Government

The owner of The Wrangler in Prineville has been ordered by the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries to pay a former employee nearly $8,000 in unpaid wages and penalties after state investigators determined the worker was given two paychecks that were returned for insufficient funds.

For 10 months, Service Employees International Union Local 503 has been trying to obtain names and other information about 70,000 Oregonians who applied for state background checks to work as caregivers.

One person was found dead after an RV caught fire late Tuesday night in Prineville, according to a statement from the Prineville Police Department.

Applications remain open for the 2026–27 Crook County College, a free educational program designed to give residents and others connected to the county a closer look at how local government operates.

Newly released Crook County Fair Board records are providing substantially more detail about a previously undisclosed Funding Committee that met privately to discuss how Crook County should spend $1 million in state funding for horse-racing facilities

A group of 16 Alfalfa Fire District electors delivered a sweeping six-page rebuke of the district's leadership this week during a public meeting that also saw two new directors appointed to the embattled board and raised new questions about the embattled former Fire Chief Chad LaVallee's returning role in district operations.

On recent days in Prineville, smoke from the nearby Rowe Creek Complex wildfire feels “thick enough to cut with a knife,” said Beverly Friesen, an 81-year-old grandmother.

As destructive wildfires continue to burn across Oregon and the West, Oregon U.S. Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden are joining a bipartisan group of senators urging federal regulators to stop the expansion of prediction markets that allow people to wager on the course and impacts of wildfires.

The Alfalfa Fire District Board publicly questioned its own actions during a recent meeting after board members appeared unable to recall a vote taken just weeks earlier to delay appointments to two vacant board seats

Concerns are mounting among some residents displaced by Central Oregon's ongoing wildfires after learning they and their animals may need to relocate from the Crook County Fairgrounds as preparations begin for next week's Crook County Fair.