Bend, Ore. (KTVZ) — The COCC Foundation has opened scholarship applications for the 2026-27 academic year, offering a share of $2.4 million in funding, including full scholarships valued at $5,500. Students interested in applying can find more information on the college website.
Click here to follow the original article.Bend, Ore. (KTVZ) — Bend Fire & Rescue launched a new online tool Thursday to streamline requests for free wildfire risk home assessments and personalized mitigation recommendations. The system uses Fire Aside, an online platform for scheduling appointments and managing property assessment data.
The initiative operates under the department’s Own Your Zone program, which assists property owners in preparing homes and neighborhoods for wildfires. Bend Fire & Rescue provides emergency medical services, fire protection and community risk reduction programs to more than 144,000 residents in Bend and the Deschutes Rural Fire Protection District.
The home assessments involve a property walkthrough lasting approximately one hour. A trained assessor inspects the location alongside the resident, identifying specific vulnerabilities and offering guidance on defensible space and home hardening.
Melissa Steele, deputy fire marshal for Bend Fire & Rescue, emphasized the role of property reviews in local safety efforts. “The launch of this tool is an important step in helping residents take action to reduce wildfire risk around their homes,” Steele said. “These assessments provide practical recommendations that can help homeowners improve their property’s resilience to wildfire while supporting Bend Fire’s community wildfire preparedness efforts.”
Following the walkthrough, residents can set up a secure Fire Aside profile to view assessment reports and access preparedness materials. Homeowners can also upload photographs of finished mitigation work to document their progress and maintain an ongoing record of risk reduction.
Data gathered through the assessments will help fire officials evaluate common preparedness needs across the area to guide future education, outreach and resource planning. Residents can request a free assessment at bendoregon.gov/own-your-zone, after which department staff will follow up to schedule an appointment.
Click here to follow the original article.El Paso, TX (KVIA-TV)-Sé Feliz A.C. Announces Fall 2026 Cancer Awareness Events.
The #YaQuisierasCáncer Race: Scheduled for October 4, 2026, at 8:00 AM atChamizal CDJ; registration or donation is 400 MXP.
Jorge Lozano’s Conference (“La Revolución Eres Tú”): Scheduled for October 24,2026, at 7:00 PM at the Centro Cultural Paso del Norte (limited seating).
Ticket tiers are Zona Alta ($400 MXN), Zona Media ($500 MXN), and Zona Baja ($600 MXN), withThe option to add the conference when you are registering for the race.
The entire amount raised through donations directly supports Sé Feliz A.C.’s current health campaigns andpreventative care programs. Registrations and details are available at www.sefeliz.org.
Click here to follow the original article.Bend, Ore. (KTVZ) — The nonpartisan campaign Deschutes For All will host a community gathering this Sunday, Sept. 13, in Terrebonne to inform residents about Ballot Measure 9-185. The ballot measure asks voters whether to establish five geographic commissioner districts across Deschutes County.
The proposal follows a 2024 vote in which Deschutes County voters expanded the County Commission from three members to five. If approved, Measure 9-185 would require voters in each geographic district to elect one commissioner who lives in that district beginning in 2028.
The event will take place from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at Smith Rock Ranch, located at 1250 NE Wilcox Ave. in Terrebonne. Sponsored by the Deschutes County Farm Bureau and Smith Rock Ranch, the gathering will offer complimentary snacks, family activities, back-to-school supplies while supplies last and a local beverage vendor. A presentation and Q&A session about Measure 9-185 will run from 2:30 p.m. to 3 p.m.
According to Deschutes For All, the proposed district map was developed through a public process that evaluated population balance, communities of interest, transportation corridors and adjacent precincts. All five commissioners would continue working together and making decisions for the entire county under the proposed structure.
Deschutes County voters will consider Ballot Measure 9-185 on the November 2026 ballot. If approved, district-based commissioner elections will begin in 2028.
Click here to follow the original article.By Francis Page Jr.
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September 10, 2026 (Houston Style Magazine) — Ten pianists. Twenty études. One night at Jones Hall. And tucked inside Philip Glass’s sweeping piano cycle is a piece with Houston in its DNA.
On Saturday, September 12, at 7:30 p.m., Performing Arts Houston presents The Complete Piano Etudes by Philip Glass, a roughly three-hour program produced by Pomegranate Arts and performed by 10 distinguished pianists: Timo Andres, Inon Barnatan, Anton Batagov, Vicky Chow, Aaron Diehl, Daniela Liebman, Jenny Lin, Jason Moran, Christian Sands and Jiani Wu.
photo The Complete Piano Edtudes by Philip Glass
For listeners who think an “étude” sounds suspiciously like homework, Glass has a persuasive rebuttal.
These pieces began as studies—music written partly to strengthen and challenge his own piano technique—but grew into a 20-work cycle spanning the 1990s through 2012. Glass has described the complete collection as a trajectory of musical and technical ideas, while Pomegranate Arts considers the études his most personal body of work. The complete concert concept has reached major stages including BAM, the Philharmonie de Paris, Lincoln Center and Walt Disney Concert Hall.
A Composition With a Houston Birth Certificate Houston’s performance carries an extra layer of ownership.
Étude No. 17 was commissioned for the 25th anniversary of the Menil Collection in Houston and premiered in 2012. Glass’s official site lists the Houston commission among the milestones that helped shape the completed cycle.
There is even another fascinating wrinkle. Glass’s website now notes that an original sketch for No. 17 bore the title “Magic Psalm” and was later discovered tucked inside a book of Allen Ginsberg poems in Glass’s library.
So when No. 17 sounds through Jones Hall, Houston will not simply be hearing Glass. Houston will be hearing a piece of its own cultural history come home.
Jason Moran: Houston Made, World Acclaimed And then there is Jason Moran, arguably the evening’s strongest hometown connection.
Moran was born in Houston in 1975, began studying piano as a child and graduated from Houston’s High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in 1993. After earning his bachelor’s degree from the Manhattan School of Music, he developed a career that has never behaved politely inside one genre.
He is a jazz pianist and composer, certainly—but also an educator, curator and visual artist whose work crosses film, museums, dance and multimedia installation.
The MacArthur Foundation named Moran a Fellow in 2010 for his genre-crossing approach to jazz. His visual work later anchored a solo museum exhibition that traveled through institutions including the Walker Art Center and Whitney Museum of American Art. He also composed music for Ava DuVernay’s films Selma and 13th.
For current context, there is an important update to older biographies: Moran’s long tenure leading jazz programming at the Kennedy Center ended in 2025, after 14 years. In 2026, his creative journey reached another milestone when the Gordon Parks Foundation named him the inaugural recipient of its Fellowship in Music.
That résumé makes Moran an especially intriguing Glass interpreter.
Glass’s music depends on structure, pulse and repetition, but the complete-études concept thrives on difference: 10 pianists encounter the same composer without being asked to sound alike. Moran’s musical life has been built around precisely that kind of conversation—between jazz and classical vocabulary, history and improvisation, keyboard and visual world.
Ten Artists, Ten Musical Lenses He is hardly alone in bringing star power. Timo Andres is an acclaimed composer-pianist; Inon Barnatan became the New York Philharmonic’s first Artist-in-Association; Vicky Chow is closely associated with the Bang on a Can All-Stars; jazz standouts Aaron Diehl and Christian Sandsbring another rhythmic vocabulary; and Jiani Wu provides an important Houston connection through Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music.
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Pomegranate Arts intentionally builds these performances around differing musical personalities. That is the secret sauce: the score stays put while the human interpretation keeps moving.
Sixty Years Meets Nearly Fifty Years of Glass There is another Houston anniversary humming beneath the program.
Performing Arts Houston and Jones Hall both trace their beginnings to 1966. Performing Arts Houston’s anniversary history places the beginning of its collaboration with Philip Glass in November 1978.
That makes this concert feel almost custom-built for a milestone season: a decades-long artistic relationship, a Houston-commissioned étude, a hometown piano star and one of Houston’s signature performance halls converging on the same Saturday night.
Call it minimalism if you like. Glass himself prefers the description “music with repetitive structures.”
Either way, there is nothing minimal about this occasion.
The Complete Piano Etudes by Philip Glass takes place Saturday, September 12, 2026, at 7:30 p.m. at Jones Hall, 615 Louisiana St., Houston, Texas 77002. Tickets are listed from $39. Performing Arts Houston recommends arriving 45 to 60 minutes before showtime.
Twenty études may technically be called “studies.”
In Houston, this one feels more like a reunion.
Official Background Links
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The official Performing Arts Houston event page is available here: The Complete Piano Etudes by Philip Glass — Performing Arts Houston. Readers can also explore Philip Glass’s official Houston event listing, Philip Glass’s official Piano Etudes history, and Jason Moran’s 2026 Gordon Parks Foundation Fellowship.
Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.
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Bend, Ore. (KTVZ) — The Oregon National Guard and the U.S. Navy broke ground yesterday on a $12 million Multi-Purpose Machine Gun Range at the Naval Weapons Systems Training Facility in Boardman.
The project will create the first and only Army Standard crew-served weapons range in Oregon, allowing soldiers to conduct heavy weapons qualifications in-state.
Currently, Oregon soldiers must travel to out-of-state military installations in Yakima, Wash., or Boise, Idaho, to qualify on crew-served weapons. The new facility fulfills a license agreement signed in August 2004 between the Department of the Army, the Department of the Navy and the Oregon Military Department.
Once completed, the facility will support qualification training on crew-served weapons systems, including the M240, M2 and MK19. The range is also designed to accommodate the Army’s Next Generation Squad Weapon and its 6.8 mm round as soldiers transition to the new system in coming years.
Brig. Gen. Alan R. Gronewold, the adjutant general of Oregon, highlighted the operational benefits of training locally during the ceremony. “That travel costs time, costs money and it pulls our soldiers away from being available here at home when the state needs them most,” Gronewold said. “This range changes that.”
Reaching the groundbreaking required more than two decades of administrative work, including placement on the military’s Future Years Development Plan in 2007, 2015, 2025 and 2026. The effort required a six-and-a-half-year environmental impact statement spanning more than 1,400 pages, alongside coordination across the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command, Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, the National Guard Bureau and the Oregon Military Department.
Gronewold emphasized the long-term impact of the 2004 agreement. “Twenty-two years ago, someone signed a piece of paper that made a promise, a promise that Oregon soldiers would someday train on their own ground for their own state,” Gronewold said. “Today, we break ground on keeping that promise and when this range opens, it won’t just serve the soldiers standing here today; it will serve the generations of Oregon’s citizen-soldiers who come after them.”
Cmdr. Joshua Overn, executive officer of Naval Air Station Whidbey Island and the Northwest Training Range Complex, delivered remarks on behalf of Capt. Nathan Gammache, the air station’s commanding officer. Overn described proficiency with crew-served weapons as a cornerstone of ground combat. “Today, we aren’t just turning dirt; we are laying the foundation for the future of our tactical readiness,” Overn said, adding that the facility will ensure deploying forces “are fully qualified, confident and lethal in the field.”
Overn also noted that the partnership between the Navy and the Oregon Military Department has helped advocate for military interests across the Pacific Northwest while maintaining compatible land and air use in the region.
Dignitaries in attendance included retired Maj. Gen. Raymond F. Rees, a former adjutant general of Oregon and Boardman City Manager Brandon Hammond. They were joined by Morrow and Umatilla county commissioners, local fire and police representatives, field representatives for Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley and Guard leaders CW5 Lenora L. Landwehr and CMSgt Brent W. Cavanias.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony is expected within the coming year as construction on the range wraps up.
Click here to follow the original article.Bend, Ore. (KTVZ) — The Dollar General Literacy Foundation announced approximately $20,000 in youth literacy grants for Oregon schools and non-profit organizations today. The funding is expected to impact more than 700 individuals across the state.
The Oregon grants are part of a broader national initiative that awarded more than $4.1 million to youth literacy programs across the country. Recipient organizations can use the funds for professional development or to purchase books, technology, equipment and learning materials for K-12 students.
Four Oregon organizations received funding through the grants, including Santiam Elementary School in Mill City ($5,000), Mt. Angel Middle School in Mt. Angel ($5,000), Philomath Elementary School in Philomath ($3,936) and the Children’s Literacy Project in Sweet Home ($5,000).
Denine Torr serves as executive director of the Dollar General Literacy Foundation. “When students have access to books, technology and educational resources, they gain tools that can support their learning for years to come,” Torr said. “Through our youth literacy grants, we are honored to help strengthen schools, libraries and nonprofit organizations literacy programs and resources. We are grateful to support the meaningful work they do to help young learners grow, thrive and pursue brighter academic futures in DG communities nationwide.”
In addition to the grant awards, the foundation recently concluded its seventh annual campaign called The Yellow Glasses Project. The project featured a partnership with radio personality Bobby Bones, host of the nationally syndicated Country radio program “The Bones Show.” Since 2020, the campaign has raised more than $9 million to benefit the foundation and its literacy programs.
Since its establishment in 1993, the Dollar General Literacy Foundation has awarded nearly $297 million in grants to non-profit organizations, reaching more than 26 million individuals across the country.
Applications for the foundation’s 2027 grant cycle will open online in January 2027 at www.dgliteracy.org. The upcoming funding cycle will support youth, family, summer and adult literacy programs located within a 15-mile radius of a Dollar General store or distribution center.
Click here to follow the original article.IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) Fire crews in Idaho Falls are investigating a fire that burned a home at 1419 East 25th Street in Idaho Falls.
According to PulsePoint, eight units responded to the incident at about 5:30 a.m. Thursday morning.
Firefighters said neighbors and a delivery driver alerted the family to the fire and helped them escape. One neighbor also rescued a child from the basement.
Based on the video shared with the newsroom, the fire appears to have burned the garage section of the home and may have damaged a truck sitting in the driveway.
No one was injured in the fire. Chaplains were called to assist the family with resources.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
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By Jeff Tavss
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SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (KSTU) — One year after the fatal shooting on the Utah Valley University campus, Gov. Spencer Cox announced that September 10, 2026 would formally be declared Charlie Kirk Day in the state.
Kirk was shot and killed while speaking at a rally in Orem, and the conservative activist later died of his injuries. Tyler Robinson was taken into custody a day later and will face trial for murder in Kirk’s death.
“Charlie Kirk came to Utah to take part in a fundamental American tradition: speak openly, debate ideas, and persuade others,” Cox wrote on social media. “Today, we honor Charlie’s memory by choosing a politics worthy of our country, one where we stand firmly for what we believe and reject violence.”
On the anniversary of the shooting, classes were canceled at UVU, with a rally scheduled to take place at the school’s UCCU Center and hosted by Turning Point USA, the organization founded by Kirk.
Sen. John Curtis also took to social media to share his condolences on the anniversary of Kirk’s death and how he will be remembered.
“Freedom of expression and open debate, enshrined by our Founders in the First Amendment, are core values of the American experiment. Charlie Kirk exercised that right with vigor and passion. His murder not only resulted in the loss of a conservative voice respected by so many, but was an attack on all voices,” Curtis wrote. “May we commit ourselves to debate respectfully, reject extremism, and most importantly denounce political violence. Sue and I continue to pray for the Kirk family and Charlie’s loved one.”
Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.
By Tim Fang
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CONTRA COSTA COUNTY, California (KPIX) — An East Bay man has been charged for allegedly engaging in human trafficking that victimized women and minors in multiple states, prosecutors said.
According to the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office, 31-year-old Raymond Jamar Brooks of Antioch was arrested in connection with a yearslong investigation. The DA’s office said Brooks is facing multiple charges associated with human trafficking.
Prosecutors allege Brooks engaged in commercial sex acts with minors and adult women “through force, fraud, coercion and other means associated with sex trafficking.” The DA’s office said several victims have been identified and that trafficking spanned multiple states.
Brooks is being held at the Martinez Detention Facility on $1 million bail.
Prosecutors said anyone who may have been victimized by Brooks or who has additional information is urged to contact Ann Shiraishi of the Contra Costa County Major Crimes Task Force at 925-917-6857 or ann.shiraishi@contracostada.org.
Anonymous tips can be sent to the DA’s Human Trafficking Tip Line at 925-957-8658. Support and resources for survivors can be found through Community Violence Solutions at 800-670-7273.
Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.
