KWSO News Thu., Nov. 29, 2018

The Cannabis Project Development Team presented a plan on Wednesday that would downsize the startup of the Cannabis Enterprise. Citing changes in the market, the project was downsized to a small startup in phase one and one that would include a 10-acre outdoor hemp grow to be located on approximately 10 acres of the Tribes’ Trust Land known as Schoen-Haggen. The project would consist of a 2,160 square foot greenhouse, a storage container for drying and packaging, a storage container for extraction services and a modular office space. This initial phase would create up to 10 jobs during the harvest season. Expansion of the project, which would include more jobs, is part of the plan. The change from recreational to hemp will reduce the startup costs for the enterprise, Cannabis Project Coordinator Laurie Danzuka said during the presentation. Licensing and security requirements would be less strict, there would be no banking requirements, there are a reduced number of regulatory requirements and growing hemp is less labor intensive. The Team presented the plan and gathered input from Tribal Members.

The Madras White Buffalo girls’ basketball teams had games vs. Hidden Valley Wednesday. The freshman girls won 57-31, JV lost 53-44 and the varsity girls were defeated 53-45. The boys varsity team won on the road in the non-league match up with Hidden Valley, final score Madras 88, Hidden Valley 64.

(CNN) – Life expectancy in the United States declined from 2016 to 2017, yet the 10 leading causes of death remained the same, according to three government reports released Thursday. Increasing deaths due to drug overdoses and suicides explain this slight downtick in life expectancy, the US Centers for Disease Control says. Overdose deaths reached a new high in 2017, topping 70,000, while the suicide rate increased by 3.7%, the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics reports. Dr. Robert Redfield, CDC director, called the trend tragic and troubling. “Life expectancy gives us a snapshot of the Nation’s overall health and these sobering statistics are a wakeup call that we are losing too many Americans, too early and too often, to conditions that are preventable,” he wrote in a statement. Finally, the 10 leading causes of death in 2017, accounting for nearly three-quarters of all deaths across the nation, were heart disease, cancer, unintentional injuries, chronic lower respiratory diseases, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, influenza and pneumonia, kidney disease and suicide. This grim “top 10 list” remained unchanged from the previous year.

Governor Kate Brown released a two-year budget proposal Wednesday that includes millions in new taxes for health care, and unprecedented funding for housing. But as Dirk VanderHart reports, there’s a big question: How will the governor pay for education?