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Washington governor wants to connect Cascadia with high-speed rail

WA governor Jay Inslee, on an official visit to Victoria with BC premier John Horgan, said he’s optimistic that demand would be high for a 400-kilometer high-speed rail corridor between Portland and Vancouver. A $1 million study commissioned by the legislature to study high-speed rail is due out in several weeks. The leaders also discussed cannabis legalization and carbon taxes. Washington, with a new Democratic majority in the Senate, is poised to pass the first carbon tax in the US in the next session, Grist reports.

Fewer immigrants putting pressure on apple growers

An article at the Yakima Herald, reports that declining numbers of immigrants from Mexico are increasing costs for apple orchardists in Eastern Washington. Declining illegal entry, crackdowns by ICE, and higher costs of guest-worker programs are increasing wage costs. But not everyone is unhappy about it — labor activists claim that underpayment (the average farmworker wage is $13/hour) is rampant and needs to be addressed. “You promise a certain wage and change it later,” says Washington’s Director of Hispanic Affairs.

The rise and fall of Boise’s opioid king

Reading like an episode of The Wire, Pacific Standard’s  fantastic feature on Austin Serb details the career of Idaho’s most influential oxycodone dealer, who was sentenced to prison in 2016. An addict himself, Serb created a drug empire out of his Mazda RX-7 with stolen pills and wads of cash. Serb’s legacy: though Boise succeeded in cracking down on oxy, rates of heroin addiction are climbing.

Other marine mammals are out-competing Salish Sea orcas

Faced with declining numbers, orcas are facing a new pressure, according to marine scientists. Oregon Public Broadcasting reports that sea lions and seals are increasingly snatching up the chinook salmon that orcas depend on for food. Those salmon runs are in decline due to pollution and habitat loss–and threatening orcas with extinction.

A report from Portland’s Wordstock literary  festival

I didn’t make it to this years’ Wordstock, Portland’s annual literary festival, but I could experience it vicariously thanks to Zoe Ruiz’s wrap-up at Lit Hub of the more than 100 authors and events around the city. Highlights included a packed reading by Ta-Nehisi Coates and a group reading on the theme of the body in black poetry by Morgan Parker, Lundy Martin, and Dawn Smith, who wry noted: “This is the most black people I have seen in Portland.”

Inside the intimate friendships of artist Emily Carr

BC Book Look reviews a newly reissued memoir about the friendship between painter Carol Pearson and Emily Carr, one of Cascadia’s most acclaimed artists. The book reveals little-know details about Carr –who died in 1945– including painting expeditions in a camping caravan and the fact she kept a pet monkey. ?

That’s all for today, enjoy Thanksgiving tomorrow! –Andrew Engelson Photo credits: high speed trains at a station in Taiwan by Chi-Hung Lin