How the Klamath Dams came down
Last year, tribal nations won a decades-long fight for the largest dam removal in U.S. history. This is their story. By Anita Hofschneider and Jake Bittle, Grist
Cover Story
How the Klamath Dams Came Down
Part 1: Fish and Paper Editor’s note: This story was produced by Grist and co-published with Underscore Native News. At 17 years old, Jeff Mitchell couldn’t have known that an evening of deer hunting would change his life — and the history of the Klamath River — forever. Over Thanksgiving week in 1974, Mitchell and…
Rose Marie Retzloff: 1954-2025
Rose Marie Retzloff passed away in Reno, Nevada, on March 26, 2025, at the age of 70. Complications arose after a successful open-heart surgery, leading to the end of her vibrant life. Rose was born on July 3, 1954, in Eureka, California, and made front page news as the first baby born in the new…
Ann Ritola Jones
Audrey Ann Ritola was born during a summer morning in 1937 on the farm of Finnish immigrants Andrew and Tyyne Maria Ritola in Alton, California. The youngest of their six children – several already in college – Ann may have seemed a surprising afterthought, but she certainly was a good thought. Bright as sunlight. Andrew…
Wayne Hawkins
Wayne Hawkins was born in Burbank, California, on June 8, 1944, to Mary Angeline Felton and Emery Otis Hawkins. He had one older brother, Bruce Lee Hawkins. In 1951, Mary and Emery divorced, and Mary later married John Carl Pace, with whom she had Wayne’s sister, Nancy Pace-Skinner. Wayne’s father, Emery, was a world-famous cartoonist…
William ‘Bill’ Hummel: 1942-2025
William “Bill” Hummel, beloved husband, brother, veteran, business owner and dedicated community member, passed away unexpectedly on April 3, 2025 at the age of 83, at his home. Born in Schaller Iowa on March 10, 1942, Bill enlisted in the United States Navy in September of 1962 in Des Moines, Iowa. He completed his recruit…
Sheriff Announces ‘Strong Opposition’ to Serial Rapist’s Pending Release
Editor’s note: Be advised, this story covers violent sexual assaults and may be disturbing to some readers. Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal released a letter to the community at noon today announcing his “strong opposition” to the proposed release of a man once known locally in the late 1980s as the “Ski Mask Rapist” to…
Music Tonight: Tuesday, April 15
Many ages ago, I was introduced to the music of the late griot desert-rock and groove master Ali Farka Touré. His hypnotic tunes always put me in a state of contradiction: traveling sounds becoming a static liminal space where storytelling transcends the Babel Tower restrictions of language to tap into a communication deeper than meaning.…
Music Tonight: Monday, April 14
Savage Henry Comedy Club is once again hosting Metal Monday, an early (7 p.m.) all-ages throwdown that starts the week out right. Tonight’s link-up is particularly fine, with post-post grunge band Gnawed On coming down the mountain with Mystery Meat, Abandons and Only Echoes.
Dam Removal, Beer and Tariffs and Protesting
This week we’re sharing stories of the Indigenous activists who fought to remove the Klamath Dams. We’ve also talked to local breweries bracing for Trump’s tariffs to raise the costs for aluminum cans and more. Finally, we’ve got a look back at the Hands Off protest against the Trump administration in Eureka. Hit subscribe for…
Our ‘Neo-feudal Society’
Editor: Sixty years ago, Georgetown University historian Carroll Quigley predicted the U.S. would become a neo-feudal society if privatization of the public commons continued unabated. Private intermediaries separating people from their government is a defining characteristic of feudalism, seen today in the largest industrial complexes providing essential public services, (euphemistically called “public-private partnerships”). Today’s public-private…
Purple Jellies of Doom
Hi there. I’m a stranger from the future here to beg you to stop reading these Washed Up stories. The asshole who writes them made a vast fortune by bilking his readers. Then he became another one of those tedious billionaires who buy their way into political power and do a bunch of stupid stuff.…
Contentment
Content For the storm to blow in Knowing everything Is covered. Content To be indoors now Letting sore body rest From work Content To enjoy the sunshine In the bouquet I picked Before the rain Dottie Simmons
Providence St. Joseph Faces Another Abortion Lawsuit
The first sentence of local chiropractor Anna Nusslock’s lawsuit filed against Providence St. Joseph Hospital on April 1 cuts to the very heart of her allegations. “When Dr. Nusslock was experiencing a life-threatening medical emergency at [St. Joseph] Hospital, defendants callously, discriminatorily and illegally denied her care, causing harm that reverberates to this day,” the…
Wildegeeses
Last week saw the departure of two very different musicians who have been extremely important to me throughout my life and to a great many other people as well, I would guess. First was Michael Hurley, the outer than outer limits singin’ stranger, with a singularly baffling songwriting skill that worked as an organic lightning…
Trump Tariffs Hit Local Breweries in the Can
As the effects of President Donald Trump’s waves of tariffs roll back to our shores, stocks have taken a deep dive, while American consumers and businesses prepare for increased prices on goods both imported and domestic. Retaliatory tariffs set by other governments, such as China and Canada, loom over those who sell overseas, as well.…
A Drip is Slower Than a Tide
On March 15, the Morris Graves Museum of Art opened the once perennial exhibition Images of Water following a pandemic-induced hiatus. This return marks the 28th year of the juried exhibition — a tradition older than the museum itself, which opened on Jan. 1, 2000, with the turn of the millennium. This year, Images of…
Back to the ’80s
FREAKY TALES. Sometimes good things do happen. Not geopolitically, it would seem, but at least occasionally at the multiplex. With zero foreknowledge, I stumbled across the poster for Freaky Tales, emblazoned in neon green and tantalizing us (especially we NorCal kids of a certain age) with the tagline, “In 1987 Oakland was hella freaky.” OK,…
‘All He Wanted to Talk About’
Editor: Our leftist Congressmember Huffman had his town hall in Eureka on Sunday (“The Peril of this Moment,” April 3). His TDS (Trump derangement syndrome) was on full display: Trump, Trump, Trump is all he wanted to talk about. He described President Trump as a dictator and authoritarian. He added his disdain for the billionaire…
‘Not Enough’
Editor: Jared Huffman was wrong to blame the student protestors for Kamala Harris’s loss of the presidency at the Eureka Town Hall meeting on March 30 (“The Peril of this Moment,” April 3). Kamala won in California, but she lost in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. According to Michael Hirsch of…
‘You Are the Problem’
Editor: There have been multiple letters to the Editor here in the past weeks. Most recent letters were written resisting what is occurring in our country. A very few are negative, stating their side is now in power. I would like to address a third group that I find most disheartening, and the reason we…
