Ask Strider: For Christmas, a reader would rather have pizza in her pajamas than Beef Wellington in her dressing up clothes, but family members feel differently. What to do? And another reader makes Strider wag his tail and think of pancakes.
Today, Dec. 2, is Giving Tuesday, a day when people across the country support the organizations that make their communities stronger. If Ashland.news has helped you stay prepared, connected, or informed, we hope you’ll consider making a gift today.
Pepper Trail: As we celebrate Thanksgiving, let us imagine the world we share with every living thing. Let us give thanks for this planet, this blue and green ball spinning in a lifeless void, holding us all and making possible our every heartbeat, our every breath.
Poetry Corner: In Ashland’s Lithia Park is the Japanese Garden, a place to seek serenity.
At just 21 years old, Ashland native Brooklyn Williams is stepping into her biggest role yet — the lead in Oregon Cabaret Theatre’s adaptation of “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King,” playing through Dec. 31.
Frances Oyung: It’s great to see that many of our favorite recreation sites had low levels of bacteria in the summer.
Carrie Dahle: If we want a future where our kids, our grandkids and our essential workers can actually live here, then we have to be brave enough to rethink the choices we’re making today.
Ask Strider: A reader asks whatever happened to Woody the Puppy Intern? Strider has news! Woody has landed on all four paws with a new gig. And Steve, the Ashland.news crossword editor, has a new canine crossword up for solving. The excitement is pupable!
Catty Corner: Cats go missing from their homes or neighborhoods all too often, and what most humans don’t realize is that they may be hiding nearby. Learn what to do if your cat goes missing and how to be reunited as soon as possible.
Poetry Corner: Seasons change and days grow shorter, which means time for shorter poems like haiku and senryu.
Winless WWU made Raiders work for their sixth win in seven games. WWU lost an early 10-point lead but trimmed SOU’s edge to 82-79 before Gio Evanson stepped back for a long two with 1:44 to go. The Raiders secured a 92-87 victory Saturday at Windemuth Court
Southern Oregon forced 24 turnovers and kept Walla Walla (Washington) at 27% shooting to collect its 10th victory, 82-47 in Cascade Conference play Saturday night at Windemuth Court. The win gave the Raiders a weekend split, leaving them in a three-way tie for second place behind unbeaten Eastern Oregon.
Asante Ashland Community Hospital’s Family Birth Center is closing this spring, but first the staff delivered the hospital system’s first baby of the new year on Thursday, Jan. 1. And not only is she the first New Year’s baby in Southern Oregon, but her mom, Cameron, was the first New Year’s baby girl born on Jan. 1, 2000, to mark the turn of the millennium at Providence Medford Medical Center.
Thursday marked the first day of the 2026 new year, and with that, a new set of laws passed by the Oregon Legislature took effect. They span from stronger accountability provisions for utility companies to criminal penalties for spreading AI-generated revenge porn.
An Ashland center for the study and practice of Tibetan Buddhism offered a chance “for people to gather their aspirations and hopes for the new year and offer it at the shrine” on Thursday, Jan. 1, according to Martha Wilhelm, a board member at Kagyu Sukha Chöling on Clear Creek Drive.
An Ashland nonprofit set up a GoFundMe site in early December to help finance medical treatment for Mystic Moon, a horse that has provided comfort and healing to hundreds of individuals with trauma across the Rogue Valley and beyond.
(It’s free)
