these...
People are probably happy to hear two orphaned mountain lion kittens have been rescued and will find new homes at the Oregon Zoo but sharing space with them in the wild is a different story. While the kittens are safe, there are different ideas about how much to protect wild mountain lions. Brent Lyles, executive director of the Mountain Lion Foundation, said although they are often feared, the large cats should be protected for the role they play in maintaining healthy ecosystems. “The c...
La Nina is bringing a cooler, wetter winter to Oregon and likely driving up heating bills as systems work harder. This is the third year of major price hikes for Pacific Power and Pacific Gas and Electric, with rates up by 40% from four years ago. One report found nearly half of Americans struggle to pay their utility bills and last winter, a January ice storm and rate hikes saw power shut off for a record number of Oregon households due to lack of payment. Jami Seymore, home energy expert for...
