At this years 2024 Oregon High School State Wrestling Tournament, Redmond’s Joey Downing finally got his hand raised on his final attempt in senior year. “It feels so good,” Downing said. “I feel incredible, man; this is literally my main dream come true. After his final match, he hugged his coaches, teammates, and friends in one last moment, one last embrace. “My friends drove up from Redmond to watch me,” Downing said. “They don’t even watch wrestling. They’ve never watched a wrestling match in their life, but I got my family here, my teammates, and so, it’s just incredible. They all have ..read more

LONDON (AP) — Whales sing loud enough that their songs travel through the ocean, but knowing the mechanics behind that has been a mystery. Scientists now think they have an idea, and it’s something not seen in other animals: a specialized voice box. Experts say the discovery, while based on a study that is too tiny to be definitive, will direct future research into how whales communicate. In a paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature, Coen Elemans of the University of Southern Denmark and colleagues studied the voice boxes, or larynxes, from three dead, stranded whales — a h ..read more

Bear Creek Elementary celebrated Black History Month with a family African drumming event on Thursday evening. The school’s Family Engagement Committee and the music department at Bear Creek welcomed Fode Sylla. Fode shared his background and history in African drumming while creating a welcoming and fun event for all ages. Families and staff enjoyed participating in an African drum circle that fostered inclusion and community. RELATED: Exhibit about Oregon’s 1st Black woman homesteader now at OSU-Cascades   ..read more

NEW YORK (AP) — Leap year. It’s a delight for the calendar and math nerds among us. So how did it all begin and why? Have a look at some of the numbers, history and lore behind the (not quite) every four year phenom that adds a 29th day to February. BY THE NUMBERS The math is mind-boggling in a layperson sort of way and down to fractions of days and minutes. There’s even a leap second occasionally, but there’s no hullabaloo when that happens. The thing to know is that leap year exists, in large part, to keep the months in sync with annual events, including equinoxes and solstices ..read more

LOS ANGELES (AP) — For a second straight week, biopic “ Bob Marley: One Love ” continues to exceed expectations by claiming the No. 1 spot at the box office, overcoming two debut films and Sony’s “Madame Web” that’s still producing subpar numbers. The Paramount film starring Kingsley Ben-Adir pulled in $13.5 million during its second week of release. The project, which was produced for about $70 million, already eclipsed that mark, grossing nearly $72 million domestically in North America. It’s an impressive achievement for the Reinaldo Marcus Green-directed Marley’s musical biopic ..read more

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A severe lack of affordable housing has prompted Oregon lawmakers to consider chipping away at a 1970s law that made the state a national leader in leveraging land use policy to prevent suburban sprawl and conserve nature and agriculture. The so-called urban growth boundary, a sacred cow of Oregon’s liberal politics, helped to cement the state’s green reputation and has been “extremely influential” in its development, said Megan Horst, an urban planning professor at Portland State University. “I can’t overstate it,” she said of the half-century-old law. “All that farmla ..read more

AT&T said the hourslong outage to its U.S. cellphone network Thursday appeared to be the result of a technical error, not a malicious attack. The outage knocked out cellphone service for thousands of its users across the U.S. starting early Thursday before it was restored. AT&T blamed the incident on an error in coding, without elaborating. “Based on our initial review, we believe that today’s outage was caused by the application and execution of an incorrect process used as we were expanding our network, not a cyber attack,” the Dallas-based company said. Outage tracker Do ..read more

NEW YORK (AP) — When her cellphone’s service went down this week because of an AT&T network outage, Bernice Hudson didn’t panic. She just called the people she wanted to talk to the old-fashioned way — on her landline telephone, the kind she grew up with and refuses to get rid of even though she has a mobile phone. “Don’t get me wrong, I like cellphones,” the 69-year-old Alexandria, Virginia, resident said Thursday, the day of the outage. “But I’m still old school.” Having a working landline puts her in select company. In an increasingly digital United States, they’re more and more ..read more

Areli Sanchez’s daughter, Aida, used to be one of 20 million American kids who ride a diesel bus to school each day. Aida has asthma. When she was little, she complained about the smell and cloud of fumes on her twice-daily trip. “When she would come home from school or be on the bus, she got headaches and sick to her stomach. She said, ‘Mami, I don’t feel well, I feel dizzy,’” Sanchez said in Spanish from Las Vegas. Aida missed classes a lot when her asthma was bad. Research shows diesel exhaust exposure can cause students to miss school and affect learning. She was admi ..read more

Activist groups gather on Peace Corner in downtown Bend Saturday evening in support of Ukraine. The Vocal Seniority and Indivisible Sisters organized the rally as Saturday marked the second year since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The group is asking Deschutes County to add their voices to the call for elected officials to vote and speak out for immediate U.S. aid to Ukraine. “We wanted to just say vote to send money to these people, they need it, we have it, let’s do it,” said Gayle Stamler, Steering Committee of The Vocal Seniority. The Bend rally is one of thousands that took place intern ..read more