Cascade Range

Jackson County District Judge Nicole Hughes, appointed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in April, faces scrutiny over her ties to County Prosecutor Kelsey Guernsey, who has endorsed her, appeared at campaign events, and door-knocked on her behalf. Fellow Judge Robert Gaecke, who backs Hughes' opponent George Lyons, publicly criticized the arrangement as creating an "appearance of impropriety." Hughes and Guernsey deny wrongdoing, calling the criticism a campaign tactic, and Chief District Judge Daniel Goostrey backed Hughes' conduct. Legal ethics experts are split: some say a prosecutor campaigning for a judge who hears that office's cases raises serious neutrality concerns, while others see no formal violation of Michigan's judicial conduct canons.

Serena Cruz, who previously served as Multnomah County Commissioner for District 2 (1999-2006) and later as the county's Chief Operating Officer (2021-24), is running to reclaim the District 2 seat on the Board of County Commissioners. Cruz, a strategic management consultant, holds degrees from Lewis & Clark College, Harvard's Kennedy School, and UC Berkeley Law.

Her platform centers on addressing homelessness through aligned housing, treatment, and behavioral health services, citing her past work launching the multi-county Bridges to Housing initiative. She also prioritizes expanding Preschool for All, supporting family-wage jobs, and using County-funded projects like the Moda Center renovation to drive economic development. On the Preschool for All tax increase, she says she would have voted to delay it pending demonstrated need and stronger program accountability. Cruz points to her record managing a four-billion-dollar county budget through the pandemic and has secured endorsements from labor groups and community organizations including SEIU Oregon and APANO. She faces several other candidates for the seat, including Bruce Broussard, Herman Greene, and Nabil Zaghloul.

Oregon's largest bighorn sheep herd, known as the John Day herd near The Dalles, is battling an outbreak of Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae (M. ovi), a bacterium that causes fatal pneumonia in bighorns. First detected in July, this marks the first confirmed case of the pathogen in this herd, which peaked at roughly 1,200 animals in 2025 and has already fallen to about 1,000. State wildlife officials warn the die-off could ultimately cut the population by 50-80%, depending on the strain's severity and environmental stressors like drought.

Bighorns typically contract M. ovi through nose-to-nose contact with domestic sheep and goats, which can carry the bacterium without symptoms. The disease does not affect meat quality and poses no risk to humans, livestock, or pets. Oregon's bighorn hunting season will proceed as scheduled starting Sept. 21, with wildlife officials providing hunters nasal swab kits to test harvested sheep. Researchers, working with the University of Idaho, track collared bighorns to detect die-offs and monitor the outbreak's spread.

California's prison-building boom left small towns economically dependent on incarceration, but sentencing reforms since the 2010s have cut the state prison population from about 170,000 to 90,000, prompting Gov. Gavin Newsom to close five prisons since 2019. Communities are responding differently: Susanville, remote and isolated near the Nevada border, has seen population decline, deficit budgets and failed legal challenges to closure, with leaders warning of eventual insolvency. Blythe, near the Arizona border, lobbied state officials for assistance after its prison closed in 2022 but says it has received little direct help, though the state notes nearly $1 million was sent to regional workforce development. Tracy, closer to the Bay Area, has fared better, drawing interest from agriculture, education and casino developers for its former prison site.

Researchers say the economic benefits prisons brought rural areas were often overstated and short-lived. More closures are expected as lawmakers seek to cut costs and address billions in deferred maintenance across aging facilities, with a prison in Norco set to close in October.