A good friend of mine here in Ashland made the headlines last summer when she was attacked by one of the town’s resident deer. She was walking her rescue dog, Terra, when the deer with her fawn saw the pair and charged. “My dog was smart enough to run home,” Marilyn Hawkins told the Ashland News. “The doe decided to shove …

Here in Southern Oregon, few roadside attractions are more iconic than the Oregon Vortex and its famous House of Mystery — a crooked little shack perched above a creek where the ordinary laws of physics seem more like suggestions than rules.  “Visitors to the Vortex have long experienced the strange effects for themselves,” a promotional brochure explains. “Inside the House of …

At 7:30 a.m. on Saturday morning, February 28, 2026, dozens of girls gathered at the “Shajareh Tayyebeh” (The Good Tree) school in the city of Minab in southern Iran. No sooner had they greeted friends and settled into another school day, a missile struck the school, destroying the building and causing the roof to collapse on top of the children …

This past September, as I pulled into the parking lot at a nearby medical practice where I am a patient, a sign in bold black letters caught my eye: “Doctors Wanted.” I’d come for a quick visit with my primary doctor, older than I, who was on the verge of retiring. My husband’s doctor — in the same practice and …

It has been a helluva a year and this morning’s headlines — “Trump Plunges U.S. Into a New Era of Risk in Venezuela” (NY Times), “Rubio Takes on Most Challenging Role Yet: Viceroy of Venezuela” (Washington Post) — do not augur well for what’s to come. The past two weeks, between missing our traditional holiday reunion with our sons and …

Pieter Bruegel, Winter Landscape with Ice-skaters, 1565 Snow has yet to arrive here in the Rogue Valley. Instead, for the past two weeks, heavy fog has created a moody hush, lasting all day and obscuring most everything (maybe that’s a good thing these days). The fog has now given way to rain. No matter the weather, the arrival of the …

A month ago, newspapers from the New York Times and the Guardian to Underscore Native News broadcast a David vs. Goliath story about Indigenous teens conquering the Klamath River on the heels of the largest dam-removal project in U.S. history. “One year after a historic dam removal, teens inspire river restoration worldwide: ‘It turns out you can win,’” the Guardian headline …