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East Oregonian
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Oregon lawmakers discuss
need to unite a divided state
Scientists ID another possible
threat to orcas: pink salmon
By GENE JOHNSON
Associated Press
SEATTLE — Over the
years, scientists have iden-
tified dams, pollution and
vessel noise as causes of
the troubling decline of the
Pacific Northwest’s resi-
dent killer whales. Now,
they may have found a
new and more surprising
culprit: pink salmon.
Four salmon researchers
were perusing data on the
website of the Center for
Whale Research, which
studies the orcas, several
months ago when they
noticed a startling trend:
That for the past two
decades, significantly more
of the whales have died in
even-numbered years than
in odd years.
In a newly published
paper, they speculate that
the pattern is related to pink
salmon, which return to the
Salish Sea between Wash-
ington state and Canada
in enormous numbers
every other year — though
they’re not sure how. They
suspect that the huge runs
of pink salmon, which have
boomed under conserva-
tion efforts and changes in
ocean conditions in the past
two decades, might inter-
fere with the whales’ ability
to hunt their preferred prey,
Chinook salmon.
Given the dire plight
By ANDREW SELSKY
Associated Press
SALEM — Leaders
of the Oregon Legislature
spoke Friday about the need
to bridge divides that exist in
the state, days ahead of the
start of the 2019 session.
Speaking at The Asso-
ciated
Press
Legisla-
tive Preview, lawmakers
described an Oregon that
is divided between urban
and rural, Democrat and
Republican.
The November election
gave Democrats a three-
fifths supermajority in
Oregon’s Legislature with
greater power to impose
taxes, but Senate President
Peter Courtney, D-Salem,
said they must wield power
carefully.
He recalled that Senate
Republican Leader Herman
Baertschiger Jr. had told
him that while Baertschiger
represents a minority in the
Senate, most people in his
district around Grants Pass
are Republican.
Courtney said he wants
legislation from the session
that begins Tuesday to
benefit the entire state of
Oregon.
He pointed out that
Republicans could jam up
AP Photo/Elaine Thompson
Salmon researcher Greg
Ruggerone, one of a group
of scientists who noticed
a startling trend about
the deaths of endangered
southern resident orca
whales, stands with a chart
showing various salmon
species his office on Friday
in Seattle.
of the orcas, which offi-
cials say are on the brink of
extinction, the researchers
decided to publicize their
discovery without waiting
to investigate its causes.
“The main point was
getting out to the public
word about this bien-
nial pattern so people can
start thinking about this
important,
completely
unexpected factor in the
decline of these whales,”
said one of the authors,
Greg Ruggerone. “It’s
important to better under-
stand what’s occurring here
because that could help
facilitate recovery actions.”
Forecast for Pendleton Area
TODAY
SUNDAY
MONDAY
TUESDAY
WEDNESDAY
Mostly cloudy with
a little rain
Cooler with
periods of rain
Times of clouds
and sun
Rain and drizzle in
the morning
Periods of clouds
and sunshine
49° 37°
40° 31°
PENDLETON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
51° 35°
46° 42°
43° 32°
HERMISTON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
56° 36°
49° 45°
47° 32°
45° 32°
53° 42°
OREGON FORECAST
ALMANAC
Shown is today’s weather. Temperatures are today’s highs and tonight’s lows.
PENDLETON
through 3 p.m. yest.
HIGH
LOW
TEMP.
Seattle
51/39
Kennewick Walla Walla
52/39
Lewiston
52/40
54/41
Astoria
53/39
46/35
46/32
Longview
24 hours ending 3 p.m.
Month to date
Normal month to date
Year to date
Last year to date
Normal year to date
Pullman
Yakima 47/35
51/37
51/38
Portland
Hermiston
55/41
The Dalles 53/42
Salem
Corvallis
54/41
Yesterday
Normals
Records
La Grande
44/37
PRECIPITATION
John Day
Eugene
Bend
55/41
48/34
49/43
Ontario
43/37
45/40
44/34
0.03"
0.45"
0.75"
0.45"
0.72"
0.75"
WINDS (in mph)
Caldwell
Burns
The priority of Republican
House members is “making
rural Oregon prosperous.”
He said they would try to
block legislation they deem
dangerous to rural Oregon’s
economic health. He said
that whenever minimum
wage goes up “our fortunes
take another shot.”
Gov. Kate Brown, also
appearing at the AP event,
said Friday that boosting
funding for Oregon’s strug-
gling education system is her
number one priority heading
into the 2019 Legislature.
“The time is now for us
to make significant invest-
ments in our education
system,” Brown said.
Brown has a $2 billion
education
investment
package that would come
with some type of tax
increase in her proposed
state budget, in addition to
her base budget. She says
property tax limitations
adopted in the early 1990s
have resulted in decreased
funding per student.
Priorities are for early
childhood
education,
increasing the school year
to 180 days, increasing the
high school graduation rate,
and technical education.
The
Democratic
governor said some funding
issues could wind up before
Oregon voters in ballot
measures, like a cigarette
tax that would help fund the
Oregon Health Plan.
Boardman
Pendleton
Medford
51/43
Today
Sun.
SW 4-8
SSW 6-12
NW 4-8
WNW 6-12
SUN AND MOON
Klamath Falls
Sunrise today
Sunset tonight
Moonrise today
Moonset today
45/38
Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2019
Full
7:30 a.m.
4:42 p.m.
3:17 p.m.
6:02 a.m.
Last
New
First
NATIONAL EXTREMES
Yesterday’s National Extremes: (for the 48 contiguous states)
High 86° in McAllen, Texas Low -28° in Cotton, Minn.
Jan 20
BRIEFLY
51°
31°
42°
29°
65° (1961) -11° (1930)
24 hours ending 3 p.m.
Month to date
Normal month to date
Year to date
Last year to date
Normal year to date
Albany
53/42
legislation by sitting out
votes. Quorum rules say
20 senators must be on the
Senate floor and 40 repre-
sentatives on the House
floor for votes to take place,
Courtney said. Democrats
fell short of those numbers
in the elections, with 38
seats in the House and 18 in
the Senate.
House Democrats have
pledged to help build a future
for all people in the state
“and not just people from
Portland,” House Majority
Leader Jennifer Williamson
told Capitol correspondents.
Baertschiger lamented
that the days when his
district was vibrant — in
which families could buy a
house, a car, and send their
kids to college — disap-
peared in the last 40 years.
He said state and federal
governments should reeval-
uate policies that restricted
harvesting
of
natural
resources.
“One thing that has
just jumped out, and that
I recognize very much, is
the divide in Oregon, and it
really upsets me,” Baertsch-
iger said. “The struggles in
rural Oregon are different
than the struggles in urban
Oregon and vice-versa, and
I don’t think the Legislature
really recognizes that.”
Rep. Carl Wilson echoed
that, saying there were too
many empty storefronts
in downtown Grants Pass.
through 3 p.m. yest.
HIGH
LOW
TEMP.
Pendleton 44/34
55/42
0.08"
0.46"
0.93"
0.46"
1.06"
0.93"
AP Photo/Andrew Selsky
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown speaks at the Associated Press
legislative preview on Friday in Salem.
Partisan clashes are
expected on gun control —
and over a bill that would
limit rent increases in many
cases to address the state’s
housing crisis.
Wilson said he would not
vote for any gun control,
even a measure that would
require safety locks on fire-
arms to prevent a child
from accidentally shooting
someone. He said it would be
a double tragedy if a parent,
through simply forgetting
once to lock a gun, resulting
in a death of a child, would
then have to face possible
jail time for violating the
law.
“There are people who
want to disarm us incre-
mentally over time,” Wilson
said. He said “rural Oregon
is steeped in gun culture.”
A bill sponsored by
House Speaker Tina Kotek
and Senate Majority Leader
Ginny Burdick, both Port-
land Democrats, would
prohibit a landlord from
terminating
month-to-
month tenancy without
cause after 12 months of
occupancy, and limit annual
rent increases to 7 percent
annual changes in the
consumer price index.
Such a move would drive
some landlords to sell their
homes and get out of the
rental business, Wilson said.
Legislation to cut state-
wide carbon emissions
would be a hard sell to his
constituents, the Republican
said, adding that a carbon
tax is likely to pass.
“I have to explain to them
what good is it going to do
for them, that it costs them
more to heat their homes, to
drive their cars, to operate
their machinery, to drive
their trucks,” Wilson said.
Kotek responded she’ll
need to explain how
resources from a carbon
pricing program could
help the natural resource
industry, and that dollars
should go to rural areas that
are often most impacted by
climate change, including
drought and wildfires.
HERMISTON
Enterprise
49/37
49/38
52°
35°
42°
28°
63° (2005) -20° (1922)
PRECIPITATION
Moses
Lake
53/36
Olympia
44/33
42/32
Tacoma
Yesterday
Normals
Records
Spokane
Wenatchee
53/41
Aberdeen
Saturday, January 19, 2019
Jan 27
Feb 4
Feb 12
NATIONAL WEATHER TODAY
2 found dead in Grants Pass
motel may have died of drugs
GRANTS PASS (AP) — A man and
woman found dead in a Grants Pass motel
room may have died of a drug overdose.
The Daily Courier said Friday the
bodies of the 31-year-old man and the
37-year-old woman were found Wednesday
by employees at the Motel 6.
Their names have not yet been released.
The Grants Pass Department of Public
Safety says the cause of death has not been
determined but the deaths are being investi-
gated as a potential drug overdose.
Authorities are awaiting the medical
examiner’s report.
The newspaper reports that the abuse
of heroin and the even more lethal narcotic
fentanyl is high in Josephine County.
Measles cases hit 19
with more suspected
in SW Washington
VANCOUVER, Wash. (AP) — Officials
say the number of confirmed measles cases
in southwestern Washington has increased
to 19 with seven more cases suspected.
Clark County health officials said Friday
the confirmed cases include 15 children
under the age of 10, three people between
10 and 18 and one adult.
Officials say 16 were not immunized
against the disease, a highly contagious
viral illness spread through the air when an
infected person coughs or sneezes.
People who visited nearly 30 locations
in southwest Washington and Portland,
Oregon, may have been exposed.
The patients while contagious have
visited schools, medical facilities, restau-
rants, the Portland International Airport
and the Northeast Portland Costco and Ikea
stores. One person went to a Portland Trail-
blazers game on Jan. 11.
Symptoms include fever, cough, runny
nose, red eyes and rash.
Portland man convicted
of trafficking girl, 15
PORTLAND (AP) — A Portland man
has been convicted of multiple sex crimes
after luring a 15-year-old girl from a bus
stop five years ago.
Multnomah County District Attorney’s
spokesman Brent Weisberg said Friday that
54-year-old Anthony Curry forced the girl
to pose for nude photos and dance naked in
a strip club alongside adult women.
Prosecutors said during trial that Curry
persuaded the girl to get into his car and
then groomed her for human sex trafficking.
The girl testified against Curry in court
that he got her a fake ID so she could enter
strip clubs.
The jury found him guilty of all but one
count of sodomy, compelling prostitution,
using a child in a display of sexually explicit
conduct and attempting to promote prosti-
tution. He will be sentenced in March.
Shown are noon positions of weather systems and precipitation. Temperature bands are highs for the day.
-10s
-0s
0s
showers t-storms
10s
rain
20s
flurries
30s
snow
40s
ice
50s
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cold front
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