At least one journalism professor we know reports more people signing up for classes in the Donald Trump/Fake News age. And the business of journalism got a shot in the arm from the 2016 campaign and its outcome: more people paying for some major newspapers and their web pages. We get a perspective on the news business and renewed interest in it from Ed Madison at the University of Oregon School of Journalism . He worked for CNN when it started up and has worked many places since.

It is the fluid of our lives. Blood, not water. Think about its critical importance to our very existence, and the many ways we think about it: "that trait is in the blood" or "blood will be spilled" or "blood is thicker than water." Lawrence Hill put all this and more into his book Blood: The Stuff of Life .

When you think about butterflies, there's a good chance that what you envision will be a monarch. They are the rock stars of the butterly world, but also as troubled as a rock star facing legal issues. Efforts to help the monarch come back from very low population numbers abound. They include a symposium coming to Southern Oregon University next week, with help from Southern Oregon Monarch Advocates .

The days are longer, the evenings warmer, and the arts scene heats up further in the month of May in our region. We track the arts scene in our First Friday Arts segment, a free-for-all featuring phone calls from around the region boosting arts events for the coming weeks. Listen for details of arts events in your town...

Josh Gross has an addiction, and it's one we're only too happy to share. He loves music, and across a wide spectrum of genres and styles. Josh makes music, and writes about music for the Rogue Valley Messenger . And once a month, he visits the studio with "Rogue Sounds," a compilation of musical samples and news of coming band dates.

The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union was all about preventing totalitarian government from taking hold in the world. Now the Cold War is long over, the Soviet Union gone... and totalitarian government is gaining anyway. Brian Klaas at the London School of Economics says if western democracies are looking for whom to blame, they should look in the mirror. That is the case he makes in his book The Despot's Accomplice: How the West is Aiding and Abetting the Decline of

Maybe looking at trees and mountains does not generate a lot of money, but people who do those activities spend plenty. The National Park Service is totaling up what people spend when they visit national parks across the country. And the parks near us (Crater Lake, Lassen, Oregon Caves, Lava Beds, and Redwood) generate something like $143 Million dollars in economic activity.

Volkswagen messed up, and now the state of Oregon benefits. The German car builder admitted to designing diesel cars to trick emissions testing equipment, then apologized and agreed to pay out millions in restitution. Oregon's share is more than $70 Million, and the state is now taking public input on how to best spend the money making the air cleaner.

If someone displays racist behavior in front of you, do you know what to do? The question gets asked more frequently these days, given the rise in bias incidents since the last election. Workshops coming to Medford and Ashland next week (May 8 and 9, respectively; arranged by Resolve Center in Medford) will give attendees tools to interrupt hate in public spaces. Rabbi Debra Kolodny of Resolutions Northwest leads the workshops and joins us with details.

State Senator Alan DeBoer arrived in Oregon's capitol along with a big issue: not enough money to keep state services at their current levels. So much for a gentle introduction to legislating. DeBoer gets to share, with 89 other legislators, the headache of either cutting $1.6 Billion or raising more revenue, or both. He joins us with his impressions of his first months in the legislature, and the daunting task ahead. Senator DeBoer says his previous experience in business and government makes