Courtney Sherwood

3 weeks ago | opb.org | Courtney Sherwood

The ongoing fight over a proposed upgrade to the electrical grid in Northwest Portland’s Forest Park has entered another round. Portland General Electric’s Harborton Reliability Project could remove about 400 mature trees to upgrade one transmission line and build a stretch of new line. That work would happen on 5 acres of parkland in an area that’s had some transmission lines since before the park was founded.

4 weeks ago | opb.org | Courtney Sherwood

The Oregon Employment Department has discovered errors on about 12,000 of the 1099-G tax forms it sent out — affecting about 5% of the people who got jobless benefits in 2024. To see if you’re one of the people affected by the error, you can check your account using the state’s Francis Online benefits system. You can find corrected tax forms there if you were affected. The state also started sending corrected tax forms by mail this week.

4 weeks ago | opb.org | Courtney Sherwood

The Trump administration appears to have frozen at least $40 million in federal payments for Oregon-based urban tree canopy programs, as part of a broader push by the president to cut support for programs related to climate change. The cuts, first reported by Inside Climate News, come out of $58 million in grants awarded to nonprofits and governments across the state through the Inflation Reduction Act. FILE - In this photo from 2018, urban forestry staff are shown pruning city trees in Eugene.

1 month ago | klcc.org | Courtney Sherwood

The Bonneville Power Administration is attempting to rehire the staff it fired last month, after weeks of public outcry against the Trump administration’s cuts to the self-funded federal agency. Three people familiar with internal operations at BPA confirmed that 89 staff who’d been fired are receiving emails or letters asking them to return to work. About 35 were already hired back in mid-February. A spokesperson for BPA declined to comment.

1 month ago | wallowa.com | Courtney Sherwood

Tariffs and job cuts at federal agencies are making life more complicated for the Columbia River Bar pilots who play a critical role in connecting Pacific Northwest agriculture with buyers in the rest of the world. The bar, where roiling Columbia River waters collide with the rough seas of the Pacific Ocean, has been nicknamed the “graveyard of the Pacific,” and is considered one of the most dangerous stretches of water on the planet.