Eugene Weekly

A year and a half after journalist Serena Markstrom was fired by The Register-Guard, she has filed a lawsuit against the newspaper where she had worked for more than a decade. Markstrom, who also goes by her married name Serena Markstrom Nugent, was terminated by the paper shortly after informing her employer of her pregnancy. Markstrom was fired for being “dishonest, insubordinate and having destroyed company property” after checking her email while on pregnancy-related disability leave. The “destroyed property” refers to emails that Markstrom deleted. Continue reading →

The lingering aftershocks of a recent New Yorker story, which pronounced everything west of I-5 “toast” when a massive Cascadia subduction zone earthquake hits the Northwest, means a lot of attention has been paid to quakes recently. An Aug. 6 UO public forum on the science behind “the really big one” drew more than 500 people, with 200 more watching on live stream. But how ready is the UO itself for a quake?  Continue reading →

The proposed Jordan Cove liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in Coos Bay would produce 2.1 million metric tons of CO2 a year, according to its federal environmental analysis. And the project isn’t just an LNG terminal. It’s a gas liquefaction, storage and shipping facility with a 400-megawatt natural-gas-fired plant powering four super chillers. It will all be fed by a 36-inch-wide 232-mile natural gas pipeline extending halfway across Oregon.  Continue reading →

Walk through downtown Eugene and you’ll see shops, restaurants, bars, kids on bikes, artists, business people, random pedestrians … and part of this quirky city scene is an assortment of panhandlers, travelers and unhoused residents not unlike those seen in downtowns across America. Walk though downtown Salt Lake City and it feels a bit like Disneyland. Weirdly clean, it too has bars, restaurants and shops. The downtown mall, City Creek Center, has a manufactured creek running charmingly through its tidy, paved center.  Continue reading →