KWSO News for Mon., Sep. 27, 2021

Of the current Warm Springs active COVID-19 cases- about half are vaccinated.  The CDC continues to recommend that fully vaccinated individuals use all precautions to protect themselves and others in areas of high transmission.  Warm Springs, right now, is an area of high transmission.  It’s also important to remember that COVID-19 vaccines protect from getting severely ill, and significantly reduce the likelihood of hospitalization and death, for those who do come down with COVID-19.  https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/effectiveness/why-measure-effectiveness/breakthrough-cases.html

Families with Native Youth in the Jeffferson County 509J and South Wasco County school distritcts including Head Start programs are reminded that today is the deadline for Johnson O’Malley Applications .  You can find the requirements & application on the KWSO website or you can contact Carroll Dick at the Warm Springs Education Building.  Funding is to support students with their extra curricular activities.  (https://kwso.org/2021/09/fall-jom-applications-due-9-27-21/)

Republicans in the Oregon House failed to show up for a floor session on Saturday, thwarting majority Democrats’ attempts to pass new political maps before a looming deadline. The absence of GOP lawmakers denied the House a quorum, meaning there weren’t enough members present to formally begin work. Saturday evening Democratic House Speaker Tina Kotek announced that the House would adjourn until 9 a.m. Monday. Kotek said if a quorum isn’t reached by 9:30 a.m. the session will end. The Legislature has until the end of the day on Monday to participate in the once-a-decade job of redrawing the state’s political districts, including a new, sixth U.S. House seat.

An administrative law judge has recommended that a Native American tribe in Washington state once again be allowed to hunt gray whales — a major step in its decades-long effort to resume the ancient practice. The Makah Tribe last legally hunted whales off the Olympic Peninsula in 1999, but its efforts since then have been tied up in legal and scientific review. An administrative law judge on Thursday recommended that they be allowed to resume the hunts. The decision would let the hunters kill up to 25 whales over 10 years, with restrictions that could further limit the number of whales taken.

The US 26 Warm Springs Safety Corridor project continues this week.  The majority of the new paving is completed but they continue to work on finishing the sidewalks and other features between the casino and the Shell station.  The remainder of the new paving is scheduled for next week. The project should be complete by November 30.