Justin Higginbottom

1 week ago | opb.org | Justin Higginbottom

The potential for new Oregon firearm restrictions is driving residents to gun stores. The Oregon Court of Appeals upheld Measure 114 under the state constitution last month. In 2022, voters approved the gun control law, which bans the sale of magazines able to hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition and requires a permit to purchase a gun. The rollout of Measure 114, though, is still on hold as the Oregon Supreme Court decides whether to hear a challenge.

1 week ago | heraldandnews.com | Justin Higginbottom

Oregon now ranks second to last — just behind Alaska — for pharmacy access. A proposed state bill is meant to help the struggling industry. Proposed state legislation seeks to address the dire Oregon pharmacy landscape by giving more power to drugstores when dealing with pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs. These companies, created to help customers more easily navigate buying medicine, act like middlemen between pharmacies and insurers.

1 week ago | opb.org | Justin Higginbottom

Proposed state legislation seeks to address the dire Oregon pharmacy landscape by giving more power to drugstores when dealing with pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs. These companies, created to help customers more easily navigate buying medicine, act like middlemen between pharmacies and insurers. A PBM can decide how much a drugstore is paid for filling a prescription. But pharmacists say that reimbursement is often too low, contributing to drug stores losing money and closing.

1 week ago | ijpr.org | Justin Higginbottom

Galen Doherty’s family has lived in southern Humboldt County since the 1800s. For the last five generations, they’ve worked in different industries, riding out booms and busts: from old-growth logging and salmon fishing to Redwood land conservation and salmon habitat restoration. “Whatever we got to do to get by, to stay here. Because we like it here,” Doherty said. Now as owner of Whitethorn Valley Farm, he grows cannabis on a quarter-acre parcel of his family’s original homestead.

2 weeks ago | ijpr.org | Justin Higginbottom

This month the Trump administration fired all 25 staff overseeing the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. The federally-funded program, created by Congress in 1981, helps low-income families around the country pay for utilities like heat or electricity. It also provides assistance for weatherizing homes. The staff overhaul has worried county-level providers tasked with providing those federal funds.