KWSO News for Wed., Jan. 19, 2022

Yesterday afternoon employees at the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs Tribal Administration building were released from work due to COVID-19 exposure in the facility.  Shortly thereafter Secretary-Treasurer/CEO Glendon Smith announced that Tribal Offices would again closed down for the remainder of the week for the safety of the people, a decision that is authorized and outlined under the management plan chapter 105.  Essential operations will continue with all other staff returning to work next Monday, January 24^th.

The 2022 NATIVE AMERICAN MUSIC AWARDS NOMINEES were announced for album category nominees. The awards cover all recordings released from 2019 through 2021.  Single categories and Music Videos will be announced today.  In the Best Debut Group or Duo category is Warm Springs’ own Blue Flamez and YL for “Warrior”. In the best R&B Recording Category – Blue Flamez Featuring Kaos is in the running for “Game Time” as is Bigg B for “Hometown.”   Also Blue Flamez “Blessed” is listed in the Best Rap Hip Hop Recording category.

A rap artist from the Newport area says he worries that Friday night’s mass shooting at the WOW Hall has set Eugene’s hip-hop scene back, just as it was gaining traction. Savelle [sah-VELL] Tha Native was among the regional acts scheduled for a concert featuring Lil Bean and Zay Bang before a shooter disrupted the evening, wounding six people. Police have identified six people shot outside the concert Friday, and confirmed they are all either in stable condition or out of the hospital. The Register-Guard reports five people from Oregon and one person from California were gathered at a porch area behind a music and community events venue in Eugene called WOW Hall before the shooting around 9:30 p.m. Police say three of those injured are hip-hop artists who had traveled from Pendleton, to perform. Police had no new descriptions Tuesday of the suspect, who remains at large.

The Biden administration says it will significantly expand efforts to stave off catastrophic wildfires that have been torching areas of the U.S. West by more aggressively thinning forests around “hot spots” where nature and neighborhoods collide. Officials have crafted a $50 billion plan to more than double the use of controlled fires and logging to reduce vegetation that feeds fires. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack tells The Associated Press the work will focus on regions where out-of-control blazes wiped out neighborhoods, including California’s Sierra Nevada mountains and Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. Climate change is heating and drying out the West. That makes wildfires more intense even as people increasingly move into fire-prone areas.

A professor at Oregon State University is leading a series of studies to breed hatchery-raised steelhead that are more like wild fish. KLCC’s Karen Richards explains. “The biggest hatchery-raised steelhead trout survive the swim to the ocean. But once in the wild, they’re less likely to stay fit and reproduce. OSU biology professor Michael Blouin is testing ways to make a hatchery more like nature, so steelhead adapted to life in a tank don’t genetically impact wild fish. Blouin: “In the wild, little fish pops up out of the gravel, he has to defend a territory, he has to get food which is scarce, and he has to do all this without getting eaten by predators.” His lab tried lowering the fat content in the food, but that didn’t favor the leaner and “shyer” fish which thrive in the wild. Blouin says they’ll try things like mixing up feeding schedules, and circulating the water, so the young fish have to swim constantly. If they find a treatment that works, they’ll try it at production scale.”

In Sports: The Madras High School Buff Boys basketball is on the road to Molalla today in their first action in 11 days. They are trying to stop their 3 game losing streak with tip-off at 7pm. The Lady Buffs will be hosting Molalla tonight in League action trying to build on their 2 game winning streak. Tip-off will be at 7pm. You can catch that game live here on KWSO.

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