Imagine this: You’ve recently retired in the state you love. You’ve raised a family, paid off a mortgage. Supported nonprofits and the local restaurants in your community. Against all odds, you’ve even put some money away for the grandkids.
Editorials
Leapfrogs and bookends mark local issues at the turn of the year
Resolution and reverberation offer different ways to define 2025 in Yamhill County. As we look at Yamhill County’s year past and year ahead, local issues often either bookended or leapfrogged: many ...
Good intentions gone awry leave Oregon in the lurch
It’s been a long time coming, but a sitting Oregon governor finally conceded earlier this month, at Oregon’s annual Oregon Leadership Summit, that business leaders have a point when they complain ...
Was top school choice hiding in plain sight?
To the casual observer, the McMinnville School Board’s unanimous Monday night embrace of Dr. Kourtney Ferrua as the next superintendent of schools here may seem the product of a whirlwind courtship. But ...
Time county dealt itself in on the lodging tax bounty?
Since coming into vogue in the 1970s, transient lodging taxes have become almost universal in the U.S. and more the rule than exception elsewhere in the world — particularly in countries with at ...
Recent ICE actions untenable, un-American and unacceptable
From the outset of President Trump’s second term, masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in unmarked cars have been permitted to scoop up potential immigration status violators and whisk ...
Bond deserves another go with centerpiece retained
At this writing, a final, official reckoning is still not yet available for the $98.5 million parks and rec bond appearing on McMinnville’s November general election ballot. The most recent tally ...
Ending shutdown just a start on restoring American values
At this writing, we finally appear poised to close the books on the longest federal shutdown in American history, exceeding that even of the 35-day closure marking the first Trump presidency. But in addition ...
Political storm rakes nation, but gives Northwest a pass
A political storm brought thunder and lightning raining down on America’s east and west coasts Tuesday, and vast swaths of the heartland lying between. Almost everywhere, the results were delivered ...
Expecting the unexpected and solving the unsolvable
So much of what local government entities do for their constituents is so mundane and routine it seldom gets any attention until things go wrong. Then a hue and cry arises. Everyone wonders why someone ...
Suicide prevention a cause we can all come to embrace
In the face of troubling social issues, our first instinct has traditionally been to simply keep them out of the public eye, thus avoiding the messy necessity of addressing them. When that fails, our fallback ...
Letters
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: Dec. 19, 2025
Weak and damaged A malignant narcissist is defined as an individual with a personality disorder that includes these characteristics: profound lack of insight, extreme grandiosity, lack of empathy, sadism, ...
Letters to the Editor: Dec. 12, 2025
Insurance a basic need Democrats may have lost their fight to extend subsidies for purchasing health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, but their efforts have started ...
Letters to the Editor: Dec. 5, 2025
Ferrua best choice As a past long-time employee and board member in the McMinnville School District, I am writing in support of maintaining Dr. Kourtney Ferrua as school superintendent on a permanent ...
Letters to the Editor: Nov. 26, 2025
Time to stand up Ramming people’s cars is illegal. Assaulting people is illegal. Kidnapping people is illegal. Refusing due process for people — including immigrants — is illegal, and ...
Letters to the Editor: Nov. 21, 2025
Yes on Yamhelas Trail I am now a senior rider, after decades of being a cyclist for both recreation and transportation at different periods in my life. And I feel much safer on a trail away from the increasingly ...
Letters to the Editor: Nov. 14, 2025
It’s on us I want to thank each and every one of you for participating in marches against the man in the White House. With the help of the Supreme Court, he created a hopeless atmosphere of despair ...
Letters to the Editor: Nov. 7, 2025
No sense of mercy? I volunteer at the Soup Kitchen at St. Barnabas, and on the Tuesday evening of Oct. 28, we served 80 plates in the first 30 minutes. Are we people choosing to have a country without ...
Letters to the Editor: Oct. 31, 2025
Long tradition Citizens of McMinnville helped pay for public facilities long before I moved here in 1978. In fact, since McMinnville’s naming in 1856 and platting in 1876, its residents have most ...
Letters to the Editor: Oct. 24, 2025
Places to thrive Over the summer, I spotted something different happening around McMinnville. I began to see young people with fishing poles in their hands instead of phones. On an early fall paddle ...
Commentary
Quirk of the Week: Wall full of mail in waffle haven of Amity
In Amity, waffles get a wall full of mail. Common Cup cafe upholds the old-school mail tradition of postcards. Owner Jeannie Coelho and staff encourage the community to keep in touch via postcard with ...
Barrett Rainey: These are just kids, or so it would seem
At my age of going on 90, it’s too late for a mid-life crisis. So, it must be a “late-life crisis,” coupled with occasional “senior interludes.”
Randy Stapilus: At college, is bigger better?
Willamette University is located across the street — State Street, in Salem — from the statehouse, and that has sometimes been a good metaphor for its status in Oregon.
Jeb Bladine: Before year in review, it’s still season of hope
Come New Years, media will look back at the most prominent stories of 2025, many of them disturbing reminders of sad news, bad weather, tragic events, and conflicts with local, state, national and international ...
Jonah Goldberg: Does either party want to win Senate race in Texas?
One of the worst features of the primary system in our polarized “Red vs. Blue” time is the tendency of primary voters to flock to the candidate they most want to see “destroy” the other party, not the candidate best positioned to do so.
Robert AppleBaum: Congress still deadlocked as health cost crisis looms
Dec. 15, 2025 — the deadline for enrolling in a marketplace plan through the Affordable Care Act for 2026 — came and went without an agreement on the federal subsidies that kept ACA plans more affordable for many Americans. Despite a last-ditch attempt in the House to extend ACA subsidies, with Congress adjourning for the year on Dec. 19, it’s looking almost certain that Americans relying on ACA subsidies will face a steep increase in health care costs in 2026.
Investigating the Bible: After Christmas
Catholic Priest James Keller wrote about an American teacher who traveled to Germany after WW II. He found a colorful and illustrated book of Christmas carols published by the Nazis. Not one song mentioned Jesus’ birth; they cut out the core of Christmas. Bible scholar William Barclay observed three reactions to the birth of Jesus.
Jeb Bladine: The two sides of 'Trump Derangement Syndrome'
A lifetime of television, film, and other media can make certain artists, athletes, actor-directors, politicians, and other public figures feel strangely personal —parasocial bonds with people we’ve ...
From the Conversation: COVID vaccines eyed for fighting late-stage cancer
By ADAM GRIPPINOf the University of Texas& CHRISTIANO MARCONIOf the University of Florida The COVID-19 mRNA-based vaccines that saved 2.5 million lives globally during the pandemic could help spark ...
Speaker being set up as the GOP's falll guy
About the writer: Conservative D.C.-based commentator Jonah Goldberg serves as editor-in-chief of The Dispatch, hosts The Remnant podcast, authors a weekly Los Angeles Times column, holds a chair with ...
Steve Duin: Oregon - No place to die
Imagine this: You’ve recently retired in the state you love. You’ve raised a family, paid off a mortgage. Supported nonprofits and the local restaurants in your community. Against all odds, you’ve even put some money away for the grandkids.
Investigating the Bible: Miracles before Christmas
There were at least seven miracles mentioned in the New Testament before the miracle of Jesus’ birth. First, was the miracle of the creation. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
Quirk of the Week: Celebrating a ‘Christmas carnival’ and our many eclectic yard displays
A sly “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” theme in McMinnville and Sheridan finds a new shine during the holiday season. Thank the folks at a locally based chain of auto parts stores and car ...
Jonah Goldberg: You can't duck war crimes by calling them 'fake news'
Since September, the United States military has been blowing up boats allegedly trafficking drugs in the Caribbean.
Kate Lynch: Concerns about ICE heard, but local options are limited
I’ve recently been asked why I did not join Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield’s Nov. 24 letter to the U.S. attorney general and secretary of homeland security, which references the arrest of a 17-year-old McMinnville resident by federal agents.
Sal Peralta: Deportations demand strong local response
I have received a great deal of correspondence from residents in recent weeks asking the city to address community concerns about federal immigration enforcement actions in McMinnville and around the nation.
Jeb Bladine: Tax laws impact charitable gifting in America
There are three weeks left in the holiday season — still time to consider how our altruistic feelings and personal finances can merge into year-end charitable giving. The Fed cut interest rates ...
Investigating the Bible: Prayer suprises
In Fred Lockley’s, “Conversations With Pioneer Men,” he interviewed Robert Booth. When Booth was a young boy, one time his mother and father were completely out of food and money. His father said God would provide.
Quirk of the Week: At Habitat for Humanity ReStore, Quirk is sometimes ‘not for sale’
ReStore is a reliable place. And a zone of surprises. McMinnville Habitat for Humanity’s thrift store (hardware, scrap wood, home and garden goods, décor, tools, furniture, CDs — ...
Cyrus: Javadi: The musical chairs of the housing market
When you don’t have enough homes, prices go up until somebody is pushed out. That’s how economics works.
