Just over a dozen Oregon cities, towns and unincorporated areas had their status changed from urban to rural, the result of a new definition the U.S. Census Bureau for the 2020 census.

Those places — including Mount Hood Village, Boardman and Irrigon — joined more than 1,100 nationwide, with a combined 4.2 million residents, that are now rural areas according to the bureau.

Under the old criteria, an urbanized area needed to have at…

In January 2021, there were 13 people of color in the Legislature. That number will rise to 17 next year, and lawmakers are celebrating the step toward greater diversity while acknowledging that there is more work to be done to make Oregon’s legislative body look more like the state it represents.

The Legislature will remain overwhelmingly…

See a total lunar eclipse on Election Day in Oregon. Find out more here.

Those who are awake in the wee hours of Election Day this year will be treated to a blood red lunar eclipse – if the rain lets up long enough for Oregonians to see it.

The total lunar eclipse on the morning of Tuesday, Nov. 8 will be the last one for nearly three years, according to NASA, as we reach the end of a cycle that saw one to two total lunar eclipses almost every year from 2018 to 2022, most recently in May.

Not all of those lunar eclipses have been visible in…

Energy is high on community college campuses across the state as students stream back in and presidents view the academic year’s start as a glass half-full.

Students have returned to school buildings hollowed out by the pandemic, taking advantage of ramped-up in-person class offerings. Administrators are again having to scramble for parking spaces in what Portland Community College enrollment dean Ryan Clark called “the best first-world problem to have.”

“Seeing that energy come back has been invigorating,” Clark said.

Here’s the…