Quirk of the Week: A restroom break

Local toilet facilities are flush with mildly irreverent humor Yes, near the end of our third year, we’re going there. Quirk goes to the restroom — could not hold it anymore. In one sense, ...

Jeb Bladine: Mail ballot controversy plays out on deadline

Writing “on deadline” can be risky business, particularly when a story depends on simultaneous court adjudication activity. Consider this week’s high-stakes tale of federal plans to assume ...

 

Jonah Goldberg: Trump’s wars both intended as oil heists

So, it was a war for oil after all.

On social media Friday, President Trump announced the United States and Venezuela had struck an agreement for “THE BIGGEST OIL DEAL IN WORLD HISTORY.”

 

Gleb Tsipursky: Employers often overlook key AI productivity metric

The easiest savings often come from the work assigned to the least experienced employees: first drafts, routine research, basic analysis, scheduling, documentation, and information gathering. Those tasks look expendable because AI can perform much of them quickly.

Mel Gurtov: President’s threats sowing discord around the globe

As global crises descend around him, Donald Trump seems increasingly incapable of a rational response. He rants, rails and threatens, indulges in delusions, then retreats to one or the other of his vanity projects.

 

Down hours, missed days cripple educational results

By virtually every metric, Oregon’s public schools are falling behind their counterparts in other states. Considering how poorly American public schools compare to more rigorous and disciplined ...

 

State housing intervention doing us no favors locally

When McMinnville completed its richly detailed and documented City Center Housing Strategy in March 2020, it assured us it knew exactly where it was going and how it intended to get there, in terms of ...

 

Cybersecurity threat rising with no relief now in sight

Willie Sutton, one of the most prolific and incorrigible bank robbers in American history, boosted more than $2 million from more than 100 banks during his colorful criminal career. Though it may well ...

 

Flurry of initiatives indicates course ahead at air museum ahead

In Act 2, Scene 2 of his play Romeo and Juliet, celebrated English bard William Shakespeare observes, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet.” That ...

What lies beyond the public disapproval of data centers?

Oregonians — ninth among states with about 900 megawatts of commercial colocation data-center capacity — are taking action to slow the growth of massive data campuses. However, as demand for ...

News-Register Letters Policy

The News-Register welcomes written opinions about issues of public interest and about the content of this newspaper. Letters from non-local writers are accepted only if they focus on local issues. This ...

 

Letters to the Editor: Sept. 4, 2026

Noxious noise I continue to be astounded that this city sanctions an event where a small group of people is allowed to take over the downtown and surrounding area for several hours to create an environment ...

 

Letters to the Editor: Aug. 28, 2026

Drain the swamp The MAGA/Make America Great Again movement has been nothing more than a marketing scam. It was a scheme to create a political base by pandering to a disaffected portion of our population, ...

 

Letters to the Editor: Aug. 21, 2026

Trampling on rights McMinnville, we feel your pain In sleepy little Monmouth, your neighbor 26 miles south, more than 150 people appeared before our city council in April to voice disapproval of plans ...

 

Letters to the editor: Aug. 14, 2026

Affordable housing If McMinnville would like to stand out and create a self-sustainable model, it wouldn’t settle for apartment complexes owned by out-of-town corporations. Population growth has ...