2 Oregon high school teams win big at We The People national competition
The team from Sprague High School in Salem, which was the Oregon Wildcard, was named the national champions. Students from Lincoln High School in Portland, Oregon also ranked in the top 10, coming in at third place.
Sprague High School's We The People team was represented by Matthew Meyers and Colin Williams, along with their teacher Jacqueline Pope Brothers.
3 cases of rare brain disease reported in Hood River County; 2 reported dead
Hosted by the Center for Civic Education, the annual competition We The People draws students from around the country to showcase their civic affairs knowledge of the U.S. Constitution and the American government.
Stay with KOIN 6 News as this story develops.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
USA Today
an hour ago
- USA Today
Putin stalls. Trump changes his mind. Ukraine targets Moscow. Latest on the war.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is stalling over a ceasefire. The White House has changed its mind about sending weapons to Ukraine. A major Ukrainian drone attack on Russia sowed chaos at airports serving Moscow. Russia's summer offensive in Ukraine has seen Moscow make its largest territorial gains in Ukraine since the start of the year, according to the Ukrainian open-source DeepState website and estimates by the Institute for the Study of War, a think tank in Washington, D.C., that specializes in military affairs and warfare. In the past month, Russian military units concentrated in Ukraine's Sumy region, which borders Russia in the northeast, the eastern cities of Pokrovsk and Kostyantynivka, and Zaporizhzhia in the south, have gained about 200 square miles, according to data from the war study institute. That's an area a little larger than the size of Atlanta. Does that mean Russia is prevailing? Not really. It's not that simple. Here's the latest on Russia's war in Ukraine. Why is Russia gaining ground in Ukraine? Ukraine has liberated about 7% of the territory Russia occupied before and after Moscow's full-scale invasion in February 2022, according to Ukrainian estimates and DeepState. That leaves about 19% still in Russian hands. Moscow still controls Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, and about two-thirds of Ukraine's Donetsk region, a vast and heavily industrialized region which remains the center of the ground war. Russia has long had the upper hand in the war in terms of military manpower, but analysts say Moscow has suffered more casualties, and its loss of equipment − vehicles, artillery, tanks − also has been at a higher rate than Ukraine's. Though Russia has been advancing in recent months, those gains have been relatively slow and small, amounting to less than 0.1% of Ukraine's territory in July, according to a manual calculation. Still, one reason Russia may have been able to make progress, according to the war study institute, is that Russia has substantially increased its use of drone attacks, and missiles and shells, on Ukraine. These grew at an average monthly rate of 31% in June and July. Russia has been using drones to pin down Ukrainian troops. No, then yes, to more American weapons for Ukraine. Why? President Donald Trump began his second term promising to end the war in Ukraine in his first 24 hours in office. He quickly halted the flow of military aid to Kyiv and temporarily stopped sharing some intelligence. He also cast blame on Ukraine for the war, giving President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a public dressing down in the Oval Office when he tried to push back on that assertion and counter Trump by saying Putin was not a reliable negotiator. Since then, the leaders have revised their stances and welcomed more nuance in their discussions. The war is still raging. Trump has appeared to change his tune on Ukraine and Putin as the Russian leader has pushed forward with drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian cities and repeatedly rebuffed Trump's attempts to broker a ceasefire. In early July, Trump said he would resume shipping arms to Ukraine. He also announced a new arrangement with NATO that will see the military alliance transfer advanced U.S.-made air defense systems to Kyiv. He also altered his attitude about the Russian leader. "He's very nice to us all the time," Trump said July 9. "But it turns out to be meaningless." What about the diplomacy? Two rounds of Trump-brokered ceasefire talks between Ukraine and Russia have come to nothing. As the relationship between Putin and Trump has soured, a broad coalition of U.S. lawmakers has lined up ready to place new aggressive sanctions on Russia. Trump also has threatened "severe" economic penalties on Moscow if it does not commit to a ceasefire by early September. The Kremlin has dismissed this as "bluster." The Russian government has suggested that Trump and Putin could meet in Beijing in September when Russia's leader is there for the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. Moscow said it had not heard whether Trump plans to attend. The White House has not commented. But there's little doubt Moscow, for now, is on the back foot geopolitically, and perhaps even militarily. Zelenskyy and French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot announced in Kyiv a series of manufacturing deals with French companies on July 21 that will launch drone production in Ukraine. Overnight, Russia launched its latest barrage of drones and missiles at Kyiv. But Ukraine is also fighting back in ways increasingly difficult for Moscow to ignore. Videos published by Russian media showed people sleeping on the floor of Sheremetyevo, Russia's busiest airport, amid long lines and canceled flights after Ukraine bombarded it with drones.
UPI
an hour ago
- UPI
DOJ drops challenge to Tennessee's gender care ban for minors
Participants walk up Market Street in the 55th annual San Francisco Pride Parade in San Francisco on Sunday, June 29, 2025. On Monday, the Justice Department dropped a lawsuit challenging Tennessee's ban on minors receiving gender-affirming medical care. File Photo by Terry Schmitt/UPI | License Photo July 22 (UPI) -- The Justice Department has dismissed a Biden-era lawsuit challenging Tennessee's law banning gender-affirming care for minors, as the Trump administration continues to attack the rights and medical care of transgender Americans. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that her department's Civil Rights Division dismissed the lawsuit in a statement Monday that said the Justice Department "does not believe challenging Tennessee's law serves the public interest." Gender-affirming care includes a range of therapies, including psychological, behavioral and medical interventions, with surgeries for minors being exceedingly rare. According to a recent Harvard study, cisgender minors and adults were far more likely to undergo analogous gender-affirming surgeries than their transgender counterparts. Every major American medical association supports gender-affirming care for both adults and minors, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association, the largest national medical association. Despite the support of the medical community and evidence of its efficacy, gender-affirming care and this marginalized community continue to be targeted by conservatives and Republicans with legislation. Tennessee enacted Senate Bill 1 in March 2023 to prohibit healthcare professionals from prescribing puberty blockers or hormones to minors to treat gender dysphoria, which attracted a lawsuit from the Justice Department under President Joe Biden, arguing the law violated the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, as all other minors continued to have access to the same procedures and treatments. The conservative movement targeting the healthcare of transgender minors has since gained a supporter in the White House with the re-election of President Donald Trump. Since returning to power, Trump has implemented an agenda targeting transgender Americans, including directing the federal government to recognize only two sexes determined at "conception," restricting gender-affirming care for youth and banning transgender Americans from the military. Last month, the conservative-leaning Supreme Court ruled 6-3 against the Biden administration's complaint to overturn the Tennessee law. The ruling fell along ideological lines, with the conservative justices voting for the law to stand. The liberal justices dissented. "By retreating from meaningful review exactly where it matters most, the Court abandons transgender children and their families to political whims," Justice Sonia Sotomayor said in her dissent. "Tennessee's ban applies no matter what a minor's parents and doctors think, with no regard for the severity of the minor's mental health conditions or the extent to which treatment is medically necessary for an individual child." Bondi on Monday said the Supreme Court made "the right decision." Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division said that by dismissing the lawsuit, they "undid one of the injustices the Biden administration inflicted upon the country."
Time Magazine
an hour ago
- Time Magazine
How ‘Surrounded' Memeifies Politics
Mehdi Hasan is 'one of the most formidable debaters and interviewers of our times,' the debate-hosting company Intelligence Squared said of the British-American journalist in 2023. Hasan rose to fame on both sides of the Atlantic for his confrontational interviews of politicians and public figures, often advocating a left-of-center view on Al Jazeera, BBC, The Intercept, MSNBC, and now his own Substack site Zeteo. But the author of a book titled Win Every Argument has also spoken about when not to take part in a debate. 'There are certain people who there is no point arguing with,' he said in 2023, pointing specifically to those who operate in bad faith. 'It's pointless. It doesn't go anywhere.' The one-versus-many debate web series has repeatedly gone viral since its premiere in September, featuring episodes from 'Can 25 Liberal College Students Outsmart 1 Conservative?' to 'Can 1 Woke Teen Survive 20 Trump Supporters?' and 'Can 1 Cop Defend Himself Against 20 Criminals?' Hasan appeared as the titular progressive in the 100-minute '1 Progressive vs 20 Far-Right Conservatives,' which has garnered more than 3.5 million views and counting on YouTube since it was posted on Sunday and millions more views of clips shared on social media. But Hasan was the first to admit that he didn't expect what he would encounter. 'You can see my shock when they start expressing their views openly,' Hasan posted on X in response to a critic who suggested he eagerly signed up to debate 'a bunch of nazis.' According to Zeteo, Jubilee Media 'chose the participants, with Mehdi meeting them for the first time in the studio itself.' Hasan, whose supporters have showered him with praise for his performance, claimed in the final minutes of the program, during which participants assessed the debate, that he was both taken aback but also unsurprised by the extreme views he met: 'I thought it would be an interesting exercise in trying to understand what genuine far-right conservative folks think. And it was kind of disturbing to see that they think what I thought they think, and they were happy to say it out loud. I am disappointed that I had to sit across from people who believe in white genocide, who believe I'm not a citizen. … The people here today were way beyond conservative.' While Hasan admitted he likes to debate 'even people I disagree with,' he reiterated that he tries to 'avoid bad faith folks' and said, 'I think some of the folks today were bad faith.' He also seemed to criticize Jubilee's airing of such extreme views, adding: 'Free speech doesn't mean you need to give credibility or oxygen or a platform to people who don't agree in human equality.' 'This is open authoritarianism, and this is what is being normalized and mainstreamed in our country, by people in power, by the media, by people who don't know any better,' Hasan said. But some observers online have suggested that Hasan himself should have known better about what he signed up for. 'The fix is in' Jubilee Media says its mission is to 'provoke understanding' and 'create human connection.' And, according to its website, 'We believe discomfort and conflict are pivotal forces in creating human connection.' The company has since 2017 produced a number of web series on dating, identity, politics, and more. 'We want to show what discourse can and should look like. Sometimes it can be unproductive but other times it can be quite productive and empathetic,' founder Jason Y. Lee told Variety in late 2024 for an article about Surrounded , which according to the article has a goal to 'promote open dialogue,' for which Jubilee sees itself as a neutral host. 'We try our best to be as unbiased as possible when it comes to the political sphere,' said Lee. For the most part, Jubilee's debate series appears to be unmoderated, governed primarily by the participants themselves, with occasional on-screen fact-checks provided by billionaire Joe Ricketts' media startup Straight Arrow News. But critics have questioned the company's supposedly noble aspirations. 'Jubilee Media mines the nation's deepest disagreements for rowdy viral videos. But is all the arguing changing anyone's mind?' the Atlantic asked in January. Media reporter Julia Alexander suggested on X that the program's producers are the ones operating in bad faith. 'Jubilee Media's done it again: taking 20 people with extremist views and putting them into a 90 minute video knowing that they'll say extreme things and get an extreme amount of attention,' she posted on Sunday after the Hasan episode. They've figured out, Alexander added, 'how to monetize the very essence of the internet.' Filmmaker and entrepreneur Minh Do posted that Jubilee's producers 'are mainly interested in clickbait views and incendiary clips that don't lead anyone to think any deeper about these topics' rather than any sense of responsibility to the public. 'Senseless conversation purely for views.' 'It only takes watching a couple clips of these to see that the fix is in,' posted podcaster Alex Goldman. Writer and disability rights advocate Imani Barbarin, who shared in March that she turned down an invitation from Jubilee to appear in a Surrounded episode about feminism, posted a video Monday in which she decried how she believed the debate-style program was made for viral moments, not serious engagement. 'That very same debate where Mehdi Hasan was standing up to 20 fascists or whatever, where you all think he won, is being cut up and chopped up across the internet to present it as though he lost,' Barbarin said. Indeed, one only needs to scroll through the social media pages of some of the participants to see them taking victory laps and their supporters praising their performances. 'This,' Barbarin emphasized, 'is what the memeification of politics looks like in practice.'
