Think Out Loud: Recent Episodes
Oregon Public Broadcasting
This week the board of Prosper Portland votes to finalize a settlement for more than 20 people whose homes and businesses were destroyed in the name of urban renewal from the 1950s through the ’70s. The group of Black Portlanders fought for years to get to this point, and eventually filed a federal lawsuit arguing that the city of Portland, Emanuel Legacy Medical Center and Prosper Portland conspired to destroy a previously thriving Black neighborhood. The original financial settlement proposed to the Portland city council was $2 million. After testimony from a dozen community members recently, all 12 Portland city councilors voted to increase the amount to $8.5 million. As part of the settlement, the lawsuit will be dismissed, and the descendants will get financial and land retribution, in addition to other terms. We hear from plaintiffs Donna Marshall and Byrd, who led the research effort that culminated in this settlement, and from their lawyer Ed Johnson.
Last week, the iconic American documentary filmmaker Ken Burns released his latest series: a six part, 12 hour film on the American revolution. The film follows dozens of figures from various backgrounds, allowing viewers to experience the war through the memories of the men and women who lived through it. Earlier this year, Burns was in Portland for a special sneak preview of the film. We listen back to his conversation with Geoff Norcross in front of an audience at Revolution Hall.
Indigenous author, botanist and professor Robin Wall Kimmerer is best known for her book “Braiding Sweetgrass,” which was published in 2013 and is about the reciprocal relationships between humans and the land. Her first book, “Gathering Moss,” was published a decade earlier by Oregon State University Press. We spoke to Kimmerer on May 17, 2024 when she was in Corvallis to accept Oregon State University’s 2024 Stone Award for Literary Achievement and give a lecture on campus.
Some might argue that pie is the quintessential American dessert. Certainly Stacey Mei Yan Fong makes that argument in her cookbook. Fong’s “50 pies, 50 states” is an “immigrant’s love letter” to this country as told through pie. OPB’s Crystal Ligori talked to Fong at the 2023 Portland Book Festival.
The U.S. Constitution likely would not have been ratified in 1788 without Article 5, which allowed for amendment. Many of the original founders championed the idea that the document would need to change as the country changed. As historian Jill Lepore points out in her newest book most of the 27 amendments to the constitution have happened just after times of war or conflict, and after 33 years without an amendment, we may be headed that way again. OPB’s Geoff Norcross speaks to Lepore in front of an audience at the 2025 Portland Book Festival about “We the People: A history of the U.S. Constitution.”
Stacey Abrams has published more than a dozen books over the last 25 years. Those include thrillers, romance novels, children’s books and political memoirs and manifestos. That would be a full career for most people, but Stacey Abrams seems to have more energy than most people.
While she has always been a writer, she has also been a tax attorney, a Georgia state lawmaker, the minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives and the first Black woman in U.S. history to become the gubernatorial nominee of a major political party.
Abrams has launched multiple nonprofit organizations and for-profit companies, with a longstanding focus on voter registration and voter’s rights. Her new book is “Coded Justice.” She spoke with “Think Out Loud” host Dave Miller in front of an audience at the 2025 Portland Book Festival.
A new report from Central City Concern highlights concerns around the “housing first” model the Homeless Services Department uses for prioritizing who gets housing. The nonprofit notes that affordable housing providers have faced a number of challenges that are unsustainable and is pushing to add another model to the mix: engaged social housing. Andy Mendenhall is the CEO and president of Central City Concern. He joins us to share more on this report. Multnomah County Commissioner Shannon Singleton also joins us to share her response.
Last week, the Vancouver City Council unanimously adopted a new flag for the city. The flag will be hoisted above city hall for the first time during a flag-raising ceremony on Nov. 28.
The new flag is a culmination of a months-long process that launched this spring to replace the city’s old flag that has flown for more than three decades, but one that some residents struggled to identify in a video the city released announcing the flag design competition. Nearly 140 entries were submitted for the competition using guidelines provided by the city that were informed by the North American Vexillological Association’s flag design principles.
For the winning design, the judges on Vancouver’s flag selection committee chose to combine elements from two of the finalists’ entries. The new flag features a white, V-shaped band designed by Nathan Hunter separating fields of green and blue that evoke the city and region’s natural landscape. There’s also an abstract object created by Brooke Nugent that can symbolize Fort Vancouver, other local landmarks or an arrow pointing to the city’s future.
Nugent and Hunter join us, along with city of Vancouver Communications Director Laura Shepard, to discuss the city’s new flag.
Oregon consistently ranks near the bottom of the country in terms of access to treatment for substance use disorders. Portland-based Boulder Care seeks to address that by providing telehealth and medically assisted treatment options. The company launched in 2017 and has been based in Portland since 2019. Its aim is to normalize this kind of treatment and make it available in the first days or hours when a person with substance use disorder decides they want to get help. Dr. Honora Englander, who directs the Improving Addiction Care Team (IMPACT) at Oregon Health and Science University, says access to telehealth and medication for opioid use disorder is an important part of addressing the huge and multifaceted problem of substance use disorder. Englander and Strong both participated in the industry-wide AMERSA conference held in Portland last week, and they join us in studio to discuss more about evidence-based approaches to in-patient and out-patient care for people dealing with addiction.
Since late August, Oregon has been facing a $373 million budget deficit. But now, the state’s latest economic forecast shows Oregon may only be about $63 million in the hole. A brightening picture for the nation’s economy and some higher-than-expected corporate tax revenues for the state helped close the gap. But that doesn’t tell us much about the health of Oregon’s economy, as the recent government shutdown hampered the collection and release of important economic data. Oregon state economist Carl Riccadonna joins us to make sense of the latest forecast.
The very first Voices Rock choir started in Denver in 2014 by a music teacher who heard from her students’ parents and her own friends that they wished they had some kind of musical outlet. Jill Teas obliged with a small group of adults who met for several weeks, rehearsing popular songs and performing them at local bars. But the no-audition “come one, come all” ethos of the choir quickly spread to other Colorado cities. And after a few years, Teas chose to quit her teaching job to run the Voices Rock organization full time. This year, three Northwest cities began their own Voice Rock chapters: Seattle, Tacoma and Portland. We hear from the Voices Rock founder about the idea behind the choir — and from two Portland participants, director Caley Barstow and soloist Courtney Upton, about what they get out of it.
Grandparents for Vaccines is a nationwide nonprofit that aims to educate the current generation of parents about vaccine-preventable diseases. Launched in September, the group has produced videos of grandparents describing what it was like to endure or witness their friends, classmates and relatives battle illnesses such as polio, measles and pertussis before vaccines for them existed.
The group’s launch comes amid rising vaccine skepticism fueled by misinformation about the safety and efficacy of vaccines. A recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation and The Washington Post showed that 1 in 6 parents in the US have delayed or skipped vaccines for their children. Teri Mills is a founding member of Grandparents for Vaccines and a retired public health nurse who was named "Oregon Nurse of the Year" in 2019 by the Oregon Nurse Foundation. She joins us along with Sheri Schouten, a retired public health nurse and former Oregon state lawmaker, to talk about their work with Grandparents for Vaccines.
Over the past decade, the Oregon Department of Justice has tried shifting blame to parents in wrongful death and negligence claims against the Department of Human Services , new reporting from The Oregonian/OregonLive shows. The publication found 10 cases where this was happening. But in half of those, parents were not accused of any crimes yet were still sued by the state . Sami Edge is the assistant breaking news editor for the Oregonian. She joins us to share more on why this is happening and what it means for parents.
It's not the first time that the Northwest Classical Theatre Collaborative has performed at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, the state’s only women’s prison. But the November performances of the Greek tragedy “Elektra” does mark the first time that the play has been selected and performed by the women in custody themselves. Patrick Walsh is the executive artistic director of the Northwest Classical Theatre Collaborative. He and production manager Lyndsay Hogland co-facilitated the theatre project, which began in March. After the women signed up for the theatre program, they were given four classic plays to consider: “Elektra,” “Three Sisters,” “Our Town” and “Measure for Measure.” After reading and discussing all the plays over many weeks, the women finally chose “Elektra” and began rehearsals in May. The show opened on Friday, Nov. 14, with one other public performance on Nov. 21, as well as two separate shows for the women in custody. We’re joined by Walsh and Hogland to learn more about the impact of the program and performances, along with two of the actors at Coffee Creek: Nistasha Tate plays Elektra, and Fahlynn Nix is the assistant stage manager and also plays the part of Aegisthus.
Every year the Heinz Family Foundation awards $250,000 to six “changemakers” whose work transforms lives and communities. This year Portland artist Marie Watt is one of the winners. Watt is a multidisciplinary artist and a citizen of the Seneca Nation, Turtle Clan, with German-Scot ancestry. We talk to Watt about her work, the award and the project she’s working on now in neon.
The Newport Fishermen’s Wives, a nonprofit organization focusing on building community and improving safety in the local fishing industry, faced a long legal battle in 2013 to ensure Newport’s Coast Guard helicopter would stay in the coastal town. Recently, the helicopter was removed from Newport and relocated to North Bend, with no public warning or preliminary risk assessments.
Its relocation is linked to the rumors of a possible new ICE facility in the coastal town, along with job postings for ICE detention officers in Newport and a federal contractor looking to lease space at the Newport Municipal Airport. At a city council meeting last Wednesday, residents raised concerns about the possible ICE facility and raised alarm about the safety of fishermen prior to crabbing season on the Oregon coast. Taunette Dixon of the Newport Fishermen’s Wives joins us to discuss the helicopter’s removal.
Mental health conditions, including substance use disorder, caused more pregnancy-related deaths in Oregon between 2018 and 2021 than any other factor. That’s according to the state’s Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee, which assesses deaths that occur during pregnancy, childbirth and the first year postpartum. As reported in InvestigateWest, nearly all of the deaths attributed to mental health conditions were deemed potentially preventable by the committee. InvestigateWest reporter Kaylee Tornay joins us with more details.
The Interfaith Movement for Immigrant Justice began more than 20 years ago as an extension of the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition. Its shorthand is IMIrJ (pronounced “emerge”) with the r standing for refugee. IMIrJ has become an independent nonprofit, drawing “faith communities and people of conscience” into the effort to protect the civil rights and well-being of immigrant families. Members and volunteers provide accompaniment for immigrants to appointments with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, financial support and other resources to immigrants. We talk with IMIrJ organizer and Methodist pastor Keren Rodriguez and IMIrJ board member Bob Brown, who is a long time member of Havurah Shalom, about how their work is going now as the Trump administration pursues mass deportation.
The longest government shutdown in U.S. history ended last Wednesday, but many federal workers, including air traffic controllers, are still waiting to receive full backpay. The government shutdown left roughly 13,000 air traffic controllers without pay for 43 days, leading many to take on second jobs. Many say the shortages during the government shutdown only amplified current issues caused by a long-term staffing shortage. Lyle Clingman, a retired air traffic controller from Eugene, joins us to share more about the long-term staffing shortage as well as the repercussions air traffic controllers faced during the recent government shutdown.
Earlier this month, Liv Rainey-Smith became the first Oregonian to win a World Fantasy Award for “Best Artist.” Rainey-Smith now joins a pantheon of World Fantasy Award-winning writers and visual artists that includes Stephen King, Edward Gorey and fellow Oregonian Ursula K. LeGuin.
Oregon ArtsWatch recently profiled Rainey-Smith, whose achievement is all the more notable for the thousand-year-old artistic craft the Portlander specializes in. Rainey-Smith uses blocks of wood that she carves by hand, coats in ink, covers with paper and then rolls through an etching press to make prints featuring mythological creatures or otherworldly scenes laden with skulls, ravens and other macabre symbolism.
Six of her original woodcut prints and descriptions she wrote for them are included in “The Dagon Collection,” an anthology published last year that was nominated for a 2025 World Fantasy Award and inspired by a short story from pioneering horror and fantasy writer H.P. Lovecraft. Rainey-Smith talks to us about her award-winning art and the childhood health struggles she overcame that inform and inspire her work.
Oregon lawmakers passed the Plastic Pollution and Recycling Modernization Act in 2021, but the changes just went into effect on July 1, 2025. It’s a sweeping, multi-pronged approach to reduce waste, and many of the changes the law drives are the responsibility of producers and manufacturers. New recycling centers are one element of the Act, the first of which came online this fall. At the RecycleOn Center in Ashland, more kinds of plastic can be recycled, along with shredded paper, aluminum foil and other material that often ends up in landfills or contaminating recycling picked up by curbside collectors. Kim Holmes is the executive director of Oregon’s Circular Action Alliance, the producer responsibility organization that co-operates the Ashland facility. She joins us to tell us more about the impact of this center and the other 143 planned for the state.
Vancouver-based Educational Opportunities for Children and Families serves more than 400 participants enrolled in Head Start. The free federal program provides child care, early learning, nutrition and health screenings for low-income children and their families. Nearly 300 children in Southwest Washington either lost access to their Head Start programs or had their hours cut back on Nov. 1 because of the government shutdown, which ended on Wednesday evening.
On Monday, EOCF’s board of directors and its parent policy council voted to approve accepting a private donation to replenish the nonprofit’s savings it had been using to keep open three Head Start centers in Vancouver for families with the highest needs. EOCF has now reopened its Head Start center in Yacolt, four centers in Vancouver and restored program hours cut at five other centers. The donation has also helped EOCF to bring back more than 90 employees who were partially or fully furloughed on Nov. 1 when it didn’t get its scheduled federal funding.
EOCF CEO Rekah Strong says it could take weeks before its grant funding resumes because of the backlog in grant applications from other Head Start providers across the nation who also had to cut services during the shutdown. She joins us to share the struggles her organization has recently faced, along with Chantel Martin, a Head Start parent whose 5-year-old daughter attends the reopened EOCF center in Yacolt.
In 2020, the Almeda Fire ripped through Jackson County. The catastrophic blaze destroyed more than 2,600 homes between Ashland, Talent, Phoenix and Medford, according to Jefferson Public Radio.
The “Think Out Loud” team traveled to Southern Oregon during the spring of 2025 and talked to residents about how they’re thinking about fire in their communities now.
In Ashland, the city and the forest are tied together. The watershed, which provides the source of Ashland’s drinking water, is more than 15,000 acres of potentially combustible forestland. Chris Chambers is the city’s forestry officer. He’s been a member of Ashland Fire And Rescue since 2002 and has worked on the city’s wildfire planning efforts.
Along with city, federal and tribal partners, the Ashland-based Lomakatsi Restoration Project focuses on ecological resilience in Oregon and Northern California. Its restoration projects are spread throughout the region. Marko Bey is the executive director and founder of the organization. Belinda Brown is the tribal partnerships director.
Chambers, Bey and Brown shared how they think about wildfire resilience and how they approach their work in their communities during a conversation we recorded with them and first aired in June 2025.
Percival Everett has made a career out of exploring the nature of absurdity. You may have become aware of Everett in the last few years when his novel “Erasure” was adapted into the movie “American Fiction” in 2023, or when his book “James” won the Pulitzer prize last year. But Everett has written 24 novels since 1983 along with several books of poetry and short story collections, each of them tackling a different genre of writing and a different angle on nonsense, absurdity or irony. As he says, “to accept the absurdity of a situation is to accept the humanness of it.” We talk to Percival Everett in front of an audience of students at McDaniel High School in Portland.
Floyd Skloot’s newest collection of poetry, "Dancing in the Cosmos, New & Selected Poems, 1973-2024," covers the span of his career, including the best of his previously published poems and a section of new poems about his experience living with Parkinson's disease. We spoke to Skloot along with his daughter, the author Rebecca Skloot, in front of an audience at Powells.
A new report in the Journal of the American Medical Association lays out a range of evidence-based initiatives to reduce firearms deaths in the U.S. by 2040. The article comes out of a large interdisciplinary conference earlier this year that was chaired by researcher Fred Rivara, pediatrics professor in the University of Washington’s Medical School. He says professionals in the fields of public health, criminology, public policy and gun manufacturing discussed what has worked all over the country to bring gun deaths down. He says the idea was not to do away with guns or the Second Amendment, but to encourage the wider implementation of policies that have already been proven effective — and use emerging technologies — to reduce deaths.
Rivara joins us to tell us more about the research into gun violence as a public health crisis, and what he hopes policy makers and the general public take from it.
Twenty years ago, Third Rail Repertory Theatre launched itself onto the Portland theatre scene with a production called “Recent Tragic Events,” set just after the attacks of 9/11. That play, written by Craig Wright, put Third Rail Rep on the map, winning a number of local theatre honors. While many theatres have come and gone in that time, Third Rail is among those that were able to survive the pandemic and other economic pressures. It’s celebrating 20 years by reprising that first show, “Recent Tragic Events.” We talk with director Scott Yarbrough, who was also the company’s founding artistic director, about how the play resonates today.
Last Friday morning, Oregonians were able to begin accessing their full monthly benefits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program after a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to fully fund the federal food aid program which serves more than 42 million Americans. But many of those households face new uncertainty after the Supreme Court granted on Friday night the Trump administration’s emergency appeal of the ruling. In a statement, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek said the state had acted lawfully in sending out the SNAP payments and vowed to fight the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s demand that states “undo any steps” they took to issue the full November SNAP benefits.
Food pantries across Oregon, including at William Temple House in Portland, have mobilized in recent weeks to help people like Elaine, one of the more than 750,000 Oregonians who are SNAP recipients. To protect her privacy, OPB is identifying Elaine only by her first name. She says SNAP has been a lifeline to her for nearly 20 years while being unable to work fulltime because of a disability and experiencing periods of homelessness. Elaine joins us to discuss the restoration of her SNAP benefits after nearly a week without them, and the uncertainty about the program’s future.
The leading cause of death for Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers is COVID-19 followed by cancer linked to the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center,according to a Mother Jones report. ICE data reviewed by the outlet showed that deaths and assaults at the agency are not outsized compared to other law enforcement, despite the Trump administration’s claims that their work is exceptionally dangerous. Noah Lanard is a reporter for Mother Jones and covered the story. He joins us with details of what he found in the data.
New data from Downtown Clean & Safe shows a growing number of pedestrians visiting Portland’s downtown. Compared to last year, the total number of visitors from January to August was up by 5.6%, making it the strongest year for downtown since the pandemic. But those numbers still have not caught up to what they were pre-lockdowns -- and are still just half of what they were in 2019. We’ll hear from various community leaders to hear how they view downtown. Todd Zarnitz is the president of the Northwest District Association. Sarah Shaoul is the founder and CEO of Bricks Need Mortar. And Ryan Hashagen is the founder of Icicle Tricycles, director of the Steel Bridge Skatepark Coalition and an adjunct professor at PSU. And we get thoughts from community members, visitors and business owners we gathered on a recent visit to downtown.
In 1983, the body of 21-year-old bartender Dana DuMars was found in Candy Cane Park in La Grande, Oregon. The case was never solved, though for years children grew up with scary stories about the park. An investigator for the district attorney’s office spent years looking into the case and finally narrowed in on potential suspects. But then, cuts from the federal Department of Justice to local law enforcement ended the investigation. Emma Goldberg wrote about this story for the New York Times and joins us to talk about it.
Protests at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in South Portland have been largely peaceful, despite President Trump’s attempts to send National Guard troops to the site. Local law enforcement has successfully managed conflicts among protesters and counter-protesters and made arrests for those who commit property or other crimes.
In September, Portland Police Chief Bob Day said on “Think Out Loud” that the bureau’s approach to these protests is consciously different from the one it took in 2020. He cited the use of Dialogue Liaison Officers who are “embedded” early on. “These are officers that are clearly identifiable with white shirts,” he said. “They’ve had additional training, and they go early on and try to establish communication and understanding.”
We learn more about this approach from Sergeant Daniel DiMatteo and Officer Jessica Ruch. They are among the approximately 10 Dialogue Liaison Officers the bureau deploys to protests.
Yesterday, Benjamin Gutman made his first appearance on the biggest stage possible. In his role as solicitor general of Oregon, Gutman argued in front of the nine justices of the Supreme Court on behalf of a coalition of a dozen states that sued over the president’s signature tariff trade strategy. The states argued the U.S. Congress, not the president, has the power to impose and collect taxes under the U.S. Constitution. Gutman joins us to talk about the experience.
There are more than 150 parks, and over 11,000 acres of land maintained by Portland Parks and Recreation. Parks play a role in providing a community gathering space, an area for exercise and more for communities. And recently, Portland voters cast their ballots on whether they support an increase to the Portland Parks levy. But how have parks changed over the years and which ones have we lost along the way? To answer these questions and more, Catherine McNeur joins us. She is a history professor at Portland State University and the author of two books, “Taming Manhattan” and "Mischievous Creatures." Her new course, Parks & Portland, will be offered this spring and explores the history of the city’s parks and the ways they have changed culturally, physically and environmentally over the last two centuries.
After four years in the making, the Northwest Museum of Cartoon Arts will be opening a permanent location in downtown Portland. Its debut exhibit "The Pacific Northwest in Comics” will explore and highlight the local comic industry and the notable artists, writers and others who have shaped the scene. Mike Rosen is the board chair for the museum. He joins us to share more about the only cartoon arts museum in the Northwest and the role Portland plays in the industry as a whole.
Last week, the Salem City Council voted 6-3 in favor of accepting a $180,000 donation from the Salem Chamber of Commerce and Salem Main Street Association to address concerns about livability and crime. The donation will be used to double the size of the Salem Police Department’s Homeless Services Team from two to four officers. The team responds to unsanctioned homeless encampments and helps connect unsheltered people to wraparound services. In a letter sent to the city council, Salem police chief and the city manager, the business groups said they would consider making another $180,000 donation in six months after “evaluating the effectiveness of this investment.”
The city council had already approved last month spending more than $600,000 to expand the size of the HST and have it operate seven days a week instead of four. The plan also includes adding mental health specialists to respond to certain emergencies and increase trash pickup to seven days a week. The donated funds will now help offset those costs.
The council’s divided vote to approve that largely anonymous donation comes amid controversy over Salem Mayor Julie Hoy’s decision to join an effort to repeal HB3115. The state law requires local governments to keep regulations on camping on public property “objectively reasonable.”
Salem Statesman Journal city reporter Whitney Woodworth joins us for more details.
Portland’s public camping ban went into effect over the weekend. Police can now issue citations for people living in vehicles or camping in parks, streets and other public spaces if “reasonable shelter” is available. The ordinance originally passed in 2024, but Mayor Keith Wilson said in February he would pause enforcement until the city could open more shelter beds.
Meanwhile, Portland voters had until Tuesday at 8 p.m. to decide on a controversial ballot measure to raise property taxes to fund a new city Parks Levy after the old one expired.
Alex Zielinski covers Portland city government for OPB. She joins us to talk about election results, how camping enforcement is going so far and what the ban means for people living outside.
In 1908, Oregon voters approved a statewide ballot measure allowing proportional representation to be used in voting across the state. More than 100 years later, Portland voters used ranked choice voting for the first time, while Oregon voters overall opposed a switch to adopt ranked choice voting statewide. A new analysis from Sightline Institute looked at voting methods across the state and found that current election methods lead to a “pattern of misrepresentation.” Shannon Grimes is a senior researcher with the think tank’s democracy program. She joins us to share more on what she sees is wrong with Oregon’s current voting practices and suggestions she has to improve it.
On Monday, the Trump administration announced that it will partially restore funding for the Supplemental Nutrition and Assistance Program, but only at half the amount recipients of the food aid program would normally get this month. In separate rulings on Friday, two federal judges had ordered the Trump administration to tap billions of dollars in emergency reserves to continue to fund the program which 42 million Americans rely on, including 1 in 6 households in Oregon. .
SNAP recipients will likely still face delays, which could last weeks, as state agencies scramble to account for the reduced November benefits. Oregon and Washington were part of a coalition of 25 states and the District of Columbia that had sued to prevent the loss of monthly SNAP benefits beginning Nov. 1 after the Trump administration said it would halt funding for the program during the federal government shutdown. Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson and Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek last week authorized millions of dollars in state funds to support food banks in their respective states.
Roughly 930,000 people are enrolled in SNAP in Washington state. Sixty thousand of them reside in Clark County, according to Emily Straw, president of the Clark County Food Bank. She says there has been increased demand from clients in the past week or so at the two pantries the food bank operates in Vancouver.
Straw joins us to share how her organization has mobilized to help vulnerable Clark County residents facing hunger.
On Monday, the Trump administration said it would partially restore funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in response to two federal judicial rulings last Friday that ordered it to use contingency funds to pay for the federal food assistance program. Oregon and Washington were part of a coalition of 25 states and the District of Columbia that had sued to prevent the loss of monthly SNAP benefits on Nov. 1. The 42 million people across the nation who rely on SNAP will now only get half the amount they would normally get for the month and will likely face delays to access their partial benefits.
About 1 in 6 people, or roughly 757,000 households, receive SNAP benefits in Oregon. Last week, Gov. Tina Kotek announced sending $5 million in unspent state funds from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families to help Oregon food banks. Her executive order also declared a 60-day food emergency and called on Oregonians to donate or volunteer in their communities “to help neighbors from going hungry.”
Gov. Kotek joins us to discuss this situation along with the impact of other actions by the Trump administration, including the possible deployment of the National Guard to Portland, which has been blocked until Friday, when a final ruling by a federal judge is expected.
The Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians recently opened its first affordable housing development in Salem. The city is the second-largest population center for tribal citizens outside of Siletz, according to tribal housing officials. As reported in Underscore Native News, the complex includes two- to four-bedroom homes, with half of the 39 units reserved for residents who make below 80% of the area's median income.
Vera Vasquez just moved into a home in the development, known as Kloshe Illahee Haws. Sami Jo Difuntorum is the executive director of the Siletz Tribal Housing Department. They join us to talk about the importance of creating affordable housing and fostering tribal culture outside of the Siletz reservation on the Oregon Coast.
The Vancouver-based Pink Lemonade was started in 2010 by two doctors Allen and Cassie Gabriel, a plastic surgeon and an anesthesiologist. They saw a gap in non-medical, emotional support for women being treated for breast cancer in the Portland-metro area. They began offering retreats and support groups locally, eventually adding a mentorship program where breast cancer survivors who have gone through treatment mentor others who have more recently gotten a diagnosis. And 15 years later, the nonprofit serves people in all 36 Oregon counties and six in SW Washington.
Susan Stearns is the CEO of Pink Lemonade and was its first staff member who was also a survivor. Tina Sixberry has been a mentor since 2019 after participating in other programs. Miyuki Yaegashi met Sixberry and became her mentee earlier this year, shortly after she was diagnosed. All three join us in studio to talk about creating connections and community, and making sure those facing breast cancer diagnosis and treatment know they are not alone.
Demand for protein powders and shakes has soared in recent years as influencers and health gurus have touted the nutrient’s benefits for weight loss and muscle gain. But the benefits could come at a cost. A recent Consumer Reports investigation found unsafe levels of lead in many popular protein supplements. More than two-thirds of the products tested had more lead in a single serving than food safety experts say is safe to consume in an entire day.
Hannah Cutting-Jones is a food historian and assistant professor in the University of Oregon’s global studies department. She’s written about the rise of protein as a diet trend and joins us to talk about what it’s meant for consumers.
Kimberly King Parsons debut novel, “We Were the Universe” received the Oregon Book Award’s Ken Kesey Award for Fiction earlier this year. The novel explores grief, trauma and psychedelic experiences as readers follow young mom, Kit, through journeys both physical and emotional. Parsons joins to discuss Texas, motherhood, loss and more.
After more than 100 years, Chinook salmon have made it to areas above Upper Klamath Lake in Southern Oregon. Earlier this month, a radio-tagged adult salmon was detected in the Williamson River and others were found in tributaries on the west side of Upper Klamath Lake and in the Sprague River.
The return of salmon follows the largest river restoration project in U.S. history. The removal of four dams in Southern Oregon and Northern California was completed last year. Adult salmon swam more than 200 miles from the ocean to the Oregon side of the Klamath Basin for the first time since 1912.
The Klamath Tribes said the fish need time and protection to thrive again. We hear more from William Ray Jr., the chairman of the Klamath Tribes.
Eighteen-year-old Sarah Zuber was found dead in 2019 just 400 feet from her home in Rainier. The second season of OPB’s investigative podcast "Hush" focuses on her story and the ways that citizen sleuthing, declining local media, and a police department that can’t find answers led to serious rifts in rural Columbia County. We’ll listen to the first episode of the new season.
LONG SYNOPSIS: The city of Sisters has built a strong tourism base, from its acclaimed rodeo and quilt shows to its outdoor experiences. But Sisters also grapples with economic development and big challenges, from wildfires to housing shortages.
City officials are working on providing more affordable housing options for residents. And earlier this year, the Flat Fire burned as close as two miles northeast of the city. The blaze destroyed roughly 23,000 acres and five homes.
Scott Humpert is the executive director of Explore Sisters, an organization tasked with managing tourism in the city. He joins us with details of how Sisters is aiming to keep the industry sustainable in the region.
Marion County filed a lawsuit this summer asking a federal court to clarify what information it could provide to federal immigration officials. Since then, 20 of Oregon’s 36 counties have voiced their support for the lawsuit, along with nearly all county sheriffs in the state. Attorney General Dan Rayfield has asked the court to dismiss the case, arguing that Oregon’s sanctuary state law clearly prohibits local cooperation in immigration enforcement.
Juliet Stumpf is the Edmund O. Belsheim Professor of Law at Lewis & Clark Law School. She joins us to talk about what the county’s lawsuit could mean for Oregon’s sanctuary state law.
In February, the Trump administration announced cuts to more than 90% of USAID’s foreign aid contracts and $60 billion in overall assistance around the world. In July, the agency’s remaining programs were brought under the control of the State Department. Thousands of USAID staff and contractors working in the US and around the world have been fired or laid off, including Portlander Leah Petit. A global health professional for nearly 20 years, Petit was a senior program advisor at USAID’s Office of HIV/AIDS when she lost her job in late January. Her projects focused on strengthening local health systems in Africa and Asia to sustain long-term HIV prevention, monitoring and treatment efforts.
In August, Petit embarked on a new career when she launched “Global Development Interrupted,” a podcast she hosts and produces featuring former USAID workers who help dispel misconceptions about the agency’s work overseas and how it has benefited Americans here. Established nearly 65 years ago, USAID has delivered lifesaving humanitarian assistance and medicines, mobilized to halt the spread of deadly diseases like Ebola, expanded access to clean drinking water and sanitation, along with countless other relief and development programs. Petit joins us to share more details about her podcast and what’s at stake when the US reverses its leadership on international aid, including the millions of lives that are expected to be lost with the dismantling of USAID.
Earlier this month, the Trump Administration said it will not tap emergency dollars to keep funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program flowing during the government shutdown.
On Tuesday, Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield announced that Oregon had joined a coalition of more than 20 states, including Washington, suing the Trump Administration for suspending the federal food assistance program. Organizations that provide groceries and other services have already faced an increased strain in resources due to inflation and funding cuts. Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the agency that funds SNAP, announced it will no longer release an annual household food security survey which researchers use to measure hunger in the U.S.
Krista Harper is the development director for Clackamas Service Center. Mark Edwards is a professor of sociology and director of the Oregon State University Policy Analysis Lab. They join us for more details about how recent federal actions affect Oregonians who rely on SNAP benefits.
The U.S. government does not track how many citizens are being detained by immigration agents. But new reporting from ProPublica found that there were more than 170 incidents where citizens were detained by authorities at raids and protests, including people who were held for more than a day without being given the chance to call loved ones or a lawyer. Nicole Foy is the Ancil Payne Fellow for ProPublica. She joins us to share more on her reporting.
Since July, a new streamlined process in Washington allows family members of children in the foster care system to become licensed caregivers. As first reported in the Imprint, the change allows "kinship caregivers" to receive resources that were initially not available to them. The updates made by the state of Washington come after federal policy changes made under the Biden administration to allow states to come up with their own licensing standards. Ruben Reeves is the assistant secretary of licensing for Washington's Department of Children, Youth and Family. Jeanine Tacchini is the agency's deputy assistant secretary of licensing. They both join us to share what this streamlined process has meant for youth in foster care.
Some Portlanders will be seeing a single issue on their ballot, a 75% increase in the current levy that funds parks. Under this new increase, the average homeowner would pay an extra $133 a year in taxes. The levy would help fund swim lessons, summer camps, sports programs and allows the Parks Bureau to provide free or reduced cost programs to low-income residents. However, the levy would not be used for much needed maintenance and the city still lacks a stable funding plan for parks, which a recent city audit found.
Jason Williams is the executive director and founder of the Taxpayers Association of Oregon and opposes the levy. Portland City Council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney supports the increase. We’ll hear from both sides as they make their case on how Portlanders should vote.
Indigenous tribes in what is now the northeastern U.S. and Canada have played lacrosse for millennia. Similar stick-and-ball games were played by tribes across the Southeast and Great Lakes region. But according to NCAA data, less than 1% of college lacrosse players are American Indian or Alaskan Native, and more than 80% are white.
Pacific Northwest Native Lacrosse is trying to change that. As reported in Willamette Week, the organization recruits Indigenous lacrosse players from across the PNW to participate in tournaments, youth camps and clinics.
We listen back to a conversation we first aired in March 2025 with JD Elquist, the founder of PNWNL. We also spoke with Bilįį Blackhorn, who was then a senior at South Eugene High School and who has played lacrosse for 10 years, including with PNWNL. They joined us to talk about the importance of emphasizing the sport’s Indigenous roots.
A decade ago, nearly every country in the world adopted the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit the rise in global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius by 2100. Member nations are required under the legally binding treaty to submit every five years their climate action plans, or Nationally Determined Contributions, that detail the voluntary actions they commit to take to cut their carbon emissions.
The treaty couldn’t have come at a more urgent time. Last year was Earth’s hottest year on record, including the first year to exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-Industrial levels. Still, the Paris Agreement has allowed countries to make some modest progress on cutting emissions and slowing the arrival of the 2 degrees Celsius tipping point that experts warn could trigger irreversible and catastrophic climate change impacts.
But a new study led by the University of Washington found that those carbon-cutting gains are not great enough to offset the environmental costs of global economic growth, which has risen sharply over the past decade. The study also projects how Pres. Trump’s decision to pull the US out of the Paris Agreement for a second time may affect the collective, international effort to fight climate change. Adrian Raftery, a professor emeritus of statistics and sociology at University of Washington, joins us for more details.
President Trump’s use of federal immigration officers to arrest people alleged to be in the country without legal status has led to mass arrests, detentions and deportations. Some of those are U.S. citizens, and at least one such man in Milwaukie is suing the federal government over his unlawful detention.
Alyssa Walker Keller is a coordinator for the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition (PIRC). She says in years past, their statewide hotline, 888-622-1510, might receive about 50 calls in a typical month. In the last two weeks, she says, the number is more like 2,000. Walker Keller says the work of the organization is only possible with volunteers who give their time and expertise to support those targeted by ICE and their families. She joins us to tell us more about the growing demands on PIRC and the role it’s increasingly playing as heightened ICE activity continues.
Charles Yu has written a lot about the nature of reality, how we understand what is real, and the assumptions we make about each other and the universe we live in. Yu’s first novel, “How to live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe,” follows a time machine repairman who is searching for his father who is lost in time and memory. His latest book, National Book Award winning “Interior Chinatown,” takes place in a Chinese restaurant that’s also the set for a police procedural TV show and a sendup of stereotypes of Asian American characters. Yu spoke to us on February 29, 2024 in front of an audience of students from Ida B. Wells High School.
The Alcan 5000 Rally isn’t the kind of car race you might think of. It runs from Kirkland, Washington over 5,000 miles up to the Arctic Circle over 11 days. It’s what’s known as a time-speed-distance rally, where following the course, maintaining the right speed and arriving at checkpoints on time is what matters the most. Portlanders Andy and Mercedes Lilienthal placed first in their class and second overall this year. The couple, who are both automotive journalists, have been obsessed with TSD rallies for years. They join us to talk about their win
Last year, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center received nearly 18,000 reports of confidence/romance scams that resulted in losses of more than $672 million. Perpetrators of romance scams typically find their victims online, often through social media. They use a fake persona to deceive victims into trusting them or believing they’re interested in them romantically while making gradually increasing demands for money, which is usually sent by wire or cryptocurrency. The FBI says there was a record $9.3 billion in losses in the U.S. last year from scams involving cryptocurrency.
Romance scams can be especially costly for victims. The Columbian recently reported that between January 2021 and November 2024, Vancouver residents who were victims of romance scams lost an average of $112,000, according to the Vancouver Police Department. Sgt. Jay Alie, who oversees the VPD’s Property Crime Unit, says that while many romance scam victims are over the age of 60, people in their 30s and 40s have also fallen for them. Alie’s investigations of romance scams have widened beyond Vancouver to reveal other victims across the U.S. who’ve been ensnared in them, acting as middlemen to launder money for scammers they also believed they were in relationships with.
Sgt. Alie joins us for more details about these scams as they grow more sophisticated and shares how to protect yourself or vulnerable loved ones from them.
Earlier this month, Eugene paused the use of its automatic license plate reader cameras. They use AI to capture a car’s characteristics, like model and color, and can be used as a tool by law enforcement.
Local officials said the cameras have helped close more than 60 cases. But opponents of the technology say it can be used for mass surveillance, since the system is linked to a nationwide network.
Some residents say they’re concerned the technology could be abused under the Trump Administration and used to target people like immigrants, organizers and those seeking an abortion.
Rebecca Hansen-White is a KLCC reporter and has been covering this issue for the outlet. She joins us with details about the system.
According to reports from U.S. adoption agencies, only 5% of domestic infant adoptions in recent years were completely closed, meaning no contact between the adoptee and their birth parents. Research suggests that some level of openness tends to benefit adoptive families, birth parents and adoptees, but navigating those relationships still presents a host of challenges.
Author Nicole Chung has documented her experience growing up as a Korean American adoptee in a white family in Southern Oregon in her two memoirs, “All You Can Ever Know” and “A Living Remedy.” Her own adoption was closed, but she recently wrote about the intricacies of open adoption for The Atlantic. She joins us to talk about her reporting.
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson’s big campaign promise was to end unsheltered homelessness in the city by 2026. One part of that effort involves reuniting unhoused people with family members or loved ones outside of Portland.
Individuals can opt into the program or be referred by a member of the city’s outreach team. Outreach workers then connect with the person’s family or friends and arrange transportation to their new community. Contact largely ceases after the individual arrives at their destination.
Skyler Brocker-Knapp is the director of Portland Solutions, the office that oversees homeless services in the
In Oregon, employment in the newspaper industry has fallen nearly 80% since 2000, according to OPB reporting.
And when communities lose journalists, information gaps can be exploited. The Ashland Daily Tidings closed in 2023, and the newspaper’s website was later invaded by artificial intelligence.
When a community loses a local newsroom, residents have fewer places to turn to for regional news that keeps them informed. Report for America is a nonprofit that places journalists in newsrooms across the U.S. to cover under-reported issues in communities, especially in rural areas.
Danielle Dawson is a collaborative investigative reporter for InvestigateWest and she’s based in Bend. Simmerdeep Kaur reports for the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin and covers the effects of federal policy on health and childcare access in southeast Washington. Alexander Banks reports for the Yakima Herald-Republic and covers education gaps in the Yakima Valley with a focus on solutions. And Alex Frick is a roving rural reporter covering peninsula communities for The Port Townsend and Jefferson County Leader in Washington.
They join us with details of their reporting and how their work affects people living in the Pacific Northwest.
On Monday, a majority of a 3-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled that the Trump administration can send members of the National Guard to Portland. The immediate impact of the ruling, however, is unclear. The Ninth Circuit’s decision only applies to one of the two temporary restraining orders U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut issued earlier this month blocking deployments both from Oregon and from any other state. Writing for the majority, Judges Ryan Nelson and Bridget Bade said that both of Judge Immergut’s restraining orders “rise or fall together” because they’re based on the same legal reasoning. In a dissent, Judge Susan Graber disagreed and said the Trump administration did not challenge the second restraining order, which therefore remains in effect.
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, Attorney General Dan Rayfield and Portland Mayor Keith Wilson responded to the ruling in a joint statement and called for a hearing before the full Ninth Circuit. “Oregon remains united in the fight against this unwanted, unneeded military intervention in Oregon,” Gov. Kotek wrote. Last week, a federal appeals court upheld an Illinois district court’s ruling that blocked the deployment of the National Guard to Chicago. The Trump administration filed an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to allow the National Guard deployment in Chicago.
Joining us for a legal analysis of the Ninth Circuit’s ruling is Jessica Levinson, clinical professor of law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.
Starting in elementary school, students might begin learning about the epic expedition Lewis and Clark led 220 years ago to explore the newly acquired territory of the Louisiana Purchase, an 8,000-mile journey through present-day Oregon to the Pacific Ocean and back. While the names Lewis and Clark have been etched into history books, the name York is largely unknown. York , William Clark’s slave, was the only Black man on the expedition. A skilled hunter, naturalist and outdoorsman, York also helped Lewis and Clark during their negotiations and encounters with Native American tribes in the uncharted West. Yet, as a slave, York lacked the agency to tell his own story and was denied his freedom by Clark for nearly a decade after returning home.
Grammy Award-nominated Portland musician Aaron Nigel Smith is today helping bring York’s story to a wider audience in the form of an opera that blends different musical genres, from folk to classical and jazz to hip-hop. “York the Explorer” premieres this Friday at the Patricia Reser Center for the Arts in Beaverton for a weekend of performances as part of “York Fest,” a 9-day celebration of the explorer organized by the Oregon Black Pioneers.
Smith produced, co-wrote and composed the music for “York the Explorer.” He also performs in it with his friend Cedric Berry, an artist with the L.A. Opera, who plays York. Jasmine Johnson, the civic engagement and partnerships manager at Portland Opera, plays Rose, York’s mother. They join us for a discussion and in-studio performance of several songs from the opera.
Disclosure: Patricia Reser Center for the Arts and Oregon Black Pioneers are OPB sponsors. OPB's newsroom maintains editorial independence and is not informed by financial support/individuals to the organization.
The Portland Trail Blazers’ first game of the 2025-2026 NBA regular season tips off tomorrow at the Moda Center against the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Blazers’ roster this season consists of several exciting new additions, including rookie Yang Hansen. The Blazers selected the 7-foot-1 center from China as the 16th-overall pick in the first round of the NBA draft in June.
Less than a month later, ESPN broke the news that Damian Lillard had agreed to return to the Blazers on a three-year, $42 million contract. The Blazers traded Lillard in 2023 to the Milwaukee Bucks, at his request, after Lillard spent 11 years playing in Portland without winning a championship trophy. Lillard’s time with the Bucks ended after he tore his Achilles tendon during the first-round of the NBA playoffs in the spring.
The start of the Blazers’ new season coincides with an out-of-court settlement that clears the way for the team’s sale to a group of wealthy investors led by Tom Dundon, the owner of the Carolina Hurricanes hockey team. Last month, the estate of Paul Allen announced it had entered a formal agreement to sell the Blazers to Dundon, pending approval from the NBA’s Board of Governors. Mike Richman, host of the “Locked On Blazers” podcast, joins us to preview the new season and the hopes and uncertainties lying ahead.
Your Tech Q is a youth-led nonprofit that gives free workshops and presentations on technology and digital literacy in various communities, with a focus on older adults. It’s run by 16-year-old Catlin Gabel high school junior Atef Siddiqui. He got involved with the workshops about a year after the organization was founded in 2022 by Portland students. At the time he was in middle school and doing similar work tutoring Afghan refugees.
Siddiqui says he and other youth volunteers find the kind of one-on-one tutoring extremely rewarding. The feedback they get in real time, and afterwards in written evaluations from participants, tells him Your Tech Q is providing a service that is in short supply. Your Tech Q now has chapters in San Diego and Houston. And Siddiqui says he’s happy to share the nonprofit’s knowledge base with any group of young people that would like to take on a similar mission. We talk with Siddiqui about Your Tech Q and his hopes for the organization and the mission as it grows.
JR Ujifusa is a Multnomah County senior deputy district attorney and heads its Human Trafficking Team. He’s also the chair of the National Advisory Committee on the Sex Trafficking of Children & Youth. His team and other partners working to eliminate trafficking and support survivors are trying to locate anyone who was trafficked on the now defunct Backpage(dot)com, which was one of the largest online prostitution sites in the world. The DA’s office wants to let survivors know there is money available to them in the form of restitution from the successful prosecution of those who profited from that trafficking. Ujifusa joins us to share more about that effort, and the progress that’s been made more broadly since he began working in this area in 2008.
More than 40 thousand people turned out in Portland alone for the No Kings protest, and people turned up en masse in scores of cities and towns throughout Oregon and Washington. They were part of an estimated 2,500 coordinated demonstrations across the country against President Trump’s use of presidential authority, extrajudicial deportations, immigration sweeps and attempts to deploy the National Guard in Democratic cities, including Portland. We’re joined by two organizers for a first hand report of what the protests were like: Isabelle Fleuraud in Burns, and Alan Unell in Vancouver.
“We do not need any more nonprofits in Oregon,” Libra Forde wrote that in an op-ed published by The Oregonian/OregonLive in June 2025, calling it a “difficult truth.” She’s the executive director of Women’s Foundation of Oregon, a philanthropic organization which does grant-making, research and policy advocacy. We heard more from Forde on how nonprofits should move forward as federal funds shrink and how merging organizations could serve communities better.
Pacific Northwest National Lab scientist and Hanford manager on radioactive tank waste, vitrification and clean-up progress
In September 2024, we packed up our van and drove about four and a half hours from Portland to Richland, WA, to set up a mobile broadcast studio on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities, in partnership with Northwest Public Broadcasting. We broadcast a week of shows that included conversations about the WW II and Manhattan Project history that created the radioactive waste from war-time plutonium enrichment at Hanford. Our coverage from the region also included in-depth interviews with Indigenous leaders and a tour of the infamous B-reactor, along with conversations about the economy and culture of the region.
We listen back today to two of these conversations. The first is with Carolyn Pearce, a PhD and chemist with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory working on the science of the vitrification, the glassification process that will be used to turn some of the 56 million gallons of radioactive waste into radioactive glass logs for storage.
In the second half of the show, we revisit our tour of one part of the Hanford nuclear reservation. The 56 million gallons of waste are stored in 177 massive, underground tanks on 18 different “farms.” Most of the tanks are single-shelled, but 28 of them are double-shelled, which helps prevent waste from getting into the ground. Karthik Subramanian, chief operating officer of Washington River Protection Solutions, the tank farm operations contractor, was our guide. After the tour, we sat down with Brian Vance, who at that time was the Department of Energy’s top manager in charge of Hanford. He resigned in March of this year. Vance talked with us about tank integrity, the status of the vitrification plant and the overall clean up progress. The opening of that waste processing facility -- which has now cost $30 billion - was thrown into doubt earlier this month, but the Department of Energy is now allowing the project to move forward and the first glass logs are expected to roll out as soon as this week, ahead of the October 15 deadline.
Elizabeth Gilbert rocketed to fame for her best-selling romp “Eat, Pray, Love.” Her latest memoir has a very different tone. “All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation” details her journey to heal from sex and love addiction. It is also about the love of her life, Rayya Elias, a Syrian-born recovering addict and musician. Elizabeth Gilbert joins us for a live broadcast in front of an audience at the Literary Arts bookstore.
The author of the Bakeshop Mystery Series used the city of Ashland for her inspiration, with many real shops and restaurants in the city appearing in the novels, which now number more than 20. And for the third year in a row, Ellie Alexander is partnering with Travel Ashland to bring fans of “cozy mysteries” to the city for the Ashland Mystery Festival, with tours, talks and other events with more than a dozen other authors. Alexander joins us to tell us more about the genre, her own Ashland-based cozy mystery novels and the festival that runs through Oct. 19.
The community transition program is for students with disabilities who have graduated high school with a modified diploma or a certificate of completion. The program serves people ages 18 to 21 and helps prepare them for life after high school through job training and volunteer opportunities.
Sally Golden is a special education transition teacher for the Springfield School District. She was recently named Oregon’s 2025-26 Teacher of the Year. She joins us with more on
working with students in Springfield and what the award means to her.
Protesters at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland may have had their identifiable information from their cellphones surveilled, new reporting from Straight Arrow News found. An analysis done by the news organization found evidence that suggests a cell-site simulator was used in the area. These devices mimic cell towers and are able to capture a phone's unique SIM card number known as an International Mobile Subscriber Identity. Mikael Thalen is a tech reporter for Straight Arrow News and used a research tool known as Marlin to report this story. He joins us to share more.
Before colonization and the decimation of Indigenous people, Nez Perce, or Nimíipuu, lands encompassed 17 million acres that would become parts of Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana. The Nez Perce Indian Reservation currently consists of 750,000 acres in North-Central Idaho.
The Oregon Origins Project aims to bring the traditions, art and storytelling of Oregon’s first peoples to a nonnative audience, and to provide additional space for tribal members, or culture bearers, to gather with each other for their own benefit.
This Saturday, Oct. 18, the Project presents its seventh series, called “Earth + Heart, Being and Becoming Nimíipuu” at 6 p.m. at the Reed College Performing Arts Building.
We learn more in conversation with Nez Perce/Nimíipuu tribal members Nakia Williamson-Cloud and Phil Cash Cash, along with Matthew Packwood, the executive director of the Oregon Origins Project.
The threat of a 9.0-magnitude earthquake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone has hung over the Pacific Northwest for decades. Seismologists and emergency managers say “The Big One” could be one of the worst natural disasters in the region’s history, but it may not be the worst-case scenario. New research from Oregon State University suggests the Cascadia Subduction Zone may be linked to the San Andreas Fault in California, with seismic activity on one triggering corresponding activity on the other.
Chris Goldfinger is a professor emeritus at OSU and the study’s lead author. He joins us with more details on what the findings could mean for our region.
Over the weekend, protesters gathered in the buff to speak out against the Trump administration’s attempts to mobilize the National Guard. Last week, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem visited Portland’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility and met with high-profile leaders, including the city’s mayor Keith Wilson. Mayor Wilson urged the defense secretary to stop the use of chemical munitions and force against protesters. At the same time, Mayor Wilson’s one year promise to end unsheltered homelessness in the city is fast approaching. Mayor Wilson joins us to share more on his response to the continued protest, the ongoing threat of the National Guard and where things stand now with the city and homelessness.
With its focus on characters and narratives outside the mainstream, horror is considered by some to be an inherently queer genre. According to the founders of the Stage Fright Festival, horror has “a special and symbiotic connection to queer culture.” The festival celebrates that connection with a lineup of performances that range from campy to creepy to chilling. This year’s festival will take place Oct. 9-19 at the CoHo Theatre in Northwest Portland.
Amica Hunter and Jeff Desautels are the co-founders of the Stage Fright Festival. They join us to talk about how the festival has evolved since it launched in 2022 and what makes horror so queer.
Nearly 30 years ago, Newport resident Kent Gibson headed out with his dog to the beach one day to look for agate and jasper, types of gemstones he collected as a hobby at the time. He picked up what looked like a baseball-sized rock, threw it for his dog to fetch and then took it home for his dog to play with. But it turns out it wasn’t a rock. It was a fossil of a skull from a porpoise that lived 20 million years ago.
That discovery sparked a new calling for Gibson as an amateur fossil collector. The Salem Statesman Journal shared that story and more in its recent profile of the retired Newport harbormaster and his amazing skill at finding fossils, mostly of prehistoric marine mammals and fish. Gibson estimates his collection now numbers between 5 and 6,000 fossils, some of which he can spend 100 hours or more painstakingly cleaning to reveal skulls, vertebrae, ribs or other prehistoric bones encased in sediment and rock.
Gibson hopes to donate his collection some day to the Condon Fossil Collection at the University of Oregon’s Museum of Natural and Cultural History, but the facility doesn’t currently have the space to house it. Gibson joins us to talk about his amazing paleontological finds and tips for fellow fossil hunters.
By law, emergency rooms must ensure that individuals receive appropriate care regardless of their ability to pay when coming into the ER. But, new reporting from ProPublica shows that more than 90 psychiatric hospitals, including one in Oregon, are turning away or discharging patients too early and are breaking this law. Eli Cahan is a pediatrician and investigative journalist. He joins us to share more.
The Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution in Pendleton won five awards last month, including top honors for its newsletter and magazine at the 2025 American Penal Press Contest. Twenty-one prison publications in nine states, including Oregon, submitted entries to the contest which is organized by the Pollen Initiative and Southern Illinois University.
A staff of six adults in custody at EOCI write and edit the content published in the prison’s monthly newsletter, The Echo, and its quarterly magazine, 1664, as part of a prison work program. East Oregonian reporter Berit Thorson serves as the program’s advisor, offering feedback on articles and teaching journalism training sessions on skills such as how to conduct interviews.
Philip Luna is the editor-in-chief of The Echo and 1664. Kurtis Thompson is a staff writer who joined the EOCI news team last year. The Echo and 1664 won first place in the “Best Newsletter” and “Best Magazine” categories of this year’s American Penal Press Contest. Recent examples of Luna’s and Thompson’s writing can be found in the “Artist in Custody” edition of 1664, which includes profiles of an incarcerated former music producer who teaches music at EOCI and a band of women musicians at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville. Luna and Thompson join us to talk about their award-winning work and how journalism is helping them amplify voices within incarcerated communities.
Mary Flower finally convinced her parents to buy her an acoustic guitar when she was around the age of 12, growing up in Indiana more than six decades ago. Inspired by the folk stylings of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, Flower taught herself to play and was good enough to teach the instrument while still in high school. She continued to perform and teach while in college, which she left to embark on a career as a professional guitarist and singer-songwriter based in Denver.
In 2004, Flower moved to Portland, where she continued to gain acclaim for her albums and performances, including being nominated three times for a “Blues Music Award” from the Blues Foundation and being inducted into the Cascade Blues Association’s “Muddy Award” Hall of Fame and the Colorado Music Hall of Fame.
This Saturday, Flower will receive the 2025 “Best of the West Artist Award” from Folk Alliance Region-West in recognition of her contributions to folk music in the region and her ability to “build bridges between traditional genres.”
Despite her busy performance and touring schedule, Flower continues to find time to instruct and mentor fellow guitarists. Earlier this month, she wrapped up Blues in the Gorge, a 5-day acoustic blues guitar camp for adults in the Columbia Gorge she started 12 years ago. Flower leads the workshops with the help of several other musicians she chooses each year for their ability to both perform and teach.
Flower joins us to discuss her expansive career and extensive collaborations with other artists in musical genres spanning from blues to jazz.
Heather Douglas loves making zines, both long and short, big and small, about subjects both serious and lighthearted. The zine — its name a shortened form of magazine and is pronounced “zeen” — has been around for decades, and can refer to a single sheet of paper folded into multiple panels and hand drawn, or multiple sheets of paper folded in half, similar to a chapbook.
The zine arguably saw its zenith in the late '90s and early 2000s, before the rise of social media and the ubiquity of internet platforms that provided a million digital forms for self-expression. But for many cartoonists and zinesters, like Douglas, the physical, analog nature of the form is one to be treasured and the fact that it brings people together — offline, in real life — is one of its many appeals. That’s one reason she approached her fellow Astorian, Kirista Trask with the Cambium Gallery about creating a Zine festival, something she said as a lifelong Astorian, she’d never seen before in the city.
Trask was enthusiastic, and by chance had just put out her own zine about the gallery. They created the “Astoria Zine Festival,” which takes place at the gallery this weekend. Douglas and Trask join us, along with BB Anderson, a Portland zinester and co-organizer of the long- standing Portland Zine Symposium. They all share more about the enduring appeal of the art form and why they consider it more vital than ever.
The definition of digital literacy has changed dramatically over the last couple of decades. Although one report found that teens spend about seven hours a day on their phones, employers have learned that some young people have a lack of computer skills. Eric Magidson is an IT consultant and professor of Computer Information Systems at Central Oregon Community College. He recently wrote about this issue and why policymakers should step in. He joins us with more on the changes he wants to see.
A panel of federal judges heard arguments Thursday over whether the Trump administration can send federal troops to Portland.
Last Saturday, a federal judge temporarily blocked the president from mobilizing 200 federalized Oregon National Guard troops. The same judge issued another order a day later barring the president from sending any federalized National Guard members to Portland after he signaled he would send troops from California and Texas.
The administration appealed the first decision to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. OPB legal affairs reporter Conrad Wilson watched the hearing and joins us with more details.
The start of the new school year brings the usual set of challenges for students as they navigate new schedules, lesson plans and social dynamics. Those changes can also take a toll on a student’s mental health. A survey conducted in 2023 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found, for example, that 40% of high school students nationwide reported depressive symptoms - an increase of more than 10% since 2013. Former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued an advisory in 2021 warning about worsening youth mental health, exacerbated by the pandemic and excessive use of social media.
The Ballmer Institute for Children’s Behavioral Health at University of Oregon is working to help address this crisis of youth mental health. Launched in 2022, the institute is pioneering the first program of its kind in the nation to educate and train a new class of healthcare workers: child behavioral health specialists. The 4-year program provides an alternative to the additional years and cost a student would typically have to spend in graduate school to become, for example, a school psychologist or social worker. Instead, the undergraduates in the program obtain 700 hours of applied training that starts their junior year with internships at Portland area schools, clinics and community organizations. While they can’t provide diagnoses or conduct psychological evaluations, the interns can help prevent and mitigate behavioral health challenges by teaching, for example, problem-solving strategies or coping skills kids can use during stressful situations.
Joining us for more details are Cody Ghion, an assistant clinical professor at UO’s Ballmer Institute for Children’s Behavioral Health; Sophia Morgan, a UO senior and child behavioral health intern who is currently working at a high school in Portland for students in recovery from substance use; and Anne Libby, who is also a UO senior and child behavioral health intern currently working at a pediatric clinic in Hillsboro.
The U.S. Department of Justice recently sued Uber for refusing rides to passengers who use service dogs. The Americans with Disabilities Act requires ride-hailing services to accommodate riders who use service animals and mobility devices such as wheelchairs. A self-selected survey from the nonprofit Guide Dogs for the Blind found that 83% of respondents had been refused a ride at some point, causing them to miss appointments, flights, job interviews and more.
Kirsten French, community education and advocacy manager at Guide Dogs for the Blind, has had drivers cancel rides due to her service dog. She joins us with more details about the lawsuit, along with Lynn Dubinski, vice president of client engagement and impact at the organization.
The federal government shutdown is now a week old and shows little sign of ending. On Monday, Senators rejected for the fifth time competing proposals from Republicans and Democrats to pass a funding bill to reopen the government. Among other concessions, Democrats are demanding Republicans agree to extend tax credits set to expire for 24 million Americans who get their health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. Republican Congressional leaders insist any negotiations on healthcare take place after Democrats agree to reopen the government.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has threatened to lay off members of the federal workforce and to withhold back pay of furloughed federal workers. Active-duty members of the military could miss their first paycheck next Wednesday if Congressional lawmakers fail to reach a deal before then. Shortages of air traffic controllers, who are required to work without pay during a government shutdown, have led to delays of flights at busy airports. Oregon Democratic U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden joins us from Washington, D.C., to discuss the latest developments in the government shutdown.
Multnomah County District Attorney Nathan Vasquez has filed charges against 33 of the 37 people arrested by Portland Police officers in protests in 2025. That’s a much higher percentage than is predecessor, Mike Schmidt, who announced early on in his tenure that he wouldn’t be charging for certain types of behavior at protests. Portland Police have arrested 40 people outside the ICE facility since June. It’s unclear how many arrests federal officers have made. We talk to DA Vasquez about his approach to the challenges of this moment.
Tom Toro has just published a new collection of his New Yorker cartoons, “And to Think We Started as a Book Club.” The cartoons are from the last 15 years his cartoons have been running in the magazine and are grouped in sections, from Life, Love and Family to Work, Tech and Weird. Some comment on modern life wordlessly, like a teenager in the rain holding a mini-umbrella over his phone while he texts. Most combine graphics with commentary, like a man in a ragged suit sitting around a campfire with a few children captioned, “Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders.” Many, like the one pictured above with angels making “snow humans,” are what Toro calls pure palette cleansers, a much needed break from weighty matters of the day.
Toro joins us to discuss how he approaches his art and what it’s been like to comment on the last 15 years for one of the nation’s most illustrious magazines on the occasion of its 100th anniversary. The book is out today, and its official launch is at 7 p.m. this Friday, Oct. 10, at Powell's Books.
On Sunday, the Trump administration sent a memo to Oregon Gov. Kotek authorizing the deployment of 200 members of the Oregon National Guard for 60 days. At the same time, the administration has also named antifa, the left-wing, anti-fascist political movement, as a domestic terrorist organization. What does action mean for the political movement and how do protests happening now compare to other parts of the world and the history of the U.S.? To answer this question and more, we’ll hear from Shane Burley, a Portland-based writer and filmmaker who is author of the book, “Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It." He is also the editor of “No Pasaran!: Antifascist Dispatches from a World in Crisis.”
This weekend, a federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from mobilizing the Oregon National Guard to Portland and then issued a second restraining order when the president tried to summon troops from Texas and California to Oregon. The administration has since appealed the decision.
Throughout the back-and-forth, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek has denounced the president’s actions and his characterization of Portland as “war-ravaged.” She joins us with more details on her response to the attempted deployment and the state’s efforts to block it.
British primatologist and conservationist Jane Goodall died last week at the age of 91. Goodall revolutionized our understanding of chimpanzees, our closest living relatives. She was mentored by the renowned anthropologist and paleontologist Louis Leakey, who helped fund her first trip to Tanzania in 1960 when she was 26-years-old. With no formal scientific training, she made the discovery that chimpanzees were capable of using and making tools – a skill scientists previously thought only humans were capable of doing. Goodall not only founded her own institute to promote the conservation of chimpanzees, she also embarked on a decades-long advocacy for humanitarian causes and environmental protections around the world.
In 2011, “Think Out Loud” host Dave Miller interviewed Jane Goodall when she visited Oregon. We listen back to that conversation about her remarkable life and more than a half century of studying chimpanzees that has helped shape insights into our own behaviors and evolution within the animal kingdom.
Hatcheries, also known as fish farms, have long been used to supplement fish supplies affected by human activity. But with the 18 dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers, they became more important to maintaining fish populations to fulfill tribal agreements and to meet commercial and sports fishing demands. There are now hundreds of hatcheries in the Northwest, run by federal, state, local and tribal governments. But many of them are aging, in need of repair or replacement.
Zach Penney is the director of strategic initiatives at the The Columbia River Inter-tribal Fish Commission. He says even before the Trump administration’s mass layoffs and broad cuts to the federal government, the Columbia basin had an infrastructure backlog of about $1 billion. Now, many vulnerable hatcheries are only able to survive with the help of volunteers. But Penney says, the hatchery system cannot continue without more sustainable funding, including more staffing and money for basic infrastructure. He joins us to share more about the factors that have led to the current situation and what he sees as the way forward.
An unprecedented weekend put Portland at the center of national headlines, as President Trump continued his push to deploy National Guard members into the city over the objections of city and state elected officials and a federal judge. After his order for an Oregon National Guard deployment was blocked, Trump turned to the National Guard in California and Texas for hundreds of federal troops he could send to Portland. Late Sunday, U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut again sided with the state of Oregon. OPB reporter Troy Brynelson joins us to catch us up.
Portland is well-known for its craft coffee, beer and cocktails. But it’s also home to a number of craft chocolate makers. The city’s first Craft Chocolate Festival will take place Oct. 3-5 at the Olympic Mills Building in the Central Eastside neighborhood. Attendees can sample sweets from makers across the city, while makers can attend informational sessions on how to grow their businesses.
George Domurot is the founder and CEO of Ranger Chocolate Co. Andrea Marks is the owner of Bees and Beans. They join us to talk about the festival and the evolution of Portland’s craft chocolate scene.
The Portland Art Museum already has one of the most significant collections of modern Japanese prints in North America. On September 27, it burnished those credentials with the opening of the first solo U.S. exhibition of the late artist Yoshida Chizuko (1924-2017).
Born in 1924, Chizuko forged a place for herself in Japan’s male-dominated postwar art world. And though she married into the well-known Yoshida artist family –– which produced three generations of influential woodblock print artists –– critics say her work has been often overshadowed. The new exhibition brings together more than 100 of Chizuko’s woodblock prints and paintings, many of which have never before been displayed publicly.
Portland Art Museum's Asian art curator Jeannie Kenmotsu joins us to discuss the avant-garde artist who pushed the boundaries of both painting and printmaking, her place in the Yoshida family legacy and why her work still feels modern today.
Portland will host Major League Table Tennis events this weekend at the Oregon Convention Center. On Friday, the Portland Paddlers will face off against the Los Angeles Spinners at 7:30 p.m. Hampus Nordberg is a Portland Paddler player, and Christian Lillieroos coaches the team. They join us with more about what table tennis looks like in Portland and what to expect this weekend.
Last month, Oregon became the first state in the nation to be verified for its accessibility for travelers with disabilities by the travel website Wheel the World. The company worked with Travel Oregon to assess hundreds of hotels, restaurants, tourism providers and state parks in seven regions across the state for their accessibility. That includes features like step-free entrances at museums or specialized wheelchairs available to venture onto a beach on the Oregon Coast.
But the state’s efforts to promote its accessibility doesn’t mean that barriers don’t still exist for travelers with physical or neurocognitive disabilities. Small hotel owners and tourism operators may also lack awareness about best practices to engage with these travelers or struggle with how to become more accessible online and in person.
To address these gaps, researchers at Southern Oregon University recently received a grant from Travel Oregon to develop and roll out training workshops at 12 locations across the state for travel industry professionals and other stakeholders. The training includes guidance on best practices and role-playing exercises where participants can experience, for example, what it’s like to navigate a carpeted hotel lobby in a wheelchair or to receive information during an emergency as a person who is hard of hearing.
The goal of these trainings and the education they provide is to create a statewide network of “Accessible Tourism Ambassadors,” according to Pavlina McGrady, an associate professor in the school of business at Southern Oregon University. McGrady and Rebecca Williams, an assistant professor in the school of business at SOU, join us for more details. Ulysses McCready, a junior at SOU who is blind, also shares his perspective about inclusive tourism and the assistance he provided McGrady and Williams on their project.
In 2007, the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries released a report looking at the seismic safety of more than 3,000 schools and other public buildings. A new analysis from The Oregonian/OregonLive found that of the 138 schools in the Portland area that were considered at “high” or “very high” risk of collapsing, 110 of those continue to have students. And of those 110, 55 of them still have not had any major renovations. At the same time, some researchers are beginning to rethink whether the current "drop, cover and hold on" safety plan is the best option for students. Lizzy Acker is a reporter for The Oregonian/OregonLive. She joins us to share more on the seismic preparedness of Portland's students and schools.
Nationwide polling suggests that about half of Americans oppose the deployment of National guard troops to American cities. But the poll also suggests a significant number - 38% - do support deployment. Dan Mason is a National Committeeman for the Oregon Republican Party and former member of the Oregon Ethics Commission. He says while those are national poll numbers, he suspects they reflect Oregon, including its nearly 730,000 registered Republicans. Mason says he thinks Portland officials may be downplaying the city’s problems keeping the peace and protecting the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in South Portland. He sees a potentially positive role for National Guard troops in the city. He joins us to tell us more about his views and what he’s hearing from his fellow Republicans in Oregon and across the country.
In June, President Trump deployed thousands of National Guard members and hundreds of active duty Marines to Los Angeles to respond to largely peaceful protests over the administration’s immigration sweeps. A judge recently ruled that the use of federal troops in LA was illegal since they performed law enforcement duties the military are constitutionally prohibited from doing.
Now, Trump has mobilized 200 National Guard troops to Portland, saying they’re necessary to protect federal officials and property. Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield has sued to block the deployment.
Rebecca Ellis covers Los Angeles county government as a staff writer for the LA Times. She previously covered Portland city government for OPB. She joins us to talk about how Angelenos responded to the deployment in their city and what could be in store for Portland.
For the first time since 2019, the federal government has shut down after Congress failed to pass a funding bill before a midnight deadline. A vote called by Senate Republicans on a stopgap funding bill that was passed previously by Republicans in the House failed on Tuesday evening. That bill would have kept the government funded at current levels until Nov. 21.
Deep divisions remain between Democrats and Republicans to overcome the funding impasse. Among the concessions Democrats are demanding from Republicans are an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies, which are set to expire at the end of the year, and rolling back cuts to Medicaid under the GOP tax and spending bill signed by President Trump in July. Republican Congressional leaders and President Trump have sought to blame the shutdown on Democrats. Polls conducted before the shutdown by the New York Times and NPR showed roughly a third of respondents would blame both parties for the shutdown, though more respondents put the blame on Republicans than Democrats.
Democratic Oregon U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley joins us from the nation’s capital to talk about the shutdown and the deployment of 200 Oregon National Guard members in Portland expected in the coming days.
President Trump’s authorization of the deployment of Oregon National Guard troops to Portland brought swift opposition from civic and business leaders across the state. AG Dan Rayfield has filed a lawsuit and an emergency motion aimed at stopping the deployment.
Lewis & Clark Law professor Tung Yin, author of “National Security Lies,” joins us to share the legal issues involved in President Trump’s deployment of National Guard Troops under Title 10, section 12406 of the U.S. Code, and how the legal challenges are likely to play out.v
President Trump has ordered 200 Oregon National Guard members into Portland, citing protests outside immigration facilities. Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield has filed both a lawsuit and a temporary restraining order to block the deployment. The State of Oregon and the City of Portland will appear in federal court at 10 a.m. on Friday for a hearing on their motion for a temporary restraining order. Rayfield joins us with details of the legal challenge.
Progressive city councilor Mitch Green, who represents Portland’s District 4 and is himself a veteran, called on local members of the military to protest the deployment of National Guard troops to the city. He joins us with more on the deployment.
Several hundred people gathered outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland on Sunday to protest the Trump administration’s decision to send 200 members of the Oregon National Guard to the city. Although the protest was mostly peaceful, more than a dozen counterprotesters verbally clashed with protesters and several protesters were hit with pepper balls as ICE agents attempted to escort cars into the building.
On Monday, Portland police announced the arrest of two individuals on assault charges outside the ICE building. “We will not accept or tolerate people coming down to the south waterfront for the purpose of engaging in violence,” Portland Police Chief Bob Day said at a press conference on Monday morning. He also praised the role of dialogue officers to reduce tensions during protests, which he cited as an example of the bureau’s reforms to how it manages crowds since the 2020 racial justice protests.
Chief Day talks with us to share the agency’s approach to handling protests outside the ICE facility, planning for a possible uptick in protest activity once the Oregon National Guard has been deployed to the city and how Portland police will communicate with a federalized National Guard.
The Beaverton Sobriety Opportunity for Beginning Recovery treatment court is open to Beaverton or Washington County residents who have at least one prior Driving Under the Influence of Intoxicants conviction and who agree to the program’s strict requirements. About 200 people have graduated from B-SOBR since its launch in 2011.
Participants must agree to wear an ankle monitor and submit to biweekly testing to ensure their sobriety during the first few months. They must also attend regular meetings with their case manager and the presiding judge to monitor their progress for the 20 months or so it typically takes to complete the program. Beaverton police officers also make monthly visits to participants’ homes, which can help reframe negative interactions they may have had previously with law enforcement, and engage family members or others in the home to support the participant’s recovery.
The All Rise Treatment Court Institute selected the B-SOBR program in January 2025 as one of 10 treatment courts to serve as a national model for new treatment courts for the next two years.
We rebroadcast an interview which first aired in March 2025 about the B-SOBR program featuring B-SOBR case manager David Finke, police liaison Officer Michel Wilson and Mauricio Molina, a recent graduate of the program.
On Sunday, the Trump administration sent a memo to Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek authorizing the deployment of 200 Oregon National Guard members in Portland immediately for 60 days. The memo says the troops will be deployed to protect federal property and personnel in Portland, which President Trump has called a “war-ravaged city.” Portland and state officials responded by filing a lawsuit and, on Monday, a temporary restraining order to block the Trump administration’s federalization of the Oregon National Guard.
Gov. Kotek, AG Rayfield and Portland Mayor Keith Wilson held a news conference on Sunday to announce the lawsuit and counter President Trump’s characterization of Portland. “To bring this narrative to Portland, to say that we are anything but a city on the rise, is counter what truth is,” Wilson said. Gov. Kotek said she had spoken with President Trump and told him that there was no public safety threat that required military intervention in Portland.
Several hundred people gathered outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland on Sunday afternoon and evening to protest the deployment of federal troops in the city. More than a dozen counterprotesters verbally clashed with protesters, several of whom were hit with pepper balls as ICE agents attempted to escort cars into the building. On Monday morning, Portland Police announced the arrest of two people on assault charges during the protest on Sunday evening.
OPB reporters Conrad Wilson and Troy Brynelson join us to discuss the latest developments.
Earlier this month, Brett Hollins embarked on a road trip to Oregon from his parents’ home in San Antonio. He didn’t come to experience the high desert splendor of Central Oregon or to snap selfies at Multnomah Falls. He came to present workshops and play basketball with inmates at six prisons across the state, including Snake River Correctional Institution in Ontario and Warner Creek Correctional Facility in Lakeview, both of which he once served time in.
In 2017, Hollins was sentenced to nearly six years in prison after pleading guilty to stabbing two men during a brawl that broke out during a party he and his friends attended near the campus of Southern Oregon University in Ashland. In 2021, then-Gov. Kate Brown commuted his sentence after he had served nearly four years of his six-year sentence.
The Oregonian/OregonLive sports writer Bill Oram has extensively profiled Hollins’ amazing journey of rehabilitation, including his decision to return to Ashland to play college basketball at Southern Oregon University, where he graduated last June and served as a team captain. More recently, Oram wrote about Hollins’ return to Snake River to play basketball and inspire adults in custody with workshops he developed through his new nonprofit, The Side Door Foundation. Hollins joins us, along with Michael Reese, director of the Oregon Department of Corrections, to share their perspectives on rehabilitation and the obstacles to it inside and outside of prison.
The Hanford nuclear reservation in Southeastern Washington was the epicenter of plutonium enrichment during the WW II and through the cold war. For more than 20 years, an effort to safely dispose and store 56 million gallons of radioactive waste stored at the site has been in the works. The vitrification plant would turn some of that waste into glass logs. The opening of that waste processing facility -- which has now cost $30 billion - was thrown into doubt earlier this month, but the Department of Energy is now allowing the project to move forward and the first glass logs are expected to roll out as soon as next week, ahead of the October 15 deadline. We get the latest from Anna King, correspondent for Northwest Public Broadcasting and the Northwest News Network, who’s been covering Hanford for the last 20 years
In September 2024, we packed up our vans and drove about four and a half hours from Portland to Richland, WA, to set up a mobile broadcast studio on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. We broadcast a week of shows that included conversations about the WW II and Manhattan Project history that created the radioactive waste from war-time plutonium enrichment at Hanford. Our coverage from the region also included in-depth interviews with Indigenous leaders and a tour of the infamous B-reactor, along with conversations about the economy and culture of the region.
We listen back today to two of these conversations. The first is with Carolyn Pearce, a PhD and chemist with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory working on the science of the vitrification, the glassification process that will be used to turn some of the 56 million gallons of radioactive waste into radioactive glass logs for storage.
In the second half of the show, we revisit our tour of one part of the the Hanford nuclear reservation. The 56 million gallons of waste are stored in 177 massive, underground tanks on 18 different “farms.” Most of the tanks are single-shelled, but 28 of them are double-shelled, which helps prevent waste from getting into the ground. Karthik Subramanian, chief operating officer of Washington River Protection Solutions, the tank farm operations contractor, was our guide. After the tour, we sat down with Brian Vance, who at that time was the Department of Energy’s top manager in charge of Hanford. He resigned in March of this year. Vance talked with us about tank integrity, the status of the vitrification plant and the overall clean up progress. The opening of that waste processing facility -- which has now cost $30 billion - was thrown into doubt earlier this month, but the Department of Energy is now allowing the project to move forward and the first glass logs are expected to roll out as soon as this week, ahead of the October 15 deadline.
Have you ever heard a color, or seen a piece of music? Maybe you’ve tasted a sunset, or felt a particular smell? If so, you might have synesthesia. It’s a phenomenon in which one or more sensory pathways blend in the brain to create a new experience. Researchers aren’t sure how many people have synesthesia, but estimates range from 1 in 200 to 1 in 20 people.
Elizabeth Schwartz is a freelance writer and music historian from Portland; Forest Mountain Lion is a musician from Eugene; and James Duckwell is a career and technical education teacher at Portland’s Roosevelt High School. They all join us to talk about their experiences with synesthesia, along with Mark Stewart, a professor of psychology at Willamette University who studies the phenomenon.
After someone survives a disaster like a wildfire or hurricane, they often face daunting decisions while trying to rebuild. A growing number of scammers are targeting people seeking contractors, especially as events like flooding, hurricanes and wildfires happen more often. Naveena Sadasivam is a senior staff writer for Grist. She’s covered disaster scams for the outlet and joins us with details of her reporting and how to avoid a scam.
Learn more about how to report fraud after a disaster in Oregon here.
White-nose syndrome is a fungal disease that grows on hibernating bats, causing them to wake up in the winter. The bats then burn up their fat stores while searching for food and die as a result. The disease was first detected in the northeastern U.S. in 2006 and has since spread to 40 U.S. states.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife recently announced that the fungus that causes the disease has been detected in bat excrement, or guano, from a bat roost at Lewis and Clark National Historic Park in Clatsop County. While no bats in the state have been observed with symptoms of white-nose syndrome yet, it’s the first documented case of the fungus in Oregon.
Emily Armstrong Buck is a wildlife health lab biologist at ODFW and the agency’s white-nose syndrome surveillance coordinator. She joins us to talk about the spread of the disease and what it could mean for Oregon bat populations.
Orientation and mobility specialists help people who are blind or low-vision learn to safely navigate their environments. Portland State University is one of a handful of schools nationwide that train these specialists, and the only school in the Northwest. Research suggests that demand for orientation and mobility specialists will increase as more adults experience age-related vision impairments such as cataracts and macular degeneration.
Amy Parker is an associate professor at PSU and coordinator of the university’s Orientation & Mobility Program. Patricia Kepler is the accessibility analyst for the Portland Police Bureau. They join us to talk about the growing need for orientation and mobility services.
Last month, President Trump announced that the federal government had obtained a 10% stake in Intel, Oregon’s largest private employer. Nvidia, one of Intel’s biggest competitors, announced last week that it would invest $5 billion in Intel. The company also got a $2 billion investment from SoftBank. Mike Wilkerson, director of Economic Research at ECOnorthwest, joins us to talk about what all this means for Intel and for Oregon.
As recently reported in The Columbian, a housing hotline provided by Council for the Homeless in Clark County gets on average 130 to 180 calls a day. A small team with lived experiences that include homelessness and housing insecurity answer callers’ requests for help seven days a week. They share resources such as shelters with available space for the night or the locations of warming or cooling centers activated during extreme weather events. Some callers may also be facing eviction or homelessness for the first time or are trying to escape situations of domestic violence.
According to supervisor Guy Hardy, the demand for the hotline’s services remains high amid the recent decline in federal housing assistance. President Trump’s budget request for the fiscal year starting on Oct. 1 slashes the Housing and Urban Development agency’s budget by more than 40%. In addition to cuts to rental assistance, it seeks to replace money allocated for housing vouchers with state block grants and impose two-year limits for people in public housing.
Hardy and Sunny Wonder, chief operating officer at Council for the Homeless, join us to talk about the housing hotline and what its calls reveal about the housing and homelessness crisis in Clark County and the region.
Portland City Councilor Mitch Green is introducing a proposal that would make it easier for sidewalk food vendors to operate in the city. The ordinance would remove city requirements that prevent vendors from operating outside similar businesses, such as restaurants, and without getting consent from adjacent property owners to operate on the sidewalk.
Green says easing the regulations could give small businesses a boost, but restaurant advocates say sidewalk vendors could hurt businesses that are still struggling to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. OPB’s Portland city government reporter Alex Zielinski joins us to talk about the proposed ordinance and more.
Nine years ago, Union County voters overwhelmingly voted to pass Measure 31-89, which limited county commissioners to two terms, or eight years, in office. A whopping 68% of voters supported the change, which came from Union County Citizens for Good Government. Now, more than eight years after the measure took effect, Union County Commissioners will no longer be limited by term limits.
In January, the county commissioners unanimously voted to have the measure brought to the courtroom, requesting the circuit court to examine the constitutionality of the measure. Earlier this month, County Clerk Lisa Feik shared that the court ruled in favor of the commissioners, ending term limits. Union County Commissioner Paul Anderes joins us to share why he and his fellow commissioners voted to bring this measure to the courts. We’ll also hear from Jim Mollerstrom, the former organizer for Union County Citizens for Good Government, to share why he was pushing for this initially and his thoughts on the change.
During the pandemic, schools from elementary to college took classes online by necessity. But 5 years later, a number of college students are still taking at least some of their classes remotely, even when they have an in-person choice. Online learning can take many forms, and include both synchronous and asynchronous formats. Some Oregon universities offer some degrees entirely online. At community colleges around the country, more than 40% of classes are offered online.
We talk with students and professors at two different Oregon universities about why online classes are still popular and the role they play in the overall educational system.
Audrey Carlson attends Portland State University, and Kayla Ramirez is student body president at Oregon State University. Sebastian Heiduschke is a professor of German at OSU, and Bill Knight represents the faculty union at PSU, where he is a professor of English.
The Pacific Northwest had a thriving punk rock scene in the 90s with bands like The Wipers, Dead Moon and Bikini Kill. One of the pioneering bands of that time is Team Dresch, which had its roots in the queercore movement. This year the band has been on a 30 year anniversary tour. Band members Donna Dresch, Kaia Wilson, Jody Bleyle and Marcéo Martinez join us to play some songs and talk about their legacy.
More than 100 Oregon students with both vision and hearing impairments are anticipating a decline in services in schools, as the federal government has suddenly cut a five-year grant for the Oregon DeafBlind Project. The program serves DeafBlind Oregonians from birth up until the age of 21 at no cost to families or school districts. The goal of the program is to provide training to local teachers and school staff to support students with DeafBlindness. Lisa McConachie is the director of the project. She joins us to share more on what these cuts will mean for students.
As first reported by Oregon ArtsWatch, a new education pavilion is opening on Sep. 20 at Tryon Creek State Natural Area located in Southwest Portland, near Lake Oswego. The new education center allows the nonprofit Friends of Tryon Creek to hold community events and educational programming year-round for students to gather for classes, day camps and field trips inside the roughly 660-acre day-use area.
Friends of Tryon Creek is also leading the fundraising and construction of the $2.6 million education pavilion, which was built on the forest floor and features a design based on traditional plankhouses used by Indigenous Northwest tribes as communal gathering spaces for ceremonies, potlatches and other events. Four Indigenous Northwest artists have also been commissioned to create artwork that will be put on permanent display inside the pavilion. Six western red cedar lodgepoles were sustainably harvested from local forests and used for the new construction, along with bluestone that was used for the interior hallway to represent Columbia River basalt preserved in the landscape.
Friends of Tryon Creek executive director Gabe Sheoships is Cayuse and Walla Walla and a citizen of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. Artist Shirod Younker is Coos, Miluk, Umpqua and a citizen of the Coquille Indian Tribe. They join us to share how they hope the new education pavilion will help students and visitors appreciate the pre-colonial history of Tryon Creek and the surrounding region.
Earlier this month, the governors of Oregon, Washington and California announced they are forming a partnership called the West Coast Health Alliance. The goal of this new partnership is aimed at preserving access to vaccines and will also develop its own immunization guidelines. This comes after the the Trump administration fired the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and several scientists resigned from the agency. Now the group is sharing its guidelines recommending that everyone over 6 months of age should have access to the COVID-19 vaccine and that the vaccine should be accessible to “all who choose protection.” Dean Sidelinger is the state epidemiologist for the Oregon Health Authority and joins us to share more on this new partnership and their recommendations.
Oregon’s Tribal Early Learning Hub has faced a number of challenges since its creation. But this summer, state lawmakers passed HB 2815, which would invest more in early learning for Oregon's nine federally recognized tribes. As the school year begins, we hear from Jory Spencer, the early childhood service program manager for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. We also hear from Jennifer Reid, education director for Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians. They both join us to share more about their programs and what these new investments mean for them.
Movies like “The Goonies,” “Animal House” and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” are among the most famous of those filmed in Oregon, and they're points of pride for Oregon film buffs. Television shows like “Grimm” and “Portlandia” and animation studios like Laika and ShadowMachine burnish the state’s production portfolio.
While newer projects continue to shoot in Oregon, the industry was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, a lengthy writers and actors strike and an industry-wide shift to overseas production.
Tim Williams is the executive director of Oregon Film, a semi-independent state agency that promotes movie and TV production in Oregon. He joins us to talk about how the industry is faring in Oregon.
Last year, there were 36 whales entangled with commercial fishing gear off the coasts of Oregon, Washington and California, or found entangled with West Coast fishing gear off the coasts of other countries. That’s the highest number of whale entanglements in the West Coast region since 2018, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
More than eight years ago, scientists at Oregon State University began collaborating with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, the commercial Dungeness crab fishery and environmental nonprofits to reduce entanglements of endangered humpback, fin and blue whales off the Oregon Coast. OSU scientists boarded research vessels and U.S. Coast Guard helicopters for surveys at sea and air to map the distribution of whales and their overlap with Dungeness crab fishing locations.
The scientists found that the risk of entanglement in fishing gear is greatest for whales in April when they gather near shore to feed off the Oregon Coast, and the crab fishing season is still underway. That observation and discussions with stakeholders led to best practices and regulations adopted by ODFW to limit the risk of entanglement by, for example, reducing crab pot limits at the end of the season.
Today, OSU scientists are expanding this work to include the risk of entanglement from other commercial fisheries, including rockfish and sablefish. They’ve also been analyzing scars on humpback whales’ tails and fins to better estimate how many whales are getting wrapped up in nets, lines, pots and buoys. Leigh Torres is an associate professor in the department of fisheries, wildlife and conservation sciences and Oregon Sea Grant Extension at Oregon State University. She joins us to share the latest with this award-winning effort to reduce whale entanglements off the Oregon Coast and beyond.
As Western Oregon faces drier and hotter summers, researchers at Oregon State University Extension are investigating crops that can withstand drought and require less irrigation. Shayan Ghajar is an organic pasture and forages specialist at OSU Extension. He has been researching grasses and legumes that can resist Oregon’s drying climate and still feed people and livestock. Ghajar joins us with details of his research and what it could mean for Oregon farmers.
To say spotted ratfish are unusual is an understatement. Related to sharks, they abound in the inky, dark depths of the Puget Sound. Armed with a venomous fin, they swim gracefully along the sea floor trailing a long, pointed tail half the length of their bodies, with green, glowing eyes hunting for mates or prey to crack open with their beak-like mouths. And if all that wasn’t weird enough, they are now the first animal documented to have teeth growing outside of the jaw, according to new research led by a team of scientists at the University of Washington.
Scientists have known for some time that male spotted ratfish have a club-like, barbed structure between their foreheads they use during mating to grasp females and intimidate reproductive rivals. But they didn’t know if the sharp barbs that ring this structure were actually teeth or denticles, tiny, rough projections that cover sharks’ skin. So they caught hundreds of specimens to study them at various stages of development, from embryos to adulthood and used 3D X-ray imaging to solve this mystery.
Karly Cohen is a post-doctoral researcher at Friday Harbor Labs at the University of Washington and lead author of the recently published paper documenting this research. She joins us to share her findings and how they might expand our understanding of the evolution of teeth, and their purpose, to not only feed but to mate.
For decades, rural Oregon counties that contain large swaths of federally owned forest land have depended on a share of timber revenues from federal logging to fund schools, law enforcement and other essential public services. These payments were originally meant to offset the loss of property tax revenue that counties could not collect on federal lands. But when logging on these lands slowed drastically in the 1990s due to new environmental protections — like the Endangered Species Act — those payments plummeted.
In response, Congress stepped in with a temporary fix: the Secure Rural Schools Program. First passed in 2000, Congress reauthorized it multiple times over the years until it allowed it to expire in 2023. Congress which it enacted in 2000 and reauthorized multiple times until it expired in 2023. The lapse in the SRS reauthorization has triggered the default distribution of the significantly reduced timber revenue to counties.
The federal budget process has introduced new complications as well. President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which was signed into law in July, requires federal agencies to ramp up logging. But it also includes a provision redirecting all proceeds from timber sales on lands in counties to the federal government — threatening one of the last fiscal lifelines for rural governments to fund its core services.
With counties facing budgeting shortfalls that carry big consequences, questions about how to create a long-term sustainable path forward have taken on new urgency. Lane County Commissioner Heather Buch and Klamath County Commissioner Derrick DeGroot — whose counties receive the second- and third-highest federal payments in Oregon after Douglas County — join us, along with Mark Haggerty, a senior fellow at the liberal-leaning thinktank Center for American Progress to talk about the challenges Oregon’s rural counties face and what a stable funding model for these counties might look like.
Curry County Commissioner Jay Trost declined to participate in the conversation but provided OPB with a statement:
Curry County has the second lowest property tax rate in Oregon at .59 per thousand of assessed value and like most Oregon Counties, we have not been able to keep up with the inflation over the past 4 years. We had to endure a 31% reduction in the county budget for the 24/25 fiscal year, we were able to maintain that with no further budget reductions in the 25/26 budget because of timber revenues that came in and covered the annual employee role up costs. These O&C timber funds allowed us to remain fairly status quo in terms of service delivery. Going forward if those funds are not made available to us, we will most likely see more reductions in county services. We are working diligently to think outside the box, identify alternative solutions that will maximize each dollar and become more efficient. These efforts will help and are necessary, however the reality remains the same, if we don’t receive timber revenues, and or PILT (payment in lieu of taxes) payments we will have to make cuts. We remain confident that the federal legislature will correct the language needed to ensure that counties like ours that rely on natural resources revenue will not be negatively impacted.
Last week, a plot of land in North Portland felt a shake, but not one caused by an earthquake, but instead by a machine known as T-Rex. Researchers with Portland State University were simulating a minor quake to test a soil treatment that would fortify the ground from liquefaction. Arash Khosravifar and Diane Moug are both associate professors in Civil and Environmental Engineering at PSU. They both join us to share why their research is important and what they learned from the recent demonstration.
Samaritan Health Services considered closing the birth centers at its hospitals in Lebanon and Lincoln City earlier this year. The move drew pushback from nurses, community members and lawmakers. The health system recently announced it would keep the centers open for at least another year — but not without some changes.
Lesley Ogden is the CEO of both Samaritan’s North Lincoln Hospital in Lincoln City and Pacific Communities Hospital in Newport. She joins us to talk about what it takes to keep maternity services running amid rising health care costs, decreasing revenue and staffing challenges.
The Rowena Fire and Burdoin Fires affected communities along the Oregon and Washington sides of the Columbia River. Many of the structures destroyed were part of the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. The region has legal protections in place to preserve its natural and recreational resources, although the areas typically have some people already living there.
The Columbia River Gorge Commission helps create and enforce policies that preserve this area. Krystyna Wolniakowski is the executive director of the commission. Alex Johnson is a commissioner. They join us with more on what rebuilding looks like in a region with special protections and how the commission is working with property owners and residents on post-fire recovery.
The new school year means that once again some kids are walking or biking through neighborhoods and on busy streets to get to class. Safe Routes to School is a nationwide, federally funded initiative that works to educate and encourage students to bike and walk to school safely. There are Safe Routes to School programs across Oregon, including one serving students in the Salem-Keizer School District.
The Salem-Keizer Safe Routes to School program started five years ago, but because of the pandemic, and the inability to reach students in schools, it didn’t really take off until fall 2022 when Beth Schmidt was hired to lead it. Since then, Schmidt has worked with the district and other partners to teach bus, pedestrian and bike safety, including PE classes that started last year in partnership with Cycle Oregon to help kids learn how to ride bikes and follow the rules of the road.
Next month, the Portland-based nonprofit The Street Trust will be giving Schmidt an award for her efforts to advocate for the successful passage of SB 450, which Gov. Tina Kotek signed into law in June. It designates Nov. 14 as Ruby Bridges Walk to School Day in Oregon to honor Bridges’ courage in helping end school segregation in the U.S. Schmidt joins us to talk about her work in Salem and Keizer to make streets safer for students.
In October, a new community health center and pharmacy will be coming to Wheeler, Oregon. The Nehalem Bay Health Center and Pharmacy will replace an aging clinic that provided services to the region since the early 1980s. The new 16,000 square feet facility will double the capacity of the old clinic and will now provide some new services, such as dental care and x-rays. Marc Johnson is the president of Nehalem Bay Health District. Gail Nelson is the CEO of the new center. They join us to share more on what this new facility will mean for the community.
”Magic mushroom” edibles sold at smoke shops and other retailers might be missing psilocybin but can contain undisclosed ingredients, according to a joint study published Thursday.
Oregon State University researchers collaborated on the analysis with Rose City Laboratories, a state-certified testing lab in Portland, and the manufacturer Shimadzu Scientific Instruments.
The edibles, including gummies and chocolates, contained caffeine and synthetic psychedelics. Richard van Breemen worked on the research and is a professor of pharmaceutical sciences at OSU.
“Syndelics represent a rapidly growing area of drug design, where medicinal chemists create novel compounds inspired by known psychedelic agents like psilocybin and LSD,” van Breemen said in a press release. He joins us with details of the study.
Fifteen years after the arrest of Mohamed Mohamud, Portland writer Jamila Osman reflects on the aftermath of that time on the local Somali community in a new essay in Oregon Humanities. Osman grew up in the same tight knit community as the young man who would go on to press a button that he thought would blow up the Christmas tree at Pioneer Square. She joins us to discuss the essay.
Two Oregon restaurants appear on The New York Times’ annual list of the 50 best restaurants in the country. Yardy Rum Bar is a Caribbean restaurant in Eugene “celebrating the food and drinking culture of the West Indies using seasonal ingredients from the Northwest.” The Paper Bridge is a Northern Vietnamese restaurant in Portland specializing in house-made rice noodles and chili sauces.
Isaiah Martinez is the chef and co-owner of Yardy Rum Bar. Quynh Nguyen and Carlo Reinardy are the co-chefs and co-owners of The Paper Bridge. They all join us to talk about their respective cuisines and what being included on the list means to them.
On Wednesday, the Oregon Department of Forestry announced that the emerald ash borer has now been found in the Hazelwood neighborhood in East Portland and five other new sites in the north Willamette Valley. In addition to Portland, the highly invasive and destructive beetle has now been found near other urban areas in the region, including Beaverton, Banks and Oregon City. The Oregon Department of Agriculture said that the discovery of EAB in Portland has now put all of Multnomah County into the EAB quarantine zone, which also includes Washington, Yamhill, Marion and Clackamas counties.
Native to Asia, EAB was first detected in Oregon in 2022 at an elementary school in Forest Grove. Considered to be the most destructive forest pest in North America, EAB has killed over 100 million ash trees nationwide since its arrival in the U.S. more than 20 years ago.
Joining us to discuss the spread of EAB and how the public can help efforts to contain it are Cody Holthouse, manager of ODA’s Insect Pest Prevention and Management Program and City of Portland Forester Jenn Cairo.
Portland’s Time Based Art Festival brings performers from all over the world for 10 days of performances, exhibitions, music and movement. This year the Portland-based musician Erika M. Anderson, who has performed internationally under the name EMA, will present a piece of music, video and storytelling that she hopes will be like nothing audiences have seen before. We talk to Anderson about the piece and about the arc of her career from fronting punk bands in Montana to touring giant stadiums to returning to experimental noise.
Upward Bound is a faith-based camp that opened in 1978 for pre-teens and adults with disabilities to experience traditional camp activities, from making s’mores around a campfire to hiking, fishing or playing outdoor games. In 2014, the camp bought an 18-acre property in Gates in Linn County that included an elementary school, a gymnasium and high school building. Classrooms were converted into bunks for campers to stay in, along with other modifications made to allow for year-round programming and activities.
Although the camp was able to successfully pivot when the pandemic broke out with individual tents for campers to stay in and other precautions taken, tragedy struck on Labor Day in 2020. As the Beachie Creek fire tore through the Santiam Canyon, Upward Bound executive director Diane Turnbull and her staff evacuated the camp. When Turnbull returned two weeks later, many of the structures had burned, including the elementary school where campers stayed.
Turnbull, with the support of Upward Bound’s board, decided to keep the camp going, with outdoor bell tents that counselors and campers now stay in. The camp recently ended its summer session and has since expanded its programming to include activities like archery, theater and music performances. Turnbull joins us to talk about the camp’s recovery efforts, including working with FEMA to rebuild structures lost in the fire that would allow the camp to expand access to people who are visually impaired or require other physical accommodations. Also joining us is Misael Pujols, a camp counselor from the Dominican Republic who recently completed his third summer working at Upward Bound.
Tribal health clinics often provide healthcare to tribal members and non-tribal members in their area. The providers can also be the only accessible healthcare option for people in rural communities. The Ko-Kwel Wellness Centers serve Coos Bay and Eugene. The clinics are grappling with looming changes to Medicaid and gaps in funding. Lyric Aquino, an indigenous affairs reporter and Report for America corps member, has covered this issue for Underscore Native News. She joins us with details.
Scott Kalama is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. He works as a certified prevention specialist at the Warm Springs Indian Reservation to mentor youth and raise awareness about the risks associated with drug and alcohol use. Growing up on the reservation, his older brother handed down CDs and mixtapes of Tupac and other hip hop artists which sparked Kalama’s own musical calling and journey. Performing under the name “Blue Flamez,” he raps about life on the reservation, celebrates pride in being Native American and the teachings he learned from tribal elders, while acknowledging how violence and substance use have scarred his family and community. We spoke to Kalama in 2024 when he was awarded $150,000 for winning a 2024-2026 Fields Artist Fellowship from Oregon Humanities and Oregon Communities Foundation. He joined us in the studio for a performance and to share how he plans to use this fellowship to reach a wider audience.
Day use fees for some state parks went from $5 to $10 dollars at the beginning of the year, and the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department will be applying those same fees in locations where there were none previously. According to the department website, the agency manages 259 properties, which include camping at 52 parks as well as the entire ocean shore along 362 miles of the Oregon coast. The parks and recreation department is also raising camping and other fees to close its budget gap, which it says stems from rising costs and decreased contributions from the Oregon Lottery. State parks receive no operating money from Oregon’s general fund.
We’re joined by Oregon Parks and Recreation Department Director Lisa Sumption to tell us more about how the agency balances access to facilities in the state’s parks and shoreline with maintaining those public resources as costs continue to rise.
The cities of Gresham, Troutdale, Fairview and Wood Village are rethinking what fire service might look like in East Multnomah County. For decades, Gresham’s fire department has contracted with the other cities to provide service. But the cities have grown, and funds for firefighters have not kept up. Now, the cities are considering a new option: a fire district. Instead of Gresham having primary control of services, the municipalities would work together to offer fire support for the area. Holly Bartholomew is an OPB reporter covering Portland’s suburban communities as a Report for America Corps member. She joins us with more on how the cities plan to move forward.
Stella-Jones, a Canadian wood products company, recently pleaded guilty to exceeding legal limits of pentachlorophenol in water discharged from its plant near Sheridan, Oregon. The chemical is used to protect wood from insects and fungi and poses a number of health concerns, including an increased risk of cancer.
According to a recent investigation from the journalism nonprofit InvestigateWest, regulators have known about Stella-Jones’s history of pollution for years. On Sep. 8, after InvestigateWest reported on this issue, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality issued a $1 million civil penalty against Stella-Jones for “numerous violations of environmental regulations” at their wood treating facility.
Kaylee Tornay is a reporter for InvestigateWest. Aspen Ford is a reporter and the Roy W. Howard Fellow at the outlet. They join us with more details on their reporting. Ruth Hyde, Western Region Administrator at the DEQ, also joins us to explain the agency’s response to Stella-Jones’s release of contaminated stormwater into the South Yamhill River.
Since 1994, the Washington Department of Transportation has operated a roadside memorial program that allows for the creation and installation of signs along state highways in honor of victims of fatal collisions. Washington was the first state in the nation to start a roadside memorial program, and there are now more than 1,000 signs posted along state highways bearing a message such as “Reckless Driving Costs Lives” or “Please Don’t Drink and Drive” above the name of a crash victim. Nearly 70% of the roughly 500 signs installed in the first 15 years of the program are still standing.
The Columbian recently reported on WSDOT’s current efforts to collect public feedback about the future of its roadside memorial program and possible changes to it, such as limiting how long the signs can be up for and how often they can be renewed by family members. Kelly Moyer, a staff reporter at The Columbian, joins us for more details, including concerns that family members who had paid for memorial signs shared with her.
We also hear from Sarah Risser, the treasurer and board member of the Portland chapter of the national nonprofit Families for Safe Streets. In 2019, while Risser was driving with her 18 year-old son in Wisconsin, a motorist crashed into the vehicle, killing her son and leaving her injured. Last year, Risser placed a sign honoring victims at every fatal crash site in Portland, and she has also created bike memorials at the request of families of cyclists killed on Portland roads.
Since it broke out two weeks ago, the Flat Fire burning two miles northeast of Sisters has burned more than 23,000 acres. The wildfire destroyed five homes, threatened hundreds of others and prompted evacuation orders that have since been lifted or reduced in Jefferson and Deschutes Counties.
Although the fire isn’t yet fully contained, the focus in the Sisters community has shifted to recovery. Those efforts are being coordinated by Citizens4Community, a nonprofit that aims to build community in Sisters by convening opportunities for civic engagement, collaboration and social connection among residents, including helping them become more fire-wise. This past spring, the nonprofit organized community forums to educate residents about fire insurance and wildfire preparedness. The nonprofit has recently created a list of resources for how to help fire victims, emergency responders, local businesses and other nonprofits impacted by the Flat Fire. It also helped another Central Oregon nonprofit, NeighborImpact, set up a Flat Fire relief fund and reached out to other nonprofits to learn from their experiences leading long-term recovery needs for communities devastated by wildfires.
Citizens4Community Executive Director Kellen Klein joins us to share more details about community building in Sisters and its recovery needs.
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson made ending unsheltered homelessness central to his policy agenda. He’s leaned into one kind of shelter to do that, overnight-only shelters. And he’s successfully opened five of these this year, as part of his plan to provide an additional 1,500 beds by Dec. 1. Last month, the mayor announced plans to open what will eventually be four centers where homeless Portlanders can access services during the day. But Multnomah County estimates the number of people who are unsheltered in the county - most of them in Portland - to be more than 7,500. Mayor Wilson is also facing skepticism and concerns among homeless service providers, neighborhood associations and Portland city councilors about his plan to end unsheltered homelessness as his December deadline approaches.
This week, the mayor sent out a plea to an email list of approximately 17,000 people, urging them to donate to or volunteer their time at one of the city’s shelters - and seemed to warn that the Trump administration might choose to send in National Guard Troops as it did in Washington D.C. if Portland did not “address the humanitarian crisis on our streets.”
Reporter Lillian Mongeau Hughes covers homelessness and mental health for The Oregonian/OregonLive. She joins us to share more about the recent opening of another overnight-only shelter despite opposition from a Pearl District neighborhood association, and the progress the city has made toward the goal of ending unsheltered homelessness.
he Trump administration has created a lot of uncertainty as state lawmakers crafted a budget this year. In the latest economic forecast, Oregon went from a nearly $500 million cushion over the next two years to a roughly projected $373 million deficit. Carl Riccadonna is the state’s economist. Democratic Senator Kate Lieber represents Beaverton and Southwest Portland and is a co-chair of the Legislature’s Joint Ways and Means Committee. They join us with more on Oregon’s economic future.
Tory Johnston is an enrolled member of the Quinault Indian Nation and a lecturer in American Indian Studies at the University of Washington. He grew up in the Quinault Indian reservation on the Washington coast with a love for music, whether it was the loud guitar riffs of Metallica or the jazz improvisation of Thelonious Monk. In 2023, with no prior experience as a radio DJ, he applied to work on a new show Seattle radio station KEXP was launching that appealed to his academic and personal explorations of Indigenous music. He got the job and is today the co-host and DJ of “Sounds of Survivance.” Airing on Mondays, each episode exposes listeners to artists spanning musical continents and styles, from classical piano compositions by Navajo musician Connor Chee to thrash metal songs performed by New Zealand band Alien Weaponry in English and Te reo Māori. Johnston spoke with us in January 2025 about the show’s eclectic catalog and to share some highlights from his music playlist.
Last year, Oregon ended its three-year experiment with drug decriminalization known as Measure 110. This came when Oregon lawmakers passed House Bill 4002 to implement new criminal penalties for drug possession and fund efforts at the county level to deflect drug users away from the criminal justice system and into treatment as a way to avoid charges. Those deflection programs look different in every county across the state. It has now been a year since that program began in Washington County. District Attorney Kevin Barton joins us, along with John Karp-Evans, the deputy director of the Peer Company, to talk about Washington County’s legal and behavioral health responses to drug use.
Class is now back in session for students across Oregon. Schools are navigating a new statewide ban on cellphones in the classroom, as well as the growing use of artificial intelligence among both students and educators. Meanwhile, aggressive federal immigration enforcement tactics have raised fears in some communities that schools could become hotspots for arrests.
Natalie Pate covers K-12 education for OPB. She joins us to talk about these issues and more.
This summer, the Oregon Arts Commission is marking the 50th anniversary of the Percent for Art program, which has helped 900 artists create 3,000 pieces of public art. The 1975 law requires that one percent of the cost of new and renovated buildings go toward a piece of art that’s accessible to the public. The arts commission and Travel Oregon launched a “50 for 50” program in August, highlighting 50 pieces in the collection that span across the state and encourages people to get out to see them. We talk with the Oregon Arts Commission Public Art and Artist Programs Coordinator Ryan Burghard about the campaign, along with artist Christine Clark. She is one of the 900 artists included in the collection. Her piece, “Gathering Panes and Shapes,” is installed at the Eastern Oregon University library in La Grande.
A recently published study from the University of Oregon found that the fear of deportation declines with age among immigrants without protected status. The research is based on interviews with Mexican immigrants over the age of 50 in the California communities of Oakland, Fremont and Berkeley. The interviews were mostly conducted in 2019 and some in 2022, before the second Trump presidency.
The study found several factors that affected the fear of deportation. For example, older undocumented immigrants tend to have children who are now adults, and so family separation was less of a concern than for an immigrant with minor children. The study also found that “life course mechanisms,” such as leaving the workforce because of retirement, and the older immigrants’ own perception that their age made them less visible targets, also shaped their fear of deportation.
Joining us to discuss the implications of these findings is the study’s author, Isabel García Valdivia, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Oregon.
Last Friday, Oregon lawmakers convened in Salem for a special legislative session called by Gov. Tina Kotek to pass a transportation funding bill. The special session will now likely not end until later this month to allow Democrats to muster the necessary votes to pass the bill in the Oregon Senate. On Monday, the House passed a bill that would raise gas taxes by 6 cents per gallon, hike vehicle registration and titling fees, raise costs for drivers of EVs, and temporarily double a payroll tax that funds public transit. The bill contains many elements of one introduced earlier this year by Sen. Chris Gorsek, D-Gresham, who is currently recovering from surgery and is seen as a critical vote for the passage of the new transportation funding bill to avert mass layoffs at the Oregon Department of Transportation and cuts in the agency’s services. That earlier bill failed during the regularly scheduled legislative session which ended in June.
OPB political reporter Dirk VanderHart joins us for the latest developments about the special legislative session and the political rifts that have emerged as it nears conclusion.
Three years ago, Paul Susi launched PDX ID Assistance, a free service to help people replace lost forms of identification, such as a driver’s license or birth certificate. In a recent magazine essay he wrote for Oregon Humanities, Susi says he was motivated to start PDX ID Assistance after working for years as a manager of homeless shelters in Portland where he saw firsthand the frustration clients experienced trying to obtain housing, employment health care or other services without identification documents.
PDX ID Assistance operates as a kind of free drop-in clinic Susi holds several times a month at locations that are familiar to people experiencing homelessness, like a library or homeless services provider. Susi shows up with a stack of application forms to request a birth certificate in all 50 states, envelopes and stamps for mailing off the forms and checks he fills out to each person seeking his help to cover the cost of replacing an identification document.
Susi joins us to share his experiences with PDX ID Assistance and how it’s taken on new significance in the current political climate.
The No Vacancy Window Gallery is a self-guided art tour through Portland’s Old Town-Chinatown neighborhood. It launches on September 4 and runs through November 30. The gallery aims to create accessible art in the area by turning boarded-up buildings into exhibition venues. We hear more from curator Lauren Lesueur about the exhibition.
Vaux’s swifts are small, migratory birds that travel from their breeding grounds in the Pacific Northwest to Central and South American each fall, roosting in chimneys and hollowed-out trees along the way. For a few weeks in September, huge flocks of the birds have spiraled into the chimney of Chapman Elementary in Northwest Portland. The nightly display has entertained crowds for decades, but as of last year, the birds appear to have abandoned the chimney.
Joe Liebezeit is the statewide conservation director for the Bird Alliance of Oregon. He joins us to talk about why the birds might be moving and what to expect from the swifts this year.
In Washington, the Flannery decision has caused confusion over when people accused of domestic violence need to surrender their firearms. More recently, another court decision has provided more clarity over the issue. We dig into this story with Kelsey Turner, an investigative reporter with InvestigateWest.
The 160th annual Oregon State Fair in Salem wraps up on Labor Day. The 10-day event features live music, monster trucks, carnival rides and competitions that showcase excellence in Oregon art, livestock, agriculture and more. From the tallest sunflower grown to blue ribbons awarded for beef and dairy cattle, the fair is also an opportunity to honor the hard work of future farmers, ranchers or hobbyists who’ve waited months to compete and show off their skills.
We visited the fair on opening day to talk with folks about what brought them there, whether it was livestock to judge, veggies to show off, deep-fried Oreos to sell or childhood memories to rekindle.
When the Holiday Farm Fire roared through the McKenzie River corridor five years ago, it destroyed at least 500 homes and most of the community of Blue River. In the aftermath, many former home owners sold their property rather than rebuilding. Property values went up, and housing - especially affordable or mid-range housing - became very hard to find. In response, some community members founded the nonprofit McKenzie Community Land Trust. One of the only rural land trusts for housing in the country, the trust is nearing completion on six new homes for residents who make below 80% of area median income for Lane County. Tabitha Eck, executive director of the McKenzie Community Land Trust, joins us to explain the model.
Erica Alexia Ledesma was born in Medford and grew up in nearby Talent and Phoenix. After graduating from the University of Oregon, she moved back to Southern Oregon and, as she put it, “immediately got to community organizing.” She was among the community members who gathered for a strategy and solutions brainstorming meeting a month after the 2020 Almeda Fire destroyed thousands of homes, displacing many who had lived in historically low-income, Latinx and Indigenous neighborhoods. People were frustrated with the lack of responses from landlords and government officials. One elder stood up and asked, “Why don’t we just buy our neighborhoods back?”
Ledesma says she co-founded Coalición Fortaleza out of that question. It was a long process involving many more community meetings and a partnership with real estate developer CASA of Oregon. But five years later, Jackson county’s first resident-owned mobile home park is thriving. Formerly called Talent Mobile Estates, the residents have decided to rename it Talent Community Cooperative. With larger individual spaces and improved shared facilities, the park is nearing its 84 unit capacity. We talk with Ledesma about the new park and the other community empowerment work the nonprofit is engaged in.
Five years ago, the Labor Day Fires killed 11 people and destroyed more than 4,000 homes, becoming the deadliest and destructive wildfire season in the state’s history. Since then, the city of Phoenix has focused on rebuilding, including housing, rebuilding Blue Heron Park and building a new food truck lot known as the Phoodery. Eric Swanson is the city manager of Phoenix. He joins us to share more on what rebuilding has looked like.
The Flat Fire, which is burning two miles northeast of Sisters in Central Oregon, has grown to more than 23,000 acres and is 13% contained, as of Friday morning. The fire broke out last week, grew rapidly and prompted Level 1, 2 and 3 evacuation orders in Deschutes and Jefferson counties. On Thursday, Level 3 orders were downgraded to Level 2 in both counties. According to an update posted Thursday morning, five homes have been destroyed by the fire, the cause of which is still under investigation.
Jim Cornelius, editor-in-chief of The Nugget Newspaper in Sisters, says that while the community is no stranger to wildfires, efforts have expanded in recent years to make it more fire-wise and resilient to wildfires. The city is considering updates to its development code for new construction and in the spring, a local nonprofit, Citizens4Community, organized community forums to educate residents about fire insurance and wildfire preparedness, from assembling a go bag to requesting a free wildfire home assessment.
Cornelius joins us for an update about the Flat Fire, its impact on Sisters and how the catastrophic Labor Day Fires of 2020 shaped the community’s fire-readiness.
President Donald Trump declared an indefinite pause on new refugee admissions to the U.S. on his first day in office in January. Shortly after, he froze federal funding for resettlement agencies that provide services to refugees in the U.S. The decisions are part of a broader crackdown on immigration that’s led to arrests and deportations across the country.
The Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization, or IRCO, provides education, health, employment and other support services to refugee and immigrant communities in Oregon. Executive Director Lee Po Cha joins us to talk about what it’s like to do that work in the current political climate.
Scrabble is more than just a family pastime for Portland resident Nigel Peltier. For him, it’s been a decades-long pursuit. Peltier first entered the tournament scene as a teenager, quickly rising through the ranks to become one of the top-rated players in North America.
This summer, he won his first North American Scrabble Players Association National Championship, dominating the final match with six “bingos,” or seven-letter words played in a single turn. He joins us to share what it takes to compete at the highest level and why the game still excites him after all these years.
According to the violent crime survey by the Major Cities Chiefs Association, there were 17 homicides in Portland in the first half of 2025 compared to 35 for the same period last year. That 51% decline is the largest drop in homicides among the 68 city and county police agencies represented in the survey. Aggravated assaults, rapes and robberies have also declined in Portland and nationwide, according to the survey.
Gun violence, however, continues to be a problem, with three firearm-related homicides recorded in Portland just last month. Ceasefire is one of the initiatives the city is pursuing to break the cycle of gun violence. Launched in 2023, it’s based on a national model that identifies individuals at high risk for gun violence and provides them with supportive services and intensive case management within their communities. Ceasefire director Sierra Ellis and Lt. Israel Hill, who supervises the Portland Police Bureau’s Focused Intervention Team and Enhanced Community Safety Team, join us to talk about Ceasefire and other strategies the city is pursuing to curb violent crimes.
The Food and Drug Administration approved the sale of over-the-counter birth control pills two years ago. The decision has dramatically increased access to contraception, according to a new study from Oregon Health & Science University.
Researchers found that more than a quarter of participants who were using the over-the-counter pill had switched from using no birth control at all. They also found that members of the over-the-counter group were more likely to be uninsured and live in rural areas than participants who used prescription birth control.
Maria Rodriguez is the director of both the Center for Reproductive Health Equity and the Center for Women’s Health at OHSU. She joins us with more on the importance of removing barriers to reproductive health care.
Over the past few decades, Portland has built one of the most extensive green stormwater infrastructure systems in the country. Instead of relying only on pipes and drains, it has created thousands of rain gardens and green streets to help keep sewage out of the Willamette River. Much of that work has not only involved city engineers but also local community members — from volunteers who ‘adopt’ and maintain storm drains to nonprofits that rip out pavement and replace it with trees and plants.
A new study in the journal Sustainability looks back at the first 30 years of Portland’s green stormwater infrastructure, but questions remain about whether the city is keeping up with climate change and rapid growth. Our guests are study co-author Adrienne Aiona, a civil engineer at the city's Bureau of Environmental Services and Ted Labbe, finance and partnerships manager of the nonprofit Depave. They join us to talk about the city’s work and the role of local stewardship in keeping Portland’s green stormwater system alive and well.
The availability of child care for children ages 3 to 5 in Oregon is steadily increasing, according to a new report from Oregon State University. In 2018, three-quarters of the state’s counties were considered preschool child care deserts, but as of last year, that number dropped to just nine. However, all but two counties are still considered child care deserts for children ages 0 to 2.
Megan Pratt is an associate professor of practice at OSU and the report’s lead author. Alyssa Chatterjee is the director of the Oregon Department of Early Learning and Care. They both join us with more details on what the state’s child care landscape looks like today.
Eight years ago, the military in Myanmar launched a weekslong campaign of genocide against the Rohingya, a persecuted Muslim ethnic minority. Investigators from the United Nations documented the scale of the “extreme violence” they found: the killing of thousands of civilians; mass rapes of “hundreds, possibly thousands” of women and girls; nearly 400 villages burned to the ground. More than 700,000 Rohingya fled to neighboring Bangladesh where they live in squalid conditions in the world’s largest refugee camp.
Nurul Haque was born and raised in that refugee camp. About a decade ago, he started the Bangladesh Rohingya Student Union, an organization that helps expand educational and leadership opportunities for youth in the camp and advocates to stop child labor and human trafficking by criminal gangs. After being kidnapped, beaten and threatened with death by armed gang members, Haque successfully applied for refugee status in the U.S. for himself, his wife and young son. In December 2023, he and his family arrived in Portland, which he chose for resettlement because a relative lived there.
Haque joins us to share what his life is like today and his continued advocacy for Rohingya communities here and abroad.
Nearly five years ago, a combination of dry conditions and heavy winds starting on Labor Day quickly accelerated the spread of multiple wildfires that had broken out in Oregon’s Western Cascades. Eleven people died in the Labor Day fires, which burned more than 1 million acres and destroyed more than 4,000 homes, from Clackamas county to the California border.
As the fifth anniversary of the deadliest fires in the state’s history approaches, we hear from two survivors who lived in southern Oregon at the time. We first spoke with retiree Sue McMillan less than two weeks after she evacuated her home in Phoenix with her pets ad a few belongings to flee the Almeda fire, which broke out near Ashland on Sep. 8, 2020. The fire burned her home and her possessions and prompted McMillan to leave Oregon in March 2021. Today, she lives in Santa Rosa in northern California to be close to her family, although she says she misses Oregon.
Misty Rose Muñoz was returning from an appointment in Ashland when the Almeda fire broke out. As the highway swelled with motorists, Muñoz was unable to return to her home in a mobile home park near Phoenix. She still managed to alert her neighbors and her daughter to evacuate. Even though Muñoz’s home didn’t burn down, the flames, smoke and ash caused irreparable damage and left it uninhabitable. After leaving the Rogue Valley in Sep. 2023, Muñoz moved to Portland where she eventually found work as a school bus driver. After years of housing instability, in March, she bought a home in Ashland through a grant she received from a federally funded, state administered program that helps wildfire victims repair or replace their homes.
McMillan and Muñoz join us to share their memories about surviving the Almeda fire, what they lost and their years-long journeys of recovery.
Nearly five years ago, a combination of dry conditions and heavy winds starting on Labor Day quickly accelerated the spread of multiple wildfires that had broken out in Oregon’s Western Cascades. Eleven people died in the Labor Day fires, which burned more than 1 million acres and destroyed more than 4,000 homes, from Clackamas county to the California border.
As the fifth anniversary of the deadliest wildfires in the state’s history approaches, we hear from survivors about their evacuations and efforts to rebuild their lives. They include Debra Bowman and Russ Boyd, residents of Detroit, a city southeast of Salem in eastern Marion County that is still struggling to rebuild after the fires.
Bowman is a retiree who evacuated the Beachie Creek and Lionshead fires in the early morning hours of Sep. 8, 2020, with her husband and pet dog. Boyd also fled then, driving out of town with his wife and other relatives. Today, he is the co-owner of a mini-mart and bar in Detroit, while his wife and mother-in-law own a hamburger food cart on the same lot. Bowman and Boyd join us to share their memories about the evacuation, returning to Detroit and how they’re doing today.
After hours of public briefings, discussions and a public listening session, Multnomah County Commissioners decided last week to pause a controversial move to change Preschool for All’s funding stream. Commissioners were meant to vote this week on an ordinance that would have adjusted the program’s income tax threshold based on inflation, something the governor asked them to do. Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson joins us to discuss the current state of the county’s ambitious plan to achieve universal preschool, and gives us an update on drug treatment and deflection a year after the state ended its drug decriminalization experiment.
As a part of President Trump's takeover of policing in the nation's capital, he has pledged to remove homeless people and encampments from the city. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said homeless people who don’t leave the city will face punishment in the form of fines and jail time. Cities across the country are struggling with how to regulate homeless camping, including in the Pacific Northwest. We take this moment to listen back to several conversations we had with people living on the streets of Portland and Vancouver about how they think homelessness should be regulated.
Back in 2022, then Portland mayor Ted Wheeler pledged to create several huge sanctioned homeless camps at the edges of the city and threatened to send people who wouldn’t go to those camps to jail. OPB’s “Think Out Loud” spent a day on the streets of Portland asking people how they felt about the plan.
Earlier this winter, OPB’s “Think Out Loud” spent a morning with staff and volunteers of the Council for Homeless as they participated in the Point-in-Time count in Vancouver, Washington. The Point-in-Time count is a federally required snapshot of how many people are experiencing homelessness in a given area.
On June 30, 2021, former Oregon Gov. Kate Brown held a Reopening Oregon Celebration at Providence Park in Portland. Years later, Oregon schools and businesses are fully open, many workplaces have returned to in-office work and people regularly gather together inside. Patrick Allen is the former director of the Oregon Health Authority. He ran the agency during the height of the pandemic and joins us with details of what he learned working through a once-in-a-century crisis.
The number of cannabis-related reports to poison control centers across the U.S. has risen greatly since 2009, according to new reporting from the New York Times. They also found a rise in cases where cannabis poisoning led to breathing problems and even life-threatening effects, especially among teens and adults. Rob Hendrickson is the medical director of the Oregon Poison Center at OHSU. He joins us to share what he’s seen in the emergency room in recent years.
Earlier this week, President Trump said he’s working on an executive order to end mail-in ballots and voting machines across the country. The administration cites corruption as the leading cause for action despite there being no evidence of widespread voter fraud from voting by mail. Oregon’s Secretary of State Tobias Read joins us to share his response and efforts to protect Oregon’s vote-by-mail system for elections.
Wildfire crews do important work managing wildfires, but that work is often done without masks. A recent New York Times investigation found many wildfire fighters are getting cancer, cardiovascular diseases and have died because of the toxic smoke they inhaled while on the job. Researchers at the U.S. The Forest Service have recommended wildfire crews be required to wear masks for decades, but the agency has refused. Hannah Dreier is an investigative reporter for the times and joins us to share the details on why the agency won’t allow wildfire crews to wear masks and what she heard from people first hand.
Oregon recently launched a recycling program that aims to hold businesses accountable for the packaging waste they create. The Plastic Pollution and Recycling Modernization Act (RMA) charges producers of paper, packaging and food serviceware for the products they distribute in Oregon. The goal is to fund recycling services in small communities through the fees that businesses pay into the program.
The RMA was the first law of its kind to pass in 2021 and was followed by similar legislation in California, Colorado and a handful of other states. It’s currently facing a lawsuit from a trade group that claims the law is illegal and unfairly impacts its members.
Nicole Portley is a program plan lead for the RMA at the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. She joins us with more details on how the new program is working.
Phil and Penny Knight have pledged $2 billion to Oregon Health & Science University for cancer research. The Knight Cancer Institute will become self-governed within OHSU and will have its own board of directors. In December, renowned cancer researcher Brian Druker announced his resignation as the institute’s CEO but said last week he will return as the inaugural president of the organization. He joins us with details about what this means for cancer care in Oregon.
CareOregon, the largest Medicaid provider in the state, will soon stop covering mental health and substance use treatment from out-of-network providers. Coverage will end on Oct. 1 for Medicaid members and on Jan. 1 for members of Medicare Advantage. The decision will disrupt care for an estimated 15,000 patients, or about 15% of the organization’s members who use behavioral health services. The organization says the changes will bring it back into alignment with industry best practices after making provisions to expand access to mental health care during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Amit Shah is the chief medical officer at CareOregon. He joins us with more details about the decision.
The tsunami warning that hit the Oregon coast earlier this month triggered more than just alarms — it revealed deeper cracks in the state’s emergency response system. For two state representatives who are helping lead efforts to modernize how Oregon prepares for natural disasters, the incident underscored the gaps in Oregon’s disaster readiness, from outdated emergency notification systems to underfunded infrastructure and training.
Rep. Paul Evans (D-Monmouth) has a $300 million proposal to modernize Oregon’s disaster preparedness, aiming to improve communication systems, strengthen infrastructure, and expand local readiness efforts over the next decade. He and Rep. David Gomberg (D-Lincoln, West Benton, Lane) join us to discuss where Oregon has made progress, where significant vulnerabilities remain, and how new investments could help the state better prepare for the next major crisis — whether it’s a tsunami, wildfire, or another emergency all together.
The Oregon Secretary of State’s office is investigating the Umpqua Public Transportation District in Douglas County over its response to the May election. The district’s CEO is refusing to accept the results of one of the races for a board seat and refusing to pay for the district’s share of running the election. The first meeting of the new board ended abruptly after an argument between board members and the CEO.
Nigel Jaquiss has been covering this issue for the Oregon Journalism Project. He joins us with more details.
From small fishing boats littered across state ports to a massive 384-foot ship rusting in the Columbia River, Oregon’s waterways continue to be dotted with abandoned and derelict vessels. Now, a first-of-its-kind partnership between the BoatUS Foundation and NOAA is bringing fresh funding to tackle the problem. The effort aims to remove more than 300 abandoned and derelict vessels from local waters across six states — with Oregon set to clear dozens of its highest-risk boats over the next two years.
Josh Mulhollem, who manages the state’s Waterways Stewardship Program, joins us to discuss how the funding will be utilized and how this effort could make a difference for Oregon’s coastal and river communities.
For decades, scientists have been trying to develop a male contraceptive similar to the birth control pill that can be taken orally and is reversible, with minimal side effects. An oral male contraceptive could also be a more effective alternative to using a condom or undergoing surgery for a vasectomy, while helping to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies which account for nearly half of all pregnancies worldwide.
Wei Yan is a professor and director of the Center for Reproductive Biology and the School of Molecular Biosciences at Washington State University who has spent two decades in the quest to develop a male contraceptive pill. His current investigation involves a compound derived from an herb used in traditional Chinese medicine that is showing encouraging lab results. In a commentary he recently wrote for an academic journal, he argues that the development of a new male contraceptive needs to be reframed as a “women’s health priority” that would allow reproductive responsibility to be more equitably shared.
Yan joins us to share his perspective, the status of his own research efforts and the funding landscape to advance this work.
Around one in 10 youth enrolled in Medicaid spent days stuck in the emergency room after being admitted for a mental health crisis. That’s according to a new study from Oregon Health and Science University. John McConnell is a professor in emergency medicine and the director of the center for health systems at OHSU. Rebecca Marshall is a professor in child and adult psychiatry with OHSU. She is also a practicing psychiatrist at Doernbecher Children's Hospital and Doernbecher emergency department. They both join us to share more on the study and what it means for the kids waiting to be admitted.
The biggest impact of the $15 billion in federal cuts faced by the state of Oregon will fall on food assistance and medicaid. But these cuts will also affect the State Library of Oregon, who could lose 25% of its budget. The state library is responsible for providing accessible reading materials for people with disabilities and helping provide guidance and support for local, academic and public school libraries. Wendy Cornelisen is the state librarian. She joins us to share more on what federal cuts to the department would mean for Oregonians.
“Them,” written by Palestinian playwright Samah Sabawi, focuses on a young couple in a war zone as they debate whether to stay or leave. It captures the wrenching choices people are forced to make in wartime, as well as the humorous, joyful and mundane moments of everyday life that persist despite the violence. A production of the play will run through Aug. 23 at Portland Center Stage’s Ellyn Bye Studio.
Malek Najjar, professor of theater arts at the University of Oregon, received special permission from Sabawi to stage “Them” in Eugene and Portland. He joins us with more details about the play and its relevance today.
A new study by researchers at the University of Washington shows support for an integrated model of health care that could be especially effective in improving access to care for people experiencing homelessness and their pets. One Health Clinic opened in 2018 in Seattle as part of UW’s Center for One Health Research. The center, which was created in collaboration with Washington State University, explores the connections between the health of humans and animals within their shared environments.
The One Health Clinic aims to remove barriers to medical and veterinary care for youth and young adults experiencing homelessness and their pets by providing that care and other services under one roof. The study found that from 2019 to 2022, 80% of all clients who visited the clinic for their pets’ veterinary care also received care for themselves, and nearly half of the clients established care for themselves for the first time in at least two years.
Natalie Rejto is the lead author of the study, a patient navigator at One Health Clinic and a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for One Health Research. Vickie Ramirez is a co-author of the study and program manager at COHR. They join us to share their findings and thoughts on expanding the clinic’s model to improve health outcomes for both people and their pets.
Under the Death in Custody Reporting Act, states who receive certain federal funds are required to report any death of someone who is detained, under arrest, in custody or incarcerated to the attorney general. The data is available to the public, but new reporting from The Marshall Project shows that this data is plagued with inaccuracies. Anna Flagg is a data reporter and helped cover this story. She joins us to share more on what is wrong with the data and some of the inaccuracies the publication found.
Oregon just launched a new program that aims to hold businesses accountable for the packaging waste they create. The Plastic Pollution and Recycling Modernization Act charges businesses that produce or distribute paper, packaging and food serviceware based on the weight and sustainability of their materials.
The act applies to companies that generate $5 million or more in revenue. The goal is to fund recycling services in small communities through the fees that businesses pay into the program. But the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors says the act is illegal and unfairly impacts its members.
Karen Harned is the organization’s director of litigation and legal policy. She joins us with more details about the NAW’s lawsuit against the state.
A new study from Portland State University completes a three-year project looking at the impacts of several drug policy shifts - including Measure 110 - which decriminalized drug possession in Oregon. Among other things, this final study concluded that decriminalization had little to do with rising crime and overdose deaths. Instead, the study found that the COVID-19 pandemic and the widespread emergence of fentanyl were the primary drivers behind a surge in drug-related deaths. Brian Renauer, a professor in the Criminology & Criminal Justice Department at PSU, joins us to explain.
The Pacific Northwest is known for its towering trees. Douglas-firs rank as the second highest tree species in the world and can reach heights of over 300 feet, about as tall as the Statue of Liberty. Whether chasing a bird or escaping predators like coyotes, some terrified cats get stuck high up in trees. In Oregon and Washington, arborists aid cats crying for help. The nonprofit Canopy Cat Rescue helps cats throughout Washington. The Oregon Humane Society offers a list of arborists who can safely remove cats from trees. Rick Bunch frequently helps felines in Portland and beyond. Bunch, and Tom Otto, the co-founder of Canopy Cat Rescue, join us with details.
Oregon linebacker Bryce Boettcher joined the University of Oregon as a baseball player. Liz Brenner, four-sport athlete, excelled at volleyball, basketball, softball and track at the University of Oregon. And Kendre Harrison recently played at Peach Jam, a prestigious high school basketball tournament. He plans to play basketball and football at the University of Oregon. We learn more about elite athletes and the power they hold at the college level from Lindsay Schnell, a senior writer covering colleges for The Athletic.
xcess noise has been linked to a number of health concerns, including cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure and sleep disorders. But noise pollution hasn’t been well studied in the U.S., due in part to a lack of federal oversight. The Environmental Protection Agency established its Office of Noise Control and Abatement in the 1970s, but the office has remained unfunded since the early 1980s.
A new study from Oregon State University aims to better understand noise pollution in Portland. Researchers found that many of the city’s neighborhoods have noise levels that are likely unhealthy.
Matt Bozigar is an environmental epidemiologist and an assistant professor in OSU’s college of health. He joins us with more details.
Oregon stands to lose more than $15 billion in federal funding for health care, food assistance and other purposes in coming years, under the sweeping spending bill congressional Republicans passed earlier this year. That’s the preliminary conclusion by Gov. Tina Kotek’s office, which in recent weeks asked state agencies to crunch the numbers for what the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act might mean for their ability to provide services. OPB political reporter Dirk VanderHart joins us to explain.
The Oregon Youth Authority is under heightened scrutiny following a wave of lawsuits alleging sexual abuse and a culture of neglect in the state’s youth correctional facilities. The agency, which has faced criticism for mishandling abuse complaints, now has a new appointed leader — Michael Tessean — who takes over from interim director Jana McLellan. That's after Gov. Tina Kotek fired longtime director Joe O’Leary earlier this year over a backlog of unaddressed abuse reports.
OPB politics reporter Lauren Dake joins us to discuss the recent lawsuits, the agency’s troubled history and what new leadership could mean for the future of juvenile justice in Oregon.
The third annual PNW Survival Games kick off this Friday at a campground in Molalla. Fifty people, organized into teams of two, will compete in a series of weekend-long challenges designed to test their outdoor survival skills, from building a fire and shelter to purifying water and building a raft from saplings and other foraged materials.
Participants who register for the $495 event are first taught the basics of those skills by survival instructors, some of whom have competed in reality TV shows such as “Naked and Afraid” and “Alone.” Each team then launches into a timed challenge to test their application of that skill, but with a twist – like trying to build a fire while shivering and cold after a plunge into the river. First, second and third-place teams win cash prizes and outdoor gear from sponsors.
PNW Survival Games’ co-founders Tony Peniche and Phil Robinson have aspirations to take their concept beyond its Oregon roots onto a much bigger stage by transforming it into a reality TV show picked up by Netflix or Amazon. They join us to share their vision and a preview of this weekend’s competition, along with Tom Ratts, a Vancouver resident who was part of a team that won first place in 2023 and who now volunteers at the games.
A recent paper published in JAMA shows that Idaho has lost approximately 35 percent of doctors specializing in obstetrics and gynecology, leaving many counties without any maternal or reproductive health care providers at all. That comes after the state passed one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the country after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. Amber Nelson, executive director of the Idaho Coalition for Safe Healthcare, says 85% of these practicing specialists work in just seven of the state’s urban counties.
Dr. Amelia Huntsberger was a practicing OBGYN in Idaho for many years before the ban. But after the ban, the emotional strain of navigating patient care amid the possibility of prosecution, led to the painful decision to uproot her family and move out of state. Huntsberger now practices in Eugene, but she says her family still deals with the grief that transition brought. We talk with her and Nelson about the larger trends and what they mean in the lives of women seeking reproductive and material care.
The Portland-based nonprofit Smashing Barriers works with organizations including the Boys & Girls Clubs of America and Friendly House to offer free tennis clinics and organizes charity tournaments. Jiya Mehta and Rohan Shah, the co-founders, started the nonprofit while in high school. They aim to bring the organization to each state in the U.S. In addition to Oregon, the nonprofit already has chapters in Arizona, California and Texas. Shah and Mehta join us with more on how tennis has shaped their lives and their plans for growing Smashing Barriers.
The Sunset Empire Transportation District has provided public transportation in Clatsop County for more than 30 years. In 2023, the district had to temporarily stop service and lay off workers after it ran out of money due to financial mismanagement. The district has since gone through several leadership changes — the most recent executive director, Craig Johnston, stepped down late last year for personal reasons.David Carr recently took over as executive director of the district. He joins us to share his vision for public transit in Clatsop County amid state and federal funding challenges.
After a turbulent year in Deschutes County law enforcement, newly appointed interim Sheriff Ty Rupert says the office is at a turning point. Sworn in Aug. 1, Rupert steps into the role after the resignation of Kent van der Kamp, whose tenure ended after an investigation and a lifetime law enforcement ban. With 15 months to stabilize the department before next year’s election, Rupert inherits a department facing challenges with morale, public trust, and employee retention after the controversy.He joins us to discuss how he hopes to rebuild trust with the public and address cultural challenges within the sheriff’s office while serving the Deschutes County community.
For the past decade, pension investments made by the state have leaned heavily towards private equity. As reported in the Oregon Journalism Project, this choice has cost the state billions as this form of investments continued to be made despite advice from experts to diversify Oregon’s portfolio. Jim Neff is the managing editor for OJP and reported on this story. He joins us to share why the state stood by private equity investments and what this choice means for Oregonians.
A mysterious wasting disease has been decimating sea star populations along the West Coast since 2013. The illness works quickly, causing sea stars to lose limbs and reducing them to a pile of goo in a matter of weeks. Sunflower sea stars have been particularly hard-hit — roughly 90% of their global population has succumbed to the disease, possibly contributing to the demise of many West Coast kelp forests.
The cause of the wasting disease has stumped scientists for more than a decade. But now, a team of Northwest researchers have identified a bacteria that appears to be behind the illness.
Alyssa Gehman is a marine disease ecologist at the Hakai Institute, a marine research organization in British Columbia. She joins us with more details on what the breakthrough could mean for sea star recovery.
Drywall is one of the most commonly used materials in construction — and one of the most wasteful. It's estimated that more than 10 percent of drywall from new buildings end up in landfills. The material can release harmful gasses, such as hydrogen sulfide, and act as a potential contaminant for groundwater. But two architecture professors at Washington State University’s School of Design and Construction have developed a way to turn this waste into something useful.
Taiji Miyasaka and David Drake have spent years developing and patenting a process to transform drywall scraps into usable building blocks — a substitute for bricks — and fire-resistant wall panels that are both known as Drywall Waste Technology. Made with up to 90 percent drywall waste, WSU estimates that excess material from just 16 new homes could produce enough DWT material to build one tiny home. Miyasaka and Drake’s products have earned international acclaim, winning the AZ Award for Environmental Leadership in Azure magazine’s global design competition.
David Drake joins us to explain how this technology could be a resource in addressing both housing shortages and construction waste.
Earlier this summer, Clackamas Community College President Tim Cook embarked on an unique and physically daunting challenge: running roughly 1,500 miles to visit all 17 community colleges in Oregon. He kicked off his run on June 16 at Treasure Valley Community College in Ontario as a way to raise money and awareness of the financial hardships community college students in Oregon face, from food insecurity to not having enough money to pay rent or utility bills. In 2023, for example, nearly two-thirds of Portland Community College students who responded to a basic needs survey reported experiencing either homelessness, housing insecurity or food insecurity.
On Wednesday, Cook completed the last leg of his 52-day journey in Hood River when he arrived at Columbia Gorge Community College. His “Running for Oregon Community College Students” campaign has raised so far more than $130,000 for community colleges to distribute directly to students in need. Cook joins us for more details and to share his thoughts about the current and long-term challenges Oregon community colleges face.
There are nearly 5,000 wild horses grazing throughout Oregon. But according to the Bureau of Land Management, the state can only sustainably provide for just over 2,600 horses on public lands. To help manage herd populations, the agency works to find some wild horses new homes, and it's people like Kimber Teatro who help turn these wild mustangs into domesticated horses. Teatro has been a participant in the Mustang Adoption Challenge since 2019, where wild horse trainers are given more than 100 days to work with an animal and get them ready for adoption. During most of the year, Teatro can actually be found working as a tattoo artist in Portland, but during the summer, she takes a different tack, spending her days working with these wild horses. This year she will be showing her horse Finn at the competition, which takes place at the end of August in Albany. She joins us to share more
When musician Jermaine Malone set out to run an all ages venue in Portland, he wanted it to be a place for musicians and bands to perform and for fans young and old to come see them, sure. But he also wanted so much more. He wanted to provide good food and drinks of all kinds — and a space for open-mic nights, makers markets and even after school programs. The Heights Lounge and Events Space that opened in April is now exactly that. We sit down with Malone to talk more about his space, which he says is the only wholly Black-owned venue in the state.
Southern Oregon University recently announced plans to cut 15% of its budget over three years. The proposal would eliminate 15 majors and 11 minors, and lead to the elimination of more than 60 positions through a combination of layoffs, voluntary retirements and not filling vacancies. SOU President Rick Bailey attributes the university’s ongoing financial crisis to a number of factors including declining enrollment, decreased state funding and federal actions by the Trump administration.
Sage TeBeest is a creative arts program assistant at SOU and the president of SEIU 503 Sublocal 84, which represents classified staff at the university. She joins us with more on how union members are reacting to the cuts.
While still a junior at Grant High School in 2022 Alex Sahli submitted a design for a LEGO set of the Italian Riviera. At 17 years old, he had already submitted five designs for sets to LEGO Ideas. That’s an online platform which allows fans of the iconic toy building blocks to upload a design of their own creation and win enough votes of support from fellow LEGO enthusiasts for the company to review it and possibly turn it into a mass produced set. Sahli’s submission of an Italian village scene featured, among other details, a Vespa scooter, fishing boat, gelato shop and brightly colored buildings with tiled roofs.
But it wasn’t until two years later, in 2024, when Sahli was a college freshman, that LEGO informed him that his design had been accepted for production. Later this month, the Italian Riviera set will go on sale, with more than 3,000 pieces and nine minifigures, including one immortalizing the designer himself as a camera-toting tourist.
Sahli joins us to talk about the experience of designing a LEGO set and his other original creations that are attracting a following on social media.
Nearly 50 years ago, a Seattle juvenile court judge came up with the idea of using trained volunteers to appear in court to speak on behalf of abused and neglected children as a way to get more information about their individual cases. Today, nearly a thousand local Court Appointed Special Advocate programs exist in 49 states, including Oregon. CASA volunteers provide the court with regular updates about a child’s particular case and make recommendations about their placement, informed through monthly visits with the child and discussions with their teachers, counselors and others involved in their welfare.
But meeting the growing need for CASAs in Oregon and the rest of the nation is getting tougher. In April, the national CASA organization announced the termination of federal grants totaling millions of dollars which would have been disbursed to state and local CASA programs. That’s in addition to the loss of a $1.7 million federal community project grant earmarked for Oregon’s 19 local CASA programs.
Joining us to share their experiences are Amy Muñoz, who has been serving Jackson County as a CASA volunteer for seven years, and Rachel Robb, who was sworn in as a CASA volunteer serving Malheur County in January.
With the Trump administration’s dismantling of environmental regulations and total reversal on policies to combat climate change, activists have filed lawsuits and requests for injunctions all over the country. The latest development is the Trump-led Environmental Protection Agency reversing the long-standing “endangerment finding” that greenhouse gases threatened human health and welfare. One environmental law professor at Harvard called it “an assault on the foundation of all federal climate policy.”
Lewis & Clark environmental law professor Melissa Powers says Oregon — and other states — do have options to fight climate change, besides filing individual lawsuits. She says one viable strategy would be for Oregon to create a Climate Superfund. We talk with her about what unraveling of environmental regulations is likely to mean in Oregon and more about the potential for an Oregon Climate Superfund.
The Oregon Bee Atlas provides comprehensive data about the state’s native bees and the plants they need to thrive. With the help of volunteers, researchers have gathered information of about 800 different bee species in the state. Andony Melathopoulos is an associate professor in the Department of Horticulture at Oregon State University. Lincoln Best is a taxonomist for the Oregon Bee Atlas. They join us with more on the project and the role volunteers have played in uncovering more about Oregon’s bees.
The warmth and sunshine of summer makes it an especially ideal time in Oregon to recreate outdoors and experience the state’s bounty of hiking trails, rivers, mountain peaks and other scenic attractions. But that spike in outdoor recreation can also lead to more calls for potentially life-saving search and rescue missions by law enforcement in remote locations. Linn County is one of the many counties in the state that have well-established search and rescue programs that rely heavily on unpaid volunteers, including youth as young as 14 years old.
The Linn County Sheriff’s Office has been operating a youth search and rescue program for more than 30 years. The bootcamp-style training academy is open to youth ages 14 to 18 years old who are taught first aid, shelter and fire building, navigation using compasses and maps and learning how to search for and gather evidence of possible crimes in wilderness areas. The majority of the personnel responding to search and rescue missions in Linn County are youth volunteers, who age out of the program when they turn 21.
Ric Lentz, emergency manager and search and rescue coordinator for the Linn County Sheriff’s Office, and Drew Funk, a 19-year-old volunteer who has been with the county’s youth SAR program for four years, join us to share the critical role youth play in SAR missions and describe how that role has evolved in recent years.
The Trail Blazers are up for sale for the first time in 37 years. And there’s a real fear among fans — and elected officials —that if Portland doesn’t play its cards right, the new owner could move the team to another city. Gov. Tina Kotek and Portland Mayor Keith Wilson sent a letter recently to NBA Commissioner Adam Silver stating their emphatic support for keeping the team here. Marshall Glickman, whose father founded the team and served as the president of the organization, along with former player and gubernatorial candidate Chris Dudley are among those who created Rip City Forever to advocate for doing whatever it takes to keep the Blazers in Portland. Specifically, the team will need a new or upgraded arena. Glickman and Dudley join us to tell us how they hope to help the city avoid losing the economic boost and civic pride that the Blazers bring.
The College Assistance for Migrants Program, or CAMP, has supported children of migrant farmworkers for more than 50 years — helping students who often face financial hardship, language barriers, and limited academic preparation navigate their first year of college.
But this year, the federal funds that sustain CAMP programs across the country have been frozen, despite being approved by Congress for the 2025 fiscal year.
At Portland Community College, the delay in nearly $475,000 in funding threatens to halt scholarships, mentorship, and key support services that many students rely on to stay enrolled and succeed.
Greg Contreras, who runs PCC’s program, and sophomore Atziri Lopez — a former CAMP student and current peer mentor for the program — join us to discuss how the funding freeze is already disrupting students’ lives, and what could be lost if the program is forced to shut down.
Two new laws that passed in the Oregon Legislature are pushing the state toward what other countries have done to address housing: state-level zoning laws. As Sightline Institute reports, HB 2258 and HB 2138 seem to give the state much more authority and the power to override local zoning codes. Oregon has been making changes to zoning laws since 2017, and this new approach follows countries such as Japan and Australia. Micheal Andersen is the director of Cities and Towns at Sightline Institute. He joins us to share more on what these new laws could mean for the future of home development in the state.
Southern Oregon University is currently facing a financial emergency. The current budget for the institution is roughly $71 million, but cuts need to be made to drop that number to $60 million. President Rick Bailey points to a number of factors contributing to the crisis, including the lack of state support and actions from the Trump administration. Bailey’s new proposal to cut costs includes declaring a financial exigency that could impact more than 60 employees and possibly result in cutting 15 academic majors. Bailey joins us to share more on the financial state of the institution.
In western Lane County, the unincorporated community of Mapleton has struggled with its water infrastructure. Community leaders had stitched together funding to improve Mapleton’s system. That patchwork included federal funding from the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and FEMA, according to reporting by KLCC.
While it’s been able to claw back some money with the help of lawmakers, the community has still lost funds and resources after federal changes. Art Donnelly is the vice chair of the board of commissioners of the Mapleton Water District. He joins us with more details about Mapleton's situation and what’s at stake for those living in rural areas with failing infrastructure.
Several communities in Oregon have bought portions of their surrounding forests to more directly manage their natural resources. The “community forest” model has been used to manage for wildfire risk, drinking water quality, recreation and more. The Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board recently awarded grants to six cities to protect forests around their drinking water sources. The funding allows them to purchase land, arrange for conservation easements and pay back debt on property they’ve already acquired within their watershed.
We’ll hear more from Ann Vileisis, mayor of Port Orford, which received one of the grants. We’ll also learn about community forests more broadly from Dylan Kruse, president of the conservation nonprofit Sustainable Northwest.
A group of Native American youth recently completed the first full descent of the Klamath River since the four largest dams on the river were removed last fall. Kayakers traveled more than 300 miles over 30 days on the source-to-sea trip, which was organized by the Paddle Tribal Waters program.
Julian Rogers and Kiahna Allen both participated in the trip. They join us to share more about their experience.
Orcas, also known as killer whales, are among the most well-studied marine mammals, captivating the public and scientists alike with their intelligence, strong social bonds and complex behaviors. Scientists recently documented critically endangered Southern Resident orcas in the Salish Sea using kelp as a grooming tool. They have also been observed wearing carcasses of salmon on their heads, either as a sign of playfulness or to eat at a later date, according to marine scientists.
And now another surprising behavior of orcas has come to light. A recently published paper documented nearly three dozen examples recorded over a 20-year period of wild orcas offering prey like dead birds, seals, and fishes to humans. The displays appear to be efforts by both male and female orcas around the world to share their food with another apex predator, possibly done out of altruism, relationship-building or for play.
Joining us to share more is Jared Towers, the lead author of the paper and executive director of Bay Cetology, a research and whale conservation organization in British Columbia.
Earlier this month, Mount Rainier experienced its most powerful seismic swarm ever recorded by the U.S. Geological Survey. More than 1,000 earthquakes have been detected at the mountain since July 8 — far above the volcano’s usual activity level — and the swarm is still continuing.
However, despite the levels of seismic activity, the USGS’s Cascades Volcano Observatory say there’s no sign of magma movement or volcanic unrest. Instead, they believe the swarm was triggered by underground fluids shifting through cracks deep below the mountain.
Research geophysicist Alexandra Iezzi joins us to explain what makes Rainier a unique geological phenomenon and what scientists are watching for.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has recently leased out more than 5,000 acres of public land for geothermal energy in Malheur County. Leasing of the land is the first step in developing geothermal resources - specifically, the production of electricity from heat within the earth. But how common is geothermal energy in the U.S. and what potential is there for its widespread use in Oregon? Adam Schultz is a geophysics professor at Oregon State University and the president of Enthalpion Energy LLC, a geothermal company. He joins us to answer these questions and more.
Multnomah County won’t renew its contract with Rockwood Community Development Corporation, a nonprofit based in Gresham, according to reporting by Willamette Week. The county stated it had stopped funding the homeless service provider after the organization double-counted costs and charged for rooms that were closed for repairs, according to Willamette Week. Rockwood CDC disputed the allegations and stated Multnomah County owed it $1.1 million in overdue payments. Anthony Effinger is a Willamette Week reporter. He’s been covering the issue and joins us with details.
Lakeridge High School senior Elaina Stuppler is no stranger to the spotlight. She performs in the Portland Youth Philharmonic, playing trombone - but she also plays tuba, piano and composes music as well. She’s regularly featured on All Classical Radio as a reporter and Artist in Residence. But the last few months have been a veritable cavalcade of honors and opportunities. Stuppler won the Musical Theater Songwriting Challenge. Her winning composition, about the life of Maria Anna Mozart, was performed by Broadway musicians and singers in New York this summer.
She was just one of five students in the U.S. chosen by the Grammy Museum for its summer screen scoring program in LA. She is also a winner of the prestigious YoungArts Award with Distinction, Stuppler joins us to share some of her compositions, and tell us about what these honors mean to her and what opportunities they may open up for her future.
The federal government recently ended its specialized suicide prevention hotline for LGBTQ+ youth. Previously, callers could press 3 when they called the national suicide and crisis lifeline to be connected with counselors who were specifically traines to help queer youth. Now, all calls will be directed to the general 988 hotline.
Lines for Life operates several crisis hotlines in Oregon, including a dedicated YouthLine. It also answers the majority of 988 calls made in the state. Greg Borders, the organization’s chief clinical officer, joins us to talk about the suicide prevention resources still available to LGBTQ+ communities.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can call or text 988 to reach the national suicide and crisis lifeline. Help is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
From students using artificial intelligence for schoolwork, to others seeking chatbots for companionship, our relationship with technology continues to change. But are the ways we use AI healthy, and what long-term effects could they have on us socially? Naomi Aguiar is the associate director of research at OSU’s Ecampus and an expert on children and adult relationships with imaginary friends and AI chatbots. She joins us to answer these questions and more.
In the late 2000s, unexplained mass die-offs of oysters at Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery in Tillamook, Oregon helped scientists uncover a major threat to coastal ecosystems: ocean acidification.
Today, Oregon’s coast remains one of the areas most affected by this phenomenon. Each summer, deep ocean waters rich in carbon dioxide and low in oxygen rise to the surface — a natural process known as upwelling — creating corrosive conditions that make it harder for shellfish like oysters and crabs to form shells and survive.
Researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Oregon State University are currently on a scientific cruise to track acidification and low oxygen levels in real time along the Oregonian coast. Zachary Gold, a researcher with NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Lab joins us to share what scientists are seeing right now in Oregon’s waters.
Alan Barton, production manager at Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery, talks about what these conditions mean for local shellfish growers and how they’re working to adapt.
Rodger Deevers knows he’s a lucky man. He’s a financial advisor in Eugene with all his basic needs met — and then some. But two years ago, after he and his wife took a vacation to the island of Curaçao off the Venezuelan coast, he wanted to bring some of the sense of community and vibrant public art back to the Eugene-Springfield area — and contribute to area nonprofits.
He says he didn’t know quite how to begin, so he just started with an idea for one mural, at nonprofit NextStep Recycling, and decided to see if people were interested in helping him paint it. Dozens of people showed up — and the nonprofit was thrilled to have a mural on a space that would otherwise have remained unadorned. Deevers calls the project Lucky Enough Social Club, and now has a system of sorts, and volunteers who show up to paint. But he does most of the legwork, outreach and designing of the mural, in collaboration with whatever nonprofit is getting painted.
He says he’s seen the transformative power of creativity in the people who show up to volunteer, and calling attention to mental health and suicide prevention is one of the biggest motivations driving him. We hear more from Deevers about the creation of the club and how he hopes to see it grow in the future.
Unlike some other counties in Oregon and across the country, Multnomah County has remained committed to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts. However, a recent audit found that the county has some work to do on its DEI initiatives. Across the county Asian employees are less likely to be supervisors, Black or African American employees are less likely to pass the trial service period and are more likely to be fired, and LGBTQIA employees are more likely to quit. Multnomah County Auditor Jennifer McGuirk joins us to discuss the audit findings.
Isha Marla is a 14-year-old with a love for science who recently finished her last year at Tumwater Middle School in the Beaverton School District. She is also just one of 10 students in the nation, and the only one from Oregon, who made it to the finalist round of a national science competition sponsored by Discovery Education and 3M, which manufactures a vast array of products, from Post-It Notes to stethoscopes.
The 3M Young Scientist Challenge is open to middle school students who for this year’s competition submitted a short video to describe their scientific solution to a real-world problem. Marla’s entry focuses on using a material she made from seaweed and other ingredients to produce an environmentally sustainable fabric for making clothes. Her proposal aims to counter the phenomenon of fast fashion associated with brands like Shein, H&M and Uniqlo that are popular with consumers eager to buy the latest fashion trends at low prices. But chasing those trends at bargain prices can take a heavy environmental toll, with nearly two-thirds of discarded clothes ending up in a landfill, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Marla joins us for more details about her entry and chance to win a cash prize and the title of “America’s Top Young Scientist” this fall.
Everyone Village, a transitional shelter program in Eugene, is partnering with PeaceHealth to open 10 tiny homes where unhoused patients can safely recover from surgery. As reported by KLCC, the project will also include a medical clinic to provide primary care to all residents of the village. Patients in the recuperation cottages will have full access to Everyone Village’s suite of wraparound services during their stay.
Gabe Piechowicz is the founder and executive director of Everyone Village, and Susan Blane is the director of community health at PeaceHealth Oregon. They both join us to talk about the new effort to improve health outcomes in Eugene’s homeless population.
Public broadcasters large and small have been reacting to the unprecedented Congressional vote to pull already-approved funding for public media. In Oregon and Washington, public radio stations face an array of challenges, depending on their size and resources. Some radio stations play nationally-produced NPR content, but not all. Many are squarely focused on covering their local community news with locally produced programs. Tribal stations, rural stations, student-driven stations and classical music stations are among those hardest hit.
Joining us to tell us more are KMUN Station Manager Susan Peterson in Astoria; Northwest Public Broadcasting’s Director of Audience and Programming Sueann Ramella in Pullman, WA; KWSO's Sue Matters on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation; and KLCC reporter Zac Ziegler in Eugene.
OPB is among the public media organizations affected by the rescission cuts.
Renaissance fairs have long been a place for workers and visitors alike to find community amid the trappings of a fictional medieval town. “Merchants” bring their wares to hawk, while various “guilds” provide the entertainment, from jousting to smithing to demonstrating medieval textile arts.
But some longtime guild workers at the Washington Midsummer Renaissance Faire have pulled out of the festival due to what they describe as bad management and poor working conditions. They say the organization that puts on the fair – which also operates the Oregon Renaissance Faire and Oregon Celtic Festival – has prioritized profits over maintaining the sense of community that workers and volunteers value.
Nathalie Graham is a former freelance reporter who now writes for The Seattle Stranger. She looked into these complaints in a recent article for InvestigateWest and joins us with more details.
Last October, Patrick Leonard opened Postcard Bookshop, fusing his love for literature with his love for travel. Located in Portland’s Central Eastside neighborhood, the store’s shelves are organized according to countries or regions, from Africa to Oceania and the Pacific Northwest. In addition to travel guides, phrase books and cookbooks showcasing world cuisines, novels on display provide passage to new cultures and worldly journeys.
But running a bookstore geared to customers planning or returning from vacations has made Leonard rethink what it means to be a global traveler today. From Google Translate to Instagram, Airbnb and Uber, social media and apps are changing tourism and the communities impacted by it. Throngs of visitors to popular destinations are fueling a rise in overtourism which is straining resources, prompting street protests and pricing locals out of the housing market, from Hawai’i to Portugal. Leonard joins us for a discussion about overtourism and the challenge of being an ethical tourist.
Many states in the U.S. have legalized cannabis either medically or recreationally, but without legalization at the federal level regulation is left to states, including testing for contaminants and THC levels. New reporting from Undark, an online science magazine, found that in some states, including Oregon, independent labs were inflating THC level numbers and providing fraudulent results. Teresa Carr, a senior contributor at Undark, joins us to share more on lab testing and what some states are doing to combat fudged results.
Oregon lawmakers recently passed a bill requiring climate change education to be integrated into classrooms across the state. The legislation directs the state board of education to integrate climate science — including causes, impacts, and strategies for adaptation — in core subjects like science, history, health, and civics. The goal is to equip students with accurate information and age-appropriate tools to understand and respond to the climate crisis. Supporters say the new law is a step toward normalizing climate education statewide, especially in rural and underserved regions.
Tana Shepard, founding member of Oregon Educators for Climate Education — the organization that drafted the bill — and Mikayla May, a high school student and climate advocate with Our Future, join us to talk about what this means for Oregon schools and for the next generation of students.
Earlier this month the semiconductor chip maker Intel announced it would layoff nearly 2,400 workers in Washington County - amounting to about 10% of its overall workforce. Nonetheless, the company remains one of Oregon’s largest private employers, and the ripple effects of its contraction will be felt more broadly throughout the state economy. OPB business reporter Kyra Buckley has been following this story, and she joins us to bring us the latest.
Clatsop County is exploring a pilot program that would convert vacation homes that are often left vacant into long-term rentals for people who work in the county. As reported in the Daily Astorian, the program would offer cash incentives for property owners to lease out their homes for a year or more. The county has applied for a grant to fund the two-year pilot, but has yet to receive those dollars.
Clatsop County housing manager Elissa Gertler joins us to talk about the potential program and other possible solutions to the coast’s housing crisis.
Gov. Tina Kotek has aimed for a goal of 36,000 homes being built a year. As part of her housing development plans, Kotek’s office announced the launch of the Housing Accountability and Production Office, a joint office between the Department of Land Conservation and Development and the Building Codes Division. The agency will provide technical assistance and enforce state housing production laws. Joel Madsen and Tony Rocco, the office's joint managers, join us with more about the goals of the agency and what it means for Oregon’s housing crisis.
Earlier this month the Oregon Department of Transportation announced it would need to lay off nearly 500 workers. This came after lawmakers failed to pass a transportation package to help boost the budget of the agency responsible for road maintenance around the state. Now, Gov. Tina Kotek has announced a special session will be held in late August with the hopes of finding the funds for the state’s transportation agency and has also shared she will delay impending layoffs. OPB politics reporter Dirk Vanderhart joins us to share more on what to expect from the upcoming special session.
The Roadless Rule is a U.S. Forest Service regulation that protects inventoried roadless areas from certain timber activities and construction within the national forest system, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The rule has been in effect since 2001, but U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins announced recently the Trump administration plans to rescind the rule. We learn more about how the regulation affects Oregon and its forests from Travis Joseph, the president and CEO of the American Forest Resource Council, and Steve Pedery, the conservation director of Oregon Wild
The Environmental Protection Agency estimates there are more than 10 million wood-burning stoves in homes across the U.S., or roughly one for every 35 people. The smoke from those stoves can emit harmful particle pollution, which has been linked to respiratory illnesses, cardiovascular disease and a host of other health issues. Researchers at Oregon State University recently tested residential wood stove emissions in rural Oregon in an effort to understand how the stoves perform in homes.
Nordica MacCarty is an associate professor of mechanical engineering at OSU. She joins us to talk about her work to make wood stoves burn more cleanly and efficiently.
Last week, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek declared a state of emergency due to “the imminent and ongoing threat of wildfire.” The emergency declaration will last until the end of the year. It directs the Office of Emergency Management to coordinate personnel, equipment and resources in collaboration with the State Fire Marshal and Oregon Department of Forestry to respond to the wildfires that have burned more than 100,000 acres in the state so far. The Oregon National Guard will also be mobilized as needed to assist with fighting wildland fires for the remainder of the fire season.
The National Interagency Fire Center lists six large, active wildfires burning in Oregon. That includes the Cram Fire, which broke out on July 13 and has burned more than 95,000 acres northeast of Madras and triggered evacuation orders in Jefferson and Wasco counties. It is now the largest wildfire burning in the contiguous U.S., with more than 900 personnel responding to it.
Joining us for an update on the wildfire season are Oregon State Fire Marshal Mariana Ruiz Temple and Kyle Williams, deputy director of fire operations at Oregon Department of Forestry.
The union that represents reporters at Central Oregon’s 122-year-old newspaper is negotiating its first contract with the corporation that bought the outlet last fall. Carpenter Media Group has already laid off nonunion workers at the Bulletin, like the paper’s copy editor, but the Central Oregon NewsGuild says that a contract - and the worker protections it would include - must be in place before any union layoffs could be made. The company has acquired more than 30 newspapers in Oregon alone, including the Pamplin Media Group - and approximately 250 others in the U.S. and Canada.
The NewsGuild unit has taken the unusual step of urging subscribers to cancel their subscriptions if the corporate management does not agree to their demands. The Carpenter Media Group declined our request to be interviewed and sent a statement that said it is “dedicated to preserving and strengthening community journalism in the communities we serve.” The company has made deep cuts in other local media outlets it has acquired. Central Oregon NewsGuild leader Morgan Owen is a crime and public safety reporter for the Bend Bulletin. She joins us to share the latest in the story that’s unfolding at her paper.
Washington County is revising how it implements diversity, equity, and inclusion policies in order to comply with new federal grant requirements tied to executive orders from President Trump. Local officials say the move is necessary to protect access to $135 million in federal funding that supports housing, infrastructure, and critical services for thousands of low-income residents in the county.
While the move has drawn criticism from community members who worry it signals a retreat from equity commitments, those involved say the change is necessary to avoid potential civil and criminal liability under the federal False Claims Act. The county commission is scheduled to take a final vote to affirm the policy changes Tuesday, July 22. Washington County Board Chair Kathryn Harrington joins us to talk more about the changes that come amid broader questions about how local governments navigate new federal policies.
Last week, Avelo Airlines announced it would end service out of the Salem-Willamette Valley Airport on Aug. 10. Avelo has been operating out of Salem as the only airline carrier servicing the airport since October 2023 with weekly flights to Burbank and Las Vegas. The budget airline also said it plans to pull out of other West Coast markets, including Eugene in December, when it aims to close its base in Burbank.
Avelo’s looming departure from Salem and other markets comes amid controversy over the airline’s decision earlier this year to provide deportation flights out of Phoenix for the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Agency. That agreement has prompted a backlash against the carrier, including in Salem, where some residents have protested and urged the city council to sever ties with Avelo.
Joining us for a discussion about what Avelo’s exit means for Salem, its local economy and the future of its airport is Salem Statesman Journal city reporter Whitney Woodworth.
Portland artist Arvie Smith is known for colorful, larger-than-life oil paintings that explore oppression and injustice against Black Americans through symbolism and visual tropes. He’s also a professor emeritus at Pacific Northwest College of Art after a 35-year tenure. His murals can be seen on buildings in North Portland and at the Donald E. Long Juvenile Center, where he spent time teaching art to incarcerated youth.
Despite being in his mid-80s, Smith is far from retired — just last year, he received a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship. The work he created during that fellowship is currently on display in Chicago. Titled “Crossing Clear Creek,” the exhibit explores Smith’s childhood memories and experience of race in rural Texas and Los Angeles. We spoke with Smith in March 2025 about his life and work.
Seattle poet Kathleen Flenniken grew up in Richland and worked as a civil engineer at Hanford in the 1980s. She served as Washington State Poet Laureate from 2012-2014. In her first year as poet laureate, she published a collection called Plume, which deals directly with how her Hanford area upbringing influenced her. The book explores the history of the site, the death of her best friend's father from a radiation illness, and her childhood in "Atomic City.” Flenniken sits down with us from the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities.
Krista Catwood, also known by the stage name Vera Mysteria, can be found at the Lloyd Center mall every Sunday leading Portlanders in a group workout. But the exercises aren’t done on machines and do not take place in a retail space — instead, they’re done throughout the entire mall. As first reported in the Oregonian, Catwood, armed with a neon track suit and a Bluetooth speaker, leads a group ranging from ages 8 to 80 on a power walk throughout the mall with '80s music blasting behind them. The group is known as the Food Court 5000, started off with a group of eight that has now grown to upwards of 70 people at its highest. Catwood joins us to share why she started the Food Court 5000 and more.
This weekend marks the first MXPDX: Mexico/Oregon Collaboration Festival of Culture and Cerveza. The festival brings together 13 brewers from Oregon and 13 brewers from Mexico to collaborate on ciders and beers of their own creation using Mexican ingredients to showcase both regions working together. It is the newest creation from Beer Friends, the nonprofit behind Fuji to Hood. Ezra Johnson-Greenough is one of the organizers for the festival. Ricardo Antunez is the owner of Xicha Brewing, the first Latino-owned brewery in Oregon, and Diego Lara is the co-owner of Falling Piano Brewery in Mexico City. They all join us to share more on what to expect this weekend and the importance of the collaboration.
About 150 organizations that support Oregon crime victims have lost much of their federal funding. With more than $18 million in cuts and no additional state funds, nonprofits and government programs that serve survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking and child abuse are preparing to lay off staff and severely reduce the support they provide to victims — both in and out of court.
Melissa Erlbaum is the executive director of Clackamas Women’s Services. Due to funding loss, the non-profit will be forced to reduce the number of survivors it can serve by hundreds. And at Safety Compass — a nonprofit that supports sex trafficking survivors — founder Esther Garrett says the cuts threaten to unravel the vital safety net that advocacy provides crime victims.
Erlbaum and Garrett join us alongside Clackamas County District Attorney John Wentworth, to tell us more about the consequences of the funding shortfall.
Over the weekend, Special Olympics Oregon hosted its summer games in Corvallis. Athletes with intellectual disabilities compete in various events for the season, including track & field, golf and softball and bocce, Rachel Parsons is an athlete that competed in bocce. Ben Fields is an athlete who competed in softball. They both join us to share how this weekend went and why they compete.
Amazon has said they want to build small scale nuclear reactors along the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest to power AI data centers. Yesterday we heard from Oregon’s NuScale Power, which has achieved regulatory approval for their small scale nuclear reactor design. Today we hear from Kelly Campbell, policy director for Columbia Riverkeeper, about her organization's concerns about using this kind of energy in the Pacific Northwest.
As soon as President Trump signed his tax-cut and spending package into law on July 4, one of the ways it impacted Oregon was to immediately make all Planned Parenthood clinics ineligible to receive Medicaid reimbursement for one year. In Oregon, those reimbursements make up approximately 70% of budgets. That is, if they continued to perform abortions - even for the approximately 90 percent of health care services that are not abortion related. Planned Parenthood sued the Trump administration and got a temporary injunction - but that’s set to expire at the end of this week. In Washington state, Gov. Bob Ferguson has committed to backfilling the loss for clinics in that state for one year. We talk with Sara Kennedy, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette, which runs nine clinics in the region, about the impact of the expected Medicaid cuts and what alternatives might be available.
At a glance, Spirit of Grace church in Beaverton might appear to be just one of many progressive Protestant churches, not unusual in the Pacific Northwest. Its website and featured introduction video emphasizes that all are welcome, with an emphasis on LGBTQ people of faith who may not have been welcomed in other religious faiths - and even people who may be questioning their beliefs. But read the fine print or attend a service and both the Catholic and Lutheran theology that defines the church becomes clear. Until the mid-1980s, the congregation was Lutheran, but out of an attempt to shore up dwindling finances, the church began sharing its physical space with members of a Catholic church. Eventually what developed was one congregation that gathered each Sunday and was led by both a visiting Catholic priest and a Lutheran pastor. But in December of 2023, for the first time, the Portland Archdiocese barred Roman Catholic priests from any further participation at Spirit of Grace - and ordered any Catholics in the congregation to leave. But they stayed, choosing to keep their model, and instead of inviting visiting Roman Catholic priests, they called Rev. Vinci Halbrook-Paterson to lead. She had been serving on staff, but in the wake of the Archdiocese's decision, chose to be ordained by Roman Catholic Women Priests in May 2025. Halbrook-Paterson now co-leads the church and alternates leading services on Sundays with Lutheran pastor Robyn Hartwig. It is thought to be the only such Lutheran-Catholic congregation in the country. We hear more about the congregation, its evolution and its impact in the community from Halbrook-Paterson and two long time congregants, Lutheran Marie Gettel-Gilmartin and her husband, Mike Gettel-Gilmartin, who is Catholic.Beaverton’s Spirit of Grace church co-led by newly ordained Roman Catholic Woman Priest
Matt Donegan is a wildfire and land management consultant. He led a wildfire council convened by Gov. Kate Brown in 2019. Now, he says Oregon is behind on wildfire management and federal, state and private organizations need to come together to figure out the future of Oregon’s forests. Donegan joins us with more about why Oregon needs to overhaul the way it approaches wildfire and land management.
This spring the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved a design from Oregon’s NuScale Power for a 77 megawatt nuclear reactor. The company is already underway designing for a site in Romania and says they have received interest from numerous U.S. companies. Amazon has said they want to build small scale nuclear reactors along the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest to power AI data centers. We talk to José Reyes about the company’s design and their vision for what small scale nuclear power could look like.
The 55th annual summer music festival by Chamber Music Northwest is now underway. This year’s theme is Echoes of Bach, featuring the composer's work and dozens of other masterpieces from other eras that resonate with it. For decades, the nonprofit was led by the renowned clarinetist David Shifrin. In 2020, pianist Gloria Chien and her husband, violinist Soovin Kim, were named as artistic directors. We first talked with them in 2021, the year they received the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Award for Extraordinary Service for their work during the pandemic. We talk with the duo about their time at the helm and how the organization has grown since then -- and what makes Chamber Music Northwest’s summer festival an annual draw for some of the most talented musicians from around the world.
Public transit agencies across the state may soon be seeing some changes in services as some face funding troubles. The Federal Transportation Administration recently made revisions to its agreement with rural transit agencies, requiring them to comply with federal immigration enforcement action, contradicting Oregon’s sanctuary state law. This dispute has left some federal reimbursements in limbo for agencies. At the same time, House Bill 2025, which would have raised billions through fees and taxes for road projects, ultimately failed in the state Legislature.
Melissa Metz is the general manager for the Coos County Area Transportation District. They recently announced some services will be suspended and will be accepting public comments at their next board meeting. Julie Brown is the general manager for the Rogue Valley Transportation District, the president of the Community Transit Association of America and the commissioner chair for the Oregon Department of Transportation. The RVTD recently shared that funding uncertainties will lead to a reduction in staff and service, alongside ODOT’s recent announcement of laying off nearly 500 employees. Metz and Brown join us to share more on some of the challenges facing rural transit agencies right now, and what they’d like to see in a special session from lawmakers.
If you’ve seen live music in Portland over the last couple of decades there’s a decent chance you’ve seen Jenny Conlee on the accordion or keyboard. She may be best known for her work with The Decemberists, with whom she’s played for the last 23 years. She has also played with Casey Neill and the Norway Rats, Jerry Joseph, Little Sue, The Minus Five, Stephanie Schneidermanor Ashley Flynn. We spoke with Conlee in April 2023 for the release of her solo album, “Tides: Pieces for Accordion and Piano.” Some of the original songs were inspired by her time on the southern Washington coast. She joined us in the studio to tell us more about “Tides” and played a few songs on accordion.
We revisit a conversation we first aired in April 2023 which was the first installment of our series on people’s professions. We’ll learn what it takes to do different kinds of jobs and how these professions change us. David Beer is Portland’s Squeezebox Surgeon. He has studied the inner workings of accordions in Italy and at A World of Accordions Museum in Wisconsin. He operates on all different kinds of free reed instruments. He shares with us how he got into this business and gives us an inside look of how accordions work and what it takes to get them singing again.
"Fair," as those who attend regularly call it, began in 1969 as a simple fundraiser for an alternative school. But over the last 56 years, it has turned into a veritable Oregon institution. Its mission is to create “experiences that nourish the spirit, explore living artfully and authentically on earth, and transform culture in magical, joyous and healthy ways.” In 2013, “Think Out Loud” went to the Oregon Country Fair and broadcast a show live from just outside the entrance gates to see how that mission was playing out. Oregon Art Beat has a new profile of the fair, which airs on OPB TV Thursday, July 10, and is now up on OPB’s YouTube channel. Our guests included fairgoers Lucy Kingsley, Geoff Silver, John Lyle and Suzi Prozanski, author of the book “Fruit of the Sixties: The Founding of the Oregon Country Fair,” as well as acoustic troubadour Brian Cutean. We also talked with Tripp Sommer, KLCC news director; Sheri Lundell, who helped plan the first fair in 1969, co-founder of the Portland Saturday Market and owner of Cafe 26; and Peter Yarrow (1938 - 2025), formerly of Peter, Paul and Mary, who performed at the 2013 fair.
Production note: The 2013 live broadcast was hosted by Dave Miller, produced by Allison Frost, and engineered by Steven Kray and Jonathan Newsome. We had production help from interns Jessica Kittams, Alex Eidman, and Kathryn Boyd-Batstone.
Ann Patchett’s latest novel is set during the pandemic, but it is also set in the past. The main character, a mother of three adult daughters, tells her children the story of her own youthful romance with a man who is now a famous movie star. The story is told over long days picking cherries on their family farm, where everyone has gathered together for the lockdown. Though the central story revolves around the mercurial movie star, the real focus of the book is the relationship between mothers and daughters, the lives that parents led before they were parents, and what the stories of our past tell us about ourselves. Ann Patchett joins us for a conversation about her new book, “Tom Lake.”
In 2020, the Almeda Fire ripped through Jackson County, destroying homes and ecosystems. The “Think Out Loud” team traveled to Southern Oregon recently and talked to residents about how they’re thinking about fire in their communities now. Mountain View Estates, a manufactured home park in Talent, was destroyed by the Almeda Fire. Now, it’s a nationally recognized Firewise Neighborhood. Steve Thorpe lives there. Tucker Teutsch is the executive director of the Firebrand Resiliency Collective. It supports long-term natural disaster preparedness, recovery and resilience. Teutsch led us on a tour around Thorpe’s home, which is prepared to withstand ember attacks. Teutsch also took the team around his own property, which needs a lot more work to be prepared for wildfires. About four miles north of Talent, the team also spoke to Glenn Hill in Phoenix. He’s lived in the Rogue Valley for decades. Hill has triad asthma and the condition is affected by smoke. He told us more about living with both.
The entire state of Oregon is facing a housing crisis, and the coast – where second homes and short-term rentals can skew the market – is no exception. “Think Out Loud” traveled to Lincoln County recently to talk about solutions.
We had a series of conversations about different approaches residents and organizations are taking to create more units, more affordability and more stability so that existing homeowners can stay in their homes.
We started in Newport, where Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center is putting the finishing touches on a new apartment complex. When it’s done, it will house visiting researchers and students.
Bob Cowen recently retired as the director of the center. He took us on a tour of the building and talked about the need for workforce housing in Lincoln County.
Even though the Roman empire came to an end thousands of years ago, we still tell stories about the emperors who ruled during that time. From Caligula, who threatened to make his horse a senator, to Nero, who killed his own mother and set fire to the city to make room for his palace, classicist Mary Beard argues that the stories we tell about the Roman emperors might say more about us than they do about the emperors themselves. We spoke with Beard in October 2023 about her latest book, “Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World,” which attempts to break down what we can actually know about the lives of the emperors and how they ruled.
Swan Songs Portland has a simple but powerful mission: to provide free, intimate concerts for people at the end of their lives and pay local musicians to perform them. The nonprofit fulfilled its first concert request last autumn when it hired a mariachi band to play for a person terminally ill with cancer, surrounded by her friends and family. It is the first affiliate of Swan Songs, which was founded in Austin, Texas 20 years ago.
Currently serving Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas Counties, SSP has nearly 50 musicians – and growing – it can call on short notice to perform an array of requested musical styles, from Beethoven to Bob Dylan-esque folk and rock. Jim Friscia is Swan Songs Portland’s board president and concert planner. Karyn Thurston is a musician and board member of SSP who performs with her partner, Ben Grace, in the folk music duo Story & Tune. They join us, along with Terri Burton, who had requested a concert for her dying mother that Grace performed earlier this year.
Oregon got a huge federal grant after the devastating 2020 Labor Day fires left thousands of people without homes, as Nigel Jaquiss reported for the Oregon Journalism Project, but most of it still remains unspent. In Southern Oregon, Representative Pam Marsh, D-Ashland, has been talking with the Oregon Housing and Community Services, the state agency in charge of getting the money to people who need it. The director of OHCS, Andrea Bell, says all the money is now committed to various projects and is working with her agency to speed the process. Bell and Marsh join us to tell us more about who has gotten this federal aid, who is still waiting and how they’re each thinking about the potential disaster threats from future fire seasons.
After a marathon session on Wednesday night, Republican lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives are poised to pass a massive tax and spending bill which President Trump has said he wants to sign on July 4. On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate passed their version of the bill after a tie-breaking vote from Vice President JD Vance. The bill passed by the Senate is expected to add $3.3 trillion to the federal deficit, according to the Congressional Budget Office, while making steep cuts to Medicaid benefits to help pay for trillions of dollars in tax cuts.
In Oregon, roughly 1 in 3 residents get their insurance through Medicaid. According to Oregon Health Authority’s Medicaid director Emma Sandoe, an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 Oregonians could lose their Medicaid benefits under the bill. On Wednesday, Gov. Tina Kotek and former Gov. John Kitzhaber, the architect of Oregon’s state Medicaid program, urged U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz of Oregon’s 2nd Congressional District to vote against the bill. Bentz is the sole Republican member of Oregon’s Congressional delegation and roughly 40% of the residents in his district are enrolled in the Oregon Health Plan.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Maxine Dexter of Oregon’s 3rd Congressional District is a pulmonary and critical care physician by training who testified against the bill on Capitol Hill and introduced amendments to it which were blocked by Republicans. She joins us to talk about the impacts of the Medicaid cuts for Oregonians and the new work and recertification requirements for Medicaid enrollees. “Think Out Loud” also made multiple attempts to request Rep. Bentz to participate in this conversation.
Last week, stakeholders from the Upper Mississippi River toured the Columbia and Snake River to see what is similar and different from the two water systems. Last year, stakeholders from the Pacific Northwest visited the Mississippi in this continued collaboration between the two rivers. Michelle Hennings is the executive director of the Washington Association of Wheat Growers. Gary Williams is the executive director of the Upper Mississippi Waterway Association. They both join us to share what the Columbia and Mississippi River can learn from each other.
Over the last few months, the Trump administration has directed federal agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation to cut funding for research with any connection to “diversity,” “equity” or “gender ideology.” The cuts have forced researchers across the country, including in Oregon, to stop their studies or scramble to locate alternative funding.
We’ll hear from three researchers whose federal grants were cancelled: Marguerita Lightfoot is a professor at the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health. Lauren Forrest is an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Oregon. Tala Navab-Daneshmand is an associate professor of environmental engineering at Oregon State University.
They join us to talk about the negative impact the cuts will have on efforts to address health disparities in the U.S.
Last week, the Metro Council decided it would not ask voters to extend a regional homeless services tax on the November ballot. The Supportive Housing Services tax, which is set to expire in 2030, applies to residents in Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington counties making more than $125,000 a year (or more than $200,000 for couples filing jointly). Businesses making more than $5 million annually are also subject to the tax which helps fund programs in the tri-county area to help people experiencing homelessness move into housing.
But a poll the Metro Council recently commissioned suggests that voters in the region appear to be questioning its effectiveness to help combat a crisis that has only gotten worse since the tax went into effect four years ago. The poll found that 53% of respondents said they would vote “yes” to reauthorize the tax, while 43% said they would oppose it.
The Metro Council is now exploring how to reform the tax, starting with a recent vote to index income thresholds to inflation and remove quarterly payment requirements for most high earners. Joining us to discuss the future of the Supportive Housing Services tax is Metro Councilor Christine Lewis.
When Oregon lawmakers convened in January to kick off the 2025 legislative session, among their top legislative priorities was a transportation funding fix for the state’s aging bridges, highways and roads. But the Democratic supermajority failed to get a transportation package over the legislative finish line when the session adjourned on Friday night.
Democrats waited until the last month to unveil HB 2025, which would have generated nearly $12 billion over the next decade through a mix of taxes and fees, including hikes in the state’s gas tax and a new tax on vehicle sales. Republicans balked at the proposal, including several who had been working with Democrats on transportation funding.
Defections emerged among Democratic lawmakers as well, most notably from state Sen. Mark Meek, D-Gladstone, a member of the Joint Committee on Transportation Reinvestment. Senate President Rob Wagner, D-Lake Oswego, removed Meek from the committee on June 20 to boost the bill’s chance of passage. But on Friday, Democrats conceded they didn’t have the votes to pass it, and they had to abandon a last-ditch effort to raise the state’s gas tax by 3 cents to avert looming layoffs at the Oregon Department of Transportation.
Sen. Meek joins us to share his thoughts on the legislature’s efforts to tackle Oregon’s transportation challenges.
The NBA draft started last week, and free agency just began. For the Blazers and their fans, some new faces will hit the court, and others will say goodbye. Yang Hansen, a 7-foot-1 center from China, is the Blazers’ newest rookie and was No. 16 in the overall draft. The Blazers also recently parted ways with center Deandre Ayton after a slew of “bad ways,” including tardiness, tantrums and skipping rehabilitation appointments, as first reported in The Athletic. Mike Richman is the host of the “Locked on Blazers” podcast. He joins us to share more on what to expect from Rip City’s beloved team after this player shake-up.
CAHOOTS, the Lane County program that’s been a model for mobile crisis services around the country, has been facing challenges at the local and federal level.
Services in Eugene came to an end earlier this year as the city managed a budget shortfall.
Lane County offers crisis services that are funded through Medicaid, but CAHOOTS also specialized in homeless and community outreach.
While CAHOOTS is no longer serving Eugene, its contract with Springfield has been renewed. It currently offers 12 hours of service, seven days a week to the city. Justin Madeira is the CAHOOTS program coordinator. He joins us with details about what’s next for the organization and what crisis response efforts look like in Oregon.
Last year, Oregon added the Southern Resident orca to the state’s endangered species list, giving it added protections nearly two decades after it was federally listed under the endangered species act in 2005. Now, a new draft management plan has been released by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to help whale numbers.
Currently there are 73 Southern Resident orcas traveling in three pods along the west coast. About 48 whales within two of those pods spend time here in Oregon. There are three main causes for declining whale numbers, including loss of prey, disturbance from vessels and environmental contaminants. The agency is currently taking public comment on the plan that hopes to address these issues. Howard Takata is the Southern Resident orca conservation coordinator with ODFW. He joins us to share more on the plan.
In the last two weeks of the Oregon legislative session, which ended late Friday night, housing advocates including the Community Alliance of Tenants, the Oregon Housing Alliance and the Urban League of Portland sounded the alarm and protested in Salem over funding cuts. They said the programs for emergency rent assistance and programs to prevent eviction must remain funded to prevent thousands of individuals and families with children from being evicted and becoming homeless. Lisa Bates is a professor of Black Studies at Portland State University and helps run a research program studying evictions across Oregon.
We talk with Bates about the lack of legislative funding for homelessness and housing programs and what’s needed in her view to address the ongoing homeless and housing crisis.
The Oregon Legislature wrapped up the 2025 regular session on Sunday. Lawmakers passed bills that addressed utility rate hikes, large energy users like data centers and microgrids for local electricity generation, among other environmental issues. But some advocates think lawmakers didn't go far enough in advancing the state's carbon-cutting goals.
Nora Apter is the Oregon director for Climate Solutions, a regional nonprofit that advocates for climate policy. She joins us to talk about what lawmakers did – and didn’t – pass in terms of climate legislation and how federal rollbacks of environmental protections could impact the state’s climate goals.
The gavel came down on this year’s session of the Oregon legislature on Friday. Legislators failed to pass a controversial funding package for transportation and infrastructure. They also took up gun bills, civil commitment, wildfire funding and many other issues. OPB political reporter Dirk VanderHart helps us understand it all.
On Tuesday, Oregon's first measles case of the year was reported in Multnomah County, joining a slew of other states who have had reported cases this year. The individual who tested positive is an adult who is believed to have acquired the disease while traveling abroad and was hospitalized in Portland. The highly contagious disease is transmitted through the air via coughs and sneezes, with symptoms including fever, cough and a rash appearing from seven to 21 days after exposure. Paul Ciselak is the medical director for communicable disease and immunizations at Oregon Health Authority. He joins us to share more.
Two Portland bars are among the top four finalists for this year’s Spirited Awards, one of the most prestigious honors in the cocktail world. Pacific Standard, located inside the KEX Hotel, is nominated for Best U.S. Hotel Bar. Palomar — a Cuban-inspired bar that recently moved from Hosford-Abernathy to Northwest Portland — is a finalist for Best U.S. Restaurant Bar. The awards, which will be announced in New Orleans on July 24, recognize excellence in bars and mixology around the globe. Pacific Standard’s Jeffrey Morgenthaler is also up for Best U.S. Bar Mentor. Morgenthaler joins us along with Palomar’s Ricky Gomez to talk about what the nominations mean, how their approach to running a bar has evolved, and how they’re navigating a cocktail in
Lance Orton is the executive director of CityTeam Portland, which offers shelter, housing and recovery services to its clients. If you hadn’t read about him or heard him tell his story, you’d never guess Orton was himself homeless and addicted to heroin just seven years ago. In addition to being the executive director of CityTeam, he also sits on the board of Central Eastside Together and the Old Town Community Association. He also serves as board chair of Shelter Portland, a public-private initiative by Mayor Keith Wilson to create strategic solutions for homelessness and addiction.
Orton joins us to share more about his personal life transformation about how the faith-based nonprofit he now runs is hoping to expand its services in a new facility that will open soon in the Old Town neighborhood.
Information for Public Use, a group that researches public records, found that the Medford Police Department has collaborated with regional and federal law enforcement agencies including Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Medford and other law enforcement agencies in Southern Oregon have shared surveillance technology and tactics, according to a report by Jefferson Public Radio.
In August last year, the ACLU of Oregon sued the City of Medford claiming that the police broke state law by monitoring the social media accounts of local organizers. That litigation is ongoing.
When asked to comment about the latest findings from Information for Public Use, Medford Police Lieutenant Geoff Kirkpatrick responded that due to pending litigation, the department cannot comment on questions on this topic at this time.
We learn more about what’s happening in Medford from Kelly Simon, the legal director of the ACLU of Oregon.
Ketamine is an anesthetic that has been growing in use as an off-label prescription to treat depression. Individuals can access the drug through telehealth appointments and clinics in person. But new reporting from Undark shows that many of these providers face few regulations, and much is still unknown about the drug. Dawn Fallik is an associate professor at the University of Delaware and a freelance medicine and science reporter. She covered this story through a grant from the Pulitzer Center and the University of Delaware and joins us to share more on what ketamine clinics look like in Oregon and around the U.S.
A new high school program in Oregon teaches students the ins and outs of seafood butchery and the state’s "blue economy." The program was in the pilot stage last year at six schools but has grown to 15 and now has a new curriculum that focuses on seafood caught in the Pacific Northwest. A major goal of the program was to get local seafood in the hands of students, as a study commissioned by the Oregon Coast Visitors Association found that 90% of Oregon-caught seafood is exported. Maggie Michaels is the program coordinator for the program. James Byrne is a science teacher at Clatskanie Middle and High School. Cora Evenson is a sophomore at the same school and took the class last year. They all join us to share more about what students are learning in the program.V
Artist Fred Grandy grew up in Oregon with five sisters and one brother. The family also lived in Washington for a time. As an adult, Grandy moved around the country, with stints in California, Louisiana, Kentucky and Virginia. But his last days were spent in Ukraine, volunteering with a group that helped to clear up debris after Russian bombings. His sister, Bend resident Sietska Reed, says he had taken off on an open-ended trip to Western Europe but found himself drawn to Poland and then Ukraine.
Reed said her brother felt he was where he needed to be to help Ukrainians in a small but tangible way. Grandy was angry, she said, about President Donald Trump’s embrace of Russia, which invaded Ukraine, and also wanted to represent the many Americans who are horrified by Trump’s actions and demonstrate support for Ukraine’s sovereignty. She says the family was notified last week by the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine that her brother was among those killed in one of the heaviest Russian attacks on Kyiv since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Reed joins us, along with her son Kennith Reed and her brother Jim Grandy to remember Fred and tell his story as they think he would want it told.
Portland artist and activist Isaka Shamsud-Din has captured the lives and histories of African Americans in paintings throughout his life. He draws on his experiences growing up in Portland for his work. His exhibit, “Rock of Ages,” is currently on display at the Portland Art Museum. We spoke to him in January 2020.
As reported earlier by Oregon ArtsWatch, Portland artist, educator and activist Isaka Shamsud-Din has died. The arts and education nonprofit Don’t Shoot Portland announced earlier this month that the artist had entered hospice care. Shamsud-din had been ill with cancer for some time.
We listen back to a conversation we first aired in January 2020 with Shamsud-Din when his exhibit, “Rock of Ages,” was on display at the Portland Art Museum.
If current trends continue, the city of Vancouver can expect to build roughly 700 new housing units this year. That’s far less than the city’s goal of building 2,000 new housing units annually and a sharp decline from the roughly 1,100 units it developed last year. The Columbian recently reported on the drop in new construction in Vancouver and the factors contributing to it, including tariffs on steel, aluminum and lumber which are driving up construction costs.
Earlier this month, Vancouver’s Economic Prosperity and Housing Director Patrick Quinton outlined several steps the city council could approve to spur new construction. They include eliminating off-street parking requirements for new affordable housing and deferring the collection of fees from developers for market-rate housing. Quinton joins us to talk about these proposed changes amid a housing shortage in Vancouver and the region.
At least five members of Portland’s Rose City Rollers roller derby team will be headed to the Roller Derby World Cup in Austria next week. And a few more members of the local team will be competing on the world stage representing their countries of origin. Lex Zhang, who is known as Lexsanguination when she skates, will be competing with Chinese Nations Roller Derby. The players for this team come from all over the world but share a common Chinese ancestry. The Roller Derby World Cup also features teams such as Black Diaspora Roller Derby, Indigenous Rising Roller Derby, Team Desi and Jewish Roller Derby. Zhang joins us to talk about the upcoming competition and the joy of skating with Chinese Nations Roller Derby.
It’s peak harvest time for sweet cherries in Oregon and Washington. Growers in the Pacific Northwest are anticipating a strong crop this year, with a higher yield than last year’s harvest. But what they weren’t anticipating was a workforce shortage that’s being driven by the fear of immigration enforcement raids. KUOW reported earlier on how this issue is threatening the livelihoods of cherry farmers in Washington.
The immigration crackdown is also clouding the outlook for cherry growers in Oregon, according to Ian Chandler, chair of the Oregon Sweet Cherry Commission and the co-owner of CE Farm Management, a cherry orchard in The Dalles. Chandler said he’s not aware of any recent immigration enforcement raids on farms in the Columbia Gorge. But he says the fear of potential enforcement activity led to a 50% reduction in available workers for most cherry farmers in the region at the start of harvest two weeks ago.
Some migrant farm workers whose employers obtained H-2A visas for them have also been stuck at the border in Mexico and unable to help with the harvest in The Dalles, according to Tiffany Davis, business manager for K&K Land and Management. Chandler, Davis and Monica Zipprich, an orchard manager at K&K Land and Management, join us to talk about the toll federal immigration enforcement is taking on the Oregon sweet cherry industry.
When the gates on The Dalles Dam closed in 1957, Celilo Falls was flooded and a vital salmon fishery for Yakama and Warm Springs tribal people was forever changed. Warm Springs Tribal Elder Linda Meanus was a young girl at the time, being raised by her grandparents, Flora Thompson and Chief Tommy Thompson, in nearby Celilo Village. In that bustling community along the Columbia River where salmon provided sustenance and a way of life, she learned about the importance of first foods, and gained an abiding reverence for her Indigenous culture and language. More than six decades later, Meanus has written “My Name is LaMoosh,” a chronicle of her early life in Celilo Village and a tribute to the legacy of her grandmother to whom the book is dedicated. We first spoke with Meanus in June 2021 about the release of her book which as published by OSU Press in collaboration with Confluence and historian Katy Barber.
Behind the Wok is a new digital archive from APANO that looks at the six historic Chinese restaurants that helped form Portland’s Jade District. These include Hung Far Low, Canton Grill, Chinese Village, New Cathay, Legin and Wong’s King Seafood. The archive explores how these restaurants became community hubs and how early restaurateurs leaned on one another. Suenn Ho is a principal urban designer at Resolve Architecture. Brian Liu is the community development manager at APANO. They both join us to share more on the project.
Perched high on a ridge in the South American Andes, a new observatory aims to revolutionize our understanding of the cosmos and unravel some of the mysteries it holds. Featuring the world’s largest digital camera, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory will spend the next 10 years continuously surveying and recording time-lapse movies of the stars, galaxies, asteroids and other objects moving across the southern hemisphere. The ultra-high-definition images will help create a kind of “Google Maps” of the night sky, according to Mario Jurić, a University of Washington astronomy professor and member of the observatory’s international science team.
Jurić and his team are creating an online database that amateur and professional astronomers can access to track changes across space and time and zoom into celestial objects of interest – including asteroids that may be on a collision course with Earth. Jurić joins us to share more about the observatory’s capabilities and the first set of images it will reveal on June 23.
This week, Portland City Council finalized a city budget totaling over $8 billion in spending for next year. It includes more funding for alternative shelter sites and an expansion of Portland Street Response, but cuts to the office of Civic Life and less funding for the Portland Police Bureau than the mayor had requested. Mayor Keith Wilson joins us to discuss his plans for executing this final budget. We’ll also discuss the Trump administration’s calls for increased immigration enforcement in West Coast cities and the protests at Portland’s ICE facility.
In early June, a federal judge found the state in contempt of a court order that requires people with severe mental illness in custody to be quickly admitted to the the Oregon State Hospital. Now, the state is appealing that decision and has asked the court to pause the contempt ruling. Amelia Templeton is OPB’s health reporter and has been following this story. She joins us to share more on what is happening at the state’s psychiatric hospital.
Eugene accordionist Maria Telesheva won her first competition when she was just 6 years old. Now a rising senior at North Eugene High School, Telesheva has traveled the globe performing and competing as both a solo artist and as a duo with her father, Sergei. As recently reported by KLCC, she’s also a fellow with NPR’s performance program “From the Top” and a 2025 recipient of the Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award.
Telesheva joins us for a performance and to share what she thinks makes the accordion so special.
By 2050, roughly one in four Oregonians will be age 65 or older. In rural Lincoln County, older adults already make up about a third of the population, representing one of the fastest-aging communities in the state.“Think Out Loud” recently traveled to Newport to talk about healthy aging — the social connections and habits that can help people thrive as they get older, as well as the programs and policies communities should consider as their populations age.Jan Molnar Fitzgerald is the executive director of North End Senior Solutions, which includes an adult day service. Helen Beaman is the older adult behavioral health specialist for Lincoln and Tillamook counties. Randi Moore is the director of Senior, Disability, and Community Services Programs for the Oregon Cascades West Council of Governments. And Debby Rhein volunteers for some of the council’s programs, including as a Senior Companion and Foster Grandparent.They joined us in front of a live audience at the Newport 60+ Activity Center to talk about the civic and social infrastructure that can lead to healthy aging on the Oregon Coast.
This week the board of Prosper Portland votes to finalize a settlement for more than 20 people whose homes and businesses were destroyed in the name of urban renewal from the 1950s through the ’70s. The group of Black Portlanders fought for years to get to this point, and eventually filed a federal lawsuit arguing that the city of Portland, Emanuel Legacy Medical Center and Prosper Portland conspired to destroy a previously thriving Black neighborhood. The original financial settlement proposed to the Portland city council was $2 million. After testimony from a dozen community members recently, all 12 Portland city councilors voted to increase the amount to $8.5 million. As part of the settlement, the lawsuit will be dismissed, and the descendants will get financial and land retribution, in addition to other terms. We hear from plaintiffs Donna Marshall and Byrd, who led the research effort that culminated in this settlement, and from their lawyer Ed Johnson.
Last week, the Trump administration pulled out of a historic agreement made in 2023 to aid in salmon recovery and renewable energy for tribes. The agreement would have invested more than $1 billion in federal funds for wild fish restoration efforts over a decade and could have potentially led to the removal of the Snake River Dams to help native salmon populations. But, some industry leaders were unsupportive of the deal, including those in the agricultural and port industries who say the dams play a critical role in shipping goods overseas. Jeremy Takala is the chair of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission and worked closely with the Biden administration to reach the agreement. Leslie Druffel is the outreach director for the McGregor Company in Washington and works closely with many in the agricultural industry. They both join us to share their thoughts on the rescission of the deal.
Coffee leaders in Oregon recently held a roundtable discussion with Democratic U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici to discuss how changes at the federal level are affecting the industry, according to Daily Coffee News. Leaders in the Portland area say they’re concerned about how a 10% tariff could affect already high coffee prices. Additionally, countries that produce coffee including Kenya, Ethiopia and Honduras have been hit by USAID cuts. Programs that operated with USAID funding have been shut down overnight, affecting farmers and supply chains. Emily Smith is a relationship representative for Hacea Coffee. Darrin Daniel is a consultant for coffee roasters and retailers and has more than two decades of experience as a green coffee buyer. Cassy Gleason is the co-owner of Buckman Coffee Factory and Marigold Coffee. They join us with more on how Oregon’s coffee industry is tied to international relations and what federal policies mean at the state level.
Oregon lawmakers recently unveiled a proposal to maintain the state’s roads and bridges. House Bill 2025 would raise the state’s gas tax by 15 cents, raise vehicle fees and add oversight to the Oregon Department of Transportation, according to OPB reporting. The bill could raise more than $2 billion annually by 2034, according to a revenue analysis. What does the proposal mean for cities and counties? Dan Dorran is a Umatilla County Commissioner. Jim McCauley is the legislative director for the League of Oregon Cities. They join us with more on the role that cities and counties play in Oregon’s transportation system and why funding is critical at the local level.
In Multnomah County, the number of deaths of homeless residents grew from 113 in 2019 to more than 450 in 2023. Research has found that encampment sweeps can threaten the health of people experiencing homelessness. Portland has carried out 19,000 sweeps since 2021, according to city records. Reporting from Street Roots and ProPublica examines why residents of Multnomah County die at a higher rate than in any major West Coast county, according to available homeless mortality data. K. Rambo is the editor-in-chief of Street Roots and produced the story for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network. Rambo joins us with details.
Bend serves as a gateway to natural wonder and recreation in Central Oregon. But, like many other places across the West, the city has too few homes. “High Desert, Higher Costs: Bend and the Housing Crisis in the American West” explores the housing issues that have been brewing for decades in Bend. We’ll hear more about the city from Jonathan Bach, author of the book and housing reporter for The Oregonian/OregonLive.
Oregon lawmakers have until June 29 to finish legislative business and adjourn the 2025 regular session. Although a number of bills remain in play, even at this late date, the only thing lawmakers are constitutionally obligated to do before they leave the Capitol is pass a biennial budget for 2025-2027. During the last five months, Democrats and Republicans have taken up issues related to housing, taxes, transportation and much more.
House Minority Leader Christine Drazan, R-Canby, shared her perspective on the session on Friday’s “Think Out Loud.” And joining us today to talk about the progress toward sine die is Senate Majority Leader, Kayse Jama, D-Portland.
By the time he was 20 years old, Seattle amateur filmmaker Richard Lyford had already made nine films, including “The Scalpel.” Lyford wrote, directed, starred in and made the silent horror movie in 1936 when he was still in his teens. The film also showcased Lyford’s skills with makeup and early cinematic special effects, which he used to transform himself into a Dr. Jekyll-like scientist who experiments on himself with gruesome and tragic results. According to Seattle composer and producer Ed Hartman, “The Scalpel” was never publicly shown, apart from a handful of screenings to friends and family and an amateur film club. But thanks to Hartman, who led the restoration of the film and composed a new soundtrack for it, “The Scalpel” is now being shown in its entirety for the first time in nearly 90 years. It will have its Portland premiere on Saturday at the Clinton Street Theater during the Portland Horror Film Festival. Hartman joins us to talk about Lyford’s legacy, restoring this hidden gem of the horror genre and what lessons it offers to budding filmmakers.
Oregon lawmakers have until June 29 to finish legislative business and adjourn the 2025 regular session. Although a number of bills remain in play, even at this late date, the only thing lawmakers are constitutionally obligated to do before they leave the Capitol is pass a biennial budget for 2025-2027. During the last five months, Democrats and Republicans have taken up issues related to housing, taxes, transportation and much more. Sen. Kayse Jama, D-Portland, will join us next week to share his perspective on progress toward sine die. But joining us today to talk about cooperation and conflict in the Oregon Legislature is House Minority Leader Christine Drazan, R-Canby.
On Tuesday, two asylum seekers were arrested at the Portland Immigration Court after they showed up for scheduled hearings. After attorneys from the Portland-based Innovation Law Lab filed habeas corpus petitions on the asylum seekers’ behalf, a federal judge ordered the government to not move them out of Oregon without first providing notice and to wait for at least two days. The Innovation Law Lab is also representing two other asylum seekers who were arrested under similar circumstances at the Portland Immigration Court and who are being detained at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington. In recent days, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have ramped up arrests and deportations at workplaces and courthouses around the nation. Those tactics have sparked a wave of growing protests and clashes with law enforcement in Portland and other cities, including Los Angeles, where President Trump controversially ordered the deployment of the California National Guard and Marines to support federal immigration enforcement in the region. Innovation Law Lab’s legal director, Jordan Cunnings, joins us to share more details about the asylum seekers arrested in Portland and the legal issues surrounding their cases.
We do not need any more nonprofits in Oregon,” Libra Forde wrote that recently in an op-ed for The Oregonian/OregonLive, calling it a “difficult truth.” She’s the executive director of Women’s Foundation of Oregon, a philanthropic organization which does grant-making, research and policy advocacy. We hear more from Forde on how nonprofits should move forward as federal funds shrink and how merging organizations could serve communities better.
Ada Gallagher was an artsy kid who joined the track team at Portland’s McDaniel High School at the urging of her friends. It turns out, not only was she was good at running, she also enjoyed it. Last year, Gallagher won first place in the 200-meter race at the Class 6A state track meet. Earlier this year, Fox News posted a video of her performance in a 400-meter race at a meet. The national attention came because Ada is a member of a very small but controversial population: a transgender female athlete. In February, President Donald Trump issued an executive order titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” that aimed to ban transgender women from competing in girls and women’s sports. After Ada’s win in the 400, the Trump administration launched an investigation into Portland Public Schools and the Oregon School Activities Association for allegedly violating Title IX. Bill Oram, sports reporter at the Oregonian, and Ada Gallagher join us to talk about what it has been like to be at the center of national attention, and why she and her family are choosing to leave the country.
In 2017, Portland created a Tribal Relations Program to bridge the relationship between Tribal governments and the city. It was a trailblazing program at the time, but in the years since, it's had three different managers and has been without a leader for seven months. OPB’s Alex Zielinski and Underscore’s Nika Bartoo-Smith join us to talk about the city’s troubled relationship with Tribal governments and its hopes for the future of the program.
For more than 20 years, British author and Cambridge University professor Robert Macfarlane has garnered international acclaim for his writings on nature and our relationships to it, from awe-inspiring wonder and life-giving sustenance to relentless extraction and exploitation. For his new book, “Is a River Alive?”, Macfarlane explores the idea of rivers as animate beings, a concept that is connected to the Rights of Nature movement that has spurred a novel legal framework to protect imperiled waterways, animals and ecosystems around the world.
To find out, Macfarlane embarked on a journey that spanned continents and topographies. He trekked through a cloud forest in Ecuador, visited dying and polluted waterways in southeastern India and kayaked down a river in northeastern Canada that was granted legal personhood in 2021 to save it from being dammed. Along the way, Macfarlane introduces us to the people fighting to defend these rivers, creeks and basins while bearing witness to the assaults and threats the waterways constantly face.
Macfarlane joins us to discuss “Is a river alive?” and the ideas it explores.
Sometimes a flower or a bird or an overheard snippet of conversation is enough to bring joy. Perhaps especially in a year like this one, focusing on the small things is important. That’s something poet Ross Gay spent a long time doing for his latest collection of essays, “The Book of Delights.” Gay’s definition of delight is expansive and palpable, and his essays range from the smallest of natural wonders to the largest of societal problems. This year, Multnomah County Library is encouraging everybody to read “The Book of Delights.” Ross Gay joins us to talk about his book.
In 2020, the Almeda Fire ripped through Jackson County. The catastrophic blaze destroyed more than 2,600 homes in Phoenix, Talent, Ashland and Medford. The “Think Out Loud” team traveled to Southern Oregon recently and talked to residents about how they're thinking about fire in their communities now. In Ashland, the city and the forest are tied together. The watershed, which provides the source of Ashland's drinking water, is more than 15,000 acres of potentially combustible forestland. Chris Chambers is the city’s forestry officer. He’s been a member of Ashland Fire And Rescue since 2002 and has worked on the city’s wildfire planning efforts. Along with city, federal and tribal partners, the Ashland-based Lomakatsi Restoration Project focuses on ecological resilience in Oregon and Northern California. Its restoration projects are spread throughout the region. Marko Bey is the executive director and founder of the organization. Belinda Brown is the tribal partnerships director. We hear how Chambers, Bey and Brown are thinking about wildfire resilience and how they approach their work in their communities.
In 2012, then Oregon governor John Kitzhaber announced a lofty goal: by 2025, the state would achieve a 100% high school graduation rate. That hasn’t happened — the state’s graduation rate is around 82% — but the goal sparked the creation of a 12-year reporting project at OPB called “Class of 2025.”
OPB journalists began talking to 27 students who were then in kindergarten at Earl Boyles elementary school in Southeast Portland, and have followed most of them through to 2025. Back in 2014, “Think Out Loud" spent an hour with the first graders, their teachers and parents after an early pizza lunch at Earl Boyles. We listen back to that show.
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek recently signed a piece of legislation that makes notable changes to Oregon’s landmark Bottle Bill. The new rules allow grocery and convenience stores across the state to reduce the hours that customers can redeem cans and bottles for cash. They also allow retailers in downtown Portland to stop accepting containers altogether if they’re close enough to an “alternative redemption site” such as The People’s Depot, which processes returns from people whose primary income comes from redeeming beverage containers. Taylor Cass Talbott is the co-founder and co-executive director of Ground Score Association, which operates The People’s Depot. Kris Brown is the operational manager for The People’s Depot. They both join us to talk about the changes and about ongoing concerns around how the Bottle Bill is interacting with the state’s homelessness and drug crises.
If you’re having a bit of deja vu over a plastic bag ban, you’re not alone. When Oregon lawmakers passed the first ban in 2019, which prohibited using so-called single-use plastic bags, more than a dozen Oregon cities had already passed such bans. But the ban's environmental aim of reducing the use of plastic - and its impacts on the environment and human health - did not end up achieving that goal. Grocers replaced the thinner, single-use bags with a thicker, sturdier version that in theory could be reused but only rarely were. The new plastic bag ban lawmakers have now sent to the governor for signature would eliminate all plastic bags from grocers and restaurants in favor of paper bags. Celeste Meiffren-Swango is the state director of Environment Oregon. She joins us to share more about how this new bill is expected to actually reduce plastic waste and what she hopes people do between now and Jan. 2027, when the law goes into effect.
A man who attacked a dozen people with a knife at Salem's Union Gospel Union Mission shelter on Sunday night is now in police custody facing attempted murder and assault charges. Several of the 12 stabbing victims suffered serious injuries and were hospitalized. The Union Gospel Mission has operated in Salem for 73 years and Director of Community Engagement Mark Hunter says, while it’s hard to make sense of the attack, he and the other staff and volunteers remain committed to their work. UGM provides food, shelter and educational programs to those experiencing homelessness with the help of hundreds of staff and volunteers and support from the community. Hunter joins us along with Executive Director Craig Smith to talk about how the community has supported the Mission in the aftermath of the attack and how the organization is thinking about security and continuing to fulfill their mission moving forward.
In 2012, Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber announced a goal that by 2025, the state would achieve a 100% high school graduation rate. Although Oregon today graduates only about 4 out of 5 students, that aspiration sparked the creation of OPB’s “Class of 2025” project. Journalists at OPB began tracking 27 students starting in first grade at Earl Boyles Elementary School in Southeast Portland through their senior year. For the past 12 years, the production team has documented the students’ triumphs and setbacks, transitions to new schools and social dynamics, along with the family members, teachers and administrators who’ve been helping them reach this milestone. The first podcast episode featuring some of those students at David Douglas High navigating their senior year is now available and a TV documentary featuring other seniors will be released in November. Joining us to discuss “Class of 2025” are three students: Josh, Joel and Anais. OPB editor and “Class of 2025” executive producer Rob Manning and Elizabeth Miller, an OPB education reporter and the reporter, producer and host of the “Class of 2025” documentary, also join us to reflect on the project and what it reveals about Oregon’s education system.
Until last week, Kevin Heatley was the Crater Lake National Park superintendent. He’d worked in the private sector for much of his career, but for most of the last decade he’s been in leadership positions with the federal government, including with the Bureau of Land Management. He had only taken the Park Service job in January, a move he made in anticipation of possible BLM cuts. But last week, he chose to resign, saying he could no longer be party to President Trump’s dismantling of the federal government. He told OPB that while park services will be affected, it was the impact on the physical and mental health of employees that he felt he could longer be complicit in. Heatley joins us to tell us more about his time at the helm of Oregon’s only national park and his hopes for federal government employees in the Trump administration.
After the killing of George Floyd in 2020, millions of Americans participated in protests for racial justice. Much of corporate America promised to address racial equity. Now, many of those companies are retreating from diversity initiatives.
“Qualified: How Competency Checking and Race Collide at Work” identifies how to create a more equitable workplace. Through research and anecdotes, Portland author Shari Dunn illustrates the institutional racism that exists in the workplace and how to stop it.
We learn more from Dunn about race in the workplace, the backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion policies and how she says businesses should rethink employment.
A study led by researchers at the University of Oregon explores water injustice across the U.S. The analysis focuses on vulnerable communities facing systemic barriers to clean water and also investigates water privatization in America.
“We found that violations and risks of water injustice tend to cluster in specific areas or hot spots across the country,” said Alex Segrè Cohen, the paper’s lead author. “We designed our method to capture not just where the problems are, but who they impact most and how.”
The study integrates data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the U.S. Census Bureau.
Segrè Cohen is an assistant professor of science and risk communication at UO. She joins us with more on water equity in the U.S.
Long before the four dams along the Klamath River were removed, the habitat restoration process began. RES, a company that specializes in ecological restoration, has been involved in the process since 2019. It’s charged with working on habitat restoration and will continue to maintain the project for about 5 years. We check in on the effort with Dave Coffman, the director of Northern California and Southern Oregon for RES.
Less than 24 hours after a lower court ruling on Wednesday found that President Trump had illegally used an emergency powers law to enact global tariffs, a federal appeals court paused that decision and allowed the tariffs to continue – for now, that is. The legal topsy-turvy added a fresh round of uncertainty for business owners like Leslie Jordan, who started a company in Portland nearly 40 years ago which manufactures athletic apparel and accessories made in factories in China and Pakistan.
In April, when President Trump enacted tariffs of 145% on goods made in China, Jordan had to pay nearly 200% in duties to get her products cleared through customs. She lost business as some orders got canceled and scrambled to move production to factories in countries like Egypt and Vietnam, which face lower tariff rates than China. She also started getting emails from companies that offered their services to help her avoid high tariffs through illegal schemes, such as misclassifying the imported goods or shipping them through a different country.
Jordan recently shared her experiences with the New York Times in their investigation into the rise of trade fraud as a consequence of the tariffs. She joins us to share more details and how she thinks the federal government can more effectively crack down on tariff cheats.
With the warm weather over the Memorial Day weekend you might have been tempted to cool off in one of the region’s many beautiful rivers. If you headed to Glen Otto park or High Rocks park in the Portland area you might have seen Emergency Medical Technicians from the American Medical Response (AMR) River Rescue Program on hand to help out in case of an emergency in the water. The EMTs are getting training in river currents and rescue operations this week and will staff the two parks all summer long. Gracie Goodrich, an AMR River Rescue Program supervisor, tells us more about the program, which has helped more than 2,000 people since it started in 1999.
A bill in the U.S. Senate would put more responsibility on social media companies to design their platforms to better protect children from online dangers. The Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, appeared set to pass Congress last year, only to stall in the House. It was reintroduced earlier this month.Advocates say KOSA is necessary to keep kids from being fed harmful content through algorithms, such as posts encouraging eating disorders or suicide. But opponents such as the ACLU have argued that it could restrict free speech.Kristin Bride is a social media reform advocate from Lake Oswego whose son died by suicide after he was bullied online. Nick Allen is the director of the Center for Digital Mental Health at the University of Oregon. They join us to talk about the new legislation and how families should weigh the pros and cons of youth social media use.
It’s been 50 years since legendary Oregon track and field athlete Steve Prefontaine died in a car crash on May 30, 1975. He was only 24 years old. At the time, the Coos Bay runner held every U.S. distance record from the two-kilometer race to the 10K and was training for the 1976 Olympics. His athleticism and charisma made him one of the best-known runners to come out of the University of Oregon and helped him land a brand deal as Nike’s first celebrity athlete.
Brendan O’Meara is the author of the new biography “The Front Runner: The Life of Steve Prefontaine.” He joins us to talk about Pre’s impact on the sport and his legacy in the track and field community.
The Head Start program provides free early childhood education and support for low-income families. The federal government funds the program through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Project 2025 proposed eliminating the program.
While Head Start still exists, regional offices have closed and programs have run into issues receiving their funding. We’ll learn more about what the program looks like now from Nancy Perin, the executive director of the Oregon Head Start Association.
Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield and Arizona AG Kris Mayes have prevailed in their challenge to a set of tariffs Pres. Trump had imposed on most countries on April 2. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. Court of International Trade in April. The coalition of Attorneys General included Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York and Vermont.
The judgment issued Wednesday said that the executive orders Trump issued using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act are illegal. In a statement, Rayfield celebrated the ruling and also noted it not only overturns the April 2 tariffs but also prevents Trump’s threatened 145% tariffs on Chinese imports and 50% tariffs on goods from the European Union. The administration has announced that it will appeal the ruling, and it immediately asked for the decision to be paused.
Rayfield joins us to share more details about this case.
A foster care bill in the Oregon legislature is controversial, but unlike other hotly contested issues, it’s not one that breaks along party lines. House Bill 3835 would allow kids in the child welfare system to be sent out of state to receive services — a practice Oregon stopped several years ago after documented incidents of abuse. Democratic governor Tina Kotek has publicly spoken in favor of the bill, and it’s sponsored by Rep. Rob Nosse, D - Portland. But Sen. Sara Gelser Blouin, D - Corvallis, is among those in her party who vehemently oppose it. We hear from both lawmakers to get their perspectives on how the bill would — or would not — meet the needs of some of Oregon’s most vulnerable children.
Renée Watson has topped bestseller lists and won multiple awards for her children’s and young adult literature. But the author, who splits her time between Portland and New York City, recently released “skin & bones,” her first book for adults. The story follows 40-year-old Lena Baker as she navigates dating, fat-shaming, friendship and motherhood while also working to bring Oregon’s Black history to the general public. The book also deals with grief, faith and the things we pass from one generation to the next. We spoke with Watson on June 24, 2024 about her adult fiction debut.
Portland comedian Susan Rice has performed on stages across the country since the 1980s. But it was only last year, at the age of 72, that she received wider acclaim after her appearance at a Don’t Tell Comedy showcase went viral. The 10-minute set has now been viewed more than 1.4 million times on Youtube. Following that success, Rice dropped her first stand-up album, “Silver Alert,” earlier this month.
Rice joins us to talk about her long career in comedy and the humor she finds in aging.
Katherine Paul is an Indigenous musician who performs as Black Belt Eagle Scout. The band’s most recent album, “The Land, Water, The Sky,” draws inspiration from the landscape of the Pacific Northwest and Paul’s return to her home on the Swinomish Reservation in Washington after many years in Portland. Paul recently created a 45-minute “soundwalk” in partnership with Third Angle New Music. The composition is meant to be listened to on a walk around Henry Hagg Lake in Washington County. To celebrate its launch, Black Belt Eagle Scout will perform a free show at the lake on Saturday, May 31.
Paul joins us to talk about the new project and her work as Black Belt Eagle Scout.
Chad Draizin of Portland’s 50 Licks sold his first scoop of ice cream in 2009 at a street fair. After several years of pop-up events and selling to local grocery stores, he opened his first brick-and-mortar shop in 2013 in the Clinton Street neighborhood, but it was in 2017 that Draizin says his business transformed with the opening of the E. Burnside & 28th location - on a busy corner near dozens of restaurants and a movie theater right across the street. Business boomed, and he was able to open another location in Northwest. That’s why the fire in May 2024, which consumed the inside of the historic building, was so devastating. But Draizin managed to keep the other stores going and create a pop-up location at Washington Square Mall. He joins us to share what recovery over the last year has looked like, and his hopes for getting back into his dream location on Burnside.
Last week, Oregon State Police, joined by multiple state and local agencies, completed a search of a roadside zoo in Bandon on the Southern Oregon Coast. More than 300 animals were seized and relocated to animal sanctuaries or rescue facilities. Three animals, including a camel, were euthanized because they were determined to be in such poor health they could not be transported or treated, according to OSP. The Oregon Humane Society, the Coos County Sheriff’s Office, the Oregon Department of Agriculture and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife assisted OSP with the four-day search and criminal investigation, which is ongoing.
The now-closed West Coast Game Park Safari opened in 1972 and lured visitors with a chance to encounter exotic animals like tigers, lions, chimpanzees and emus. Over the years, it had garnered numerous complaints from community members and organizations like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals over suspected animal neglect and possible violations of state wildlife regulations. Inspectors at the Department of Agriculture cited the roadside zoo 78 times in the past year alone for animals that had gone missing, appeared underfed or were denied adequate veterinary care, among other violations of the Animal Welfare Act.
Jefferson Public Radio reporter Justin Higginbottom has been following this story and joins us with more details.
By the early 1900s, the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist group founded by former Confederate soldiers after the Civil War, had all but faded from existence in the U.S. Then, in 1915, a second Klan was founded in Georgia, and soon spread across the country. By the mid-1920s, it had as many as eight million members across the U.S., including many chapters in the Pacific Northwest, and a strong base in the Midwest. Seattle writer Timothy Egan’s most recent book, “A Fever in the Heartland,” tells the story of the rise of the Klan in the 1920s and the leader who was brought down by one woman’s deathbed testimony. We talk to Egan in front of students at McDaniel’s High School.
The new solo play “Precipice” was conceived by actor and self-described “memory activist” Damaris Webb. It’s part of the offerings of the Vanport Mosaic Festival she co-founded 10 years ago. The play, like the festival itself, centers on remembering and reclaiming history and telling the stories of people who have been marginalized or forgotten. We talk with Webb and playwright Chris Gonzalez about this new work and what they hope audiences take from it.
Toni Pimble moved to Oregon from her home in England more than 46 years ago and co-founded the Eugene Ballet. As the company’s artistic director, she has choreographed over 60 pieces and collaborated with composers, artists and other organizations, from the Eugene Opera to the Oregon Bach Festival to the University of Oregon School of Music and Dance. Her award-winning work has also been performed by the New York City Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theatre and many others. We sit down with Pimble to talk about her career and her hopes for the company as she prepares to leave her role in June.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature keeps what it calls a Red List of species that are threatened with extinction due to habitat loss or exploitation such as overfishing. But a new study led by researchers at Oregon State University suggests another reason some wildlife might be at risk: climate change.
The scientists analyzed nearly 71,000 wild animal species – from corals to reptiles, insects to mammals – assessed by the IUCN Red List and categorized them according to climate-related threats they face such as drought or temperature extremes. The researchers found that more than 3,500 animal species are threatened by climate change - especially invertebrates like spiders, corals and jellyfish. The study also warns that mass mortality events linked to climate change, such as the marine heat wave in the Pacific Ocean that killed off 4 million common murres a decade ago, will “greatly accelerate” with rising global temperatures.
Joining us to discuss the study’s findings is co-author Jillian Gregg, a senior instructor at OSU’s College of Agricultural Sciences and the founder and CEO of Terrestrial Ecosystems Research Associates.
The Trump administration is proposing changes to the definition of “harm” under the Endangered Species Act. The proposed changes would prohibit actions that only directly relate to hurting or killing an animal. Historically, the word “harm” has been defined broadly to include habitat loss, which is a leading cause of extinction for endangered species. Noah Greenwald is the endangered species director for the Center for Biological Diversity. He joins us to share more on the broader impacts this change could have in Oregon and across the U.S.
While the biggest school bond on the ballot seems to be passing in Tuesday’s special election, Oregonians appear to be split in their support of education-related bond measures that would fund school building construction, maintenance and other improvements. OPB editor Rob Manning joins us to give us a picture of how many of the education-related votes fared in this week’s election.
On Wednesday, Portland’s 12 city councilors stayed late considering a number of amendments to the city’s budget - both large and small. OPB's Portland city politics reporter Alex Zielinski was there and tells us what it all means.
Oregon journalist and OPB’s “Hush” Podcast Host Leah Sottile has made a name for herself investigating extremism and fringe movements in the West. Her latest book, “Blazing Eye Sees All,” explores New Age religion, including the Love Has Won movement. Beyond that, the book is a history of spirituality in the U.S. and looks at the ways fascism and metaphysical circles are intertwined. Sottile joins us in front of a live audience at the Literary Art Bookstore in Portland to share more.
Thistle & Nest, an affordable housing provider in Bend, says the city’s new tree code isn’t flexible enough and is raising the cost of building new housing in Central Oregon. At one of the affordable housing developments Thistle & Nest is currently building, the code will mean fewer homes get built, according to the organization, which is refusing to submit a tree preservation plan for the site. That challenge is currently being reviewed by a hearings officer and could be appealed to the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals. Amy Warren, board president and co-founder of Thistle & Nest, joins us to explain why the nonprofit has decided to challenge the tree code.
The West Coast seafood industry is caught in the crosshairs of tariff uncertainty. International orders have been canceled, which impacts Oregon workers. Industry leaders and Oregon’s Democratic Congressional delegation have asked the US Department of Agriculture to step in. Lori Steele is the executive director of the West Coast Seafood Processors Association. She joins us with details of the challenges facing the industry.
David Hart isn’t necessarily one of the people you’d expect to be critical of the $7.4 billion multi-state opioid settlement reached with drug company Purdue. For 25 years, he was the assistant attorney general at the Oregon Department of Justice until his retirement last month, and he headed the department’s opioid litigation and recovery/pharmaceutical fraud unit. One way or another, he’s represented the state in opioid litigation and negotiations since 2004. But since he’s now retired, he feels an obligation to speak out about a settlement that he says is far too lenient and favorable to the Sackler family and their company, Purdue. Hart describes their behavior in igniting and fueling the opioid crisis “the worst of the worst.” He spoke with our news partner The Lund Report about his concerns and wrote an op-ed in the Oregonian/Oregonlive. He joins us to detail his concerns and how he’s making his case to the attorneys general in Oregon and the other states involved.
As most beer enthusiasts know, hops play a vital role in the brewing process. The cone-shaped flowers impart distinct aromas that help distinguish, say, a pilsner from a pale ale. Oregon is one of only three states, along with Washington and Idaho, that commercially grows hops. Oregon and Washington are also the only two states that have their own USDA-supported breeding programs to develop new varieties of hops. But only Oregon can lay claim to the Strata hop, a variety that was bred at Oregon State University and released in 2018. Nearly all Strata hops today are being grown at just nine family farms in the Willamette Valley.
But this quintessentially Oregon hop is about to get a lot more exposure thanks to Oregon Homegrown, a statewide beer collaboration launching on May 23. For two weeks, more than 20 Oregon breweries will showcase the flavor versatility of Strata to create an array of beers, from a Vienna lager to a hazy IPA to a fruited ale. Jeff Alworth is a journalist, author of several books on beer and the executive director of Celebrate Oregon Beer, a nonprofit he created last year that’s organizing the event. Gayle Goschie is a third-generation hop farmer and the co-owner of Goschie Farms in Silverton. They join us to share more details about Oregon Homegrown and what makes Strata hops so special.
Congress is considering cuts to Medicaid that would affect millions of Americans. Under a current proposal, nearly half of the Oregonians enrolled in the Oregon Health Plan would be required to prove they’re working or volunteering 80 hours a month to keep their coverage. In Oregon, some fear changes to Medicaid could hit healthcare in rural communities especially hard.
Evan Saulino is a family physician providing clinical care in the Columbia River Gorge. His commentary on possible cuts to Medicaid was recently featured in the Oregon Capital Chronicle. He joins us with details of his concerns and how federal changes to Medicaid would affect rural healthcare.
Oregon kindergarteners are opting out of vaccinations at increasingly higher rates over the last four years. And public health officials are growing increasingly concerned. Oregon is one of just 15 states that allow parents to opt out of childhood vaccinations for nonreligious, nonmedical reasons. The current opt-out rate of 9.7% is the highest recorded in state history. Health officials say the measles and pertussis outbreaks in the state are an indication more work is needed to boost vaccination rates more broadly.
We get more details from Stacy de Assis Matthews, the immunization coordinator at Oregon Health Authority, and Dr. Paul Cieslak, medical director for the Acute and Communicable Disease Prevention Section and the Oregon Immunization Program at OHA.
Street Soccer Portland is part of a national organization that aims to expand access to playing soccer by providing a free alternative to the pay-to-play model of club soccer. The local chapter primarily serves elementary and middle school-aged children through afterschool programs currently being offered at 20 schools and community centers in Portland, Tigard, Gresham and Vancouver. Partnerships and donations from companies like Adidas and Nike help provide free uniforms and equipment to participants, most of whom are low-income and would otherwise not be able to afford the hundreds of dollars a youth club soccer team would likely charge to join.
Since joining Street Soccer Portland two years ago, Program Director Julian Alexander has expanded participation in the organization by more than 140%, from roughly 1,000 to nearly 2,400 participants last year. Program Coordinator Saul Meneses Zurita is now helping coach the next generation of players after first playing in one of Street Soccer Portland’s afterschool programs 11 years ago. Alexander and Zurita join us to share the impact Street Soccer Portland is having on and off the field. They’ll also share details about the annual spring tournament that hundreds of fourth and fifth graders will compete in next Friday at Davis Elementary School in Gresham.
When someone accused of a crime is found unable to aid and assist in their own defense, they are sent to the Oregon State Hospital for an evaluation. After that, they often need to spend time at a residential treatment center until they are fit to stand trial. A new rule from the Oregon Health Authority requires residential treatment facilities in the state to accept those patients ahead of any who might be on their waiting list, setting aside their normal admissions standards. Attorneys for the Oregon Council for Behavioral Health and six residential treatment providers filed a petition with the Oregon Court of Appeals to block that rule.
We hear from Heather Jefferis, executive director of the Oregon Council for Behavioral Health, about the challenges faced by behavioral health providers in Oregon.
More than half of all counties in Oregon are facing budget shortfalls and cuts to programs and services. In Washington County, officials are proposing more than $25 million in reductions to the $2 billion budget that would include eliminating jobs and services.
In Coos County, the sheriff’s department released some of those serving time in its jail last year. In 2024, county voters turned down two different tax levies to fund government services. Even after making cuts, Coos County still faces a gap of about $1.8 million.
John Sweet is one of the three commissioners that govern Coos County. Kathryn Harrington is the chair of the Washington County Commission. They both join us to share more about the budget challenges and how they’re thinking about potential cuts to programs and services for their residents.
Prairie High School in the Battle Ground School District is headed to a statewide tournament this weekend. But it's not for a traditional sport like soccer, baseball or football — it's for esports. Esports, like many other sports, have players compete as individuals or in a team in a video game against others. Prairie High School took home first prize in a statewide championship last fall in “Overwatch 2,” a team-based hero shooter game. On Sunday, one of the teams will head to Lynnwood to compete again for another statewide title.
Simeon Redberg is a science teacher at the school and the coach of the team. Cody Sigler is a senior and team captain who was recently awarded an esports scholarship to attend Winthrop University in the fall. They both join us to share more on the world of esports at the high school level.
Some of Oregon’s largest school districts are facing cuts this year, including Portland Public Schools, Eugene 4J School District and the Beaverton School District. However, Oregon’s second-largest school district, Salem-Keizer Public Schools, is looking to spend more. Superintendent Andrea Castañeda shared a proposal last week that aims to increase the budget to invest more in mental health and special education. This comes after last year’s dramatic cuts that led to nearly 100 layoffs. Castañeda joins us to share more about her budget proposal and what the district's budget could look like in the future.
Oregon lawmakers will have roughly $500 million less to work with for the next two-year budget cycle, according to the state’s latest economic and revenues forecast unveiled Wednesday in Salem. The uncertainty sparked by tariffs, slashed federal spending and immigration issues are clouding the state’s economic outlook, according to Oregon Chief Economist Carl Riccadonna. Also on Wednesday, the state released its latest jobs report. It showed that unemployment in Oregon rose to 4.7% in April, which is higher than the national average and marks a gradual increase over the past year.
Oregon Chief Economist Carl Riccadonna joins us for more details about the state’s economic outlook and the challenges ahead.
The National Endowment for the Arts has withdrawn more than half a million dollars worth of grants that arts organizations all over Oregon were relying on. Portland Playhouse got a letter that said it would not get $25,000 meant for its production of August Wilson’s and Joe Turner’s "Come and Gone" that was to open the next day. Other organizations that saw their funding pulled include All Classical Portland, Oregon Children’s Theatre, NW Children’s Theatre, Passinart: A Theatre Company, and Profile Theatre. Portland Playhouse donors quickly made up the theatre’s lost $25,000 grant, but future federal funding is looking bleak to many Oregon arts organizations. Many of them met this week with Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, who vowed to do everything in her power to get federal funding restored.
Claire Willett is a Portland-based playwright, artist and grant writer. She’s been following the NEA funding cuts for Oregon Arts Watch and joins us to share the latest developments.
Earlier this month, Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson signed a bill into law that now requires clergy to be mandatory reporters of child abuse or neglect. Under SB 5375, clergy in Washington must report suspected abuse or neglect to authorities even if they learn of it during so-called penitential communications, such as confessions. The bill was first introduced in 2023 after reporting by InvestigateWest described how a lack of a mandatory reporting requirement for clergy in Washington may have played a role in helping Jehovah’s Witnesses in the state hide allegations of child sexual abuse.
As reported earlier by InvestigateWest, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it is opening an investigation into SB 5375, which it claims appears to violate the free exercise of religion under the First Amendment. Joining us to discuss the new law is the bill’s sponsor, Democratic Washington state Sen. Noel Frame, who represents Seattle in the state’s 36th Legislative District.
Ever since its debut 10 years ago, the wood-bat baseball team the Portland Pickles have been delighting fans with its summer games that feature quirky fan appreciation events, such as a “Redhead Appreciation Night” for the season opener on May 27, or one honoring bee sting survivors.
In addition to its 10th anniversary and winning the West Coast League championship last year, the Pickles are celebrating another milestone. Tomorrow marks the debut of the Portland Bangers, a new soccer team the Pickles are launching. Like the Pickles, the Bangers also feature collegiate-level athletes playing during the summer months.
Jorge Villafaña is the head coach of the Portland Bangers and a retired professional soccer player who helped the Portland Timbers win its first-ever Major League Soccer championship in 2015. He joins us along with Alan Miller, co-owner and president of the Portland Pickles, for a preview of the teams’ new seasons.
After the devastating 2020 Labor Day fires, the Oregon Legislature passed a bill that was supposed to lead to more wildfire awareness and resilience. It created a map of areas at high risk of fire. But that map led to a huge backlash from property owners. Now one of the democratic state senators who helped create the map is sponsoring a bill that would repeal it. We’ll talk to Jeff Golden, who represents the Ashland area, about why – and what should happen instead.
On Monday, the U.S. and China agreed to suspend increased tariffs for 90 days while negotiations continue. Prior to that announcement, the Port of Portland had projected exports and imports to be down 30% in May. We hear from Curtis Robinhold, the executive director of the Port of Portland, and from Tim McCarthy, the chief operating officer of Harbor Industrial, a maritime services company at the Port’s container terminal.
Late last month, the National Science Foundation, a U.S. federal agency that supports scientific research, terminated more than 400 grants that related to misinformation, disinformation and diversity, equity and inclusion. A proposed budget from the Trump administration would also cut the NSF budget in half. Kate Starbird is the co-founder of UW’s Center for an Informed Public. She joins us to share more about the broader impacts of these cuts.
The owners of Malheur Enterprise are retiring.
Les Zaitz is the retiring publisher of the Malheur Enterprise. He joins us with details.
Derrell Sekou Walker teaches West African dance to elementary and middle schoolers at two Portland public schools. He loves his job, but as the founder and artistic director of Sebé Kan Youth African Dance Company, he is bringing his love of this art form — along with the feelings of joy and freedom it inspires — to the larger community. He first formed Sebé Kan more than 20 years ago, but since 2018, he’s been focused on teaching the dance traditions from Mali, Guinea, Ivory Coast and other West African nations to children and youth. On May 16, the company will present a one night only, multigenerational dance performance and concert called “Mobaya: A Coming of Age” at Portland’s Newmark Theatre.
Walker joins us, along with his wife Karida Walker, who is a dancer in the troupe; and high school senior Nylah Jae Holt, who has been dancing with Sebé Kan since she was 8 years old.
When Rep. Ricki Ruiz (D-Gresham) was growing up with immigrant parents, the pervasive fear of deportation was integrally woven into his experience of childhood. He told KGW that even today, as an adult and a U.S. citizen, he’s always looking over his shoulder. That’s why he’s co-sponsoring SB 703, which would provide funding to nonprofits to help immigrant families that are eligible to apply for legal status to do so. On his Instagram account, he posted about the proposal’s bipartisan support, saying it indicates that “despite the federal landscape, Democrats & Republicans can still come together & work on immigration policies.”
Ruiz joins us to tell us more about the bill and the impact it would have on immigrants and their families. House Republicans were either unavailable or did not respond to invitations to participate in this discussion.
The North Portland peninsula, which includes the St. Johns and Cathedral Park neighborhoods, could become isolated from the rest of the city after a major earthquake. If the St. Johns Bridge and the railroad bridges on the peninsula’s eastern border fail, emergency responders could have no way into the area — and residents will have no way out. A bill in the Oregon Legislature would partially address the issue by designating funding for the city to design a seismically-safe bridge over the railroad tracks at Columbia Boulevard.
Sameer Kanal is a Portland City Councilor representing District 2, which includes North Portland. Jeff Bissonnette is the co-chair of the St. Johns-Cathedral Park Neighborhood Emergency Team. They join us to talk about how residents and the city are preparing for this potential disaster.
During the last year of the first Trump presidency, M. Gessen wrote a book about what lessons Americans could learn from countries like Russia and Hungary. The book, called “Surviving Autocracy,” draws on Gessen’s own experiences growing up in Russia and the scholarship of European philosophers who have written about modern day authoritarianism. We talk to Gessen in front of a student audience at Grant High School.
Transportation funding is a priority for Oregon lawmakers this legislative session. The Democratic proposal includes a major gas tax hike and other new taxes. The Republican plan puts less money towards public transportation, biking and pedestrian infrastructure. Sarah Iannarone is the executive director of The Street Trust. John Charles is the president and CEO of the Cascade Policy Institute. They join us with their perspectives on what approach lawmakers should take.
A bill in the Oregon Legislature would make it easier for law enforcement to use drones. Senate Bill 238 passed in the state house with bipartisan votes and is now being considered in the senate. It would give law enforcement agencies more authority to use drones without a warrant. Many law enforcement officers have testified that it would make their work more efficient and more safe. Opponents of the bill have concerns about its constitutionality and the future of automated policing more broadly. Michael Abrams, the policy counsel at ACLU of Oregon, opposes the bill. Aaron Scmautz is the president of the Portland Police Association and the Oregon Coalition of Police & Sheriffs, who support the bill. We’ll hear from both sides to learn more.
Since her birth in February, Asian baby elephant Tula-tu has become a star attraction at the Oregon Zoo. Asian elephants are endangered, with roughly 40,000 of them remaining in the wild, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. With all the attention Tula-tu has been getting, it’s easy to overlook the presence of Chendra, a Bornean elephant who has been in the zoo’s care for more than 25 years and whose relatives in the wild are even more at risk of extinction.
Only about a thousand Bornean elephants remain, mostly in the forested northern tip of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia.
For more than a decade, the Oregon Zoo has been supporting efforts to help save Bornean elephants. Last month, the zoo sponsored a symposium in Borneo attended by government officials; NGOs that are helping to protect habitat and reduce conflicts between people and elephants; representatives from the palm oil and tourism industries and other participants. At the symposium, the Sabah Wildlife Department launched a new plan co-developed by the Oregon Zoo to care for the growing number of calves and juvenile elephants that are being separated from their herds or found orphaned, like Chendra.
Dr. Sharon Glaeser is the Oregon Zoo’s elephant conservation lead. She joins us with more details about the fight to save the world’s smallest elephant.
A federal education program known as TRIO is effectively zeroed out in President Trump’s proposed budget. It began as part of Lyndon Johnson's so-called War on Poverty in the 1960s. Today close to a million low income and disadvantaged students in the U.S. get help from these grants. Earlier this year, the Trump administration excluded students without legal status from being eligible for these programs. We'll hear what TRIO means for Oregonians from the executive director of Oregon TRIO Association, Matt Bisek, and Oregon State University student Brianna Eck.
On Monday, Oregon Health and Science University and Legacy Health announced they are mutually walking away from an effort to combine the two healthcare organizations. The merger was first announced last August, when OHSU agreed to acquire 8 hospitals, $3 billion in assets and promised a whopping $1 billion in upgrades to Legacy facilities. The merger garnered scrutiny from a citizen review committee and public comments have reflected opposition to the deal. Amelia Templeton is OPB’s Healthcare reporter and has been following this story. She joins with the latest.
Oregon hospitals are “on the brink” according to a recent Oregon Hospital Association report. Half of them are losing money on operations, and more than two-thirds say they don’t have the resources to keep up with patient care. The data is from 2024, and anticipated federal cuts to Medicaid make the outlook even worse. Becky Hultberg, the President and CEO of the Hospital Association of Oregon, said in the report that if the trends continue or worsen, the state will see “a cascade of service closures, hospital consolidations or hospital closures.” Hultberg also said, “Oregon already has the second fewest hospital beds per capita. We can’t afford to lose these beds.” Hultberg joins us to tell us more about some of the interrelated and complex factors that have led to this state of affairs, and what she sees as possible solutions.
From acidic excrement that eats through bridge coating to nesting near roadways causing accidents, cormorants have been known to create some problems for humans here in Oregon. But for more than a decade now, researchers at Oregon State University have been using these diving birds to better understand oceans in Oregon and around the world. As recently featured in Audubon Magazine, by strapping sensors to birds, researchers are able to chart and understand data around underwater terrains, temperatures and more. Rachael Orben is an assistant professor at OSU’s Department of Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation. Jim Lerczak is the associate dean for research and a professor at OSU’s College of Earth Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences. They both join us to share more on what we’ve been able to learn from cormorants.
Between the on-again-off-again tariffs and the cancellation of federal funding, Oregonians across the state are affected by the many changes coming from the federal government. Reporters at the Portland Business Journal set out to take the temperature of business, nonprofit and political leaders across the state, three months into the Trump administration. Elizabeth Hayes, reporter for the Portland Business Journal, joins us to share what they found out.
On Monday, the U.S. Department of Education is expected to resume collections on student loans that are in default, ending a five-year pause that first began at the start of the pandemic. According to the agency, more than 5 million borrowers are in default, which typically happens after nine months of non-payment on a federal student loan. The federal government can force collections on defaulted student loans by garnishing wages, tax refunds or Social Security benefits.
About 500,000 Oregonians have student loans, most of which have balances between $10,000 and $40,000, according to Lane Thompson, the Oregon Student Loan Ombuds. That position was created through the passage of SB 485 in 2021 that also required all companies that service student loans in Oregon to be licensed by the state’s Division of Financial Regulation. Thompson joins us to share more information about her office and offers advice for borrowers in Oregon.
When Dennis Nyback died in 2022, the Portland film archivist and programmer had amassed a collection of thousands of reels of films, whether they were black and white cartoons, 1960s-era commercials or educational films shown in classrooms. Nyback would share his eclectic finds through curated screenings at independent movie theaters not only in Portland, but also across the U.S. and Europe.
As reported by Oregon ArtsWatch, Nyback’s friends and fellow cinephiles faced a daunting challenge after his death to track down and sort through the thousands of mostly 16mm reels of film he left behind. That effort evolved into The Nyback Archive, with a group of volunteers working to catalogue Nyback’s collection and eventually make it available for public viewing and study. The team leading this effort began sharing some of the gems they’ve found through monthly theater screenings, like the “16mm Nyback Showdown” between dueling projectionists on May 6 at the Clinton Street Theater.
Joining us to talk about the value of preserving analog film in our digital age are Greg Hamilton, a film curator and co-founder of The Nyback Archive, and filmmakers and curators Ioana Cherascu and Garrett Schroeder. Hamilton organizes screenings of films from the archive through his Psychotron Afterschool Special series, while Cherascu and Schroeder curate films from the archive and other acquisitions through their Astral Projections series shown in Portland and beyond.
On Monday, Portland Mayor Keith Wilson unveiled a budget for the city as it faces a massive budget shortfall. That deficit is $65 million if you don’t include the cost of the mayor’s ambitious plan to end unsheltered homelessness, or the city's new obligations to pay for homeless shelters that Multnomah County previously paid for. Mayor Wilson’s budget calls for staff layoffs and cuts to some programs and services, while also expanding staffing for homeless services outreach, Portland Street Response and Portland Fire & Rescue. In February, City Administrator Michael Jordan outlined the scope of the deficit in the city’s general fund that is due to a range of factors, from steep declines in property and business tax revenues to mounting overtime and healthcare costs.
The 12-member city council has until June to approve a budget and has held budget listening sessions where it’s heard from constituents concerned about cuts to city programs and services. Joining us to share details about Mayor Wilson’s proposed budget is OPB’s Portland city government reporter Alex Zielinski.
On May 2, 2000, the U.S. government lifted restrictions that made GPS technology more accurate and accessible to the general public. This day became known as Blue Switch Day, and this decision inadvertently created a new outdoor hobby. Geocaching is an activity where participants use GPS and coordinates to hunt down hidden containers, known as geocaches or caches, often located in parks, forests and cities around the world. The first cache was hidden just outside of Estacada, Oregon, only one day after Blue Switch Day. Twenty-five years later, there are now more than 3.3 million caches hidden around the world.
PJ Hubbard is the treasurer for GEOregon, a nonprofit dedicated to creating a community for geocachers in Oregon. The group is holding a Block Party event in September at Champoeg State Park to celebrate this anniversary. Hubbard joins us to share more about the past, present and future of geocaching.
The late Pope Francis brought attention to the plight of refugees and immigrants around the world, as well as to the climate crisis. He also took a different view of the role of women in the church and a more inclusive approach to gay rights and many other social issues, compared with his predecessors. Nearly one and a half billion Catholics around the world revere the Pope, and address him as “Your Holiness” or “Holy Father,” but even among non-Catholic Christians and those of other faiths, the voice and role of the Pope is unique on the world stage.
As we look to the start of the conclave next week to choose his successor, we’ll reflect on Pope Francis’s legacy and how it might influence the future of the Catholic Church. We’re joined by two different Catholic leaders in Oregon. Suzanne Thiel is a Bishop ordained by the Roman Catholic Womenpriests. Frank So, a lifelong Catholic, is the executive director of Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, which includes nearly 90 faith partners, including the Archdiocese of Portland, along with Protestant, Jewish, Muslim and Baha’i congregations.
Big changes could soon be coming to the way college athletes can profit off their name, image and likeness, or NIL. Since NIL legislation was first passed in 2021, student-athletes have had to pursue deals independently of their universities. But under the terms of a legal settlement announced last year, colleges could devote up to $20.5 million in athletic revenue to directly paying athletes for use of their name, image and likeness. The agreement still needs final approval from a federal judge, but is expected to be resolved in the coming weeks.
Lauren Anderson is the director of the Warsaw Sports Business Center at the University of Oregon. She joins us with more details on the settlement and its implications for college athletic programs in Oregon.
A bill in the Oregon Legislature would set up a structure for social media companies to compensate local news producers whose content is shared on those sites. SB 686 is based in part on bills in California and New Jersey, as well as a law that recently went into effect in Canada. It was meant for the largest social media companies to compensate local news media organizations whose content is shared on the platforms — thus supporting news outlets, many which have seen advertising revenues plummet. But the law has had some unintended consequences, including Meta simply deciding not to allow news to be shared at all in Canada.
Joining us to talk about the law's intentions, its unintended consequences and possible solutions is Ryan Adam, formerly the vice president of government and public relationships for the Toronto Star. He led efforts to pass the country’s Online News Act, also known as the C-18 law, and testified in Salem in April about Canada’s law.
OPB is among the news media organizations that testified in support of the Oregon bill.
Washington lawmakers have ended their legislative session by sending a $78 billion budget to Gov. Bob Ferguson’s desk. It includes nearly $6 billion in cuts and over $9 billion in taxes. Legislators also passed rent cap increases and a new gun permit system. Olympia correspondent Jeanie Lindsay joins us to share what the Washington Legislature accomplished this session.
For the last year, Grants Pass has been at the center of a national conversation about where people who are homeless can stay. A lawsuit brought against the city by a group of homeless people had made its way all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court: Grants Pass v. Johnson. Last June, the court released a six-to-three decision finding that it is not cruel or unusual punishment to penalize people for living outdoors even if they have nowhere else to go.But that ruling was not an end to legal battles about homelessness in Grants Pass or around the country. Earlier this year, after the city council closed one of its two sanctioned camp sites, a new lawsuit was filed, leading a judge to order another injunction -- and the city council to re-open one of those sites.Scott Nelson is the board president of MINT, a homeless services nonprofit. Susan Clark is the executive director of Mid Rogue Foundation, a nonprofit focused on housing. Indra Nicholas is a city councilor and small business owner. Brock Spurgeon is a tile contractor and one of the founders of Park Watch Grants Pass. They joined us in front of a live audience to talk about homelessness at the Performing Arts Center at Grants Pass High School on April 29
Brit Bennett’s book The Vanishing Half was on a lot of best-of lists in 2020. Though spanning the second half of the 20th century, the novel speaks to questions about race and identity that have been central to national conversations for the last two years. In that novel and her other writing, Bennett deals with the bonds of family, the importance of storytelling, and nature of identity. We spoke to Bennett about her essays and novels in front of an audience of students at Grant High School in Portland in 2021.
Jack Reacher may be one of the most iconic action book heroes of all time. Over 100 million copies of author Lee Child’s books have been sold. But the author who has taken over the series is perhaps a little less well known. Andrew Child, who also writes under the name Andrew Grant, is now carrying on the legacy of Jack Reacher for his older brother. He came to Portland for the 2024 Portland Book Festival to talk about the 29th book in the series, “In Too Deep.”
Amid the flurry of executive orders President Trump signed on his first day in office was one that called for a 90-day pause and review of all foreign assistance programs. Three months later, that has resulted in the cancellation of thousands of contracts and grants distributed through the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the gutting of the agency’s workforce.
Portland-based Mercy Corps is one of the many organizations that USAID had awarded grants to for the delivery of humanitarian assistance around the world. Mercy Corps says 40 of its 62 programs that were funded through those grants have now been terminated, from a project that would have provided clean drinking water to 12,000 villagers in Afghanistan to health centers in Nigeria that provided lifesaving food and nutrition services to tens of thousands of young children and pregnant women at risk of starvation and malnutrition.
Mary Stata is the chief development officer of Mercy Corps. She joins us to share the scope and human toll of the terminated programs and the future of international humanitarian aid without U.S. government support.
The number of registered voters who choose not to be members of any political party is growing. In fact, in Oregon, the percentage of these voters is bigger than both registered Democrats and Republicans. But those who vote in the major party primaries are the ones that decide which candidates appear on the general election ballot that is open to all voters. While Oregon’s neighbors, Washington and California, have made changes to their primary systems to allow for more participation, Oregon voters have said "no" in the past to doing the same. Nonetheless, Rep. Mark Gamba, D-Milwaukie, is among the sponsors of HB 3166, which would scrap the closed primary system that only allows party members to vote.
Gamba joins us to discuss how to best enfranchise non-affiliated voters (NAVs), along with attorney and political consultant Julie Parrish, who served four terms as Republican representative in the Oregon House.
Multnomah County chair Jessica Vega Pederson released a proposed $4 billion budget plan this week. The budget includes cuts to several programs and over 100 staff to address a $77 million shortfall. Earlier this year the county asked local and state jurisdictions to help fill a shortfall of over $100 million in the county’s homeless services budget. Chair Vega Pederson joins us to explain her budget proposal.
Next month marks the five year anniversary of George Floyd’s murder. Across the state and country, protests soon followed as videos and the news spread of his death, sparking wider conversation around race, police violence and more in our daily lives.
But what has and hasn’t changed since then? To answer these questions and more we’ll hear from Candace Avalos, Portland City Councilor representing District 1, Luke Richter, president of the Central Oregon Peacekeepers and Mic Crenshaw, an activist, educator and hip-hop artist. We’ll also hear from Aaron Schmautz, the president of both the Portland Police Association and the Oregon Coalition of Police and Sheriffs.
On Tuesday, Portland Public Schools Superintendent Kimberlee Armstrong shared her new proposed budget of $2 billion for the 2025-26 school year, her first budget proposal as the leader of Oregon’s largest school district. But with rising costs, limited revenue and declining enrollment are putting pressure on a school that is now facing a financial shortfall of $40 million. Supt. Armstrong joins us to share the details.
Songs of Power and Protest is a songwriter showcase that’s happening in Portland on April 26 at the Cravin' Gravy Social Club at 8 p.m. Jordan Sings and Ezza Rose are Portland musicians that will perform at the event. They join us to talk about the showcase and the power of music to express dissent.
Oregon lawmakers are considering HB 3018, which would require thousands of Oregon businesses – from hospitals to restaurants to food producers – to compost their food waste. Nationwide, an estimated 15% of methane gas pollution is created by food and other organic waste decomposing in landfills. The bill would also try to reduce the amount of food being tossed out in the first place by requiring foods sold in Oregon to be more clear about when a product is safe to eat. The state’s Department of Environmental Quality has estimated that 70% of the food thrown away could be safely eaten.
We get two perspectives on the proposals: Charlie Fisher is the state director of Oregon State Public Interest Research Group and helped write the bill. Jason Brandt is the president and CEO of the Oregon Restaurant And Lodging Association and has concerns about the bill.
“Hands of the Ancestors” is an exhibit currently taking place at Linfield University’s Miller Fine Arts Center in McMinnville. It showcases the work of Stephanie Craig, an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde and a seventh-generation basket weaver and artist. Oregon ArtsWatch recently profiled Craig and her exhibit, which is on display until May 2.
Craig spends nine months of the year locating and harvesting traditional materials such as hazel, rushes, bigleaf maple and western red cedar from across the state. She uses them to shape baskets and other woven items with the aid of tools like an antler awl and kupin, a traditional digging stick. But “Hands of the Ancestors” offers visitors more than just a window into Craig’s skills and artistry. It opens up a bridge linking the past to the present and future with an array of family photos and texts honoring the elders who taught Craig the Kalapuya tradition of basket weaving and the new generations Craig teaches today, including her 4-year-old daughter.
Craig joins us to talk about the exhibit and the messages of resilience and Native pride embedded in her work.
Just over 5 years ago, Sarah Baker created an Instagram account that they hoped would evolve into something more. A couple of months later, they had connected with some other activists and filmmakers and launched a film festival of Earth Day shorts in 2020 - just weeks after the pandemic lockdown. Five years later, the group of volunteer creatives say they are Making Earth Cool with a “collective that creates content and events using science, comedy & creativity to educate & inspire people to be better stewards of our only home, Earth.” Baker joins us to talk about this year’s screening of short films, and the community activities MEC is spearheading, including a parade later in the week and what it calls a kind of spiritual “Earth Ceremony.”
A federal law passed in the 1950s gave six states, including Oregon, civil and criminal jurisdiction over tribal reservations. Tribal nations have argued that the law undermines their sovereignty.
Oregon tribes have been able to petition the governor to repeal the law on their land, but there’s no official procedure or timeline for that process to take place. Senate Bill 1011 would change that by laying out clear guidelines for federally recognized tribes to regain control over civil and criminal matters that take place on tribal land.
Brent Leonhard is an attorney in the Office of Legal Counsel for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. He joins us with more details about the bill and its implications for tribal sovereignty.
Democratic Oregon U.S. Rep. Maxine Dexter traveled to El Salvador, along with three other Democratic Congressional representatives, to push for the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. The Maryland resident was sent to El Salvador last month without a court hearing and despite a 2019 order from an immigration judge that barred his deportation. The Trump administration has accused Abrego Garcia of being a member of the El Salvadoran gang MS-13 and engaging in human trafficking.
Last week, Democratic U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland traveled to El Salvador where he was eventually able to meet with Abrego Garcia. Rep. Dexter joins us to explain why she also decided to make a trip there, which she argues is less about Abrego Garcia’s particular case and more fundamentally about the constitutional right to due process. The U.S. Supreme Court has ordered the Trump administration to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return from detention, which it has refused to do.
The Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland is celebrating its 90th season. It’s long been one of the most prestigious professional theatres in the nation. But in recent years, it’s faced slings and arrows - from declining audiences and funding to wildfires and the pandemic. Executive Director Gabriella Calicchio began last fall after more than 25 years leading arts organizations in California and elsewhere. She joins us to talk about what OSF will do to appeal to audiences and regain financial footing - in the short and long term future.
Teams from two Oregon high schools will soon put their hospitality and culinary skills to the test at the National ProStart Invitational. At the statewide competition last month, Crook County High School took the top prize in the culinary competition, while the Salem-Keizer Career Technical Education Center won the restaurant management category. Both teams will compete against schools from across the country at the national invitational in Baltimore next month.
Riley McCartney is a member of the restaurant management competition team at Salem-Keizer CTEC. Tayah Hagensee mentored the culinary team at Crook County High School after competing for two years. She was also named this year’s Oregon ProStart Student of the Year. They join us with more details about what it’s like to pitch a restaurant or cook a three-course meal in front of a panel of judges.
Students from Sprague High School in Salem and Lincoln High School in Portland are co-champions of a national civics competition that tests students’ knowledge and understanding of the U.S. Constitution. But it’s how they won that has made this year’s “We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution National Finals” one for the history books.
Sprague High School’s team consisted of just two members, seniors Matthew Meyers and Colin Williams. They won a spot at the national finals in Washington, D.C. after winning second place in the state competition in January, behind Lincoln High School.
At the finals, Meyers and Williams faced off against teams with 20 or more players in the 3-day competition, fielding questions about constitutional law and Supreme Court cases from a panel of judges and legal experts. When the scores of all 32 teams were tallied, the duo from Salem were initially declared winners on April 11, with the Lincoln team finishing in third place. But according to reporting by The Oregonian and New York Times, Patrick Magee-Jenks, who teaches social studies at Lincoln High and coaches its constitution team, found what appeared to be a mistake in his team’s score.
That prompted officials at The Center for Civic Competition, which organizes the annual competition, to investigate and correct the scoring results, with both Sprague and Lincoln High School prevailing as this year’s national champions.
Meyers and Williams join us to talk about this remarkable outcome, along with Magee-Jenks and Audrey Farrimond, a junior at Lincoln High School and member of its constitution team.
If you’re dining out in Portland to celebrate a special occasion, there’s a good chance you might end up at Nostrana. The Italian restaurant has been in business for 20 years with six-time James Beard award nominee Cathy Whims in charge. Whims has just released her first cookbook, “The Italian Summer Kitchen,” and joins us to talk about Portland’s food scene, her role in it, and simple Italian recipes for the good life.
Portland has been operating with a 12-member city council and district representation for more than 100 days now. Council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney is responsible for setting council meeting agendas and referring items proposed by the mayor or city auditor to votes. Among other things, the council has wrestled with the city’s noise code, the permit for Zenith energy, rent pricing software and when exactly public testimony should be heard. Pirtle-Guiney joins us to talk about the challenges and successes of the new city council so far.
Children who experience trauma in childhood are far more likely to experience negative health and well-being outcomes later in life. Dr. Nadine Burke Harris has helped to develop a screening tool for childhood trauma in San Francisco. RJ Gillespie, Amy Stoeber, Sue Skinner, Ellen Baltus, and Fariborz Pakeresht all work with children in Oregon. We spoke to all of them in front of an audience in 2018.
Like Oregon, Washington state is what’s known as a sanctuary state. The Keep Washington Working act prohibits local law enforcement agencies from using county jails for immigrant detention and from interviewing or detaining those suspected of not having permanent legal status. Washington’s attorney general is suing Adams County Sheriff Dale Wagner for allegedly sharing inmate information with federal immigration agents and holding people in jail solely based on immigration status. Sheriff Wagner says he is defending the constitution. Jazmine Ulloa wrote about this for the New York Times and joins us with the story.
A team of researchers led by Oregon’s Department of Geology and Mineral Industries recently lasers surveys of the area burned by the Eagle Creek fire in 2017 to better understand how frequent and severe landslides can be after severe wildfires. Much of the landslide research that has been done previously is in dryer desert climates. This new research will help communities understand landslide dangers after severe wildfires in wetter, forested ecosystems like Western Oregon. Bull Burns, engineering geologist for DOGAMI, joins us to expand on why the research matters.
A growing number of international artists have been rethinking, or even cancelling, their U.S. tours amid rising costs and visa issues. Late last week, Canadian band Shred Kelly cancelled their U.S. shows, including a stop in Portland. British singer FKA Twigs also announced in April they would not be making an appearance at Coachella and canceled their American tour. Both artists cited ongoing visa issues as the reason for not performing in the states. Alex Ashley is a journalist and musician who reported on this story for Rolling Stone. He joins us to share about the challenges artists face when wanting to tour the U.S. and more.
Students at the University of Oregon are calling for university administrators to take more action to protect international students amid an immigration crackdown on college campuses across the country. At least four international students at UO have had their visas revoked, along with 13 at Oregon State University and two at Portland State. At a rally on UO’s campus last week, students demanded that the university not comply with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, notify students of ICE activity on campus and allow students whose visas have been revoked to remain enrolled, among other things.
Jess Fisher is a steering committee member for the UO Young Democratic Socialists of America, which organized the rally. She joins us with more details on student demands and how ICE actions are changing the mood on campus.
Emily Wilson’s name on the cover of a book is a likely sign that it will be a bestseller. But she isn’t an author, and the books are unlikely fan favorites. Wilson has made a name for herself translating classic Greek texts - most notably Homer’s "The Odyssey" in 2017 and "The Iliad" in 2023. Wilson’s translations have gained a cult following and opened up these classics to a new generation of readers. She joins us in front of an audience of Lincoln High School students.
Portland’s Third Angle New Music will debut a new commissioned piece at its upcoming show on April 16 at OMSI’s Kendall Planetarium. The composition, called “Spheres,” was written for percussion quartet and three American Sign Language performers. Deaf and hard of hearing audience members can experience the program through haptic vests that translate the sound from the instruments music into physical vibrations. The vests were developed by local nonprofit CymaSpace, which aims to make arts and culture performances accessible to Portlanders who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Sarah Tiedemann is the artistic director of Third Angle. She joins us to talk about the new show and accessibility in the arts.
It’s been 20 years since Nancy Sullivan, a media specialist at Portland’s McDaniel High School, organized a poetry slam for students in the school’s library. That one slam eventually evolved into Verselandia, the citywide youth poetry competition now sponsored by Literary Arts. The slam allows students from across Portland to bring their original spoken word poetry to the stage of the Arlene Schitzer Concert Hall to be scored by a panel of judges.
Alex Dang competed in the first Verselandia back in 2012. Qiana Woods won last year’s Verselandia and is set to compete again this year. They both join us, along with Sullivan, to talk about the history of the competition and the importance of slam poetry as a creative outlet.
Tadd Mick, Noelie Achen and Chris Schaffner are the owners of Tradewinds Charters in Depoe Bay. They recently won a statewide award from the U.S. Small Business Administration. The national winner of the Small Business Person of the Year award will be announced in May. Tadd Mick is the president of Tradewinds Charters, and Noelie Achen is the vice president. They’ll head to Washington D.C. next month to receive their award. Achen and Mick join us to share more about their business.
The Yamhill Community Action Partnership has reached “functional zero” for unsheltered families with children. That means more people in that group are exiting homelessness than are entering it in Yamhill County.
The organization has invested in a liaison who works with landlords and clients to get people into rentals and stay housed. It also expanded emergency shelter capacity in Newberg and has focused on getting vulnerable populations into homes. Alexandra Ball is the executive director of YCAP. Amber Hansen-Moore is the organization’s deputy director. They join us to share more about how YCAP is addressing homelessness.
More than one in five bridges in Oregon was in “distressed” condition in 2024. That’s according to the Oregon Department of Transportation’s annual bridge condition report. Oregon also has the fewest number of bridges in “good” condition as determined by federal standards compared to six other Western states. Under ideal conditions, ODOT says it would be able to replace 27 of those bridges per year. But with its current resources, it’s only on pace to replace three.
Tova Peltz is a statewide capital program engineer at ODOT. She joins us with an update on how the state’s bridges are faring.
If you’re accused of a crime, having the right to an attorney - regardless of ability to pay - is one of your fundamental constitutional due process rights in the U.S. At least in theory. In reality, Oregon - like many states around the country - has long suffered from a shortage of defense attorneys. In 2018 the shortage had become so severe that the nonpartisan nonprofit Sixth Amendment Center, found the state’s system so flawed it could not provide citizens with this fundamental right. Oregon has taken steps to restructure public defense and provide more funding for more public defenders, but the shortage remains. We talk about what state lawmakers are currently considering and more with Carl MacPherson, the executive director of Metropolitan Public Defender, and Kevin Barton, district attorney for Washington County.
When you think about the Columbia Gorge, a multimedia rock opera might not be the first thing that comes to mind. But that’s exactly the vehicle producer Sarah Fox chose to showcase the unique history, personal stories and ecology of the Gorge.
“The Watershed Rock Opera” unfolds in five movements that symbolize the cycle of the watershed itself. The journey starts in the clouds, descends into the Cascades and moves through a pear orchard before it ends in a kind of homecoming at the mighty river that connects the people and communities who call the Gorge home. (There’s also a comedic detour and duet prompted by a clogged toilet).
Fox recorded interviews with five storytellers who provided the narration in the rock opera and inspired its musical score, which 20 local musicians and performers will bring to life this Friday for a series of sold-out shows at the Columbia Center for the Arts in Hood River. Fox joins us for more details, along with Lesley Tamura, a fourth-generation pear orchardist in Hood River, composer and arranger Eric Kaneda and music director and percussionist Leila Kaneda.
Multnomah County’s Preschool For All program has overshot its goals in each of its first three years, and this year is no exception. The county's coal was to support 3,000 slots, but it expects to have capacity for 3,800 3 and 4-year-olds in the 2025-2026 school year. Still, that number is far below demand, with nearly double the amount of applications filed every year than there are slots available. Backers hope capacity will be sufficient by 2030, when the county aims to offer 11,000 slots and meet its goal of universal access.
County voters approved the Preschool For All ballot measure in 2020 and the program opened in the 2022-23 school year. The preschool effort is funded by a 1.5% marginal tax on earnings of more than $150,000 per year for an individual and over $200,000 for households.
Leslee Barnes, director of the Preschool and Early Learning Division at Multnomah County, and Patrick Earnest, director of the St. James Child Development Center, join us to talk about the program.
From notes of affirmation to gift cards, Portland nonprofit Wildly Kind aims to spread acts of kindness to strangers
LONG SYNOPSIS: Wildly Kind is on a mission to spread acts of kindness to strangers, not only in its home base of Portland but also across the nation and around the world. The Portland Tribune recently profiled the three-year-old nonprofit and the national media attention it received for a pop-up event it held in February, which involved setting up a phone booth for people to record anonymous messages of hope and encouragement for others to hear.
Executive director and founder Kayla Lamoreaux says Wildly Kind grew out of a desire to affirm and maintain her sobriety from alcohol through fostering “a community of kindness” by handing out flowers or self-care kits or paying for a stranger’s groceries at the check-out line. Wildly Kind has now grown to include volunteers, corporate sponsors and more than 100 “ambassadors” who go out to perform acts of kindness in more than 20 states and six countries. Ambassadors pay $20 a month to receive a branded t-shirt, a monthly newsletter with ideas for spreading kindness, priority sign-ups for pop-up events and other perks. Lamoreaux joins us to share more details about Wildly Kind and its unique nonprofit model.
From 2021 to 2024, the Oregon Mortuary and Cemetery Board, the state agency that oversees death care, saw a whopping 79% increase in repayment claims from funeral homes for indigent remains.
Indigent remains are the bodies that go unclaimed, have no next of kin or lack financial means for the handling of the body that may have been left in the deceased's will. Oregon is one of a few states that have an established program to reimburse funeral homes for handling these cases. The number of funeral homes that received payment has also seen a big increase, with a rise of about 114% since 2021. The program is not meant for everyday Oregonians who cannot afford a funeral or other services, but for those whose wishes after death are unknown or uncertain.
Chad Dresselhause is the executive director of the Oregon Mortuary and Cemetery Board. Wally Orderman is the executive director of the Oregon Funeral Directors Association. They both join us to share what this increase has meant for the state and what it means for the individual funeral homes that take on these cases.
An unassuming house in Southeast Portland’s Buckman neighborhood was recently added to the National Register of Historic Places. Once known as “Juniper House,” the building served as one of the first end-of-life care homes for AIDS patients in the Pacific Northwest in the late 1980s. An OPB documentary at the time explored the lives of some of the patients in Juniper House and the neighboring Assisi House, which provided a range of care for patients with HIV/AIDS.
Jan Weyeneth is one of the co-founders of Juniper House. Cayla McGrail is a former associate project manager for Portland’s LGBTQ+ Historic Sites Project, which sponsored the house’s listing. They both join us to share more about Juniper House and the importance of documenting queer history in Portland.
Lawmakers are considering a bill that would give agricultural workers a seat at the table. House Bill 2548 would establish a board made up of voices representing farmworkers, farmers, government agencies and labor law to help establish working standards and conditions. Reyna Lopez, executive director of PCUN, which is supporting the bill and Jenny Dresler, spokesperson for the Oregon Farm Bureau, which is opposed to the bill, join us to share their perspectives.
It’s been five years since the pandemic shut down cities and towns across the country and changed the daily lives and routines of many people. From virtual workplaces to outdoor dining, COVID-19 also changed how we use and see our cities. Nico Larco is a professor of architect and urban design and is the director of the Urbanism Next Center at the University of Oregon. He joins us to share what has and hasn’t changed in our cities since lockdowns began.
In its attempt to end birthright citizenship, the Trump administration has cited a 19th century lawsuit that denied U.S. citizenship to Native Americans. The president’s executive order has been blocked by multiple federal judges, and his use of Elk v. Wilkins to justify the order is generally deemed invalid by legal scholars. But the use of the lawsuit has raised concerns over immigration enforcement in some Indigenous communities, even though Native Americans were granted citizenship in 1924.
Nazune Menka is an assistant professor of law and director of the Center for Indian Law and Policy at Seattle University. She joins us to share more about Elk v. Wilkins and the lasting impact it’s had on relations between tribal and federal governments.
Award-winning Portland author and illustrator Aron Nels Steinke is perhaps best known for his “Mr. Wolf’s Class” series of graphic novels which revolve around a teacher – who happens to be a wolf – and his 4th grade class of anthropomorphized animal students. Steinke drew from his experience as a teacher at Portland’s Woodstock Elementary School for that series.
Now, with his new book, he’s drawing from his personal experience as an adolescent student who struggled with social anxiety. “Speechless” tells the story of Mira, a 6th grader who has selective mutism, an anxiety disorder which prevents people from speaking in certain social situations, such as in front of a class. The graphic novel explores the messy feelings and turns and twists of relationships during adolescence, on top of the struggle to find your voice. Aron Nels Steinke joins us to talk about “Speechless.”
Humanities councils across the country, including in Oregon, recently learned that the federal government is slashing their funding. A grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities was meant to fund the councils through 2027, but it was rescinded on April 2 following reports that the Department of Government Efficiency was planning cuts at the NEH.
The abrupt lack of funding will affect organizations like Oregon Humanities, which facilitates public conversations and community-building events across the state. Last year, the nonprofit received 44% of its budget from NEH funding, which helped finance grants to libraries, social service agencies and other organizations in Oregon.
Adam Davis is the executive director of Oregon Humanities. He joins us to talk about what cutting humanities funding could mean for Oregonians.
This Saturday saw the biggest coordinated nationwide demonstration against the Trump administration to date. In Oregon, Indivisible helped organize protests, among others, as part of the 50501 movement. Many thousands of people turned out in Portland alone, with thousands more out all over the state including in Tigard, Medford, Enterprise other small towns in southern, central and Eastern Oregon.
They protested the dismantling of federal government agencies, mass layoffs and deportations, planned cuts to Medicaid, social security and more. We talk with four Oregonians from three different communities about how the protests they attended went and what motivated them to spend their Saturday demonstrating.
Susannah Graven is a massage therapist in Medford and an unaffiliated voter. Mike Eng is a retired National Parks employee who lives near Lostine in Wallowa County and is a Republican. And Mary Minor is a retired hospice nurse who helped organize the Tigard protest, along with her husband James, a retired technical writer, both unaffiliated voters.
Last year, the group Disability Rights Oregon brought suit against Washington County, alleging that when 911 is called for people in mental health crises, it’s often law enforcement officers who respond. The lawsuit claims these officers are more likely to exacerbate a crisis than resolve it. Last week, a federal judge ruled that the case can move forward. Dave Boyer, managing attorney for the Mental Health Rights Project at DRO, joins us to lay out their claims.
Since the start of his second term, President Trump has taken sweeping actions targeting immigrants of all kinds in the U.S. From challenging birthright citizenship to lifting bans on immigration arrests in schools and churches, the administration’s plan to deport millions is creating fear among many families and could have significant effects on communities. While schools can not track a student’s documentation status thanks to a previous U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Plyler v. Doe, some states are trying to challenge that. And as first reported in Education Week, deportation efforts could affect school budgets. Ilana Umanksy is an associate professor at the University of Oregon’s College of Education. She joins us to share more on the effects mass deportation could have in Oregon schools.
Joel’s Law in Washington allows a guardian, conservator or loved one to petition a court to force treatment for people who suffer from serious mental illness. Some supporters of the law have called it a lifeline for family members desperately seeking care for a loved one, but others have concerns about stripping away a person's civil liberties. The law has been in place for about a decade.
InvestigateWest, the Kitsap Sun and Gig Harbor Now recently co-published a deep dive into the law. Conor Wilson is a reporter for the Kitsap Sun and the nonprofit newsroom Gig Harbor Now. Moe Clark is a collaborative investigative reporter for InvestigateWest. Their positions are supported by the Murrow News Fellowship, an initiative of Washington State University that offers early-career journalists the opportunity to report on civic affairs in underserved communities. They join us with more on Joel’s Law.
Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are a class of synthetic chemicals that have been used since the 1940s to manufacture a wide range of products, from nonstick cookware to firefighting foam, clothes and electronics. PFAS have also been described as “forever chemicals” because they easily disperse and persist in the environment, where they’ve been found in drinking water, soil, air and even the food supply.
This week, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality opened public comment on its proposed rulemaking to regulate six types of PFAS compounds, adding them to the list of more than 800 hazardous substances the agency already regulates. Exposure to certain levels of PFAS may increase the risk for some types of cancer, lead to developmental delays in children, among other adverse health effects, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Last April, the EPA designated two PFAS chemicals as hazardous substances and created the first-ever, national drinking water standard for six PFAS chemicals.
Sarah Van Glubt is a cleanup project manager for the Oregon DEQ. She joins us to share what the proposed PFAS regulations would allow for, including testing and cleanup
Ashleigh Flynn is a long time Portland musician who was primarily a solo artist for much of her career. But that all changed in 2015 when a friend introduced her to Nancy Luca, who had an all-female cover band. She and Luca hit it off and drew other women into a new all-female band: Ashleigh Flynn & The Riveters, an homage to Rosie the Riveter, the WWII-era icon of female power and can-do spirit. The band is celebrating 10 years of making Americana music that embraces joy and creativity as a facet of resistance with a new album called "Good Morning Sunshine,” which drops this week. The band will play a record release concert at Mississippi Studios in Portland on Saturday, April 5, before they hit the road on tour. Flynn joins us in studio with Luca and other members of the band to play a few songs and give us a sneak peek of the album.
In 2013, Oregon implemented a plan to expand access to home and community-based services for Medicaid recipients with intellectual, developmental or psychiatric disabilities. The goal was to allow more Oregonians to receive care at home rather than in an institution. While programs were established for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, no supports have been created for individuals under age 21 who require inpatient-level psychiatric care. Senate Bill 909 would require the Oregon Health Authority to establish criteria for that program and a pathway to services.
Jessa Reinhardt is a parent and mental health advocate pushing for SB 909. She joins us with more details on the bill and what it could mean for families with children who have severe mental health needs.
Portland economist Joe Cortright says ODOT’s projects have a history of costing much more than initial estimates. He points to proposals like the I-5 Rose Quarter project which has been in the works for nearly a decade and is estimated to cost around $1.9 billion. The estimate in 2017 was $450 million. A Statesman Journal investigation found that ODOT’s projects were over budget and the agency was unable to track some of its funds and how they were spent. Cortright, the director of City Observatory, an urban policy think tank based in Portland, joins us with details of his concerns.
In a statement, ODOT writes:
Transportation agencies across the state face a structural revenue issue. This issue is driven by three causes: flattening and declining gas tax revenues as cars become more efficient, consistent inflation that eats away at the purchasing power of each dollar, and legal restrictions that prevent ODOT from using available dollars to fund maintenance and operations.
While the Legislature increased the gas tax in recent years, revenues are now at their peak and are expected to flatten and decline in coming years. When you account for inflation, the buying power of that revenue source is set to dramatically decrease.
ODOT’s major projects in the Portland metro area, supported by city, county, state, Metro and community leaders, have seen costs grow in recent years. However, the funds dedicated to these projects are specifically directed by the legislature to construction projects and cannot be used for day-to-day maintenance and operations of the highway system. We are forced to cut back on critical efforts like plowing snow and fixing potholes independent of funding these popular projects. The public and our partners have consistently told us they want us to do both.
We take our responsibility to provide safe travel for all Oregonians very seriously. The last thing we want to do is let the system we built fall into disrepair. But because of how our funding is structured, we are increasingly forced to do so.
We are focused on achieving sufficient and sustainable funding for maintenance and operations in this legislative session. We are increasingly optimistic that the legislature will take this opportunity to break the pattern of past legislatures and robustly fund the maintenance, operation and preservation of our transportation system.
Shortly before the fall of Saigon in 1975, roughly 3,000 children were flown out of Vietnam in an effort dubbed Operation Babylift. The children went on to be adopted by families in the U.S., Australia and other countries. An initiative of the Ford administration, the operation was billed as a humanitarian effort to rescue Vietnamese orphans – many of them fathered by American servicemen – from advancing communist forces. However, the program has also faced criticism for removing children from their homeland and potentially separating them from living relatives.
Thuy Williams and Jodi Willis were both airlifted out of Vietnam as children and adopted by families in Oregon. They join us to talk about the legacy of Operation Babylift 50 years later.
Attorney Julia Olson founded the nonprofit public interest law firm Our Children’s Trust in 2010 in Eugene. Five years later, she filed a lawsuit on behalf of Kelsey Juliana and 20 other youth activists in Oregon and elsewhere. Their contention was simple on its face: youth have a right to a stable climate, just as they have a right to clean water and clean air. It used the public trust doctrine in a novel way at the time. Since the suit was filed in 2015, Juliana v. U.S. has been in and out of district and appeals courts and was cleared to go to trial in 2023. But last year, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals granted the federal government's motion to dismiss the case. The U.S. Supreme Court recently declined to intervene, but dismissed the case “without prejudice,” enabling the case to potentially be filed at a later time. Olson joins us to talk about what the last decade has shown her and the "Juliana 21" about the most effective ways to challenge climate change policy in the U.S. today.
For more than 30 years, Eugene's CAHOOTS program has been in place for situations that don’t need an armed police response, like mental health crises, overdoses and homelessness. The program has gotten a lot of national attention, and the model has been an inspiration for cities across the country, including Portland. But last week, White Bird Clinic, which runs CAHOOTS, announced that the hours of service in Eugene city limits will be reduced to just one shift per week — down from 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Amée Markwardt, interim executive director of the White Bird Clinic, joins us to discuss their funding challenges.
The biggest determining factor in whether someone will become homeless is if they have ever been homeless. Keeping children out of homelessness, so they won’t become homeless as adults is one of the big reasons the Portland-based nonprofit Path Home exists. And as Oregon has the highest rate of children experiencing unsheltered homelessness, the need for the kinds of services the nonprofit provides is greater than ever.
Executive director Brandi Tuck says the nonprofit is committed to the “housing first” approach to solving family homelessness, which includes providing trauma-informed temporary housing to families and connecting them with services and individual support they need to stay successfully housed. She says with the housing shortage and high cost of housing, it’s also important to note — especially during budget shortfalls — that housing whole families can be far less expensive than many kinds of shelters, which can run thousands of dollars a month, per person. We talk with Tuck about Path Home’s mission — and its evidence-based approach.
There are 19 local programs across Oregon that recruit, train, supervise and support volunteers who serve as Court Appointed Special Advocates for foster children and youth. The programs operate independently with their own budgets and are funded through a mix of state dollars, private donations, philanthropic grants and community fundraising.
This fiscal year, they were also expecting to get a one-time allocation of $1.7 million from the federal government, which was earmarked for community project funding in Oregon. But last month, the Continuing Resolution that Congress passed stripped this funding, which would have been disbursed through the Oregon CASA Network to each of the local programs, based on the number of foster children and youth in the counties they serve.
Jennifer Mylenek, the executive director of CASA of Jackson and Josephine Counties, and Mary Collard, the executive director of CASA of Eastern Oregon, join us to talk about how they’re coping with the impact of the loss of these funds within their rural communities.
For about 10 years, researchers at the University of Washington’s Personal Robotics Lab have been developing a robotic arm that can help people with motor impairments, such as quadriplegics, feed themselves. That’s a task they may rely on human caregivers to do. The Assistive Dexterous Arm can be mounted onto a surface such as a power wheelchair or hospital table. With vision and touch sensors, ADA can determine how to best grasp and maneuver a bite of chicken or watermelon, for example, toward a user’s mouth.
The lived experiences of people with disabilities are often ignored in the development of new technologies that could benefit them, according to Amal Nanavati, a recent PhD graduate from the UW’s Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. But that isn’t the case with the ADA project. Dozens of people with motor impairments have provided feedback and guidance on it over the years, and some have even taken on the role of “community researchers” working alongside the UW robotics team.
Jonathan Ko is a Seattle-based patent attorney and ADA community researcher who brought the device home to feed himself meals for a week. He and Nanavati are authors on a recently published paper describing this real-world testing of the technology. They join us to talk about what they learned and share their thoughts on the future of robot-assisted caregiving.
According to a recently published study, more than 40 percent of adults over the age of 55 in the U.S. have a lifetime risk of developing dementia. New cases of dementia are also projected to nearly double to 1 million a year by 2060.
The cognitive decline and memory impairments associated with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia can make it difficult to follow the branching storylines of a novel or the flow of facts in a newspaper or magazine article.
But as traditional avenues for literary enjoyment close, new ones can and should open for this growing population. That’s the guiding mission behind Mirador, a quarterly magazine Nikki Jardin co-founded in Portland nearly four years ago to be accessible to people with dementia. From the font style and size, to the way paragraphs are structured or photos are displayed to accommodate changes to vision and recognition, the whole magazine is designed with dementia in mind.
Jardin joins us to talk about the inspiration for starting Mirador and the magazine’s recent international expansion and collaboration with other dementia-friendly publications.
Minoru Yasui was the first Japanese American to graduate from the University of Oregon’s law school. He was working as a lawyer in Portland when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed an executive order in 1942 that allowed the military to impose a curfew on Japanese Americans and relocate them to internment camps. On March 28, 1942, Masui challenged the curfew by walking in downtown Portland after 8pm to get himself intentionally arrested. His case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he lost.
In honor of Minoru Yasui Day in Oregon on March 28, we listen back to a conversation we recorded on Nov. 24, 2015, with Joan Emerson Yasui, a niece of Minoru Yasui, the same day her uncle was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. Joan Emerson Yasui died in 2016.
Minoru Yasui was the first Japanese American to graduate from the University of Oregon’s law school. He was working as a lawyer in Portland when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed an executive order in 1942 that allowed the military to impose a curfew on Japanese Americans and relocate them to internment camps. On March 28, 1942, Masui challenged the curfew by walking in downtown Portland after 8pm to get himself intentionally arrested. His case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he lost.
In honor of Minoru Yasui Day in Oregon on March 28, we listen back to a conversation we recorded on Nov. 24, 2015, with Joan Emerson Yasui, a niece of Minoru Yasui, the same day her uncle was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. Joan Emerson Yasui died in 2016.
In Wallowa County, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has led collaborative research on golden eagles. The pilot project aims to study the survival, movement and reproductive success of the birds. ODFW worked with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Nature Conservancy to capture data.
The golden eagle uses a variety of habitats and seeks rocky cliffs or large trees. It can dive at a speed of 120 miles per hour and preys on animals including squirrels and foxes. Humans are largely responsible for their decline. The birds collide with wind turbines, face habitat loss and are killed illegally.
Holly Tuers Lance is the acting district wildlife biologist for the ODFW field office based in Enterprise. She joins us with more about the raptors and the work being done locally.
The new exhibit at Chachalu Museum and Cultural Center in Grand Ronde features the work of queer indigenous artists reflecting on the role of queerness in indigenous cultures. The exhibit was curated by Grand Ronde artists Anthony Hudson and Felix Furby who created another exhibit two years ago based on the life of Shumkin, a 19th-century Two-Spirit Atfalati Kalapuya healer. That exhibit set out to explore the ways that queerness has always been a part of the Indigenous history, but assimilation had tried to sever the community’s connection to it. This newer exhibit discusses the present and future of queer indigeneity as well. Hudson and Furby join us to talk about the exhibit, along with Steph Littlebird, one of the featured artists.
Like other federal agencies, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is facing possible cuts to staffing and funding. The federal agency’s green and resilient retrofit program is intended to upgrade aging affordable housing. The program would also help fund proposals that reduced energy use.
But as the Associated Press reported, funding is being terminated by the Department of Government Efficiency and links to the program on the housing department’s site are no longer available.
Nonprofit leaders in the affordable housing industry say they’re still waiting for federal dollars that were promised. Managers of Smith Tower, an apartment building in Vancouver, say they were awarded funding but haven’t received the money. The construction is currently in limbo, The Columbian reported.
Margaret Salazar is the CEO of REACH Community Development, a nonprofit affordable housing provider. She joins us with more on how this affects Oregon’s housing crisis and what it means for low-income residents.
The for-profit prison company GEO is doing very well financially. It runs 16 facilities around the country including the ICE detention center in Tacoma, and its stock price doubled after Election Day. With the number of ICE detainees now at a five-year high under President Donald Trump, how people are being treated and compensated for their labor is as much an issue as it ever was. The company was paying detainees a dollar a day to do cleaning and other jobs that it would otherwise have to pay contract workers at minimum wage to do. Washington state sued the company for not paying the state’s minimum wage, and won in federal court in 2021, a decision that was affirmed earlier this year by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The company petitioned last month for a rehearing of its appeal by all 9th Circuit judges. McKenzie Funk is following this story for ProPublica and joins us with the details.
A proposed utility project in Forest Park has caused a monthslong clash between environmental groups and Portland General Electric. The Harborton Reliability Project would remove roughly 400 mature trees on 5 acres of parkland to make way for new power lines. PGE says the grid upgrade is necessary to meet the region’s growing demand for electricity, but conservationists say it will damage one of Portland’s most important ecological assets.
City permitting staff recommended against the project in January, but a hearings officer determined earlier this month that it should be allowed to proceed. The Forest Park Neighborhood Association and the Forest Park Conservancy have appealed that decision to the City Council.
Randy Franks is a senior project manager for PGE. Scott Fogarty is the executive director of the Forest Park Conservancy. They both join us to share their perspectives on the plan and what it could mean for Portland’s largest park.
After joining the Big Ten Conference, the Oregon Ducks basketball team has traveled more than 27,000 miles. That’s more than the circumference of the Earth. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, Oregon players are not alone as dramatic increases were seen for all of the 10 schools that left the Pac-12, ranging from 47% to 222% more miles. Laine Higgins is a sports reporter for the WSJ and reported on this trend. She joins us to share more.
When public radio reporter Anna King first heard that ranchers in remote areas of rural Oregon were finding the bodies of cows and bulls drained of blood and mutilated, she immediately began to investigate. What she found could have provided the script for an episode of "The X Files." Various arms of law enforcement had investigated this phenomenon, but the mystery remained unsolved. The NPR story she filed in 2019 drew more than a million hits.
She ultimately teamed up with two New York-based documentary filmmakers, Jackson Devereux and Lachlan Hinton, who found the story compelling and wanted to collaborate with her to explore a full-length feature film. After an intense three years of research, interviews, filming and editing, “Not One Drop of Blood” premiers at the Treefort Festival in Idaho this week. King joins to tell us more about what the documentary reveals about the bizarre and as yet unexplained phenomenon.
Earlier this month, Oregon joined nine other states in meeting a goal to get 3.3 million electric vehicles on the road by 2025. That number is set to grow under a rule that requires all new passenger cars, SUVs and pickup trucks sold in Oregon to either be fully electric or plug-in hybrid electric by 2035.
But adopting cleaner, more fuel efficient vehicles also means that Oregon and other states are grappling with reduced revenues from gas taxes. Electric vehicle owners also don’t pay any gas tax, which have led states like Oregon to explore launching programs which charge motorists a fee based on how much they travel instead of how often they refill at the pump.
The Oregon Department of Transportation has operated a voluntary, pay-by-mile program since 2015. Roughly 800 people are currently enrolled in OReGO, which charges participants 2 cents for every mile driven in Oregon. Joining us to talk about what’s been learned after a decade of this pilot program is Travis Brouwer, assistant director for revenue, finance and compliance at ODOT.
In Oregon and the rest of the country, Black infants are more likely to be born underweight, and both they and their mothers have a lower chance of surviving that first year of life than white and Hispanic ones. A package of bills in the Oregon legislature seeks to support perinatal health by expanding access to doulas, protecting young families from housing loss and eviction and expanding the Oregon child tax credit, among other things. Kaylee Tornay, investigative reporter with InvestigateWest, recently wrote about Black maternal and infant health and joins us to explain.
Oregon lawmakers are crafting a budget for the next two years. They're facing a lot of uncertainty since nearly a third of the state’s funding comes from federal dollars and budget committee members have mapped out several scenarios.
Meanwhile, hundreds of bills failed to meet a legislative deadline last week. But one proposal that narrowly passed the Senate would give public workers who go on strike access to unemployment benefits.
We get an update on what’s ahead for lawmakers from OPB political reporter Dirk VanderHart.
Oregon Health & Science University began its Long COVID-19 clinic in 2021, a year into the pandemic as the first vaccines were just becoming widely available. We talked with doctors in the clinic in 2022, and we wanted to check back in to see what clinicians have learned after treating thousands of long COVID patients. Aluko Hope is a pulmonologist, critical care doctor and the medical director of OHSU’s Long COVID-19 program. Jen Arnold is a lead nurse with the program. They both join us to tell us what they’ve learned about caring for patients with long COVID in the last four years and what they hope to learn more about from the research that’s currently underway.
Portland’s own junior ice hockey team, the Winterhawks, commemorate their 50th anniversary playing on the ice this season. With over 15 divisional championships, 13 conference titles and more than 135 alumni now playing in the National Hockey League, the team is the second-oldest professional team in Portland after the Trailblazers - and one of the best teams in the Western Hockey League’s U.S. Western Conference. Mike Johnson is the general manager of the team. Griffin Darby plays defense for the team. They both join to talk about how they're celebrating the team’s anniversary and their hopes for the future of the team.
A once popular teacher at St. Helens High School pivoted his career to communications, becoming a spokesperson for the Oregon Department of Education and the Department of Human Services. In now-public allegations, two former students say he sexually abused them when he was a teacher. OPB reporter Joni Auden Land joins us to lay out the investigation.
Many of Oregon's county health officials are asking for a little extra consideration from lawmakers this year as they decide where to allocate funding. Two counties, Wallowa and Curry, have no public health staff and rely solely on the Oregon Health Authority to meet their needs. With the fifth anniversary of the initial COVID-19 lockdown this week, perhaps nothing is a bigger reminder of the need for a stable funding source for public health infrastructure.
Sarah Lochner, the executive director of the Oregon Coalition of Local Health Officials, told OPB that not only is the state not ready for the next pandemic, counties are in dire need of stable funding just to deal with the everyday public health needs of the communities they serve — from vaccinating against whooping cough and measles, to providing needed treatment for alcohol and substance use disorder, to preventing HIV, hepatitis C, syphilis and other communicable diseases.
Jackson county public health worker Tanya Phillips said because grants are often available only when the health of a particular population declines, the system sets up a kind of unreliable boom and bust cycle for funding, which does not support healthy communities long term. Phillips and Lochner join us to share the impact that unpredictable and insufficient funding is having in Jackson County and around the state.
If you could eliminate a memory from your mind completely, would you do it? And what would that kind of erasure mean at a societal level? These are some of the questions at the heart of Portland writer Karen Russell’s latest novel, “The Antidote.” The book opens on Black Sunday, the dust storm in April 1935 that swept thousands of tons of topsoil into the air over the Midwest. One of the central characters, a "prairie witch" known as The Antidote, can remove people’s memories and store them in her own body. As she and the other main characters' lives intersect, they learn more about the value of those memories and the history of the land and the people who came before them. And filling in those holes in the past enables them to see alternate futures. Karen Russell joins us to talk about the book.
A new resolution centered around protections for undocumented students passed unanimously by the Evergreen Public Schools board last week. As first reported on by the Columbian, the vote was initially planned for early February, but with testimony from more than 20 students, parents and community members, the vote was postponed. Students within the district provided input and helped shape the new resolution that eventually passed. Caiden Mizrahi-Boyarsky is a senior at Union High School and president for Students Advocating for Equity. Isabella Garcia and Sarah Barrios are both seniors at Mountainview High School and are senior representatives for the Latino Club. They join us to talk about their testimony and how they helped shape the new resolution.
A new study led by researchers at Washington State University showed that butterfly populations in the U.S. shrank by more than 20% from 2000 to 2020. More than 100 butterfly species declined by more than 50% during this period, including nearly two dozen that plummeted by more than 90%.The findings are based on more than 12 million observations of hundreds of butterfly species recorded by citizen scientist volunteers and biologists during surveys conducted in the Pacific Northwest and six other regions across the continental U.S.
Cheryl Schultz is a professor of conservation biology at Washington State University and a senior author of the study. She joins us to share more details and how the public can help with butterfly conservation – including species like the Fender’s blue butterfly which is native to Willamette Valley and was reclassified from endangered to threatened status in 2023.
In 2023, Oregon was awarded more than $58 million in federal grants from the Inflation Reduction Act to plant and maintain trees. The availability of much of those funds remains uncertain.
Earlier this month, the Oregon Department of Forestry, city agencies and nonprofits told Inside Climate News that at least $40 million dollars in grant reimbursements to boost urban tree canopies in Oregon remain unpaid.
Last week, several U.S. farmers and nonprofits sued the Trump administration for withholding grants funded by the Inflation Reduction Act.
Vivek Shandas is a professor of geography at Portland State University and a member of the National Urban and Community Forestry Advisory Council. He joins us with more on the future of the state’s tree canopies and what they mean for Oregonians.
Indigenous tribes in what is now the northeastern U.S. and Canada have played lacrosse for millennia. Similar stick-and-ball games were played by tribes across the Southeast and Great Lakes region. But according to NCAA data, less than 1% of college lacrosse players are American Indian or Alaskan Native, and more than 80% are white.
Pacific Northwest Native Lacrosse is trying to change that. As reported in Willamette Week, the organization recruits Indigenous lacrosse players from across the PNW to participate in tournaments, youth camps and clinics.
JD Elquist is the founder of PNWNL. Bilįį Blackhorn is a senior at South Eugene High School who’s played lacrosse for 10 years, including with PNWNL. They join us to talk about the importance of emphasizing the sport’s Indigenous roots.
Liability waivers have been a hot topic in Oregon since a 2014 court ruling made them difficult for places like ski resorts and climbing gyms to enforce. Recreational business owners say their insurance rates have soared as a result, but trial lawyers say the waivers discourage operators from keeping their facilities safe.
House Bill 3140 would allow recreational businesses to require customers to sign a release for claims of “ordinary negligence,” making it harder for customers to sue. Operators say they need the additional protection from frivolous claims, but attorneys say Oregon law already protects against spurious lawsuits.
Jim Zupancic is the board president of the Oregon Health & Fitness Alliance, which represents gyms, exercise studios and health clubs across the state. Gretchen Mandekor is the owner and lead trial attorney at Mandekor Law Firm. They join us to offer differing perspectives on this legislation.
Todd Prager was a planning commissioner for the city of Lake Oswego in 2011 when he discovered that the body of water that defined their community was in fact not a private lake, but rather a navigable public waterway. He says no one seemed to want to act on this information. The city went in the opposite direction, passing an ordinance in 2012 that barred the public from “trespassing” to the water from the three lakeside public parks. That’s when he decided to file a lawsuit. He and co-plaintiff Mark Kramer said that the lake should be accessible, just like other navigable bodies of water in the state.
After more than a decade in and out of five different courts, a Clackamas County circuit judge ruled that Prager and Kramer were correct, and ordered the city to provide access to the lakeshore Millennium Plaza Park. The Lake Oswego Corporation, which represents the interests of many owners of high-value homes has said it will appeal the decision granting access. For its part, the City of Lake Oswego has said it will take a “deliberate and thoughtful approach in assessing next steps” and will hold a meeting to gather public comment on March 31 at 6 p.m.
Prager joins us to tell us why he’s persisted in this legal battle for so many years. We’ll also hear from Jeff Ward, the general manager for the Lake Oswego Corporation about what he thinks is at stake in the case and why the company is appealing.
Since our last conversation with Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, President Trump has enacted tariffs and mass layoffs that could significantly impact Oregon’s federal workforce and economy. The Oregon Legislature has also begun its biennial session, taking up issues around education, transportation and housing. Kotek joins us in the studio to talk about all of that and more.
Oregon archaeologists have found evidence of human occupation in the state that dates back more than 18,000 years. University of Oregon students and faculty working at the Rimrock Draw Rockshelter in Harney County found stone tools and fragments of camel and bison teeth beneath a 15,000-year-old layer of volcanic ash. Radiocarbon dating of the tooth enamel revealed that the fragments were 18,250 years old. Due to their position in the ash, the tools are thought to be even older — making them some of the oldest evidence of human civilization in North America.
Joining us with more details about the discovery is Pat O’Grady, a staff archaeologist at the University of Oregon Museum of Cultural and Natural History.
Three of Oregon’s college basketball teams are set to compete in this year’s NCAA Tournaments, including the Oregon State women’s team. After losing some of their best players to the transfer portal during the collapse of the Pac-12 conference, the Beavers came back to win their first conference championship since 2016. They’re now the 14th seed in the women’s bracket and will take on third-ranked North Carolina on Saturday.
The University of Oregon men’s team is making its second consecutive appearance this year. The fifth-ranked men’s team is set to take on 12th-seed Liberty University on Friday. The 10th-ranked Oregon women’s team will make its first March Madness appearance since 2022 when it takes on seventh-seed Vanderbilt on Friday.
KOIN 6 sports anchor and reporter Brenna Greene joins us to talk about all of those contests and more
Last week, two federal judges ordered thousands of federal workers who were on probationary status when they were fired to be rehired at 18 federal agencies, including the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Education. The rulings came a day after the Department of Education announced massive staff cuts, part of the Trump administration’s efforts to shrink the federal workforce.
Democratic Oregon US Senator Jeff Merkley joins us to discuss the mass firings of federal workers, as well as the vote on the stopgap funding bill to avert a government shutdown and possible cuts to Medicaid House Republicans are considering that could directly impact care for 1.4 million Oregonians.
The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, or NAGPRA, requires museums, universities and other institutions that receive federal funding to return Native American ancestral remains and cultural items to their original tribes. Though the law passed nearly 35 years ago, many institutions have failed to fulfill its requirements.
Oregon State University recently opened a new facility designed to advance its NAGPRA obligations. The two buildings house a records room, a laboratory and a space to consult with tribal members as they move through the repatriation process. The new buildings are also better equipped than the old facility to store cultural items and remains of tribal ancestors awaiting return.
Dawn Marie Alapisco is the director of the NAGPRA Office within OSU’s Office of Institutional Diversity. She joins us to share more about the new facility and how institutions should be approaching their NAGPRA requirements.
From jams and ice cream to syrups and lotions, huckleberries are a fruit that can be found in all sorts of Pacific Northwest commodities. But these berries are incredibly difficult to grow, preferring high elevations and acidic soil, making them hard to cultivate.
The U.S. Forest Service issues permits to commercially pick these berries, selling more than 900 permits last season. For tribes in the Pacific Northwest, these berries are a culturally important food that they say has become scarce over the years with growing competition from pickers, which they argue infringe on treaty rights.
Josephine Woolington is a freelance journalist and author based in Portland who reported on this issue for High Country News. Elaine Harvey is a Ḱamíłpa band member, one of the 14 tribes and bands that comprise the Yakama Nation, and was featured in the story. They both join us to share more on the commercialization of huckleberries.
Before John Kitzhaber became Oregon governor for the first time, he practiced emergency medicine as an ER doctor. He brought that knowledge of the health care system to bear in the late 80s and early 90s, with the enacting of the Oregon Health Plan, the state’s Medicaid program. In 2012, he oversaw the expansion of the program and the creation of Coordinated Care Organizations. Today, about 1.4 million Oregonians get their health care from OHP.
Kitzhaber says Oregon’s unique model delivers high quality but efficient care to more Oregonians - and that could be a national model as Congressional Republicans look to make federal spending cuts widely expected to affect Medicaid. The former governor is among those advising Republican Rep. Cliff Bentz, who told “Think Out Loud” Feb. 26 he wants to “make the system still deliver the type of benefits that people need, while at the same time doing it better and in a way that saves money.” Kitzhaber joins us to tell us more about his ideas for bipartisan solutions to prevent people from losing Medicaid coverage.
The rainy gloom of winter will soon give way to the sunshine and flowers of spring. That means hiking trails are sure to get busier in the Columbia Gorge, Willamette Falls and other popular destinations near Portland. But even experienced hikers can lose their way or get stranded as a mild, sunny day turns to a cold, damp night outdoors.
That’s where the Green Hornets can help keep a bad situation from getting much worse. They’re a search and rescue team within the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office who are experienced backcountry athletes and sheriff’s deputies who can mobilize within minutes to find lost or injured hikers. According to Sergeant Aaron Sieczkowski, the Green Hornets perform about a dozen search and rescue missions a year, primarily in the western Columbia Gorge. He joins us to talk about their work, including a recent rescue on Larch Mountain, and how to stay safe on hikes.
About 120,000 immigrants lacking permanent legal status live in Oregon, according to a 2022 estimate from the Pew Research Center. The state has sanctuary laws in place, meaning that state and local resources are not used for federal immigration enforcement. Law enforcement officials in places including Marion, Polk and Jackson counties have told local media outlets they will continue to follow state laws on immigration enforcement.
Still, immigrant communities face uncertainty as policies change at the federal level. Kathy Keesee is a program coordinator for Unete, a nonprofit in Jackson County that advocates for agricultural workers and immigrants. She joins us with details.
The Beaverton Sobriety Opportunity for Beginning Recovery treatment court is open to Beaverton or Washington County residents who have at least one prior Driving Under the Influence of Intoxicants conviction and who agree to the program’s strict requirements. About 200 people have graduated from B-SOBR since its launch in 2011.
Participants must agree to wear an ankle monitor and submit to biweekly testing to ensure their sobriety during the first few months. They must also attend regular meetings with their case manager and the presiding judge to monitor their progress for the 20 months or so it typically takes to complete the program. Beaverton police officers also make monthly visits to participants’ homes, which can help reframe negative interactions they may have had previously with law enforcement, and engage family members or others in the home to support the participant’s recovery.
In January, the All Rise Treatment Court Institute selected the B-SOBR program as one of 10 treatment courts to serve as a national model for new treatment courts for the next two years. Joining us for more details are B-SOBR case manager David Finke, police liaison Officer Michel Wilson and Mauricio Molina, a recent graduate of the program.
Oregon has invested millions in workforce development across the state. But a program aimed at helping workers and businesses along the coast will be ending soon. Northwest Oregon Works serves Benton, Clatsop, Columbia, Lincoln and Tillamook counties.
The nonprofit has supported the state’s maritime industry and has funded projects for organizations including Newport Fishermen’s Wives, Oregon State University and the Oregon Coast Visitors Association. OoNee Sea Urchin Ranch also received funding to train divers and aquaculture interns.
The ranch aims to sustainably harvest sea urchin in the state. It collects urchins and feeds them on land. It processes uni, the organ found in sea urchins that’s considered a culinary delicacy, in Newport.
We learn more about the future of the maritime industry in Oregon from OoNee Sea Urchin Ranch CEO Aaron Huang and Len Tumbarello, the Maritime Program Coordinator for Northwest Oregon Works.
Soccer season has started in Oregon, but Timbers and Thorns fans might have to dig a little deeper to cheer their teams this year. Both teams face a lot of player injuries and offseason departures of some star players. Anne Peterson, sports writer for the Associated Press, joins us to preview what’s ahead for Portland soccer fans.
The lack of public restrooms remains an issue across the country. In Portland, there are about 17 public restrooms per 100,000 citizens, according to some estimates.
When the city placed more than 100 red portable toilets around town in 2020, some residents vehemently opposed their arrival. In 2023, only about 16 of the toilets remained, according to KGW.
Public restrooms offer a low barrier place for people to use the bathroom and wash their hands. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends carefully washing your hands with soap and water after going to the bathroom and changing diapers to prevent shigella infections. The bacteria causes inflammatory diarrhea.
In Multnomah County, shigella infections have been on the rise, according to The Oregonian. In 2023, a similar cluster of cases occurred as well.
Merilee Karr is the president of Phlush, an organization that advocates for better public sanitation. She joins us with more on why Portland and other cities would benefit from more public toilets.
Measure 114, which was narrowly approved by Oregon voters in 2022, bans the purchase of magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition and requires a permit for anybody purchasing a firearm. The measure never went into effect after it faced a number of legal challenges, but on Wednesday the Oregon Court of Appeals declared the measure constitutional. This overturns a 2023 decision from an Eastern Oregon judge who ruled it violated Oregon law. OPB reporter Conrad Wilson joins us to explain what it all means.
As a 9-year-old boy, Javier Zamora traveled over 3,000 miles to be with his parents, who had fled El Salvador to live and work in the United States. Zamora traveled with a group of people who were initially strangers and the various people they paid to help them survive the two month journey. Zamora’s memoir about the experience, “Solito,” is the choice for Multnomah County’s ‘Everybody Reads’ program in 2025. We talk to Zamora in front of students at Portland’s McDaniel High School.
Portland author David F. Walker and illustrator Marcus Kwame Anderson have worked together before - on a 2021 graphic novel about the Black Panther Party. This time they’ve teamed up on something a little different: an update of the classic American novel “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” In their version, the escaped slave Jim is more than just Huck’s companion; he’s a fully imagined character. Walker joins us to talk about the work of updating an American classic.
Portland artist Arvie Smith is known for colorful, larger-than-life oil paintings that explore oppression and injustice against Black Americans through symbolism and visual tropes. He’s also a professor emeritus at Pacific Northwest College of Art after a 35-year tenure. His murals can be seen on buildings in North Portland and at the Donald E. Long Juvenile Center, where he spent time teaching art to incarcerated youth.
Despite being in his mid-80s, Smith is far from retired — just last year, he received a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship. The work he created during that fellowship is currently on display in Chicago. Titled “Crossing Clear Creek,” the exhibit explores Smith’s childhood memories and experience of race in rural Texas and Los Angeles. Smith joins us to talk about his life and work.
One of the many training programs the Portland Police Bureau requires before officers go out into communities on their own is a simple exercise called Talk A Mile. Police officers are paired with high school students of color and sent off to walk around the track together with four different topics on a note card for each of the four laps in a mile. Justin and Erika Fogarty started the program with a pilot in 2022, which their teenaged son Liam participated in. The Bureau immediately incorporated Talk A Mile as part of the curriculum for officers in the advanced academy as part of their probationary period. We talk with the couple, along with past participants high school junior Elija Graham and Portland Police Officer Danielle Wilson, to hear more about the program’s intentions and outcomes.
Lawmakers in Olympia are considering a proposal that would create tougher regulations around youth labor in Washington. HB 1644 would set minimum penalties for youth labor violations and prohibit companies with multiple serious safety violations from hiring minors.
In 2023, a Washington teen lost both of his legs working on a construction site through a school program. An investigation by Cascade PBS found that public officials and the construction company disregarded safety rules leading up to the injury. Lizz Giordano is an investigative reporter at Cascade PBS. She joins us with details of the bill and her reporting.
Oregon lawmakers are once again debating how best to allocate education funding to improve attendance, graduation rates, test scores and other key metrics of success. Meanwhile, parents and educators are pushing to remove restrictions on the amount of money school districts can receive for students with special needs. Lawmakers are also considering a bill that nearly passed last year that would block schools from removing certain books from libraries and classrooms.
Natalie Pate is OPB’s K-12 education reporter. She joins us to talk about all of those efforts and more.
There were two gun-related homicides in Gresham in January 2025. That's two too many, says Gresham Police Chief Travis Gullberg. Gullberg is one of the people involved in the city’s new Ceasefire initiative, which brings together community-based organizations, city leadership, law enforcement and public health experts to reduce gun violence through focused outreach. Gullberg joins us, along with Marcell Frazier, violence prevention and community partnerships coordinator for the City of Gresham, to explain how the program will work.
Clark County Jail in Vancouver recently became the first jail in Washington state licensed to provide methadone on-site through a treatment program for opioid use disorder. A team of specialists at the jail also administer buprenorphine, another medication approved by the FDA to manage withdrawal symptoms and the cravings associated with drugs like fentanyl.
More than half of the jail population in Washington has an opioid use disorder, according to researchers at the University of Washington. Last year, Clark County Jail installed a vending machine in its lobby that dispenses free fentanyl test strips and naloxone to reverse potentially fatal overdoses. Joining us to talk about these harm reduction efforts and the opioid treatment program at Clark County Jail are Anna Lookingbill, the jail transition manager, and Matt West, the addiction medicine medical director at the jail’s Comprehensive Treatment Center, which is operated by Acadia Healthcare.
Portland’s Aurora Chorus is an inclusive, non-audition women’s chorus that formed in 1992 with the goal of elevating women’s voices through the art of choral music. Led for much of its history by renowned composer and conductor Joan Szymko , the chorus also emphasizes female conductors and composers as well. Rebecca Parsons has directed the chorus for the last few years and says one way this group is distinct from others is the simultaneous quality of the music and the community the women create together. The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day concert is “Undivided” and focuses on the mental health of young women. Parsons joins us, as well as soprano Jae Douglas, who has sung with Aurora since 2018.
Libraries worldwide broke digital lending records last year as Overdrive, the company that operates Libby and Sora, recently reported seeing more than 739 million borrows of audiobooks, e-books and digital magazines — a 17% increase from 2023. But while many library card holders may be enjoying the latest bestseller at no cost, the bill public libraries pay to provide this service grows just as much as demand.
Public libraries do not purchase digital books, but rather the license to distribute them. That licensing needs to be renewed regularly, making audio books and e-books up to four times more expensive than a physical copy. Some states, including Washington, have asked lawmakers to step in to try to make digital more affordable. Currently Oregon has no bill or law around digital books, but libraries across the state report seeing growing demand. Stephanie Chase is the executive director of the Libraries of Eastern Oregon and governing board member of the Oregon Digital Library Consortium. Le Button is the collection development librarian at Deschutes Public Library. They both join us to share what demand has been like for digital books in recent years and how libraries balance buying physical copies versus digital ones.
Federal DOGE layoffs and hiring freezes continue to hit Oregon as local offices of the National Weather Service are down to about 30% to 40% of its workforce, the Statesman Journal reports. The NWS plays a critical role in monitoring, predicting and delivering expected weather conditions, as well as issuing warnings about potential weather-related dangers. The NWS isn’t just relied on by the general public, but also by the Columbia River Bar Pilots, an organization responsible for helping navigate ships, cargo and crew through the treacherous waters of the Columbia River Bar. Dan Jordan is an administrator for the bar pilots. He joins us to share more on how federal layoffs could affect thousands of ships in the future
The bipartisan Arts and Culture Caucus in the Oregon legislatures has a slate of bills it’s pushing for this session. One proposal would merge two major arts funding organizations: The Oregon Arts Commission and the Oregon Cultural Trust. Another bill would help owners of historic buildings by lowering their assessed tax, while others would allocate funds for grants to artists, art programs and organizations along with money for museums, festivals and arts districts. Democratic Representative Rob Nosse co-chairs the caucus, created in 2023. He joins us to share the progress the caucus has made since it began and what he sees as the biggest challenges and opportunities for the arts in Oregon in the current political moment.
On March 4, 25% tariffs on imported goods from Canada and Mexico, our nation’s largest trading partners, are expected to go into effect. China will also be hit with an additional 10% hike on its goods entering the U.S.
We hear from a broad range of business owners and representatives from different industries in Oregon about the impact tariffs may have on them and consumers. Joining us are Tyler Freres, vice president of sales for Freres Lumber Company; Jeff Stone, executive director of Oregon Association of Nurseries; Bob Wymore, president and CEO of Diamond Fruit Growers; Jason Barbee, an owner and brewer at Level Beer; Michele Kenny, co-owner of Goose Hollow Flowers and executive director of Pacific Northwest Florist Association; and Bitty Egan, owner of Bolt Fabric Boutique.
The Quadraphonnes, Portland’s all-women sax quartet, will perform the music of the eccentric artist Moondog at the Alberta Rose Theater on March 7. Moondog was a blind street musician in New York City who worked with some of the biggest names in music in the mid-20th century, including Philip Glass, Leonard Bernstein, Charlie Parker and Benny Goodman.
We’ll hear more about the show and get an in-studio performance from the quartet: Mieke Bruggeman on baritone saxophone, Chelsea Luker on alto and soprano saxophone, Michelle Medler on tenor saxophone, and and Mary-Sue Tobin on alto and soprano saxophone.
It’s been eight months since the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on Grants Pass v. Johnson, which determined that cities can punish unhoused people for sleeping outside, even if they have nowhere else to go. Since then, Grants Pass officials have restricted public camping to two city-owned lots, one of which closed earlier this year. The city council recently voted to reopen the site after Disability Rights Oregon filed a lawsuit alleging that the city’s restrictions violated state law.
Amid the back-and-forth, homeless services providers have continued to provide aid to the city’s unhoused residents. Scott Nelson is the board president of the Mobile Integrative Navigation Team, or MINT. He joins us to share more about what providing services in Grants Pass has been like since the Supreme Court decision last summer.
In Europe, dogs have been used for centuries for their keen sense of smell to locate prized black and white truffles which can fetch hundreds or thousands of dollars a pound depending on their variety. In Oregon and the Pacific Northwest, using dogs to sniff out truffles is relatively new and growing in popularity. There are even training classes and an annual truffle dog contest held at the Oregon Truffle festival.
Oregon has four varieties of gourmet edible truffles, but there are hundreds of species of these mysterious fungi growing on the roots of conifer and oak trees across the state. So what if you could use a dog’s nose to home in on the odor signatures of all sorts of truffles, not just the commercially valuable ones, for a better scientific understanding of truffle biodiversity? That’s the goal of Heather Dawson, a doctoral student in the biology department at University of Oregon. She trained her golden retriever, Rye, to detect dozens of different kinds of truffles in the Willamette Valley alone. She joins us to share her work and the attention it’s attracting among other scientists and forest foragers.
Karen Thompson Walker’s last book, "The Dreamers," imagined a mysterious virus that quickly spreads through a small college town and induces perpetual sleep. That book came out just before the covid pandemic changed our collective relationship to viruses. Thompson Walker’s new book, "The Strange Case of Jane O.," also seeks to understand the way our brains work, this time looking at memory. Karen Thompson Walker joins us to talk about her latest novel.
On Tuesday, the House narrowly approved a Republican budget proposal calling for $2 trillion in federal spending cuts. The proposal specifically calls for the House Agriculture Committee to find $230 billion worth of reduced spending, which will be challenging without touching the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. At the same time, cabinet officials in the current administration support limiting what can be purchased through the program. In Oregon, food banks across the state have been seeing increased need in their communities. Matt Newell-Ching is the policy manager at the Oregon Food bank. He joins us to share what demand is currently looking like across the state and how it’s preparing for potential cuts and restrictions to federal programs.
Guide Dogs for the Blind operates two campuses — one in San Rafael, California, and one in Boring, Oregon. The nonprofit raises and trains dogs to work with people experiencing vision loss, and provides a variety of programs for the humans who will one day partner with them. Plans are underway to expand GDB’s Boring campus through a new community hub, which would double the number of clients the organization can serve in Oregon.
Susan Armstrong is vice president of client programs for GDB. George Miers is a partner at Studio Miers | Chou | Poon, which designed the new facility. They both join us to talk more about the expansion and what it takes to design a facility with senses other than vision in mind.
Abortion is illegal in Idaho, which borders Oregon to the east. For years leading up to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, women’s health advocates warned that maternal care and abortion services were part of an intrinsically woven set of OB/GYN care that women’s health depended on. Now that Idaho has outlawed abortion – the state's ban is among the most restrictive in the nation – residents are living out what advocates predicted. Some women who want to have children can now no longer get maternal care where they live, and some have suffered complications during pregnancies they desperately wanted to take to term but could not, because of their own health or fetal anomalies.
Jen Jackson Quintano lives in North Idaho with her husband and two children and runs a tree service business. She began a storytelling effort she calls the Pro Voice Project, for women to tell their own stories about accessing – or not being able to access – reproductive health services. The project has held live performances mostly around Idaho for women to tell their own stories at the microphone. In some cases where they haven't felt comfortable doing so, their stories are performed by actors.
Desi Ballis and her husband lost their third child, Tucker, a year ago, in the second trimester when the couple discovered he had a life-threatening condition. Ballis, who lives in Haley, Idaho, was at risk of life-threatening complications before she made it to Utah to have a medically necessary abortion. In Idaho, she would not have been able to get that care until she was actively dying.
Ballis and Quintano join us to share their personal experiences and what they hope to achieve by sharing some of the most painful experiences of their lives. Members of the Pro Voice Project will be in Portland March 1 for an event that highlights women’s stories in Idaho and in Oregon, where women face no state restrictions on abortion, but some still struggle with other barriers to access.
A long-vacant block on North Russell Street and North Williams Avenue, which was once part of a thriving African American community in Portland, will finally house people once again. The site was razed in the 1970s as part of an urban renewal project to expand the hospital there. Tomorrow, construction will begin on an 85-unit apartment building, 20 single-family homes and office and retail space for Black-owned businesses. Bryson Davis, chair of the board of the nonprofit behind the project, Williams & Russell CDC, joins us, along with developer Anyeley Hallova, to talk about the project.
Rep. Cliff Bentz represents Oregon’s 2nd District in the U.S. House, covering most of the state east of the Cascades. He’s the only Republican in the state’s congressional delegation, and he voted in favor of the House budget resolution Tuesday that would mean nearly $900 billion in cuts to Medicaid over the next 10 years. Statewide, about a third of Oregonians rely on the Oregon Health Plan, which is the way people in the state receive Medicaid. Bentz, like many others in his party, has held town halls that have drawn crowds of angry constituents who raised big questions about the Republican party supporting Trump’s cuts to the federal government led by Elon Musk and the overreach of the executive branch. Bentz joins us to talk about his vote and how he’s approaching his job at this political moment.
U.S. Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley joined with other senators in a letter to Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and President Donald Trump urging them to not cut Medicare and Medicaid. The two programs serve 140 million people nationwide, and in Oregon, the way people receive Medicaid is through the Oregon Health Plan. Sen. Wyden joins us to discuss protecting the health care these federal programs provide, what Democratic representatives are hearing from their constituents about the rapid take down of the federal government and what he and his party are doing in response.
On Tuesday, a federal judge in Seattle temporarily blocked the suspension of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, which President Donald Trump halted by executive order on his first day in office. Several nonprofits that provide federally contracted refugee resettlement services, including Lutheran Community Services Northwest, along with stranded refugees and their relatives filed the lawsuit challenging the executive order.
Since 1984, LCSNW has helped more than 45,000 refugees resettle in the region, according to Salah Ansary, its senior director of advocacy and government affairs. Ansary immigrated to Portland in 1978 shortly before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He joins us to talk about the lawsuit and the impact Trump’s executive order has had on his organization’s efforts to aid refugees in Portland, Southwest Washington and the Seattle area.
When we talk about forestry jobs in Oregon, you might automatically think of logging. But there are countless other roles in the industry, including planting trees after a forested area has been clear cut to thinning the understory for wildfire management. As recently reported by Jefferson Public Radio, that workforce has evolved from worker cooperatives of the late 1960s to largely immigrant contractors, known as “pineros,” which we see today.
JPR reporter Justin Higginbottom joins us to talk more about his deep dive into this side of the forestry industry and how it’s changed over the last 50 years.
Vishaka Priyan is a junior at Catlin Gabel, a private school in Portland. She doesn’t have personal experience with foster care. But she came across a group called Project 48 that helps kids in the first 48 hours after they enter the child welfare system. And as she heard stories about the trauma and economic challenges they face in care and after, she wanted to do something that would both support them and help them develop self-sufficiency. That’s why Priyan says she decided to research incentives for businesses to employ youth in the child welfare system or who were aging out of it. The result of her self-assigned project was a bill that is making its way through the Oregon state legislature. Priyan plans to testify for the bill once it gets a hearing. She joins us to share more.
In 2020, Oregon voters passed Measure 110, decriminalizing possession of small amounts of controlled substances. In 2024, the state passed HB 4002, which made possession a misdemeanor crime, but also allocated millions for counties to establish “deflection programs.” Reporter Ben Botkin recently finished a series of articles for the Oregon Capital Chronicle about deflection programs have looked like in different parts of the state.
An estimated 650,000 adults in Bangladesh suffer from blindness, according to researchers. At the end of November, Oregon Health & Science University ophthalmologist Beth Edmunds traveled to the country to teach local doctors a minimally-invasive operation for adults and children with glaucoma. She joins us to share what she took away from her time volunteering and what it was like operating in the world’s only flying teaching hospital.
According to a new report from the Portland Metro Chamber, foot traffic in the central city is still down -21% compared to 2019. On top of that, the region lost nearly 10,000 jobs and has continued to lose population. Andrew Hoan, president and CEO of the Portland Metro Chamber, joins us to talk through the report, and what he thinks is needed to help downtown Portland thrive.
Exactly three years ago, Russia mounted a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, triggering a war that has killed more than 12,000 civilians, displaced 4 million people internally and created nearly 7 million refugees, according to the United Nations. Today, Russian forces occupy roughly 20% of Ukraine.
Last week, President Trump falsely accused Ukraine of starting the war, called its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, a “dictator” and initiated talks with Russia – but not Ukraine – to end the conflict.
Two members of the Ukrainian American community in the Portland area join us to share their perspectives: Tatiana Terdal, president of the Portland-Lviv Friendship City Association and a board member of the Ukrainian Foundation; and Yulia Brockdorf, a Ukrainian American psychotherapist in Hillsboro who is the co-founder and president of DAWN, a nonprofit which delivers medical supplies and humanitarian aid to Ukraine. Brockdorf and Terdal will speak at a war commemoration event on Monday, which will be held at Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portland from 5-8 p.m.
Earlier this month, J.D. Tovey was appointed the executive director of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation following a vote by its board. Tovey is an enrolled member of the CTUIR, and he had been serving as the interim executive director since last May.
An urban planner by training, Tovey was appointed by Gov. Kotek as co-chair of the Housing Production Advisory Council in March 2023. The council finished its work with a report released last year containing recommendations on how to meet the state’s target of building 36,000 new homes a year over the next decade.
Tovey joins us to talk about his work on the council and his priorities for the CTUIR, including the development of the Nixyáawii neighborhood within the Umatilla Indian Reservation to ease the housing shortage for tribal members. He also shares how the Trump administration’s policies and directives could affect tribal relations with the federal government.
Medical Teams International is based in Tigard but its workers and volunteers bring life-saving, humanitarian aid around the world. The nonprofit’s president and CEO Eric Ha says the refugees they serve in East Africa fled violence, war or natural disasters. Many of them came years ago from Uganda, Ethiopia, Sudan, Tanzania and other countries. The camps over time have become settlements, and in some cases the MTI programs are people’s only access to any kind of medical care - from treating common diseases like cholera and malaria to providing vaccinations to child health to maternity care. Ha joins us to tell us how MTI is handling the Trump-Musk freeze of federal funds from the state department and USAID.
On Monday, the Salem city council will vote to place a property tax levy on the May ballot which would cost the average Salem homeowner nearly $230 a year. If approved, it would help the city address a $14 million budget deficit and restore library hours which were cut last year. The levy would also fund parks maintenance, recreation programs such as youth camps, and classes and activities for seniors at Center 50+.
The vote will take place just two weeks after the abrupt resignation of city manager Keith Stahley. The Salem Reporter broke the news of Stahley’s resignation and the circumstances surrounding it after a performance audit released last month raised concerns about Stahley’s leadership and decision-making. Joe Siess covers local government for the Salem Reporter. He joins us to discuss the property tax levy and the controversy surrounding the city manager’s departure.
The Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians recently purchased roughly 2,000 acres of land near the Table Rocks preserve north of Medford. The property is part of the ancestral homeland of several tribes that were forced out of the Rogue Valley in the mid-1850s. The tribes were relocated to the newly-created Siletz reservation on the coast, forcing them to adapt to an unfamiliar climate and way of life. The tribe plans to use the Table Rocks property for conservation and the cultivation of first foods going forward.
Robert Kentta serves on the Siletz Tribal Council. He joins us to share more about the cultural, spiritual and historical significance of the site.
Earlier this month, the city of Bend announced it is seeking applicants to fill three vacancies on its Human Rights and Equity Commission. Its goals include advocating for historically marginalized or underrepresented groups, evaluating city policies or regulations for potential barriers they may create and recommending how to remove them.
The commission is one of two community advisory groups convened by Bend’s Accessibility and Equity Department, which also provides linguistic services to non-native English speakers, and an array of other programs and training on diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility. Meanwhile, Deschutes County commissioners recently voted to end the county’s DEIA committee. Andrés Portela, Bend’s equity and inclusion director, joins us to talk about his efforts amid the Trump administration’s backlash against DEI initiatives in government agencies, institutions and workplaces
In 2017, Oregon lawmakers passed a transportation package that was expected to generate $5.3 billion. Eight years later, revenue forecasts show funding has fallen short of projections, leaving the Oregon Department of Transportation with an ongoing budget crisis. Audits have revealed that ODOT is failing to meet accountability measures set up in the legislation, and many of its projects are behind schedule and over budget.
Anastasia Mason recently investigated the 2017 package for the Statesman Journal. She joins us to talk about what the findings could mean for ODOT as it prepares to make another big funding ask this legislative session.
Portland’s Albina district was once a center for Black musicians in this country - producing some classic jazz, soul and gospel albums and bands. The newest record in Albina Music Trust’s catalog features Portland-based producers remixing some of the city’s historic music. Music producer Tony Ozier and DJ Jumbo join us to share some of the music and talk about the collaboration.
Portland will soon have what may be the first-of-its-kind training facility purpose-built for female athletes. RAJ Sports, the owners of the Portland Thorns, are building several soccer pitches, basketball courts, and more to serve the Thorns and the new WNBA franchise team. Karina LeBlanc, executive vice president of strategic growth for RAJ Sports, joins us to discuss the new facility and the future of women’s sports in Portland.
The Bonneville Power Administration is among the federal agencies currently being gutted by Elon Musk at Pres. Donald Trump’s direction. The ostensible reason for federal government layoffs and buyouts is to save taxpayer dollars. In the case of the BPA, it’s funded by its ratepayers, not taxpayers, but that hasn’t stopped the departure of hundreds of the agency’s skilled and specialized workers. And additional staffers who were considered probationary were let go without notice last week. And that has industry watchers, including two former heads of the BPA, sounding the alarm about the potential catastrophic impacts on the power grid and the people who rely on it. Steven Wright and Randy Hardy wrote a joint article in an industry newsletter Friday detailing those possible threats.
The BPA can be thought of as the backbone of the Northwest power grid. It sells wholesale electricity to the utilities, companies and other entities that sell power to residents all over the region. Sources include hydropower from Columbia River dams and the region’s only operating nuclear power plant. It also transmits energy through 15,000 miles of high voltage lines.The thousands of BPA employees perform tasks from engineering and line work to complex demand modeling and resource planning. That planning includes decisions around sources of power and how to prioritize and price the power. Energy consultant and former BPA administrator Randy Hardy joins us to discuss the details and possible impacts of the Elon Musk-led reductions on the Northwest
The James Beard Foundation Awards are considered one of the top accomplishments in the culinary world. For the 2025 season, several restaurants and chefs in the state are semifinalists. Out of the seven Oregon chefs nominated for Best Northwest and Pacific Chef category, only two came from Portland. Kari Shaughnessy is the owner and executive chef of Hayward in McMinnville. Josh Dorcak is the owner and executive chef at MAS in Ashland. They both received a nomination and join us to share what the food scene is like in their respective communities and what it means to have so many chefs outside of Portland recognized for their work.
Donnie Horn started Triangle Productions with an original play he wrote in 1989 that dealt with being a gay man in the midst of the HIV/AIDS crisis. The theatre is now one of the oldest LGTBQ theatres in the country, celebrating its 35th season. The show that’s currently running is another Horn original: a musical he collaborated on with musician Michael Allen Harrison called “JC: Gospel According to an Angel.” Horn is also working on The Umbrella Project, which draws together a wide array of stories focused on Oregon’s LGTBQ history. He joins us to tell us more about that project, the musical he wrote with Harrison and how Triangle Productions has grown over the last 35 years.
If you’ve passed by the Chess Club storefront in Portland’s Old Town recently, you may have wondered what it sells. A small label in the window gives you a hint — “global magazines.” The store carries hundreds of publications from around the world, with topics ranging from queer periodicals to art and design quarterlies. Owners Andrew Simon and Christy Lai have said that they want the store to serve as a meeting place and conversation starter for people in search of offline connection. Simon and Lai join us to talk about creating physical community in a digital world.
On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order No. 9066, which sent people of Japanese descent – many of them U.S. citizens – from their homes to “relocation centers,” resulting in the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Every two years, people come from all over the country to Klamath Falls to remember the Tule Lake internment camp, just south of the Oregon border. Today, we listen back to a conversation we recorded at the Tule Lake Pilgrimage in 2016. We talked to Satsuki Ina, one of the organizers of the pilgrimage and a former resident of Tule Lake. We also spoke to former resident Jimi Yamaichi, and Akemi Yamane, whose parents were incarcerated there.
Also today we listen back to a conversation with Oregon author Mitzi Asai Loftus, who was born in Hood River on a fruit orchard and spent years of her childhood in several different internment camps. After leaving the camps, her family returned to Hood River. Asai Loftus spent much of her adult life in Eugene and Coos Bay and now lives in Ashland. She wrote a book about her experiences called “From Thorns to Blossoms: A Japanese American Family in War and Peace.”
In Courtney Gould’s latest young adult love story, “Where Echoes Die,” two sisters travel to a strange desert town to investigate the death of their mother … and find that everything is not as it seems. In Jennifer Dugan’s novel “The Last Girls Standing,” two survivors of a summer camp massacre search for the truth of what happened that terrifying night. OPB’s Jenn Chavez talked to Dugan and Gould at the 2024 Portland Book Festival about psychological thrillers and writing queer love stories for a YA audience.
Cattle ranching is a nearly $20 million industry in Grant County. But it can take a serious environmental toll on the region’s land and waterways. Jack Southworth, a fourth-generation rancher in Seneca, has been practicing holistic land management since the 1980s. He’s planted willows to restore the streams on his property and worked with the Forest Service to sustainably graze his cattle in the summers, among other measures. Southworth gave us a tour of his land and talked about what he sees as the future of cattle ranching in 2023.
Portland’s sunny days are done and snow has started to fall around the region Thursday. Currently, the National Weather Service has issued a winter storm warning for the Portland area, with current predictions saying the metro area should expect up to 2 inches of snow and sleet. Dylan Rivera is the public information officer with PBOT. He joins us to share how the agency is preparing streets. We’ll also hear from Jes Larson, the assistant director of homeless services for Washington County to hear how workers there are helping people on the street stay warm and safe.
“Geography is everything” for digital creator Geoff Gibson. The Portlander’s YouTube channel explores population geography and how that affects cities, states and countries. Some of his video essays have millions of views including pieces about the Cascadia Subduction Zone and why some parts of Oregon and Northern California have few people living there.
More recently, Gibson covered Astoria and why it never became a major hub like San Francisco. We learn more about “Geography by Geoff” and how it struck a chord on social media.
Democrats continue to struggle over how to counter President Donald Trump and the unprecedented governmental power he has given to billionaire Elon Musk, the world's richest man. Recently, Democrats banded together to fight against the unelected "special government employee" through protests and policy proposals. Democrats are among those who say the country is at the brink of a constitutional crisis, as the Trump administration has suggested it may not abide by judicial ruling it disagrees with. U.S. Rep. Janelle Bynum spoke at a “Nobody Elected Elon” rally last week. She joins us to share more about her concerns and what Democrats are doing to
Reports of child sexual abuse in schools in Oregon have drawn outrage and concern in the communities where they have occurred. Researchers and therapists who focus on helping child abuse survivors have best practices and prevention strategies, but they don’t actually know how prevalent abuse is in the state. Oregon is not alone. According to the University of Oregon’s Center for Childhood Safety and Wellbeing, no state has yet taken that on. Center director Jeff Todahl intends to change that with a study that’s now underway. Researchers have already done a pilot program in Lane County and are confident the statewide study will be completed by year’s end. Todahl joins us to share what we know about how to prevent and respond to child abuse in Oregon and how it can be improved.
Perhaps no executive order of President Trump’s has so far been met with as much confusion and consternation as the one issued two weeks ago freezing federal funding for grants and loans. Although it has been blocked temporarily by federal courts, nonprofits and organizations are still reeling from the effect it’s had on grants they’ve won from agencies like the National Endowment for the Arts.
That’s especially true if you’re a nonprofit like Portland choir Cappella Romana, which won a $35,000 NEA grant last May for the premiere of a work about racial reconciliation that fuses Orthodox music with African American gospel. As first reported in Oregon ArtsWatch, the choir was uncertain its NEA grant money could be accessed for performances of Canon for Racial Reconciliation in Seattle and Portland after the federal funding freeze was announced. But a direct appeal to donors, who gave more than $20,000 in 48 hours, has ensured the shows on Feb. 28 and March 1 will go on.
On the morning of Feb. 11, the NEA funds appeared in Cappella Romana’s accounts, according to executive director Mark Powell. He joins us to talk about the Canon for Racial Reconciliation, and how the evolving guidance for NEA grants may close the door to works championing racial diversity or marginalized communities.
On his first day in office, President Trump placed a 90-day freeze on all U.S. foreign aid. He then put all employees of the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, on leave last week. A federal judge has temporarily paused the mass layoffs, but the freeze on aid remains — meaning many programs providing food assistance, health care services have had to cease operations.
Suparna Chaudhry is an assistant professor of international affairs at Lewis & Clark College. She joins us to talk about how these changes could impact humanitarian aid across the globe.
Last month, President Trump signed an executive order directing federally run insurance programs, including Medicaid and TRICARE for military families, to drop coverage for gender-affirming care. Last week, Oregon’s attorney general joined a lawsuit with Washington State and Minnesota against the Trump administration over that order, which also seeks to cut off federal funding from institutions that provide hormone therapy, puberty blockers and surgical treatment for people under 19.
The state’s largest Medicaid provider, CareOregon, covers medically-necessary, transition-related health care, which is currently required under state law. Eric Hunter, President and CEO of CareOregon, joins us to discuss how the health insurer is responding to the demands of the federal government.
In January, acclaimed filmmaker David Lynch died. He is known for films such as “Eraserhead” and “Blue Velvet,” but is also behind the award-winning show set in the Pacific Northwest, “Twin Peaks.” While much of the show was shot in a Los Angeles-based studio, exterior shots were filmed in Washington towns, including North Bend, Snoqualmie and Falls City. Katherine Cusumano is a freelance journalist and essayist. She, along with Oregon photojournalist Riley Yuan, went out to Twede’s Cafe in North Bend after hearing of Lynch’s death and reported on what they saw there for Longreads. Cusumano joins us to share her memories of the show and the legacy it has on the world around us.
State Sen. Bruce Starr (R-Dundee) returns to the Oregon Legislature this session after about a decade away.
He lost his reelection bid in a close race in 2014. He replaces former Republican Sen. Brian Boquist who was unable to return to the legislature after the 2023 GOP walkout.
Funding a transportation package is a key issue for lawmakers this year. Starr worked on a bipartisan transportation effort in 2009 and serves as a co-vice chair of the joint committee on transportation during the current session. He joins us to share more on his priorities.
U.S. Rep. Val Hoyle announced last week she’s leaving the Department of Government Efficiency House caucus. She was one of few Democratic members of DOGE, the new efficiency effort led by Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of Tesla and other companies. She told OPB that President Donald Trump has given enormous power to billionaire Elon Musk – including control of the government's finances - and that they are operating “unconstitutionally and illegally.” Hoyle says Musk’s access to Social Security numbers and other personal information of U.S. citizens, along with names of U.S. agents abroad, represents a grave threat, both domestically and internationally. On Saturday, a federal judge blocked Musk from accessing Treasury department records containing Americans’ personal data. Hoyle joins us from D.C. to talk about the details and what she’s hearing from colleagues on both sides of the aisle.
The Portland Trail Blazers have now won 9 of their last 10 games, including Monday’s thrilling overtime against the Phoenix Suns. Their streak has now extended to six games with last night’s win against the Sacramento Kings. It’s a dramatic turnaround to a season that began with a slew of losses, and while the Blazers still have more losses than wins, expectations are rising about how they’ll end the season in late April. Sean Highkin is the founder of the Substack newsletter, The Rose Garden Report. He joins us to talk about what’s behind the dramatic turnaround, from the team’s chemistry to adjustments Coach Chauncey Billups has made that have sparked dominant performances on the court.
The “Black, Black History Month pop-up museum in Portland’s Old Town district has three floors of exhibits featuring history, photography, paintings, film and music. And the Horizon Enterprise Building that serves as the temporary museum is itself a kind of exhibit, as its new owners want to turn it into a community space to serve and support BIPOC artists and organizations. Tory Campbell is the interim director of culture at the 1803 Fund, which is supporting the building’s transition - and the organizations represented in the museum. Taishona Carpenter is the board president of Don’t Shoot Portland, which runs The BLACK Gallery and was one of the curators of the pop-up museum. We talk with them about the mission and vision of their organizations and how that’s reflected in the exhibits.
Portland General Electric, PacifiCorp, BPA and other electricity providers throughout the West are weighing two new "day-ahead" energy market proposals. It’s important because the choice could cost electricity consumers billions over the next decade. Pete Danko wrote about this for the Portland Business Journal and joins us to explain.
Enforcement of Portland’s property maintenance rules are complaint-based. That means the city doesn’t even come to investigate unless a neighbor or anyone who passes by a property reports something. In about a third of cases, Ombudsman Jennifer Croft says, no violation is found. In other cases, fines can be imposed and homeowners can be burdened with ballooning penalties if they can’t or won’t fix the problem. Those most affected by this system are homeowners of color who live in diverse or gentrifying neighborhoods.
In 2021 the Ombudsman’s office laid out these problems, and its recent report details the progress the city has and hasn’t made implementing its recommendations to address this inequity. Croft joins us to share the details.
The largest healthcare strike in Oregon history appears to be at an end. The unions representing most of the 5,000 Providence doctors and nurses who worked at eight different hospitals and six clinics around the state have now reached contract agreement. Union leaders say if members vote to approve the deal Thursday and Friday, they will end the strike and return to work immediately. We get the latest from OPB healthcare reporter Amelia Templeton.
Oregon Health & Science University has been facing a series of mounting challenges in recent months, including its proposed merger with Legacy Health, which is being reviewed by the Oregon Health Authority. If approved, OHSU would control five of the six hospitals in Multnomah County, according to a report issued by OHA last November.
OHSU has also had to contend with the departure of prominent executives such as the interim head of its health unit last month, and Dr. Brian Druker, a world renowned cancer researcher, who resigned in December as CEO of the Knight Cancer Institute. Among the reasons Druker shared with OPB for his decision included low staff morale, a lack of trust in OHSU’s leaders and the organization’s cost-cutting measures, such as its decision to lay off more than 500 employees.
Leading OHSU during this turbulent time is Steve Stadum. The board of directors appointed him as interim president in November, marking his return to the organization which he first worked at more than 25 years ago. Stadum joins us to share his vision for OHSU and how he aims to navigate its internal and external challenges, including threats to federally funded research from the new Trump administration.
The Point-in-Time count is a federally required snapshot of how many people are experiencing homelessness in a given area. Last week, the Council for the Homeless in Vancouver, WA went out on a cold Thursday morning to start the count. It was conducted by outreach staff, volunteers and other social service providers. OPB’s “Think Out Loud” joined surveyors Daniel Rivera, Gemma Somol and Brian Starbuck as they conducted their work. We were also joined by Charlene Welch, chief advancement officer for Council for the Homeless. They all shared the importance of the count, what homelessness looks like in Vancouver and why they go out and do this work.
Earlier this month, individuals and families had just five days to apply for a housing rental assistance program funded by the federal government that serves Deschutes, Jefferson and Crook counties. Eligibility is based on income limits and other requirements, with vouchers awarded through a lottery system to only about 1 out of every 4 applicants. Demand for the vouchers grew by more than a third since 2023, but obstacles still remain for those lucky enough to obtain one.
Reporter David Dudley wrote about the Housing Choice Voucher program after moving to Bend eight weeks ago to work on “Homelessness: Real Stories, Real Solutions.” The series was launched last month by the nonprofit media organization FORJournalism. Dudley joins us to talk about his recent reporting and work on the series, which aims to dispel misconceptions about homelessness in Central Oregon.
The city of Portland changed its zoning rules in 2020 with the goal of producing duplexes, cottage clusters and other multi-unit housing in areas traditionally zoned for single-family homes. The idea was to provide more options at more affordable price points for the city’s growing population. A new report shows the initiative is largely working. It says more middle housing units are now being built than single-family homes, and those units are selling for $250,000 to $300,000 less than a new, market-rate detached house.
Morgan Tracy is a senior planner in Portland’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. He joins us with more of the report’s key findings.
When Oregon wildland firefighter Kevin Conley heard about the wildfires in Los Angeles, he wanted to do something to help. Conley is currently riding his bike from Astoria to Northern California to raise money for the Wildland Firefighter Foundation, which provides financial and mental health resources to those fighting the fires. We’ll talk with Conley about his ride and the importance of mental health services for firefighters.
The difficult things we experience in our lives help create who we are. But how do the stories we tell ourselves - and others - about that trauma affect us? Lidia Yuknavitch, the celebrated Oregon writer of fiction, essays and memoirs, has written a new book about how reframing our stories can release us from what she calls “the tyranny of our mistakes, our traumas, and our confusions.” Yuknavitch joins us in the studio to talk about her latest book, “Reading the Waves.”
The MusicOregon Echo Fund provides funding to musicians to support career development, allowing artists to fund non-performance projects like recording in a studio or filming a music video.
BendretheGiant, a Portland-based ensemble, has been working on recording music with help from the fund. The group’s new EP, "Wading In The Deep End" will be released on March 7. BendreTheGiant is also headed on tour with stops in Oregon, California and Washington. The group will play in Eugene at John Henry’s on Feb. 13 and at Alberta Street Pub in Portland on March 1st. They join us for an in-studio performance.
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson campaigned on ending unsheltered homelessness in the city. He recently released a detailed “blueprint” for achieving that goal, adding thousands of shelter beds in the coming year. The city is also facing a $100 million budget shortfall. Wilson joins us to share his thoughts on the budget crunch, the details of the expanded shelter capacity, and how he's thinking about the rights and wellbeing of city residents in light of recent executive orders from the president.
Lester Griffin launched The Foundation nearly two years ago in response to his own experiences with the criminal justice system and the support he wished he had as a youth growing up in Vancouver. The nonprofit provides resources for at-risk teens and young adults such as job development skills, mentorship and community service opportunities. It also helps adults recently released from incarceration by providing them free boxes of food, hygiene supplies and access to a team of navigators with lived experience to support their reentry into society.
The Columbian previously wrote about The Foundation and, more recently, about Griffin’s efforts to open a transitional housing complex in Vancouver in the coming weeks for people released from prison. The Restored Transitional Complex will have 14 beds, a communal living area and aims to provide stable housing for occupants for up to a year. Griffin joins us to share more details, along with Ajay Harnage, a formerly incarcerated individual who hopes to move into the new facility.
Insurers across the country are leaving high-risk areas that are affected by disasters like wildfires. Some Oregonians are experiencing insurance rate increases and are struggling with a shifting insurance market. In Deschutes County, homeowners in fire-prone areas are facing higher insurance premiums, according to The Source Weekly.
And residents in Southern Oregon are seeing similar issues. Earlier this month, Democratic Senator Jeff Golden of Ashland held a town hall in Medford. He spoke with frustrated residents who were concerned about the state’s final wildfire hazard map, according to NBC5 News. Oregon law prohibits insurers from using the map to adjust rates. Mitigating risks through fire-wise communities and creating defensible space are some of the ways residents can show insurers they are taking action.
We hear more about these concerns from Golden and Andrew Stolfi, the state’s insurance commissioner and the director of the Oregon Department of Consumer and Business services.
1/31 Insurers across the country are leaving high-risk areas that are affected by disasters like wildfires. Some Oregonians are experiencing insurance rate increases and are struggling with a shifting insurance market. We learn more about the challenges residents are facing in fire-prone areas.
Amy Tan might be best known for her fiction, including "The Joy Luck Club" and "The Kitchen God’s Wife," but her latest book takes its drama from her backyard bird feeder. In 2019, Tan began drawing birds she saw in nature, particularly the ones who visited her tree-filled backyard in Northern California. The result is a book of reflections, observations, detailed drawings and cartoon sketches called "The Backyard Bird Chronicles." Tan talks to us in front of an audience of students at Franklin High School.
The Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries is facing a massive backlog of wage theft complaints. According to its annual report, the agency saw a 208% increase in wage claims from 2020 to 2024. In response, the agency implemented an income threshold for investigations, meaning investigators are not following up on any claims from workers who make more than $25.34 an hour.
BOLI officials say the agency’s staffing hasn’t kept up with the growth of Oregon’s workforce, and they are asking lawmakers to fund more than 70 new positions. Christina Stephenson is the state labor commissioner. She joins us with more details on the agency’s nearly $18 million budget request.
By 2040 about 78 million Americans will be 65 or older, according to the Administration on Aging. In Oregon, lower birth rates combined with longer life expectancies means that Oregon’s population is rapidly growing older. The shift in population affects sectors like healthcare and affordable housing.
AGE+ is a nonprofit that advocates for older Oregonians. It’s pushing for a statewide task force to plan for Oregon’s changing demographics -- a shift that many of the state's rural areas are already seeing. In 2023, South Morrow County Seniors Matter created a meal program for older residents. Now, the organization continues providing free weekly lunches to adults 60 and older along with classes and help navigating resources.
Stephanie Hooper is the president and CEO of AGE+. Jerry Conklin is the board chair of South Morrow County Seniors Matter. They join us with more about what an influx of aging residents could mean for the state.
Oregon launched a program last summer to pay parents who care for their children with severe disabilities or medical needs. Advocates pushed for the Children’s Extraordinary Needs waiver after a similar COVID-era program ended in 2023.
But parents say the state program is underfunded and falling short of its promise. It can only serve a tenth of the families that qualify, and only pays caregivers for up to 20 hours of work per week. SB 538, or Tensy’s Law, aims to provide adequate funding to expand the program to all eligible families.
Calli Ross is the legislative director for Advocates for Disability Supports. She’s also the primary caregiver for her 9-year-old son, Tensy, who is the bill’s namesake. She joins us to talk about the Children’s Extraordinary Needs program and the legislative push to expand it.
A new study made national headlines, estimating that in the next three decades, around 42% of adults over the age of 55 will develop dementia. Allison Lindauer is an associate professor of neurology at the Oregon Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at OHSU. She joins us to share what we know about dementia and what people can do to prevent it.
Around 14,000 subscribers read the locally-owned community newspaper Hoodview News every month. Along with community events, feel-good stories about the East County area and advertisements, readers find columns that espouse and encourage a transphobic worldview. Hoodview News is published by longtime Oregon political operative Mike Wiley — perhaps best known for his work as communications director for the Oregon Citizens Alliance, or OCA, an ultra-conservative activist group that pushed stridently anti-LGBTQ+ ballot measures across the state in the 1980s and 1990s. OPB journalist Leah Sottile joins us with the story.
The bridge connecting Oregon and Washington on Interstate 5 has needed replacement for decades. Experts say it would not withstand earthquakes of the size that the Northwest is certain to experience in coming years. Hundreds of millions of state and federal dollars went under the metaphorical bridge when the Columbia River Crossing project fell apart more than a decade ago. Now the I-5 replacement plan that Oregon, Washington and other public agencies have created depends on funding from both states, future tolling, and the federal government coming through with money it pledged to the project long before President Trump began his second term.
Erik Neumann is OPB’s Southwest Washington Bureau Chief and has been following developments closely. He joins to share the details on where replacement stands and remind us what’s at stake.
Earlier this month, Stephanie Johnson, a first grade teacher at Pine Ridge Elementary School in Bend, found out she won a Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. Central Oregon Daily News first reported on Johnson’s achievement. The award is considered to be the highest national honor a K-12 educator can receive for teaching science, technology, engineering or mathematics.
Johnson was one of five teachers in Oregon who received the most recent award, which was given to educators nominated in 2021, 2022 or 2023. It includes a certificate signed by former President Biden, an invitation to attend the awards ceremony in Washington, D.C. and $10,000 from the National Science Foundation. Johnson joins us to talk about her achievement and the joy she gets from teaching math to 1st graders.
Glyphosate is an herbicide that’s widely used in agriculture in the U.S. and around the world. It’s the active ingredient in Roundup, which is commonly applied to crops like soy, cotton and corn that have been genetically modified to withstand the weed killer. The Environmental Protection Agency maintains that glyphosate is “not likely to be carcinogenic to humans,” although a ruling in 2022 by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has prompted the agency to review the chemical’s risks to human health and the environment.
A new study by economists at the University of Oregon examined how glyphosate may also be impacting the health of infants. It looked at millions of birth records from 1990 to 2013 to see if there were differences in birth weight and gestational length after Roundup use intensified in rural counties that grew genetically modified corn, soy and cotton compared to rural counties that weren’t suitable for growing those GM crops. It found that exposure to glyphosate was associated with lower birth weights and shorter gestations, with those effects being greater for some babies more than others. Joining us to talk about the findings is Ed Rubin, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Oregon.
In 2020, the Almeda Fire ripped through the Rogue Valley and it destroyed about a third of the town of Talent. Among the losses were nearly 90 homes located at the Talent Mobile Estates park. Years later, the town continues to rebuild, including a groundbreaking ceremony for the mobile home park last year. We check in on recovery efforts from Darby Ayers-Flood, the mayor of Talent.
Oregon lawmakers gathered in Salem on Tuesday for the start of the 2025 legislative session. They’ll have five months to tackle the state’s pressing challenges, including passing a two-year budget. Last month, Governor Kotek unveiled a budget proposal that boosts spending on her top priorities such as building more affordable housing, combating homelessness and funding for K-12 schools.
Lawmakers are also expected to pass a multibillion-dollar transportation package to shore up the state’s aging bridges and crumbling roads and highways. And although Democrats narrowly won a supermajority in the legislature, they may still face resistance from Republicans who have competing visions on education, public safety and addressing the housing crisis. Joining us to discuss all this and more is OPB political reporter Dirk VanderHart.
Looking at the history of psychological operations, “Stories Are Weapons: Psychological Warfare and the American Mind” is the latest book by author and journalist Annalee Newitz. It explores misinformation, propaganda and how the stories we hear can manipulate us. The book also features a chapter on the work the Coquille Indian Tribe has done to undo damage these operations did to some Oregon tribes in the past. Newitz spoke in front of an audience with “Think Out Loud” host Dave Miller at a Powell’s Books event on June 4.
Oregon's reigning – and two time – state champion in chess is a junior at Westview High School in Beaverton. Zoey Tang has been playing since she was 7 years old and joined a chess club at her small charter school. She was hooked. She recently became the first Oregonian ever to achieve the title of “woman grandmaster.” She joined us to share her thoughts on the title and her goals going forward.
One of Mayor Keith Wilson’s main campaign platforms was his commitment to ending unsheltered homelessness in the city. On Wednesday, he presented his $28 million “Blueprint” for how he plans to achieve that goal. OPB Portland City Government Reporter Alex Zielinski joins us to share details about the plan and the reaction of regional officials and homeless experts who have been working to get people off the streets for decades.
President Donald Trump has wasted no time in enacting his immigration policy. On his first day in office, he issued an executive order that aims to end birthright citizenship, the constitutional provision that automatically grants citizenship to children born in the U.S., regardless of their parents’ status. Attorneys general across the country, including in Oregon, have already sued to block the order. The administration will also allow immigration authorities to make arrests in traditionally safe spaces such as churches and schools.
Local and state officials around the country could also be investigated and prosecuted by the Justice Department for refusing to cooperate on immigration enforcement. But Oregon has a longstanding law that specifically prohibits officials from doing just that. Oregon's new attorney general, Dan Rayfield, joins us to talk about all this and more.
Last summer, more than 12,000 of Deschutes County residents received a letter inviting them to participate in a civic assembly, convened by nonprofit groups and with support from the city of Bend and the county. Only 30 were selected in a lottery system, all coming from various ages and backgrounds. They met in the fall to brainstorm ideas to address youth homelessness. Their ideas ranged from changes in the foster care system to financial literacy classes in schools. Katy Kundmueller and Alex Lehman both recently participated in the assembly and join us to share more about the ideas that came out of the meetings and their hopes for the future.
Marion County once burned its trash — and generated some of its electrical power — using the Reworld incinerator. But since that facility has previously announced it would be closing and stopped accepting residential waste, the county’s garbage is now going to the Coffin Butte Landfill in Benton County. However, as reported in the Statesman Journal, Reworld is challenging state regulations that it blamed on the closure. Regardless, since space at Coffin Butte is limited, Marion County commissioners have already approved the trucking of some of the waste to a landfill in The Dalles in Wasco County. A spokesman for Marion County told OPB that move is scheduled to begin in the next few weeks.
Marion County — like many others in Oregon — faces tough choices about how to environmentally dispose of the unwanted materials its residents throw out. We spoke earlier this month about the environmental challenges presented by both landfills and incineration. Joining us to discuss these policies and the financial considerations involved are Marion County Commissioner Kevin Cameron and Environmental Services Division Manager Brian May.
The fentanyl crisis has taken a toll on communities all across Oregon. It has also shined a light on the challenges frontline responders face when trying to get people help for substance use disorder, especially in rural areas and jails or prisons where treatment can be hard to obtain.
But a training program in addiction medicine offered by OHSU is providing help by sharing resources, best practices and collaborative problem solving on complex cases. While most of the people who enroll in the course, which is taught remotely, work in healthcare, it’s attracting growing interest among law enforcement. Enrollment overall in the training program has grown by nearly two-thirds in the past two years. Dan Hoover, an assistant professor of medicine and the director of the Extension for Community Health Outcomes addiction medicine program at OHSU, joins us for more details.
Oregon has a rich tattoo history, from indigenous practitioners to sailors. And Oregon newspapers have run stories about tattoos since the early 20th century. Within the state you can see all styles represented, from American traditional to fine lines and realism. There is no shortage of inked skin in the state, but as data obtained by OPB from OHA's Board of Electrologists and Body Art Practitioners show, the number of tattoo artists has skyrocketed since the pandemic. From 2019 to 2024, Oregon saw a 77% increase in the number of tattoo licenses at the state level. What does this increase mean for the industry and what was it about the pandemic that created this spike in numbers? To answer these questions and more we’ll hear from Chris Clark and Alia Bird, co-owners of Birdhouse Tattoo in Portland, and Seth Rowan, owner of the Bend Tattoo Company.
Researchers have long known there was some kind of aquifer in the Cascade Mountains that feeds rivers like the McKenzie and the Deschutes. But they never knew just how big it might be — until now, that is. A new study found that the Central Oregon aquifer holds 80 cubic kilometers of water, roughly three times the size of Nevada’s Lake Mead.
Leif Karlstrom is an associate professor of earth sciences at the University of Oregon. He led the study and joins us with more details on what the discovery could mean for the region — and why we shouldn’t view it as a water windfall
Democratic Representative Maxine Dexter has begun her first term on Capitol Hill, representing Oregon's 3rd Congressional District. Earl Blumenauer, who represented the region for nearly 30 years, has now joined the faculty at Portland State University. In the first two weeks of her term, Dexter has already voted on bills about immigration and transgender student athletes, and she has been assigned to serve on the House Natural Resources and Veterans Affairs Committees. Dexter joins us from Washington D.C. to talk about how she’ll work toward her health care and environmental priorities, one day after President Donald Trump was inaugurated to his second term.
A 23-year-old civil rights activist from Alabama named John Lewis was the youngest speaker at the famous March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom led by Martin Luther King Jr, delivering a fiery speech to hundreds of thousands of marchers gathered on the Washington Mall. Lewis went on to serve on the Atlanta City Council, and was elected to Congress in 1986, where he has earned a reputation as one of the most liberal members of the House. He has also teamed up with Andrew Ayden and illustrator Nate Powell to write March, a three volume graphic nonfiction series documenting Lewis's life. We listen back to a conversation we had with Lewis in 2014. Lewis died in 2020.
We listen back to a conversation with Oregon state Republican Sen. Jackie Winters recorded in 2018 about her role as Senate Minority Leader. Winters died in 2019.
Oregon’s legislative session is set to begin on Tuesday. Lawmakers will consider a slew of bills on issues such as housing, infrastructure, mental health care and more. House Speaker Julie Fahey, D-Eugene, and House Minority Leader Christine Drazan, R-Canby, join us to share their parties’ priorities for the upcoming session.
Kaarin Knudson became the mayor of Oregon’s second largest city, Eugene, on Monday. She delivered her first state of the city address shortly after being sworn in. Knudson says increasing housing capacity and revitalizing the city’s downtown are among her top priorities. But first, she faces a budget shortfall and will need to work with the city council to find a way to fill it. Last year, a proposed municipal fee to address the shortfall drew a lot of public opposition and the council decided not to vote on the issue. Knudson joins us to tell us more about her first official week on the job and her priorities for her term.
By the early 1900s, the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist group founded by former Confederate soldiers after the Civil War, had all but faded from existence in the U.S. Then, in 1915, a second Klan was founded in Georgia, and soon spread across the country.
By the mid-1920s, it had as many as eight million members across the U.S., including many chapters in the Pacific Northwest, and a strong base in the Midwest.
Seattle writer Timothy Egan’s most recent book, “A Fever in the Heartland,” tells the story of the rise of the Klan in the 1920s and the leader who was brought down by one woman’s deathbed testimony. We talk to Egan in front of students at McDaniel’s High School.
Animals such as grizzly bears and Arctic ground squirrels have evolved the ability to hibernate as a way to survive winter months of extreme cold. During hibernation, their core body temperatures drop and their heart rates and metabolic activities slow to conserve energy. They also consume less oxygen during this inactivity.
But what if you could make non-hibernating species – including humans - hibernate? How could you control hibernation as a therapy to help people recover from strokes or heart attacks, or administer it to astronauts to help them endure a yearslong trip to Mars? Scientists at Oregon Health & Science University have embarked on a first step to exploring these questions by inducing a state of hibernation in rats, which don’t normally hibernate. Joining us to discuss this research is Domenico Tupone, a research assistant professor of neurology at OHSU.
People are choosing to spend less time than ever in the presence of other people, whether in social events, one-on-one meetups or eating out. The latest cover story in The Atlantic explores some of the psychological and social implications of that trend. And a recent study out of Oregon State University goes deep into how solitude is defined and experienced — and the range of benefits that different kinds of solitude seem to offer.
If you go out to eat alone, but are around other people, that’s one kind of solitude. Another would be going out alone on a nature trail where you don’t see another soul. Whether you have your phone on you or not would be another factor that would influence the kind of solitude you experience.
Morgan Quinn Ross is an assistant professor of liberal arts at OSU and recently published a paper about this spectrum. He joins us to tell us more.
On Jan. 6, Josephine County Commissioners voted to terminate the lease of the Grants Pass central library. Commissioners have since said they simply want to renegotiate the $1-a-year lease of the county-owned building. This comes after a legal battle last year over whether residents could opt out of the library’s special tax district. It also follows a period of 10 years in which the library system was run by a nonprofit and volunteers, rather than by the county. Josephine County Commissioner Chris Barnett and Jennifer Roberts, president of the Grants Pass Friends of the Library, join us to fill us in.
In Southern California, fire hydrants ran dry as flames ripped through the Los Angeles area. Some critics blamed the municipal system for not meeting the demands for water. But the systems that house fire hydrants were not designed to battle major wildfires. Kylie Mohr is a freelance journalist and correspondent for High Country News. She reported on this issue for the outlet and joins us with details.
Students from Southern Oregon University collected over a million photos and videos of animals attempting to cross Interstate 5 in Southern Oregon. The students were working with SOU professor Karen Mager to try to understand the best place to put a wildlife crossing to facilitate passage for wildlife in an area well-known for vehicle-animal collisions. The federal government recently announced over $33 million in funding to create an overpass within the Mariposa Preserve of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument. It will be the only wildlife crossing over I-5 between Mexico and Canada. Karen Mager joins us to tell us about the project.
Disability Rights Oregon filed a motion last week, asking a federal judge to hold Oregon in contempt of court for failing to admit aid and assist cases within seven days. At the same time, a number of bills have been introduced in the Oregon Legislature surrounding mental health. Chris Bouneff is the executive director of the Oregon chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. He joins us to share improvements he hopes the state will make during the Legislative session.
At the beginning of the year, Portland’s new city council elected Elana Pirtle-Guiney as council president in a contentious vote that revealed some of the dividing lines of the new council. Pirtle-Guiney won by a 7-5 vote after nine rounds of voting. In the new role, Pirtle-Guiney will set council meeting agendas and refer council items to a vote that are proposed by the mayor or city auditor. Pirtle-Guiney joins us to talk about her new role and the challenges facing the new 12-member city council.
Last year, Seattle-based company Ironwood Studios released its debut game, "Pacific Drive." The game is set in the Olympic Peninsula and players drive around in a station wagon, exploring supernatural happenings. The production company Atomic Monster has acquired the rights to turn the award-nominated game into a TV series. Cassandra Dracott is the CEO and creative director for Ironwood Studios and also grew up in Portland. She joins us to share how growing up in the Pacific Northwest influenced the making of the game and more.
Tory Johnston is an enrolled member of the Quinault Indian Nation and a lecturer in American Indian Studies at the University of Washington. He grew up in the Quinault Indian reservation on the Washington coast with a love for music, whether it was the loud guitar riffs of Metallica or the jazz improvisation of Thelonious Monk.
In 2023, with no prior experience as a radio DJ, he applied to work on a new show Seattle radio station KEXP was launching that appealed to his academic and personal explorations of Indigenous music. He got the job and is today the co-host and DJ of “Sounds of Survivance.” Airing on Mondays, each episode exposes listeners to artists spanning musical continents and styles, from classical piano compositions by Navajo musician Connor Chee to thrash metal songs performed by New Zealand band Alien Weaponry in English and Te reo Māori. Johnston joins us to talk about the show’s eclectic catalog and what’s currently on his music playlist.
Washington’s legislative session begins on Monday and runs through April. Lawmakers are working on the state’s budget as Washington faces a multibillion-dollar budget gap. Governor-elect Bob Ferguson will be sworn in on Wednesday. Sentence about budget stuff
He said officials should focus on budget cuts and efficiency. Jeanie Lindsay is the Olympia correspondent for partner station KUOW. She joins us with details of what officials have planned.
Bikram Vaidya grew up in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, and ran a pub there for years before coming to the U.S. to get a culinary arts degree at Western Culinary Institute/Le Cordon Bleu in Portland, Oregon. Vaidya later went on to teach at Le Cordon Bleu and was a founding member and lead instructor at the Oregon Culinary Institute. For the last 15 years he has been dedicated to cataloguing the cuisines of his homeland. Vaidya has trekked across Nepal and spent time staying with families to learn their recipes and the cultural traditions behind their ingredients. Viadya’s new cookbook, “The Mystic Kitchens of Nepal,” came out a few months ago. He joins us to discuss the work.
In Portland, arts organizations are facing shrinking budgets, donor fatigue and other financial struggles. The city launched the Office of Arts of Culture last year, but Portland faces a $27 million budget gap. As people move out of Portland, an arts tax aimed at boosting the region’s arts and culture offerings might yield less money.
Blake Shell is the executive and artistic director of the Oregon Center for Contemporary Art. Marissa Wolf is the artistic director of Portland Center Stage. Kimberly Howard Wade is the executive director of Caldera, which serves young people in Portland and Sisters. And Darion Jones is the assistant director of the city’s Office of Arts and Culture. They join us with more about these challenges and what they mean for a city that prides itself on a robust arts and culture scene.
Promo: In Portland, arts organizations are facing shrinking budgets, donor fatigue and other financial struggles. We learn more about those challenges and what they mean for a city that prides itself on a robust arts and culture scene.
A contractor with the Port of Coos Bay is facing allegations of racism after recordings revealed him praising Hitler and using other anti-Jewish and anti-Black rhetoric. Reporters have connected the recordings from an antifascist infiltrator to Michael Whitworth Gantenbein, owner of Whit Industries, which has received nearly $300,000 in contract work from the Port of Coos Bay over the last decade. A coalition of human rights and environmental groups are calling for the port to cut ties with Gantenbein, but port officials are struggling to find a path forward that doesn’t expose them to a free speech lawsuit.
Daniel Walters covers democracy and extremism at InvestigateWest through Report for America. He recently reported on this issue and joins us with more details.
Last October, Amazon announced it had signed an agreement to develop four small-scale modular nuclear reactors, or SMRs, along the Columbia River to power its data centers in Eastern Oregon. Energy Northwest, a consortium of publicly owned utilities, is partnering with Amazon on the development of the SMRs which it says could be scaled up to meet the energy needs of more than 770,000 homes in the region without the use of fossil fuels.
But opposition to the plan is now ramping up as environmentalists, academics and Native American Tribes in the region raise their concerns over the safety of this novel nuclear technology to human health, wildlife and water quality. OPB rural communities reporter Antonio Sierra joins us to share his recent reporting on the opposition to Amazon’s vision for nuclear energy and the massive data centers it would help power.
Republican Cliff Bentz represents Oregon’s 2nd Congressional District in Congress. It’s the largest district in Oregon, and represents around two-thirds of the state. It encompasses the Owyhee Canyonlands, one of the state’s most-known but — as of yet — unprotected natural places. Conservationists and others, including Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, have called on President Joe Biden to create a national monument here but so far that hasn’t happened.
Democratic Senator Ron Wyden has been working since 2019 on a bill to create a national monument on 1.1 million acres of land. The legislation was co-sponsored by Oregon’s other Democratic U.S. Senator, Jeff Merkley. The bill passed the Senate last year but died in the House. Bentz proposed his own version last fall, but says he’ll work with the senators on a new plan that can pass both chambers. We talk with Bentz about the way forward for Owyhee protection.
At the turn of the 20th century, Vaudeville performances exploded in growth in America, entertaining audiences with a variety of acts from magicians to comedy shows and more. In Astoria, Oregon, the historic Liberty Theatre was home to some of these acts. Melissa Hart is a journalist and author based in Eugene. Her great- grandparents were vaudeville performers themselves and traveled around the world with their act. She wrote about the history of vaudeville both in Astoria and more broadly for the publication Hidden Compass. She joins us to share more on who her great-grandparents were and the impact vaudeville had in the U.S.
According to the CDC, more than 2 million people in the U.S. are infected with hepatitis C. The bloodborne illness attacks the liver and can lead to cancer or death if left untreated. Injection drug use is the leading risk factor for hepatitis C, which is also more prevalent in rural counties where diagnosis and treatment can be hard to come by, especially for people experiencing homelessness.
Scientists at Oregon Health and Science University demonstrated a new strategy that could significantly boost the diagnosis and successful treatment of hepatitis C in rural communities. In a recently published study, they showed that peers with lived experience in drug use were able to successfully enroll and facilitate treatment for people who tested positive for hepatitis C in six rural Oregon counties using telemedicine, which was seven times more effective than referrals to clinics for in-person treatment. Joining us to talk about the results and the role peer specialists can play to combat the spread of hepatitis C is Dr. Andrew Seaman, an associate professor of medicine at OHSU, the medical director of HIV and hepatitis C services at Central City Concern and head of substance use disorder programs at Better Life Partners in New England.
The largest healthcare strike in Oregon history is on the horizon. About 5,000 Providence doctors and nurses who work at 8 different hospitals around the state could strike at the end of this week. We’ll get an update from OPB healthcare reporter Amelia Templeton.
Portlander Cameron Booth is mostly known for his blog Transit Maps, which reviews and showcases public transit maps from bygone eras to modern day systems. But for nearly a year now, Booth has been making sure one piece of Portland’s history is not forgotten: street cars. From its beginnings in 1872 to the modern system, Booth has been archiving and cataloging information he finds on his new website, Portland Streetcar History. We hear from Booth to learn more on why he started this project and the importance street cars had in shaping the city.
Since the mid-1980s, Marion county has been sending its trash to an incinerator, now known as Reworld Marion Inc. It’s the only one in the state, and the county has partnered with it from the beginning. The company recently filed objections with Oregon's Department of Environmental Quality around environmental regulations the state passed aimed at improving human health by reducing toxic emissions from the facility. Several months ago Reworld announced it would be closing its Oregon facility and would not be accepting any more trash as of Dec. 31, 2024.
The county had to turn instead to the Coffin Butte Landfill in neighboring Benton County. But that landfill is filling up and has applied to expand its capacity. It’s also been under scrutiny for methane leaks that environmental groups, lawmakers and regulators say have not been adequately addressed.
Joining us to discuss the problems inherent in current waste disposal methods are: Lisa Arkin, the executive director of Beyond Toxics, which is part of the state’s Clean Air Coalition; and Oregon State Senator Sara Gelser Blouin, a Democrat whose district covers South Salem and unincorporated parts of Linn, Benton and Marion Counties.
The city of Bend is exploring how it could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 70% by 2050. The goals are outlined in the city’s Community Climate Action Plan, which it’s working on updating.
Officials are examining what strategies to prioritize and how future policies could affect Bend's businesses, affordable housing goals and economy.
Recently, the city has considered how it could construct new buildings that have electric appliances rather than fossil-fuel power sources like gas. While some climate activists applaud the efforts, others wonder how new regulations could affect the city financially and leave it vulnerable to costly lawsuits.
Cyrus Mooney is the business advocate for the city of Bend. Cassie Lacy is the senior management analyst for the city. They join us with details of the city’s plans.
Valerie Jacques Lehman loves the Oregon Ducks. No matter their crushing defeat in the Rose Bowl. She says like many fans, she was devastated by that loss but says a real fan is loyal, win or lose. We talk with her about the big game and how she keeps on the sunny side even after the worst outcome.
A new study, led by researchers at the University of Washington, has linked exposure to wildfire smoke with a higher risk of developing dementia. The study followed more than 1.2 million Kaiser Permanente Southern California members from 2008 to 2019. It also found that minority communities and those living in higher-poverty census tracts were more likely to be diagnosed with dementia than white or higher-income patients.
Joan Casey is an associate professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at UW. She joins us with more details on how wildfire smoke can affect our brains and bodies.
The state of Washington owns land that rightfully belongs to the Yakama Nation. A treaty map that showed what land should be included in the Yakama reservation was lost for nearly 75 years since it was filed under "M" for Montana. Because the land ownership was long established and is being used as a revenue source for the state, Washington will likely want compensation before returning it. Maria Parazo Rose is a freelance journalist who covered this story for Grist. She joins us with details.
In 2020, Oregonians voted to legalize the use of psilocybin mushrooms in therapeutic settings. This came as fresh research showed promising results of psychedelic therapy for depression, PTSD and substance use disorder. Now a new kind of patient is seeking out this care. As reported in the New York Times, some people are seeking psychedelics, such as ketamine and psychedelic mushrooms, for palliative care. Andrew Jacobs is a health and science reporter for the Times. He joins us to share more.
Historically, philosophers have studied ethical theories that focused on how we make decisions based on what is morally right or wrong. But a somewhat newer branch known as care ethics, approaches morality from a much broader context, which involves centering the individual's experience and their relationship to the people around them. Maurice Hamington is a philosophy professor at Portland State University and author of the book, “Revolutionary Care.” He argues that the world needs more care and compassion for others and also recently spoke to the Atlantic about incorporating care ethics into parenting approaches. Hamington joins us to share more on care ethics and how he thinks it could be incorporated into our daily lives.
White pelicans are distinctive. Their 9-foot white wings are black tipped, and can create a bit of a mirage when they fly, seemingly appearing and disappearing as they go. Some observers have mistakenly reported them as UFOs. The birds also have notable long orange beaks and the largest wingspan of any other bird in Oregon.
Their populations have increased considerably over the past few decades, and more recently, some pelicans have been spotted staying along the coast and in the Columbia River Basin for longer than expected. Scientists would like to know more about why and what the implications could be for the wider ecosystem. We learn more about white pelican colonies in the Pacific Northwest and how climate change may factor into the health of these birds from James Lawonn, an avian biologist at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
About a dozen years ago, Wasco County Sheriff Lane Magill became aware of a growing need for treatment services for residents experiencing mental health crises in his county. Faced with a lack of residential care services in the region, he struggled to find help for people experiencing homelessness or veterans who suffered from PTSD. The surge of fentanyl-related overdoses in the county since 2021 also highlighted the link between behavioral health and substance use disorders, and the lack of local treatment options.
But that may now soon change. As first reported in the Columbia Gorge News, Magill expects to break ground this year on a new residential treatment facility in The Dalles. It would offer 16 beds to treat residents in Hood River, Wasco and Sherman Counties for substance use disorders, along with a walk-in center for people in mental health crisis. Sheriff Magill joins us to talk about the status of the $50 million project, and the regulatory roadblocks it faces.
An Ashland educator is helping to develop lesson plans about Ukrainian history and current events for American high school students. Paul Huard, an AP U.S. History teacher at Ashland High School, has traveled to Poland and Ukraine in recent summers to do humanitarian relief work as the country continues to resist a Russian invasion. From a colleague there, he learned about the “On Ukraine” project through Harvard’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies.
Huard and a handful of other educators selected to participate in the program have been working with letters, documents and other primary sources from the Lviv Center for Urban History to develop teaching materials for American educators. He joins us with more details on the project and why it’s important for American students to learn about Ukraine.
A report from the Oregon Kelp Alliance found that nearly two-thirds of the state’s kelp forests have died out over the last decade. A multitude of factors appear to be behind the decline, including rising ocean temperatures and booming populations of purple sea urchins, which eat the kelp. The report also outlines future research and conservation strategies that could help protect the state’s remaining kelp forests.
Sara Hamilton is the scientific coordinator for the Oregon Kelp Alliance and one of the report’s lead authors. She joins us to talk about the status of Oregon’s kelp forests and what it could mean for coastal communities and ecosystems.
J.H. Baxter & Co. has faced numerous fines from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality for violating state environmental regulations. The Eugene plant treated wood products with creosote and other chemicals from the 1940s until it closed in 2022. Now, the company and its owner are facing federal criminal charges for allegedly boiling off 1.7 million gallons of toxic waste and venting the fumes into the surrounding air.
Christian Wihtol covered the federal charges for Eugene Weekly. He joins us with more details.
Jack Reacher may be one of the most iconic action book heroes of all time. Over 100 million copies of author Lee Child’s books have been sold. But the author who has taken over the series is perhaps a little less well known. Andrew Child, who also writes under the name Andrew Grant, is now carrying on the legacy of Jack Reacher for his older brother. He came to Portland for the 2024 Portland Book Festival to talk about the 29th book in the series, “In Too Deep.”
In 2024, Oregonians saw a record-breaking wildfire season, the end of drug decriminalization, the start of a new form of government in Portland and more. We’ll look back on the year’s biggest news stories from the Pacific Northwest with a panel of local commentators. Lisa Bates is a professor of Black Studies at Portland State University; Scott Bruun is the president and CEO of the Oregon Bankers Association; and Anna Griffin is the vice president of news, talk and podcasts at OPB.
In Courtney Gould’s latest young adult love story, “Where Echoes Die,” two sisters travel to a strange desert town to investigate the death of their mother … and find that everything is not as it seems. In Jennifer Dugan’s novel “The Last Girls Standing,” two survivors of a summer camp massacre search for the truth of what happened that terrifying night. OPB’s Jenn Chavez talked to Dugan and Gould at the 2023 Portland Book Festival about psychological thrillers and writing queer love stories for a YA audience.
Chris La Tray didn’t grow up understanding that he was Indigenous. In fact, his father actively avoided the story. But as he got older, La Tray began to uncover the roots of his Indigenous identity. His book, “Becoming Little Shell,” follows his journey to understanding his place as a Métis storyteller, a descendent of the Pembina Band of the mighty Red River of the North, and an enrolled member of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians.
Sasha taqwšəblu LaPointe grew up surrounded by her Upper Skagit and Nooksack Indian Tribe relatives. Her latest book, “Thunder Songs,” explores what it means to grow up in mixed heritage, and draws inspiration from her coastal heritage as well as her life in the city.
LaPointe and La Tray spoke with OPB "Weekend Edition" host Lillian Karabaic at the 2024 Portland Book Festival.
In the last few decades, writing about romance has become big business -- from Fabio-adorned paperbacks in the 90’s, to self-published e-books like “50 Shades of Gray” in the early 2000s, to more than 39 million print copies of romance novels sold in 2023 alone. Even Portland public libraries said they’ve seen the number of romance novels being checked out double since 2018.
OPB’s Crystal Ligori talked with Lily Chu, author of “The Takedown,” and Katelyn Doyle, author of “Just Some Stupid Love Story,” at the 2024 Portland Book Festival.
Pull up a map of Portland's urban core, and you'll see a tidy checkerboard of right-angled roads. The city's blocks pack together like snugly fit teeth. Its streets run crisp lines — north to south, east to west. The system's simple, elegant.
And then there's Sandy Boulevard.
Sandy cuts a wide, reckless scar through Portland's otherwise orderly grid. It scoffs at your roundabouts. It laughs at your stop sign.
We wanted to get a better feel for this decidedly punk rock boulevard. And so we decided to walk it — all the way from its origin, near the corner of SE 7th and Alder, to The Grotto, out at NE 85th.
Danez Smith has won and been nominated for a lot of big prizes for their poetry, including the UK’s Forward Prize, the National Book Critic Circle Award and the National Book Award. But in 2020, Smith stopped writing. In the depths of the pandemic, after the death of George Floyd in Smith’s hometown of Minneapolis, poetry began to feel less powerful as a place for social change. Danez Smith joined poet Diannely Antigua, author of two poetry collections including “Good Monster,” for a conversation with OPB’s Jenn Chavez at the 2024 Portland Book Festival to talk about the role of poetry in our fractured society and our fractured lives.
Ani DiFranco is best known for getting up on stage and belting out hard-hitting feminist songs while playing her guitar. But when she walked out in front of an audience recently at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, there was no guitar in sight. She was there for the 2024 Portland Book Festival to talk about the picture book she wrote for young readers about a child who accompanies her mother to their local polling station. DiFranco was interviewed on stage by OPB’s Prakruti Bhatt.
As 2024 comes to a close, the staff of OPB’s “Think Out Loud” look back on some of their favorite conversations from the past year. Producers Sage Van Wing, Elizabeth Castillo, Gemma DiCarlo, Rolie Hernandez and Sheraz Sadiq join host Dave Miller in conversation.
Music can provoke powerful emotional responses. Sometimes your favorite song, or album played on repeat, can be just what you need to get through. What song or album has helped you get through this year? What music have you had on repeat? OPB’s Prakruti Bhatt will join us to talk through the year in music.
Earlier this year, Oregon lawmakers passed a bill to implement new criminal penalties for drug possession and end the state’s three-year experiment with drug decriminalization. The legislation also allows law enforcement in counties that have opted into the program to deflect drug users away from the criminal justice system and into treatment as a way to avoid charges. In Multnomah County, 127 deflections have been initiated since the program started in September. Portland Police Commander Brian Hughes and Heather Mirasol, Director of the Behavioral Health Division for Multnomah County, join us to talk about what the deflection program looks like so far.
Earlier this month, the celebrated and prolific poet, author and professor Nikki Giovanni died at the age of 81 from a third bout of cancer, according to Virginia Tech. She taught at the university for 35 years as an English professor before her retirement in 2022. Giovanni published her first collections of poetry, “Black Feeling Black Talk” and “Black Judgment,” in 1968, and was a leading figure in the Black Arts Movement that emerged during the Civil Rights Era.
We listen back to an interview we recorded with Giovanni in 2014 after the release of “Chasing Utopia,” a collection of poetry and prose which covers topics both personal and political.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife are proposing federal protections and label the Western monarch butterfly as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The federal agency will be accepting public input until March 12. At the same time, a federal grant of $300,000 was awarded to the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation to aid in habitat restoration. The Portland nonprofit will be using the funds to continue offering free kits containing milkweed and wildflowers for community spaces and working, tribal and public lands in Oregon, Washington and California.
Emma Pelton is a conservation biologist with the nonprofit. She joins us to share more on the impact this funding will have and what potential protections for the butterfly will mean going forward.
If you’re not a fan of traditional holiday movies, “Breakup Season” might be for you. It follows a young couple that plans to spend Christmas together, only to break up on the first night of their vacation. A snowstorm makes travel impossible, meaning they’re stuck together for the holiday. The movie was entirely filmed in Eastern Oregon, featuring shots of downtown La Grande and the surrounding snow-capped hills and valleys.
Filmmaker H. Nelson Tracey developed “Breakup Season” through a residency with the Eastern Oregon Film Festival. He joins us to talk about his debut feature film and why it was important to set it in La Grande.
Earlier this month, the City of Portland and Multnomah County released data and survey results about Portlanders’ experience with ranked choice voting. According to the survey, 91% of voters said they understood how to fill out their ranked choice ballots. But only 55% of voters in East Portland’s District 1 turned in those ballots, compared to rates of turnout that ranged from 74 to 76% for the other three districts. District 1 voters were also more likely to turn in ballots that had no candidate for city council selected, and nearly a quarter of D1 voters surveyed said they had no awareness of ranked choice voting.
City officials acknowledged that more work needs to be done to reach voters of color and to better understand the low voter turnout in District 1. The lack of engagement may also be a result of decades’ long neglect for the needs of East Portland voters in City Hall, according to José Gamero-Georgeson, a D1 resident and volunteer at East County Rising, a political action committee that supports progressive candidates in East Multnomah County. He is also the co-chair of the Portland Government Transition Advisory Committee. Gamero-Georgeson joins us to share his perspective on how to engage and boost participation among voters in East Portland.
During an interview on “Think Out Loud” last month, Portland Mayor-elect Keith Wilson said that he was “an admirer” of Interim City Administrator Michael Jordan when describing whom he would want to hire to oversee the day-to-day operations of city bureaus. Outgoing Mayor Ted Wheeler announced Jordan’s appointment in May as part of the voter-approved changes to Portland’s new form of governance and elections using ranked choice voting.
Jordan’s contract was set to expire on June 30, 2025 to ease the transition from one administration to the next. But Jordan will now stay on through at least the end of next year, according to reporting by The Oregonian.
Jordan joins us to talk about the transition and his priorities amid a grim financial outlook for the city’s finances and its departments.
New federal data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis found that Oregon’s outdoor industry continued to see growth last year, earning more than $8 billion. Kate Porche is the director for Oregon State University’s Center for the Outdoor Recreation Economy. Randy Rosenberger is an economics professor in OSU's department of forestry. They both join us to break down the growth the industry has seen and what its future may look like.
Acadia Healthcare runs methadone clinics around the country and the clinics bring in millions of dollars in annual revenue. A New York Times investigation found that the for-profit company is accused of failing to provide counseling, falsifying records and enrolling patients who aren’t addicted to opioids. The company already faces federal investigations over practices at its psychiatric hospitals. Jessica Silver-Greenberg is a business investigations reporter for The New York Times. She reported on Acadia Healthcare with Katie Thomas, an investigative health care reporter for the news outlet. Silver-Greenberg joins us with more on the reporting.
Last week, Troy Price was sworn in as the new chief of police in Vancouver. A 27-year veteran of the department, he takes the helm a month after Vancouver voters rejected a proposition that would have helped fill staffing shortages. Proposition 4 would have raised property taxes starting next year to pay for hiring 80 fulltime sworn officers and other police positions, along with funding for new equipment, technologies and investments in other areas.
As the city’s population has risen in the past decade, so too has the demand for police services. According to city officials, more than 3,000 cases go uninvestigated each year as the call volume for police response has grown by more than a third since 2017. The Vancouver Police Department also has the second-lowest staffing levels of any city in Washington with at least 100,000 residents. Chief Price joins us to talk about his priorities and how he aims to fill police officer vacancies as the city faces a budget shortfall of more than $40 million.
Tom Cole moved to Southern Oregon in 1995 with the thought of starting a new regional chapter of Big Brothers, Big Sisters. Instead, what he saw around Medford made him realize the community was full of families whose children weren’t getting the educational support they needed, many of them low-income and from households that didn’t speak English.
In 1998, Cole piloted an after-school program at one school, serving 50 students with a $500 grant. Since then, his efforts have turned into a full-fledged nonprofit called Kids Unlimited, which operates in nearly every public school in the Medford School District. In 2013 the organization launched the Kids Unlimited Academy, a charter school for underserved communities.
Lupita Vargas was in kindergarten when she started in that first Kids Unlimited after-school program. At that time no one in her family spoke English, she says, and the tutoring and other support that the program provided to her and her three siblings was life changing. Vargas joins us, along with founder Tom Cole, to tell us more about her family’s experience, and talk about her job now as the nonprofit’s director of educational services.
This fall, the Meadowlark Day Program held an official ribbon cutting ceremony, to celebrate the unique mental health program for Salem-Keizer students in need. Trillium Community Health Plan and the school district had an existing partnership to provide lower levels of mental health care in some schools. But for some kids, their challenges from depression, anxiety, PTSD and other disorders are so steep as to make it impossible for them to be able to get any educational benefit in school.
Meadowlark is a 10-12 week program that gives kids intense treatment as well as instructional support every day, so they don’t fall further behind. We get the details from Chris Moore, the director of mental health and social-emotional learning for the district, and from Chiharu Blatt, Trillium’s vice president of community services in the Willamette Valley and Central Oregon.
Willamette Springs Memory Care, a senior living facility in Corvallis, was under 'enhanced supervision' by the state, but continued to operate. As reported in Willamette Week, within the past two years the facility has been cited with upwards of 50 instances of abuse. In September, the Oregon Department of Human Services considered removing the facility's license. However, last month the facility passed its latest inspection, removing admission restrictions and regulatory oversight. Lucas Manfield covers health care for WW. He joins us to share more on the facility and the regulatory power the state has.
For the fourth year in a row, jazz fans can find the holiday music they’re looking for at Portland Center Stage next week. Local musicians and bandleaders Domo Branch and Charlie Brown III will direct a 15-piece lineup of regional and national musicians performing traditional scores with a modern twist. Domo Branch, drums, and Charlie Brown III, keyboard, join us to play some songs and talk about their collaboration. The Brown Branch Big Band plays Dec. 16 and 17 at Portland Center Stage.
Disney’s long-awaited sequel to its smash hit, “Moana,” is already one of the top-grossing movies of the year after its premiere at the box office just two weeks ago. Moana, however, is not your typical Disney princess. In fact, she forcefully pushes back on that characterization during an exchange with Maui, the Polynesian demigod, with whom she teams up on journeys of adventure and self-discovery.
For “Moana 2,” Disney once again sought guidance from the Oceanic Cultural Trust, a team of scholars, artists and other experts who hail from Hawai’i, Samoa, Tonga and other Pacific Islander communities. They helped ensure the films’ faithful representations of Pacific Islander cultural details and traditions such as wayfinding, an ancient form of ocean navigation still practiced today. Patricia Fifita, an assistant professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies at Oregon State University and Indigenous Pacific Islander of Tongan heritage, joins us to share her experience as a cultural consultant on “Moana 2,” and her efforts to develop a K-12 Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander studies curriculum for use in Oregon schools.
From office settings to plastic recycling, workers were exposed to at least 14 chemicals in their daily lives, according to a new study from the International Pollutants Elimination Network. To measure exposures, participants in the study wore silicone bracelets which are able to mimic skin. This technology was invented at Oregon State University and has been used not only to measure human exposures to pollutants, but for animals such as cats and dogs as well. Kim Anderson is the director of OSU’s Food Safety and Environmental Stewardship Program and is a professor in environmental and molecular toxicology. She also invented this method with her graduate students. She joins us to share more on what we’ve been able to learn through this technology and how often someone faces an exposure.
Oregon lawmakers will have a one-day special session this week before the legislature begins officially in January. The governor has called them there to allocate over $200 million dollars in emergency spending for this year’s unprecedented wildfire season. We’ll get a preview of the session with OPB’s Dirk VanderHart and April Ehrlich.
You may know them best for the songs they released in the '90s, but Portland rockers The Dandy Warhols have been going strong for 30 years, and have just released their 12th studio album. The new album includes collaborations with The Pixies’ Frank Black, Blondie’s Debbie Harry and Guns N’ Roses’ Slash. We talk to keyboardist Zia McCabe about the band’s legacy.
As a drag queen, environmentalist and community organizer, Pattie Gonia uses her platform to advocate for inclusive outdoor spaces. From mountain biking to skiing, she shares her love of the outdoors and has built a sizable following on social media.
Pattie Gonia is based in Bend and she joins us with more on connecting with nature … in heels.
Whether it’s smartphones or sneakers, toys or tents, about 80% of commercial goods are transported to markets around the world using giant container ships. As global shipping routes grow to meet increasing demand, so too does the likelihood of fatal collisions with whale species whose ranges overlap with them.
Researchers at the University of Washington led a team of international scientists who measured, for the first time, the risk of ship strikes worldwide among humpback, blue, fin and sperm whales. They found that 92% of global shipping traffic overlaps with the habitats of these whales. Meanwhile, only 7% of the hotspots in the world’s oceans where the risk of collisions between whales and ships is greatest have any measures in place to protect the marine mammals.
Anna Nisi is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Washington’s Center for Ecosystem Sentinels, and the lead author of the recently published paper. She joins us to share her findings and what might be done to protect whales threatened by the multi-billion dollar shipping industry.
The Ashland Daily Tidings was established as a newspaper in 1876 and ceased operations in 2023. But local readers may not have known that. The Daily Tidings website re-emerged after the closure with a claimed staff of eight contributors, none of whom are reporters working in Southern Oregon. The website features a regular slate of "stories" that appear to be written by artificial intelligence. OPB editor Ryan Haas joins us to talk about his investigation into the AI takeover of the Southern Oregon paper.
Though the title of sheriff comes historically from England, the role is inextricably linked to the myth of the American West. It is also inextricably linked to the racist foundations of democracy in this country, according to Jessica Pishko in her new book, “The Highest Law in the Land: How the Unchecked Power of Sheriffs Threatens Democracy.” Pishko writes about the so-called ‘constitutional sheriffs’ movement, which holds that sheriffs, because they are elected directly by the people, are beholden to no authority, and can uphold the Constitution as they see fit. We talk to Pishko about the history of sheriffs, and what the role could mean under a second Trump administration.
An exhibit at the Oregon Historical Society highlights the stories of transgender people in the American West during the frontier era. “Crossing Boundaries: Portraits of a Transgender West” runs through Jan. 5. The exhibit looks at the lives of several individuals in the Pacific Northwest who didn’t conform to gender norms through four themes: visibility, identity, acceptance and history.
Peter Boag is a professor and the Columbia Chair in the History of the American West at Washington State University Vancouver. He co-curated the exhibit and joins us with more details.
In 2019, the Oregon Legislature created the Urban Flood Safety and Water Quality District to manage levees and pump stations in Multnomah County. Last month, voters elected new board members to help guide infrastructure updates to the century-old flood system. As extreme weather events become more common, catastrophic flooding is a growing concern. We check in on the work of the district and learn more about disaster preparedness from Jim Middaugh, the executive director of the district and Kayla Drozd Calkins, a newly elected district board member.
According to recent federal data, workers in the logging industry are roughly 33 times more likely to die from a workplace injury compared to those in other civilian occupations. In Oregon, the industry has been in decline since the ‘90s due to a mix of environmental restrictions around timber harvests, wildlife protections for endangered animals and competition from lumber imports. But the lure of high wages can outweigh the physical risks loggers face, especially in rural parts of the state, as New York Times economics correspondent Kurtis Lee recently found during a reporting trip to southwestern Oregon. He joins us to share what he learned.
Willamette University’s Pacific Northwest College of Art will feature student artists at the Holiday Makers Market. The event runs from Thursday through Saturday and will feature original artwork and crafts made by students. The college will also project animations and art created by students, staff and faculty during First Thursday in Portland’s Pearl District. Meghann Gilligan is the assistant director of public programming for the school and Dylan Mead is a student organizer of the market. We’ll hear more from them about how the events teach students through experiential learning.
Ski season has begun, and along with the many recreational enthusiasts hitting the slopes, professional ski patrollers join them too. These patrollers are responsible for transporting injured skiers, providing first aid, mitigating hazards and more. Cathleen Calkins is a professional ski patroller and board member of Women of Patrol, a nonprofit aimed at supporting and highlighting female patrollers. She also wrote a piece earlier this year about her experience working in the industry. She joins us to share more on what the job is like and the trauma the job can bring, as this year's ski season begins.
If you follow college football and you live in Oregon, there is little chance that you don’t already know that the University of Oregon Ducks are having their best season since 2010. Last weekend, the No. 1-ranked team completed a perfect 12-0 winning season - for just the second time ever - with a victory over rivals Washington Huskies. If you have high hopes that they’ll win their upcoming Big 10 Conference Championship game on Saturday and go on to take the title, then you’re definitely not alone. We get more details about the season and championship prognostications from Zachary Neel, the managing editor of USA Today’s Ducks Wire.
Project Turnkey began as a way to house people who lost their homes in the 2020 wildfires and to provide a COVID-safe alternative to congregate shelters. The Oregon Legislature provided funding for communities to purchase underused buildings, typically motels and hotels, and turn them into shelter spaces where residents could stay for months at a time and engage in support services.
A recent report from Portland State University’s Homeless Research & Action Collaborative found that several measures of a residents’ quality of life, such as their ability to get enough rest, access food and make progress toward their goals, improved after their stay at a Turnkey site. However, it also found that more than half of residents returned to either unsheltered homelessness or an emergency shelter after their stay.
Anna Rockhill, a research associate professor at PSU, led the report. She joins us with more details on the Turnkey model and the role it can play in addressing Oregon’s homelessness crisis.
Every week in Corvallis a group of service providers, police and others sit down together to talk about the people in their community who are in crisis. Together, the group decides on a plan of action and works to help a few individuals with whatever they need, like housing, mental health services or health care. They call these meetings "the Situation Table," and it’s modelled on a system in use in Canada. Joel Goodwin, captain of the Corvallis Police Force, Dan Easdale, program director at Corvallis Housing First, and Ty Pos, director of contracts and outreach for Community Outreach Inc, join us to explain what the Situation Table is and how it works.
Portland’s historic charter reform resulted in nearly 100 candidates running for a seat on the expanded city council and 19 Portlanders running for mayor. For those running for office, Portland’s Small Donor Election program promises to match funding to donations and provide their campaigns with taxpayer dollars.
Exactly 52 candidates qualified for the program this election cycle. But reporting from Willamette Week shows some of the “creative” ways candidates met the threshold to receive funds, from mutual donations between candidates to hiring nonprofit organizations to collect donations for them. Sophie Peel is a reporter for WW and has been following this election closely. She joins us to share more on the role the Small Donor Program played this election and how it compares to other cities with similar programs such as Seattle.
The indie-folk band Blind Pilot has released its first new album in eight years. The band has been on tour and will perform in Portland in February. The group, which was formed in Oregon, joins us for an in-studio performance and to talk about the album, “In The Shadow Of The Holy Mountain.”
Donna’s Law is a voluntary registry that lets people flag themselves, prohibiting them from purchasing a firearm. The registry is meant to allow people who are concerned about their own mental health and safety to restrict their own gun rights. At least 20 states have considered the law, while three states have successfully passed the measure. Washington, Utah and Virginia all have Donna’s Law in place, but new reporting from The Trace shows that within the past six years, only about 132 people participated in the program. Agya Aning is an editing fellow with the news organization. He joins us to share more on how Donna’s Law works and the barriers some face when trying to access it.
Oregon middle and high schoolers have a new tool to help them explore career pathways. Sassy, an AI career coach, launched in September as part of the state’s Career Connected Learning initiative. The tool was developed by Ed Madison, an associate media professor at the University of Oregon and executive director of the nonprofit Journalistic Learning Initiative. Madison also developed the JLI’s extensive suite of AI coaches, which help students generate ideas and hone their skills in everything from sports writing to photography to solutions journalism.
Madison joins us to talk about the many ways artificial intelligence can be used to help students, as well as the challenges it presents.
Portland author David F. Walker and illustrator Marcus Kwame Anderson have worked together before - on a 2021 graphic novel about the Black Panther Party. This time they’ve teamed up on something a little different: an update of the classic American novel “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” In their version, the escaped slave Jim is more than just Huck’s companion; he’s a fully imagined character. Walker joins us to talk about the work of updating an American classic.
In 2012, photographer Matika Wilbur sold everything in her Seattle apartment and set off to document the 562 federally recognized indigenous tribes in the country. Over a decade and hundreds of thousands of miles later, she released a book called “Project 562.” We talked to Wilbur in June 2023 about her journey, her book, and her mission to provide Native Americans images that are more “useful, truthful, and beautiful.”
The Native American sketch comedy group, the 1491s, initially said "no" when the Oregon Shakespeare Festival approached them about writing a play. But eventually the five-member group relented, and tackled Native American history with humor in the play "Between Two Knees" in October of 2019. We listen back to a conversation from that time with Bobby Wilson, a member of the 1491s, and Robert Franklin, the Native American Student and Community Center at PSU, which sent students down to Ashland to see the play.
Some might argue that pie is the quintessential American dessert. Certainly Stacey Mei Yan Fong makes that argument in her cookbook. Fong’s “50 pies, 50 states” is an “immigrant’s love letter” to this country as told through pie. OPB’s Crystal Ligori talked to Fong at the 2023 Portland Book Festival.
Indigenous author, botanist and professor Robin Wall Kimmerer is best known for her book “Braiding Sweetgrass,” which was published in 2013 and is about the reciprocal relationships between humans and the land. Her first book, “Gathering Moss,” was published a decade earlier by Oregon State University Press. Kimmerer is in Corvallis to accept Oregon State University’s 2024 Stone Award for Literary Achievement. She will give a lecture on Friday, May 17th at 7pm.
In 2019, Isabeau Waia’u Walker quit her job as a teacher with the aim of becoming a full-time musician. Despite the disruptions of the pandemic, Waia’u Walker has succeeded. Waia’u Walker, who sometimes sings in her native Hawaiian, released her second album, “Heavyweight,” last month. Waia’u Walker joins us in the studio for a conversation and performance.
Over the last eight years, Oregon has seen growth in the number of primary care providers, but according to experts, the state will need more than a 40% increase in practitioners to meet growing demand in the next decade.
Betsy Boyd-Flynn is the CEO of the Oregon Academy of Family Physicians. Jane Akpamgbo is a family physician for Kaiser Permanente and president-elect of OAFP. Eva McCarthy is a core faculty physician for Samaritan Health Services’ Family Medicine Residency Program and current president of the organization. They join us to share more about the challenges physicians are facing in the state and what could be done to change that.
Just a couple of years ago, agricultural and public health officials were hopeful that they could keep avian flu from thriving in Oregon. But thrive it did, and some Oregonians’ so-called backyard bird farms have been devastated by infections, as the birds must be euthanized if the virus is detected. It wasn’t too long before the bird flu jumped to dairy cows, whose milk must be dumped if infected. Commercial farms are eligible for payments from the the USDA to compensate for those losses, but smaller operations get no such help.
Just last month, Washington saw its first case of the virus taking hold in humans. A month later, Oregon had its first case, reported Nov. 15. The symptoms are mild in humans. Testing is relatively robust in states like Colorado, but Oregon and Washington are significantly behind what public health officials say is needed to monitor and maintain a healthy environment. We learn more about bird flu in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest from investigative reporter Rachel Spacek of InvestigateWest.
Thanksgiving cooking could mean hours in the kitchen -- and it can be stressful, managing timing or different dietary needs. Do you have menu questions? Or tips for pulling off a successful meal for family and friends? OPB “Superabundant” contributor and food writer Heather Arndt Anderson joins us to answer your questions
The Native American Youth and Family Center has hosted a series of events throughout November that celebrate survival and solidarity with the Portland Native community. The tending days at NAYA’s gardens at the Neerchokikoo Campus allow people to connect with the land and honor indigenous resilience. We learn more about the events from Lucy Suppah, Indigenous Food Sovereignty Coordinator for NAYA.
The tune you hum along to from your favorite podcast may come from the Portland band Wonderly. The duo, made up of Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk, have recorded theme music for many podcasts, including the New York Times’ “The Daily.” They have also recently released a new album called "Wolves." Brunberg and Landsverk join us in studio for a performance and conversation.
Adults who decide to not have children have faced criticism for being “selfish” or derided as “childless cat ladies.”
The term DINK has been used to describe people who have dual incomes and no kids.
In the Portland metro area, Erika Abdelatif and Kristen Myers have created “Dinky,” a podcast which takes a lighthearted approach about their lifestyle and features other guests who are similarly childfree.
The show covers news and pop culture, with past episodes featuring a range of topics, including discussions on feminism, traveling without kids and artificial intelligence.
Dinky has generated a sizable following on social media, including TikTok and Instagram.
Abdelatif and Myers join us to talk about their show and why it’s resonating with audiences.
For some Oregonians, their medical needs are too high to be discharged from a hospital, but they also don’t need the emergency care that hospitals provide. They remain at the hospital while waiting for space at another facility that can provide the appropriate level of care. Oregon lawmakers created the Joint Task Force on Hospital Discharge Challenges to address the issue. Earlier this month, the task force approved its recommendations, after studying the issue for more than a year, according to reporting by the Oregon Capital Chronicle. We learn more about the proposed solutions from Jimmy Jones, the executive director of the Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency who chairs the task force.
Last month, Amazon announced it had signed an agreement to develop four small-scale modular nuclear reactors, or SMRs, along the Columbia River to power its data centers in Eastern Oregon. The e-commerce giant also touted nuclear energy as a “safe source of carbon-free energy” that would allow it to achieve its goal of net zero carbon emissions by 2040.
Energy Northwest, a consortium of publicly owned utilities, is partnering with Amazon on the development of the SMRs in southeast Washington. Under the agreement, Energy Northwest could build an additional eight SMRs that would generate enough electricity to meet the needs of more than 770,000 homes in the region. OPB rural communities reporter Antonio Sierra recently looked into this technology, its safety and how it differs from traditional nuclear reactors. He joins us to share what he’s learned.
This week, Oregon’s new state economist, Carl Riccadonna, gave his first quarterly economic and revenue forecast. It projected Oregon getting nearly $950 million more in the current two-year period than previously estimated, and an extra $1.3 billion in the 2025-2027 budget cycle. Riccadonna, who was hired in September, based his forecast on an economic model that’s less pessimistic than the one his predecessor, Mark McMullen, relied on. It not only projects higher revenues from personal income and corporate taxes, it also aims to reduce the errors in forecasting that led to large kicker tax refunds, including a record $5.6 billion paid out to taxpayers this year. Riccadonna talks to us about Oregon’s economic outlook.
Hannah Glavor’s music used to lean toward singer-songwriter folk. But her newly released single, “Otherside,” shows an indie rock side to the Portland musician. She writes about loss and hope, and about darkness and the light on the other side. Glavor joined us in March 2024 for an interview and performance of songs from her then-upcoming album, “Hold On, Hold Tight,” which was released in September.
Oregon has among the strongest protections for abortion rights and the fewest limits on the procedure of any state in the nation. Could Republican control of the presidency and both chambers of the U.S. Congress make things harder for abortion providers and seekers in Oregon, despite protective state laws? OPB health reporter Amelia Templeton fills us in.
The Portland Bureau of Transportation is falling short of meeting some of its safety goals, according to a new city audit. Vision Zero is an international effort to completely eliminate traffic fatalities and serious injuries. The city of Portland adopted this philosophy in 2016, and while traffic deaths declined soon after, in 2021 they reached the highest they’ve been in the past three decades at 64. In 2023, those numbers are expected to be even higher, with early data standing at around 69 deaths. KC Jones is the audit services director for Portland. He joins us to share the details of the new audit. Dylan Rivera is the public information officer for PBOT. He also joins us to share the changes the agency will be making in response and the challenges of reaching Vision Zero.
The Portland Trail Blazers are coming in hot with a three-game win streak after beating the Minnesota Timberwolves twice and another against the Atlanta Hawks. Their record now stands at 6 wins with 8 losses, moving them up in power rankings. Mike Richman is the host of the Locked on Blazers podcast. He joins us to break down the wins, losses and the hope for the future of Rip City’s beloved team.
With the days getting shorter and the rain setting in, many Pacific Northwesterners are already feeling the effects of seasonal affective disorder, or SAD. The disorder is thought to be caused by the body’s internal clock being disrupted by a lack of sunlight in autumn and winter months. Treatments include antidepressants and exposure to bright lights that mimic sunlight. As covered in OPB’s “All Science. No Fiction.,” researchers at the University of Washington have developed a new type of light therapy that could more effectively treat the symptoms of SAD.
Jay Neitz is the Bishop Professor of Ophthalmology at UW. He co-authored the study and joins us with more details.
A legal fight is brewing in Eastern Oregon where a coalition of timber interests is trying to block the sale of the only sawmill still operating in Grant County to Iron Triangle, a logging company in John Day. The Malheur Forest Fairness Coalition filed a federal lawsuit last year against Iron Triangle and the sawmill, Malheur Lumber, alleging that the two companies were conspiring to stifle competition. Although the suit was dismissed in September, it is currently being appealed, with the coalition threatening further legal action if the sale is pursued.
As first reported in The Blue Mountain Eagle, Malheur Lumber, announced in July it was shutting down after more than 40 years. It cited a range of factors that led to the decision, including difficulty hiring reliable workers and a lack of housing to recruit them. The company’s financial woes are emblematic of the state of the timber industry in Oregon where seven mills announced their closures this year. Bennett Hall is the editor of the Blue Mountain Eagle. He joins us to share his reporting on this issue and how federal assistance could once again offer a lifeline to timber operations in Grant County and the region.
The Salem City Council recently voted to censure two of its members, Councilor Deanna Gwyn and Mayor-elect Julie Hoy. The two potentially violated Salem’s city charter by participating in a land use vote involving a developer who donated to both of their campaigns. Sitting Mayor Chris Hoy brought the motion to censure, saying the councilors should have recused themselves from the vote after disclosing the financial relationship. Gwyn and Julie Hoy have said the censure is nothing more than an attempt to create division on council, while other councilors have said their failure to recuse themselves has created a conflict of interest.
Whitney Woodworth is a city reporter for the Statesman Journal. She’s been covering the censure and joins us with more details.
Nurse navigation programs have been proposed as one solution to overburdened emergency services systems. Instead of sending an ambulance, dispatchers direct low-level 911 calls to a team of nurses who can give advice or help callers set up an urgent care or telehealth appointment. The idea is to provide patients with the appropriate level of care while freeing up EMS resources to respond to life-threatening calls. Clackamas County recently launched a nurse navigation program, and Clark County has been operating its program in Southwest Washington for more than a year.
Rocco Roncarati is the regional director for ambulance provider American Medical Response’s operations in Southwest Washington. Marlow Macht is the medical program director for Clark County EMS and an emergency physician at Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center. They both join us to talk about how the nurse navigation program is going in Clark County
Some tenants in Southwest Washington and other parts of the state could face a predicament the next time they sign or renew a lease: either sign a nondisclosure agreement or risk eviction and having to look elsewhere in a tight housing market. The NDAs are being used to prevent tenants from disclosing to others, with the exception of immediate family members, how much they pay in rent, security deposits or other associated fees. According to reporting by The Columbian, the use of NDAs by landlords is raising concerns among tenant advocates that they could be used to discriminate against prospective renters, such as people who use Section 8 federal housing vouchers. Landlords could, for example, advertise properties with high monthly rents and security deposits while reducing those fees through NDAs in contracts they offer higher-income tenants.
Alexis Weisend, the affordable housing and homelessness reporter at The Columbian, joins us to share more details.
The founders of SnoPlanks, a Bend-based snowboard company, decided to donate it to the Oregon State University Cascades campus. Now, students are running the show.
SnoPlanks Academy aims to teach students skills like marketing, sales and supply chain management with hands-on experience. Students also ran a booth at the Snowvana trade show in Portland earlier this month.
We learn more about the program from Caitlin Colgin, the president of SnoPlanks and a senior majoring in outdoor products in the college of engineering and Todd Laurence, an instructor and the executive director of SnoPlanks Academy at OSU-Cascades.
Under a waiver program, states can test new ways to offer Medicaid services. For Oregon, that means some people on the Oregon Health Plan can get help with housing costs.
Oregon is the first in the nation to roll out rental assistance as a statewide Medicaid benefit for eligible OHP members, according to the Oregon Health Authority.
People would need to have a qualifying risk factor to be eligible for the aid, which could include rental assistance for up to six months and help paying utility bills.
Steph Jarem is the 1115 waiver policy director for OHA. Andrea Bell is the Executive Director of Oregon Housing and Community Services. They join us with details of the program and what it means for Oregonians.
Nationwide, the Democratic Party had little to celebrate this election cycle. Republicans took control of the Senate, the House and the presidency. But in Oregon, state Representative Janelle Bynum ran against 5th District Republican incumbent Lori Chavez-DeRemer - and won. Her victory is also notable as she will become the state’s first Black Representative in Congress. We talk with Bynum from Washington D.C. where she's already prepping for office.
Promo: 11/15 Nationwide, the Democratic party had little to celebrate this election cycle. But in Oregon, Janelle Bynum’s victory in the 5th District over the Republican incumbent flipped the script. Her win is also notable as she will become the state’s first Black Representative in Congress. We talk with Bynum from Washington D.C. where she's already prepping for office.
Kintsugi is the traditional Japanese art of repairing ceramics with lacquer and gold dust. The idea is to highlight the imperfections of a piece and celebrate its new form, rather than hide its chips and cracks. Artist Naoko Fukumaru wasn’t initially interested in kintsugi — as a conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of Arts and other institutions, she was focused on rendering imperfections invisible. But after the collapse of her marriage following her move to Canada, she began to appreciate the message of resilience and reinvention that are fundamental to the practice.
Fukumaru’s first solo kintsugi exhibition in the U.S. is currently on display at the Portland Japanese Garden and runs through Jan. 27. She joins us to talk more about the exhibit and the message she hopes visitors take from it.
In October, Lane County signed a contract with Eugene-based Bulk Handling Systems to create a state-of-the-art recycling center unlike any other in Oregon. It will sort garbage and commingled recycling and produce methane from the organic waste, generating renewable natural gas. According to the county, it will be “the most technologically advanced waste processing facility in the country, diverting about 80,000 tons from the county’s landfill annually. That could extend the life of the county-owned landfill by 20 years, officials say, while reducing the amount of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Landfills are a major source of methane, which can also be harmful to human health.
Steve Miller, the CEO of Bulk Handling Systems, and Lane County Public Works Director Dan Hurley join us to explain how this project came into being, its environmental goals and the implications for other metro areas with similar waste issues.
Over 100 years ago, a Missouri-based lumber company built what became known as Maxville, a segregated logging town in northeastern Oregon. In September, archaeologists and students from Southern Oregon University dug to find artifacts from the town’s lost Black neighborhood. Now, the students are working to process and understand what they found. Mark Axel Tveskov is a professor of anthropology at Southern Oregon University who ran the dig this summer. His former student Sophia Tribelhorn was there, and is helping to catalog the finds. We are also joined by Gwendolyn Trice, founder and executive director of Maxville Heritage Interpretive Center, which manages the site.
The Federal Railroad Administration, which is part of the U.S. Department of Transportation, is investing more than
$40 million in rail funding for Oregon. Projects span the state and include work in Linn and Lake Counties and Coos Bay.
Prineville is getting funding specifically allocated for rural communities. The grant will help the city restore its rail line and improve safety. Prineville’s railway has experienced its ups and downs. When the lumber business was booming in the ’60s, the railway was a major economic driver for the region.
In recent years, the railway has had to reinvent itself to stay in business. We hear more about the efforts from Matt Wiederholt, the general manager of the City of Prineville Railway.
Marie Tosa, a postdoctoral researcher in the department of botany and plant pathology at Oregon State University, spent two and a half years trapping and tracking the movements of western spotted skunks across thousands of acres in forests in the western Cascades, roughly 60 miles east of Eugene.
Little is known about the small, nocturnal carnivores which weigh between one and two pounds and burrow inside logs and hollows to avoid predators like bobcats and owls. Tosa’s field work unearthed new information about the behavior of these skunks, including a home range of up to 12 square miles they can cover while hunting for food. She also found that western spotted skunks may be vulnerable to extreme winters, which are becoming more frequent due to climate change, and the importance of old growth forests for their habitat. Tosa joins us to share more of her findings and remaining questions about their resilience to climate change.
Democratic congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez defeated a challenge from Trump-identified Republican Joe Kent in Washington's 3rd District — despite the fact that Trump won that same district. Gluesenkamp Perez told the New York Times that result was because she refused to nationalize her local race and had solid support from working class voters, who she says her party needs to do a much better job representing. Despite a number of races around the country still too close to call, control of the U.S. House looks likely to fall to the GOP. With that party’s control of the Senate, Donald Trump re-elected as president, and a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court, Republicans would have a lock on all three branches of government. Gluesenkamp Perez joins us from Washington, D.C. to tell us more about how she plans to represent her district and work across the aisle.
“Think Out Loud” is joined by the “Politics Now” podcast team on the air and on video livestream. Dirk VanderHart, Lauren Dake, Bryce Dole and Alex Zielinski join us to discuss the outcomes of key races and ballot measures across Oregon and Southwest Washington, what implications they may have and how they might affect the lives of Pacific Northwest residents in the year to come.
Author Tim O’Brien is best known for his book “The Things They Carried,” about the Vietnam War. His latest book is a compilation of anecdotes and reflections on becoming a parent in late middle age, and what he wants his young children to know about him before he dies. This conversation was recorded in front of an audience at the Portland Book Festival in the fall of 2019.
From homelessness to a budget crisis, Portland officials will have a lot to navigate as they take office. This year, Portlanders used ranked choice voting to decide the next mayor and council. And the city council has expanded from five seats to 12 across four geographic districts. We check in on how the election went and what’s next for the city with Alex Zielinski, OPB’s Portland city politics reporter.
On Wednesday, three Portland Commissioners - Mingus Mapps, Rene Gonzalez and Dan Ryan - decided to pull an ordinance they had filed to end the city’s 8-year partnership with Multnomah County to fight homelessness. The decision was made as Portland is poised to elect Keith Wilson, the owner of a trucking company as its next mayor, who opposes the city leaving the Joint Office of Homeless Services. The newly elected 12-person city council, along with the new mayor, will get to decide the fate of the intergovernmental agreement with the county in just two months.
In a letter she sent on election day, Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson said she was ready to work with Portland’s next mayor and new Multnomah County and Portland city commissioners on “solving the most pressing and challenging issues this community will face in the coming months and years.” Chair Vega Pederson joins us to talk about how new Portland city leaders might affect the future of the Joint Office on Homeless Services.
After the second release of preliminary election results from Multnomah County on Wednesday night, Keith Wilson maintained his lead in the mayoral race. The Oregonian has already called the race, and opponents Carmen Rubio and Rene Gonzalez have both conceded to him. Wilson is the CEO of a local trucking company and ran on a platform to end homelessness by 2026 by expanding shelter capacity and strengthening the city’s partnership with Multnomah County to tackle the crisis. Wilson joins us now to share more on his recent victory and vision for the city.
The general election is now over, wrapping up months of planning, assistance and coordination among the state’s 36 county clerks. They are responsible for mailing off ballots, registering voters and overseeing elections in local, state and federal races in Oregon. More than a third of them this year also administered a presidential election in Oregon for the first time.
County clerks have had to do their jobs while facing budget cuts, the spread of misinformation and threats of physical violence and intimidation directed against them and election workers. Some have also had to reassure residents about the safety and security of Oregon’s vote-by-mail system after the recent arson attacks on ballot boxes in Multnomah County and Vancouver, according to Rochelle Long, the Klamath County Clerk and president of the Oregon Association of County Clerks.
Long joins us to discuss the challenges Oregon county clerks prepared for and confronted during the general election.
Republican Cliff Bentz has won his reelection for Oregon’s 2nd Congressional District, the largest congressional district in Oregon that represents around two-thirds of the state, comprising everything east of the Willamette Valley. We hear from Bentz and others in response to this week’s election results. Meghan Moyer won a position on Multnomah County Commission, representing District 1. Craig Roberts was elected as chair of the Clackamas County Commission. We’ll also hear from Oregon U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley about governing in the minority in a Trump administration.
Members of OPB’s politics team join us to provide analysis and share the latest updates on Oregon races in the general election. They’ll discuss the results of statewide ballot measures and analyze some of the congressional district races, as well as the latest developments in Portland’s historic elections to choose a new mayor and expand the city council from five seats to 12. We’ll also hear from some of the candidates who won or are leading in statewide and US Congressional races.
In the 1970s, some scientists proposed that Earth and its life forms are a single, self-regulating system. At the time, the "Gaia hypothesis" was widely criticized. But since then, the concept of Earth as a vast interconnected living system has gained acceptance. Portland-based science writer Ferris Jabr’s new book, “Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life,” describes how the living and nonliving components of the planet work together as an integrated whole. Ferris Jabr joined us at the 2024 Pickathon Experiential Music Festival.
The BPA owns 75% of the transmission lines in the Northwest. It has proposed 13 new projects to upgrade and expand the region’s power grid to accommodate growing energy needs. Oregon and other Northwest states have ambitious carbon emissions reduction targets that they can’t hit unless the power grid expands. Those goals will be impossible to meet without much more energy generated from renewables or other alternatives to fossil fuel. CEO John Hairston joins us with all the details.
Oregon recently launched a pilot program to provide liability coverage for prescribed burns that don’t go as intended. The program covers up to $1 million in damages per burn. It’s being managed in tandem with the state’s certified burn manager program, which provides training on how to safely and effectively use prescribed fire on a variety of landscapes. Taken together, the two programs are meant to make it easier and less risky for businesses and contractors to conduct prescribed burns in the state.
Amanda Rau is the statewide prescribed fire coordinator for the Oregon Department of Forestry. She joins us to talk more about the programs and how she hopes they’ll increase the use of prescribed fire in Oregon.
Newport is the first city on the Oregon Coast to adopt a new estuary management plan in more than 40 years. The city jointly manages the Yaquina Bay Estuary with Lincoln County and the city of Toledo. The three entities use the plan to determine what kind of development can happen in what parts of the estuary.
The updated version requires developers to perform climate vulnerability assessments for all projects in the estuary. It also includes a commitment from Newport city leaders to revisit the plan and update it periodically as the estuary faces new climate impacts, such as rising sea levels and warming ocean temperatures.
Annie Merrill is the estuaries and ocean manager for the Oregon Shores Conservation Coalition. She joins us to talk more about estuaries and the risks they face in a changing climate.
Misinformation around election season has been spreading, including false claims that Donald Trump is not appearing as a candidate on Oregon’s Voter Pamphlet to some Pennsylvania ballots being destroyed.
Stephen Prochaska is a doctoral student at the University of Washington Information School and a graduate research assistant at the Center for an Informed Public. He joins us to share more on the strategy behind the spread of misinformation and what to expect before, and after, Election Day.
Astoria’s Billie McBride was crowned Miss Trans Oregon earlier this year. That means she’ll be vying for the Miss Trans USA title at the national pageant in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, from Nov. 7-10. A former business owner and an avid figure skater, McBride now spends her time advocating against anti-trans legislation. She joins us in the studio to talk more about her life and how she hopes the pageant will amplify her activism.
This week, a coalition of over 100 elected officials, arts organizations, labor unions and chambers of commerce signed a letter urging calm and “thoughtful civic engagement” on election day, and to preserve the “hard-won but still fragile progress” in Downtown Portland.
Amid rising concerns about possible civil unrest next week, Portland Police Chief Bob Day said there would be increased police presence, with officers canceling days off and working 12-hour shifts. A special unit of officers under the recently reconstituted Rapid Response Team will also be deployed for crowd control. Portland Police Chief Bob Day joins us to share more details about the agency’s preparedness for election day, what lessons it learned from its response to the 2020 racial justice protests and an update on what the police know about the suspected arsonist who placed incendiary devices into ballot boxes in Portland and Vancouver recently.
Derek Greenwood is an adjunct faculty member at Columbia Gorge Community College and a certified drug and alcohol counselor. As someone with lived experience, he credits having a safe space he could go to socialize when he was recovering from drug addiction as a young adult. But finding safe, sober spaces to form those connections with other people in recovery can be a challenge, especially in rural communities.
That challenge motivated Greenwood and others to launch an effort to help people recovering from drugs and alcohol in the Columbia Gorge. As first reported in the Oregon Capital Chronicle, the Gorge Recovery Center received a $2 million grant this summer from the state’s opioid settlement funds. The center, which does not yet have a physical location, is expected to open sometime next year. It will offer an array of services seven days a week, from peer support mentors to recreational opportunities and classes on parenting, financial literacy and other life skills. Joining us to talk about their plans and the challenges of navigating recovery in a rural community are Gorge Recovery Center board president Derek Greenwood and fellow board member Katrina Mace, who also works as a drug and alcohol counselor at Mid-Columbia Center for Living
The weeklong Bureau of Land Management’s annual Bat Beauty Contest closes, appropriately enough, on Halloween this year. Voting has taken place on the BLM’s Facebook and Instagram accounts. The competition features photos of bats taken primarily by government biologists who survey and work with bats on public lands in 12 western states, including Oregon. There are 15 species of bats native to Oregon, including eight whose numbers are declining or at-risk, according to the state’s wildlife agency.
Bats from Oregon have won the contest for two years in a row. Last year’s winner was a Townsend’s big-eared bat photographed by Emma Busk, a wildlife technician in the Ashland field office in the Medford district of the Bureau of Land Management. Busk entered photos of two bats in this year’s competition, including a bat named Hoary Potter and the Guano of Fire which made it to the final round of judging. She joins us to talk about Oregon bats and the vital roles they play in our ecosystems.
Menopause can present a wide range of symptoms, from hot flashes and sleep disturbances to brain fog and loss of bone density. Though several safe and effective therapies are available, many patients still aren’t receiving the help they need. A new study from Oregon Health & Science University found that more than 60% of respondents with moderate to severe menopause symptoms weren’t receiving any treatment. The primary reason they reported not engaging in treatment was that their clinician hadn’t recommended it to them.
Maria Rodriguez is a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at OHSU and the director of the university’s Center for Reproductive Health Equity. Sara Cichowski is the university’s vice chair of gynecology and an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology. They both join us to talk more about the barriers to accessing menopause care in Oregon.
For researchers, endangered and threatened birds like the Northern Spotted Owl and the Marbled Murrelet can be incredibly hard to find and study in the wild. Now new research shows that artificial intelligence may be able to help. As first reported in Hakai Magazine, researchers have been training AI to correctly identify elusive species of birds in the wild through sound. Matthew Betts is a professor and chairs the Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society at Oregon State University. He coauthored the study and joins us to share more about the development of this AI and its implications for future research.
Research into domestic violence has found that when a professional football team has an unexpected loss in its hometown, intimate partner violence can increase by 10%. A new analysis from researchers at the University of Oregon found that this effect is amplified in states with legalized sports betting. Sports gambling is currently legal in 38 states, including Oregon and Washington. Thirty states – including Oregon – also allow mobile sports betting, which researchers found further increased the chance of a spike in intimate partner violence.
Kyutaro Matsuzawa and Emily Arnesen are both economics PhD candidates at UO. They join us with more details on their analysis.
The Oregon State Land Board recently approved a plan to enroll the Elliott State Forest in the voluntary carbon credit market. The forest spans more than 80,000 acres in southwestern Oregon near Coos Bay. Oregon is the second state behind Michigan to dedicate an entire state forest to storing harmful carbon emissions and selling the credits. State officials say the plan will help the state meet its conservation and carbon emission goals, but it isn’t without controversy. Critics say the voluntary market lacks sufficient government oversight and regulation, and Oregon State University and the Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians dropped out of the project late last year.
Brett Brownscombe is the Elliott State Research Forest transition director at the Oregon Department of State Lands. He joins us with more details about the plan.
Even if you’re among the county’s most engaged and informed voters, there’s a lot to keep track of this election cycle. And that’s not even counting the recent fires at ballot drop boxes in Oregon and Washington. With Election Day less than a week out, we invited Multnomah County Elections Director Tim Scott on to give us the latest about ballot security, ranked choice voting returns and updates, how to make sure you’re meeting the postmark deadline and to answer other frequently asked questions.
From grocery stores to breweries, we are taking our pet dogs to places more and more. But do our furry companions actually enjoy being dragged alongside our own adventures to cafes and bookstores? Tove Danovich is a Portland-based writer and author of “Under the Henfluence.” She wrote a recent opinion piece arguing that maybe we should leave our dogs at home more often. She joins us to share more on her reasoning and the effects taking a dog to public spaces can have not only on our dogs, but the world around them.
Sam Adams and Shannon Singleton are in a runoff to represent North and Northeast Portland, District 2, on the Multnomah County Commission. Neither candidate got over 50% in the May primary. The seat opened up when Susheela Jayapal stepped down last fall to run for Congress. Sam Adams is a former mayor of the city of Portland and previously held a position within Mayor Wheeler’s office. Shannon Singleton, a trained social worker, is the former interim director of the Joint Office of Homeless. They join us to share why they’re running and what they want to accomplish if elected.
In 2022, Portland residents voted to overhaul the city’s form of government. That includes using ranked choice voting to expand the number of seats on city council from five to 12. Another major change is the creation of four geographic districts in the city. Voters within each district will now elect three candidates to represent them on the new council.
Thirty registered candidates are competing in District 4, which includes all of Portland west of the Willamette River, including Downtown, the Pearl District, Multnomah and Hillsdale neighborhoods. It also contains the inner southeast neighborhoods of Sellwood-Moreland, Eastmoreland, Reed and Ardenwald.
On Oct. 24, “Think Out Loud” convened a D4 candidates forum at John’s Marketplace in Multnomah Village. We invited the 13 candidates with the largest number of individual donors who contributed to their campaigns. They include: Eli Arnold, Olivia Clark, Lisa Freeman, Mitch Green, Chris Henry, Ben Hufford, Chad Lykins, Tony Morse, Stanley Penkin, Moses Ross, Sarah Silkie, Bob Weinstein and Eric Zimmerman.
In 2022, Portland residents voted to drastically change the city’s form of government. That includes using ranked choice voting to expand the city council from five seats to 12. Another change is the creation of four geographic districts, with voters in each district electing three candidates to represent them on the new council.
District 2 covers most of North and Northeast Portland, including neighborhoods such as Irvington, St. John’s, Kenton and Cully. On Oct. 17, “Think Out Loud” convened a District 2 candidates forum at Oakshire Beer Hall. Candidates were invited to participate based on the number of individual donors that contributed to their campaign. They include: Marnie Glickman, Mariah Hudson, Sameer Kanal, Debbie Kitchin, Mike Marshall, Tiffani Penson, Elana Pirtle-Guiney, Dan Ryan, Jonathan Tasini, Nat West and Nabil Zaghloul.
More than 30 years ago, a group of Portlanders created their own skatepark without any permission under the Burnside Bridge. The Burnside Skatepark is credited as the first do-it-yourself, or DIY, skatepark project that sparked a wave of new skateparks being built across the country. The park turns 34 on Halloween. Jaymeer is a board member and muralist for the Burnside Skatepark. He joins us to share more on the history and impact the park has had in Portland and around the world.
The Columbia River Maritime Museum in Astoria is undergoing a $30 million renovation. Work began in March and is expected to wrap up in September 2026. The expansion project will include remodeled gallery space, a new 24,500 square-foot facility and hundreds of boats and artifacts currently not on display. It will also feature two new Indigenous exhibits: a photography display focused on the Chinook Indian Nation, and a permanent exhibit on the maritime cultures of Indigenous people up and down the Northwest coast, from Alaska to Oregon.
Bruce Jones is the executive director of the Columbia River Maritime Museum. He joins us with more details on the expansion.
Daniel Bolen, an agricultural science and technology instructor in Elgin, has advocated for his program. His district received $250,000 from the Oregon Department of Education’s Career and Technical Education Revitalization Grant. Bolen has brought in additional funding to strengthen his district’s program and help kids receive more hands-on learning in livestock management.
Bolen was also named the Oregon Agriculture Teachers' Association Outstanding Teacher this year. We hear more from Bolen on Elgin’s agriculture program and why he hopes to create more opportunities for his students.
This summer, the owner of Mt. Bachelor ski resort, POWDR Corp., announced plans to sell. Bend locals Chris Porter and Dan Cochrane are leading an effort to keep resort ownership local. They’ve incorporated as Mount Bachelor Community Inc. and hope to attract both small and large-scale investors that share their values. Porter and Chochrane join us to discuss their plans.
Washington and Oregon voters have already begun casting their ballots in the November general election. In Washington, the statewide contests include races to elect a new governor and attorney general and four ballot measures, including Initiative 2117.
If approved, it would repeal Washington’s landmark law targeting greenhouse gas emissions, the Climate Commitment Act. The law establishes a cap-and-invest program which requires refineries and other large polluters to purchase allowances equal to the carbon emissions they generate, while phasing out emissions by 95% by 2050. More than $2 billion has been raised since the CCA took effect last January to fund programs ranging from making transit free for youth to expanding EV charging infrastructure.
Let’s Go Washington, the group behind I-2117 and the other state measures on the ballot this year, claims the law creates a “hidden gas tax” for consumers and is to blame for the state’s high gas prices. Let’s Go Washington is largely financed by Brian Heywood, a hedge fund manager who has questioned the wisdom of cutting carbon emissions.
Joining us to debate I-2117 are Washington state Senator Joe Nguyen who represents the 34th District and is chair of the Environment, Energy & Technology Committee, and Todd Myers, Vice president of research at the Washington Policy Center.
Voters in Malheur County have a measure on their ballots that would get rid of a county ordinance that compels officials to meet and discuss shifting the Idaho border to include rural Oregon. The ordinance, approved by voters in 2021, requires the county judge and commissioners to meet three times a year to discuss how to promote the interests of the county in any negotiations to relocate the Idaho-Oregon border. We talk to David Armstrong, who helped get Measure 23-74 on the ballot. We also hear from Matt McCaw, Executive Director of Move Oregon’s Border/Greater Idaho, which initially pushed for the ordinance.
The semiconductor company Intel isn’t based in Oregon, but it does have large manufacturing facilities in Hillsboro and Aloha. Although the company received more than $8 billion in federal subsidies, it says cuts to its labor force are needed worldwide. In Oregon, this means about 1,300 people were laid off. Oregonian/Oregonlive.com business reporter Mike Rogoway has been covering this industry for decades and joins us to share more details about the effect of this global company’s decisions on Oregon.
Nearly 100 non-tenure track faculty at Portland State University got notice of possible layoffs last week. These notices come as the university faces a continued decline in enrollment and a budget deficit of $18 million this fiscal year. PSU President Ann Cudd joins us to explain the big picture of the university’s financial stability.
Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum has served in the position since 2012. She is not running for re-election this year so for the first time since 2008, the race is wide open.
Republican Will Lathrop is a former prosecutor in Marion and Yamhill counties. Democrat Dan Rayfield is a former House speaker, attorney and state representative.
We’ll hear from both candidates on why they’re the best pick for the job.
Coty Raven Morris is an assistant professor of choir, music education and social justice at Portland State. When the fall term began three weeks ago, Morris had exciting news she wanted to share with her students before choir rehearsal began. For a second year in a row, Morris had been nominated as a semifinalist for a GRAMMY Music Educator Award, chosen from a pool of more than 2,400 nominees. The winner will be announced during the GRAMMY Awards ceremony in January.
Morris is also the founder of Being Human Together which builds connections between youth, educators and people from marginalized communities, including those who are unhoused, through conversations and choir performances. She joins us to talk about the impact the organization is having, and how her experience in a high school choir carved a path of opportunity out of childhood adversity.
With a chill in the air and Halloween around the corner, Oregon is getting ready for spooky season. But for some, Halloween is more than just a time for costumes and candy, it’s a time to test one’s courage and get scared. Oregon has a number of scare attractions across the state. Robin Downward is the production director of the Nightmare Chamber in Medford. Mike Milburn is the owner of Milburn’s Haunted Manor in Hubbard. They both join us to share more on their haunted houses and their approach to scaring.
It used to be that age was one of the biggest predictive factors in whether a person would actually vote in any given U.S. election. However, the participation of younger voters rose in 2020 by more than 10 percent compared with the 2016 election. It’s unclear if that trend will continue.
We’re joined by two members of Gen Z who say they have been looking forward to voting for years. GiGi Whisler is sophomore at Pacific University in Forest Grove, who describes herself as liberal. Heidi Taylor is from Phoenix, Oregon and is a sophomore at Brigham Young University-Rexburg, in Idaho. They both join us to discuss how they’re feeling about voting for the first time and what issues are most important to them as they decide on candidates and measures.
PROMO: With the election just weeks away and many Oregonians now in possession of their ballots, we check in with two college sophomores of different political perspectives. They’ll be voting for president for the first time ever, and we’ll ask how they’re feeling about Democracy, voting integrity and how they’re weighing the issues.
In 2022, Portland residents voted to drastically change their form of government. This included using ranked choice voting and a 12-person city council. With the change in government, the mayor will work closely with the new city administrator to oversee the everyday functions of the city and help craft the budget, but will no longer have a vote on the city council, unless it’s to break a tie. There are 19 people running to be the city’s new mayor.
“Think Out Loud” invited the four candidates with the largest number of individual donations and funds raised. Rene Gonzalez, Mingus Mapps and Carmen Rubio are current city council commissioners and Keith Wilson is the president and CEO of TITAN Freight Systems. They all join us for a debate.
In 2022, Portland residents voted to drastically change the city’s form of government. That includes using ranked-choice voting to expand the city council from five seats to 12.
Another change is the creation of four geographic districts, with voters in each district electing three candidates to represent them on the new council.
“Think Out Loud” is hosting a series of events throughout Portland to help voters meet the district candidates. They were invited based on the number of individual donors who contributed to their campaigns.
On Oct. 9, we held a District 3 candidates forum at Gigantic Brewing Hawthorne Pub. We partnered with the Urban League of Portland for the event which they live streamed on Facebook.
District 3 covers most of Southeast Portland, west of I-205. It includes the neighborhoods of Mt. Tabor, Sunnyside, Montavilla and Woodstock. It also includes some neighborhoods in Northeast which cross Sandy Boulevard such as Rose City Park and Roseway.
The D3 candidates we spoke to include: Rex Burkholder, Jesse Cornett, Daniel DeMelo, Chris Flanary, Theo Hathaway Saner, Harrison Kass, Tiffany Koyama Lane, Angelita Morillo, Steve Novick, Jon Walker and Luke Zak.
At the annual West Coast Giant Pumpkin Regatta, boaters attempt to cross a watercourse in Tualatin using only a giant pumpkin as their vessel. The regatta will happen on Sunday.
Jim Sherwood is an extreme gardener and one of the founders of the festival. He recently won the National Pumpkin Weigh Off in California by growing a nearly 2,500-pound pumpkin.
Gourd grower Gary Kristensen has competed in the regatta since 2013. Earlier this month, he attempted to break a Guinness world record by paddling a pumpkin nearly 46 miles along the Columbia River.
Sherwood and Kristensen join us to share more on the regatta, pumpkin paddling and what it’s like to grow these giants.
For more than a decade, Tigard has been working on revitalizing its downtown. City leaders, small business owners and the nonprofit Tigard Downtown Alliance have worked together to bring more foot traffic to the city’s core. We hear more about the effort and the work that’s still to come from Kevin Bates, an owner of Symposium Coffee and the president of the alliance.
Voters in Washington will soon get their ballots in the mail for the general election, with voting opening on Friday. About half of the statewide races in Washington are open contests this year. That includes the governor’s race where Democratic candidate and Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson is facing Dave Reichert, a former U.S. Representative and sheriff of King County. Reichert is emphasizing his law enforcement credentials on the campaign trail, while trying to shore up support among voters who identify as moderates. During the second gubernatorial debate last month, the two candidates clashed over crime and public safety, the state’s abortion protections and education policies.
Four statewide initiatives are also on the Washington ballot this year. They include I-2117 which if passed, would repeal Washington’s landmark Climate Commitment Act. The law, which went into effect last January, establishes a cap-and-invest program that requires refineries and other polluters to pay for their greenhouse gas emissions with a target of phasing them out by 95% by 2050. The CCA has raised $2 billion so far to fund statewide efforts to mitigate climate change, including making free bus rides for youth, issuing $200 utility credits for low and middle-income households, and expanding electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
Jeanie Lindsay is the Olympia correspondent for our partner station, KUOW. She joins us to talk about the Washington governor’s race, the initiatives on the ballot and the issues that are top of mind for the state’s voters.
Measure 117 on the Oregon ballot would implement a system of ranked choice voting for all federal and statewide races in Oregon by 2028. The Yes campaign says it’s an idea whose time has come. Portland voters passed a new system of government which includes electing the mayor and city council members using RCV. And Multnomah county will soon be choosing elected officials this way as well.
Opponents of the measure raise a range of concerns, from county clerks who say there’s no infrastructure or funding to support this major voting change, to those who don’t agree that ranking candidates leads to a more democratic result compared to the traditional winner-take-all method.
Sara Wolk is the executive director of the Equal Vote Coalition that opposes Measure 117, and Isabela Villarreal with the Next Up Action Fund, formerly known as The Bus Project, who is campaigning for the measure. They both join us to discuss Measure 117.
Administrative law judge Vadim Mozyrsky and public policy director Meghan Moyer rose to the top of a five-person primary race this spring for the District 1 seat on the Multnomah County Commission. Neither, however, received at least 50% of the vote to avoid a runoff for the general election in November.
We’ll hear from both candidates about how they hope to represent the district, which covers all of Multnomah County west of the Willamette River, as well as parts of Southeast Portland. We’ll also hear their stance on the biggest issues facing the county, including homelessness, public safety, addiction and mental health.
Oregon voters will decide the fate of five statewide ballot measures this November, including Measure 118. Also known as the “Oregon Rebate,” it would impose a 3% tax on a company’s sales above $25 million in Oregon. That money would then be distributed evenly to every Oregonian – roughly $1600 per person – regardless of age or income, starting in 2026 as either direct payments or tax credits.
Proponents of Measure 118 claim that it would slash child poverty in the state by half while making large corporations pay “their fair share” in taxes. Opposition to the measure is being led by the No on Measure 118 campaign which argues that it would make the state less attractive for businesses and lead to higher prices for consumers. A recent analysis prepared by the Legislative Revenue Office has also raised concerns that the measure could have a negative effect on revenue the state relies on to pay for education and other services.
Joining us for a debate about Measure 118 is Stacey Rutland, an advisor to the Oregon Rebate campaign, and Angela Wilhelms, President and CEO of Oregon Business & Industry.
While the fate of the nation seems to ride on which of the major party presidential candidates will win the November election, the stakes are arguably as high for Congressional races around the country. The result of a couple dozen of them - including a few in Oregon - will determine whether Republicans or Democrats control the House. In the 4th District, Val Hoyle is a first-term incumbent Democrat who’s fending off a challenge from Republican candidate Monique DeSpain. They join us for back-to-back interviews outlining the defining issues of their race and why voters should send them to Congress to represent the Oregonians in District 4.
New data from the Oregon Department of Education show that students in the state are still struggling with reading, math and science as they still have not bounced back to pre-pandemic levels. Test results show that less than half of students tested are proficient in English language arts and less than a third are proficient in math. Charlene Williams is the director of ODE. She joins us to share more on the results and what can be done at the state level.
For the first time, Aedes aegypti mosquitoes have been found in Oregon. Emilio DeBess is the state public health veterinarian based at the Oregon Health Authority’s Public Health Division.
He says the insects are a national concern ”because they can carry and transmit various diseases that can have serious health consequences such as Zika virus, chikungunya, dengue and yellow fever.”
The insect was found this summer in Jackson County while officials were monitoring other kinds of mosquitoes. Officials are continuing surveillance and OHA is working with other states to learn more about it. Infection risk from the mosquito is currently low.
The insect, also known as the yellow fever mosquito, was found in California in 2013 and has been progressing northward since. DeBess joins us with more on this mosquito, why it’s important to track these insects with county and federal agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and how changing climates are playing a role in the insect’s spread.
It’s an open race this fall for Oregon Secretary of State. The office oversees elections and audits of state agencies, among other responsibilities. Interest in the race has been ignited recently by the discovery that the Oregon DMV accidentally registered hundreds of noncitizens to vote through an error in the state’s Motor Voter system. If voters pass Measure 117 in November, the winner of this race would also be responsible for implementing ranked choice voting for statewide elections.
Dennis Linthicum is a Republican state Senator representing Klamath Falls. Democrat Tobias Read is the state treasurer. They join us to talk about why they’re running for secretary of state and what they hope to achieve if elected.
In 2022, Portland residents voted to drastically change the city’s form of government. That includes using ranked choice voting to expand the city council from five seats to 12. Another change is the creation of four geographic districts, with voters in each district electing three candidates to represent them on the new council.
District 1 is in the far east side of Portland, including neighborhoods such as Hazelwood, Mill Park, Centennial and Parkrose to name a few. On Sep. 30, “Think Out Loud” convened a District 1 candidates forum at Von Ebert Brewing. Candidates were invited to participate based on the number of individual donors that contributed to their campaign. They include: Candace Avalos, Doug Clove, Jamie Dunphy, Timur Ender, Noah Ernst, Terrence Hayes, David Linn, Steph Routh, Thomas Shervey, Loretta Smith and Cayle Tern.
Amy Tan might be best known for her fiction, including "The Joy Luck Club" and "The Kitchen God’s Wife," but her latest book takes its drama from her backyard bird feeder. In 2019, Tan began drawing birds she saw in nature, particularly the ones who visited her tree-filled backyard in Northern California. The result is a book of reflections, observations, detailed drawings and cartoon sketches called "The Backyard Bird Chronicles." Tan talks to us in front of an audience of students at Franklin High School.
Rhythm Traders, a Northeast Portland drum shop that has been open for over 30 years, is welcoming two other music businesses into its building. Together, the three businesses hope to create a sort of living room for Portland musicians, and long term stability for their own stores. Ryan Lynn, owner of Eastside Guitar Repair, and Hank Failing, owner of Hank’s Music Exchange, join us to talk about what the new MLK Music Mall could look like.
As first reported in The Columbian, a family of therapists has opened a new mental health urgent care clinic in Vancouver. Birchstone Mental Health Urgent Care aims to fill a gap between the emergency room where people experiencing mental health crises often end up and weekly therapy sessions. The clinic does not accept insurance, though it does offer a sliding scale for some patients who cannot afford the $150 fee for a visit, which includes an assessment and referrals for medication management and follow up counseling. Three co-founders of the clinic join us to share more: Brandon Fielding, a licensed clinical social worker; and his parents, psychologist Kelly Fielding and licensed clinical social worker Gayle Fielding.
An ombudsman investigation in Portland found evidence of predatory towing at a group of apartment complexes in the Cully neighborhood. The report says towing practices financially and emotionally harmed residents, most of whom identify as low-income and Latino. It also found that the influx of towing impacted clients and staff at a nearby county-run health clinic and community center.
Tony Green is a deputy ombudsman for the city of Portland. He conducted the investigation and joins us with more details.
For a third time, a federal judge has ruled that Wellpath — one of the nation’s largest for-profit providers of health care to people in prisons and jails — wrongfully deleted emails connected to in-custody deaths. Wellpath operates in at least 10 correctional facilities in Oregon and Washington, and has purged email evidence in at least three wrongful death cases in the Pacific Northwest. Criminal justice reporter Conrad Wilson joins us to discuss the cases.
Radon is a naturally occurring, invisible and odorless gas released from the decay of radioactive metals like uranium found in soil, rocks and groundwater. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, it’s also the second-leading cause of lung cancer in the U.S., and claims more than 20,000 lives annually. Homes are a major source of radon exposure which testing kits can be used to monitor and determine whether to do mitigation by increasing ventilation or sealing foundation cracks.
But it turns out that even relatively low levels of radon exposure can be dangerous, according to a new study funded by the EPA and led by researchers at Oregon State University. They found an increased risk for developing another kind of cancer - childhood leukemia - in children in more than 700 counties in 14 states, even at average levels well below the EPA’s own established guidelines for when to do radon mitigation. Joining us to share more is the study’s lead author, Matthew Bozigar, an environmental epidemiologist and assistant professor in the college of health at OSU.
Among the U.S. Congressional races that are being closely watched in this year’s general election is Oregon’s 6th Congressional District. It stretches from the suburbs southwest of Portland down into Salem, and includes all of Yamhill and Polk counties, along with portions of Marion, Washington and Clackamas counties. Voters cast their ballots for the first time in this district in 2022 when they narrowly elected Democratic state Representative Andrea Salinas over her GOP challenger, Mike Erickson. He is the founder and CEO of AFMS, a supply chain and logistics consulting firm based in Tigard.
They are once again facing off to represent Oregon CD6 voters on Capitol Hill. Incumbent Democratic U.S. Rep. Andrea Salinas and Republican candidate Mike Erickson join us for a debate on key issues and to outline their legislative priorities for the seat.
The Portland Fermentation Festival – also known as “Stinkfest” – is a celebration of all things fermented, from kimchi and kombucha to pickles and miso. Started in 2009, the festival returned last year after taking a three-year hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic. Once attendees pay admission, all of the featured fermented products are free to sample, trade and take home.
We’ll talk with the three “Stinkfest Queens” who organize the festival — Liz Crain is an author who’s written several books about fermentation and the Portland food scene. Heidi Nestler is the CEO of Wanpaku Foods and a nutrition instructor at Quest Center for Integrative Health. Claudia Lucero is a cheesemaking book author and the CEO of Urban Cheesecraft.
They join us in the studio to share more about the fascination with fermentation and what attendees can expect from this year’s festival.
The 2024 Fermentation Festival will take place from 6 to 9 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 10, at the Ecotrust building in downtown Portland.
As buildings like the Keller Auditorium and iconic Portland sights such as the Burnside Bridge are approaching a remodel, could a fresh new look save Portland’s downtown? As argued in The New York Times, cities across the country and world are finding hope in new architecture. Tim Eddy is the founding principal architect and president of Henneberry Eddy. He joins us to share his thoughts on the role architecture plays in downtown revitalization.
Salem’s downtown has seen some local businesses shut their doors in recent years, but the Salem Reporter found that the economy is still strong there. Currently the vacancy rate for store fronts stands at 3.8%, and about half of the available spaces have new tenants within 6 months. Abbey McDonald is the homelessness and housing reporter for the publication. She joins us to share more.
Native Hawaiian and former Oregonian Lehuauakea has created 10 kapa paintings and digital art posters that will be on display this weekend at the Patricia Reser Center for the Arts in Beaverton. Kapa is a textile made from the bark of certain trees after going through a process involving soaking and beating to create the fabric. Lehuauakea’s work for this exhibit focuses on belonging, especially at a time where there are more native Hawaiins living on the U.S. mainland than in Hawai’i. Lehuauakea joins us to share more about their art and the upcoming exhibit.
Names like Lonnie Mayne, Buddy Rose and Dutch Savage may not be familiar to some today, but for fans of Portland’s professional wrestling scene of the 1960s to early '90s, these were some of the headliners that sold out the old Portland Sports Arena. As first reported in Slam Wrestling, two Portlanders have been working to preserve the history of the Pacific Northwest wrestling scene and making sure these names and more aren’t forgotten. Rich Patterson is one of these historians and a video wrestling archivist. Kerby Strom is a fellow historian of the scene as well as a collector of memorabilia. He also recently had recovered footage played at the Hollywood theater earlier this week. Strom and Patterson join us to share more on the history of the city’s wrestling scene and what they’ve found while collecting.
After years of steep increases, overdose death rates appear to be dropping nationwide. Data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show a 10% decrease in the number of deaths from drug overdoses across the country from April 2023 to April 2024. That number varies significantly by state — while many Eastern states saw double-digit decreases, Oregon saw a 22% increase over that 12-month period.
Still, some local health officials say they’re cautiously optimistic. Teresa Everson is the deputy health officer for Multnomah County. She joins us to talk about what overdose death numbers look like in the county and what they could tell us about the ongoing drug crisis.
The fourth annual Week Without Driving challenge kicked off on Monday. The event was created in 2021 by Disability Rights Washington to highlight the barriers nondrivers face, including those who have disabilities, with using public transit or sidewalks and bike lanes to get around. This year the challenge has expanded to all 50 states with the help of dozens of local and state organizations. And while it’s open to anyone, the organizers hope to recruit elected officials whose policies often shape public transit investments and planning decisions in local communities.
Joining us to share more is Abby Griffith, a Portland-based disability rights advocate and co-founder of Empower Movement Washington who is helping organize the event. The Columbian recently profiled her efforts to raise awareness of the mobility barriers she and others with disabilities face. Also joining us are two lawmakers: Khanh Pham, the Oregon State Representative for House District 46, which covers outer Southeast Portland. She is also running unopposed for Oregon Senate District 23; and Claudia Balducci, a King County Councilmember in Washington state. She is participating in the challenge for the fourth time.
Last month, the Oregon Water Resources Commission voted to change the state’s groundwater rules. The new rules would require new water users to prove the water is available before the state will issue permits for wells. Ivan Gall was appointed to head the Water Resources Department last spring. He joins us to talk about the new rules and other challenges facing water resources in Oregon.
The Oregon Public Utility Commission has approved rate hike upon rate hike in recent years, and consumers are feeling the pinch. Currently, the list of requests for rate hikes includes those from Idaho Power, which serves about 20,000 customers in Oregon; Portland General Electric, which last had a rate case in 2023; and Northwest Natural and Pacific Power, which both last had a request before the PUC in 2022-2023.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler wrote the agency a formal letter of opposition to the latest Portland General Electric rate. It says that vulnerable residents are not in a position to handle further rate increases, and the impact on the city’s power costs would be unsustainable. We talk to the Oregon PUC Acting Executive Director Nolan Moser to find out how these decisions are made and how the impact on customers is considered.
On March 20, 1998, police in Salem, Oregon, discovered the body of 28-year-old Harriet Thompson inside her apartment. Within a week, they arrested Jesse Johnson for murder. Johnson drifted west after a troubled childhood in Arkansas and a stint in prison there. In Salem, he was known around town as a homeless drug user. A random encounter with Thompson the week before she was killed changed Johnson’s life forever.Today we’ll listen to the first episode of OPB’s new podcast “Hush.”
Washington’s Yakama Nation received both a grant and a $100 million federal loan to build a large solar project. Held up by a series of bureaucratic hurdles, the funding could expire before the government lets the tribal nation access the money. OPB Investigative Editor Tony Schick joins us to explain how bureaucracy is getting in the way of progress.
Portland writer Tom Spanbauer is being remembered -- on social media, in articles and in countless conversations with those who knew and loved him, were taught by him or simply loved his books. He died of heart failure on Saturday, Sept. 21 at age 78, after living with Parkinson's for the last eight years, according to his husband, Michael Sage Ricci.
Spanbauer was born in Idaho. He moved around the country in his 20s and 30s, but settled in Portland in 1991. Since that time he taught and influenced a whole generation of Portland writers through an approach he invented called “Dangerous Writing.”
We broadcast this interview live in April 2014, after his latest novel, “I Loved You More,” was published. It's a love triangle among a gay man, a straight man and a straight woman who push toward and pull away from each other with tenderness and ferocity. The book is also a fearless exploration of mortality and loss. “I Loved You More” was to be his last published novel.
We also talked to Spanbauer about what it was like to live through the AIDS epidemic as a gay man in the 1980s and be a longtime survivor of HIV -- and how that influenced him personally and professionally. In 2015, he received an Oregon Book Award for lifetime achievement.
Brue Bjornstad has loved rocks since he was a kid, growing up on the East Coast. But his real love and expertise is the Missoula Floods – cataclysmic events that scoured the Columbia Basin, and laid thick deposits of sediments in other areas, washing all the way down the Columbia Gorge and out to the Pacific. These floods also shaped the Hanford area. The lava flows and uplifted mountains also still drive how clean up proceeds at the Hanford nuclear reservation. Bjornstad gives us a geologic tour from an outlook on the White Bluffs overlooking the Columbia River and Hanford.
The Hanford nuclear reservation produced more than 400 billion gallons of contaminated waste over its decades of operation. Workers have been sickened over the years, and some have successfully sued the Department of Energy with help from watchdog groups, including Hanford Challenge. The nonprofit advocates for whistleblowers and workers on the site, and monitors the clean up process, which has been going on for decades. The State of Washington and federal agencies including the U.S. Department of Energy recently agreed to an update on their cleanup plan, and the public comment period on that agreement closed Sept. 1.Miya Burke, Program Manager for Hanford Challenge, joins us.
JJ Williams is the third-generation of his family in the wine business out of Red Mountain – one of the world’s premier viticultural areas outside of Richland, WA. But before the wine business, his family first put down roots in the Mid-Columbia region to work at Hanford. During the Manhattan Project, Williams’s great grandfather worked at the site, and then his grandfather worked on what’s called the Fast Flux Test Facility. It’s September now and crush is on – meaning that all the grapes are coming in to be pressed and fermented into wine. Williams recently got the distinction of being named in Wine Enthusiast’s 40 under 40. We sit down with him in our remote studio on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities.
We’ve talked a lot this week about life and work specifically at Hanford, but not all of the waste stayed there. In the rush to process plutonium at Hanford, plant operators expelled radioactive byproducts into the local atmosphere and waterways. People who were affected by these radioactive toxins call themselves “Downwinders.” Northwest Public Broadcasting reporter Anna King, who has been reporting on Hanford for over 20 years, joins us to talk about the people who were affected by radiation from the Hanford site in previous decades.
The National Park Service runs three different sites related to the WW II Manhattan Project. The one on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in southeast Washington was the first full-scale nuclear reactor in the world. The B Reactor features hundreds of nozzles capping the metal process tubes on the reactor face and even a mint-green control room with all its 40s-era instrument panels. But it’s hearing about the human stories of struggle that make the history come alive. Sept. 26 marks 80 years since the B-reactor first went online. We get a tour from Terri Andre, a volunteer docent at the Manhattan Project National Historical Park at Hanford.
Seattle poet Kathleen Flenniken grew up in Richland and worked as a civil engineer at Hanford in the 1980s. She served as Washington State Poet Laureate from 2012-2014. In her first year as poet laureate, she published a collection called Plume, which deals directly with how her Hanford area upbringing influenced her. The book explores the history of the site, the death of her best friend's father from a radiation illness, and her childhood in "Atomic City.” Flenniken sits down with us from the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities.
The 56 million gallons of radioactive waste created from decades of plutonium enrichment at Hanford are stored in 177 massive, underground tanks on 18 different ‘farms’ spread out over the 580 square miles of the nuclear reservation in Washington State. Most of the tanks are single-shelled, but 28 of them are double-shelled, which helps prevent waste from getting into the ground. Each tank holds between 55,000 and a million gallons of toxic waste.
The U.S. Department of Energy oversees the facility and is responsible for preventing the contamination of both the groundwater and the Columbia River. The DOE is also in the process of testing its multi-billion dollar vitrification plant, which is intended to bind-up the radioactive waste in glass logs to safely store it. We get a tour of the tank farm from Karthik Subramanian, who serves as Chief Operating Officer of Washington River Protection Solutions, the tank farm operations contractor. And we sit down with Brian Vance, the Department of Energy’s top manager in charge of Hanford to hear more about tank integrity, the status of the vitrification plant and the overall clean up progress.
The Hanford Reach National Monument, established in 2000, is a crescent of land with the last free-flowing stretch of the Columbia River flowing through it. It’s also a major incubator of salmon. The Department of Energy calls it “the largest natural animal and plant community in the arid and semi-arid shrub-steppe region of North America.”
The Reach has remained largely pristine, protected from agriculture and development, because it was a security buffer around the central Hanford site – one of the most contaminated spots on earth.
But the Reach is still home to a wide variety of plants and animals, including endangered plant species like the White Bluffs bladderpod and the endangered ferruginous hawk. We get a first hand tour from Mike Livingston, the Washington Fish & Wildlife regional director for south central WA.
Farmer Alan Schreiber has an alarm on his kitchen counter, and another one in his office. But they are not to tell time, or warn him of impending storms. This alarms warn him that radioactive winds from Hanford are coming. Schreiber’s Eltopia farm is in the shadow of the massive cleanup site, and the alarms are tested regularly. So far, there’s been no problem. And he says he rarely thinks about it. Schreiber farms here because, as he puts it, there’s no better place with such rich soil, abundant sun and cheap irrigation water. Schreiber joins us from our remote studio on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities.
Carolyn Pearce is busy digging up, cutting up and even x-raying ancient glass across the globe for study. Why? She’s trying to figure out the properties of the strongest glass on earth today, ones that have survived for thousands of years. That way the U.S. Department of Energy can be confident in its science to bind up radioactive wastes for thousands of years to come. Some of the glass she’s working with is from a Swedish hillfort, some from glass beads from a burial site in Poland, and some from the Newberry volcano in Oregon. We sit down with her at our remote studio on the Washington State University Tri-Cities campus.
The history of Hanford nuclear reservation is often centered on the enormity of its original mission of refining plutonium to power the atomic bombs that would bring WWII to an end - and the clean up of the waste left behind. Robert Franklin is an assistant professor of history with Washington State University Tri-Cities and the assistant director at the Hanford History Project. He’s made it his mission to highlight the lesser-known stories of the Hanford site’s impact. He sits down with us to share more about the larger history of the site and the lesser known stories, including the Black and low-income families who worked at Hanford.
Long before the Hanford nuclear reservation, the land was home to Native American tribes. The Yamaka Nation has strong ties to Laliik – or Rattlesnake Mountain — and Gable Mountain on the Hanford cleanup site. They are religious sites for the Tribes, and the whole area is ceded land for the Yakama Nation. The lands around Hanford were also used for village sites, gathering, fishing, hunting and social celebrations. But the Tribes were forced off their lands during World War II, and only in the past year have they been able to start to return to hunt and gather there. The Nation is trying to educate its youth and fully lean into being part of the formal efforts to clean up the 56 million gallons of radioactive waste stored on the site.
We sit down with Yakama Tribal Councilmembers Brian Saluskin and Deland Olney, and with Laurene Contreras Laurene Contreras, a Yakama tribal member and Program Administrator of the Environmental Restoration Waste Management Program for the Yakama Nation. They join us on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities, where we are broadcasting from this week in partnership with Northwest Public Broadcasting.
The Bureau of Land Management administers 16 million acres of land across Oregon and Washington, and wildfires burned a large swath of that land this summer, including nearly half a million acres in Eastern Oregon. For ranchers who lease BLM rangeland for their cattle, that can mean that new leases will be hard to find. The fires also threatened other uses of the land, including logging, recreation, and wildlife protection. Rebecca Carter is responsible for managing rangeland for the BLM in Oregon and Washington and for leading fire recovery efforts. She joins us to discuss how the agency is facing this summer’s fire season.
More than 70% of high school teachers in the U.S. say cell phones are a major classroom distraction, according to The Pew Research Center. Across the nation schools are adapting new bans on phones as they continue to cause issues in student learning.
A number of Oregon schools have been adapting new practices to minimize the use of phones in class, ranging from cell phone pouches to new district wide policies. Before the school year began, Gov. Tina Kotek said this summer she’d like to see a statewide approach on the issue. Nick Lupo is the principal for Taft 7 - 12 Middle and High School in the Lincoln County School District. His school has been using Yondr pouches since last year. Gabe Pagano is a principal at Cascade Middle School in the Bend-La Pine School District, where a new “silent and away” policy has been put in place across the district. They join us to share more on these policies and phone use has changed over the years in Oregon schools.
The Incarcerated Individual Betterment Fund is meant to improve the welfare for people in custody in prisons throughout Washington state. The fund is supported by the money collected from phone calls and other fees from people who are incarcerated. The pot of money has swelled upwards of $12 million. But recent reporting from the Washington State Standard has found that Washington isn't using most of the money to improve prison conditions. Grace Deng is a state house reporter for the media outlet. They join us to share more.
Americans for the Arts, a nonprofit that advocates for arts and arts education in the U.S., released data on how the arts sector affects Oregon. The study showed that Oregon’s nonprofit arts industry generated more than $800 million in economic activity in 2022.
Randy Cohen is the vice president of research for the organization. He has toured across the country discussing findings from the study. He’s currently visiting Eastern Oregon to talk about how the arts sector affects economies in Pendleton, Joseph, Ontario and other communities.
Roberta Lavadour is the executive director for the Pendleton Center for the Arts and serves on the Oregon Arts Commission. They join us with details of the study and how the arts industry affects communities like Pendleton.
The number of students regularly missing school across the country has soared since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. A state report released last year found that more than a third of Oregon students are chronically absent, meaning they miss at least 10% of school days. State lawmakers removed truancy fines in 2021, but a new program in Umatilla County reintroduces them. As reported in the East Oregonian, the program uses a mix of family support, intervention from district officials and legal action with the goal of bringing students back to the classroom.
Heidi Sipe is the superintendent of the Umatilla School District. She joins us with more details.
After more than two decades, Portland will once again host a women’s professional basketball team. The as-yet-unnamed team will start playing in the 2026 season. The city’s last WNBA team, the Portland Fire, played from 2000 to 2002 before folding. The announcement comes roughly a year after a different deal to bring a WNBA team to the city fell through. It also comes amid an explosion of interest in women’s sports, both in the Northwest and across the country.
Sean Highkin broke the news of the expansion last month in his Substack newsletter, The Rose Garden Report. He joins us with more details on the new team and what it could mean for Portland.
The Western Oregon State Forest Habitat Conservation Plan, which was passed by the Oregon Board of Forestry in March, will reduce logging in western state forests to protect threatened species. Now a school district in Clatsop County is suing the state over the proposed plan. They argue reducing timber harvesting in the area could cause the district to lose millions. Alex Baumhardt is a reporter for the Oregon Capital Chronicle and has been reporting on this issue. She joins us to share more.
For many in the U.S., it can be difficult to find a mental health provider that’s covered by insurance. But many mental health clinicians say insurance companies can make it difficult to be a part of their network. They say companies have “clawed back” payments from therapists or questioned a patient’s need for services.
Health care reporter Annie Waldman, along with a team of other ProPublica journalists, reported on why therapists leave insurance networks. The story was also co-published with NPR.
Melissa Todd, a licensed psychologist practicing in Eugene said she left an insurance network after feeling pressured to limit a patient’s care.
We hear more from Waldman and Todd on what providers have experienced and what mental health care looks like in Oregon.
Hearings on the proposed merger between Kroger and Albertsons ended on Tuesday in Portland. The grocery chains argue that the merger is necessary for them to compete with non-traditional grocers like Costco, Amazon and even Dollar General. But the Federal Trade Commission sued to block the deal in federal court in Oregon on the grounds that it would harm workers and consumers. Lawsuits against the merger are also slated to begin soon in Washington and Colorado. In the meantime, U.S. District Court Judge Adrienne Nelson’s ruling on the Oregon case is expected to have significant implications for the deal.
Elizabeth Hayes has been following the proceedings as a reporter for the Portland Business Journal. She joins us with more details on what she heard over the past few weeks.
It’s not often a new language emerges.But in the last 15 years, a new language was born right here in the Pacific Northwest. It’s called Protactile, and it was created by a group of DeafBlind people who prioritize touch. One of the people at the center of creating this new language is Jelica Nuccio. She moved to Monmouth, Oregon, where Western Oregon University just received a grant for $2.1 million from the U.S. Department of Education’s Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) to help train Protactile language interpreters. We spoke to Jelica about her work in 2021.
Hardly a week goes by in the U.S. without a mass shooting, as the recent shooting at a high school in Georgia earlier this month reminds us of. In that tragedy, a 14-year-old student is suspected of killing two students and two teachers with a semiautomatic assault-style rifle which was legally purchased by his father. The National Rifle Association, along with some conservative lawmakers and the gun lobby argue that mental illness is to blame for mass shootings – not the easy access to firearms.
A new study by researchers at Oregon Health & Science University challenges that view. It compared the U.S. to 40 other countries for the prevalence of mental health disorders and deaths from firearms over a 20-year period, from 2000 to 2019. It found, for example, that the firearm death rate was 11 times greater in the U.S. compared to the other nations while the prevalence of mental health disorders in the U.S. was similar. It also found that the firearm death rate in the U.S. had increased, whereas it declined among the other nations. Joining us to share details about the study is Archie Bleyer, a pediatric and young adult oncologist at OHSU.
Read on-air: The Great Salt Lick auction will take place this Saturday at 6 p.m. at the Churchill School in Baker City. Attendance is free.
Hardly a week goes by in the U.S. without a mass shooting, as the recent shooting at a high school in Georgia earlier this month reminds us of. In that tragedy, a 14-year-old student is suspected of killing two students and two teachers with a semiautomatic assault-style rifle which was legally purchased by his father. The National Rifle Association, along with some conservative lawmakers and the gun lobby argue that mental illness is to blame for mass shootings – not the easy access to firearms.
A new study by researchers at Oregon Health & Science University challenges that view. It compared the U.S. to 40 other countries for the prevalence of mental health disorders and deaths from firearms over a 20-year period, from 2000 to 2019. It found that death by firearms was 20 times greater in the U.S. compared to the other nations, while the prevalence of mental health disorders in the U.S. was similar. It also found that the firearm death rate decreased, on average, in those other countries whereas it increased sharply in the U.S. over that timeframe. Joining us to share details about the study is Archie Bleyer, a pediatric and young adult oncologist at OHSU.
NW Natural told Oregonians it had a new source of clean energy: renewable natural gas derived from decomposing organic waste at sites like landfills or dairy farms. In 2017 the company helped to write a law promoting the development of the new fuel, with the promise that it could replace fossil natural gas in our pipelines. Internal documents obtained by ProPublica reveal how the company painted a picture of going green while it has continued to sell as much fossil natural gas in an average year as it did before. NW Natural maintains that it has been stymied in its efforts by lack of support from regulators and too many barriers. McKenzie Funk, reporter for ProPublica, joins us to explain.
In 1990, Barbara Roberts became the first woman elected governor of Oregon. She began her political career as a member of the Parkrose school board and then the board of Mount Hood Community College. She was elected to the Oregon House of Representatives in 1980 and was chosen by her colleagues to be the House majority leader two years later. Two years after that, she became Oregon's Secretary of State, before going on to the top office. We spoke to Roberts in front of an audience at the Civics Learning Project’s Legal Citizen of the Year award ceremony in May, 2024.
Each year, there are nearly three million cases of antibiotic-resistant infections in the U.S. caused by MRSA and other antibiotic-resistant bacteria, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While many of these infections happen during hospital stays, less is known about the role wastewater treatment facilities can play in the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the environment.
Researchers at Oregon State University aim to change that with a new study that launched this month. They were awarded more than $2 million from the Environmental Protection Agency to study the presence of antibiotics, antibiotic-resistant bacteria and their genes at 40 wastewater treatment facilities in the U.S., including Oregon. The two-year-long study will also look at seasonal and regional differences in the population of that bacteria and how different treatment processes affect their growth and evolution. Joining us to share details of the study is Tala Navab-Daneshmand, the principal investigator of the study and an associate professor of engineering at OSU.
Coastal tribes in the Pacific Northwest are set to face some of the most dramatic effects of climate change in the region, from rising seas to more severe storms. The University of Washington’s Climate Impacts Group and the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians conducted a series of listening sessions with leaders and citizens of 13 coastal tribes to hear how they were responding to climate challenges. A new report outlines the obstacles tribes described, including struggles to obtain funding and burdensome paperwork, as well as points of success.
Meade Krosby is a senior scientist with UW’s Climate Impacts Group. Amelia Marchand is a senior tribal climate resilience liaison for the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians. They co-led the project and join us with more details.
Portland voters will decide 12 city council races and choose a new mayor this November. Willamette Week’s Sophie Peel found that some of the candidates running agreed to swap campaign donations in order to qualify for the city’s system of matching funds. That practice violated campaign finance law, according to attorneys and experts quoted in the stories, although the secretary of state’s office had declined to weigh in without having done its own full investigation. After inquiries, Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade has now directed the Elections Division to open an investigation. We talk with Peel about what she found and why it matters as Election Day approaches.
Like beavers and woodpeckers, porcupines play an important role in their ecosystem. But, because they have a tendency to damage trees, porcupines are often considered a nuisance species. In the Pacific Northwest, it’s becoming harder to find living porcupines, according to a Columbia Insight report. We learn more about the rodent from Dawn Stover, a freelance writer and regular contributor to Columbia Insight.
The new Climate Friendly Public Schools program is just beginning. It will provide as much as $10,000 per school for public middle and high school students in seven districts over the next five years. The Portland Clean Energy Fund is providing the program $50 million. Portland Public Schools' share is close to $20 million. The idea is to support public school students to create their own projects and spur innovation in the climate solution space. Joining us to give us more details and discuss what this looks like at PPS is Petal Peloquin, a senior at Grant High School; Eesa Taylor, a junior at Ida B. Wells High School; and Ari Ettinger, the climate resiliency program manager for PPS.
The November general election is just eight weeks away. In Oregon, the responsibility for local, state and federal races falls to the state’s 36 county clerks. But that job has gotten harder in recent years with budget cuts, staffing shortages, the spread of misinformation, physical threats and intimidation of election workers in Oregon and around the nation. A survey of Oregon county clerks released last autumn by researchers at Reed College revealed the increasing stress they’re under to fulfill their duties.
The county clerks are also overseeing elections at a time of deep political polarization, and often have to debunk false claims challenging the integrity of Oregon’s vote-by-mail system. Joining us to share their perspectives are Rochelle Long, Klamath County Clerk and incoming president of the Oregon Association of County Clerks; Derrin “Dag” Robinson, Harney County Clerk and vice-president of the Oregon Association of County Clerks; and Dena Dawson, the Lane County Clerk.
Human Rights Watch and Nurturely released a report last month that shows how pregnant people are affected by wildfires. It also suggests that officials and agencies place an emphasis on reproductive justice when providing support and information around disasters. Additionally, it recommends better education for health workers on environmental determinants of health. We learn more about the report from Skye Wheeler, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch, and Aver Yakubu, the program director for Nurturely, which is based in Oregon.
U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek H. Murthy recently issued an advisory saying stress from parenting is a public health issue. The nation's doctor shared his concerns over the well-being of parents, noting overwhelming stressors affecting parents today – from financial pressures to worries around kids' health and safety. The advisory notes that nearly half of parents say most days their stress is overwhelming and more than 40% say they are so stressed they cannot function. Marlo McIlraith is an associate professor of pediatrics and a pediatrician at OHSU. She joins us to share more on what is causing more parents to be stressed today and ways she recommends they try to help deal with these emotions.
month, the National Women’s Soccer League announced it’s getting rid of the draft. This winter, promising college players will instead choose among their favorite teams and negotiate a contract. The NWSL will still have roster limits and a salary cap, but under its new collective-bargaining agreement, no player may be traded without her consent. The League is the first in the U.S. to grant unrestricted free agency to all players. Rachel Bachman, reporter for the Wall Street Journal, tells us how this change will impact the players, the League, and possibly other sports as well.
Since 2017, the Vancouver nonprofit Share has been operating a program that removes roughly 20 tons of trash each month from homeless encampments, parks and other sites in the city. As reported by The Columbian, the Talkin’ Trash program recently received a grant to purchase three large containers and a donated dump truck to improve efficiency and safety for its work crew.
But perhaps the biggest impact the program is having is in the lives of the workers it hires, all of whom are either currently experiencing homelessness or transitioning out of it. They receive case management from a social worker to help them secure stable housing while receiving benefits, a salary, work experience and coaching for job interviews - along with other professional skills. Tony Colin is the manager of Talkin’ Trash. He joins us, along with Cassandra Buck, an employee who is currently experiencing homelessness, to share their perspectives about the program, and the challenges facing people who are unhoused.
The U.S. Department of the Interior announced the creation of the Willamette Valley Conservation Area last month. The area is part of an effort to protect oak and prairie habitat and the species that live there like the monarch butterfly and Western Meadowlark.
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service published a conservation study in 2017. It found that grasslands, oak woodlands and riparian habitat in the Willamette Valley needed more protection.
We hear more details from Damien Miller, the project leader of the Willamette Valley National Wildlife Refuge complex.
Wilma Acosta, an unenrolled Pascua Yaqui woman living in Portland, went missing in November of last year. Her body was found in the Willamette River in January 2024. The Portland Police Bureau said she was suicidal. Her family insists she was not. Communication between Acosta’s family and the Portland Police Bureau illustrates some of the challenges in Missing and Murdered Indigenous People cases. Luna Reyna, Northwest Bureau Chief at Underscore News, wrote about this case and joins us to talk about it.
The award winning poet, writer and essayist Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s genius lies in making connections between the astonishments of the natural world and the particular wonders of her own - and all of our - lives. Nezhukumatathil is the author of four collections of poems, including “Oceanic, and her latest book, a bestselling collection of essays, is called “World of Wonders.” Nezhukumatathil is a professor of English at the University of Mississippi, and joins us in front of an audience of students at McDaniel High School.
Charles Yu has written a lot about the nature of reality, how we understand what is real, and the assumptions we make about each other and the universe we live in. Yu’s first novel, “How to live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe,” follows a time machine repairman who is searching for his father who is lost in time and memory. His latest book, National Book Award winning “Interior Chinatown,” takes place in a Chinese restaurant that’s also the set for a police procedural TV show and a sendup of stereotypes of Asian American characters. Yu talks to us in front of an audience of students from Ida B. Wells High School.
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal shows that movie ticket sales are still lagging behind from prepandemic numbers. At the same time, one in three TikTok users say the app drove them to watch a movie in theaters, according to marketing research from the company. What has pandemic recovery looked like for Oregon theaters? Did Barbenheimer save some cinemas? To answer these questions and more we’ll hear from three different theaters. Loretta Miles is the owner of Salem Cinema in Salem. Rachel Flesher is the district manager of special events and theaters for McMenamins. And Steve Herring is the CEO of Living Room Theaters. They all join us to discuss how the pandemic has changed movie going.
The Portland Police Bureau’s annual budget has risen by nearly $90 million - roughly 40% - since 2016. But increased funding doesn't always equate to reduced crime. A recent investigation by Street Roots shows that Portland hasn't been having a crime wave. It found that reported crimes have increased less than 10% over the past four years, according to data from PPB. K. Rambo is the editor-in-chief at Street Roots and has been reporting on this. They join us to share more.
Albina Head Start provides free daycare and preschool for nearly 900 low-income children who qualify for the Head Start program at 20 locations across Portland. But the nonprofit is now at risk of losing nearly $50 million in funding after it was found to be “deficient” by the federal agency which administers the program. It must now also recompete for grant funds despite decades of serving thousands of infants and children enrolled in Head Start.
AHS has responded by filing a lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services. It claims the agency is incorrectly interpreting its own regulations and wrongfully labeled the organization as being “deficient” for the actions of one employee who no longer works there. The Oregonian first reported on the lawsuit and the circumstances leading to it.
Ron Herndon is the director of Albina Head Start and a former president and board chair of the National Head Start Association. He joins us to talk about the lawsuit and what’s at stake for his organization and other local Head Start programs.
Former Oregon Poet Laureate Kim Stafford wrote a “A Proclamation for Peace” poem several years ago. But today it has a new resonance. It’s been published in a new book, along with translations into more than 50 languages and notes from the dozens of translators who were involved. The poem appears in Arabic and Hebrew, Russian and Ukrainian, Tibetan and Mandarin, Tamil, Vietnamese, Polish, Yoruba, Yucatec Maya, and a host of other languages. It also includes QR codes that link to recordings of people reading the poem.
Stafford will convene a series of readings at local bookstores, starting with Annie Blooms Books in Portland in October. Stafford and his collaborator, fellow poet, editor and translator, Allison deFreese join us to talk about the project.
Fences are a key part of managing livestock on rangeland. But physical fencing is expensive, maintenance-heavy and potentially harmful to wildlife. Virtual fencing could solve some of those problems by offering a more flexible way to manage grazing herds. It could also help ranchers and rangeland managers adapt to the effects of climate change, including more frequent and intense wildfires. As recently reported in the Capital Press, a project in Wallowa County is testing the potential benefits of virtual fencing in a community forest that supports grazing, recreation and sensitive plant species.
Pete Schreder is a Wallowa County extension agent with the Oregon State University Extension Service. He joins us with more details on the emerging technology.
Church at the Park, the nonprofit that operates Village of Hope homeless micro shelter site in Salem, plans to add 40 additional beds, according to the Salem Reporter. The expansion aims to serve people who are experiencing homelessness and are 55 and older.
People 50 or older are the fastest growing group of those experiencing homelessness in the US, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
We learn more about the Salem expansion from DJ Vincent, the founding pastor and CEO of Church at the Park.
Gabrielle Zevin is a lifelong devotee of video games, which is obvious to readers of her newest book, the bestseller “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.” The book tells the story of two video game designers who find professional creative and intellectual synergy that doesn’t always match in their personal lives. The book starts from the premise that designing video games is the highest of artistic pursuits. "Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow" is the Multnomah County Everybody Reads 2024 selection, and Zevin joins us to discuss it in front of an audience of students at Grant High School.
A few years ago, three Oregon musicians and artists started getting together to play and share music, informally calling themselves Diaspora Songs. They are all lovers of country and folk music, as well as writers and scholars. Dao Strom is a poet, musician, and multimedia artist — she’s the author of the book “Instrument.” Julian Saporiti is a musician and creator of No No Boy, a songwriting and multimedia project about Asian American history. And Alicia Jo Rabins is a poet, musician and Jewish educator — she’s the author of the poetry collection “Fruit Geode.”
All three joined host Jenn Chávez on stage at the Pickathon Experiential Music Festival to sing and play and talk about their work.
“Women of the Dirt” is designed for all ability levels and creates space for riders who are women. Guides work with riders on closed trails to build skills and camaraderie. Events have been held throughout the summer, and a weekend camp takes place in September.
We learn more about the series from Jaclyn Walles, a Mt Bachelor summer athlete and ambassador
The Portland Bureau of Transportation is helping shut down streets in residential neighborhoods. The reason isn’t for road repairs or filling in potholes, but to allow kids to safely play and create community. The Play Streets program is a current pilot that allows nonprofits in Portland to create community centered pop-up events. PBOT provides a trailer at no cost that is filled with furniture, canopies, games and other supplies to be used at events, as well a grant to help groups purchase materials they might need such as barricade rentals. Sahar Wilson is the marketing and communications coordinator for the Pacific Refugee Support Group. Kate Sechrist is the building coordinator at Rose City Park Presbyterian Church. They both have been holding events through the pilot and join us to share more.
A study released by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory explored groundwater extraction and how growing demand will affect remaining resources. Scientists focused on when and where groundwater levels could peak, meaning the water becomes so inaccessible that deeper wells or costly equipment are needed to meet demand.
As it becomes more difficult to access groundwater, international agriculture could be affected and the cost of food could rise.
The study illustrates that groundwater has finite characteristics, and water basins around the world – including some in the western United States – are reaching their limits. We learn more about the study from Hassan Niazi, an earth scientist with the national lab.
Portland musician Rose Gerber combines country, folk and alt-rock into her sound. Gerber released a new EP, "Untraveled Highway," earlier this year. She will be headlining a country music fest at the Kenton Club on Saturday and joins us with an in-studio performance.
Measles was declared eradicated in the U.S. in 2000, but as vaccination rates have fallen, the disease has popped back up. Oregon is experiencing the worst outbreak in the state since the early 1990s. With kids returning to school and measles being one of the most infectious of diseases, public health concerns are running high. Joining us to talk about all of this and update us on the latest COVID-19 news, is Paul Cieslak, medical director for the Acute and Communicable Disease Prevention Section and the Oregon Immunization Program at the Oregon Health Authority.
Wildfires have burned more than a million and a half acres in Oregon so far, with the season still not over. Eastern Oregon has been especially hard hit by massive fires this summer, including the Durkee Fire which ignited last month and has burned nearly 300,000 acres. Ranchers in Eastern and Central Oregon face growing uncertainty and mounting economic losses to their livelihoods. The Oregon Cattlemen’s Association started a fund to raise money to help ranchers who’ve lost cattle or pasturelands for grazing.
Matt McElligott is the president of the OCA and the owner of LM Ranch in Baker and Grant Counties. He shares with us the impact of the wildfires on ranchers and the long road to recovery some of them face.
Earlier this year, the Portland band Blitzen Trapper released its 10th studio album, “100’s of 1000’s, Millions of Billions.” The band found success in 2008 with the release of their album “Furr.” Founding members Eric Earley and Brian Adrian Koch join us in the studio, along with fellow band member Nathan Vanderpool, to play some songs and talk about the new album, which is based on songs that Earley recorded on 4-track tapes in the early '90s.
As summer draws to a close, teachers across Oregon are readying lesson plans for the start of a new school year. But for school districts in rural parts of the state, budgetary constraints may mean that arts literacy and the benefits it offers students aren’t included in the curriculum.
Since 2020, the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology on the central Oregon coast has been helping fill that need through a monthly youth arts program. It originally served 500 students at two schools in Tillamook County. Oregon ArtsWatch recently reported on the expansion of the program which is launching this fall with a new name, K-8 Create, to serve more than 5,000 students across 17 schools on the coast, from Astoria to Waldport. Ninety-five percent of the students qualify for free or reduced meals and for many, Sitka’s monthly lessons offer the only art instruction they get at school. Alison Dennis is the executive director of the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology. Leeauna Perry is Sitka’s youth program director. They join us to talk about the impact the K-8 Create program is having in rural coastal communities.
Students at Umpqua Community College in Southern Oregon may soon have some new options for housing. The college is converting three historic buildings in downtown Roseburg into student dorms and apartments. College leaders hope that providing housing will help attract students from around the region and that bringing students downtown will add vibrancy to the city’s core.
UCC President Rachel Pokrandt joins to talk about the role the college hopes to play in revitalizing downtown Roseburg and alleviating the city’s housing crunch.
Bill Sumio Naito, who died at age 70 in 1996, was a Portland-born son of Japanese immigrants who became one of the city's most significant business and civic leaders. Erica Naito-Campbell, his granddaughter, grew up next door to him and has written a new biography of the man who lends his name to the road thousands of people drive and bike on every day. The book, “Portland's Audacious Champion,” details Naito’s life from growing up in East Portland, through military service in World War II, to his role in much of Portland’s iconic geography: from the Portland sign near the Burnside Bridge to Waterfront Park. Natio-Campbell joins us to share more.
On Monday, a judge at the U.S. District Court of Oregon in Portland will hear arguments to temporarily block the proposed merger of Kroger and Albertsons grocery chains. The nearly $25 billion deal, which was announced nearly two years ago, would create the largest supermarket chain in U.S. history, with roughly 5,000 stores and 700,000 employees across 48 states. Kroger owns Fred Meyer and QFC grocery stores in the Northwest, and Albertsons owns Safeway.
In February, the Federal Trade Commission sued to block the merger, claiming it would hurt workers, stifle competition and raise prices for consumers. Executives at Kroger and Albertsons dispute those claims, saying the merger will result in lower prices and more choices for consumers, and result in no layoffs of “frontline workers.”
On Capitol Hill, opposition to the merger is being led by Oregon’s senior Democratic Senator, Ron Wyden, and Washington’s U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-07). Sen. Wyden joins us to share his perspective on the proposed merger, the presidential election and other issues.
Al Ward is a 65-year-old musician who is hiding out from the wreck of his life in an abandoned mine in the high Nevada desert. Ward spends his days drinking and writing songs until he encounters a half-blind horse, and is forced to reckon with his life. Portland author Willy Vlautin joined host Geoff Norcross at the Pickathon Experiential Music Festival to talk about the compulsion to create art, the power of music, and the possibility of redemption.
Two-sport athlete Bryce Boettcher may have joined the University of Oregon as a baseball player, but football was also important to him. In June, the outfielder was named a Rawlings Gold Glove recipient by the company and the American Baseball Coaches Association.
Now, he’ll finish out his time as a Duck playing football as UO officially joins the Big Ten conference. And in the spring, Boettcher will report to the Astros after football under an agreement with the MLB team and the university. He was selected by the Houston team with the No. 403 overall pick in July.
We catch up with Boettcher, who grew up in Eugene, about the upcoming football season and his time as a dual-sport athlete at the university.
Trans, non-binary and gender diverse (TNGD) youth often experience harm in child welfare programs, the justice system and homeless services. That’s according to a new national report by Lambda Legal that the Portland-based Unicorn Solutions helped inform. The report focuses on how these youth fare in government-involved systems, and the policies that are needed to help them thrive. We talk with Elliott Hinkle, a former foster youth who founded Unicorn Solutions and who coordinated the contributions of TNGD youth from across the country.
The birth of a baby is often celebrated as a joyful and natural process, but it can also be physically and emotionally traumatic. The Perinatal Trauma Clinic at Oregon Health & Science University is one of only a handful nationwide that aims to support parents who have experienced trauma around birth or pregnancy. Patients work with both mental and physical health care providers at the Center for Women’s Health to develop a plan that fits their personal circumstances.
Katie Au and Katherine Jorda are both associate professors of obstetrics and gynecology at OHSU. They co-direct the clinic and join us with more details about the care they provide.
Starting in September, HB 4002 will go into effect and will recriminalize possession of small amounts of controlled substances. Portland’s public transportation agency TriMet is hopeful this could bring changes to the system that has faced a number of challenges in recent years, including a historic driver shortage, increased assaults on operators and more. Since 2021, TriMet has been stepping up its enforcement efforts, and in July of this year, it began increasing enforcement of fares and other rules. Andrew Wilson is the agency’s chief safety officer and its executive director of safety and security. He joins us to share more.
Classes at Portland Public Schools begin next week and the district also welcomes a new superintendent. Kimberlee Armstrong began her career as a teacher in the Puyallup School District in Washington and most recently served as deputy superintendent of Evergreen Public Schools in Vancouver. Armstrong joins to share what she’s looking forward to in her first year overseeing the district and goals in her first year.
Nearly 20 years ago, researchers at Oregon State University began leading an effort to collect information about the structure and evolution of the North American continent using electromagnetic energy. That effort is finally complete. The new map can be used to protect the electrical grid during extreme solar storms and identify geohazards. It can also help target locations for tapping natural resources, including geothermal power and critical minerals. Adam Schultz led the effort at OSU and joins us to explain what we can learn from a better understanding of the Earth’s geoelectric properties.
Central Oregon poet, teacher and author Ellen Waterston began her role this month as the state’s official Poet Laureate. Waterston has won many literary awards, including two WILLA awards and the Obsidian prize for poetry. This year she received both the Holbrook and Soapstone award in recognition of her contributions to Oregon’s literary landscape.
She began her own Writing Ranch in 2000 in Central Oregon to support and nurture writers, and she was instrumental in the genesis of the low residency MFA program at Oregon State University, Cascades, where she now also teaches. She often writes about the landscape where she makes her home and is currently working on a new collection of poetry that will feature a series of commissioned pieces that celebrate remote locations all over the West.
We last talked with Waterston in 2020 when her nonfiction book “Walking in the High Desert” was published. She joins us to discuss her poetry, her teaching and how she plans to meet her self-appointed goal of “kindling creativity and community” around poetry throughout Oregon over the next two years.
The Portland Bureau of Transportation has made it clear, shared electric scooters are here to stay. Two new multiyear contracts with Lime and Lyft have recently been announced that would bring the citywide fleet to upward of 3,500 scooters. Millicent Williams is the director of PBOT. She joins us to share more on this expansion and micromobility in Portland.
A big shift took place over the weekend in the way people buy and sell homes in the U.S. The National Association of Realtors settled a lawsuit earlier this year that changed the way real estate agents get paid. Previously, a home seller would pay for both their own real estate agent and the agent representing the buyer. The two agents would split the commission, which was typically around 5-6% of the home’s selling price.
But now, buyers either have to pay for their own representation or negotiate with the seller to pay their agent’s fee. Some agents say the new rules will mean more clarity for consumers, while others say they will drive agents out of the business.
Ashleigh Fordham is the principal broker and owner of Windermere Real Estate in Salem. She’s also the current president of the Oregon Association of Realtors. Colin Mullane is a former president of the organization and the principal broker and owner of Full Circle Real Estate in Ashland. They join us to share their perspectives on how these changes are playing out in Oregon.
On Monday, the Oregon Department of Forestry confirmed that the emerald ash borer has been discovered in three new counties in the Willamette Valley. In the past month, the invasive pest was caught in traps set in Marion and Yamhill counties, and is also suspected of being in neighboring Clackamas County, pending confirmation by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The highly destructive beetle, which is native to Asia, has killed over 100 million ash trees nationwide since it first appeared in the U.S. over 20 years ago. The state’s agriculture and forestry departments quickly mobilized to contain it when it was first spotted in Oregon in Forest Grove in Washington County two years ago. Those efforts included issuing a quarantine that’s now permanent to prevent the movement of firewood and other plant materials out of the county made from ash, white fringe and olive trees. State crews have also removed infested ash trees and have been treating healthy trees with insecticide near infestation sites. Lilah Gonen is a community assistance forester and the emerald ash borer coordinator for ODF. They join us to talk about the state’s efforts to slow the spread of emerald ash borer and the threat it poses to native Oregon ash trees.
On Monday, the Democratic National Convention kicked off in Chicago. It comes four weeks after President Biden’s decision to drop out of the presidential race and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic party nominee. Harris quickly ramped up her campaign and won a majority of delegate votes to secure the Democratic presidential nomination earlier this month, and shortly thereafter announced Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate.
Kien Truong is a delegate from Oregon’s 3rd Congressional District, the chair of the Young Democrats of Oregon Caucus and is currently attending the convention. He is also a gay immigrant from Vietnam who became a U.S. citizen in 2021. He joins us from Chicago to share his perspective and efforts to mobilize young, diverse voters ahead of the November general
Georgia Cloepfil spent six years playing soccer professionally in six different countries after she graduated from college. It was a lonely, physically demanding life that was also incredibly rewarding. Cloepfil’s new memoir, “The Striker and the Clock,” details that time, and the beauty and complexity of the game she still loves.
On August 24, 1949, work crews and bulldozers cleared out a neighborhood just outside of Eugene known as Ferry Street Village. The Lane County Board of Commissioners had voted to demolish the neighborhood just a month before, and some residents who hadn't gotten the news ran from their homes with as much as they could carry. The neighborhood was one of the only places near Eugene where Black people could settle. The Black Cultural Initiative is working with other groups to raise money for a monument to the neighborhood and the families that lived there. Talicia Brown-Crowell, the founder of BCI, joins us to talk about why it is important to preserve the history of this neighborhood.
The Portland Votes 2024 Grant Program has awarded $210,000 to 11 different organizations to support education efforts about ranked choice voting. The adoption of a new city charter has changed multiple aspects of city government. One of the most prolific is that in November, voters will participate in a ranked choice voting process to choose city council members, which is different from how many people are used to voting. Direct voter education grantees including APANO, NAYA and Urban League of Portland will provide cultural and language-specific educational opportunities about the new system to the communities they serve, while other grantees will hold broader voter education efforts. Grace Ramsey, co-founder of Democracy Rising and the project manager of the grant program, joins us to share more about these educational opportunities.
The Multnomah County Board of Commissioners unanimously voted Thursday to approve a temporary staffing plan that aims to improve ambulance response times in the county. The decision comes after months of disagreement between the county and its sole ambulance services provider, American Medical Response.
The company hasn’t met its contractual requirement to respond to 90% of life-threatening calls within eight minutes since 2022. AMR has long blamed the delays on the county’s requirement that each ambulance be staffed with two paramedics. The new agreement will allow some ambulances to be staffed by one paramedic and one EMT through July of next year.
Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson joins us to talk about all of that and more.
Oregon hop growers will be harvesting their crops next week, but at a much smaller yield than last year. The acreage for the plant has fallen by 18% this year in Oregon and nationwide. The driving factor is declining beer sales and changes in consumer habits. Michelle Palacios is the administrator for the Oregon Hop Commission. She joins us to share more on the future of the industry.
Coastal Curry County is home to several different rivers but all of that open water can lead to accidents like drownings. Luke Martinez is the aquatic safety officer and lifeguard for Curry County. He says he’s seen tourism in the region grow and has witnessed more incidents around water safety. He joins us with details of what the county has been experiencing and how a junior lifeguard program can help educate residents.
When Matt Swihart started Double Mountain Brewery in 2007, his vision was to sell beer in the most ecologically sustainable way possible: in reusable bottles, which would be returned, cleaned and refilled, to be sold again. He says it wasn’t a new idea at all - this was common for all kinds of beverages in the early 20th century. And it wasn’t even novel - in other countries, refillable beverage containers occupy a solid share of the market. Nevertheless the regional infrastructure didn’t exist, so the company started small and took its time. The game changed in 2018 when the Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative partnered with Double Mountain to help develop standard refillable glass beer bottles that any brewery in the state could use.
Now, the Newberg company Revino is working with a number of vintners to put their wine in its returnable, refillable bottles. And while the company is still scaling up all the infrastructure needed, it’s gotten significant traction already, with Willamette Valley Vineyards announcing its rollout of over 1500 cases of one of its Pinot Noirs being released in Revino bottles. We talk with Double Mountain Brewery’s Matt Swihart and Revino cofounder Adam Rack about the significant environmental benefits of glass bottles over other kinds of containers, and the role they see refillables playing more broadly in helping states meet climate goals.
Since 2018, Portland-based developer Avangrid Renewables has been working to develop an industrial solar project on a piece of state-owned land in eastern Washington. The parcel, known as Badger Mountain, is also an important ceremonial and first-foods site for tribal nations such as the Yakama and Colville.
An investigation from High Country News and ProPublica earlier this year revealed that Avangrid omitted more than a dozen sites of cultural and archaeological significance from its survey of the site. The company has now announced it will pause the project while it reevaluates feedback from landowners and tribal nations.
Toastie Oaster is a staff writer for High Country News. They join us with more details.
The largest public works project in Oregon history is coming to completion. After four years of construction and a little more than $2 billion, the PDX airport’s new terminal is open to the public. The main terminal remodel features skylights made of local Douglas fir, the return of the beloved original carpet and a 120-foot-long video wall that serves as a 24-hour art installation. This opening is just one phase with more to come in December 2025. Curtis Robinhold is the executive director of the Port of Portland. He gave us a sneak peak of the terminal in late July to share the thinking behind the architecture, the indoor tree garden and more.
In Oregon, farmers and ranchers are contending with wildfires, water shortages and invasive species. Still, Oregonians continue to start small farms in the state. Next month, Oregon State University Extension Service – along with other agencies – will offer Small Farm School, an event at Clackamas Community College that includes workshops and classes on farming in Oregon. We learn more about how the extension service is supporting producers and what the industry looks like right now from Hayley White, a small farms coordinator for Marion and Polk counties.
Burnside Bridge, which is nearly 100 years old, is set to undergo a five-year seismic rebuild, likely beginning in 2027. It’s a major travel route as the only bridge in Portland that touches all four quadrants of the city. Two potential designs have been put forth by Multnomah County: a tied arch bridge like the Fremont Bridge and a cable-stayed bridge like the Tilikum Bridge. Project managers asked for public input on the design back in early July. The survey was open for a month and gathered over 19,000 responses, with the majority of the public choosing a tied arch bridge. An article by architecture and design journalist Brian Libby explains that according to lead project designer Keith Brownlie, the tied arch bridge is typically the most popular design amongst a general population of non-architects. The Multnomah County Community Design Advisory Group, composed of local architects, designers and other experts, will provide a recommendation to the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners who are expected to vote on the final design in October. Libby joins us to share more about the design process.
Oregon State and Washington State are the only two schools left in the Pac-12 athletic conference. The University of Oregon is heading to the Big Ten conference for the 2025 season. Is the Ducks football team set up for success in their new conference against opponents like the Buckeyes, Wolverines, Nittany Lions and others? And how will athletes in less well-funded sports fare in a conference that requires a lot more travel? Zachary Neel, managing editor for USA Today’s Ducks Wire, joins us for a preview.
With drought, wildfire and other extreme weather events, climate change is bringing stress and a feeling of uncertainty for many farmers and ranchers. It’s also bringing along a new hurdle for many in the agricultural world – climate grief.
Seeing the effects of climate change firsthand can invoke fear, sadness, hopelessness and despair for many farmers and ranchers. A new project from Southern Oregon Research and Extension Center aims to help people understand their climate change related emotions, along with ways to work through them. Maud Powell is an associate professor at Oregon State University. She, along with her colleagues, launched the Climate Stress and Grief: Building Resilience in Farmers and Ranchers project last year and joins us to share more.
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has proposed killing hundreds of thousands of barred owls over the next 30 years in an effort to protect the endangered northern spotted owl, which competes with the barred owl for food, habitat and other resources. The agency published a final environmental impact statement last month, and a decision on whether to adopt the strategy could be imminent.
A group of philosophers at Oregon universities recently took issue with the proposal. In a New York Times opinion piece, they described the strategy and the reasoning behind it as “dystopian” and “deeply problematic.”
Jay Odenbaugh is the James F. Miller Professor of Humanities at Lewis & Clark College. He co-authored the article and joins us to talk about the ethical pitfalls of sacrificing one species for another.
Last week, the Portland Police Bureau intervened in six street racing takeover attempts and arrested 15 in connection. These events have been on the rise nationally since the pandemic. Portland began a concentrated effort on these incidents in 2021. Commander Franz Schoening with PPB's Specialized Resources Division joins us to share more about last week’s interventions and more.
Portland author Carl Sciacchitano’s debut graphic novel, “The Heart That Fed,” focuses on his father’s experience in the Vietnam War and the decades that have followed. It also follows Carl as he watches his father struggle with the psychological effects of the war. The book explores their relationship and the many, nuanced ways that PTSD can affect families and communities.
Sciacchitano and his father, David, join us to talk more about the book and what it was like to travel back to Vietnam together.
Coffin Butte Landfill, which is located in Benton County, might expand soon. The site draws waste from nearly two dozen Oregon counties and accepts more than one million tons of garbage annually. But the facility’s operators have applied for a permit to expand the landfill even further, raising public health and environmental concerns. A 2022 Environmental Protection Agency report found high levels of methane in the air at Coffin Butte Landfill. People living in nearby towns say that the landfill shouldn’t get bigger under any circumstances, and some longtime residents have been suffering from health issues due to living in such close proximity. Isobel Whitcomb, a science and environmental reporter, is here to share more about what they learned while researching this issue for Canary Media.
A lot has changed statewide since Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek last appeared on “Think Out Loud” in October 2023. Since then, the state’s three-year experiment with drug decriminalization has ended, a state of emergency was declared to address the fentanyl overdose crisis in Multnomah County, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on a homelessness case out of Grants Pass and the governor faced backlash for the prominent role her wife has played in her administration.We spent an hour in Salem recently to get an update from the governor on all of those developments and more.
Last week Ryan Crouser, who grew up in Boring, became the first person to win three straight gold medals in men’s shot put. University of Oregon’s Jaida Ross will compete in women’s shot put on Aug. 9. Earlier this week, former Duck Cole Hocker won the 1,500 meter race. Sarah Lorge Butler, contributing writer at Runner’s World, joins us for an update on athletes with Oregon ties competing in track events in Paris.
In May, the Portland City Council approved an ordinance that would allow homeless people who camp on public property and reject offers of shelter to be fined up to $100 or sentenced to up to seven days in jail. That ordinance went into effect at the beginning of July, but was put on hold because of extreme heat. At the same time, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that cities have the right to penalize people for living outside. Then a few weeks ago Portland police made their first arrest under the new rule, but county deputies at the Multnomah County Detention Center refused to process the man. Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler joins us to talk about how the city is addressing unsanctioned camping.
Charles Yu has written a lot about the nature of reality, how we understand what is real, and the assumptions we make about each other and the universe we live in. Yu’s first novel, “How to live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe,” follows a time machine repairman who is searching for his father who is lost in time and memory. His latest book, National Book Award winning “Interior Chinatown,” takes place in a Chinese restaurant that’s also the set for a police procedural TV show and a sendup of stereotypes of Asian American characters. Yu talks to us in front of an audience of students from Ida B. Wells High School.
According to the FBI’s Internet Crimes Complaint Center, Americans lost more than $145 million to real estate scams last year. One component of those is rental scams, where legitimate listings are pulled from property management websites and reposted to sites like Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace for a lower price. Prospective tenants are sometimes even able to tour a unit before signing a bogus lease and paying a security deposit and fees to the scammer.
Rental scams have been on the rise in recent years, thanks in part to the popularity of self-guided and remote tours in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The nationwide shortage of affordable housing has also pushed many renters to move quickly on listings that promise a good deal – making them a prime target for scams.
Alexis Weisend covers affordable housing and homelessness for The Columbian. She recently wrote about this trend in Southwest Washington and joins us with more details.
Years ago, Washington passed a law requiring electric utilities to go carbon-neutral in a decade. Yet lawmakers continued to give generous tax incentives to data centers, which use a huge amount of electricity. In fact, in the last few years Washington has gotten a smaller share of its electricity from renewable sources than it did two decades ago, despite producing a quarter of the nation’s hydropower. Lulu Ramadan, investigative reporter at the Seattle Times, joins us to talk about her reporting.
Since the Grants Pass v. Johnson ruling in late June, which ruled that cities are now able to ban camping or sleeping in public spaces, local governments have been navigating how to handle this new power. For years, Deschutes County has battled with the Oregon Department of State Lands on a pending land swap between county-owned lands and the state. In 2022, the state required that the county clear homeless encampments on county property before making any deals. Now, as Clayton Franke from the Bend Bulletin reports, Deschutes County commissioners are in disagreement about how to address homelessness and these encampments after the Supreme Court ruling. Franke joins to share more.
For the past two weeks, North Fork John Day Watershed Council has been hard at work helping people in and around Long Creek fight fires on their property and deal with the damage done by the flames. The Battle Mountain Complex and Courtrock fires have impacted residents living in rural parts of the state, which have not been serviced by firefighting teams as quickly as other areas, leaving landowners to fight fires by themselves. Kristen Walz, the executive director of North Fork John Day Watershed Council, joins us to share more about her group’s efforts during this particularly harsh and early wildfire season.
Last week, researchers from Oregon State University documented two shark species in Puget Sound for the first time. They found a broadnose sevengill shark and the critically endangered tope shark. The presence of these large predators in the sound may mean that the ecosystem is changing to fit the needs of the sharks, which could have other effects. Taylor Chapple, assistant professor and head of the Big Fish Lab at OSU, joins us to share more about his team’s findings.
Cheatgrass and other invasive species are threatening important rangelands and helping fuel severe wildfires in Eastern Oregon. Lisa Ellsworth is an associate professor and range ecologist at the college of agricultural sciences at Oregon State University. She joins us to explain how these areas have been affected by invasive species, extreme wildfires and human activity and what that means for the future of a crucial Western ecosystem.
A food pantry located in the center of Talent, Oregon was forced to close earlier this year. It was located in Talent’s old town hall and was easily accessible to residents. A fire broke out at the location and organizers of the pantry are working on finding a new spot. Access, the agency behind the service, operates mobile pantries throughout Jackson County. We check in on what’s next for Talent with Marcee Champion, the food programs director for Access.
Washington voters have some high profile races on their primary ballots this week. Governor Jay Inslee, Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Congressman Derek Kilmer are not seeking reelection. Meanwhile, Congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez will try to hold on to her seat in the state's 3rd District. In addition, attorney general, public lands commissioner and insurance commissioner are all open seats. Olympia correspondent Jeanie Lindsay joins us to preview Washington’s top-two primary election.
Whether you attended Taylor Swift's Eras Tour or took a trip to a Disney park this summer, you may not realize there is an Oregon connection between the two. Michael Curry Design is a creative studio in Scappoose that has crafted puppets, stage pieces and more for a variety of venues. From artist tours to theatrical productions, the creatives at MCD have left their mark on stages and performances not just across the country, but around the world. Michael Curry is the founder, president and owner of MCD. Charles Babbage is the lead art director. They join us to share more on their work.
The Great Oregon Steam-Up in Brooks has been showcasing antique machinery every summer since 1969. The machines on display can be as large as a crane or as small as a coffee grinder. Visitors can also watch demonstrations of sawmilling and threshing equipment, participate in a parade of steam-powered vehicles and ride miniature trains and trolleys.
Michelle Duchateau is the president of Powerland Heritage Park, which organizes the Steam-Up. She joins us to talk about this year’s festival and what’s kept visitors coming back for more than 50 years.
Low-head dams likely wouldn't catch the attention of a person floating down a river on a paddle board or inner tube. The unassuming structures can have drops as low as 1 foot, appearing as little more than a smooth bump in otherwise calm waters. But the continuous motion of water over the top of the dam creates a dangerous vortex at its base. As recently reported in the Register Guard, the churn can trap swimmers, kayakers and others recreating in the water, earning them the nickname “drowning machines.”
Haleigh Kochanski covers breaking news and public safety for the Register-Guard. She joins us with more details about these dams and the dangers they present.
“Herding cats” may be shorthand for an impossible task, but according to Monique Udell, Director of the Human-Animal Interaction Lab at Oregon State University, cats can be trained. We’ll hear what she’s learning about the relationship between cats and people, and how they can each improve each other’s lives.
The Portland based-book company “A Kids Co.,” which has created books such as “A Kids Book About Racism” and “A Kids Book About Empathy,” was recently acquired by the British publisher DK. The partnership establishes DK’s first U.S.-based children’s creative team. A Kids Co. began in 2018 when founder Jelani Memory wrote “A Kids Book About Racism” for his six children. Now, A Kids Co. has published over 30 books featuring authors such as Billie Jean King, Jessica Biel and Ashley Graham. The company now also produces podcasts and television shows in addition to books. Memory joins us to talk more about his entrepreneurial journey.
Kids can get free lunches through the Central Curry School District in Gold Beach even during the summer. But workers at the Curry Public Library noticed that some kids were missing out and decided to step in. Throughout the summer, the library offers free sack lunches to children. The program began last year and recently has expanded. We learn more about the service and why it’s needed from Bronwyn Greathead, a library employee and program coordinator for ASCEND, a collaboration between the library and the Central Curry School District.
Last spring, a dozen horses died on the track at Churchill Downs, including two during the world’s most famous horseracing event, the Kentucky Derby. A report later released by the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority found no single cause for the deaths but made several recommendations, including expanding the use of wearable technology to detect potentially fatal injuries.
Washington State University has been at the forefront to refine this technology through its partnership for the past four years with a company that makes a wearable sensor for horses that weighs less than a deck of cards. A team of WSU researchers recently published the results of a study that tested how that sensor performed while analyzing the strides of hundreds of horses competing at Churchill Downs and another track in Kentucky last year. Abnormal stride movements revealed bone and muscle damage hidden to the naked eye that had a high risk of developing into a fatal injury. Denise McSweeney, the lead author of the study and an equine surgery resident at Washington State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, joins us to share her findings.
For many years now, medical schools around the country have ceased using live animals to perform procedures as part of the curriculum. But in a minority of surgical residencies, residents operate on animals – often pigs – to practice techniques to be used on human patients. Oregon Health & Science University is in that minority. For years, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has been waging a campaign to get OHSU’s OB/GYN residency program to stop using pigs for doctors in training to practice reproductive surgeries on. At the same time, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is asking the hospital to stop using the animals in all of its surgical residencies in all branches of the hospital.
OHSU declined to participate in this conversation, but Dr. Kerry Foley, a retired emergency medical doctor who volunteers for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, joins us to share her views on best practices for surgical training and why those do not include using animals.
Portland State University has been awarded nearly $2 million in federal funding to continue work tackling microplastic pollution in Oregon’s coastal communities and the Pacific ocean. The money will go to a collaborative three-year effort to reduce microplastic pollution with groups from a wide range of academic, community, municipal and tribal partners, and will focus on filtering microplastics primarily out of hotels, restaurants, and laundromats. Elise Granek, project lead and professor at Portland State, joins us to share more.
For nearly 40 years, the DoveLewis Veterinary Emergency and Specialty Hospital in Portland has operated a blood bank for cats and dogs in need of blood transfusions for life-threatening injuries and illnesses. According to blood bank coordinator Kelsey Reinauer, it’s the largest such facility in Oregon and possibly now the entire West Coast. Last year, DoveLewis performed nearly 500 transfusions in-house and shipped more than 200 units of blood products to hospitals as far away as Tennessee and Florida.
As with human blood donations, the need is often greater than the supply, and recruiting new donors can be challenging. The New York Times recently reported on DoveLewis’ efforts to grow a community of “superhero” donors. Their owners bring their cats and dogs to the hospital for regular blood donations which are incentivized with perks such as free treats and toys and personalized trading cards featuring their pets’ photos and interests. Reinauer joins us to talk about the blood donation program, along with Debi Hays, a volunteer at DoveLewis whose dog, Kasha, donates blood four times a year. Her other dog, Kiev, retired from the program earlier this year.
A team of researchers at the University of Oregon is currently studying the relationships between soccer cleat composition and risk of injury in female versus male athletes. Female soccer players are three times more likely to suffer from major knee injuries than male soccer players, and a recent English study found that ACL injuries are 2-6 times more likely in females than males. This group of students and faculty at UO have been running tests for the past five years testing cleat stud length, traction and stability. They have created a model for a new type of cleat designed specifically for the female foot anatomy, which is in the beginning stages of development. We'll hear more from Emily Karolidis, a PhD candidate and lead researcher in this study, and Mike Hahn, professor of human physiology at UO.
When autumn arrives, reminders typically start going out for people to get their annual flu shot. The vaccine changes each year, based on what strain of influenza is likely to be circulating then. Sometimes it’s a good match and other times, not so good. But what if you could get one vaccine that would confer lifetime protection against the flu and its ever-changing strains?
Scientists at Oregon Health & Science University are working on advancing that goal by developing a new way to deliver vaccines against flu viruses. The vaccines are delivered through a harmless virus that most people are exposed to at some point in their lives. The technology stimulates the body to release cells that attack the internal machinery of the harmful virus instead of its outer surface which can evolve to slip past immune defenses. Joining us to talk about this research is Jonah Sacha, a professor at OHSU and the chief of pathobiology at the Oregon National Primate Research Center.
Neal Cummings has owned and run Video Horizons in Astoria for the last 40 years. It’s now the city's only video rental store, and one of only a handful of businesses in Oregon where you can rent movies on VHS or DVD. We talk with Cummings about how he got into this business, what keeps him going and why he thinks people still want an alternative to streaming movies in the digital age.
A sleepaway camp designed for and by Indigenous theater aficionados is being held at Portland State University July 29 through August 2. The 26 students in attendance will live in the dorms and attend daily theater trainings as well as college prep sessions. The students also get to meet and work with Native staff on campus. By the end of the week-long camp, students showcase their work in a variety of ways: some will act in student-written plays, some will create writing or art projects and others will perform in a short media project which is pitched by students then edited by camp staff. This is the fourth year of the camp, which has been held at different college campuses across the west coast. Last year, some of the students had the opportunity to participate in the Broadway production of “The Thanksgiving Play” by Larissa FastHorse. The camp has previously been held at University of Nevada at Reno, UC Berkeley and Southern Oregon University. Jeanette Harrison, co-founder of the theater camp for Native youth and creative director of Bag and Baggage’s Native theater project, joins us to share more. Returning campers Gia Fisher and Niyla Willow also join us. Fisher will be performing in “Diné Nishłį (i am a sacred being) Or, A Boarding School Play” by Blossom Johnson and directed by Harrison. The play will tour throughout the greater Portland area this September.
For inmates who are starting to plan for life after incarceration, delayed or unexpected release dates can scramble job opportunities and housing arrangements. A number of factors can affect release dates, including paperwork issues, miscommunication among corrections staff and changes to the way state corrections departments calculate time served.
Ben Botkin covers criminal justice and health for the Oregon Capital Chronicle. Paul Kiefer is an intern at InvestigateWest. They join us to share more about their recent reporting on how delayed or unexpected release dates can impact inmates’ lives in Oregon and Washington, respectively.
There’s a new Portland-based, independent comedy on the scene. “Cora Bora” follows Cora, a snarky, somewhat aimless musician struggling her way through solo shows in bars and coffee shops across Los Angeles after the mysterious dissolution of her band. When she suspects her girlfriend is seeing someone new, Cora returns to Portland to try and salvage the relationship. While there, she loses her dog, almost joins an orgy, suffers through awkward encounters with old friends and ultimately confronts the trauma that’s been holding her back.
Rhianon Jones wrote “Cora Bora” and served as its executive producer. She joins us to talk about what the movie means to her and how she was influenced by her time in the Portland music scene.
Last year, city officials decided to end Portland’s contract with the independent Regional Arts and Culture Council. The organization was previously responsible for doling out grants and providing art advocacy for the city. Now, Portland’s Office of Arts and Culture has taken shape and has found organizations, including RACC and MusicOregon, to help administer grants to artists and creators. The city itself will be working on arts advocacy and education. We hear more about how Portland plans to partner with creators from Chariti Montez, the director of the new office.
In the last few years, the state has come under intense criticism from civil rights advocates for its failure to provide constitutionally mandated defense attorneys to people charged with crimes if they cannot afford them. A 2022 report by the American Bar Association found the state had barely a third of the lawyers it needed to represent defendants who qualified for a public defender.
Since then, lawakers and state officials have significantly increased capacity and made structural changes aimed at remedying the crisis, including providing additional funding — but challenges remain. In May the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed an earlier ruling in the Betschart case that mandates that defendants may not be held in custody for more than seven days without a lawyer.
The Oregon Public Defense Commission, formerly known as the Oregon Office of Public Defense Services, has hired about a dozen trial-level public defenders in three offices around the state, the first such attorneys who work directly for the state as employees, not contractors. On Wednesday, Executive Director Jessica Kampfe presented a plan to the Commission that would increase that number to 40 in the next year and also extend a temporary program that raised the hourly rates of the defense attorneys the state contracts with to represent defendants. Kampe joins us to explain the changes that have already been made in the public defense system and the changes she expects over the next 10 years.
What does parking have to do with climate change? Everything, according to Parking Reform Network founder and president Tony Jordan. Getting rid of parking mandates in Oregon means that housing developers can also build more units rather than having to set aside space for car infrastructure. Four years ago there were fewer than a dozen cities nationwide that had lifted their parking mandates. Since then, the number has grown to 70, with 18 of them in Oregon. Jordan joins us to talk about how his Portland-based, national nonprofit group helps cities around the country remove parking requirements to support the larger goals of reducing emissions and creating sustainable infrastructure.
Starting next week, the Multnomah County District Attorney’s office will no longer allow prospective jurors to be dropped without reason for misdemeanor trials. The change was made to reduce racial bias during jury selection, according to outgoing DA Mike Schmidt. The new policy will not apply to trials involving domestic violence charges, and will allow for some exceptions for prosecutors to request a prospective juror be removed. But the move appears to have blindsided Senior Deputy District Attorney Nathan Vasquez who defeated Schmidt in the May primary election and will take over as district attorney in January. Joining us to share more about this development is OPB criminal justice and legal affairs reporter Conrad Wilson.
Wildfires spreading throughout the state have caused multiple road closures and prompted evacuations. The Durkee Fire, which is burning in Malheur and Baker counties, is so hot it created its own weather. Record dry conditions combined with lightning strikes and human activity have set off over 60 fires across Oregon and Washington already this season. The U.S. Forest Service is bringing in resources from across the country to aid in fighting these blazes. Mariana Ruiz Temple, Oregon’s State Fire Marshal, joins us to share more. We’ll also hear from Jacque Buchanan, U.S. Forest Service regional forester for the Pacific Northwest.
The Snoopy Senior World Hockey Tournament is an annual event that draws hundreds of hockey players to an ice rink in California. But unlike other tournaments, this one is specifically for older adults. Eugene’s Oregon Old Growth is a team with players ranging in age from 70 to 83. Mike Sheehan and Bob Carolan both just returned from the tournament last week. They join us to share more on the world of senior hockey and what keeps them on the rink.
Before telephone wires were coated in plastic, they were originally protected by a layer of lead. Lead-sheathed cables were largely phased out in the 1950s, but in Portland’s oldest neighborhoods, some of them still hang from utility poles. A recent study from Oregon State University tested lead levels in moss in some neighborhoods and found that lead levels are up to 600 times higher in places where the cables were once used than in other nearby areas. The findings raise concerns about whether the cables could lead to increased risk of lead exposure for residents of older neighborhoods.
Alyssa Shiel is an associate professor in the College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric sciences at OSU and the study’s lead author. She joins us with more details.
Family Connects Oregon is a program that brings nurses to the homes of newborns and their families, as NPR recently reported. It’s an opt-in service that aims to improve health and socioeconomic outcomes for parents and children. Family Connects continues to expand in Oregon and has visiting nurses in counties including Jefferson, Lincoln and Washington. We learn more about the service from Barb Ibrahim, a public health nurse for Jefferson County.
The Ross Island Lagoon, which sits in the center of the four-island complex known as Ross Island, is a byproduct of decades of mining. In addition to industrial purposes, the lagoon also has a long history of being used recreationally and provides habitat for a variety of vulnerable plant and animal species.
In 2015, researchers began to see cyanobacterial blooms in the lagoon. Cyanobacteria is a type of bacteria which can pose a serious threat to the health of animals and people who come into close contact with the water. When present, it gives the water a bright green appearance.
Because the lagoon is a warm, stagnant pool, it’s an ideal breeding ground for cyanobacteria. And it’s only getting warmer due to climate change. The tide from the Willamette pulls the cyanobacteria out into the river’s main flow, contaminating the rest of the water. The Oregon Health Authority routinely releases warnings urging against recreational river use during warmer seasons because of this.
Since 2017, Oregon State University and the Willamette River group the Human Access Project have been working on reducing these Lagoon blooms. There is work being done by different groups to address the cyanobacterial blooms in the Ross Island Lagoon. Desirée Tullos, professor of Water Resources Engineering at Oregon State University, joins us to share more.
A growing number of Oregon tribes have been investing in equine therapy for youth struggling on reservations and in foster care. Both the Confederated Tribes of Umatilla Indian Reservation and the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs have developed programs in the last three years. And the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, Klamath Tribes and Burns Paiute Tribe have plans to launch programs, some as soon as this summer. Nancy Marie Spears is the Indigenous children an d families reporter for The Imprint. She has been reporting on this trend and joins us to share more.
Live Nation wants to develop a 3,500 capacity venue in Portland’s central eastside. The company, which also owns Ticketmaster, controls an estimated 60% of concert venues across the country and also serves as one of the nation’s biggest artist management companies. Earlier this summer, the Department of Justice sued Live Nation, seeking to break up their “monopoly and restore competition for the benefit of fans and artists.” We hear from reporter Katie Thornton, who wrote about Live Nation’s quest to enter Portland for The Guardian. We also hear from Willamette Week reporter Anthony Effinger, who wrote about an alternate effort from local music promoter Monqui Presents to open a mid-sized venue at the Lloyd Center.
Since the extreme heat dome in the Pacific Northwest in 2021, researchers have been busy trying to identify all the different effects that heat had on trees and forests. One of those researchers is Chris Still, a professor in the college of forestry at Oregon State University. He says a collaboration with the U.S. Forest Service using satellite data is revealing the swaths in the region that were most damaged. Researchers have also found that tree growth after a heat event does not seem to be as resilient compared to growth after a drought. Still joins us to share more about the research and what it may portend for future heat domes and other extreme heat events that are likely as the planet continues to warm.
Cities across the Pacific Northwest are struggling to handle a growing number of requests for public records such as court documents, police reports and emails between public officials. To test those systems, the investigative news outlet InvestigateWest sent the same records request to 15 cities across Oregon, Washington and Idaho. Some took months, or charged hundreds of dollars, to fulfill the requests.
Daniel Walters reports on democracy and extremism for InvestigateWest. He joins us to share more about what he found and the vital role public records play in holding governments and agencies accountable.
President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 election is reverberating across the nation and the Pacific Northwest’s political world. The news comes less than a month before the Democratic National Convention is scheduled to begin in Chicago. Earl Blumenauer, Democratic Congressman representing Oregon’s 3rd district, and James Manning, state senator representing Eugene, are among the local delegates heading to the convention. They join us to share their reactions.
Peter Courtney died this week at the age of 81. He was first elected to the Oregon House of Representatives in 1980. He moved to the Senate side in 1999 and became Senate President four years later. Courtney, who grew up in what he liked to call “West by God Virginia,” served for 38 years in the legislature, including a record 20 as the senate president. In an institution that he cared about deeply, he was a kind of institution himself: passionate and bombastic, often dramatic and sometimes dour. We talked to Peter Courtney many times over the last 15 years. We listen back to our conversation with him in January of 2022, soon after he announced he would not be seeking re-election.
Artificial Intelligence is radically changing how we work, learn, play and socialize, from virtual assistants helping organize our day to bots that can score Taylor Swift tickets or write college-level essays. But that vast computing capability may also come at a cost, generating results that are rife with bias if the data that was used to train AI systems is itself biased against or excludes certain groups of people. To counter this issue, we hear about the efforts of two engineering and computer science doctoral students in the Pacific Northwest.
At the University of Washington, Kate Glazko led a team of researchers on a study that found that the popular AI application ChatGPT routinely ranked job seekers lower if their CVs mentioned an award or recognition that implied they had a disability such as autism or blindness. At Oregon State University, Eric Slyman developed computing instructions that can be used to train AI to be less biased against marginalized groups when generating image search results. Slyman and Glazko join us for more details.
Wildfires in the West are becoming more common and severe. Nationwide, national disasters are becoming worse and insurance premiums are rising. In Southern Oregon, residents are seeing spikes in their premiums or are deciding to change insurance companies. One Ashland insurance agent saw a premium on his rental property jump 86%. And for residents in remote, wooded areas, the insurance options are shrinking. We learn more from Juliet Grable, a JPR contributor covering the issue.
Have you ever heard a color, or seen a piece of music? Maybe you’ve tasted a sunset, or felt a particular smell? If so, you might have synesthesia. It’s a phenomenon in which one or more sensory pathways blend in the brain to create a new experience. Researchers aren’t sure how many people have synesthesia, but estimates range from 1 in 200 to 1 in 20 people.
Elizabeth Schwartz is a freelance writer and music historian from Portland; Forest Mountain Lion is a musician from Eugene; and James Duckwell is a career and technical education teacher at Portland’s Roosevelt High School. They all join us to talk about their experiences with synesthesia, along with Mark Stewart, a professor of psychology at Willamette University who studies the phenomenon.
Earlier this year, the Washington state Department of Ecology wrote new rules to regulate methane emissions from landfills that surpass federal emission regulations set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality wrote its own rules in 2021 and has been collecting data from landfills for the last two years. About 30% of today’s global warming is driven by methane. Heather Kuoppamaki, senior environmental engineer at DEQ, joins us to share what we know about methane emissions from Oregon’s landfills.
Oregon conservation groups will sue on behalf of the red tree vole
LONG SYNOPSIS: Four conservation groups including Cascadia Wildlands, the Bird Alliance of Oregon, Oregon Wild and the Center for Biological Diversity, released a notice of intent to sue the US Fish & Wildlife Service in June for failing to protect the red tree vole. The red tree vole is a small, hamster-like species that's native to Oregon’s coastal old growth forests. In 2011, the federal agency determined that the animal's protection was warranted, but didn't extent it endangered or threatened status due to higher priority species. That designation was reviewed and repeated yearly until 2019 when the vole’s protection status was abruptly changed to “not warranted.”
In 2022, the Center for Biological Diversity sued over this decision, which resulted in an agreement to re-assess the species’ protection status. However, in February of 2024, the protection of the red tree vole was again designated as “not warranted.” Noah Greenwald from Center for Biological Diversity joins us to share more about this multi-party lawsuit against the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
About 75 years ago, Jackson Pollock revolutionized the art world with his distinctive style of painting. He would lay the canvas on the floor and with his arms outstretched, pour or drip cans of paint directly onto its surface. The technique invited admirers and detractors alike, along with scandals involving forged canvases turning up decades after his death.
Richard Taylor, a professor of physics, psychology, and art at University of Oregon has been using computers for more than 25 years to analyze Pollock’s paintings and help authenticate canvases of uncertain origin. He recently collaborated with two former UO doctoral students to develop a tool using AI to distinguish between genuine and imitation Pollock paintings with 99% accuracy. Taylor joins us to talk about the recently published results, and the role AI may increasingly play in the art world.
Between 2012 and 2020, new HIV cases were generally declining, according to data from the Oregon Health Authority. But in recent years, the trend is headed in the opposite direction. What’s behind the change? How have attitudes shifted around HIV more recently? We dig into these details with Dean Sidelinger, health officer and state epidemiologist for OHA.
A recent New York Times article shed light on how some fishing communities are grappling with opioid abuse and overdoses in fishing communities. Overdoses at sea are much more difficult to stop than on land. A program founded by Oregon State University in partnership with Oregon Sea Grant called “Fishermen First Aid and Safety Training” (FFAST) trains communities in general first aid including instructions on how to use Narcan, a drug used to rapidly reverse the effects of an opioid overdose. Upon completion of the training, boats are then supplied with a full first aid kit which includes Narcan. Angee Doerr, who works with fishing boats to implement these trainings, joins us to share more.
Portland and Multnomah County have been working together for decades on how to get people experiencing homelessness off the streets and ultimately into permanent housing. Since 2016 that collaboration has taken the form of a Joint Office of Homeless Services. The five-member city commission, three of whom are running for mayor this fall, narrowly approved a new agreement governing that joint office – albeit with some changes. We hear more from Dan Field, the director of the Joint Office of Homeless Services, and Skyler Brocker-Knapp, the director of Portland Solutions, about what the new agreement will mean for people living outside and how it changes how the two governments work together.
The Republican National Convention is underway in Milwaukee. On Monday, Donald Trump picked Ohio senator and author JD Vance as his running mate. Tracy Honl is the RNC national committewoman from Oregon. She joins us with details from the convention.
According to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, veterans have a 57% higher risk of suicide than the general population. But little is known about how that risk differs between men and women. In the first study of its kind, researchers at Oregon Health & Science University followed a group of veterans for roughly a year after a nonfatal suicide attempt. They found that the women who were surveyed reported more social rejection and lower levels of self-compassion than men, suggesting a higher risk of another attempt.
Lauren Denneson is a professor of psychiatry at OHSU and associate director of the Center to Improve Veteran Involvement in Care at the VA Portland Health Care System. She is the lead author of the study and joins us with more details.
Note: If you’re a veteran in crisis or concerned about one, contact the Veterans Crisis Line to receive 24/7 confidential support. To reach responders, dial 988 then press 1, chat online at VeteransCrisisLine.net/Chat, or text 838255.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can call or text 988 to reach the suicide and crisis lifeline. Help is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Earlier this month, a new journal based in Portland launched online with its first set of published scientific articles. But the Stacks Journal isn’t your typical academic journal, according to its founder, David Green, an ecologist who previously worked at OSU’s Institute for Natural Resources. He says that it removes some of the main obstacles associated with traditional academic publishing by being more affordable and available to anyone online. And it offers an alternative to the traditional model of peer review by having reviewers work together to provide feedback on a scientific paper and vote on whether it should be published. The process can be completed in just a few weeks compared to a year or more for an article to be published in a traditional journal.
Green joins us to share more, along with Phoebe Parker-Shames, a wildlife ecologist at The Presidio Trust in San Francisco who recently authored a study published in Stacks Journal about the impact of cannabis cultivation on wildlife in southern Oregon.
In late June, it was announced that the city of Bend was awarded one of 21 grants given out by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development through the Pathways to Removing Obstacles to Housing, also known as PRO Housing initiative. The 21 communities received grants between $1 million and $6.7 million from a pool of $85 million. Bend is the only city in Oregon to receive this grant, which had applicants from over 175 different communities across the country. The PRO Housing grant awardees will use the money to fund programs which identify and remove barriers to affordable housing. Bend received $5 million, half the amount of funding initially asked for, and is in the process of altering the scope of their plan. Mellissa Kamanya, the affordable housing coordinator for the city of Bend, joins us to share more about the grant and next steps.
An exhibit at the Columbia Gorge Museum in Stevenson, Washington, features a collection of quilts made by an enslaved woman and her family, carefully preserved for more than 150 years. The exhibit, titled “Ms. Molly’s Voice: Freedom and Family Spoken in Fabric,” runs through July 31. It’s one of the first times the quilts have been publicly displayed, and one of the first new exhibits the museum has put on in many years.
Jim Tharpe is the caretaker of the quilts, and Louise Palermo is the museum’s executive director. They join us to talk about the significance of this collection and the family history it represents.
Over the last few years, Washington state has funded five “health engagement hubs” to help treat people with fentanyl addictions. The model offers drop-in buprenorphine or methadone at no cost to people suffering from opioid addiction, as well as harm reduction services and other health care. The idea is to make treatment as easy to access as the drugs themselves, says Caleb Banta-Green, a researcher at University of Washington who has championed the model. Washington U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Democrat, has recently introduced a bill in Congress that would fund health engagement hubs through Medicaid. Banta-Green joins us to explain the impact the centers are having in Washington.
In 2016, Nike pledged to cut its global carbon emissions in half. But in the last year, it laid off many of the employees who worked on sustainability. An investigation from ProPublica and the Oregonian found that Nike has managed less than a 2% cut in emissions. We’ll talk to the Rob Davis, investigative reporter at ProPublica, who worked on this story with Matt Kish, reporter at The Oregonian/OregonLive.
Last month, a boys volleyball team from Portland won the 18 and under American division title at the 2024 USA Volleyball Boys Junior National Championship in Dallas, Texas. It’s the second consecutive appearance at the national tournament for the members of the Portland Chaos 18U boys volleyball team who attend high schools in the Portland metro area.
Last year, the Oregon School Activities Association voted to make boys volleyball an “emerging activity,” with roughly 70 high school teams competing in the season that ended this past spring. We hear from Nerisa Laban, the founder, director and coach of the Portland Chaos Volleyball Club and two players on the team: co-captains Given Unwin and Lopaki Laban, who is also Nerisa Laban’s son and winner of the MVP award at the national tournament.
Because there is no constitutional guarantee, every state in the country has different regulations about who is allowed to vote. But in many states, people with intellectual disabilities are denied the right to vote. Paul Collins, an English professor at Portland State University, wonders why his 25 year-old son with Autism Spectrum Disorder can’t vote … or can he? Collins explores this issue in a new article he wrote for The Believer magazine. He joins us to talk about who votes and why it matters.
More than a decade ago, Linn-Benton Community College in Albany took a look at its data for students enrolled in career and technical education programs. What they found was that many students were able to progress through their degree program, but one course in many cases stopped them from completion: math. The school’s math department then began to design courses tailored to specific degree programs. Since 2017, 93% of students in a math course designed for welders have passed the class. Steven Yoder is a freelance journalist who wrote about the trend of more Oregon colleges offering applied math courses. He joins us to share more.
For the past five years, Oregon’s Lines for Life has been running a youth program called Safe Social Spaces. Now an OHSU study published in the journal Psychiatric Services suggests the program may have prevented more than 160 suicide attempts since it began. The program uses social media to find youth struggling with suicidal ideation and provide support through the social media’s direct messaging systems. We hear more from Angie Nielsen, the nonprofit’s YouthLine assistant director of clinical operations who co-authored the study, and gen castle, a social media crisis intervention specialist.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can call or text 9-8-8 to reach the suicide and crisis lifeline or contact the YouthLine. Help is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
It’s been just over a year since Oregon’s first regulated service centers began providing therapeutic psilocybin trips to clients. There are now 29 licensed service centers across the state, as well as 12 manufacturers, two testing labs and more than 300 facilitators who supervise clients during sessions.
Angie Allbee is the manager of the Psilocybin Services Section at the Oregon Health Authority. She joins us with an update on how the first-in-the-nation program is going and its goals for the next year.
Chain stores like Dollar General and Family Dollar have been popping up in eastern Oregon. An opposition group known as No Dollar General has formed to stop the spread of such stores. While Dollar General successfully opened a store in the city of Wallowa recently, the opposition group is still fighting to keep the chain from expanding in the region.
Last month, the Joseph City Council passed an ordinance banning “formula” businesses from operating within city limits. The policy targets stores that have “prescribed standards and features,” such as dollar stores, while allowing for some exemptions. Antonio Sierra, OPB’s rural communities reporter, shares his reporting on this issue.
The Bike Index was started in 2013 and allows people to register bicycles for free and report them when they have been stolen. The nonprofit has helped recover more than 14,000 bikes. Most recently, the group has been tracking an elaborate bike-theft pipeline that leads back to Mexico. It estimates from 2020 to 2024, the theft ring has sold an estimated 654 bikes worth more than $1 million. Bryan Hance is a Portlander and co-founder of the group. He joins us to share more about the Bike Index and what it's uncovered about these thefts.
Oregon is known as the “Grass Seed Capital of the World.” With nearly 1,500 farms in the state, Oregon is a major world producer. But pollen -- including from grass -- in the Willamette Valley leads to Oregonians suffering from allergies through the summer. We dig into the details of this year’s allergy season with Shyam Joshi, an assistant professor of medicine and head of allergy and clinical immunology in the OHSU School of Medicine.
The downtown district in Dallas, Oregon was recently added to the National Register of Historic Places. Dallas has also worked with Oregon Main Street, a program that helps cities across the state with revitalization efforts in their communities. We learn more about the work Dallas and other cities have been doing from Brian Dalton, a former Dallas mayor and Sheri Stuart, Oregon Main Street coordinator.
With the Olympic trials wrapping up and the Paris competition on the horizon, sports are top of mind for many people this summer. The pressures of athletic performance will once again be on full display for the world, sparking conversations about athletes’ physical – and mental – prowess. The conversation around athletes and mental well-being has only grown over the past few years as high-profile athletes like Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka have taken breaks to focus on their mental health.
Oregon therapists Tiffany Brown and Katie Steele focus specifically on this issue. Their podcast “Sports Shrinks” digs into the different ways competition can impact athletes’ mental health. They also recently co-authored their first book, “The Price She Pays: Confronting the Hidden Mental Health Crisis in Women’s Sports — from the Schoolyard to the Stadium.”
Brown and Steele join us to talk more about their projects and the importance of mental health care at all levels of sport, from youth programs to professional athletics.
Necroarchivos de las Americas: An Unrelenting Search for Justice is a group exhibition on display at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon in Eugene. The exhibition features art that examines political violence. We learn more about the exhibit and the artists behind the work from Adriana Miramontes Olivas, curator of academic programs and Latin American and Caribbean art at the museum.
Author Nicole Chung was born to Korean immigrants in Seattle and later adopted by a white couple in Southern Oregon. The 2018 memoir “All You Can Ever Know” follows Chung’s exploration of her identity as a transracial adoptee as she searches for her birth family. Her second memoir, released earlier this month, covers the untimely deaths of her adoptive parents — first her father from kidney disease, then her mother from cancer in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. “A Living Remedy” chronicles Chung’s grief and rage as she reckons with ways financial instability and inadequate health care access contributed to her parents’ deaths.
The Cedar Grove apartments in Beaverton were created by Community Partners for Affordable Housing, or CPAH. The nonprofit has been working to create homes that Oregonians can actually afford to live in for 30 years now. This is part of a series of conversations we’re having this year about some of the biggest problems Oregon is facing, along with possible solutions.
More than half of renters in Oregon don’t have enough money after they pay rent to be able to afford basics like food, child care or transportation. Meanwhile, Oregon is among the states with the lowest supply of rentals that are affordable to people who are at or below poverty levels. As a state economist put it, “We have the worst affordability” in the nation.
We were joined by CPAH staff: Executive Director Rachael Duke; Housing Director Jilian Saurage Felton; and Resident Services Coordinator Renee Sheets Johnson. We also heard from neighbors and residents of Cedar Grove and other residents of CPAH properties, including Talaur Alvarado, Patrick Kirlin, Virginia Bruce, Paula Morrison, Mary Barbee and Jeffrey Worthington.
"On The Road" is "Think Out Loud's" radio road trip series: conversations with wanderers, tourists and residents along Oregon's back roads and highways. In this trip, we traveled through the sparsely populated corner of Southeast Oregon from Fruitland, Idaho, to McDermitt, Nevada. We met rodeo riders, rafters, ranchers, and rock hounds – among others.
Ann Patchett’s novel "Tom Lake," is set during the pandemic, but it is also set in the past. The main character, a mother of three adult daughters, tells her children the story of her own youthful romance with a man who is now a famous movie star. The story is told over long days picking cherries on their family farm, where everyone has gathered together for the lockdown. Though the central story revolves around the mercurial movie star, the real focus of the book is the relationship between mothers and daughters, the lives that parents led before they were parents, and what the stories of our past tell us about ourselves. We talked to Ann Patchett in August, 2023.
Doctor Carlos Sanchez has an unusual and challenging caseload of patients. For one thing, they have scales, feathers, horns and fur, and can’t really say where it hurts. But it’s his job to oversee the medical care and treatment of more than a thousand animals as the head veterinarian at Portland’s Oregon Zoo. In our latest installment in our series on professions, we accompany Dr. Sanchez as he makes his daily rounds to check up on some of his favorite patients. He shares with us the special bond he has with them, the invaluable role zoo keepers play in their wellbeing and the fateful encounter he had as a young boy in Mexico City that would forever change his life
For the fourth year in a row, nonprofit theater Kickstand Comedy is hosting a series of free stand-up comedy nights in Portland’s Laurelhurst Park Friday evenings for the entire summer. The first outdoor event was held by necessity in the pandemic and began with a small crowd of less than 100 people. But word has spread, and as pandemic has subsided, crowds have grown and shows now typically draw around 3,000 or more.
Since it began 10 years ago, the theater has offered a broad array of classes, including improv, sketch comedy and stand up. We’ll get a preview of the upcoming shows from Dylan Reiff, co-founder and artistic director of Kickstand Comedy and Julia Corral, a comic, teacher and one the co-hosts of the series.
There are roughly 500 Southern Baptist churches in the Pacific Northwest, accounting for more than 44,000 members. At its annual meeting last month, the Southern Baptist Convention considered an amendment to ban women from being pastors. It ultimately didn’t meet the two-thirds majority it needed to pass, but it still had support from more than 60% of delegates. At the same meeting, delegates passed a resolution opposing the use of in vitro fertilization.
Susan Shaw is an ordained Southern Baptist pastor and a professor of women, gender and sexuality studies at Oregon State University. She joins us to talk more about these changes and the role of women in the church.
On Thursday morning, a semi-truck hauling an excavator caused severe damage to the Hood River-White Salmon bridge when an excavator it was hauling struck the lift span above the traffic lanes. The Port of Hood River immediately closed the nearly mile-long bridge spanning the Columbia River until “further notice.” No injuries were reported at the time of the accident. Engineering crews are continuing to assess the damage to the 100-year-old bridge and will provide an update about its status after a meeting scheduled for 1 p.m. Friday, according to Kevin Greenwood, director of the Port of Hood River. Officials have advised motorists to find alternative routes, including The Bridge of the Gods in Cascade Locks and The Dalles Bridge. Greenwood joins us to talk about the latest developments, along with White Salmon Mayor Marla Keethler, who shares the impact of the closure on residents in the Columbia Gorge.
In April, United States Supreme Court Justices heard arguments in one of the most widely watched cases out of Oregon in recent memory. The question at the heart of Grants Pass v Johnson was whether cities can regulate where and when people can sleep outside, especially if there isn’t shelter space available.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals had held that the city’s ordinance was in violation of the basic principle established in Martin v. Boise from 2018: “A person cannot be prosecuted for involuntary conduct if it is an unavoidable consequence of one’s status.”
But on Friday the Supreme Court issued its ruling siding with Grants Pass, saying that it is not cruel or unusual punishment to penalize people from living outdoors even if they have nowhere else to go.
We get reaction and analysis from Grants Pass Mayor Sara Bristol and Sara Rankin, associate professor at Seattle University School of Law and the director of the Homeless Rights Advocacy Project.
A population of gray whales that feed off the Oregon coast have been shrinking in size over the last 20 years. New research from Oregon State University shows that whales born in 2020 grew to be more than 13% shorter than whales born before 2000. The shrinkage could bring significant reproductive health challenges for the whales, and could also be a warning sign about the health of the broader ecosystem.
K.C. Bierlich is an assistant professor of senior research at OSU’s Marine Mammal Institute. He joins us with more details.
Oregon’s foster care class action lawsuit against the state's Department of Human Services was settled in May after five years. But the improvements to the foster care system agreed in the settlement couldn’t move forward until a “neutral” was chosen to oversee the system. This week the court picked outside expert Kevin Ryan to oversee the changes. He previously played a similar role in child welfare cases in Texas, Michigan and Oklahoma, and also served as New Jersey’s first State Child Advocate.
We talk with Fariborz Pakseresht, director of the Oregon Department of Human Services and Aprille Flint-Gerner, director of Child Welfare. They discuss the settlement and what they think this will mean for foster children and youth in Oregon.
In November 2016, Oregon voters overwhelmingly approved Measure 98, also known as the High School Success fund. It provides targeted state funds in three core areas: dropout prevention, career and technical education and college readiness. High schools across the state can apply to access Measure 98 funds by developing individual plans on how those dollars will get used to boost graduation rates among students at risk for dropping out, for example, or provide CTE courses. Stand for Children, a nonprofit that helped write Measure 98 and campaigned for its passage, credits it with helping raise graduation rates, especially for students of color and from low-income households. OPB’s education reporters Liz Miller and Natalie Pate join us to share their recent reporting on Measure 98’s impact and its future.
Hayward Field is once again hosting the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials in Eugene which end on Sunday. The nation’s best sprinters, hurdlers, javelin throwers and more are competing for a shot to qualify for the summer games which kick off next month in Paris. Among those who’ve already punched their tickets is Ryan Crouser, an Oregonian and two-time gold medalist who finished first in the men’s shot put final on Saturday night. Also competing is fellow Oregonian Jaida Ross, a University of Oregon junior who was named the 2024 National Women’s Field Athlete of the Year earlier this month after she became the first collegiate woman to throw the shot put more than 20 meters. Joining us to discuss the key developments so far at Hayward Field is Sarah Lorge Butler, a contributing writer for Runner’s World who is based in Eugene.
Summer is here, and people are kicking it off by getting out into nature. But those in communities of color can often feel excluded from natural spaces and from participating in activities like hiking and camping. People of Color Outdoors (POCO) is a local nonprofit that works to build community in the Portland area through outdoor excursions. It’s recently received multiple grants to continue this work and is kicking off birding programs with the Bird Alliance of Oregon. POCO is also featured in a film that’s part of an exhibit at the Tillamook Forest Center and an upcoming Oregon Field Guide piece. Pamela Slaughter is the executive director and founder of POCO. She joins us to talk more about the organization’s mission and recent initiatives.
Washington is just one of many states that makes an assault on a health care worker a felony offense, but recent reporting from the Marshall Project and the Seattle Times found that this law is disproportionately affecting those in a mental crisis. From 2018 to 2022, there were 151 cases of felony assault on a health care worker in King County. A little more than three-quarters of those cases involved someone experiencing symptoms of a mental illness. Oregon has tried to pass a similar law, but these attempts have failed. Christie Thompson is a staff writer for the Marshall Project. She joins us to share more.
Although the City of Portland passed a fireworks ban in March of 2022, Portland Fire & Rescue is preparing for a potential increase in fires started by personal fireworks this Fourth of July. Reporting by Willamette Week found that although the number of fires caused by fireworks dipped during the year the ban was enacted, the number of fireworks-related fires increased by 33% in 2023 compared with 2022. The fire department continues to urge people to obey the ban and celebrate the holiday in alternative ways. Rick Graves, a firefighter and spokesperson for Portland Fire & Rescue joins us to share more about the risks of using personal fireworks on the Fourth of July.
Fire departments across Oregon are facing staffing shortages as veteran firefighters retire and volunteer numbers drop. But the Oregon Fire Apprenticeship program has been helping departments bring in more candidates with diverse backgrounds. The apprenticeship pays a minimum salary of $3,800 a month and covers the cost of the five community college classes required for training. The program has been running in Eugene-Springfield and Clackamas, Jackson and Klamath counties. With a new round of state funding, it recently expanded to Corvallis, Coos Bay and Umatilla County.
Karl Koenig is president of the Oregon State Fire Fighters Council. Ari Bakoss is a former apprentice and current firefighter and EMT at Clackamas Fire. They both join us to talk about the program and the difference it’s making for aspiring firefighters.
Outdoor recreation generates around $7.5 billion in Oregon, according to the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable. Some of our most popular industries include boating, tent camping, hiking and climbing. But while the industry generates more than 70,000 jobs in the state, some of these workers face dangers that go beyond just natural elements.
As reported in the New York Times, women are reporting more abuse and sexual harassment in climbing. In 2018, a survey of over 5,000 climbers found that 47% of women and 16% of men faced unwanted sexual behavior while climbing. Respect Outside was founded in 2019 by Gina McClard and Jim Miller in Bend. Together they help provide trainigs, policies and procedures to help prevent sexual harassment and discrimination in outdoor spaces. They join us to share more.
The latest data made available by the USDA Census of Agriculture show that the value of Oregon farmland has increased by 23% over a five-year period, compared with just 7% nationally. Dan Bigelow is an assistant professor in the department of Applied Economics at Oregon State University. He’s been analyzing this census data to create a fuller picture of Oregon farmland, including who agricultural producers are, the size and sales of the farms and their estimated land values. He joins us to share his interpretation of what these numbers mean for the overall availability of farmland for agricultural use in the future.
Renée Watson has topped bestseller lists and won multiple awards for her children’s and young adult literature. But the author, who splits her time between Portland and New York City, recently released “skin & bones,” her first book for adults. The story follows 40-year-old Lena Baker as she navigates dating, fat-shaming, friendship and motherhood while also working to bring Oregon’s Black history to the general public. The book also deals with grief, faith and the things we pass from one generation to the next. Watson joins us in the studio to talk more about her adult fiction debut.
King City, Oregon began as a community for older adults in the 1960s. While the area was once an age-restricted community, the demographics of the region are starting to change. As King City expands, leaders have to navigate managing growth amid pushback from some residents. We check in on what’s next for the region with city manager Mike Weston.
Oregon’s urban and community forestry program has grown significantly over the last few years thanks to an influx of state and federal funding. The program’s staff has more than tripled, and it recently received nearly $27 million in federal funding through the Inflation Reduction Act. $10 million of that is earmarked for grants to Oregon’s nine federally recognized tribes, and $12.5 million will go to communities and organizations across the state to help with tree planting and maintenance.
Scott Altenhoff is the urban and community forestry assistance program manager for the Oregon Department of Forestry. He joins us to talk about what those opportunities could mean for the state’s urban forests.
The city of Portland’s Safe Rest Village in the Southwest Multnomah Village neighborhood is one of two city run shelters that’s set to significantly expand capacity. The Multnomah Safe Rest Village, which opened in June 2022, will go from 28 units to 100. Volunteer groups like Southwest Outreach and Clean Camp PDX have been working for years to support the people they call their houseless neighbors. One of the key pieces of successfully integrating such a shelter into a neighborhood of concerned and housed residents is what’s known as a Good Neighbor Agreement. The Multnomah Village agreement has been years in the making and was just finalized Thursday. We hear from Sandy Stienecker with Southwest Outreach, Will Denecke with Clean Camps PDX and Laudie Porter, the community engagement coordinator on the city’s Shelter Services Team.
It’s been two years since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Supreme Court decision that overturned the constitutional right to an abortion in the U.S. Since then, 14 states have instituted full bans on the procedure. Now new research shows that states with these bans are seeing fewer residency applications from medical students. Katie Hansen is an administrative chief resident at Oregon Health & Science University. Ian Field is an OB/GYN and the program director for OHSU's OB/GYN residency program. They both join us to share the impact the Dobbs decision has had on schools, communities and healthcare.
Earlier this month, the U.S. national cricket team defeated Pakistan during a match at the Men’s T20 World Cup. It was a stunning upset and impressive victory for Team USA’s first outing at the World Cup cricket tournament, as the team continues to defy expectations by advancing to the quarterfinals.
The international tournament is also being played on U.S. soil for the first time, a reflection of the sport’s growing popularity here. There’s also now a U.S. major league of cricket with six professional teams, including the Seattle Orcas, kicking off their second season next month. As reported recently by Axios, the Pacific Northwest has been a hub for cricket enthusiasts, thanks to the efforts of amateur cricket leagues in Seattle and Portland that have been organizing games and tournaments among teams for nearly 30 years. Joining us to talk about cricket and its growth in our region is Srini Ramakrishna, the secretary and treasurer of the Portland Metro Open Cricket League, and Satish Naik, the secretary of the Northwest Cricket League and the coordinator of the Seattle region for USA Cricket.
Smallmouth bass can be found in rivers throughout Oregon. The fish is an invasive species and has a big appetite for salmon smolt. Smallmouth bass have been disturbing ecosystems and compete with other species for food and habitat. The Native Fish Society will host two events on Saturday to raise awareness about the problem. The “bass bashes” will happen on the Molalla River and the Umpqua River. Attendees are encouraged to catch as many smallmouth bass as they can, and the event includes a cookout full of the freshly caught fish. Kirk Blaine and Liz Perkin are the southern and northern Oregon coordinators, respectively, of the Native Fish Society. They join us with more details about the smallmouth bass and the events.
Five years ago, the Oregon state legislature passed a bill declaring missing Native American women a statewide emergency. The bill also authorized an investigation into the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people, and the release of a report containing recommendations to more effectively respond to it. But as reporting from InvestigateWest reveals, Indigenous activists are frustrated by the lack of progress and a lack of direct engagement by law enforcement with their communities on this issue. Meanwhile, obstacles can exist around filing reports of missing Indigenous persons and sharing information across state, federal and Tribal jurisdictions. Melanie Henshaw, the Indigenous Affairs reporter at InvestigateWest, joins us to share details of her investigation.
Brit Bennett’s book The Vanishing Half was on a lot of best-of lists in 2020. Though spanning the second half of the 20th century, the novel speaks to questions about race and identity that have been central to national conversations for the last two years. In that novel and her other writing, Bennett deals with the bonds of family, the importance of storytelling, and nature of identity. We spoke to Bennett about her essays and novels in front of an audience of students at Grant High School in Portland in 2021.
Daniel Gibbs dedicated his career as a neurologist to the study of Alzheimer’s and care for patients living with the disease. Then he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s himself. Gibbs says that early diagnosis has allowed him to slow the progression of the disease through diet, exercise and other treatment. A documentary based on the book he wrote about his experience, “Tattoo on my Brain,” is airing on June 22 at OHSU. Gibbs and his wife, Louis Seed, join us to talk about living with Alzheimer’s.
The Oregon Department of Education released its first statewide plan for computer science education late last year. The chief goal is for all K-12 public schools to offer some level of computer science classes by the 2027-28 school year. The plan received some initial funding through the governor’s office, but has yet to receive long-term funding from the state Legislature.
Joanna Goode is the Sommerville Knight Professor in the University of Oregon College of Education. She helped create Exploring Computer Science, a curriculum and professional development program used in schools across the country. She joins us to talk about the work computer science teachers are already doing in Oregon and what it would take to make the state’s plan a reality.
Nurses in six Providence hospitals around Oregon are going on a 3-day strike at the same time. It’s the largest such nursing strike in Oregon history. Each of the six different bargaining units are negotiating with their employer separately but they say their issues are similar across the board, including staffing ratios and levels and benefits and overall compensation. We hear from Anne Tan Piazza, executive director of the Oregon Nurses Association, and Jennifer Gentry, chief nursing officer for Providence.
Mitzi Asai Loftus was in elementary school when President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Executive Order No. 9066 sent people of Japanese descent – many of them U.S. citizens – from their homes to “relocation centers,” resulting in the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Asai Loftus was born in Hood River on a fruit orchard and spent years of her childhood in the government camps. After leaving the camps, her family returned to Hood River. Asai Loftus spent much of her adult life in Eugene and Coos Bay and now lives in Ashland. She joins us with details of her experiences and her book, “From Thorns to Blossoms: A Japanese American Family in War and Peace.”
Salem resident Bobby Brown was killed in a shootout with city police in 2022 when he was just 16 years old. As reported in a recent three-part profile published by the Salem Reporter, Brown's birth mother used methamphetamines. When he was born he went into withdrawals and was immediately placed into foster care. He was adopted when he was 4, and later struggled with substance abuse and mental illness, despite repeated efforts by his adopted family to get him help. Reporter Ardeshir Tabrizian joins us to tell us more about Brown's life and how it reflects the gaps in Oregon’s social safety net and mental health treatment system.
It’s been a year since the first licensed psilocybin service centers in Oregon opened – facilities where people 21 and older can legally ingest psychedelic mushrooms in a supervised, therapeutic setting. Oregon became the first state in the nation to approve and regulate the use of psilocybin through a legal framework set up and administered by the Oregon Health Authority. The agency has currently awarded licenses to 28 psilocybin service centers which continue to face regulatory and economic headwinds.
According to recent reporting in the Capital Chronicle, entrepreneurs are struggling with getting customers through the door, given state restrictions around using social media to advertise and waning interest since the market opened last year. The Oregon Health Authority is also threatening to revoke approval for a school in Ashland that is claiming religious exemption from state rules around the training of facilitators who supervise clients during their psychedelic trips. In March, OPB reported on the closure of the Synthesis Institute, a psilocybin training program that declared bankruptcy after charging students thousands of dollars for its curriculum. Joining us to talk about the state of the legal psilocybin industry in Oregon is freelance journalist Grant Stringer.
University of Oregon and University of California, Davis students were blamed for leaving a large mess at Shasta Lake in California over Memorial Day weekend. In Oregon, the Fourth of July is a busy day for parks throughout the state and 2023 was a near-record breaking year for visits.
More guests, however, typically means more trash left behind, and workers spending hours of their day picking up after visitors.
John Mullen is a park manager for the Southern Willamette Management Unit for the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department. Eric Crum is a North Coast District beach ranger for the agency. They join us with details of their experiences and what they hope to see in the future from park visitors.
Former Oregon Gov. Neil Goldschmidt, one of the state’s most powerful figures before revelations that he had sexually abused a teen, died Wednesday at the age of 83. Goldschmidt’s abuse was hidden for nearly 30 years until it was broken by Nigel Jaquiss at Willamette Week after a long, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation. Jaquiss joins us to reflect on that reporting, and on Goldschmidt’s legacy.
Organizers of Portland’s World Naked Bike Ride have announced that they will take a year off from programming the massive ride this year. The army of volunteers who put on the ride say they need time to make sure that the event is better, safer, and easier to plan in the future. We talk to Meghan Sinnott, longtime organizer of the ride, about the decision and the future of naked bike riding in Portland.
Looking at the history of psychological operations, “Stories Are Weapons: Psychological Warfare and the American Mind” is the latest book by author and journalist Annalee Newitz. It explores misinformation, propaganda and how the stories we hear can manipulate us. The book also features a chapter on the work the Coquille Indian Tribe has done to undo damage these operations did to some Oregon tribes in the past. Newitz spoke in front of an audience with “Think Out Loud” host Dave Miller at a Powell’s Books event on June 4.
Coastal martens, also known as Humboldt martens, are small, catlike members of the weasel family that live in the coastal forests of Oregon and northern California. The animals were thought to be extinct due to logging and trapping, but were rediscovered in northern California in the 1990s. Today, there are only about 400 coastal martens left in the wild, living in four isolated communities. The animals were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 2020, and just last month received federal habitat protections after a petition from the Center for Biological Diversity. The conservation group also recently sued the U.S. Forest Service to enforce habitat protections for martens in the Oregon Dunes.
Tierra Curry is a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. She joins us to talk more about the coastal marten and efforts to protect it.
Global climate change is warming oceans, melting polar ice and causing sea levels to rise around the world. Scientists predict that in the next 80 years, waters will rise at least 3 feet, but that a rise of more than 6 feet cannot be ruled out. That level of increase would submerge small islands in the Columbia River and leave much of Sauvie Island underwater as well. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has released a new mapping tool that helps people visualize various levels of sea level rise around Oregon. Jonathan Allan is a coastal geologist with the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries. He joins us to discuss how sea level rise is already impacting Oregon.
NOAA recently released a seasonal outlook that shows much of the United States will likely experience a hotter than usual summer, including in Oregon. And, last year was already the hottest summer on record. What role is climate change playing in the seasonal outlook? How might they look different moving forward? We dig into these issues with Dan Collins, a meteorologist with the Climate Prediction Center.
The two new leaders of Oregon’s Planned Parenthood affiliates are pushing to dissolve the political arm of their organization in a move that has blindsided some long-time advocates and has them worried about the future of reproductive rights in the state. Oregon has two Planned Parenthood affiliates. They provide reproductive health care, including abortion access, but do not engage in political work such as lobbying or campaigns. Last week, the leaders of those two affiliates sent a letter to the two groups’ political advocacy arm. They informed the lobbying group’s governing board that they plan to dissolve Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon and restructure the organization to focus more on “health care and advocating for the needs of the Planned Parenthood affiliates and their patients.” Lauren Dake, OPB political reporter, joins us to talk about the rift in the organization.
According to Credence Research, the U.S. plus-size women’s clothing market is expected to be worth over $101 billion by 2032. But at the same time, within the past few years the market has faced challenges with major retailers like Old Navy and the LOFT scaling back on its sizes. Why do retailers struggle to meet the needs of plus-size clientele, and what does it take to make plus-size clothing consumers want? To answer these questions and more we’re joined by Claire Doody. She is the owner and designer of Copper Union, a Portland-based plus-size fashion line. We’ll also hear from Kelsey Conser, the owner of I Want Seconds, a plus-size focused thrift store in Portland that recently celebrated its one-year anniversary.
Douglas firs, hemlocks and ponderosa pines probably feel like fundamental parts of Oregon’s natural forests. In fact there are people working across the state to breed better versions of those trees to be more resistant to insects, diseases and climate change. Don Kaczmarek, a forest geneticist for the Oregon Department of Forestry, joins us to talk about his work breeding trees, and producing seeds for the state’s forests and seed banks.
Last month, a 5-story commercial building in Portland’s Old Town historic district was awarded one of the most rigorous sustainability certifications in the world, given by the Portland-based International Living Futures Institute. There are only three dozen certified Living Buildings in the world, and the Portland building is the first commercial one to achieve it. Living Buildings must meet a range of strict requirements, from the design to operation. That includes using renewables like solar power to generate at least 5% more energy than is needed and harvesting rainwater to supply all the water for drinking and other uses.
The PAE Living Building at SW Pine and 1st Ave. not only met these standards but went one step further by being engineered to last at least 500 years to withstand a massive Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake. Kathy Berg is an architect and partner at ZGF Architects and the project lead. Paul Schwer is the president emeritus of PAE, an engineering firm that co-owns, along with ZGF Architects, the PAE Living Building and is headquartered inside it. They join us to talk about their collaboration on the space, and why they hope it could be a model for commercial developments elsewhere.
State lawmakers are traveling across Oregon to host meetings about transportation issues. The Legislature’s Joint Committee on Transportation has kicked off a 12-stop tour to hear perspectives on the state’s transportation system and the challenges it faces. Lawmakers will use information from the tour to craft Oregon’s next transportation package in the 2025 legislative session. Julia Shumway recently reported on this issue for the Oregon Capital Chronicle and joins us with details.
The federal COVID-19 emergency declaration, which expanded Medicaid coverage, officially ended last spring. Since then, state agencies that oversee Medicaid have been updating their eligibility rosters and disenrolling patients who no longer qualify. While some patients were determined ineligible, the vast majority were disenrolled for administrative reasons such as incomplete applications, incorrect paperwork and missed renewal notices.
A recent study from Oregon Health & Science University found that Black and Hispanic patients were twice as likely to lose coverage for those reasons than white patients. Jane Zhu is an associate professor of medicine at OHSU and one of the study’s authors. She joins us with more details.
Salem is far from the only Oregon city to be struggling with balancing its budget amid rising costs and declining revenues. Leaders cite property tax limits, the end of pandemic aid money and inflation rates, among other factors. But as a capital city, it’s one that gets more attention than others. Earlier this year, Salem city residents reacted overwhelmingly negatively to big proposed cuts to the library to attempt to address the shortfall. Those cuts were restored as a result - for now.
The city’s standing Budget Committee will present its recommendations to the city council during its meeting Monday evening, where time for public comment will be provided as well. We hear more details from Irvin Brown, the chair of that committee, which includes the mayor and all the members of the volunteer city council, as well as nine appointed community members. Brown has been serving as a community member, but in May he won a seat on the city council and will take that office in January.
In October 2022, Grant County Sheriff Todd McKinley arrested Ricky Snodgrass, a U.S. Forest Service employee who was leading a prescribed burn that jumped to private land and burned roughly 20 acres. In February of this year, a grand jury indicted Snodgrass on a misdemeanor count of reckless burning. His case was then moved to federal court, where it was dismissed last week. The case was a particularly striking example of longstanding tensions between federal agencies and local communities in rural Oregon.
Conrad Wilson is a reporter covering criminal justice and legal affairs for OPB. He joins us with more details on the case.
Last month, the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office had a swearing-in ceremony for Burton, a new member on its force. He won’t, however, be apprehending suspected criminals, working on investigations or responding to requests for back-up. But the help he will provide is just as valuable, albeit in a different way, to deputies and the communities they serve.
Burton is the department’s first comfort dog. His handler, Deputy Kerri Oman, takes the 85-pound, longhaired German Shepherd to comfort victims of trauma or to community events where his vest encourages people to pet him, unlike most police canines. Burton is also in high demand among Multnomah County deputies and first responders to ease the stress and emotional toll of their jobs. Deputy Oman and Burton join us to share more, along with Darin Campbell, the executive director of Working Dogs Oregon, a nonprofit whose services include training and donating dogs, including Burton, to law enforcement agencies in Oregon.
Since the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, Israel's retaliatory air and ground military response has left Gaza in ruins. Less than a third of the hospitals there are intact and operating at even a diminished capacity. As Beaverton doctor Ahmed Ebeid put it after he returned from a volunteer trip to the region, people are dying from war wounds even if they make it to a clinic or hospital due to a lack of capacity, medicine and basic medical supplies like gauze and surgical gloves. We talk with Ebeid, who returned in April from his second volunteer trip to Gaza this year, along with Arnaud Queim, the Middle East regional director for Portland-based Mercy Corps.
In April, members of the Columbia Gorge Fruit Growers Association gave testimony at a Wasco County Commissioners meeting over potential rule changes to Oregon’s agricultural labor housing standards. The growers claim many of the changes are too costly to implement and unrelated to health and safety. Columbia Gorge News recently reported on the meeting amid the yearslong effort by the Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Division to update agricultural labor housing rules, some of which haven’t changed in nearly four decades.
Also in April, a coalition of labor unions, racial justice and farmworker advocacy groups sent a letter to Gov. Tina Kotek and the Oregon OSHA administrator expressing their disappointment in what they characterized as a “lack of priority” given to improving the “alarmingly outdated” labor housing standards. Aileen Hymas, a freelance journalist based in Southern Oregon, joins us to share more
According to the latest economic forecast, Oregon’s economy is steady. But at the same time, state economists say that job growth over the past few years has been at some of the state’s lowest levels in recent history. The forecast also found that there is a 50% chance for Oregonians to see another kicker in 2026. Josh Lehner interim state economist for Oregon. He joins us with more.
The Sisters Rodeo has begun. The event will last through June 9 and features multiple performances and a parade. Next month, St. Paul will host its rodeo over the 4th of July. The rodeos have run for more than 80 years and host thousands of spectators in their rural communities. We hear more about the events from Brian Greig, the director of sponsorships and marketing for the Sisters Rodeo Association and Karen McKillip, the general manager for the St. Paul Rodeo.
Floating offshore wind projects are slowly moving forward off the coasts of California and Southern Oregon. The projects could power millions of homes, but they’ve also raised concerns from tribal governments, environmental organizations and the commercial fishing industry. The Pacific Offshore Wind Consortium aims to address some of those questions. Made up of centers at Oregon State University, Cal Poly Humboldt and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, the consortium will conduct research and provide public information about offshore wind on the West Coast.
Bryson Robertson is the director of the Pacific Marine Energy Center and a professor of civil and construction engineering at OSU. He joins us with more details about the effort.
We’re taking a deep dive into people’s work lives. We want to learn what it takes to do different jobs and how these professions change us.
On the latest installment of our series, we visit Freeland Spirits in Portland, which is owned and run by women. Master Distiller Molly Troupe creates spirits, like gin and whiskey. She takes us behind the scenes and shares more about her craft and the rye whiskey—grown and distilled in Oregon—that Freeland recently released.
The Pamplin Media Group announced Monday that the Portland Tribune and more than two dozen of its other local newspapers in Oregon had been sold to Mississippi-based Carpenter Media Group. As reported in Willamette Week, Ross Island Sand & Gravel, part of R.B. Pamplin Corp., has been under fire for its failure to refill the cavernous hole it dug while mining the Willamette River bottom from 1926 to 2001. The R.B. Pamplin Corp., which has a variety of business holdings, had been struggling financially for some time.
On the same day, EO Media Group, which runs 15 family-owned newspapers from Enterprise to Astoria, announced it would be cutting staff and looking into new ownership. We discuss these developments and their possible implications with Brent Walth, a long time investigative reporter who now teaches journalism and runs the Catalyst program at the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism
Since 2007, the Oregon Game Project Challenge teaches middle and high school students in Oregon how to go from video game players, to developers in a year long competition. Every season a new theme is announced and competitors have the entire school year to develop a video game from start to finish, including coding, art and sound design. This year's competition was in mid-May, and the team Toast Lads from Century High School won best in show for their game, MARK3T M3TAL. Jason Pelkey is their team lead and a senior at CHS. Andrew Scholar is the director of the Oregon Game Project Challenge. They join us to share more on this year's competition.
There’s a new entry in Portland’s art scene. But it’s not your typical exhibit or art show where the canvases or sculptures are carefully curated and displayed to be enjoyed from a respectful distance. Instead, Fathom is an underwater-themed immersive art experience abounding with opportunities for interaction, whether it’s the 21-foot-long, animatronic humpback whale that sings at the touch of a button, glowing treasure chests, a room of infinity mirrors to get lost in or a giant, illuminated clam to lounge inside of.
More than 30 artists worked on Fathom, led by Roboto Octopodo, an artist collective that was launched by the same creative team behind the Portland Winter Light Festival. Tickets can be purchased online to attend the show which is open three days a week through October. Joining us to talk about Fathom and the growing appeal of immersive art experiences is Tyler FuQua, a co-founder of Roboto Octopodo and Oregon City artist who makes large-scale installation artworks.
In December 2023, news broke thata nurse at Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center reportedly stole fentanyl from patients in the intensive care unit, by replacing their IV medication with tap water. This wasn’t the first time narcotics were stolen by an employee at the hospital, and it isn’t the only hospital in Oregon where this is happening. Poor data collection and oversight makes drug diversions hard to track among local, state and federal agencies. Kaylee Tornay is a reporter for InvestigateWest. She joins us with more.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Oregon Department of Agriculture recently announced the closure of shellfish harvesting throughout the entire Oregon coast.
In Washington, officials have also closed shellfish harvesting throughout the state’s Pacific Coast.
Agencies are checking for a marine biotoxin which can cause paralytic shellfish poisoning. The naturally occurring biotoxin affects the nervous system. People with paralytic shellfish poisoning can experience tingling of the lips and tongue, nausea and difficulty breathing.
The illness has been linked to the sickening of at least 20 people in Oregon last month. The Oregon Health Authority is also asking people who recently harvested or ate any shellfish from the Oregon Coast to complete a survey. Officials are investigating illnesses linked to contaminated shellfish.
We learn more about biotoxins and how climate change might be affecting algae that produce them from Vera Trainer, the marine program manager of the University of Washington’s Olympic Natural Resources Center.
When you think of wetlands, you
probably think of marshy areas around lakes and rivers. But there are also
wetlands in the damp forests of the Pacific Northwest. And those wetlands can
be very important for storing carbon and helping to slow climate change.
Researchers in Washington are mapping the forested wetlands of the West.
Natalia Mesa, Editorial Fellow for High Country News, joins us to talk about
the effort, and the importance of wetlands, which she recently wrote about.
Iron is one of the cheapest and most abundant metals on the planet, unlike nickel and cobalt, which are used in lithium-ion batteries to power electric vehicles, and ubiquitous devices, from mobile phones to laptops. Oregon State University chemistry researcher Xiulei “David” Ji is an author of a new study that shows iron can be used to replace metals that are scarce, expensive and can be environmentally damaging to extract. He hopes this technology will be the spark for a green battery technological evolution that could aid the switch from fossil fuels to electricity. We talk with Ji about the importance of green batteries, and the development of a new generation of lithium-ion batteries using iron. what’s next in developing a widely commercially available lithium-ion battery using iron.
Since 2006, more than 52,000 police guns were used in crimes across the U.S. In many cases, these weapons ended up in the hands of the general public in completely legal ways. Law enforcement agencies, including the Oregon State Police and the Portland Police Bureau, have sold or traded-in their firearms to gun stores or manufacturers in order to obtain newer models. Chris Hacker is an investigative data reporter with CBS News who reported on this trend in collaboration with The Trace and Reveal. He joins us to share more on their reporting.
Two years ago, a Portland Jewish family’s home was destroyed in an arson. As they got rid of all their burned belongings, the one thing they couldn’t bear to do was toss out with the rest of the burned remains a 100 year-old Steinway grand piano that had belonged to “Grandma Bess.” Much of it was intact, though not restorable. They reached out to musicians and artists and ultimately found their way to Jennifer Wright. She’s a classical pianist by training, a composer and a sound artist who works with found instruments and other objects.
The family, who wants to keep their identity private, worked with Wright over the next two
years on turning the grand piano into a mixed media exhibit, including a newly formed glass piano and textile art made with the burned strings. In a statement that is included in the exhibit, the family wrote: “Seeing the piano transformed from a burned and destroyed object into the foundations of new instruments, furniture, art, beauty, and community awareness is a balm for the wounds of waste and loss. … Finding connectedness is an antidote to hate.”
We visit the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education to talk with Jennifer Wright and OJMCHE director Rebekha Sobel.
A bike garden in Vancouver will have its grand opening next month. Also known as traffic gardens, these types of spaces help children and adults practice bike and road safety in a controlled environment. Will Grimm is the lead design and project manager for the Heights Bike Garden. Fionnuala Quinn is the director of Discover Traffic Gardens and consulted on the project. They join us with details.
The Vancouver Master Chorale is in its 75th year of performing a range of choral music with a crew of volunteer singers. The choir has gone through several names and directors since 1949, and has toured across Canada, Europe and Hawaii. Today, the choir has grown to more than 100 members and performs everything from Beethoven to Billy Joel.
Jana Hart is the music director for the Vancouver Master Chorale. Brenda Hall has been a member since 1974, and Daniel Trushov joined just last year. We talk to them about the history of the choir and what it’s meant to community members over the last seven decades.
Portland is known as a coffee city – but some cafes are not only serving drinks, but a cause as well as nonprofits. Taylor Bolan is the manager of The Porch Coffee Space. Christina Horigan is the co-founder of Jubilee Hall. They both join us to share more about the work they’re doing and how they see this movement in the city.
Whether it’s a walk in the park, hike in the forest or tending to a backyard garden, there’s ample subjective and scientific evidence that being in nature can have beneficial effects for us, from relieving stress to improving our mood. But less is known about what role the scents of nature, from the unmistakable odor of a pine tree to chemicals emitted by plants that are below our conscious awareness, influence human health and behavior.
In a recently published paper, a team of scientists in the U.S., Europe and Asia make the case for more research to be done on the link between the rich olfactory environments of nature and human health. And as air pollution and habitat loss threaten biodiversity, they also threaten olfactory diversity in the natural world. Greg Bratman is the lead author of the paper, an assistant professor of environmental and forest sciences and the director of the Environment and Well-being Lab at the University of Washington. He joins us to share more about this effort, and how the olfactory pathway may open up new possibilities to better understand the benefits of experiencing – and smelling – nature.
Five years ago, the national advocacy group A Better Childhood teamed up with local nonprofit Disability Rights Oregon to file a class action lawsuit against Oregon’s Department of Human Services. The state’s child welfare system had been sued individually many times over the years over horrific outcomes in individual cases. But this class action was the first of its kind, representing all current and future children and youth in foster care in Oregon. It didn't seek monetary damages — only tangible changes to the system that would result in better care for kids placed in foster care, less abuse and more stable homes. Last week, just days before the case was set to go to trial, the two sides reached a settlement. We hear from lead attorney Marcia Lowry about the details of the settlement and what advocates hope they will mean for children and youth in care.
Oregon strawberries are renowned for their deep-red color and exceptional sweetness. They’re a special fruit, but the high sugar content that makes their flavor pop also makes them difficult to ship and store. Most of the state’s berries go into the processed market, to be used in ice cream, pastries and other goodies. But as reported in the Capital Press, California strawberries account for more and more of that market, meaning fewer profits for Oregon farmers. The shift has led to a decline in strawberry production across the state. Oregon growers produced just 11 million pounds of strawberries in 2021, down from 40.2 million in 2001.
Jayson Hoffman grows strawberries and serves as the chairman of the Oregon Strawberry Commission. He joins us with more details on the state of the industry and an update on this year’s strawberry season.
Gaza war protesters at two Oregon universities have made progress on their demands after weeks of demonstrations
On Friday, the Associated Students of Portland State University and PSU President Ann Cudd released a joint statement condemning the violence in Gaza and announcing new initiatives on campus. At the University of Oregon, a deal has been struck to disband the encampment students established more than three weeks ago. Tiffany Camhi is the higher education reporter for OPB. Nathan Wilk is a KLCC reporter. They join us to share details about what is happening on the two university campuses.
A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel recently recommended the approval of a new blood test that can detect colon cancer. This comes at a time when more young people are getting diagnosed with colorectal cancer. Flavio Rocha is the physician-in-chief at OHSU’s Knight Cancer Institute. He joins us to share more on what this trend means and what new advances in technology can tell us.
It’s been three months since the main branch of the Multnomah County Library reopened after being closed for nearly a year for renovations. The improvements include new and updated meeting rooms, a new designated teen space, new gender-inclusive and family restrooms, charging and internet improvements and a variety of safety changes, like lowered shelves, new fire alarms and air quality monitoring equipment.
Shelly Jarman, the regional manager of the Central branch, says library staffers are well equipped to help all the community members who come into the library, from unhoused Portlanders who need social services to school kids researching papers and others looking for specific books or periodicals. For many of the people who work in the building, the purpose of the library is to help people, which varies from person to person and day to day. Jarman and library PIO Shawn Cunningham join us to tell us more about how the last few months have gone and what they’re hearing from patrons.
Oregon’s largest school district is facing a $30 million deficit and the prospect of cutting some 250 positions districtwide. Interim Superintendent Sandy Husk has presented her proposed budget, which the school board tentatively approved last week. Schools across the state face budget cuts, citing rising costs, limited state funding, the end of federal COVID relief money, heightened student needs since the pandemic and declining student enrollment. Portland also experienced its first-ever teachers strike in the fall, which resulted in a 14.4% cost-of-living adjustment over the next two years. Interim Superintendent Husk joins us to talk about the budget and what’s ahead for Portland Public Schools, along with Renard Adams, Chief Accountability and Equity Officer.for the district.
Author David Grann often writes about obsession. His stories feature people doing extraordinary, and often dangerous or morally questionable things, in pursuit of ambitious goals. He’s the author of the books “Lost City of Z,” “Killers of the Flower Moon,” and his newest, “The Wager.” Grann is also obsessive about the research and details he puts into his books. We talk to Grann in front of a group of students at Nelson High School in Happy Valley.
A new sport could be coming to schools across Oregon. At the beginning of this school year the Oregon School Activities Association voted to make boys volleyball an emerging sport, meaning that it has the potential to become an official sport through OSAA. But how does boys volleyball differ from the girls version of the sport? And how much interest has the game had in schools? To answer these questions and more, we’re joined by Emily Kernen, the head volleyball coach for the boys team and the freshman girls team at Bend High School. We’ll also hear from two players she coaches, senior Justin Seung and junior Will Albert.
Earlier this month, the body of a juvenile gray whale was found washed onto a beach in Bandon on the Southern Oregon coast. Bite marks on the body suggested it was likely killed by orcas, which hunt gray whales. Typically, reports of a beached whale would trigger a response from government officials to authorize the collection of samples to determine the cause of death.
But in this case, officials at the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department went one step further. Realizing the cultural significance of this discovery, they alerted the Coquille Indian Tribe, whose ancestral lands span the Southern Oregon coast. According to Tribal Chair Brenda Meade, “within an hour or so” about 50 Tribal members had assembled at the beach to take claim of this “gift” and honor it with an intergenerational ceremony that included prayer and song. Meade shares details from that special day on the beach, and how the whale continues to provide sustenance for the Coquille Indian Nation on the eve of the 35th anniversary of the restoration of its recognition by the federal government.
Teachers and classified staff at Gresham High School recently held a vote of no confidence against school leadership and called for the removal of Principal Erika Whitlock. The vote follows what teachers have described as two years of growing disciplinary concerns, including students skipping class, bringing weapons to school and getting into increasingly violent fights. It also comes as the union continues to negotiate its contract with the district.
Christopher Keizur is an associate editor and reporter for the Gresham Outlook. He’s been covering this issue, and joins us with more details.
Salem voters appear to have elected a new mayor. Julie Hoy, a restaurant owner and Salem city council member, appears to have defeated incumbent Chris Hoy, although he still has yet to concede. Julie Hoy holds a 12-point lead in the race, according to primary election returns posted on the Oregon Secretary of State’s website Friday morning. The two Hoys are unrelated.
According to the Salem Reporter, Julie Hoy raised nearly $300,000 - a record for a Salem mayoral race - mainly from businesses and real estate groups to help defeat the incumbent mayor who backed a payroll tax measure which voters overwhelmingly rejected last year. Salem Mayor-elect Julie Hoy joins us to talk about her vision for leading Oregon’s second-largest city and priorities when she takes office in January.
Wildland firefighters across the West now have access to a large network of cameras monitored by AI to alert them to wildfires when they start. University of Oregon’s Oregon Hazards Lab, along with collaborators at other universities, have partnered with the company ALERTWest to monitor the cameras 24/7. When an algorithm detects smoke or fire, an operations center will be alerted, and dispatchers will then alert the appropriate fire manager. Doug Toomey, director of OHAZ, will join us to discuss how this system will help in the fight against wildfires.
The Oregon State Bar has started to license paralegals, allowing them to offer some legal help that previously could only be provided by lawyers. The program is one of a handful nationwide and gives licensed paralegals the opportunity to provide assistance in housing and family law. Sue Gerhardt is a longtime paralegal who recently received her license through the Oregon State Bar. She joins us with more about what this means for Oregonians in need of family or housing law services.
Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt has lost his reelection bid. In a Wednesday afternoon statement, Schmidt said he called to concede his seat to opponent Nathan Vasquez, a longtime prosecutor in Schmidt’s office. As of 7 p.m. Wednesday, Vasquez had won 54% of the vote, with Schmidt trailing at 46%. Nathan Vasquez joins us to discuss his vision for the future of the criminal justice system in Multnomah County.
Oregon voters have now cast their ballots for the primary election. May primary elections tend to draw low turnouts, despite some big items on the ballot, including an open race for the Congressional seat held for nearly 30 years by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Portland), who announced his retirement last October. We hear from some of the winners of key Congressional, county and mayoral contests that were on the ballot. OPB political reporter Dirk VanderHart also joins us for analysis of the primary, from the massive amounts of outside money flowing into the CD3 race, to contests to decide who will be Oregon’s next state treasurer and attorney general.
The Bureau of Land Management oversees 245 million acres of public land across the U.S. More than 60% of that rangeland is being managed through leased livestock grazing allotments in Oregon and nine other Western states. But according to the nonpartisan Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, livestock grazing is the main reason why nearly 60 million acres of BLM rangeland fail the agency’s own standards for land health, which are used to assess soil and water quality, among other factors. High Country News recently reported on PEER’s findings, which also found that BLM state offices are increasingly relying on a federal loophole to renew grazing permits and leases without environmental review, especially in Oregon, Nevada and Idaho.
Peter Lattin is a landscape ecologist, geospatial analyst in Oregon who was working for a contractor that was hired by BLM in 2010 to conduct regional ecological assessments. He resigned from his position when he was told by BLM officials not to include the impact of livestock grazing on land health assessments. He then shared his concerns with PEER and worked with the organization to obtain BLM records through the Freedom of Information Act. Lattin and PEER used that data to create an interactive map that shows the impact of livestock grazing on public land. Chandra Rosenthal is the director of PEER’s Rocky Mountain office in Denver. They join us to talk about their findings.
Jenny Don’t and The Spurs started more than a decade ago as a side project for a few members of Portland’s punk scene who were looking to explore a new sound. Since then, they’ve become known for their punk-tinged country style, as well as their eccentric outfits, and high-energy live shows.
Founding members Jenny Don’t and Kelly Halliburton join us to talk about the band’s journey and its upcoming album, “Broken Hearted Blue.”
The Oregon Department of Transportation was part of a global hack last year that affected the data of about 3.5 million people with Oregon IDs or driver’s licenses. The information involved in the breach included dates of birth, physical addresses and the last four digits of Social Security numbers.
Earlier this year, two Oregonians filed a lawsuit over the data breach. They say the state failed to protect the personal information of residents.
How should government agencies be thinking about protecting sensitive data? What can the U.S. learn from other countries and their data practices? We dig into these issues with Rohan Grey, an assistant professor at Willamette University College of Law.
Nearly 30 years ago, Metro purchased a 27-acre property located on the east side of the Willamette River near the St. John’s neighborhood in North Portland. Before it can become a nature park with trails and beach access, Willamette Cove first needs to be cleaned up to remove toxic metals, dioxins and other pollutants lingering in the soil and water after decades of heavy industrial activity at the site. As planning for the cleanup gets underway, Metro recently asked residents for their opinions on what features and amenities they want included in the nature park. Joining us to talk about the outreach efforts ramping up and the vision for Willamette Cove is Cory Eldridge, a communications specialist at Metro and the community engagement lead on the project.
There has been a significant increase in player ejections for boys soccer and football games this year, according to the Oregon School Activities Association. An ejection is when a coach calls out a player for having unsportsmanlike behavior that can range from threats to physical violence. This year, Oregon’s boys soccer teams have accumulated 198 ejections -- a nearly 45% increase from last year. Peter Weber is the executive director of the Oregon School Activities Association. Michael Nolan is the athletic director of Ida B. Wells High School. They both join us now to discuss what's driving these increases and what's being done to address them.
The small village of Taholah was built more than a century ago on the Quinault Indian reservation, where the ocean meets the Quinault River on the northern Washington coast. The village has been flooded more and more often over the years due to a changing climate. It’s far from the only community to be affected by rising oceans and temperature changes, but it’s one of the first to actually move because of it. The tribal council made the decision in 2017 and has been working ever since to ensure the smoothest transition possible for the 800 people who live there. The first residents are expected to be moved into their new homes in the fall. Mark Trahant, editor-at-large at ICT, wrote a three-part story about this move. He joins us to share the details about Taholah and how its story reflects a larger story about climate change adaptation.
Indigenous author, botanist and professor Robin Wall Kimmerer is best known for her book “Braiding Sweetgrass,” which was published in 2013 and is about the reciprocal relationships between humans and the land. Her first book, “Gathering Moss,” was published a decade earlier by Oregon State University Press. Kimmerer is in Corvallis to accept Oregon State University’s 2024 Stone Award for Literary Achievement. She will give a lecture on Friday, May 17th at 7pm.
You may not know it, but you’ve likely encountered a building designed by Pietro Belluschi before. The notable modernist architect designed over 30 public buildings in Portland and around Oregon, and numerous homes and churches. Belluschi was known as one of a group of architects creating a distinctive Northwest modernist style that matched his buildings to the landscape. Brian Libby, freelance architecture and design journalist, joins us to talk about Belluschi’s legacy which he recently wrote about in Oregon ArtsWatch.
Even before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, being able to terminate a pregnancy was not a choice available to everyone who wanted it-- particularly for those with low-incomes living in rural areas with no healthcare providers in their community. And since the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson ruling that returned the regulation of abortion to states, many state legislatures severely restricted the procedure, including medication abortions, which comprise more than half of all abortions in the U.S.
In Oregon, the two branches of Planned Parenthood have seen an increase in the numbers of people from Idaho, Texas and many other states coming here for abortions. One of the ways that the reproductive health organizations ensure access is to hire abortion navigators to help those who need an abortion meet the challenges that may stand in the way, such as travel or costs. Nova Newman is one of four abortion patient navigators that work for Planned Parenthood statewide. She joins us to talk about how she approaches her job, the kinds of questions she gets from those seeking abortions and the ways she helps facilitate their access.
Hundreds of people gathered over the last two days at the Newport Municipal Airport to practice setting up what’s called an Evacuation Assembly Point. The new equipment comes from the state Office of Resilience and Emergency Management, and contains tents, cots, medical supplies and food to create a central place for people who need to be airlifted to safety after an emergency on the coast, and also a staging place to receive incoming supplies. We talk to Ed Flick, Director of OREM, and Lincoln County Emergency Manager Samantha Buckley about how these kinds of events help prepare for big disasters that may be in our future.
Ben Kitching is a commercial photographer in Bend who specializes in adventure photography - think, for example, of an ad for kayaking equipment you might use or apparel you might wear while running rapids on the Rogue River. Last summer, Kitching embarked on a personal project that combines his skill in adventure photography with a documentary-like lens on a particular group of people he admires. The Oregon Outdoor Athlete Project has since grown to nearly 30 profiles of rock climbers, skiers, ultramarathoners and other athletes who live mostly in Central Oregon. They share first-person accounts of not only their introduction to the sport they love but also, at times, candid descriptions of how their pursuit of it helped overcome personal adversity or mental health struggles. Kitching joins us to talk about his project, which was recently profiled by Central Oregon Daily News.
Last week, Portland City Council unanimously approved new regulations for camping on public property. Effective immediately, the proposal allows people to camp on public property if there are no shelter beds available and also puts more restrictions on what is allowed while camping. This new ban limits the use of propane heaters, selling bicycle parts and blocking access to private property to name a few.
The new ban replaces one that was introduced last year, but has been put on hold due to a judge’s order. Service providers say they are concerned about the impacts these new regulations might have. Lauren Armony is the systemic change program director for Sisters of the Road. Sandra Comstock is the executive director of Hygiene4All. They both join us to share their concerns.
Both of Oregon’s Planned Parenthood branches recently welcomed new CEOs. Dr. Sara Kennedy will oversee Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette, which operates clinics in Vancouver, Washington, the Portland metro area, Salem, Bend and Ontario. Amy Handler will oversee Planned Parenthood of Southwestern Oregon, which has clinics in the Eugene-Springfield area, Grants Pass and Medford.
They’re taking over at a time when other states, including Idaho, continue to restrict access to abortion and other reproductive health services. Kennedy and Handler join us to talk about how Oregon’s Planned Parenthood network is responding.
The streaming platform Twitch is most often used by gamers to broadcast live video game competitions and interact with fans. But it’s also home to a growing number of users who are posting news content. Researchers recently looked at how three outlets – the Washington Post, a left-leaning political commentator and a right-wing media channel – use the platform. While creating opportunities to build rapport with audiences, Twitch’s interactive features also break many of the journalistic norms intended to preserve editorial independence.
Maxwell Foxman is an assistant professor of media studies and game studies in the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communication. He co-authored the study and joins us to talk more about the pros and cons of using Twitch to produce and consume news content.
Earlier this month, the Malheur Enterprise reported that the remains of a 27-year-old Idaho woman had been found in a remote area of Malheur County. Last June, Gwen Brunelle told her family she was driving from Boise on a brief trip to California. Her car was found abandoned days later on a gravel pullout less than 30 miles west of the Idaho border.
The breakthrough in the case came with the involvement of Aloft Drone Search, a nonprofit in Sherwood that uses aerial and underwater drones to search for missing people. Its founder, John Jones, was contacted by Brunelle’s father in March to help find her. Before Jones traveled to southeastern Oregon, he and his team of volunteers began reviewing more than 13,000 images that were previously taken by an Idaho drone company that had also assisted with the search. Last month, Jones alerted the Malheur County Sheriff of something a volunteer had found in one of the drone images that led to the positive identification of Brunelle’s remains. Jones joins us to talk about the discovery, and the role drone technology can play in locating missing people.
Federal and state regulators are working with officials in states where an avian influenza has been found in dairy cows. So far, Oregon is not one of those states, but officials are taking precautions and coordinating with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, among others. Jenifer Cruickshank is an assistant professor and dairy extension specialist at Oregon State University in Corvallis. She joins us to tell us everything we need to know about bird flu in dairy cattle.
The city of Bend recently launched a program that offers rebates to homeowners who give up their grass lawns in favor of native plants and low-water landscaping. It’s part of the city’s efforts to reduce its water usage by 7.9 billion gallons by 2040. The program is so popular that it maxed out its funding in a matter of weeks and is no longer taking new applications.
Dan Denning is the water conservation program manager for the city of Bend. Rick Martinson is the founder and director of the High Desert Horticultural Center. They join us to talk about the new program and the increasing demand for more sustainable landscaping.
In 1915, U.S. Forest Service ranger Elijah “Lige” Coalman built a fire lookout cabin on the summit of Mt. Hood. The cabin served as a place to view incipient fires and a bit of a party spot, according to the new short documentary Cabin in the Sky: The Mount Hood Lookout. Filmmaker Ned Thanhauser joins us to share the history of the cabin, which lasted until 1940.
The United Methodist Church recently wrapped up its general conference in Charlotte, North Carolina. At the gathering, delegates removed bans on gay clergy and officiating same sex marriages. The decision comes after decades of disagreement over those policies.
In the Pacific Northwest, the Oregon-Idaho conference has already been a fully inclusive ministry.
Meanwhile, over the last few years, more than 7,000 congregations nationwide left the United Methodist Church. Many held more conservative theological views and largely left over LGBTQ-related policies.
Jan Nelson is a member of the Morningside United Methodist Church in Salem and attended the General Conference in Charlotte as a lay delegate. Reverend Ethan Gregory has been an associate pastor at First United Methodist Church in Portland and will soon head to Salem. They join us with details of what this historic change means.
Erika Hayasaki’s book “Somewhere Sisters: a story of adoption, identity, and the meaning of family” explores a very complicated multi-family, multinational story. At the heart of the book are sisters: identical twins born in Vietnam. One was adopted by a wealthy family in the U.S., one was raised in rural Vietnam. We spoke to Hayasaki in 2022 in front of an audience at the Portland Book Festival.
: In her novel "The Dreamers," Portland writer Karen Thompson Walker explores the terrifying possibility of a world altered by a highly contagious disease. The disease causes people to fall into a seemingly endless sleep. We'll talk to Thompson Walker about her book, "The Dreamers."
In a 5-3 vote, the Umatilla County Planning Commission has recommended changes on the number of livestock residents can have. Under the proposed rules, single family dwellings are now allowed to have four small livestock animals per acre of property. The commission in a 7-1 vote also decided not to recommend proposed changes that would limit the number of fowl on a property. Both recommendations will now go to the county’s board of commissioners who will vote on the proposed changes at a June 5 meeting. Berit Thorson is a reporter for the East Oregonian covering this issue. She joins us to share more on the proposals and the community feedback the changes have received so far.
When SE Portland resident Hannah Wallace went out with members of her neighborhood association in December of 2020 and asked people living on the streets what they needed most, the two things they heard most were: showers and laundry facilities. Wallace started the Sunnyside Shower project in response. The project began at Sunnyside Methodist Church with Wallace and a handful of volunteer offering showers twice a week. It now has dozens of volunteers and people can come 3 days a week to get a shower and other resources when available, like free toiletries, laundry cards and help connecting with other services, like the Oregon Health Plan and drug treatment.
Since it began, a Multnomah Village’s volunteer group Southwest Outreach began their own version at Riversgate Church. And in February, a new Shower Project opened at the 13 Salmon shelter at the First Unitarian Church. Kelly Clendenon began volunteering several years ago, helped launch the project with some guidance from Wallace and others, and is now the project’s coordinator. He says as a person who lived on the streets for many years himself, his current work is especially meaningful. Clendenon and Wallace join us to tell us more about what it takes to run these projects and what difference one shower can make for someone who would otherwise have no access.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, an agency within the U.S. Department of Interior, recently announced next steps for developing floating wind facilities off the coast of Coos Bay and Brookings. These Oregon offshore wind turbines could power more than one million homes with renewable energy, according to the agency. Still, tribal leaders and commercial fishing groups remain concerned about how the projects could affect the ecosystem. We hear more about the latest developments from OPB climate reporter Monica Samayoa.
Oregon's groundwater is being used faster than it’s being replenished, and the state’s aquifers are declining. The Oregon Water Resources Department is proposing new rules in response. The agency would change the way it decides if groundwater will be available for new users. Justin Iverson is the groundwater section manager for OWRD. He joins us to explain what we know about Oregon’s groundwater and what can be done to regulate its use.
It’s been just over a week since protesters took over the Branford Price Millar Library at Portland State University as part of demonstrations against Israel’s war in Gaza. Police eventually cleared the building and classes resumed last Friday, but the library remains closed as damage to the collections and facilities are assessed.
Cris Paschild is an associate dean, university archivist and head of special collections at PSU. She joins us with more details on the Millar Library’s state and when it might reopen.
In 2022, Oregon voters cast ballots for the first time in a newly created congressional district the state was awarded after the 2020 U.S. Census. The 6th Congressional District stretches from suburbs southwest of Portland to Salem, and includes all of Yamhill and Polk counties, as well as portions of Marion, Washington and Clackamas counties.
We hear from two prominent candidates in the Republican primary vying for a chance to flip the seat in the fall. Mike Erickson is the founder and CEO of AFMS, a supply chain and logistics consulting firm based in Tigard. He narrowly lost to Democrat Andrea Salinas in 2022 after winning the GOP primary that May. David Russ, the mayor of Dundee in Yamhill County, is challenging Erickson once again in this year’s GOP primary race. Russ and Erickson join us for a debate to talk about their competing visions.
Last week, crude oil started flowing through a newly expanded pipeline that stretches more than 600 miles from the tar sands of Canada’s Alberta province to an export terminal near Vancouver in British Columbia. The Canadian government spent $25 billion and more than four years to complete construction on the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion which will triple its capacity to ship nearly a million barrels of oil a day. But the project has also raised concerns about the threat of oil spills south of the border, and the harm to endangered marine mammals from increasing tanker activity moving through the Salish Sea to customers in Asia. Tom Banse, OPB’s former Olympia correspondent, joins us to share his recent reporting on this story.
School districts all over Oregon are struggling to find the money to fund vital services with declining budgets. Many of those districts are making cuts to library staff, which librarians say has a direct result on educational outcomes for students. They also say these cuts are also in direct opposition to the educational goals districts say they’re committed to — providing tutoring, research help and safe spaces for students experiencing bullying or isolation. Joining us to talk more about these issues are Ayn Reye Frazee, president of the Oregon Association of School Libraries and Franklin High School teacher librarian, and Jean Gritter, OASL advocacy chair and teacher librarian at West Albany High School.
Students across the country, including in Oregon, have escalated their protests in recent weeks of Israel’s war in Gaza. Many of the student protesters have been calling for their colleges and universities to divest from companies that do business with Israel. Similar calls were made in the 1970s and 80s as part of the effort to end apartheid in South Africa. But how effective have those divestment campaigns been in affecting change? And how realistic is it for educational institutions to modify complex financial portfolios to end investments in specific companies?
Joining us to answer those questions and add some historical context is David S. Meyer, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine, and the author of “How Social Movements (Sometimes) Matter.”
More than 200 species of wildlife call the Owyhee Canyonlands home. The dramatic landscape stretches across southeastern Oregon and southwestern Idaho, and is the ancestral homeland of several Indigenous tribes. While much of the region is currently managed by the Bureau of Land Management, advocates have championed for broader protections like a national monument or a wilderness designation. Kylie Mohr is a freelance journalist and correspondent for High Country News. She recently wrote about the proposals for the magazine and joins us with details.
Nearly a quarter of K-12 teachers in the U.S. reported going into a gun-related lockdown last year, according to new data from the Pew Research Center. Researchers also found that most teachers experience some degree of worry about the possibility of a school shooter. How does gun violence look like right now in Oregon schools, and what are districts doing to address threats and concerns? Andrea Castañeda is the superintendent for the Salem-Keizer School District. Mark Mulvihil is the superintendent for the InterMountain Service District, which serves Baker, Union, Morrow and Umatilla counties. They join us to answer these questions and more.
Earlier this year, Gov. Tina Kotek, Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson and Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler declared a 90-day state of emergency to address what has become widely seen as a fentanyl crisis in downtown Portland. The idea was to bring more coordination and resources to bear on the crisis that is claiming lives through fatal drug overdoses and draining the resources of law enforcement, first responders, public health and medical professionals. The 90-day period ended April 29, and the official report on the progress that was made was released today. We talk with Multnomah County Health Officer Dr. Richard Bruno to get the details.
Hearing loops are an assistive listening device that can significantly reduce background noise for hearing aid users. The device is relatively simple: a loop of copper wire encircles a desk, room or entire building, creating a magnetic field. People within that field can activate a particular setting on their hearing aids that allows sound from a microphone to be transmitted directly into their ear.
Hearing loops are still gaining traction in the U.S., but the city of Eugene has looped nearly 60 locations, from hotel front desks to entire performance halls. As reported in KLCC, Travel Lane County was recently recognized by the Hearing Loss Association of America for its work to install hearing loops across the county.
Andy Vobora is the vice president of stakeholder relations at Travel Lane County. Ginevra Ralph and Sue Prichard are the co-chairs of the advocacy group Loop Oregon. They join us to talk about looping, its implementation in the county and the difference it makes for people who are hard of hearing.
Oregon Business and Industry, a business advocacy group, recently released the 2024 Oregon Competitiveness Book. The report is the first of a yearly look at how Oregon compares to other states as a place to do business. Angela Wilhelms, the president and CEO of OBI, joins us to reflect on the data compiled in this report.
Reporters with the Portland State University Vanguard have been on the ground as protesters have taken over the Branford Price Millar Library. The university closed campus on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Thursday morning, Portland Police began to clear protesters from the building. [Does the campus remain closed?] Student journalists have provided updates on Instagram throughout the occupation. Kat Leon, editor-in-chief of the Vanguard, joins us with updates on the story, and to reflect on the role of student journalists in situations like this.
In 1990, Barbara Roberts became the first woman elected governor of Oregon. She began her political career as a member of the Parkrose school board and then the board of Mount Hood Community College. She was elected to the Oregon House of Representatives in 1980 and was chosen by her colleagues to be the House majority leader two years later. Two years after that, she became Oregon's Secretary of State, before going on to the top office. We spoke to Roberts in front of an audience at the Civics Learning Project’s Legal Citizen of the Year award ceremony.
Joel David Beal was a U.S. Marine veteran who served from 2006 until 2010 including deployment to Iraq in 2008. As reported by the military media outlet, Task and Purpose, Beal received multiple military awards for his service and left the service with the rank of Lance Corporal. After he left the marines, he worked as a mechanic and a technician, repairing wind turbines.
A year ago Beal went to Ukraine to fight alongside the country's military forces against the Russian invasion. He helped form what became known as Chosen Company, made up of foreign fighters attached to Ukraine’s 59th Motorized Brigade. He was killed in combat in October, six months after he began his service. We hear about Beal and his experience in Ukraine from his partner Alex, whose real name we are not using for security reasons.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is thinking of adding some federal protections for a turtle found in Oregon. The western pond turtle is found in fresh water and wetlands west of the Cascades. It is also found in Nevada, Washington and California. If the agency’s proposal is approved, the turtle would be labeled as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Public comments are being taken until May 5, 2024.
The turtle faces a number of challenges including habitat loss, drought and invasive species, such as bullfrogs, eating turtles when they’re young. But some work has been done to try to help this reptile. The Oregon Zoo has been working on recovery efforts in Washington since the late 1990s. Shervin Hess is the conservation manager there. He joins us to share more on what role this turtle plays in ecosystems and the current efforts to aid the species.
On Monday, students at the University of Oregon began setting up tents on the Eugene campus to protest the conflict in Gaza. They joined students at scores of other universities across the nation, including at Portland State University, where students set up camps, barricades and broke into Branford Price Millar Library. Student organizers of the protest on the UO campus are calling on the administration to divest from companies that have financial ties to the Israeli military. In a statement, the University of Oregon said it is “actively monitoring this situation to ensure the safety and wellbeing of students, faculty, and staff on campus.” KLCC reporter Nathan Wilk joins us to talk about the situation unfolding at the university.
District Attorney Mike Schmidt is facing a challenge from one of his own senior deputy attorneys, Nathan Vazquez. Schmidt came into office as a reformer, with the goal of ending mass incarceration and racial disparities in the criminal justice system. Vasquez says Schmidt has made Portland “unsafe and unrecognizable.” We talk to Vasquez about why he thinks he deserves the job.
The Salem Police Department recently released an annual report revealing trends and changes in the number of homicides, aggravated assaults, burglaries and other crimes over the past 15 years. Last year, there were 10 homicides in Salem, a 15-year high for the city of nearly 180,000 residents. Violent crime overall has increased by 35% since 2009 in Salem, while property crime has declined by 3% over the same time.
Meanwhile, Salem police and city officials recently kicked off a series of meetings with community members under a new initiative aimed at addressing the city’s surge in gun violence, especially among at-risk youth. Joining us to talk about crime in Salem is Ardeshir Tabrizian, criminal justice reporter for the Salem Reporter.
Oregon’s 5th Congressional District has received national attention as a highly competitive race, with the winner of the May primary challenging Republican incumbent Lori Chavez-DeRemer in November. Jamie McLeod-Skinner is an attorney and engineer. Janelle Bynum is a small business owner and the Democratic state representative of District 39 which includes Happy Valley and North Clackamas. They join us for a debate.
As the head of Willamette Riverkeeper, Travis Williams has worked to protect the river for much of his professional life. The environmental nonprofit’s efforts have been both wide and deep, from helping enforce the Clean Water Act, clearing up trash, restoring habitat, contributing to the Portland Harbor Cleanup, working to protect fish populations and preventing concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, along waterways in Linn County.
Williams says the nonprofit is strong and does not expect any interruption in the work when he steps away in the coming months to focus on the Willamette River Preservation Trust. It’s a land trust focused on conserving creeks, rivers, floodplains, oak savanna, upland forests and more for the mid to northern Willamette Valley. We sit down with Williams about the health of the Willamette over the last two dozen years, and how his past work relates to his future plans.
Attorney Mike Schmidt is facing a challenge from one of his own senior deputy attorney’s, Nathan Vazquez. Schmidt came into office as a reformer, with the goal of ending mass incarceration and racial disparities in the criminal justice system. We talk to Schmidt about his tenure, and his case for why he deserves to be reelected. We talk to Vasquez on Monday, April 29th.
Landowners and federal agencies in rural Oregon don’t always have the best relationships, especially when it comes to fire management. But as first reported in the Blue Mountain Eagle newspaper, landowners and managers in Grant County have been working with state and federal agencies to reduce wildfire risk. The Top Road Fuel Break project would clear vegetation from a stretch of public land that abuts private homes and ranches — both reducing the amount of potential fuel for future wildfires and protecting the surrounding communities.
James Osborne is the fire management officer for the Bureau of Land Management’s Prineville District. Irene Jerome has long served as the Firewise coordinator for Grant County. And Bill Newman is the manager of Top Ranch, near Monument. They were all involved in the project, and join us to share more details.
Traditionally, refugees from around the world who are accepted into the United States receive aid from one of a handful of refugee resettlement agencies. But a new approach is aimed at helping create more capacity to better support refugees in American communities and to help more of them escape violence and persecution in their countries of origin. Last year, Amy Kasari, a pastor at the Antioch Church in Bend, heard a radio story about how local sponsor groups were needed to welcome families into specific communities for a program called Welcome Corps. She said she immediately went to work putting together a local team of volunteers at her church.
It took about a year of preparation, but earlier this year, she and other members of the sponsor group welcomed Maria Del Carmen Chaparro, her husband and two of their three adult children, who escaped violence in Colombia. Kasari and Del Carmen Chaparro join us to talk about the process of preparing for and settling into a new community. Una Bilic also joins us to share more about how this new approach is working around the country and what she sees as the impact of Welcome Corps now and in the future.
The Clark County Sheriff’s Office recently began partnering with mental health providers from Sea Mar Community Health Centers to respond more effectively to people in crisis, who may otherwise go to jail or the emergency department. The Columbian reported on the new Co-responders program which was modeled on a similar partnership launched in October 2020 between Sea Mar and the Vancouver Police Department.
The program typically involves mental health specialists from Sea Mar being notified by Vancouver police or a 911 dispatcher of a person experiencing a mental health crisis who may be a danger to themselves or others. The Sea Mar team will then meet up with the police officer responding to the call and help by de-escalating the crisis or providing support services to the person in need. Joining us to talk about the Co-responders program and the impact it’s having is Blaise Geddry, a lieutenant in the Vancouver Police Department, and Laura Nichols, a mental health therapist and the program manager of behavioral health services at Sea Mar Community Health Centers.
In the spring of 2021, Natalie Mastick, a graduate student in the University of Washington’s School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, dissected filets from nearly 200 cans of salmon, some of which were more than 40 years old. The cans contained filets from pink, chum, coho and sockeye salmon that were caught in Alaska between 1979 and 2021. Mastick acquired the cans from the archives of the Seafood Products Association, a trade organization based in Seattle that provides quality control testing to seafood processors.
Mastick and her colleagues opened up the cans to look for the presence of a parasitic roundworm embedded inside the filets. The parasite requires multiple hosts, including salmon, to complete its life cycle. Its abundance can serve as an indicator of the health of the marine food web, and how infections are changing over time for species like salmon and killer whales. Mastick is now a postdoctoral associate of student programs at the Yale Peabody Museum. She joins us to talk about her recently published findings.
Portland Police Bureau spent nearly $68,000 on drones and equipment between April and September of 2023. Some of the drones used by the bureau feature cameras that can closely zoom in on people or cars and are made by a manufacturer based in Shenzhen, China. The FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency have warned companies to be wary of drones manufactured in China because using them can jeopardize U.S. national security. That’s according to a report by independent journalist and researcher Kate Kaye. She covers Portland’s use of surveillance technology and is the founder of RedTailMedia.org. Kaye joins us with more on how the police bureau uses drones
In May, Eugene residents will see a proposal that could change how voting is done in the city. STAR Voting is a system that allows voters to score all candidates on a scale from zero to five. The top two candidates with the highest scores will enter an automatic runoff election and the one with the most number of voters supporting them wins. If passed by voters, city elections for Eugene’s mayor, city council and utility board will be selected using this system for the 2026 elections. Sara Wolk is the executive director of Equal Vote Coalition and the chief petitioner for STAR Voting in Eugene. She joins us to share more on what makes this system different from ranked choice voting and what its adoption could mean for the city if passed.
Earlier this month, Gov. Tina Kotek threatened to veto $14 million in state funding for seven local infrastructure projects across Oregon unless they could clearly show they would result in new housing development. Last week, she announced that no line-item vetoes would be made to the projects state lawmakers had already approved funding for during this year’s short legislative session. Shady Cove, a city of roughly 3,200 residents in Jackson County, was one of the municipalities the governor’s office requested additional information from. According to Mayor John Ball, the city wants to use the $1.5 million it was awarded to develop a municipal water system, which he says is essential for new housing development. Mayor Ball joins us to talk about the status of the project, and to reveal the challenges rural communities in Oregon face to build more housing.
Records show that since the beginning of this year, there were 9 druggings of University of Oregon students, and the university failed to alert students about what was happening, violating their own protocols. These incidents were potentially linked to fraternity parties. That’s according to a new story from Eugene Weekly. We're joined by reporter Eliza Aronson, who is also a UO senior studying Journalism and Marine Biology.
“Unrelenting pressure” on the nation’s rural healthcare
safety net means more hospital closures and many operating on the brink. That’s according to a new report by the Chartis Center for Rural Health. The center says hospitals have been in crisis mode for the last 15 years, but even in just the last 12 months the situation has worsened further, with the percentage of America’s rural hospitals operating in the red jumping from 43% to 50% in that time.
Some of the report’s other key findings include:
Access to inpatient care continues to deteriorate, as 167 rural hospitals since 2010 have either closed or converted to a model that excludes inpatient care.
Between 2011 and 2021, 267 rural hospitals dropped OB services. This represents nearly 25% of America’s rural OB units.
Between 2014 and 2022, 382 rural hospitals have stopped providing chemotherapy services.
We get more details about what’s driving these trends from Michael Topchik, director of the Chartis Center for Rural Health. We’re also joined by Dr. Lesley Ogden, the CEO of two Lincoln County hospitals: Samaritan North Lincoln Hospital in Lincoln City and Samaritan Pacific Communities Hospital in Newport.
Gun sales in Washington have dropped significantly this year as new gun safety laws have taken effect. The drop follows a spike in sales last year that happened when buyers scrambled to purchase guns as lawmakers debated legislation. David Gutman recently wrote about this for The Seattle Times. He joins us with more on Washington’s gun laws.
On Monday, April 22nd, the U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments on a case out of Oregon that could have national implications on homelessness policy. The question at the heart of Grants Pass v Johnson is whether cities can regulate where and when people can sleep outside, especially if there isn’t shelter space available. Jeremiah Hayden, a reporter for Street Roots Newspaper, tells us about the oral arguments, and the case in Grants Pass that started it all.
We revisit a conversation we first aired in April 2023 which was the first installment of our series on people’s professions. We’ll learn what it takes to do different kinds of jobs and how these professions change us.
David Beer is Portland’s Squeezebox Surgeon. He has studied the inner workings of accordions in Italy and at A World of Accordions Museum in Wisconsin. He operates on all different kinds of free reed instruments. He shares with us how he got into this business and gives us an inside look of how accordions work and what it takes to get them singing again.
Two Republican candidates are hoping to win their party’s nomination to upset the Democratic incumbent Congresswoman Val Hoyle in ORegon’s 4th District. Amy Ryan Courser is a consultant and former Keizer city council member. One her campaign website she says she’s a mom, wife, mom, friend and Patriot, and describes her priorities as “America first.” Her primary opponent, Monique DeSpain, a 30-year Air Force veteran and attorney, declined OPB’s invitation for an interview or candidate debate. We talk with Amy Fryan Courser about making her case to Oregon voters in the 4th district.
Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood is closed until further notice following a fire Thursday night. The surrounding Timberline ski area is also closed Friday. Clackamas Fire officials have reported that everyone evacuated from the building safely. We get more details on the fire and the extent of the damage from John Burton, director of marketing and public relations for Timberline Lodge.
The award winning poet, writer and essayist Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s genius lies in making connections between the astonishments of the natural world and the particular wonders of her own - and all of our - lives. Nezhukumatathil is the author of four collections of poems, including “Oceanic, and her latest book, a bestselling collection of essays, is called “World of Wonders.” Nezhukumatathil is a professor of English at the University of Mississippi, and joins us in front of an audience of students at McDaniel High School.
The award winning poet, writer and essayist Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s genius lies in making connections between the astonishments of the natural world and the particular wonders of her own - and all of our - lives. Nezhukumatathil is the author of four collections of poems, including “Oceanic, and her latest book, a bestselling collection of essays, is called “World of Wonders.” Nezhukumatathil is a professor of English at the University of Mississippi, and joins us in front of an audience of students at McDaniel High School.
Scientists at the University of British Columbia may have identified a new population of orcas, also known as killer whales, feeding in the deep waters between Astoria and Southern California, according to a recently published study. The researchers reviewed photos, videos and descriptions made by fishermen, NOAA scientists and a whale-watching tour operator during multiple encounters with the marine mammals over a span of nearly 25 years. Their distinctive appearance and feeding behaviors - including a penchant for hunting sperm whales – are some of the ways they’re unlike other killer whales that forage off the West Coast of North America. Joining us to share more details about this mysterious pod of orcas is Andrew Trites, director of the Marine Mammal Research Unit and professor at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries at the University of British Columbia, and a co-author of the study.
Oregon’s second largest city has an open seat for mayor. Incumbent Eugene mayor Lucy Vinis announced last year she would not be seeking a third term of office, and she promptly endorsed architect and housing expert Kaarin Knudsen, the first to declare her candidacy. Educator Shanaè Joyce-Stringer joined the race later, as well as Stefan Strek, who does not appear to have a campaign website but who was included in a recent mayoral candidate forum hosted by the Eugene City Club. KLCC’s Rebecca Hansen-White moderated that event and has been covering the race. She joins us with more about the candidates and the most pressing issues the city is facing.
At this point, many of us have probably encountered someone in the midst of a drug, alcohol or mental health-related crisis in a public place. And you may have wondered: What can I do for that person? Where could that person go so as not to be disrupting public space? In Multnomah County for the last four years, the answer has been: nowhere. Central City Concern’s Sobering Station closed abruptly in December 2019, and a lengthy effort to reopen a new center fell apart two years later. Now, Multnomah County Commissioner Julia Brim-Edwards has led an effort to propose a new center which is backed by state funding. Brim-Edwards joins us to explain the final proposal.
If your weekends aren’t complete without watching a tight spiral arc, you can catch the Oregon Ravens as they are starting their season in the Women’s National Football Conference. We talk to two players about the joys of playing one of America’s favorite sports on a team dedicated to women and nonbinary players: Chris Landers is defensive tackle and offensive guard and has been playing with the Ravens since 2019. Kola Shippentower is in her first season as a linebacker and running back. We talk to them ahead of their first home game against the Las Vegas Silver Stars on April 27.
In 2017, fewer than 1,000 winter steelhead returned to the Upper Willamette Basin. That number has exploded to more than 7,600 so far this year. The returns are the highest since 2004. Zach Urness is the outdoors editor for the Statesman Journal and hosts the Explore Oregon podcast. He joins us with more on what’s behind the increase.
Plans are underway to turn the former Statesman Journal building in downtown Salem into a one-stop shop for community services, including youth programming, health services and religious charities. As recently covered by the Salem Reporter, the project is moving forward after receiving $3 million from state lawmakers. The current plan is for storage company StoreIT to buy the building and occupy the subfloor, while nonprofits and community organizations rent space on upper floors.
Tim Sinatra is the CEO of the Family YMCA of Marion and Polk Counties, which is spearheading the project. He joins us with more details.
Plans are underway to turn part of the former Presbyterian Church of Laurelhurst into a tiny home village for Indigenous families experiencing homelessness. As reported in Underscore, the project – known as Barbie’s Village – will also include family and children’s programming in the former church building. The project was made possible after regional Presbyterian Church leaders voted to sell the land for $1 to Future Generations Collaborative, a local Indigenous services nonprofit.
Jillene Joseph is the executive director of the Native Wellness Institute and the engagement mode lead for Future Generations Collaborative. Chris Dela Cruz is a former associate pastor at Westminster Presbyterian Church, which helped sponsor the project. They join us to talk about the vision for Barbie’s Village and how the project came to be.
Four years ago at the dawn of the pandemic, many universities across the country scaled back on their admissions process, many no longer requiring SAT or ACT scores with an application. Now, U.S. universities are bringing standardized testing back. Institutions such as Brown University, the University of Texas at Austin and University of Tennessee are all reinstituting the requirement for applicants. This also comes at a time where the Supreme Court recently struck down Affirmative Action.
In Oregon, no schools have made an announcement to require scores again. Milyon Trulove is the vice president and dean of admission and financial aid at Reed College. Jon Boeckenstedt is the vice provost of enrollment management at Oregon State University. They both join us to share what the admissions process is looking like now and why they are not reinstituting score requirements.
When one of the city’s vehicles are in need of repair, they may find themselves at Kerby Garage, a two-story city-owned facility in North Portland. But while the facility is responsible for servicing more than 2,000 city vehicles such as snowplows, dump trucks and excavators, the building has been labeled in city reports as in “very poor condition.” Some of the many problems with the building include no automated smoke detectors, frequent garage door issues and no air conditioning. Willamette Week reporter Sophie Peel has been covering this issue. She joins us to share more on what workers are facing and potential plans to address conditions at the facility in the future.
Last week, Gov. Tina Kotek signed into law HB 4002 which effectively ends Oregon’s experiment with drug decriminalization under Measure 110. As of Sept. 1, the possession of hard drugs like fentanyl and meth will be a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail. But the law also sets aside nearly $21 million to incentivize counties and Tribal governments to deflect drug users from jail time by connecting them to treatment and recovery service providers. Twenty-three counties in the state, including Washington County, have signed letters committing to prioritize deflection over incarceration. The details of those programs, however, are left up to each participating county. Joining us to talk about what deflection could look like in Washington County, and its impact on law enforcement and treatment providers are District Attorney Kevin Barton and Alison Noice, the executive director of Coda Inc., a substance use disorder treatment provider serving the tri-county region.
In her State of the City address last month, Vancouver Mayor Anne McEnerny-Ogle touted the city’s rapid growth and development since she was first elected to the city council more than a decade ago. But with that growth comes challenges for Washington’s fourth-largest city. In the past decade, homelessness has increased by more than 250%, prompting city officials to declare a state of emergency to streamline responding to this crisis. Last year, voters approved a new property tax levy that is expected to raise $100 million over 10 years to shore up the city’s Affordable Housing Fund. Meanwhile, hundreds of new housing units are being planned for the Heights District, a neighborhood redevelopment project in central Vancouver. Mayor McEnerny-Ogle joins us to talk about her vision for the city’s future, the challenges it faces and reflections on her past decade in city government.
Camp Namanu, a camp that has been a summertime idyll for Oregonians since 1924, was recently added to the National Register of Historic Places. The historic district includes lodges, cabins, and community buildings which were designed to complement and blend in with the Pacific Northwest forest environment. Nancy King, a board member of Camp Namanu, joins us to talk about what this camp has meant to generations of Oregonians.
The state is taking another crack at a wildfire hazard map that outlines areas where fire resources should be prioritized. The first attempt was withdrawn in 2022 after public outcry. As the latest map is drafted, the state continues to seek public feedback. In the coming months, agencies will visit places that might be more affected by the map, like Southern Oregon. Andy McEvoy is an OSU faculty research assistant, Derek Gasperini is a public affairs officer with the Oregon Department of Forestry and Tim Holschbach is the deputy chief of policy and planning for Oregon Department of Forestry. They join us with more on the mapping process and what comes next.
One of the many parts of a 10-year-plan to make the U.S. Postal Service financially sustainable involves reductions to rural postal service. U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy was appointed by then-President Trump in 2020. The cutback to rural service are part of DeJoy’s “Delivering for America” plan. We talk with Baker City Herald Editor Jayson Jacobi about the latest cutbacks, which went into effect in
An event in Pendleton this weekend will honor the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion, also known as the Triple Nickles. Formed during WWII, the unit was the first all-Black paratrooper battalion in the U.S. military. The Nickles were stationed in Pendleton as part of Operation Firefly, a top-secret effort to intercept and disarm Japanese balloon bombs that were floated over the Pacific. The unit fought the wildfires caused by the balloons as some of the nation’s earliest smokejumpers, all while facing discrimination as service members and civilians.
Jordan Bednarz is the event coordinator and recruiting and retention director for the veterans support nonprofit All Airborne Battalion. Robert Bartlett is a retired educator from Eastern Washington who produced a documentary on the Triple Nickles. They join us to share more about the battalion’s history and its legacy.
The Meating Place is a butcher shop and cafe located in Hillsboro. It recently received a $250,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to expand its meat processing capabilities.
In 2022, the shop received a grant from the Oregon Department of Agriculture as part of a state meat inspection program. Processing meat in Oregon can help producers save time and money. The Meating Place will use the latest round of federal funding to ramp up those services.
We check in with Casey Miller, the owner of The Meating Place to learn more about meat processing and what this means for Oregon’s economy.
The City of Eugene helps run several types of homeless shelters and services along with Lane County and other partners. The city has cobbled together funds to keep them running until June 2025. After that, the city will have to figure out how to keep some services going that currently rely on one-time funds. Meanwhile, Eugene has already made budget cuts to some services, like its libraries, to prioritize other emergency needs. We learn more about Eugene’s approach to funding homeless services with Kelly McIver, a communications manager for the city.
LONG SYNOPSIS: Last month, the girls and boys basketball teams at Crane Union High School in Eastern Oregon won state championship titles at the Oregon School Activities Association 1A tournament in Baker City. The smallest schools in the state compete in this division, including Crane, which is located in Harney County and currently has 84 students. It’s the third consecutive state title for the boys basketball team, and the fourth state title in the past five years for the girls team which ended their season undefeated. Joining us to talk about Crane’s dominance in the sport are Eric Nichols, the boys basketball coach and principal of Crane Union High School, and Kortney Doman and Kaitlyn Siegner, co-captains of the girls basketball team.
Data released by the Oregon Department of Education in the fall showed that student proficiency rates for mathematics dropped to about 30%. At the same time, investments championed by Gov. Tina Kotek will bring $100 million to schools to address literacy and early-learning reading. But should the same investments be made into other subjects like math? What needs to be done to help kids catch up? To answer these questions and more, we’re joined by Brenda Lindsay, the K-6 math facilitator for the Forest Grove School District. Allison Samuel is the 7-12th grade math facilitator there. We’ll also hear from Nicole Rigelman, a math education professor at Portland State University
Recent data from the Agricultural Census shows that while conventional farm animals like cows and chickens are doing fine, exotic animals are on the decline. As reported by the Washington Post, from 2002 to 2022 the number of Ostriches in the U.S. fell by 83%, while Llamas saw a similar decline at 79%. Michael Lehman is the president of the American Ostrich Association and co-owner of Central Oregon Ostrich. Ron Wilkinson is the president of the Central Oregon Llama Association and owner of R&G Acres. They both join us to share why they raise unconventional animals and share their thoughts on where the industry is headed.
After serving nearly 30 years in Congress, Democratic U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer announced last fall that he wouldn’t run for reelection. That leaves an open field for Oregon’s 3rd Congressional District primary this May. We’ll hear from the three most prominent candidates vying for the Democratic nomination: Maxine Dexter is a pulmonologist who represented Northwest Portland in the Oregon House of Representatives; Susheela Jayapal formerly represented District 2 on the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners; and Eddy Morales is a member of the Gresham City Council. They join us to share why they’re running and what they hope to accomplish if elected.
A federal district court judge ruled last week that St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church in Brookings can continue to serve free meals without restriction to people living on the streets. The church sued the city in 2022 over an ordinance that required a permit for meal services in residential zones and limited the number of days meals could be served to two days a week. Bernie Lindley, the Vicar of St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church, joins us to discuss the ruling.
Recently released agricultural census data showed the number of farmworkers in Washington has dropped dramatically over the last five years. At the same time, the number employed through the H-2A guest worker program has nearly doubled. We learn more from Seattle Times reporter Alison Saldanha about these contrasts and what they mean.
The primaries are just around the corner, and Multnomah County residents will see a few names on the ballot for the District 2 county commissioner seat. We'll hear from the top three contenders: Sam Adams is a former mayor of the city of Portland and previously held a position within Mayor Wheeler’s office. Jessie Burke is the owner of the Society Hotel and board chair of the Old Town Community Association. Shannon Singleton is the former interim director of the Joint Office of Homeless Services and is a trained social worker. They join us to share why they’re running and what they want to accomplish if elected.
Gabrielle Zevin is a lifelong devotee of video games, which is obvious to readers of her newest book, the bestseller “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.” The book tells the story of two video game designers who find professional creative and intellectual synergy that doesn’t always match in their personal lives. The book starts from the premise that designing video games is the highest of artistic pursuits. "Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow" is the Multnomah County Everybody Reads 2024 selection, and Zevin joins us to discuss it in front of an audience of students at Grant High School.
Grief isn’t the kind of theme or subject matter that an art exhibit would normally be organized around to draw visitors to marvel at expressions of on canvas or clay. In fact, its experience can be socially isolating, often only with the support of family members or close friends people suffering through it might hope to call upon.
But a new art exhibit that opens this Friday at AntFarm Café and Bakery in Sandy aims to remove the stigma of talking about grief and center the reality of living with it. Now in its second year, “Grief Made Visible” is organized by Laura Lirette, the director of bereavement services at Mt. Hood Hospice. It showcases dozens of works of art and writing created by participants who attended grief support groups offered by the hospice. Prompts given during those sessions helped participants process their feelings and thoughts through writing and visual art, including painting and making collages. Joining us to talk about the exhibit are Lirette and participating artist Dina Renée, who shares her journey navigating the loss of loved ones.
Rikki Nouri came to the U.S. from Israel eight years ago for school. She has since married and settled in the Pacific Northwest. Nouri shares what she hears from friends and family in Israel, and what it’s like living so far away from this conflict.
Last Friday, Klickitat County commissioners voted 2-1 during a special session to close the county jail following disturbing incidents that have called into question conditions in the facility and the treatment of inmates detained there. In January, the family of Ivan Howtopat filed a $20 million wrongful death lawsuit. Howtopat was withdrawing from fentanyl at the time of his detention and was found dead in his jail cell last May. Last November, a female inmate at the county jail was transferred to a local hospital after her health severely deteriorated while in custody.
Commissioners indicated they would transfer the roughly 30 inmates in the jail across state lines to the Northern Oregon Regional Correctional Facility in The Dalles. Joining us to talk about the recent developments and what they mean for controversial Klickitat County Sheriff Bob Songer is Troy Brynelson, OPB’s Southwest Washington bureau chief.
Editor’s note: This story contains discussions of suicide. If you or someone you love is considering self-harm, support is available 24 hours a day at the national suicide crisis lifeline. Just call 988.
The iconic 1980s mockumentary “This Is Spinal Tap” follows a fictional British band as their first North American tour slowly – and hilariously – falls apart. The movie serves as inspiration for the “Too Much Effing Perspective” podcast, hosted by Portlander Alex Hofmann and LA-based Allen Keller. Hofmann and Keller kick off conversations by asking guests about their “Spinal Tap” moments — situations where everything that could go wrong, did. The podcast has featured several Northwest artists since it launched in 2021, including Sleater-Kinney, the Dandy Warhols and Nancy Wilson from Heart.
Hofmann and show producer Gretchen Kilby join us in the studio to talk about the best stories guests have shared, as well as their own “Spinal Tap” moments.
Mohammad Usrof came to the U.S. from his hometown in Gaza 12 years ago for school. He has since married and settled in the Pacific Northwest. Usrof shares what he hears from friends and family in Gaza and Egypt, and what it’s like living so far away from this conflict.
The task force that investigates online child exploitation in Oregon has long been understaffed, leading to a serious backlog of tips to follow up on. But as reported in Willamette Week, state lawmakers recently approved an extra $2.7 million for the team, allowing it to nearly quadruple in size. The money will also support community outreach efforts and training for local law enforcement to aid in their investigations.
Michael Slauson is chief counsel for the Criminal Justice Division at the Oregon Department of Justice, which oversees the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. He joins us to talk about the work the task force does and what this new funding could mean.
Public health agencies are playing an increasingly important role in alerting residents to the risks of wildfire smoke as climate change increases the frequency and intensity of wildfires in the West. But that messaging can lack important information about the severity of that risk and specific actions that can be taken to mitigate it, according to a new study from the University of Oregon.
The study examined nearly 1,300 messages about wildfire smoke exposure that were sent in 2022 by federal, state and county health agencies in Oregon and Washington using the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. While slightly more than half the tweets were sent during September and October when wildfire smoke peaked, less than a fifth of them contained useful air quality descriptions or steps residents could take to mitigate exposure to it, such as using an air purifier at home or wearing a mask outdoors to filter out ash and smoke particles.
Joining us to discuss the findings, and the opportunities they reveal to better communicate wildfire smoke health risks is Cathy Slavik, the lead author of the study and a research associate at the Center for Science Communication Research at the University of Oregon.
The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department is actively trying to hire 250 seasonal park ranger and ranger assistants in anticipation of another busy summer this year. The recruitment drive started in February, two months earlier than last year, and has already yielded more than 4,200 applications for seasonal park ranger assistants - a nearly 100% increase compared to the number of applications the agency received for this position during this same time last year.
The OPRD won approval from state lawmakers last year to lengthen the duration of its seasonal positions up to nine months to better handle increasing numbers of visitors beyond peak summer months. There were an estimated 52 million day visits made last year, making it the second busiest year on record for the parks system. Joining us to talk about how these recruitment efforts are going and what staffing looks like at their parks are Jason Elkins, Park Manager at Cape Lookout Management Unit which includes Cape Lookout State Park on the Oregon coast, and Grace Neil, who recently started her second year as a seasonal park ranger at Wallowa Lake State Park in Eastern Oregon.
Culverts are all around us and you may not even know it. Culverts are pipes and tunnels, often under roadways and railroads, that allow water to pass through them. While water easily passes through them, the same can’t be said for some migratory fish like salmon. Ben Goldfarb is an environmental journalist who reported on the efforts being made to fix culverts for Hakai Magazine. He joins us to share more on the impacts the infrastructure can have and what it takes to replace them.
Earlier this month, Oregon State University received $10 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to work with a coalition of Native American tribes to explore opportunities to manufacture products and materials made from hemp. Some of those industrial applications include turning it into carbon for use inside energy storage devices, processing hemp fiber for use in car door panels and floorboards and mixing the interior part of the stalk with lime and water to make a lightweight alternative to concrete in home construction. The federal ban on growing hemp ended in 2018 when Congress legalized its production as an agricultural commodity, and removed it as a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substance Act.
OSU’s Global Hemp Innovation Center is collaborating with 13 tribal nations in Oregon, Washington, Montana and Idaho on this effort which will also include educational outreach and workforce training opportunities. Joining us to share details of this partnership are: Jeff Steiner, the director of the Global Hemp Innovation Center at OSU; Jim Souers, an enrolled member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and the CEO of the Warm Springs Economic Development Corporation; Mary Jane Oatman, an enrolled member of the Nez Perce Tribe, a descendant of the Delaware Tribe and the Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer of the Indigenous Cannabis Industry Association.
Last week, the Yurok Tribe signed a historic agreement with the National Park Service, California State Parks and Save the Redwoods League to transfer a 125-acre property back to tribal ownership. The site, known as ‘O Rew, is roughly in the center of Yurok ancestral territory and sits at the southern gateway to Redwood National Park. The agreement marks the first time that a national park will be co-managed by a Native tribe.
Nika Bartoo-Smith recently wrote about the agreement for Underscore News and ICT. She joins us with more details.
Last week the VA Portland Health Care System opened the Social Neuroscience & Psychotherapy Lab, known as the SNaP Lab, focused on psychedelic therapy and clinical trials. Dr. Christopher Stauffer, a psychiatrist, clinical researcher and director of social neuroscience and psychotherapy at Portland VA, joins us to talk about the new lab, and the two clinical trials currently underway.
Oregon’s Bottle Bill, which offers cash refunds for empty bottles and cans, was a landmark piece of legislation when it first passed in 1971. Since then, it’s served as a model for similar bills in other states and led to some of the highest recycling rates in the nation. The bill was originally intended to discourage littering, but the cash refunds it offers have increasingly become a lifeline for low-income Oregonians and people experiencing homelessness. As extensively reported in Willamette Week, critics now say the bill is fueling open-air drug markets outside return sites.
We’ll get an overview of the Bottle Bill from Eric Chambers, vice president of strategy and outreach for the Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative. We’re also joined by RJ DeMello, chair of the St. Johns Neighborhood Association; Ken Thrasher, former CEO of Fred Meyer and board chair of the Northwest Community Conservancy; and Kris Brown, manager of The People’s Depot, a Portland redemption center run by can collectors. They share their perspectives on how the Bottle Bill does – or doesn’t – interact with the state’s growing opioid and homelessness crises.
Mismanagement, inequity and turnovers plague Oregon’s Department of Early Learning and Care, a new story from InvestigateWest shows. The agency is responsible for more than $1.3 billion in early learning investments and has seen more than five managers and directors leave the office in the past 18 months, with some employees describing office culture as “toxic.” Kaylee Tornay is an investigative reporter who has been reporting on this issue. She joins us with more on what some workers have been facing.
You may have heard that wildfire seasons are getting longer, with blazes burning more intensely and lasting longer than ever. In 1993, fires were fought across nearly 1.8 million acres - but by 2021, that area had quadrupled. Not surprisingly, the resources and workforce needed to combat these conflagrations has been increasing as well. But exactly the opposite is happening: more and more of these critically important wildland firefighters are quitting or retiring, and they are not being replaced. As Abe Streep found in his two-year-long investigation for ProPublica, the reasons involve federal policies and what is offered to these critical employees by way of compensation, benefits and working conditions. He joins us to share more details of that investigation.
Three nonprofits in Oregon and one nonprofit in Southwest Washington will receive funding from billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott. The Pacific Northwest organizations were recently selected along with hundreds of other nonprofits across the country and are sharing a pot of about $640 million in unrestricted grant money.
Jackson Street Youth Services works with young people at risk of or experiencing homelessness. The organization provides housing and other supportive programs in Linn and Benton Counties. It received $1 million in funds.
Familias en Acción offers culturally specific health services to Latino communities in the Portland metro area and was granted $2 million. It’s working on partnerships and service expansion to more rural parts of the state.
Kendra Phillips and Margarita Gutierrez Lemus are the executive directors of Jackson Street Youth Services and Familias en Acción, respectively. They join us with more about the work that they’re doing and how the grant money will further the missions of their organizations.
Last week, three of Gov. Tina Kotek’s top aides announced their departure from the Governor’s Office. Sources with knowledge of the matter told OPB that the shakeup could have come from personality conflicts between staff and the governor's wife, Aimee Kotek Wilson. Now, Kotek is considering establishing an Office of the First Spouse and has already hired two state-funded staffers to accompany First Lady Kotek Wilson to an out-of-state conference in Salt Lake City. Dirk VanderHart is OPB’s political reporter. He joins us to share more on recent news.
Edwidge Danticat is an award-winning writer of novels, short stories, essays, and memoirs, with a focus on the rich experiences of the Haitian diaspora. Her latest book is the collection of short stories “Everything Inside.” We listen back to a conversation with Danticat in front of an audience at Woodburn high school in 2022.
OPB's latest podcast, “Salmon Wars,” tells the story of salmon in the Northwest in a way you haven’t heard before — through the voices of one Yakama Nation family who have been fighting for salmon for generations. In episode one, host Tony Schick introduces us to Randy Settler and his family. The Settlers, members of the Yakama Nation, have been deeply affected by the Northwest’s salmon policies for generations. They lost their home, their primary food source, and their ancestral fishing grounds. Randy and his parents went to jail for exercising their fishing rights. They also won some important victories along the way. Now, he’s passing the fight on to younger people in the tribe.
Portland city officials are currently considering what to do with one of downtown’s largest venues. The Keller Auditorium is more than a century old and was last renovated in the 1960s. A 2020 analysis found that the building needs a seismic upgrade and a number of accessibility improvements to bring it up to modern standards. Some are arguing for an extensive renovation of the current space, while others are pushing for a new auditorium to be built on the Portland State University campus or as part of a redeveloped Lloyd Center. The City Council is expected to take up the proposals this spring.
Brian Libby, a freelance architecture and design journalist, recently wrote about all of this for Oregon ArtsWatch. He joins us with more details on the pros and cons of each proposal.
On June 3, 2016, a train carrying crude oil derailed in Mosier, a Wasco County community in the Columbia River Gorge. Several rail cars caught fire and oil leaked into the Columbia River.
For some officials, the incident was a wake-up call. Trains carrying oil regularly pass through the Columbia River Gorge. In Oregon, agencies are coordinating with officials from Washington, tribal and federal governments to prepare for future oil spills. Chuck Thompson is the editor of Columbia Insight, a nonprofit news website covering environmental issues around the Columbia River Basin. He wrote about these efforts and joins us with details.
With spring break around the corner, many students will be enjoying their time away from school work, but some may find themselves picking up jobs as babysitters. Margie House is the 4-H program coordinator at Oregon State University’s Extension program and runs a babysitter teaching program. She joins us to share more on the demand for the course and what students are learning.
After seeing an all-time high for gun violence at the end of 2022, Portland saw a 22% decrease in overall shootings last year. In late February, Mayor Ted Wheeler attributed this decline to a community-city partnership known as Portland Ceasefire. Marcell Frazier is the director of the city’s Office of Violence Prevention. Mike Myers is the community safety transition director. They have collaborated on Ceasefire and join us to discuss what gun violence currently looks like in the city and what is being done to address it
Inadequate state funding and the end of COVID-19 relief dollars have left school districts across Oregon with multimillion-dollar budget deficits. Portland Public Schools officials are planning to cut $30 million out of next year’s budget and administrators at Salem-Keizer Public Schools need to cut $60 million. The Bend-La Pine School Board recently voted to place a local tax levy on the spring ballot in an effort to close their funding gaps. And in Southwest Washington, Evergreen Public Schools is facing a $16-20 million budget shortfall, while Vancouver Public Schools is facing $35 million.
OPB’s K-12 education reporter Natalie Pate joins us to share more about what’s driving the budget cuts and the impact they could have on students and families.
Every year, students across the country memorize and recite poems for the Poetry Out Loud competition. But for Deaf students, memorization isn’t the only challenge – they first have to translate the poem from English to American Sign Language. From there, they work to interpret the poem’s meaning and incorporate it into their performance in ASL.
Traiton Kramer and Brayden Olson are seniors at Oregon School for the Deaf. They both competed at the state Poetry Out Loud competition this year and join to tell us more about the process, along with Gayle Robertson, a curriculum specialist who coordinates the competition at the school.
In 2017, Vancouver resident Lois Smith got the idea to put out a succinct print guide to resources and services for people experiencing homelessness. She’d been volunteering with Friends of the Carpenter, a faith-based nonprofit that runs a day center for people experiencing homelessness. She says the stories from the unhoused people she talked to stayed with her, and realized she could put something tangible into their hands to help direct them to services, shelter and other resources. She knew it had to be informed by the people she wanted to help and she wanted to be light, withstand rain, snow and heat.
Smith now puts out the guides yearly as an independent project that is funded entirely by donations. They’re printed yearly in different colors, making it easier to tell which one is current. She says she works with local officials, law enforcement, social service agencies, churches and many others to make sure the content is useful - and gets into the hands of people who need it. Portland’s Street Roots puts out a similar paper guide, though not a waterproof one. Smith joins us to tell us more about how the guides are used in Vancouver and Clark County and how she sees the idea spreading.
Within the last three years, there has been a 449% increase in children under the age of 6 being exposed to fentanyl, according to a new study from Oregon Health and Science University. Researchers looked at U.S. poison control data and found significantly more incidents compared to previous years. There were no reported incidents of fentanyl poisoning in Oregon in 2020, but by 2023, there were 16. Robert Hendrickson is the medical director of the Oregon Poison Center at OHSU. He joins us to share more on the increase and why it’s happening
Three college basketball teams from Oregon are competing in the March Madness NCAA tournament which started on Tuesday. Oregon State University women’s basketball team is a No. 3 seed and will make its first NCAA tournament appearance since 2021 on Thursday, when it hosts Eastern Washington University. The University of Portland women’s basketball team is making its second consecutive tournament appearance this year after winning the West Coast Conference championship game with a one-point victory over Gonzaga University earlier this month. The University of Oregon Ducks enter the NCAA men’s tournament as a No. 11 seed after winning their last championship game as a member of the Pac-12 conference. UO joins the Big Ten conference in the fall.
Brenna Greene is a sports anchor and reporter at KOIN 6. She joins us to talk about March Madness, including some in the women’s Sweet 16 and Elite 8 rounds that will be held in Portland next weekend.
SafeSpace is a children’s advocacy center in Hood River that serves five counties in the Columbia River Gorge. It offers an array of services, including forensic interviews, medical exams and psychological counseling, to suspected victims of child abuse, maltreatment or neglect, as well as their family members. The organization also accepts referrals of suspected child abuse cases from the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Police Department.
As reported previously by Columbia Gorge News, SafeSpace is holding an open house for community members this Wednesday at its new facility in Hood River, which it moved into in January. Executive Director Beatriz Lynch says the new space will allow the center to double its caseload and reduce wait times for children and their families. It will also include a new pediatric mental health care clinic for which funds are being raised to open this summer. Lynch joins us to talk about SafeSpace’s expansion plans amid a growing need for its services.
Keizer-based nurse Yvonne Groenhout has decades of experience as an intensive care unit nurse. She’s officially retired, but fills in at a local hospital in Southern Oregon when the need arises. Groenhout has also volunteered her medical expertise in Chicago, Los Angeles, Ukraine and, most recently, Gaza. As reported in the Salem Reporter, she recently spent five weeks in Rafah in a demilitarized area where she and her fellow volunteers with the nonprofit International Medical Corps had set up a field hospital. She joins us to share more about what she saw there, and what drives her to donate her time and professional expertise in this way.
For many Indigenous people, it isn’t a question of whether Bigfoot exists, but whether you have seen him. A new exhibit at the High Desert Museum in Bend features the work of many Indigenous artists exploring a relationship with Sasquatch. Phil Cash Cash and Frank Buffalo Hyde are two artists featured in the exhibit. They join us to talk about their work.
According to a recent Pew Research Center report, nearly half of adults in the U.S. use Instagram. The social media platform is also popular with influencers who amass a large online following around a particular interest, like health and wellness. They can then leverage that popularity to profit from the sale of products and services they promote through their accounts.
But some influencers on Instagram are also profiting from the spread of misinformation, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Washington. The study looked at three Instagram influencers who spread vaccine misinformation with messaging that appealed to users with varying interests, from fashion to homeschooling. Those influencers posted content that linked to products such as essential oils they falsely claimed would cure colds, viruses and other ailments. Rachel Moran is the lead author of the study and a senior research scientist at the Center for an Informed Public at the University of Washington. She joins us to share her findings.
As housing costs rise, older adults are experiencing homelessness more often. The National Alliance to End Homelessness found that nearly one in four people experiencing homelessness were over the age of 55, based on data from 2023’s Point-in-Time count.
In Oregon, advocates recognize that the problem is growing. Laura Golino de Lovato is the executive director of the Northwest Pilot Project, a nonprofit that advocates for low income people over the age of 55. The organization helps them find and keep affordable housing. She joins us with more on what this issue looks like in Multnomah County and what she would like to see to better support this population moving forward.
Even in the midst of great suffering, humans continue to live and love. Two new books from Louis Alberto Urrea and Alice Winn focus on the human relationships that take place in the midst of War. Winn’s novel, “In Memoriam,” tells the story of two gay British soldiers coming to terms with their relationship during the brutal trench warfare of WWI. Urrea’s book, “Goodnight, Irene,” chronicles the life of a woman serving on the front lines of WWII as a “Donut Dolly.” These heroic Red Cross volunteers served coffee and donuts to American soldiers to keep up their morale. OPB’s Geoff Norcross talked to Urrea and Winn at the 2023 Portland Book Festival.
Singer-songwriter James Dean Kindle was born and raised in Pendleton. He’s been making music for decades and says he likes to blur the boundaries between country, folk, jazz, and Latin genres. He may be best known for his work with the Eastern Oregon Playboys, but he’s about to release his first solo album, and his first in six years. “Trailmix” was inspired by his time hiking in the Umatilla River Canyon.
He’s also immersed in music on an entirely different level as well, as the executive director for the Oregon East Symphony, a nearly 40-year-old institution that he’s helped grow over the last 10 years. Kindle joins us for an in-studio performance and interview. The official album release of “Trailmix” will be held in Pendleton on Saturday, April 6.
SB 1537, which Gov. Tina Kotek asked lawmakers to introduce, will make advances for more housing by allowing cities to expand their urban growth boundaries. An earlier version of this bill that failed last year would have given developers automatic exceptions for various zoning rules, including things like parking requirements for apartment complexes. Michael Andersen, the director of cities and towns at the Sightline Institute, wrote about this “missing piece” of the current bill. He joins us with more details.
Eastern filbert blight, a fungal pathogen that kills hazelnut trees, first made its way to the Northwest in the 1960s. Since then, farmers have managed the fungus by pruning infected trees and spraying orchards with fungicide. But the most successful intervention has been a disease-resistant cultivar that’s been bred into newer hazelnut varieties.
A new strain of the blight has overcome that disease resistance, however. As reported in the Capital Press, the strain originated in an Oregon orchard and now threatens thousands of acres of newer trees in the state.
Ken Johnson is a professor in the department of botany and plant pathology at Oregon State University. He joins us with more details on the new strain and what it could mean for Oregon’s $90 million hazelnut industry.
An area that’s nearly half the size of New Jersey in southern Oregon was recently named the world’s largest Dark Sky Sanctuary by DarkSky International. The nonprofit works to combat light pollution through advocacy and conservation, including a program that has certified more than 200 places around the world to protect the night sky.
The Oregon Outback International Dark Sky Sanctuary spans 2.5 million acres of mostly public land in eastern Lake County, and could eventually grow to more than four times that size to include parts of Harney and Malheur Counties. To win certification as a Dark Sky Sanctuary, the applicants had to work with numerous stakeholders to draw the site’s boundaries, monitor night sky quality, inventory outdoor lights and retrofit more than 60 light fixtures on public and private lands. Dawn Nilson is a natural resources planner, amateur astronomer and the project manager of the Oregon Outback International Dark Sky Sanctuary. She joins us to talk about this conservation effort and future expansion plans for the sanctuary.
You may have heard that various kinds of invasive plants and animals create problems for the species that are native to an area. In the case of the quagga mussel, which only grows to the size of a thumbnail, its effects extend beyond the natural ecology and into the built environment. Not only can it take food away from juvenile salmon and other fish, but the mussels can clog all sorts of water systems, from municipal water to irrigation and hydropower.
The quagga and the related zebra mussel came from Eastern Europe to the Great Lakes in the 1980s. In the last dozen years or so, quagga been found in California, Nevada and Utah. They also appeared in Idaho last year along the Snake River. Rick Boatner, the invasive species coordinator at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, says inspections and monitoring could keep the quagga out of the Columbia River Basin, but probably not for more than a few years. He says once they get in, quagga mussels will forever change how we use water in Oregon. He joins to tell us more about what’s needed to slow their spread and to highlight a few of the other invasive species on the agency’s radar.
Linn County will soon dispatch a mobile mental health care clinic for residents. The Mobile Crisis Intervention Team will be able to work with residents throughout the county and assist in a crisis situation.
Workers have traditionally met with residents in emergency rooms but the mobile clinic, a modified van with a workspace and onboard generator, will provide more flexibility.
We hear more from Todd Noble, the county’s health administrator, about the need for more accessible care and how a statewide mental health crisis is affecting the region.
Grants Pass has been working on a sustainability plan that will help the city be more resilient in the case of a natural disaster. The plan includes projects like installing electric vehicle charging stations downtown and adding solar panels at city-owned landfills. But the city is struggling to find funding for the projects and has limited resources to work on grants that could help. Claire Carlson is a reporter for The Daily Yonder, a nonprofit newsroom that reports on rural America. She has reported on the challenges facing Grants Pass and joins us with details.
The United States Department of Agriculture issued two natural disaster designations, and they affect several counties in Oregon. Wasco, Hood River, Clackamas, Multnomah, Clackamas, Gilliam, Jefferson, Marion, Sherman and Wheeler counties were listed in the designations. This means that farmers in the affected counties are eligible to apply for emergency assistance.
Extreme weather events in recent years have affected Oregon growers and spurred agency action. Farmers have faced unseasonably hot and drought-like conditions in the past. In 2021, a heat dome destroyed cherries as they baked on trees. Last year there was a glut of cherries across the West which caused prices to plummet.
Ian Chandler is the chair of the Oregon Sweet Cherry Commission and a cherry farmer. He joins us with more on what this means for fruit producers and how this year’s season is going
On Monday, Gov. Kotek announced that a proposed tolling project on Interstate 5 and Interstate 205 would not commence. The project was meant to reduce congestion and fund future transportation projects, but rising costs and uncertain toll revenues led the governor to bring the projects to a halt.
Anessa Hartman is a Democrat who represents district 40 in the Oregon House, which covers Oregon City, Gladstone and parts of Clackamas County. She joins us to share more on why she opposed this project and what the governor's decision to shelve it means for her constituents. We’ll also hear from Indi Namkoong, the transportation justice coordinator at Verde PDX. She shares how tolling can be a viable tool to address climate change, but how the Oregon Department of Transportation’s approach wasn’t what they had hoped for.
Animal rescue organizations across Oregon could soon be paying thousands of extra dollars in license fees. That’s according to a proposal from the Oregon Department of Agriculture, which oversees the organizations. The new fee structure would charge rescues and shelters based on the number of animals they take in per year. Nearly 200 people testified against the changes at a hearing last month, saying the tiered structure would disproportionately impact smaller organizations. ODA is accepting public comments on the proposal until March 15.
Karen Green is the executive director of Cat Adoption Team, the largest cat-specific shelter in the Northwest. Beverly Beach is a volunteer for Cat Utopia, a foster-based rescue in Eastern Oregon. They both join us to talk about how the proposed changes could impact their services.
Ecological restoration projects often require thousands of seeds or seedlings. But there's another approach that's gaining momentum, especially on Tribal lands: introducing water or fire to a landscape and then letting long-buried seeds come back to life. Portland-based freelance journalist Josephine Woolington wrote about this recently for High Country News and joins us with more details.
The Grants Pass City Council recently passed an ordinance limiting the amount of time homeless service organizations can spend helping unhoused people in city parks and on other public property. Service providers would have to register with the city and provide data on the number of people they serve. The ordinance still needs the mayor’s signature to become law.
Sara Bristol is the mayor of Grants Pass, and Cassy Leach is the executive director of MINT, a homeless services provider that serves Josephine County. They both join us to talk about the ordinance and the challenges facing unhoused people in the region.
Portland General Electric residential customers saw an 18% increase in the cost of their electricity bills since the beginning of January, the highest rate increase within the past two decades. Now, a new proposal from the utility aims to raise those rates again. If approved, electricity bills could be 7% higher than they are now starting at the beginning of 2025. Bob Jenks is the executive director of the Oregon Citizens’ Utility Board, an advocacy group that represents consumer interests in utilities. He joins us to share his thoughts on the proposal. We’ll also hear from a representative from PGE.
In Washington, school districts are working on how they interact with truant students. The state has laws in place that allow for school districts to work with kids and understand why they’re missing school so often. Rules include referring students to community engagement boards and working with juvenile court. But district success with current policies vary widely from county to county, and some kids are falling through the cracks. Kelsey Turner has covered this issue as an investigative reporter at InvestigateWest. She joins us with details.
In just 31 days, Oregon lawmakers ended the 2024 legislative session. They passed bills with bipartisan support that targeted affordable housing, homelessness, campaign finance and the fentanyl crisis. They also delivered on Governor Tina Kotek’s top legislative priority with a $376 million housing package to boost affordable housing construction, help counties acquire land to develop properties and expand emergency shelters for people experiencing homelessness.
The governor has already announced she will sign into law HB 4002, which effectively ends Oregon’s experiment with drug decriminalization under Measure 110. But there were limits to that bipartisan cooperation, such as when Republicans blocked passage of a bill which would have made Oregon the first state in the nation to restrict corporate and private equity takeover of medical clinics. OPB political reporters Lauren Dake and Dirk VanderHart join us for a look at the key developments from the short legislative session.
A recent study shows that chronic exposure to discrimination and stigma can negatively impact the health of trans and nonbinary people. But it also shows that a strong sense of community can help alleviate those impacts. The findings are part of the broader Trans Resilience and Health Study, co-led by Jae Puckett, an assistant professor at Michigan State University, and Zachary DuBois, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Oregon.
DuBois joins us to talk about the recent findings, as well as the broader effort to explore trans resilience and health across the U.S.
Jenn McPoland has been homebrewing beer for about 20 years. It’s become her main hobby and something she loves to share. She likes to tell people, “If you can cook, you can brew.” McPoland says while the industry remains pretty male dominated, more women than ever are getting into the craft all the time. When she first got into SheBrew, a one day festival celebrating women in the industry, there were just two women-owned breweries in the state. Now there are a dozen or more.
SheBrew is in its ninth year, and draws professional brewers and homebrewers alike. Not all of the brewers own their own business, but all of them contribute a beer that they have brewed themselves. Profits from the event go to the Human Rights Campaign, which supports LGTBQ+ rights and the Oregon Brew Crew, a homebrewing club. McPoland joins us with more about the event, along with Cason Wolcott, one of five brewers at Baerlic Brewing. SheBrew is happening on March 10 in Portland
City councilors in Ashland voted 5 - 1 this week to close its 24/7 emergency homeless shelter. The city opened the shelter last November. Oregon state officials had offered Ashland $1.8 million for renovations and $800,000 for operational funds for the facility. But the councilors voted to decline the funding and shut the shelter down when the current state funding ends March 31. Meanwhile, the council is currently working on a master plan for addressing homelessness. Jefferson Public Radio reporter Jane Vaughan joins us to tell us more the decision to close the shelter and the ongoing need for homeless services in Ashland.
The Eugene School District 4J board voted Wednesday night not to renew the contract of Superintendent Andy Dey. The departure comes a month after Eugene Weekly broke the news that Dey was under investigation following complaints of discrimination and retaliation. Since then, the paper has reported on the board’s formal reprimand of Dey and a new allegation that Dey kissed a teacher without her consent.
Eugene Weekly Editor Camilla Mortensen joins us for an update on the board’s decision and what comes next for the district.
Hannah Glavor’s music used to lean toward singer-songwriter folk. But her newly released single, Otherside, shows an indie rock side to the Portland musician. She writes about loss and hope, and about darkness and the light on the other side. Hannah Glavor joins us in the studio to perform songs from her new album.
Oregon is on the verge of reshaping how political campaigns are financed. HB 4024 would limit contributions for individuals and for organizations. If passed, limits would not begin until January 2027. Jason Kafoury is the co-chair of Honest Elections Oregon. He joins us to share more details of the bill.
Astoria author Kama O’Connor thinks a lot about romance and love. Writing under the pen name Kristine Lynn, her seventh romance novel - “Accidentally Dating His Boss” - was published last month by Harlequin. In addition to being a romance novelist, O’Connor is also a writing and English instructor at Clatsop Community College in Astoria. Next month, those two passions will converge in a new humanities course called “Modern Love.” From Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” to Taylor Swift’s “Love Story,” the class explores the evolution of love stories in books, movies, songs and pop culture. O’Connor joins us to talk about the course, becoming a romance novelist and changing perceptions about the genre and its authors.
Kama O’Connor will be giving a free public talk about the history of love stories tomorrow evening at Fort George Brewery in Astoria. Doors open at 6, and the talk begins at 7pm.
It’s been just over three months since the only hospital in Eugene closed, leaving Oregon’s second-largest city without a dedicated emergency department. PeaceHealth announced the closure of its University District hospital last August and ceased most operations at the facility in December. Since then, emergency patients have been transported to the McKenzie-Willamette Medical Center or PeaceHealth’s RiverBend hospital, both located in Springfield.
Deputy Chief Chris Heppel oversees emergency medical services at Eugene Springfield Fire. He joins us to talk about how the University District closure has impacted EMS in Eugene, along with Rep. Nancy Nathanson, D-Eugene, who joins us with more details about a possible legislative solution to some of those issues.
Washington’s Department of Natural Resources manages over 100,000 acres inside the border of the Yakama Nation. The lands are held in trust and managed to provide revenue for the state’s K-12 schools and prisons. A new investigation from High Country News and Grist found that nearly 2 million acres of state trust lands lie within the borders of 83 federally recognized Indian reservations. Anna V. Smith, associate editor of High Country News, joins us with more on the investigation.
The Deschutes Basin Water Collaborative draws together water users In Central Oregon who are often put in the position of competing for water. Irrigators, fish and wildlife advocates and managers, the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, cities and county residents using groundwater from private wells have been working together for more than 20 years with notable successes. Those include funding and implementing programs that have both preserved water for agriculture and provided for drinking water and fish and wildlife. The collaborative model is different from other kinds of negotiating, like mediation or lawmaking.
But the ongoing drought conditions are posing challenges that even those with decades of experience managing water resources have not faced. We talked with those integrally involved with and affected by water supply and water policy in front of an audience in an event space overlooking the Deschutes River.
We bring you that conversation today, slightly edited for clarity and brevity, with: Bend Mayor Melanie Kebler and utility director Mike Buettner; Redmond Mayor Ed Fitch; Deschutes County Commissioner Phil Chang; Bobby Brunoe, CEO for the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs and one of the co-chairs of the Deschutes Basin Water Collaborative; Kate Fitzpatrick, executive director of the Deschutes River Conservancy; farmers in two different irrigation districts in the Basin, Phil Fine and Matt Lisignoli; and Tod Heisler, River Advocate with Central Oregon Landwatch. This show is the last in our solution-oriented series funded by the Oregon Community Foundation.
Certain foods are often marketed in ways that reinforce gender stereotypes. Think, for example, of the deep, masculine voice who proclaims “We have the meats!” as the tagline from a popular fast food chain, or advertisements aimed at women that tout the low-calorie appeal of a brand of yogurt.
A new study from researchers at University of Oregon suggests that these gender stereotypes around food can also influence kids and the kinds of foods they choose to eat. Nichole Kelly is the Evergreen associate professor in counseling psychology and human services at University of Oregon, and one of the study’s authors. She joins us to talk about the findings and how placing value judgments on certain foods may affect future eating behaviors.
Voters in the Portland metro region passed a tax in 2020 to fund homeless services. But Multnomah County is far behind in spending the hundreds of millions of dollars that tax has generated. Clackamas and Washington counties also have unspent tax money. Now, the Metro regional government wants to divert some of those dollars to build more affordable housing. We'll talk with Willamette Week reporter Nigel Jaquiss who’s been following the developments.
On Friday, the Oregon Senate passed House Bill 4002, which now heads to Governor Tina Kotek. Under the proposal, people caught with small amounts of illicit drugs like fentanyl could face jail time. HB 4002 also creates new addiction service facilities. OPB political reporter Dirk VanderHart joins us with details.
Behind the laughter and bright lights of sitcoms, some of America’s favorite shows featured queer storylines – whether viewers realized it or not. From Bewitched to the Golden Girls, “Hi Honey, I’m Homo!: Sitcoms, Specials and the Queering of American Culture” explores how sitcoms played a role in the advancement of LGBTQ+ rights by embracing queer culture.
Matt Baume is a Seattle-based podcaster, Youtuber and author of the new book. He joins us to share some of the most impactful shows in gay history and the greater role they played in society.
Charles Yu has written a lot about the nature of reality, how we understand what is real, and the assumptions we make about each other and the universe we live in. Yu’s first novel, “How to live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe,” follows a time machine repairman who is searching for his father who is lost in time and memory. His latest book, National Book Award winning “Interior Chinatown,” takes place in a Chinese restaurant that’s also the set for a police procedural TV show and a sendup of stereotypes of Asian American characters. Yu talks to us in front of an audience of students from Ida B. Wells High School.
For many, the name Audubon conjures up images of birds or birdwatchers venturing into nature with a pair of binoculars to catch a glimpse of a beloved warbler or bird of prey. But for some, the name can evoke a painful reminder of the legacy of John James Audubon – an artist, self-taught ornithologist and naturalist who owned slaves, opposed abolition and stole human remains from Native American graves. Acknowledging that painful history, the Portland chapter of the National Audubon Society recently changed its name to Bird Alliance of Oregon. The group joins other chapters in Seattle, Chicago, San Francisco and elsewhere that have either adopted a new name or committed to doing so, despite the national organization’s decision to stick with the Audubon name. We hear from Stuart Wells, the executive director of Bird Alliance of Oregon, about the significance of its new name, especially for people of color and other marginalized groups who continue to face barriers to recreate in nature.
This school year, Oregon received more than $17 million to fund and strengthen career and technical education. Right now there are more than 1,000 CTE programs offered throughout the state and many schools continue to expand their offerings.
The Oregon Department of Education is in the process of creating its latest strategic CTE plan. But what does demand look like at schools right now? To help answer this question and more we’ll hear from Stephen DuVal, the director of college and career readiness for the Bend-La Pine School District, and Rhonda Rhodes, the principal at the Career Technical Education Center at the Salem-Keizer School District.
Last Saturday marked the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and more than 6 million refugees have fled the fighting since the war began. Yulia Brockdorf is a Ukrainian American psychotherapist who lives in Hillsboro. She is also the co-founder and president of DAWN, a nonprofit that has been sending medical supplies, water filtration equipment and other humanitarian aid to Ukraine. She made four trips last year, including one in November when she traveled to the frontlines in Eastern Ukraine to provide counseling to troops and former POWs. Brockdorf shares her perspective on the mental health toll the fighting is taking on civilians turned soldiers, as well as the ongoing need for military aid to Ukraine.
The Oregon Public Use of Land Act protects local governments from lawsuits if someone is injured while recreating on public land. But a 2019 lawsuit threw the “recreational immunity” law into question when a judge sided with a Newport woman who sued the city after slipping on a wet footbridge. Since walking, running and bicycling aren’t explicitly included in the recreational activities protected by the law, cities and counties across the state have closed trails and bike paths to avoid liability. Senate Bill 1576-3 would fill the gaps in the law’s language to keep public spaces open.
Rep. David Gomberg, a Democratic state lawmaker whose district covers Lincoln County and parts of western Lane and Benton County, joins us with more details on the bill and what it could mean for Oregon’s public lands.
STATEMENT FROM OREGON TRIAL LAWYERS ASSOCIATION: “Recreational immunity further reduces the financial incentive for cities, counties and the state to keep our families and communities safe. They will now have no responsibility to maintain safe trails, bike lanes and parks. This ultimately benefits insurance companies who don’t want to pay claims. For example, children harmed by poorly maintained playground equipment or bike riders injured on hazardous pathways will now have no way to be compensated for their medical bills or injuries due to shoddy maintenance or neglect. This bill is just another example of government shirking its duty to its citizens. Oregonians deserve better.”
Oregon lawmakers are considering a bipartisan bill that would create some of the strictest limits in the nation on corporate ownership of primary care and specialty medical clinics. The bill has passed the House already, and senators on the health care committee voted Tuesday to pass it on to the full Senate for consideration. Some of the bill’s toughest provisions would not apply to hospitals, health systems, and nursing homes, which are already largely exempt from Oregon’s restrictions on the corporate practice of medicine. We hear more details from OPB health reporter Amelia Templeton.
The ringtail is a big-eyed, bushy-tailed relative of the raccoon whose range extends from northern Mexico to Southern Oregon. The squirrel-sized carnivores are active during the night and spend the day resting in hollowed-out trees. It’s a reclusive species, but a recent study from the Hoopa Valley Tribe and Oregon State University shed new light on the ringtail's habitat and behavior. By understanding which trees the animals choose to rest in, researchers and tribal members hope to better inform forest management practices in Southern Oregon and Northern California.
Sean Matthews is a wildlife ecologist with OSU’s Institute for Natural Resources. He joins us with more details on the study’s findings.
The Oregon legislature is considering a bill which would make state agencies pay a fee to compensate the city of Salem for fire, police and emergency medical services. The proposal would require paying roughly $6 million a year to the city, and would launch as a three-year pilot project this year if approved by lawmakers. Supporters say the payment is needed since Salem misses out on millions in tax revenue from state-owned land even though those agencies rely on city services. Whitney Woodworth is a reporter for the Statesman Journal and has covered the proposal. She joins us with details.
Last week, the Portland school board unanimously passed a resolution allowing for the sale of its North Portland district headquarters to the Albina Vision Trust. The local nonprofit has been working to restore the historically Black Albina neighborhood through redevelopment efforts such as the construction of 94 affordable housing units it recently broke ground on. The idea for AVT’s acquisition of the PPS property goes back several years, and gained momentum last month when AVT presented its proposal to the PPS board, including a commitment to help the district find a new headquarters location that matches or exceeds the value of its current site. The resolution establishes a timeline of up to one year for a new location to be identified, along with various milestones that must be met. Michelle DePass, a Portland Public Schools Board member who grew up in the Albina neighborhood, and Winta Yohannes, executive director of Albina Vision Trust, join us to discuss the details.
The National Parks Service is planning to terminate its contract with Aramark, the company that manages lodging, food and other services at Crater Lake under the name Crater Lake Hospitality. The announcement comes after the company received the lowest possible annual rating from the park service last year. Since Aramark took over in 2018, annual reports have documented fuel leaks, sewer overflows, incomplete maintenance projects, food safety issues and more in the park. Unsafe and rodent-infested employee housing has also been a major concern.
Roman Battaglia has been covering this issue as a reporter for Jefferson Public Radio. He joins us with more details on what the reports show and what’s next for the park.
Oregon Democrats and Republicans appear to have reached agreement to enact jail sentences of up to 180 days for people caught with small amounts of drugs like fentanyl, meth and heroin. House Bill 4002 also weakens a provision that would have required police to offer to connect people caught with drugs to treatment rather than bringing them to jail. That “mandatory deflection” was designed to give drug users a choice to avoid a criminal charge. But under the most recent version of the bill, it’s only optional. Malori Maloney, a staff attorney at the Oregon Justice Resource Center, joins us to explain how she thinks this bill will affect Oregon’s already overburdened criminal justice system.
Last month, trees throughout Western Oregon fell as strong winds and snow battered the region. In Portland alone, there are more than a million trees in its parks and nearly 3 million trees on private property. January’s storm affected branches, dead and dying trees, but also healthy trees. What can the city learn about its urban forest following the storm? How should we think about the conifers around us moving forward? We check in on trees with Brian French, arborist and owner of Arboriculture International.
In 2015, Portland created a groundbreaking policy to give preference for affordable housing and housing loans in historically Black neighborhoods to those who have been displaced from the area. In 2018, a report found that just 4 households had been able to purchase homes using city loans. After a major overhaul, part of the contract for the city’s housing preference policy was handed to the Portland Housing Center. This week, the nonprofit celebrated 5 years and 110 homes that have been successfully purchased through the program. We check in on the policy with Dana Shepherd, executive director of Portland Housing Center, and Leslie Goodlow, equity business operations manager for the Portland Housing Bureau.
The Portland Police recently announced it had made 13 arrests and recovered two stolen vehicles during a mission targeting thefts of large amounts of retail goods in the Hollywood and LLoyd districts. About two dozen retail theft missions have taken place since last March, mainly at locations in North Portland like the Cascade Station shopping mall, according to North Precinct Portland Police Commander Rob Simon. He said the missions can involve up to 15 officers and require the participation of retail staff to inform the police of thefts of large amounts of merchandise such as Nike sneakers, North Face jackets and crates of wine. The crackdowns come amid a new Oregon law which took effect in January that toughens the penalties for organized retail crime, such as allowing a judge to impose a two-year prison sentence for a person with prior convictions for retail theft. Portland Police Sergeant and public information officer Kevin Allen joins us to talk about the police’s response to these crimes.
After the All-Star Break, the Portland Blazers have just 28 games left in their season. With new faces on the court, the loss of beloved point guard Damian Lillard and TV viewership reportedly dropping by almost 50%, what is the future of the team? To give us a sense on how the season has played out so far and what is to come, we’re joined by Host of the “Locked on Blazers” podcast Mike Richman.
A new report from a coalition of service providers for queer communities in the Portland area found that the region lacks support and resources for LGBTQ+ people experiencing homelessness. The report comes from the LGBTQAI2S+ Housing Collaborative, which is composed of several groups including Basic Rights Oregon, Pride Northwest, the Equi Institute, PDX Trans Housing Coalition, the Q Center, Black & Beyond the Binary Collective and others.
The collaboration notes there is a lack of emergency shelters for this group, despite being more likely to have experienced homelessness. Jonathan Frochtwajg is the public policy and grants manager for Cascades Aids Project and authored the report. Seraph Kane and Thomasina Fizdale work with Portland's Queer Affinity Village, an outdoor shelter that creates an affirming space for LGBTQ+ Portlanders experiencing homelessness. They join us as well to share more about the demand for services.
Earlier this month, the Albina Music Trust launched a digital archive containing thousands of photographs, audio recordings and film and video clips documenting the culture and history of the Albina neighborhood. Black Portlanders built a thriving community in the Albina until redevelopment projects such as the construction of the I-5 freeway more than 60 years ago destroyed the neighborhood, shuttering businesses, demolishing homes and displacing residents.
The Albina Community Archive is more than just a repository of sights and sounds from a bygone era. It also helps keep that history alive by allowing users to add their own memories or information about a photograph or recording. Joining us to talk about the archive is Bobby Smith, co-founder and lead archivist of the Albina Music Trust, and Ken Berry, co-founder and emeritus consulting producer of the World Arts Foundation, who donated items from his personal collection to the archive.
Cycling was up 5% last year compared to 2022 numbers, according to the latest bike count from the Portland Bureau of Transportation. The 2022 report showed that from 2019 to 2022, ridership fell almost 35%. Jonathan Maus is the editor and publisher of Bike Portland. He joins us to share more on what these numbers say about the current bike trends in Portland.
A new study by researchers at Oregon State University found that fish embryos that were exposed to tiny amounts of pesticides for four days experienced lasting behavioral changes. It also found that the offspring of those fish also experienced changes in behavior and had altered development and gene expression even though they were not exposed to the commonly used pesticides. Joining us to talk about the findings and their implications on human health is Susanne Brander, an associate professor in the fisheries, wildlife and conservation sciences department at Oregon State University, and the co-author of the study which was published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.
Oregon’s short legislative session is more than halfway over, and Monday marked the first major deadline that legislation needs to clear in order to have a chance to pass this year. A bill that would have bolstered the state’s goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in coming years isn’t moving forward, along with a bill that would have blocked teachers from striking. Legislators are still working on tweaks to Measure 110 and campaign contribution limits. OPB political reporter Dirk VanderHart updates us on the ongoing work in Salem.
Affordable housing options that prioritize people with disabilities are limited and waitlists are long. Community Vision, an advocacy organization for Oregonians with disabilities, develops accessible units for residents in the Portland metro area. We hear more about the effort from Jennifer Knapp, executive director of Community Vision. We'll also hear from Christin and KeJon Carter, recipients of a unit.
Until recently, doctors didn’t think it made a difference which arm patients got their COVID-19 vaccine in. But a new study from Oregon Health & Science University shows that switching arms between doses could lead to as much as a fourfold increase in immune response. Though further studies are necessary, researchers suspect the improvement has to do with how the body learns to protect itself against viruses, meaning the results could be replicated in other multi-dose vaccine regimens.
Marcel Curlin is an associate professor of medicine and the medical director for occupational health at OHSU. He joins us to talk about what these findings could mean for future vaccine protocols.
In Oregon, large commercial dairies follow rules by the Oregon Department of Agriculture that help regulate animal waste. Confined animal feeding operations can house hundreds or thousands of animals. Rules governing large commercial dairies didn’t always apply to small, mom and pop operations. But a reinterpreted regulation from the Oregon agency might affect smaller farms, and now several small dairies in Oregon have filed a lawsuit over the interpretation, as the Statesman Journal reported.
Waneva LaVelle is the owner and operator of Pure Grace Farm. She says the change in rules could put her out of business if she needs to install new infrastructure for her farm that houses a handful of goats. She joins us with more about her concerns and the lawsuit.
Even though the Roman empire came to an end thousands of years ago, we still tell stories about the emperors who ruled during that time. From Caligula, who threatened to make his horse a senator, to Nero, who killed his own mother and set fire to the city to make room for his palace, classicist Mary Beard argues that the stories we tell about the Roman emperors might say more about us than they do about the emperors themselves. Beard joins us to talk about her latest book, “Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World,” which attempts to break down what we can actually know about the lives of the Emperors and how they ruled.
The mission of Portland’s August Wilson Red Door Project is to “use the power of narrative art to bridge divides.” Its show "Evolve" does that by presenting scenes and monologues based on the real life experiences of Black Americans, police officers and others in the justice system. But it’s not just powerful stories on stage. The performances are interspersed with pauses throughout with opportunities for the audience to participate in guided reflection and sharing, based on their reactions to what they’re seeing and hearing. "Evolve" has been presented to general audiences and police departments, including Lake Oswego, Beaverton and West Linn. The next shows are at Beaverton’s Reser Center, Feb. 23-24. We’re joined by Red Door Project Artistic Director and Co-Founder Kevin Jones and Interim Portland Police Chief Bob Day, who has been integrally involved with this project for many years.
College-bound students in Oregon and around the nation would typically be receiving their financial aid packages from colleges and universities right about now to help them decide where to enroll in the fall. But many students may now have to wait until April because of the U.S. Department of Education’s delay in sharing financial aid information to colleges and universities.
The delay adds to the troubled rollout of the new version of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid which the education department recently overhauled to make it easier for families and students to apply for federal grants and loans. But the FAFSA update failed to adjust for inflation when calculating financial aid eligibility – a mistake education officials are scrambling to fix, and which has resulted in nearly $2 billion in additional federal aid becoming available to applicants. The many delays and technical problems have added to an already stressful experience of . OPB higher education reporter Tiffany Camhi joins us to share how the new FAFSA application has been impacting Oregon high school students and college and university administrators in the state.
After years of pressure from climate activists and others, Oregon Treasurer Tobias Read has put forth a plan to divest state investments from fossil fuel interests. He presented a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emission impacts of pension funds to net zero by 2050 to the Oregon Investment Council this week. The plan includes a target of an interim 60% reduction by 2035. Oregon and other states have faced challenges to make significant changes while also fulfilling the mandated mission to maximize retirement investments for pensioners. Currently, the Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund serves more than 405,000 people and is worth more than $90 billion. Read joins us to share more about the details of the plan.
For the 10th consecutive year, U.S. News and World Report has named Oregon State University one of the top 10 places in the nation to obtain an undergraduate degree online. OSU is ranked fourth, along with Arizona State University and North Carolina State University, for best online bachelor’s programs which were evaluated on factors such as faculty credentials and graduation rates.
OSU was an early adopter of remote learning, making its first leap into the space more than 20 years ago. Today, students in all 50 states and nearly 60 countries attend courses virtually through OSU’s Ecampus. The online offerings cover more than 100 different subjects that are taught and developed by the same faculty who teach students seated in lecture halls or science labs. According to Lisa Templeton, the vice provost of Ecampus, online enrollment grew more than 10% last year, with about 3 in 10 students learning exclusively online last fall. Templeton joins us to talk about the expansion of online learning at OSU, along with Joann Malumaleumu, an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, who graduated last year with an online bachelor’s degree from OSU.
If a patient or a coworker makes a racist comment to a Black person working as a nurse in Oregon, that nurse may have no one who looks like them to turn to for commiseration and understanding. Nurses of color in Oregon work in predominantly white spaces, which can be very isolating on top of a job that is already emotionally and physically draining. A new podcast, Black Care Matters, focuses on the challenges and successes of Black nurses in Oregon. We talk to Erica Bailey, president of the Alliance of Black Nurses Association of Oregon, Violet Larry, vice president of ABNAO, and Rashida Quinn, host of the podcast, about their work.
It’s been over a year since residents of Morrow County recalled two of their commissioners. Now residents are considering recall petitions again. For months, the county and its ambulance service, Morrow County Health District, have been in deliberations over a new service contract. Some residents feel that there has been a lack of transparency in the commissioners’ handling of negotiations. Berit Thorson is a reporter for the East Oregonian. She joins us to share more on what’s happening in the county.
What happens when you ask an AI image generator for a regular photo of a person? Research from the University of Washington suggests that the result might be influenced by gender and racial stereotypes. A study found that the image generator Stable Diffusion overrepresented light-skinned men, underrepresented Indigenous people and even sexualized certain women of color when asked to create an image of “a person.” As AI becomes more prevalent in our daily lives, these kinds of human biases and prejudices have the potential to spread and cause more harm.
Sourojit Ghosh is a fourth-year PhD candidate in human-centered design & engineering at the University of Washington. Ramón Alvarado is an assistant professor of philosophy and a member of the Data Science Initiative at the University of Oregon. They both study the ethics of artificial intelligence, and join us to talk about the challenges it poses.
Senate Bill 1583 would prevent school boards and district personnel from banning textbooks and library books on the basis of content related to race, LGBTQ+ identities, religion, disability or other protected group. The bill was introduced by Sen. Lew Frederick, D-Portland, and has drawn more than 500 testimonies. Yesterday a hearing was held for the bill. Julia Shumway is the deputy editor for the Oregon Capital Chronicle and has been covering the bill. She joins us with the details.
Every 10 years, as populations change, lawmakers in most states draw up new district boundaries so that voters will have proportional and equitable opportunities for representation. But they don't always achieve that goal. Redistricting fights are often extremely political, and can end up disenfranchising voters of color. Assigning the redistricting decisions to independent commissions, rather than lawmakers, is intended to address these challenges. In Washington state, it hasn’t always worked out that way. Marilyn Thompson has reported on Washington’s independent redistricting commission for ProPublica, and joins us to talk about what she’s found.
While it’s not the I-5, there’s another bridge spanning the Columbia River that may be in even more need of replacement. Last month, the federal government announced it was awarding $200 million to help pay for the replacement of the Hood River-White Salmon bridge in the Columbia River Gorge. Marla Keethler is the mayor of White Salmon and a commissioner on the Hood River-White Salmon Bridge Authority which was created last July to oversee the bridge replacement efforts. She described the nearly 100-year-old bridge as “a lifeline” to residents and the regional economy, with more than four million crossings made last year.
But the nearly mile-long bridge has been in need of replacing for decades, with speed reductions and weight limits imposed in recent years to extend its life and defer costly repairs to its metal deck. The estimate for replacing the bridge is estimated at $520 million which the HRWS Bridge Authority says will be paid for through federal and state grants and loans. Mayor Keethler joins us to talk about the status of these efforts to replace the Hood River-White Salmon bridge and the vision for a new one, along with Mike Fox, co-chair of the Hood River White Salmon Bridge Authority and secretary of the Hood River Port Commission.
A recent economic forecast by the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis shows that state lawmakers have more than $500 million to spend than previously expected. Still, much of the money has been accounted for and a slow population growth could negatively affect Oregon’s economy in the future. Mark McMullen, the state economist, joins us with details of the forecast.
Since its launch two dozen years ago, International Guitar Night has grown from performances in a handful of venues to encompass more than 80 shows in the U.S., Canada and Europe. Brian Gore, a Portland-based singer-songwriter, created International Guitar Night as a way to showcase the solo guitar musicians from around the world he finds and brings together to perform on a single stage. Gore recently has a new album of his own. He joins us along with 2 of the musicians, guitarist Thu Le from Vietnam, and Luca Stricagnoli from Italy. Le and Stricagnoli tell us more about their love of their instrument and play a few pieces ahead of their shows this week in Bend and Beaverton.
Washington’s farmworker overtime law took full effect this year, with workers now legally required to receive overtime pay after working 40 hours in a single week. In Oregon, a similar law is being phased in — workers currently receive overtime payment after 55 hours of work. The law was intended to fairly compensate farmworkers for the long hours worked during the growing and harvest seasons, but some workers say it’s actually led to lower earnings as farmers hire more workers to avoid paying overtime.
Johanna Bejarano has been covering the law and the controversy surrounding it for Northwest Public Broadcasting. She joins us with more details.
Sejal Hathi recently took over as director of the Oregon Health Authority. An attending physician, Hathi previously served as New Jersey’s designated state health officer and deputy commissioner for public health services. She also advised the Biden-Harris administration on public health policy for two years. Hathi has held faculty positions in the schools of medicine and public health at Johns Hopkins University. She joins us to tell us more about her new role and her priorities for the OHA.
Erika Hayasaki’s book “Somewhere Sisters: a story of adoption, identity, and the meaning of family” explores a very complicated multi-family, multinational story. At the heart of the book are sisters: identical twins born in Vietnam. One was adopted by a wealthy family in the U.S., one was raised in rural Vietnam. We spoke to Hayasaki in 2022 in front of an audience at the Portland Book Festival.
The Oregon Office for Community Dispute Resolution supports 12 centers across the state where trained mediators help community members settle disagreements before they go to court. Housed within the University of Oregon law school, the office also provides the basic training needed to begin the process of becoming a court-appointed mediator. It recently offered its first series of trainings entirely in Spanish, in what might be the first program of its kind in the country.
Veronica Bañuelos led the workshops, and Gabriela Buamscha participated in them. They both join us, along with OOCDR Administrator Patrick Sponsler, to talk about the need for Spanish-speaking mediators in Oregon.
After almost a year of negotiations, nurses with PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Home Care Services are going on strike. More than 90 nurses with the Oregon Nurses Association will be striking for two-weeks starting Feb. 10. These nurses provide hospice care and other services to patients in the Eugene-area. The nurses have been working under an expired contract since April 2023 and are looking to raise safety standards, increase recruitment and retention and provider better pay. Heather Herbert is a hospice nurse with PeaceHealth and an ONA member. She joins us to share more about her job and nurses' hopes for the future. Heather Herbert is a hospice nurse with PeaceHealth and an ONA member. She joins us to share more about her job and nurses’ hopes for the future.
Scott Kalama is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. He works as a certified prevention specialist at the Warm Springs Indian Reservation to mentor youth and raise awareness about the risks associated with drug and alcohol use. Growing up on the reservation, his older brother handed down CDs and mixtapes of Tupac and other hip hop artists which sparked Kalama’s own musical calling and journey. Performing under the name “Blue Flamez,” he raps about life on the reservation, celebrates pride in being Native American and the teachings he learned from tribal elders, while acknowledging how violence and substance use have scarred his family and community. Last month, Kalama was awarded $150,000 for winning a 2024-2026 Fields Artist Fellowship from Oregon Humanities and Oregon Communities Foundation. He joins us in the studio for a performance and to share how he plans to use this fellowship to reach a wider audience.
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek’s office said this week that the state has exceeded its goals for the 2023 homelessness state of emergency. Over the last year/since the emergency was declared, more than 1,000 new low-barrier shelter beds were added, nearly 2,000 people were housed and almost 9,000 households were given aid to prevent them from becoming homeless. Andera Bell is the executive director of Oregon Housing and Community Services. She joins us to share more about these goals, the state’s progress on increasing housing production and a recent audit of the agency’s emergency rental assistance program.
In Washington, millions of dollars in child support payments are intercepted by the state from custodial parents who receive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, a federal assistance program that includes cash benefits. Lawmakers are considering a bill with bipartisan support that would redirect a portion of future child support payments back to families. Brandon Block is an investigative reporter at Cascade PBS. He has reported on the bill and joins us with details.
Two of the largest supermarket chains in the U.S. are planning to merge. Kroger and Albertsons first announced their proposed merger in 2022. The Federal Trade Commission has been reviewing the proposal for more than a year and is expected to make a decision soon. Meanwhile, lawmakers, consumer advocates and others have raised concerns about the proposal. Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson recently sued to block it, arguing that it would reduce competition and raise prices at the grocery store.
Alina Selyukh has been covering the story for NPR. She joins us with more details on what this merger could mean for shoppers.
The public school superintendent at the 4J School district in Eugene is under investigation, the Eugene Weekly is reporting. The school board hired Andy Dey in 2022 when similar allegations surfaced. A Seattle area firm has turned over its investigation to the school board, which met for another executive session Monday night. Eugene Weekly editor Camilla Mortensen has been following the story, in collaboration with the University of Oregon’s Catalyst journalism program, led by investigative reporter Brent Walth. Mortensen joins us to tell us the latest about the 4J investigation and update us on the weekly’s return to print this week. It’s the first print issue after embezzlement came to light in December and forced the layoff of the entire staff
The American Library Association’s “I Love My Librarian Award” recognizes public, school, college and university librarians for their “exceptional” accomplishments and “outstanding public service.” Only 10 librarians across the country receive the award, and this year, one of the recipients is from Oregon.
Claire Dannenbaum is a reference and instruction librarian at Lane Community College. We talk with her about the joys – and challenges – of her work.
As libraries change to meet the needs of their communities, these public spaces are seeing their services expand in different ways. For some, it’s the growth of children’s areas and play spaces. But how do libraries plan for these spaces and what does it take to make libraries a welcoming place for all ages?
Several Multnomah County libraries are currently under renovation, with some opening as early as this summer. Some of these renovations include expanding children’s areas and having an outdoor play space. The Spokane Public Library opened new children’s play spaces in six of its libraries in 2021 and 2022. Joining us for a discussion about the growth of children’s areas in libraries are: Jennifer Studebaker, Multnomah County library community services director for children; Katie O’Dell, Multnomah County deputy director of library building projects; and Jennifer Studebaker, Spokane Public Library director of marketing and communications.
Mothers who use fentanyl, meth or other substances during their pregnancies can give birth to babies who have to spend weeks in the hospital to treat their exposure to and withdrawal from drugs. After their release, caregivers can still struggle to soothe and feed them. Tricia Hughes, a registered nurse in Spokane, discovered this when she and her husband began fostering babies born dependent on heroin and other substances two decades ago. That experience inspired a 15-year-long quest to create Maddie’s Place, a nursery that provides around-the-clock care for drug-exposed babies. It opened in Spokane in October 2022, and is one of only a handful of such facilities in the nation that allows a parent in recovery to stay with their baby while receiving support services to care for themselves and their child. Hughes is the founder and clinical director of Maddie’s Place. She joins us, along with Mary Potter, a mother in recovery who has been staying at Maddie’s Place with her nearly five-month-old son. They share with us how the center is helping some of the youngest victims of the fentanyl crisis.
Oregon lawmakers are deciding whether to make changes to the state’s landmark drug decriminalization law, Measure 110. A bipartisan committee has been meeting since October to hear testimony from law enforcement, substance use disorder experts and treatment providers. Democratic state lawmakers recently put forth a proposal that would recriminalize the possession of small amounts of drugs. Republicans have introduced their own proposal, which includes harsher penalties for possession and public drug use.
We recently heard about the Democratic proposal, and now we turn to the Republican one. Rep. Jeff Helfrich represents Hood River and leads the House Republican Caucus. He joins us to talk about the Republican plan for M110 and other priorities for the upcoming short session.
Oregon lawmakers are deciding whether to make changes to the state’s landmark drug decriminalization law, Measure 110. A bipartisan committee has been meeting since October to hear testimony from law enforcement, addiction experts and treatment providers. Democratic state lawmakers recently put forth a proposal that would recriminalize possession of small amounts of drugs. Republicans have introduced their own proposal that includes harsher penalties for possession and public drug use.
We’ll hear about the Republican proposal later in the week; but first, we turn to Senate Majority Leader Kate Lieber, D-Beaverton, and Senate President Rob Wagner, D-Lake Oswego. They join us to talk about Democrats’ plan for M110 and priorities for the short session.
It’s been a few weeks since cold, ice and wind battered Oregon, killing at least 15 people and bringing much of the state to a grinding halt. The region has weathered many storms but this one prompted Gov. Tina Kotek to declare an emergency, enabling the possibility of federal funding and reimbursement to clean up the damages. We’re joined by Rachel Pearl and Chris Voss with Multnomah County, Drew Hanson with PGE, Jody Yates with PBOT, and Eve Gray with Lane County. We talk with them about the lessons they learned from the storm, and how they’ll apply them to the next natural disaster.
The East Side High Schools ski team has student racers from several schools in Portland including Grant, Cleveland and Franklin. This year, the team faced a power outage during a school trip, and other trips were canceled because of too little and too much snow. The already compact season is even shorter this year because of weather conditions. We learn more about the team and the ups and downs of this season from Head Coach Randy Hewitt and student racers Nora Isles and Liam Palfreyman.
The American Red Cross recently announced that blood donations are at a 20-year low. Along with the decline in donations, recent weather events disrupted planned donation drives. Angel Montes is the regional executive of donor services for the American Red Cross Cascades Region. He joins us to share more on what donations are looking like now and what this means in the Pacific Northwest. Claire Murphy is a pathologist and medical director of the Riverbend Hospital Laboratory Blood Bank. She also joins us to talk about what the shortage means at the hospital level.
For the past year, Portland neurosurgeon Darrell Brett hasn’t been charging his patients for his services, but only as a result of disciplinary action. In an in-depth investigation conducted by the Oregon Medical Board that began in 2017, Brett was found to have grossly overcharged his patients for surgical procedures, overprescribed painkillers and referred his patients to a specimen testing company he owned. Lucas Manfield is a reporter for Willamette Week. He joins us to share more about this specific case and how it reflects failures in the system of oversight and regulation by the state medical board and other agencies.
Some U.S. cities are contending with the rollout of self-driving cars and other autonomous vehicles on their roads. Others are still considering how to approach AVs and whether they’re a good fit for the community. A new guide from the University of Oregon’s Urbanism Next Center aims to help leaders navigate these challenges.
Nico Larco is a professor of architecture and urban design at UO and the director of the center. He joins us with more details on what cities should be thinking about as autonomous vehicles continue to roll out.
When someone overdoses on opioids, they can sometimes be brought back to life with a dose of Narcan. Often it is a friend, family member or fellow addict who is administering the lifesaving overdose reversal drug. That means, the overdose itself may never be counted by medical officials, leading to an incomplete understanding of how many people are nearly dying because of drug use. The Malheur County Health Department is trying to get a handle on the number of nonfatal overdoses taking place by using a survey. Hannah Woods, the health and promotion prevention supervisor for Malheur County, joins us to talk about the effort.
A chauffeur couple are accused of stealing millions of dollars from their employer, Oregon-based publisher Win McCormack. Sergey Lebedenko and his wife, Galina Lebedenko, made up to $34 million in unauthorized charges to McCormack’s credit card, including several houses and a jet, according to a federal prosecutor. Maxine Bernstein wrote about the fraud for The Oregonian and joins us to talk about the case.
Ann Patchett’s latest novel is set during the pandemic, but it is also set in the past. The main character, a mother of three adult daughters, tells her children the story of her own youthful romance with a man who is now a famous movie star. The story is told over long days picking cherries on their family farm, where everyone has gathered together for the lockdown. Though the central story revolves around the mercurial movie star, the real focus of the book is the relationship between mothers and daughters, the lives that parents led before they were parents, and what the stories of our past tell us about ourselves. Ann Patchett joins us for a conversation about her new book, "Tom Lake," ahead of her event in Portland.
Jan. 26 marks the 324th anniversary of the last Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake. The 1700 quake caused the coastline to drop by several feet and sent a tsunami crashing into the Pacific Northwest coast. Pressure has been building in the Zone ever since, setting the region up for another potential magnitude-9.0 quake. Researchers estimate this kind of “megathrust” earthquake occurs roughly every 300-500 years. The Oregon Department of Emergency Management has been encouraging residents to prepare with initiatives like the Great Oregon Shakeout and Be 2 Weeks Ready.
Althea Rizzo is the geological hazards program coordinator at the Oregon Department of Emergency Management. Natasha Fox is the department’s inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility (IDEA) coordinator. Susan Penrod is the superintendent of the Seaside School District, which covers the coastal communities of Seaside, Cannon Beach and Gearhart. Shawn Looney is a member of the Linnton Neighborhood Emergency Team. They all join us to offer four different perspectives on earthquake risks and preparedness.
Author David Grann often writes about obsession. His stories feature people doing extraordinary, and often dangerous or morally questionable things, in pursuit of ambitious goals. He’s the author of the books “Lost City of Z,” “Killers of the Flower Moon,” and his newest, “The Wager.” Grann is also obsessive about the research and details he puts into his books. We talk to Grann in front of a group of students at Nelson High School in Happy Valley.
For some downtown Portland business leaders, the new year is a time for optimism. Some say government attention on the area, like an emphasis on the region through the Central City Task Force convened by Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, could mean positive changes for downtown. Jonathan Bach is a real estate and finance reporter for the Portland Business Journal. He recently wrote about the outlook for downtown business leaders and joins us to share what he’s been hearing from them.
When Sarah and Joel Bond moved into their first house, a home they’d bought in SW Portland Gabriel Park a few years ago, they noticed the two tall Douglas firs on the property - one several times taller than the house and leaning toward it. Generally, to remove a tree of a certain size in Portland, it must be either dead, diseased or dangerous. The Bonds applied under the dangerous criteria, but their permit was denied. The tree leaning toward their house came down in the January storm, destroying much of it. Their family wasn’t hurt but they’re still assessing the damage and are frustrated by the outcome they say they’d done everything they could to avoid. They join us to talk about dealing the aftermath, and how they’re approaching removing the other tree that’s still standing but was visibility weakened by the storm.
Water has been drawn down from reservoirs on the Klamath River as the largest dam removal effort in U.S. history continues. It’s a critical step before the removal of three remaining hydroelectric dams on the river. We check in on the process with Barry McCovey Jr., the Fisheries Department director for the Yurok Tribe.
Pale Blue Wave, an Instagram profile with more than 80,000 followers, highlights impromptu photos and video portraits of strangers around Portland, mainly taken in downtown. The photographer who created the Pale Blue Wave account says he appreciates the style of the residents he sees walking around. In the videos, some Portlanders appear surprised and flattered to be noticed on their commutes going about their day. The interactions and on-the-spot photo shoots take place quickly, typically lasting 10 minutes or less. We hear more from Ryan, the photographer behind Pale Blue Wave, about his project.
Editor's note: We are only using Ryan's first name to protect his privacy.
Earlier this month, scientists described what they believe to be the world’s first fossil of prehistoric grasshopper eggs. The silver dollar-sized fossil containing more than 50 grasshopper eggs was first found in 2012 at the Sheep Rock Unit at the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument in Eastern Oregon. For several years, the fossil was mistakenly thought to be of ant eggs until Nick Famoso, a paleontologist hired at the monument in 2016, had doubts about their origin. The specimen was sent to the University of Oregon where CT scans helped reveal tell-tale clues about its structure that confirmed it was a grasshopper that laid them nearly 30 million years ago in a forested, temperate landscape very different from its place of discovery today. Famoso is the paleontology program manager and curator at the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. He joins us to talk about the significance of this fossil find and the name he helped give it to pay tribute to the first superintendent of the John Day national monument.
The Woodland East Mobile Home Park is a community of residents 55-and-older, located in Southwest Washington, roughly 20 miles north of Vancouver. The Columbian recently reported on the plight of the many seniors who live there and struggle to pay $1050 per month to rent a lot, in addition to their mortgages, utilities and other expenses. The tenants claim the landlord has raised their rent by 250% since he purchased Woodland East in 2017, and have filed more than 100 complaints against him with the Washington Attorney General’s office.
But now the tenants are facing their biggest hurdle. They received notice last fall the community was up for sale and have until Jan. 24 to raise $33 million to buy the mobile home park themselves, although the property may already be under contract. Alexis Weisend and Mia Ryder-Marks cover affordable housing and homelessness at The Columbian. They join us to talk about their reporting, and how a new law intended to protect mobile home tenants can still leave them vulnerable to rent increases and eviction.
In November, the Oregon Health Authority began offering all middle and high schools in the state free kits containing naloxone, a medication used to reverse overdoses from opioids, including fentanyl. Fake prescription pills laced with fentanyl have been linked to accidental overdose deaths among multiple teens in Oregon. Amid this backdrop, a new investigative series from The Lund Report, University of Oregon's Catalyst Journalism Project and OPB takes a look at what drug prevention messaging looks like in Oregon’s school districts. The investigation revealed that what students are being taught varies widely, and that many school districts don’t use programs backed by evidence that they are effective at delaying or preventing substance use.
Emily Green is the managing editor of The Lund Report and the lead reporter on the series. She and Amelia Templeton, OPB’s health reporter, join us to talk about what they heard from district officials, educators and high school students around addiction prevention education in Oregon.
Veneta, Oregon in Lane County, bills itself as a “quiet, small-town community” with access to both natural areas and the amenities of the Eugene metro area. It’s the kind of place where neighbors help neighbors, as evidenced by the recent activity on the Veneta Community Network Facebook page. During last week’s winter storms, the message board was full of posts from community members offering to help tow stuck cars, bring food to families who were snowed in, and clear downed trees from roads and driveways.
Stacy Thompson is the admin of the page. She joins us to talk about how the community pulls together in times of crisis and what others might learn from Veneta’s example.
Early results show that residents in John Day have voted to recall their mayor just a year after she took office. A group of citizens and city employees moved to begin the recall process after filing a criminal complaint against Mayor Heather Rookstool last fall. Both the complaint and the recall petition allege that Rookstool overstepped the legal role of her office by taking on duties belonging to the city manager. The recall went to a vote this month after Rookstool refused to resign in December.
Antonio Sierra is OPB’s rural communities reporter. He joins us with more details on the recall effort and what comes next for the city.
Oregon has had the same blue and gold state flag for nearly 100 years. The state’s name, coat of arms and year of statehood are on one side, but it’s the other side that features the golden beaver that makes it unique — it’s the only state flag with two sides and one of the only double-sided flags in the world. The Redmond Spokesman recently ran an editorial pointing out that some of the images that make up the state seal on the flag might be due for a makeover. It also questioned the need for the words “State of Oregon,” likening that choice to having a bumper sticker with the word “car” on it. We discuss the pros and cons of the Oregon flag with the author, managing editor of the Redmond Spokesman, Tim Trainor, and one of the current state flag’s most ardent supporters, retired Oregon Senate President Peter Courtney.
Seven out of every 10 adults in the Oregon Department of Corrections have abused drugs or alcohol, and 1 out of 5 are classified as having severe mental health issues. People who are released from custody are 10 times more likely overdose on opioids than the general public. These are among the many challenges facing the new director of the Department of Corrections, Mike Reese, who took over the job late last year. Reese joins us to talk about his philosophy for managing the department.
Most people are familiar with the classic game of telephone where one person whispers a phrase to someone else seated next to them and that person then whispers what they heard to the next person, and so on. The game continues until the last person shares aloud what they heard, often bearing little resemblance to the original message.
Oregon ArtsWatch recently profiled an exhibit that opened in Lincoln City this month that showcases what happens when a group of local artists is invited to play telephone. But instead of a phrase that’s whispered, here the prompt came in the form of two photographs, including one of the Oregon coast taken at sunset. Each of the participating artists had only the work that preceded them for inspiration to interpret visual details, colors or objects they saw or imagined, and chose to pass on in their rendering for the next artist. The result is 18 works in a variety of different media, from watercolors to sculpture, fiber art to spray paint, some bearing little resemblance to the work that came before it. Krista Eddy is the visual arts director at the Lincoln City Cultural Center and the creator of the exhibit. She and Sam Jacobson, a featured artist based in Cascade Head, join us to talk about “The Telephone Game Group Invitational” which is on display until Feb. 11 at the Chessman Gallery at LCCC.
From humpbacks to orcas, whales and dolphins are renowned for their underwater vocalizations, whether it’s to impress a mate, find prey or strengthen social bonds. But beluga whales are especially vocal, with a complex language of whistles, chirps and rhythmic calls that have led to them being called the “canaries of the sea.”
For the first time, a team of scientists has documented the unique vocalizations of Cook Inlet belugas, a critically endangered population native to Alaska. The roughly 300 of them remaining live year-round in the cold, cloudy waters surrounding both a military base and the port of Anchorage, the busiest shipping port in the state. The scientists found that the low, rumbling noise of commercial ships either partially or completely masked the seven most common calls the whales made when passing through their habitat multiple times a week. Arial Brewer is a PhD student at the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences at the University of Washington and the lead author of the recently published study. She joins us to share the findings and how noise from human activity is threatening the survival of Cook Inlet belugas.
Lane County was hit particularly hard by the recent winter storms that left many areas of western Oregon without transportation or power. Ice and snow led to downed trees, closed roads and extensive power outages in the county. Gov. Tina Kotek declared a state of emergency on Tuesday to help county officials access “critical federal resources to aid in reconstruction and recovery efforts.” That’s after the county Board of Commissioners declared its own state of emergency earlier that day.
Laurie Trieger is the chair of the Lane County Board of Commissioners. She joins us with more details on the storm’s impacts and the county’s recovery efforts.
Doctor Carlos Sanchez has an unusual and challenging caseload of patients. For one thing, they have scales, feathers, horns and fur, and can’t really say where it hurts. But it’s his job to oversee the medical care and treatment of more than a thousand animals (not including fish) as the head veterinarian at Portland’s Oregon Zoo. In our latest installment in our series on professions, we accompany Dr. Sanchez as he makes his daily rounds to check up on some of his favorite patients. He shares with us the special bond he has with them, the invaluable role zoo keepers play in their wellbeing and the fateful encounter he had as a young boy in Mexico City that would forever change his life.
Oregon’s storied craft brewing industry suffered one of its worst years in 2023, with depressed draft beer sales and rising costs creating more pressure than some of the state’s businesses could bear. According to the Oregon Brewers Guild, the state is home to about 400 breweries, brewpubs and taprooms, with 50,000 jobs and generates nearly $9 billion in economic output. But the state lost around 30 of those businesses last year and even more have contracted or are seriously struggling. We’re joined by Sonia Marie Leikam, the co-owner of Leikam Brewing and vice president of the Oregon Brewers Guild, and Laurelwood Brewing Company owner Mike De Kalb, who closed down his last retail location last year.
In a recent state report card, 3.9% of students in Oregon are experiencing homelessness. There are a number of challenges facing these students, including meeting their basic needs. According to the report card, a little more than 80% of Oregon students graduate in four years, for students who are unhoused that number drops down to 58.6%.
Mark Osburn is the McKinney-Vento liaison for the Oakridge School District as well as their Youth and Transition Coordinator. Jamie Klebe is the McKinney-Vento liaison for Warrenton-Hammond School District and a counselor at Warrenton High School. Both of their districts have some of the highest percentage of their students experiencing homelessness in the state. They join us now to discuss what youth homelessness looks like in their communities and how their districts tackle the issue.
Tens of thousands of Oregon homes and businesses were still without electricity early Tuesday, as the National Weather Service warned of more challenging conditions to come. Portland Public Schools, Salem-Keizer, Eugene 4J and many other districts canceled classes on Tuesday. Portland warned that its sewer system is strained, and the MAX service remains shut down. At least four deaths may be linked to the weather. The National Weather Service is forecasting freezing rain across northwest Oregon and southwest Washington starting late Tuesday morning. State agencies are warning Oregonians to stay off roads and prepare for additional tree damage and power outages.
From the Black Panthers to hip hop, the Shakur family stands out as leaders of Black political thought and activism in this country. Journalist Santi Elijah Holley chronicles the history of this family in his new book “An Amerikan Family: The Shakurs and the Nation.” Holley describes a group of people committed to resisting the exploitation and persecution of Black people, and creating a space of self-determination through activism, care, violence, and art. OPB’s Prakruti Bhatt talks to Holley at the 2023 Portland Book Festival.
From Dennis Rodman’s hair colors to Michael Jordan’s sneakers to LeBron James’s Thom Browne suits, the NBA has long been a place where players’ style off the courts is talked about nearly as much as their style on the courts. Mitchell Jackson’s latest book, “Fly: The Big Book of Basketball Fashion,” chronicles the relationship between basketball, fashion, politics and hip hop. OPB’s Paul Marshall talks to Jackson at the 2023 Portland Book Festival.
Oregon State University, the University of Oregon and Portland State University have come together to form the Oregon Cybersecurity Center of Excellence. The center was created by the state Legislature last year, as data breaches of the Oregon Health Plan and Department of Motor Vehicles exposed millions of Oregonians’ information, and ransomware attacks shut down the Curry County government.
The center will help local governments, state agencies, tribal governments, libraries and school districts address their cybersecurity needs. It will also work to coordinate workforce development initiatives and boost public awareness efforts across the state.
Birol Yeşilada, a professor in PSU’s Hatfield School of Government, will serve as director of the new center. He joins us to talk about the biggest cybersecurity threats facing Oregonians and how the center plans to address them.
Throughout Oregon, cities are dealing with budget deficits. And for some, the new year has meant cuts to services. Libraries are facing cuts in multiple cities, including Salem. And officials elsewhere are scrambling to cobble together funds to keep some services afloat. Melanie Kebler is the mayor of Bend, and Chris Hoy is the mayor of Salem. They join us with details on what their cities are facing and what the new year means for services.
Inclement weather is in the forecast for much of Oregon this weekend, with almost all counties under a winter storm watch or warning. The Oregon Department of Transportation has been clearing roads and responding to closures since late Monday, when the first round of storms hit the state. ODOT received $19 million last month from the Legislature to shore up winter maintenance services in the wake of its budget shortfall. The money will allow the agency to remove overtime restrictions on road maintenance staff and to purchase deicing chemicals and trucks used for snow plowing.
ODOT Communications Director Kevin Glenn joins us with more details about the agency's priorities this winter and how it's preparing for the incoming weather.
According to the national database Shelter Animal Counts, the number of dogs and cats awaiting adoption at animal shelters grew by nearly 250,000 last year. Meanwhile, the rate of adoption for dogs has decreased, with nearly 60% of shelter operators reporting requests from owners to surrender their dogs. As reported in Columbia Gorge News, Hood River Adopt a Dog and Home At Last Humane Society in The Dalles are emblematic of the challenges animal shelters are currently facing, including a surge in the number of dogs being surrendered or simply abandoned at their doorstep.
Joining us to talk about these difficulties are: Laura Spinney, operations director and foster coordinator for Hood River Adopt a Dog; Sierra Molesworth, a certified dog trainer and the social media manager at Hood River Adopt a Dog; and Lisa Erland, board treasurer at Home At Last Humane Society.
The projected costs for wildfire protection and response for the state this year stand at about $136 million. Two democratic lawmakers have different proposals on how to fund combat wildfires. Sen. Elizabeth Steiner, D-Portland, wants to charge property owners in the state an additional $10 dollars to help address costs. Sen. Jeff Golden, D-Ashland, wants a voter measure to go to Oregonians that, if passed, would place a tax on the value of timber harvested on private land. Alex Baumhardt is a reporter for the Oregon Capital Chronicle and has been covering the two proposals. She joins us with the details.
At least 315 people died in Multnomah County while experiencing homelessness in 2022, according to a recent report. In 2021, that number was 193. Nearly half of the deaths in the most recent report were found to be accidental - often relating to drug overdoses. The report also shows that people experiencing homelessness were killed in traffic accidents at a rate that is 45 times higher than the overall population. Kaia Sand, executive director of Street Roots, joins us to share details on the report and what led to an increase in deaths since last year.
A hundred years ago, a million adult chum salmon would return each autumn to spawn in tributaries and creeks along the Columbia River. But, like other varieties of salmon, overfishing, dams and loss of habitat decimated their numbers in Oregon and Washington. Columbia River chum salmon were listed as threatened nearly 25 years ago under the Endangered Species Act.
A team of biologists at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has been leading efforts to reintroduce chum salmon in the Columbia River basin. They include operating a hatchery near Astoria, relocating returning adults and juvenile fry to historic spawning sites and tracking their movement using DNA sampling in waterways. Kelcee Smith is the chum salmon reintroduction coordinator at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. The Astorian recently profiled her work and partnerships with nonprofits and landowners to recover chum salmon. Smith joins us to talk about those recovery efforts and the threats the fish face today, including climate change.
After decades of discussion, a new skatepark is now in the works for Portland's Old Town. Advocates have eyed the project since the early 2000s, and Portland Parks and Recreation department recommended it in the 2008 Skatepark System Plan. Parks and Recreation is expected to begin work on the more than 30,000 square feet of skate space in spring 2024. Jessie Burke is the chair of the Old Town Community Association. Howard Weiner is the owner of Cal Skate Skateboards. They both join us to share more on what the new Steel Bridge Skatepark will mean for the skating community and for remaking Old Town itself.
In the last few years, Portland has tried a number of different tactics to make responding to 911 calls more efficient and faster. Not all of them have worked. In 2021, the Fire Bureau added the Community Health Division to shift its response, so that not every 911 call gets a full engine and ambulance. Though the Community Health Division and its Community Connect program have since been eliminated, a new audit of the program reveals much about how the bureau can best support programs like Portland Street Response and Community Health Assess & Treat (CHAT). KC Jones, audit services director, joins us to talk about the report.
Teachers with ADHD or autism are able to understand and advocate for the specific needs of their students. But, they can also face challenges when seeking resources to teach those same students. And, it can be difficult to get accommodations that help neurodivergent teachers do their best work at school. Alex Newson is a doctoral candidate in special education at the University of Oregon. Kathy Paxton-Williams is an English as a Second Language teacher in Portland. Madeline Numbers is a student support teacher in Vancouver. They join us to discuss their experiences with the education system.
The West continues to be shaped by water issues. In Oregon, some floodplains affected by human interference are being restored to manage climate issues. And restoration projects are happening in California too. Dos Rios Ranch Preserve is a restored floodplain in the state’s Central Valley. The region has been affected by drought and flooding, but the restoration is helping to mitigate the effects of extreme weather on the landscape. Jake Bittle is a staff writer at Grist. He’s reported on these issues for the outlet and joins us with details of the story and what bigger lessons can be learned from the project.
The Portland Thorns have a new owner. Meritt Paulson sold to RAJ Sports, the sister and brother company that owns other franchises, including a stake in the Sacramento Kings in the NBA. The sale was more than a year in the making and came after years of investigations and reports of sexual harassment and abuse in the National Women’s Soccer League and the Thorns specifically.
Other changes for the Portland team are in the offing, with the seasonal draft just around the corner. The team already lost two players in the December expansion draft due to a couple of new teams in the league: Bay FC in San Jose and the Utah Royals near Salt Lake City. We learn more about what new ownership will mean and the impact of draft changes from Associated Press sports reporter Anne Peterson and Gabby Rosas, chair of the Rose City Riveters and 107IST president.
On December 28, 1973, President Richard Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act. The landmark law has prevented 99% of animals and plants listed as threatened or endangered under its protection from going extinct, including the bald eagle, humpback whale and Florida manatee. But despite its success as a conservation tool, the ESA is not without its limitations and no longer has the bipartisan level of Congressional support it once enjoyed decades ago. Michelle Nijhuis is a contributing editor at High Country News and the author of “Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction.” She recently wrote about the ESA for High Country News and joins us to talk about its success, limitations and the important role state agencies also play in wildlife conservation amid a changing climate.
Oregon and its child welfare system have been in and out of court since 2019, defending against a class action lawsuit on behalf of every child in foster care. The national advocacy group A Better Childhood and Disability Rights Oregon are pushing for adequate facilities and support and an end to the trauma they say kids suffer in state custody. Similar lawsuits have been brought in other states, including Tennessee, which implemented reforms following a settlement that resulted in improved outcomes for the children and youth in its care. A trial date is set for May in the Oregon case, and another round of settlement talks is scheduled for next week. We’ll get an update from the lead attorney in the case and the director of A Better Childhood, Marcia Robinson Lowry.
The Portland Bureau of Transportation is managing a budget shortfall of about $32 million. Meanwhile, traffic deaths in Portland remain high with about 68 deaths recorded for last year, according to PBOT’s preliminary data. We hear more from Millicent Williams, the director of PBOT, on the agency’s future and managing traffic safety in the city.
Portland musician Jimmie Herrod has sung in many different kinds of venues for a variety of performances. He’s been a guest vocalist with Portland-based Pink Martini since 2017. He was a finalist on "America's Got Talent" in 2021, and his past shows include performances with numerous symphonies, including the Oregon Symphony and the National Symphony Orchestra. But his upcoming show with the Metropolitan Youth Symphony is a unique performance. The program consists of orchestral arrangements done in collaboration with youth composers for six of his original songs: Are You Lonely, Beautiful, I Love You, I Want To Run, Mouche, and Willow Bed. MYS trombone player and composer Elaina Stuppler arranged I Love You with only a rough recording Herrod made for her on his phone. Music Director Raúl Gómez-Rojas facilitated the unique project, which will be performed on Tuesday, Jan. 9 at the Newmark Theatre in Portland. He joins us in studio, along with Herrod and Stuppler, to talk about the creative process and bring us a sneak peak of the show.
Ben Hoffman is the first Oregon doctor to serve as president of the American Academy of Pediatrics in 84 years. A professor of pediatrics at Oregon Health & Science University, Hoffman has worked to promote injury prevention policies and advocacy training for pediatric residents. He joins us in studio to talk about his new role and what he sees as the biggest issues in children’s health care nationwide.
A fire ripped through the Portland Mercado food court early Wednesday morning. Vendors there are currently closed so that the damage can be fully assessed. The location has been a hub for Latino communities and featured food from countries including Mexico and Columbia. Hacienda Community Development Corporation owns the space. Ernesto Fonseca is the CEO of the organization. He joins us with details of the fire and what this means for the future of the Mercado.
Efforts to remove former president Donald Trump from the 2024 ballot are under way in multiple states, including in Oregon. The challenges rest on an obscure clause of the 14th Amendment that prohibits anyone who has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from holding federal office. It’s unclear whether the clause applies to the presidency, but groups in Colorado and Maine successfully argued that Trump’s actions after the 2020 election disqualify him from running for office.
Oregon Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade has said she doesn’t have the authority to bar Trump from the primary ballot. But the Oregon Supreme Court is expected to rule in the coming weeks on a suit that seeks to oust him from the 2024 contest.
Norman Williams is a professor at Willamette University who teaches election and constitutional law. He’s been following the litigation in Oregon and elsewhere, and joins us to talk about the details.
Over $3.6 million in federal funding will be given to the City of Salem and Umatilla and Clackamas Counties to improve street safety. The money will be used to develop and update road safety plans. Joseph Marek is the traffic safety program manager for Clackamas County. Treven Upkes is the deputy chief of the field operations division for the Salem Police Department. They join us to discuss what traffic safety looks like in their community and how they plan to use these new funds.
The local alt weekly in Eugene has been publishing community and regional news since 1982. It’s no purple prose to say that many readers consider Eugene Weekly to be an institution. So when editor Camilla Mortensen put out a letter explaining that the paper had suffered a huge blow from alleged theft and mismanagement by a longtime employee, the community responded with offers of help and donations of cold hard cash. Law enforcement are investigating, and Mortensen says the Eugene police chief personally assured her he is overseeing the case. Some details are under wraps because of the investigation, but Mortensen joins us to discuss the situation and what the paper hopes can be a way forward.
Where the deep waters of the Pacific Ocean meet the shallower waters of the Columbia River, the waves, the wind and the current combine to make what is often a very hazardous situation. More than 2,000 vessels and 700 lives have been lost at the Columbia Bar, and many more in the surrounding area, known as ‘The Graveyard of the Pacific.’ Christopher D’Amelio is one of a select few people who have qualified as surfmen for the U.S. Coastguard. Surfmen pilot rescue boats over sometimes huge waves and help keep boaters safe. D’Amelio’s book about his time on the Columbia is called “Life and Death at Cape Disappointment.”
Last month, the Biden administration announced an agreement with four Northwest tribes, the states of Oregon and Washington, and environmental groups around the waterways of the Columbia River Basin. As a part of the agreement, the Federal Government commits to fund salmon restoration projects, build clean energy generation for the tribes and clear the pathway for the possible eventual removal of the four Lower Snake River dams. We talk to Nez Perce Tribal Chairman Shannon Wheeler, who is party to the agreement, and Kurt Miller, executive director of the Northwest Public Power Association, who wrote a letter objecting to the agreement.
Soccer is a sport enjoyed around the world, but a new accessible version is growing. Amputee soccer follows many of the same rules as the original, but with a few differences. The field is smaller, teams have fewer players and, most notably, players use forearm crutches to balance, run and kick. The sport was created in Seattle in the 1980s as a way for amputee athletes to get out on the pitch. It’s been slowly gaining popularity since then, with teams and conferences across Asia, the Americas, Europe and Africa. A clinic in Portland on Jan. 13 will allow prospective players to learn the basics of the game and test out their skills.
Thuy Williams helped organize the Portland clinic, and Katie Bondy is a member of the U.S. Women’s National Amputee Soccer team. They join us to talk more about the sport and how prospective players can get involved.
Above-normal temperatures have caused a slow start to the ski season in the Pacific Northwest. Many ski resorts at lower elevations in Oregon still haven’t opened, and resorts at higher elevations are starting the season with lower snowfall totals. Greg Pack is the president and general manager of Mt. Hood Meadows. Andrew Gast is the general manager of Mt. Ashland Ski Area and Lauren Burke is the director of marketing and communications for Mt. Bachelor. They join us with details.
From the housing crisis to public safety, Oregon has a whole set of new state laws taking effect in January. The laws range from targeting “paramilitary activity” to tax breaks for families with children. We learn more on what Oregonians can expect in the new year from OPB political reporter Dirk VanderHart.
Jonathan Lethem, the bestselling author of twelve novels, including “The Fortress of Solitude” and “Motherless Brooklyn,” has often focused his books on the Brooklyn neighborhood he grew up in. His newest, “Brooklyn Crime Novel,” makes the neighborhood a main character. The book examines gentrification, nostalgia and race, among other topics. Lethem spoke to Dave Miller in front of an audience at the 2023 Portland Book Festival.
The lack of affordable childcare in Oregon and the nation has been described as a crisis. In 2020, Multnomah County voters passed a tax on high income earners to fund the Preschool for All measure. The idea is to give access to quality early childhood education for every family in the county regardless of their ability to pay.
The program is rolling out in phases and is now providing free preschool to some families for the second year. It has subsidized some existing preschool programs, but hasn’t yet created the 12,000 new publicly funded preschool seats, which it’s supposed to do in by 2030.But capacity is expanding - if slowly - and there are now hundreds of families that have preschool for their children that would have been difficult or impossible for them to get otherwise before the program was implemented. We talk with the Director of Preschool & Early Learning Division Leslee Barnes and economist Mary King, along with Preschool for All providers and parents in front of a live audience at the Rockwood Market Hall in Gresham.The program is part of the series funded by the Oregon Community Foundation that examines some of Oregon’s biggest problems and possible solutions.
A few years ago, when Gabe Piechowicz decided to change careers from logging to religious ministry, he didn’t imagine that his work would be almost exclusively focused on helping people get off the streets in Eugene. But shortly into his new career, he was calling local shelters to help find a place for some of his church’s neighbors and Dan Bryant answered his phone.
Bryant is the founder and director of Opportunity Village, one of Oregon’s first village-model temporary shelters, informed by Dignity Village in Portland. Piechowicz ended up working at Opportunity Village but ultimately began his own ministry in a separate housing program he founded called Everyone Village. EV, as it’s called for short, is on a four acre piece of land that was essentially donated. There’s a warehouse that’s been converted into a community meeting space, kitchen and office, as well as a separate building with full plumbing that has showers, toilets and a washer/dryer. There are 60 structures here, all with electricity: tiny homes called “cottages of hope,” white prefabricated sheds and RVs that are parked inside the lot.
The village is self-governed, with expectations, rules and requirements. The people who live here are getting back on their feet, overcoming—and in the process of overcoming —a variety of social and economic challenges. Some of them joined us and shared their story when we visited EV recently and recorded a show as part of a solutions-oriented series focused on some of Oregon’s biggest problems.
Our guests were: Dan Bryant and Gabe Piechowicz of Everyone Village; Brittany Quick-Warner of the Eugene Chamber of Commerce; as well as villagers Laura Dwinell, Sam Jones and Terri Kulick, and former Opportunity villager, Paul Miller.
The Cedar Grove apartments in Beaverton were created by Community Partners Affordable Housing, or CPAH. The nonprofit has been working to create homes that Oregonians can actually afford to live in for 30 years now. This is part of a series of conversations we’re having this year about some of the biggest problems Oregon is facing, along with possible solutions.
More than half of renters in Oregon don’t have enough money after they pay rent to be able to afford basics like food, child care or transportation. Meanwhile, Oregon is among the states with the lowest supply of rentals that are affordable to people who are at or below poverty levels. As a state economist put it, “We have the worst affordability” in the nation.
We were joined by CPAH staff: Executive Director Rachael Duke; Housing Director Jilian Saurage Felton; and Resident Services Coordinator Renee Sheets Johnson. We also heard from neighbors and residents of Cedar Grove and other residents of CPAH properties, including Talaur Alvarado, Patrick Kirlin, Virginia Bruce, Paula Morrison, Mary Barbee and Jeffrey Worthington.
Fentanyl has taken over the illegal drug market largely due to its low cost and abundant supply. It’s fueling rising addiction rates, and those in need of treatment often have no options. Enter the Confederated Tribes of the Grande Ronde’s Great Circle Recovery program. Great Circle runs two clinics in Portland and Salem, as well as a mobile clinic. It serves not just tribal members, but anyone who’s struggling with addiction and wants help.
We hear more about the nonprofit’s mission and how the program works from Executive Director Kelly Rowe, Medical Director Dr. James Laidler and Operations Director Jennifer Worth. We also talk with James Smith, a urinalysis technician at Great Circle who is working to become one of their peer mentors; as well as Albert Mendez, who is in recovery and receives regular treatment from the clinic. Oregon Health Authority’s Behavioral Health Director Ebony Clarke also joins the conversation.
The Oregon-based nonprofit LifeWorks NW began providing mental health services more than 60 years ago, long before the idea of providing mental health services in the community was recognized as a best practice. Today the nonprofit runs a variety of mental health treatment programs, including Adolescent Day Treatment and one of the state’s Early Assessment and Support Alliance programs. It’s also one of the three partners of the Bridge clinic at OHSU.
As a part of a new OPB series tackling some of the most pressing problems that Oregonians are facing, along with some promising solutions, we went to the LifeWorks NW Tigard site and sat down with those involved in receiving and giving mental health care.
Our guests were: Massimo Merolla, an Oregon State University sophomore; Occupational Therapist Kylie McDermott; Tamara Sale, director of the EASA Center for Excellence; Sara Cady and her dad Josh Cady; Family Therapist Becca Schweigert; and Karen Bos, OHSU assistant professor and medical director of LifeWorks NW.
We are joined by a panel of experts to look back at the biggest news stories from the Pacific Northwest in 2023. Nkenge Harmon Johnson is the president and CEO of the Urban League of Portland. Anna Griffin is the Vice President of News at OPB. And Scott Bruun is the Vice President of Government Affairs at Oregon Business & Industry, a statewide business advocacy group.
As 2023 comes to a close, the staff of OPB's "Think Out Loud" look back on some of their favorite conversations from the past year. Producers Allison Frost, Elizabeth Castillo, Gemma DiCarlo, Sage Van Wing and Sheraz Sadiq joined host Dave Miller in conversation.
Portland artist Yoonhee Choi has been hard at work creating giant glass wall hangings that will decorate the airport security area at the newly renovated Portland International Airport. Choi usually makes tiny collages from found materials, but her first public art commission, funded by the Regional Arts and Culture Council, will be nearly 56 feet long. Choi joins us to discuss what it means to make art for Oregon’s busiest airport.
Earlier this month, the Oregon Health Authority announced plans to offer free naloxone to middle and high schools throughout Oregon. In Oregon City schools, naloxone is already available. The district has also hosted public awareness events about fentanyl, counterfeit pills and drug overdoses.
Michele Stroh is a board member of the Oregon City School District. She’s rallied behind these efforts, she says, to help keep students safe. Her son died from fentanyl poisoning in 2020. And she hopes that young people continue to receive education about these issues. Stroh joins us with more on what she’d like to see from schools in Oregon.
The city of Portland hired Brandy Westerman to oversee its Safe Rest Villages and Temporary Alternative Shelter Sites. Westerman previously served as a senior executive at Mercy Corps, and has led humanitarian response teams in Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries. She joins us to talk more about her new role as the city’s emergency humanitarian operations director, and her vision for homeless services in Portland.
In September, the newly redesigned Chelsea Anderson Memorial Play Station opened at Marshall Park in Vancouver. But this isn’t your typical playground. For one thing, wood chips have been replaced with smooth surfaces to allow children in wheelchairs easy access to play features, including a merry-go-round and swing, modified for their use and enjoyment. Instead of an abundance of steel and plastic, natural elements also abound, from a sensory garden to water features and a sandy play area for kids to explore and interact with. Harper’s Playground, a Portland-based nonprofit, entered into a partnership in 2018 with Vancouver city officials to design and raise the funds to build the $4 million fully accessible playground. G Cody QJ Goldberg, the co-founder and chief play officer of Harper’s Playground, explains his model for “radically inclusive” playgrounds and the personal motivation which drives his work.
Tribal governments have used the Endangered Species Act to litigate on behalf of imperiled, culturally important species like salmon and grizzly bears, but the law does not acknowledge tribal sovereignty and hunting rights. Anna V. Smith, associate editor of High Country News, joins us to talk about the complicated relationship between tribes and the 50-year-old law.
In 1973, eight Americans – including four Oregonians – set out to climb the highest mountain in the Andes on an expedition organized by the Mazamas, a Portland mountaineering club. Two of those climbers never returned. The mysterious deaths of Janet Johnson and John Cooper caused a whirlwind of speculation in Argentina, which was never fully resolved. The cold case largely faded from public memory until Johnson’s camera was discovered in 2020, not far from where her body was found in 1975.
John Branch covered the camera’s discovery for The New York Times. We’ll talk with him about his investigation, which has revived this 50-year-old mystery.
The Echo Fund, meant for working musicians in Oregon, can help pay for creative, non-performance projects. These projects can range from music production and promotion, to distribution of physical albums. The fund is intended to help independent musicians with career development. The winners were recently announced and 18 musicians in Oregon received funding for their projects. The program is a part of MusicOregon, a nonprofit that supports independent and contemporary music in the state. We learn more about the fund from Meara McLaughlin, the executive director of the nonprofit. Vicco González, the creator of the band Caicedo and a Portland-based musician, is one of the fund’s recipients. They join us with details.
In early 2020 a group of behavioral scientists from around the world came up with about 20 science-based recommendations for public policymakers regarding COVID-19. Ellen Peters, the director of the University of Oregon’s Center for Science Communication Research, was among them. Those recommendations were published in the April 2020 issue of Nature and included messaging recommendations from social distancing to how to work with individual communities.
Now, nearly four years later, those same researchers — and an independent panel of scientists not involved in the original research — looked back at the real world data to see how accurate those recommendations were. Both groups found that about 84% of the original recommendations were accurate. Their findings have just been published in the December 2023 issue of Nature. We talk with Peters about some of the recommendations and what the results say about the scientific process and public’s confidence in science.
Last week delegates from Washington state announced that the effort to replace the Interstate 5 bridge spanning the Columbia River will get $600 million from a U.S. Department of Transportation grant. Replacing the century-old bridge is expected to cost around $6 billion. Planners overseeing the project hope $2.5 billion of that will come from federal grants. Oregon and Washington state have each committed $1 billion to the project. Troy Brynelson, OPB’s Southwest Washington bureau chief, joins us to discuss where the project stands.
Last week, the Food and Drug Administration approved two new gene therapies to treat sickle cell disease. Roughly 100,000 people in the U.S. live with the debilitating and painful blood disorder, most of whom are African American. One of these “milestone treatments'' is a drug using powerful gene-editing technology never before approved for human use. It can repair a mutation that produces sickle-shaped red blood cells that can lead to stroke, organ damage and premature death.
But the millions of dollars the treatments cost is just one of the barriers facing patients like Jayla Eddins, a high school senior in Salem, and her mother, Jamie Eddins, who helps manage her daughter’s illness. Dr. Trisha Wong is an associate professor of pediatrics in the division of hematology and oncology at Oregon Health & Science University. They join us to talk about the physical and emotional toll of the disease as new breakthroughs emerge to treat it.
Portland filmmaker Irene Taylor’s new film isn’t about any one person or tree or culture. She tells a series of braided distinct stories, like English Ivy around one of the towering trees in her own backyard. Taylor interweaves her own personal story with the overlapping and intersecting narratives of George Weyerhaeuser, photographer Beth Moon, Oregon bonsai professional Ryan Neil and others, illustrating a variety of relationships between humans and trees. We talk with Taylor about the stories in “Trees and Other Entanglements” and how they come together in the film, now streaming on Max.
A new effort has launched at Oregon State University in Corvallis to specifically address the mental health needs of veterans, active duty service members and students who are dependents of service members. Don Phillips was hired in August as OSU’s new coordinator of veteran and military-connected student mental health and wellness. He served four years as an active duty Army medic, including a deployment to Iraq, and graduated from OSU in 2016 before becoming a licensed counselor. He joins us to talk about working with this specific group of students, and how his own lived experience can help reduce the stigma around talking about mental health among veterans on campus.
The Washington Secretary of State’s Office is making a new effort to track and address misinformation about voting and elections. It recently hired the British company Logically to scan social media sites for misleading narratives that could threaten election integrity, as well as physical threats to staff, and generate biweekly reports on its findings. The move led to backlash from the state Republican Party, which called the effort “unethical” and “tyranny.” A similar contract between the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office and Logically also received backlash from the Oregon GOP and Republican state lawmakers.
Jim Brunner is following these issues as a political reporter at The Seattle Times. He joins us with more details.
About two dozen environmental organizations and eight elected officials have sent a public letter to Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum calling for her to follow up on misleading and false information put out by NW Natural about the health impacts of gas stoves. The methane-based fossil fuel has been increasingly linked to health problems, particularly asthma in children, and cities in Oregon have attempted to ban new gas hookups in new construction.
Calls for greater oversight increased after an expert testified at a 2022 Multnomah County hearing on the issue, without disclosing that she was hired by NW Natural. The company has drawn criticism over its spending to send ratepayers promotional material.
Now Rep. Mark Gamba, along with several of his colleagues in the Oregon House and Lane County elected officials, are asking for an investigation into the regional energy company. They said that NW Natural’s behavior “regarding the air quality risks of its product and service is deeply unconscionable to our constituents, organizations and members, detrimental to public health, and deleterious to the public’s interest in an honest conversation about which energy mix best achieves our [s]tate’s climate and environmental goals.”
Rep. Mark Gamba (D-Milwaukie) joins us in the studio to tell us more about what the group hopes to achieve with the letter and how it fits into his legislative priorities as a new state lawmaker.
For years, conservationists have been at loggerheads about how exactly to decide what land should be preserved. Should the focus be on large contiguous tracts of land, or would it be better to focus on the most valuable, biodiverse plots of land, and save them, no matter the size? This disagreement has had real implications for landowners and conservationists and has led to fights about research, results and strategy. Matthew Betts, a professor in the department of Forest Ecosystems & Society at Oregon State University, is the co-author of a new paper that lays out a strategy for finding agreement.
Drivers license suspensions for unpaid traffic fines is an issue that affects millions of Americans across the country. An Oregon law that went into effect in 2020 halted the practice of automatically suspending driver’s licenses for people who failed to pay traffic fines on time. But the law wasn’t retroactive, so thousands of Oregonians are without licenses for exactly that reason. Last year, then-governor Kate brown made it possible for about 8,000 people to get their licenses back.
Last week, Gov. Tina Kotek expanded that list to include 10,000 more Oregonians. We listen back to our 2021 conversations with Kelsey Heilman, a staff attorney with the Oregon Law Center’s Portland regional office and Tracy Chavez, a grandmother with court debt living in Bend.
Portland Rescue Mission receives thousands of pounds of donated clothing every year, which they then redistribute to people in need. Most of that clothing is lightly used and is more about keeping warm than looking flashy. So when one of the workers sorting donations spotted a bright gold pair of new Nike Air Jordan 3 sneakers, they took notice. It turns out those shoes are one of only 4 or 5 custom sneakers made for director Spike Lee and his friends. The auction house Sotheby’s values the shoes at more than $10,000. Erin Holcomb, director of staff ministry at Portland Rescue Mission, joins us to talk about what this shoe donation will mean for the organization.
Before the advent of cardboard boxes, wooden crates were used to pack apples, pears and other iconic fruits of the Northwest to ship across the region and the nation. Up until the 1950s, the crates were adorned with elaborately illustrated labels bearing the name of the orchard that grew the fruit packed inside. These fruit crate labels reflect the histories of the growers, distributors, printers and artists involved with them from the late 19th to the mid-20th century. As such, they’re coveted by collectors across the Northwest and country, as the Capital Press recently reported.
Carlos Pelley is an archivist for the Yakima Valley Libraries. Mike Doty is a volunteer curator at the Yakima Valley Museum and a longtime fruit crate label collector. Thomas Hull is also a collector, and a history teacher at Davis High School in Yakima. They join us to talk about the history of the labels, which have fostered a community of collectors in the Pacific Northwest.
The Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries has failed to collect nearly $5 million in wage theft claims from employers since 2015 according to a new analysis from InvestigateWest. It also found that employers in industries with more low-wage and undocumented workers, like construction and agriculture, left more wages and penalties unpaid. Kaylee Tornay, investigative reporter with InvestigateWest, joins us to discuss her findings.
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek convened a task force in August to make concrete and actionable policy recommendations to revitalize downtown Portland. The task force issued its recommendations on Monday,including increasing police presence in downtown Portland, outlawing public drug consumption, removing protective plywood from buildings, and increasing social services for those living on the streets. The governor also wants tax relief for downtown businesses and a 90-day state of emergency to address the fentanyl addiction crisis. We get more details from one of the task force committee chairs, Nolan Lienhart, principal and director of planning and urban design at ZGF Architects.
If you’re looking to check out some great new place the next time you go out for a meal, look no further than Eater Portland. It’s set the table with 2023 awards for the best new restaurant, bar, pop-up and food cart. Editor Brooke Jackson-Glidden joins us in studio to tell us about Xiao Ye, Astral at Duality Brewing, The Houston Blacklight, Frybaby and more.
English holly certainly looks festive this time of year, with its dark, spiky leaves and bright red berries. But as recently reported in High Country News, the invasive plant poses a significant threat to Pacific Northwest forests. Much like English ivy, English holly is shade-tolerant, meaning it can thrive in the dense forests of western Washington and Oregon. It forms a dense undergrowth that can overtake native species, significantly changing forest composition and reducing biological diversity.
David Stokes is a professor emeritus of ecology and conservation biology at the University of Washington Bothell. He joins us with more details about the spread of English holly in the Northwest and what’s being done to combat it.
According to U.S. Census data, the average age of foreign-born workers is 41 years old. Earning roughly $15 an hour, on average, many cannot afford to retire, and Social Security benefits are unavailable for those who are undocumented. Miriam Jordan is the national immigration correspondent for the New York Times. She joins us to talk about her recent reporting on aging members of this workforce as they approach retirement age.
Roz Chast's first New Yorker cartoon was published in 1978, and she has since published more than one thousand. Chast is the author of the graphic memoirs “Going Into Town” and “Can’t we Talk About Something More Pleasant.” Chast spoke about latest book, “I Must be Dreaming” with Dave Miller at the 2023 Portland Book Festival.
‘May December’ showcases riveting performances in film based on Northwest teacher convicted of child rape
LONG SYNOPSIS: “May December,” by Portland director Todd Haynes, may be the most unsettling movie you’ll see all year. It’s set in Savannah, Georgia, with fictional characters, but the real-life scandal that it’s more than loosely based on unfolded near Seattle in the late '90s. Seattle-area second grade teacher Mary Kay Letourneau sexually abused Vili Fualaau, beginning just before his 13th birthday. She served time for child rape, and had two children while in custody, ultimately marrying Fualaau when he turned 18 after she had served her time.
In “May December” an actress played by Natalie Portman is researching a role for an upcoming film that is based on the former teacher, played by Julianne Moore. In her pursuit of the “truth” of the character she’ll be playing, Portman’s character displays a kind of cold obsession that’s both dehumanizing and deeply — perhaps even shamefully — compelling. We talk with Haynes about the movie, which is streaming on Netflix, and how it’s been received by viewers and film critics.
During the pandemic, alcohol consumption increased more than it has in the last 50 years. Alcohol related deaths have also been increasing, according to the National Institute of Health.
In Oregon, six people die each day on average from alcohol related causes, according to the Oregon Health Authority. As the holiday season approaches, the state agency wants Oregonians to talk to their loved ones about excessive drinking. Tom Jeanne is the deputy state healthy officer and epidemiologist at the public health division of OHA. Mike Winer is the associate medical director at Hooper Detox Center in Portland and is an assistant professor in addiction medicine at OHSU. They both join us to share more on the increase in alcohol consumption in the state and share the best ways to navigate difficult conversations with loved ones about drinking.
Charity Woodrum grew up in Oregon. While she first explored a career in nursing, she realized that she was meant to gaze at the stars. The University of Oregon alum has interned with NASA and is now working on obtaining a doctoral degree in astronomy and astrophysics from the University of Arizona. She’s also a member of the James Webb space telescope team and is researching galaxy evolution. Her journey is the focus of a documentary screening hosted by the Carlton Observatory at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum in McMinnville on Friday. Woodrum joins us to talk about her work and the people who inspired her along the way.
In a recent survey of Oregon parents, 40% responded that they or their partner had to quit, turn down or “greatly change” their job in the last year due to difficulty finding child care. It also found that families of color and those who speak a language other than English were more likely to be impacted. The findings reflect similar surveys from 2020 and 2019 which showed that the high cost and limited availability of child care slots in the state present major challenges for parents.
Katherine Pears is a senior scientist and science director at the Oregon Social Learning Center, a nonprofit research organization that conducted the survey. She joins us to talk more about the challenges facing both families and child care providers.
Thousands of Oregonians are dealing with having to pay back some unemployment benefits the state now says they shouldn't have received. The Oregon Law Center filed a lawsuit in 2022 arguing that the Oregon Employment Department is violating the due process clause of the constitution. The case is ongoing and represents the confusion around paying back benefits. Meanwhile the agency says it was overwhelmed by requests during the pandemic, and it’s possible that more than $5.5 million could be waived in overpaid benefits. Dianne Lugo is a reporter for the Statesman Journal and has covered these issues. She joins us with more on her reporting.
Last week, a state report showed that 38% of all Oregon students are chronically absent, meaning they miss at least 10% of school days. Charan Cline is the superintendent of the Redmond School District in Central Oregon. He joins us to share more on what this issue looks like in his district. Stacy Parish is the leader of Oregon Department of Education’s Tribal Attendance Promising Practices. She joins us to share more on what this issue is looking like for Oregon’s Indigenous students.
Last month, Multnomah County fined ambulance service provider AMR more than $500,000 for slow response times to emergency 911 calls. According to its exclusive contract service with the county, AMR is required to respond to 90% of life-threatening calls within 8 minutes in urban areas. But in August, AMR ambulances were delayed in responding to 14% of emergency calls. The company has appealed the fine and claims the problem is largely due to the county’s staffing requirement of two paramedics per ambulance. In Washington, Clackamas and Clark counties, for example, no such requirement exists, and AMR is able to staff ambulances with one paramedic and an EMT.Meanwhile, there’s a growing shortage of EMTs and paramedics across the nation, including Oregon, which community colleges are helping to address through training courses. Joining us to talk about these issues are Dr. Paul Lewis, deputy health officer for Multnomah County; Randy Lauer, vice president of operations for AMR; and Dave Schapp, EMS programs director at Central Oregon Community College in Bend.
Every Thursday night for nine years THE THESIS brings artists and audiences who love hip-hop to celebrate together at Kelly’s Olympian in downtown Portland. The event is Portland’s longest-running hip hop showcase. We talk to Mac Smiff and Grant Stolle, two of the founders of THE THESIS, about creating a safe space to uplift local hip hop artists.
A coalition of environmental groups and tribes who are suing the federal government over the condition of salmon on the Snake River have been in talks with the government for over a month. Those talks are tentatively scheduled to reach an agreement by December 15, but last week, a leaked draft agreement showed that the federal government may agree to take down the four lower Snake River dams. The agreement also revealed federal government commitments to investing in habitat restoration and alternative energy development on tribal lands. The Snake River is the main tributary of the Columbia River, flowing from Idaho and eastern Washington into Oregon. We talk to longtime Idaho journalist Rocky Barker about how we got here, and what the leak could mean for a future agreement.
A team of scientists at Oregon State University has recently received more than $4 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to lead a study to understand a disease threatening honey bees. The bacterial disease targets the larvae within a honeybee colony, killing them within a few days before they can emerge from their cocoons as adults. Although the disease is not new, it appears to have gotten worse in the past five years, according to Andony Melathopoulos, an associate professor in the Department of Horticulture at OSU, and the co-principal investigator of the study. The disease is of particular concern to beekeepers who travel across the country with their colonies and have noticed a rise in infections following the start of blueberry pollination in April. Melathopoulous joins us to talk about the details of the study, which will also include steps beekeepers may be able to take to protect their colonies and the multibillion-dollar industry that depends on their services.
When we talked with Chas Hundley in 2017, it was after he’d been running his first paper, the Gales Creek Journal for about 4 years and was about to take it — along with a second news site, The Banks Post — to print. To do that he had to leave his job in tech, and devote himself full time to local journalism. Now, 10 years and one global pandemic later, he’s still at it, largely on his own. But in that time he’s gone to weekly printing and launched the online Salmonberry Magazine, which focuses on the Tillamook State Forest area. Hundley joins us to share more about his journey and his hopes for these publications — and the communities they serve — in the next 10 years.
By 2029, the Knott Landfill outside of Bend is expected to reach capacity and will no longer accept any more solid waste. Now, Deschutes County officials are looking at two potential locations for a new landfill. Tim Brownell is the director of solid waste for the county. He joins us to share more on how to plan and build a landfill, as well as the timeline for opening.
Though data about clients at Oregon’s new legal psilocybin clinics is protected by privacy rules, it appears that many are coming from outside the state. Freelance journalist Grant Stringer talked to multiple clinic owners and clients in a story for The Oregon Capital Chronicle. We talk to him about what he learned.
A new study from Oregon Health & Science University used TikTok to survey teens and young adults about their understanding of menstrual health. It found that although the vast majority of respondents would prefer to control or stop their period using hormonal medications, nearly two-thirds were unsure whether it would be safe to do so. Researchers also found that health literacy was lowest among respondents who identified with a Christian family background or who lived in the U.S. South.
Maureen Baldwin, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at OHSU, joins us with more details on how parents and health care providers can help fill gaps in menstrual health knowledge.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed shooting over 400,000 barred owls over the next 30 years in order to save endangered spotted owls. Barred owls have migrated here from the Eastern U.S. and adapted well to the environment — they can survive in more habitats and eat more species than the spotted owls. USFWS has experimented with shooting barred owls in the past, and now proposes doing it on a much larger scale. Kessina Lee, the state supervisor of Oregon’s USFWS office, and Robin Brown, barred owl management strategy lead for USFWS, join us to discuss the proposal.
Yesterday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that wolverines will now be listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. The ruling was hailed by conservation groups which have been advocating to protect wolverines in the contiguous U.S. for more than 20 years, including suing the agency twice. There are roughly 300 wolverines spread across Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and Washington. The new federal listing does not apply to wolverines in Alaska. Wolverines are already listed as a threatened species in Oregon and hunting or trapping of the animals is prohibited. Earlier this spring, several wolverine sightings were reported along the Columbia River and in the Central Cascades, most likely of the same animal. Bethany Cotton is the conservation director for Cascadia Wildlands, based in Eugene. She joins us to talk about the impact of this ruling, and ongoing threats to the survival of wolverines in the West.
If you’re an avid gardener who pursues your passion all year round, you may be familiar with a handy guide commonly found at nurseries that tells you if the azaleas, rhododendrons, or other perennials you’re thinking of planting in your garden are likely to survive the winter. The Plant Hardiness Zone Map is divided into 13 temperature zones and half-zones, stretching from frigid Alaska (1a) to tropical Puerto Rico (13b), and is based on a 30-year average of the coldest winter temperatures recorded for each zone.
Earlier this month, the USDA released the latest version of the interactive map which was co-developed by researchers at the PRISM Climate Group at Oregon State University. An update to the 2012 map, the new version shows an average nationwide shift of 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit, which may indicate warming temperatures due to climate change, among other factors. Chris Daly is the lead author of the new map, the founding director of the PRISM Climate Group and a professor in the college of engineering at Oregon State University. He joins us to talk about developing the map, what it means for Oregon growers and the impact of a changing climate on the winter growing season.
Naloxone can be used to reverse an opioid overdose in an emergency situation. It’s available over the counter at a pharmacy, but some advocates say that’s not enough to get it into the hands of people who need it most. Project Red offers overdose prevention supplies like naloxone to restaurants, bars and other establishments. The Naloxone Project is an organization with chapters in several states including Colorado and Washington. Its goal is to have hospitals distribute naloxone to at-risk patients. Ellen Wirshup is the program manager for Project Red. Stephen Anderson is the chair of the board for The Naloxone Project. They join us with more on their efforts to make naloxone freely available.
Last Monday, the Salem City Council convened a meeting with the Marion County Board of Commissioners and Salem-Keizer school district leaders to discuss the findings from a recent report looking at the sharp rise in the city’s gun violence. Shootings in the Salem city limits have doubled in the past five years, according to the report, which did not include police shootings or those that were self-inflicted or done in self defense. The report also found that at least half the shootings involved gang members, and that the number of teens 17 and under who were either suspects or victims of gun violence has doubled in the past two years. Joining us to discuss the factors driving the city’s gun violence is Ardeshir Tabrizian, who covers criminal justice and housing for the Salem Reporter.
The University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History hits the road in the summers. It offers hands-on learning through its Oregon Rocks! program, which teaches kids and families about geology. The organization travels throughout the state, reaching places like Portland, Pendleton and Paisley to bring science discovery to Oregon communities of all sizes. We listen back to a conversation with Mia Jackson, the education manager at the museum, who joins us with details about the program and why the museum wants to focus on statewide outreach.
When retired preschool owner Colleen Strohm and her husband moved to Maupin after their retirement, they found a vibrant community, but no local newspaper. Strohm says she tried to talk others into starting one, but after no one took her up on it, she finally realized she’d need to do it herself. She and her husband launched “The South Wasco Times” in October. Strohm is the publisher, editor and reporter for the monthly print paper. Her husband, retired Portland State University professor Doug Lowell, takes photographs and manages advertising sales and distribution. The Times is not online, and Strohm says she has no plans to change that — part of the appeal is that the paper is printed… on paper. She and Lowell join us from Maupin to talk about the community response, what readers can expect from the Dec. 1 edition, and how they plan to keep the endeavor sustainable into the future.
As the historic Portland Public School strike comes to an end, the state and country continue to face another issue: hiring. According to a dashboard created by the Oregon’s Teacher Standards and Practice Commision, there are more than 1,000 open positions for educators and other roles across the state. Kevin Carr is a professor of science education at Pacific University. He joins us to share more on the challenges of obtaining a teaching license and what can be done to address the shortage.
For 25 years, the Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports has worked with schools around the country to make learning environments more supportive and productive. The PBIS framework focuses on establishing shared values and expectations for the classroom and acknowledging positive behavior. It also aims to address unwanted behavior through redirection instead of punishment. The center recently received $21 million from the U.S. Department of Education to fund its work for the next five years.
Kent McIntosh is the Philip H. Knight Chair of Special Education at the University of Oregon and co-director of the center. He joins us to share more about the center’s work and the importance of creating positive school cultures.
At Oregon Health & Science University, the number of patients treated for falling injuries has increased by 90% compared with 2016. These are falls that occur on ground-level, not from heights. Nationwide, about three-quarters of those patients are over the age of 65. That’s why Katie Drago, an OHSU geriatrician and associate professor of medicine, says the problem is becoming “a growing public health emergency.” We talk with Drago about the study the hospital has begun to help people prevent these injuries, and the need for more attention on the subject.
On Monday morning, more than 40,000 students in Portland returned to school after a tentative deal had been announced the day before to end a teachers’ strike that had shut down schools since Nov 1. The agreement between Portland Public Schools district and the Portland Association of Teachers still needs to be ratified by union members and the school board this week. It includes a nearly 14% pay raise for educators over the next three years, additional planning time and expanded access to mental health support for students in the district. Joining us to talk about the deal, how students will make up 11 days of lost instruction time and other details is OPB education reporter Natalie Pate.
Author Tim O’Brien is best known for his book “The Things They Carried,” about the Vietnam War. His latest book, “Dad’s Maybe Book,” is a compilation of anecdotes and reflections on becoming a parent in late middle age, and what he wants his young children to know about him before he dies. This conversation was recorded in front of an audience at the Portland Book Festival last fall.
At first, Ada Limón wasn’t able to write poetry during the pandemic. And then she wrote a poem called “The Hurting Kind.” From that flowed the rest of her new book of poems under that same name. We talk to Limón, the poet laureate of the United States, before an audience at the Literary Arts space in downtown Portland.
Yesterday, a Harney County Circuit Court judge ruled that Measure 114 violates Oregon's state constitution. The law, which voters passed last year to regulate firearms, has yet to go into effect due to multiple court challenges.
Measure 114 bans future purchases of magazines that can carry more than 10 rounds of ammunition. It also requires those wishing to buy a firearm to get a permit first. Permits will require applicants to complete a safety class and a federal background check. Earlier this year, U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut ruled the law is legal under the U.S. Constitution. That decision has been appealed to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
OPB reporter Jonathan Levinson joins us with details about the latest ruling and what it means for the future of Measure 114.
Last month, a new bookstore opened in Vancouver. But this isn’t your typical brick and mortar spot to pick up the latest thriller, mystery or best-selling memoir of a pop star. The Romance Era Bookshop sells only romance novels and related subgenres, including Romantasy, in which classic fairy tales are reimagined, with strong female protagonists embarking on quests both otherworldly and romantically relatable. The store is also less like Barnes & Noble and more like “hanging out at your best friend’s house,” according to The Romance Era Bookshop owner and founder Ren Rice. The Columbian recently profiled Rice about their new venture to create “a safe space” free of judgement for visitors to explore this popular genre. Rice joins us to talk about their bookstore and efforts to showcase an increasing number of BIPOC, women and LGBTQ+ authors writing romance fiction today.
Last week, the Clark County Council in Southwest Washington unanimously approved the creation of a new public defenders office to provide free legal counsel to criminal defendants who cannot afford hiring their own lawyers. Clark County is the largest county in Washington to rely on a contract model for public defense. As previously reported in The Columbian, the new office will initially consist of 10 positions, including six attorneys who will handle felony-level cases. The county will continue contracting with Vancouver Defenders to provide public defense for misdemeanor cases. Vancouver Defenders is also contracted to handle some of the felony cases heard in Clark County Superior Court. Amber Emery is the deputy county manager of Clark County, and Christie Emrich is a defense attorney and the owner of Vancouver Defenders. They join us to talk about this new office and the benefits they hope it provides for the county, public defenders and indigent clients in Clark County.
We typically wear noise-canceling headphones to drown out unpleasant sounds, such as cars honking or construction machines drilling. But what if you still wanted to hear someone knocking on your door or birds chirping on your walk? New artificial intelligence technology from the University of Washington could soon make that possible. Researchers developed an algorithm that allows users to pick which sounds can filter through their headphones in real time.
Shyam Gollakota is a professor of computer science and engineering at UW. He joins us with more details on the new technology and the ethical implications of choosing your own audio environment.
Center for Disease Control and Prevention data published earlier this year shows that Oregon has some of the highest rates of syphilis infections, landing ninth out of all states. At the same time, more than 3,700 babies were born with congenital syphilis in the U.S. last year — the highest count in more than 30 years. Tim Menza is the medical director of the HIV/STD/TB section of Oregon Health Authority. They join us to share more on what the current trends are in the state and what’s being done to address them.
How is the PPS strike affecting after school programs and other organizations that offer kids additional support outside of school? We'll hear from several groups that are shifting gears to offer kids and their families more resources as the strike continues. We check in with Sabina Urdes, the executive director of the East Portland Collective; Ava Shannon, the youth programs manager at the Northeast Community Center; and Jessica Swartz Amezcua, the owner of Adventures in Spanish.
Augmented reality technology allows the user to see the real world while overlaying virtual elements. It’s often used to enhance gaming experiences — think Pokémon GO — but researchers in the University of Washington’s Makeability Lab are using AR to improve accessibility for users who are blind, low-vision or have other disabilities. For example, the RASSAR app uses a smartphone to scan indoor spaces for safety and accessibility issues, while ARTennis uses an AR headset to help low-vision users track fast-moving tennis balls.
Xia Su and Jae Lee are both PhD students studying computer science and engineering at UW. They join us to talk about their work and what future AR technology might look like.
The double-crested cormorant is one of many seabirds that love to eat salmon. The birds were driven away from East Sand Island near the mouth of the Columbia River decades ago in an effort to protect the fish, but wildlife managers are now responding to some unintended consequences. Roughly 10,000 cormorants now prefer to make their home on the Astoria-Megler bridge. The acid from their excrement, or guano, eats through the bridge coating which Oregon Department of Transportation workers must remove regularly for safety inspections. Nesting cormorants can also find their way onto the roadway, leading to encounters which can be fatal for the birds and pose safety hazards for drivers. We talk with James Lawonn, an avian biologist at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, about what’s being done to protect the birds and the bridge.
Earlier this year, millions of dollars were allocated to counties across the state as part of a homelessness state of emergency. We hear from an organization based in rural Oregon that’s working on rehousing residents in Baker, Grant, Union and Wallowa counties. Connie Guentert is the executive director of Community Connection of Northeast Oregon, Inc. She joins us with details of the organization’s work.
Two dozen elected officials, law enforcement officers and substance use treatment providers traveled from Oregon to Portugal recently to learn about the country’s 20-year-old drug decriminalization program, which inspired Oregon’s voter-approved Measure 110. The trip was organized and largely paid for by the Health Justice Recovery Alliance, a statewide advocacy organization focused on implementing M110. The group met with Portuguese policymakers and addiction service professionals to learn how the country built an integrated health care response to its addiction crisis.
Lily Morgan is a Republican state representative from Grants Pass. Kate Lieber is a Democratic state senator representing Beaverton and Southwest Portland and serves as the Senate Majority Leader. They join us to talk about the trip and whether it presented applicable lessons for Oregon.
Lone Fir Cemetery is one of the oldest continuously operating cemeteries in Portland. It also serves as a painful reminder of the racist and exclusionary treatment of Chinese immigrants who first arrived in Oregon in the mid-1800s, working as miners, merchants and other laborers. From the 1860s to the 1920s, roughly 2800 Chinese immigrants were buried in a section of Lone Fir known as Block 14. Ledgers were used to record the names of many of the people who were buried there so that the remains could be dug up and the bones sent to China for reburial in ancestral villages and towns. By the late 1940s, Multnomah County officials claimed that all remains at Block 14 had been repatriated. But they hadn’t, according to an archaeological survey commissioned by the county in 2005 which found evidence of human remains at the site.
Today, Block 14 is a bare field with no permanent reminder of its history or significance to the Chinese American community. But Metro, the regional government agency which owns the cemetery, is attempting to change that by using a voter-approved parks bond to build a memorial to honor the memory of people buried at Block 14. The project will also honor former patients from the state’s first psychiatric hospital, the Oregon Hospital for the Insane, nearly 200 of whom were buried at Lone Fir. Hannah Erickson, a communications specialist at Metro Parks and Nature, and Helen Ying, president of the Lone Fir Cemetery Foundation, join us to discuss the history of Block 14 and the two design proposals for the memorial.
After facing pandemic-era high inflation rates and a shift in migration, Oregon’s economy is stabilizing, according to a new forecast. The forecast also notes that economic recovery post-pandemic has been inclusive across the board, as people of all backgrounds are seeing lower poverty rates and higher rates of employment. Josh Lehner is an economist with the state. He joins us to share more on the state of Oregon’s current population trends and what the labor market is looking like.
With the presidential election less than a year away, a recent survey commissioned by the Oregon Secretary of State Elections Division highlights the challenges facing Oregon’s county clerks. Researchers at Reed College’s Elections & Voting Information Center surveyed nearly all of Oregon’s 36 county clerks who not only administer elections but also record property transactions and issue marriage licenses. But as the survey reveals, that job has become tougher and more stressful in recent years, with mounting threats, harassment and even suspicious mail that was sent earlier this month to clerks’ offices in Oregon, Washington and several other states.
More than a third of Oregon’s county clerks have also retired or resigned in 2020, which raises concerns around maintaining adequate staffing heading into an election cycle that takes months to prepare for and certify the results of. Joining us to discuss the challenges facing Oregon county clerks are Paul Manson, the research director of the Elections & Voting Information Center at Reed College and lead author of the survey, Lane County Clerk Dena Dawson and Jackson County Clerk Chris Walker.
Portland Public Schools students are out of class for the 10th day this month as the first strike in the district’s history continues. The Portland Association of Teachers claims the most recent offer it presented to the district would significantly reduce the financial gap between the two sides, but the district has disputed how much the proposal would actually save.
Renard Adams is chief of research, assessment and accountability for PPS. Angela Bonilla is the president of PAT. They join us with the latest on where negotiations stand.
Tooth enamel is the strongest substance produced by the human body, protecting the sensitive lower layers of the teeth. But once it wears away, we can’t regrow it. The cells that create enamel, called ameloblasts, die shortly after the teeth are formed. New research from the University of Washington could eventually change that, however. Researchers have succeeded in transforming stem cells into ameloblasts, which can produce a rudimentary enamel under the right conditions.
Hannele Ruohola-Baker is a professor of biochemistry and associate director of the Institute for Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine at the University of Washington. She joins us with more details on what the ability to regrow enamel could mean for dental patients.
Oregon’s timber reputation is largely built from softwoods like Douglas Fir. But a new lumber mill in Philomath aims to take advantage of the many hardwoods available on the western side of the state. Patrick Lumber aims to mill Oregon white oak, Pacific maple, tan oak, madrone, chinquapin, myrtle and Oregon ash trees from lots that are being thinned for fire protection. David Halsey, CEO of Patrick Lumber, joins us to tell us about their strategy for this new mill.
The Oregon Justice Resource Center recently released a report focusing on access to abortion in Oregon county jails. It found that access to the procedure varies widely by county. We hear more about the report from Brittney Plesser, co-director of the Fair Law Project at Oregon Justice Resource Center.
The way in which Americans have purchased firearms, and how they’re advertised, has changed greatly over the years. But a recent study from Oregon State University sheds light on a new group helping target consumers: gun influencers. Aimee Huff and Michelle Barnhart are both associate professors at OSU’s College of Business. They both join us to discuss how gun culture has changed over the years and the role these influencers are playing.
Portlanders passed a ballot measure in November 2020 to overhaul police oversight with more than 80% of the vote. And exactly how to do that is what the volunteer members of the Police Accountability Commission have been meeting for the better part of two years to do. That commission presented its findings and roughly 100-page report to the city council this summer. The city council will be voting Wednesday on whether to adopt a modified version of that PAC report and give the city attorney the authority to decide what will be submitted to the DOJ.
The federal agency must ultimately approve elements for how a new Community Board for Police Accountability will work. That’s because the city is still subject to a federal settlement to address DOJ findings that officers used excessive force on people experiencing mental illness. That agreement included changes to a variety of police policies including the process for investigating officer misconduct. Dan Handleman is a co-founding member of Peace and Justice Works, and a member of the PAC. He joins us to provide an overview of the process, his perspective and what comes next.
Last week, Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum gathered experts from different fields together to talk about the fentanyl crisis facing the state. The all-day event included discussions of the scope of fentanyl addiction, what works to treat it, what young people know about the drug, and how law enforcement can effectively address the crisis. AG Rosenblum joins us to talk about what she learned, and what the next steps should be in addressing fentanyl abuse in the state.
In July 2022, oceanographer Dawn Wright made history by becoming the first Black person to dive to the deepest known spot on the planet. Victor Vescovo, a former Naval officer, entrepreneur and explorer, invited Wright to accompany him on the expedition to descend more than six-and-a-half miles to Challenger Deep in the western Pacific Ocean. Wright is the chief scientist at Esri, a California-based company that develops mapping software. Wright used the occasion of her sixth deep sea dive to successfully test and operate a sonar instrument specially designed to withstand the crushing pressure found at Challenger Deep.
Wright is currently a courtesy professor at Oregon State University’s College of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. She was on faculty as a tenured professor at OSU for 17 years until 2011. She joins us to talk about her expedition to Challenger Deep, which will be the focus of a lecture that she is scheduled to give on Wednesday, Nov. 15, at the OSU campus in Corvallis. Advance registration is required to attend the free lecture online or in-person.
Many Portland and Seattle sports fans were angry last month after Xfinity announced they would have to pay more to watch Trail Blazers, Mariners and Kraken games on cable. As the Washington Post reports, regional sports networks are feeling the pressure as streaming services cut into their revenues from broadcast rights. And with immersive reality domes expected to broadcast NBA and NHL games in the near future, the experience of sports viewing could be set to dramatically change.
Joining us to talk about the rapidly changing landscape of sports media is Lauren Anderson, director of the Warsaw Sports Business Center at the University of Oregon.
Undergraduates at the University of Oregon have organized student workers - a first in the country at a public institution. The union represents a number of positions, including resident assistants, dining hall workers and other undergraduate positions. Mae Bracelin is a second-year political science student at the University of Oregon. Noah Thompson is a fifth year political science major. They are both organizers with the UO Student Workers union and join us to discuss working conditions they are facing, changes they want in the workplace and what it means to be the first undergraduate workers union.
Doctor Carlos Sanchez has an unusual and challenging caseload of patients. For one thing, they have scales, feathers, horns and fur, and can’t really say where it hurts. But it’s his job to oversee the medical care and treatment of more than a thousand animals as the head veterinarian at Portland’s Oregon Zoo. In our latest installment in our series on professions, we accompany Dr. Sanchez as he makes his daily rounds to check up on some of his favorite patients. He shares with us the special bond he has with them, the invaluable role zoo keepers play in their wellbeing and the fateful encounter he had as a young boy in Mexico City that would forever change his life.
Vasectomy rates have risen in the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere in the country since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the legal right to abortion in 2022. At Oregon Health & Science University, Jason Hedges performs about 500 vasectomies a year. He’s also one of the relatively few surgeons who does reversal procedures as well. He says like others in his field, he’s seen the interest rising and wait times for the procedure increase. Hedges joins us to discuss what’s involved and the changes he’s seen over the last several years.
Last summer, Oregon made national headlines as timbers from the infamous Beeswax Wreck were discovered along the North Coast near Manzanita. The Beeswax Wreck, named for one of the products the ship carried, is said to be one of the inspirations for the beloved film, “The Goonies.” The wreck has also attracted the attention of treasure hunters in the past, searching for signs of its wreckage or anything it may have been carrying onboard.
Now, a new documentary and podcast series shares the story behind one of those treasure hunters in its first episode. “The True Quest for Fabled Treasure on the Oregon Coast,” is episode one of the new series, “Secrets of the Mysteries.” The documentary will be screening Dec. 10 at the Clinton Street Theater. JB Fisher is the executive producer for the series. Tony Altamirano is the director. They both join us to share more on the supposed treasure lost along the Oregon Coast.
Mercy Corps, a humanitarian aid organization based in Portland, has had a small staff based in Palestine for years. For the last month, they have been checking in with staff members about the conditions on the ground. The organization is calling for a humanitarian ceasefire to provide aid to Gaza. Arnaud Quemin, the Middle East regional director for Mercy Corps, joins us to talk about what he’s hearing from staff, and what is needed for an effective humanitarian response in Gaza.
RuPaul might be the country’s most famous drag queen, but in the Pacific Northwest, the LGTBQ+ community is still feeling the loss of Darcelle, who passed away earlier this year. The icon, also known as Walter Cole, was arguably the best known and loved drag queen in the region. Darcelle XV Showplace, the drag bar institution she created, lives on where she and others have performed for decades. So when Portland writer and podcast host Eden Dawn was pitched the idea of beating the world record for the longest continuous drag show (36 hours and 36 minutes in Australia), she knew it couldn’t happen in any other place, with locals in the audience participating and cheering them on.
What Dawn ended up producing was a 48-hour extravaganza created with a cast of dozens of performers — 60 drag queens, and an assortment of MCs and stand up comedians, as well as a large and dedicated crew behind the scenes. At the end of the two days, a representative of the Guinness World Records pronounced the record set, and presented performers with the official certificate. Still, that outcome was anything but certain. Any one of a series of mishaps and near misses could have shuttered the whole project.
Dawn and Fiona McCann produced a five-part podcast telling the story of the triumphs and the tribulations, called “Slaying a Drag-a-thon,” which is a “sidecast” of their regular show, “We Can’t Print This.” The whole event was also a fundraiser with $309,000 donated to the Trevor Project, which helps LGBTQ+ youth in crisis. Joining us in studio to talk about the highlights and lowlights are Dawn and BinKyee Bellflower, one of the drag queens that helped break the record.
Two Oregon high schoolers have teamed up with their grandfather to create a biodegradable drinking straw. They say the seaweed-based invention is a step toward more sustainable alternatives to disposable plastic products. The crew conducted many experiments in a garage-turned-laboratory and hope to create other products using biodegradable materials like shellfish exoskeletons, seaweed and lac bug excretions.
Edward Brezina is a senior at Oregon Episcopal School. Emile Cantrell-Moore is a senior at Lake Oswego High School. Bob Cantrell is their grandfather and mentored the students on the project. We hear more from them about the straw and what it was like collaborating with family members on the experiments.
Today marks one week since Portland Public Schools teachers declared a strike and campuses have been closed. Negotiations are ongoing with no clear timeline on when an agreement will be met. In Oakland, California, a teachers strike in the spring lasted a week and a half and kept kids out of school for several days. Jill Tucker is the education reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle. She joins us to share more on why teachers went on strike there and how the resolution was reached.
Shakespeare’s “Henry IV, Part 1” follows the titular king as he prepares for war while his ne’er-do-well son Hal shirks — then ultimately accepts — his duties. The play deals with themes of violence, masculinity, power and leadership, all of which speak to Indigenous playwright Yvette Nolan. She recently updated the play’s language as part of Play On Shakespeare, an initiative that aims to make the Bard’s plays more engaging and accessible to modern audiences.
A production of Nolan’s translation opened last weekend at Lewis & Clark College and will run through Nov. 11. It’s part of a larger series of talks and performances taking place across Portland to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s First Folio. The play is directed by Waylon Lenk, a Shakespeare scholar and the college’s inaugural Native Artist-Scholar in Residence. He and Nolan join us to share more about “Henry IV, Part 1” and what Shakespeare means to them.
It’s hard to imagine a writer who has had as enduring an impact on the English language as William Shakespeare. Phrases like “neither rhyme nor reason,” “too much of a good thing,” or “It’s Greek to me,” color our language today centuries after the playwright immortalized them with quill and paper. But many of these linguistic contributions would have been lost to history were it not for the First Folio. Published in 1623, seven years after his death, it contains three dozen of Shakespeare’s plays, half of which were never printed in his lifetime.
To honor the 400th anniversary of the First Folio, a monthslong celebration is taking place across Portland. It includes a variety of live performances; an exhibit at the Central Library; film screenings of Romeo and Juliet and other adapted works; and free public talks that draw cultural points of contact with Shakespeare-era England. Jonathan Walker, a professor of English at Portland State University, joins us to talk about creating and organizing “Shakespeare’s First Folio: 1623-2023,” which runs through May.
The Hollywood Theatre will host a screening of the new movie, “The Holdovers,” on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. with a live ensemble performance from the Portland-based composer of the film. We hear more from composer Mark Orton about the score and his work creating music for other films.
Last week, the Black Business Association of Oregon, in partnership with ECONorthwest, revealed a new Black Economic Prosperity dashboard. The dashboard provides data on the current state of Black Oregonians which reveals that one out of every five Black individuals in Oregon lives in poverty. Additionally, the median income for Black households is only two-thirds of that for white households and only 36% of Black households own a home. Lance Randall, executive director of the Black Business Association of Oregon, joins us to discuss the new data.
The Oregon Quality Education Commission is responsible for figuring out how much the state should be spending on students for a quality education. While the commission has been around for a little more than two decades, the state legislature has not once spent the suggested amount the commission puts forward. John Rexford is the chair of the commission. He joins us to share how the commission comes up with its calculations and some of the unexpected costs that come with running schools.
Several recent court cases have upheld transgender prisoners’ right to gender affirming care while incarcerated, and the right not to be held in segregation. Tara Herivel has represented a number of transgender prisoners, and joins us to discuss the legal options available to these adults in custody. We are also joined by Nova Gaia, an inmate at Snake River Correctional Institution, who recently won the right to gender affirming care and treatment.
At the beginning of the year, test exam fees for anyone seeking a social worker license were temporarily waived with funds allocated by the Oregon Legislature. The Oregon Health Authority told KLCC this was meant to address the number of social workers who left the industry during the pandemic and increased demand. The funds have also allowed fees for some license renewals and new applications to be waived as well.
But with technology, communication and backlog issues facing the Oregon Board of Licensing and Social Work, some applicants have been waiting months to get their license to practice in the state. Currently, the board estimates that process and approval time for a license can take upwards of three months. Nathan Smith is a licensed clinical social worker who waited five months for his application to be approved. He joins us to share his experience. Lou Savage is the interim director of the Oregon Board of Licensed Social Workers, the state agency that processes and approves social worker licenses. He also joins us to share what the demand has been like the past few years, why wait times are so long and what the agency is doing to address delays.
Portlanders may be familiar with Brian Kidd, the founder of Weird Portland United. He can be seen around town on a unicycle playing a bagpipe, often in a kilt. Kidd founded the nonprofit in 2018 in an effort to bring together artistic and creative types who are all engaged in the effort to keep Portland weird. Kidd joins us, along with Christine Lassiter, host of the "Finding My Own Weird" podcast.
Portland Public School teachers have been on strike since Wednesday. While district offices are open, schools have been closed, and students have not been attending classes. Winnie Keane is a sophomore at Grant High School. Cassidy Goodwin is a sophomore at Ida B. Wells High School. They both join us to share their thoughts on the strike and how they’re spending their new found free time.
During their very first meeting, musicians Lamiae Naki and Nat Hulskamp wrote their first song together and decided to get married. The resulting project was Seffarine, an eclectic ensemble that blends traditional Andalusian and Moroccan music with jazz and other contemporary influences. The band is based in Portland, but has performed and recorded throughout Europe, Africa and North America. Their most recent residency was in Morocco, just days after the devastating earthquake that leveled several remote villages in the Atlas Mountains.
Naki and Hulskamp join us for an in-studio performance and a conversation about their wide-ranging influences, their travels and the band’s upcoming show at the Alberta Rose Theatre, which will benefit earthquake relief efforts in Morocco.
The Career Technical Education Center in Salem is hosting a behavioral health and human services program for students. It’s designed to give high schoolers an inside look into the mental health field and teach students about principles and careers in psychology, sociology, counseling, and social work. Erin Dannecker is an industry teacher at CTEC and a licensed clinical social worker. Nevaeh Humbyrd is a junior in the program. They join us with more about the skills and lessons taught in the program.
The first teachers strike in Portland Public Schools history is currently underway. Schools have closed across the district, which is Oregon’s largest, as teachers lobby for better pay and working conditions. Renard Adams is chief of research, assessment and accountability for PPS. Angela Bonilla is the president of the Portland Association of Teachers. They join us with back-to-back perspectives on where things stand between the district and the union.
More than 80 schools in Portland are closed today, as teachers began their first-ever strike in the history of the Portland Public Schools district. The Portland Association of Teachers represents nearly 4,500 teachers and coaches in Oregon’s largest school district. Negotiations between PPS and PAT have been ongoing for months to ratify a new contract, including sessions held with a state mediator earlier this week. OPB education reporter Natalie Pate gives us an update on the strike, what each side is asking for and what she heard from teachers on the picket line this morning.
The Portland Art Museum has begun a multi-year construction project that will revitalize the gallery and perhaps help do the same for the city's downtown core. In addition, the museum has opened its new Tomorrow Theater in Southeast Portland. We talk to Brian Ferriso, executive director and chief curator, about the future of the Portland Art Museum, and the role of museums in 2023.
It’s been four months since the July 1 deadline for Oregon cities to establish codes on where and when people experiencing homelessness can camp outside. We’ll hear from two low-barrier shelters on what has changed in their communities since then. Evan Hendrix is the director of navigation services at Shepherd's House Ministries in Bend. Terry McDonald is the executive director of St. Vincent de Paul of Lane County. They both join us to share more on what demand has been like for their services and how these codes are affecting people experiencing homelessness.
In May, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling blocking states from keeping surplus funds from the sale of foreclosed homes. Now, three Oregonians are a part of a class action lawsuit against Multnomah, Yamhill and Lane counties. Nadia Dahab is a partner with SugermanDahab and is representing some of the plaintiffs in the suit. She joins us to share more on the Court ruling and its impacts.
On Monday, U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer announced he will not seek reelection next year after serving nearly 30 years in Congress. In a statement released by his office, he pledged to continue “championing livable communities starting right here in Portland and being a resource and a partner for the next generation.” The Democratic lawmaker from Portland was first elected to Congress in 1996, the same year he founded the Congressional Bike Caucus which has grown to include 130 members. In 2017, he helped launch the Congressional Cannabis Caucus which successfully lobbied recently to end the prohibition on using federal funds for cannabis research. Rep. Blumenauer joins us to talk about his legislative priorities and his decision to retire amid the recent election of a new House speaker and the threat of a government shutdown next month.
A new study by researchers at Washington State University found a “small but significant” effect from training to counter implicit bias in police officers. Implicit bias occurs without conscious awareness and can shape prejudicial attitudes and behaviors. The study recruited 50 police officers in Sacramento, California to participate in video simulations of encounters between police officers and different community members. Two of the study’s authors developed the interactive training program which is being sold to police departments nationwide. The researchers found that officers who completed the training had fewer complaints of discrimination by community members than officers without the training. Police bodycam footage also revealed improvements in trained officers’ behavior, especially in their interactions with people experiencing homelessness. Lois James is the lead author of the study, and assistant dean of research and an associate professor in the College of Nursing at Washington State University. She joins us to talk about the results.
Bill Mansfield passed the Oregon State Bar and began his legal career in 1953. He turned 94 earlier this month, and while he describes himself as semi-retired, you’d be hard pressed to find a more active and engaged citizen. He’s an elected member of the Rogue Valley Transportation District board, and serves on the Medford Planning Commission. In 2018 he was recognized by the Center for NonProfit Legal Services with an award for his pro bono work defending civil rights, including free speech and assembly. Throughout his 70 years in the field, Mansfield has advised and represented people on a wide range of issues, from family law to civil rights to probate. He also teaches a class at Southern Oregon University called “Law and Things: How to Avoid Legal Problems.” Manfield joins us to discuss the changes he’s seen in his long career.
Cancer for Breakfast” is a podcast hosted by Stefanie LeJeunesse and Amy Dials. They navigate two different breast cancer experiences in their podcast. As hosts based in the Pacific Northwest, they discuss cancer with humor while also talking about advancements in research in an approachable way. We learn more from LeJeunesse and Dials about their podcast and experiences.
For over 40 years, Mount Pisgah Arboretum in Lane County has held a mushroom festival in the fall. While the last few years haven’t offered the best mushroom seasons, this fall is shaping up to be a beautiful time for foragers. Chris Melotti, president of the board of directors of the Cascade Mycological Society, shares his love of fungi with us.
ACLU of Oregon recently sent a public records request to the Canby School District, seeking information regarding their push this summer to consider restricting access to some book titles. The district initially pulled 36 books for consideration, but only banned one title in the end: “Lolita” by Vladimir Nabokov. Kelly Simon, legal director of the ACLU, tells us what legal issues should be considered when schools consider banning books. And Mary Masingila, the mother of a student at Canby High School, joins us to talk about what this issue has looked like in her community.
Last week, Ashland and Newport’s Housing Production Strategy Plans were approved by the state. These plans come from a 2019 House bill requiring Oregon cities with populations over 10,000 to come up with eight-year plans to address housing. Linda Reid is the housing program specialist for the city of Ashland. Jan Kaplan is the mayor of Newport. They both join us to share what housing looks like right now in their cities and their plans for the future.
Even though the Roman empire came to an end thousands of years ago, we still tell stories about the emperors who ruled during that time. From Caligula, who threatened to make his horse a senator, to Nero, who killed his own mother and set fire to the city to make room for his palace, classicist Mary Beard argues that the stories we tell about the Roman emperors might say more about us than they do about the emperors themselves. Beard joins us to talk about her latest book, “Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World,” which attempts to break down what we can actually know about the lives of the emperors and how they ruled.
The Black Possibilities App is creating a “digital safe space for Black Oregonians to connect, organize, heal, & advocate together,” according to the organization Imagine Black, which created the app. Joy Alise Davis, the executive director of Imagine Black, joins us to talk about the need the app fills for Black Oregonians, and the new online connections and exchanges she hopes will emerge from using it.
The city of Salem is facing a massive budget shortfall. To help close it, the City Council recently approved a tax on anyone working in Salem who earns above the minimum wage. City officials claim the tax is needed to maintain and expand emergency services, including hiring more police officers, firefighters and sustaining homeless services. Oregon Business & Industry successfully petitioned to put the issue before Salem voters in a special election this November. Virginia Stapleton is president of the Salem City Council and co-founder of the Committee to Save Salem, which supports the ballot measure. Preston Mann is the political affairs director of Oregon Business & Industry which has raised more than $180,000 to defeat the measure. They join us to share opposing perspectives on the tax which has been extensively covered by the Salem Reporter, including an Oct. 11 town hall it moderated with Stapleton and Mann.
Last week, reporting from the Portland Mercury revealed some of the living conditions at Argyle Gardens, a transitional housing apartment complex operated by Transition Projects Inc. Tenants reported issues with cleanliness in communal spaces, bed bugs and poor management. Tony Bernal is the interim executive director of TPI. He joins us to share the organization's response to the reporting and what they’re doing now to address some of these issues.
Only five states in the U.S. require sex education to be made accessible to people with disabilities. Oregon has no such requirements, but a partnership between Oregon Health Authority, Oregon Department of Education, the University of Alaska Anchorage and Oregon Health and Science University aim to fill this gap though a program for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
The Friendships and Dating Program provides participants the skills to promote healthy relationships and sexual health in their communities. Lindsay Sauvé is the program and evaluation manager with the University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities at OHSU. Morrigan Hunter is a community research liaison with the center. They both join us to discuss the impact this program is having and what it takes to make sex education more accessible.
It’s been about two weeks since war broke out in Israel and Gaza. Though thousands of miles away, the war and subsequent humanitarian crisis in the Middle East has taken an emotional, mental and personal toll on many Oregonians. An event in Wilsonville this weekend brought together medical and mental health professionals to help community members develop coping mechanisms for the stress and find support through fellow community members.
Farah Ramchandani organized the event and Selma Quan Anderson participated in her capacity as a registered nurse. They join us to talk about the importance of creating space for community members to process their feelings.
A recently released audit took aim at the operation of Metro’s two solid waste transfer stations. Located in Northwest Portland and Oregon City, the facilities process about 40% of the garbage generated by 1.7 million customers in Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington County. They also accept hazardous household items like paint thinner, batteries and used propane tanks.
Willamette Week earlier reported on the audit which found “gaps” and “weaknesses” that reveal a “lack of basic management practices” and raise concerns around safety and financial risks for the agency. For example, only 3% of employees at the transfer stations completed annual radiation safety training, and fewer than half completed asbestos awareness training. The audit also found overpayment to a contractor supplying diesel for Metro’s garbage trucks. Joining us is Metro Auditor Brian Evans to talk about the audit and recommendations it made to Metro officials.
The Refindery in the tiny coastal town of Wheeler is not your typical thrift store. For one thing, you won’t find secondhand clothes for sale. But if you’re looking for a 1986 wall calendar, a used door hinge that still works or that missing piece for a Monopoly board game, you might be in luck. The Refindery invites visitors to reimagine and repurpose items otherwise destined for the landfill, like the glass fish and salvaged seashells mounted inside a vintage television displayed in the store. It also hosts a monthly event where community members can bring in broken vacuum cleaners, lamps and other objects for repair by a team of volunteers. The Refindery and the Repair Café are operated by Heart of Cartm, a nonprofit formed in 2021, which grew out of a volunteer-run recycle transfer center started in Manzanita three decades ago. Jessi Just, the executive director of Heart of Cartm, joins us to talk about her organization which was recently profiled in Oregon ArtsWatch, and its ongoing work to reduce and reimagine waste on Oregon’s North Coast.
Since 2017, Bruce Poinsette has helped lead a neighborhood effort to interrupt racism in Lake Oswego. The group is called Respond to Racism and holds regular community meetings to engage people in conversations and anti-racism action. Poinsette recently launched a new online interview series talking to people of color who have left the “bubble” of LO. He joins us to share his own experience in the bubble, Respond to Racism’s work more broadly, and what he’s hoping to accomplish with the latest video series.
Oregon’s Warmline is a hotline people can call to get support and talk through issues with a peer. For the second quarter of 2023, the service received over 20,000 calls across the state, a more than 40% increase in demand compared to last year. But while need for the service is there, a state grant is expected to expire in the spring, throwing the future of the program into question. Kimberly Lindsay is the executive director of Community Counseling Services, the nonprofit that operates the line. She joins us to share what demand has been like for the warmline and the options the organization is considering to keep the service going.
The new Oregon Children’s Theatre play “SPIDER” centers around teens struggling with the numbing effects of social media, normalized gun violence and the interplay of online reality and real life. Playwright Madeleine Adriance graduated from St. Mary’s Academy in Portland in 2019 and is currently a senior at Brown University. She took a semester off to assist with the production of the play OCT commissioned her to write.
Adriance got involved in the organization when she was just 8 years old and took her first playwriting class when she was a freshman in high school. “SPIDER” opens Friday and runs through November 5. Adriance joins us to discuss the play and the importance of talking about what she calls the “ever-present specter of gun violence” young people live with.
The Portland State University Bike Hub started an e-bike rental program this year. The rentals were established through a Drive Change Fund award from Portland General Electric which emphasizes electrifying transportation in Oregon. The goal of the program is to help students who live further from campus reduce car trips and their transportation costs. Daniel Penner is the Bike Hub supervisor and Claire Hinkley is a second year grad student at PSU. We learn more from them about the program and how it’s helping students get to campus.
The COVID-19 pandemic dealt a heavy blow to Oregon’s farmers markets. According to the Oregon Farmers Market Association, visitor numbers and sales both dropped by nearly 50% between 2019 and 2020. But as reported in the Capital Press, the association’s most recent survey shows an estimated 3.5 million visits to farmers markets in 2022. That’s down from 4.2 million in 2019, but an improvement from the 2020 low of 2.2 million.
Ashley Hess is the executive director of the Oregon Farmers Market Association. She joins us with more details on how markets across the state are bouncing back.
This Friday, people will start lining up at the High Desert Museum for an annual art show that can feel more like a Black Friday sale. But instead of a mad dash to score a new 4K TV, the customers here will be jostling past each other to grab canvases of original artwork off the wall, each one priced at just $20. Now in its tenth year, the 20-Dollar Art Show features more than 4,000 handmade pieces of art submitted by 165 artists this year. If a work sells, 100% of the money goes to the artist, according to Stuart Breidenstein, an artist and the co-founder of the 20-Dollar Art Show and Bright Place Gallery in Bend. Oregon ArtsWatch profiled the show before tickets for the opening night event, which are now sold out, went on sale. Breidenstein and Kait Kenobi, an artist and branding consultant in Bend, join us to talk about this unique event and its enduring appeal for artists and the community in Central Oregon.
For the first time, the Oregon Department of State Lands has millions of dollars to remove abandoned and derelict vessels from state waterways. The department previously had to request money from the Common School Fund for cleanups, but the state Legislature granted it $18.8 million in June to address the growing number of hazardous vessels. The funding will also be used to develop a statewide program to identify, prioritize and oversee vessel removals.
Crews recently removed the Tiffany from the Columbia River near Rainier, Oregon. The 86-foot former fishing vessel is the first to be removed and deconstructed using the new funds.
Chris Castelli is acting deputy director of operations at the Department of State Lands. Bob Dorn is the CEO of Hyak Maritime, which is housing the Tiffany as it’s deconstructed. They join us to talk about the new funding and what it takes to remove potentially hazardous vehicles from state waterways.
For many arts organizations in Portland and across the nation, recovery from the pandemic has been painfully slow or downright elusive. Lagging box office sales are forcing companies like the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Artists Repertory Theatre to layoff staff and cancel or scale back entire seasons. So it’s all the more surprising to see an arts venue in the region that has drawn more than 70,000 people since it opened last year for musical performances, art exhibits, community events and classes. The Patricia Reser Center for the Arts opened in March 2022 in downtown Beaverton and features a 550-seat theater, art gallery, outdoor plaza, meeting and rehearsal spaces. Executive director Chris Ayzoukian joins us to talk about the new season which launched last month and his hopes for the future amid uncertainty around arts funding and audience demand.
Since our last conversation with Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, Republicans lawmakers staged a historically long walkout, a state task force convened to address serious problems in Portland’s central city, and a coalition of prominent leaders have begun calling for an overhaul of Measure 110, Oregon's drug decriminalization law. We spent an hour in Salem with the governor to talk about all those things and more.
When Tom Swearingen wrote his first poem to remember a friend who had died, he didn’t consider himself a poet. But the small group of friends and family he read it to told him to keep writing. He did, and he says because he long enjoyed Western music, art and literature, including the cowboy poetry of Baxter Black, that was the style that fit. Within 10 years, Swearingen had published a collection of poetry which was named the 2020 Cowboy Poetry Book of the year by the International Western Music Association. The group also named him best male poet in 2019 and 2022. He also got Willamette Week’s nod in its “Best of” edition this year. Swearingen, like other cowboy poets, is particularly busy in the summer months with performances at rodeos and other events. We listen back to a conversation about his work and read some of his poetry.
Late this summer, Gov. Tina Kotek announced a new task force aimed at addressing the challenges of Portland’s downtown. City mayor Ted Wheeler told OPB last month that if Portland’s downtown fails, it could have consequences for the rest of the state. But what are downtowns facing in other parts of Oregon? Natascha Adams is the co-chair of the Independence Downtown Association. Jen Bell is the former co-president of Downtown Eugene Merchants. They both join us to share what’s working and what isn’t in their communities.
A north Portland low-income apartment complex that opened in the summer of 2020 was meant to be a way to help some people out of homelessness. Now, three years later tenants are citing filthy conditions, assault and thefts. While some have stayed, others have fled and returned to shelters. Courtney Vaughn is the News Editor for the Portland Mercury. She joins us to share more on the habitability issues of the complex.
Julie Brown is an English and humanities instructor at Clatsop Community College in Astoria. One of the most popular courses she teaches is on maritime culture, which takes students out of the classroom and onto the decks of ships to see firsthand what life is like working as a bar pilot on the Columbia River or as a deckhand on the Lady Washington, an exact replica of an 18th-century, 90-foot-tall ship that was the first recorded vessel to sail to the Oregon coast. Eight years ago, a former student encouraged Brown to train to work as a deckhand aboard the Lady Washington, which she did for two years, traveling from British Columbia to San Diego, while juggling her teaching duties. The Astorian recently previewed a lecture Brown gave to a packed audience on how cultures as diverse as Vikings and Chinook Indians used boats to bury their dead at sea or on land. Brown joins us to talk about these ancient practices, and how her love for writing, literature and maritime history has taken her from the halls of Oxford to the bars of Astoria.
Washington County Animal Services recently won the 2023 Animal Control Agency of the Year award from the National Animal Care & Control Association. Randy Covey manages the Hillsboro organization and the Bonnie Hays Animal Shelter. He also won a Lifetime Contribution Award from the Oregon Animal Control Council earlier this year. We hear more from Covey about the county’s work and how the animal control industry has changed over the years.
Enhanced rock weathering is a method that uses crushed volcanic rock to improve soil health. Ann Leslie Davis is a freelance science writer and recently covered the issue for Modern Farmer. We hear more from Davis about her reporting, how volcanic rock dust can help overworked soil and how farmers feel about using the method.
The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department is updating its rules around how and when visitors may be excluded from state parks. A committee of lawyers, mental health professionals and park staff has been developing the update over the last few months. The updated rules specify that any behavior that endangers the safety of visitors, staff or park resources qualifies for an exclusion. They also lay out how long a visitor may be excluded based on those behaviors and the appeals process for visitors who feel they’ve been unfairly excluded. Public comment on the update is now open and will close Nov. 3.
Chris Havel is the deputy director and a spokesperson for the OPRD. He joins us with more details on the proposed update.
When a new wildfire starts in the forest, wildland fire dispatchers are the people in charge of getting resources where they need to go. Their early decisions can help to keep a small fire from getting huge. But a 2022 survey of wildland fire dispatchers in Oregon and Washington by the U.S. Forest Service found that “dispatch is experiencing problems that compromise their own health and safety” as well as “the health and safety of other firefighters,” according to a new article in High Country News. Kylie Mohr, a correspondent for High Country News who wrote that story, joins us to talk about it.
Thirty years of international treaties like the Paris Climate Accords have not reduced global carbon emissions. Oregon State University economist William Jaeger says that’s because the majority of those involved in policy making will not support climate policies whose benefits arrive mainly after they die. Jaeger argues that we may need to rely on the courts to set legal standards that will help create solutions to climate change. Jaeger joins us to discuss his findings.
Since 2010, Eugene's minor league baseball team have been playing at University of Oregon’s PK Park. But with a MLB decision to upgrade to a more expanded season, conflicting schedules and facility requirements mean the Emerald's can no longer play at the field they’ve known for the past decade.
The team has proposed a multi-use facility, but they only have two-thirds of the funds to pay the $90.4 million bill they would need. Allan Benavides, the general manager of the Ems, joins us to share what’s next and what the team means for the community.
The film “Deafula” tells the story of a man who comes to realize he’s a vampire. But what makes the 1975 movie unique is that it was the first feature-length 35 mm film to be shot entirely in American Sign Language. The film’s star and director was deaf, and the film created a singular experience for deaf and hard-of- hearing audiences at the time. It was shot in Portland and produced by Oregonian Gary Holstrom. For hearing audience members, a soundtrack with a translation of the dialogue is part of the original film, along with a music track.
“Deafula” was last screened in 1975 at the Paramount Theatre. The film will be shown for the first time since then to a sold-out crowd at the Hollywood Theater this Thursday. Because of popular demand, the Oregon Historical Society is planning to bring it back for a second screening in early 2024. Holstrom joins us to talk about the making of the film and its unique place in cinematic history.
Mount Rainier in Washington state is covered with nearly 30 square miles of glaciers and icy patches - more than Mount Hood, Crater Lake and all other volcanic mountains combined, from British Columbia to Northern California. But climate change is taking a toll on Mount Rainier’s glaciers, according to a study published in June. It found a 42% reduction in glacier area from 1896 to 2021, and officially removed Stevens glacier from the park’s inventory. The situation appears worse for the glaciers at Mount Hood, according to a new photographic survey completed last month by the Oregon Glaciers Institute. It found that the seven major glaciers at Mount Hood had receded an average of 60% over the past 120 years, and that roughly a quarter of that loss happened in just the last 20 years. Joining us to discuss the toll climate change is taking on the ice cover in these iconic and popular Northwest peaks are Scott Beason, a park geologist at Mount Rainier National Park, and Anders Carlson, the president of the Oregon Glaciers Institute.
For the first time in 15 years, passenger flights are once again taking off from the Salem Municipal Airport. Avelo Airlines recently began providing flights to Las Vegas and Hollywood Burbank Airport in Southern California. The ultra low-cost carrier is the first to provide commercial flights in Salem since Delta stopped its service to the city during the 2008 financial crisis.
Salem Mayor Chris Hoy recently returned from the inaugural flight to Las Vegas, along with Travel Salem CEO and President Angie Villery. They join us with more details on what the new air traffic could mean for the city.
Community colleges, which usually see an increase in enrollment during a recession, were hit particularly hard by the pandemic. Nationally, enrollment at community colleges fell more than 10% in the last three years. This fall, that trend seems to be improving. For Central Oregon Community College, enrollment is up over 20%. We talk to Alicia Moore, Vice President of Student Affairs at COCC, about what those numbers mean, and what the future of community college looks like.
At 100 years old, the Portland Youth Philharmonic is the country’s oldest youth orchestra, with a rich and storied history. In the early 1920s a young classically trained violinist and teacher, Mary V. Dodge, conceived of what would become the Portland Junior Symphony. It formed in earnest after she convinced a renowned Russian conductor to take on the orchestra composed of students that she was teaching in her attic. The Oregon Historical Society is opening an exhibit on the PYP next month, which will chronicle its birth and achievements over the last century. Joining us are Musical Director David Hattner, PYP principal flutist Macy Gong and former PYP musician Tim McCarthy, who now plays with the National Symphony Orchestra.
A few years ago, when Gabe Piechowicz decided to change careers from logging to religious ministry, he didn’t imagine that his work would be almost exclusively focused on helping people get off the streets in Eugene. But shortly into his new career, he was calling local shelters to help find a place for some of his church’s neighbors and Dan Bryant answered his phone.Bryant is the founder and director of Opportunity Village, one of Oregon’s first village-model temporary shelters, informed by Dignity Village in Portland. Piechowicz ended up working at Opportunity Village but ultimately began his own ministry in a separate housing program he founded called Everyone Village. EV, as it’s called for short, is on a four acre piece of land that was essentially donated. There’s a warehouse that’s been converted into a community meeting space, kitchen and office, as well as a separate building with full plumbing that has showers, toilets and a washer/dryer. There are 60 structures here, all with electricity: tiny homes called “cottages of hope,” white prefabricated sheds and RVs that are parked inside the lot.The village is self-governed, with expectations, rules and requirements. The people who live here are getting back on their feet, overcoming—and in the process of overcoming —a variety of social and economic challenges. Some of them joined us and shared their story when we visited EV recently and recorded a show as part of a solutions-oriented series focused on some of Oregon’s biggest problems. Our guests were: Dan Bryant of Opportunity Village; Gabe Piechowicz of Everyone Village; Brittany Quick-Warner of the Eugene Chamber of Commerce; as well as villagers Laura Dwinell, Sam Jones and Terri Kulick, and former Opportunity villager, Paul Miller.
We’re taking a deep dive into people’s work lives. We want to learn what it takes to do different jobs and how these professions change us.On the latest installment of our series, we visit Freeland Spirits in Portland, which is owned and run by women. Master Distiller Molly Troupe creates spirits, like gin and whiskey. She takes us behind the scenes and shares more about her craft and the rye whiskey—grown and distilled in Oregon—that Freeland recently released.
It’s been three years since the Labor Day fires burned more than 4,000 homes and about a million acres of land across Oregon. Since then, fire investigators have only publicly released the cause of one of the nine major fires. Zach Urness is the outdoor editor for the Statesman Journal and the host of the “Explore Oregon” podcast. He joins us to share why we still don’t have official answers and what this means for survivors of the catastrophic event.
When Tove Danovich began keeping chickens in her backyard in Portland several years ago, she didn’t realize that what she was actually starting was research. That research would become a full-fledged book investigating the role these birds play in the larger culture and economy. Danovich also started sharing her journey on her Instagram, where most of the photos feature her “girls,” Loretta, Emmylou, Peggy and many more. Tove Danovich joins to talk about her book “Under the Henfluence: Inside the World of Backyard Chickens and the People Who Love Them,” and why she became obsessed with chickens and their place in our lives.
Roughly 13,000 years ago, Ice Age animals such as saber-toothed cats, the American lion and mammoths started going extinct in the Los Angeles basin about a thousand years before their extinction in other parts of North America. To find out why, a team of scientists collaborated on a new study that argues that wildfires due to increased human activity in the region was likely to blame. The scientists made their findings based on fossil specimens extracted from preserved remains at the La Brea Tar Pits, along with sediment cores they dug up to provide a prehistoric timeline of wildfire activity amid a changing landscape. Edward Davis is the director of the Condon Fossil Collection at the University of Oregon’s Museum of Natural and Cultural History, and one of the authors of the study which was published in August. He joins us to talk about the study and its relevance in an era of extreme wildfires driven by climate change.
Students at Portland Public Schools are nearly a month into the new school year, but their teachers and the district are at an impasse on contract negotiations. Meanwhile, recent test results from Oregon Statewide Assessments showed steady and improving rates in English language arts and math for grades 3 - 8 in PPS. Sharon Reese, chief of human resources for PPS, and Renard Adams, chief of research, assessment and accountability, join us to talk about what the district thinks students and teachers need to succeed.
Fall classes have started at the University of Oregon in Eugene with a new president at the helm: Karl Scholz, an internally respected economist who came most recently from University of Wisconsin-Madison where he served as provost. Meanwhile the university is getting ready to consolidate its Portland presence at a new Northeast campus, the former Concordia University. The property that was purchased in 2022 will house the university’s new Ballmer Institute for Children’s Behavioral Health. UO also plans to move graduate programs currently housed at the White Stag building in the city’s Old Town neighborhood and is putting that building up for sale. We sit down with Scholz in our Portland studios to hear more about the Ballmer Institute, the university’s footprint in the city and how he’s thinking about the rising costs of higher education, both as an economist and a university president.
Oregonians voted to decriminalize drugs three years ago. Now, a new study from the NYU Grossman School of Medicine found that M110 did not lead to an increase in drug overdoses. Corey Davis is an adjunct assistant professor at NYU Langone Health’s Department of Population. He joins us to share more on the results and implications of the study.
Three-quarters of adults over the age of 50 want to remain in their homes as they age, according to the American Association of Retired Persons. But for some older adults in Portland, current infrastructure presents some serious physical and social challenges. A new draft report from Portland’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability lays out some recommendations to address these issues. The Age and Disability Inclusive Neighborhoods Action Plan advocates for creating age-friendly centers, increasing accessible public spaces and providing more support for those wanting to age in place. Alan DeLaTorre is an adjunct professor in the College of Urban and Public Affairs at Portland State University and the former Age-Friendly City program manager for Portland’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. He is also the main author of the new plan. He joins us to share the challenges facing Portland’s older population and what it would mean to make the city more age-friendly.
Oregon’s Measure 110 — which decriminalized drug possession and directed more money into substance use disorder treatment — was modeled after Portugal's drug policy approach. New York Times opinion writer and neuroscience journalist Maia Szalavitz has studied what’s happened over the last 25 years since the country began decriminalization. She’s written many articles and books on the subject of addiction, most recently “Undoing Drugs: How Harm Reduction is Changing the Future of Drugs and Addiction.” She joins to tell us how and why decriminalization worked in Portugal and the lessons she believes it holds for Oregon — and the U.S. as a whole.
Erika Hayasaki’s book “Somewhere Sisters: a story of adoption, identity, and the meaning of family” explores a very complicated multi-family, multinational story. At the heart of the book are sisters: identical twins born in Vietnam. One was adopted by a wealthy family in the U.S., one was raised in rural Vietnam. We spoke to Hayasaki in 2022 in front of an audience at the Portland Book Festival.
When you look at a painting in a gallery or museum, you can’t always tell how much of what’s portrayed is accurate or how much artistic license has been taken. But a new study from Oregon State University shows that some 19th-century landscape paintings are accurate enough to aid scientists who are researching historical forest systems.
Dana Warren is an associate professor of forestry at OSU. Peter Betjemann is an English professor and the Patricia Valian Reser Executive Director of Arts and Education. They collaborated on the study, and join us with more details on how art and science can serve each other.
The first Tibetans came to the Pacific Northwest to work in the lumber industry. Then, in the early '90s, more refugees were resettled here. Earlier this month, The Northwest Tibetan Community Association celebrated 30 years of Tibetan language and cultural programming. Jampa Nyendak Lathsang and Dechen Bartso, both volunteers in the community, join us to talk about the Northwest’s Tibetan community.
TOL VMs from listeners about favorite memories of Damian Lillard, following announcement of his trade to the Milwaukee Bucks
Tanya Barham, the CEO of Community Energy Labs, is featured on the Grist 50 list of leaders in the U.S. who are working on solutions for a sustainable future. Grist states that it reviews thousands of nominees before whittling down the final list. Barham’s company works on helping schools and other public agencies create more energy efficient buildings. Barham joins us with details of the company.
The Sunrise Movement and more than 50 high schools from across the country are working on the Green New Deal for Schools Campaign. The proposal has several demands including safe and clean school infrastructure, pathways to green jobs, and climate disaster planning. We learn more about the new deal proposal from Adah Crandall, an organizer with the Sunrise Movement and graduate of Grant High School in Portland.
Portland Community Football Club is like a lot of sports organizations for kids. It focuses on soccer, provides coaching, training and opportunities for kids of different ages to play competitively. But the PCFC is unlike many otherwise similar organizations in its mission to serve kids regardless of their gender or their family’s ability to pay. Founder Kaig Lightner says his love of sports began when he was in grade school. He said while he was bullied for not fitting into traditional gender roles, as he was raised a girl, sports was where he felt at home, first with softball, then with basketball, soccer and volleyball. He started coaching at 15.
Lightner started PCFC in 2013, mainly serving kids in first and second generation immigrant and low-income families. His mission is to serve everyone who’s interested.and more broadly to “liberate sports.” The teams are not organized by gender and the cost is sliding scale. PCFC will even provide the uniforms and cleats if needed. He also decided to come out to his players as a transgender in 2017 and received more support than he could have hoped for. He joins us, along one of the PCFC players, Saidu Yillah, a high school senior who also referees.
Julian Saporiti found a lot of Asian American songs and musicians when he was doing research for his PhD in American History. But the lack of popular understanding of that history was frustrating. In response, Saporiti founded No-No Boy, a Portland-based music and multimedia project that combines vivid narrative storytelling with Asian American history. Saporiti joins us to play songs from his newest album, “Empire Electric.”
Earlier this month, Nike told the Soul District Business Association that the company would be closing its store in Northeast Portland permanently. Ron Herndon was one of the people who brought that store to NE Portland in the 1980s. As a leader in the community organization Black United Front, Herndon helped convince Nike to support and invest in the Black community. We talk to Herndon about the legacy of that store, and what the closure means for the neighborhood.
The Portland Association of Teachers’ nearly 4,500 union members are currently working without a contract. The union has been in mediation with Portland Public Schools since late August, and both parties have repeatedly stated they would like to avoid a strike. Angela Bonilla, president of the Portland Association of Teachers, tells us what teachers and coaches are hoping for, and what the start of the school year has been like.
For the first time in four years, Oregon State Hospital is in compliance with a federal order requiring that certain patients be admitted to the hospital within seven days. Emily Cooper is the legal director of Disability Rights Oregon. She joins us to share more on what changed at the hospital and its future looking forward.
Oregon is the third state in the nation to seek federal approval for a basic health plan under the Affordable Care Act. Last week, the Oregon Health Policy Board unanimously approved the state’s blueprint for the program. Dave Baden is the interim director for the Oregon Health Authority. He joins us to share more on BHP, who could potentially qualify and what makes this program different than the Oregon Health Plan.
Kate Beaton gained an international following for “Hark, a Vagrant,” a quirky, satirical, historically informed comic strip. Beaton’s newest book takes a very different turn. It is a deeply personal graphic memoir called “Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands" about the time she spent working in the oil industry in Alberta, Canada in the mid-2000s. The book is a brutally honest exploration of class, migration, misogyny, and the culture of her homeland: the island of Cape Breton, in the Atlantic province of Nova Scotia. We listen back to a conversation with Beaton at the 2022 Portland Book Festival.
On Monday, a coalition that includes Max Williams, a former director of the Oregon Department of Corrections and former state lawmaker, announced it had filed paperwork for a ballot measure to “fix and improve” Measure 110. A key provision includes re-criminalizing the possession of hard drugs, like fentanyl and heroin, which were decriminalized with the passage of Measure 110 in 2020. That decriminalization, according to The Coalition to Fix and Improve Ballot Measure 110, has fueled open drug use on city streets and a spike in overdose deaths in Oregon, while failing to expand access to drug treatment and recovery services. Max Williams joins us to explain why he thinks Measure 110 isn’t working and why his coalition is seeking a remedy at the ballot box or through the state Legislature.
Western gray squirrels are getting harder and harder to find in Washington state. They are the largest species of tree squirrels, and traditionally make their homes in low to mid-elevation forests, where historically they could find plenty of oaks, pines and Douglas firs. That habitat is disappearing and changing due to timber harvests, wildfires, land conversion and climate change.
Mary Linders is a wildlife biologist with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. She tells us more about this large tree squirrel and what it will mean for them if Washington changes their status from “threatened” to “endangered.”
One of Portland’s most established and storied professional theatres, Artists Repertory Theatre, announced a series of financial setbacks this summer. First, ART suspended its 2023-2024 season as it was getting ready to start rehearsing its first show. That was followed by major staff layoffs: the already lean organization laid off four of its 10 administrative and support positions. Aiyana Cunningham began her position as managing director shortly before these announcements. The renovations continue on the organization's downtown building that will ultimately serve as a space for ART’s own productions and as a regional arts space for smaller organizations without their own venues. Cunningham joins us to talk about the economic challenges ART and other established arts organizations are facing and more about how it’s approaching its mission of creating a regional arts hub.
Hikikomori is an extreme form of social isolation first recognized in Japan in the 1990s. It’s distinct from similar conditions like anxiety or agoraphobia and is characterized by sustained physical isolation, often at home. The condition is still gaining traction in mental health spaces, but a research team led by Oregon Health & Science University has developed a new evaluation tool to help providers diagnose hikikomori.
Alan Teo, associate professor of psychiatry at OHSU, joins us with more details on the first-of-its-kind tool, and how the pandemic exacerbated conditions related to social isolation.
The University of Oregon is leading a collaborative effort to study earthquakes and conduct research focused on the Cascadia Subduction Zone. Participating institutions include the University of Washington, Stanford University and Virginia Tech. We hear more about the new Cascadia Region Earthquake Science Center from Diego Melgar, an associate professor of earth sciences at the university and a director of the center.
Talking to people we disagree with can be difficult, but it’s also unavoidable. A group of students at Willamette University is learning to facilitate and engage in those conversations to foster understanding and connection. The Conversation Project is a two-semester course that aims to teach students listening, grounding and compassion skills. Students then partner with community organizations in Salem and Portland to help them engage in dialogue work.
The professors that run the Conversation Project are: David Gutterman, a politics, policy, law and ethics professor; and Wendy Petersen-Boring, an associate history professor. Senior Mira Karthik completed the program and now serves as its research associate. They all join us to talk more about the project and why it’s important for students to learn these facilitation skills.
The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission has voted to ban hunting contests for coyotes and other mammals on public lands in the state. This new ban however does not prohibit these contests on private land and doesn’t restrict hunters and ranchers from killing predatory animals like coyotes. Collette Adkins is the carnivore conservation program director at the Center for Biological Diversity. She joins us to share the impact of this decision and the role coyotes play in Oregon environments.
This month, Oregon became the latest state to start paying out benefits under its new paid leave program. Workers can take up to 12 weeks of paid leave for family, medical or safe leave, which is available to victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and harassment. Workers applying to take paid leave for pregnancy may be eligible for an additional two weeks of benefits. Although self-employed people or independent contractors are not automatically covered under the program, they can make quarterly contributions to participate, depending on eligibility. We’ll hear from Karen Humelbaugh, director of Paid Leave Oregon about how the program is going, its impact so far and the online application process, which is available for English and Spanish speakers.
The United Auto Workers are the latest group to join what’s been called the “summer of strikes.” Members of the Writer’s Guild of America continue their monthslong strike, along with the actor’s union SAG-AFTRA. Several Pacific Northwest organizations have gone on strike this summer as well, from teachers to nurses to bookstore employees. Meanwhile, Oregon’s unemployment rate is as low as it’s ever been at 3.4%. Joining us to talk about the myriad factors affecting Oregon’s labor force is Mark Brenner, co-director of the Labor Education and Research Center at the University of Oregon.
When Oregon became the first state in the country to legalize the supervised use of psilocybin, thousands of people from all across the country expressed interest in the service. One of them was an 88-year-old woman in Woodburn. Vivian Anderson has been living with PTSD that resulted from childhood abuse when she was 13 years old. Over the decades, she has tried many forms of therapy, but none of them provided the healing she was looking for. She hoped psilocybin would be different. We talked to her before and after her psychedelic session to find out what the experience was like.
If you’re a parent of a music-loving toddler or grade schooler in the Portland metro area, you may not have heard of Andy Furgeson. You may, however, have heard of Red Yarn, the musical persona that Furgeson has embodied for more than a decade with his signature red beard, acoustic guitar and family-friendly puppets in tow. By his estimation, he performs 200 to 300 shows a year, most of which take place at community events, daycare centers, schools, and the occasional music festival, including Pickathon, the long-running festival at which he’s performed for the past seven years. Furgeson’s 10th and latest studio album, “The Get-Together,” is being released this Friday. It was inspired by his love of ‘50s and ‘60s music when artists like Roy Orbison, The Ronettes, Ritchie Valens and The Drifters mingled on the radio, but reimagined to explore themes like friendship and reading, aimed at appealing to younger audiences.
Furgeson joins us in the studio for a live performance and conversation about his musical journey, new album and why he feels like he’s found his calling as Red Yarn.
Wildfires, extreme heat events, and other environmental disasters can have an extreme impact on those who are already living close to the edge. For people in addiction or recovery, these kinds of events can disrupt whatever stability they may have found. We talk to Robin Buller, who wrote about the connection between climate change and addiction for High Country News.
The housing and homelessness crisis in Portland was a key reason city officials pledged in 2019 to crack down on unpermitted short term rentals on Airbnb. Four years later, an investigation into the city’s regulatory efforts finds a near complete breakdown. Those who should be enforcing regulations say they are understaffed, can’t get access to the data they need and don’t have access to the technology to get the job done. Meanwhile, safety inspections of properties are rarely done. The Oregonian’s Ted Sickinger shares with us his reporting and what the city is likely to do next.
Black mothers experience higher maternal death rates than any other racial or ethnic group in the U.S. In Multnomah County, the Healthy Birth Initiatives program provides those moms with case management, respite care, breastfeeding support and access to community health nurses and other resources to support healthy outcomes for babies and families. Desha Reed-Holden, a senior program specialist, says the only requirements are that families are Black, live in the county and are having a baby. Roberta Suzette Hunte had both of her children with the support of the program. She says the culturally specific wrap around care she received was invaluable. She particularly valued the home visits and more broadly, having a buffer between herself and the rest of the maternal healthcare system. Hunte and Reed-Holden join us to talk about the need for the program and the results it delivers to clients.
It’s been more than a year since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, effectively ending the right to abortion, which had existed for nearly 50 years. The decision has led to a wave of laws to restrict abortion access in about half the states in the nation. Not only have patients had to cross state lines to end pregnancies which pose a risk to their health, some doctors have also fled states like Idaho where performing abortions could result in imprisonment.
Dr. Stella Dantas is an obstetrician and gynecologist in Hillsboro, and the president-elect of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. She joins us to explain the ripple effect that restricting abortion access is having on reproductive healthcare, especially for underserved communities.
After several recent attacks on TriMet passengers, the transportation agency has invested millions in hiring private security officers. In addition, it will fund a prosecutor at the Multnomah County DA’s office to focus on TriMet crimes. The agency also recently announced the results of a study that found trace amounts of fentanyl on public transit surfaces in amounts that were not dangerous to the public. Meanwhile, TriMet ridership is down nearly 40%, and the agency plans to increase fares by 12%. We talk to TriMet Chief Safety Officer Andrew Wilson and Rob Hendrickson, medical toxicologist at OHSU.
Students across Oregon will walk out of school on Friday as part of a youth strike for meaningful climate action. Among the demands they’re making are a formal declaration of a climate emergency from Gov. Tina Kotek, direct relief to unhoused Oregonians during climate disasters, and more legislative support for clean energy. Organizers in Portland, Bend, Salem and Florence set specific demands for their cities in addition to the statewide demands.
Chloe Gilmore is an organizer with the Portland Youth Climate Strike and a senior at Lincoln High School. She joins us with more details on the strike from the gathering at City Hall.
The nonprofit Partners in Care offers hospice and palliative care in Central Oregon. Its Transitions team recently received an award from Deschutes County for its work helping clients navigate resources for care. We learn more about the organization and how it aims to give Oregonians from all walks of life a chance to die with dignity. Joining us are Maureen Dooley, the marketing and communications manager, and Bethany Benefield, the Transitions Program Lead for Partners in Care.
On Wednesday, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler announced he will not seek a third term as mayor in 2024, and instead focus on addressing the city’s “critical challenges” such as homelessness, public safety and economic recovery for the duration of his term. Last month, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler asked for nearly 100 Oregon state troopers to help tackle crime in the city. He made his suggestion at the first meeting of the new task force convened by Gov. Tina Kotek to develop a plan to revive Portland’s downtown business district. Meanwhile, city officials have yet to enforce a daytime ban on camping that started in July, the same month that the first of six large outdoor shelter sites for people experiencing homelessness opened in Southeast Portland. We’ll talk to Mayor Wheeler about his vision for the city, the challenges it faces and the voter-approved overhaul of how it is governed.
For nearly 40 years, sculptor M.J. Anderson has been making annual trips from her home on the Oregon coast to Carrara, Italy. She spends up to three months there, traveling along a winding road to quarries with towering walls of marble, the same kind of stone that was used to create Michelangelo’s sculpture of David and other timeless works of Renaissance art.
But Anderson isn’t interested in recreating classical, idealized representations of masculine or feminine beauty. Instead, as a recent exhibit of her work in Astoria showcased, a unifying theme of Anderson’s work is “the distillation of what it feels like to be woman.” Starting at her studio in Carrara, she uses grinders and air hammers to carve torsos evoking the female form out of massive blocks of marble, onyx and travertine. The pieces are then shipped, unfinished, to Anderson’s studio in Nehalem where she polishes them while retaining drill marks and other raw reminders of the stone’s past and its “power.” We’ll talk to Anderson about her artistic process and the themes that animate her work today.
Earlier this month, Gov. Tina Kotek declared a drought emergency in Lincoln, Gilliam and Douglas Counties. In Lincoln County, low stream flows and dry conditions have greatly affected the coastal region. The declaration is uncommon there. We learn more about what it means from County Commissioner Kaety Jacobson.
When you go to a museum or visit a science center, it’s not uncommon to see graphs, charts and other visual data displays included in the exhibit. But blind and low-vision visitors don’t get that same experience. Researchers with the Accessible Oceans pilot project are exploring how to turn some of that data into sound so it’s more accessible to all visitors. The project’s team of interdisciplinary researchers has been gathering feedback from visually impaired students and teachers, as well as ocean science experts, on how they can accurately represent ocean data in a series of sound presentations.
Jon Bellona is a sound artist and senior instructor of audio production at the University of Oregon, and Amy Bower is a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. They join us to talk about the project and how they hope to make data more accessible.
You might be an avid crossword solver, but have you ever thought about what it takes to create them? Matt Jones has been making crossword puzzles since his late teens, with one of his first puzzles appearing in The New York Times when he was just 19. His weekly puzzle Jonesin’ has appeared in alt-weeklies across the country, including Willamette Week, since 2001.
Jones joins us to share more about what it takes to be a crossword constructor and what he thinks makes a good puzzle.
LGBTQ youth are more than twice as likely to experience homelessness than their peers, due to a lack of support. Oregon youth in foster care need more options for temporary homes with foster parents committed to creating an affirming and safe environment. We talk with Unicorn Solutions founder Elliott Hinkle, who was formerly in foster care themselves, and current foster parent Mel Jory-Heywood.
Breena Bard’s new graphic novel “Wildfire” focuses on Julianna, an eighth grader who’s forced to flee her home in rural Oregon and resettle in Portland following a wildfire. Julianna soon joins the conservation club at her new school, though she insists the fires that destroyed her home were caused by local boys with errant fireworks rather than climate change. The story follows Julianna as she processes her grief and learns to engage with climate issues in ways that make sense to her.
Bard joins us in studio to talk about the book and the many ways young people can take action on climate change.
Jeanne Carver and her family have spent decades incorporating sustainable practices into their ranch. Her brand, Shaniko Wool Company, is certified under the Responsible Wool Standard. The certification includes third-party audits of the ranch and covers sheep welfare and sustainable land management. More recently, Carver has studied how much carbon her ranch has stored in its soil. We check in with her to learn more about sustainable ranching.
Oregon has one of the highest rates in the country for kindergarteners with vaccine exemptions. The state’s 7% rate is only lower than Utah’s (7.4%) and Idaho's (9.8%). Ryan Hassan is a pediatrician in Happy Valley and also serves as the medical director for Boost Oregon, a parent group working to increase vaccinations overall through education. He says he’s seen coronavirus vaccine skepticism bleed into skepticism towards well-established vaccines against measles, mumps, rubella and pertussis. He says since the pandemic, an industry promoting dangerous disinformation about vaccines has itself spread like a virus. We talk with him about how he approaches conversations with parents of school-aged children, and how Boost Oregon is attempting to overcome disinformation with the truth about the medical efficacy and public health necessity of vaccinating against preventable diseases of all kinds.
Oregon is one of the leading exporters of peppermint oil in the U.S. But a fungus called verticillium wilt, which affects the leading variety of peppermint, is spreading throughout the Willamette Valley. Reporter Berit Thorson recently wrote about the issue for Capital Press, and joins us to talk about what she learned.
The Hermiston Herald recently profiled Jessica Marcum, a community paramedic at Umatilla County Fire District #1, about her job helping patients in the region. Unlike paramedics who respond to emergencies, community paramedics work to keep patients out of emergency rooms by providing in-home health services, from medication management after a hospital stay to making referrals for mental health services. Although community paramedics are found throughout Oregon, their impact is especially felt in rural areas. A recent study by researchers at Oregon Health & Science University found that community paramedics in Central Oregon reduced visits to the emergency department by nearly 14%. We hear from Jessica Marcum and Sabrina Ballew, the Mobile Integrated Healthcare Manager at Mercy Flights in Medford, about the role community paramedics are playing to bridge gaps in care and improve health outcomes in Southern and Eastern Oregon.
Last spring, the Hood River library system went on the road with a bookmobile that travels to rural communities throughout the county. The van offers books, DVD players, laptops and free wifi to patrons This summer, the bookmobile started offering other services as well, including hygiene kits, cold water on hot days, and meals to school-age kids. Yelitza Vargas-Boots, the bilingual outreach librarian for the Hood River County library district, joins us to explain the services of the bookmobile.
The Portland City Council this week unanimously passed a drug criminalization ordinance crafted by Public Safety Commissioner Rene Gonzalez and Mayor Ted Wheeler. The measure bans the public use of drugs, contingent on a change in state law to allow such measures. City commissioners also voted to direct lobbyists to push for that state law change. Addressing public safety and homelessness were chief among the issues Gonzalez campaigned on. Earlier this year he made a controversial decision to prevent Portland Street Response from distributing tents and other supplies to people experiencing homelessness. The future of the popular PSR program has yet to be determined, with full funding for its ongoing operation yet to be identified. Gonzalez joins us to talk about his vision for a public safety system that serves all residents.
Football has been the main focus of the PAC-12 realignment, in which all but Oregon State University and Washington State University have jumped ship for other conferences. But what about the bands, cheer squads and other student groups that support athletics? As reported in the Daily Barometer, members of OSU’s marching band are facing their fair share of distress and uncertainty over the PAC-12 collapse.
Mayri Ross is a fifth-year saxophonist in the OSU Marching Band and serves as the band’s recruitment officer. She joins us to talk more about what conference realignment could mean for members of the marching band.
Forest thinning improves the health of older trees and enhances native biodiversity on federal lands in eastern Oregon. That’s according to a new study from Oregon State University, in partnership with local groups in Oregon’s Blue Mountains. We talk to James Johnston, the assistant professor in the College of Forestry at OSU who authored the study, about how selective thinning could make forests more resilient in the face of forest fires.
Jesse Johnson walked out of the Marion County Jail on Tuesday as a free man, after 25 years behind bars in Oregon. In 2004, Johnson was convicted of murdering 28-year-old Harriet Thompson in a Salem apartment — a crime that he denied committing. A jury then sentenced him to death, and Johnson lived on death row at the Oregon State Penitentiary until 2021, when his case was overturned by the Oregon Court of Appeals. Prosecutors quietly dismissed the case against him on Tuesday, acknowledging evidence in the case was too thin to retry the 62-year-old. OPB editor Ryan Hass tells us the details.
While rescue shelters for dogs and cats can be found in many Oregon cities, there are fewer options for small pets like hamsters, hedgehogs, rats and chinchillas. The Little Critter Crew is working to change that. As reported in Eugene Weekly, the Eugene-based animal rescue has built a network of 32 foster homes across the state since it launched in 2020. Kayla Hernandez is the rescue’s co-founder. She joins us to share more details on how the “crew” operates and the importance of small animal rescue.
This summer, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek recently signed into law an ambitious, $90 million climate package to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions and leverage as much as $1 billion dollars in federal funds to tackle climate change. Among its provisions are rebates on medium and heavy-duty electric trucks and help for homeowners to offset the cost of installing heat pumps. It also makes Oregon the fourth state in the nation, along with Washington, Colorado and Maryland, to require building performance standards for large commercial buildings which, along with residential buildings, accounted for more than a third of greenhouse gas emissions in Oregon in 2021.
The Oregon Department of Energy will oversee the state’s program which will begin in phases starting in 2028, and develop energy targets for buildings 20,000 square feet and greater. The standards do not, however, apply to schools, dormitories, hospitals, parking garages and multifamily residential buildings. Joining us is freelance journalist Erika Bolstad to talk about her reporting on building performance standards and the impact they could have in Oregon.
Maternal mortality rates in Oregon more than doubled in the twenty years from 1999 - 2019. They rose at an even higher rate in the U.S. as a whole. That’s according to a recent study - and the very first to look at rates across ethnic groups state-by-state. The study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association earlier this summer, a collaboration between researchers at the Institute for Health Metrics at the University of Washington and Mass General Brigham.
The highest death rates are among Black mothers, and the highest rates of increase are among Native Americans. We talk with co-author Dr. Allison Bryant, an obstetrician and senior medical director for health equity at Mass General Brigham, about the results of the study and what she sees in her own practice.
In 2020, former Oregon Gov. Kate Brown signed an executive order to achieve the state’s carbon reduction goals. The order directs state agencies to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Three years later, we check in with Nora Apter, a senior program director for climate at the Oregon Environmental Council, about where the plan stands now and the progress Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality is making on climate goals.
For the last two months, Laborers’ Local 485 member employees with Metro Park and Nature and the Oregon Zoo have been working under an expired contract with Metro. Negotiations are ongoing, and employees are asking for hazard pay when working in extreme weather, extra days off when dealing with extremely traumatic situations in the workplace and higher pay across the board. Marina Garcia is the guest services lead at the Oregon Zoo. Kendra Carillo is the maintenance lead for Metro Parks and Nature. They both join us to share conditions they and their teams are facing and what they want out of negotiations.
Earlier this year the federal government announced changes aimed at making it easier for schools to get reimbursed for services that they are already providing to children on Medicaid. The program has the potential to serve students where they already are, get schools more needed funding and shift the paradigm on how to approach childhood disability and neurodiversity. But many challenges remain. Portland based freelance journalist Shasta Kearns Moore is the mother of school-aged twins with severe disabilities and runs Medicalmotherhood.com. She joins us to explain the potential impact of the additional funding and share more about the barriers schools still face.
German scientist Peter Wohlleben captured global attention when he wrote “The Secret Life of Trees.” Now, he’s followed up with a new book, "The Power of Trees: How Ancient Forests Can Save Us if We Let Them," that essentially argues that we should leave forests alone, because trees are very good at adapting to whatever comes their way. We spoke to Wohlleben in front of an audience at Powell’s Books.
A conflict over fishing access has some of Oregon’s federally recognized tribes at odds with both each other and the state’s Fish & Wildlife Commission. The commission voted last month to allow the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde to issue hunting and fishing licenses to its own members. It’s approved similar agreements with four other tribes, but the wording of Grand Ronde’s agreement has members of the Yakama, Warm Springs, Nez Perce and Umatilla tribes worried that they could lose access to fishing at Willamette Falls.
Joining us to explain what’s at stake and what comes next are Karina Brown, managing editor of Underscore News, and Nika Bartoo-Smith, a joint reporter for Underscore and ICT.
Earlier this month, about 40 organizations, including the Sierra Club, outlined actions that the Eugene Water & Electric Board could take to continue the utility’s transition to clean and renewable energy. The letter follows an analysis by the utility that suggests the need for different sources of low-carbon energy, including the use of small modular nuclear reactors. The analysis is part of the utility’s Integrated Resource Planning process which forecasts future electricity needs. We check in on the plan with Aaron Orlowski, a spokesperson for the Eugene Water & Electric Board.
Artificial intelligence is becoming more sophisticated, and the U.S. is a leader in the technology. Policymakers will need an innovative approach to managing the tech, and safety should be top of mind for government officials, according to Charles Jennings. He’s a Portland-based former AI executive and the author of the book, “Artificial Intelligence: Rise of the Lightspeed Learners.” He joins us with details of what U.S. leaders can learn from history and why Oregonians should be urgently learning more about AI.
In 2020, smoke from wildfires led Jenifer Cruickshank, an assistant professor and dairy extension specialist at Oregon State University, to explore how the issue affects livestock. Cruickshank along with several other academics in Oregon and Idaho have banded together to create an online resource hub where researchers are investigating the effects of wildfire on cattle. We learn more about the effort from Cruickshank.
Menstrual products like tampons typically have an absorbency level listed on the side of their packaging. But until recently, that absorbency had never been measured with actual blood. Saline, a simpler and less viscous fluid, has been the default test liquid since absorbency standards were first set in the 1980s. However, researchers at Oregon Health and Science University recently tested the absorbency of products like menstrual cups, discs and period underwear, in addition to tampons and pads, with real blood in an effort to better diagnose heavy menstrual bleeding.
Bethany Samuelson Bannow is an associate professor of medicine at OHSU and a co-author of the study. She joins us to explain why research like this hasn’t been conducted before and what the findings could mean.
In Southwest Oregon, Douglas firs are dying. And warmer temperatures along with more severe droughts are making the problem worse. What does this mean for the future of forests in places like Ashland? How should fire prone communities handle stands of dead trees which can act as fuel for wildfires? Max Bennett is a retired extension forester with Oregon State University. He led research on Douglas fir mortality. Chris Chambers is the forest officer for the city of Ashland. We learn more about what this means for the region, what's being done to reduce wildfire risk and how Oregonians should be thinking about forests.
Nearly 500 anti-LGBTQ+ bills were introduced in statehouses across the U.S in 2023. While many were defeated, the ACLU has tracked more than 80 bills that were passed into law. These include measures banning gender-affirming care for minors, banning trans athletes from playing in K-12 sports and prohibiting minors from attending drag story hours and shows. While some of these laws are currently being challenged in court, the growing number of these types of laws is leading to a queer migration of people to places like Oregon that have stronger protections for the LGBTQ+ community, according to service providers here.
Katie Cox is the executive director of the Equi Institute. Meg Miranda is the integrated health program manager at Outside In. And Jesse, whose full name we won’t be using for his protection, is a transplant from Missouri. They all join us now to share more on this trend and what it means for Oregon as a whole.
Next month, the city of Vancouver will open the newly redesigned Chelsea Anderson Memorial Play Station at Marshall Park. But this isn’t your typical playground. For one thing, wood chips have been replaced with smooth surfaces to allow children in wheelchairs easy access to play features, including a merry-go-round and swing, modified for their use and enjoyment. Instead of an abundance of steel and plastic, natural elements also abound, from a sensory garden to water features and a sandy play area for kids to explore and interact with. Harper’s Playground, a Portland-based nonprofit, entered into a partnership in 2018 with Vancouver city officials to design and raise the funds to build the $4 million fully accessible playground. G Cody QJ Goldberg, the co-founder and chief play officer of Harper’s Playground, explains his model for “radically inclusive” playgrounds and the personal motivation which drives his work.
Tim Bond will become Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s newest artistic director at the end of this week. He takes over at a time of turmoil for the company, which is still fundraising millions of dollars to cover the costs of the 2023 season. OSF’s executive director left in January. The previous artistic director, Nataki Garrett, left in April after leading the organization through the pandemic and multiple fires, and facing death threats for her play choices. Bond joins us to talk about what comes next for the nearly 100 year old organization.
On Sept. 1, people who suffer from fentanyl addiction in the Portland area will have a new place to go for 3-7 days while they get treatment. The nonprofit Recovery Works NW used Measure 110 funding to open the 16-bed treatment center, which will be staffed around the clock 365 days a year. Recovery Works NW has been working with doctors providing outpatient medical assisted opiate treatment for years, and aims to provide better treatment for fentanyl users with this inpatient model. Joe Bazeghi, the director of engagement with Recovery Works NW, tells us about the new center and the need for this kind of treatment in the Portland area.
Ann Patchett’s latest novel is set during the pandemic, but it is also set in the past. The main character, a mother of three adult daughters, tells her children the story of her own youthful romance with a man who is now a famous movie star. The story is told over long days picking cherries on their family farm, where everyone has gathered together for the lockdown. Though the central story revolves around the mercurial movie star, the real focus of the book is the relationship between mothers and daughters, the lives that parents led before they were parents, and what the stories of our past tell us about ourselves. Ann Patchett joins us for a conversation about her new book, "Tom Lake," ahead of her event in Portland.
Sophia Weiss is the owner of Firebird Farms, a working ranch nestled in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains outside of Ashland. But you won’t find any Angus beef cattle roaming and grazing on the rolling hills of her 200-acre property. Instead, you’ll find a herd of about 80 Tibetan yaks which Weiss has carefully bred and built up from a pair she acquired nearly a decade ago off a Craigslist ad.
In October, the USDA Rural Development office awarded Weiss nearly $235,000 to market and develop a range of new products made from her yaks. The federal agency awarded similar grants to 10 other small Oregon farms which it announced last month, in honor of “National Ag Day 2023”. Weiss is now using the grant dollars to work with mills in the Pacific Northwest to process the yak wool she harvests by hand to make into yarn and other textile goods in the coming months. Sophia Weiss joins us to talk about her farm and why she’s bullish about the future of yak ranching in Oregon and the nation.
A new audit from the Oregon Secretary of State’s office found that the current healthcare structure for Medicaid pharmacy benefit managers lacks transparency and is too complex to properly measure its value. Pharmacy benefit managers are the go-between for drug manufacturers and wholesalers. They are responsible for paying and processing prescription drug claims, creating preferred drug lists, negotiating on behalf of pharmacies and more. Ian Green is the audit manager for the Secretary of State's audits division. He joins us to share more on what his office found and the changes they’re recommending.
The city of Portland has had the dubious distinction of being the only city of its size where police officers do not wear body cameras. Last spring, the police union and the city came to an agreement to move forward with body-worn cameras. Now, 150 officers are wearing them in a 60-day pilot project that began this week. OPB’s Jonathan Levinson joins us with details.
With the departure of the University of Oregon and the University of Washington from the Pac-12 conference, athletics at Oregon State University face an uncertain future. OSU is one of four remaining schools in the conference, along with Washington State University, Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley. OSU President Jayathi Murthy has said the university is doing everything in its power to “stabilize and rebuild” the conference, but with Stanford and Cal rumored to be in talks with the North Carolina-based Atlantic Coast Conference, the path forward remains unclear. Meanwhile, UO has promised to prioritize “long-held traditions,” including competition with OSU. But what that competition will look like still remains to be seen.
OSU Athletic Director Scott Barnes joins us to talk about the future of the Pac-12. We’ll also hear from Tyler Bilodeau, a forward on OSU’s men’s basketball team, about how the realignment will impact student-athletes.
PHAME, an experiential arts academy designed for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities, has been around for decades. Students take classes in visual art, photography, improv, voice acting and much more. The academy has put on plays, musicals and even rock operas before, but it’s never undertaken anything quite like this weekend’s show, says Jessica Dart, who co-directs “Stop Making Sense” with her husband and PHAME teaching artist Jason Rouse. The show recreates the Talking Heads' classic 1984 concert film. Like the film, the PHAME show includes music, dance and videos. PHAME student JJ Ross is the show’s choreographer and dances in the show as well. Ross, Dart and Rouse join us to talk about this unique collaboration.
The acute lack of public defenders in Oregon has been nothing short of a constitutional crisis. An American Bar Association study released last year confirmed the state had only a third of the public defense attorneys it needed to ensure the civil rights of those accused of crimes. There were about 600, but about 1,300 more were needed. Defendants have had to be released because there were no public defenders available to take their case, and others are still in jail awaiting representation.
A year and a half later, the nearly $100 million that state lawmakers allocated to hire more attorneys and help restructure the system is beginning to have a positive effect. That’s according to the executive director of the Oregon Office of Public Defense Services, Jessica Kampfe. She joins us to talk about the progress and what’s still needed to ensure defendants’ civil rights.
In 2020, Oregon voters passed Measure 109, a ballot initiative that made Oregon the first state in the nation to legalize the use of the psychedelic drug psilocybin. It directed the Oregon Health Authority to create a framework to regulate and issue licenses for the manufacture, testing, sale and use of psilocybin in supervised settings. Clients 21 and older can buy and consume psilocybin in licensed service centers in Oregon without a doctor’s prescription. In 2021, the Oregon Health Authority Psilocybin Advisory Board reviewed clinical trials, medical studies and other scientific data on the use of psilocybin and concluded that it “holds promise as an option to address mental health issues,” but it remains classified as an illegal drug at the federal level.
In May, EPIC Healing Eugene became the first licensed service center in Oregon and began seeing clients in June. Satya Therapeutics in Ashland is another licensed service center and also has a license to manufacture psilocybin to its clients whom it started seeing in July. We hear from Cathy Jonas, the owner of EPIC Healing Eugene, and Andreas Met, the co-founder and CEO of Satya Therapeutics, about their client experiences so far operating in the uncharted business of offering psychedelics as a service.
Kwame Alexander has written many books and picture books for children, tackling a range of different topics. His newest book, “The Door of No Return,” is the first in a trilogy starting in Ghana in the 1800’s when white colonizers began the slave trade. The book is written as a series of poems, following a young boy, Kofi, who is captured and sold into the slave trade. Kwame Alexander joins us to talk about the 10-year process of working on this book.
We spend the hour with one of Oregon’s most celebrated writers and thinkers, Barry Lopez. His new book, “Horizon,” knits together his decades of travel all around the world. It’s a book full of wonder and sadness, hope and despair, about the natural world… and the way humans are changing it.
The Portland-based Northwest Classical Theatre Collaborative has a mission of bringing the art to underserved communities and performing in nontraditional spaces — like prisons and homeless shelters. And it’s deliberately financially accessible as well, with $10 ticket prices well below most admission prices for similar kinds of productions. Its new show “Happy Days” is a 1961 classic by Samuel Beckett, the late playwright best known for “Waiting for Godot.” Northwest Classical’s production is in a space that was once a Victoria’s Secret at Portland’s Lloyd Center shopping mall. Director Patrick Walsh joins us to talk about the production and the theatre’s mission, along with lead actress Diane Kondrat, who’s on stage for the entire 90-minute play.
California firefighters have come to Oregon to help battle blazes. The Bedrock Fire continues to burn in the Willamette National Forest and evacuation orders are in place. The governor has declared an emergency conflagration over the Lookout Fire in Lane County which allowed resources to be quickly dispatched to affected areas. Meanwhile, the Oregon State Fire Marshal’s office released a report detailing the progress it’s made with wildfire funding from SB 762. We check in with Alison Green, the Oregon State Fire Marshal public affairs director.
The wildfires that rampaged through Maui began last week, killing more than 100 people and destroying over 2,500 acres on the island, including homes and businesses of the historic town of Lahaina. Ka’Aha Lahui O’Olekona Hawaiian Civic Club of Oregon and SW Washington has been taking donations to aid in relief efforts. Currently they are only accepting gift cards to Safeway, Costco and Target. Leialoha Ka’ula is the executive director of KALOHCC. She joins us to share more on the efforts being made so far and how Oregonians can help.
The Oregon Sweet Cherry Commission recently sent a letter to Gov. Tina Kotek asking her to issue a State Disaster declaration for the cherry industry. The commission’s request for assistance follows a similar appeal made by a state lawmaker on behalf of growers in Hood River and Wasco Counties, as reported earlier by the Oregon Capital Chronicle. A wet, cold spring impacted cherry growers not only in Oregon but throughout the West, and led to a glut of cherries from California, Washington, Oregon and British Columbia reaching the market at the same time. According to the Oregon Sweet Cherry Commission, some farmers in Wasco and Hood River Counties decided to forego harvesting as much as 40% of their crop because of plummeting cherry prices. Ian Chandler is the Chair of the Oregon Sweet Cherry Commission and a cherry farmer in The Dalles. Mike Omeg is a cherry farmer and the director of operations at Orchard View in The Dalles. They share details about this year’s harvest and how a disaster declaration could help the industry cope with recent challenges.
Our Children’s Trust got its first definitive win in court this week in one of the many climate change lawsuits it's filed in state courts and federal jurisdictions all over the country. The group was challenging a law involving carbon emissions in Montana on the grounds that it violated environmental protections enshrined in the state's own constitution. And while Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen called the ruling “absurd” and promised to appeal, the case’s significance cannot be overstated. It’s the first OCT case to be allowed to go to trial, be litigated and have the judgment favor the plaintiffs.
The best known challenge to the country’s fossil fuel energy system is Juliana v. U.S., named for the lead plaintiff in Eugene, where the group is based. The case has been held up with legal maneuvering for eight years. A ruling in June cleared the way for the case to go finally go to trial, but the U.S. government is trying to prevent it from moving forward. Our Children’s Trust managing attorney Mat dos Santos joins us to share more about the recent win in Montana, the ongoing strategy in the federal challenge and other cases that are making their way through state court systems.
A new Oregon law will allow health facilities to return amputated body parts to patients for cultural, traditional and spiritual reasons. For some members of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, and others, the practice is necessary to ensure a smooth transition to the spirit world. Shilo Tippett is the manager of caregiver inclusion and experience at St. Charles Health System. Wilson Wewa is an oral historian and spiritual leader with the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. They join us with more details on the new law and what it will mean for patient care.
Charlene Williams was appointed to head the Oregon Department of Education earlier this year by Gov. Tina Kotek. She is the first Black woman to lead the department. As the past principal of Portland’s Roosevelt High School, she used a $7.7 million grant to support students, boosting graduation rates and overall academic performance. She also served as principal of the district’s alternative high school, Rosemary Anderson, and helped lead the Evergreen and Camus public school districts in Washington.
As the new year begins, Williams plans to visit schools all over Oregon to observe and listen to families, educators and students of all ages. She also plans to create a student advisory group to better understand what children and teens want from their education. Williams joins us to share more about her educational priorities and her hopes for the next academic year.
Extreme heat has again reached the Pacific Northwest. Portland temperatures have surpassed 100 degrees, and the dangerous heat continues today. What does that mean for important infrastructure like utilities? How are state agencies responding to the relentless weather? Larry Bekkedahl is the senior vice president of advanced energy delivery for Portland General Electric. Matt Marheine is the deputy director for the Oregon Department of Emergency Management. They join us with details of how Oregon is responding to the high temperatures.
Little oversight, a disorganized office and an uncertain future are just a few issues plaguing the Oregon Racing Commission, a state audit finds. The agency, which oversees animal racing in the state, generates little state revenue compared to the Oregon Liquor & Cannabis Commission and the Oregon Lottery. Ian Green is the audit manager with the Oregon Secretary of State’s Audits Division. He joins us to share his team's findings.
Across the U.S., COVID-19 cases are on the rise. The new variant EG.5, also known as Eris, has been circulating the country for the past six months and currently makes up more than 17% of new cases, according to the CDC. At the same time, a new vaccine and booster is expected to be available by the end of September. Corey Casper is the president and chief executive officer of the Access to Advanced Health Institute in Seattle. He joins us to share more on the new variant and the booster expected to be released this fall.
Oregon’s older adult population is growing rapidly, with over 1 million residents who are at least 65 expected by 2030. By the same year, the number of older adults experiencing a mental health disorder such as anxiety or depression is expected to double. Aging presents unique mental health challenges, with factors like isolation, dementia and other co-occurring conditions compounding those challenges. And access to treatment is often limited for older adults. According to the Pan American Health Organization, only a third of older adults receive the mental health treatment they need.
When Tom Swearingen wrote his first poem to remember a friend who had died, he didn’t consider himself a poet. But the small group of friends and family he read it to told him to keep writing. He did, and he says because he long enjoyed Western music, art and literature, including the cowboy poetry of Baxter Black, that was the style that fit. Within 10 years, Swearingen had published a collection of poetry which was named the 2020 Cowboy Poetry Book of the year by the International Western Music Association. The group also named him best male poet in 2019 and 2022. He also got Willamette Week’s nod in its “Best of” edition this year. Swearingen, like other cowboy poets, is particularly busy in the summer months with performances at rodeos and other events. He’s done with rodeo appearances for this summer, but you can still catch him this month and through November at various gatherings around the state. He joins us to talk about his work and read some of his poetry.
Earlier this week, Oregon Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade announced that Republican state senators who staged a six-week-long walkout during this year’s legislative session will not be eligible to run for reelection as a consequence of Measure 113. Ten conservative lawmakers - including six who face reelection next year - ran afoul of the voter-backed measure which bars a lawmaker from running for reelection after accumulating 10 or more unexcused absences in a single legislative session. Republican lawmakers have vowed to challenge Griffin-Valade’s interpretation of Measure 113, with the dispute likely to be settled in court. OPB political reporter Dirk VanderHart joins us to talk about the ruling and other recent political news, including the spiraling cost of a massive renovation project at the state Capitol.
It’s perhaps fitting that “Spirit Rangers,” an animated series on Netflix made for preschool-aged audiences, premiered last October on Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Now in its second season, the show revolves around three Cowlitz and Chumash Indian siblings - Kodi, Summer and Eddy Skycedar - who magically transform into a bear cub, red-tailed hawk and turtle. They then embark on adventures in a fictional California national park where they live and where their parents work as rangers. The creative team behind “Spirit Rangers” are all Native American, including Joey Clift, an L.A.-based comedian, television writer and enrolled member of the Cowlitz Tribe of Southwest Washington who also serves as a consulting producer on the show. Clift wrote a recent episode about salmon habitat restoration which features a maternal guardian salmon spirit voiced by Cowlitz Tribal member and musician Debora Iyall. Clift and Iyall join us to talk about their collaboration on “Spirit Rangers,” and how the show is both a source of pride and empowerment for Indigenous storytelling.
"Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell about Fear" explores danger and culture through stories about wolves. Portland-based author Erica Berry weaves in her own experiences and encounters with "big, bad wolves." She also charts the journey of OR 7, a radio-collared Oregon wolf who wanders throughout the state and into California. We listen back to a conversation with Berry from April, 2023.
Thomas Dambo, a recycle art activist, is building giant trolls in Washington and Oregon. Northwest Trolls: Way of the Bird King includes six pieces in the Pacific Northwest. The Portland sculpture has an unveiling on Friday. Dambo uses recycled materials for his pieces and the trolls typically interact with their environment. He’s built pieces around the world and has recently finished Rita, a troll who lives in Colorado. He’s also traveling across the country building trolls and documenting his journey on social media. Dambo joins us with more on his art.
The USDA’s National Clonal Germplasm Repository in Corvallis houses thousands of species of berries, tree fruits, nuts, hops and more. It’s one of a handful of national centers dedicated to preserving diversity in the country’s key crops. Unlike a seed bank, the repository also stores whole plants, pollen, buds and other cuttings. But much like a seed bank, it provides an important library of genetic traits that could help modern agriculture adapt to a warming world.
Nahla Bassil is a plant geneticist at the Corvallis repository, and Lauri Reinhold is a horticulturalist. Both also serve as curators of the collection. They join us with more details on the repository and how it could help ensure future food stability.
Washington, Multnomah and Clackamas counties are working together on a series of climate reports that document the health impacts of extreme weather in the Portland metro area. Findings from the most recent report show that more than 200 people have died from extreme weather events. In 2021 alone, more than 90 people died from the heat dome.
The report also discusses mental health and found that extreme weather events have compounded trauma from the COVID-19 pandemic and there’s a lack of mental health providers and services. Brendon Haggerty is a healthy homes and communities manager at the Multnomah County Health Department. He joins us with details of the report.
Multnomah County leaders say drugs smuggled into the county's two jails are among the reasons that six people have died in custody in less than three months, the largest spike in at least 15 years. Overdoses are suspected in at least two of the deaths, and the medical examiner ruled that two others were due to suicide. Sheriff Nicole Morrisey O’Donnell has implemented new security measures, including strip searches of people entering the facilities. Sheriff Morrisey O’Donnell joins us to share more about the in-custody deaths and the steps she’s taking to put a stop to them.
From 2018 to 2021, fatal overdoses from synthetic opioids – mostly from fentanyl – jumped more than 500% in Multnomah County. County leaders say the increase in overdose deaths comes from a rapid change in the drug supply leaning towards fentanyl. Anthony Jordan is the addictions services manager for the county’s health department. Teresa Everson is the interim health officer. They join us to share more on what overdoses look like in the county and what is being done to address it.
The Sherman County Medical Clinic in Moro is using a pilot tool kit to talk to patients about cognitive decline, which includes diseases like Alzheimer’s. Healthcare can be difficult to access in rural areas and patients needing care from a specialist face long wait times. The American Academy of Physician Associates has collaborated with health care organizations across the country to test the tool kit. PAs, also known as physician assistants, are often on the frontlines of a patient’s health care and can have these conversations about brain disorders early on. We hear more about the pilot program from Erin Haines, a PA at the Sherman County Medical Clinic and Lisa Gables, the CEO of the academy.
Pride events in small communities across the Pacific Northwest have been disrupted this summer by masked protesters touting extreme right-wing views. OPB’s Jonathan Levinson reports it’s a coordinated effort by a new coalition of groups espousing neo-Nazi and white supremacist beliefs. Levinson joins us with more details on the effort and the impact it’s having on LGBTQ+ communities.
Caregivers in Oregon group homes are asking Governor Tina Kotek to fire their boss, the Oregon Department of Human Services manager who oversees direct support crisis specialists. The request comes after these workers continue to face long hours, little pay and severe understaffing. Currently, there is a vacancy rate of almost 15%. Christina Sydenstricker-Brown is a direct support crisis specialist and the president of the union representing these workers. She joins us to share what has changed since the Oregon Capitol Chronicle initially broke this story and why they are taking the dramatic step of calling for their boss to be fired.
Geothermal energy is a renewable energy resource with enormous potential, but the number of plants has been limited by several factors. However, a breakthrough in geothermal technology that was announced recently in Nevada could change that. Industry officials say it could mean a huge increase in the percentage of electricity that’s generated from the heat beneath our feet. And some Western states are gearing up to make the transition more possible.
Seattle-based environmental reporter Alex Brown joins us to share more about his reporting for the non-profit news service Stateline.
The Cedar Grove apartments in Beaverton were created by Community Partners Affordable Housing, or CPAH. The nonprofit has been working to create homes that Oregonians can actually afford to live in for 30 years now. This is part of a series of conversations we’re having this year about some of the biggest problems Oregon is facing, along with possible solutions.More than half of renters in Oregon don’t have enough money after they pay rent to be able to afford basics like food, child care or transportation. Meanwhile, Oregon is among the states with the lowest supply of rentals that are affordable to people who are at or below poverty levels. As a state economist put it, “We have the worst affordability” in the nation.We were joined by CPAH staff: Executive Director Rachael Duke; Housing Director Jilian Saurage Felton; and Resident Services Coordinator Renee Sheets Johnson. We also heard from neighbors and residents of Cedar Grove and other residents of CPAH properties, including Talaur Alvarado, Patrick Kirlin, Virginia Bruce, Paula Morrison, Mary Barbee and Jeffrey Worthington.
The Cascade Head Biosphere Region consists of more than 100,000 acres and has been recognized by the United Nations for its rare and diverse ecosystem. The area includes the Cascade Head Experimental Forest and Marine Reserve and Marine Protected Areas. The Cascade Head Biosphere Collaborative has organized the “Art on the Beach” sand art competition to continue its mission of educating about the importance of protecting the biosphere. Duncan Berry is the co-director of the Cascade Head Biosphere Collaborative. He’s also an artist and will be creating some sand art. He joins us with details of the event and what he hopes Oregonians will learn about the area.
Research shows that up to 50% of the human brain is involved in visual processing. For octopuses, that number is roughly 70%. There are similarities between octopus and human eyes – both involve a lens and a pupil that allows light into the back of the eye – but the way our brains process vision is completely different.
University of Oregon biology professor Cris Niell has been studying these processes in his lab. The team recently published a paper in Current Biology on the ways octopuses organize visual information in their brains. He joins us to offer some insight into how octopuses see.
From May to June of this year, the number of 911-related overdose calls in Multnomah County doubled compared with last year. While many calls took place in areas such as Old Town and downtown Portland, data obtained by the Lund Report shows that nearly every residential neighborhood in the Portland area has a reported case. Emily Green is the managing editor of the Lund Report. She joins us to share more on the data she collected and what is happening in the county.
Green Diamond timber company agreed to slow their logging operations in Southern Oregon in return for millions of dollars in payments from Microsoft and other companies seeking to offset their carbon dioxide pollution from fossil fuels. The companies are essentially paying the timber company to grow more trees on this land. The Bootleg Fire upended the Green Diamond carbon storage plans, burning through nearly 20 percent of the company’s Klamath project lands. Reporter Hal Bernton looked into the viability of carbon offsets in an increasingly fire-prone world. He joins us with the story.
In June, a team from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently traveled to Astoria, Newport and other coastal towns in Oregon and Northern California to meet with community members about the possible reintroduction of sea otters to Oregon and Northern California. Starting in the 1700s, the marine mammals were nearly hunted to extinction from Alaska to California for the maritime fur trade, and disappeared from Oregon’s coastal waters in the early 1900s.
Last year, the USFWS released a report which found that reintroducing sea otters would be “biologically feasible,” and could help restore kelp forests, along with other benefits to the nearshore environment. But big challenges and uncertainties remain, including the impact on the Dungeness crab and other fisheries. Joining us to talk about this issue is Michele Zwartjes, supervisor for the Oregon Coast Field Office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
We also hear from the Elakha Alliance, a nonprofit based in Siletz that has been advocating for more than five years for the return of sea otters to the Oregon coast, including publishing its own reintroduction feasibility study in 2021. Jane Bacchieri is the executive director of the Elakha Alliance. Peter Hatch is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians and a secretary and board member of the Elakha Alliance. They join us to talk about the cultural importance of sea otters to Indigenous communities, and what their return would signify.
The University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History has hit the road this summer. It’s offering hands-on learning through its Oregon Rocks! program, which teaches kids and families about geology. The organization is traveling throughout the state, reaching places like Portland, Pendleton and Paisley to bring science discovery to Oregon communities of all sizes. Mia Jackson is the education manager at the museum. She joins us with details about the program and why the museum wants to focus on statewide outreach.
For the first time in its history, the Deschutes County Fair and Rodeo in Redmond will feature drone light shows. The Bend Bulletin first reported on the drone light shows which will take place after each evening’s musical performance and feature more than 200 drones launching into the night sky. The drones are programmed to fly like a hive of bees buzzing with LED lights, swooping into formation hundreds of feet in the air to sculpt recognizable shapes and objects, from corporate logos to an American flag and a dirt bike stunt performer. Drone light shows are growing in popularity at outdoor events, and can offer a quieter, more environmentally friendly alternative to fireworks displays. We talk to Jonathan Segali, the CEO of Go Drone Shows, for a preview of the drone performances his company has created for the Deschutes County Fair and Rodeo, and the future of using drones for aerial entertainment.
The Treasure Valley Reload Center is a rail project in Nyssa aimed to help farmers ship their produce to other markets. Projected to open in 2020, the center has faced a number of setbacks due to permitting and financial issues. Now, the expected operator of the project, Americold, has announced they will be removing themselves from the project. Pat Caldwell is a reporter for the Malheur Enterprise. He joins us to share more on the rail center's latest issues and what the future of the project looks like without an operator.
Last year the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles announced that they were leaving the Pac-12. Last week, the University of Colorado did the same. The collegiate athletic conference was formed in 1959, but its future remains unclear. Zachary Neel, managing editor for USA Today’s Ducks Wire, joins us to discuss the options on the table now for athletics at the University of Oregon and Oregon State University.
Since 1995, Portland has funded the independent Regional Arts and Culture Council to provide arts education, advocacy, and administer grant funding to local artists. Recently Commissioner Dan Ryan told RACC the city wants to do that work itself. The city provides over $6 million of RACC’s $7.5 million budget, and will let that contract expire at the end of the year. Darion Jones, Senior Policy Advisor to Commissioner Ryan on Arts, Culture and Equity, and Jeff Hawthorne, Arts Program Manager for the City of Portland join us to talk about what arts funding will look like going forward.
After a three-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, hundreds of canoe families from across the Pacific Northwest once again paddled to Seattle, landing at Alki Beach on July 30. Canoe families will spend the next week participating in songs, dances and other protocol ceremonies hosted by the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe.
Nika Bartoo-Smith is part of a team at Underscore News that has been covering the journey. She joins to tell us about Sunday’s landing and give us a preview of the upcoming protocol ceremony.
Youth who are blind or visually impaired face challenges if they want to play sports or even engage in physical activity their sighted peers may take for granted. The Northwest Association for Blind Athletes created Camp Spark to change that. Its free sports camps use games, physical activity, orientation and mobility to help campers develop skills - including leadership, independence, and advocacy. We talk with program manager Kirsten French and Athena Wooters, a Camp Spark counselor.
In response to increasing crime, drug use, graffiti and unsanctioned homeless camping, the city of Portland launched a “90 day reset” to clean up its Central Eastside. The results of the official effort were released recently and included lighting improvements, removing hundreds of camps, nearly 5,000 pounds of trash and 74,000 square feet of graffiti. Clare Briglio is the executive director of the Central Eastside Industrial Council and Central Eastside Together, one of the city’s three enhanced service districts.
When the report was released, she praised the city’s efforts but also said the overall response was “a work in progress,” and that "businesses and residents deserve credit for their patience and passion during this time.” Briglio joins us to share more about the experiences of those in the district during and after the reset, and what she thinks should come next.
Mariachi Tradicion, a band made up of students from Forest Grove High School, has played with the Oregon Symphony, in front of audiences at Pickathon music festival, and will now perform later this month at the Jack London Review. The band was founded seven years ago by Lesslie Nuñez as an afterschool club at the middle school. Now, it is the only band from the Pacific Northwest to attend the International Mariachi Conference in Tucson every year. Nuñez and the band join us for music and conversation.
Band members include:
Marc Fernandez
Xochitl Gonzalez-Viveros
Carlos Marquez Vargas
Raquel Lopez Andrade
Jesus Contreras Aguilera
Citlalli Tinoco Avalos
Emilio Giron
Dulceluna Cebrera Gomez
Aaron Andrade
Erik Bonilla-Vallejo
Ashley Aguilera Hernandez
Lizzly Izquierdo-Mendoza
Practitioners of transpecies design aim to consider the needs of all species – not just humans – in the built environment. Their buildings often include habitat for plants, animals and even microorganisms, with the goal of reducing biodiversity decline and lessening the impacts of climate change. The University of Oregon is a hub for the movement, and students and faculty recently showcased it with an exhibition at the Venice Biennale of Architecture.
Adrian Parr is the dean of UO’s College of Design. She joins to tell us more about the transpecies design movement.
Earlier this year, Eugene became the first city in Oregon to effectively ban natural gas appliances in new residential construction. Gas utility NW Natural and others pushed back and were able to get the ordinance referred to the November ballot for voters to either affirm or overturn. But recently, the Eugene City Council repealed the ordinance following a federal appeals court ruling that overturned a similar ban in Berkeley, California. The ruling could impact cities across the 9th Circuit, which includes Oregon, Washington and California.
Joining us to explain those impacts is Amy Turner, director of the Cities Climate Law Initiative at Columbia Law School. We’re also joined by Emily Semple, the Eugene city councilor who originally introduced the natural gas ban, to talk about what’s next for the city’s climate change goals.
Since 1995, Portland has funded the independent Regional Arts and Culture Council to provide arts education, advocacy, and administer grant funding to local artists. Last week Commissioner Dan Ryan told RACC the city wants to do that work itself. The city provides over $6 million of RACC’s $7.5 million budget, and will let that contract expire at the end of the year. Carol Tatch, one of the Co-Executive Directors of RACC, and Debby Garman, RACC Board Chair, join us to talk about what’s next for RACC, and what they think city arts funding should look like.
After managing a yearslong, unprecedented pandemic, hospitals are still facing challenges like reduced staffing and how to keep workers safe. We check in with Cheryl Nester Wolfe, the president and CEO of Salem Health Hospitals and Clinics. She joins us with more on how the health system is faring and what’s top of mind for health care leaders in Oregon.
Since 2019, the Willamette Riverkeeper has been working with the city of Salem to remove Ludwigia, an invasive aquatic weed, from the Willamette Slough at Minto-Brown Island Park. Ludwigia threatens native plants and wildlife, including habitat for federally protected spring Chinook salmon and winter steelhead. As described in The Salem Reporter, crews are traveling the length of the 87-acre slough to spray herbicide on dense mats of water weeds to open up channels to kayakers and native fish. More than 12,500 native shrubs and trees were planted along the riparian banks this spring to improve habitat and slow the spread of Ludwigia. Vanessa Youngblood is the restoration manager for Willamette Riverkeeper. She joins us with more details on the project as it enters its final year and future restoration work along the river.
City councilors in Beaverton voted unanimously to do away with including parking in new developments in the city. Kevin Teater is the newest member of the council and campaigned on this issue. Beaverton joins seven other cities in the state that have made the same shift recently, including Portland, Salem and Bend. Last year the state’s Land Conservation and Development Commission passed rules to lift parking requirements in many places and encourage cities to do the same. Teater calls the policy “absolutely transformative.” We talk with him about the vote and what this could mean for his city and others in Oregon.
After five Portland monuments were toppled in 2020, some city and community leaders called for a robust public engagement process before any decisions were made about their reinstatement.
The city partnered with Lewis & Clark College late last year to determine what that public engagement process would look like. A committee of artists, educators, urban planners and public historians has been meeting for the last six months to explore how community members can navigate the complicated history the monuments represent. They recently presented a report to the city with their recommendations, which include public talks, arts programming, walking tours and an archive.
Jess Perlitz is an associate professor and head of sculpture at Lewis & Clark College. She led the Monument Engagement Process Committee and joins us with more details on its recommendations.
Clatsop County has recently awarded $35,000 to LiFEBoat Services, a homeless service provider in Astoria. The organization hopes this funding will help with improvements and allow it to become a year-round shelter. Osarch Orak is the executive director of LiFEBoat Services. He joins us to share what this funding will mean for the community and LiFEBoat's plan for the future.
: Earlier this month, a panel of judges for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals allowed the Chinook salmon season in Alaska to open for the summer while it considers arguments in a lawsuit filed by the Wild Fish Conservancy. The Seattle-based organization sued the State of Alaska, the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Alaska Trollers Association to stop the harvesting of Chinook, also known as king salmon, which is the primary food source for an endangered population of orcas in the Puget Sound. Julia O’Malley is a third-generation Alaskan and freelance journalist based in Anchorage, Alaska. She recently wrote an article for the New York Times that explores how declining numbers of Chinook impact the culture and livelihoods of coastal communities in Alaska, and the demand for wild salmon on dinner tables and gourmet restaurants. She joins us to talk about her reporting.
Within the last month, seven breweries and taprooms have closed or announced their upcoming closure. Rising costs of operation, change in consumer drinking habits, and the lingering effects of the pandemic have all affected the market. Ezra Johnson-Greenough, the founder of the blog The New School Beer, joins us to share what’s happening in Portland's beer market and to shed light on whether the craft beer bubble has burst.
Last month, two service providers announced they would not open cooling shelters this summer for people experiencing homelessness in the Columbia Gorge. The shelters used to open only for day use when the National Weather Service issued an excessive heat warning for the region, and other air-conditioned facilities, like libraries, were not available. Washington Gorge Action Programs, which operates in Klickitat and Skamania counties, made the decision to close its Emergency Cooling Center in Stevenson after it found that not a single person visited the facility last summer. Instead, the organization has been distributing “cooling kits” which contain items like a battery-operated fan, water and sunscreen. The kits are being distributed at its offices, a thrift store it operates and through partnerships and outreach events with community organizations. Mid-Columbia Community Action Council is distributing cooling kits throughout its service area of Hood River, Sherman and Wasco Counties. Jennifer Pauletto, associate director of WAGAP, and Kenny LaPoint, executive director of MCCAC, share with us how this effort is going so far, and the impact it’s having for their clients.
A Seattle tree ordinance passed earlier this year has frustrated some tree advocates in the city. Onlookers say developers played too big a role in helping craft the policy. The city’s own Urban Forestry Commission, a panel that provides expertise on tree policy and regulation, says it didn’t have enough time to review the proposal. Still some tree experts say that the ordinance provides better protection than what was in place before. We dig into these issues with Eric Scigliano, an independent writer and author. He covered this story for InvestigateWest.
A new study from the University of California San Francisco is the largest study of homelessness in the U.S. in several decades. The California Statewide Study of People Experiencing Homelessness includes 3,200 administered questionnaires and 365 in-depth interviews with adults experiencing homelessness in urban, rural, and suburban areas. We talk to Margot Kushel, principal investigator on the study, about what researchers learned and how the data might be relevant outside of California.
The Sports Bra opened last year as the first bar to exclusively play women’s sports. It’s a small bar in Northeast Portland, but owner Jenny Nguyen wanted to host a Women’s World Cup watch party that was big enough to accommodate the enormous enthusiasm for the team, including the Portland Thorns. The event, in collaboration with the Portland Football Club, starts at noon at Portland’s Pioneer Courthouse square and will include a showing of the classic movie “Bend It Like Beckham” at 2 p.m., with the match between the U.S. and Vietnam in Auckland at 6 p.m. We'll talk with Nguyen about the event and the excitement leading up to the U.S. team’s first match in pursuit of its third consecutive World Cup title.
This week the Malheur Enterprise published the last in a series of stories looking at child poverty in the county. The series covered housing, mental health, food insecurity and more. We talk to Shane Dimapanat and Christina Chkarboul, who worked on the series along with Andie Kalinowski, Suejin Lim and Venice Tang.
For years, researchers have shown that play is an important part of a child’s social, emotional and cognitive development. It can help children master new skills, build confidence, spark creativity, along with other positive effects. But less attention has been given to how parents and caregivers also benefit from play. Researchers at Oregon State University aim to change that by using a national grant they were recently awarded to develop a program for parents and caregivers to more easily and sustainably engage in play with their kids. Xiangyou (Sharon) Shen is an assistant professor in leisure, environment and health in the College of Forestry at Oregon State University. Shauna Tominey is an associate professor of human development and family sciences at OSU. They join us to talk about making parenting more playful.
Oregon’s only federally-run boarding school for Native American students failed to properly spend or account for millions of taxpayer dollars as well as hundreds of thousands contributed to student accounts by Indigenous families, according to an audit published Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Interior’s Office of Inspector General. OPB editor Rob Manning, who worked on a five-part investigation into Chemawa, joins us to talk about the audit.
From ocean acidification to rising sea levels and warming temperatures, climate change is taking a toll on the world’s oceans and fisheries. Scientists at NOAA, for example, have found that warming temperatures in the Bering Sea between Russia and Alaska are affecting the movement of Pacific cod and Alaska pollock, and that some fisheries are more vulnerable to climate change than others.
Tensions may also flare up in the coming years between fishing fleets in pursuit of stocks as different fish expand or contract their range. A research team led by Oregon State University was recently awarded more than a million dollars by the U.S. Department of Defense to study this issue. James Watson is an associate professor in the College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University and is the principal investigator on the project which is launching in September. He joins us to share details about it and what past fishing disputes on the high seas could tell us about future ones.
Pacific Seafood, a seafood processing company based in Oregon, owns more than 40 facilities across 11 states. The company is a major force in the fish, crab, and shrimp industry up and down the West Coast. Brand Little, a fisherman based out of San Francisco, says Pacific Seafood has too much power, and is able to both dictate the price offered for crabs and exert influence on the start date of the crab fishing season. Little filed a lawsuit in California on behalf of other small fishermen. We talk to Brand Little, and his lawyer Stuart Gross. Pacific Seafood declined to join us because of the ongoing lawsuit.
Sudden oak death, a tree disease caused by a fungal-like pathogen, can lead to bleeding cankers, leaf blight and rapid dieoff in a number of plant and tree species. The disease was first detected in northern California in the mid-1990s, and has been slowly spreading in Southern Oregon since 2001. Newly infected trees were recently found in Humbug Mountain State Park near Port Orford, leading to renewed treatment efforts by state agencies.
Gabriela Ritokova is a forest pathologist with the Oregon Department of Forestry. She joins us with more details about the disease and efforts to contain it.
For more than a hundred years, all the members of Portland's city council have been elected city-wide. That's about to change after voters passed a major overhaul to the city charter last November. The volunteer Independent District Commission has released three maps depicting different options for how the districts could be drawn. We talk to Josh Laurente and DaWayne Judd, co-chairs of the Independent District Commission, about their proposed maps for how to divide the city into four districts.
Portland area counties are joining together to work on a regional heat map. The data will be collected by volunteers, and public health officials hope that the information can help better prepare the region for hotter summers.
In a typical year in Portland, no heat related deaths are reported. In 2021, after the record-breaking heat dome, at least 69 deaths resulted from extreme heat in the last week of June, according to Multnomah County. Summers in Oregon are heating up, and public health officials say that managing heat islands will be an important part of addressing rising temperatures.
Kathleen Johnson is a senior program coordinator at Washington County Public Health. Morgan Zabow is a community heat and health information coordinator for NOAA. And J’reyesha Brannon is a volunteer with Multnomah County who will be collecting data for the heat map research. They join us to share more on the importance of exploring heat in and around Portland and the potential for collaboration among health officials and the general public.
The system for dispatching emergency services is itself in need of help. The Portland Bureau of Emergency Communications has been struggling for many years to get its hold times down. It has hired more dispatchers, and is now using a system of automatic call backs to numbers that hang up. It’s also implemented as an automated answering system for non-emergency calls. Given the challenges, it might come as a surprise to learn that the award for best dispatcher in North America is Portland’s own Stephen Zipprich. He joins us to talk about the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch award, his experience over the last decade of this work and what keeps him going.
Measure 114, Oregon’s voter-passed law to regulate firearms, has yet to go into effect because of multiple court challenges. Measure 114 bans future purchases of magazines that can carry more than 10 rounds of ammunition. It also requires those wishing to buy a firearm to get a permit first. Permits will require applicants to complete a safety class and a federal background check.
Last Friday, a federal judge ruled that the measure’s ban on the sale or manufacture of large-capacity magazines and its requirement for a permit to purchase a gun are constitutional. The ruling was appealed and may eventually be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. Meanwhile, Measure 114 also faces a challenge at the state level that will be heard in September. Norman Williams, law professor at Willamette University, explains where the legal challenges stand now.
Oregon archaeologists have found evidence of human occupation in the state that dates back more than 18,000 years. University of Oregon students and faculty working at the Rimrock Draw Rockshelter in Harney County found stone tools and fragments of camel and bison teeth beneath a 15,000-year-old layer of volcanic ash. Radiocarbon dating of the tooth enamel revealed that the fragments were 18,250 years old. Due to their position in the ash, the tools are thought to be even older — making them some of the oldest evidence of human civilization in North America.
Joining us with more details about the discovery is Pat O’Grady, a staff archaeologist at the University of Oregon Museum of Cultural and Natural History.
The invasive vine mealybug was found in Southern Oregon in 2021 and since then, vineyards have been fighting to eradicate the insect. The pest can cause significant damage to Oregon’s grape vines, affecting fruit quality and mold growth. State funding from SB 5506 will invest more than $400,000 to monitor, research and suppress the insect before it becomes widespread in the state.
Brian Gruber is the president of the Oregon Winegrowers Association. Greg Jones is the vice chair on the Oregon Wine Board’s board of directors. And Vaughn Walton is a professor at Oregon State University's horticulture department . They join us now to share how this bug can potentially affect Oregon’s vineyards and the potential impact of the funding to address the threat it poses
With its bright orange bill, white face and curling, yellow plumes, the tufted puffin is arguably the most recognizable seabird in Oregon. But scientists are now getting a clearer picture of how climate change is affecting the survival of tufted puffins and other seabirds.
A new study from the University of Washington found that persistent heat waves in the marine environment linked to climate change are leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of seabirds several months later. The researchers also found that these mass die-offs of seabirds used to happen once a decade, but are now happening more frequently, including five consecutive years, from 2014 to 2019, when millions of seabirds washed up on beaches stretching from California to Alaska. Julia Parrish is a marine biologist at the University of Washington and a co-author of the study which was published earlier this month. She joins us to talk about the findings.
Last weekend volunteers painted the old city hall building and a downtown restaurant in Sweet Home, Oregon. The small town pitched the idea to Miller Paint Company as a way to revitalize the downtown and convince drive-through tourists to stop and spend money. Like many small towns in Oregon, Sweet Home has been struggling to achieve economic viability after timber mills closed down and COVID hit. City manager Kelcey Young joins us to talk about why she thinks this new paint job could help.
Author Nicole Chung was born to Korean immigrants in Seattle and later adopted by a white couple in Southern Oregon. The 2018 memoir “All You Can Ever Know” follows Chung’s exploration of her identity as a transracial adoptee as she searches for her birth family. Her second memoir, released earlier this month, covers the untimely deaths of her adoptive parents — first her father from kidney disease, then her mother from cancer in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. “A Living Remedy” chronicles Chung’s grief and rage as she reckons with ways financial instability and inadequate health care access contributed to her parents’ deaths.
At first, Ada Limón wasn’t able to write poetry during the pandemic. And then she wrote a poem called “The Hurting Kind.” From that flowed the rest of her new book of poems under that same name. We talk to Limón, the poet laureate of the United States, before an audience at the Literary Arts space in downtown Portland.
School is out for summer vacation, but some Oregonians are still in the classroom taking a driver’s education course. At the same time, the state is currently seeing a shortage of people who can actually teach the course. Michelle Godfrey is the public information officer for the Oregon Department of Transportation. Nancy Haase is the program manager for the High Desert Driver Education Program. They both join us to share some of the reasons behind the Driver’s Ed instructor shortage and how that may affect new drivers in the state
Oregon will receive a whopping $688 million from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to help provide broadband in areas of the state that lack high-speed connection. The funding is part of the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal.
Oregon’s Broadband Office will craft a five-year action plan and has been holding community meetings across the state to hear what Oregonians are experiencing in terms of internet access. Nick Bats is the director of the office. He joins us to share what he heard at these meetings and what the timeline looks like for broadening internet access in Oregon.
After hours of public testimony, Salem City Council voted to approve a payroll tax to help fund police, fire and homelessness services. The ordinance passed by a single vote, taxing wages for anyone who works in Salem, regardless of their home address. The policy could go into effect as early as next summer. Chris Hoy is the mayor of Salem. He joins us to share why this tax is needed and how it will work going forward.
In the Klamath Basin, many different interests have struggled to get the water they need. Meanwhile, Colorado River users have agreed to use less water as supply has dwindled over time. As water users across the West continue to face uncertainty over water levels, how can stakeholders compromise on limited resources? Adell Amos is a Clayton R. Hess Professor of Law and the Executive Director for the Environment Initiative at the University of Oregon. She joins us to explain what a larger agreement over the Colorado River could mean for Oregon communities battling similar issues.
Oregon lawmakers recently passed legislation advancing wildfire programs in the state. And nearly a year after a draft wildfire map was withdrawn, the proposal gives the Oregon Department of Forestry and Oregon State University another chance at outlining hazards. Mariana Ruiz-Temple is the state fire marshal. Chris Dunn is an assistant professor in wildfire risk science at Oregon State University and will continue work on the state’s wildfire map. Mike Shaw is the fire protection division chief for the Oregon Department of Forestry. They join us with more on how Oregon is handling wildfire risk.
Butte Falls is a small town in southern Oregon, about an hour northeast of Medford. The 400 or so residents there are surrounded by a ring of what was until recently privately owned forest. But a decades-long effort to buy and manage the land itself has finally come to fruition, with the help of state, federal and private funding - and too many agencies and elected officials to list. As reported by Inside Climate News and Columbia Insight, Butte Falls will be making forest management decisions that preserve old-growth trees, clear wildfire fuel, and directly encourage outdoor tourism. Trish Callahan is the mayor of Butte Falls. She joins us to talk about the effort and its implications for the future of the town.
On June 20, four skateboarders gathered together to ride from Virginia to Oregon. They began the journey in Williamsburg, and on Friday, the group arrived in Newport and dipped their boards into the Pacific Ocean. The team set out to break the record for the fastest skateboarding relay across the U.S. The trip clocked in at 17 days and six hours. Andrew Andras, Rick Stubblefield and Paul Kent were part of the relay. They join us with details of the trek.
Last summer, an invasive and highly destructive forest pest was first spotted in Oregon at an elementary school in Forest Grove. Oregon is the first state on the West Coast and the 36th in the nation where the emerald ash borer has been detected. The small, shiny green beetle is native to Asia and has killed over a hundred million ash trees nationwide since its arrival in the U.S. roughly 20 years ago. In June, the Oregon Department of Agriculture reinstated a temporary quarantine on ash and white fringe tree products from Washington County, including untreated lumber, nursery stock, firewood and wood chips greater than one inch in size. The department also began releasing several species of wasps that are natural predators of emerald ash borers at tree locations where they’ve been observed. Cody Holthouse, manager of the Insect Pest Prevention & Management Program at the Oregon Department of Agriculture, joins us to talk about the quarantine and other efforts to combat the spread of emerald ash borer.
A new investigation from Washington news outlet KNKX has found that allegations of a culture of sexism, racism, and abuse at a premier youth soccer club mirror the behavior alleged at the professional level. The investigation found allegations of racial and sexual harassment, player endangerment and inappropriate touching of underage players at one of Washington’s premiere youth leagues. Reporter Grace Madigan joins us to talk about what they found.
Cooler temperatures have brought some relief to the Willamette Valley and a large swath of Western Oregon which were under heat advisories from the National Weather Service earlier this week. The hot, dry conditions coincided with three straight days of the hottest global temperatures ever recorded. Farmers and ranchers are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change as they contend with hotter and drier weather conditions, particularly during the summer months. Oregon produces more than 225 agricultural commodities which can be impacted differently by heat and water shortages depending on their growing seasons, according to the Oregon Farm Bureau. We hear from Lauren Poor, Vice president of Government & Legal Affairs for the Oregon Farm Bureau, about what is being done to help farmers and ranchers mitigate the effects of hotter and drier conditions on their livelihoods, and what the impact could be for them in the coming weeks and months.
There’s a lot that researchers still don’t know about volcanoes. But they do expect volcanic eruptions to coincide more often with other natural disasters, like floods and wildfires, as the climate continues to warm. Research from Portland State University shows that the increasing frequency of extreme weather events means they’re more likely to occur at the same time as a volcanic eruption – creating “compound disasters” that will challenge emergency management officials. The study is part of a new collection of scientific essays that assesses how volcano science has evolved over the past 30 years, and where it might go next.
Jonathan Fink is a professor of geology at PSU. He co-edited the collection, and joins us to talk about how volcanic eruptions might factor into future disaster management.
Last Saturday, news broke that seven-time All-Star point guard Damian Lillard wants to be traded from the Portland Trail Blazers. Lillard is the all-time leading scorer for the Blazers and has spent his entire professional career playing for the team which chose him as the sixth overall pick in the 2012 NBA draft. Lillard unanimously won the NBA Rookie of the Year award his first season in the league but has yet to win a championship title after 11 seasons with the Blazers. Mike Richman is the host of the Locked on Blazers podcast. He joins us to share more on Lillard’s legacy and what his potential leaving could mean for the future of his career, and the Blazers.
One of the best-known strategies to prevent dune erosion is to introduce plants whose roots will help hold sand in place and stabilize the dune. But experiments conducted at Oregon State University show that may not always be the case. Researchers found that newly planted vegetation can actually accelerate erosion in the face of extreme storms. Meagan Wengrove is an assistant professor of civil and construction engineering at OSU. She was involved in the experiments, and joins us to talk about what the findings could mean for coastal management.
In a 6-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of a web designer refusing to make a website for same-sex marriages, despite a Colorado law that prohibits discrimination against gay people. In another case involving a mail carrier who was refusing to work on his Sabbath, the courts unanimously decided to broaden religious protections, creating a new standard for testing religious accommodations. Jim Oleske is a law professor at Lewis & Clark Law School. He joins us to break down the two cases and dig into the complicated intersection of religious freedoms and other constitutional values.
A church in Monmouth was exploring the idea of creating micro shelter housing for people experiencing homelessness. The housing would have been located on a grassy field owned by the church. The idea was scrapped after community backlash against the proposal. We hear more from Bill Poehler, a Statesman Journal reporter, who has covered the issue.
Military veteran Lauren Grigsby describes the Central Veterans Oregon Ranch in Bend as a place of sanctuary. For nearly a decade, the 19-acre working ranch has opened its gates to veterans searching to talk to someone who understands the feelings of anxiety, isolation and other symptoms of PTSD they carry from tours of duty or other military service. In addition to peer support counseling, the ranch also offers mentorship and vocational training programs in ranching, beekeeping and farming, including a greenhouse where lettuce, basil and other produce and plants are grown. In May, the ranch began participating in “Together with Veterans,” a nationwide suicide prevention program focusing on veterans living in rural communities. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death among veterans under the age of 45, according to the Department of Veteran Affairs, which also found a higher rate of suicide among veterans in Oregon in 2020 than the national veteran suicide rate. Joining us to talk about Central Oregon Veterans Ranch and the impact it’s having are Co-executive directors and U.S. Marine Corps veterans Lauren Grigsby and Adrian De La Rosa, who is also a certified peer support specialist.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can call or text 9-8-8 to reach the national suicide prevention hotline.
In Southeast Portland, a woman has constructed what she calls the “giving fence” after a series of code violations and complaints from neighbors and the city. This unusual construction is a series of yellow bins stacked upon each other, filled with blankets, dry goods, clothes and hygiene products that are free for anyone who needs them. Courtney Vaugn, the news editor for the Portland Mercury, has been covering this story and joins us now to share more on the efforts the Sellwood woman is making.
In a 6-3 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled to ban affirmative action at colleges and universities. Justices heard two cases brought forward by the group Students for Fair Admission, who challenged race-based admission practices at Harvard and the University of North Carolina.
Sabrina Sommer is the equity specialist for the David Douglas School District. Eric Staab is the Vice President of Admissions and Financial Aid at Lewis & Clark College. And Scott Vignos is the vice president and chief diversity officer at Oregon State University. They all join us now to share what these decisions will mean for Oregon students and the impacts they believe it could have on Oregon colleges and universities.
Brit Bennett’s book The Vanishing Half was on a lot of best-of lists in 2020. Though spanning the second half of the 20th century, the novel speaks to questions about race and identity that have been central to national conversations for the last two years. In that novel and her other writing, Bennett deals with the bonds of family, the importance of storytelling, and nature of identity. We talked to Bennett about her essays and novels in front of an audience of students at Grant High School in Portland in February 2022.
Portland journalist Leah Sottile’s book “When The Moon Turns To Blood” centers on the case of Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell. The couple was on trial in 2023, accused of killing two of Vallow’s children whose bodies were found in Daybell’s backyard. But the book is about much more than just true crime. Sottile digs into the couple’s apocalyptic beliefs and the history of the extremism that exists on the fringes of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormon church. We talked with Sottile in 2022 about what this case reveals about religious extremism in the American west. Lori Vallow was found guilty in May of 2023. Chad Daybell is set to stand trial in April 2024.
With fewer sweeps during the pandemic, encampments have become a seemingly permanent fixture in many parts of Portland. And in response, city officials have started taking a more hardline approach. In February, Mayor Ted Wheeler issued an emergency order to ban camping near busy roadways. He has also said he plans to create large outdoor sites for sanctioned camping. On “Think Out Loud” we’ve heard from service providers, policy makers, and elected officials, including the mayor. We also wanted to hear from people who are living on the streets.
So, on a chilly and rainy March day, host Dave Miller, producer Julie Sabatier and OPB’s emerging journalism fellow, Chris Gonzalez, went to Old Town and an area near Delta Park in North Portland to interview folks living in tents or shelters or cars. This wasn’t comprehensive, or scientific. It’s a snapshot of homelessness on one Spring day in Portland.
The Ankeny Alley Festival is a series of summer events held in the Ankeny Alley area between SW 2nd and 3rd avenues in downtown Portland. The events have been organized to rally support for businesses in the neighborhood that have faced declines in revenue as visits from Portlanders and tourists alike have diminished in recent years. The next summer festival will be the July 4th Celebration from June 30 to July 3. The series of events also includes a Pride party and a Labor Day celebration featuring music, live entertainment, art and food. Joshua Ryan is the event manager for the Ankeny Alley Association. Michelle Wachsmuth is a co-owner of Dan & Louis Oyster Bar. They join us with details of the events and what they hope to see for the future of the area.
Portland Parks & Recreation opened its seven outdoor pools last Wednesday, and announced that it was now offering more swim lessons than in the past two years at its outdoor and indoor pools. Heading into summer, the outlook for staffing at the district’s pools is brighter than last year. Boosting starting pay for lifeguards by nearly $3 an hour, and expanding recruitment efforts has helped, although demand for swim lessons continues to outpace availability. Springfield’s Willamalane community pool and indoor water park are similarly not back to pre-pandemic staffing levels, although a hiring bonus and paying for the 40-hour lifeguard certification course - and the time to complete it - has helped boost enrollment. The Molalla Aquatic Center has hired 25% more lifeguards this summer than last year but has had to reduce the number of swim classes it can offer because of difficulty hiring certified instructors.
Joining us to share regional perspectives on lifeguard staffing and meeting the demand for aquatic recreation this summer are Andy Amato, aquatic program supervisor at Portland Parks & Recreation; Brandon Lemcke, aquatic program manager at Willamalane Park and Recreation District in Springfield; and Melissa Georgesen, executive director of the Molalla Aquatic District and aquatics section president of the Oregon Recreation and Park Association. Elandea Estrada-Duff also shares her perspective as a lifeguard working at Willamalane Swim Center in Springfield and Camp Harlow in Eugene.
Families living at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma, Washington have dealt with issues like mold and rodents in their homes. Still, monthslong waitlists exist for housing on base as some families struggle to find somewhere to live nearby. Kaylee Tornay is an investigative reporter with InvestigateWest, a nonprofit news outlet covering the Pacific Northwest. She's covered these issues for the outlet and joins us with details of her reporting.
Luke Hogan Laurenson graduated with a straight As from Ashland High School and gave a valedictorian speech at his graduation earlier this month. His high achievements are especially remarkable given the challenges he overcomes every day. Laurenson was born with a form of cerebral palsy that makes speech and movement difficult. Doctors told his mother that he would never be able to walk and would likely spend most of his life in an institution. But as he said in his graduation speech, he just “never believed that.” He walked by himself at age 12 and shortly thereafter, danced by himself. A video of him dancing to Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” went viral.
Laurenson has also acted in roles with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and at his high school. We talk with Laurenson and his mother, Jane Hogan, about his life and his post-high school plans, which include traveling the country to share his experience and what inspires him.
Repeating experiments and replicating results are key parts of successful scientific research. But in the field of robotics, working with different software platforms on different machines means that replication can be difficult. A $5 million National Science Foundation project led by Oregon State University aims to help with this challenge by building and distributing 50 standardized robots throughout the research community. The robot’s expressive face and gesturing arms are meant to help researchers study how humans and robots should interact in the workplace and other social environments.
Bill Smart is a professor in OSU’s robotics program and one of the leaders of the project. He joins us to explain how a standardized robot could help accelerate research.
A 2022 National Science Foundation assessment of the U.S. Antarctic Programs found that “sexual harassment, stalking and sexual assault are ongoing, continuing problems.” These issues can be particularly problematic when researchers are isolated on ships or polar research stations. Three female scientists from Oregon State University join us to discuss the barriers they have faced, and how the field is changing.
The Latinx Theatre Commons will host a designer and director Colaboratorio in Portland. The event kicks off on June 28 and ends on July 2. Costume and set designers, directors and other creatives will meet to reimagine the typical director-driven theater model. Artists from across the country were chosen to participate in the gathering. Also participating is Francisco Garcia, a director, actor, educator and playwright based in Portland. Jacqueline Flores is a Latinx Theatre Commons producer. They join us with details of the Colaboratorio and share more on the importance of a collaborative approach to making theater.
Earlier this month, a 15-year-old boy riding an electric bike died following a collision with a vehicle at an intersection on Highway 20 in Bend. The teen was not wearing a helmet and wasn’t legally allowed to operate the e-bike since he was under 16 years of age. It was the first fatality involving an e-bike in Bend, according to a recent article in the Bend Bulletin, which also described concerns that some adolescents on e-bikes are not following the rules of the road and engaging in risky or illegal behaviors such as not wearing a helmet and texting while riding. At a city council meeting last Wednesday, Bend Mayor Melanie Kebler said the council would explore updating laws on bike safety, “including accounting for newer, faster e-bike models that have become more popular,” while taking additional actions to make cycling in the city safer. Michael Kohn, an environment and public lands reporter at the Bend Bulletin, and Jonathan Maus, editor and publisher of Bike Portland, join us to talk about this issue.
Last year, Portland Street Response expanded from a pilot program to a citywide service and answered more than 7,000 calls that would traditionally be handled by police. That’s according to a new report from Portland State University that also found that PSR aided in reducing the workload for police and hospitals. Despite the success of the program so far, researchers note that systemic issues could hinder overall effectiveness. Alex Zielinski is the Portland City Government Reporter for OPB. She joins us to share more details on the report and the future of the program.
Oregon was the first state in the country to ban single-family zoning in all but the smallest cities, meaning duplexes and triplexes can be built next door to single-family homes. The idea is to increase density within cities while preserving land for farms and wilderness in more rural areas. Denser housing could also help to combat climate change, and create more affordable housing to help reduce the number of people living on the streets. That’s the vision of the Yimbytown movement. In the spring of 2022, Think Out Loud hosted a panel at the Yimbytown conference in Portland to discuss what “Yes In My Backyard” could mean for the future of cities. The guests were Sam Diaz, Executive Director of 1,000 Friends of Oregon; Rukaiyah Adams, Board Chair of Albina Vision Trust; Marisa Zapata, Director of the Portland State University Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative; and Jerusalem Demsas, staff writer at the Atlantic magazine.
Live music was hit hard by the pandemic. After managing years of cancellations, quick thinking and reimagining the live music experience, some are feeling hopeful as the summer festival season kicks off. But some fans haven’t returned, and inflation is taking a toll for concert goers and venue owners as well. Christina Fuller is the owner of Fuller Events and a festival director for the Waterfront Blues Festival which kicks off on July 1. Jim Brunberg is a musician, and the founder and co-owner of Mississippi Studios and Revolution Hall in Portland. They join us with a pulse check on the live event industry.
After a nationwide search, Cascade AIDS Project (CAP) has hired longtime nonprofit leader Paul Lumley as its new CEO. Currently the CEO for the Portland-based Native American Youth and Family Center (NAYA), and the former Executive Director of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, Lumley will be CAP’s first Native American CEO. Lumley joins us to talk about the future of Cascade AIDS Project, and his legacy with NAYA and CRITFC.
Cities in Oregon are finalizing their budgets. They’re juggling shrinking funding streams and increasing costs – especially from inflation. Twylla Miller is the chief financial officer for the city of Eugene. Robby Hammond is the city manager for Hillsboro.
They join us with more on how cities are managing priorities and navigating tough financial decisions.
Today nurses at Providence Portland, Seaside and Home Health and Hospice will end a strike that began on Monday. Both sides expect talks about higher wages to resume, although no date is set. Kara Hayden, a speech and language pathologist with Providence Home Health and Hospice joins us to talk about what’s next.
Portland author Joshua James Amberson has a rare genetic condition that may eventually lead to blindness. His new book Staring Contest: Essays About Eyes, is a deep meditation on eyes, vision, and what we see.
The Oregon Shakespeare Festival has suffered the same pandemic setbacks as many other big theatres in the country. Seasons have shrunk, as has the staff. Earlier this year, former Artistic Director and Interim Executive Director Nataki Garrett stepped away after a staff shakeup and an emergency $2.5 million funding campaign. Shortly thereafter, the company announced it would need in excess of $7 million in order to finish the current season.
OSF is unique in the nation, says American Theatre Editor-in-Chief Rob Weinert-Kendt. There are plenty of other big theatres in urban centers, but Ashland is not in an urban center. It’s the main cultural draw in Southern Oregon, and the scope and depth of its offerings appeal to a national audience. Despite its name, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival has been known for decades for its commitment to creating new plays and supporting groundbreaking work. Weinert-Kendt joins us to discuss some of the slings and arrows American theatre and OSF are facing.
Since 2020, two schools in the Eugene 4J School District have shared one building. The Yujin Gakuen Japanese Immersion School began sharing space with Eugene’s Kelly Middle School when the district decided to demolish the Silver Lea building. Over the years, the collocation has created tension between the two schools’ teachers, parents and students as they both now deal with limited classroom space.
The school district is currently reviewing options for the future of the shared building. Miranda Cyr is the education reporter for the Register Guard. She joins us to share more on what’s happening inside the two schools and their potential futures.
Pride Month is here and across the country LGBTQ+ communities are celebrating. At the same time, The Human Rights Campaign, one of the largest gay rights organizations in the U.S., has issued a state of emergency because of anti-LGBTQ legislation passing in states across America. We talk to three LGBTQ organizers from around the state about why celebrating pride is important and what it means to celebrate these events in some of Oregon’s rural parts of the state. Nik Portela is the program manager for the Columbia Gorge Pride Alliance. Laura Erceg is the director of Southern Oregon Coast Pride. Juliet Rutter is the board secretary with Umpqua Valley Rainbow Collective.
When the gates on The Dalles Dam closed in 1957, Celilo Falls was flooded and a vital salmon fishery for Yakama and Warm Springs tribal people was forever changed. Warm Springs Tribal Elder Linda Meanus was a young girl at the time, being raised by her grandparents, Flora Thompson and Chief Tommy Thompson, in nearby Celilo Village. In that bustling community along the Columbia River where salmon provided sustenance and a way of life, she learned about the importance of first foods, and gained an abiding reverence for her Indigenous culture and language. More than six decades later, Meanus has written “My Name is LaMoosh,” a chronicle of her early life in Celilo Village and a tribute to the legacy of her grandmother to whom the book is dedicated. Meanus joins us to talk about her new book which was published by OSU Press in collaboration with Confluence and historian Katy Barber.
The FDA has approved three medications to treat opioid dependence. But only one – buprenorphine – is approved for patients under age 18. The Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine recommends the medication as a “critical component” of treating addiction in teens, especially with adolescent overdose deaths on the rise. However, a new study from Oregon Health & Science University found that only one in four adolescent treatment facilities offers the drug.
Caroline King led the study as a medical student at OHSU. She joins us with more details on the findings.
Thirty years ago, a movement called riot grrrl started in the Pacific Northwest. It wasn't just music – it was politics, feminism, culture and zines. And we're still feeling its effects today. This podcast tells the history of riot grrrl: why it started here in the Pacific Northwest, and what its lasting impact has been. And it focuses on the stories that haven’t really been told as part of the history of the movement. We’ll hear from people on the margins, people who felt left out, and the people who insisted on being part of the conversation anyway.
The 2023 James Beard Awards had a strong showing from Oregon this year — particularly from chefs and other creators of color in the Portland food scene. Winning the reality or competition visual media category was a video produced by All the Homies Network, a collective that documents the experience of six BIPOC food business owners in Portland. The network’s video of a restaurant takeover by Vietnamese food cart Matta at the Multnomah Whiskey Library beat out submissions from Top Chef and Bon Appetit to win the award.
Richard Văn Lê is the owner of Matta and a member of All the Homies Network. He joins us to talk about the win and what it could mean for the network’s future.
Thirty years ago, a movement called riot grrrl started in the Pacific Northwest. It wasn't just music – it was politics, feminism, culture and zines. And we're still feeling its effects today. This podcast tells the history of riot grrrl: why it started here in the Pacific Northwest, and what its lasting impact has been. And it focuses on the stories that haven’t really been told as part of the history of the movement. We’ll hear from people on the margins, people who felt left out, and the people who insisted on being part of the conversation anyway.
The 2023 James Beard Awards had a strong showing from Oregon this year — particularly from chefs and other creators of color in the Portland food scene. Winning the reality or competition visual media category was a video produced by All the Homies Network, a collective that documents the experience of six BIPOC food business owners in Portland. The network’s video of a restaurant takeover by Vietnamese food cart Matta at the Multnomah Whiskey Library beat out submissions from Top Chef and Bon Appetit to win the award.
Richard Văn Lê is the owner of Matta and a member of All the Homies Network. He joins us to talk about the win and what it could mean for the network’s future.
Fentanyl has taken over the illegal drug market largely due to its low cost and abundant supply. It’s fueling rising addiction rates, and those in need of treatment often have no options. Enter the Confederated Tribes of the Grande Ronde’s Great Circle Recovery program. Great Circle runs two clinics in Portland and Salem, as well as a mobile clinic. It serves not just tribal members, but anyone who’s struggling with addiction and wants help.
We hear more about the nonprofit’s mission and how the program works from Executive Director Kelly Rowe, Medical Director Dr. James Laidler and Operations Director Jennifer Worth. We also talk with James Smith, a urinalysis technician at Great Circle who is working to become one of their peer mentors; as well as Albert Mendez, who is in recovery and receives regular treatment from the clinic. Oregon Health Authority’s Behavioral Health Director Ebony Clarke also joins the conversation.
Opened in August 1953, the 99W Drive-InTheater has been delivering nostalgia and fond memories to Oregonians for nearly 70 years. Over the years Oregon has been home to nearly 50 drive-in theaters, but now less than a handful remain. Michael Aronson is the co-director of the Oregon Theater Project and an associate professor of Cinema Studies at the University of Oregon. Brian Francis is the owner and operator of the family-owned business, 99W Drive-In. They both join us now to share the story of the Newberg-based theater and the history these kinds of cinemas have in the state.
In a 7-2 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled to uphold the Indian Child Welfare Act. The act was initially passed by Congress in 1978 and challenged in 2018 by the state of Texas and several families.
The 45-year-old law created standards for when the federal government can remove Native children from their families and provides guidelines for the placement of Indigenous children in foster or adoptive homes.
Sarah Kastelic is the executive director of the National Indian Child Welfare Association. She joins us to share what ICWA has meant for Indigenous children and the impact this law has had.
LGBTQ youth are more than twice as likely to experience homelessness than their peers, due to a lack of support. Oregon youth in foster care need more options for temporary homes with foster parents committed to creating an affirming and safe environment. The state’s child welfare department is partnering with Basic Rights Oregon and Unicorn Solutions to educate people about the depth of the need in an online event called Fostering Pride, on Tuesday, June 20 at 6 p.m.
We talk with Unicorn Solutions founder Elliott Hinkle, who was formerly in foster care themselves, and current foster parent Mel Jory-Heywood.
PROMO: 6/16 LGBTQ youth are more than twice as likely to experience homelessness than their peers. And Oregon youth in foster care need more options for temporary homes with foster parents committed to creating an affirming and safe environment. We'll hear about a new partnership that aims to educate people about the depth of the need.
Portland photographer Ivan McClellan said the first time he went to a Black rodeo, it made an indelible impression on him. He says, “It was like Black culture combined with Western culture in a way that I never, never could have imagined existed.” That visit sparked his multi-year project of photographs called “8 Seconds,” which became the basis for the creation of a new Portland rodeo, centering the experiences of Black cowboys and cowgirls. Participants from all over the country are expected to converge on the Portland Expo Center on Saturday for the inaugural “8 Seconds Juneteenth Rodeo.” McClelland joins us, along with the first Black Rodeo Queen in Arkansas Ja’Dayia Kursh, crowned in 2017.
After 35 years, Cycle Oregon will no longer be offering its 7-day bike ride. Facing a number of challenges, the organization has decided that this year will be the final year. Steve Schulz is the executive director of Cycle Oregon. He joins us to share more on what led to this decision and plans for the future.
As fires in Canada continue to rage, the U.S. Forest Service has dispatched firefighters to combat the flames. When local crews aren’t actively fighting fires in the Pacific Northwest, they’re often sent elsewhere to help. We check in with the U.S. Forest Service on how they’re preparing for the summer fire season in the Pacific Northwest and what their work looks like elsewhere. Our guest is Alex Robertson, the U.S. Forest Service’s director of fire, fuels, and aviation for the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.
Mt. Tabor Park in southeast Portland was recently named the nation’s first “Urban Quiet Park” by Quiet Parks International, a nonprofit that aims to “save quiet for the benefit of all life.” The organization has recognized nine other Urban Quiet Parks around the world, including Hampstead Heath in London, Yangmingshan National Park in Taipei and Parc del Montnegre i el Corredor in Barcelona.
Jacob Schmidt is a volunteer technician with Quiet Parks International. He took audio measurements in Mt. Tabor Park, and joins us to explain how the park was chosen, what the designation means and why it’s important to preserve quiet spaces in urban environments.
Last month, the Salem Reporter revealed that the city’s police chief, Trevor Womack, wants to hire 15 additional police officers and launch a new community policing program. As of early May, the department is facing nearly two dozen vacancies and has shifted resources in recent years in response to reduced staffing levels. City leaders are proposing to fund the new positions by raising monthly utility fees and adding a new payroll tax which would cost workers an average of $42 a month.The city council is considering bypassing voters to implement the payroll tax which would also be used to fund emergency services and help balance the city’s budget amid declining revenues. The city council must approve a new budget by July 1. Abbey McDonald covers the city for the Salem Reporter. She joins us to talk about her reporting on this issue.
In November 2020, Oregon became the first state in the nation to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of illegal drugs with the passage of Measure 110. The measure also directs money from cannabis tax revenues to expand drug treatment and recovery services. Researchers at Portland State University are now studying the effects of Measure 110 with a three-year study funded by the National Institute of Justice. They interviewed 23 police officers from 10 different agencies in rural and urban counties in Oregon for their first report which focuses on the impact of Measure 110 on law enforcement. Officers expressed frustration with Measure 110 and said they were reluctant to issue citations for drug possession which they felt amounted to unnecessary paperwork. Christopher Campbell is an associate professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Portland State University and a co-author of the study. He joins us to talk about the findings and goals of the study.
In 2012, photographer Matika Wilbur sold everything in her Seattle apartment and set off to document the 562 federally recognized indigenous tribes in country. Over a decade and hundreds of thousands of miles later, she has released a new book called “Project 562.” We talk to Wilbur about her journey, her book, and her mission to provide Native Americans images that are more "useful, truthful, and beautiful."
Last week, Multnomah county commissioners approved a $3.5 billion budget for the next fiscal year. County chair Jessica Vega Pederson joins us to discuss the role that the county will play in addressing homelessness, behavioral health, and other challenges facing the region.
After the ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868, many Black men enlisted in the military as a way to earn both income and respect in U.S. society. Despite facing many barriers within the military, Black soldiers fought in many wars and conflicts, both at home and abroad. A new documentary from Vancouver-based filmmaker Dru Holley explores the complicated legacy of Black soldiers, particularly their role participating in the subjugation of Indigenous peoples. We talk to Holley about “Buffalo Soldiers: Fighting on Two Fronts,” which airs on OPB TV Monday, June 12.
The longest legislative walkout by Oregon Senate Republicans in state history had meant the death of any number of bills. Now that legislative leaders have reached a framework for a possible deal to bring lawmakers back to the capitol, some may have new life. But the fate of one caregiving proposal was unclear even before the partisan boycott: a bill to allow parent caregivers of severely disabled children to continue to be paid for their work. Advocates say the program, which began in the pandemic, has resulted in dramatically lower health care costs and a reduction in the number of hospitalizations.
According to these parents, “Of families that participated in the parent caregiver program, 80% reported reduced hospitalizations, 73% reported reductions in calls to 911 or crisis intervention, and 82% reported extreme concern about the risks to their children’s health since the program ended in May.”
Parents rallied last week at the capital in an effort to call attention to what they say is truly an emergency, and in lieu of the bill, get support for a budgetary note to continue this funding. We’re joined by Calli Ross, who cares for her 8-year-old son who manages severe disabilities.
Although voters overwhelmingly passed a constitutional measure last year to prevent boycotts from grinding legislative work to a halt, that didn’t stop Republicans from staging a walkout in early May, which stretched into the longest one in state history. Without enough Republicans to form a quorum, Democrats haven’t been able to pass any bills since May 3. GOP leaders had said they would return at the end of the month to pass only budget bills, just before the session ends June 25. The walkout started over Democratic proposals to strengthen health care for trans youth, protect abortion access and expand gun safety. But now legislative leaders have reached a tentative framework to bring Republican Senators back to the capitol. OPB Political reporter Lauren Dake joins us to tell us more about the possible deal, and the prospects for the 2023 regular session in its last two weeks.
Behind the laughter and bright lights of sitcoms, some of America’s favorite shows featured queer storylines – whether viewers realized it or not. From Bewitched to the Golden Girls, “Hi Honey, I’m Homo!: Sitcoms, Specials and the Queering of American Culture” explores how sitcoms played a role in the advancement of LGBTQ+ rights by embracing queer culture.
Matt Baume is a Seattle-based podcaster, Youtuber and author of the new book. He joins us to share some of the most impactful shows in gay history and the greater role they played in society.
Author Renee Watson won two awards from the American Library Association last week for her young adult novel “Piecing Me Together,” which was based on her experiences growing up in Portland. Watson joins us to talk about “Piecing Me Together” and her latest book, “Betty Before X.”
Thirty years ago, the Supreme Court issued a decision that held that the First Amendment does not protect people from skirting laws because of their religious beliefs. That case was brought by an Oregon man, Al Smith, who had been denied unemployment benefits when he was fired for ingesting peyote at a religious ceremony. But in recent years, the court has been chipping away at the precedent set in that case. Julia Longoria, the host of the podcast “More Perfect,” joins us to discuss Smith’s life, his case, and the implications it has for lawsuits in front of the court today.
Scientists at the University of Washington placed GPS collars on dozens of bobcats and coyotes and tracked their movements and behaviors in Northeast and Central Washington. The animals moved from areas uninhabited by humans into rural communities to escape being killed by wolves and cougars with whom they compete for food. But the strategy ultimately proved lethal, as the bobcats and coyotes were three to four times more likely to be killed by people than by those apex predators. Laura Prugh is an associate professor of wildlife ecology at the University of Washington and the lead author of this study which was published last month in the journal, “Science.” She joins us to talk about the research findings and what they say about the so-called “human shield effect” on predator-prey relationships observed in Yellowstone and other national parks.
The grant making program Community 101 has been funding projects around Oregon for 25 years. What’s different about it is that all the funds are allocated by high school students who learn real world skills by giving out real dollars to various causes. In Wallowa county, student-led projects have included arts and mental health programs for teens, a summer lunch program and a new skateboard ramp at a local park. The ramp replacement effort ended up sparking a campaign to fund the refurbishment of the entire skate park. We talk with Christian Morris who graduated high school in 2021 and helped bring that project to fruition. And we’re also joined by alternative education teachers Maria Weer and Ron Pickens, who integrate the Community 101 program into the health curriculum there.
Scientists have documented five cases, worldwide, of people being cured of HIV through stem cell transplants. But researchers aren't entirely clear on how the method works. New research from Oregon Health & Science University is helping to explain the mechanics behind the potential cure.
A nonhuman primate study recently found that transplanted stem cells help kill HIV-infected cells by recognizing them as foreign invaders, much like they do for certain types of cancer. Researchers also found that HIV leaves the body in a series of stages, which could explain why some patients appear to be cured, but then experience a recurrence. OHSU professor Jonah Sacha led the study and joins us with more details on what the findings could mean for human patients.
Oregon’s Willamette Valley is renowned for producing award-winning Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and other varietals popular with wine connoisseurs. But the region is also home to a small but intrepid group of farmers who are cultivating olives, a crop more associated with the Mediterranean climate and hills of Tuscany than the hills of Tualatin.
Paul Durant is an olive farmer and wine maker whose family has been growing olives and making oil at their mill in Dayton since 2008. In April, Durant Olive Mill won three gold medals and a silver medal at the New York World Olive Oil Competition. Beth Wendland is the owner and operator of Coyote Hill, a third-generation family farm in the Tualatin Valley where three acres of different olive varieties are being grown. Olea, a project started in 2017 by Oregon State University, has been helping advise farmers like Durant and Wendland on olive cultivation methods and soil suitability. Scientists at Olea have also planted more than 100 varieties of olive trees to see which ones might best be suited to survive winter freezes. Heather Stoven is a community horticulturalist and small farms extension agent at OSU conducting research for Olea. They join us to talk about the pitfalls and potential for growing olives in Oregon.
Amtrak can be a helpful tool to help reduce transportation emissions since it’s more energy efficient than driving or flying. But weather events like wildfires, flooding and
landslides can seriously impact passenger service. Earlier this year, the Coast Starlight, a route that runs between Los Angeles and Seattle, was disrupted by track flooding in California. The damage affected the route for nearly a month. Issues like coastal erosion and heat waves have affected service too. Mounting disasters have closed or impacted Amtrak routes across the country. L.V. Anderson has been covering the issues facing Amtrak for Grist. She joins us with details of her reporting.
Last week, Portland City Council heard testimony on a proposal that would ban daytime camping from 8AM to 8PM on public property, as well as impose stricter rules on camping during all hours. More than a 100 city residents shared their thoughts and concerns with commissioners. The council will vote on the ordinance on Wednesday, June 7. Katie O’Brien is the executive director of Rose Haven, Portland’s only daytime shelter serving women, children and gender-diverse Portlanders. Sandra Comstock is the executive director of Hygiene4All, a nonprofit providing showers, laundry service, first-aid and other services to people experiencing homelessness in the city. They both join us to share their thoughts on the proposal and the potential impact it would have if passed.
Tourism all over Oregon saw a big jump last year, both from in-state and out-of-state visitors. And in some categories, activities reached new highs. That’s according to a recent report released by Travel Oregon, the state’s tourism commission. We talk with CEO Todd Davidson about what this means for Oregon communities, and the agency’s strategy to support sustainable growth in the industry over the next decade.
The movie theater industry is still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic. Ticket sales are rebounding and onlookers have high hopes for summer blockbusters. We hear from Thomas Baham, owner of the Rio Theater in Sweet Home. He shares more on what movie theaters mean to smaller communities in Oregon, his plan to reopen the only movie theater in Silverton and how the industry is faring in Oregon.
Downtown Portland has seen better days. Its recovery from the pandemic's economic downturn and resulting vandalism has been uneven at best. The area continues to grapple with high numbers of homeless campers. In some areas, open drug use and gun violence threaten the survival of some local businesses. We’re joined in studio by Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell to discuss how strained local law enforcement officers are trying to stay on top of the high demand, and his plans for responding to crime downtown more broadly.
Patrick Radden Keefe has made a career of finding out about people who don’t want to talk to him. In 2021 he published “Empire of Pain,” a nonfiction account of the Sackler family, noted philanthropists and purveyors of the opioid OxyContin. He has also taken on the Troubles in Ireland in his book “Say Nothing,” and CIA maneuvering during the Cold War in his podcast “Wind of Change.” Patrick Radden Keefe joins us in front of an audience of high school students at Lincoln High.
Author Lauren Groff retreated to the middle ages for her latest novel. After her book “Fates and Furies," received wide praise, and in the aftermath of the 2016 election, Groff found solace in writing about the life of nuns cloistered together in 12th century England. We talk to Groff about her latest book, “Matrix,” in front of an audience of students at Leodis V. McDaniel High School in Portland.
Earlier this month, Oregon Rep. Charlie Conrad (R-Eastern Lane County) was the sole Republican on the Behavioral Health and Health Care Committee to vote in favor of HB 2002, which would protect access to abortion and expand insurance coverage for gender-affirming care. It would also allow minors to obtain abortions and teens 15 and older to receive gender-affirming care without parental consent. The bill is one of two cited by Republican state leaders who staged a walkout four weeks ago, effectively grinding legislative votes in the Senate to a halt.
The Capital Chronicle earlier reported on why Conrad shifted his stance from opposing to supporting HB 2002, including by researching medical guidelines on gender-affirming care and talking with the parent of a transgender child. Conrad is a freshman Oregon lawmaker who represents House District 12 which covers Eastern Lane County. He joins us to talk about his support for HB 2002, and being a moderate Republican whose views on abortion and other issues sometimes put him at odds with his party and constituency.
More than 100 bills have been stuck in the Oregon state senate after Republican senators staged a walkout that began May 3. The political tactic is a strategy to block Democratic legislation on abortion rights, transgender care and gun safety. High profile walkouts that grind business to a halt was exactly what Ballot Measure 113 was aimed at preventing. Passed overwhelmingly by voters last fall, the constitutional amendment says legislators with 10 or more unexcused absences may not run for subsequent elective office.
Most of those participating in the walkouts have already hit the 10 or more mark, and Republicans say they will challenge the law in court. While speech and electoral freedom concerns have been raised, it’s not entirely clear on what basis Measure 113 would be challenged or whether the case would be filed in state or federal court. Norman Williams is a professor at Willamette University and teaches both constitutional and election law. He says only one thing seems all but certain: there will be a challenge of some kind. He joins us to walk us through some of the legal issues and questions that could come before judges.
Oregonians passed Measure 114 in November. It would ban the manufacture, purchase or sale of high capacity magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition. It would also require people to take a safety course and pass a background check to get a permit allowing them to purchase a firearm. But the law never went into effect due to legal challenges at both the state and federal level. The Department of Justice is preparing to defend Measure 114 in federal court in June, and in state court in September. Michael Kron, special counsel to the state attorney general, joins us to give us the latest.
Earlier this month, Talent residents voted in a special election to determine whether they would fund an urban renewal plan to help rebuild the town after the 2020 Almeda Fire. Almost two-thirds of residents voted against the plan to use tax-increment financing that could have generated almost $19 million over 20 years. Darby Ayers-Flood is the mayor of Talent. She joins us to share what’s next for the town and how they might fund revitalization efforts in the future.
It’s been nearly three years since the Labor Day wildfires of 2020 which burned more than a million acres across Oregon and destroyed more than 5,000 homes and buildings. Nine people died in the fires. Among the places hardest hit was the community of Detroit in Marion County, where roughly 80 percent of the homes and businesses were destroyed. But according to Mayor Jim Trett, Detroit’s recovery is proceeding faster than expected. Detroit Lake, on which the local economy heavily depends for tourism, also reached full capacity earlier this month, thanks to snowpack levels not seen in the state since 2008. We hear from Mayor Trett about his hopes for the summer, the status of rebuilding efforts and lessons learned to help Detroit respond to future wildfires.
In Portland, school fundraising greatly varies from school to school. At Lincoln High School, parent-led fundraising efforts help students go on trips and have access to events. But other schools in the district might only see a fraction of the funds available. Lincoln’s student-run news outlet, The Cardinal Times, recently published an editorial opposing how the current system works and calling for the establishment of a district-wide general fund.
In a response to the piece, Friends of Lincoln, the fundraising arm for the high school, noted that Portland Public Schools requires fundraising organizations to share some of what they raise with the district. Currently, schools can keep the first $10,000 that they raise. But for funds beyond that, a third of their totals must be shared with the district-wide Fund for Portland Public Schools.
The organization wrote, “Friends of Lincoln would love a world where schools receive all the funding students deserve and equity is optimized, but that is not the world as it exists today.” It added, “eliminating foundations like Friends of Lincoln, we believe, would make things worse, not better.”
We hear more from Issac Coltman, an opinions editor for The Cardinal Times and Mary Carney, a managing print editor for the outlet. They’re both juniors at the high school and join to tell us more about what they’d like to see change.
Marlou and Ken Delano weren’t looking to get remarried when they met at Thadd’s Place, a grief counseling center in John Day. They are both in their 80s, and were mourning their spouses of roughly 50 and 60 years, respectively. But their shared grief brought them closer together, and unexpectedly, sparks flew. The couple will celebrate their first anniversary on June 4. The Delanos join us to share their story, as well as their hopes for the future.
Some loggers headed in to cut down trees in the Blue Mountains will be prioritizing habitat over board feet. That’s because Blue Mountain Forest Partners, a group of stakeholders including loggers, environmentalists, ranchers, landowners, timber industry representatives, elected officials and federal land managers, has just finalized what’s called a wildlife habitat zone of agreement. The plan takes a wildlife-centric perspective to forest management, trying to address habitat needs of species when considering which trees to cut. Mark Webb, the executive director of Blue Mountain Forest Project, takes us on a tour of forest lands that have been managed with woodpeckers in mind.
Last month, Grant County Court held the first of three scheduled conversations about the idea of becoming part of Idaho. The conversations are required by a ballot measure passed two years ago with 62% of the vote. Some residents came to the meeting dressed in matching green T-shirts that read “Just Say No to Idaho.” We talk to Shelley Wyllie, who is one of the leaders of a movement members are calling Oregon Together, about why she thinks Grant County should remain a part of Oregon.
Cattle ranching is a nearly $20 million industry in Grant County. But it can take a serious environmental toll on the region’s land and waterways. Jack Southworth, a fourth-generation rancher in Seneca, has been practicing holistic land management since the 1980s. He’s planted willows to restore the streams on his property and worked with the Forest Service to sustainably graze his cattle in the summers, among other measures. Southworth joins to give us a tour of his land and talk about what he sees as the future of cattle ranching.
Curry County in Southern Oregon is still recovering from a ransomware attack in late April that left it unable to access any of its digital information. County officials say the ability to dispatch 911 calls and run the local special district election last week were unaffected. Commissioner Brad Alcorn says it’s impossible to put a definite timetable on getting the county's systems up and running again, but he’s hopeful that will happen in the next few weeks. He says the FBI is investigating the entity known as Royal, which is responsible for the attack on Curry County and other local and county governments, including one which targeted Dallas, Texas. Alcorn joins us to tell us what he can about the effects of the attack and how the county is moving forward.
German scientist Peter Wohlleben captured global attention when he wrote “The Secret Life of Trees.” Now, he’s followed up with a new book, "The Power of Trees: How Ancient Forests Can Save Us if We Let Them," that essentially argues that we should leave forests alone, because trees are very good at adapting to whatever comes their way. We spoke to Wohlleben in front of an audience at Powell’s Books.
The close-knit culture of small towns can help foster a strong sense of community. But it can also make it difficult to come forward in sensitive situations — particularly in cases of domestic violence and sexual assault. Heart of Grant County formed in 2008 to provide support services to survivors of domestic and sexual violence in John Day and the surrounding county. The organization recently opened a new shelter that aims to maximize client privacy and comfort.
Rayme Lacey is an advocate at Heart of Grant County, and Beth Simonsen is its executive director. They join us to talk about the importance – and challenges – of providing survivor support services in rural communities.
Malheur Lumber Company in John Day used to be one of many mills in Grant County. By 2012, though, it was the last one, and came very close to closing its doors for good. Then, the U. S. Forest Service agreed to increase restoration logging in Malheur National Forest, and that contract kept the mill going. Now, Malheur Lumber is one of three mills in Grant County. We talk about the ups and downs of the timber industry with Rich Fulton, General Manager of Malheur Lumber Company, and Wanda Rassmussen, Chief Operating Officer for Ochoco Lumber, which owns Malheur Lumber Company.
The Malheur, Umatilla and Wallowa-Whitman National Forests, collectively known as the Blue Mountains, have been operating on a forest management plan developed in the 1990s. Two different attempts to revise that plan have failed, the latest one in 2018. Now, the Forest Service is restarting the process. Darcy Weseman, a Public Affairs officer for the U.S. Forest Service, and Eric Watrud, Umatilla National Forest Supervisor, join us to talk about what this process for revising the Blue Mountain Forest Plan will look like and whether the third time’s a charm.
The Painted Sky Center for the Arts opened in 2018 as a way for artists in Grant County to connect and collaborate. Five years later, the center now offers public classes in ceramics, leatherworking, painting and more. It also features after-school youth programming and workshops with visiting artists and teachers.
Kim Randleas is the visual arts department lead at the center, and Genevieve Paddock is a ceramics instructor. They join us to talk about how Painted Sky has helped create a place for Grant County residents to connect through the arts.
Two years ago, Grant County residents passed a ballot measure that requires the county court to discuss the idea of becoming part of Idaho. The measure passed with 62% of the vote. Granty County Court officials will next take up discussion of the idea in August and December. Sandie Gilsan is the Grant County captain of Citizens of Greater Idaho, the group that has championed this cause across eastern Oregon. Gilsan joins us to talk through the reasons why this move might be appealing to some Grant County residents.
The Sunset Empire Transportation District recently resumed bus service on some of its routes in Clatsop County, including weekday service along Highway 101 between Astoria and Cannon Beach. The Astorian earlier reported that the transit district would restore some services after it had abruptly suspended operations and laid off workers due to a six-figure budget shortfall which first came to light at a district board meeting on April 27. The Oregon Department of Transportation provided a $505,000 emergency loan to the district to help it start operating again and bring back furloughed staff. It will also conduct an audit of the district’s finances in the coming weeks, according to Paul Lewicki, the interim executive director of the Sunset Empire Transportation District. Lewicki joins us to talk about the upcoming audit, the current and long term challenges the district faces, and why he thinks it may take six months or longer for transit services to be fully restored.
Grant County is one of Oregon’s smallest by population, with a little over 7,000 people. Its largest city is John Day, with about 1,700 residents. However, John Day – the man – was never among that number. A hapless hunter from Virginia, Day never got particularly close to the region whose rivers and cities bear his name. But his story does tell us something about European-American settlement in the Pacific Northwest.
Greg Shine is a historian and writer based in Portland. He wrote about John Day for the Oregon Encyclopedia, and joins us with details of his story.
Substance use disorder affects both urban and rural communities. National health data shows that addiction has a particularly significant impact on rural areas. People in rural communities have higher rates of alcohol, tobacco and methamphetamine use compared with those in urban areas, though rates of opioid misuse are similar. But rural areas also often lack the support and recovery services available in larger communities.
Community Counseling Solutions provides mental and behavioral health services for five counties in Northeast and Central Oregon, including Grant County. Clinical director Thad Labhart joins us to talk about the challenges of providing those services across a wide swath of rural Oregon. We also hear from Sarah Brown, a peer support specialist at the CCS office in John Day.
Members of Grant Union High School’s Future Business Leaders of America group will be headed to the national competition after placing at the state level. In addition, Maddie Bailey, a sophomore, will now lead Oregon’s statewide FBLA. We talk to Bailey, and another member of the group, Morgan Walker, about what these successes mean for Grant County students, and what experience they’ve gained from the club.
The TriMet board will soon vote whether to increase regular bus and rail fares. The proposal would raise adult 2.5-hour fares and LIFT paratransit single tickets from $2.50 to $2.80. Youth and honored citizen fares would increase from $1.25 to $1.40. Monthly Hop Fastpass costs and fare caps would not change.
If approved, this would be TriMet’s first adult fare increase in more than 10 years. The agency says it’s necessary to keep up with rising operation and service costs. However, an equity analysis found that the proposal would impose a “disproportionate burden” on low-income riders.
We’ll hear more about the proposal from TriMet’s Executive Director of Public Affairs JC Vannatta. We’ll also hear from Ellie Gluhosky, campaign organizer for the environmental justice group OPAL, which has been organizing against the fare increase.
It’s perhaps fitting that “Spirit Rangers,” an animated series on Netflix made for preschool-aged audiences, premiered last October on Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Now in its second season, the show revolves around three Cowlitz and Chumash Indian siblings - Kodi, Summer and Eddy Skycedar - who magically transform into a bear cub, red-tailed hawk and turtle. They then embark on adventures in a fictional California national park where they live and where their parents work as rangers. The creative team behind “Spirit Rangers” are all Native American, including Joey Clift, an L.A.-based comedian, television writer and enrolled member of the Cowlitz Tribe of Southwest Washington who also serves as a consulting producer on the show. Clift wrote a recent episode about salmon habitat restoration which features a maternal guardian salmon spirit voiced by Cowlitz Tribal member and musician Debora Iyall. Clift and Iyall join us to talk about their collaboration on “Spirit Rangers,” and how the show is both a source of pride and empowerment for Indigenous storytelling.
New Amazon data centers are headed to Morrow County. Officials there recently approved a deal worth about $1 billion in tax breaks, The Oregonian reported. David Sykes is the chair of the Morrow County commission. He says that Amazon helps diversify the region’s economy. Sykes joins us with details of the deal.
Researchers at Oregon State University recently published a study showing that the use of a metal bar placed at a certain height on a commercial fishing vessel can significantly reduce repetitive motion injuries sustained by deckhands during the Dungeness crabbing season. It’s one example of how the Fishermen Led Injury Prevention Program, which was launched at OSU nearly a decade ago, is helping fishermen reduce injuries in an industry where hazards abound, from falls on a slippery deck to vessel disasters on the high seas.
After hearing from fishermen that first aid training needs to be relevant for their industry, FLIPP partnered with Oregon Sea Grant to develop a first aid training course that is being taught to fishing crews in Oregon, and has now expanded to training sessions in Washington and California. Laurel Kincl is an associate professor of environmental and occupational health at Oregon State University, and Poggy Lapham is a commercial fisherman based in Newport. They join us to talk about efforts to make fisheries in Oregon and the West Coast safer through the work of FLIPP.
A piece of music by the composer Philip Glass will soon be performed under the tail of Oregon’s iconic Spruce Goose airplane. The piece, “1,000 Airplanes on the Roof,” has rarely been performed in full. It features numerous wind instruments, synthesizers, a vocalist, and an actor performing scenes. Sarah Tiedemann, Artistic Director of Third Angle New Music, and actor Ithica Tell, join us to describe the performance in more detail and share its history.
A Klamath County library book club was canceled after a resident complained about one of the featured books, "No More Police: A Case for Abolition," the Herald and News reported. The county commission instructed the library to issue a decision to cancel it. And library officials say that has led to concerns about the future of other programming. Some residents also worry about how this decision can set precedent for suppressing other speech. We learn more about the issue from Klamath County commissioner Kelley Minty; Charla Oppenlander, the assistant library director of the Klamath County Library Service District; and Lois Taysom, a member of the Klamath County Library advisory board.
In Oregon, private landowners may “lethally remove beaver without a permit,” according to guidance from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. A bill moving its way through the state legislature would change that. Advocates say that the current classification of beavers as a “predatory animal” on private lands limits data and ODFW control of the rodent. The bill aims to classify beavers as a “furbearer” on private lands which means the animal would be treated similarly to a raccoon or fox. Beavers already have this designation on public lands. Opponents say the current classification allows landowners, like producers, to keep their property safe from damage.
In a statement, the Oregon Farm Bureau, which is opposed to the bill, wrote that the bill “allows for no consideration of a farmer or ranchers’ operation, time, expense, or economic loss, including any losses related to the delay in management while they try to determine the complicated management structure HB 3464 A has created.”
We learn more about the bill, from Sristi Kamal, the deputy director of the Western Environmental Law Center and a proponent of the bill.
Oregon voters narrowly passed Ballot Measure 114 which, among many other provisions, would require a background check and permit before people are sold firearms. But that measure is now tied up in a court challenge with no clear timetable for implementation. Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers in the Oregon legislature have advanced a gun safety bill that would make a few different legal changes. HB 2005 passed the House and is scheduled to be heard by the Senate. Republican senators have been deliberately absent from the chamber in recent weeks, slowing the progress of considering this and other legislation.
We invited senators from both major parties to join us to discuss the gun safety proposal. We hear from Democratic Sen. Floyd Prozanski from South Lane and North Douglas counties, and Republican Sen. David Brock Smith from Port Orford.
Many of those who serve time in a state prison are in need of treatment for mental health or substance use disorder. That treatment is largely unavailable but a bill in the Oregon legislature aims to change that. Oregon Representative Maxine Dexter, D- Portland, says the lack of treatment means that adults in custody are losing their constitutional right to health care while incarcerated. They also are not getting what they need to be successful in the community when released, as approximately 90% ultimately are. We talk with The Lund Report’s managing editor Emily Green about what the bill would do and why supporters say it’s so desperately needed.
A recent article published in The Bend Bulletin revealed shocking descriptions of disruptive student behavior. The accounts were provided by teachers, counselors and other staff working in the Bend-La Pine School District, the fifth-largest school district in Oregon. Their experiences were chronicled in a survey the Bend Education Association sent to its union members to hear their concerns about disrupted learning and the impact it has on their ability to teach. The district, which is currently under contract negotiations with the union, has created a task force of teachers, counselors and administrators to address this problem. It has also invested $12 million to reduce class size and expand mental health programs for students. Noemi Arellano-Summer with The Bend Bulletin joins us to talk about her reporting on this issue, and what’s being done to address it.
Last week, a sinkhole estimated to be 10 feet wide and 30 feet deep appeared on the Oregon coast at Cape Kiwanda. This is the second sinkhole to appear on the cape this year. Laura Gabel is the coastal field geologist for the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries. She joins us to share what exactly sinkholes are, how they happen and what could have led to the two that appeared on the coast.
Researchers from the USDA have been testing drones as a way to protect livestock from wolf attacks. Drones can have a speaker, camera or spotlight attached to them, allowing for different ways to distract a wolf. We learn more about how researchers are using the technology as a non-lethal way to manage wolves and livestock. Paul Wolf, the SW District Supervisor for USDA Wildlife Services, and Dustin Ranglack with the National Wildlife Research Center join us.
Today, Tillamook Bay is largely separated from the ocean by a 4 mile long spit of sand and scrub brush known for its beach and hiking trail. But in the early 1900’s, this strip of land was home to an ocean resort town, complete with an indoor dance pavilion and swimming pool, along with houses, cabins and roads. Jerry Sutherland’s new book “Bayocean: Atlantis of Oregon” tells the story of how this area was built and later destroyed. He joins us to share the history.
Leaders in cities all around Washington state are considering new bans on illegal drug possession or using such drugs in public. State lawmakers had enacted a temporary law after a 2021 Washington supreme court decision known as State v. Blake struck down the state’s previous drug possession laws. Efforts to pass a new permanent drug law in the final hours of the 2023 legislative session failed. On Tuesday, May 16, Governor Jay Inslee is convening a special session to pass a new drug law. We learn more from OPB’s Olympia correspondent Jeanie Lindsay.
Researchers at Washington State University have made history with a German-style sausage. It's the first university to receive authorization from the Food and Drug Administration to have gene-edited pigs enter the food chain for human consumption. A company called Acceligen had previously received such an authorization for cattle, according to the university. We'll learn more about what this means for food production from Jon Oatley, a professor in the School of Molecular Biosciences at WSU.
The Salem High School Class of 1944 have set a Guinness World Record for the longest running reunion. As first reported by the Statesman Journal, Trudie Meier Gavette and Gayle Priem have taken over the organization of the now annual high school class reunions. The first event was the 10-year reunion in 1954. But after their 75th a few years ago, alumni decided they should hold the events annually. Last year, they decided to look into the Guiness Book of World Records for longest running reunion. Gayle’s daughter, Shannon Priem, took the lead on submitting the documents and getting witness statements and other requirements. The news of the world record will be celebrated June 17 at the 79th reunion on the Willamette Sternwheeler in Salem. Gayle and Shannon Priem join us along with Trudie Meier Gavette to talk about the recognition and what the tradition means to them.
This week, Opera Theater of Oregon is performing a scene from a brand new opera they’ve been working on about the life of Sacajawea, the Native American woman known for her role with the historic Lewis & Clark Expedition. The opera, called “Nu Nah-Hup: Sacajawea’s Story,” has a libretto written by the great-great-grandniece of Sacajawea, Rose Ann Abrahamson. It also features music by OTO Artistic Director Justin Ralls and Native American flutist and composer Hovia Edwards. It will be sung in Agai-Dika/Lemhi-Shoshone, Québécois French and English. We talk to Rose Ann Abrahamson and Lisa Lipton, executive director of Opera Theater of Oregon.
A new study out of the University of Oregon suggests that humans aren’t the only ones who get the munchies under the influence of marijuana.
Researchers soaked worms in an endocannabinoid – described as a THC-like substance produced in the brain – and observed a similar response to humans under the influence of marijuana. The worms gravitated toward the types of bacteria they prefer to eat, and consumed them at a faster rate than normal. The findings could provide insight into the human endocannabinoid system, which is surprisingly similar to the worms, and regulates bodily responses such as appetite, pain and inflammation.
Shawn Lockery is a professor in UO’s Institute of Neuroscience. He joins us with more details on the study.
Five years ago, the Woolsey Fire tore through the dry coastline west of Los Angeles, burning nearly 2,000 structures and killing three people. A group of surfers known as the Point Dume Bombers rallied together to fight the fire and take care of neighbors afterwards. Since then, they have created a community brigade pilot program to educate neighbors, harden local houses, and help people evacuate during fires. The new podcast Sandcastles, focuses on the work of the Point Dume Bombers and the new brigade. Adriana Cargill, producer of the podcast, joins us to explain.
Last month, a new court opened in Vancouver to hear cases involving offenses typically associated with people experiencing homelessness such as illegal camping and storing personal property in public spaces. The people accused of these low-level crimes are known as participants, not defendants, and the legal proceedings take place not in a courthouse but inside the Recovery Café, a substance abuse recovery provider serving Clark County. Reducing barriers to people experiencing homelessness is a key focus of the Vancouver community court, with multiple providers present at each hearing to help participants access services right away and commit to completing a set of conditions, including community service, required by the court to resolve their cases.
Jonathan Young is Vancouver's City Attorney. Brandy Branch is the Vice president of outpatient and community-based services at Lifeline Connections. Christie Emrich is a criminal defense attorney and the owner of Vancouver Defenders. They join us to talk about the Vancouver community court and the impact it’s having.
Last week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that they will be investing $400 million for the creation of 12 new regional food business centers. Oregon State University will co-lead a $30 million center with Colorado State University that will serve Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming. The goal of these centers is to help ranchers, farmers and other food businesses break out into new markets as well as guide them through potential federal, state and local resources. Lauren Gwin is the interim director of the Center for Small Farms and Community Food. She joins us to share more on the goals of the centers and the impact they will have on the industry.
On April 15, fighting broke out in Sudan amid the collapse in relations between two generals who disagree on a framework to restore a civilian government after more than two years of military rule. The conflict has forced more than 100,000 Sudanese to flee to Egypt and other neighboring countries, and prompted the United Nations to warn of “a rapidly deteriorating humanitarian crisis” amid calls for a cease-fire to safely deliver food, water and emergency supplies.
We hear from Sibongani Kayola, the Sudan country director for the Portland-based international aid organization Mercy Corps, which has been active in Sudan since 2004. She shares with us how the conflict has impacted Mercy Corps’ programs and relief efforts.
In March 1993, The Museum at Warm Springs opened its doors, becoming the first Tribal museum in the state of Oregon and changing the way institutions represent the Native American historic and cultural record. Today, the museum boasts an extensive collection of artifacts, artwork, photographs and heirlooms that the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs started acquiring more than five decades ago from Tribal members and families. It also provides a space to showcase temporary exhibits and contemporary work, such as an “An Eye for the Rez,” a retrospective of Warm Springs Tribal member and photographer Edward Heath currently on display as part of the programming to celebrate the museum’s 30th anniversary.
Joining us to talk about the museum’s legacy and share her vision for its future is Elizabeth Woody, executive director of The Museum at Warm Springs and a former Oregon Poet Laureate.
But first, we hear from Central Oregon Bureau Chief Emily Cureton Cook who recently paid a visit to the museum to learn about its enduring cultural impact. Warm Springs Community Radio K-W-S-O provided archival recordings for this radio story, and KWSO journalist Will Robbins contributed to the reporting.
Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls was founded in Portland in the early 2000s to provide space for girls and non-binary young people to learn to play and write songs. Now there are hundreds of these camps all over the world, but the one in Portland is changing. Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls is passing the torch to the Portland nonprofit Friends of Noise, which works to give youth access to the music industry. We talk to Andre Middleton, the executive director of Friends of Noise, and two young sound engineers who have been trained by the program: Fox Newey and Mikayla Zoe Best-Prostrednik.
Earlier this year, the Interior Department issued a draft of a new Public Lands Rule designed to “guide the balanced management of public lands,” and help those lands “resist and recover from drought, wildfire, and other disturbances.” Among other things, the rule clarifies that conservation is on a par with other uses of federal lands, such as grazing, oil and gas drilling and mining. The draft rule is open for public comments until June 20. Jonathan Thompson, contributing editor at High Country News, joins us to explain what’s in the draft, and how it might change our public lands.
In Oregon, about 44% of households struggled to make ends meet by the end of 2021. That’s according to a report released by United Ways of the Pacific Northwest and partner organization United For ALICE. People who earn above the federal poverty level but less than what they need to financially survive day-to-day are described by the report as "asset limited, income constrained, employed." We hear more about the issue and what this means for Oregonians from Jim Cooper, the president and CEO of United Ways of the Pacific Northwest.
It’s been more than a year since Russia invaded Ukraine. Shortly after the invasion, we spoke with Tatiana Terdal, a board member of the Ukrainian-American Cultural Association of Oregon and Southwest Washington. We’ll check in with her about how the local community has been affected over the last year. We’ll also hear from Erik Heinonen, an Oregonian aid worker who recently returned to his home in Ukraine after fleeing to Romania last year with his family.
For some, the pandemic lockdowns may seem like a distant memory they would prefer not to revisit. But for parents and students, even though school has been back for more than a year, some effects linger. The educational, social and emotional effects are still not fully understood. Jonicia June Shelton is a mother, a therapist and an assistant principal at HB Lee Middle School. She joins us to share her experiences. And we want to know how the pandemic has affected you and your kids and changed the way you parent, 888-665-5TOL.
Portland cartoonist Jonathan Case has illustrated Batman comics for DC and illustrated a graphic novel about the Green River Killer. His newest book is somehow both lighter and darker at the same time. “Little Monarchs” is an upbeat post-apocalyptic adventure tale for kids. Case joins us to talk about the book.
Many churches have long been involved in providing support for people who are living on the streets. Some institutions had to scale back their soup kitchens or other efforts during the pandemic. Others stepped forward in new and creative ways. We talk to three faith leaders about how their congregations are grappling with one of the biggest challenges of our time: Brigitta Remole, pastor at First Congregational United Church of Christ in downtown Portland, Bernie Lindley, Vicar of St. Timothy's Episcopal Church in Brookings, and the reverend Sara Fischer at Saints Peter & Paul Episcopal Church in the Montavilla neighborhood of Portland.
Forty certified firefighting professionals from the U.S. and Canada are participating in a two week-long program to carefully ignite fires and burn roughly 1,000 acres of the forested understory in the Deschutes National Forest in Central Oregon. Since its launch 15 years ago by the U.S. Forest Service and The Nature Conservancy, The Prescribed Fire Exchange Training Program, or TREX, has taken place in more than a dozen states and grown to include international participants and the involvement of the U.S. Department of the Interior, Tribal nations, state and local agencies, universities and NGOs. After more than a century of fire suppression activities, prescribed burning is increasingly being used as a fire management tool to improve forest ecosystems and protect communities in an era of catastrophic wildfires driven by climate change. Joining us to talk about prescribed fires and the training program is Thomas Stokely, a forest ecologist with The Nature Conservancy in Central Oregon, and Kaci Radcliffe, the Northeastern Oregon forest restoration project manager for The Nature Conservancy.
The Portland Trail Blazers recently announced that they're going to start a new NBA G-league team for young players. The minor league affiliate team will play at the University of Portland's Chiles Center. We'll sit down with Dewayne Hankins, the President of Business Operations for the Blazers, to talk about the new team and the future of the franchise as a whole.
The house that served as the focal point of the 1985 movie “The Goonies” is perhaps Astoria’s best known landmark. It’s certainly been a draw for fans and tourists who come to pay homage. Since the house was sold in January, conflict about the increased traffic in the neighborhood has been renewed. It’s a story that’s far short of the epic adventure the middle school characters embark on in the movie to save the house from being demolished, but it is one that never seems to ‘say die.’ Recently, David Reid of the Astoria Warrenton Chamber of Commerce convened a neighborhood meeting to air concerns and try to come up with some agreement on the best way to simultaneously support both livability and tourism. He joins us to share some of what he’s heard, and his ideas for how to move forward.
Workforce development initiatives can be difficult to arrange for communities in remote parts of Oregon. It can be expensive to hire outside providers for job training or career exploration opportunities, and time-consuming to send employees to outside training. One way to bridge the gap could be virtual reality headsets. Equipped with training simulations for industries like manufacturing, skilled trades and hospitality and tourism, the portable headsets could provide hands-on opportunities to more people at a lower cost over time.
Patti Hyatt is the school to careers counselor for the Pendleton Chamber of Commerce and Justin Chin is the dean of workforce development at Lane Community College. They join us to talk about how they’re using VR to bring career opportunities to rural areas near them.
Tax burdens are piling up for small business owners in Portland as they face fees from the city, county and state. Some owners say they regret investing in Portland and wish they had set up shop in Washington instead. For those who choose to stay in Oregon, tax burdens are smaller in Lake Oswego and Beaverton. And in Multnomah County, a May ballot measure could mean more taxes for businesses. Pete Danko reported on these issues for the Portland Business Journal. He joins us with details.
Recently Phil Knight, the billionaire co-founder of Nike, announced a new $400 million investment fund to support Black residents of Portland. The gift is meant to fund education services, art programs and other projects for Black Portlanders in the inner North and Northeast neighborhoods once known as Albina. Albina was the center of Black society and business in the 1950s, but by the 1980s it had been decimated after city-backed urban renewal projects leveled homes and community hubs. Karen Gibson, an emeritus professor at Portland State University, joins us with a history of the Albina neighborhood.
Last month, the public health department in Clark County issued a warning about an increase in suspected opioid overdoses last month. Ten people, ages 18 to 72, visited emergency room departments in Vancouver for treatment of suspected opioid overdoses linked to fentanyl during a four-day period, from April 15 to April 18. None of the overdoses were fatal, which the health department attributed to the administration of naloxone, an opioid reversal drug that is being made freely available at pharmacies and other locations in the county. Joining us to talk about this issue and harm reduction efforts to combat opioid overdoses is Steve Krager, deputy health officer for Clark County.
Weyerhaeuser owns more than 12 million acres of timberland across the U.S. The logging company is the biggest timber owner in Oregon. Weyerhaeuser says its trees remove about 14 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year, The Wall Street Journal reported. And the logging firm is using those numbers to venture into the carbon offset market while still planning to increase lumber production. Ryan Dezember has covered the company for The Wall Street Journal and joins us with details of his reporting.
Jackson County is experiencing a shortage of public defenders. Last week, a Jackson County Circuit Court heard nearly 20 motions from defendants asking to have their cases dismissed. The reasoning? A lack of court-appointed counsel. Kevin Opsahl has reported on what’s happening in the county for the Rogue Valley Times. He joins us with details on what the shortage looks like in Southern Oregon.
A wolverine hasn’t been spotted in Oregon outside of the Wallowa Mountains in more than three decades. But this year, there have been several sightings in Western and Central Oregon. Officials with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife haven’t been able to confirm whether the scattered sightings are of the same wolverine.
Kaly Adkins is the East Region conservation wildlife biologist with ODFW. She confirmed many of the sightings and joins us to talk about the unusual amount of wolverine activity this spring.
Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan announced on Monday that she had ended her contract working as a paid consultant for a cannabis company, which she had done while her office was preparing an audit of the state’s recreational cannabis industry. The Willamette Week reported on Fagan’s paid consultancy work on the same day that the state audit was released which found that overly strict regulations are making it expensive for people to run cannabis businesses and preventing others from joining the industry. The disclosure prompted Oregon Governor and fellow Democrat Tina Kotek to announce the launch of an ethics investigation into Fagan's actions, while Republican lawmakers called for Fagan to resign. OPB political reporter Dirk VanderHart joins us with an update.
The Gem Theater in Athena began life as a saloon, a theater, a store and even a bomb shelter until it was ultimately abandoned and stood empty for 55 years. That is until a group of residents took restoration efforts into their own hands. After nearly 20 years, more than $2 million and hours of volunteer work, the building is close to being completely renovated. Project Manager Rob Mcintyre is hopeful it will be ready for the public by the end of this year. Elsa Rogers is a senior at Weston-McEwen High School and has volunteered in restoration efforts since she was a fifth grader. They both join us now to share what restoration efforts look like now and what this theater will mean for the community once complete.
Researchers at Washington State University studied indoor queen banking as a possible way to help bee populations survive. The practice uses refrigeration to store excess queen bees indoors. The bees can be used later to supplement hives. Many queen producers are based in California and, as the state experiences more severe weather events and wildfires, storing bees outdoors has become more challenging. We hear more about the study from Brandon Hopkins, an author of the research and an assistant research professor at WSU.
Earlier this month, the World Health Organization announced it was tracking a new COVID-19 “variant of interest,” XBB.1.16, which has spread to more than 30 countries, including the U.S. The variant, which is also known as Arcturus, genetically resembles the Omicron strain which drove a surge of infections and hospitalizations in Oregon that peaked in late January last year. According to a forecast prepared by Peter Graven, the lead data scientist at Oregon Health & Science University, the Arcturus variant and another variant, XBB.1.9, will drive a wave of new hospitalizations in Oregon that will peak at around 500 patients in late June. Still, Graven expects the state’s hospital system to be able to handle any surge fueled by Arcturus which appears to be associated with relatively mild cases of infection. Peter Graven joins us to talk about the outlook for COVID and other respiratory illnesses such as RSV and the flu.
Portland singer/songwriter Shireen Amini is one of 16 musicians around the country featured on a new collaborative album called "Hope Rises II." The compilation is produced by Noel ‘Paul’ Stookey, of Peter, Paul and Mary and is a celebration of “New Voices of Social Change.” Amini's track, "Break Myself Free," explores what it means to be authentically yourself without any constraints. Her independently produced single “What I Am” explores her non-binary identity. Amini also regularly performs with the all-Latin band she formed in Bend called ¡Chiringa!, which means "kite" in Puerto Rican-style Spanish. She also runs community song circles as part of what she calls "music medicine." She joins us in studio to tell us more and play some of her songs.
About 50 miles off the coast of Newport, hot, mineral-laden seawater is seeping out of the ocean floor at an unprecedented rate. Researchers at the University of Washington say the liquid acts as a kind of lubricant between tectonic plates, possibly contributing to pressure buildup along the plate boundary. While it doesn’t mean that an earthquake is imminent, the seep could give researchers more insight into how the Cascadia Subduction Zone functions. Joining us with more details is Evan Solomon, an associate professor of oceanography at UW.
The Good Food Awards celebrate products that are “tasty, authentic and responsible.” Makers are recognized in eighteen different categories each year based on a blind tasting and the organization's social and environmental responsibility standards. After more than a decade in San Francisco, the awards celebrated their first year in Portland this past weekend. Sarah Weiner, co-founder and executive director of the Good Food Foundation, joins us to talk about the move. We’re also joined by award winner Holly Ong, co-founder of Sibeiho, to talk about the impact the awards can have on small producers.
Next month, voters in Deschutes County will cast their ballots in a special election that will decide the fate of a handful of ballot measures and candidates competing in local district races. As it has done in past elections, the Source Weekly, an independently owned newspaper based in Bend, shared its endorsements for the election on May 16. But for the first time in its history, the paper published an editorial to weigh in on candidates vying for seats on the Deschutes library board, and why it thinks “there's a good reason for all of us to be paying closer attention” to this particular race. Joining us now to explain what’s at stake is Nicole Vulcan, editor of the Source Weekly.
The number of vehicles impounded in the city of Eugene tripled from 2020 to 2022. Advocates for people experiencing homelessness say that cars, recreational vehicles, campers and other vehicles serving as makeshift homes make up a significant portion of what’s impounded. Many cannot afford to get their vehicles back and lose all their belongings and what little shelter they had, worsening their plight. Others may not have the title for their vehicle. Towing companies sometimes have to pay to get rid of the vehicles they’re stuck with, some of which contain hazardous materials that are expensive to dispose of. We talk with the Register Guard reporter Tatiana Parafiniuk-Talesnick who looked into these numbers and the broader policy implications.
In Eugene, homeless campers in city parks are being given just two hours notice to move. For many years, city workers gave campers at least 24 hours notice. But starting in 2021, the city created a new category of "non-established" campers, apparently to get around a law passed that year that required 72 hours be given to unhoused campers, according to reporting in the Eugene Weekly. The number of two hour eviction notices has risen drastically, and the city appears to have set a record for such notices in 2022. Now Eugene’s Human Rights Commission is questioning why the city council and mayor were not informed of this change and plans to hold public listening sessions on the matter. We talk with Alexis Weisend, who reported the story for the University of Oregon’s Catalyst Journalism Project and Eugene Weekly.
Three candidates are on the ballot this spring to fill the open seat on the Multnomah County Commission. The seat, which represents Southeast Portland, was vacated when Jessica Vega Peterson won election to Multnomah County Chair last fall. Ana del Rocío, former David Douglas School Board member; Albert Kaufman, board member for neighborhood association Southeast Uplift; and Julia Brim-Edwards, Portland Public School Board member will all join us for a debate in collaboration with Street Roots, Portland’s street newspaper. Ballots are due May 16th.
Across the country, 60 schools are offering a unique course that teaches students about African American history. McDaniel High School is just one of the many schools selected by the College Board to help pilot the new AP African American Studies course. The hope is that by 2025 high schools across the U.S. will have the option to offer this course and allow students to take the exam for college credit. Maurice Cowley is Oregon’s first and only educator currently teaching this course. He joins us to share what his students are learning and his hopes for the future.
Earlier this month, the Oregon School Activities Association unanimously voted in favor of making girls wrestling an official high school sport starting in the fall. The move is intended to boost equity for girls wrestling programs in Oregon by improving access to training facilities and coaching staff, and by separately scheduling competitions for girls and boys matches. Since the 2018-2019 wrestling season, the OSAA has awarded state championship titles for girls wrestling matches, which previously were held as exhibition tournaments.
According to a proposal submitted by school athletic officials to the OSAA in January, there are more than 1,100 athletes competing in girls wrestling programs in Oregon high schools, a 25 percent increase from the previous year. Nationwide, participation in the sport increased by 50 percent in just four years, according to a 2021-2022 survey conducted by the National Federation of State High School Associations.
Joining us to talk about girls wrestling in Oregon are Sarahi Chavez, a sophomore and member of the girls wrestling team at McKay High School in Salem; Jessica Lister, the head coach of the girls wrestling team at Hood River Valley High School and a three-time All-American wrestler; and Trent Kroll, the athletic director of Hood River Valley High School who successfully petitioned the OSAA to change the status of girls wrestling.
Vancouver has between 250 to 400 units available to rent for short stays through Airbnb, VRBO and other sites, according to data collected by city officials. Most of them, however, are operating illegally because of zoning restrictions on short-term rentals, a period of stay that the city defines as less than 30 days, in residential neighborhoods. As a recent article in The Columbian reveals, Vancouver city officials are now attempting to bring short-term rentals into compliance by proposing new regulations, including a $250 operating permit which owners of the units would need to apply for. Carlos Fuentes is the city and federal reporter for The Columbian. He joins us to talk about this issue.
What’s it like, for a woman in the U.S. today to experience pregnancy and birth for the first time? And how has that changed over time? Why are maternal death rates higher here than in other countries? Those are questions Portland journalist Rebecca Grant takes on in her new book, “Birth: Three Mothers, Nine months and Pregnancy in America.” While the percentage of home births has risen recently to a 30 year high and the numbers of independent birth centers are rising, about 98% of births still occur in hospitals. She joins us to talk about her reporting and what these three women’s stories tell us about the state of maternal health in this country.
The Environmental Protection Agency has awarded $10 million to Portland State University, Willamette Partnership and several other organizations to establish an assistance center. The Environmental and Energy Justice Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Center is a part of the Justice40 Initiative and has a goal of increasing environmental justice and economic opportunities for historically disadvantaged communities. Lynny Brown is the health and environment partner at Willamette Partnership. Cheyenne Holiday is the energy, climate and transportation manager at Verde. And Direlle Calica is the Director of PSU’s Institute for Tribal Governments. They all join us now to share the vision of the center.
Smith Rock State Park in Central Oregon features scenic rock formations and volcanic cliff walls that provide sweeping views of the Crooked River and canyon floor below. It's also a premier rock climbing destination, with more than 1,500 bolted routes for climbers to maneuver. According to park officials, Smith Rock’s popularity has soared in the past decade, with nearly a million people visiting it in 2021. At roughly 700 acres, Smith Rock also provides critical habitat for golden eagles, prairie falcons and other raptors, prompting seasonal climbing closures and restrictions to limit hiking on trails near nesting sites.
Last week, the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department unveiled a new draft “Master Plan” for Smith Rock, and is accepting public comments on it until May 15. The document is intended to serve as a roadmap to guide management and planning priorities at the park for the next 20 years, from upgrading bathroom facilities to instituting a reservation system for parking to relieve congestion. Other proposals include expanding trail access to people who use wheelchairs or have limited mobility, and creating a set of standards for rock climbing behavior and etiquette at the park. Matt Davey, Park Manager at Smith Rock State Park, and Max Tepfer, the president of the High Desert Climbers Alliance and a professional rock climbing guide based in Bend, join us to discuss the new plan.
In downtown Portland, squatters broke into a vacant multi-story property. The area near Washington Center became a “problematic corner of downtown,” according to reporting by Willamette Week, with ongoing drug trafficking and other criminal activity. Anthony Effinger is a reporter at Willamette Week. He joins us with more on his reporting and what he learned about fentanyl use in Portland and the city’s efforts to manage the situation.
In Medford, the downtown library location has offered social services for people experiencing homelessness, including social worker appointments, meetings with nurses and camping gear rentals. For some, the services are a beacon of hope for people dealing with dire situations. But others in the city say that the location is now experiencing problems. City officials and the police department agree that the library has been flooded with calls, from putting out warming fires to drug use in the bathrooms. Buffy Pollock is a reporter for the Rogue Valley Times and wrote about what’s happening in the city. She joins us with details of her reporting.
Since the 2018-19 school year, Portland Public Schools has seen a decline in elementary enrollment by 17.3%. The reasons include safety concerns, the rising cost of living in Portland and a plethora of other schooling choices like charter and private options. Rachel Saslow is a freelance reporter based in Portland. She joins us to share why parents are leaving neighborhood schools.
The Karibu program provides culturally specific support for people in the Black community who are involved or at-risk of involvement with the criminal justice system and have behavioral health needs. Alonzo Roper is a case manager who has previously been incarcerated in Oregon. He says his clients know that he’s walked in their shoes, and that makes a difference in the connection he makes with them. We talk with him and Tori Hatter-Smith, Karibu program manager at Central City Concern.
Firefighters along the Oregon Coast say they’re struggling to meet increased call volumes with fewer and fewer volunteer staff. A group of North Coast fire chiefs requested to meet with the Daily Astorian about the issue, saying it's reached “a breaking point.” They say staffing struggles aren’t unique to the region, or even the state, but they hit particularly hard in smaller departments that are primarily staffed by volunteers.
Jeff Adkins is a battalion chief and acting fire chief at the Coos Bay Fire Department and Marc Reckmann is the fire chief for Cannon Beach Fire & Rescue. They join us to talk about the challenges firefighters are facing and how they plan to address them.
Author Nicole Chung was born to Korean immigrants in Seattle and later adopted by a white couple in Southern Oregon. The 2018 memoir “All You Can Ever Know” follows Chung’s exploration of her identity as a transracial adoptee as she searches for her birth family. Her second memoir, released earlier this month, covers the untimely deaths of her adoptive parents — first her father from kidney disease, then her mother from cancer in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. “A Living Remedy” chronicles Chung’s grief and rage as she reckons with ways financial instability and inadequate health care access contributed to her parents’ deaths.
Chung will be at Powell’s City of Books on Thursday, April 20, for a conversation with Lydia Kiesling. She joins us to talk about her most recent work.
“Suzie Hicks the Climate Chick” freely admits to being inspired by “Bill Nye the Science Guy.” But their focus is exclusively on engaging kids about climate change - and connecting them with solutions. Hicks’ pilot episode of their kids show, “Suzie Hicks the Climate Chick,” is part of the Ecofilm Festival at the Hollywood Theater in Northeast Portland. The show won them the festival’s Visionary Film Award, and they will be at the festival for a screening and workshop with kids. Suzie Hicks joins us in the studio to talk about the show and some best practices for engaging young kids about the most serious issue humanity faces.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency recovers American service members who were listed as prisoners of war or missing in action during their service. Earlier this year, the agency recovered U.S. Navy Aviation Ordnanceman First Class Anthony Di Petta, who was killed during World War II. His remains were located in the Republic of Palau. The federal agency partnered with Project Recover, an organization that uses science and technology to find missing service members around the world. Derek Abbey is the president and CEO of Project Recover. He is based in Bend but travels around the world working on missions for the organization. He joins us with details of his work and why he continues to locate service members that have been missing for
Earlier this year, conservative activists put pressure on the Crook County public library to segregate books that depict LGBTQ experiences. Now, one of the leaders of that effort is on a slate of candidates running for the Crook County school board in the May 16 election. OPB’s Joni Auden Land spoke to LGBTQ residents of Crook County about what living through this political moment there is like.
As a part of our new series, we’re taking a deep dive into people’s work lives. We’ll learn what it takes to do different kinds of jobs and how these professions change us.
David Beer is Portland’s Squeezebox Surgeon. He has studied the inner workings of accordions in Italy as well as at A World of Accordions Museum in Wisconsin. He operates on all different kinds of free reed instruments. He shares with us how he got into this business and gives us an inside look of how accordions work and what it takes to get them singing again.
There’s no official definition for the term “food sovereignty,” but the Indian Affairs Bureau describes it as “the ability of communities to determine the quantity and quality of the food that they consume by controlling how their food is produced and distributed.”
Portland-based news outlet Underscore recently tackled the topic in a new series. The Food Sovereignty Project features stories of Indigenous communities in and around the Columbia River Basin rebuilding food systems, reclaiming traditional foods and practices and preserving that knowledge for future generations.
Project co-director Nicole Charley joins us to talk more about the series and the importance of food sovereignty.
Oregon’s Bias Response Hotline connects residents with trauma-informed advocates trained in crisis intervention. The hotline began in 2020, and now, three years later, the hotline’s staff has grown and an emergency fund exists to help people escape situations involving bias. The fund has helped people move away or remove hateful language from personal belongings. We check in with Fay Stetz-Waters, the director of Civil Rights & Social Justice for the Oregon Department of Justice.
Mariachi Tradicion, a band made up of students from Forest Grove High School, has played with the Oregon Symphony, in front of audiences at Pickathon music festival, and will now perform later this month at the Jack London Review. The band was founded seven years ago by Lesslie Nuñez as an afterschool club at the middle school. Now, it is the only band from the Pacific Northwest to attend the International Mariachi Conference in Tucson every year. Nuñez and the band join us for music and conversation
Amateur fossil hunters have been digging at a spot near Mitchell, Oregon for years. They’ve found plenty of ammonites, and one dinosaur toe bone. A few years ago, the Bureau of Land Management granted a permit to the University of Oregon to try to find dinosaur bones at that site. A team of volunteers from the North American Research Group, a local fossil collecting group, along with an emeritus professor at the University of Oregon, set out to see what they could find. In the end, they didn’t find dinosaur bones. Instead, they found evidence that a lot of large bird-like dinosaurs had once spent a time eating and pooping at this spot - it’s likely this was once a home to a nesting colony of pterosaurs. Gregory Carr, who organized the dig, and Gregory Retallack, emeritus professor at UO, join us to talk about what they found.
Sophia Weiss is the owner of Firebird Farms, a working ranch nestled in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains outside of Ashland. But you won’t find any Angus beef cattle roaming and grazing on the rolling hills of her 200-acre property. Instead, you’ll find a herd of about 80 Tibetan yaks which Weiss has carefully bred and built up from a pair she acquired nearly a decade ago off a Craigslist ad.
In October, the USDA Rural Development office awarded Weiss nearly $235,000 to market and develop a range of new products made from her yaks. The federal agency awarded similar grants to 10 other small Oregon farms which it announced last month, in honor of “National Ag Day 2023”. Weiss is now using the grant dollars to work with mills in the Pacific Northwest to process the yak wool she harvests by hand to make into yarn and other textile goods in the coming months. Sophia Weiss joins us to talk about her farm and why she’s bullish about the future of yak ranching in Oregon and the nation.
The city of Stanfield, just southeast of Hermiston, is on the verge of explosive growth. The East Oregonian reports that roughly 450 new homes are set to go up in the next few years, representing a 50 percent population gain to the city of 2,400 residents. The increase means a larger tax base and the possibility of new economic opportunities, but it could also necessitate costly upgrades to the city’s wastewater infrastructure and school facilities as the district anticipates more students.
Stanfield City Manager Benjamin Burgener joins us to talk about the challenges and opportunities of rapid growth.
The Say Their Names Memorial was created in 2020 in response to the murders of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery. The memorial honored other Black lives lost to violence including Aidan Ellison who was killed by a white man in Ashland after complaining about Ellison’s loud music.
The memorial has been vandalized three times and the most recent incident happened earlier this year, the Rogue Valley Times reported. Community organizers gathered to repair the memorial earlier this month and are planning a more permanent installation in Ashland Creek Park. Micah BlackLight is a multidisciplinary artist and teacher. His design has been selected for the permanent installation. Cassie Preskenis is a community activist and public art advocate. They join us.
Nikki Kuhnhausen was a trans teen killed in a hate crime in Vancouver, WA in 2019. The new play, “American Girl,” is by playwright Mikki Gillette and based on her extensive interviews with Kuhnhausen’s family and friends. Gillette joins us to talk about the play, and this sadly very American story.
Warrenton Mayor Henry Balensifer says the elk are no longer just a nuisance in his coastal community. They’re actually damaging property and some seniors in the area have been prevented from leaving their homes as elk have charged at them when they attempted to go from their front door to their car. For years, a coalition of groups has been working on how to address this ever-worsening problem. The Clatsop Plains Elk Collaborative has been busy since 2019. Part of the Oregon Solutions at Portland State University, the project team includes the mayors of Warrenton, Seaside and more than two dozen stakeholders. Everything is on the table, the mayor says, including enforcing feeding bans, tagging and tracking, as well as culling. He joins us to tell us more about the plan and what happens next.
For nearly 50 years, parking in Salem’s downtown was free. But a new plan from city officials may bring this to an end. Currently, the costs of maintenance, insurance, landscaping and other amenities in the downtown area are paid through a tax on area businesses. Expenses have now outpaced revenues, which is what led to the creation of a new plan for pay-to-park stations. The local business tax would be repealed. Abbey McDonald is the community reporter for the Salem Reporter. She joins us to share what parking currently looks like in Salem and the impact this change could have.
“We should have the right to repair our stuff,” says Oregon Senator Janeen Sollman (D-Hillsboro). In an op-ed in the Portland Tribune, she made the case for Senate Bill 542, known as the Right to Repair bill. She says too often, when a device breaks the only option is to get a new one or take it back to the manufacturer or authorized repair technicians. Either option can be expensive and consumers should have the ability to do the repairs themselves, Sollman said. And to do that they need access to spare parts, repair documentation like the schematics and manuals, diagnostic software, and special tools.
The Right to Repair bill was voted out of the Energy and Environment committee this week, which Sollman chairs. She joins us to tell us more about what the bill would do and the impact it could have for consumers.
Last month, the Salem-Keizer school board chose Andrea Castañeda as their new superintendent. Castañeda comes to Oregon from Tulsa, OK, where she was the head of the Public Schools’ personnel office. She officially begins work on July 1st. We talk to Castañeda about what she envisions for one of the largest school districts in the state.
Last month, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality announced more than $13 million in grants to help expand electric vehicle charging infrastructure in the state. But these aren’t your typical EV chargers for drivers to pull up to, located near major highways or tucked inside parking garages or strip mall parking lots. The charging equipment targeted by these grants are designed to power up fleets of vehicles such as delivery vans, buses and large trucks hauling freight bound for same or next-day delivery.
Most heavy and medium-duty vehicles run on diesel and account for nearly a quarter of Oregon’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to the DEQ. In 2021, the agency adopted the Advanced Clean Truck Rule which requires manufacturers to sell an increasing percentage of zero-emission medium and heavy duty vehicles in Oregon starting with the 2025 model year. Joining us to talk about the opportunities and challenges of electrifying their trucking fleet are executives from two Portland-based companies. Randy Carpenter is the director of development at Airport Drayage Company, and Keith Wilson is the president and CEO of Titan Freight Systems.
Oregon is home to 15 different species of bats. As we approach warmer weather and springtime is around the corner, bats hibernating in caves are beginning to wake up and those who migrated away are making their way back.
While bats can prey on fruit, fish and even blood, all of Oregon’s bats are on an insect-only diet, with many catching as many as 600 bugs an hour. Despite their role as pollinators and pest control, a majority of these flying mammals in Oregon are classified as a state sensitive species, meaning they are facing one or more threats to their population or habitat. Beth Ward is the Northwest Bat Hub Coordinator with the HERS Lab at OSU Cascades. She joins us to share more on the bats residing in Oregon.
The murders of people experiencing homelessness across the U.S. is on the rise. Data from the Los Angeles Police Department shows that people experiencing homelessness are two to three times more likely to be a victim than a suspect of a crime. In Multnomah County, these types of homicides more than doubled from eight in 2020, to 18 in 2021. Thatcher Schmid is a freelance journalist who reported on this trend for The Nation. He joins us to share what is causing this rise in crime in Portland and across the country.
Last month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service held a ceremony to celebrate new visitor activities and expanded access to the Wapato Lake National Wildlife Refuge, located roughly 30 miles west of Portland near the town of Gaston. The refuge features more than 800 acres of wetlands and wildlife habitat for animals such as tundra swans, pintail ducks and other migrating waterfowl that visitors can see this time of year while walking along a recently opened, 2.6-mile trail on top of a levee partially surrounding the lake. While the refuge is open year-round, public access is restricted in December and January to waterfowl hunting.
For generations, the Indigenous Tualatin Kalapuya people depended on Wapato Lake for cultural and nutritional sustenance before they were forcibly relocated in the mid-1800s and the land turned over to farming. Since the establishment of the refuge in 2013, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been partnering with members of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde and other organizations to plant edible wapato tubers along the lake, restore wetlands and remove invasive species such as reed canary grass. Rebecca Gómez Chuck is the manager of the Wapato Lake National Wildlife Refuge and the Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge. She joins us to talk about what visitors can expect to see and explore at Wapato Lake.
Deep in the ocean, superheated seawater blasts out of cracks in the seafloor known as hydrothermal vents. Though they might sound inhospitable, these vents actually support a host of microbial life forms. New research from Portland State University shows just how diverse that life can be. Researchers identified thousands of microbes across 40 different vent populations, many of which have never been identified before. PSU biology professor Anna-Louise Reysenbach led the study and joins us with more details.
A 60-unit permanent supportive housing community for people exiting homelessness held its grand opening this week. The Hattie Redmond Apartments are located in Portland’s
Kenton neighborhood in North Portland and was designed for those with disabilities who request access to culturally specific services within the Black community. We hear more about the housing and its programs from Nkenge Harmon Johnson, the president and CEO of the Urban League of Portland which co-developed the apartments.
In 2020, Oregon became the first state in the nation to allow the supervised use of psilocybin. Voters approved a measure that directed the Oregon Health Authority to develop a program of rules and regulations around the hallucinogen’s use.
Two and a half years later, the state is now accepting license applications for psilocybin facilitators, service centers, manufacturers and laboratories. The rollout has been rocky at times, with a major trainer for the program going bankrupt and several counties and municipalities opting out of the program. But the state’s first facilitators have graduated from training, and the first manufacturing licenses have now been issued.
We get an update on the rollout from Angie Allbee, manager of the psilocybin services section at OHA.
Chris Williams wants to “make less strangers in the world.” That’s the tagline for his storytelling, dialogue-fostering series called Front Porch Sessions. Williams is a story coach, an improv performer and an educator. Like many storytelling event producers, he selects a theme for the speakers who will tell their stories in front of a live audience. But unlike other events, after the stories, audience members are asked a question that they discuss in small groups for 10 minutes afterwards. He began these conversation events in 2016 as a way to bring people together and create connections between strangers. He joins us to talk about the most recent FPS event - the first one to be held in person since 2020 - and how he tries to “make less strangers” in his other pursuits as well.
The Oregon Health Authority announced last month that face masks would no longer be required in health care settings beginning April 3. The mandate originally went into effect in August 2021 to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in hospitals, urgent cares and other medical facilities. The new guidance doesn’t prevent health care facilities from continuing to require masks, leaving providers around the state to decide whether and how to update their policies.
Asante Health System in southern Oregon will discontinue its COVID-era mask requirements. Holly Nickerson, vice president of quality and patient safety, joins us to talk about how the decision was made and what patients and staff can expect going forward.
If you’ve seen live music in Portland over the last couple of decades there’s a decent chance you’ve seen Jenny Conlee on the accordion or keyboard. She may be best known for her work with The Decemberists, with whom she’s played for the last 23 years. She has also played with Casey Neill and the Norway Rats, Jerry Joseph, Little Sue, The Minus Five, Stephanie Schneiderman
or Ashley Flynn. Conlee has a new solo album out called “Tides: Pieces for Accordion and Piano.” Some of the original songs were inspired by her time on the southern Washington coast. Conlee joins us in the studio to tell us more about “Tides” and play a few songs on accordion.
On April 24, a 75-bed navigation center for people experiencing homelessness will open in Salem. The facility will be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week and will be the first of its kind in Marion County. Case workers will be on site to help clients access medical care, behavioral health services and transition to stable housing. City officials say it is designed to be a “low barrier” shelter which does not require sobriety for entry, and accepts all genders, as well as pets.
The Salem City Council has allocated more than $23 million in state and federal funds to expand shelter and homeless services, including launching this spring a third micro-shelter community of small living units to temporarily house young adults, 18 to 24 years old. The city is also opening 52 units inside a former Oregon State Hospital building to provide permanent supportive housing for unsheltered people who are disabled, mentally ill or have other complex medical and behavioral health needs. Joining us to talk about Salem’s efforts to tackle a growing homelessness crisis are Salem Mayor Chris Hoy and Salem Housing Authority Administrator Nicole Utz.
A young woman in the midst of cancer treatment goes on a road trip in a broken down el camino with her no-good ex-boyfriend. A man working as a ghoul at a sort of halloween theme park learns that his whole life has been a lie. A gay man is forced to come out over and over again to his senile misogynist father. A mother’s moral outrage on behalf of her son goes seriously awry. Two new collections of short stories tell stories about people living on the edge of a society that is failing them. George Saunders’ “Liberation Day” is filled with wry humor, even as his characters are often trapped by their own foolishness. The characters in Jess Walter’s collection, “The Angel of Rome,” are often filled with humor and hope, even as they struggle against poverty and indifference. OPB’s Geoff Norcross talks to Saunders and Walter about the art of writing short stories about our time.
The Oregon-based nonprofit LifeWorks NW began providing mental health services more than 60 years ago, long before the idea of providing mental health services in the community was recognized as a best practice. Today the nonprofit runs a variety of mental health treatment programs, including Adolescent Day Treatment and one of the state’s Early Assessment and Support Alliance programs. It’s also one of the three partners of the Bridge clinic at OHSU.
As a part of a new OPB series tackling some of the most pressing problems that Oregonians are facing, along with some promising solutions, we went to the LifeWorks NW Tigard site and sat down with those involved in receiving and giving mental health care.Our guests were: Massimo Merolla, an Oregon State University sophomore; Occupational Therapist Kylie McDermott; Tamara Sale, director of the EASA Center for Excellence; Sara Cady and her dad Josh Cady; Family Therapist Becca Schweigert; and Karen Bos, OHSU assistant professor and medical director of LifeWorks NW.
Whale Watch Week officially kicked off on Tuesday, a chance to catch gray whales as they pass along the Oregon coast during a migration which stretches from the warm lagoons of Baja, Mexico to the icy waters of Alaska. The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department hosts the whale watching event twice a year, including most recently last December, when it took place for the first time in person since the start of the pandemic. For the spring event, 17 viewing sites have been set up from Fort Stevens near Astoria to Harris Beach near the California border. At each of the sites the public can explore interactive exhibits, grab a pair of binoculars and get help from trained volunteers to spot the marine mammals traveling about a mile off the coast, some with recently birthed calves in tow. Peter McBride is a park ranger with the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department based at Beverly Beach, near Newport. He joins us to talk about Whale Watch Week and what visitors can expect to see during the event which ends this Sunday.
Last year, nearly 70,000 people reported to the Federal Trade Commission that they were caught up in a romance scam, with their swindlers raking in a total of $1.3 billion. A romance scam, or confidence scam, is when someone feigns affection or attraction to someone for financial or material gain. In Oregon, victims of these cons lost over $10 million between January and October of 2022. Freelance journalist Ian Frisch reported on one Portlander's experience with this type of scam for The Verge. He joins us to discuss the growing trend of romance scams and how one man’s Tinder date turned into a car theft police sting.
Earlier this month, the governor’s office announced that Malheur County has been added to a homelessness state of emergency. The rural county has faced its own issues with homelessness and officials say that it has few resources to manage the issue. Tom Vialpando is the mayor of Vale. He joins us with more on what he hopes to see happen in the county.
"Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell about Fear" explores danger and culture through stories about wolves. Portland-based author Erica Berry weaves in her own experiences and encounters with "big, bad wolves." She also charts the journey of OR 7, a radio-collared Oregon wolf who wanders throughout the state and into California. Berry joins us to discuss her book and what wolves mean to us.
We listen back to a 2016 conversation with Walter Cole, whose alter ego was the legendary Portland drag queen Darcelle. Cole died last week at the age of 92.
The invasive brook trout is out-competing with the native and endangered bull trout in the waterways of the Malheur National Forest. Now, new efforts are underway to eradicate the invasive fish from High Lake and Lake Creek starting this summer. An advisory committee composed of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Forest Service, Oregon Fish and Wildlife and the Burns Paiute Tribe will oversee and undertake the project. Brandon Haslick is the Fisheries Program Manager for the tribe. He joins us to share the details of the plan and the damage the brook trout has caused.
The city of Ashland recently hired its first emergency management coordinator. Kelly Burns is a longtime firefighter with the Ashland Fire and Rescue Department. He’ll oversee the creation of a local emergency operations center in partnership with Southern Oregon University and the Ashland School District. With wildfire season on the horizon, he joins us to talk about his vision for the role and how he hopes to prepare the city for future crises.
A few years ago we spent a whole day at the central branch of the Multnomah County public library. We talked to patrons and librarians and tourists and behind-the-scenes workers.
In 2017, Oregon passed a law that was aimed at reducing wage disparities for employees performing the same work. Historically, women and people of color have earned lower wages than their white or male co-workers. Years later, a report from Oregon’s audit division found that wage gaps in government positions still remain. Ian Green is an audit manager for the Oregon Secretary of State audits division. Jennifer Freyd is a professor emerit of psychology at the University of Oregon. They join us with details of the report and how persistent pay disparities affect employees.
Oregon’s spring ocean salmon season was supposed to open in mid-March, but the National Marine Fisheries Service closed both the recreational and commercial seasons through mid-May in much of the state. Marine agencies expect extremely low returns of California Chinook salmon in the Klamath and Sacramento rivers, meaning the fall-run season could be further restricted. The Pacific Marine Fisheries Council is considering three alternatives for the season, all of which would cancel commercial and recreational Chinook fishing south of Cape Falcon through Sept. 1.
Though the closure is meant to protect future salmon populations, it could mean the loss of a year’s income for fishers along the coast. Barry McCovey, fisheries department director for the Yurok Tribe, and Brett Montague, a commercial salmon troller based in Newport join us to talk about the impacts of the closure.
States all over the country are hoping to lure federal money, and semiconductor companies, after Congress recently passed the CHIPS bill. In Oregon, lawmakers are considering a major overhaul of longstanding land-use laws to do just that. Duncan Wyse, president of the Oregon Business Council, and Sam Diaz, executive director of 1,000 Friends of Oregon, join us to discuss the changes the Legislature is considering.
Kristen Grainger, along with Bre Gregg, Beth Wood and others, continue their series of live concerts celebrating women this weekend. The first stops on the “She’s Speaking” tour were in Lincoln City and Salem. She and seven other women will play in Portland and Ilwaco, Washington this Saturday and Sunday. The idea is to put on a series of great concerts and bring attention to the gap in representation and opportunities for women in the male-dominated music industry. Grainger joins us to tell us more about the artists involved in “She’s Speaking” and play some of her own music in the studio.
Students from North Portland’s Jefferson High School made history earlier this month. Two members of the Jefferson Dancers won awards for choreography at the National High School Dance Festival. It was the first time any school won top honors for two different pieces. We’ll talk with one of the young choreographers, John Kearney, and the group’s artistic director, Steve Gonzales.
More than 1,200 acres of land about seven miles from downtown Eugene will now be managed by the McKenzie River Trust. The Willamette Confluence Preserve includes wetlands, a floodplain forest and is home to more than 30 native fish species and other wildlife. Joe Moll is the executive director of the trust. He joins us with how the organization plans to preserve the area moving forward.
Space exploration and the potential habitability of other planets are on the cutting edge of scientific research. But University of Oregon archaeology professor Scott Fitzpatrick says humans made similar advances thousands of years ago when they traveled vast distances to populate remote islands.
Fitzpatrick compares early island exploration to space travel in a recent chapter he contributed to a new book. He joins us to talk about the parallels between the two and how looking to the past could make future space travel more successful.
Last week a federal judge ruled that the National Marine Fisheries Service can no longer continue to issue permits for the incidental take of humpback whales when they get tangled in sablefish pot gear off the West coast. The lawsuit was filed by the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity. Kristen Monsell, the oceans legal director at the center, joins us to discuss what the ruling means.
SheJumps is a nonprofit that offers programs in Oregon, Washington and 14 other states designed to reduce barriers for and boost the participation of women and girls in outdoor recreation activities. Since 2018, it has offered the Snowpack Avalanche Scholarship Program, a free, two-day course which teaches valuable safety skills in backcountry skiing. Unlike its traditional, downhill counterpart, backcountry skiing typically takes place on ungroomed and unpatrolled terrain where avalanche risk abounds and equipment like shovels and rescue beacons can help save lives. Columbia Gorge News previously wrote about the organization's most recent course which was held last month at Mount Hood and awarded to 12 people, half of them women of color. Joining us to talk about the scholarship program and the impact it’s having to make snow sports more inclusive are Robyn Gelfand, the national program director at SheJumps, and Vivian Tang, a West Linn-based recipient of the 2022-2023 SheJumps Snowpack Avalanche Scholarship.
The sunflower sea star is one of the world’s largest sea stars, growing more than three feet across with two dozen limbs and a territory that once stretched from Baja California, Mexico to the Alaskan Aleutian Islands. But more than 90 percent of these marine invertebrates have been wiped out, and can now mainly be found in the cooler coastal waters of Washington State and British Columbia. Since 2013, sea stars along the West Coast have been decimated by a mysterious wasting disease that may be linked to climate change, and results in loss of limbs, melting tissues and death, often in just a few days.
On Thursday, the National Marine Fisheries Service proposed listing the sunflower sea star as threatened under the Endangered Species Act to aid in its recovery. While there is no cure for sea star wasting syndrome, staff at the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport spent two years developing a treatment that has helped save stressed, injured and sick sea stars, including those afflicted with the disease. Evonne Mochon Collura, a sea jelly specialist and assistant curator of fish and invertebrates at the Oregon Coast Aquarium, joins us to share details of the treatment program.
This past weekend marked the 60th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that requires the state to provide and pay for an attorney if it charges a person with a crime. The promise of Gideon v. Wainwright is particularly poignant in the midst of a nationwide public defender shortage. In Oregon, both prosecutors and public defenders say the situation here is nothing short of a crisis. An American Bar Association report called it unconstitutional.
Democratic leadership in the Oregon legislature has acknowledged the crisis and said addressing it is a priority. But with the 2023 session fully under way, public defenders say they don’t see meaningful action so far. Meanwhile, attorneys in Marion county filed a recent motion that many hope will quickly make its way to the state supreme court. It asks for public defenders to be withdrawn from certain cases, for a stop to appointing lawyers to some new cases and a dismissal of remaining charges for anyone left without court-appointed counsel.
Federal Public Defender Lisa Hay, and Carl MacPherson, the executive director of Metropolitan Public Defender join us to discuss the challenges Oregon faces and possible ways forward.
For too many Oregonians, having a mental illness or substance use problem means repeated failed attempts to get help, and then a crisis: an emergency department visit, isolation in a jail cell, or an involuntary stay at the state’s overwhelmed psychiatric hospital. OPB health reporter Amelia Templeton talked to experts throughout the state to learn about several of the most pressing elements of the crisis — and about promising strategies to address them. We talk to Templeton about her reporting.
We’re starting a new series of conversations that will take us on deep dives into people’s work lives. We want to learn what it takes to do different jobs – the skills, the craft, the tools – and also how jobs change us.
First up is glass artist Evan Burnette. He’s the owner and head designer of Portland’s only public glassblowing studio, Local Art Glass. In addition to the studio’s range of vases, ornaments and drinkware, Burnette produces his own glass art that ranges from glittery chickens to flying pickles.
He gives us a tour of his studio, demonstrates blowing a vase and tells us what he finds so magical about glass.
The artist Rita Robillard grew up in New York City and later spent time in California and Brazil. She’s made her home in the Pacific Northwest for decades now, first moving to Pullman, Washington in 1986. Since 1998 she’s lived in Portland, where she served as the chair of Portland State University’s art department.
All of these places have made an imprint on Robillard’s work.
She is a photographer, a painter, and a printmaker -- a visual artist who uses multiple media on individual works to convey a place’s history and ecology. She creates layers literally and figuratively.
A major retrospective of Robillard’s art is on display at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art in Salem through March 25. It features 54 works created during the last 40 years.
Robillard gave us a tour of the show, where she talked about her work and her life.
With 73 individuals remaining, southern resident killer whales, or orcas, are the only endangered population of killer whales in the U.S. They spend the spring, summer and fall hunting for salmon throughout the inland and coastal waterways of Washington and British Columbia. Their territory overlaps with northern resident killer whales which hunt for salmon from Glacier Bay, Alaska to the central coast of Washington, and share a similar matrilineal social structure. Both groups face threats such as plummeting salmon stocks, pollution and increased maritime activity. But unlike the population of northern resident orcas, which has been steadily increasing, the southern resident population has declined over the past 20 years.
A team of international scientists has now revealed another possible clue to help explain their struggle for survival. They found that adult males spent more time hunting and catching salmon than females within the southern resident population, with the foraging pattern reversed in the northern population. They also found that southern resident mothers with calves spent less time hunting than northern resident mothers. Joining us now is Jennifer Tennessen, a senior scientist at the University of Washington Center for Ecosystem Sentinels, and the lead author of the study which was published this month in the journal Behavioral Ecology.
A recent draft report from the Oregon Health Authority found high levels of dioxin contamination in some yards in a Eugene neighborhood. Dioxins are highly toxic pollutants that can cause cancer, reproductive problems and damage to immune systems. Residents have been instructed to keep their children from playing in the dirt and to not eat eggs from backyard chickens until the soil can be replaced.
The contamination likely stemmed from the nearby J.H. Baxter plant, which treated wood products with rot-prevention chemicals like creosote. The plant accrued fines for emissions violations and chemical mishandling and raised complaints from neighbors for years before it shuttered in 2022. The OHA report is part of a state and federal investigation into contamination at and around the site.
Christian Wihtol has been covering this issue for The Lund Report. He joins us with more details on the agency's findings.
This week, the Portland Bureau of Transportation released its annual report on traffic deaths. It found that 63 people died in traffic crashes in 2022. The Street Trust, a Portland-based advocacy group focused on transportation, recently issued six recommendations to reduce pedestrian fatalities in Oregon. Sarah Iannarone is the executive director of the organization. She joins us with more on the trust’s vision for a safer Oregon.
In a career spanning more than three decades, Georgina Hayns has been making puppets that have been brought to life through the art of stop-motion animation on TV shows and feature films like “Bob the Builder” and Tim Burton’s “Corpse Bride.” But instead of relying on computers to do the animating, the characters in stop-motion animation are made by hand from materials like clay, latex and silicone. They are then animated by being positioned on sets and moved in tiny increments, with each movement recorded frame by frame.
Today, Hayns is the director of character fabrication at ShadowMachine, a stop-motion animation studio in Portland. She recently led a team of artists who made 200 puppets for an animated, Academy Award-winning version of “Pinocchio” by director Guillermo del Toro. She joins us to talk about working on the film, the opportunity that led her to leave her native England for Portland and the enduring appeal of an avowedly analog style of filmmaking.
A bill in the Oregon House of Representatives would ban the sale of all flavored tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes, flavored e-cigarettes and hookah. Five states have enacted similar bans, including California, which allows an exception for hookah sales. In Oregon, Washington and Multnomah counties both voted to ban flavored tobacco sales, but a state circuit court judge ruled in 2022 that only the state has that authority.
Here to tell us more about the bill is Dr. James Bishara, a pediatric cardiologist at OHSU’s Doernbecher Children’s Hospital.
In Oregon, people released from prison were 10 times more likely to overdose on opioids compared to the general population, according to a new study that tracked prison release and overdose data from 2014 to 2018. The risk of overdose doubled during the first two weeks of release, and formerly incarcerated women were almost twice as likely as men to experience an opioid overdose. A team of scientists from Oregon State University, Oregon Health & Science University and the Oregon Department of Corrections shared these findings which were published in the Journal of Substance Use and Addiction Treatment. The study looked at both fatal and non-fatal opioid overdoses using data collected from the Department of Corrections, state Medicaid insurance claims for emergency room and hospital admissions, as well as death certificates. Joining us are Dan Hartung, a professor in the College of Pharmacy at Oregon State University and Elizabeth Waddell, an associate professor at the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health, to talk about the research and new efforts in Oregon to expand access to substance use treatment both during and after incarceration.
Caregivers in Oregon group homes are reaching a crisis. Facing long hours, low pay and concerns for safety, these state employees with the Department of Health and Human Services are urging their bosses to listen to their concerns and address working conditions. Christina Sydenstricker-Brown is a caregiver. Ben Botkin is the criminal justice and health reporter for the Oregon Capital Chronicle and has been covering this issue. They both join us to share the conditions these more than 600 employees are facing and what it could mean for the future of the industry
Portland’s Central library in the heart of the city’s downtown is by far its biggest branch. It also provides internet and other services to those who may be experiencing homelessness or just want to duck in to get out of the elements. Some bond funded renovations started last year, but now the building will close while various updates get completed. The Albina branch will be closing temporarily for construction later this week, followed by the North Portland branch in early April. The Holgate and Midland branches are currently closed for renovations.
Taxpayer backed bonds are also funding a huge brand new library in Gresham. Katie O’Dell has worked at the Multnomah County Library for much of her career and she’s currently the capital bond deputy director there. She joins us to tell us about what’s happening system-wide and the plans the library has made to backfill services while some of these critical facilities are getting remade.
A structure at the base of Portland’s Steel Bridge caught fire Wednesday. Crews found that people had been living inside the structure after tunneling inside. We’ll get an update on the situation from Rick Graves, public information officer for Portland Fire & Rescue.
Skin disease and alcohol use disorder may not be related conditions, but new research from Oregon Health & Science University suggests they could be treated by the same medication. Researchers ran animal studies and found that apremilast, which is normally used to treat psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, had an effect on alcohol consumption. In human studies conducted at the Scripps Research Institute in California, participants who received apremilast reduced their alcohol intake from five to two drinks per day, on average.
Angela Ozburn is an associate professor of behavioral neuroscience at OHSU and a senior author of the study. She joins to tell us more.
A celebration of cheese is shaping up in Central Point. The festival on Saturday and Sunday will showcase cheese created across Oregon. Katie Bray is the executive director of the Oregon Cheese Guild. She said the event allows cheese lovers to learn more about the artisan selections made in places like the Willamette Valley and Southern Oregon. She joins us with details.
In January, a polar bear attacked two people in Wales, Alaska. It was the first fatal attack in Alaska in 30 years, the Associated Press reports.
And researchers at the University of Washington have found that as the climate changes, conflicts between humans and wildlife have increased. From polar bears spending more time on land as warmer temperatures melt the ice they depend on, to drought forcing elephants into villages as they seek water, conflicts are happening around the world.
Leight West is a doctoral student at the University of Washington and a co-author of the study. She joins us with more details on the research.
Last May, Mayor Ted Wheeler issued an emergency declaration aimed at cleaning up the city. This includes dealing with trash, illegal dumping and graffiti. While the city council recently voted on sending out more graffiti cleaners, businesses are struggling with weekly tagging and advocates are looking for more equitable solutions. As a part of our series on Portland graffiti, Dakota Thompson, the deputy director of community safety for Portland, joins us to share graffiti trends in the city and plans to address it in the future.
The Bureau of Land Management recently approved a controversial forest management project in Southwest Oregon. The plan, called the “Late Mungers” project, includes roughly 7,500 acres of prescribed burning and tree thinning, as well as 830 acres of logging. It’s one of the first projects approved under the BLM’s Integrated Vegetation Management plan, which the agency says will allow it to increase the “scope, scale and pace” of its wildfire prevention efforts.
But as Jefferson Public Radio has reported, the plan has faced significant backlash from environmental groups in the region. They argue that the accelerated project timeline cuts out opportunities for public comment, and that the timber sales included in the project will actually increase fire risks and endanger wildlife.
For more details about the plan, we’re joined by BLM Medford District Manager Elizabeth Burghard and Luke Ruediger, conservation director for the Klamath Forest Alliance and executive director of the Applegate-Siskiyou Alliance.
The healthcare organization CareOregon has purchased a former Red Lion Hotel in Seaside, Oregon, with the goal of turning it into both workforce housing and permanent supportive housing for people with behavioral health needs. CareOregon's Columbia Pacific CCO will run the building and provide mental health and addiction treatment support. Two-thirds of the building will house healthcare workers. Mimi Haley, executive director of Columbia Pacific CCO, and Amy Baker, executive director of Clatsop Behavioral Health, join us with the details of the project.
Last year, Washington Governor Jay Inslee signed the Washington State Climate Commitment Act into law. It requires businesses to buy permits for the greenhouse gases they produce. The first auction for permits was held last week, and the state announced that they sold out quickly, with an average price nearly double that of the most recent cap-and-trade auction held by California and Quebec. Kate Yoder, a staff writer for Grist, explains the Washington program to us.
Nearly half a million people in the U.S. get Lyme disease every year, and most of them face symptoms that last a few weeks after the tick bite that transmitted the disease. But for some patients, the symptoms can last much longer. The medical community has been slow to recognize this form of long-lasting Lyme disease, and to find treatments for it. Winslow Crane-Murdoch, the co-director of a new documentary about Lyme disease, joins us to talk about his film "The Quiet Epidemic," and the history and controversy surrounding the medical treatment of the disease.
For most of the last three years, Tracy Schlapp and Danny Wilson have been working with a group of writers incarcerated at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem. Schlapp and Wilson’s writing program comes out of their nonprofit Bridgeworks Oregon, which is focused on art and music in prison.
Some of the writers in custody are serving long sentences, life sentences without the possibility of parole. Some have children -- and grandchildren -- they won’t likely ever see on the outside. More than 70,000 children in Oregon are impacted by incarceration.
The storytelling group is called Ground Beneath Us, and it uses prompts that come from school children’s questions - questions they may be too uncomfortable or afraid to ask an incarcerated family member directly.
Some of the men’s essays and poems are published in the new anthology called “Prisons Have a Long Memory.” Schlapp is the creative director of Bridgeworks Oregon. She edited the anthology with Wilson, and she joins us to tell us more about the program and the process.
Kyle Hedquist’s essays appear in the book, and he served on the editorial board. He now works as a lobbyist with the Oregon Justice Resource Center after being granted clemency by Governor Kate Brown last year. He also joins us to share about how he spent his time the 28 years he served, his writing and his commitment to creating community.
Methane is a greenhouse gas that is roughly 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere, making it a key target of global efforts to fight climate change. Dairy cows and beef cattle are a significant source of methane, which is released as a byproduct of food digestion in the stomach of cows and other hoofed animals. Kangaroos, like cows, also have microbes in their gut which aid in digesting plant material. But these microbes release acetic acid instead of methane. Scientists at Washington State University collected gut bacteria from zoo kangaroos, and then introduced cultures of the bacteria into a solution mimicking a cow’s stomach. The bacteria quickly flourished and replaced the community of methane-producing microbes. Birgitte Ahring is a professor in the Bioproducts, Sciences and Engineering Laboratory at Washington State University. She joins us to talk about the research, which is described in a paper recently published in the journal Biocatalysis and Agricultural Biotechnology, and how it could help the agriculture sector curb a potent greenhouse gas.
The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry aims to create a hub for science learning, arts and culture. The plan includes a waterfront education park, more than a thousand units of housing and public green space. The proposal recently received approval from the City of Portland Design Commission. We hear more about the proposal and next steps from Erin Graham, the CEO and president of OMSI.
The Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación, also referred to as CJNG, is a Mexican drug cartel with cells throughout the United States. Cartel members lived in Oregon and distributed fentanyl, meth and other illicit drugs in the state and across the country. The pockets of activity affected Portland and Hillsboro but also smaller communities like Oregon City, Seaside, and Hood River. Beth Warren is an enterprise and investigative reporter for the Courier Journal in Louisville, Kentucky. She reported on drug trafficking in Oregon and CJNG's efforts to expand its drug smuggling operations throughout the U.S.
Graffiti is not new to Portland. The term can include everything from a simple tag or initials to artistic murals on building walls. Whether it's words or pictures, graffiti has a documented history in the city that dates back to the late 1940s. As businesses deal with defaced property and unpermitted art, the city is moving on plans to expand deployment of contracted cleaners. But some advocates are looking to a different answer: a free wall. This would be a designated space for artists to gather, create and share ideas. As a part of our series on graffiti, we hear from Tiffany Conklin, the executive director of Portland Street Art Alliance. She joins us to share what a free wall would mean in Portland and the history of street art in the city.
Rachel Mackenzlee Mayta had to have one of her eyes removed when she was 2 years old. For many years after that, she wore a prosthetic eye that matched her other eye. But in Portland, she found an ocularist who started to create ‘fun eyes’ for her. The eyes are made of gold leaf, feature glow in the dark heart irises, can be silver or are filled with crystals. She uses her ‘fun eyes’ to talk openly on social media about surviving cancer and using prosthetic eyes. Mayta joins us with more on her experiences.
A proposed pump storage project near John Day Dam would store excess energy and could provide power to half a million homes. But, as the Yakama Nation and other tribes argue, the proposed location would destroy sacred gathering sites and resources that are irreplaceable. Toastie Oaster is a staff writer for High Country News and has been covering this issue. They join us to share more about what is at stake and the fight against the project.
The Portland city council voted last month to indefinitely table a proposal from the city auditor to create a new Transparency Advocate position. Instead, they passed a different transparency resolution introduced by commissioner Dan Ryan. We talked with Portland City Auditor Simone Rede following that vote, and she told us more about the city’s Charter Commission the proposal came out of and the community engagement process that led up to the council’s actions. Ryan joins us to share his perspective on efforts to improve transparency in the city council, explain what his council-passed resolution would do and what he hopes to see from the auditor’s office in the coming months.
Since she took office in January, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek has moved to address the state’s homelessness and affordable housing crises, detailed education and behavioral health spending in her first budget plan and navigated a scandal within the state Liquor and Cannabis Commission. She also kicked off a statewide tour of areas where she received the least support in the November election. We sit down with Kotek to talk about her first months in office and her priorities for the rest of her term.
Part memoir, part investigative journalism, Portland journalist Casey Parks’ new book, “Diary of a Misfit,” explores themes of religion, identity and family as she embarks on a mission to find a figure from her grandmother's past. As a child, Parks’ grandmother lived across the street from a “woman who lived as a man.” His name was Roy Hudgins.
Hudgins was many things. He was a country singer, a landscaper, a devout believer and a friend to some. Park’s book follows her decade-long journey on uncovering who Roy was as she explores not only his past but her own. Parks joins us to share what she learned about Roy and what it meant to be queer in the South.
Westview High School sophomore Abigail Figueroa has loved the Disney movie “Frozen” since it came out when she was five years old. She says she’s seen it countless times in the 10 years since, and loves its focus on adventure and the relationship between two royal sisters — not romance.
Last summer, not long before the first day of school, she came across an essay contest to win the rights to put on “Frozen: The Broadway Musical” on stage at her high school. There would be just one winner per state, and even though the deadline was the next day, and she had no time to consult her theater teacher or her high school, she decided to go for it. And she won! The show opens Thursday and runs through March 11. Figueroa was also cast in the show. She joins us, along with director Justin Hauke, to talk about how they won the exclusive rights and how their show fulfills the theme of the contest, “Love is an Open Door.”
When sea ice melts, it can lead to faster warming because water absorbs more heat than ice does. That’s one of more than 25 climate feedback loops found in a recent study from Oregon State University. Some of these feedback loops aren’t included in current climate models, partly because the science, and the climate, is changing so quickly. Jillian Gregg, co-author of the new report, joins us to explain what we should understand about feedback loops.
The Wild Bunch is a wine fair that celebrates natural wine made using practices like regenerative farming. Dana Frank is the event’s founder and has worked in the wine industry for more than 15 years. She says she hopes the event can be an inclusive environment for wine drinkers to explore natural wine. Nathan Wood is the vineyard manager for Johan Vineyards, and Luke Wylde is an owner and winemaker for Statera Cellars. They join us with details of the event and what the beverage means for different natural winemakers.
“The lesbian community, as far as I was concerned, ran the town.”
That’s a quote from Judy Goldstein’s oral history interview with the Eugene Lesbian History Project. The project uses first-person testimonies from Goldstein and more than 80 other volunteers to document the city’s lesbian community from roughly the 1960s to the 1990s. It's also on display in a new exhibit at the University of Oregon’s Museum of Natural and Cultural History. Goldstein and project director Judith Raiskin join us to talk about the history of Eugene’s lesbian community and why it’s important to document these stories now.
Bowhead whales are an endangered species of whale that spend their entire lives in the icy waters of the Arctic. They migrate north through the Bering Strait in the summer and fall to catch krill and other tiny crustaceans, and then travel south for the winter to the Bering Sea. But now, the rapid rate of melting Arctic sea ice due to climate change appears to be changing those migration patterns. Using 12 years of underwater recordings of bowhead whale songs, scientists at Oregon State University recently discovered that the whales have been delaying their migration through the Bering Strait in the fall, or opting to not pass through it at all during the winter months. Kate Stafford is an associate professor at the Oregon State University Marine Mammal Institute in Newport. She joins us to talk about the findings and what they mean for the health of bowhead whales, the ecology of the Arctic, and the Indigenous communities that embark on biannual whale hunts off the coast of Alaska.
Earlier this month, the Portland city council voted on some of its priorities for the year, including the plan to deploy more contracted cleaners as a part of its Graffiti Program. In the next few weeks, Think Out Loud will host a series of conversations about graffiti in Portland. We start with Bridgid Blackburn, the co-owner of the homegoods store Cargo. She says that she has seen an increase in unpermitted street art over the past 10 years in the Central Eastside. Because of the frequency of tagging she sees on her building, the hefty price tag that comes with a professional cleaner and the less than ideal timeline for a response from the city, she takes it upon herself to paint over any unwanted street art once a week. Blackburn joins us to share what she’s been seeing and what she hopes the city will do in the future.
In Lincoln City, Devil’s Lake provides a picturesque destination for recreation. But a fast-growing water weed known as Canadian pondweed is now taking over the lake, clogging motorboat engines and competing with native plants for nutrients. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has recently adopted rules that allow lake officials to reintroduce a grass-eating carp to the area. Joshua Brainerd is the executive director of the Devil’s Lake Water Improvement District. He joins us to share the issues this weed is causing and how this carp could help control vegetation.
People in Morrow and Umatilla counties have faced nitrate pollution in their drinking water for decades. Last year Morrow County declared an emergency and began distributing clean water and filters, but that order ended in January. The Environmental Protection Agency sent a strongly worded letter to the state encouraging it to take more action against polluters, but the Oregon Health Authority still hasn’t tested any residential wells. We talk to Paulo Lopez and Ana Maria Rodriguez, both residents of Boardman, about what contamination actually means for them on a daily basis.
When Portlanders voted to change to the city’s commission form of government in November, they opted for a complex system designed to be more representative and equitable. But the city’s independent auditor says in order to achieve those goals, a structure for accountability and transparency must be codified as well. Portland Auditor Simone Rede says that’s what led her to propose the creation of a Transparency Advocate to the city council. After nearly three hours of testimony and discussion the five city commissioners voted to “indefinitely table” her proposal. Instead, they passed a resolution put forward by Commissioner Dan Ryan that directed the auditor’s office to conduct a series of transparency inquiries -- a proposal Rede says she had not been consulted on or even been made aware of. She joins us to tell us more about the need for transparency, how her office has been working with community and civic groups to institutionalize it, and how she sees the process moving forward.
African immigrants make up the fourth-largest immigrant community in Multnomah County behind Latino, Asian and Slavic immigrants. The Center for African Health & Education provides community workshops, interpretation services and other resources with the goal of reducing health inequities for African immigrants and refugees in the Portland area. We hear more from Mohamed Ali, the center’s director.
Next week, 36 college and university teams will travel to Portland to compete in the Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl. It is the first time in the 30 year history of the competition that it will be held in Portland, in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics. Over the course of two days, judges will score matches between opposing teams based on how they respond to case studies that require ethical reasoning and decision-making. Each team has been given six weeks to research and prepare for the 17 case studies crafted for this year’s event. The cases span current affairs topics ranging from free speech on campus to the limits of copyright protections; the merits of trying to save the giant panda from extinction to the merits of efforts to combat accusations of racism and bias on reality TV.
John Garcia is the chair of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl Council and a professor of philosophy at Harper College in Palatine, Illinois. Eleanor Jeffers is a junior majoring in philosophy at Whitworth University in Spokane. They join us to talk about the ethics bowl, how it differs from debate competitions and what it offers in an era of political polarization and misinformation
Starting in 2017, all new apartment buildings built in Portland with more than 20 units must dedicate a portion of their units for low and moderate income housing. But some developers are choosing to pay a penalty instead of creating affordable housing. The developers of the new Ritz-Carlton building downtown may be paying more than $7 million dollars. Portland Business Journal reporter Jonathan Bach has been following Portland’s inclusionary zoning efforts and joins us to explain.
For months last year, protesters rallied through the streets of Iran after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died in police custody in September.
Now, protests in the country have diminished after a crackdown by authorities. Thousands of protesters were arrested, including journalists, and more than 500 people have been killed, according to one human rights group.
In Portland, for one college student, the country’s issues remain top of mind. His family still lives in Iran and has been affected by the movement. He joins us with details of his family’s experiences and why he hopes Oregonians will pay attention to what’s happening there.
Editor’s note: Because the student fears for the safety of his family, “Think Out Loud” will not be using his name.
The importance of getting more Oregon children learning more languages is what the U.S. Secretary of Education is scheduled to talk about on his trip to Woodburn this week. Meanwhile, the National Association of Bilingual Education is meeting in Portland for its annual conference. And the Beaverton School District is actively looking for input from parents on how to expand its dual language program. Toshiko Maurizio is the administrator for the district's multilingual programs and she says with more than 100 languages spoken in the district, it’s critical to hear from K-4th grade parents in particular where they would like to see the district invest their dual language dollars. We talk with Maurizio about the district's plan and what the research shows about how bilingual students compare academically with those who only speak English.
Western Oregon was blanketed Wednesday with nearly 11 inches of snow, which disrupted commutes and activities across the region. The heavy snow was the second biggest in Portland history and came as a surprise to forecasters who had predicted a much lighter dusting. We talk with National Weather Service meteorologist Colby Neuman, and get reactions from Rachel Pearl with Multnomah County’s department of human services and Newport Mayor Dean Sawyer.
Patrick Radden Keefe has made a career of finding out about people who don’t want to talk to him. In 2021 he published “Empire of Pain,” a nonfiction account of the Sackler family, noted philanthropists and purveyors of the opioid OxyContin. He has also taken on the Troubles in Ireland in his book “Say Nothing,” and CIA maneuvering during the Cold War in his podcast “Wind of Change.” Patrick Radden Keefe joins us in front of an audience of high school students at Lincoln High.
There are almost 200 school districts in Oregon, and each one is responsible for selecting its own curriculum. Oregon has a list of pre-approved curricula districts can choose from, but that means some schools are using discredited systems for teaching reading. Now, advocates, researchers and teachers are trying to incorporate new ways of teaching that focus on the science behind learning to read. Ronda Fritz is an associate professor in Eastern Oregon University's College of Education and is the director of the Reading Clinic there. Amanda Francois is a 4th grade teacher at Gilbert Heights Elementary in the David Douglas School District and has recently brought what she’s learned from LETRS, a science of reading course, into her classroom. They join us to share what makes the science of reading work and the challenges some teachers are now seeing.
Despite protections for wildlife in marine gardens along Oregon’s coast, officials at Haystack Rock are seeing bald spots. As The Astorian reports, locals are suspected to have been poaching mussels in the area. These incidents are not new, but officials are growing more concerned as these invertebrates play a vital role in sea star recovery efforts. Kelli Ennis is the director of the Haystack Rock Awareness Program. She joins us to share where poaching is occurring and how it may indirectly affect Oregon’s sea stars.
Fuels reduction, which includes tools like prescribed fires and thinning, can help maintain a healthy forest. As wildfires grow more severe, scientists and experts continue to explore what should be done to protect fragile ecosystems. Freelance writer and editor Emily Shepherd dug into these issues for High Country News. She joins us with more on what methods can help preserve forests.
We listen back to a conversation with writer Jill Lepore, author of “These Truths” and “The Secret History of Wonder Woman,” in front of a live audience at Literary Arts in downtown Portland from 2018.
When journalist Hua Hsu was in college, his best friend Ken was murdered in a bizarre turn of events. The next day, Hsu started writing about his friendship with Ken to try to wrap his head around the enormous loss. Over the next 20 years, that writing eventually turned into his latest book, “Stay True.” OPB’s Jenn Chavez talks to Hsu about his childhood growing up as a second-generation immigrant in California, and how that, and the death of his friend Ken, shaped who he is today.
When Melissa Febos was about twelve years old, her body changed, and so did her relationship with the world. Or actually, the world’s relationship with her. The way that society views - and uses and abuses - young women’s bodies is one of the many themes explored in Febos’ new book, “Girlhood.” Febos talks with OPB’s Tiffany Camhi about bodies, consent, mothers, cuddle parties and more.
According to the Oregon Health Authority, more than 13,500 Oregonians suffered a brain injury in 2020. But advocates say the number of people living with the chronic effects of those injuries is much higher. The long-term effects of a brain injury can range from confusion and short-term memory loss to depression, anger issues and lack of impulse control. Depending on the severity of the injury, patients may need access to things like employment and housing assistance in addition to medical and therapeutic services.
Oregon is one of 11 states that doesn’t have an established office to coordinate those services and help patients and their caregivers navigate the system. As Willamette Week reported recently, the state also lacks inpatient rehab beds for brain injury patients.
Joining us is David Kracke, Oregon’s Brain Injury Advocate/Coordinator. We talk with him about support services for brain injury patients and their loved ones and efforts to coordinate those services in the state.
he National Nuclear Security Administration has awarded $25 million to 16 universities across the state to help cultivate and bring more students into nuclear forensics - the science of investigating nuclear materials for evidence regarding the materials’ source. Oregon State University is one of the several schools that are a part of the consortium and will receive $2.5 million over the next five years. Camille Palmer is an associate professor in OSU’s school of Nuclear Science and Engineering. She will also serve as the deputy director and help lead the program. She joins us to explain why nuclear forensics is important and to share her hopes for the future of the industry.
Legacy Health is planning to close its Mount Hood Family Birth Center in Gresham next month. It serves about 275,000 people in east Multnomah County and the greater Mount Hood community, many of whom are low-income and not native English speakers. The decision drew a protest crowd this week outside the Legacy medical center. Jake Thomas from The Lund Report was there and joins us to talk about the slated closure and what it would mean for the community.
There may be more osprey nests per capita in Lincoln City than any other urban area. There is even one pair of birds who return every year to nest on top of the lights of the high school’s football stadium. The local chapter of the Audubon Society hopes to train citizen scientists to learn more about the area’s dense osprey habitat. Ruth Shelly, vice president of the Audubon Society of Lincoln City, and Susanna MacDonald, a volunteer with the organization, tell us more about these raptors and what they’d like to learn about them.
Portland small business owners who managed to make it through the pandemic are still facing their fair share of challenges. Sarah Shaoul runs Bricks Need Mortar, a small business support organization. She’s been surveying businesses since the first pandemic shutdown of March 2020, and periodically ever since.
She says too many of those businesses report vandalism and break-ins, adding to the already challenging day-to-day work of serving customers and staying within budget. We talk with Shaoul and two small business proprietors – Peter Cho of Toki and Han Oak and Sita Symonette of Black Pearl Wellness – to hear what the last year has been like for them and how they’re thinking about the future
Peer-to-peer support platforms like TalkLife can help people struggling with their mental health connect to others who have had similar experiences and receive support. While well-intentioned, supporters on these platforms aren’t trained therapists — and researchers at the University of Washington found that their responses to those seeking help often lacked the level of empathy critical to a supportive interaction.
To address this, researchers developed an artificial intelligence system that suggests changes to supporters’ messages to make them more empathetic. They found that almost 70 percent of supporters felt more confident in writing helpful responses after participating in the study.
Tim Althoff, an assistant professor in the University of Washington’s School of Computer Science and Engineering, led the study. He joins us to talk about the nuances of empathy and the challenges of bringing AI into mental health spaces.
Scoliosis is an abnormal curvature of the spine that can cause issues with breathing, back problems and can even lead to noticeable changes such as uneven shoulders and waist. While many cases tend to be diagnosed in adolescence, doctors still have little knowledge of what causes this condition. Now, new research involving zebrafish has shed some light on the origins of scoliosis. Beth Bearce is a post-doctoral research fellow with the University of Oregon's Grime’s Lab. They join us to share what they learned and the broader implications of the research.
Two years ago, the Portland City Council adopted one of the nation’s strictest bans on facial recognition technology. The council passed a policy earlier this month outlining how city bureaus should approach other surveillance technologies, such as license plate readers and traffic cameras. Meanwhile, the Portland Police Bureau is mulling a program to deploy drones at car crash sites. Kate Kaye is a Portland-based journalist covering technology and artificial intelligence. She’s been reporting on these issues and joins to tell us more.
Last Monday, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake ripped through southern Turkey and northern Syria. It was the worst earthquake Turkey has experienced in more than 80 years. Tens of thousands of people have died so far, with that number expected to grow amid the rubble of thousands of destroyed homes and buildings. Humanitarian relief agencies are struggling to provide aid to millions of people in need, especially in Syria, where 12 years of civil war has left 90 percent of the population dependent on humanitarian aid. Portland-based organizations have responded to the crisis by mobilizing earthquake relief efforts in Syria and Turkey. Kieren Barnes is the Syria country director for Mercy Corps, which has a team of aid workers in Northwest Syria, some of whom lost relatives and their homes in the earthquake. Ozcan Ertem is the secretary of the Oregon Turkish American Association which has been collecting online donations and preparing items such as donated clothes and medical supplies to deliver to Turkey.
A national Adderall shortage is affecting patients in Oregon who rely on the medication to manage symptoms related to ADHD. We check in with Craigan Usher, the program director for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Training at Oregon Health & Science University to learn more about how the shortage is affecting patients in Portland.
More than 9,500 Indigenous people were reported missing nationwide in 2021, according to the FBI’s National Crime Information Center. The plight of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls led to a national inquiry in Canada and official acknowledgement of “race-based genocide” against Indigenous people there.
As an act of remembrance and healing, Massachusetts-based Indigenous artist and domestic violence survivor Nayana LaFond created “Portraits in Red,” an ongoing series of more than 100 portraits she has painted of missing and murdered Indigenous people and their loved ones. A red handprint is usually painted on the mouth of each black and white portrait, a symbol that represents the silencing of these Indigenous victims of violence. Forty of those portraits are currently on display at the Pacific Maritime Heritage Center in Newport, including one of Anthony Tolentino, a 17 year-old member of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians who was murdered in Salem in 2021. OregonArts Watch previously wrote about the origins of the “Portraits in Red: Missing and Murdered Indigenous People Painting Project” and the exhibit in Newport, which ends on May 4.
LaFond and Anthony’s mother, Cecilia Tolentino, join us to talk about “Portraits in Red” and the impact they hope the project will have.
Most beachgoers in the Pacific Northwest are familiar with the phenomenon of “sneaker waves” — sudden, unexpected surges of water that can sweep people off their feet or pin them against rocks and dunes. Though they’re known to occur more often along the Pacific coast and during the winter, the waves’ origins remain somewhat mysterious.
Researchers at Oregon State University recently found that far-off storm systems could create the right conditions for sneaker waves to occur closer to home. We learn more from Tuba Özkan-Haller, interim dean of OSU’s College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences.
Eugene has a long history of house shows. In the 90s, the punk scene and its music could be heard in houses, with basement shows for bands like Black Flag gathering crowds of hundreds. But as reported in the Eugene Weekly, the city’s music community say police crackdowns are hurting local artists, house venues and local music as a whole. Krista Kroiss is a recent intern for Eugene Weekly and is a senior at the University of Oregon. She joins us to share what artists are saying and how local law enforcement is affecting the communities.
For more than 20 years, Oregon Humanities has made a series of college classes available for free to people who either may not be able to afford higher education, or who never saw themselves as a student. The classes are called “Humanity in Perspective,” and provide an interdisciplinary exploration of art, literature, culture and philosophy. Students can earn up to nine college credits from Bard College, a program partner, along with the Clemente Course in the Humanities, and Portland State University. But Rozzell Medina, who directs the program, says the purpose is not about jump starting or furthering academic goals. The classes are also available for those who simply want to learn more about a topic and engage with other members of the community. We talk with Medina and former student Luis Medina (no relation) about these free classes and what they offer.
For people who are incarcerated in Oregon’s prison system, there is an option to be released early if someone is terminally ill, elderly or medically incapacitated. This process is called compassionate release. But as Bolts Magazine reports, with no clear definition of who qualifies and a lengthy application process an inmate must complete themselves, there are many hurdles for those seeking release. Now, SB 520 hopes to reform the system by creating a medical board to review requests, establish a clear timeline and puts the duty of recommending terminally ill people to compassionate release on prison officials, rather than people who are incarcerated. Piper French is a staff writer for Bolts Magazine. She joins us to share what this bill would mean for those incarcerated and how the state’s current system compares to others.
In 2009, Portland-based journalist Erika Bolstad’s mother received a check in the mail from an oil company that was leasing mineral rights she had inherited in North Dakota. After her mother died, Bolstad embarked on a decade-long quest to uncover the history behind those rights, including the story of her great-grandmother Anna, who left little trace of her life as a homesteader in North Dakota in the early 1900s. In “Windfall,” Bolstad constructs a memoir revealing a tale of family tragedy and personal discovery that intersects with the boom and bust of oil derricks and natural gas flares dotting the Dakota prairies, and the price paid for the lure of riches trapped beneath the soil. Journalist and author Erika Bolstad joins us to talk about her new book, “Windfall: The prairie woman who lost her way and the great-granddaughter who found her.”
Democratic state Rep. Travis Nelson says he’s been pulled over by police at least 40 times since he started driving. Last week, the representative was pulled over twice in a span of three days, an occurrence he says doesn’t happen to his white colleagues and staff.
Nelson said he was going 11 miles over the speed limit during the first stop and he was holding his cell phone while taking a call during the second.
The stops happened the same week Nelson gave a speech about Tyre Nichols, a 29- year-old Black man who died after being beaten by a group of Memphis police officers. Nelson joins us with more on his experiences.
Bristol Bay in Alaska will remain protected under the Clean Water Act, according to a recent decision by the Environmental Protection Agency. The decision effectively blocks a proposal to build a gold and copper mine there. The region has a bountiful sockeye salmon fishery. Oregonians head to Bristol Bay during the summer to fish commercially and sell their catch to buyers in the Pacific Northwest. We hear more about what the decision means for Oregonians from commercial fishermen Perry Broderick and Reid Ten Kley.
On Wednesday, nine lawmakers in Salem will hold their first meeting to kick off the Arts and Culture Caucus in the Oregon state legislature. Although lawmakers have convened multiple caucuses to advocate for various causes and legislative interests, there has never before been a caucus organized specifically to assist arts and culture organizations, which continue to struggle with recovery from the pandemic. The bipartisan caucus aims to raise awareness among fellow lawmakers of issues impacting arts venues and organizations across the state, and identify legislation that could provide relief through additional state funding or other support.
Joining us are two members of the caucus, Representative Rob Nosse, a Democrat who represents District 42 which covers inner Southeast and a sliver of Northeast Portland; and Senator Dick Anderson, a Republican from Oregon’s 5th District which covers all of Lincoln County and parts of Benton, Lane, Douglas and Coos Counties.
The city of Eugene is the first city in Oregon to pass a ban on gas appliances for new residential construction. This comes amid a growing body of research into the health effects of the methane-based fossil fuel known as natural gas, and the ongoing effort to reduce emissions to combat climate change. Dozens of cities in other parts of the country have passed similar bans, and last fall the Multnomah County Health Department recommended moving away from all gas appliances after publishing a review of the evidence on public health and gas stoves.
Dylan Plummer is an organizer with the community action group Fossil Free Eugene, which brought the idea to ban gas hookups to the Eugene City Council two years ago and has been pushing for its adoption ever since. He joins us, along with NPR reporter Jeff Brady, who covers the natural gas industry as part of his beat on the climate desk.
There have been several shootings outside schools in the Portland area recently. There have also been traffic incidents leading to injury or death. Students, parents, school districts, and the city are talking about what they can do to keep kids safe. We hear from three high school students: Byronie McMahon, Danny Cage and Lana Rachielug. We also hear from two parents: Heidi Schultz and Leslie Kosoff.
A small coastal community in Southwest Washington might be a model for other places facing coastal erosion as the climate changes and sea levels rise. A group of people in North Cove, Washington, dumped a berm of rocks on the shoreline in an attempt to stop their beach from eroding - and it may be working. Sarah Trent wrote about the effort for High Country News, and she joins us to talk about her story.
The Portland Winter Light Festival is a city-wide event that illuminates what is often the darkest month of the year with art installations that can truly be called “lit.” The Willamette Light Brigade, a non-profit arts organization, launched the free event nearly a decade ago at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. It quickly spread across the Willamette River into downtown and now features light-based art pieces and performances in neighborhoods all over the city. This year’s theme is “The Light of Stars.” We talk with artist Tyler FuQua about his work and his commission from the festival: a gigantic, lighted robot in downtown called “Mechan 42: Space Explorer.”
“Contingency management” is a practice that rewards people with vouchers or gift cards for not engaging in behaviors they’re trying to quit. The idea is to realign reward pathways in the brain using positive reinforcement. The practice is gaining traction as a way to help combat substance use disorder — Washington and Montana are both working to incorporate contingency management into state treatment programs, and California is set to launch a pilot program that covers it as a Medicaid benefit.
Joining us to talk about the pros and cons of contingency management is Sara Parent, an assistant professor in the department of community and behavioral health at Washington State College of Medicine.
Last year, former Attorney General Sally Yates released an independent report outlining the abuse and sexual misconduct in Women’s Professional Soccer. In the report, Yates also shared recommendations to prevent abuse in the future. Now, U.S. Soccer has announced it will be implementing these recommendations, including the Safe Soccer Program. Anne Peterson is a sports writer for the Associated Press. She joins us to share what this program is and what it means for the future of the sport.
Two years ago, the Oregon legislature approved the sale of $15 million in lottery bonds to help pay for a community center in Woodburn. Last year, the Department of Administrative Services decided against selling the bonds. The city of Woodburn filed suit. We talk to Woodburn mayor Frank Lonergan about what the community center would mean for the city, how much it will cost and what the lawsuit means for the future of the project.
The Pacific Northwest helped pioneer craft brewing, and it’s still a hub for small breweries and small batch distilleries. It should come as no surprise that the region is also a mecca of businesses that brew non-alcoholic beer and distill alcohol-free spirits. It’s a fast-growing category in a huge market of adult beverages. In fact the Adult Non-Alcoholic Beverage Association launched just over a year ago, another indication of this rapidly growing industry of non-alcoholic beers and botanical spirits. Joining us are two alcohol industry veterans who are at the forefront of the non-alcoholic trend. Larry Sidor is the co-founder and master brewer at Crux Fermentation Project in Bend, which produces NA beers along with its many beers that contain alcohol. And Brad Whiting cofounded Wilderton, based in Hood River, which exclusively distills botanical spirits to create non-alcoholic cocktails.
The pandemic accelerated the rollout and adoption of technologies like Zoom as a way for clinicians to conduct virtual visits with patients. But well before telemedicine took off, one Portland clinic and research lab has been conducting its visits exclusively virtually since 2017 as a way to reach more patients throughout Oregon with services that could be hard to come by, especially in rural areas.
The Stuttering Lab at Portland State University provides speech therapy conducted over Zoom to people who stutter. The sessions are free and open to any Oregon resident. Clients work with a speech-language pathologist and her team of graduate students to learn techniques to better manage and accept their stuttering, a speech disorder which affects about three percent of the population. The lab also conducts research on how people who stutter talk about their condition, and the effectiveness of telepractice sessions compared to traditional, in-person sessions.
Joining us to share some of those findings are Megan McGill, an assistant professor in the department of speech and hearing sciences at Portland State University and the director of the PSU Stuttering Lab. Leo Ergenekan, a 10-year-old former patient of the lab, and his mother, Haylee Ergenekan also join us to share their experiences.
Earlier this month, Oregon City officials penned an open letter, published by Pamplin Media, to the Oregon Department of Transportation. The letter states that the city’s commission is “adamantly opposed to any application of tolling in the region.”
It also details concerns over how local communities and businesses in Clackamas County will be affected by drivers who try to avoid freeway tolls.
Denyse McGriff is the mayor of Oregon City and John Lewis is its public works director. They join us with details of their concerns and what they hope to see moving forward.
Last week, the first ever tri-county point-in-time count began. Volunteers, service providers and outreach workers from Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas County surveyed people without adequate shelter to formulate updated data on what homelessness looks like in the region. The count finished yesterday. We’ll hear from two Portlanders who volunteered for this count for the first time. Marianne Nelson and Richard Gibson share why they chose to participate and what they heard from people they surveyed.
If farmers or ranchers want to put solar panels in their fields, they often have to give up agricultural production on that land. But the practice of “agrivoltaics” combines the two by elevating the panels, allowing grazing and growing to continue underneath. The cost of the steel needed to raise the panels above ground level often makes agrivoltaics prohibitive, but one Oregon company is looking to make the practice more accessible. We’ll get an overview of agrivoltaics from Serkan Ates, an associate professor in Oregon State University’s department of animal and rangeland sciences. We'll also hear from Portland-based RUTE Foundation Systems, which is working on a cable-stayed agrivoltaics system that the company says uses less steel and thereby lowers its cost. David McFeeters-Krone, a business development and government relations consultant with RUTE, joins to tell us more about the company’s technology.
Earlier this month, the Pinckney Gallery in Bend launched “Black Excellence Showcase”. The exhibit features painted canvases, digital art, sculptures and mixed-media installations made by Black artists and community members in Central Oregon. It’s the first time an exhibit highlighting Black artists has been done at the gallery which is located on the campus of Central Oregon Community College. The exhibit also provides a space for representation and collaboration with the community. One of the featured works is a mural celebrating Black femme identity, with photos and hand-written notes submitted from community members reflecting on what it means to nurture and be nurtured. June Park is an adjunct professor in the fine arts department and the director of the Pinckney Gallery. Mel Smith is completing a certificate in graphic design and illustration at Central Oregon Community College. Shandell Landon is an instructor at OSU-Cascades and a community volunteer. They join us to talk about the “Black Excellence Showcase” and their contributions to it.
“Black Excellence Showcase” will be at the Pinckney Gallery located on the campus of Central Oregon Community College in Bend until Feb. 24. Admission is free and open Monday through Friday.
Oregon launched a hotline this month to help callers across the country understand the state's reproductive laws following the overturn of Roe v. Wade last year. Abortion remains legal in Oregon and the Supreme Court’s decision did not change abortion laws in the state. We hear more about the hotline from Anna Sortun, a partner with Tonkon Torp and one of the lawyers taking calls.
The Oregon Reproductive Rights Hotline number is (503) 431-6460.
The dry farming collaborative at Oregon State University will convene on Feb. 8 to discuss dry farming techniques and the results from trials using the method. Dry farming is a technique that relies on moisture stored in soil during a rainy season to produce crops during a dry season. We learn more about how dry farming is used in western Oregon from Amy Garrett, the board president of the Dry Farming Institute and Lucas Nebert, a research associate at OSU
As schools shut down during the beginning of the pandemic, students had to quickly pivot to virtual learning at home. This shift led to an increasing number of Oregon parents opting to homeschool their children, even after schools reopened. As the Oregon Capital Chronicle reports, homeschool enrollment numbers today are 40% higher than what they were pre-pandemic. Rosalyn Newhouse is a volunteer and board president of Oregon Homeschool Education Network. She joins us to share the reasons some parents made the switch and the challenges it can have.
Cisplatin is a common chemotherapy drug used to treat several types of cancer in both adults and children. While effective, the drug can build up in the inner ear and cause permanent damage. The resulting hearing loss can affect young patients, potentially causing delays in learning and social-emotional development. Until recently, there were few options to prevent or slow that hearing loss. Sodium thiosulfate (STS), a drug studied for years by researchers at Oregon Health & Science University, has been shown to counteract the toxic effects of cisplatin in the inner ear. The FDA has recently approved its use for patients as young as 1 month old.
OHSU audiologist Kristy Knight joins us to explain what the treatment could mean for pediatric cancer patients. We also hear from Jennifer Boesche, a Beaverton mother who petitioned the FDA to approve STS after it helped slow her daughter’s treatment-based hearing loss.
Edwidge Danticat is an award-winning writer of novels, short stories, essays, and memoirs, with a focus on the rich experiences of the Haitian diaspora. Her latest book is the collection of short stories “Everything Inside.” We listen back to a conversation with Danticat in front of an audience at Woodburn high school from May 2022.
Recent U.S. Census data found that Oregon’s population decreased in 2022 for the first time in 40 years. Last week, China announced that its population went down for the first time in 60 years. Then, this week, Japan’s prime minister said that his country, with its lowest birthrate in more than 120 years, is “on the brink of not being able to maintain social functions.”
Peter Walker, a professor of geography and environmental studies at the University of Oregon, joins us to talk about what’s driving global population trends, and why some regions are shrinking and others are still growing.
Government agencies are having trouble filling open cybersecurity positions, which can leave them vulnerable to attacks. Oregon State University has received $4.8 million from the National Science Foundation to help boost and train workers to shore up cybersecurity at some of our most vulnerable federal agencies. Dave Nevin is an assistant professor of practice in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Rakesh Bobba is an associate professor of computer science at OSU. Cameron McCawley is a student and president of the OSU security club. They join us with more on what the funding will do and how OSU is preparing students for jobs in cybersecurity.
Oregon’s Clean Fuels Program was created to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel suppliers, with a goal for companies to scale back emissions by at least 37% by 2035. These companies can purchase carbon credits, which are awarded to clean fuel providers by the Department of Environmental Quality, to counterbalance their emissions. One Lincoln City man found a way to swindle the system. Merlin Thompson defrauded the DEQ carbon credit system and sold credits he did not earn for nearly $2 million. Alex Baumhardt is a reporter for the Oregon Capital Chronicle and has been following this story.
Who is an American? And what does it mean to be one? Those are questions that Cristi Miles, co-founder of the Portland Experimental Theatre Ensemble, thought about when she first heard a podcast about an iconic series of photographs published in the late 50s by Robert Frank. The collection is called “The Americans,” and little did she know that a few years later she would be exploring those themes and reimagining the photographs on stage using music and dance. The production, now playing at the historic Alberta House in N.E. Portland, takes its name from the Robert Frank collection. Miles co-directed the show and joins us to talk about how the ensemble went about exploring American identity in a performance that’s as much a poem as a play.
The pandemic relegated many people’s professional lives to the internet — water-cooler conversations and lunches with coworkers became meetings over Zoom and group chats on Microsoft Teams. And for creative professionals like musicians and artists, that isolation was even more pronounced.
Third Angle New Music’s upcoming performance “Self Portrait” deals with those themes. The show will feature solo performances and testimonials from local musicians and composers about their experiences navigating mental health struggles during the pandemic. 3A is also offering an accompanying series of free mental health workshops for music educators.
Sarah Tiedemann is the artistic director for 3A and a flutist performing in “Self Portrait.” She joins to tell us more about the show ahead of its opening on Jan. 26.
An Oregon man is facing felony charges over a curb that has been painted “lipstick red.” Defendant Allen Buzzard will face trial over the incident in February. What started as a misdemeanor at Brownsville Municipal Court has escalated into a felony charge with a maximum sentence of five years in prison and fines of $125,000. We learn more about the case from Penny Rosenberg, a regional editor for several newspapers in the Pacific Northwest. She has reported on the issue and continues to follow the case.
Protesters who have participated in demonstrations in Portland are familiar with rubber bullets, pepper balls, teargas canisters, and other kinetic impact projectiles (KIPs). Just last week, the city agreed to a $75,000 settlement with a protester who says he was hit multiple times with 'FN 303 less-lethal' projectiles during the 2020 protests. Freelance journalist Linda Rodriguez McRobbie has been looking into the history of the use of these devices by law enforcement. She joins us to talk about what she found.
Three days a week, residents queue up at the Portland Open Bible Community Pantry on 92nd avenue to receive free boxes of food containing fresh produce, meat, bread and other grocery staples. Executive director and founder Betty Brown said the pantry was created eight years ago to address a “food desert” in Southeast Portland. In 2021, the pantry used a grant from the Oregon Food Bank to launch an online ordering system for clients to select food items for drive-through pickup. Last fall, the nonprofit partnered with Providence Health to stock a local clinic with a food pantry so that patients could leave with a bag of groceries to meet dietary or nutritional needs. Betty Brown and Olivia Estrada, a mother and client of the Portland Open Bible Community Pantry, join us to talk about hunger, food insecurity and the impact the pantry is having in Southeast Portland.
Governor Tina Kotek recently announced three executive orders to address housing and homelessness, and asked lawmakers to put $130 million towards unsheltered Oregonians. We’ll hear from Beaverton Mayor Lacey Beaty, Hermiston Mayor Dave Drotzmann, and Lincoln County Commissioner Claire Hall about what they’d like to see next.
Portland comic book artist Rupert Kinnard introduced his character the Brown Bomber in 1977, and later, BB's sidekick Diva Touché Flambé. Kinnard created the first African American LGBTQ characters in comics. His stories are now chronicled in the documentary, “No Straight Lines: The Rise of Queer Comics,” which premieres on OPB on January 23, 2023 in the new season of the PBS series “Independent Lens.” Throughout his career, Kinnard contributed to Willamette Week and co-founded Just Out. He was also the first Black member of the first LGBTQ-rights umbrella organization in Oregon. Through the Brown Bomber and Diva Touché Flambé, he provided commentary on social issues including gay rights and racial justice. Kinnard spoke to us in June 2021 when the documentary was featured in the QDoc festival in Portland.
The 1985 Steven Spielberg film "The Goonies'' is a quintessential adventure movie, following a middle schooler named Mikey and his friends as they find a treasure map and go on an epic adventure to save the family home from being demolished to make way for a golf course at the local country club. They call themselves the “Goonies” because they live in the Goon Docks neighborhood of a fictional version of Astoria on the Oregon coast. Since the movie first made its debut, the real Astoria house has been a tourist draw for fans across the country.
The Goonies themselves famously “Never say die!” And one of the film's biggest fans would never do so either. Behman Zakeri lives in the Kansas City area and was among a number of would-be buyers that put in immediate offers when the home went up for sale last fall. He says he’s committed to making sure the house is preserved and that other die-hard fans will have access to it. What that will look like, though, is anyone’s guess, says Zakeri, as he’s not legally allowed to rent the home on a short term basis or make it into a museum.
Zakeri joins us to share why and how this movie became so woven into his identity and what his plans are for the future.
Using 70 years of data, researchers led by an Oregon State University professor found that landslides in the Pacific Northwest are influenced more by clear-cutting and roadwork than by heavy rain. Catalina Segura is an associate professor in OSU’s department of forest engineering, resources and management. She joins us with the details.
For the first time ever, the Indian Health Service will receive just over $5 billion in advance appropriations. That means the agency will still be able to provide services to its roughly 2.6 million patients in the event of a funding lapse, such as a government shutdown.
While the stopgap funding will provide crucial stability for the agency, experts and advocates say IHS is still chronically underfunded. A federal report found that its 2022 budget – close to $7 billion – funded less than half of what patients needed. And a report from the Tribal Budget Formulation Workgroup, which advises the federal government, estimated the agency would need a $51 billion budget to provide adequate health services and address health disparities in Native American communities.
Melanie Henshaw is the Indigenous affairs reporter for Street Roots. She dug into these issues and joins us to explain what the new funding will – and won’t – do.
The U.S. Department of Energy is offering $7 billion in funding to create a network of six to ten sites across the nation to develop and commercialize hydrogen made from renewable energy such as wind and solar. Hydrogen can be used as a fuel, to generate electricity or for industrial applications, including making fertilizer and refining petroleum. Most hydrogen today is produced using natural gas, a fossil fuel which is accelerating climate change.
Lake Oswego-based Obsidian Renewables is one of the energy companies applying for funding from the DOE’s regional clean hydrogen hubs program. It wants to build a pipeline connecting two facilities located in Hermiston and Moses Lake, Washington to generate hydrogen primarily from wind and solar power. The Pacific Northwest Hydrogen Association, a public-private partnership which includes the Washington Department of Commerce and the Oregon Department of Energy, is also competing for federal dollars to spur investment in clean hydrogen projects. The details of its proposal have not been made public, but the association claims it could create tens of thousands of jobs to supply the aviation, agriculture and other industries with green hydrogen. Joining us are Ken Dragoon, the director of hydrogen development at Obsidian Renewables, and Rebecca Smith, a senior energy policy analyst at the Oregon Department of Energy.
Last week, a federal judge ruled that time limits for how long someone charged with a crime can stay at Oregon State Hospital will continue. This means the September order requiring the psychiatric facility to release patients facing misdemeanor charges in 90 days, felony charges in six months and more violent felonies within a year, will remain.
The Oregon State Hospital also received news that it passed its federal inspection. However, investigators noted that the facility still faces issues over food safety, medication storage and hygiene. Ben Botkin is the criminal justice and health reporter for the Capital Chronicle. He joins us to share what this ruling means for the future of the state and the details of the inspection.
One of Southern Oregon's long-time newspapers is folding. The Medford Mail Tribune’s last issue was Friday, January 13. The paper’s publisher, Steven Saslow, wrote in an announcement that "industry-wide reductions, and in some cases complete elimination of national advertising spends for newspapers (digital or printed editions), coupled with rising costs of content and the difficulty of hiring staff and managers have made continuing the Mail Tribune unsustainable.”
This decision comes just a few months after the paper stopped its print edition and went entirely online. It also follows the 2021 demise of the Ashland Daily Tidings, owned by the same company.
The Daily Courier in Grants Pass saw an uptick in subscribers when the Mail Tribune went entirely online. And now its publisher says, it plans to go all-in to cover the news vacancy. Travis Moore says the historic, family-owned local newspaper is committed to covering local news and is ready to hire as many former Tribune reporters as it can and expand its footprint. Moore joins us to tell us more about the decision and what happens next.
There’s no getting around it — parasites are icky. But they’re also complex organisms that help control host populations and keep food webs balanced in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. They're also disappearing at an alarming rate, according to researchers at the University of Washington. After studying fish specimens dating as far back as 1880, the researchers found a steep decline in marine parasites in Puget Sound. The decline was strongly correlated with rising water temperature, suggesting that climate change could pose a significant threat to parasite species.
Chelsea Wood is a professor of aquatic and fishery science at the University of Washington and lead author of the study. She joins us to explain the role parasites play and what their loss could mean for different ecosystems threatened by climate change.
Portland YouthBuilders is a nonprofit focused on facilitating careers for young people. The organization offers Oregonians between the ages of about 17-26 support through education and vocational training. We learn more about Portland’s program from Tonia Kovtunovich, the organization’s development director, and Abasi Umoh, a recent participant in the Bridge program.
Over the next several years, Oregon could receive up to $1 billion in federal funding to increase broadband access, but a recent audit from the Oregon Secretary of State’s office shows the state may have some difficulties distributing funds equitably. Inaccurate data, inadequate staffing and a lack of long-term planning are just a few issues facing the Broadband Office. Kip Memmott is the Director of the Secretary of State’s Audits Division. Matthew Owens is the principal auditor. They join us to share what their audit found and what changes the office needs to make to be able to use federal dollars and increase broadband access.
Author Lauren Groff retreated to the middle ages for her latest novel. After her book “Fates and Furies," received wide praise, and in the aftermath of the 2016 election, Groff found solace in writing about the life of nuns cloistered together in 12th century England. We talk to Groff about her latest book, “Matrix,” in front of an audience of students at Leodis V. McDaniel High School in Portland.
Richard Powers’ last novel, “The Overstory,” was a 600-page deep-dive into the science of forests, and the relationships between trees and human beings. His newest, “Bewilderment,” is less than half that length, but both more vast and more intimate in scope. It is the story of an astrobiologist who looks for life on other planets, while he navigates a complex relationship with his young son. Powers joins us in front of an audience at Parkrose High School.
Colson Whitehead won the Pulitzer Prize in 2017 for his novel "The Underground Railroad." It's an alternate history of slavery in America from an author who has built a reputation on tweaking the boundaries of reality in order to reveal more about the world we live in. We listen back to an interview with Whitehead at Oregon State University.
Jakob Hollenbeck moved from Eugene to Portland over this past summer. While he had witnessed homelessness in Eugene, and even wrote an opinion piece about it for his university, he was still surprised by what he saw in Portland. Over time, he became friends with some of his neighbors experiencing homelessness. They were ultimately forced to move after the city posted a notice for them to vacate the area. Hollenbeck says his neighbors deserved to stay. He joins us with more on his experiences and how he views Portland’s policies toward homelessness.
In November, voters in Oregon’s 5th Congressional District elected Lori Chavez-DeRemer as their new state representative, flipping a district that has been controlled by Democrats since 1997. Chavez-DeRemer is the former mayor of Happy Valley and is the first Republican congresswoman to represent the state. She joins us to share some of her priorities for her first year in office.
Winter in Oregon signals rain and snow pack which may help dry conditions in some parts of the state. Still, Central Oregon continues to face extreme drought. How will the relentlessly dry conditions affect the region? We check in with Larry O’Neill, Oregon’s state climatologist and Eric Klann, a longtime engineer for the city of Prineville.
One of the biggest surprises of the midterm elections this past November took place in Southwest Washington, where Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez narrowly defeated Joe Kent, a former Army Green Beret who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump. On Saturday, Gluesenkamp Perez was sworn into the 118th Congress representing a district which was held for six terms by her predecessor, Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler. Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez joins us to talk about adjusting to her new role on Capitol Hill, her legislative priorities and where she thinks she can reach bipartisan consensus with Republican lawmakers on the top issues facing the region and the nation.
Archaeologists at Oregon State University have found projectile points in Idaho that date back nearly 16,000 years — making them the oldest such artifacts found in the Americas. The points were uncovered at the Cooper’s Ferry site along the Salmon River in western Idaho. Though the land is currently held by the federal Bureau of Land Management, it’s the traditional territory of the Nez Perce Tribe and its ancestors.
OSU anthropology professor Loren Davis joins us to talk about the discovery and about what it means to fill in the region’s historical record with physical artifacts. We’ll also hear about the artifacts’ cultural significance from Nakia Williamson-Cloud, director of the Nez Perce Tribe Cultural Resources Program.
With the critical shortage of housing, it might seem to make sense to convert empty office buildings into condos or apartments. But it’s not that simple. From the regulatory and zoning hurdles to the high costs of retrofitting existing structures, in many cases the price of conversion would be far greater than building new housing. The idea is being considered elsewhere in the country, including in California, where lawmakers put $400 million toward grants for developers to offset conversion costs. Willamette Week reporter Sophie Peel has been covering this story and joins us to tell us more.
Kameron Messmer’s plans were upended during the pandemic. He’d moved to Portland to start a career as a variety entertainer under the name “Daredevil Circus Wizard.” But instead, he ended up making balloon art. In fact, his giant balloon sculptures became so popular, he started getting requests for them. In 2022 Messmer created a balloon art installation in an abandoned storefront in downtown Portland. We listen back to a conversation about his work and his exhibit, the Joy Store.
For 20 years, the Confluence project has been highlighting the experiences of Indigenous tribes along the Columbia River. Now it's created a new journal called "Voices of the River." Editor Lily Hart says in some ways it’s the culmination of the organization itself, reflecting both history and contemporary life with poetry, articles and original art. We talk with Hart and with Emily Washines, a Yakama tribal member who wrote about protecting threatened tribal fishing rights.
Seattle Public Schools is suing the parent companies behind TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Snapchat. The complaint alleges that social media has played a major role in the mental health problems faced by young people and that the district has been forced to allocate more resources to combat the crisis. The lawsuit joins other complaints that have been filed by families alleging the companies impacted the mental health of their children.
We hear more on this issue from Amanda Zhou, a reporter for the Seattle Times who has covered this issue. Yoona Park, a Portland-based partner with Keller Rohrback, the law firm representing the school district, joins us as well
Community Counseling Services wants to expand acute mental healthcare in Eastern Oregon. The nonprofit recently purchased the Aspen Springs Psychiatric Hospital, which was previously operated by Lifeways and closed in April 2021. The goal is to have the facility operating again by the end of the summer, but supply chain issues may cause delays. Kimberly Lindsay is the executive director of Community Counseling Services. She joins us to share what access to mental healthcare is like in rural Oregon and the role this facility will play.
The latest assessment from the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute says the state continues to face “new and enduring hazards” related to climate change. OCCRI is housed at Oregon State University, but contributors also come from other institutions around the state, including the University of Oregon, Portland State University and the Oregon Institute of Technology. The biannual climate assessments are mandated by the legislature and are intended to be used as a resource for researchers, journalists and the public at large. The latest report is the sixth such assessment.
The Institute's director, Erica Fleishman, says it details the main hazards posed by climate change, which haven’t changed a great deal in the last two years. But she says Oregonians are responding to many of these challenges, from mitigating the effects of wildfires to investing in sustainable energy, alternative transportation and more. Fleishman joins us to highlight the assessments’ findings and their implications for the continuing response to the effects of climate change in Oregon.
The latest assessment from the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute says the state continues to face “new and enduring hazards” related to climate change. OCCRI is housed at Oregon State University, but contributors also come from other institutions around the state, including the University of Oregon, Portland State University and the Oregon Institute of Technology. The biannual climate assessments are mandated by the legislature and are intended to be used as a resource for researchers, journalists and the public at large. The latest report is the sixth such assessment.
The Institute's director, Erica Fleishman, says it details the main hazards posed by climate change, which haven’t changed a great deal in the last two years. But she says Oregonians are responding to many of these challenges, from mitigating the effects of wildfires to investing in sustainable energy, alternative transportation and more. Fleishman joins us to highlight the assessments’ findings and their implications for the continuing response to the effects of climate change in Oregon.
According to the Oregon Tourism Commission, tourism is a $10 billion industry in Oregon, generating $1.2 billion in local and state tax revenue in 2021. But a report from Oregon State University’s Sustainable Tourism Lab found residents often aren’t educated on tourism policies that affect their communities.
The lab was founded in 2021 to help communities create tourism plans that balance the needs of residents and visitors, a key feature of sustainability, according to the lab’s researchers. It recently released its first annual report, which aimed to measure how people in eight locations, including Oregon, Washington and Hawaii, feel about tourism in their communities. Todd Montgomery, director of OSU’s Sustainable Tourism Lab, joins us to tell us more about the report’s findings.
In the aftermath of a sudden death, family members of the victim often have to speak with police, medical personnel and a raft of other emergency response officials. Volunteers with the Trauma Intervention Program want to make sure they also speak with a caring neighbor who is there to lend a hand.
TIP was founded in 1985 as a way to provide trauma-informed support in the wake of sudden tragedies such as car accidents, overdoses, suicides and other unexpected deaths. Trained volunteers are called to the scene by police, paramedics or other first responders to talk with loved ones of the victim and connect them with secondary services.
The organization now has 15 affiliates across the country, the newest of which will serve Lane County. Bridget Byfield is a former TIP volunteer and program director for TIP of Lane County. She joins us to talk about the benefits of providing “emotional first aid” in the first few hours after a tragedy.
The latest federal Census numbers show Oregon’s population is shrinking for the first time in decades. And it’s losing residents at the sixth fastest rate. Calculating these estimates is not an exact science, says Josh Lehner, with the Oregon office of Economic Analysis. He says numbers from the Portland State University Population Research Center indicate a slowing of growth in the state, but also show a drop in the Portland metro area. Lehner says however you look at it, the implications for state revenues are serious. He joins to explain these numbers and what it could mean if Oregon’s population doesn’t rebound.
An aerial survey conducted this past summer by the U.S. Forest Service and the Oregon Department of Forestry found more than 1 million acres with dead or dying fir trees in Oregon, the largest amount of fir mortality since the aerial surveys began 75 years ago. News of the tree die-off, which has been called “firmageddon” by some of the survey researchers, was first reported by Columbia Insight. The affected trees were mainly white and Shasta firs, with the bulk of the tree mortality concentrated in the southern part of the state. Danny DePinte is a forest health specialist and aerial survey program manager for the U.S. Forest Service. Christine Buhl is an entomologist with the Oregon Department of Forestry who participated in the survey. They join us to talk about what’s behind the tree die-off and its implications for the state's forest canopy in an era of more intense wildfires and hotter droughts driven by climate change.
In a recent election, members of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde voted to amend their constitution and drastically limit tribal disenrollment. The CTGR is one of the few tribes to make a revision like this to protect its members. The new changes now mean only members who enrolled fraudulently would face disenrollment or those who were a member of another tribe when they received Grand Ronde citizenship. Cheryle Kennedy is the Chairwoman for the tribal council with the CTGR. She joins us to share the effects disenrollments can have and the protections will mean for both individuals and tribes.
In Portland, Habitat for Humanity is striving to have a greater regional impact. As the housing crisis continues to affect Oregon, the organization wants more resources directed toward helping low income families become homeowners. Infrastructure exists to expand affordable rental housing, but not to help low income people reach home ownership. We learn more about what the organization hopes to see and accomplish in the future from Steve Messinetti, the president and CEO of Habitat for Humanity Portland Region.
Oregon currently has the highest rates of voter turnout in the entire country. Two factors political scientists point to are the state’s vote by mail system and the "motor voter" law that automatically registers people to vote when they get their driver's license. We talk with former Oregon Secretary of State and vote-by-mail advocate Phil Keisling about the numbers and what they mean.
The Eugene Water & Electric Board, Oregon's largest customer-owned utility, is moving forward with decommissioning the Leaburg Hydroelectric Project due to structural deficiencies and the high cost of future repairs. Meanwhile, the board has also released a draft plan to chart Eugene’s energy future. The proposal forecasts electricity needs for the next 20 years and navigates which energy sources, like wind farms paired with batteries, could best fit the region's power needs. The board is currently accepting public comment on the draft. We dig more into these issues with Aaron Orlowski, a spokesperson for the board.
The Oregon Supreme Court has ruled that people convicted by nonunanimous juries have the right to a new trial. Before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the practice of convicting defendants with less than a unanimous jury, Oregon and Louisiana were the only states that allowed it. The justices left it to those states to decide whether or not the ruling applied retroactively to those already convicted. OPB reporter Conrad Wilson covers criminal justice and legal affairs and joins us to tell us more about the ruling and what happens next.
On Jan. 6, 2021, thousands of Trump supporters and right-wing protestors stormed the U.S. Capitol. In a matter of hours, disinformation spread blaming the attack on antifa and the Black Lives Matter Movement, despite no evidence proving that connection. Antifa itself is not an organized group with structure or a leader, so why was it blamed and what exactly is it? To share more on the history of antifascism and explore the work being done today to combat the far-right, we’re joined by Shane Burley. He is a Portland-based writer and filmmaker and the editor of a new book, “¡No Pasarán!: Antifascist Dispatches from a World in Crisis.”
Only about a dozen states have passed a paid leave program that guarantees workers can take time off for personal or family medical reasons. As of January 1, Oregon’s program has now begun. Companies and workers are starting to contribute the money to pay for the program. Workers will be able to apply for benefits in September of this year. Employees can take three different kinds of leave: medical leave, family leave or safe leave. Medical covers the individual; family leave is for caring for children or loved ones; and safe leave provides for survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, harassment or stalking to take paid time off. Karen Humelbaugh is the director of Paid Leave Oregon in the state’s employment department and joins us to explain the details of the program.
Kwame Alexander has written many books and picture books for children, tackling a range of different topics. His newest book, “The Door of No Return,” is the first in a trilogy starting in Ghana in the 1800s. The book is written as a series of poems, following a young boy, Kofi, who has normal adolescent problem, like a bully of a cousin, and a crush on a girl. He is also eventually captured and sold into the slave trade. Kwame Alexander joins us to talk about the 10-year process of working on this book.
Northwest author Ruth Ozeki’s latest novel speaks about grief and climate change and consumerism and mental illness and the nature of reality itself. It’s not that the book describes those things. It actually talks about them. The book itself is a character in Ozeki’s new novel: “The Book of Form and Emptiness.” Dave Miller talked to Ruth Ozeki at the 2021 Portland Book Festival.
Over half of the world’s population doesn’t know how to swim. But it wasn’t always that way. Swimming has been practiced by humans for thousands of years for fun, health, survival, competition and community. Swimming has also been used by some cultures to differentiate themselves from others - the swimmers from the non-swimmers. OPB’s Paul Marshall talks with Bonnie Tsui, author of “Why We Swim,” and Karen Eva Carr, author of “Shifting Currents: A World History of Swimming,” about what swimming can tell us about ourselves as individuals and as a culture.
And last year, OPB’s Crystal Ligori spoke with Rivka Galchen, author of “Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch,” and A.K. Blakemore, author of “The Manningtree Witches.”
When journalist Hua Hsu was in college, his best friend Ken was murdered in a bizarre turn of events. The next day, Hsu started writing about his friendship with Ken to try to wrap his head around the enormous loss. Over the next 20 years, that writing eventually turned into his latest book, “Stay True.” OPB’s Jenn Chavez talks to Hsu about his childhood growing up as a second-generation immigrant in California, and how that, and the death of his friend Ken, shaped who he is today.
When Melissa Febos was about twelve years old, her body changed, and so did her relationship with the world. Or actually, the world’s relationship with her. The way that society views - and uses and abuses - young women’s bodies is one of the many themes explored in Febos’ new book, “Girlhood.” Febos talks with OPB’s Tiffany Camhi about bodies, consent, mothers, cuddle parties and more.
A young woman in the midst of cancer treatment goes on a road trip in a broken down el camino with her no-good ex-boyfriend. A man working as a ghoul at a sort of halloween theme park learns that his whole life has been a lie. A gay man is forced to come out over and over again to his senile misogynist father. A mother’s moral outrage on behalf of her son goes seriously awry. Two new collections of short stories tell stories about people living on the edge of a society that is failing them. George Saunders’ “Liberation Day” is filled with wry humor, even as his characters are often trapped by their own foolishness. The characters in Jess Walter’s collection, “The Angel of Rome,” are often filled with humor and hope, even as they struggle against poverty and indifference. OPB’s Geoff Norcross talks to Saunders and Walter about the art of writing short stories about our time.
Dystopian fiction has been something of a trend for the last decade. But two new books by Portland authors put an almost humorous spin on the genre. Jon Raymond’s “Denial” is set in a future that looks very much like our own, but after a global reckoning on the dangers of climate change and the fossil fuel industry. His characters stumble through the problems of an ordinary life - illness, love, - while grappling with the question of who is to blame for the problems of the world we have all created. In Mat Johnson’s “Invisible Things,” a spaceship exploring Jupiter discovers a suburban American city populated by 17th century settlers and later abductees. The residents live in a starkly divided world, where half the population denies basic reality. John Notarianni talks to Raymond and Johnson about their books.
Oregon was the first state in the country to ban single-family zoning in all but the smallest cities, meaning duplexes and triplexes can be built next door to single-family homes. The idea is to increase density within cities while preserving land for farms and wilderness in more rural areas. Denser housing could also help to combat climate change, and create more affordable housing to help reduce the number of people living on the streets. That’s the vision of the Yimbytown movement. Last month, Think Out Loud hosted a panel at the Yimbytown conference in Portland to discuss what “Yes In My Backyard” could mean for the future of cities. The guests were Sam Diaz, Executive Director of 1,000 Friends of Oregon; Rukaiyah Adams, Board Chair of Albina Vision Trust; Marisa Zapata, Director of the Portland State University Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative; and Jerusalem Demsas, staff writer at the Atlantic magazine.
As 2022 comes to a close, the staff of OPB's "Think Out Loud" look back on some of their favorite conversations from the past year. Producers Allison Frost, Elizabeth Castillo, Gemma DiCarlo, Rolando Hernandez, and Sage Van Wing joined host Dave Miller in conversation.
On Dec. 8 1922, the city of Astoria was decimated by a fire. It destroyed over 200 businesses and displaced thousands of residents. News spread fast throughout the state as neighboring cities helped provide food and financial aid. With the loss of so many buildings and homes, talks and efforts to begin rebuilding the city began the next day. Chelsea Vaughn is the curator for Clatsop County Historical Society. She joins us to share the history of the fire and how it has reshaped the community.
In November, Portland City Council approved an ambitious tax increment financing plan for the Cully neighborhood. The goal will be to aid in economic development and invest in affordable housing in North East Portland. Edy Martinez is the district manager for Our 42nd Avenue. He joins us to share what makes this plan different from previous urban renewal proposals and his hopes for what this will mean for the community.
Drivers could be paying a toll to drive on I-5 and I-205 in the next couple of years. The Oregon Department of Transportation is soliciting public comments now for an upcoming study on tolling those freeways. Aaron Golub is a professor in the Urban Studies and Planning department at Portland State University. He joins us to tell us more about what tolls on I-5 and I-205 might look like in the next few years, where tolling has worked elsewhere, and the challenges of addressing congestion along with safety and equity more broadly.
Last month, four candidates of Vietnamese heritage from the Portland metro area were elected to serve in the Oregon House of Representatives. Along with Rep. Khan Pham, who won reelection in November, Oregon now boasts the largest number of Vietnamese American state lawmakers in the nation. We hear from Representative-elect Hai Pham, a Democrat and pediatric dentist whose House District 36 covers Hillsboro, parts of Beaverton and unincorporated Washington County. Rep. Khanh Pham is a Democrat representing House District 45, which covers Northeast and Southeast Portland. In 2020, she became the first Asian American lawmaker elected to serve in the Oregon state Legislature.
Eric Watkins says he started the Instagram and Twitter accounts called "Elite Oregon Girls" to highlight female high school sports in the state.
But an investigation by student journalists at Portland's Grant High School alleges that Watkins was using those accounts to send inappropriate messages to female student athletes.
According to the report, the Elite Oregon Girls Instagram account featured a story in November that stated: “I’m stepping back from running EOG for an unknown period of time.”
The Instagram account is now private.
In a statement to OPB, Watkins wrote: “Grant Magazine deliberately withheld contextual insight regarding those messages, misleading the public to believe that it was done with inappropriate intentions. The article is being thoroughly reviewed and legal options are being weighed.
EOG was proof that girls thrive when they are invested into and cared about. I gave every ounce of passion I could into them and I walk away successful, they have a brighter future ahead,” he added. “I have no regrets and that story was nothing short of a backstabbing hit."
In a Twitter thread on Dec. 19 he wrote: "A new group awaits and a new adventure comes in 2023. Peace out Oregon.”
Veronica Bianco is an editor-in-chief and a reporter for Grant Magazine. Ava Siano and Claire Coffey are reporters for the outlet. They join us with details on their reporting.
At Salem’s Sprague High School, there have long been stark differences between the resources for girls softball and boys baseball. These included inequities in the fields, locker rooms, equipment, coaching time and more. Earlier this year a federal civil rights Title IX investigation was launched, which resulted in the district entering a voluntary resolution agreement. The district says it was more than happy to agree since it had already begun investing in girls sports as it aims for parity with boys sports. Salem-Keizer school district’s Coordinator of Athletics and Activities Lara Tiffin tells us about those improvements and what they will mean for students.
A third of stillbirth deaths go without answers to why they happen. As reported by ProPublica, researchers and maternal health groups are calling for doctors and hospitals to offer post-mortem examinations. These can include assessments such as placental exams, genetic testing and autopsies. These tests are often able to determine a cause of death, or at least eliminate one that may be suspected. But data from the Centers for Disease Control show that only 60% of stillbirths had a planned placental exam and only 20% had an autopsy planned. Karen Gibbins is an assistant professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at OHSU and has published research on stillbirths. She joins us to share what we know about stillbirths and how examinations could give us a better understanding of why they happen and how to prevent them.
Jennifer Gibson has recently been chosen as the post-wildfire coordinator for the National Park Service. She is no stranger to wildfire recovery. She was personally affected by the Carr Fire in 2018 while working at the Whiskeytown National Recreation Area in California. The blaze burned more than 90% of the park. She’s also worked as the chief of resources and fire at Crater Lake National Park. Now, she plans to assist other parks across the country as they manage the impact from wildfires. Gibson joins us with details of how the national agency collaborates with parks in the aftermath of fires.
Frank Thompson oversaw the only two state executions in the last 50 years in Oregon, the most recent in 1997. He’s been working to abolish capital punishment ever since. Former Governor John Kitzhaber placed a moratorium on the practice in 2011, which Gov. Kate Brown extended in her administration. In 2019, the legislature narrowed the crimes that are eligible for the death penalty. And last week Brown commuted the sentences of the last remaining death row inmates and ordered the dismantling of the execution chamber itself, moving Oregon closer than it’s been in decades to being a state without capital punishment. Thompson joins us to share his reflections about his experience and the direction the state is headed.
Rosemary Brewer is the executive director of the Oregon Crime Victims Law Center. She says the people she represents have their own perspectives on the death penalty, and those attitudes reflect a wide range -- just like all Oregonians. But she says victims have a right under the Oregon Constitution to have a meaningful role in the justice system. Brewer says whether or not there was a legal obligation to victims or not, giving significant notice to victims when their offender’s death sentence is being commuted would reflect empathy and respect. In the recent commutations, victims were notified the same day. Brewer joins us to talk about the role that respect for victims plays in the justice system at large.
When archaeologists Eric Gleason and Jacqui Cheung bought a run-down building in The Dalles’ downtown in 2000, they had a vague sense of its history. 210 E. 1st St. was simply known as “the Chinese building,” having operated as a Chinese laundry and merchandise store from the late 1800s to the 1920s. But the building had long since fallen into disrepair, and information about its owners and occupants proved elusive.
Gleason and Cheung’s renovations and research over the last 20 years have revealed a deeper history of the Wing Hong Hai Company store — and the small but vibrant Chinatown that surrounded it. The artifacts and documents they’ve uncovered offer a glimpse of what life may have been like for Asian immigrants who came to The Dalles 150 years ago. Gleason and Cheung join us for a tour of the building and to share some of those insights.
The Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area is the largest in the U.S., covering more than 80 miles of forest, hills and bluffs in Oregon and southwest Washington. Friends of the Columbia Gorge is a conservation nonprofit that was instrumental in getting the federal government to declare the region a National Scenic Area 40 years ago, and has worked to protect its scenic resources which draw roughly two million people a year to recreate there. The organization is also spearheading an ambitious effort to connect communities throughout the gorge in a 200-mile trail loop. The Gorge Towns to Trails initiative aims to “promote alternative transportation options,” reduce congestion at popular trailheads and introduce hikers to less-visited areas of the gorge.
Gorge Towns to Trails project manager Renée Tkach joins us to walk a bit of the trail and talk about its progress so far. D’na Chase, a Cherokee Nation tribal member and land trustee with Friends of the Columbia Gorge, shares her vision for engaging the gorge’s many Indigenous communities in projects like Towns to Trails.
Kenny LaPoint is the executive director of the Mid-Columbia Community Action Council, an organization that provides services to people experiencing homelessness in Wasco, Hood River and Sherman counties. MCCAC operates the only homeless shelter in Wasco County, a facility made up of 18 tiny homes in an industrial part of The Dalles near the Columbia River. It also conducts a federally mandated Point-in-Time count of people experiencing homelessness, and is in the process of acquiring a 54-room hotel to serve as transitional housing for families and clients with complex medical cases. This spring, MCCAC will break ground on a navigation center on the west side of The Dalles which will not only include shelter beds, but also office space for community agencies to provide wraparound services, including employment assistance. On Tuesday mornings, a mobile medical clinic operated by a non-profit medical center, One Community Health, visits the shelter to offer free medical services such as diabetes and cancer screenings.
We hear from LaPoint and Kathryn Perkins, a client experiencing homelessness who has lived in a tiny shelter home for six months. Middy Tilghman, a family nurse practitioner at One Community Health and the lead medical provider at the mobile medical clinic, shares with us the impact it’s having on improving health outcomes for unhoused patients.
Al and Nolan Hare are brothers and musicians who were raised in The Dalles. They also play lead and bass guitar in Brewer’s Grade Band, a country western outfit that had a busy touring schedule until the pandemic shuttered live music venues across the nation. As in-person performances started up again last summer, Al approached local downtown business owners with a vision of making The Dalles a “Little Music City,” showcasing live music seven nights a week. Today, there are nearly two dozen live music venues and growing, with an outdoor event space to open in late spring. The Hare brothers and other members of Brewer’s Grade Band perform original music for us while sharing their vision for making The Dalles a music and entertainment destination in the Columbia Gorge.
Todd Carpenter is the owner of The Last Stop Saloon, a bar and restaurant in The Dalles that dates back to the 1880s. He also owns two other taverns in Beaverton and Portland. He and his partner were drawn to The Dalles nearly six years ago by its “300 days of sunshine,” a community that rallies together and the proximity to myriad outdoor recreational opportunities. But one thing he doesn’t care for is the low pay service sector workers make, along with a lack of affordable housing, affordable daycare and medical services such as vision and dental care. So Carpenter offers his staff a minimum salary of $17.25 an hour and provides paid time off. He also entered into an agreement with The Dalles to redevelop three downtown properties, including an outdoor event space scheduled to open in the spring. He also plans to refurbish two floors above the dining space in The Last Stop Saloon to convert them into rental units for service sector workers.
But Carpenter’s business decisions have not been without controversy. Last June, Oregon OSHA issued Carpenter a nearly $9,000 citation for his decision to allow indoor dining in violation of a public health order to limit the spread of COVID-19 in Wasco County. Carpenter joins us to share what the experience has taught him and why he thinks businesses in The Dalles need to play a greater role in making it a place where workers can afford to live and raise their families.
Last spring, more than 100 Oregonians posed for portraits on empty pedestals in downtown Portland that used to house sculptures of former presidents. The portraits are the brainchild of indigenous artist Jeffrey Gibson, who was invited by Portland Art Museum to create a multimedia installation both inside and outside the museum. Gibson, a member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and of Cherokee descent, created the portraits, glass panels, and a timeline of notable dates in Oregon’s Indigenous history. We talk to Gibson, and to Kathleen Ash-Milby, curator of Native American Art at the Portland Art Museum, about the exhibit.
Nancey Patten is the director of Child Care Partners, a state-funded Child Care Resource and Referral program serving Wasco and neighboring counties. The program helps child care providers meet state licensing requirements and recruits new providers through trainings and enrollment in early childhood education classes. This past spring, there was not a single vacancy for an infant, toddler or preschooler at any child care provider in Wasco County, according to Patten. While the shortage has eased slightly since then, many parents continue to struggle to find full-time care which costs roughly $800 for a toddler or infant in Wasco County per month. Meanwhile, child care providers in the county and throughout Oregon have struggled to find help for a job which may only pay minimum wage.
Ana Rivera is the owner and operator of Rivera’s Bilingual Preschool and Child Care in The Dalles. Rebecca Schwartz is the dean of academic pathways at Columbia Gorge Community College and the mother of 8-month-old twins. They join Nancey Patten to share their perspectives on child care access in the Dalles and new efforts to ease the crisis.
On Saturday, Portlanders near Pioneer Courthouse Square will be welcomed with the sound of Christmas music played by 200 tubas. This year marks the 31st year of Tuba Christmas in Portland, but it has been celebrated across the world for close to 50 years. Chuck Bolton is the conductor of the free public concert. He joins us to share the history of Tubas Christmas in Portland and why so many musicians across Oregon come to play. We’ll also hear a few holiday songs from a quartet in the studio featuring Bolton, Heidi Aispuro, Dave Matthys and Charlie Violet.
Portland city officials are working with community members and artists to bring regular exhibits and events back to the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center. The historic center features a 99-seat black box theater, a rehearsal studio and an art gallery. Portland Parks and Recreation has collaborated with a community advisory committee to reactivate the center and create an artist residency program. Kwik Jones is a playwright and a program resident; Donovan Scribes is a writer, artist and member of the advisory committee; and Soo Pak manages arts, culture and special events for PPR. They join us to share their vision for the future of the center.
Portland city officials, downton business owners and others have been engaged in a battle to bring down crime, vandalism and manage people camping in public spaces. That effort continues and has gotten a lot of attention. But business owners on the city's Central Eastside say all those problems are rampant in their neighborhoods, too. And they're pushing for action. Kim Malek is the CEO of Salt & Straw and Clare Briglio is the executive director of the Central Eastside Industrial Council. They join us with details of what businesses have been experiencing and what they’re calling for.
Darby Ayers-Flood, the city of Talent’s current mayor, will remain in office after a close mayoral race. After winning by 20 votes over challenger Mark Anderson, Ayers-Flood will hold her post and continue working on the city’s post-fire recovery and economic growth. Ayers-Flood joins us with more on her plans for the city and moving forward after the Almeda Fire struck in 2020.
Although the “red wave” was a wash this November, the GOP did gain seats in the state Legislature. Democrats still hold majorities in both chambers but they no longer have the supermajorities they need to pass tax bills without some Republican support. Senate minority leader Tim Knopp (R-Bend) joins us to talk about Republican legislative priorities and how he’s planning to approach the next session.
Democrats kept their majorities in the Oregon state Legislature in the November election, but they lost their supermajority in both chambers. That means they’ll need a little more support from Republicans to pass some bills. This week, legislators have convened at the capital to talk about priorities for the next session. Dan Rayfield, speaker of the House, joins us to talk about how he’s approaching the legislature in 2023.
Earlier this year, the American Bar Association published a report finding that Oregon barely had 31% of the public defenders it needed to provide adequate criminal defense to those facing criminal charges. That’s something that public defenders themselves have known and experienced first hand for many years. Carl Macpherson, executive director of the Metropolitan Public Defender, says the shortage that’s developed is unconstitutional and unethical. He says part of the problem is an increasing number of people who are entering the system because of a lack of other services, like mental health and substance abuse treatment. And, judges are dismissing cases if a needed public defender isn’t available.
“This is not a public defender crisis,” Macpherson said. “This is a total public safety system failure.”
Multnomah county district attorney Mike Schmidt called the public defender shortage a crisis in an op-ed earlier this year. He recently began publishing the criminal cases that have been dismissed because an attorney couldn’t be provided to a defendant, which is a constitutional right.
We talk with Macpherson and Schmidt in turn to get more on how the shortage is affecting all corners of the criminal justice system and what could be done to help alleviate the crisis.
From 2019 to 2021, Oregon emergency rooms saw nearly double the number of gun-related injuries. That’s according to an OHSU report that looked at hospital and emergency room data on these types of accidents throughout the state. The report found that, on average, there were at least two visits to the ER for firearm injuries per day in 2020 and 2021. Kathleen Carlson is the director of the gun research collaboration at OHSU and an author of the report. Robert McCauley is the emergency department medical director for Good Shepherd Healthcare Systems in Hermiston. They both join us to share what gun violence is looking like in Oregon.
Oregonians passed Measure 114 in November. It would ban the manufacture, purchase or sale of high capacity magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition. It would also require people to take a safety course and pass a background check to get a permit allowing them to purchase a firearm. But that was just the beginning of a story that may well not be complete for years, as as the law is challenged in state and federal courts and the Oregon Department of Justice defends it. On Wednesday a federal court allowed the law to move forward as written, with a 30-day hold on the permitting process that the attorney general had asked for to get the system ready. On the same day a state court in Harney county put the law on hold. Now the DOJ is asking the Oregon Supreme Court to lift that hold and let the law go into effect Thursday. Michael Kron, special counsel to the state attorney general, joins us to give us the latest.
The brown marmorated stink bug is about the size of a nickel, shield-shaped with five sides and eats almost anything. It’s an invasive species that agricultural researchers, farmers and others have been trying to get under control for many years. The bug is wreaking havoc on Oregon hazelnuts and other fruit trees. Max Ragozzino, a biocontrol entomologist with the Oregon Department of Agriculture, says it’s not a discriminating pest. In their labs, he says, the stink bug feasts on fruits, vegetables and nuts of all kinds, and will even eat jellybeans. Ragozzino joins us to tell us more about the success of recent efforts to control this invasive species, and the ongoing work needed to help the state's agricultural crops thrive.
The jellyfish-like Nanomia bijuga is found throughout the ocean, including off the coast of Oregon and Washington. It’s not much to look at, but the unusual way it moves could help humans design better underwater vehicles. Nanomia moves by jet propulsion — pumping water through its body to push itself forward. University of Oregon researchers found that the animal can control these jets based on its needs, either synching them up for speed or pumping each individually for more efficient swimming. Researchers concluded that the feature could help inform how humans can build more efficient underwater vehicles.
Kelly Sutherland is an associate professor of biology at the University of Oregon. She joins us to talk about jet propulsion and bio-inspired design.
Rising rents and an overall housing crisis continues to squeeze renters, causing some to lose their homes and preventing others from getting housing. For domestic violence survivors who are seeking to get their own housing, the situation is especially severe. The Center for Hope and Safety in Salem helps women to secure housing but it’s getting ever harder for them to do that. Rachel Alexander investigated this for Salem Reporter and she joins us to share the details.
In the late 1800s the Paiutes of Eastern Oregon were forced to march from their reservation near Malheur Lake to the Yakima Reservation nearly 350 miles away through the deep winter snow. It was a brutal trial for a nation that had already been through so much. The events that led up to that march have long been mischaracterized in historic accounts, according to a new book by David Wilson, “Northern Paiutes of the Malheur: High Desert Reckoning in Oregon Country.” Wilson joins us to discuss the history he uncovered, along with Nancy Egan, the descendant of a chief of the Paiute tribe.
In 2013, a sea star wasting disease decimated sea star populations along the west coast. The Sunflower Sea Star is one of the largest sea stars in the world and suffered a loss of over five billion individuals. Scientists have come together to create a ‘Recovery Roadmap’ to initiate and accelerate the recovery of this species. Steve Rumrill is the shellfish program leader with ODFW and an author of the roadmap. He joins us to share what sea star populations are looking like now and what should be done to aid them.
Over 16,000 renters have had evictions filed against them in Oregon since the beginning of the pandemic. And eviction filings surpassed pre-pandemic levels in August, September and October of this year. (The state’s emergency rental assistance and “safe harbor” protections ended in September.) That’s according to Evicted in Oregon, a new project led by Portland State University researchers who collect court data on Oregon evictions and publish them online.
Lisa Bates is a professor in PSU’s Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning, and Colleen Carroll is a community research partnerships coordinator with the school. They join us to explain how publicly sharing eviction data could help inform better housing policies.
A 9-year-old from Cove, OR traveled over 700 miles to compete at the Vegas Tuffest Jr. World Championship. Hayden Johnson is a competitive barrel racing jockey. She began riding horses at the age of three. Hannah Johnson is Hayden’s mother and coach. They both join us to explain what barrel racing is and Hayden’s hopes for this competition.
RealPage, a Texas-based company behind a software called YieldStar, is facing a Department of Justice investigation. The company has been accused of facilitating landlord collusion through its software and driving up rental prices beyond market values.
In October, ProPublica, a nonprofit, investigative news outlet, reported on RealPage and its software. The investigation found that the company’s software does seem to push rents higher than market prices. In one Seattle neighborhood, the outlet found that 70% of apartments were managed by landlords that used the software. Heather Vogell is a reporter with ProPublica and has reported on RealPage. She joins us with details of the outlet’s findings.
Merritt Paulson, owner of the Portland Thorns and Timbers, announced Thursday that he will sell the women’s soccer team but maintain ownership of the men’s team. Fans have been calling for Paulson to sell both teams — even before a recent report outlining the Portland club’s role in systemic abuse and misconduct in the national women’s soccer league. Paulson said that he would donate $1 million to create a Player Safety Department in the NWSL. Although head coach Rhian Wilkinson was cleared of potential wrongdoing in the report, on Friday she announced her resignation after self-disclosing that she and another player had expressed feelings for each other. Ryan Clarke is the Timbers and Thorns correspondent for The Oregonian/Oregonlive and hosts the “Soccer Made in Portland” podcast. He joins us to discuss this week’s Thorns news, what’s at stake and what comes next.
The Oregon Nursing Education Academy, a new program by Oregon Health & Science University, aims to address both the national and regional shortage in nursing faculty. Susan Bakewell-Sachs is a professor and the Dean and Vice President for Nursing Affairs at the university. Joanne Noone is a professor in the OHSU School of Nursing. She also leads the new academy. They join us with more about the program and issues facing the industry.
Ninety-five percent of employers in Bend and Central Oregon say that the high cost of housing has had either a high or moderate impact on their ability to hire workers. That's according to a report released this month from the Bend Chamber of Commerce. The chamber hired consulting firm ECONorthwest to produce the report, which is based on surveys with over 200 regional employers working in construction, hospitality, healthcare and high tech. Two-thirds of the employers surveyed also said their revenues decreased as a result of hiring difficulties. Meanwhile, the median price of homes sold in Bend increased 75 percent from 2019 to the second quarter of 2022, while the pace of new construction has failed to keep up with demand. Bend Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Katy Brooks and City Councilor Megan Perkins join us to talk about the report and what’s being done to alleviate the affordable housing crisis in Bend.
In August, Beaverton police arrested the alleged leader of a crime ring they say trafficked more than 44,000 stolen catalytic converters since January 2021 — the street value of which is estimated to be over $22 million. Police said at the time that the Portland-area crime ring stretched as far as New York, but offered few details about the alleged ringleader or where the stolen parts ended up.
Willamette Week reporter Lucas Manfield tracked the stolen converters from the Portland metro area to Long Island to a New Jersey metal recycler. He joins us to talk about his reporting.
Portland has seen 93 homicides this year, and the year isn't over yet. Those include five people killed by local law enforcement officers. The city’s efforts to reduce this violence starting in 2019, when the uptick started, have been not only unsuccessful but fraught with controversy. Despite the launch of the Enhanced Community Safety Team in February 2021, the start of the Focused Intervention Team in 2022, and an increased Portland Police Bureau recruiting push, the deaths continue to rise. Meanwhile, legal challenges to the Oregon ballot measure that voters narrowly approved to tighten gun laws statewide continue, with a Friday court hearing. We get more details from OPB reporter Jonathan Levinson.
Portland photographer Intisar Abioto’s work is showing in two galleries. The exhibition at the Art Gallery at The Patricia Reser Center for the Arts in Beaverton showcases her own pieces and those of the other women artists in her family. She’s also part of the Oregon Contemporary show in Portland. The historic Cannady home in NE Portland is the subject of one of these installations. People working to elevate Black history say this residence that once belonged to Black activist and civil leader Beatrice Morrow Cannady is a place that should be recognized as historically and culturally significant. Intisar Abioto said, not only that, but when she learned it was for sale earlier this year, she thought it could be reclaimed by the Black community as a place to gather, organize and create art.
She spearheaded an effort to buy the property. Abioto worked with other artists, Black political leaders, business owners, historians, activists and someone who volunteered to finance a backup offer on the $1,135,000 home. The sellers didn’t accept the offer, but Abioto says there are still valuable lessons to be learned from both Beatrice Cannady’s history in Portland, and the story of the community effort to buy her home. She joins us to talk about art, history and the present moment, and how this experience synthesizes all three.
In September, a grand jury declined to charge a former West Linn doctor accused of sexual abuse by more than 100 women and children. Now a new release of documents and police reports could provide more insight into why the doctor wasn’t indicted. Holly Bartholomew has been following this story for the West Linn Tidings newspaper. She joins us to talk more about the case, and what the alleged victims would like to see happen next.
Railroad workers have expressed concerns over unpredictable and punishing schedules, a lack of sick leave and extended periods of on-call time. Four of the twelve unions involved in contract negotiations rejected a deal brokered in September and threatened to strike. At President Biden's urging, Congress has stepped in and is working to reach a labor agreement. On Wednesday, the U.S. House passed a bill that would bind companies and workers to accept the agreement reached in September. We learn more about this issue from Peter Goodman, a New York Times global economic correspondent and author of "Davos Man: How the Billionaires Devoured the World."
This spring, a new brewery dedicated to tabletop roleplaying games will be coming to East Portland. TPK Brewery is queer and BIPOC women-owned, with a goal to create an inclusive space and promote diversity in Portland’s gaming and brewery culture. With the growing popularity of TTRPGs like Dungeons & Dragons, how have these games changed over the years, and what does diversity and representation look like now? Dana Ebert is the creative director for TPK Brewing. Amanda Cote is an assistant professor of media studies and game studies at the University of Oregon. They join us to help answer these questions and more.
Hold times for 911 calls in Portland are far longer than the national standard, which specifies that 90% of calls should be answered within 15 seconds. According to the city’s Bureau of Emergency Communications, only 35% of calls were answered within that window last month. The bureau wants to hire more dispatchers and has begun using a system of automatic call backs to numbers that hang up. It also plans to launch an automated answering system for non-emergency calls in the new year.
Joining us to talk about possible fixes for long emergency call wait times is Bob Cozzie, director of the Portland Bureau of Emergency Communications.
Alicia Jo Rabins is a writer, a performer, a filmmaker, a Torah scholar and a teacher. She’s also a mother. Rabins says that after she had children, she noticed that the way she interacted the sacred texts of the Torah shifted. She saw them with new eyes and uncovered different lessons than she had before she became a parent. Her new book, “Even God had Bad Parenting Days,” connects the ancient stories with contemporary life. In this collection of essays, Rabins reveals some of her own deeply personal struggles and what she’s learned and practiced to get her through difficult times and embrace joy as often as possible. We talk with her about these stories and their intersections with the ancient wisdom in texts written thousands of years ago.
After spotting a stolen vehicle in his neighborhood and informing the owner via social media, Titan Crawford has made hunting for stolen cars a big part of his life. He’s the founder of the Facebook group, PDX Stolen Cars, which is made up of volunteers helping each other find stolen cars in Portland. When police have to prioritize other crimes, the group can be another way for Portlanders to actively work on getting their vehicles back. And it’s not just cars. Motorcycles have been found in the group too. Nicole Heath joined the group hoping to get her stolen motorcycle back. While she continues to search for it, she has helped others in the group find their stolen vehicles. She and Crawford join us with details of the group and the work they’re doing.
In the 1920s, the Osage were considered the richest people per capita in the world, thanks to oil wells on their land. But in the early 1920s, about two dozen tribal members were killed mysteriously. Author David Grann delves into those deaths and the conspiracy behind them in his book “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the F.B.I.” Host Geoff Norcross spoke with Grann in 2017 in front of an audience at the Portland Book Festival.
Michael Pollan has spent much of his career writing about the sometimes surprising relationship between plants and humans. His newest book, “This Is Your Mind on Plants," focuses on three different plants and how they affect our brains. Opium, coffee, and mescaline could all be considered powerful drugs, or simply beautiful plants, or something much more mystical. We listen back to this conversation with Pollan in front of an audience at the Newmark Theater, as part of an event put on by Powell’s Books.
Kate Beaton gained an international following for “Hark, a Vagrant,” a quirky, satirical, historically informed comic strip. Beaton’s newest book takes a very different turn. It is a deeply personal graphic memoir called “Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands" about the time she spent working in the oil industry in Alberta, Canada in the mid-2000s. The book is a brutally honest exploration of class, migration, misogyny, and the culture of her homeland: the island of Cape Breton, in the Atlantic province of Nova Scotia.
Colin Meloy is perhaps best known as the songwriter and lead singer of The Decemberists, but he also writes books aimed at young readers. He’s authored the "Wildwood" series, which is now being made into a feature film, and he’s just come out with a new book, “The Stars did Wander Darkling.” It’s set in 1987 in an Oregon coastal town that draws inspiration from Astoria and Manzanita. Meloy also weaves poetry into the narrative, including Arthur Rimbaud, Lord Byron and William Butler Yeats, and he hopes to pique kids’ interest to read further. He joins us to talk more about the themes in the book and what he hopes middle grade readers take away from it.
For people who live to ride mountain bike trails through the wilderness, there is a new dream on the horizon. One day soon, it may be possible to ride all the way from the southern tip of the Baja peninsula up the west coast to the Canadian border. Gabriel Amadeus Tiller is the executive director of Orogenesis, an organization working to build this trail. They have only about 200 miles of the route left to map. Tiller joins us to talk about his dream of the longest mountain biking trail in the world.
A labor shortage in Eastern Oregon is making it harder to remove ice and snow on Oregon highways. As the La Grande Observer reports, the Oregon Department of Transportation employs 300 positions in the eastern part of the state, but has almost 40 vacancies. Most of those empty positions are for permanent and seasonal employees that are in charge of road maintenance. Rich Lani is ODOT’s District 12 Manager. He joins us to share why it’s getting harder to get people behind the wheel of snow plows and what this shortage could mean for the future.
In 2006 Osa Atoe, a Black feminist punk living in Portland, did what felt natural in the punk scene: she started a zine. “Shotgun Seamstress” was a fanzine by, for and about Black punks that published six issues. Now, a new book reprints all the zines in one place. Osa Atoe joins us to talk about "Shotgun Seamstress," zines and the joys of punk music.
It’s no surprise that reading news about the ever-worsening climate crisis can be depressing. But a new study suggests that when journalists frame climate stories differently, their effect can change dramatically. Solutions journalism researchers at the University of Maryland found news consumers exposed to coverage of solutions had lower eco-anxiety, felt they could better influence climate change policy and were more likely to support collective action to address it. We talk with lead researcher Kathryn Thier, a former University of Oregon instructor, who was one of the first to teach this kind of reporting in the broader journalism curriculum.
The so-called "red wave" did not materialize in the 2022 election. Nonetheless, the GOP made some significant gains nationally and in the Northwest. Republicans will have control of the U.S. House, and in Oregon, they broke the Democratic supermajority in the state house chamber. And Oregon was one of the few blue states in the country where Republicans gained legislative seats.
Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer took the 5th Congressional District. The seat was held by the moderate seven-term Democrat Kurt Schrader, but he lost to the more progressive Jamie McLeod-Skinner in the May primary.
We talk about these wins and the future of the Oregon Republican party with political strategists Reagan Knopp and Julie Parrish.
Earlier this month, images started appearing online of a macabre and quirky amusement center that may not be, well, fun for the whole family. It’s also not real. Chucky Cheese Pizza Arcade & Bowling is the work of Cabel Adams, a Eugene resident and self-taught virtual reality artist who took photos of a nearby mall and used 3D rendering, augmented reality and virtual reality software to create a realistic-looking arcade with Chucky, the slasher doll from the ‘80s horror movie franchise “Child’s Play,” as its mascot. Adams posted the images and video clips of the exterior and interior of the space on Facebook, blending elements of real structures and fake attractions, and even dressed up in a Chucky costume himself to create a tantalizing possibility of actually being there.
His concept quickly went viral, racking up 100,000 shares on Facebook within 24 hours, and it even caught the attention of Jennifer Tilly, an actress in the “Child’s Play” movie franchise and the “Chucky” TV spin-off. Cabel Adams joins us to talk about the reaction to his work, and using VR and augmented reality to blur the lines between reality and artifice.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved a plan to demolish four aging dams on the Klamath River.
Removing the dams would open up salmon habitat and help restore the river, which has faced toxic algae, major fish kills and was impacted by the McKinney Fire earlier this year. Cassandra Profita is a reporter for OPB's Science & Environment unit. Barry McCovey Jr. is the Yurok Tribal Fisheries Department Director. They join us with details on what the demolition means for the Klamath River.
Portlanders will be seeing a new face on the city council. Voters have elected Rene Gonzalez to be the city’s newest commissioner, ousting incumbent Jo Ann Hardesty. Hardesty joins us to share her take on the election – and the direction she thinks the city is headed.
Anthony Doerr’s last book, “All the Light We Cannot See,” told the stories of two different young people growing up in Europe during World War II and whose lives eventually overlapped. His newest book, “Cloud Cuckoo Land,” uses a similar template, but on a much more complex scale. This book follows five different characters whose storylines eventually meet up. The stories range from ancient Greece to sometime in the near future, but they all share something in common: a love for the power of storytelling itself. And for the people and libraries that keep stories alive. Anthony Doerr joins us in front of an audience of students at Grant High School.
Space exploration and the potential habitability of other planets are on the cutting edge of scientific research. But University of Oregon archaeology professor Scott Fitzpatrick says humans made similar advances thousands of years ago when they traveled vast distances to populate remote islands.
Fitzpatrick compares early island exploration to space travel in a recent chapter he contributed to a new book. He joins us to talk about the parallels between the two and how looking to the past could make future space travel more successful.
Last month, the Center for Biological Diversity and Portland Audubon filed notice they intended to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over its decision to list the streaked horned lark as threatened and a rule the agency finalized that exempts farming activities within its habitat. The two groups argue that the songbird, which inhabits the open grasslands and prairies of western Oregon and Washington, should be listed as endangered and not threatened. According to a population survey conducted more than a decade ago, there are an estimated 1100 to 1600 larks remaining. The USFWS first listed the streaked horned lark as threatened nearly a decade ago, and allowed for an exemption to farming activities on open fields and prairies the larks use for nesting. That agricultural exemption has now been extended to Washington state as well, with the agency arguing it will “meet both land management considerations and the conservation needs of the streaked horned lark.” Noah Greenwald is the endangered species director for the Center for Biological Diversity. Roger Beyer is the executive director of the Oregon Seed Council, a trade association which advocates on behalf of seed farmers and the seed industry in Oregon.
As far as respiratory illnesses go, COVID-19 has been top of mind for much of the last three years. But state health officials are now raising the alarm about other viruses that largely stopped circulating during the pandemic. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown issued an executive order this week to help address rising pediatric cases of respiratory syncytial virus, commonly known as RSV. And health officials have warned of possible influenza and COVID-19 surges as winter approaches.
Joining us to talk about concerns around these viruses going into the winter season is Dr. Tom Jeanne, deputy state health officer and deputy state epidemiologist with the Oregon Health Authority.
This past weekend, the Oregon Ducks faced off against the Washington Huskies and were met with a brutal loss. But the season isn’t over yet. The Ducks and the Utah Utes will play each other on Saturday and the game has implications for which team will make it to the Pac-12 Football Championship Game. We check in on college football with Zachary Neel, the managing editor for USA Today’s Ducks Wire.
In May, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife received a tip that an unusual-looking crayfish was spotted in a creek around Lithia Park in Ashland. Biologists from the state agency laid out traps and confirmed the presence of Northern crayfish which are native to the Midwest. It marks the fourth invasive species of crayfish now found in Oregon waterways. Sampling conducted by ODFW scientists found that Northern crayfish had moved from the Ashland canal to Bear Creek near Medford, 15 miles away, and raised concerns that they could already be in the Rogue River. Rick Boatner is the invasive species coordinator for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. He shares with us how the aggressive crustaceans are proliferating in Southern Oregon and the threat they pose, not only to native Signal crayfish but also to endangered steelhead and salmon.
Oregon state Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum announced the largest ever AG-led privacy lawsuit. Google agreed to a total of $391.5 million in the settlement over tracking users location even when they had turned a tracking setting off. Rosenblum and Nebraska AG Doug Peterson led the effort, which ultimately 40 states signed on to. Oregon’s share is $14,800,563. As part of the agreement, Google will be changing its tracking and disclosure practices. We get more details from Assistant Attorney General Kristen Hilton who headed the settlement team.
By 2023, Southeast Salem will see the state’s first community microgrid. In an emergency, this facility would provide power to six apartment buildings, over 30 homes and a handful of government buildings. Trevor Smith is the public information officer for the City of Salem. Darren Murtaugh is the senior manager of Portland General Electric’s grid edge solutions team. They both join us to share how this microgrid works and what it could mean for the future of Salem and the state.
Oregonians voted in 2020 to legalize psilocybin therapy in supervised facilities. The hallucinogenic drug has gained traction in recent years as a viable treatment for PTSD, severe depression and substance use disorder. But the majority of the state’s 36 counties have reservations about the therapy — 25 counties voted against allowing psilocybin use last week, along with several municipalities. Jefferson Public Radio reporter Jane Vaughan joins us to talk about those bans and what they could mean for the future of psilocybin in Oregon
Last year, Reynolds Middle School went back to distance learning for several days due to behavioral issues. Now the school district has a new Social Emotional Learning curriculum to help students cope with everyday challenges. They’ve also hired social workers for each school building and have developed community partnerships for mental health services. We talk to Candice Vickers, executive director of student and family services at Reynolds School District, and Michelle Cardenas, program administrator for school culture and climate, about the work they are doing to support students.
It’s hard to overstate the effect that a changing climate is having around the world. And a group of young social activists in Oregon are calling attention to the disconnect between the extreme urgency of the climate issue and the lack of adequate policies to make a real difference. The effects of extreme heat waves, wildfires and drought are getting worse, not better. The young leaders of Our Children Oregon have a message: we need real action now. They say they want a voice in shaping the policies that affect them most of all, that they deserve a seat at the table. Our guests are: Avery McRae, one of the 21 plaintiffs in the climate lawsuit Juliana v. U.S.; Adah Crandall, a climate change organizer with Sunrise PDX; and two members of the OCO youth leadership cohort, Jax Richards, and Caroline Gao, who is also Oregon’s Youth Governor. And Meredith Connolly, the Oregon director of Climate Solutions, a nonprofit focused on policy solutions, joins us as well.
If you think the Civil War is ancient history, you need to meet Ray Lincoln Puckett. His great uncle fought in the Civil War and shared stories with him when he was in grade school. Puckett is 97, and one of the few veterans of World War II still alive. Just 170,000 remain of the 16 million that were deployed in that war. He lives independently, in the home he shares with his partner in King City, Oregon. Puckett joins us to share some of his memories just ahead of Veterans Day.
Oregon’s Land Conservation and Development Commission adopted a new set of rules this summer that aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the state’s eight largest metro areas. The Climate-Friendly and Equitable Communities rules affect several aspects of land use, transportation and development. Among other things, they require cities to remove certain parking mandates, provide more electric vehicle infrastructure, and designate mixed-use “climate-friendly areas” where residents can meet their daily needs without using a car.
Oregon's Department of Land Conservation and Development spent nearly two years crafting the rules with city representatives. However, several cities aren’t pleased with the results — they say the rules are too prescriptive and will be too costly to implement. A group of cities is even planning a lawsuit to get the state to pause the rules and renegotiate.
Joining us to talk about the dispute is Kevin Young, a senior urban planner with the department. We’ll also hear from Cornelius Mayor Jef Dalin and League of Oregon Cities lobbyist Ariel Nelson about how the rules are affecting some Oregon cities.
While some races for Oregon state legislative seats are still close to call, some candidates did win definitively. Virgle Osborne is one of them. He’s a newly elected Republican representative from the state’s 2nd District. He’s a small business owner in Roseburg, and his core issues, according to his campaign website, include a tough-on-crime approach as well as lower taxes and ensuring forests are "properly managed."
Travis Nelson is a registered nurse and was appointed in January to serve out Tina Kotek’s term in the 44th district when she declared her candidacy. He says health care and equity issues among his top priorities. This is his first election, and Nelson is the first LGBTQ Black man to win a seat in the Oregon House. We talk with him and Osborne to see how they’re feeling after their decisive wins, how they plan to approach governing and what their priorities will be in the 2023 legislative session.
Heather Hansman loves skiing. In her 20s, her life revolved around the sport. Later, she covered it as a journalist. Now, she’s written a book about skiing and the people who love it, as well as the uncertain future of a sport that depends on certain weather conditions. She examines the race, class and gender inequities in the world of skiing, as well as the mental health struggles some devoted skiers face. We talk with Hansman about “Powder Days: Ski Bums, Ski Towns and the Future of Chasing Snow.”
The results of many key elections in Oregon and Southwest Washington are still too close to call. Nationally, the election didn’t bring a decisive landslide that Republicans and many pollsters had been predicting. But the Republican candidate for governor in Oregon, Christine Drazen, is still within a few percentage points of the Democratic candidate, Tina Kotek. Several congressional races are also very close. We cover a few races that appear more certain, including the change to Portland’s charter, Portland city council, and the Oregon Labor Commissioner.
Last month, Oregon Governor Kate Brown spent nearly two weeks leading a trade mission to South Korea and Japan promoting Oregon’s agriculture, tourism, manufacturing and other industries. According to the Oregon Department of Agriculture, Japan and South Korea are the state's second and third largest export markets for the state’s agriculture and food products, and generated $600 million in sales last year. Oregon is also the only state in the U.S. allowed to sell fresh blueberries in South Korea. Joining us are two members of the agriculture trade delegation that recently returned from Asia. Theresa Yoshioka is the international trade manager for the Oregon Department of Agriculture. Ellie Norris is the vice-chair of the Oregon Blueberry Commission and the owner of Norris Farms, a 650-acre blueberry farm in Umpqua.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, almost all U.S. hospitals screen babies for hearing loss shortly after they’re born. The brief test helps detect signs of deafness and hearing loss, which could lead to developmental delays if not caught early. But the equipment used to perform the test costs thousands of dollars, making it a luxury in many lower-income countries.
Researchers at the University of Washington recently developed a low-cost way to conduct newborn hearing screenings using a smartphone and earbuds. Shyam Gollakota is a professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering and one of the researchers behind the project. He joins us to talk about what the new method could mean for global health equity.
Nearly half of the fires in Portland in 2021 started near or at a homeless camp, with an average of six camp fires a day and the amount of total fires doubling over three years. Some of these fires spread to abandoned buildings, wooded areas and alleys, drawing growing concern from local residents and increasing the workload for Portland Fire & Rescue. These fires lead to people experiencing homelessness losing their homes and possessions. Natalie O’Neill is a freelance journalist based in Portland. She joins us to share how these fires are affecting the people living at these camps and the city itself.
Two years ago, several neighbors in Ashland quickly mobilized a response to the Almeda Fire by organizing the preparation and delivery of thousands of daily meals to displaced residents in the Rogue Valley. That community-led effort has since evolved into Rogue Food Unites, an Ashland-based nonprofit with a full-time staff and a contract from the Oregon Office of Resilience and Emergency Management to feed current and future wildfire victims in five counties in Southern and Central Oregon. In September, Rogue Food Unites launched a new program that offers produce, meat and eggs purchased from local growers and made available for free at weekly farmers markets held in Medford, Talent and Phoenix. Amber Ferguson, the co-founder and executive director of Rogue Food Unites, joins us to talk about using food to provide comfort and a sense of kinship while planning for the next disaster in the Rogue Valley and beyond.
When most people think of the conservation movement, they might think of environmentalists working to preserve endangered species like the spotted owl, orca, or sage grouse. The latest issue of High Country News is dedicated to a more comprehensive idea of conservation. The editor of this issue, Michelle Nijhuis, argues that conservation needs to consider more than just a single animal: the movement needs to look at entire ecosystems, and the people who are part of them. We talk to Nijhuis, and one of the writers featured in the new issue, Jaclyn Moyer.
The Portland City Council has voted to ban street camping and create mass campsites where people living on the streets can go for shelter and services. The plan has drawn passionate responses in support and opposition since it was proposed. Hundreds of people have testified before the city council itself, and advocates organized a special town hall where those critical of the plan voiced their fears and concerns. We'll talk with Mayor Ted Wheeler about the plan he and Commissioner Dan Ryan crafted and what happens next.
A new series streaming on Apple TV+ hopes to help kids “discover a world of feelings.” The show is based on books and characters from Vancouver-based children’s brand "Slumberkins." The show follows the adventures of Bigfoot, Unicorn, Sloth, Yak and Fox as they navigate their emotions.
Halle Stanford is the President of Television for The Jim Henson Company and an executive producer of the series. Kelly Oriard and Callie Christensen are the co-founders and co-CEOs of the brand based in the Pacific Northwest and are co-executive producers of the show. We learn more from them about “Slumberkins” and the concept of social emotional learning.
More than 150 sea lions have been found sick or dead along Oregon’s coast due to a bacterial outbreak of Leptospirosis this summer. The disease is spread through the mammals' urine and can be spread to other species such as dogs. Jim Rice is the stranding program manager for Oregon State University's Marine Mammal Institute. He joins us to share what the outbreak has looked like so far and how it compares to previous years.
Meta was recently ordered to pay nearly $25 million in fines for violating Washington’s campaign finance disclosure rules. The company has been charged the maximum fine for violating the state’s Fair Campaign Practices Act, which was passed in 1972. Then, the company received an additional fine of $10.5 million to cover attorney fees for the state of Washington. Bob Ferguson, the state’s attorney general, filed the lawsuit against the company. He joins us with details about the penalty.
Nationally, internet service providers sometimes offer lower-income, less white neighborhoods slower internet service for the same price as faster connections in neighborhoods that are whiter and wealthier. That’s according to a report by The Markup, a nonprofit newsroom focused on technology company accountability. The reporting found that across the country – including in Portland and Seattle – a provider might offer speeds at or above 200 megabits-per-second in one neighborhood, while offering service below 25 megabits-per-second in others for the same price. We learn more about the findings from Aaron Sankin, an investigative reporter with The Markup.
A new report from the Rural Engagement and Vitality Center looked at the economies of Eastern Oregon counties and how decisions made by the U.S. Forest Service would affect them. Out of all the areas east of the Cascades, Grant County would face the biggest impacts because of its reliance on the agency. Peter Maille is a professor of economics at Eastern Oregon University and one of the authors of the report. Jim Hamsher is the Grant County Commissioner. They both join us to share the role the federal agency plays in Eastern Oregon communities.
Oregon joined a number of states last summer in allowing college athletes to be compensated by companies for their name, image and likeness (NIL). Now, high school athletes can do the same — the Oregon School Activities Association released new guidance last month detailing how students can approach and benefit from NIL deals.
OSAA executive director Peter Weber joins us to talk about what went into that decision. We’ll also hear from University of Oregon sports business instructor Craig Leon about trends in the collegiate NIL landscape over the last year.
A shortage of sexual assault nurse examiners has left a gap in care on Oregon’s North Coast. Survivors who want to report their assaults often have to travel hours to Portland to be examined by a certified nurse in a chaotic emergency room. But a recent federal grant will soon change that.
Rebeckah Orton is the executive director of the Astoria Birth Center, and Terri Steenburgen is the executive director of The Harbor, which provides support services for sexual assault survivors. They join us to talk about how their organizations are partnering to train midwives to be certified sexual assault nurse examiners.
In the Pacific Northwest, county election officials have tried to combat claims of election fraud and concerns over the security of vote counting and elections as a whole. Officials are fielding calls and responding to emails about how votes are processed. We learn more from Dan Forester, the elections manager at Washington County’s elections division, about this effort.
New research from OHSU looked at human tissue to try to understand how many nerve fibers are contained in the clitoris. It seems to be the first time that this has ever been studied (a previous estimate was made using bovine tissue). The study found over 10,000 nerve fibers, which is 20% more than previously thought. Dr. Blair Peters is the author of the study, and an assistant professor of plastic surgery and urology at OHSU. Peters joins us to talk about why more research on the clitoris, and the vulva in general, would help surgeons and scientists to understand that region of the body and how it relates to pleasure.
In mid-October, the Alaska Department of Fish and Wildlife announced that it would be canceling the winter snow crab season. This is the first time the snow crab season has been canceled in the Bering Sea. The state agency says the closure follows declining numbers of the crustacean.
Chuck Jackson is based in Newport and is the chief engineer and senior deckhand for the F/V Atlantico. He joins us to share what this closure means for some of Oregon’s commercial fishers.
Local news outlets in Oregon have shrunk or disappered altogether in recent years, leaving some communities without any source of local news. And misinformation and disinformation are on the rise. A new journalism study out of the University of Oregon’s Agora Journalism Center says large-scale interventions are called for to create a stronger “civic information infrastructure.” We talk with the lead author Regina Lawrence about some of the innovations and interventions happening in the state and elsewhere.
Adam Aminé Daniel – better known by his stage name “Aminé” – is frequently heralded as one of the most successful hip-hop artists to come out of the Rose City. Since releasing the hit 2016 single “Caroline,” the Portland-born rapper has performed at Coachella, made political waves on “The Tonight Show,” earned a Grammy nomination and toured internationally. And on Nov. 9, he’ll return to Portland to make his orchestral debut with the Oregon Symphony. Aminé joins host Dave Miller to talk about the upcoming performance and his career so far.
Like many readers around the globe, Naomi Huffman is a huge fan of “Geek Love,” the novel about circus ‘freaks’ by the Portland author Katharine Dunn. Unlike other fans, Huffman is also an editor. Huffman went looking for more unpublished works by Dunn, who died in 2016. This fall Dunn’s novel “Toad,” written before “Geek Love,” will finally be published, after having been rejected by many publishers. We talk to Huffman about the process of editing Dunn’s draft posthumously, and what the new novel says about the famous writer.
Editor’s Note: We invited both candidates to speak. Mike Erickson declined to participate.
The primaries were flooded with candidates for the newly formed 6th congressional district. Now, Democratic state Rep. Andrea Salinas and Republican businessman Mike Erickson face off in the general election. Salinas joins us with more on why she thinks voters should send her to Congress to represent Oregon’s 6th congressional district.
The National Women’s Soccer Association named Portland Thorns forward Sophia Smith the league’s Most Valuable Player last week. And on Saturday, the 22-year-old Smith scored a goal in the first four minutes of the championship game. The Thorns went on to win 2-0 against the Kansas City Current. The Portland team is the first to win three NWSL championships, and the game was the first to be broadcast in primetime on network TV. Anne Peterson is a sports writer for the Associated Press, covering the Thorns and Timbers and international soccer. She brings us the highlights of the historic win and the challenges of this season - with investigations into the culture of abuse in the franchise and the NWSL league itself.
Third Congressional District candidates Republican Joe Kent and Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez join us for an in-person debate recorded on the evening of October 27 at the Wollenberg Auditorium on the campus of Lower Columbia College in Longview, Washington.
When the Portland Baroque Orchestra’s artistic director of nearly three decades announced her retirement, the organization began a years-long search for a new leader. Starting this weekend, the three finalists for the job will perform in front of live audiences in a series of concerts to determine who will lead the early music orchestra going forward. Interim Executive Director Dave Pearson and interim Artistic Director John Butt explain why taking the audiences’ opinions into account is an important part of the selection, and what these three finalists will bring to the Portland institution.
How do you preserve the image of John Day? That’s the question on the minds of residents and the answer from mayoral candidates Ron Londbum and Heather Rookstool could decide who will win the election in November. Londbum has been John Day's mayor for 10 years and is a former owner of an auto parts retailer. Rookstool is a first-term city council member and is an educational assistant with Grant Union junior and senior high school. To break down how the race is shaping up and the issues that are defining it, we’re joined by Justin Davis, senior reporter for the Blue Mountain Eagle.
Last month, Central Oregon Community College in Bend launched a four-week-long training course for students to become certified peer support specialists. A peer support specialist is someone with lived experience and formal training to help others with recovery from substance use disorder or mental illness. According to a recent study by researchers at the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health, the number of certified peer support specialists would need to increase by nearly a third to meet the demand for substance use treatment services in Deschutes county alone.
This is the first peer support training course offered in central Oregon, according to COCC, and is aimed at helping to meet a growing need for mental health services and substance use treatment, especially in rural communities. Joining us are Jenny Cruickshank, an assistant professor of health and human performance at Central Oregon Community College; and Terry Rogers, who completed the peer support specialist training course and is the founder of Bible Street Ministry, a faith-based nonprofit helping people experiencing homelessness in Bend.
Oregon’s 5th Congressional district is freshly redrawn and stretches from Clackamas County to Bend. New geographical coverage has now led to candidates Lori Chavez-DeRemer and Jamie McLeod-Skinner finding themselves in an extremely tight race, garnering national attention. Chavez-DeRemer is the former mayor of Happy Valley and a small business owner in health care. McLeod-Skinner an attorney and a regional emergency manager.
Oregon had its own "father of rock & roll." Some have called Johnnie Ray, an Oregon farm boy turned 1950s teen idol, the musical link between Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley. In the early 1950s, Ray’s songs, including “Cry” and “The Little White Cloud that Cried,” topped the charts. Ray grew up in the Willamette Valley. A documentary about his life aired this week on OPB TV and can be watched online. We learn more about the late artist and his musical legacy from OPB’s Kami Horton, a writer and producer for Oregon Experience.
Forest Service Employees For Environmental Ethics, an Oregon-based environmental group, filed a lawsuit earlier this month against the U.S. Forest Service. The complaint alleges that the agency is in violation of the Clean Water Act by inadvertently dropping fire retardant into waterways. Andy Stahl is the executive director of Forest Service Employees For Environmental Ethics. He joins us with details of the complaint.
Earlier this month, Coos and Curry County came together to plan for the worst-case disaster scenario. They underwent a series of exercises to solidify roles for each county and get familiar with what to do in the case of a tsunami, earthquake or other emergency situation. Debbie Mueller is the Coos County Emergency Coordinator. She joins us to share how these trainings went and how Oregonians can be prepared for the worst.
This election, Multnomah County voters will decide whether to join the 50 or so other municipalities around the country that have adopted a system of ranked choice voting.
Multnomah County’s Measure 26-232 is different from the one on the Portland ballot that would change the city’s form of government, including a form of ranked choice voting.
The county measure would use a basic method of instant runoff ranked choice voting to decide contests for sheriff, auditor, and all the members of the Multnomah County Commission.
As a hypothetical example, 100 voters are choosing among Apple, Banana and Cherry. Banana gets 45 first choice votes, more than Apple or Cherry, but not the 51 needed to win. Another round of counting is done: Cherry had 41, and Apple had 14, so Apple is eliminated. All of Apple’s second choice votes are then counted, which in this theoretical election are evenly split -- with seven votes going to each remaining fruit -- leaving a final tally of Banana: 52 and Cherry: 48. However, if Cherry had gotten 10 of those Apple votes instead of seven, the outcome would have put Cherry … on top.
Minneapolis, Minnesota has been using this kind of instant runoff ranked choice voting since 2009. We talk with Aaron Grossman, one of the city’s election supervisors, about how it’s been working there and what he’s heard from voters over the years.
The Bureau of Labor and Industries oversees the rights of workers in Oregon. Two candidates are vying to be the state’s next labor commissioner, a nonpartisan role. Cheri Helt is a former Republican state representative and a former member of the Bend-La Pine school board. Christina Stephenson is a civil rights attorney who represents workers in employment disputes. Both candidates join us for a debate.
Wildfire smoke drove down the air quality significantly in many parts of Oregon this summer and fall. Many students were not allowed to play or take breaks outside because of the high levels of air pollution from smoke. The Oregon Health Authority provides guidance for people — and school districts — trying to figure out what level of exposure is safe. And even though rain has finally brought some relief, questions about how to respond to bad air quality are only going to get more urgent in the coming years.
Our guests are Molly Kile, professor in the College of Public Health and Human Sciences at Oregon State University; Gabriele Goldfarb, manager of the Environmental Public Health Section at the Oregon Health Authority; and Carl Mead, Deputy Superintendent of Operations and Support Services for the Beaverton School District. We discuss the effects of smoky air on young lungs, and what goes into the decisions that schools and health authorities have to make.
In 2019, the band YACHT released an album called Chain Tripping. Every piece of the album was created by artificial intelligence: the music, the lyrics, the album art and the title.The band members, who come from Portland and Astoria, also made a documentary about the process of creating the album. It’s called The Computer Accent, and it’s playing this week at PAM CUT. Lead singer Claire Evans joins us to explain what AI can do for music, and what it can’t.
House Bill 4074 allocated $6 million to address the mental health of Oregon cannabis farm workers who faced poor working conditions at illegal farms. Racies de Bienestar, an Oregon-based nonprofit that focuses on the Latine community, will be receiving a part of that funding. Starting sometime this fall, the group will launch their program and provide more care to this community. Ruth Zúñiga is the executive director and co-founder of Raices de Bienestar. She joins us to share the barriers and stigmas this community faces when trying to access mental health care, and how she and her group are working to address them.
With the November election ballots starting to be mailed to voters this week, the state of Oregon is sending out the message that elections here continue to be free, fair and secure. The Secretary of State’s office is encouraging Oregon voters to “know their rights” and urging anyone who feels someone is trying to intimidate them at the ballot box or elsewhere to report it to her office. Donald Trump and his supporters are attempting to cast doubt on the integrity of U.S. elections with lies about election fraud, and specifically about the security of voting by mail.
Voters in some Oregon counties have complained about being questioned about their votes from people falsely representing themselves as government employees. And Oregon is not immune to the “monitoring” of voters at ballot boxes, which some voters say they find intimidating. Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan joins us to remind us about the safeguards baked into the state's vote-by-mail system, and walk us through the efforts to counter disinformation and intimidation.
In August, the Oregon State Police Fish and Wildlife division named Alexander Hayes, a deputy district attorney in Clackamas County, its “Prosecutor of the Year.” Hayes has been with the district attorney’s office for nearly four years, specializing in prosecuting cases involving illegal hunting and poaching. In one of his first cases with the county, he secured convictions against three individuals who had illegally baited and killed bears in eastern Clackamas County. In 2019, he worked with law enforcement investigators to stop a poaching operation involving sturgeon that was being illegally fished from the Willamette River and sold to local restaurants. Hayes joins us to talk about the challenges and rewards of prosecuting wildlife crimes.
Next month, Portlanders will vote on a ballot measure that affects the city's charter. Supporters say the proposal will make city government more representative. But the measure is complex, and opponents say it tries to change too much. Joining us to explain the key changes proposed in the measure is Chris Hughes, policy director and counsel at the Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center. We’ll also hear from Sol Mora, campaign manager for Portland United for Change – which supports the charter measure – and Alisa Pyszka, a member of the Partnership for Common Sense Government, which opposes it.
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation recently announced the names of 25 people who won an annual fellowship. The highly selective and prestigious award, which has also been described as a “genius grant,” comes with a no-strings-attached stipend of $800,000, which the foundation describes as "an investment in their potential.” The fellowships are given each year to a diverse array of artists, academics, activists and other pioneers in their fields. Yejin Choi is a 2022 MacArthur Fellow and a computer science professor at the University of Washington. She joins us to talk to us about her efforts to make artificial intelligence capable of common sense reasoning, ethical decision-making and recognizing intent behind human language.
This November, Oregon voters will decide the fate of four statewide ballot measures, including Measure 113. If passed, the measure would bar state lawmakers from holding office after their current term expires if they have 10 or more unexcused absences from legislative sessions in the House or Senate. The measure would restrict the ability of lawmakers to stage walkouts to delay or block the passage of bills they oppose since the state constitution requires two-thirds of a chamber’s lawmakers to be present to conduct business.
Joining us for a debate on Measure 113 are Oregon Representative Anna Scharf, a Republican lawmaker from House District 23 which covers parts of Benton, Polk, Marion and Yamhill Counties; and Hanna Love, a political consultant and strategist on the Yes on 113 campaign.
Measure 114 will be on the ballot for voters this November. If passed, it would require Oregonians to purchase a permit to own a firearm and attend a mandatory safety firearm training. The measure would also ban the sale or transfer of gun magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. Overall, Measure 114 would slow down the timeline for buying and obtaining a gun. Paul Donheffner is the legislative committee chairman for the Oregon Hunters Association. Anthony Broadman is the Bend mayor pro tem. They join us to make their case for why voters should or should not pass Measure 114.
Following trades, injuries and issues with team management, the Portland Trail Blazers have had an eventful season last year. To break down what happened, share how preseason went and give some insight on what’s in store for the Blazers this year, we hear from Mike Richman, host of the Locked on Blazers podcast.
Next month, Portlanders will be casting their ballots and decide who should be one of the city’s next commissioners. Jo Ann Hardesty is the Portland City Council Commissioner Position 3 incumbent. Rene Gonzalez is a lawyer and owner of Eastbank Artifex, a technology consulting company. They both join us to make their case and share why Portlanders should vote for them.
OPB has been following a group of students from the class of 2025 since they entered kindergarten. Now we join them for their freshman year of high school. OPB’s education report Elizabeth Miller joins us with an update on the project, and how close the class of 2025 is to the goal of a 100% graduation rate.
In her new novel, Portland writer Karen Thompson Walker explores the terrifying possibility of a world altered by a highly contagious disease. The disease causes people to fall into a seemingly endless sleep. We'll talk to Thompson Walker about her book, "The Dreamers."
The Oregon Humane Society will be opening a new community veterinary hospital in Portland. It will offer accessible and affordable pet care, according to the organization. Nationwide, veterinary practices continue to face staffing shortages and burnout. And some pet owners are having a hard time keeping up with the cost of services. We hear more about the hospital from Sharon Harmon, the president and CEO of the Oregon Humane Society and Stephen Kochis, the chief medical officer of the organization.
Next month, Portlanders will be casting their ballots and decide who will should be one of the city’s next commissioners. Jo Ann Hardesty is the Portland City Council Commissioner Position 3 incumbent. Rene Gonzalez is a lawyer and owner of Eastbank Artifex, a technology consulting company. They both join us to make their case and share why Portlanders should vote for them.
Artists Cannupa Hanska Luger and Marie Watt collaborated on an exhibition on display in Portland. “Gather” includes solo work from each of the artists and a collaborated piece, “Each/Other.” The work was created using bandanas that feature political and personal messages. Luger, who is based in Glorieta, New Mexico and Watt, who is based in Portland, were able to collaborate in Colton, Oregon, where they worked together and spent time with each others’ families. They join us with more on their work and the collaboration.
Some states have placed limits on topics that can be taught in schools. Some have tried to ban the practice of tenure, which gives professors job security. Some universities have bowed to pressure from students or outside influences to censure or fire teachers. These attacks on academic freedom may not be new, but they feel particularly acute right now. This week, the University of Oregon is hosting a conference on the present and future of academic freedom. Michael Dreiling, professor of sociology at the University of Oregon, and Lori Latrice Martin, professor in the Department of African and African American Studies at Louisiana State University, are both speaking at the conference. They join us to explain what’s at stake.
There were half as many hate and bias crimes and incidents in Eugene in 2021 as there were in 2020. That’s according to the city’s annual Hate and Bias Report, released last week. Overall, the city recorded 43 hate and bias cases in 2021 — a 54 percent decrease from 2020 and the lowest total in a decade. Joining us to put those numbers in context is Fabio Andrade, equity and community engagement manager for the city of Eugene.
Last week, a prominent chef was killed after being hit by a truck near Cleveland High School in Portland. Sarah Pliner was riding her bike on Powell Boulevard, a state-owned road with no bike lanes. In response to the fatality, Oregon Department of Transportation Director Kris Strickler issued a statement yesterday.
“Powell Boulevard (U.S. 26) was originally established and designed as a highway to move freight and people through Portland quickly and efficiently,” he said. “Recent incidents on Powell, including a tragic death on Oct. 4, are evidence that this road cannot, and should not, function as a traditional highway anymore.”
While some roads in the city remain under state control, others, like 82nd Avenue, are now under city ownership. Advocates have called for a similar transfer to take place on Powell Boulevard. We learn more about road safety from Chris Warner, the director of the Portland Bureau of Transportation.
A community forum will be held on Oct. 20 at 6 p.m. at Cleveland High School. Representatives from PBOT, ODOT Portland Public Schools and TriMet will be there, according to ODOT.
Over the weekend, temperatures climbed to the mid-80s in Portland, shattering decades-old records, according to the National Weather Service. The agency also said that high temperatures for this time of year are typically in the 60s for the region. A cold, dry front will bring a short-lived reprieve from the heat on Tuesday before temperatures rise once more later in the week. Smoke from nearby wildfires has also prompted the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality to issue an air advisory alert in effect until Friday evening. Joining us to discuss the record warm start to autumn is Colby Neuman, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Portland.
The Liberty Theater in La Grande, Oregon will be receiving a grant for almost $600,000 from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration. In July 1999, the theater was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Almost a decade later, restoration efforts began. Ashley O’Toole is the Board Chair of the Liberty Theater Foundation, the organization that is spearheading restoration efforts. He joins us to share what this federal grant will mean for the theater and his hopes for the future.
A new study found a nearly 50 percent gap in services for substance use disorder treatment, prevention, recovery and harm reduction in Oregon. Researchers at the Oregon Health and Science University and Portland State University School of Public Health surveyed more than 160 organizations across the state to help quantify the service gaps, which also included barriers to culturally relevant care. For example, fewer than one in five of the organizations surveyed were able to provide services tailored to the LGBTQIA+ community, and one in four of the organizations could not offer any language interpretation services for clients. Joining us to discuss the findings is Katie Lenahan, the study’s lead author and a research project manager at the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health.
According to a new report, more than half of transgender and non-binary people who died in the last 10 years in the Portland metro area were misgendered on their death certificates. This erasure can be painful for families. It can also have monetary consequences. Death certificates are used for reporting a region’s vital statistics, which can influence the allocation of federal and state resources. Kim Repp, Chief epidemiologist for Washington County, was a co-author on the report. She joins us to explain.
In a career spanning more than three decades, Georgina Hayns has been making puppets that have been brought to life through the art of stop-motion animation on TV shows and feature films like “Bob the Builder” and Tim Burton’s “Corpse Bride.” But instead of relying on computers to do the animating, the characters in stop-motion animation are made by hand from materials like clay, latex and silicone. They are then animated by being positioned on sets and moved in tiny increments, with each movement recorded frame by frame.
Today, Hayns is the director of character fabrication at ShadowMachine, a stop-motion animation studio in Portland. She recently led a team of artists who made 200 puppets for a new animated version of “Pinocchio” by Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro scheduled for release next month. She joins us to talk about working on the film, the opportunity that led her to leave her native England for Portland and the enduring appeal of an avowedly analog style of filmmaking.
Say on-air: Guillermo del Toro’s “Pinocchio” will be released in theaters in November and be available for streaming on Netflix in December
An Oregon law went into effect this year that helps remove barriers for some Oregonians who want to expunge their records. During a background check, criminal charges will show up on a person’s record which can affect things like housing and employment. The Clean Slate Clackamas Project helps Oregonians with the expungement process. We hear more from Amanda Wall, community relations manager for the Clackamas Workforce Partnership and program manager for the Clean Slate Clackamas Project. Jayme is working on getting her records expunged with the project. They join us with details on how the project is going and how it affects Oregonians.
An estimated 6,500 people could be affected by Biden’s recent pardon for federal convictions of cannabis possession. Since most possession charges occur at the state level, Biden encouraged governors to take similar pardoning actions. Some in the cannabis industry were skeptical of the recent announcement, but do believe it is a first step toward legalization. Jesce Horton is the co-founder and CEO of Portland-based cannabis production company LOWD. He joins us to share his thoughts on this recent announcement and his hopes for the future.
The PDX Free Little Art Gallery is a diorama that features miniature pieces of art and people browsing the gallery. It’s located in the Foster Powell neighborhood near SE 57th ave and SE Rhone St. Onlookers are welcome to take or leave a piece. Gallery patrons stand at about 6 inches tall, and some of the pieces their viewing measure in at about 3 inches by 3 inches. We hear more about the gallery and the inspiration behind it from Grant, the creator.
Oregon is known for its terrestrial forests, but there’s an equally important forest ecosystem in its oceans: kelp. Kelp forests provide a crucial food source and habitat for marine species, helping to support coastal biodiversity as well as the state’s fishing and tourism industries. But along some parts of the coast, these forests are in decline. Sarah Gravem is a research associate at Oregon State University and a leader with the Oregon Kelp Alliance. She joins us to talk about how the organization is working to bring kelp back from the brink.
On Wednesday, the Oregon Department of Education named Rosa Floyd, a kindergarten teacher at Nellie Muir Elementary School in Woodburn, its 2023 Oregon Teacher of the Year. A native Spanish speaker, Floyd has been teaching bilingual immersion kindergarten in the Woodburn school district for 22 years. She also started and teaches a Mexican folkloric dance group at Nellie Muir for current and former students, their parents and school staff. Rosa Floyd joins us to talk about winning the award and the importance of honoring heritage and culture within the classroom and beyond.
People who are in the period of their lives between adolescence and midlife, from roughly age 16 to 36, might face anxiety, depression and confusion about the next steps in their lives. Satya Doyle Byock is the author of Quarterlife: The Search for Self in Early Adulthood and a psychotherapist in private practice in Portland. Her book dives into this time in people’s lives and how society can better support those experiencing it. She joins us with details about the book.
Oregon has set a goal of getting at least 250,000 registered Zero Emission Vehicles on the road by 2025. State officials are also considering adopting California’s new rule, announced in August, to ban the sale of all new gas-powered vehicles by 2035.
To meet the goal for a greener transportation future, Oregon will need to boost the number of charging ports in the state five-fold. Although state rebates incentivize buying or leasing new and used electric vehicles for qualifying drivers, residents in rural and underserved communities face considerable hurdles to make the shift to EVs. Joining us now are Jessica Reichers, the technology and policy manager for the Oregon Department of Energy; Amanda Pietz, the administrator for the Policy, Data and Analysis Division of the Oregon Department of Transportation; and JR Anderson, a program manager at Forth, a non-profit that is working to improve accessibility to electric vehicles in Oregon.
A report released on Monday found that abuse and misconduct are systemic within the National Women’s Soccer League.
Last year Coos Bay erected a marker commemorating Oregon’s only known lynching. It was the work of years, and many members of the community, but the marker itself was just the start of a process of restorative justice, says Taylor Stewart. Stewart is the founder of the Oregon Remembrance Project, and he is currently working on more initiatives to remember Oregon’s racist history, and find a way to move forward. Stewart tells us about efforts in Grants Pass and Oregon City.
Several key protections for renters that were enacted during the pandemic ran out at the end of September. Are those efforts still needed? What should renter and landlord protection look like moving forward? We hear from Community Alliance of Tenants Executive Director Kim McCarty and Jason Miller, legislative director for the Oregon Rental Housing Association, a group which represents landlords.
For many people, memories are foundational. Even though they exist in the past, they inform who we are in the present and can help us make future decisions. So what happens when something that seems so fundamental turns out to be false?
Portland writer Sallie Tisdale deals with some of those themes in an essay she wrote for the Oregon Humanities magazine this summer. She joins us to talk about her latest work, the inconsistencies of memory and what it means to write a good memoir.
Cassie, a robot developed by Oregon State University researchers, is essentially just a pair of sophisticated mechanical legs. But those legs just set a Guinness World Record for the fastest 100-meter dash run by a bipedal robot. Running – even quickly – might seem an easy task for a human, but it takes considerably more effort to teach a machine to do so without tripping or veering off course.
Alan Fern is a professor of computer science and artificial intelligence at Oregon State University and the College of Engineering’s executive director of artificial intelligence programs. He explains what Cassie’s accomplishments mean for machine learning and the future of robotics.
A West Linn doctor accused of sexual abuse by more than 100 women and children was not charged with any crimes. That’s despite him having lost his medical license over some of the same claims. When a grand jury was presented with the evidence gathered by police and prosecutors in Clackamas County earlier this year, they decided it was not enough to justify charging the former doctor. The alleged victims of the abuse say that’s because local agencies did not do everything they could to secure charges. OPB reporters Amelia Templeton and Conrad Wilson tried to find out why. Templeton joins us with the story.
When Mira Jacob’s son was 6 years old, he started asking questions about what it meant to be biracial in America. And she found that answering those questions led to some interesting conversations. Jacob started keeping track of those conversations in a graphic memoir called “Good Talk.” The book is this year’s Multnomah County Everybody Reads selection. We talk to Jacob in front of an audience at Lincoln High School. She’ll also be speaking at the Arlene Schnitzer concert hall Thursday, March 10th at 7:30pm.
Some of Oregon's public land features obsolete fencing that's damaged and harmful to animals. The Oregon Natural Desert Association has been working on removing fencing from public grounds for years. In 2012, the association completed an effort to remove barbed wire fencing from the Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge in Lakeview. Since then, the organization has continued removal efforts in the state and also works on building and retrofitting fencing to protect wildlife. The organization has partnered with the Bureau of Land Management on some of this work. Lace Thornberg is the communications manager at the association and Kate Yates is a wildlife biologist for BLM. They join us with details.
When grizzlies and other bear species hibernate, they go months without eating or drinking, living off the fat they accumulated during the summer and fall. They also undergo changes to their metabolism and develop resistance to insulin, a hormone also found in humans that helps regulate blood sugar levels. The development of resistance to insulin can be an early indicator of type 2 diabetes in humans, a potentially chronic condition that left untreated can damage the kidneys and other organs.
Researchers at the Washington State University in Pullman used blood samples and cell cultures taken from grizzlies at the Washington State University Bear Center to identify eight proteins that are responsible for regulating insulin sensitivity in bears. The proteins caused changes in gene expression, leading to insulin resistance during the winter hibernation and insulin sensitivity during the active spring and summer months. Versions of these proteins also exist in humans, revealing a possible molecular roadmap to develop better medications for controlling the insulin resistance that can lead to diabetes. Joining us now is Blair Perry, a post-doctoral researcher in the School of Biology at Washington State University, and a co-author of the study on insulin resistance in bears published this month in the journal iScience.
In the mid-20th century, Canada and the U.S. collaborated together to form the Columbia River Treaty. This agreement meant both countries would jointly develop, manage and regulate the Columbia River. The treaty was intended to last for 60 years which means it expires in 2024. Earlier this month, 32 Pacific Northwest groups sent a letter to U.S. officials urging them to modernize this treaty as that deadline approaches. Barbara Cosens is a member of the Universities Consortium on Columbia River Governance and a university distinguished professor emerita at the University of Idaho College of Law. She joins us to share why this treaty was enacted, what options exist as we approach the 2024 deadline and what’s at stake if agreements to extend the treaty can’t be made.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is currently looking into the possibility of wind farms in Oregon. There are two areas of interest: Coos Bay and Brookings. The hope is that offshore wind in Oregon could provide about three gigawatts of energy, which can power about a million homes. But in Coos Bay, the proposed site is drawing concerns from the fishing industry. Nick Edwards is the owner of the F/V Carter Jon. He’s arguing the locations would eliminate fishing in those areas and worries the windmill turbines would harm the marine ecosystem. Edwards joins us to share his thoughts on the project. We’ll also hear from Doug Boren, the Pacific Regional Director for BOEM. He tells us where Oregon is in the process and addresses some of the concerns.
The Biden-Harris administration is hosting the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health today. The administration has released a plan to address food insecurity and health issues like diabetes, obesity and hypertension. Susannah Morgan is the CEO of the Oregon Food Bank. She joins us with details of the federal plan and what this means for the Pacific Northwest.
Forever chemicals are molecules that are present in our daily lives . They're found in food packaging and household cleaning supplies. What concerns many scientists is their ability to persist in soil and water because they can’t break down naturally. Researchers at the University of Washington have created a reactor that can destroy the most common type of forever chemicals: PFOA and PFOS. Igor Novosselov is a research associate professor in mechanical engineering at the university. He joins us to share how this reactor works and the implications it can have for the future.
Travel Oregon partnered with the state’s nine federally recognized tribes to create the “Travel Guide to Oregon Indian Country.” The guide emphasizes tribal museums, events and activities open to the public in Oregon. Lucinda DiNovo is the director of sales at Mills Casino and vice chair of the Oregon Tourism Commission. Travis Hill is the COO for the Umpqua Indian Development Corporation. Lisa Itel is the director of Global Strategic Partnerships with Travel Oregon. They join us with details about the guide.
Many public health officials agree that we’re in the middle of a youth mental health crisis that has only been exacerbated by the pandemic. In response, the Oregon nonprofit MediaRites created a new project giving youth the space to share their own stories of struggles with mental health. It’s called the ‘Ism Youth Files’ and will feature a resource toolkit, podcasts, and short films featuring youth stories. Dmae Roberts, the Executive Producer of MediaRites, and Jenell Theobald, one of the youth featured in the project, join us to talk about their experiences.
Nationwide, many pets receive little to no care from veterinarians. That’s one issue industry leaders hope to tackle this week at the Veterinary Innovation Summit happening in Portland. Douglas Aspros is the chair of the Veterinary Innovation Council, the organization behind the event and the chief vet officer at Veterinary Practice Partners, an organization that co-owns veterinary practices with veterinarians. Apryl Steele is the president and CEO of the Dumb Friends League, an animal welfare organization. They join us with details about the summit and how the industry plans to reimagine pet healthcare.
Last month, 22 environmental, public health and animal welfare advocacy groups sent a petition to the Oregon Environmental Quality Commission calling on it to regulate air pollution from large dairies. The petitioners want the state to require dairies with 700 or more cows to obtain an air emissions permit and conduct an air impact assessment of pollutants like methane and ammonia. They also claim that regulating emissions from large dairies is necessary for Oregon to comply with the federal Clean Air Act and meet the state’s greenhouse gas reduction targets. But the Oregon Dairy Farmers Association claims that the regulations aren’t necessary and would impose an additional financial burden on dairies which are already struggling with inflation and overtime pay requirements for farmworkers.
Joining us are Alice Morrison, the organizational director of Friends of Family Farmers, an advocacy group which signed the petition, and Tami Kerr, the executive director of the Oregon Dairy Farmers Association.
According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the suicide rate for veterans was 57 percent higher in 2020 than it was for non-veteran adults. And in Oregon, that disparity was even greater. One of the ways the VA attempts to lower that rate is by training veterans’ loved ones to recognize the signs of suicidal ideation and how to respond.
A recent study from the Portland VA Health Care System and OHSU found that social media can be a good way to get veterans’ family and friends enrolled in that prevention training. The study’s lead author, Dr. Alan Teo, joins us now to talk about what that could mean for veteran suicide prevention.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can call or text 9-8-8 to reach the national suicide prevention hotline.
Oregon produces 99 percent of the United States’ crop of hazelnuts, but Turkish grown hazelnuts account for most of the global market. Inflation in Turkey has also led to decreased prices, while shipping restrictions in China have meant a smaller market for Oregon producers. Terry Ross, executive director at the Hazelnut Growers Bargaining Association, joins us to discuss what all this means for Oregon’s hazelnut farmers.
Court Appointed Special Advocates is a nationwide organization that recruits and trains volunteers to help abused and neglected children navigate through the foster care system. Shaney Starr led CASA of Marion County for almost seven years, but recently joined the organization’s national leadership team. She joins us now to tell us about her new role as Director of Suburban Program Growth and Development at CASA National, as well as the ongoing needs for CASA volunteers in Marion County and Oregon.
In 1850, five Cayuse men were hanged in Oregon City for the death of a missionary — despite asserting their innocence. The University of Oregon recently hosted a class that narrowed down the burial sites of the five men, Underscore News reported. Bobbie Conner is the director of the Tamástslikt Cultural Institute. Michael Moffitt is a University of Oregon professor and designed the class. They join us with more about the men, who are frequently referred to as the Cayuse Five, and the events leading up to the incident.
By the end of this month, Portland plans to open 60 more temporary, outdoor homes, as part of its Safe Rest Villages program, for people who are living on the streets. It’s part of Commissioner Dan Ryan’s plan to open six Safe Rest Villages across the city to help transition people into housing. Chariti Montez is in charge of that effort for the city. She joins us to explain what the safe rest villages will mean for the city when they are all up and running.
“Afterlives” is the latest novel from Abdulrazak Gurnah, a Tanzanian-born British author and winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature. The book takes place amid the backdrop of German colonialism in Tanzania during the first half of the 20th century. It revolves around three central characters whose lives entwine as Germany attempts to expand its imperialist ambitions in East Africa, brutally suppressing local uprisings while using African volunteers and mercenaries to fight against British forces during World War I. But the book also celebrates resilience as two people scarred by war and the loss of family find love and a future that transcends their intergenerational trauma. Joining us is author Abdulrazak Gurnah, Professor Emeritus of English and Postcolonial Literature at the University of Kent.
Cottage Grove, Oregon received an infusion of funding from the federal Economic Development Administration to grow local tourism. The city’s Bohemia Foundation received a $1 million grant from the agency to improve Bohemia Park, which hosts several city events. The city was also recently awarded federal funding to revitalize its historic downtown district. We learn more about how the funding will help the city from Faye Stewart, the public works and development director for Cottage Grove and the Bohemia Foundation president.
Oregon is expected to receive about $18.8 million from a settlement with JUUL Labs. The e-cigarette company will have to pay the state over a six to 10 year period, and will be paying several other states totaling more than $438 million. This comes after a two-year investigation led by Oregon, Texas and Connecticut on the company’s marketing practices that appealed to youth. But what has vape use looked like for Oregon’s youth? While state data from 2020 shows a decline in use, Kris Davis, dean of students at Redmond High School, says vaping is just as prevalent as it was in the past. We’ll hear from him on what vaping looks like in his school and actions they have taken. And, to get a better picture of what’s happening in the state, we’re joined by Tom Jeanne, deputy health officer and epidemiologist at the Oregon Public Health Division.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Commerce awarded a $41 million grant to the Oregon Mass Timber Coalition to spur the development of mass timber for use on affordable housing projects in the state. The federal dollars will also fund research into the acoustic and fire-resilience properties of mass timber at the University of Oregon and Oregon State University, which, along with the Port of Portland and several state agencies, are part of the coalition.
Mass timber refers to wood products that are stacked on top of each other and pressed together to form panels or beams for use on large industrial and commercial buildings. The Portland International Airport’s renovated main terminal features a nine-acre-long roof made of cross-laminated mass timber beams and panels. Mass timber is gaining in popularity in the construction industry because it is seen as being a more sustainable material than steel or concrete and can be engineered to be just as strong. But questions remain about the cost of mass timber, its long term sustainability and applications in different environments. Joining us now is George Berghorn, an assistant professor of construction management at Michigan State University, and the research director for Mass Timber@MSU.
What began as an idea for a circus during the early days of the pandemic has now culminated into a three-week long clown festival that kicked off at the CoHo theater in Portland last Friday. From physical comedy to interactive improv and modern dance, audiences can experience more than a dozen performances showcasing local and international clowns, and learn the basics of theatrical clowning through a class taught by veteran performers.
Phil Johnson is the program director at CoHo Productions. Sascha Blocker is a Portland-based actor, director and a member of the CoHo Clown Cohort. They join us to talk about the festival and getting audiences to see there’s more to clowning than just the red nose.
Alex Tretbar was living in Portland when he was arrested. The five years he spent in Oregon’s prison system gave him time to refine his writing craft. Tretbar was recently awarded first prize in the PEN America Prison Writing Award in Poetry. Tretbar joins us to share his writing and his experience in Oregon’s criminal justice system.
Private equity firms typically buy privately owned companies and restructure them to maximize profits for investors. Private equity has been expanding its presence in the healthcare industry in recent years, with firms buying up hospitals, nursing homes, medical practices, ambulance providers and companies specializing in medical debt collection.
A new study examines how both healthcare spending and patient visits changed among private equity-acquired medical practices compared to independently owned medical practices from 2016 to 2020. The researchers found that private equity-acquired medical practices charged 20 percent more, on average, per insurance claim, and saw a nearly 40% increase in new patients compared to independently owned practices. Joining us now is Jane Zhu, a primary care physician and an assistant professor of medicine at Oregon Health & Science University, who co-authored the study published in JAMA Health Forum.
The only documented lynching in Oregon’s history was committed in 1902 in Coos Bay. Today we listen back to a conversation from 2020 with a group of Oregonians working to create a memorial to Alonzo Tucker, the man who was killed. They say it’s a way to educate Oregonians about the state’s racist history and bring restorative justice to the community. Jay Brown is a co-founder of the Alonzo Tucker Project, and Taylor Stewart is the founder of the Oregon Remembrance Project, which educates Oregonians about the history of lynchings.
Bishop Michael Curry might be best known for delivering the sermon at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. He is currently the presiding bishop and primate of The Episcopal Church, and is the first African American to serve as in that role. Diana Akiyama is currently the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Oregon. She is the first Japanese-American woman to become an Episcopal priest and the first Asian-American woman to become an Episcopal bishop. Geoff Norcross sits down with Presiding Bishop Michael Curry and Bishop Diana Akiyama at St. John the Baptist Parish on the campus of Oregon Episcopal School for a conversation about faith, diversity within the Episcopal Church, and the role of justice in the church.
One of Oregon's longest-running high school football rivalries will be played tonight at Coos Bay’s high school. The Marshfield Pirates will attempt to repeat last year’s win over the North Bend Bulldogs. Matt Jarvis has called over 20 of these rivalry games over the years. He’s the Voice of the Pirates for KMHS radio, and the play by play announcer for many high school sports games throughout the region and the state. We talk to Jarvis about tonight’s game and his career.
Hidden in a sea of sand, there are plants, insects and animals that call the Oregon dunes home. But some species, such as the Siuslaw hairy-necked beetle, are seeing their habitat shrink year after year. Dina Palvis is a dune enthusiast and author of the book, “Secrets of the Oregon Dunes.” She joins us to share the ecology of the dunes and how invasive plant life is changing the landscape of Oregon’s coast.
Before the Coos Bay Wagon road was built in 1872, the settlers in Oregon’s Bay Area were more closely connected to San Francisco than they were to the rest of Oregon. Steve Greif is a former history teacher and track and cross country coach at North Bend High School, and a board member of the Coos County Historical Society. He's giving a series of presentations about the road in honor of its 150th anniversary. Grief joins us to talk about the region’s history and geography.
Coos Bay resident Mary Paczesniak played volleyball and tennis in high school and college. She was good enough to place at national championships. But she never got a varsity letter from her teams. That’s because her time on the court was all before Title IX changed the rules around women’s sports. Paczesniak has spent years working to get recognition for female athletes from Coos Bay who competed before Title IX. She joins us to talk about her work.
In Coos County, there are five facilities approved to be a part of the behavioral health resource network. This means for places like Bay Area First Step, a peer-run addiction treatment center, they would receive a share of the roughly $4.5 million that is expected to come to the county from Measure 110. This grant funding is to be used for drug addiction recovery, treatment and other services. For Bay Area First Step, the money will allow them to purchase more housing for those seeking treatment, and to expand their working hours so that they can provide services 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Steve Sanden is the executive director of Bay Area First Step. Devin Wilson is the lead peer mentor there. They join us to share what drug use looks like on the coast and the impact M110 funding makes in a community like Coos Bay.
Researchers at Oregon’s South Slough Estuarine Research Reserve are importing teabags from the UK, but they’re not using it to brew a cup of tea in between studies. These tea bags are being used to get a better understanding of what carbon storage is like in the marshes and wetlands outside of Coos Bay. The bags were buried underground in the start of the summer and were recently dug up to examine how much they have decomposed and see how much climate change is affecting the decomposition process. Shon Schooler is the Lead Scientist for the reserve and Colleen Walker is their fall intern. They both join us to share the work they’re doing at the Slough.
Back in May, Bay Area Hospital announced it would be closing its behavioral health unit due to rising costs. But after community outcry, the hospital found a way to stay open for another 12 months using funds provided by Advanced Health, which helps coordinate care for residents of Coos and Curry County on the Oregon Health Plan. Brian Moore is the President and CEO of the Bay Area Hospital. He joins us to share what led to the initial closure and how they will keep it open after the first year is up.
The Port of Coos Bay is hoping to bring a container shipping facility to the region. Coos Bay is already the largest coastal deep water shipping port between San Francisco and Portland. A shipping terminal could bring as many as two thousand jobs to the area. John Burns is the CEO of the port. He joins us to share opportunities this facility can bring and the impact it would have on the local economy.
In 2010, an eccentric art dealer named Forrest Fenn announced that he had buried a treasure box full of gold and jewels somewhere in the wilderness that could be found simply by solving the clues in a poem he had self-published. Thousands of people devoted themselves to the search, some of them to the detriment of their lives. “Missed Fortune,” the new podcast from Portland journalist Peter Frick-Wright, tells the story of one of those treasure hunters, Darrell Seyler. Frick-Wright joins us to share more.
Marshfield High School in Coos Bay is one of just 6 schools across the state that has its own commercial radio station. Students learn how to speak on the air, record underwriting spots, cue up song lists, and even announce live sports games. Eli Luckman, a sophomore at Marshfield, took the broadcasting class last year and was inspired to start his own sports podcast. We talk to Luckman and Drew Jones, the broadcast journalism instructor.
Earlier this summer, the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission formally agreed to give the Coquille Tribe more power to manage fish and wildlife in a large area of southwest Oregon. We talk to Brenda Meade, chair of the Coquille Tribal Council, about the historic nature of that agreement, and what it means to the tribe.
Oregon Health & Science University researchers explored counseling as a tool to prevent obesity for women aged 40-60, also referred to as their “midlife.” Obesity is a common condition for women in this group and counseling may be an effective way to prevent it. We learn more from Amy Cantor, an associate professor at OHSU and the lead researcher on the study, on how women can benefit from these discussions.
In Coos Bay, homelessness is a growing concern for residents, with some saying it is impacting every facet of their life. Last year, Coos County reported eight deaths of people experiencing homelessness within a two month period. Tara Johnson is the executive director of the Devereux Center, a local homeless shelter. She joins us to share what is happening in the community and what she is seeing at her shelter.
A recent study found that Coos Bay is expected to grow by more than 1,300 residents over the next two years. The study also highlighted that while all forms of housing are needed, the greatest need is for more affordable homes and rentals. Drew Farmer is a member of Coos Bay City Council. He joins us to share what housing currently looks like in the city and what the city is doing to address its housing needs.
Two years ago, high east winds ripped through huge parts of a bone-dry western Oregon, fanning existing flames and sparking new blazes. So Oregonians had plenty of reasons to be fearful heading into this past weekend when all of those same elements were in play. But while fires did increase, and many Oregonians had to evacuate, we did not have a true reprise of Labor Day, 2020. Andrew Phelps is the director of the Oregon Office of Emergency Management. He joins us to talk about what did -- and didn’t -- happen.
Part memoir, part investigative journalism, Portland journalist Casey Parks’ new book, “Diary of a Misfit,” explores themes of religion, identity and family as she embarks on a mission to find a figure from her grandmother's past. As a child, Parks’ grandmother lived across the street from a “woman who lived as a man.” His name was Roy Hudgins.
Hudgins was many things. He was a country singer, a landscaper, a devout believer and a friend to some. Park’s book follows her decade-long journey on uncovering who Roy was as she explores not only his past but her own. Parks joins us to share what she learned about Roy and what it meant to be queer in the South.
Elk hunting season started late last month and with it came new changes for bow hunters in Oregon. These changes were proposed last year by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, but did not go into effect until the start of the archery elk season this year.
Before the change, bow hunters operated on a general system, meaning they could purchase tags anytime during the season and were guaranteed a chance to hunt. Now, archers wanting to hunt elk in the Northeast part of the state will be operating on a controlled hunt, where hunters apply for a number of hunting spots deemed sustainable depending on where they’d like to be. While some areas in Oregon were already under a controlled hunt system, these changes expanded some of those to neighboring regions. Jeremy Thompson is the Wildlife Biologist for the Mid-Columbia District at ODFW. Mike Slinkard is a Bow Hunter in John Day. They both join us to share what these changes mean for Oregon bow hunters.
Latino Fest will be held in Madras on Saturday. The event, hosted by the Latino Community Association, features live music, food and cultural booths representing countries across Latin America. Hilda León is a leadership coordinator with the Latino Community Association and an emcee of the event. She joins us with details and explains why the event is special to her
Portland Freedom Fund began in the wake of the racial justice protests in the summer of 2020. Organizers focused on helping low-income, BIPOC defendants post bail. They also want to bring attention to the racial inequities embedded in the cash bail system more broadly. The group came under fire recently after a defendant who they’d helped allegedly killed the mother of his children after being released. Terrence Hayes is on the board of the Portland Freedom Fund. He says the group will stay focused on its mission of helping people from BIPOC communities who are accused of crimes to get back to their families. The family of the woman killed is foremost in Hayes’ mind, and he says the group will be working more closely with the attorneys involved in defendants’ cases. Hayes joins us to talk more about the Portland Freedom Fund and about his own activism working for racial equity in the criminal justice system.
When the Salem bike share program launched in 2019, it was a labor of love. Most bike share programs, like ones in Portland, Seattle and San Francisco are run through municipal transportation departments. But Ride Salem started small and scrappy, with enough funding from a variety of sponsorships to put a few dozen bikes in motion. Co-founder Evan Osborne says the nonprofit had a few down months during the early pandemic but recovered and relaunched. But now, with all of its bikes out of commission due to vandalism and theft - and with no significant municipal help - the Ride Salem board recently voted last week to disband. Osborne joins us to share what he learned through starting the Ride Salem bike share program and his hopes for the future of similar micro-mobility programs as part of public transit systems.
A team at Oregon State University is researching antibody treatment for dogs with cancer. The treatment would rely on “nanobodies” which come from alpacas and llamas. Chris Cebra is a camelid expert and chair of the clinical sciences department in OSU’s veterinary college. Dan Mourich is a senior OSU research associate and the molecular biologist on the research team. And Carl Ruby is a veterinary pharmacology instructor at OSU. They join us with more about the treatment and how camelids - like albacas and llamas - hold the key.
It’s been two years since the deadly Labor Day fires in the Santiam Canyon and in southern Oregon. Fire survivors have struggled in that time to recover and rebuild. They also want answers and accountability: a clear picture of what went wrong and who or what caused the fires. But the official investigations by the U.S. Forest Service, the Oregon Department of Forestry, the Ashland Police Department, and various counties still haven’t been completed. Zach Urness, Outdoors Editor for the Statesman Journal, tells us about his investigation into why the report has not been completed.
This is the 20th year that artists from around the world will gather in Portland to perform for the Time-Based Art Festival. The annual event, put on by Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, features performances, lectures, dance parties and exhibitions in a variety of different mediums. Roya Amirsoleymani, the artistic director and curator of public engagement for PICA, joins us to talk about this year’s festival and the events she’s is most looking forward to.
The early months of the pandemic forced performing arts organizations like the Oregon Symphony to pivot, shifting performances online and developing new digital content such as “Symphony Storytime.” Launched in July 2020, the series premiered its third season last month. Each episode is between 10 to 15 minutes long and features a narrator reading a classic children’s story such as “The Snowy Day,” accompanied by a musical score inspired by the story and performed by a symphony musician. Several episodes in each season are also narrated in Spanish. Joining us are two classical musicians who have performed and narrated episodes of “Symphony Storytime.” Jeff Garza is is Principal French Horn at the Oregon Symphony and an adjunct Instructor of Horn at Oregon State University. Sergio Carreno is Assistant Principal Timpani and Percussion at the Oregon Symphony.
One of the most iconic trees of the Pacific Northwest has been showing signs of distress for years. Western redcedars are a water-loving tree, and it appears that drought and rising temperatures may be impacting their health. Joey Hulbert leads a citizen-science research project at Washington State University collecting data on western redcedars throughout their range. Christine Buhl is a forest entomologist at the Oregon Department of Forestry. They join us to talk about their research and the threats Western redcedars face.
Last month, Oregon State University College of Forestry announced it had hired alumna Cristina Eisenberg as director of tribal initiatives. The new position aims to partner with tribes in Oregon and the region on restoration projects and recruiting Native American students. A forest ecologist by training, Eisenberg is also working with tribes in western Oregon on a new, three-year pilot project funded by the Bureau of Land Management to make forests more resilient to climate change by using Indigenous practices and environmental beliefs known as Traditional Ecological Knowledge.
Eisenberg is also the forestry college’s first associate dean of inclusive excellence, a role informed by her own experiences as a Latinx and Native American first-generation college student, to provide support and new opportunities for underrepresented students. Cristina Eisenberg joins us to discuss returning to Oregon State University to lead these new efforts within the College of Forestry.
Portland journalist Leah Sottile’s book “When The Moon Turns To Blood” centers on the case of Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell. The couple will be on trial next year, accused of killing two of Vallow’s children whose bodies were found in Daybell’s backyard. But the book is about much more than just true crime. Sottile digs into the couple’s apocalyptic beliefs and the history of the extremism that exists on the fringes of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormon church. We talk with Sottile about what this case reveals about religious extremism in the American west.
Many psychologists agree that there are six universal human emotions: fear, joy, surprise, anger, sadness and disgust. Portland artist Tony Fuemmeler has created a new collaborative exhibit exploring these emotions, and just how universal they can be, while also being interpreted differently by people and cultures all over the world. Fuemmeler created masks based on each emotion and sent them to artistic collaborators who were then tasked with “completing” their mask, in their own way. Fuemmeler joins us to talk about what he learned from the project.
Oregon is among many states in the country experiencing an acute shortage of referees for high school sports. Their numbers have been declining steadily over the last decade or so, athletic officials say, but it accelerated with the pandemic, in large part because of a rise in abuse refs have had to take from parents and fans. Those recruiting for new officials say it’s not unusual for games to be rescheduled based on ref availability, and many of the refs that remain are getting burned out. Jack Folliard, Executive Director of the Oregon Athletic Officials Association joins us, as well as the head of the Portland Basketball Officials Association, Camron Rust.
Last month, the City of Vancouver published a report to measure the impact of its first “Safe Stay Community,” a homeless shelter facility called the Outpost which opened last December. But unlike traditional, congregate shelters, the Outpost consists of 20 modular, shed-like structures to house single individuals or couples experiencing homelessness. It is being managed around the clock by Outsiders Inn, a local homeless services provider that is staffed entirely by people with lived experiences of homelessness. According to city officials, within the first six months of its operation, 30 percent of the 46 residents who are unhoused at the Outpost transitioned to housing, and 11 of them found jobs. Police calls and visits to the area also decreased 30 percent compared to the previous year. Joining us are Adam Kravitz, the executive director of Outsiders Inn, and Jamie Spinelli, the homeless response coordinator for the City of Vancouver.
More services for the houseless community, increasing parking, cleaner streets. These are just a few concerns citizens shared in a survey about Salem’s downtown conducted by the Statesman Journal. Many feel the future of downtown is unknown and needs a clearer vision. Whitney Woodworth is a City reporter for the Statesman. She joins us to share some of the survey results and gives us a closer look into what is top of mind for many residents.
First-generation college students and new graduates entering the workforce might not be aware of certain “unwritten rules,” especially if they are one of very few BIPOC employees at a company or organization. Helping people learn that information is the idea behind a new collaboration between Portland State University and the Portland Opportunities Industrialization Center. POIC President and CEO Joe McFerrin and PSU’s Vice President for Global Diversity and Inclusion Ame Lambert join us to talk about the partnership that’s launching this fall.
Deschutes County Behavioral Health is offering immediate support for those affected by this weekend’s shooting. One-on-one and small group support is available at Pilot Butte Middle School.
Services are available in English and Spanish. Melissa Lopez is a care coordinator with Deschutes County Behavioral Health Intensive Youth Services. Nick Chamberlain is a behavioral health specialist with Deschutes County. They join us with more on why it’s important to receive immediate support after a traumatic event.
Marine scientists at the University of Washington have found patterns in how trash accumulates on beaches in Oregon and Washington, and differences in the kind of trash that’s washing up, depending on its location. The scientists made their findings based on more than 800 beach surveys conducted from 2017 to 2021. The work was conducted by volunteers at the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team, a citizen science program based at the University of Washington. The surveys revealed the existence of “sticky zones,” areas on a beach where both trash and natural debris such as seaweed tends to accumulate. Seasonal differences were also observed, with the highest amount of debris occurring in the spring and the lowest recorded during the fall. And while almost all of the trash that washed up on outer coastal beaches was made of plastic, about half the trash found on inland beaches was made of heavier materials like glass and metal. Jackie Lindsey is the science coordinator at the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team. She joins us to talk about the findings and the impact they could have on coastal cleanup efforts.
Oregon nonprofit Sustainable Northwest will be getting $5 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to work on reforesting land burned in the 2020 Labor Day fires. The organization has partnered with small landowners to try to understand the challenges they face replanting their forests after big wildfires. Dylan Kruse, the Vice President of Sustainable Northwest, joins us with the details.
Wildfires in Oregon and the West routinely force evacuations, threatening human life and homes. Now, the Department of Land Conservation and Development has made new draft recommendations for how communities can respond to these increasing threats, including mitigation measures for new developments. The DLCD has also released new draft recommendations for how to address housing needs. The public comment period for the wildfire recommendations is now open. The housing comment period opens Wednesday. The agency will be presenting final recommendations to Oregon lawmakers in the fall. Brenda Ortigoza Bateman directs the Department of Land Conservation and Development. We talk with her about responding to wildfire risks, the housing crisis and the department’s priorities more broadly as the 50th anniversary of the state’s land use system approaches.
Washington Governor Jay Inslee and U.S. Sen. Patty Murray recently released a long-anticipated report on breaching the dams along the lower Snake River. Echoing an earlier draft, they said that taking out the dams is ultimately the best chance for threatened and endangered salmon. But they also detailed the enormous impacts dam removal would have on clean energy, transportation and the broader economy. They said now was not the right time to breach the dams, but that that option should continue to be on the table. The Yakama Nation praised Inslee and Murray for “championing a comprehensive approach to Columbia Basin salmon recovery.” We talk with Jeremy Takala, chairman of the Fish and Wildlife Committee for the Yakama Nation, about tribal priorities as the process moves forward.
In January, Emily Chenoweth, a novelist and writing teacher living in Portland, decided to become an emergency substitute teacher. She details her experiences as a sub in an essay published by Portland Monthly. Chenoweth joins us to talk about what it’s been like to be in the classroom.
Out of 1,100 applicants, a student from St. Mary’s Academy snagged an internship with NASA. Lily Segna is just one of 92 students who had the chance to work alongside engineers during her Earth and Space Science summer internship. Segna actually comes from a line of family members working in the space industry, including her mother and grandfather. She joins us to share her experience and what it means to follow in some of her family's footsteps.
As businesses grapple with hybrid work, perceptions of downtown Portland and employee retention, some businesses are moving their downtown presence elsewhere. But even as some businesses leave, others are staying put, betting on a rebound for the district. We hear more from Jonathan Bach, a staff reporter for the Portland Business Journal, on the outlook for downtown as vacancy rates there continue to rise.
Robots are an indispensable part of the modern assembly line, whether it’s to mount a steering wheel or pick up packages for shipping at a distribution center. But what if you wanted to shift gears to manufacture a new product? Now that presents a challenge since robotic, hand-like grippers aren’t nimble enough to pick up and move objects of varying shapes and sizes on an assembly line.
A team of engineers and computer scientists at the University of Washington tackled this problem by using computer software to generate instructions which could be fed into a 3D printer to make grippers, each optimally designed to grab and rotate nearly two dozen different shapes, such as a tennis ball, mustard bottle and a toy-sized chair. Jeffrey Lipton is an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Washington. He joins us now to talk about this research which was presented at the annual Association for Computer Machinery conference earlier this month.
The federal Bureau of Reclamation recently announced that water for irrigators, which comes from Upper Klamath Lake, would no longer be available for the rest of this irrigation season. This has left some water agencies, including the Klamath Irrigation District, scrambling. We hear more from Erik Neumann, the interim news director at Jefferson Public Radio, and Gene Souza, the executive director and district manager of the Klamath Irrigation District, about how limited water supplies in the Klamath Basin continue to affect the region.
On Sunday evening, a shooter armed with an semi-automatic rifle opened fire at the Forum Shopping Center in northeast Bend. According to the Bend police department, the shooter first fired shots in the parking lot of the shopping center, killing one person, before entering a Safeway and killing another person. Police officers found the body of the deceased shooter at the back of the store, along with two weapons, including an AR-15 style rifle. No shots were reported fired by Bend police officers, although the investigation into the shooting is ongoing. Anthony Boardman is Bend’s Mayor Pro Tem and a city councilor. He joins us to share updates on the shooting and the impact of this latest incidence of gun violence on the community.
If you want to know about the nonprofit behind the city’s newest micro-village, you just need to look at the letters in its name. WeShine stands for Welcoming, Empowering, Safe Habitation Initiative with Neighborhood Engagement. People are starting to move into its Parkrose Community Village in NE Portland, where they’ll have their own sleeping pod and other basic necessities like toilets, showers and laundry facilities. Residents will also get help accessing services they need and developing financial literacy skills, which can help them to ultimately move from transitional to affordable housing.
Even as this village opens, WeShine is looking ahead — not just to open its next village, but to create a model that can be replicated all over the city. Part of that is creating a kind of "best practices" playbook and sharing ways to fast track the processes with city and county governments. Jan McManus is the executive director of WeShine. We talk with her about WeShine’s approach to homeless shelters and the potential for replicating the design of this micro-village.
Mount Hood has proposed a new permit system for people wanting to scale its summit. Deschutes and Willamette National Forest launched a similar system last year. How do these systems work? Are they successful at reducing crowds? What happens if you’re caught without a permit? To answer these questions and more, we’re joined by Lisa Machnik, Recreation, Heritage, Partnerships and Land Staff Officer with the Deschutes National Forest.undefinedundefinedHEADLINE: How is the permitting system to visit national parks in Oregon going?
Jennifer Willer is the city engineer for Eugene, managing a team of more than 80 people. They complete public works projects like repaving city streets, building dedicated bike lanes and upgrading aging bridges to withstand earthquakes. On Monday, Willer will be in Charlotte, North Carolina to accept an award from the American Public Works Association recognizing her as a 2022 top ten leader in public works in North America. The Register-Guard first reported the news of Willer’s selection last month. Jennifer Willer joins us to talk about receiving this honor and how the job of city engineer can make a difference in people’s daily lives and their use of the urban environment, in ways great and small.
Cate and Chad Battles live in Southern Oregon in their Airstream trailer with their goat, Frankie. And when they take their house on the road for months at a time, Frankie goes too. A Discovery channel producer saw pictures on social media of them hiking with their goat in a national park and recruited the couple and their “kid,” for “The Bond,” which features people’s unique relationship with animals. We talk with Cate and Chad Battles about their experience on the show, the human-goat bond and their personal mission of “Keeping it light-hearted.”
Schools across the state are facing a shortage of teachers and substitute teachers. Meanwhile, according to an investigation by Statesman Journal reporter Natalie Pate, the agency that is in charge of issuing professional licenses to educators can take as long as 61 days to approve applications. Pate joins us to talk about her investigation and the impact of the licensing backlog.
On August 11th a severe thunderstorm rolled through Wallowa County. The town of Wallowa itself was right in the path of the storm. Mayor Gary Hulse estimates that every window on the west side of any building in about a 5 mile stretch got completely destroyed. Roofs and vehicles were also damaged. Since then, residents and volunteers have been coming together to patch up buildings and help people whose homes were destroyed. Hulse joins us to talk about the effort.
Friends of the Children was founded in Portland but it’s since grown to four chapters in Oregon and a total of 26 chapters across the country. The nonprofit pairs mentors with children and youth, many of whom are in foster care. The mentors are paid and stay in the child's life long term, or as the organization puts it, “12+ years, no matter what.” Those elements make the model unique in the nation, and their results are marked, with significantly lower rates of dropping out of high school, teen pregnancy and involvement in the criminal justice system. That impact has been recognized and boosted by a $44 million dollar grant from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott. The executive director of Friends of the Children’s Portland's chapter, Traci Rossi, says that this money will go toward further enriching the lives of those who already have mentors and significantly expanding the number of children served. We hear more from Rossi about the nonprofit’s model and how the new funding will be used.
Oregon artist Julian Gaines' exhibit "Under the Flag" is on display at Portland’s Russo Lee Gallery. The exhibition runs through August 27. It forces the viewer to physically lift an American flag to reveal the work behind it. The pieces touch on racism and minstrel performances, which were characterized by white performers using burnt cork or shoe polish to blacken their faces. We hear more from Gaines about this work.
Researchers from the School of the Environment at Washington State University, Vancouver studied dry lightning in California. This type of lightning occurs with less than 2.5 mm of rainfall and has been a cause of costly wildfire outbreaks in California. We learn more about it from Dmitri Kalashnikov, a Ph.D candidate at the university and the lead author of the published research.
Last November, Lincoln County voters approved a ballot measure limiting the number of short-term rentals in unincorporated areas. Their hope was to control the growing number of short-term rental homes in the county. Now, the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals issues a ruling early this month finding this decision to go against state laws. Quinton Smith is the founder of Yachats News. He joins us to share what this ruling means for Lincoln County.
Luke Ovgard is a writer and teaches high school in Southern Oregon. He loves his students of course, but he spends his breaks fishing, his passion since before he was in high school himself. He plans his travels in the U.S. and abroad around where he can go to catch new species of fish. It's a global, albeit small, fishing niche. Ovgard was sixth in the world to break the 1,000 mark, and has added to those numbers but remains sixth on the list of species hunters overall. The pursuit is known by a variety of names. Ovgard calls it his "Species Quest," and has a column and a blog that predominantly features fish. We hear more about species hunting and what drives his own quest.
In 2020, Oregonians passed Measure 110, which decriminalized small amounts of illegal drugs and directed more money to addiction recovery services. Two years later, the bulk of the money for the first budget cycle has finally been distributed. We get an update from Tera Hurst, the executive director of the Oregon Health Justice Recovery Alliance. That’s the advocacy group focused on successfully implementing Measure 110.
Last week, thunderstorms plagued Josephine and Jackson Counties. Then, in a 13-hour period, crews responded to about 50 reports of fire in the region. On top of the fires, the Oregon Department of Forestry Southwest Oregon District also dealt with the loss of camera equipment that aids in fire detection.
“Unfortunately, we're one detection camera site down in northeastern Jackson County after a few unwelcome visitors took the liberty of breaking into our lookout tower and helping themselves to our equipment,” the agency stated in a Facebook post.
Natalie Weber is the public information officer for the ODF Southwest Oregon District. She joins us with details on how the agency has been handling the challenges of this year's fire season.
It’s not often a new language emerges.But in the last 15 years, a new language was born right here in the Pacific Northwest. It’s called Protactile, and it was created by a group of DeafBlind people who prioritize touch. One of the people at the center of creating this new language is Jelica Nuccio. She recently moved to Monmouth, Oregon, where Western Oregon University just received a grant for $2.1 million from the U.S. Department of Education’s Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) to help train Protactile language interpreters.
One week ago, the renowned writer Salman Rushdie was attacked before an event in New York state. He was repeatedly stabbed, and remains hospitalized, though according to his agent, he is on the road to recovery. Today, we bring you a conversation we had with Salman Rushdie back in 2013 after he’d written a memoir about the most famous period of his life.
In the summer of 1997, “six men climbed to the top of Mt Tabor, pulling their creations of death and destruction behind them,” according to the organization. And the PDX Adult Soapbox Derby was born. More than two decades later, Mt. Tabor Park continues to host the race. It features cars built for speed and others built for style. Jason de Parrie-Turner is the PR director of the derby and board member at large. LLoyd Price is a racer in the derby. They join us with details on this year’s race.
Portland’s volunteer Neighborhood Emergency Team program began in the 1990s as a way to help people prepare for “The Big One,” a devastating Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake. But over the decades, NET expanded its mission, helping with all kinds of needs, including extreme weather events, wildfire smoke, even water main breaks. The teams are overseen by the Portland Bureau of Emergency management, which says the importance of NETs cannot be overstated. In 2021, about 3,000 volunteers put in an estimated 30,000 hours. They work in nearly every neighborhood in the city and last year responded to 70 different incidents. We talk with NET volunteer Bernadette Janet and team leader Mark Ginsberg to learn more about the program and what drives them to contribute in this way.
Last year, Multnomah County announced that they would fund a new seven-person behavioral health gun violence response team. That team - which includes three mental health clinicians, a supervisor, and partnerships with community organizations who can provide mentorship - is now up and running. Yolanda Gonzalez oversees the division where this new team is based, and Karl Johnson works collaboratively with the counselors through his work as the Community Justice Manager for the County. Johnson and Gonzalez join us to talk about the county’s approach to gun violence.
Tiger populations have shrunk over the last century. And though their numbers are increasing, there are only about 6,000 individuals globally. Their overall decline has been caused by habitat loss from deforestation and climate change, but also poaching of the animal and its prey. Filmmaker Warren Pereira graduated from Lewis & Clark College with a biology degree and later began a quest to document the species' plight in his home country of India. He would ultimately find a male tiger dubbed T-24 or Tiger 24, an animal suspected of killing multiple men and drawing the name “man-eater.” After what was widely considered compelling evidence that T-24 had killed a parks worker, the “man-eater” was ultimately captured and contained in a zoo. The film plays in Eugene’s Metro theater, with a wider release set for the fall. Pereira joins us to talk about the issues the film raises about wildlife and human activity, the national interest T-24 sparked, and the court case about the tiger that reached India’s highest court.
When a Native American is the victim of a violent crime by a non-native person on tribal lands, it can be difficult to prosecute the crime. And limited data can obscure how severe the violence against Native Americans remains. A lack of resources and communication between tribal and urban law enforcement can also create more problems. EO Media Group and Underscore News partnered on an investigative project to dig into these issues. Karina Brown is the managing editor of Underscore. Desireé Coyote is the family violence services program manager for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. Laura John is the City of Portland’s Tribal Liaison. They join us with more about how violent crimes against Indigenous people can often fall through the cracks.
School is just around the corner. But with staff shortages across the nation, new COVID-19 guidelines and the youth mental health crisis, what is top of mind for school leaders across the state? We’ll hear from three superintendents: Laura Orr from the Ukiah School District, Steve Cook from the Bend-La Pine School District and Ryan Carpenter from the Estacada School District. They join us to share their plans for this year and what they’re most looking forward to as school begins.
Why do some prisoners who have been released from prison go back behind bars within just a few years — or in some cases, months or weeks? What social and economic systems contribute to or even drive those outcomes? Lauren Kessler answers those questions through the personal stories of six formerly incarcerated adults in her new book, “Free: Two years, Six Lives, and the Long Journey Home.” Two of those she profiles committed violent crimes as minors but were treated as adults as they were tried and sentenced. Kessler joins us to talk about the defeats and victories these six adults experienced as they reentered the outside world — and shares her insights into why and how their stories unfolded as they did.
831 miles. That’s the distance Mike Crespino, founder of the Emerald Shred Collective, will be traveling next month. But he won’t be making this trip in a car or plane, he’ll be traveling on a skateboard. As Eugene Weekly reported, his goal is to travel from Eugene to San Francisco to spread awareness about mental health. Crespino joins us to share the inspiration for this trip and memories of the two boys he is honoring, Ben Moody and Silas Strimple.
AJ McCreary wears many hats. The former candidate for Portland City Council is the executive director of the nonprofit Equitable Giving Circle. She’s also an artist and a mother. McCreary curated a show called “Motherhood” at Oregon Contemporary that runs through Aug. 27. She calls it “a celebration of Black motherhood – the bright moments, the soft moments, the unique journey that is nurturing in a world that is inhospitable to our seed.” We hear from McCreary and Alice Price, another artist whose work is in the show.
Unemployment is at its lowest rate in more than 50 years, with employers adding nearly 530,000 jobs during the month of July, according to the latest data from the Labor Department. But the strong job gains obscure ominous signs elsewhere, including a historically high rate of inflation, continued supply chain bottlenecks, and staffing shortages related to the pandemic.
We talk to three small business owners about what they have been experiencing. Pamela Hayes is the founder and owner of Hue Noir Cosmetics in Beaverton. Thomas Angel is the co-owner and co-founder of Altitude Functional Beverages in Bend. Alfonso Herrera is the owner of Mid-Valley Auto Body and Service Center in Woodburn. They join us to talk about their hopes and fears amid the economic uncertainty.
Cannon Beach city councilors recently updated a long-standing ordinance about where people can camp outdoors to address more than early morning surfers, or travelers passing through. The city has seen a small number of people who are homeless passing through over the years, and the new ordinance restricts where they can camp. Police Chief Jason Schermerhorn tells us about how he deals with people experiencing homelessness in Cannon Beach.
Portland chef Jenn Louis was named Best New Chef by "Food and Wine Magazine" and her work has appeared in "The Wall Street Journal," "Bon Appetit," "SHAPE" and "The New York Times." We listen back to our conversation with her from 2015 about her cookbook "Pasta By Hand." The book is a collection of recipes gathered from homes and restaurants throughout Italy, and is the only known work to have cataloged the country's wide variety of hand-shaped pasta and dumplings. Her Portland restaurant Lincoln has closed since this interview first aired.
Portland’s public transit agency, TriMet, is in need of more drivers. The agency is currently facing a historic low of people who can go behind the wheel. In fact, starting mid-September Portlanders will see the agency scale back services for 10 of its bus lines. JC Vannatta is the executive director of public affairs at TriMet. He joins us to share how this staffing issue is affecting the agency and their plans to bring in new applicants.
The city of Portland’s Planning and Sustainability Commission is being split into two different boards — with one focused on sustainability, the other on planning and land use. The broad purpose of these boards is to help create policy and make recommendations to their specific city bureau. Willamette Week reporter Sophie Peel joins us to explain what led to this shake up and most importantly, why it matters.
President Biden is expected to sign the Inflation Reduction Act into law soon. Environmental advocates hail it as the first major environmental law since 1990, and the country’s most significant investment in the fight against climate change. Nora Apter, climate program director at the Oregon Environmental Council, tells us what it will mean for Oregon.
Three years ago, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that punishing people for sleeping on the street amounts to cruel and unusual punishment if they have no place else to go. That case, Martin v. Boise, and others have since helped to shape the way that cities and municipalities approach homelessness. We’ll hear from Seattle University School of Law Professor Sara Rankin about what the current legal framework is for cities addressing homelessness.
The Northwest Survivor Alliance was founded by survivors of sex trafficking. Members support each other and advocate for more services to help people deal with the trauma of their abuse. They say law enforcement and the criminal justice system has made some changes in the way they handle those who force children and adults into sex trafficking. But too often victims are still being charged with crimes related to being trafficked, they say, and far more is needed to help them recover and make sure they’re not trafficked again. We hear more from Northwest Survivor Alliance co-founder Jay Benke and one of its members, Robin Miller.
Researchers at Oregon State University used computer modeling to assess the resilience of roads and bridges on the Oregon coast and how this critical infrastructure would fare in the event of a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake. A recently published study focuses on local roads as well as transportation infrastructure like highways that connect communities to each other. The researchers looked at how different factors would impact recovery on the entire coast from Warrenton to Gold Beach. OSU Civil and Construction Engineering Professor Dan Cox was one of the co-authors of the study. He joins us to dig into the details.
After 16 years in Old Town, Portland’s Floating World Comics is moving out of the neighborhood. Customers will now need to head to the Lloyd Center to see the comic store’s new location, which is already open. Jason Leivian is the owner of Floating World Comics. He is hopeful his move will inspire other small businesses to open shop in the mall and ultimately create a new community. Leivian joins us to share what prompted his move and what he’s hoping for the future of the Lloyd Center.
Starting this Thursday, the Bag & Baggage theater company in Hillsboro will stage free weekend performances of “The Tempest” in city parks. But in this retelling of William Shakespeare’s comedy, Prospero, the magician and exiled Duke of Milan, speaks Spanish as well as English, primarily with his daughter, Miranda, as the timeless story of treachery, revenge and love unfolds. Yasmin Ruvalcaba is a writer, community arts advocate and the director of “The Tempest.” She and actor Demetri Tostado, who plays Prospero, join us to talk about adding a bilingual dimension to the play, and what effect they think that might have on the audience’s engagement with and appreciation of it.
Read on-air: Bag & Baggage’s bilingual production of “The Tempest” is free to attend and takes place from Thursday to Sunday at 8pm at Rood Bridge Park in Hillsboro. Two additional weekend performances, also free of charge, will be held at Griffin Oaks Park and Shute Park in Hillsboro this month.
In June, the Oregon Department of Forestry hired Scott Altenhoff to lead its Urban and Community Forestry Assistance program. Previously, Altenhoff worked as an urban forester for the City of Eugene, where he became aware of temperature disparities due to differences in tree cover between economically disadvantaged and affluent neighborhoods. In 2014, he worked with community members to direct city crews to plant more trees in West Eugene and launched annual maintenance cycles for their upkeep. Today, Altenhoff has a new target: school campuses which he says are in dire need of “green infrastructure” to promote health, improve air quality and combat social inequity. Scott Altenhoff joins us to talk about his vision and the key threats facing urban forests, from climate change to invasive species.
The Portland Art Museum is featuring works of six BIPOC photographers made during the racial justice protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd in 2020. The photos in the "Perspectives" exhibit seek to elevate the stories of people of color, both in the background of the protests but also in the context of how those in BIPOC communities continue to be affected by the coronavirus pandemic. We talk with photographers Daveed Jacobo and Linneas Boland-Godbey to hear more about their experiences and their work.
The wild horse population grows about 20% every year, according to the Bureau of Land Management. In Oregon, there are about 4,500 wild horses but, according to the BLM, the state can only sustain about 2,700. The federal agency is looking for public comments on a proposal of three contraceptive methods. Rob Sharp is the Supervisory Wild Horse and Burro Specialist with the BLM. Gayle Hunt is the President of the Central Oregon Wild Horse Coalition. They join us both to discuss
A recent report found that state lotteries around the country are supported in large part by people who are least able to afford it. The Howard Center for Investigative Journalism looked at the 45 states that have at least one kind of lottery and found that the retail outlets where lottery games can be played are often in socio-economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. We hear more about this from the center’s Data Journalist Sean Mussenden and how those national findings are reflected in Oregon.
Oregon has seen an increase in methamphetamine use over the past decade. This has caused an increase in patients experiencing mental health illness induced by meth use within Oregon’s behavioral health system. Many issues have contributed to this problem, including a new formula of meth. Emily Green, the managing editor for The Lund Report tells us more.
COVID-19 hospitalizations may be far below their earlier peaks, but many Oregon hospitals are in serious trouble. Staffing shortages and a lack of skilled nurses mean that most hospitals in the state are nearing capacity. And rising costs have led to one of the worst financial quarters of the pandemic so far for some hospitals. Becky Hultberg, CEO of the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems, joins us, along with Cheryl Wolfe, CEO of Salem Hospital.
After weeks of canceled shows due to COVID-19, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival had to pivot once again to move shows indoors due to smoke from the McKinney fire. Nataki Garrett, artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, tells us about how they're handling the challenges they face. Meanwhile, the McKinney fire blazed north of Karuk tribal homelands in Northern California and destroyed a building in Oak Knoll that housed the tribe’s archives. Josh Saxon, Executive Director of the Karuk Tribe, reflects on the fire's impact on the land and people who live there.
Dating profiles rarely get a second opinion prior to going public. Sarah Ruby Armstrong believes that is many peoples’ first mistake when trying online dating. She now offers a free feedback service for people and their dating profiles, as first profiled in Willamette Week. Sarah Ruby Armstrong joins us to talk about how to successfully find online connections, and what she looks for in a dating profile.
About a decade has passed since two dams were removed in the Elwha River. The health of the river has improved and dwindling populations of Chinook Salmon are recovering. Mike McHenry is a fish habitat manager and biologist with the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe. He shares more details on how the fish are doing and how their habitat has changed.
Last month, the Oregon Institute of Technology in Klamath Falls was awarded a $1 million grant by the Health Resources and Services Administration to expand research into the impact of poor air quality due to wildfire smoke on hospital admissions in Southern Oregon. The new federal dollars will allow scientists at OIT to buy equipment to monitor harmful particulate matter and other toxins in wildfire smoke both outdoors and indoors, and study how wildfire smoke impacts not only respiratory but also cardiovascular health, based on hospital admissions in the Rogue Valley and Klamath Falls. Kyle Chapman, is an associate professor of sociology and population health at the Oregon Institute of Technology. Adelaide Clark is an assistant professor of chemistry at Providence College in Providence, Rhode Island, and a former associate professor of chemistry at OIT. They join us to talk about the grant and how he hopes it may lead to better health outcomes for a region struggling with wildfires and worsening air quality.
Three Washington-based breweries filed a lawsuit against the state of Oregon late last month. They are challenging Oregon restrictions on shipping beer directly to consumers from out of state. Breweries outside of Oregon wanting to sell their beer in the state also need to obtain a wholesaler’s permit, which adds additional costs to to those businesses. Ezra Johnson-Greenough is the founder of The New School Beer. He joins us to share details of the lawsuit and what it could mean for the future of the industry if it's successful.
For anyone experiencing a mental health crisis, looking for addiction resources or just wanting to talk to someone on a bad day, there is a new number to call: 988. The three digit number has replaced the national number making it easier to remember and use when it’s needed. This change happened in mid-July, but the previous crisis hotline will remain active. The Portland-based nonprofit Lines for Life is handling 988 calls for the majority of Oregon. To explain more on the rollout of the change and what’s happening in the state we hear from Chief Clinical Officer of Lines for Life Greg Borders.
Several colleges and universities in Oregon recently announced new leaders, and many of the people hired for those positions are also the institutions’ first Black president. We convened a conversation among three of these leaders to hear about how they’re approaching their roles and what it means to them to be a Black leader in higher education. University of Portland President Robert Kelly and Lewis & Clark President Robin Holmes-Sullivan join us. They each started their jobs July 1. We also talk with Oregon Health & Science University President Danny Jabobs, who has been at OHSU since 2018.
Oregon is facing a housing shortfall of about 100,000 affordable units. A Eugene-based nonprofit says that need won’t be met by the private market, so they’re taking matters into their own hands. St. Vincent de Paul of Lane County plans to build its own manufactured homes in an old American Steel facility. We talk with Terry McDonald, executive director of St. Vincent de Paul of Lane County about the endeavor.
About 100 seedlings of the Whitebark Pine Tree were planted in Central Oregon early last month. The goal is to help increase their population as it has declined due to fungal disease, bark beetles and climate change. Andrew Bower is a Zone Geneticist for Western Washington and Northern Oregon with the U.S. Forest Service. He is also the program lead for the Region 6 Whitebark Pine Restoration Program. He joins us to share what restoration efforts have looked like for this Pine, which remains a candidate for the Endangered Species Act.
In the last couple of years, the city of Seaside saw record-breaking numbers of visitors. During COVID-19 restrictions, Oregonians flocked to the coastal city. At the same time, Bend saw heightened numbers of visitors as well. Now, as coronavirus restrictions have eased, both Oregon cities have seen visitations mellow. Plus, other factors like inflation and worker shortages remain a concern. Joshua Heineman is the director of tourism marketing for the City of Seaside. Kevney Dugan is the president and CEO of Visit Bend. They join us with more on how the tourism industry has fared this summer.
For about a century, the Elwha River in Northwest Washington was broken up by two dams, to generate power to Port Angeles. The Elwha Dam was removed in 2012 and the Glines Canyon dam was removed in 2014, creating a transformation in the natural ecosystem. Fish are returning, and vegetation in the region continues to thrive. Chhaya Werner examined vegetation regeneration in the affected areas and documented how plants responded to a free-flowing river. She has visited the region many times over the last decade, observing the changes. Werner will begin teaching at Southern Oregon University in the fall as an assistant professor of ecology. She joins us with details of the region’s transformation.
More than 70,000 Ukrainians have arrived in the U.S. since March. Peter Vins is one of many fleeing Ukraine since the war began. This is the second time in his life where he has come to the U.S. as a refugee. He recently arrived in Portland. We talk with Vins about his experiences and what it was like to leave his home a second time.
Celia’s House is the only nonprofit hospice providing end-of-life residential care for individuals in the Rogue Valley. The 12-room facility, which also allows family members to stay during their loved ones’ final days, is operated by Southern Oregon Friends of Hospice in Medford. Last month, the nonprofit received a grant from the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute to conduct interviews in Spanish with Latinx cancer patients to identify ways to better engage this community with discussions around palliative and end-of-life care. Dwight Wilson is the executive director of Southern Oregon Friends of Hospice and Celia’s House. Delia Hernandez is a board member of Southern Oregon Friends of Hospice and a health outreach specialist with La Clinica, a non-profit medical and dental clinic in Medford. They join us to talk about how they will use the grant and how to overcome the taboo around talking about death.
Last year’s heat dome claimed nearly 100 lives in Oregon as temperature records shattered throughout the state and the Pacific Northwest. The deaths prompted Oregon lawmakers earlier this year to allocate $5 million to the Oregon Health Authority to purchase and distribute air conditioning units to at-risk, low-income Oregonians who get their healthcare through public plans like Medicare. But as the Salem Statesman Journal reports, at the start of last week’s heat wave, only a third of the 3,000 units the Oregon Health Authority told lawmakers it would purchase had arrived. The agency was also unable to specify how many units were actually delivered directly to residents or through community-based organizations. Salem Statesman Journal reporter Claire Withycombe joins us to talk about the reasons for the delay.
Earlier this month, C-TRAN, the regional public transportation provider for Clark County, was named the 2022 North American Transit System of the Year for a transit agency making four million or less rides a year by the American Public Transportation Association. The news was first reported by The Columbian, which also noted that the agency first won the award in 2019. Earlier this year, C-TRAN launched a door-to-door ride-hailing service to link residents living in Camas, Ridgefield and other county locations to downtown Vancouver and a transit hub. Its board of directors also approved a year-long temporary fare reduction for fixed route bus rides and express service to Portland. Joining us is C-TRAN CEO Shawn Donaghy to discuss the future of the agency and what he thinks are the top challenges for public transit in the county and region.
The Rose City Rollers roller derby organization is dedicated to empowering women, girls and gender- expansive individuals on and off the rink. Its Rosebuds junior team won the regional championship and are competing in the the National Junior Roller Derby championship. And they’re going into it head on, with a number one ranking. We talk with coach Hedy Stevens and one of the Rosebuds team captains, Ruby Patrick.
Last year, the Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued temporary rules aimed to protect people who work outdoors from extreme heat and smoke. This spring, the agency made those rules permanent. Ira Cuello Martinez, policy director for Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN), tells us what he has heard from farmworkers about the effect of the new rules.
Michael Pollan has spent much of his career writing about the sometimes surprising relationship between plants and humans. His newest book, “This Is Your Mind on Plants," focuses on three different plants and how they affect our brains. Opium, coffee, and mescaline could all be considered powerful drugs, or simply beautiful plants, or something much more mystical. We talk to Pollan in front of an audience at the Newmark Theater, as part of an event put on by Powell’s Books.
Incumbent U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Battle Ground) is running for re-election in a competitive primary being held next Tuesday in Washington’s 3rd Congressional District. She is one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump after the January 6, 2021 insurrection. Under the state’s open primary system, the top two vote getters will advance to the general election, regardless of party affiliation. Joining us for a debate are Rep. Herrera Beutler and two of her primary challengers. Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez lives in unincorporated Skamania County and owns an auto repair shop with her husband. Republican Joe Kent lives in Yacolt, in Clark County, and is a retired U.S. Army Green Beret who is being endorsed by former President Trump.
Community colleges have seen enrollment drop during the pandemic, but these institutions have a key role to play in Oregon’s pandemic recovery. The state is investing $200 million in workforce development through the Future Ready Oregon program, which includes nearly $15 million to boost career pathway training programs at community colleges. We talk with Central Oregon Community College President Laurie Chesley and Mt. Hood Community College President Lisa Skari about how they're approaching these challenges and opportunities.
Editor’s Note: OPB operates the jazz station KMHD in partnership with Mt. Hood Community College.
Portlanders cleaned up at the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards this past weekend. First place winners included Casey Gilly, Kelly Sue DeConnick, David F. Walker and Douglas Wolk among many others. The comic book store that was voted best in the world is also in Portland. Books with Pictures: Comics for Everyone received the Spirit of Comics Retailer Award. We talk with the owner, Katie Pryde, about what the award means for her and how it reflects the industry’s evolving culture.
On Monday, the National Weather Service issued excessive heat warnings for much of Oregon, including Southern Oregon. In Medford, the forecast calls for consecutive days of triple-digit temperatures through Sunday. In response, the City of Medford has partnered with several local non-profits to open a cooling center all week long, from Monday through Friday, at two city locations. Aaron Ott is the emergency management coordinator for the City of Medford. Melanie Doshier is the director of support services at ACCESS, a non-profit that serves low-income residents in Jackson County, which is responsible for managing the cooling center. They join us to talk about protecting vulnerable residents from extreme heat.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler recently declared a gun violence emergency in the city. He has also issued three different emergency declarations around homelessness this year. Portland’s new Community Safety Division is leading the efforts to address both homelessness and gun violence. We hear from Mike Myers, the leader of that division.
As the name suggests, the Freakybuttrue Peculiarium and Museum in Portland offers a uniquely curated collection. Lisa Freeman and Mike Wellins conceived the idea while they were in the process of buying a food cart in 2010. They had wanted to transition from their respective careers and thought the food cart would be both creative and challenging. But they found themselves talking more about decorating the cart than the food they would sell, and they soon realized they were being drawn in a different, more peculiar direction.
More than a decade later, their art-gallery/museum/oddity warehouse space is crammed with an indescribable variety of items, from original art and books to knick-knacks and clothing, and one-of-a-kind exhibits reflecting the history of Portland. A life-sized anti-Santa called Krampus greets museum goers when they walk in. It’s a floor to ceiling experience that Freeman says often stops people in their tracks when they first enter.
Freeman and her partner reopened last year after a long pandemic hiatus. Now, they say, business is back and better than ever. Their current obsession is with the grand reopening of their snack bar, which is coming back with an even wider and weirder range of offerings. Note: that’s aside from the regular “Bug Sundays.” Freeman and Wellins join us to share more about the Peculiarium’s regular and coming attractions.
When you think of county fairs, you might think of agricultural competitions, pie eating contests, butter sculptures or kids with ice cream cones dripping down their wrists. What you may not think of is pig racing — piglets to be more precise. For 35 years, Bart Noll has been training and racing piglets and presenting these events at county fairs. “You never sausage a show,” is how the All-Alaskan Pig Races are billed. Noll hails from Alaska where he started his business, and although he and his family moved to the Pacific Northwest and now live in Eugene, he kept the Alaskan name. The porcine fun has just wrapped up for the weekend at the Lane County Fair. Noll joins us to chew the fat about how — and why — he trains and races pigs.
Last week the International Union for the Conservation of Nature categorized the migrating monarch butterfly as “endangered.” The United States has not listed monarch butterflies under the Endangered Species Act, but the ICUN is considered a comprehensive authority on the status of species. Scientists say climate change and habitat loss have contributed to the species’ decline. Emma Pelton is the Western Monarch lead at Oregon’s Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. She tells us what is being done in the Pacific Northwest to attempt to save the monarch.
Poet and writer Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe’s new memoir is called “Red Paint: The Ancestral Autobiography of a Coast Salish Punk.” In it, she explores intergenerational trauma and healing as well as the connections she feels to the Indigenous women who have come before her. She also includes her love of 1990s punk rock and her changing ideas of what it means to feel at home.
Esperanza Spalding won her fifth Grammy this year for best jazz vocal album for Songwrights Apothecary Lab. But since Spalding moved back to her hometown of Portland during the pandemic, she’s been working on a different kind of project: establishing what she calls a sanctuary for BIPOC artists to gather and create. She’s now raised $300,000 to purchase a space in North Portland. We talk with Spalding about her creative vision for this BIPOC artist sanctuary.
Last week, the Prairie Wood Products sawmill in Grant County officially reopened. The sawmill in Prairie City initially closed in 2008 during the financial crisis and temporarily reopened in 2009 before shutting down again later that year. The mill has hired roughly 25 people and is looking to hire up to 25 more. Jodi Westbrooks is the president of D.R. Johnson Lumber Co. and Kyle Westbrooks is the business development manager for D.R. Johnson Lumber Co. We’ll hear from them on why they chose to open the mill after years of closing, and how they're handling inflation and other challenges.
Healthcare costs for Oregonians went up 49% between 2013 and 2019. That’s according to a new report from the Oregon Health Authority. The report also shows that the biggest driver of that increase was the cost of prescription drugs. We’ll hear from Jeremy Vandehey, director of Health Policy and Analytics for Oregon Health Authority, on what else is driving this increase and how it is affecting Oregonians.
Like many Oregon counties, Clackamas County needs to replace or retrofit public buildings. The county’s own assessment found that its courthouse would be likely to slide into the Willamette River in the event of a major earthquake. The county commission is close to finalizing a deal to build a new courthouse using funds from the state, county and a private investment firm. It’s not the first building project in Oregon to use a public-private partnership, but it appears to be the first such deal to build a public building. Clackamas County Commission Chair Tootie Smith tells us more about why a new courthouse is needed right now, and about the unusual funding model.
There are many opportunities to see live jazz music this summer, including at festivals that might be better known for folk or rock. Derek Smith, host and operations coordinator for KMHD radio, joins us to share some of his favorite upcoming jazz performances.
What if we learned to co-exist with wildfires rather than constantly fighting them? Portland filmmaker Trip Jennings’s new documentary "Elemental" includes the voices of climate experts, indigenous people and fire survivors, and asks us to reimagine our relationship with wildfire. We hear from Jennings about what he hopes audiences will take away from his film.
The film will premiere at Portland’s Hollywood Theater Wednesday July 20 at 7:30pm.
Last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released a report recommending the removal of four dams on the lower Snake River in southeastern Washington to boost the recovery of endangered and threatened salmon and steelhead in the region. Another report commissioned by the Department of Energy found that replacing the lower Snake River dams and the renewable energy they provide would cost between $11 billion and $19 billion. Meanwhile, Washington Governor Jay Inslee and U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) are expected to release a final report this summer on whether they think the dams should remain or be breached. Courtney Flatt, a correspondent for the Northwest News Network, joins us to talk about the political and economic obstacles to removing the dams, a move which would require Congressional approval.
It’s been three months since Donald “Dundee” Martin began his journey to hike the entirety of the Oregon Trail. He has traveled over 2,300 miles from Independence, Missouri and has almost completed his goal of getting to Oregon City. Martin joins us to share what his trip has been like so far and why he chose to do this hike in the first place.
Last year, Portland’s Bureau of Development Services set itself a goal: reduce what was then a nearly 100-day wait time for new residential and commercial building permits. Currently, the wait time for new construction is nearly 200 days. But the city, and a new report from the auditor's office, say that progress has been made. We’re joined by three members of the Permitting Improvement Taskforce. Maurice Rahming is president of O’Neill Construction. Kurt Krueger is Portland Bureau of Transportation’s development review manager. And Terri Theison is the Permit Improvement Strategy Manager for the Bureau of Development Services.
Willamette Falls Legacy Project aims to provide access to the West’s largest waterfall. The Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde hold a substantial piece in making that happen, but they have recently withdrawn from the project. The Confederated Bands and Tribes of the Yakama Nation, The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation have voiced concerns about Grand Ronde’s motives in the project and why they feel the need for exclusivity in regard to the falls. We talk to Brian Oaster also known as “Toastie”, staff writer at High Country News.
with the group Sandbox Percussion. They experimented with different instruments and sounds, and worked together to create a piece called “Seven Pillars.” The piece was nominated for two Grammy awards and the Pulitzer prize this year. It is being performed on Tuesday night at the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland. Akiho joins us to talk about how lights, video and percussion all come together in this piece.
For the first time in its nearly 40-year history, the World Athletics Championships are taking place on U.S. soil. Nearly 2,000 athletes from 200 nations have converged at Hayward Field at the University of Oregon for track and field competitions. It’s also an opportunity for students from the University of Oregon’s journalism school to get invaluable experience filing daily articles and photographing elite athletes as they sprint, jump and throw their way to victory. Lori Shontz is a Professor of Practice and the founder of the Track Bureau at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication. Elias Esquivel is a senior in the journalism school and one of the students in the Track Bureau covering the World Athletics Championships.
Large developers are still getting rights to extract groundwater in Central Oregon, even while an increasing number of number of residential wells are running dry. OPB’s Bend Bureau Chief Emily Cureton Cook tells us about one development near Redmond, and what it reveals about the state’s ability and willingness to regulate groundwater.
Are you looking for the perfect book to dive into this summer? Pacific Northwest authors have a lot to offer. Whether you’re an adult or a kid, looking for something serious or fun, there are lots of options. We hear recommendations from Isy Ibibo, the Black cultural competency teen librarian at the North Portland Library and Alison Kastner, reader services librarian for Multnomah County Library. We’ll also hear some suggestions from listeners.
The Oregon Chinese Diaspora Project is an award-winning initiative that explores the lives of Chinese immigrants through archaeology and historical records. Led by the Southern Oregon University Laboratory of Anthropology, the project is a collaboration that’s partnered with Oregon State Parks, the Oregon Historical Society, the Portland Chinatown Museum and others. The Oregon Historical Society published a special issue of the Oregon Historical Quarterly that delves into this history.
A public archaeology day will take place at the Kam Wah Chung State Heritage Site in John Day on Saturday. Chelsea Rose is a historical archaeologist at the university and the director of the lab. Jennifer Fang is the director of interpretation and community engagement at Pittock Mansion and an advisor on the project. They join us with more about how the project is going and what’s been discovered so far.
Joe Kye is a Korean American classically trained musician and storyteller who has opened for Yo-Yo Ma, comedian Hari Kondabolu and Senator Bernie Sanders. He is also the creator of Tiger Tiger, a one-day festival taking place in Portland this Sunday which features musicians, poets and food carts celebrating the Asian American and Pacific Islander community. But it is also a space for healing and “radical joy” organized by Kye in response to the anti-Asian bias and attacks which have surged during the pandemic. Joe Kye joins us to share his vision for Tiger Tiger and how his identity as a first generation immigrant has shaped his music. Julia McGarrity also joins us. She is the lead singer of June Magnolia which will also be performing at Tiger Tiger.
Portland has a long and vibrant history as a hub for Black music, centered around the Albina neighborhood. This summer, the Albina Music Trust is hosting a series of events aimed at preserving that history. Greaterkind will be playing at some of these events, reinterpreting local jazz, soul, funk and fusion compositions. Charlie Brown III, Musical Director for the Time Sound program and keyboardist for Greaterkind, joins us to talk about how the sounds of the past influence today. And Bobby Smith, archivist for World Arts Foundation, joins us as well.
Dr. G's Bingo Extravaganza is an interactive production that puts the audience at the center of the show. The experience is presented by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and opens July 20 in Ashland. The production celebrates Geneva Craig, a nurse and civil rights leader in Southern Oregon. Erika Chong Shuch is an artist with For You, the performance group behind the experience. Scarlett Kim is the director of Innovation & Strategy and associate artistic director for Oregon Shakespeare Festival. They join us to talk about the immersive experience.
As inflation has increased the cost of gas and groceries across the nation, there is one Oregon industry that is actually seeing a decline in cost for consumers: cannabis. As the Portland Business Journal reports, the median price for usable cannabis is down 19% from last year. But this decrease in price does not mean stores are selling more. Jessica Clements is the owner of Gud Gardens. Ben Nastoff is a general manager with Virtue Supply Company. They join us to share what is happening in the industry and what it may look like in the future.
On July 1, Gilliam County began operating its own public health department. The move ends, after 13 years, its membership in a regional health district that includes neighboring Wasco and Sherman Counties. Gilliam won approval from the Oregon Health Authority to create its own local health authority after officials conducted a feasibility study last year to examine the cost and level of service the county could directly provide its roughly 2,000 residents. Elizabeth Farrar is the Gilliam County Judge. She joins us to explain how the county’s experience during the pandemic prompted this transition, and the top public health priorities for the new agency she now oversees.
In Edmonds, Washington, kids as young as 10 are learning how to scuba dive. As they learn more about the other world that exists underwater, some are inspired to learn more about our oceans and what’s at stake as climate change and human interference affect sea life. Annie Crawley is a scuba diving instructor, photographer and author. Elise Foot Puchalski is a 17-year-old diver who combines her skills with scientific research. They join us with more on their underwater experiences.
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A new map from the Oregon Department of Forestry estimates about 80,000 homes and buildings are in areas of high or extreme risk for wildfires. Some local municipalities have found that wildfire risk assessments they’ve conducted before contradict the state’s analysis. Tim Holschbach is the deputy chief of policy and planning with the Oregon Department of Forestry. Chris Chambers is the Wildlife Division Chief for Ashland Fire & Rescue. They both join us to discuss the state’s new map and how it compares to assessments made in the past.
Three Oregonians who all pleaded guilty to wildlife trafficking have found themselves participating in a unique form of community service. They are helping a researcher from the University of Maryland on how and why people commit wildlife crimes and ways we can prevent them. This is possibly the first time a partnership like this has been used for wildlife crime research. We’ll hear from Meredith Gore, an associate professor at the University of Maryland, on what she’s learned so far.
A research vessel packed with teams of scientists recently returned from a two week journey to study an active volcano off the Oregon coast. The volcano, called Axial Seamount, lies more than a mile beneath the surface of the ocean, about 250 miles west of Cannon Beach. It may be one of the most well studied volcanoes in the world. Among other things, the scientists were trying to learn how to predict when volcanoes might erupt. OPB science reporter Jes Burns was also aboard the research vessel, and tells us about the journey, and the science that happened onboard.
There are now seven cases of hMPXV, colloquially known as monkeypox, identified in Oregon. The disease spreads by prolonged skin-to-skin contact, and the treatment options are fairly robust. A vaccine can be effective if given within 14 days of exposure. Pre-exposure vaccines can also be given to high-risk populations. And there is an effective antiviral drug for people experiencing severe disease. We hear more about monkeypox from Richard Leman, a public health physician at the Oregon Health Authority.
The red crossbill, a migratory species of songbird native to Oregon, is able to adapt its body and behavior in response to social information from other birds indicating changes in food supply, according to new research by Jamie Cornelius, an assistant professor in integrative biology at Oregon State University. Cornelius studies how birds adapt to unpredictable and extreme changes in the environment. With climate change driving extreme weather events, she thinks adaptation will be key to whether some bird species survive or perish in coming years. She joins us to talk about her latest research and other studies looking at how birds respond to increasingly unpredictable environments.
: Last December, the City of Tacoma, Washington partnered with the United Way of Pierce County to launch guaranteed income payments to more than 100 working families struggling to make ends meet. The recipients were randomly selected based on certain criteria, including earning between 100 and 200 percent of the federal poverty level and working at least one job. Each recipient receives $500 per month until November of this year, when the program is set to expire. The Growing Resilience in Tacoma guaranteed income project is being studied to examine the impact of the payments on the financial and emotional well-being of recipients like Geno Rosario, a single father and IT consultant. He joins us for this discussion, along with Abigail Lawson, the director of Growing Resilience in Tacoma.
Many Oregonians are drawn to river recreation in the summertime, whether that means swimming, kayaking, boating or floating. This year, heavy spring rains and snowpack mean rivers are running fast and cold, even when the weather is hot. That can lead to swimmers getting swept away by strong currents or experiencing cold shock. There have already been rescues, and some drownings, in the region’s rivers this summer. We talk with Shawn Mullen, a captain with the Clackamas Fire District about his experience with water rescues and how to stay safe.
Oregon will continue to see a rise in COVID-19 cases, along with hospitalizations and deaths, over the next few weeks. That’s according to Oregon Health and Science University data scientist Peter Graven. The current surge is driven by the omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5, which are the most transmissible of the COVID-19 variants thus far in the pandemic. They’re also very good at evading immunity from vaccines and prior infections. Graven’s forecast indicates that infection levels will likely be similar to what Oregon experienced with the first omicron wave in January. We talk with Graven about his latest forecast.
Initiated in 2017, the Oregon Bee Project rallies around a science-based strategy to protect bees and educate Oregonians about them. Now, the organization has launched its second strategic plan. Andony Melathopoulos is an associate professor in the Department of Horticulture at Oregon State University. Matthew Bucy is a pesticide product registration specialist with the Oregon Department of Agriculture. We check in with them to see how the project has fared and what lies ahead for bee protection in the state.
During the pandemic, Portland teachers have faced profound obstacles. They've dealt with the challenge of teaching both remote learners and in-person students, navigating masks, testing and disruptive student behavior. The Portland Association of Teachers says the recent bump in pay and the 500 dollar retention bonus is a step in the right direction, but they need more support and funding to do their jobs — and make progress in their equity work so all students get what they need to be successful. We talk with Angela Bonilla, the new president of the union, about the last school year and one to come.
Democrats in Oregon have held the majority in the state legislature for many years. And a Republican hasn’t won a governor’s race since 1982. The options for influencing legislation are limited for a minority party. In recent sessions, Republican lawmakers have walked out to deny the chamber a quorum to effectively block a vote on legislation they oppose, preventing the session from moving forward. And while both parties have employed the tactic when they were in the minority, GOP lawmakers have walked out multiple times in recent years to block legislation aimed at curbing the effects of climate change. Now a measure to prevent legislative walkouts has qualified for the Oregon ballot, after supporters submitted their signatures in late May, well ahead of the Friday, July 8 deadline. OPB political reporter Dirk VanderHart joins us to tell us more about this measure and a gun safety measure which could also be headed to the Oregon ballot.
Brit Bennett’s book The Vanishing Half was on a lot of best-of lists in 2020. Though spanning the second half of the 20th century, the novel speaks to questions about race and identity that have been central to national conversations for the last two years. In that novel and her other writing, Bennett deals with the bonds of family, the importance of storytelling, and nature of identity. We talk to Bennett about her essays and novels in front of an audience of students at Grant High School in Portland.
Over 3,000 athletes and team officials from across the globe will be making their way to Oregon. They are all coming to compete in this year’s World Athletics Championship, which begins next week. This will be the event's first year to take place in the U.S. and will be held in what’s known as Tracktown USA. Sasha Spencer is the athletics and team experience director for the World Athletics Championships. Todd Davidson is the CEO of Travel Oregon. Portland runner Emily Infeld is a 2016 Olympian and a competitor in the 5,000 meters. They join us to share what it means for an event like this to be held in Eugene and what it might mean for the future of Oregon sports.
If you’re looking to buy or rent a home in Oregon and feeling extremely frustrated, you’re not alone. Housing prices have gone up considerably in recent years and high mortgage rates aren’t helping. We hear from Josh Lehner, an economist with the state of Oregon, about where things stand now and what to expect in the future.
In many west coast cities, housing has become more expensive and homeless populations have grown. Police arrest people experiencing homelessness at a greater rate than the general population. In Portland, the numbers are particularly striking. Melissa Lewis is a data reporter for the radio show and podcast "Reveal." She found that over the last 10 years, rents rose twice as fast in Portland compared with the rest of the country, and the city's homeless population grew by an estimated 30 percent. Analysis of the data showed that the majority of calls police get involving people who are homeless do not involve crime. Lewis joins us to share more about what she uncovered and its implications for how to respond to the homelessness crisis.
The Hearing Voices Network is a global affiliation of support groups where people who hear voices or see visions can find support and be believed, rather than pushed towards medication. The group was started in the 80’s and has chapters all over the world, including the Pacific Northwest. One of their fundamental precepts is that trying to convince people that their experiences aren’t real isn’t effective. Kate Hill is the director of the Portland Hearing Voices group. Derek Pyle is the group facilitator for Bear Creek Hearing Voices Network. They both join us to talk about their experiences.
Rodents, overflowing trash cans and poor wastewater management are just a few issues facing food cart pods in Multnomah County. Back in January, the county implemented a new set of safety rules and a license system for pods, requiring them to provide certain amenities for their carts. We’ll hear from Jeff Martin, environmental health manager for Multnomah County, on what some food carts were experiencing and how the new system is rolling out.
About 15% people incarcerated in Oregon prisons are reading below an eighth grade level. That’s according to a recent investigation done by the Statesman Journal. It found that while state laws require the majority of people incarcerated to be taking classes, nearly half of those designated as low-level readers aren’t enrolled in any courses. We’ll hear from education reporter Natalie Pate on her reporting and the unique challenges facing adults in custody in Oregon
After months of delays, momentum is now building to create a stabilization center to treat people experiencing a mental health crisis due to methamphetamines, according to new reporting by The Lund Report. Multnomah County and the City of Portland signed a memorandum of understanding in May to partner on the center, which would be the first of its kind in Oregon. Unlike other sobering facilities, the stabilization center would allow several days for people to detox from meth before trying to link them to recovery services. Emily Green, managing editor for The Lund Report, joins us to talk about this effort amid a surge in meth-related visits to emergency rooms, which for the first time, have now surpassed visits due to alcohol in Multnomah County.
Snow Spotter is a citizen science project where volunteers around the world scan time lapse images of forested canopies in Washington, Alaska, California, Colorado and Europe for the presence of snow on tree tops. Since its launch in 2017, the project has grown to include other sites around the world and has been helping University of Washington researchers refine models for predicting how much annual water a region gets from melting snowpack. The data also reveals the role densely packed forests play in snow capture and release, and how forestry management practices in response to climate change may impact the amount of snowmelt that ends up recharging reservoirs and aquifers. Joining us now is Cassie Lumbrazo, a doctoral student at the University of Washington’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, who recently published a paper using data from Snow Spotter in the journal Water Resources Research.
Approximately 80,000 Oregon homes and other buildings are in areas of high or extreme wildfire risk. That’s according to a new map the Oregon Department of Forestry released Thursday. This means that those property owners may be subject to new building code and defensible space requirements to mitigate the risk from future wildfires. The new requirements are still going through a public process and property owners can appeal their risk classification. OPB reporter Cassandra Profita fills us in on the details.
On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court released a ruling in the West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency case, which will restrict the federal agency’s power to regulate carbon emissions. Oregon Governor Kate Brown was quick to say that the decision will not deter efforts to curb carbon emissions and address climate change at the state level. We hear more specifics from Greer Ryan, the clean buildings policy manager for Climate Solutions.
A new documentary features a hundred years of Boy Scouts of America history and the claims of more than 82,000 former scouts who reported they were sexually abused by troop leaders. The BSA declared bankruptcy in order to pay for the $2.7 billion settlement with abuse survivors. It's the largest sexual abuse settlement in history. “Leave No Trace” relies on first person accounts, interviews, financial records and organization archives known as the “perversion files.” Portland director Irene Taylor produced the film, with Willamette Week investigative reporter Nigel Jaquiss and Ron Howard’s Imagine Films. Taylor joins us to talk about “Leave No Trace,” which premiered in theaters this month and is now streaming on Hulu.
The Black Resilience Fund started during the pandemic to offer emergency relief to Black Portlanders. Now, the program is shifting to a guaranteed basic income model. The program is backed by the nonprofit Brown Hope. Organizers recently announced plans to support as many as 50 people with up to $2,000 per month over a three-year period. We’ll hear from Brown Hope CEO Cameron Whitten about the intentions behind this new initiative and how the selection process will work.
When Oregon Health & Science University's new gun research collaborative launched in May, it was the culmination of the research that director Kathleen Carlson had centered her career around. Since the late ’90s, federally funded research was halted by what’s known as the Dickey Amendment, but resumed under the Obama presidency after the Sandy Hook massacre in 2012. Carlson successfully applied for the first federally funded gun research grant since the ban was lifted. She says research is needed now more than ever, as injuries and deaths from firearms have been rising in Oregon and nationwide in the last several years. We talk with Carlson about the new center and her research focus moving forward.
“Lowriders to the Rescue” is the fourth book in a series of graphic novels for kids by Portland author Cathy Camper and illustrator Raúl The Third. The book opens with a forest fire started by a firecracker, which Camper says was a reference to the 2017 Eagle Creek Fire in the Columbia River Gorge. In addition to the series’ main characters — Lupe Impala, an octopus named El Chavo Flapjack, and a mosquito named Elirio Malaria — the book introduces a new character, a monarch butterfly named Sokar. The monarchs are affected by the fire and the three friends come to her family’s aid. Along the way, they learn about the ways that Arab and Latin cultures overlap. We hear from the author and illustrator about their latest collaboration and what they hope kids take away from the series.
Students may have been back in classrooms this year, but it was still a difficult time for educators across the country. We talk to three teachers about the challenges both students and teachers faced this last year, as well as what they hope for the year to come. Chris Riser is an 8th grade social studies teacher at Ockley Green Middle School in Portland. Ethelyn Tumalad is an English and AVID teacher at Clackamas High School. And Nicole Butler-Hootin is a second grade teacher at Irving Elementary School in Bethel.
Four dams in the Klamath River along the Oregon and California border are in the process of being removed. But that means reservoirs previously used as a water source for firefighting will ultimately be gone too. The Klamath River Renewal Corporation is overseeing the removal of the dams. We learn more from Mark Bransom, CEO of the organization, about what’s being done to balance dam removal and firefighting in the region.
The new novel from Oregon author Lidia Yuknavitch is anything but straightforward. The story - or collection of stories - travels through time, exploring different moments on the edges of America’s history. There is no main character, but a turtle and an aquatic young girl do play a role in guiding the reader from one scene to the next. The book is very much a response to the crises of the present moment - e.g., climate change, the rise of white supremacy - but is grounded in the injustices of the past. Lidia Yuknavitch joins us to talk about her new novel, “Thrust.”
On the night of August 21, 1945, Portland police officers arrived at the home of Ervin Jones, a Black man who had moved with his wife and two young children from Louisiana to work in the nearby shipyards during World War II. According to witness testimony, the plainclothes officers never identified themselves while demanding to be let in, mistakenly believing that a murder suspect was sheltering inside the home. Jones was shot by one of the officers through a bedroom window and died a short while later. Now, a new investigative report reveals the tragic aftermath of the killing, and how one family’s quest for answers has led to a call for justice and official acknowledgment of Jones’ innocence decades later. Joining us to talk about her reporting on this story is Melanie Henshaw, a staff reporter at Street Roots.
There are no certified sexual assault nurse examiners who are based on Oregon’s North Coast. Currently, there is one certified nurse who is based in Portland and works intermittently in Astoria. This means for those who choose to report their assault, they will likely need to travel to Portland for an examination when this nurse is unavailable. Survivors are often told to wait for several hours until a certified nurse is available and are also instructed not to shower or change clothes during this waiting period, discouraging many from continuing the process. Abbey McDonald is a reporter for the Astorian. She joins us to share more on her reporting and how the lack of these specialized nurses are affecting the North coast.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service awarded Oregon nearly $7 million to help landowners protect working farmland. Farmers work with regional land trusts to conserve land from development. Sarahlee Lawrence is the founder of Rainshadow Organics, a “full diet” farm that offers certified organic fruits, vegetables, grains and meats. Lawrence has applied to have land that she works on protected with the Deschutes Land Trust. She tells us more about the importance of protecting Oregon’s farmland.
The Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade was not a surprise after a draft opinion eliminating the right to abortion was leaked in early May. Even before the the 50-year-old decision protecting federal rights of those seeking abortions was overturned, access to the procedure had been dwindling for years in many states. In recent years, the Oregon legislature created a fund to help those in-state and out-of-state with expenses needed to access abortion care here.
Our guests include Lois Anderson with Oregon Right to Life, Christel Allen with Pro-Choice Oregon, Mary Stark who provides abortions and helps lead Planned Parenthood of Southwestern Oregon, as well as Lewis & Clark contitutional law scholar Jim Oleske
We’ll also be taking your calls live on the air about your personal experience with abortion. How access to abortion has affected you?
We spoke to poet Claudia Rankine in front of a live audience at Literary Arts in downtown Portland in 2018. Rankine is the author of five collections of poetry, including National Book Award finalist "Citizen: An American Lyric." Rankine was awarded the MacArthur "genius" grant in 2016 and founded the Racial Imaginary Institute to explore whiteness in American culture. We listen back to that interview today.
In her new novel, Portland writer Karen Thompson Walker explores the terrifying possibility of a world altered by a highly contagious disease. The disease causes people to fall into a seemingly endless sleep. We’ll talk to Thompson Walker about her book, The Dreamers.
Portland writer Leni Zumas joins us to talk about her new book “Red Clocks.” The novel centers around the lives of four women in a small coastal town in Oregon, in an America under an administration that has taken away most reproductive rights and reserved adoption for married, opposite sex couples only.
Whether you're caring for aging parents or disabled children, taking care of family members at home can be extremely challenging. Family caregivers work long hours, often unpaid. We will hear from a woman who cares for a disabled family member with developmental disabilities, an adult child caring for an aging parent, and a caregiver fighting for change at the Oregon legislature. We’ll also meet people whose work it is to help these caregivers navigate the system and to get support
As the daughter of Korean immigrants, Cathy Park Hong found writing poetry to be freeing -- an empowering way of escaping the invisibility of Asian American identity. Then, as a professional poet, it became clear that the literary world expected Hong’s identity to be both a part of, and a limitation to, her work. This cognitive dissonance is one of the “Minor Feelings” addressed in her book of essays of that name. Cathy Park Hong joins us in front of an audience of students at Portland’s Leodis V. McDaniel High School.
In honor of Juneteenth, we listen back to two conversations filled with humor and joy today. We spoke to poet and writer Nikki Giovanni in 2014 when her book ‘Chasing Utopia’ came out. And in the summer of 2020, in the beginning of the pandemic, and the middle of the racial justice uprising, we spoke to three local Black comedians about how writing jokes can be a way to process traumatic events, challenge social norms, and build community through laughter. We hear from comedians Christian Burke and Dahlia Belle, and Dirty Angel Entertainment executive producer Courtenay Collins.
Many of Oregon's beloved music festivals are coming back this summer after taking a hiatus during the worst of the pandemic. OPB Music Director Jerad Walker joins us to talk about some of the bands and artists he's most excited to hear live on stage as the weather gets warmer.
The Oregon Tribal Student Grant program aims to help members of the nine federally recognized Native American tribes in Oregon who are attending eligible colleges or universities in the state. The grant will cover the costs of attendance beyond additional federal and state financial aid and can be used for tuition, housing, books and other expenses. The Oregon Legislature approved the program for one year. It’s unclear if it will continue after the 2022-2023 school year. At least 531 people have started applications, according to HECC. We hear from Sandy Henry, education director for the Cow Creek Band of the Umpqua Tribe of Indians and Ben Cannon, executive director of Oregon’s Higher Education Coordinating Commission, which administers the grant.
The Vanport Mosaic has a unique mission. It’s all about “memory-activism.” Co-founder Damaris Webb says that means the organization is a platform to surface silenced histories to understand the present and create an inclusive future. To that end, The Vanport Mosaic and Confrontation Theatre are presenting a solo play called, “Walking Through Portland with a Panther: The Life of Mr. Kent Ford. All Power!” Ford co-founded the Black Panther Party’s Portland chapter in the 1960s and continues to be a civil rights activist. He still gives walking tours of NE Portland, and shares his memories of activism and community service. We talk with The Vanport Mosaic Director Damaris Webb, who also directed the play about Ford’s life and legacy.
This month marks the 50th Anniversary of Title IX, the federal law which prohibits discrimination based on sex in education programs and activities. A new special from NPR marks the anniversary by telling the story of former UO women’s basketball coach Jody Runge, who pushed to make that promise of equity a reality for the university's women’s basketball team. Jody Runge leaned on Title IX to turn a losing team into a Pac-Ten powerhouse and to close a pay gap with the men’s coach, but she paid a price for her determination. Journalist Emily Harris teamed with producer Ida Hardin and NPR’s Enterprise Storytelling Unit to report and produce this documentary, featuring the progress that Title IX brought for women in college athletics, as well as costs of that progress and challenges that remain. OPB TV will air “Benching the Patriarchy - 50 Years of Title IX” on Sunday, June 19th at 9pm. We talk to producer Ida Hardin about the work.
BikePortland recently reported that a property owner in downtown Portland had erected a row of more than two dozen bike racks along a public sidewalk. Around the same time, Willamette Week reported that a group of residents in Portland’s Laurelhurst neighborhood set up planter boxes along a street next to Laurelhurst Park, where people had been camping before a recent sweep. Both appear to be examples of hostile architecture, also known as defensive architecture, meant to deter people experiencing homelessness from camping on the sidewalk. Michael Mehaffy is a researcher and architect who focuses on public space. He says he sees hostile architecture as the end result of systemic failures. We hear from Mehaffy about how the accessibility of public space can reflect a city’s values.
Gender-affirming medical care is often determined by doctors and researchers who are not transgender. The Transgender and Non-Binary Allied Research Collective (TRANS-ARC) aims to change that. OHSU urologist Geolani Dy co-founded the collective to incorporate trans and nonbinary patient perspectives in research about gender-affirming surgeries. Since the collective started in 2019, trans and nonbinary patients have been shaping the ways that providers care for people in their community, including choosing research topics to focus on and influencing the ways that surgical outcomes are measured. We hear from Dy and TRANS-ARC Project Co-Lead Jae Downing, who is an assistant professor of health policy at the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health.
Prices at the grocery store are rising. According to the Consumer Price Index, the cost of food has increased by 10% since last year. As the cost of a meal is going up, how does this affect those already facing food insecurity? To answer this question and more we’ll hear from leaders at two food banks. Susannah Morgan, CEO of the Oregon Food Bank, and Niki Sampson, executive director of Klamath-Lake Counties Food Bank, join us to share what they’re seeing now.
In February, a shooter opened fire into a group of people who had gathered for a racial justice protest at Normandale Park in Northeast Portland, killing one person and wounding four others. Benjamin Jeffrey Smith was arrested and later charged with the murder of Brandy “June” Knightly in the shooting, and also faces multiple counts of attempted murder and assault with a firearm. Now, an OPB investigation has revealed that the FBI had received multiple tips dating back to 2006 about Smith’s history of violent and threatening behaviors, and that the agency had contacted Smith months before the fatal shooting. Joining us to talk about their investigation are Jonathan Levinson, a multimedia reporter who covers policing for OPB, and Conrad Wilson, a reporter and producer who covers criminal justice and legal affairs for OPB.
Climate change is affecting the well-being and mental health of young people, according to a new study from the Oregon Health Authority. Researchers conducted focus groups to understand how more extreme weather events and climate-related disasters are affecting 14 to 24-year-olds. Feelings of anger, grief and despair are just a few of the emotions young people are experiencing. Julie Sifuentes is the climate and mental health lead for OHA as well as the lead author of this new study. Meg Cary is a child adolescent psychiatrist and senior advisor for OHA. Ukiah Halloran-Steiner is a 17-year-old climate justice organizer with Sunrise Rural Oregon. They join us with details.
Oregon youth are feeling the effects of climate change on their mental health
The Treasure Valley Reload Center would make shipping onions and other produce easier and cheaper for Malheur County growers. The project was supposed to be completed by the end of August, but officials now say they don’t have enough funds to finish construction. In 2017, Oregon lawmakers invested $26 million for the project. Now, the Malheur County Economic Development office has said this funding will cover the costs of everything but the main building. Les Zaitz is the publisher of the Malheur Enterprise. He joins us to share more on what’s next for the county.
Oregon has the seond highest rate of substance use disorder in the US. And at the same time, the state ranks last in the nation for its access to addiction treatment options. And the inability for people to get treatment when they need it fuels the addiction crisis itself. We hear how this is personally affecting Kelly Hernandez, the mother of a son struggling with substance use disorder. And we talk with Fernando Pena, the executive director of NW Instituto Latino, which offers culturally specific addiction recovery support services.
The Catalyst program at Basic Rights Oregon aims to increase leadership capacity and champion transgender social justice equity across the state. The program puts together a cohort of transgender, nonbinary, and gender non-conforming Oregonians to gain skills and build community together. Jo Doyle, the Leadership Development and Training Program Manager for Basic Rights Oregon, coordinates the Catalyst program. Ari Rain is a participant this year. They both join us to share the goals of this program.
The Bristow 24/12 Run is happening Saturday at the Elijah Bristow State Park near Eugene. Participants can run for 12 or 24 hours straight around a one-mile loop. Runners test themselves on how many laps they can get through before time runs out. We learn more about the race from Renee Janssen, a race director and Charley Boynton, a participant in this year’s race.
Starting next month in Marion county, scientists at Oregon State University will release a parasitic species of wasp to control an invasive pest that infests fruits as they ripen, costing half a billion dollars worth of crop damage each year in the U.S. The spotted wing drosophila, a fruit fly native to Southeast Asia, was first detected in Oregon in 2009 and costs the state’s blueberry industry alone more than $10 million in losses annually. It took scientists more than a decade to gain approval from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to release the parasitic wasp, which is also native to Southeast Asia, in Oregon and other sites along the West coast this summer. Vaughn Walton, a horticultural entomologist in the College of Agricultural Sciences at Oregon State University, joins us to explain the latest efforts to control this invasive pest in Oregon and the West coast.
Jackie Linton was born and raised in Hermiston. She wasn’t particularly involved in civic life until recently, but has became a vocal advocate for a variety of issues in the last few years. Linton ran for city council previously, before winning the city council seat last month. She joins us to share more of her story and what her priorities will be when she takes office next year.
On Saturday, law enforcement arrested 31 members of the white supremacist group Patriot Front in Idaho. The men were packed into a U-Haul and were traveling to a Pride event held in Coeur d’Alene which they had plans to riot, according to local law enforcement. Daniel Walters, an investigative reporter at the Inlander, has been covering the story and he joins us to fill us in on the latest.
Visual artist Mike Bennett delighted his one-and-a-half million followers on TikTok when he announced in March his latest and most ambitious art project to date: a dinosaur museum in downtown Portland. Three months later, Dinolandia has now opened its doors inside a 22,000 square-foot space previously occupied by a department store. The interactive museum features 67 whimsically painted plywood dinosaurs, including a 15-foot-tall Tyrannosaurus Rex, several velociraptors and a pair of stegosauruses popping out of a psychedelic-tinted prehistoric forest. A dash of time-traveling storytelling and dinosaur facts help keep adults and children engaged and entertained. Mike Bennett joins us to talk about Dinolandia and making art that sparks, as he calls it, “public joy.”
A top-ranked ultimate frisbee team from Eugene has traveled to Richmond, Virginia to compete in the High School National Invite tournament this weekend. More than half of the 30-member South Eugene Gender Diverse / Girls Ultimate team identifies as gender nonbinary or gender nonconforming, including Arenaria Cramer, a high school senior and one of four captains on the team. Head coach Rachelle Depner says this is the first time that a gender diverse team or girls team from Oregon is competing in the national tournament which was canceled for the past two years because of the pandemic. Depner and Cramer join us to talk about the team’s achievement and their efforts to make ultimate frisbee more inclusive and accepting.
Last year, the Northwest baked through an unprecedented heat wave. At the time, The Office of the Corrections Ombuds, an independent agency in Washington within the governor’s office, conducted a site visit at the Monroe Correctional Complex. The office found temperatures reached 107 degrees inside the facility, and listed recommendations the Department of Corrections should implement.
High Country News recently published a report on how prisons in the state responded to the heat wave. It details grievances from people in prison that illustrate extreme conditions and a lack of emergency preparation. Sarah Sax, a freelance journalist and former climate Justice fellow at High Country News, reported the story. She joins us with details.
In 2019, the Port of Astoria began charging $300 to ocean-going vessels headed up the Columbia River. The port argues they offer a service, since they have the deepest berth for ships passing through during an emergency. In a recent lawsuit, federal courts ruled against the port since only a few ships have ever used the emergency service in the past 20 years. Ethan Myers, reporter for The Astorian, joins us to share details of the case and what this means for the future of the port.
Oregon has been working on rules that outline how to implement the psilocybin measure that passed in 2020. The Oregon Health Authority recently released one set of its final rules for the therapeutic use of psilocybin. And the agency began accepting applications this week for programs to train those who want to provide the service. Oregon is the first state to pass a law to provide the psychedelic in a supervised setting, but a handful of cities have decriminalized small amounts of the drug. Mason Marks was a member of the advisory board until a few months ago and also provides legal advice to businesses and cities around the country. He wrote the psilocybin ordinance Seattle city councilors passed last year. He joins us to give us an overview of the latest rules and update us on the timing of the rollout. He also explains how OHA’s approved rules differ from some of the recommendations of the advisory board — and why it matters.
As gun violence continues to affect Portlanders, what kind of trauma does that create for kids? How can losing a loved one to gun violence be different from other forms of loss? We learn more about grief, loss and gun violence from Alysha Lacey. She’s the director of program services at the Dougy Center, a Portland-based organization that offers grief support for children, teens, young adults, and their families.
Portland’s Star Bar has been operating in the city since its opening 12 years ago. Owner Josh Davis says he has seen the way drug use has changed in the city and wanted to do what he could to address it. As reported by PDX Eater, Davis began offering free fentanyl test strips to anyone who needs them. He also has started to carry naloxone behind the bar in the case of an opioid overdose. Davis joins us to share why he started providing this service to bar patrons and community members.
Nearly two dozen disability rights advocates from around the world are in Eugene right now. They’re participating in a program that has trained more than 200 women from 89 countries since its launch 25 years ago to help lead efforts to achieve disability rights in their home countries. We hear from Aarthi Burtony, a blind activist from the island nation of Mauritius, and one of the participants in this year’s Women’s Institute on Leadership and Disability. We’ll also hear from Susan Sygall, the CEO and co-founder of Mobility International USA, the Eugene-based nonprofit that created the program, about the impact its alumni are having around the world.
Mountain rescue doctors and volunteers have already undertaken eight alpine rescue missions this year, in a normal year they just have a few. Rescue Mountaineer Christopher Van Tilburg says that increasing crowds, inexperienced climbers and access to equipment have changed who is headed to Mt. Hood. A single mission can take all night or last multiple days. He wrote about his rescues for Outside magazine. Tilburg joins us to share his experience as a rescue doctor and what makes this year so different.
Portlanders who love biking can join Pedalpalooza rides nearly every day this summer. Are there any you're looking forward to? The rides are organized by volunteers and can be short, long, costumed, themed, fast or slow. Meghan Sinnot, a Pedalpalooza organizer, and Armando Luna, a cycling enthusiast, join us to talk about the three-month-long celebration.
Exploring the themes of sustainability, diversity and food innovation, OSU’s Art about Agriculture exhibit aims to feature artists' work on the agriculture industry. The exhibit is currently on display at the Giustina Gallery in Corvallis, but will tour to Baker City and Newport. We’ll hear from artists Deb Stoner and Tallmadge Doyle on their featured work.
In March, Ashland photographer Christopher Briscoe traveled with doctors on a humanitarian mission to Poland to help refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine. Ten days later, when the mission ended and the doctors departed, Briscoe decided to cross the border into Ukraine. With the help of an interpreter, Briscoe has been capturing portraits of people and stories of loss and resilience amid the sound of air raid sirens and bombardment by Russian artillery. He joins us from Lviv, Ukraine to talk about what he’s been seeing and why he feels his professional journey has led him to this moment.
The idea behind Portland’s safe rest villages was a response to the homeless crisis. The already large population of people living on the streets has only increased during the pandemic. City commissioner Dan Ryan is in charge of the housing bureau and has had plenty of challenges siting the villages and working with area residents and businesses to open them. A growing number of neighborhood associations and other groups are demanding the city implement background checks before people are allowed into the villages. We talk with freelance reporter Piper McDaniel who’s been following the story.
Three new industrial chicken farms proposals in the Willamette Valley have drawn grave concerns from residents and smaller farmers in the region. They say the chicken operations on prime farmland pose a serious threat to already limited water supplies and the environment. Eric Simon grows chickens at Simon Range, a chicken farm in Brownsville, and is close to getting all the approvals he needs for a large scale operation in Scio. He says the new J-S Farm has environmental impact mitigation built into the planned facilities. Simon says he’s helping provide affordable food, a much needed commodity. Kendra Kimbirauskas raises livestock in Scio on a smaller scale and is one of the organizers of Farmers Against Foster Farms. She and Simon join us to share their perspectives.
Unclear policies, workplace discrimination and lack of benefits have fueled Portland-based childcare workers to unionize. Staff at Growing Seeds Learning Community, Fruit & Flower Child Care Center and Wild Lilac Child Development Community have successfully unionized within the last year. Workers at Joyful Noise Child Development Centers began their process a few months ago. We hear from union organizers Nat Glitsch with Growing Seeds, Em Holland with Wild Lilac and Amanda Nance with Joyful Noise.
Irrigators in Southern Oregon and Northern California are facing another year of drought. The Klamath Water Users Association, an organization that represents farmers and ranchers, has teamed up with Ducks Unlimited, an organization that works on wetland conservation, to handle water issues. The groups aim to recycle water in the region and envision pump stations that can manage water more efficiently. We hear more about the plan from Moss Driscoll, the Director of Water Policy for the Klamath Water Users Association, and Jeff McCreary, the Western Region director of operations for Ducks Unlimited.
Rancher Becky Hyde was less than two miles away when the Bootleg Fire roared through Southern Oregon last year. Her ranch was surrounded by fire resources and fire personnel were nearby to combat the flames. We get an update from Hyde on how her ranch has fared nearly a year after the fire and what drought in the region means for her.
In March, Gov. Kate Brown issued a state of drought emergency for Klamath County. Residents have faced wells that have gone dry and had limited access to water. Kelley Minty Morris is the chair of the Klamath County Board of Commissioners.
She joins us with details on how another drought year has affected the region.
The Klamath Basin is facing another year of drought. The Klamath Tribes remain concerned about the survival of the C’waam and Koptu, also known as the Lost River and shortnose suckers. These fish are classified as endangered. The tribes are suing the federal government because they say agencies are not doing enough to legally protect the fish. Clayton Dumont is the chairman for the Klamath Tribes. He joins us with details.
Last year, the Yurok Tribe in Northern California faced a catastrophic fish kill. Dead fish were found throughout the Klamath River. This year, the tribe says salmon are faring much better, but concerns remain. We check in with Barry McCovey Jr., Fisheries Department director for the Yurok Tribe, to hear how the fish are doing.
Last year, the Yurok Tribe in Northern California faced a catastrophic fish kill. Dead fish were found throughout the Klamath River. This year, the tribe says salmon are faring much better, but concerns remain. We check in with Barry McCovey Jr., Fisheries Department director for the Yurok Tribe, to hear how the fish are doing.
Performance art is nothing without an audience. During the pandemic some concerts, theatre and other artistic expression pivoted to online performances, but there is no replacing an in-person audience. Luan Schooler, the interim artistic director for Artists Repertory Theatre, says before the curtain rises in a finished production, playwrights need an audience to develop their work. That’s the idea behind the free public performances in the Mercury Festival, which runs through Sunday. Schooler says ART has been supported nearly 55 different projects and more than 240 artists in its Mercury program created in pandemic. She joins us to talk about this first in-person festival of new work, and why it’s debuting in a public space free of charge.
This month, the Portland Chamber Orchestra will premiere a new work by composer Nancy Ives called “Celilo Falls: We Were There.” The piece features poems by Shoshone-Bannock poet Ed Edmo and projected photographic images by Cherokee photographer Joe Cantrell. The entire experience attempts to capture what it was like for Native Americans who lost their homes and livelihoods when the Dalles Dam flooded Celilo Falls in 1957. Ives, Edmo and Cantrell join us to talk about the new work.
Portland’s Forest Park is one of the largest urban forests in the country. And like any other forest, it is susceptible to wildfires, especially as the summers get hotter and drier west of the Cascades. For homeowners near the park, a forest fire would be devastating. That’s why some neighborhoods have begun to organize into what are called ‘firewise communities.’ Shawn Looney and Ralph Brooks are volunteer organizers of their neighborhoods’ firewise communities. Kim Kosmas works for the Portland Fire Department. They join us to talk about the work they are doing to educate homeowners and try to prevent a fire in Forest Park.
Tenants of an RV park in Ilwaco, Washington, north of Astoria, say they have faced threats of eviction after the sale of the RV park to a new owner this spring. The tenants are largely low income and represent some of the city’s most vulnerable residents. If tenants are forced to leave, the options for some may be limited. Katie Frankowicz, news director at KMUN in Astoria, joins us to share her reporting on this story.
Last week’s shooting of 19 elementary school children in Uvalde, Texas has renewed calls for gun control legislation at the state and federal level. But while passage of a national gun reform remains elusive, a school district in Oregon pioneered a student behavioral threat assessment program to prevent school shootings from happening. It relies on a team of experts drawn from the school, community and law enforcement to quickly assess threatening behaviors and communications made by a student and respond with a range of interventions designed to support the student at home and at school. Courtenay McCarthy, a school psychologist at the Salem-Keizer school district, explains how the program works and the impact it’s having in Salem and beyond.
Multnomah County voters elected District Attorney Mike Schmidt in 2020. Schmidt campaigned on shrinking the criminal justice system, but his latest initiative involves hiring more prosecutors to join his team. As first reported by the Portland Mercury, Schmidt wants to spend $2.7 million on a program to hire eight new prosecutors who would be assigned to four geographic areas. These neighborhood prosecutors would work out of community centers or neighborhood-based nonprofits in an effort to build relationships and better understand the needs of the community. The ACLU of Oregon has expressed skepticism about the proposal. We hear more from DA Mike Schmidt.
Oregon Health and Science University launched its Long COVID-19 Program more than a year ago. In that time, the program's doctors, nurses and other health workers have seen and treated nearly a thousand patients. The medical profession still has a lot to learn about long COVID-19. Even the definition of the condition is less than straightforward. The CDC says it considers the condition present if a patient has lingering symptoms 28 days after infection, while the World Health Organization says a patient has long COVID-19 if symptoms persist for two months. Doctors and researchers have been amassing more knowledge as the number of patients increases. OHSU’s program was the first in Oregon but it, like those in other states, it doesn’t have the capacity to treat every patient who is referred. We learn more from Eric Herman, a physician who leads the program and neuropsychiatrist Jordan Anderson.
Oregon voters passed Measure 110 in 2020. It decriminalized small amounts of illegal drugs and directed more money to addiction recovery services. The idea was to reduce harm to communities most negatively impacted by the so-called “war on drugs” started by President Nixon. The “war on drugs” policy approach led to an increase in incarceration for nonviolent drug-related crimes, especially among people of color. Now, organizations focused on addiction recovery services for BIPOC communities in Oregon are hoping to expand their reach with money made available by Measure 110. We hear from leaders of two organizations that got funding from the first round of grants. Julia Mines is the executive director of Miracles Club, and Brittiny Raine is the co-founder and co-executive director of CORE Eugene.
Thousands of Clackamas County ballots from the May 17 primary have to be reprocessed because misprinted barcodes left them unreadable by tabulating machines. According to the county clerk, the vote counting will continue until mid-June. The debacle is fueling conspiracy theories and has caused confusion in the 5th Congressional District race, which the Associated Press finally called 10 days after the election. We hear from Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan about the situation in Clackamas County and how Oregon can avoid problems like this in the future.
Oregon was the first state in the country to ban single-family zoning in all but the smallest cities, meaning duplexes and triplexes can be built next door to single-family homes. The idea is to increase density within cities while preserving land for farms and wilderness in more rural areas. Denser housing could also help to combat climate change, and create more affordable housing to help reduce the number of people living on the streets. That’s the vision of the Yimbytown movement. Last month, Think Out Loud hosted a panel at the Yimbytown conference in Portland to discuss what “Yes In My Backyard” could mean for the future of cities. The guests were Sam Diaz, Executive Director of 1,000 Friends of Oregon; Rukaiyah Adams, Board Chair of Albina Vision Trust; Marisa Zapata, Director of the Portland State University Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative; and Jerusalem Demsas, staff writer at the Atlantic magazine.
Portland cartoonist Jonathan Case has illustrated Batman comics for DC and illustrated a graphic novel about the Green River Killer. His newest book is somehow both lighter and darker at the same time. “Little Monarchs” is an upbeat post-apocalyptic adventure tale for kids. Case joins us to talk about the book.
Earlier this month, the Oregon Public Utility Commission adopted new rules on how power companies handle public safety power shutoffs. During dangerous weather conditions, power companies can proactively shut off electricity in high fire-risk areas. Shutting off power is a safety measure that can help prevent wildfires.
The companies are required to inform the public, state agencies and local jurisdictions, according to the commission. Allen Berreth is the vice president of operations for Pacific Power. Bill Messner is the director of wildfire mitigation and resiliency for Portland General Electric. They join us with details on how the companies plan to mitigate wildfire risk.
A federal inspection of Oregon State Hospital’s Junction City campus found issues relating to patient care and mismanagement. The facility is now facing threats of decertification if it remains noncompliant by Aug. 3. The state-run facility has already submitted its proposal of changes which include more training for staff and monthly drills. Joining us is senior reporter for the Lund Report, Ben Botkin. He shares details of the investigation and helps explain what decertification could mean for this institution.
The iconic celebration of civic pride, creative expression and just plain fun known as the Portland Rose Festival is back to its full itinerary this year. It's been a part of the cultural life of the area for more than a century. The festival had to be vastly scaled down in 2020 and 2021 because of the pandemic, but has only been canceled twice in its 115 year history. Events include three parades, the Spring Rose Show, fleet week and what’s known as CityFair at the Tom McCall Waterfront park, with games, rides, concerts and more. The Rose Festival officially kicks off Friday, May 27. But several events are scheduled for Thursday, including free public performance by the Oregon Symphony. The Rose Festival officially runs through June 11, but many related events are scheduled throughout that month. We learn more about this iconic event from past president Leslie Goodlow, who has been attending and helping organize it since she first moved to the city as a child in the early 1970s.
Oregon Secretary of State auditors released a report detailing five risk areas that could put the success of students at risk. The report is a compilation of past K-12 school audits by the state. Auditors addressed their findings to the Governor, Oregon Department of Education and state legislators and made recommendations for improvements. Joining us is Principal Auditor Krystine McCants to share more on these risk areas and details of the report.
Administrators at Blue Mountain Community College in eastern Oregon say they need to close at least one academic program and lay off faculty because of a drop in enrollment. The faculty union says the cuts are unnecessary, and the result of poor decision-making. We’ll hear from BMCC President Mark Browning and Pete Hernberg, president of the Blue Mountain Faculty Association and a math and computer science instructor at BMCC.
The City of Vancouver is working with private investors on a $1.5 billion makeover of its downtown waterfront. Anchored by a pier that extends 90 feet into the Columbia River with a towering metal beam and cable suspensions that evoke a nautical sail, the development spans more than 30 acres on land that once belonged to a paper mill. Today, it boasts a seven-acre park that connects to restaurants, wine tasting rooms, offices and housing, including luxury condos with river views. Vancouver Mayor Anne McEnerny-Ogle joins us to talk about the waterfront development and how it aligns with the city and region’s growth.
Cottage clusters, townhouses and duplexes are some of the forms of housing commonly referred to as “missing middle housing.” Zoning rules have previously left them out, but that’s starting to change. The Oregon legislature passed Housing Bill 2001 in 2019 to expand building options in residential zones. Portland had a similar policy in place before the statewide bill passed and has been working on adding more options for housing to the city. Meanwhile, other places like Albany are following state mandates to diversify their housing options. Alex Johnson II is the mayor of Albany. Morgan Tracy is a project manager with the City of Portland Bureau of Planning & Sustainability. They join us with details.
Statistics from 2020 show that Oregon had the second-highest alcohol and drug addiction rates in the nation and ranked last in treatment options. Oregonians passed Measure 110 almost two years ago. It decriminalized small amounts of illegal drugs and directed more money to addiction recovery services. But state bureaucracy has delayed the distribution of critical funding for providers. The advocacy group Oregon Recovers says the state is not doing enough to address the addiction crisis. We hear from Oregon Recovers Executive Director Mike Marshall and get a response from Oregon Health Authority Director Patrick Allen.
The city of Vanport was hastily built to accommodate workers migrating to Oregon to work in the shipyards during WWII. After the war, many white residents of Vanport relocated to Portland, but discriminatory banking and real estate practices prevented Black people from buying or renting in most parts of the city. So, the population of Vanport became increasingly African-American as time went on. In 1948, a catastrophic flood destroyed the entire city.
Growing up in the Portland area, Shalanda Sims never heard about the lost city of Vanport. As an adult, she learned that her great-grandmother had lived there before the flood. Sims is the executive and artistic director at World Stage Theatre, and she was inspired by the stories she heard from Vanport survivors to create a show that she hopes will keep the city's history alive. “Vanport the Musical” is part of the Vanport Mosaic Festival. Tickets are available via the Northwest Children’s Theater for weekend performances through June 5.
An elementary school in Prineville doesn’t have its own school library and had been sending students to the local public library to check out books and learn how to use the library as a resource. As first reported by the Bend Bulletin, the school district decided to end the practice recently after some parents brought up concerns about books their children brought home that discuss race, gender and puberty. The district declined our request to come on “Think Out Loud.” Crook County Library Director April Witteveen will join us.
The U.S. government promised Native tribes in the Pacific Northwest that they could keep fishing for salmon as they’d always done. But instead of working to preserve wild salmon, the federal government has propped up a system of failing hatcheries. OPB’s Tony Schick tells us about his new investigative report in collaboration with ProPublica.
Travis Williams has spent a lot of time on the Willamette River. He’s the executive director of the environmental nonprofit Willamette Riverkeeper and the author of the new book “Willamette River Greenways.” The book explores the history of the Willamette River Greenway, a nearly 200-mile corridor of public lands along the river from near Eugene to Portland. Williams joins us to talk about the history and future of the greenway, and what he loves about the Willamette.
An arid and fragile landscape dotted with sagebrush and perennial grasses stretches from the eastern slopes of the Cascades to beyond the Rocky Mountains and into parts of Canada. More than half of this sagebrush steppe ecosystem has been lost, threatened by climate change, invasive plants and human activity. A scientist at Oregon State University has spent more than a decade leading a team working to protect sagebrush habitats from another growing threat: huge wildfires. Lisa Ellsworth, a range ecologist and assistant professor at Oregon State University’s College of Agricultural Sciences, joins us to talk about her new research and how it’s helping inform wildfire management efforts in sagebrush habitats in Oregon, Idaho and Washington.
Two of Oregon’s biggest hospitals are reporting multi-million dollar financial losses, due to increased labor costs and other pandemic-related factors. Oregon Health and Science University is projecting an operating loss of $58 million for the 2022 fiscal year and St. Charles Health System has lost $21.8 million on its operations so far this year. St. Charles, which is the largest employer in Central Oregon, announced this week that it will lay off 105 employees. OHSU officials have said they hope to avoid layoffs and are looking for ways to increase revenue. We talk with John McConnell, director of the Center for Health Systems Effectiveness at OHSU about why hospital finances are so strained right now.
What started out as one diver collecting “river treasures” of forgotten phones and iPads has turned into a YouTube channel dedicated to finding missing people. The group, Adventures with Purpose, is a four-man team starring two Oregonians, Jared Leisek and Doug Bishop. The team travels across the U.S. diving into rivers, lakes and canals in the hopes of finding cars that were last driven by missing people. The team has uncovered human remains on multiple occasions that have been used to solve 23 cases. Bishop is the team's lead diver. He joins us to share how they find these cars and details the work they’ve done over the past three years.
Tigray, a region in northern Ethiopia, has been devastated by war. The fighting turned violent in November 2020 and last month, a joint report by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch detailed war crimes and atrocities happening there. Leake Gebrekristos is from Tigray and came to the U.S. in the late 90s. He is a community organizer based in Portland and has lived in Oregon for more than a decade. He joins us with details.
Last week, Multnomah County health officials recommended people start wearing masks inside again. This week, six Oregon counties have reached medium risk levels, triggering the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s indoor masking recommendation. Case counts are on the rise, though hospitalization rates are still fairly low. Multnomah County Health Department’s Jennifer Vines joins us for an update.
The results of the 2022 World Beer Cup were announced earlier this month. This year’s competition featured more than 10,000 entries from breweries across the globe. Oregon’s breweries took home multiple awards. Portland-based StormBreaker Brewing won gold for its beer, Extra StormBreaker. Heater Allen Brewing in McMinnville won gold for its flagship beer, Pils. And ColdFire Brewing of Eugene took home a bronze for its Valley Mélange. Rob Lutz is the head brewer of StormBreaker Brewing. Lisa Allen is the head brewer and production manager of Heater Allen Brewing. Stephen Hughes is the head brewer of ColdFire Brewing. We hear more from them about the competition and their beers.
Wild Woman is an art collaboration that includes a luxury clothing collection and highlights women’s empowerment. The pieces are on display at the Portland Art Museum in conjunction with the museum’s Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Mexican Modernism exhibit. We hear more about the work from creators Myriam Marcela De Anda and Laura Renée Maier.
At Harriet Tubman Middle School, students are missing out on learning and walking out on classes as substitute teachers try to fill teacher vacancies. Students, teachers and parents at several other Portland middle schools are also facing similar challenges and are frustrated by a lack of support after more than a year of distance learning. OPB’s K-12 education reporter, Elizabeth Miller, joins us to talk about her recent reporting and the low morale that’s driving some middle school teachers to consider leaving the profession altogether.
From the governor’s race to a new Congressional district seat, Oregonians cast their votes on key races in the primary which wrapped yesterday. But this year, ballots postmarked by May 17 will still be counted, leaving the outcome of some close contests still unclear. We hear from Tina Kotek, former Oregon Speaker of the House, who won the Democratic nomination in the governor’s race. We also hear from unaffiliated candidate and former Oregon state senator Betsy Johnson, who will likely compete against Kotek. Other projected primary winners we’ll also hear from: Val Hoyle in the U.S. Congressional District 4 race; Andrea Salinas and Mike Erickson in the Congressional District 6 race; Christina Stephenson in the state Bureau of Labor and Industries race; and Nicole Morrissey O’Donnell, who is poised to become Multnomah County’s first female sheriff. OPB political reporter Sam Stites will also join us to talk about the “Greater Idaho” votes in three counties.
Think Out Loud brings you results in the primary election on the evening of Tuesday, May 17th. You hear from candidates, reporters in the field and editors about how the races stand.
Satellites whizzing above Earth have revolutionized how we communicate, navigate and even monitor the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving climate change. But the number of satellites being launched into orbit is expected to increase by tens of thousands in just a few years, and are already making it harder for astronomers and amateur sky gazers to peer deep into the night sky. Meredith Rawls is an astronomer and research scientist at the University of Washington. She and a team of international astronomers argue in a recent paper that space needs environmental protections, much like establishing marine protected reserves or biodiversity hotspots. She joins us to talk about making the case for space environmentalism.
Like everything else, honors classes in Salem-Keizer school district were upended during the pandemic. But when students came back into the building, the district took advantage of the opportunity to re-work the way it offers honors classes. Now, instead of separate classes, honors students sit alongside their peers doing “embedded honors.” Eddy Binford-Ross wrote about this for the Salem Statesman Journal, and joins us to explain.
company is asking for a similar hike. If approved, that would mean customers would see their bills rise by about 25% over a one-year period. Independent journalist Nick Cunningham covers climate change and the oil and gas industry. In his recent article in DeSmog about NW Natural’s latest request, he highlights some of the controversial elements of the proposed rate hike: funding bonuses and a promotional ad campaign. Cunningham joins us to share more details about NW Natural and how the industry is attempting to hold its own amid the movement toward electrification.
Editor’s note: NW Natural Appliance Center is among the underwriters of OPB.
Portlander Bill Oakley may be most famous for the joke he wrote about hamburgers in his time writing for the Simpsons. So perhaps it makes sense that he has spent the last year focusing on hamburgers in a different way. He’s been reviewing fast food on Instagram. We listen back to a conversation with Oakley from 2019.
A series of surveys conducted by the Oregon Values and Beliefs Center found a rise in hate crime and harassment incidents against Asian Americans in Oregon. Nearly half of all the Asian Americans surveyed said they heard someone use a racial slur, epithet or degrading language against them or a family member or both. A third of those surveyed reported reducing the amount of time they spend in the community because of a race-based bias incident or hate crime. Holden Leung, executive director [drop caps] of the Asian Health and Service Center, tells us about the survey, and what his organization is doing to address anti-Asian hate crimes.
A nationwide shortage of baby formula is proving stressful for families in the Pacific Northwest. Ryan Hassan is a pediatrician with Oregon Pediatrics in Happy Valley. He says he’s been talking to his patients about practical solutions and counseling them on ignoring judgmental comments on social media about feeding babies with formula.
Meanwhile, the Northwest Mothers Milk Bank has been fielding more calls from people interested in donating breast milk due to the shortage, according to Executive Director Lesley Mondeaux. The milk bank serves families with a prescription for human breast milk, which means the organization prioritizes medically fragile babies. But the milk bank is also able to help others on a short-term basis, Mondeaux says, especially if there is an increase in supply. We hear from Mondeaux and Hassan about how families in the Pacific Northwest are coping with the formula shortage.
Meanwhile, the Northwest Mothers Milk Bank has been fielding more calls from people interested in donating breast milk due to the shortage, according to Executive Director Lesley Mondeaux. The milk bank serves families with a prescription for human breast milk, which means the organization prioritizes medically fragile babies. But the milk bank is also able to help others on a short-term basis, Mondeaux says, especially if there is an increase in supply. We hear from Mondeaux and Hassan about how families in the Pacific Northwest are coping with the formula shortage
A group of activists known as Redwood Forest Defense has been occupying treetops in northern California as a form of non-violent protest to block the logging of redwood forests. Their struggle pits them against the Green Resource Diamond Company, which has been logging in the region since 2020. Portland-based filmmakers Lawrence Lerew and Derek Knowles directed the short film, "Sentinels," that is now streaming on the L.A. Times. They join us to talk about the making of their new film.
According to the Oregon Health Authority, a quarter of Oregon residents rely on wells for their drinking water, and many of them live in rural parts of the state that are particularly vulnerable to wildfires. Freelance journalist and author Erika Bolstad recently wrote about how toxic chemicals like arsenic and benzene can leach into wells after a wildfire, and how droughts and other extreme weather events can increase the concentration of harmful contaminants in well water. She joins us to talk about what she’s learned and whether a free voucher program open to eligible property owners is having an effect.
To increase the number of available shelter beds for people experiencing homelessness, the City of Bends is considering amendments to its development laws. These changes would help define three different types of shelters that can be built in the city and make it easier to operate a shelter. These code changes also introduced hardship housing, a permit system where property owners can give someone permission to live on their property for six to 18 months. Last week, Bend had their first in-person city hall meeting where several residents spoke up in opposition to the changes. We’ll hear from Bend City Councilor Megan Perkins.
Edwidge Danticat is an award-winning writer of novels, short stories, essays, and memoirs, with a focus on the rich experiences of the Haitian diaspora. Her latest book is the collection of short stories “Everything Inside.” We talk to Danticat in front of an audience at Woodburn high school.
For the first time in its history, the Elgin High School band will be competing in the state band and orchestra championships. The high school of fewer than 170 students in eastern Oregon includes 7th and 8th graders, four of whom were good enough to earn a spot on the 16-member varsity band competing in the state finals on Friday. In 2019, the band came close to earning a trip to the finals but was disqualified for a performance which fell just short of the minimum length required under competition rules. Erika Adams, a senior and band member who plays the flute, joins us, along with Tucker Murphey, the Elgin High School band and choir director.
A recent study takes an in-depth look at the unsafe and often dehumanizing conditions Oregon farmworkers have endured during the COVID-19 pandemic. Researchers from Oregon universities collaborated with advocacy organizations and farmworkers themselves to understand the challenges these essential workers have faced and what policies they want to see changed to improve conditions in the future. We hear from Sandra Martin, an Oregon farmworker and COVID-19 emergency response coordinator for Bienstar, an organization that provides housing and other resources to farm workers and their families. Also joining us are Jennifer Martinez-Medina, a PhD candidate at Portland State University and Anabel Hernandez-Mejia, communications and advocacy coordinator for Farmworker Housing Development Corporation. Interpretation for our interview with Sandra Martin was provided by Victor Shepherd with Passport to Languages.
This week the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association started negotiations on a new contract that would affect dockworkers up and down the West Coast. As the supply chain already faces major disruptions, some - including farmers in the Pacific Northwest - are concerned about a labor impasse that could create further challenges. We hear more from Peter Goodman, a global economic correspondent for The New York Times and author of "Davos Man: How the Billionaires Devoured the World."
For the first time in nearly 40 years, the district attorney’s office in Marion County is being contested. Incumbent District Attorney Paige Clarkson is facing a challenge from Spencer Todd, a 33-year-old public defender from Salem. Clarkson has been the county’s top law enforcement official for four years and has blamed state leaders, including the governor, of undermining public safety by pursuing criminal justice reforms. Spencer Todd has worked as a public defender in Marion County for eight years and supports criminal justice reforms that focus on mental health services and treatment for nonviolent emergencies and offenses.
Clarkson and Todd join us to share their perspectives on criminal justice, policing and public safety.
A growing number of breweries have shifted Astoria from a drive-by town to a craft beer and spirits destination. But as the fermentation cluster of breweries, distilleries and cideries grows in Astoria, it's leading to more waste being generated from leftover yeast, hops and other proteins. In response, the City of Astoria is expected to implement a new system later this month to address the growing concerns of solid waste this industry is putting out. We’ll hear from Cindy Moore, assistant city engineer for Astoria, on how this new system works. David Kroening, co-founder of Buoy Beer, and Jeremy Towsey-French, founder of Reveille Ciderworks, will also join us to share how this new system will change their costs and ways to handle waste.
Government officials from Oregon and Washington met last week to discuss the Interstate Bridge Replacement Program. The project must be approved by multiple agencies, including two state legislatures, and it's already facing criticism from several groups. Some want a wider bridge with more lanes for vehicles, while others want something that places more emphasis on public transit and other alternatives to cars. OPB political reporter Sam Stites has been covering this and joins us to talk about his reporting.
This year, Oregon voters will be able to cast their ballots in a new Congressional district created as a result of the 2020 Census. Oregon’s 6th District stretches from suburbs southwest of Portland to Salem, and includes all of Yamhill and Polk counties, as well as portions of Marion, Washington and Clackamas counties.
Joining us now for a debate are three prominent candidates running in the Democratic primary for the 6th District. Andrea Salinas is an Oregon state representative from Lake Oswego. Teresa Alonso Leon is also a state representative from Woodburn. Loretta Smith is a former Multnomah County commissioner.
The Hanford nuclear reservation in south central Washington state holds 56 million gallons of radioactive waste. The facility produced plutonium for U.S. atomic bombs in WWII, and it kept producing for the country’s nuclear weapons through the late 1980s. The plan to contain that waste by turning it into glass logs, or vitrification, has been plagued with problems for decades. Some of the waste contained in underground tanks is leaking into the Columbia River. Workers have sued over exposure to toxic waste, and the current federal funding for cleanup is less than federal and state lawmakers say is needed. Now, an internal Department of Energy document says that the vitrification process would create a toxic vapor. The next public hearing on the nuclear plant will be held Tuesday, May 10, and public comments are being accepted through June 4. We’re joined by freelance reporter John Stang who’s been covering Hanford for three decades and obtained the internal DOE document.
All Oregon judges are chosen in nonpartisan elections. If a judge leaves their position before the end of their six-year term, the governor appoints someone to serve out the remainder. The appointee must then be elected to keep the position. Why do we do it this way? What do other states do? How should I think about judicial elections when I sit down to fill out my ballot? Willamette University College of Law Professor and Associate Dean Jeff Dobbins joins us to answer these questions.
This weekend the Oregon Symphony presents a new piece called An African American Requiem by Portland composer Damien Geter. The piece features a choir singing traditional Latin Requiem texts, civil rights declarations, and poetry. We talk to Geter about his work, and his approach to writing a musical response to violence against African Americans in the U.S.
Oregon’s drought-stricken lands provide optimal conditions for grasshoppers. Last year, the state saw one of the worst outbreaks in the past 50 years. Grasshoppers, and other insects like Mormon crickets are feeding on already low supplies of forage and many ranchers are working with less water. As the drought continues, some are worried what insect populations will look like this summer. Ian McGregor is an assistant professor at Oregon State University’s College of Agricultural Sciences. He joins us to share what ranchers faced last year and what can be done to deter another outbreak.
An organization serving people experiencing homelessness in Astoria has had a contentious relationship with some neighboring businesses in the coastal city’s downtown. LiFEBoat Services is prominently located on Commercial Street, near a convenience store and a winery. The nonprofit provides meals and other services. It has received numerous complaints about trash left on the street outside as well as the behavior of some of the organization's clientele. Executive Director Osarch Orak says LiFEBoat Services is doing everything it can to address these issues and that things are improving. Some local business owners agree, but others remain skeptical. We hear from Orak and from David Reid, executive director of the Astoria-Warrenton Area Chamber of Commerce.
Musicians who have held off on touring during the pandemic are starting to venture out again. Bands and their fans are thrilled to be together again in real time, but there are still significant risks and challenges for the people on stage. Now that many venues have dropped their mask and vaccine mandates, musicians are concerned about having to cancel tour dates if they get sick. We talk with two Portland-based musicians – Maria Maita-Keppeler, who fronts the band MAITA, and Kyle Morton, lead singer of Typhoon – about the joys and fears associated with touring right now.
Although California voters have legalized marijuana, Siskiyou County, on the border with Oregon, has an ordinance in place outlawing commercial cannabis operations. The sheriff says illegal grows are using up too much water and leading to environmental degradation. Local Hmong farmers say the county is weaponizing the water issue as a way to discriminate against them. Theo Whitcomb has written about all of this for High Country News, and joins us to explain.
In recent years, park rangers have faced increasing incidents of harassment, including being threatened and even assaulted while on the job. The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department has asked the state legislature to place rangers in the same category as public safety officers, medical service providers, fire service professionals, highway workers and others. People who are convicted of offenses against those workers face increased penalties. The OPRD says it wants to add protection not just for its rangers, but also for state, tribal, and local park and recreation employees. We hear more from Preson Phillips, OPRD Central Coast district manager.
This year, Oregon voters will be able to cast their ballots in a new Congressional district created as a result of the 2020 Census. Oregon’s 6th Congressional District includes the southwest suburbs of Portland, Salem, Yamhill and Polk counties, as well as parts of Marion, Washington and Clackamas counties.
Joining us now for a debate are two candidates running in the Republican primary for the 6th Congressional District. Ron Noble is an Oregon state Representative from McMinnville. Nate Sandvig is a vice-president at Rye Development, a company which develops hydropower projects.
Two Oregon schools have been put on a year-long probation after the findings of Oregon School Activities Association investigations. Investigators found Clatskanie High School’s girl basketball team “more likely than not” used racist language against members of the De La Salle team. Three of OSAA’s findings for the Molalla High School were redacted due to identifiable information of students, but Gladstone students claim they faced racism and intimidation during a basketball game against Molalla in January. Peter Weber, executive director of OSAA, joins us to share what an investigation looks like and what consequences schools may face when placed on probation.
On Monday, Politico released a draft of a Supreme Court opinion showing that the conservative majority would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that has protected the legal right to obtain an abortion nationwide for nearly 50 years. A final opinion, however, on the case currently before the court concerning abortion isn’t expected until the court’s term ends in late June or July. Nonetheless, Democratic lawmakers in Oregon have been swift to condemn oveturning Roe v. Wade, which would effectively leave it up to individual states to ban or allow abortion procedures. We speak with U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, to hear about efforts coalescing on Capitol Hill to protect abortion rights, including Merkley’s longstanding campaign to end the filibuster.
U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio announced last year he would not seek re-election. This means for the first time in more than 30 years, Oregon’s 4th congressional district will not have an incumbent candidate. We hear from three Democratic candidates vying for the spot: Doyle Canning, Andrew Kalloch and Val Hoyle. The Democratic primary winner will face off against Republican candidate Alek Skarlatos.
Oregon lawmakers passed a bill in 2021 to upgrade the state’s recycling system — and get manufacturers of packaged goods to pay for a lot of the improvements. Lawmakers in Washington recently tried to do something similar. Even though the proposal didn’t pass in the last legislative session, it built momentum for the concept of holding producers of plastic packaging responsible for recycling that material. Reporter Sam Wohlfeil recently dug into this topic for InvestigateWest and joins us to talk about it.
A draft of a U.S. Supreme Court opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade has been leaked, as first reported by Politico. What does this mean for access to legal abortion in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest? Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood is renting medical office space in Ontario near the Oregon-Idaho border. It has said that it’s preparing for an influx of out-of-state patients seeking abortions. Idaho recently passed an abortion ban modeled after the latest anti-abortion rights law in Texas. We dig into details about this with Anne J. Udall, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette.
Local author Omar El Akkad recently won the Oregon Book Award for his latest novel "What Strange Paradise." Today we listen back to a conversation with El Akkad from 2017 about his first novel "American War." The book imagines a near future in which the country is fighting a second civil war.
Anthony and Marlie Love created a Youtube channel called "Traveling While Black in Seattle." In it, they explore the region and detail their experiences. They say they want to let other Black people know where they encountered racism to inform their travel choices. Anthony and Marlie recently visited Portland and covered it on their series. Overall, they say the trip was pretty fun and they felt mostly comfortable.
Meanwhile, Nelson Holland is an outdoor influencer based in Colorado. “Fat, Black and Gettin’ It” on TikTok and Instagram details Holland’s adventures hiking and exploring nature. He recently visited Bend to work with Jenny Bruso, the founder of “Unlikely Hikers,” on a photoshoot with Eddie Bauer. After arriving, he was called a racial slur by people in a moving vehicle. He said the experience changed his plans during the trip and he questions whether or not he’ll visit Oregon again.
Holland, Anthony and Marlie join us with details of their experiences visiting Oregon.
Roughly one in ten people with a uterus suffer from endometriosis, a painful gynecological condition that is also a leading cause of infertility during childbearing years. There is no cure for the disease, although surgery can help remove the painful uterine lesions associated with it.
But now, scientists at Oregon State University and the Oregon Health and Science University are using microscopic nanoparticles to locate and treat endometriosis in an animal model. The procedure could one day lead to a non-surgical treatment for a condition that can start in adolescence and go undiagnosed for years. With us now to talk about their research is Oleh Taratula, a professor at the Oregon State University College of Pharmacy, and Ov Slayden, a reproductive biologist and a professor at Oregon Health & Science University.
Many video games like Alan Wake and Days Gone use Oregon’s woodlands to create mystery and build tension for players. But Lake isn’t following this narrative. It's set in the 80s, and players take on the role of Meredith Wiess, a woman in her 40s who moves back to her hometown to deliver mail. While putting letters in mailboxes and leaving packages by front doors, Wiess begins to reconnect with the community she moved away from. The game was released as a digital copy in September but now will be selling physical copies for PlayStation consoles in Europe. Dylan Nagel is the game director for Lake, and he joins us to share what it took to create the fictional Oregon town of Providence Oaks and what he thinks audiences can take away from the game.
The West Coast is facing another year of extreme drought, and water managers are deciding where slim resources should go based on predictions from climate scientists. Andrew Schwartz is one of those scientists. He manages the Central Sierra Snow Laboratory for the University of California Berkeley. He says researchers across the West are using outdated models and measurements to predict the drought. The result is a poor understanding of the relationship between how much precipitation falls, and how much water is actually available to use. He joins us to share more about the details and implications of his work.
A shortage of affordable housing in Oregon is one reason homelessness is such a persistent problem in the state. As housing prices continue to climb, it also contributes to displacement of low-income residents. Now, tax credits used to incentivize developers to create affordable housing are becoming harder to get. That’s because Oregon Housing and Community Services, the state housing agency, is making some changes to the way it distributes those credits as well as the private activity bonds that developers depend on to make their projects pencil out. Portland Business Journal reporter Jonathan Bach has covered this and fills us in on how the problem could end up stalling much-needed affordable housing projects.
This month, we’re hearing from nine of the candidates vying to be Oregon's next governor. It's an open seat for the first time since 2015. Tina Kotek served a democratic state representative for Northeast Portland since 2004, and as Speaker of the House from 2013-2022, before she resigned to focus on her run for Governor.
Thirty-five years ago, the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde signed a deal that limited their ability to hunt and fish within their ancestral homelands. They made the decision - called a consent decree - as part of a larger negotiation to reclaim tribal land. Now tribal leaders and members of Oregon's congressional delegation are working to overturn those decades-old restrictions on hunting and fishing.
This Wednesday, the Oregon Fringe Festival kicks off on the campus of Southern Oregon University in Ashland. Now in its ninth year, the five-day festival features an eclectic array of art and performances, from interactive improv to interactive sculptures, rock music to music made with beeping microwaves. The events are free and presented in a hybrid format that mixes live, in-person performances with work that can only be experienced online. Oregon Fringe Festival director Paige Gerhard joins us to talk about the festival’s celebration of “unconventional art and unconventional space.” We also hear from a returning artist, Alex Brehmer, who created an interactive, 10-foot-tall puppet called Mind Controlled Millie.
Rip Carlton began fishing crab in Alaska about 46 years ago, starting out as a deckhand, and working his way up to captain. When he’s not helming his boat, the Patricia Lee, he lives with his wife in Bend. The Discovery Channel has asked him a number of times to appear in its show “Deadliest Catch.” After many years, Carlton says, his son convinced him to say yes. One of the episodes he’s featured in airs tonight. He joins us to tell us more about the dangers of deep sea crab fishing and what filming the show was like.
Shortly after the latest Russian invasion of Ukraine, Portland resident Evghania Sincariuc started an effort to gather supplies to send to the country. She immigrated from Ukraine in 2016, and officially became a U.S. citizen this month. What began with one woman and her family and friends, has now grown into an organized and much larger scale effort called Oregon Stands With Ukraine. The group has already sent two shipments of humanitarian aid including medical supplies, non-perishable food, personal hygiene items, sleeping bags, and blankets. They are currently collecting more supplies for a third. Sincariuc took in her friend, Olena Pasyvenko who recently escaped from Kiev along with her 14-year-old son but was forced to leave her mother and husband behind. Pasyvenko and Sincariuc join us to tell their stories.
Oregon now requires health care providers to work with OHA-certified interpreters in order for patients to have accessible, accurate translations, after a bill passed in the legislature last year. But advocates say this new system has excluded Indigenous speakers of languages from places like Mexico and Guatemala because of the certification requirements. Puma Tzoc is the coordinator for the Collective of Indigenous Interpreters of Oregon and a speaker of the K’iche’ language. Cam Coval is the executive director of Pueblo Unido. They both join us now to share how this new state law has affected interpreters in Oregon and their hopes for the future.
As new weather patterns linked to climate change emerge, what does that mean for Oregon’s wine industry? We check in with Greg Jones, a wine climatologist and the CEO of Abacela Vineyards & Winery in Roseburg.
Last Monday, students at David Douglas High School woke up to the news that one of their fellow students had died in a shooting over the weekend, and another was injured. The school quickly mobilized counselors to support students and staff and help them cope with their grief. Caty Buckley, a social worker at David Douglas High School, joins us to talk about her work supporting the mental health of students.
Southern Oregon artist Richard Reames works in an unusual medium: trees. He creates arborsculptures — bending, grafting and pruning trees to form creative shapes, patterns and objects. His artistic works often take years to complete. Reames has written books on arborsculpture, and was recently profiled on Oregon Art Beat. He’s holding a public showing of his arboretum near Williams, Oregon on Saturday, April 23. We talk with Reames about his chosen medium and explore the nature of his art.
A new study published this month by researchers at the University of Washington reveals patterns of handgun use among adolescents and young adults living in rural communities. More than 2,000 youth in seven states, including Oregon, were surveyed about carrying handguns over a 15-year period, from the age of 12 to 26. The researchers found that some of the study participants reported carrying a handgun as young as 12 years-old. They also found that 20% of those surveyed reported carrying a handgun 40 or more times a year by age 26, which suggests that handgun use may increase with age in rural communities. Joining us now is the lead author of the study, Ali Rowhani-Rahbar, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Washington School of Public Health.
: The Salem-Keizer school district has been in the news recently for a new set of policies aimed at being more inclusive of students who are transgender. Among other things, the policies clearly state that students can use bathrooms and play on sports teams that align with their gender. While Salem-Keizer has garnered a lot of attention from supporters and detractors, many of the policies have been in place for years. They are also in line with what the Oregon Department of Education recommends for schools across the state. We talk with ODE Director Colt Gill about the support in place for transgender students in Oregon.
Richard Powers’ last novel, “The Overstory,” was a 600-page deep-dive into the science of forests, and the relationships between trees and human beings. His newest, “Bewilderment,” is less than half that length, but both more vast and more intimate in scope. It is the story of an astrobiologist who looks for life on other planets, while he navigates a complex relationship with his young son. Powers joins us in front of an audience at Parkrose High School.
With fewer sweeps during the pandemic, encampments have become a seemingly permanent fixture in many parts of Portland. And in response, city officials have started taking a more hardline approach. In February, Mayor Ted Wheeler issued an emergency order to ban camping near busy roadways. He has also said he plans to create large outdoor sites for sanctioned camping. On “Think Out Loud” we’ve heard from service providers, policy makers, and elected officials, including the mayor. We also wanted to hear from people who are living on the streets.
So, on a chilly and rainy March day, host Dave Miller, producer Julie Sabatier and OPB’s emerging journalism fellow, Chris Gonzalez, went to Old Town and an area near Delta Park in North Portland to interview folks living in tents or shelters or cars. This wasn’t comprehensive, or scientific. It’s a snapshot of homelessness on one Spring day in Portland.
Eugene has implemented rules that limit where people can park their vehicles. The changes include requiring people to move their vehicles at least two blocks every three days. Some say the rules help mitigate concerns like accumulated trash from those that may be living out of their cars. Others say the rules don’t address core issues and are just forcing people experiencing homelessness to stay out of sight. Megan Banta, a reporter for The Register-Guard, is covering this issue for the newspaper. She joins us with more details.
Mud worms are parasites that live in oyster shells. They bore into the shell and make a home there, which gets filled with mud and excrement from the tiny worms. While they are not harmful to humans, mud worms can make oysters less appealing and also affect the shellfish's ability to grow. These effects are a problem for the industry.
While mud worms have been found in oysters in California and Oregon, for a long time, Washington aquaculture farms were spared. That changed a few years ago. But the mud worms affecting oysters off of Washington’s coast are a different species than scientists have ever seen before.
Researchers at the University of Washington School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences are trying to find out whether the new species is invasive, or an ancient native species that has lain dormant for centuries. Julieta Martinelli is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Washington. She joins us to share her efforts to solve the mud worm mystery.
This month, we invited nine of the candidates vying to be Oregon's next governor for interviews. The seat is open for the first time since 2015. Jessica Gomez is seeking the Republican nomination. She is the founder and CEO of a small microelectronics manufacturer in Medford and the only candidate who identifies publicly as Latina.
Chris Foltz has been working as a chef in professional kitchens since he was a teenager, passing on decades of culinary know-how to students at the Oregon Coast Culinary Institute in Coos Bay. He can also wield a chainsaw as deftly as a chef’s knife to carve works of art out of 5,000-pound blocks of ice.
As news station KEZI previously reported, Foltz recently won first place in a team event at the 2022 World Ice Art Championships in Fairbanks, Alaska, for a 16-foot-tall sculpture of a warrior mounted on an elephant ready for battle. He also brought along students from the ice sculpting course he teaches at the culinary institute, and partnered with one of them to win third place in another competition event. With us now is Chris Foltz, a senior faculty instructor at the Oregon Coast Culinary Institute and world champion ice sculptor; and Nick Graham, a student at the Oregon Coast Culinary Institute and novice ice sculptor.
One of the ways the federal government directed pandemic relief funding was to provide more food cost reimbursements and issue waivers to schools that enabled them to offer free meals to all students, regardless of income. However, that program was not part of the federal spending bill to fund the government for the upcoming year. While the full impact is not yet known, some parents and teachers are concerned about losing universal free school meals if the June 30 federal waiver is not extended. We’re joined by nutrition services directors from two Oregon school districts: Nathan Roedel from the Hillsboro School District, and Anne Leavens with Central Point in Southern Oregon.
This month, we’re hearing from nine of the candidates vying to be Oregon's next governor. It's an open seat for the first time since 2015. Tobias Read is currently serving his second term as state treasurer. He also served in the State Legislature from 2007-2016, representing House District 27.
Erik Heinonen helps refugees people who are fleeing from war or natural disasters in his job working for Catholic Relief Services. Heinonen, who grew up in Eugene, has been living in Ukraine for the last few years. Now, he and his family have fled the war in Ukraine and are living in Romania as refugees themselves. Heinonen joins us to talk about what he has learned.
A contentious proposal to build housing in downtown Astoria is no longer moving forward. Meanwhile, a workforce housing project in Medford continues to advance. We learn more about what comes next and how each city plans to navigate the housing crises they face.
This month, we’re hearing from nine of the candidates vying to be Oregon's next governor. It's an open seat for the first time since 2015. Starnes is a cabinet maker and home restorer who ran on the Independent Party ticket in 2018. Starnes’ primary issue is putting a cap on campaign donations.
To say a lot has changed in the media landscape since the late 1990s would be an understatement. That’s when a small feminist zine began publishing in San Francisco. Soon it became a nonprofit, publishing the magazine “Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture.” In 2007, Bitch Media relocated to Portland, a move cofounder Andi Zeisler said landed it “at the right place at the right time.” The organization expanded online and started producing podcasts and other digital content. But with the pandemic and the pressures of making an independent media nonprofit financially sustainable, Zeisler says the decision to close was simply one that had to be made. She joins us to talk about the last 25 years as a feminist media organization and her take on the role of independent publications today.
With primary elections just one month away, we hear from three candidates vying for a spot on city council. Jo Ann Hardesty is currently the Portland City Commissioner Position 3 incumbent. Rene Gonzalez is the owner and managing partner of Eastbank Artifex, a technology consulting company. Vadim Mozyrsky is an administrative law judge. They both will be challenging Hardesty for her seat. Hardesty, Gonzalez and Mozyrsky join us to make their case for why Portlanders should vote for them.
Wildfires and last summer’s heat dome have not only changed the demand for seedlings, but have shifted the way some nurseries think about what to plant. We’ll hear from Glenn Ahens, an OSU Extension Forester, and George Kral, owner of Scholls Valley Native Nursery, on the future of seedlings and forestry.
A federal judge’s ruling earlier this year restored Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves in a large swath of the U.S., including most of Oregon. Wolves in the eastern-most part of the state are still managed by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. In much of the state, the dividing line is Highway 395, which runs right down the middle of Grant County. This means ranchers there have to essentially comply with two sets of rules when it comes to wolves preying on their cattle. Blue Mountain Eagle reporter Steven Mitchell recently wrote about this complex issue and fills us in on the details.
With primary elections just one month away, we hear from two candidates vying for a spot on city council. Dan Ryan currently is the Portland City Commissioner Position 2 incumbent and running for reelection. AJ McCreary is challenging him for the seat. She’s the founder and executive director of the nonprofit Equitable Giving Circle. McCreary and Ryan join us to make their case for why Portlanders should vote for them.
We listen back to a conversation with writer Tara Westover, author of the book “Educated,” live in front of an audience at Literary Arts from 2018. Westover was raised by radical, anti-government parents in the mountains of Idaho. Though her parents refus
Photographer Robbie McClaran has examined the Columbia River in a photographic collection called “The Great River of the West.”
Before the pandemic started, musician Gabriel Kahane had pledged to spend a year without the internet, partly as a way to reconnect with the people around him. Then when the lockdown arrived, his year offline ended up being a little more isolated than he
In 1998, researchers from the CDC and Kaiser-Permanente put out a groundbreaking study. They catalogued a variety of what they called ACEs. It stands for "Adverse Childhood Experiences." ACEs included things like sexual or physical abuse, or living in a h
This month, we’re hearing from nine of the candidates vying to be Oregon's next governor. It's an open seat for the first time since 2015. Bob Tiernan is seeking the Republican nomination. He lives in Lake Oswego and works as a business consultant. He served in the Oregon Legislature in the 1990s and was chair of the Oregon Republican Party from 2009-2011. In 1994, he was a chief petitioner of Measure 11, which created mandatory minimum sentences for many violent crimes.
Nearly 23 million birds have died this year in the U.S., part of a bird flu outbreak that’s the worst since 2015. In that outbreak, more than 50 million birds died. No case has been reported in Oregon, but the avian flu virus was recently found in a bald eagle in British Columbia, which has the poultry industry on high alert. The virus is easily passed from wild to domestic birds, including to or from a small flock of chickens in a backyard, and can be spread by people who don't even keep birds. The Oregon Department of Agriculture is working with the handful of commercial operations on their biosecurity measures, and trying to get the word out to countless smaller producers and the general public. We hear more from Ryan Scholz, the state veterinarian at ODA, who says his job is to “prepare for the worst” but “push for the best.”
ODA and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife each have hotlines to report suspected cases of avian flu. For domestic birds, the number is 800-347-7028. For wild birds it’s 866-968-2600.
Portlanders will have a chance to vote on some major changes to the way city government functions this year. The Portland Charter Commission unanimously approved recommendations that will now make their way to the November ballot. Those recommendations include creating a city council that functions more like a legislature, with multi-member districts, and a mayor who serves as a chief executive along with a city manager chosen by the mayor and approved by the city council.
Portlanders would also have the option of using a ranked choice voting system in city elections. We dig into these recommendations with two members of the commission, Raahi Reddy and Melanie Billings-Yun.
This month, we’re hearing from nine of the candidates vying to be Oregon's next governor. It's an open seat for the first time since 2015. Stan Pulliam is seeking the Republican nomination. He’s currently the mayor of Sandy, where he grew up. He has also worked as a legislative staffer. In 2020, Pulliam pushed back against statewide COVID-19 restrictions as a prominent voice in the Main Street Mayors coalition.
A popular tourist destination in John Day is poised for a multi-million dollar expansion. Kam Wah Chung is a symbol of the rich history of Chinese immigrants in the region. We talk to reporter Justin Davis about the upcoming renovations.
When Pia Alliende was hired as the Librarian for the Redmond School District, the average publication date for books was 1998. Alliende helped raise money to buy new books, with a focus on increasing representation and diversity. Alliende was recently nominated for School Librarian of the Year by the School Library Journal. We talk to her about the changes she made, and the importance of representation in libraries.
In February, law enforcement raided the home of a Salem man who was found to be manufacturing more than 60 privately made firearms, or ghost guns, from the basement of his home. Ghost guns can be made from either a 3D printer or assembled at home from parts that can be legally purchased online and don’t require a background check. They also lack serial numbers, which makes it difficult to trace them when used to commit a crime. Although the majority of guns used to commit a crime contain a serial number, police in Los Angeles and other large California cities have recorded a dramatic increase in the recovery of ghost guns at crime scenes since 2020. Joining us now is Ellen Rosenblum, Oregon’s state attorney general, who has championed legislation to restrict ghost guns at the state and federal level.
This month, we’re hearing from nine of the candidates vying to be Oregon's next governor. It's an open seat for the first time since 2015. Bridget Barton is seeking the Republican nomination. Barton lives in West Linn, and has worked as a conservative writer and political consultant for many years.
Multnomah County recently tightened its rules around wood burning in an effort to improve air quality. County leaders say what we really need is a societal change in public attitudes, similar to what we’ve seen with smoking or drunk driving. If it's not your primary source of heat, what would it take for you to rethink using a fireplace or backyard fire pit? We hear from listeners as well as Lauren Frank, associate professor of communication at Portland State University and Troy Hall, professor and head of the Forest Ecosystems and Society Department at Oregon State University.
There are currently no rules for taking off or landing a drone at a state park in Oregon. Individual state parks can, however, restrict operating a drone in certain areas or times of the year to protect public safety or wildlife, such as nesting bald eagles and western snowy plovers. But now that’s changing. The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department is in the process of drafting new rules for operating drones within state parks and along the coast which could be finalized as early as June. To learn more about the proposed rules and what’s at stake are Chris Havel, associate director of the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, and Kenji Sugahara, a drone pilot, lawyer and the president and CEO of the Drone Service Providers Alliance, a national organization that advocates on behalf of commercial drone pilots.
The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department is accepting public comment on their proposed rules for the takeoff and landing of drones until April 7. You can submit a comment here.
If there’s one thing Americans can agree on, it’s that the country is sharply divided. But supporters of debate teams in public schools say the activity could actually increase the chances of opposing sides working together. The Portland Urban Debate League wants to make sure that students at every public high school have a chance to learn debate skills and compete. Mallory Copeland is the interim executive director of the League. Lesly Valdivia-Marquez is a senior at McDaniel High School and a competitive debater. She and Copeland join us to tell us more about what they love about debate, and why they think it should be available at every high school.
Oregon lawmakers created the state’s Office of Immigrant and Refugee Advancement in the 2021 legislative session with the goal of streamlining support for newcomers to the state, such as the 1,200 Afghan refugees expected this year. In early March, the office got its first director. Toc Soneoulay-Gillespie has most recently served as director of community health for Health Share of Oregon, the state’s largest coordinated care organization and before that, she worked as the director of refugee resettlement for Catholic Charities. Soneoulay-Gillespie came to the U.S. as a refugee from Laos with her family when she was a small child. We’ll talk with her about her lived experience, her career as an advocate for immigrants and refugees and what she hopes to accomplish in this new role.
When most people think of solar energy, they think of a few panels on the roof of someone’s home. But developers are building more and more large-scale solar projects in Oregon. Oregon officials recently approved a permit for a solar energy facility in Lake County that could become one of the country's largest. We’ll talk about the benefits and issues related to utility scale solar in Oregon with Janine Benner, director of the Oregon Department of Energy. We also hear from Angela Crowley-Koch, executive director of the Oregon Solar and Storage Industries Association.
Every year Willamette Week polls local comedians and other industry insiders about who they think are the funniest and highlights the winners as the “Funniest Five.” Jaren George made the list this year, and the paper also characterized him as the “most optimistic.“ I really want to cheer people up,” he told WW. “Comedy! I’m here. Let’s do it.” He says he mostly steers clear of dark humor and hard sarcasm, gravitating more toward his own experience. Being a Black man in predominantly white Portland features in his sets, but also his love of Kit Kat bars. George joins us to tell us more about his love of the Portland comedy scene and his own approach to stand-up.
Kameron Messmer’s plans were upended during the pandemic. He’d moved to Portland to start a career as a variety entertainer under the name “Daredevil Circus Wizard.” But instead, he ended up making balloon art. In fact, his giant balloon sculptures became so popular, he started getting requests for them. Now, Messmer has created a balloon art installation in an abandoned storefront in downtown Portland. He joins us to share more about his work and his latest exhibit, the Joy Store.
Thanks to a large infusion of federal funding, more than $160 million, stakeholders in the Klamath Basin are submitting proposals to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for restoration projects. The Klamath Tribes are one of the groups submitting a proposal. Mark Buettner is an environmental scientist for the Klamath Tribes. We hear more about what the plan looks like.
The theoretical State of Jefferson describes both a geographic area that straddles the Oregon-California border, but it can also be considered a state of mind. It’s a concept born from the desire to secede from both states and form a 51st, called the State of Jefferson. The advocates for this 51st state are what many describe as extremists. Some have weapons and say they are not afraid to use them for their cause, a part of what has become known as "armed politics" in the U.S. Journalist James Pogue has been following the growing armed politics movement for many years, including the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon in 2016. He recently moved to Shasta County, CA. That’s where a total rejection of COVID-19 restriction in the state led to the would-be citizens of the State of Jefferson to recall county commissioners who complied with health mandates. Pogue joins us to share his reporting on these recent events and discuss the possible future of this secessionist movement.
Parents of Black students in Central Oregon are struggling to protect their kids from racial harassment at school. Some parents have decided to take their kids out of school and are looking for alternative options. We talk to one of those parents, Kenny Adams, and Marcus LaGrande, a Bend-La Pine School Board member, about how they are helping kids cope.
The Reconnection Services Team at Portland Public Schools is responsible for tracking down students who don’t show up to class. That job got even more complicated during the pandemic. Julia Silverman recently profiled the team’s work at Portland Monthly Magazine, and joins us to talk about it.
If you’re familiar with the taste of seaweed, it’s probably as an ingredient in a sushi roll, cup of miso soup or as a side salad served in a Japanese restaurant. In fact, almost all of the edible seaweed consumed in the U.S. is imported from Asia. But as the demand for plant-based foods grows, some entrepreneurs think the time is ripe to expand the range of edible offerings made from seaweed grown in the U.S., including a puffed snack made from sugar kelp and a red, leafy substitute for kale. Travis Bettinson, the CEO and director of research and development at Blue Dot Kitchen, and Chuck Toombs, the founder and CEO of Oregon Seaweed, join us to talk about expanding consumers’ minds and palates to the possibilities of edible seaweed.
A group of infectious disease physicians and pharmacists at OHSU have been meeting weekly since the early days of the pandemic to discuss the various treatments available to fight the coronavirus. At first, the group was mainly focused on reacting to severe disease with tools already on hand, like ventilators, and then later preventing it with vaccines. Then they moved on to assessing various treatments that became available as well as alternatives to vaccines for people who are immunocompromised. The treatments are varied and some are in short supply. We talk with a member of the OHSU group, Lorne Walker, about what kinds of treatments are available to Oregonians and how these therapeutics fit into the next phase of the pandemic.
Oregon residents of sound mind determined to be terminally ill by a physician and having six months or less to live can request medical aid in dying. The state recently settled a lawsuit challenging the law's residency requirement. Nick Gideonse is a physician represented by Compassion & Choices in the federal lawsuit. The suit alleged that it was unconstitutional to require someone to be an Oregon resident in order to use the state’s Death with Dignity law. The state has agreed to a settlement that includes initiating a legislative request to permanently remove the residency language from the law. Kevin Díaz is the chief legal advocacy officer for Compassion & Choices. He and Gideonse share details on what the settlement means for Oregon as well as other states.
A program aimed at reducing gun violence in the Mt. Scott-Arleta neighborhood is having results. The most visible part of the program are traffic barrels on streets shooters frequently used to get away quickly. We hear from Matchu Williams, Chair of the Mt.Scott Arleta Neighborhood Association, Nadine Williams, Director Green Tulip Peace & Nature school, and Dunja Marcum, Program Director at Vibe of Portland about what they're seeing in the neighborhood, and how safe things feel for them now.
Portland Public Schools will likely have fewer teachers next year, due to a drop in enrollment. That doesn’t necessarily mean layoffs, as some teachers will likely retire, and the district may choose not to fill some open positions. But parents at some schools are better prepared than others to influence the number of teachers available for their kids. Every year, private school foundations bring in thousands of dollars to fund full time teaching positions, but not every school has a foundation.
A group called Reform PPS Funding wants to change that. The group says that even though local school foundations do have to give some of the funds they raise to the district-wide nonprofit, the system is still fundamentally inequitable because most of the money goes to schools with whiter, wealthier populations. We hear from Beth Cavanaugh, a member of the Reform PPS Funding group, and PPS Board Chair Michelle DePass.
Agritourism is becoming increasingly popular. What does it mean for farmers to welcome visitors to their land? Audrey Comerford is an Agritourism Coordinator with Oregon State University Extension. Dianne McGill is the co-owner of True North Orchards located near Salem. They join us with more about how this industry is affecting the state's economy, and why more farmers are joining the trend.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the market for hemp production in the U.S. was worth more than $820 million last year. Oregon is one of the top 10 hemp-growing states in the nation, with most of the cultivation taking place in Jackson and Josephine Counties. But a moratorium on new licenses to grow hemp in those two counties and a crackdown by state lawmakers on illegal marijuana that has found to be grown on some licensed hemp farms have led some entrepreneurs to question the future of hemp in Oregon. Joining us to discuss the challenges their industry faces are Mason Walker, the co-owner and CEO of East Fork Cultivars, a farm in Josephine County which grows both hemp and marijuana, and Paul Murdoch, the owner and CEO of Horn Creek Hemp, a family-run hemp farm in Jackson County.
The hemp industry was worth almost one billion dollars last year, and Oregon is one of the top-ten hemp growing states in the country. But recently, fears of illegal cannabis grows have lead to a moratorium on new hemp licenses in two Oregon counties. We’ll talk with two hemp growers about the future of the industry in the state.
In the early days of the pandemic, the city of Portland’s transportation department created programs to provide restaurants with outdoor seating that would have otherwise not been allowed. Some streets were partially blocked to accommodate dining spaces outside, which was in many cases the safest form of dine-in service. Now the department has been directed to prepare to make these special outdoor seating arrangements permanent. Safety, ADA compliance and private use of public spaces are among the issues that need to be worked out — and funded by the city council. We’re joined by the head of the Portland Department of Transportation, Chris Warner to hear more about these plans. And two restaurant owners share the role that outdoor dining has played in their businesses: Lisa Schroeder of Mother’s Bistro and Bar, and Carlo Lamagna of Magna.
Portland-based nonprofit Sustainable Northwest will be getting almost $500,000 for a regenerative ranching program. The purpose of regenerative ranching is to shift the focus from livestock to the land and implement more environmentally friendly practices like controlling how much grass cattle graze on. But what does it take to make the switch? We’ll hear from Hannah Gosnell, geography professor at Oregon State University and Andrea Malmberg, a regenerative agriculture trainer, on how this way of ranching is practiced and the political and social challenges that come with it.
As infection rates for omicron decline, Oregon’s National Guard has scaled back its troops in hospitals. While stationed, their duties ranged from administering tests and vaccines to folding towels and sheets so nurses and other healthcare workers could focus on more pressing needs. Joe Lontai is a lieutenant colonel for the Oregon National Guard. He shares with us what it was like in the hospital and being deployed during a pandemic.
Librarians from all over the country have been gathering in Portland this week for the Public Library Association’s annual conference. The role of libraries has been slowly changing for years, but during the pandemic, many public libraries lept into providing new services. Melanie Huggins, President of the Public Library Association, tells us what librarians around the country are talking about these days.
The Healing Hurt People program has counselors on-call at two Portland hospitals to respond to survivors of shootings and stabbings. The goal is to break the cycle of violence and deter people from retaliating by offering them support that continues after they leave the hospital. We’ll talk with Roy Moore, who oversees the program and knows from personal experience how valuable these interventions can be.
According to the Oregon Health Authority, an average of five people in Oregon die each week from opioid overdoses. And in just a one-year period, from October 2020 to October 2021, drug overdoses in Oregon increased by more than 40 percent. Driving this surge is fentanyl, a synthetic opioid up to 50 times more powerful than heroin. Criminal drug networks are mass producing counterfeit pills made to resemble oxycodone and other prescription painkillers that contain potentially lethal amounts of fentanyl, according to law enforcement. Joining us is Todd Korthuis, a professor of medicine and public health and the chief of addiction medicine at Oregon Health & Science University, who says fentanyl is fueling a public health crisis in the state.
The Gaucho Derby is billed as a 10-day, 500 kilometer horse race that tests riders on endurance, navigation skills and horsemanship. The race was held in the wilderness of South America's Patagonia region. Brenda Johnson, from Wallowa County, was one of 35 riders from around the globe that was chosen to participate in the competitive race. She joins us with details of her adventure.
When documentary photographer Greg Constantine describes immigration detention system in the U.S. as a prison system, he’s not using his own words. He says every person he talks to about being detained, not only those who are detained themselves, but their family members, lawyers, advocates, and volunteers, refer to it as that. There are mass incarceration centers at the southern border and other places, but county jails all over the country are renting space to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, contributing to what he says is a self-perpetuating, for-profit system.
Constantine is presenting his photographs in a three-day pop-up exhibit called “Seven Doors,” the first of which is in Portland at Zidell Yards. He joins us to tell us more about the project he began in 2017, and the larger questions and conversations he intends to spark, including human rights, racism and the power of the state.
Syphilis is on the rise in Multnomah County, specifically among populations that have not traditionally had access to syphilis testing or treatment. Nowhere is this more pronounced than for people experiencing homelessness. We talk to a Disease Intervention Specialist David Cuevas and Community Testing Coordinator Chris Hamel to learn about their efforts to stop the spread, and the challenges of tracking those cases down.
Theodore Van Alst’s new book of short stories, “Sacred City,” follows the young narrator in his journeys through Chicago. He is accompanied by ancestors and spirits who help him see his native city as Indian Country. Van Alst is also the Director of the Indigenous Nations Studies Program at Portland State. He joins us to talk about his book.
A program aimed at reducing gun violence in the Mt. Scott-Arleta neighborhood is having results. The most visible part of the program are traffic barrels on streets shooters frequently used to get away quickly. We hear from Matchu Williams, Chair of the Mt.Scott Arleta Neighborhood Association, Nadine Williams, Director Green Tulip Peace & Nature school, and Dunja Marcum, Program Director at Vibe of Portland about what they're seeing in the neighborhood, and how safe things feel for them now.
The Funhouse Lounge in SE Portland describes itself as a cabaret of sorts, a “theater without a safety net.” The lineup of shows is varied, but it’s safe to say you won’t find any performances of “Hamlet” or “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” there. Artistic director and proprietor Andy Barrett says in addition to plays, he presents stand-up comedy, burlesque, improv, karaoke, storytelling, bingo and dance parties. “Pulp Fiction,” isn’t his first musical parody of culturally iconic shows. Past productions include “Die Hard,” “Heathers,” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” Barrett joins us to tell us more about “Pulp Fiction” and pull back the curtain on what makes his version of musical parody sing.
Climate change touches the natural ecosystem in countless ways, and its impact can be seen in our own backyards — and front yards as well as community gardens. Temperature changes and weather events are affecting which plants are thriving in people’s gardens and which are dying. Weston Miller is a community and urban horticulturist at Oregon State University and part of the Master Gardener program. He joins us to tell us more about what plants, shrubs and trees are adapting best and how to best approach gardening in the midst of ongoing temperature changes and extreme weather events.
Nationwide, demand for Meals on Wheels programs surged throughout the pandemic. In Oregon, the Malheur Council on Aging and Community Services is experiencing rising demand and costs for its program. We hear more from Tom Longoria, the senior programs manager with the agency.
What happens when a community is deeply divided, evident in heated school board meetings and public comments made during city council sessions? We'll hear from three community leaders who all recently participated in a panel on polarization hosted by George Fox University’s Civility Project. We’ll hear from Kyle Palmer, mayor of Silverton; Ray Keen, president of the Rotary Club of Canby; and Rick Rogers, Mayor of Newberg, on what’s been happening politically in their community and their efforts to bring people together.
The pandemic shined a bright light on the digital divide in Portland and across the country, as schools and some workplaces went online almost overnight. Two years later, how has Portland responded to the issue? Adelle Pomeroy is the digital inclusion manager at Free Geek, an organization with a mission to enable digital access in Portland. Elisabeth Perez is the director of the Portland Office for Community Technology and Carmen Rubio is a Portland city commissioner. They join us with details.
On Tuesday, the Idaho state Senate refused to take up a bill passed by House lawmakers that would have made it a felony to provide gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth. It would have also made it a felony, punishable by up to life in prison, to take a child across state lines to obtain such care. Although the defeat of the bill is a relief to LGBTQ advocates and allies, some view it as the latest example of politically motivated attacks targeting the transgender community in Idaho. Joining us are Cole LeFavour, a writer, LGBTQ advocate and former Idaho state representative and senator; Jennifer Blair, an Idaho mother of a transgender, non-binary teenager; and Preston Thomson, an Idaho father of a transgender daughter currently receiving hormone therapy and puberty blockers.
Power and Magic Press is an award-winning independent comics publisher in Portland. In early 2022, the company published "MAÑANA: Latinx Comics From The 25th Century." The collection features 27 young adult stories by creators all across the United States and Latin America. We talk to Joamette Gil, who founded the Power and Magic Press, about futurism in Latinx comics, her experience editing the anthology, and more.
It’s been two years since Oregon Gov. Kate Brown signed an executive order creating the Oregon Climate Action Plan. The goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across state agencies, and it includes a number of specific directives. A coalition of environmental advocacy groups has been tracking the state’s progress and recently put out a report. We hear more from Nora Apter, climate program director at the Oregon Environmental Council and Brad Reed, campaign manager for Renew Oregon.
Oregon officials managing the state’s groundwater supplies have fueled crises and inequities, leaving the state ill-prepared to meet the growing challenges of drought and climate change. OPB’s Emily Cureton Cook tells us about a series of stories she is working on looking into the management of groundwater across Eastern Oregon.
Last week, two McDaniel High School students died within 24 hours of each other after taking pills laced with fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is up to 50 times more potent than heroin. McDaniel High School principal Adam Skyles wrote a letter offering counseling services and resources to grieving staff and students and posted a video warning of more “100 percent” fentanyl pills circulating within the community and urged students who may have the pills to turn them into school administrators for safe disposal. The deaths also prompted the Portland Public Schools district to send a flyer to parents warning them about the counterfeit drugs which look identical to real Xanax or Oxycontin pills. Brenda Martinek, Chief of Student Support Services at Portland Public Schools, joins us to talk about the counseling and outreach being provided on campus following the tragic deaths.
The price of wheat has been fluctuating wildly in the last few weeks because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The countries are two of the largest exporters of wheat in the world. Wheat growers in the Pacific Northwest have mostly planted their fields last fall, but the volatility in the market is making some grain cooperatives nervous. The war is also driving up the cost of fertilizer and gas prices, which is adding to uncertainty for northwest growers. Darren Padget, the Chairman of US Wheat Associates and an Oregon wheat farmer, explains.
There have been nearly 600 confirmed civilian deaths in Ukraine during the last three weeks, including an American journalist who died on Sunday. Portland-based photojournalist Justin Yau has been on the ground in Ukraine since before the Russian invasion. He’s captured bombardments, evacuations and the deepening humanitarian crisis there. We talk with Yau about his experiences covering the war in Ukraine.
Columbia Center for the Arts and The Dalles Art Center are showcasing prints created by more than two dozen Native American artists during residencies at the Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts, an arts center and printmaking studio located on the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Pendleton. Crow’s Shadow invites a select number of visual artists and sculptors each year to participate in a two-week residency to produce limited edition prints of their own design. Lillian Pitt, a Native artist from the Wasco, Yakama and Warm Springs Tribes, and Natalie Ball, an Afro-Indigenous artist from the Klamath, Modoc and Tahlequah Tribes, join us to talk about their art and their experiences at Crow’s Shadow. They are also featured in the “Contemporary Native Voices: Prints from the Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts” exhibit at the Columbia Center for the Arts in Hood River.
The educational opportunities for men who are incarcerated in Oregon’s prison system have been very limited. But for those incarcerated at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, there were no college classes offered until 2019. That’s when Portland State University associate professor Deb Arthur worked with the Department of Corrections to bring classes to the state’s only women’s prison. The Higher Education in Prison program began with a one-year, 15-credit, interdisciplinary course designed to meet PSU’s first year general education requirements. The hope is that once these students are released, they will continue taking classes and get a degree. The higher ed program has been growing with additional funding. We learn more from Arthur and from Lanelle Rowe, who took PSU college classes and is now in the process of creating a new life after her release last year.
The Lane County Medical Society started offering counseling and mental health care to their doctor members nearly 10 years ago. Those services have been increasingly needed over the last two grueling years. Doctors Benjamin Vasquez, Kevin Modeste, and Priya Carden join us to talk about what they’re hearing from fellow physicians, and what they see looking forward for people working in the medical field.
Oregon’s statewide indoor mask mandate comes to an end at midnight on March 11, and Oregonians with compromised immune systems are rethinking their day-to-day options as a result. Many are anticipating questions from strangers about why they continue to wear masks in public spaces. We hear from three immunocompromised people about how they are thinking and feeling about the change in mask policy. Jake Tatel is a Hodgkin’s lymphoma survivor who works from home doing sales and marketing. Martha Decherd is a retired school librarian and kidney transplant recipient. And Jessica Da Silva is a mother of two young children who runs her own baking business and lives with Lupus and other autoimmune diseases.
Oregon’s indoor mask mandate ends at 11:59pm on March 11. For the most part, businesses will have the option to stop requiring their customers to wear masks. There are exceptions for health care settings and public transportation, including the Portland International Airport, where masks will be required through at least April 18. We hear reflections from a number of business owners and an epidemiologist about what to expect as the state makes this change.
Our guests are Jeri McMaster, founder and owner of the Chalk School of Movement and the Power Station gyms in Hood River; Washington County Chief Epidemiologist Kim Repp; Rum Club owner Michael Shea; Kama Simonds, the media relations manager for the Port of Portland; and Anne Barwick, president of Sheridan Fruit Company, a grocery store in SE Portland.
When Mira Jacob’s son was 6 years old, he started asking questions about what it meant to be biracial in America. And she found that answering those questions led to some interesting conversations. Jacob started keeping track of those conversations in a graphic memoir called “Good Talk.” The book is this year’s Multnomah County Everybody Reads selection. We talk to Jacob in front of an audience at Lincoln High School. She’ll also be speaking at the Arlene Schnitzer concert hall Thursday, March 10th at 7:30pm.
Most of the rubber found in a car’s tire today is synthetic, made from plastic. And when tire tread wears down from driving, tiny plastic particles are shed into the environment, and they present a growing source of pollution in waterways. So scientists at Oregon State University wanted to see if tiny bits of tire plastic, which are too small to even be seen by the naked eye, affect the health of animals like fish and shrimp that are found in coastal and freshwater ecosystems. We're joined by Stacey Harper, a professor of environmental and molecular toxicology and environmental engineering, and Susanne Brander, an assistant professor in the fisheries, wildlife and conservation sciences department.
An estimated 5 Oregonians die every week from an opioid overdose. Two settlements from two different lawsuits mean the state is due to receive a combined $426 million for opioid treatment and prevention. We hear from Alex Cuyler, the intergovernmental relations manager for Lane County, and Wally Hicks, legal counsel for Josephine County, on how opioids affect their communities and what the money will mean for the future.
As Russia continues its invasion of Ukraine, 2 million refugees are fleeing the country. It’s the biggest European conflict since World War II. The Portland-based international aid agency Mercy Corp is in Ukraine and along some of the borders in neighboring countries. We hear from Cassandra Nelson, a Ukraine response advisor for Mercy Corps, about what she’s seeing along the biggest border crossing in Romania.
Astoria is planning to build new mixed use housing downtown.
The contentious proposal includes units for low income renters and supportive housing for people in mental health treatment. City Councilors Joan Herman and Tom Brownson have different perspectives on the plan. They join us with details.
Oregon's U.S. Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley are co-sponsoring the River Democracy Act which would add nearly 4,700 miles of Oregon Streams to the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. If passed, the bill would also require comprehensive land use management and planning on listed streams, and set aside $30 million per year for restoration projects. Joining us are Nella Mae Parks, a reporter at the Daily Yonder, and Alex Baumhardt, a reporter at the Oregon Capital Chronicle, to talk about the River Democracy bill and opposition to it, led by logging industry lobbyists.
Businesses, residents and nonprofit organizations based in Portland’s Old Town neighborhood have released what they call a plan for reopening. The Old Town Community Association says it would like to increase safety, cleanliness and accessibility in a neighborhood that has seen the impact of rising gun violence, drug addiction and mental health crises. The neighborhood has also seen an increase in people camping on the sidewalks during the pandemic. Jessie Burke, the owner of The Society Hotel and the board chair of the old Town Community Association, tells us about the plan.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine 11 days ago, one and a half million people have fled their homes, seeking safety in Poland and other neighboring countries. The United Nations refugee agency has issued an emergency appeal for more than a billion dollars to provide humanitarian aid for displaced people, many of whom are women and children. The conflict has also sharpened concerns about gender-based violence against women. According to a U.N. survey, 75 percent of women have reported experiencing some form of violence since the age of 15. Alexandra Hrycak, a professor of sociology at Reed College, joins us to talk about the impact of the current crisis on women and children and other vulnerable populations in Ukraine.
The Herald and News is the only local newspaper in Klamath Falls. The paper has been struggling, like many local papers, to cover the community and local issues, and adequately support its news staff. Recently the Herald and News lost its editor, Tim Trainor, and all of its reporters. Trainor says he and the other reporters made their decisions independently, that it wasn’t a mass walkout, but in his view, it had everything to do with inadequate support for news staff.
Publisher Mark Dobie says the Herald and News is continuing to publish with an interim editor and freelancers, and that the owners operate the paper on a near break-even margin. We talk with Trainor about Klamath Basin news coverage specifically and the larger industry challenges of covering local communities on a shoestring.
Oregon lawmakers adjourned their 2022 legislative session on Friday after making massive investments in programs tackling homelessness, workforce development and education. Legislators spent more than $2.5 billion dollars in all. That includes programs to help low-income families buy homes, as well as one-time payments to people struggling to recover from the pandemic. Over 130 bills will be sent to Governor Brown to sign. OPB Political Reporter Dirk VanderHart joins us to summarize the session. The Washington Legislature is set to wrap up their session this week. Political reporter Austin Jenkins walks us through what’s likely from Olympia this year.
When Ursula K. Le Guin died four years ago, she was mourned by fans in the literary world and a global body of readers. Now a new anthology of short stories by local authors inspired by her work has come out. It’s called “Dispatches from Anarres.” We talk to the editor of the anthology, Susan DeFreitas, and two authors Rachael K. Jones and Curtis Chen.
The novel “The Book of Joan,” by local author Lidia Yuknavitch, re-imagines the character of Joan of Arc in a post apocalyptic world where the earth has been consumed by war and the remaining humans have become sexless, genderless creatures whose main form of self-expression is scarring their own skin. We listen back to a conversation with Yuknavitch from 2017.
The COVID-19 pandemic is having dramatic impacts on the well-being of youth in many ways. School districts are struggling to maintain safe learning environments for their students, staff and teachers. For many young people, the most significant impacts are on their mental health. And even if we’ve turned some corners in the pandemic, the emotional effects linger.
We listen back to a zoom conversation from November 2021, where we heard directly from students, from mental health professionals and from participants in a youth support circle. The event was a co-production between OPB and “Call to Mind,” American Public Media’s initiative to foster new conversations about mental health. We talked about how young people are coping with mental health struggles and how the individuals and the institutions in their lives could best support their resilience. Our guests were Alyssia Menezes, a junior at Portland’s Lincoln High School, and Jospin Mugisha, a sophomore at Portland State University.
We also wanted to get another view of students and stress, and the adults who are helping them. So we turned to Katherine Iliyn, a counselor at Cascade High School in Turner, and Craigan Usher a professor of psychiatry at Oregon Health & Science University with a special focus on child and adolescent psychiatry. We also got a closer look at one specific response to help young people cope from Shalene Joseph. She co-facilitates a youth support circle for the Native Wellness Center. And we met Andy Miller, a high school freshman who is part of that circle.
The Upper Klamath Basin has been in what some call "an almost continual period of drought” for more than 20 years. Wetlands have dried up, and populations of migratory water birds have plummeted, and not just in the last two decades. In the 1960s there were 6 million waterfowl. Now there are more like 120,000. Jami Dennis is a natural resources graduate student at Oregon State University. Her research led her to investigate the continued plight of migratory waterbirds and how it’s tied to water, wetlands and human intervention. Her story uses photos and data visualization to draw readers into a history that sheds light not only on this region but on the broader ecological landscape as well. Dennis presented her research at the recent Winter Wings Festival in Klamath Falls, and she joins us to share her story of “Wetlands, Waterbirds, and Water.”
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has announced the state will join Washington and California in lifting the mask mandate for indoor spaces, including schools, on March 12. The original mask mandate expiration was March 31, and was then moved up to March 19. Now individual school districts are left to decide how their masking policies will change. We talk with Umatilla School District Superintendents Heidi Sipe and Tigard-Tualatin District Superintendent Sue Rieke-Smith.
It’s been almost a month since Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler issued an emergency order to ban camping near busy roadways. Advocates for people experiencing homelessness have been critical of the decision. Wheeler has also said he plans to create large outdoor sites in the city for sanctioned camping where campers could be relocated from busy roadways and other makeshift campsites. And, on Wednesday, he announced a plan to use his executive powers to create a new homeless service hub within the city government, streamlining the work of various departments that interact with people living outside.
We talk with Wheeler about his plans to address homelessness. And we ask him about the recent spate of gun violence in Portland.
Steph Littlebird is a Kalapuyan visual artist, writer, and curator from Portland. She recently completed a year-long writing project: ten articles written for Oregon Arts Watch called “Indigenous Resilience in Oregon." The series looks at different aspects of Oregon’s contemporary tribal culture and explores how traditional ways of life have continued throughout colonization and settlement of Oregon. We have Littlebird on to discuss what she’s learned about Indigenous Resilience.
Agricultural workers have long been excluded from receiving overtime pay in Oregon, but HB 4002 aims to change that. The proposal has been advancing in the state legislature. Martha Sonato, Political Director at PCUN, joins us to share why these workers deserve overtime pay. We’ll also hear from Elise Higley, the owner of Oshala Farms, on how this bill would affect her farm if it were to pass.
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has released a report on how humans will be affected deeply by climate change. David Wrathall is an associate professor in the College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University. And he was a lead author for the chapter on poverty and sustainable development. Wrathall joins us to share how the changing climate will continue to alter migration patterns and impact economies around the world
The exhibition Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Mexican Modernism opened at the Portland Art Museum last weekend. Frida is a beloved icon for many. But recently, criticism around her has focused on her appropriation of indigenous cultures in Mexico. We have two Latinx experts on Frida, Josie Lopez, head curator at the Albuquerque Museum, and Alberto McKelligan Hernandez, Assistant professor of Art History at Portland State University on to talk about appropriation in the creation of a personal and national identity.
A bill to strengthen environmental justice considerations in public policies across Oregon cleared a legislative hurdle this weekend and is looking likely to pass. HB 4077 would rename and boost resources for an existing environmental justice task force convened by the governor and also direct the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality and the Oregon Health Authority to develop an online mapping tool to evaluate how communities are being affected by health disparities and environmental hazards like air pollution. Joining us is Joel Iboa, the chair of the Environmental Justice Task Force and the executive director of the Oregon Just Transition Alliance, an environmental justice advocacy coalition.
Portland political consultants Dan Lavey and Kevin Looper -- usually on opposing sides -- joined forces last year to launch a nonprofit, People for Portland. At its core, the idea behind it was simple: to push the city to take concrete steps to solve its most pressing problems, including homelessness and public safety. The organization quickly got the attention of the public and political leaders, and just as quickly it drew controversy. Six months later, the answer to the question of how much progress has been made depends on the person you ask. OPB’s Rebecca Ellis joins us to share what she has found about what impact the organization has had since it launched last year.
The Winter Olympics may be over but some skiing enthusiasts are already eagerly anticipating 2026 when ski mountaineering, or skimo, will make its Olympics debut. But you don’t have to book a trip to the Italian Alps to experience the adrenaline rush and endurance contest of a skimo race, which typically consists of sprinting uphill on skis and then quickly adjusting skis and boots to race downhill to the finish line. Skimo is growing in popularity in the Northwest with races taking place in Washington and Oregon that can take hours to complete. Joining us is Matt Hasenohr who is helping organize a series of skimo races kicking off at Government Camp this weekend, and Sarah Burke, an amateur skimo enthusiast who is competing in one of those races.
While the number of people who identify as Black in Oregon is only 2%, it’s half that in Jackson county, according to the latest U.S. Census figures. So Black Alliance & Social Empowerment Southern Oregon, an Ashland-based nonprofit, is helping build a sense of community and belonging for Black residents and their families in a region where they can struggle to feel accepted, seen and heard. Jessica Freedman, the vice-president of Black Alliance & Social Empowerment Southern Oregon, joins us to talk about the impact her organization is having and how Oregon’s history of racial exclusion still reverberates today.
Science Near Me is a national website that aims to connect the general public to scientific research and events. Oregon State University’s STEM Research Center helped launch the tool. Martin Storksdieck is the director of the center and a professor at OSU. Science Near Me is a subsidiary of SciStarter, a citizen science platform. Darlene Cavalier is the founder of SciStarter. They join us with details.
The Albina Arts center was once a significant cultural hub for Black communities in North and Northeast Portland. But the building had fallen into disrepair and various plans have been proposed to reinvent and revitalize it. Darrell Grant, a musician and professor of Jazz Studies at Portland State University, began holding cultural events at the space last year, and partnered with writer and artist Renee Mitchell to create the Soul Restoration Center this year. The Center is already providing a venue for Black artists, musicians and "a space to just come and hang out, to belong and to heal," according to Mitchell. We talk with Renee Mitchell and Darrell Grant about what the Soul Restoration Center is becoming and their hopes for its future.
On March 1st, Portland will roll out a regulation change that will make a big difference to homeowners who live in historic districts. The rules will allow people to retrofit their homes to make them more resilient to climate change, and also to add additional housing units. Brandon Spencer-Hartle is the project manager for the Historic Resources Code Project, and talks to us about what this change could mean for the city.
The Redmond School District has directed its superintendent to draft a new mask-optional COVID-19 policy by March 2, almost three weeks before the Oregon Health Authority says it will lift the statewide indoor mask mandate. We talk to the Redmond Superintendent Charan Cline, who says he can’t go against a state order.
This week, Russian forces invaded Ukraine after weeks of intense diplomatic efforts to avert military conflict failed. Russian forces have already killed dozens of Ukrainian soldiers and targeted attacks on Ukrainian military installations and airports, according to news reports. The fighting has left Ukrainian-Americans in Portland anxious about the safety of relatives and friends in Ukraine, with some disappointed by the response so far from U.S. and European allies to what may be the region's worst military crisis since World War II. Joining us is Tatiana Terdal, a board member of the Ukrainian-American Cultural Association of Oregon and Southwest Washington.
LONG SYNOPSIS: The Karuk tribe have shared their stories on water rights and salmon, but now are letting the world know a more intimate side of their traditions. The Flower Dance is a ceremony held when a young girl first mentrates and has only recently begun to be practiced after years of dormancy. “Long Line of Ladies” documents Ahty Allen’s journey through the flower dance and premiered at Sundance last month. Ahyt Allen joins us along with her mother Pimm Allen and director of the film Rayka Zehtabchi.
The Portland Public Schools board will be voting soon on a comprehensive “Climate Crisis Response Policy” that has been more than a year in the making. It will call on the district to reduce its own emissions by 50% by 2030 and reach net zero by 2040, prepare schools for the effects of climate change, create a climate curriculum to educate both students and staff on climate solutions and support student-led climate justice. It would also prohibit natural gas infrastructure in new buildings and phase out all natural gas in district buildings by 2050. The policy is currently in a public comment period, the last step before a board vote. We hear from Portland Public Schools board member Julia Brim-Edwards, who serves as chair of the policy committee.
The Oregon Children’s Theatre in Portland opened its first full length, in-person play since the pandemic began with the dark comedy "WROL (Without Rule of Law)." A small group of four, 8th grade middle school girls are unconvinced adults will be able to take care of them in a cataclysmic event, so they decide to prepare for the coming apocalypse themselves. Throughout, a friend outside of the circle continues to question their prepper activities, insisting everything is “fine.” Lili Ireland is one of the members of Young Professionals at OCT and helped choose "WROL (Without Rule of Law)." She joins us along with Dani Baldwin, the artistic director of the company, and Andrea White who directed the play.
How have policies in Oregon shaped who has land to farm? How can micro-farming increase access? How can implicit bias affect farmers? We hear more about what it means to farm in the state while contending with these issues. Surabhi Mahajan, Letty Martinez and Spencer Suffling are farmers in the state. They join us to tell us more about how BIPOC farmers can organize and network in the state.
On Saturday night, Benjamin Jeffrey Smith allegedly shot and killed June Knightly and wounded four other people who had gathered at a protest against police violence held at Normandale Park in Northeast Portland. A day later, a second mass shooting took place in Southeast Portland, leaving one woman dead and a man and two children injured. Last year, Portland recorded 90 homicides, a record number for a city struggling with a surge in gun violence. Joining us to talk about the recent shootings and gun violence in Portland are Ryan Haas, managing editor for OPB News, and Lakayana Smith, founder and executive director of Word is Bond.
We listen back to a conversation with writer Jill Lepore, author of “These Truths” and “The Secret History of Wonder Woman,” in front of a live audience at Literary Arts in downtown Portland from 2018.
Nick Kristof is officially out of the race for Oregon governor and will not appear on the May primary ballot as a candidate in that race. The former New York Times columnist quit his job to run for Oregon’s top job. On Thursday, the Oregon Supreme Court issued an opinion affirming Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan’s determination that Kristof cannot legally vie for the governorship because he does not meet the state’s three-year residency requirement. Kristof joins us to talk about what’s next for him.
On Thursday, the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved changes to its wood smoke ordinance while acknowledging racial health disparities from air pollution. The original policy had imposed a seasonal ban from October 1 through March 1 on burning wood in fireplaces, stoves or fire pits on days with poor air quality. That ban will now be extended year-round for days with poor air quality, eliminate so-called “green” days when no limits applied to burning wood and remove an exemption permitting the use of EPA-certified wood stoves. Last week, the commissioners adopted tougher emission standards for cancer-causing particulate matter in wood smoke and prioritized "reducing the cumulative burden of air pollution." Joining us is Multnomah County Commissioner Jessica Vega Pederson and Jessica Guernsey, the Multnomah County public health director.
Roughly 20,000 households in the Portland metro area are customers of Ridwell, a Seattle-based startup that offers a monthly subscription service to pick up items like batteries, light bulbs and plastic clamshell containers that typically can’t go inside curbside recycling bins.
Last month, Ridwell filed a federal lawsuit against Washington County, alleging the county had illegally forced it to cease operating in unincorporated parts of the county. Meanwhile, Ridwell is experiencing some competition from the third-largest garbage and recycling services company in North America which began offering its own, add-on service for hard to recycle items for customers in Vancouver, Washington.
Joining us is Caleb Weaver, vice president of public affairs at Ridwell, and Derek Ranta, the director of the RecyclePlus program at Waste Connections of Washington, Inc. Washington County told “Think Out Loud” that it cannot comment on pending litigation and therefore declined to participate in this interview. It also alerted us to updates to its recycling collection services in unincorporated Washington County.
Brit Bennett’s book The Vanishing Half was on a lot of best-of lists in 2020. Though spanning the second half of the 20th century, the novel speaks to questions about race and identity that have been central to national conversations for the last two years. In that novel and her other writing, Bennett deals with the bonds of family, the importance of storytelling, and nature of identity. We talk to Bennett about her essays and novels in front of an audience of students at Grant High School in Portland.
A Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake could potentially cause the biggest fuel spill in U.S. history right in the middle of Portland, according to a recent report. The report from ECONorthwest evaluates the potential damage a magnitude 8 or 9 earthquake could cause along a six-mile stretch of Portland’s industrial Northwest known as the Critical Energy Infrastructure Hub. Oregon state Sen. Michael Dembrow, D-Portland, wants to change the way fuel tanks there are regulated in an effort to strengthen them and, hopefully, prevent a giant spill. He joins us to talk about how his proposed legislation would work.
In Baker County roadkill is creating a problem -- not for drivers but Sage Grouse. Carcasses of animals are attracting ravens, and when those scavengers are in the sagebrush area, they prey on Sage Grouse chicks and eggs. We’ll hear from Baker County Implementation Team Sage Grouse Coordinator Dallas Hall Defrees on why this is a growing concern and from Jon Dinkins, assistant professor at Oregon State University’s Animal and Rangeland Sciences department, on the threat from ravens and possible responses to it.
Foreign-born survivors of human trafficking applying for U.S. visas have two options: T or U visas. T visas are specific to sex trafficking survivors, and U visas include sex trafficking but encompass a wider variety of crimes. Cooperation with law enforcement is a requirement for each visa application. There are exceptions to the rule of cooperation. A child, for example, doesn’t have to cooperate. Adults must prove their level of trauma is “sufficient” to merit exception. This law creates a tension: on one hand, survivors need help. On the other hand, law enforcement needs help to crack down on trafficking. How much should be required of sex trafficking survivors? We hear from McKenzie Harker, staff attorney at the Victim Rights Law Center.
Where can you read a profile on the volunteer community work of former Portland Trail Blazer CJ McCollum, a QA with Oregon author Anya Pearson, reflections on individuality in Portland fashion, and a first hand description of what the last two years have been like for students during the COVID-19 pandemic? Those articles and more are published in the new “Black Student Magazine,” written by middle school and high school students who were mentored by undergraduates at the University of Oregon. UO senior Jael Calloway mentored Alex Fredrickson, a sophomore at Battleground High School. They join us to share more about the experience and the magazine itself, as well as UO associate professor Ed Madison, who also heads the Journalistic Learning Initiative the project came out of.
Shad is a species of non-native fish that has become increasingly common along the West. How can this fish affect resources for salmon? What other non-native fish and invasive species pose an even greater risk to salmon? We dive into these questions and learn more from Stuart Ellis, a harvest management biologist with the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.
Rural Oregonians can already pump their own gas. A bipartisan bill working its way through the legislature would give residents across the state that option. We hear details about the bill from Rep. Shelly Boshart Davis (R-Albany) and gas station owner Haseeb Shojai.
Donovan Scribes, a Black writer, artist and producer, thinks a person’s name can be a point of pride or a point of shame. The fourth-generation Portlander recently wrote an essay explaining why he chose to change his surname from Smith to Scribes. He joins us to explain his decision, which is the culmination of a deeply personal journey and an act of reclamation made when confronting the legacy of slavery within his own family’s history.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler issued an emergency order earlier this month banning camping near busy roadways. This came after a report from the Portland Bureau of Transportation showed that 70% of pedestrians who were killed by cars last year were people experiencing homelessness. Several advocacy groups signed a letter decrying the policy and suggesting alternatives, such as reducing speed limits and increasing funding for more Portland Street Response teams. We talk about the effects of the new emergency rule with Katrina Holland, executive director of JOIN, a nonprofit serving people experiencing homelessness
The American Nursing Association found 1 in 4 nurses are physically assaulted on the job. Currently, assault against a nurse is a misdemeanor but advocates say this isn’t enough. HB 4142 aims to address this issue by making any assault committed against a person performing their duties in a hospital a Class C felony. We’ll hear from Bill Shueler, the government affairs chair for the Oregon Emergency Nurses Association, on why this law is needed, and we’ll also hear from KC Lewis, Managing attorney for Disability Rights Oregon’s Mental Health Rights Project, on how this law could affect people with mental illnesses.
Pickleball has been around since the 60s but you may not have heard about it until recently. It’s been called the fastest growing sport in the country. Eleven-time pickleball national champion Wesley Gabrielsen says it’s like tennis meets ping pong, combined with badminton. And most importantly, it’s just plain fun. Pickleball is easy to learn, costs very little and is unique in that it’s a physical sport that three generations could play at once. Gabrielsen says you can’t say that about a lot of other sports. He joins us to tell us more about how he got into the game, its appeal and why it’s growing by leaps and bounds.
There's currently one taxi company offering rides in Pendleton, but now some residents say they want rideshare companies to be allowed to come to town. We hear more about where Pendleton stands now and how it hopes to update ride sharing policies, especially for busy events like Roundup and Whiskey Fest. Dale Primmer is a Pendleton city councilor. He joins us with details.
Two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court found that defendants in criminal trials can't be convicted by non-unanimous juries. Only Louisiana and Oregon had allowed that practice. Then last year, the high court found that the issue of prior convictions -- whether the ruling should be applied to cases retroactively -- should be left for states to decide. Now Oregon lawmakers are considering a new system that would give people who can prove they were convicted non-unanimously a year to apply for post-conviction relief and get their cases re-examined. Lewis & Clark law professor Aliza Kaplan and Clackamas county John Wentworth share their thoughts on the bill.
Community groups such as APANO and Family Forward Oregon are urging Oregon lawmakers to give themselves a raise. Advocates argue that increasing pay for legislators will go a long way to break down barriers for people who want to run for elected office and could increase the diversity of the state legislature. SB 1566 would increase lawmakers’ salaries, starting in 2023, by tying them to the annual occupational mean wage estimate for Oregon. If the bill becomes law, it would also offer a monthly child care stipend of $1000 to lawmakers with children under the age of 13. A similar effort failed in the 2021 legislative session. We hear what it will take to get it passed this time. Our guests are Courtney Helstein, political director for Family Forward Oregon, and state Sen. James Manning Jr., a Democrat from Eugene.
Earlier this month, TriMet announced that it was reducing service on nearly a quarter of its bus routes because of an unprecedented driver shortage - and that's despite raising pay and bonuses to new drivers. The pandemic has taken a toll on other large mass transit providers as ridership has plummeted, budgets have contracted and labor woes have mounted. But what has the impact been like on rural transit providers who typically have smaller budgets to cover larger service areas than their metro counterparts? We hear from Doug Pilant, the general manager of the Tillamook County Transportation District; Adrian Mateos, the general manager of the Basin Transit Service in Klamath Falls; and Rob Johnson, the transit fleet safety and maintenance manager of Kayak Public Transit in Pendleton.
Oregon health officials announced plans this week to drop the statewide indoor mask requirement no later than March 31. This includes masking requirements for schools. We speak with Oregon’s state epidemiologist Dean Sidelinger about the data behind the decision.
Cycling is an activity that can be enjoyed by all, but if you are of a larger body type it can be difficult to find the right gear in your size or a bike that can handle your weight. All Bodies on Bikes aims to make cycling more inclusive by spreading awareness of issues in the community, educating and changing the industry and making cycling safe for all. Kailey Kornhauser and Marley Blonkey are the founders of the group and join us to share the work they do.
CJ McCollum is the latest player to be traded out of the Portland Blazers. Last week we saw the likes of Norman Powell and Robert Covington leave with many new faces heading the Blazers’s roster. Dia Miller is a writer for the Blazer’s Edge and host of the Dave and Dia podcast, she joins us on what rebuilding the Blazers means for the future of the team.
For the first time in years, Oregon's Dungeness Crab season was able to start on time and it has already set records. This season has been the highest grossing so far and it’s not yet over. Kyle Retherford is the captain of the Excalibur and Bruce Jones is the mayor of Astoria. They join us with details on what this means.
Perhaps no animal evokes as potently the existential threat of climate change as the polar bear. Global warming is causing sea ice to rapidly melt, leading to loss of habitat for the world’s largest land carnivore, which uses the Arctic ice as a platform to hunt ringed seals and other prey. Scientists face daunting challenges when studying wild polar bears in part because they live in remote places like Alaska’s north coast. But polar bears in captivity, including at the Oregon Zoo, are providing a trove of data that is helping scientists unlock clues to the health and survival of their wild counterparts. Joining us is Amy Cutting, interim director of animal care and conservation at the Oregon Zoo, and Karyn Rode, a research wildlife biologist based in Portland with the U.S.G.S Alaska Science Center.
For decades, affirmative action programs have been used as one way to bring racial equity to college admissions. Now the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear two cases involving affirmative action, and is widely expected to say the practice is unconstitutional.The decision could come in early 2023. We hear from Milyon Trulove, the vice president and dean of admission and financial aid at Reed College, and Ame Lambert, vice president for global diversity and inclusion at Portland State University. They share what the absence of affirmative action programs would mean for their universities and what else institutions of higher learning can do to move toward racial equity.
Housing, water pollution and mental health are just a few concerns from survivors of the Santiam Fire, according to a recent Oregon State University study. Researchers conducted in-person interviews and collected anonymous survey results to understand what survivors were facing. We’ll hear from Sandi Phibbs, the evaluation and research manager at OSU Center for Health and Innovation, on the results of the study. We’ll also hear from Gates Mayor Ron Carmickle on how fires affected his own community.
Oregon needs about 1900 public defenders to ensure the constitutional rights of those in the criminal justice system, but the state has fewer than 600, a 69% deficit. That's according to a new report by the American Bar Association. Advocates say the crisis is actually longstanding and has steadily worsened. The latest report echoes a 2019 report by the Sixth Amendment Center that found Oregon’s system for public defense was essentially unconstitutional. Advocates say all three branches of government are needed to address the crisis. Metro Public Defenders attorney Tristen Edwards represents indigent people accused of crimes. She says her clients are some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged people, and she’s passionate about representing them. But even working six days a week — without taking on new cases — she can never do everything she needs to do. Edwards joins us to share her experience trying to keep up with day-to-day case loads, and about her restorative justice work to address systemic inequity.
A group of students in the Salem Keizer school district have created a suicide prevention guide for their fellow students. The students are a part of a nonprofit, Live To Tell, whose goal is to ensure student voices are heard in the district. The guide gives advice on how to talk about suicidal ideations and how to spot the signs of someone who might be contemplating suicide. Arnav Mohindra is the president of Live to Tell and joins us to share the work he and his group have done.
Oregon Governor Kate Brown has high hopes for her last legislative session as the state’s chief executive. She’s asking lawmakers to pass an ambitious workforce development plan called “Future Ready Oregon” and wants to see significant investments in affordable housing as well. We hear from her about her legislative priorities and her plans for whatever comes next in the COVID-19 pandemic.
When you think of the town of Ashland, you may think of a liberal bastion of Shakespeare performances with a postcard-pretty downtown. But it's also a model of compromise: a community which put aside its political differences to manage its forests and mitigate its risk from wildfires. Nathanael Johnson, a former journalist with Grist, joins us to share how this unlikely collaboration between loggers, environmentalists and the U.S.D.A. Forest Service unfolded in Ashland and serves as a roadmap for other towns and communities in the West threatened by wildfires.
Growing up, Jackie Wiles and Luke Winters spent their free time after school skiing on Mt. Hood. Now they’ll be facing an even larger mountain in a completely different country. Wiles and Winters are just two of several Oregonians headed to Beijing for the Winter Olympics. They are both Alpine skiers for Team USA and join us to share their hopes for the upcoming games and how growing up on Oregon slopes affected their love for the sport.
e of the most anticipated new works in Portland’s Fertile Ground festival is "Heart of Stone." The play uses music, dance and dialogue to tell the coming-of-age story of famed Russian choreographer Alisher Khasanov, who also directs the play and leads the ensemble theatre group. Olga Kravtsova, lead producer and dancer in the show, says "Heart of Stone" is also meant to convey a message of political tolerance. She joins us to tell us more about the storytelling, how the new piece is developing and what she hopes audiences will take away.
Oregon residents with ties to Ukraine are watching events in their home country with desperation, as Russian troops move ever closer to invasion. Tatiana Terdal is on the board of the Ukrainian-American Cultural Association and Tetiana Korzun is an MD/PhD candidate at Oregon Health and Sciences University, whose entire family is still in Ukraine. Terdal and Korzun are both originally from that country, and we talk with them about what their life is like right now and what they’re hearing from family and friends back home.
Bud Clark was best known as the owner of the Goose Hollow Inn when he ran for mayor in 1984 with the slogan “Bud Clark is serious.” Shocking many in the Portland political establishment, he won the primary and went on to serve two terms. Clark was beloved as someone who brought a sense of whimsy to City Hall and also got a lot accomplished, including funding for the Oregon Convention Center. He died Feb. 1 at the age of 90.
We hear memories of Portland’s “citizen mayor” from former Portland City Commissioner Mike Lindberg and Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury, whose mother, Gretchen Kafourey, served on the Portland City Council while Clark was mayor.
The federal government recently awarded nearly $5 million to Oregon State University to launch a new center that will turn environmental health research into practical applications to protect children from lead, arsenic and other toxins in the environment. Researchers plan to use the new grant funds to pilot outreach projects for at-risk groups and early childhood educators around conditions like asthma, which affects more than 60,000 children in Oregon and can be triggered by exposure to environmental factors like wildfire smoke and dust mites. Joining us is Molly Kile, a public health and human sciences professor at Oregon State University and a member of the Oregon state Environmental Quality Commission.
How long will we need to keep wearing masks? What will vaccinating kids under 5 mean for everyone? What have we learned from the omicron and delta surges that could help prepare us for the next variant? What does it mean for a disease to move from pandemic to endemic? None of these questions has an easy answer. But we’ll ponder them with three smart people and, hopefully, come out with a better understanding of where we’re all headed. Our guests are Bill Messer, a physician and scientist specializing in viral, infectious diseases at OHSU; Fikadu Tafesse, assistant professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at the OHSU School of Medicine; and Katherin Wu, a staff writer covering science at The Atlantic.
Clackamas County is modernizing its outdated analog radio system. The old system relied on technology from the 90s and used parts that were no longer supported by the manufacturer. First responders transitioned to the new digital system last month. John Hartsock is the manager of the task force behind the update. He joins us with details on the new system and why the change was urgently needed.
Duncan Wyse, President of the Oregon Business Council, has gathered together a team of people to solve what he says is a big problem. Oregon appears to be losing out on new semiconductor factories. Intel just chose to build a new chip manufacturing campus in Ohio, which may end up being larger than Oregon’s current site. Wyse hopes the new task force can make Oregon a more attractive location for future manufacturing.
A short filmed shot in southern Oregon premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last week. “You Go Girl!” follows Audrey Jenkins, a new york stand up comic, exploring nature in remembrance of her mother. Shariffa Ali is the director and co-writer for the production and joins us to share what she hopes audiences can take away from film.
The Oregon Legislature kicks off its 2022 session on Tuesday with new leaders in both chambers. We hear from two of them: the new House Majority Leader, Rep. Julie Fahey (D, West Eugene & Junction City) and the new Senate Minority Leader, Sen. Tim Knopp (R, Bend). We’ll ask what they hope to accomplish in the short session, and how well Republicans and Democrats can work together in Salem right now.
OPB health reporter Amelia Templeton spent a day in the emergency department at Salem Health hospital last week. The day she was there, the hospital had 540 patients, but only 494 beds.
Oregonian Clara Honsinger is now the top women’s cyclocross racer in the United States. She won a national championship in 2019 and now, she’s about to compete in the cyclocross world championships. We spoke to Honsinger in 2019 and today we’re listening back to that interview.
When you think of a fish that breaks the state record for size, you probably don’t think of one that weighs just 5 pounds, 12 ounces. But for a whitefish, that’s big. It was bigger than any that Bend fisherman Alex Dietz had ever seen. So when he caught it on the Deschutes river, he went to have it weighed and submitted the paperwork to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. Dietz thinks it might be the biggest on record, period. He’s waiting to hear back from the International Game Fish Association for confirmation. Dietz won’t give up the exact spot he caught the whitefish, but he joins us to talk about his hobby and what makes him keep coming back to the river.
A new art exhibit at Portland State University showcases 20 artists exploring themes of Black identity, resistance and resilience. The individual exhibits span varied media — from augmented reality comic book panels to vibrantly colored canvases. Amid the racial justice protests catalyzed by the murder of George Floyd in 2020, philanthropist Jordan Schnitzer created a program to award grants of $2,500 each to 60 artists in Oregon and Washington. We talk with J’reyesha Brannon and Steven Christian, two of the artists selected for the Black Lives Matter Artist Grant exhibit at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at Portland State University. The exhibit is free to attend and runs through April.
The American Red Cross is experiencing a severe blood shortage. The lack of blood drives and a decline in donors has created the worst shortage in over a decade. Meanwhile, more than 20 lawmakers, including Oregon’s U.S. Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, have called for a change in federal policy. Currently, men who have sex with men must abstain for 3 months in order to be eligible to donate blood. Angel Montes is a regional donor services executive with the American Red Cross. Jonathan Frochtzwajg is the public policy manager with the Cascade AIDS Project and Prism health. They join us with details.
As the daughter of Korean immigrants, Cathy Park Hong found writing poetry to be freeing -- an empowering way of escaping the invisibility of Asian American identity. Then, as a professional poet, it became clear that the literary world expected Hong’s identity to be both a part of, and a limitation to, her work. This cognitive dissonance is one of the “Minor Feelings” addressed in her book of essays of that name. Cathy Park Hong joins us in front of an audience of students at Portland’s Leodis V. McDaniel High School.
Erika McCalpine is the first Oregon State University Faculty Senate president to hold that position from OSU-Cascades in Bend. She’s also the only Black faculty member on the branch campus, which she says can be quite lonely. Since she came from Alabama to Oregon four years ago, she’s pushed to move racial equity and inclusion goals forward, both on campus and in the city. She got so many requests from businesses in Bend to help them implement diversity, equity and inclusion training that she started a separate DEI Lab to offer consulting services. McCalpine shared her experience at a forum this week hosted by Central Oregon Community College and OSU-Cascades. She joins us to tell us more about her experience and the work she’s doing at OSU and beyond.
Commercial fisheries have strict limits on the amount of fish they can catch. And often they also have to abide by limits on bycatch of marine animals that get unintentionally caught on fishing lines or nets. A new study from the University of Washington suggests that when it comes to reducing bycatch in the fishing industry, permanently closing off stretches of marine areas may be less effective than dynamic, temporary closures. Ray Hilborn, a marine biologist from the University of Washington’s School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, joins us, along with Heather Mann. She's the executive director of Midwater Trawlers Cooperative, a non-profit trade association of nearly 30 fishing vessels based in Newport.
Federal law requires state Medicaid to cover all medical, dental and behavioral expenses for children, but there’s one state who has an exemption: Oregon. The state receives a waiver to ignore the cover all children rule in order to make more Oregonians eligible for Medicaid programs.Along with this waiver, the state has a prioritized list of disorders and diseases that can receive coverage. Ben Botkin is reporter for the Lund Report. He joins us to share his latest story on what it means when your child can’t receive care.
Skeletal remains were found earlier this month on the Roxy Ann Peak Trails in Jackson county. The sheriff's office brought in a specially trained group of canines known as Human Remains Detection Dogs to help with the search. How often are these dogs needed? What does it take to train a dog to smell a decomposing body? Sharon Ward is a training officer with Pacific Crest Search Dogs. She joins us to answer these questions and share the challenges that come with the job.
West Linn City Councilor Rory Bialostosky ran for office when he was 20 years old. Elected at 21, he’s one of Oregon’s youngest elected officials. Earlier this month he was also unanimously chosen as the council’s president. Meanwhile, Bialostosky has also been working toward his bachelor’s degree at Lewis & Clark College. We hear more about his path to leadership.
The complex problem of illegal cannabis in Southern Oregon is the subject of a recent in-depth piece from POLITICO’s federal cannabis policy reporter, Natalie Fertig. Fertig traveled to Cave Junction, Grants Pass and the surrounding area at the end of harvest season last year. She spoke to frustrated and anxious residents and local law enforcement as well as economists, and licensed cannabis growers. We talk with Fertig about what she found.
The George, Kellogg and Harriet Tubman Middle Schools will remain in distance learning until Jan. 27 to ensure COVID-19 health and safety measures. However, several other schools in the state’s largest district have reopened today. We hear details on the district’s strategy from Portland Public Schools Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero.
Oregon's longtime senate president is retiring. Peter Courtney is the longest-serving lawmaker in state history. The 78-year-old has presided over countless legislative sessions where he championed issues such as mental health parity and school funding, beseeched lawmakers to return after a dramatic walkout, and played a key role in former Governor Kitzhaber’s resignation. Now, he’s preparing for his last legislative session in office. We talk with him about his goals and his legacy.
A survey released by the Independent Restaurant
Coalition found that nearly 60% of restaurants in the country say that sales were down by more than half. The group says 80 percent of those that never got federal Restaurant Relief Fund grants are in danger of closing. About half face eviction and bankruptcy. Erika Polmar, executive director of the IRC, says the country has lost 100 thousand restaurants and could lose 100 thousand more. She joins us along with Aaron Barnett, chef/partner of Portland’s La Moule, who shares how he’s weathered the pandemic so far and what he needs to survive.
Pulitzer-prize winning playwright Ayad Akhtar’s latest novel, “Homeland Elegies,” is a meditation on American identity through the lens of an American son and his immigrant parents. It is also a treatise on American economics, Muslim identity in this country, the power of dreams, and syphilis. We listen back to a conversation that was part of the Portland Book Festival put on by Literary Arts.
In early January, workers at a Starbucks in Eugene filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board to form a union, the first such effort in Oregon among employees of the Fortune 500 coffee chain. After Starbucks employees in Buffalo won their unionization bid last month, workers in at least 10 other states, including Washington where the company is based, have contacted the National Labor Relations Board to seek union representation. We hear from Ky Fireside, a Starbucks barista and the lead organizer behind the unionization campaign in Eugene and Gordon Lafer, a professor at the University of Oregon Labor Education and Research Center, as a shift in public attitudes toward unions coincides with changes in service sector jobs.
The city of John Day has been in decline for decades. Now, the city is trying to grow its population by 20% within 5 years. The plan is to build more homes in the community, but they won’t be doing it the old fashioned way. The city plans on 3D printing homes with concrete and aims to construct at least 10 homes by the end of this year. We’ll hear from City Manager of John Day Nick Green on his hopes for the city that 3D printed homes will bring.
Starting in late December, American bald eagles migrating south from Alaska and Canada descend along the banks of the Columbia River to hunt for salmon, shad and other fish. A prime winter destination is The Dalles Lock and Dam where dozens of the raptors congregate and roost nearby in tall trees while scanning the water’s surface for their next meal. Visitors can see these majestic birds up close at Eagle Watch, an annual event free to the public that kicks off this Friday across from the visitor center at the dam. Amber Tilton, a former park ranger with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Morgan Olson, Raptor Coordinator at the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center, join us to talk about Eagle Watch and the remarkable comeback of this species from the brink of extinction.
Omicron is stretching thin those already stretched by the pandemic, and long-term care facilities are no exception. Staffing shortages continue to affect the quality of care at nursing homes around Oregon. And while vaccination rates among residents and staff have gone up at many long-term care facilities, some are still not reporting this data at all. We get an update on long-term care in Oregon from Fred Steele, the state’s long-term care ombudsman.
The Newberg school board made national news last year when it voted to ban Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ+ pride flags and other symbols defined as political from district schools. The policy was driven by a block of four conservative members of the board, led by Dave Brown and Brian Shannon. The majority also voted to fire its superintendent Joe Morelock without cause. Voters cast their ballots in a special recall election of Brown and Shannon -- who appear to have kept their seats -- though final results are not expected for a few weeks. OPB Education Reporter Elizabeth Miller joins us to share details of the election results and what happens next.
A new website created by an Oregon doctor aims to make it easier for healthcare providers to talk with their patients about the health effects of cannabis. Devan Kansagara is a professor of medicine at OHSU and practices internal medicine in the VA Portland Health Care System. He says patients want to discuss cannabis with their doctors. His goal is to provide evidence-based information that he hopes will empower clinicians to feel more comfortable talking to their patients about cannabis use and answering questions that patients may have. We hear from Kansagara about the website and how he hopes doctors and researchers will use it.
Grant High School students held a walkout on
Tuesday to express their concerns about coronavirus safety protocols. Danny Cage is a Grant High School student and a district student council representative for the school. He joins us to talk about what the students are asking for.
Researchers at Oregon State University have identified chemical compounds found in hemp that appear to prevent the coronavirus from entering human cells. Richard van Breemen is a professor of medicinal chemistry at OSU and a faculty member at the university’s Global Hemp Innovation Center. He says these hemp compounds have the potential to prevent as well as treat COVID-19 infections. We hear details of the discovery from van Breemen.
Many residents in the counties surrounding the Port of Morrow in Boardman get their drinking water from groundwater. The port has a wastewater permit for the industrial park it operates but Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality found it violated the permit, allowing more than 165 tons of excess nitrate into the area over the last four years, contaminating groundwater. The DEQ fined the port $1.3 million, significantly more than previous fines for similar contamination. OPB Science and Environment reporter Monica Samayoa joins us to explain the significance of the nitrate contamination, the DEQ fine and what happens from here.
Dutch Bros founder Travis Boersma wants to build a luxury dining and drinking facility with betting machines that would help make horse racing at Grants Pass Downs viable. Oregon’s indigenous tribes say the state should deny approval of the “Historical Horse Racing” gambling terminals the Flying Lark would use. The HHR terminals are similar to slot machines that allow participants to bet on old horse races. We talk to Justin Martin, member of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, about the HHR machines, the oversight of the Oregon Racing Commission and the way the state currently regulates gambling.
Colson Whitehead won the Pulitzer Prize in 2017 for his novel "The Underground Railroad." It's an alternate history of slavery in America from an author who has built a reputation on tweaking the boundaries of reality in order to reveal more about the world we live in. We listen back to an interview with Whitehead at Oregon State University.
The Bend city council recently agreed to revisit their protocols for deciding when to remove a homeless camp. Unlike some other cities in Oregon, Bend will aim not to sweep camps if at all possible. Instead, city council members are focused on creating at least 500 more shelter beds. Mayor pro-tem Gena Goodman-Campbell explains the city’s approach to homelessness.
Portland Homeless Family Solutions, as its name implies, helps homeless families get emergency shelter, connect with services and move into permanent housing. It also helps some families so they don’t lose their housing and become homeless. The nonprofit’s executive director, Brandi Tuck and client Sherry Kopp join us to tell us more about how the programs serve families and how the nonprofit’s $2.5 million grant will expand the number of people it’s able to serve.
Dutch Bros CEO Travis Boersma has dreamed of making horse racing viable in Grants Pass and now he has a plan. His proposal involves creating The Flying Lark, a luxury dining and drinking facility with betting machines that would help pay for the race winners’ prizes.Oregon’s indigenous tribes say the state should deny approval of the “Historical Horse Racing” gambling terminals The Flying Lark would use. The HHR terminals are similar to slot machines that allow participants to bet on old horse races. We talk to Boersma about whether his plan will pencil out without the HHR terminals, and what he envisions for horse racing in Oregon.
The Lathrop Glacier has disappeared from southern Oregon within the past decade. What does this mean for the Cascade Range? Will it ever come back? Andrew Fountain is a professor of geology and geography at Portland State University. He joins us to talk about what it means when a glacier is gone.
People may think of Vermont when they think maple syrup. But could there be an untapped commercial industry in the Pacific Northwest? Eric T. Jones is an assistant professor of practice in the OSU College of Forestry and is leading a project on bigleaf maple sap in Western Oregon. He joins us with details.
In the last two years of the pandemic more than 70 news outlets have sprung up around the county, and about the same number of new community newsletters have launched as well. That’s according to a new report by Poynter. The report also notes that in that time, the pandemic has contributed to the shuttering of more than 100 U.S. newsrooms. Bradley Fuqua is a long time reporter who found himself without a job when the rapidly shrinking Philomath Express laid him off. That left the community more in need than ever of local news coverage. And that’s what led him to start the Philomath News, a one-person, digital news operation, as he describes it.
The Highway 58 Herald covers the area the name implies, communities along the highway’s corridor from Interstate 5 to Highway 97. George Custer is the cofounder of that small local outlet and says he decided to help launch it because Oakridge and the greater community of 25,000 deserved it. Fuqua and Custer join us to share their stories and tell us more about the communities their outlets cover.
Researchers at Oregon State University and Stanford University found declines in electricity consumption during the pandemic across the U.S. and more than 50 nations, with daily electricity use declining by roughly eight percent in April 2020.In addition to the severity of lockdown restrictions, other factors linked to a decline in electricity demand were a country’s electricity use during holidays and changes in individual mobility – for example, travel to retail and recreation locations. In the U.S., the Pacific Northwest saw a six percent decline compared to 11 percent for the Midwest. Study co-authors Hilary Boudet from Oregon State University and Ram Rajagopal from Stanford University reveal how their findings could help utilities and regulators better respond to unforeseen shocks to energy grids, including extreme weather events.
Deschutes County Stabilization Center opened during the pandemic offering care to anyone having a mental health crisis in the area. The center offers medication support, peer counseling and an observation room for those unable to talk through problems and who need more immediate care. A two-year grant from the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission allowed the center to start its operations, but as the deadline approaches, the future of the facility is unknown. We’ll hear from Holly Harris, Program Manager at Deschutes County Crisis Services, on how the community will be affected if the facility closed.
An Oregon law that went into effect this month provides full faith and credit for tribal court judgments. This means that if a judge from a federally recognized tribe requires child support or grants a restraining order, those decisions will be better enforced off reservation as well. Chief Judge William Johnson of the Umatilla Tribal Court has been working toward this goal for years. He joins us with details.
There are more than 700 patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19 in the state, according to the Oregon Health Authority. As the omicron variant rapidly spreads across counties, the number of available ICU beds is dwindling and causing particular strain for smaller, rural hospitals with fewer beds and resources. In The Dalles, the number of new COVID-19 cases has more than doubled in the past week. Don Wenzler, the Chief Clinical Officer at Mid-Columbia Medical Center in The Dalles, talks to us about the twin challenges his rural hospital faces as it confronts a surging caseload and frontline health workers who are falling ill or being forced into quarantine after possible exposure to the virus.
The Portland restaurant Kachka has announced a new wage equity plan, which involves charging diners a 22% service charge in lieu of tips, free healthcare for its employees and a profit-sharing model. We talk with Kachka chef and co-owner Bonnie Morales about the new policies and the intent behind them.
The omicron variant surging throughout Oregon is now taking a toll on schools, with administrators shifting to remote learning as staff as students and staff fall ill or quarantine due to possible exposure to the virus. On Tuesday, citing staffing shortages, Forest Grove High School said it will shift to online instruction for 10 days, joining four campuses in the Portland Public Schools district. On average, 20 to 30 percent of students were absent last week, according to the Parkrose school district, which canceled classes on Monday and Tuesday. Durham elementary school in Tigard is also shifting to online instruction for the rest of the week, with roughly 300 students and staff testing positive for COVID-19 as of Friday. Sue Rieke-Smith, the superintendent of the Tigard-Tualatin school district, joins us to discuss the impact the omicron variant is having on instruction and staffing levels in the district.
Within the past month Multnomah and Jackson county have seen deaths related to hypothermia. What happens when our body can’t handle the cold? What does this mean for people in the homeless community who can’t make it to warming spaces? Matt Hansen, associate professor of emergency medicine and pediatrics at OHSU, joins us to answer these questions.
Fishing is a big industry in the Northwest, but scientists say only about 30-40% of a fish is consumed by humans. Mostly the byproduct is thrown away or sold for pet food filler. At the Oregon State University Seafood Lab in Astoria, researchers are hard at work to change that with the help of a grant from a national food and agriculture research foundation. OSU Food Science and Technology professor Jung Kwon says she hopes the project proves it’s feasible to use fish byproducts into tasty food for humans, with the potential for both reducing food waste and helping with global hunger. She joins us as well as Tim Kurt, the Scientific Program Director with the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research, who says the potential for sustainable aquaculture has yet to be fully realized.
The Oregon Health Authority has published new directions for hospitals in the event they need to triage patients and decide who gets urgent, life-saving care in a crisis — and who may not — when there aren’t enough critical resources, such as intensive care beds, available. Dana Hargunani, Chief Medical Officer at Oregon Health Authority, explains.
The U.S. generates more plastic waste than the rest of the globe. A startling 8 million metric tons of that waste ends up in the ocean, according to a new report commissioned by Congress. That’s the equivalent of a dump truck full of plastic going into the ocean every minute of every day. Margaret Spring is the chief conservation and science officer at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and chaired the committee that wrote the new report. She joins us to explain the genesis and scope of the problem and share the recommendations for a national strategy to keep this waste out of the ocean.
From heavy snowfall to flood warnings and landslides, this week’s winter storms have wreaked havoc for motorists and transportation crews working around the clock to clear debris and make repairs to battered roads and highways. A landslide yesterday caused the closure of I-84 in both directions from Troutdale to Hood River in the Columbia River Gorge. But a buildup of high pressure may bring some relief as we head into the weekend, according to the National Weather Service. We hear from Don Hamilton, a spokesman from the Oregon Department of Transportation and Clinton Rockey, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Portland about the weather and its impacts on roads and highways.
The highly contagious omicron variant has once again changed the risks that many people are willing to take. Meanwhile public health officials are struggling to keep a pandemic-weary public up to date about the latest science. Dr. Jennifer Vines, Deputy Health Officer for Multnomah County Health Department, joins us to talk about what it’s like to work in public health right now.
The insurrection at the U.S. Capitol was one year ago. Domestic extremists overwhelmed Capitol police and attacked the building where lawmakers were formally counting the Electoral College votes for the 2020 election. We look back on what happened that day and its aftermath with two members of Oregon’s Congressional delegation: Democratic U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio and Democratic U.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader.
Wildfires throughout Oregon have caused devastating damage to homes and landscapes, yet some artists still managed to create something new for Oregonians to enjoy. Troy Stith, is a Bend resident who creates landscape drawings out of wildfire charcoal. Kelly Howard is the owner of Lincoln City Glass Center and created glass pieces out of the ashes of burned homes. Bryan Griffith is an Arizona-based artist who currently has an exhibit titled, “Rethinking Fire” at the High Desert Museum on display until January 9th. They join us to share what it means to create works of art out of a natural disaster.
Oregon funds government expenses largely through the income tax, but there are other taxes and fees that feed the state's budget. Social and racial justice advocates say the overall tax burden falls much more heavily on low income and working class people and hits BIPOC communities especially hard. The Oregon Center for Public Policy has created a presentation to explain not only the effects of the tax system but also the 19th and 20th century history of racism that led to the policies that remain in place today. Juan Carlos Ordonez with OCPP joins us.
It’s not often a new language emerges.But in the last 15 years, a new language was born right here in the Pacific Northwest. It’s called Protactile, and it was created by a group of DeafBlind people who prioritize touch. One of the people at the center of creating this new language is Jelica Nuccio. She recently moved to Monmouth, Oregon, where Western Oregon University just received a grant for $2.1 million from the U.S. Department of Education’s Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) to help train Protactile language interpreters.
Oregon is seeing a surge in COVID-19 cases due to the highly contagious omicron variant. The latest projections from Oregon Health and Science University data scientist Peter Graven are less dramatic than the modeling he shared in mid-December, but still show an increase in hospitalizations. We talk with Graven about his modeling and what he’s learned from looking at data from omicron infections in Europe.
The Oregon Supreme Court is considering a proposal that would allow trained, licensed paralegals to provide limited legal services in family law and landlord/tenant cases. The proposal has been compared to the distinction between nurse practitioners and doctors. We hear details on the proposal from Kirsten Thompson, the chair of the Paraprofessional Licensing Implementation Committee and senior judge and mediator Christy Carpenter, a limited license legal technician in Washington.
There are over 55 million people living with Dementia in the world. While there is no known cure, new findings show there might be a way to reduce your risk. Researchers at the University of Washington found patients who had Cataract surgery had a lower chance of developing Dementia. Cecilia Lee, Klorfine Family Associate Professor in Ophthalmology, and Eric Larson, Founding Principle Investigator for the Adult Changes in Thought Study, join us to share their results.
InvestigateWest takes a hopeful look at the ways the Pacific Northwest has already started transitioning to a more climate-friendly economy. We talk with independent journalist and InvestigateWest co-founder Robert McClure about some of the other stories in the “Decarbonizing Cascadia” series.
As of January 1, 2022, it will be illegal to discriminate against Black people for their hairstyles in Oregon workplaces and public education institutions. At the same time, several new laws meant to usher the state into a new era of policing oversight, accountability and equity will also take effect. OPB political reporter Dirk VanderHart joins us to talk about these legal changes and some other new Oregon laws.
Heather Hansman loves skiing. In her 20s, her life revolved around the sport. Later, she covered it as a journalist. Now, she’s written a book about skiing and the people who love it, as well as the uncertain future of a sport that depends on certain weather conditions. She examines the race, class and gender inequities in the world of skiing, as well as the mental health struggles some devoted skiers face. We talk with Hansman about “Powder Days: Ski Bums, Ski Towns and the Future of Chasing Snow.”
Oregon's only women's prison has adopted a program designed to help inmates transform the thinking that led them to engage in destructive behavior and rediscover their innate well-being. We listen back to a conversation with women in the Insight Alliance program at Coffee Creek prison recorded in 2019.
We are joined by a panel of experts to look back at the biggest news stories from the Pacific Northwest in 2021. Nkenge Harmon Johnson is the president and CEO of the Urban League of Portland. Anna Griffin is the Vice President of News at OPB. And Eric Fruits is the research director at the Cascade Policy Institute, a think tank that promotes free markets and limited government.
As 2021 comes to a close, the staff of OPB's "Think Out Loud" look back on some of their favorite conversations from the past year. Producers Allison Frost, Elizabeth Castillo, Julie Sabatier, Rolando Hernandez, and Sage Van Wing joined host Dave Miller in conversation.
In her latest novel, Portland writer Karen Thompson Walker explores the terrifying possibility of a world altered by a highly contagious disease. The disease causes people to fall into a seemingly endless sleep. We’ll listen back to a conversation with Thompson Walker about her book, “The Dreamers.”
The Seattle writer G. Willow Wilson has written for some of the world’s best known comic book series, including the X-Men, Superman, Wonder Woman and Ms. Marvel. Last fall, OPB’s April Baer spoke with Wilson about her latest novel, “The Bird King,” in front of an audience at the Portland Book Festival.
We listen back to our walk along Sandy Boulevard - all the way from its origin, near the corner of SE 7th and Alder, to The Grotto, out at NE 85th.
We revisit a radio road trip up and down Washington's Long Beach Peninsula, from Cape Disappointment to Leadbetter Point State Park.
Today we bring you a selection of conversations from the Portland Book Festival. OPB’s Tiffany Camhi spoke with Aminder Dhaliwal about her book “Cyclopedia Exotica.” OPB’s Jenn Chavez spoke with Qian Julie Wang about her book “Beautiful Country.” And OPB’s Crystal Ligori spoke with Rivka Galchen, author of “Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch,” and A.K. Blakemore, author of “The Manningtree Witches.”
It’s been 20 months since the World Health Organization declared covid-19 a global pandemic. We’ve all been touched by it in some way. and we’ve all relied heavily on clear, fact-based reporting over the last year and a half. OPB’s Geoff Norcross sat down with three local reporters at the Portland Book Festival to talk about what covering the pandemic has been like. Eli Saslow is the author of “Voices from the Pandemic.” Eder Campuzano is an education reporter for The Oregonian. And Amelia Templeton is OPB’s health reporter.
Today we bring you a selection of conversations from the Portland Book Festival. Dave Miller spoke with Ruth Ozeki about her latest novel “The Book of Form and Emptiness.” We also listen back to a conversation from last year’s book festival between OPB’s Anna Griffin and Jill Lepore, author of “If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future.”
Theodore Van Alst’s new book of short stories, “Sacred City,” follows the young narrator in his journeys through Chicago. He is accompanied by ancestors and spirits who help him see his native city as Indian Country. Van Alst is also the Director of the Indigenous Nations Studies Program at Portland State. He joins us to talk about his book.
In 2016 we talked with a group of 25 young people about the idea of “American Dream,” and what it meant to them. A lot has changed in the last five years, and the young people we spoke to have changed a lot too. They’ve since graduated from high school and college and some have entered the workforce. We wanted to check back in with a few of them to ask them what they think of the idea of the “American Dream” now. Our guests are Juma Sei, an American Studies major at Yale University; Grace Wong, a graduate of Wellesley College now working in finance; and Tyler White, a senior at Swarthmore College.
Youth organizers from the Sunrise Movement have held rallies in front of the Oregon Department of Transportation’s Portland office to protest the agency’s freeway expansion plans. We hear a response from the department and how ODOT plans to prioritize climate change issues. Brendan Finn is the director of ODOT’s Urban Mobility Office. Amanda Pietz is an administrator for the Policy, Data & Analysis Division. They join us with details.
People convicted with a felony will soon have the chance to reduce their sentence or have their conviction reconsidered thanks to SB 819. Starting on January 1st, district attorneys for each Oregon county will need to have implemented their own policies for petitioners seeking to utilize the new law. We’ll hear from John Hummel, Deschutes County district attorney, and Christopher Parosa, chief deputy district attorney at Lane County, on how they both plan on carrying out policies in the new year.
Since April, organizers with the Sunrise Movement have been holding rallies every other week in front of ODOT’s Portland Office. The group has several demands, including a moratorium on freeway expansion in Portland’s metro area. Ukiah Halloran-Steiner and Adah Crandall are climate justice organizers with the group. They join us with details.
According to the Oregon Community Foundation, 179 schools throughout the state — or about one in seven — offer no music, theater, or dance classes. Many rural districts in the state are not able to offer music education, and the pandemic has only made that more challenging. We talk with Laura Arthur, who is on the board of the Oregon Music Education Association and a teacher on special assignment for K-12 music at Portland Public Schools.
The Port of Portland and Hacienda Community Development Corporation are teaming up on a project using mass timber to create prototypes for modular housing. Mass timber is a high-strength engineered wood. The state Legislature awarded the organizations a $5 million appropriation to work on the project. Curtis Robinhold is the executive director of the Port of Portland. Ernesto Fonseca is the CEO of Hacienda Community Development Corporation. They join us with details.
Last year, many professional Santas talked to kids virtually. That was before the big vaccine rollout and long before FDA approval for vaccinating kids as young as 5. In year two of the pandemic, the holiday landscape looks a little different. And more people are seeking out in-person Santa visits. Professional Santas are in demand for public and private events and, in some cases, that demand outstrips what these friendly, bearded individuals came to expect in pre-pandemic years.
Rev. Dr. Leroy Barber, aka Black Santa PDX, says he’s doing at least twice as many events this year as he did in 2019. Susan Mesco has also seen explosive demand for in-person Santas. She’s the founder and director of the Professional Santa Claus School and president of American Events & Promotions and SantaVisitsUSA. We hear from Barber, Mesco and Barb Wright, owner of Oodles Toy Store in Portland.
At first, it was just going to be about housing. Then, Oregon lawmakers decided to add some other urgent items to the second special session of 2021. The deal lawmakers reached before the start of the session included $25 million for the state to beef up its policing of illegal marijuana grow operations and $18 million to support the state’s network of resettlement agencies, which are preparing for the arrival of 1,200 Afghan refugees over the next year. We hear from Josephine County Sheriff Dave Daniel and Matthew Westerbeck, director of refugee services for Catholic Charities of Oregon.
Oregon joins a growing list of states reporting cases of the Omicron variant. Scientists at Oregon Health & Science University have detected three cases of the new variant of concern. All three cases occurred in people who had been fully vaccinated. Patrick Allen, Director of the Oregon Health Authority, joins us with the details.
Oregonian Cindy Baldwin is the author of the young adult novel “Where the Watermelons Grow.” The book tells the story of a twelve-year-old girl coming to terms with her mother’s mental illness. We’ll listen back to a conversation with Baldwin from 2018 about that story and about her own experience as a mom living with cystic fibrosis.
A drought Klamath Basin in 2002, led to the death of over 34,000 adult Chinook Salmon. Theresa May, a professor in Theatre Arts at the University of Oregon, knew she wanted to share the story of the Klamath Watershed community and worked with several tribes to create the play “Salmon is Everything.” Marta Clifford, an elder with the Confederated Tribes of Grand Rhode, acted in that play and the two women continued to collaborate together afterwards. They now co-teach a course on Native theatre at the University of Oregon and are working on their next production, “Bluejay’s Canoe.” They both join us to share what it means to take Indigenous voices to the mainstage.
Ethan Thrower grew up in Portland. He’s a social worker who is married and has two kids. He got good grades in high school and ran track. That’s how he first introduces himself in his children's book, “A Kids Book About Incarceration.” He then writes about the choices that landed him in prison and about how his family has been affected by his incarceration. Thrower answers a series of questions in the book including: “Why were you in prison?”; Why did you commit a crime?; and “What was it like?” He joins us to tell us more about his story and his efforts to educate kids about incarceration, the justice system and the power to change.
The pandemic has changed the way we think of work and school drastically, but it has also changed the way we spend our time and money. In a blog post, Josh Lehner with the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis found that Portland’s economy is trailing behind the rest of the state. He notes more people are choosing to spend their money and dine in the suburbs, not downtown. We’ll hear from Lehner on how the pandemic has changed the way we spend our money and the future of Portland's downtown.
Year after year, the West continues to suffer from harsher wildfire seasons and drought. How is this affecting the forests? What can be done to reforest acreage lost to climate catastrophes? What is needed to bring back trees? Matthew Aghai is the senior director of biological research and development at DroneSeed, a company focusing on reforestation. He joins us with more on these issues and the difficulties of seed supply.
The Germany-based company FlixBus ran an electric bus pilot recently from Seattle to Eugene. The company purchased Greyhound in October, but it has been steadily expanding the U.S. market for intercity travel since it landed here in 2018. Pierre Gourdain is the Managing Director of Flixbus USA. He joins us to share details about this expansion and the many challenges the company and the industry face in converting to an electric fleet.
Meanwhile, in the Portland metro area, TriMet says it has cut its carbon emissions by more than 50% in the last six months by transitioning to renewable diesel and renewable electricity. It’s also trying to grow the number of electric buses in service. TriMet’s JC Vannatta joins to explain what the future will look like and how the agency is working to expand electricity-powered travel.
Over half of the homeless community in Salem is made up of women. According to the Homeless Management Information System there are 1,309 unhoused women, 1,219 men and 52 individuals who chose not to report their gender. Cindel Mikesell is a woman experiencing homelessness and Lynelle Wilcox is the Safe Sleep United program manager. They both join us to share what they’ve seen in Salem.
More and more organizations, companies and institutions are incorporating land acknowledgments into their work. These statements are intended to acknowledge and show respect to the Indigenous people who have lived on the land for millennia. Luhui Whitebear, assistant professor in the Oregon State University School of Language, Culture, & Society, says land acknowledgments should be the beginning of an organization's work with tribes, not the end. Whitebear helped to craft OSU’s land acknowledgment. We hear from her and Rachel Black Elk, junior instructor for the Indigenous Nations Studies program at Portland State University.
The Portland auditor has found that the city is unprepared to assist people with disabilities during emergencies. The auditor’s office used the city’s response during the pandemic as a template for examining whether emergency programs and services are accessible to people with disabilities. Portland auditor Mary Hull Caballero explains the results, and Tom Stenson, deputy legal director for Disability Rights Oregon provides his organization’s perspective.
The summer heat dome was a wake-up call for the Pacific Northwest. Crops like wheat were hit hard with triple digit temperatures, but they weren’t the only ones suffering. Christmas tree farmers throughout Oregon saw adult trees burned and some reported losing over 90% of the seedlings they planted this year. We’ll hear from Mike Abbot, Owner of Bob’z Tree Farm and Chal Landgren, Oregon State University Extension Professor.
Extreme drought in the Klamath basin this year meant there wasn't enough water to sustain users including tribes, farmers and wildlife refuges. The region is about to get an unprecedented surge in federal money — more than $160 million — thanks to funding in the infrastructure package. Dan Keppen is the Executive Director of the Family Farm Alliance. Chrysten Rivard is the Oregon Director of Trout Unlimited. They join us with details.
What if you could get from Portland to Seattle in an hour? Or from Portland to Vancouver, British Columbia in two hours? That’s the vision behind the Cascadia Ultra High Speed Ground Transportation project. Former Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire is the CEO of Challenge Seattle. She joins us to talk about the project and where plans stand right now.
A record number of coho salmon — about 24,000 — have traveled to and from the Pacific Ocean through the Snake River this year. The number is a modern-day record. The Nez Perce tribe has been working to reintroduce salmon to the Lostine River and the Clearwater Basin. We hear details from Becky Johnson, the production division director of the tribe’s Department of Fisheries Resource Management.
Eugene Weekly is attempting to write obituaries for every homeless person the paper learns of who died in Eugene in 2021. So far, the paper has told of the life and death of thirteen people. Ella Hutcherson is a reporter for Eugene Weekly and wrote several of the stories. She joins us to talk about the project.
The central branch of the Multnomah County Library is the largest library in the largest city in Oregon. In a normal year, more than 800,000 people walked through its doors. In 2017 we spend the day at wandering through the building talking to employees and patrons alike. We listen back to that episode today.
The Tigard Public Safety Advisory Board was created as part of the city’s anti-racism action plan. The board reviews police department practices and makes recommendations to city leadership. The board and the police department have been working collaboratively, and the police department has implemented some of those recommendations. We hear details from Tigard Police Chief Kathy McAlpine and Jimmy Brown, a member of the Public Safety Advisory Board.
Few businesses have been untouched by the pandemic. Some were able to get federal and other assistance, but not those in the cannabis industry, since it’s illegal under federal law. Cannabis businesses already faced challenges from being unable to access traditional financing and other banking services. Many continue to be targets for theft as they have to deal in cash. Now people of color, women and all businesses operated by a historically disadvantaged owner can apply for grants from the Portland’s Cannabis Emergency Relief Fund. The $1.3 million dollar fund will go directly to three organizations that will distribute the grants to businesses. The grant applications will be open early next year. NuLeaf is one of the nonprofits that will be distributing those grants, and its executive director Jeanette Ward-Horton joins us to tell us more.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown is calling lawmakers back to Salem on Dec. 13 for a special session to address the state’s rent assistance program, which has run out of funds. The goal is to extend eviction protections for renters and offer relief to landlords as well. Sen. Kayse Jama, D-Portland, and Rep. Julie Fahey, D-Eugene, are the architects of the proposal lawmakers will be digging into in the special session. We hear from these two lawmakers about their proposal.
Federal attorneys say wolves are resilient and stable enough to not need federal protections, but environmentalists argue these canines are vulnerable without them. They say wolves are a vital part of ecosystems and have growing concerns with increased wolf hunting. Ranchers, on the other hand, have seen livestock killings and argue wolves put their cattle at risk. We’ll hear from two advocates on different sides of the wolf debate, Amaroq Weiss, senior wolf advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity and John Williams, incoming wolf committee chair for Oregon Cattlemen’s Association.
After more than three decades as a mainstay in Oregon politics, the state’s longest-tenured U.S. House member Peter deFazio announced Wednesday that he won’t seek a 19th term. The 4th Congressional District he represents spans Oregon’s southwest corner, stretching from the California border to Albany. OPB political reporter Dirk VanderHart joins us to talk about DeFazio’s legacy.
The union that represents teachers in Portland Public Schools says educators and students are at a breaking point. They want the district to suspend in-person high school classes on Fridays for the rest of the school year and cut instructional time for younger students as well. The union says these measures are necessary to avoid more fights and disruptive behavior in schools, as well as burnout among teachers. The district is pushing back, saying students can’t afford to lose more class time.
We hear a variety of perspectives from Jonathan Garcia, chief of staff to the superintendent for PPS; Cleveland High School senior Jackson Weinberg, who serves as the student representative on the PPS board; and Steve Lancaster, a social studies teacher at Lincoln High School who is also the Portland Association of Teachers bargaining chairperson.
The Oregon Health Authority and the Department of Environmental Quality are collaborating on testing 150 drinking water systems across the state for per- and polyfluorinated substances, known as PFAS.
The substances can be found in the blood of people and animals all over the world. They are found in water, air, fish, and soil in places around the country, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. What are these substances exactly and how concerning are they? Jennifer Field is a professor at Oregon State University and Robyn Tanguay is a distinguished professor at the school. The researchers join us with details.
Banks are closing branches nationwide. But what happens when that branch is the last in town? Nyssa’s lone bank is slated to close in January. We hear more about how that affects the town and what it means as more rural communities nationwide are faced with the same problem. Jim Maret is the city manager of Nyssa. Jason Richardson is the director of research & evaluation for the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. They join us with details.
As business and property owners become increasingly frustrated with Portland’s public safety system, they are tapping private security to fill the vacuum. But private security firms in Oregon are notoriously underregulated, and their employees are required to receive a fraction of the training and oversight as public law enforcement. OPB’s Rebecca Ellis joins us with a new investigation.
“Women superintendents are calling for change in the gender inequities that thrive in Oregon’s education system.” That’s according to a new report from the Coalition of Oregon School Administrators, the Oregon Commission for Women and the Oregon Department of Education. The report surveyed superintendents around the state to dig into the inequities female superintendents face. We hear about the findings from Krista Parent, who serves as both vice chair of the OCFW and director of executive leadership for COSA.
Columbia River Mental Health Services is bringing medical care and mental health treatment directly to the unhoused community of Clark County. The group hopes to build relationships and establish trust with the homeless population. Mike Delay is the Program Director for Substance Use Disorders and Mobile Services and Reinhardt Ryden is a peer support counselor for Columbia River Mental Health Services.
The Portland Fire and Rescue Bureau honored one of its firefighters last week. Lt. Jerry Richardson died of lung cancer after retiring from the bureau where he served 22 years. Firefights are exposed to toxic chemicals from smoke in their jobs, and they have higher rates of cancer than the general population. We talk with PF&R safety chief John Derr to find out more about these risks and what the bureau is doing to mitigate them.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been extremely hard on health care workers. They’re struggling with mental health issues, stress and the complex emotions that go along with treating people who chose not to get vaccinated. We hear from two people who provide support to doctors, nurses and hospital staff. Our guests are Adam Clark, a licensed clinical social worker and mental health provider for Coquille Valley Hospital and Kirk Ruehl, manager of soul care at Good Shepherd Health Care System.
In some rural parts of the state, Oregon residents have formed Rangeland Fire Protection Associations. Volunteers operate fire trucks and work with the Oregon Department of Forestry to get training and equipment. The associations allow residents to manage fires when they’re small. Residents pay dues to help fund the associations. Jacob Gear is a fire management specialist with the Burns Interagency Fire Zone. Dave French is the chairman of the board of the Crane RFPA and Dale Martin is the president of the Silver Creek RFPA. They join us with details.
A once rare strain of salmonella found in poultry has spread largely unchecked, according to reporting by ProPublica. The strain, multidrug-resistant infantis, can send victims to the hospital and is resistant to many of the drugs used to combat food poisoning. We hear from two of the reporters who worked on the story. Michael Grabell is a ProPublica reporter and Irena Hwang is a data reporter with the organization.
We listen back to two conversations about short story collections today. Author and essayist Roxane Gay spoke to Dave Miller in 2017 about her collection, “Difficult Women.” And author Beth Piatote spoke to Allison Frost in 2019 about her collection of short stories highlighting the life and culture of Pacific Northwest Native Americans, “The Beadworkers.”
In the first segment of this special show on how young people are coping with stress and anxiety we heard from a 16-year-old and a 19-year-old. They told us about the stress and anxiety they’re facing and how they’re dealing with it. In the last part of the program, we wanted to get another view of students and stress, and the adults who are helping them. Our guests are: Katherine Iliyn, a counselor at Cascade High School in Turner, and Craigan Usher a professor of psychiatry at Oregon Health and Science University with a special focus on child and adolescent psychiatry. We’re also joined by Shalene Joseph who runs a youth support circle for the Native Wellness Center and Andy Miller, a high school freshman who is part of that circle.
The COVID-19 pandemic is having dramatic impacts on the well-being of our youth in many ways. School districts are struggling to maintain safe learning environments for their students, staff, and teachers. For many young people, the most significant impacts are on their mental health. And even if we’ve turned some corners in the pandemic, the emotional effects linger. We held a live zoom conversation last week where we heard directly from students, from mental health professionals, and from participants in a youth support circle.
The event was a co-production between OPB and “Call to Mind,” American Public Media’s initiative to foster new conversations about mental health.
We talked about how young people are coping with mental health struggles and how the individuals and the institutions in their lives could best support their resilience. Our guests are Alyssia Menezes a junior at Portland’s Lincoln High School, and Jospin Mugisha, a sophomore at Portland State University.
Invasive green crab populations have been growing steadily on the Oregon coast. Green crabs are threatening Dungeness crabs, other sea life and impacting coastal habitats all along the west coast. Scientists say a simple solution may be the best one to protect Dungeness and red rock crabs: eat more green crabs. In part because those crabs are significantly smaller — six inches in diameter rather than eight or 10 — the market for them has not developed. Oregon Department of State Lands’ Shon Schooler tells us more about green crabs themselves, the fishery he hopes will develop as people eat more of these green crabs, and the culinary guide they’ve put out with recipes.
Students at Reynolds Middle School went back to distance learning this week. Reynolds superintendent Danna Diaz said the move will ensure that “Reynolds Middle School has the necessary social-emotional supports and safety protocols in place to provide a safe learning environment for all students.” Reynolds is not alone in facing challenges related to student behavior and delays in social-emotional learning after more than a year of online school. Joni Tolon is the senior programs administrator for student services for the Multnomah Education Service District. She says she's heard about similar problems from teachers and administrators all over the state. We hear from Tolon as well as MESD school psychologists Melinda Berry and Danielle Fanelli about the scope of these issues as well as possible solutions.
Grants Pass High School students walked out in protest of their school board's recent decision to reinstate two educators who were fired after promoting transphobic policies. The “I Resolve” campaign, started by a science teacher and middle school assistant principal, advocated labeling school bathrooms “anatomical male” and “anatomical female” and only allowing students to change their names or pronouns at school with parental permission. We hear from Grants Pass High School junior Deenie Bulyalert and senior Evan Tucker about how the school board decision to reinstate these two educators is affecting students.
After the extreme heat events of last summer, many trees across the Pacific Northwest turned brown at the edges. Researchers have been trying to determine what the stress of that heat wave did to trees in the short term, and what it might mean for the long term health of forests. Last week, Oregon State University hosted a symposium of tree researchers. Chris Still is a professor in the college of forestry at Oregon State University. He tells us what they learned.
Learning a new language can already be difficult, but how did going online affect students in English as a second language programs? We’ll hear from Kevin Brown, an ESL teacher from Glencoe High School in Hillsboro, and Bryan Reed, the ELD Coordinator for Springfield Public Schools, on the changes they saw with online learning.
Last week, environmental organizers said they defied a U.S. Forest Service closure in order to block potential logging in the Willamette National Forest. The group has concerns over the impacts of post-fire logging in the region, which was devastated by wildfires in 2020. Daniel Johnson is an organizer with the Cascadia Forest Defenders and joins us with details.
Author and illustrator Kristin Radtke started working on a book about loneliness in 2016, four years before a global pandemic made the topic even more pressing and personal for all of us. “Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness” weaves together personal stories, scientific studies and reflections on our relationship with technology over time. Radtke joined us for a conversation at the 2021 Portland Book Festival.
In Oregon, people who are accused of crimes but found unable to participate in their own trial because of mental illness are supposed to be sent to the Oregon State Hospital until they are ready to “aid and assist” in their own defense. Advocates say jail is a dangerous place for people with mental illnesses, but even before the pandemic, “aid and assist” patients often faced long waits in jail for space at the hospital. Staffing shortages and other challenges have made the problem even worse. Sally Reid’s son Phillip is currently at the Oregon State Hospital under “aid and assist” after spending over a month in jail in Astoria. He has also spent time at the hospital for civil commitments. Reid tells us how these commitments have affected her family.
COVID-19 continues to impact the mental health of children and youth. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry has declared a “national emergency” on children’s mental health, with the pandemic exacerbating many pre-existing challenges. American Public Media’s mental health correspondent Alisa Roth joins us to tell us more about what that declaration means for youth, their families and hwhat the alarming statistics mean.
Aceia “Ace” Spade began pageantry at the age of 3. While she is originally from Alabama, she moved to Eugene and at 15 was crowned Oregon’s Miss Juneteenth. Now, two years later, she represents Oregon as the national Miss Juneteenth. Spade joins us with details on her latest victory.
Across southern Oregon, illegal marijuana farms have caused environmental issues in areas already in drought. Now they’ve raised humanitarian concerns as immigrant agriculture workers deal with working conditions. Advocates say these workers face poor housing and, on some occasions, aren’t paid for the work they do. Joining us for details is UNETE’s Program Coordinator Kathy Keese.
The state of Oregon is halting its rental assistance program, despite receiving thousands of applications weekly from people seeking the state’s help to stay in their homes as winter approaches. Margaret Salazar, the director of Oregon Housing and Community Services, said the state is pausing the federal emergency rental assistance program for six weeks starting December 1. She says the pause is necessary because, without more federal money, the state cannot continue to offer rental assistance. The pause will also allow the agency to work through a backlog of applications. We hear from Salazar.
We listen back to a 2016 conversation with the New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik about the life of cities, the terrorist attacks in Paris, and the role of critics in our society
Teachers in Portland are so overwhelmed and exhausted that half are considering retiring early, taking a leave of absence or quitting. That’s according to a new survey by the Portland Association of Teachers. Elizabeth Thiel, PAT president says there’s already a shortage of teachers and schools — and kids — cannot afford to lose any more. The union is asking Portland Public Schools to take immediate action to lighten workloads and relieve some pressure on teachers. Thiel joins us to share more about the survey results and what might be done to bring down the stress to support teachers better and keep them teaching.
After a three-year pause, the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission is once again processing applications from people who want to process or sell cannabis. Mark Pettinger is the OLCC’s director of communications and education. He joins us to talk about what this means for the legal marijuana system in Oregon.
An online meeting for Oregon’s State Advisory Committee on Historic Preservation shut down early after an attendee began writing racist comments. The meeting was covering several historical buildings, including those that have played a prominent role in Oregon’s Black history. We’ll hear more about the buildings, including places like Portland’s Golden West Hotel, and their legacy. Kimberly Moreland, an expert in historic preservation, shares details.
About 20% of global emissions come from agriculture and land use. Yet agriculture can also be a vehicle for taking carbon out of the atmosphere. The Oregon Global Warming Commission has developed a proposal that calls for increasing carbon sequestration, some of which would come from agriculture. George Plaven, reporter for the Capitol Press, recently wrote about ways the state is hoping to use agriculture to help reach the state’s climate goals.
The Dalles City Council has approved a water deal with Google, allowing the company to move forward with plans to expand in the area. But, residents have been concerned about Google’s water use as the region suffers from a drought. And the amount of water the company uses remains a secret to most. We hear details about the deal from Dan
Pharmacies around the state are having staffing issues right now. Officials in Baker County, which only has thee pharmacies, have asked the state for help.In addition, Bi-Mart’s pharmacies are closing and that's causing statewide ripples. Kevin Russell, Central Oregon Regional Director on the Oregon State Pharmacy Association Board, explains why pharmacies are struggling.
The Newberg School Board voted 4-3 to fire Superintendent Joe Morelock late Tuesday night. Morelock’s contract was not set to expire until 2024 and those who voted in favor of his termination did not give a reason for the firing. In September, the same four board members also voted in favor of a ban on political symbols including Black Lives Matter and LGBTQ Pride flags. We hear from Morelock as he reflects on his firing and the future of the Newberg School District.
Author Ruth Ozeki's novel "A Tale for the Time Being" wrestles with everything from time and memory, to quantum physics and Buddhist thought and tsunamis. We listen back to an interview we did with the Canadian American author in 2014.
The 2018 Camp Fire caused significant damage to the education, healthcare and water infrastructure systems in the town of Paradise, CA. Oregon State University professor Erica Fischer was part of a team of researchers who set out to study how the town recovered, what mitigation efforts were successful in protecting school buildings and what lessons Paradise has for other communities affected by wildfire. Fischer joins us to talk about the findings.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals recently sent a letter to the president of Oregon Health & Science University. The letter alleges that animals have suffered in the university’s labs, including the Oregon National Primate Research Center, due to what PETA calls “flagrant, ongoing violations of federal animal welfare guidelines in OHSU’s laboratories.” Vickie Jarrell, director of the Animal Care & Use program at the university, along with Gregory Timmel, professor, chief and attending veterinarian at the Oregon National Primate Research Center, join us to respond to PETA’s concerns.
The homeless newspaper "Street Roots" concludes a five-part solutions journalism series on foster care this week. We talk to reporter Libby Dowsett (DOUSE-it) about how programs in Iowa and Georgia that improve the health and stability of foster kids could be replicated in Oregon and elsewhere.
Portland businesses and public entities that are required by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality to have an air quality permit may soon owe an extra tax. The city plan would levy a surcharge on the largest emitters of air pollution to create city infrastructure to address the problem. It would also make funds available that businesses and organizations could apply for to help them reduce their emissions. The public comment period on this tax to reduce air pollution proposal closes November 19. We hear more details from Portland City Commissioner Carmen Rubio, who heads the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, and Kyle Deisner, a BPS policy analyst.
Oregon fishermen have had a history of harvesting dungeness crab, shrimp and groundfish along the coast. But, in more recent years, they’re after something new in their nets: squid. Researchers have found that warming waters — from events like marine heatwaves — have played a large role in the increasing numbers of market squid along the West Coast. We’ll hear from Mary Hunsicker, a research ecologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Josh Whaley, a commercial fisherman of the F/V Miss Emily
Oregon congressman Earl Blumenauer joins us from Scotland as the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference continues this week. As chairman of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade, Blumenauer says diplomacy and trade could play a role in fighting climate change.
The Medford City Council approved changes to its existing rules for people who are experiencing homelessness and camping in their vehicles inside city limits. Changes at the state level prompted Medford to expand its policy of allowing vehicle camping in church parking lots to allowing nonprofit organizations and businesses to give car campers space as well. The ordinance requires these institutions to provide sanitation services and navigate potential conflicts with neighbors. So far, no churches or private entities have stepped forward to offer space for car campers. We talk with Medford City Attorney Eric Mitton and Melanie Doshier, support services director for ACCESS, about the new ordinance and how it fits in with the city’s overall approach to homelessness.
Oregon’s Wildfire Programs Advisory Council held its first meeting on Nov. 5. Some of the work the council will be focusing on will be creating fire-adapted communities and increasing the resiliency of Oregon’s landscapes. The council was created through legislation aimed at addressing wildfires. Mark Bennett is the chair of the council. Doug Grafe is the wildfire programs director under the Governor’s Office. They join us with details on the council and the work that lies ahead as Oregon manages its wildfires.
Pres. Biden’s $2.75 trillion federal infrastructure and social spending plan will pour money into Oregon projects. OPB reporter Sam Stites tells us what’s planned.
The town of Pilot Rock has less than 2,000 people, but will soon have two dollar stores- both a Family Dollar and a Dollar General. Over a half dozen other dollar stores have opened across small towns in Umatilla and Morrow counties. We’ll talk to reporter Antonio Sierra, who recently wrote about the impact of the expansion of dollar stores in Eastern Oregon.
“Demand utopia!” That’s the tagline for a new digital magazine based in Eugene, Oregon. Solarpunk Magazine will focus on optimistic ideas about the future. What if humans came together to solve the climate crisis? What if people from marginalized groups all felt safe in society? The solarpunk genre imagines creative answers to these questions. Solarpunk Magazine will feature fiction, poetry, essays and interviews that fit into this relatively new genre. The editorial team raised $27,306 on Kickstarter and is currently reviewing submissions for its first issue, due out in January. We hear from co-editors-in-chief Justine Norton-Kertson and Briana Castagnozzi about their plans for the magazine and what solarpunk means to them.
Vaccination rates are rising in Oregon and that’s good news for K-12 students, back in classrooms. But even with vaccines and masks, it’s impossible to totally prevent infections. Students who test positive for COVID-19 or are exposed to the virus have to quarantine at home. Districts all over the state are trying to provide education to those who have to stay out of classroom until they’re well or test negative. We hear more about what it looks like on the ground from Lauren Struzik, a 7th grade teacher at Ron Russell Middle School and Brian Sica, curriculum director for the Beaverton School District.
Cannon Beach residents voted on a prepared food tax this week. If the measure passes, money from the tax would help pay to rebuild Cannon Beach’s City Hall, which is currently housed in a building that is falling apart. But, the new city hall would be built in a tsunami zone. Cannon Beach City Councilor Nancy McCarthy shares details on the tax and plans for the new city hall.
Eighty-five percent of the arrests made by Portland Police Bureau’s Human Trafficking Unit result in only a solicitation charge. Last month, we talked to reporter Karina Brown about her investigation into how these arrests are affecting sex workers. Today, Lieutenant Franz Schoening of the Human Trafficking Unit responds.
Portland-based writer and political consultant Hanna Brooks Olsen recently penned a piece with the headline, “You, Housed Person, Are Not The Victim Of Homelessness.” Olsen examines the anti-poverty bias behind posts on the NextDoor app complaining about people experiencing homelessness, and how that sentiment influences public policy.
Oregon Historical Society’s research library reopened in October after nearly two years of renovation. The library’s collections include photographs, oral histories, diaries and other historical treasures. Shawna Gandy is the library director. She shares details about the library and its role in helping researchers and the general public connect to Oregon’s past.
Portland City Commissioner Carmen Rubio is asking her city council colleagues to set aside $50,000 for a community engagement process to decide what to do with five statues that were toppled or removed during racial justice protests last year. The arts organization Converge 45 has created Portland’s Monuments and Memorials Project and is poised to play a role in the ongoing conversation about the role of art in public spaces and what monuments should look like in 2021. PMMP recently concluded an exhibition called “Prototypes” where artists and community members came together to imagine answers to those big questions. We talk through some of the ideas and concepts with David Harrelson, cultural resources department manager for the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, visual artist Paula Wilson, and artist Jess Perlitz, who is the co-leader of PMMP and associate professor of sculpture at Lewis & Clark College.
Portland Commissioner Dan Ryan is leading an initiative to construct six city-sanctioned outdoor homeless shelters by the end of 2021. In late September, Ryan’s office announced the first three sites for what they are calling “safe rest villages.” Since then, one of the sites has been taken off the list, and there are still many unanswered questions about how the villages will work. We talk with Commissioner Ryan about that and about how this approach fits in with the rest of the city’s policies affecting people who are homeless.
In 2019, the Nurse Midwifery Birth Center in Springfield closed. Now, people giving birth in Lane County have a new option. Our Community Birth Center hosted its grand opening in October. We hear how midwives and birth centers can help improve birth outcomes from AlexAnn Westlake, the executive director of the center and a certified nurse midwife.
Oregonians under the age of 12 may be able to get vaccinated as soon as next week. Yesterday the CDC recommended children 5-11 get the Pfizer-BioNTech pediatric vaccine for COVID-19. Oregon Health Authority director Patrick Allen joins us to talk about where and when young Oregonians will be able to get vaccinated. We also hear from pediatrician Ryan Hassan about the concerns parents and kids might have about vaccines.
The Medford City Council approved changes to its existing rules for people who are experiencing homelessness and camping in their vehicles inside city limits. Changes at the state level prompted Medford to expand its policy of allowing vehicle camping in church parking lots to allowing nonprofit organizations and businesses to give car campers space as well. The ordinance requires these institutions to provide sanitation services and navigate potential conflicts with neighbors. So far, no churches or private entities have stepped forward to offer space for car campers. We talk with Medford City Attorney Eric Mitton and Melanie Doshier, support services director for ACCESS, about the new ordinance and how it fits in with the city’s overall approach to homelessness.
Portland Commissioner Dan Ryan is leading an initiative to construct six city-sanctioned outdoor homeless shelters by the end of 2021. In late September, Ryan’s office announced the first three sites for what they are calling “safe rest villages.” Since then, one of the sites has been taken off the list, and there are still many unanswered questions about how the villages will work. We talk with Commissioner Ryan about that and about how this approach fits in with the rest of the city’s policies affecting people who are homeless.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler has said he’s in favor of the Portland Street Response program expanding beyond its trial boundaries in the Lents neighborhood. The program dispatches a firefighter paramedic, a licensed mental health crisis therapist and two community health workers to respond to calls about people experiencing homelessness or mental health crises. Portland State University’s Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative recently evaluated the first six months of the program, and recommended it be expanded citywide. Program manager Robyn Burek and medic Tremaine Clayton join us to talk about how the program has been going, and what the future might hold.
IdeAL PDX, a Latin American artist collective, collaborated with businesses in Portland's Central Eastside to install Día de los Muertos altars. Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is a Mexican tradition that is now celebrated globally. The holiday honors and celebrates loved ones who have died. We hear more about the altars from Jessica Lagunas, the creative director of IdeAL PDX and a lead artist who worked on the altars.
The Oregon Council for Behavioral Health represents providers of treatment for mental health and substance use disorders all over the state. Industry leaders say the availability of services before the pandemic was already becoming critically low, and now the system is on the brink of collapse. Services for youth and treatment for substance use disorders are the most tenuous, says Heather Jefferis, executive director of the OCBH. She joins us to provide more details and outline the immediate help from the state she says is critically needed.
Journalist and author Sam Quinones has written a lot about the drug trade. His newest book, “The Least of Us,” focuses on fentanyl and meth. In a new article in the magazine, Atlantic, Quinones argues that the way meth is being made currently has changed the chemical structure of the drug and made it much more dangerous to users’ mental health. Quinones explains what he learned.
The winners of this year’s monster movie contest are being announced just in time for Halloween. The contest is part of the Future Filmmakers program run by Portland Film Festival. Students from Oregon and SW Washington submitted monster-themed films from one to seven minutes long. Ima Kennerly and Oscar Goranson are sophomores at Catlin Gabel High School in Portland, who collaborated on the film “Shadow” and were finalists in the High School films category. They join us as well as Rebecca Brown, senior director of community impact for Comcast, which sponsors the film festival and contest.
The Oregon Trail game was created in 1971 to help students learn American history. The game has been played by kids all over the United States. Now it's been reimagined in a project led by more than 30 indigenous people. We listen back to a conversation from April, 2020 with Nichlas Emmons, the co-creative director of the game, and Kris Knigge, a contributing writer.
The Portland Trail Blazers have lost two of their first four games this season. Some fans are still worried that star Damian Lillard might be looking to leave the City of Roses. Others remain concerned about the organization’s treatment of a 1997 assault lawsuit against new coach Chauncey Billups. Blazer's Edge writer Dia Miller joins us to talk about what the upcoming Blazers season could look like. What are you hoping for from the team this season?
Amy Watson is a preschool teacher who first experienced COVID-19 symptoms in March of 2020, and she’s still dealing with what has come to be known as long COVID. She started a support group for others with the condition and found that people’s symptoms run the gamut and can include neurological problems, extreme fatigue, an elevated heart rate and digestive issues. Scott McClellan is a game designer who also came down with COVID-19 early in the pandemic. He considers himself 95% recovered but still has some of the symptoms. We hear from McClellan and Watson about their experiences as COVID long haulers.
Oregon’s hotline for people to report hate crimes and bias incidents began in January 2020. Calls quickly overwhelmed its staff of two. With the rise of these reports in Oregon, state lawmakers have boosted the funding by $2 million, enabling the program to hire more people to answer calls and provide resources to help guide people who want to proceed with charges. We hear more from Fay Stetz-Waters about these changes and how they will affect the state’s ability to identify and prosecute hate and bias crimes. The hotline number is 1-844-924-BIAS (2427).
Oregon’s Death with Dignity law allows Oregon residents diagnosed with a terminal illness that will lead to death within six months to access medical aid in dying. The advocacy group Compassion & Choices says that residency requirement is unconstitutional. The group filed a lawsuit Thursday on behalf of Nick Gideonse, a physician who specializes in end-of-life care. Gideonse says he wants to be able to work with patients in neighboring states and points out that no other medical treatment requires a patient to be a resident of a particular state. We hear from Gideonse about the lawsuit and his experience with medical aid in dying.
Six former members of the women's track and field team at the University of Oregon say the program devalued them as individuals and put them at risk for eating disorders. They also say they’re afraid to come forward publicly because of the power the UO wields at the national level. Ken Goe reported the story for the Oregonian and joins us to talk about what he discovered.
Portland Center Stage is bringing back live performances with "Frida ... A Self Portrait." The one-woman show features writer and performer Vanessa Severo as the acclaimed Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. She draws parallels between Kahlo’s story and her own life as an artist and as a person with a disability. We hear from Severo about the show, and how it has evolved since she first started working on it in 2014.
Monique “Moon” Kelley grew up skateboarding on the Oregon Coast and never once imagined she’d be an athlete. But after a car accident left her paralyzed from the waist down, she picked up adaptive surfing with the help of instructor Gabe Smith. They both join us with details on how adaptive surfing works and Kelley’s goal to go to the paralympics.
With the weather changing, forest officials across Oregon are igniting prescribed burns. How can these controlled fires reduce fuels as fire season lasts longer? What should people keep in mind while dealing with smoke exposure for extended periods of time? We hear more from John Bailey, an Oregon State University professor who specializes in prescribed burns.
Tide gates control water movement in rivers, which allows for more dry land and agriculture. But, these gates also obstruct the natural flow of water. Guillermo Giannico is an associate professor at Oregon State University and joins us with details on how these gates affect the wildlife around them.
Laurie Danzuka is the 2021 Oregon school board member of the year. She won her fourth term on the Jefferson County School District board in May. She was nominated for the statewide honor in part because of her work bringing diverse communities together across the large district, which includes the Warm Springs reservation. In a year when school boards have been in the news like never before, Danzuka joins us to talk about her work and the challenges ahead.
Ryan Anderson has been carving wooden sculptures since he was 17. While chisels and knives would traditionally aid in his art, he reaches for chainsaws instead. He’s carved bears, eagles and otters out of wood. In his most recent televised competition, he has to tackle a different medium: pumpkins. Anderson recently won first place on Food Network’s "Outrageous Pumpkins" and joins us with details on what it’s like taking his skill with power tools to pumpkins.
Eighty-five percent of the arrests made by Portland Police Bureau’s Human Trafficking Unit result in only a solicitation charge. That’s according to a new investigation by reporter Karina Brown in an article published by Willamette Week. Brown wrote about how these arrests may be impacting the safety of sex workers, rather than actually reducing human trafficking.
Some organizations situated in Portland’s Old Town district say the numbers of unsheltered people in the neighborhood is dire. And help for people who experience a mental health crisis is scarce. We hear from Scott Kerman, the executive director of Blanchet House and Jennifer Coon, a peer support specialist about what they’re seeing.
Dave Chappelle’s latest Netflix special has caused controversy leading to a protest and walkout by the company's employees. Critics of Chappelle say his special is transphobic. Portland-based comedian Dahlia Belle wrote a letter to Chappelle in The Guardian. She joins us along with fellow comedians Mona Jones and Julia Corral to talk about how comedy has evolved through the years and who should be making jokes about what.
Thousands of places across the country are formally designated “opportunity zones.” The idea is to revitalize areas that need it by offering a tax break to wealthy investors. David Wessel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, has written a new book about opportunity zones called "Only The Rich Can Play." Portland is featured in one chapter.
The Washington State Department of Corrections announced last week that they will not use solitary confinement as punishment anymore. A recent audit by the department showed the majority of people subjected to the isolation had committed non-violent infractions. Deputy Secretary of the WA DOC, Sean Murphy, joins us to talk about the decision.
With the help from wind or local wildlife, forests have managed to migrate naturally with changing temperatures, gradually moving to more hospitable areas. However, as climate change continues, forests are unable to adapt quickly enough. Brad St.Clair is a Research Geneticist with the U.S. Forest Service looking into what's known as assisted migration. He joins us with details on his work in Medford and the future of forests.
Anna Zamarripa is trying to help dozens of people with their applications for rental assistance. She’s the accounts receivable administrator for Capital Property Management in Portland. She’s the person that tenants in 140 different properties call when they realize they can’t pay their rent. She says the rental assistance process is just as obtuse from her perspective as it is for the renters she’s working with. We hear from Zamarripa about how her job has changed during the pandemic.
There have been 73 homicides in Portland in 2021, a record number before the year is even over. Three quarters of those deaths were caused by people wielding guns. Last month, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, who also serves as the city’s police commissioner, held a press conference on gun violence prevention. Some of his policy proposals include rehiring recently retired officers to fill vacancies at the Portland Police Bureau, while also beefing up recruitment efforts for new officers. We hear about all of this, and more, in a conversation with Wheeler.
‘Any Oregon Sunday’ is a 15-minute documentary that provides a snapshot of female motorcycle riders in Oregon. It explores Oregon’s outdoors and highlights the state’s natural splendor. Kanani Koster is the film’s director and Tiffany Lindquist is a producer and writer for the film. ‘Any Oregon Sunday’ will be screening on Thursday at The Clinton Street Theater in Portland. The film is also part of the Eastern Oregon Film Festival in La Grande and will be available to watch online.
The National Parks Service could be getting its first Native American director. Charles “Chuck” Sams III is an enrolled member of the Cayuse and Walla Walla tribes and the former director of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. President Joe Biden nominated Sams to be director of the National Park Service in August and a Senate committee met Tuesday to consider his nomination. Journalist Brian Oaster asked three tribal leaders what they want to see from Sams if he’s confirmed. We hear from Oaster about their answers and about some of the harmful history the NPS has with Native tribes.
The deadline for many Oregon workers to get vaccinated was this Monday. At the Department of Corrections, roughly 67% of employees got vaccinated. Another 20% got a religious exemption. At Portland Public Schools, 90% of employees got vaccinated and 80 staff members were let go. Patrick Allen, Director of the Oregon Health Authority, tells us about the effects of the mandate, and what vaccination rates look like around the state.
We listen back to an interview with Sarah Hennies, the composer of a piece called "Contralto." It’s part music, part documentary, and it features the voices of transgender women.
When four cousins head on a journey to Mexico to visit their ill grandfather and other family, they learn more about their heritage and find a new appreciation for their family’s sacrifices. The cousins documented their experience in a new short film called “First Time Home”. We hear more from Esmirna Librado and Noemi Librado-Sanchez, two of the film’s co-directors. “First Time Home” is part of the Portland Film Festival and is available to watch online.
Washington State Patrol announced departure of 127 personnel as result of the state’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, including 67 troopers, 6 sergeants and 1 captain. Olympia reporter Austin Jenkins tells us how the vaccine mandate deadline has affected Washington State workers.
Last week, Portland musician Ian Mouser was struck and killed by the driver of a pickup truck while bicycling in Arizona. He was pursuing his dream of cycling across the United States. Mouser was the founder of My Voice Music, which provides music lessons and recording opportunities to kids who would otherwise have none. We spoke to Mouser in January of 2020, after My Voice Music had been awarded a half million dollar Lewis prize to expand his work. He was joined by Rayawnie Paris, an emerging hip hop artist who walked into a My Voice Music program at 17, and at 21 was one of the program’s teachers.
The Modoc ancestral run has been taking descendants of Modac people to native lands of historical and spiritual importance for the past 11 years. This year, for the first time in 150 years, the Modoc people slept on the top of the Peninsula, the first piece of land the Modoc creator made when constructing the world according to the people’s history. Monica Yellowowl is the founder and run leader of the Ancestral Run and joins us to share details on how the run was so different this year than any year before.
Monday, October 18, is the deadline for many workers in the state to be vaccinated or risk losing their jobs. We’ll talk to Beth Graser, communications officer at the Hillsboro School District, Todd Fuller, Vale city manager, Mike Lepin, Chief of the Jefferson County EMS district, and Charlie Tveit, Chief Executive Officer of Lake Health District, about how their staffing and services will be affected by the deadline.
The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) voted to authorize a strike. If that strike happens on Monday, October 18, it would be the first in the union’s 128-year history. IATSE represents production staff on at least 3 projects filming in Oregon right now. We’ll hear from cdavid cottrill, a leader at IATSE local 488, about what the union is asking for and what a strike would mean here.
Growth in Central Oregon continues to boom. But what does that mean for the region’s public lands? The Lemon Gulch trail system is a proposal for a roughly 50-mile mountain bike trail system that would run through Ochoco National Forest.
It’s one piece of a larger plan brought forth by Ochoco Trails, a coalition of mountain bikers, equestrians and other outdoor groups. Travis Holman is a member of Ochoco Trails and the vice president of the Central Oregon Trail Alliance, a group that works on mountain bike trail stewardship. He joins us with details on the system and the importance of compromise and collaboration when working on forest projects.
When Laura Pike was preparing to receive a double mastectomy, she wondered what to expect. Scouring Google at 3 a.m. left Pike disappointed. So she created The Empowered Mastectomy, a website resource featuring people who have undergone the process. She joins us with details on the project and why it’s needed as a resource.
Drought, extreme heat and smoke from wildfires have left seed producers feeling the effects of climate change. Farmers in the state have found themselves facing unexpected evacuations, lower seed yields and entire losses of crops. We speak with Sarah Kleeger, founder of Adaptive Seeds, and Ellyn Greene, co-owner of Wayward Acres on how climate change has affected their industry.
The overwhelming impact of the delta surge almost brought down Oregon’s health care systems and raised a question the state still hasn’t answered. Who gets priority for health care when there’s not enough to go around? OPB’s Amelia Templeton tells us about the politically and ethically charged issue of what’s called “crisis standards of care.”
The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality has developed a new set of rules that would cap greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels and reduce them over time. Under the new rules, companies distributing more than a set amount of fossil fuels would have to reduce their emissions to meet a declining cap. To meet the target, they would be allowed to bank and trade emission credits that could come from switching to renewable fuels or electricity. They would also be able to pay for emission reductions in communities that are most vulnerable to climate change through an investment fund that could help cover the cost of switching to an electric vehicle or reducing home energy use. DEQ Director Richard Whitman joins us to explain the proposed Climate Protection Program.
The CDC is officially recommending the COVID-19 vaccine for people who are pregnant. In September, the CDC reported that only 31% of expecting parents were vaccinated and the percentage has only increased slightly since then. Research now shows that those giving birth who have COVID-19 are five times more likely to end up in the ICU and 15 times more likely to die while hospitalized. Emily West is an Obstetrician and Gynecologist with Kaiser Permanente Northwest and joins us to share how COVID-19 affects expecting parents and how the vaccine
can protect both those who are pregnant and their babies.
The Beaverton School District will begin weekly lab tests for COVID-19 to try to catch asymptomatic cases and prevent outbreaks. Students in K-5 and K-8 schools whose families chose to opt in to the program will receive their first test kits next week. According to BSD Executive Administrator for Student Services Danielle Hudson, about 47% of those students are enrolled in the program so far. We hear from Hudson about the challenges of weekly screen testing and why some families are opting out.
The city of Talent is working to create housing options so that people displaced by last year’s devastating wildfire can return, and children can come back to their school district. The Talent Urban Renewal Agency and the Phoenix-Talent School District worked together on an initiative that includes long-term affordable housing as well as transitional units that are opening up right now. High Country News climate justice fellow Sarah Sax joins us to talk about her reporting on the project.
Firefighters will soon get bulletproof vests. Gun violence has been surging in Multnomah County, according to county officials. But the call for vests is a request that firefighters have made for years. Isaac McLennan is the vice president of the Portland Fire Fighters' Association. He joins us with details.
During the pandemic the need for substitutes declined as many subs found other forms of work to fill in their income. Now an industry whose purpose is to fill in for teachers is part of the growing shortage of workers in Oregon. The state has now cut back on a bachelor-level education requirement to increase the number of available educators. Leslie Polson is the President of the Oregon Substitute Teachers Association and joins us to share what this new requirement means for the industry.
Even before COVID-19, the nursing shortage was critical. But nursing unions say the pandemic has created a staffing crisis. Nurses at Kaiser-Permanente have authorized their union to call a strike if staffing and patient care aren't addressed. We hear more from Joshua Holt, an ICU nurse and chair of the bargaining team for the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals. Kaiser Permanente was unable to make a guest available, but in a statement called the work of health care providers “nothing short of inspiring,” and expressed hope that a a contract agreement could be reached.
According to lawmakers and advocates, many Oregonians are at risk for eviction due to the backlog of rental assistance applications. Amber Cook is one of them. She’s a licensed income tax preparer, which means her work is seasonal. She says she hasn’t been able to take advantage of expanded unemployment benefits, and getting sick with COVID-19 just before the extreme heat struck Oregon in June has set her back significantly. We hear from Amber Cook and our listeners about what renters are facing right now.
Nonprofit organizations in Oregon that help homeless youth find and keep housing will be getting millions of dollars in grant money to help them with their mission. In the Marion-Polk school district about 2,000 students are homeless, according to Mid-Willamette Valley Homeless Alliance.
Oregon State Hospital is in “disarray” with overworked employees, patient transfers against recommendations and complaints of untrained staff. This is according to Disability Rights Oregon, which performed an unsupervised walkthrough using Oregon’s Protection and Advocacy System. The group wrote a letter to Gov. Brown on what they saw and the “lack of urgency” from OSH administration. Emily Cooper is the Legal Director of DRO and joins us to share what she saw on this walkthrough.
Thousands of Japanese American young men fought valiantly in World War II, even while their families were locked up in concentration camps back home. Daniel James Brown, author of “The Boys in the Boat”, has a new book detailing that time. It’s called “Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II”.
New evidence has come to light that a massacre of indigenous people occurred on the site of a proposed lithium mine in Nevada near the Oregon border. Tribes and environmentalists have sued to stop the project, but so far a federal court has denied motions to stop it. The suit was first brought by a local rancher who said the mine would hurt cutthroat trout and damage wetlands and water tables. Tribes say they were not given an opportunity for meaningful consultation, as such projects require. We talk with Michon Eben, the cultural resource coordinator with the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
Ethelyn Tumalad is an English teacher at Clackamas High School. Last week, she was named Oregon’s 2022 Teacher of the Year. We talk to Tumalad about what this last year of teaching has been like, and what the award means for her.
Portland’s 9-1-1 operators have been falling behind. Standards for taking emergency calls are set at 90% answered within 15 seconds, Portland stands at 43%. This is partly due to staffing, the rise of crime and the amount of calls the city has been receiving, but concerns are focused on the workload operators are under. Currently, they handle both emergency and non-emergency calls leading to longer wait times. The city plans on implementing an automated system for non-emergency calls so operators can focus on more pressing emergencies in the city. Bob Cozzie, director of the Bureau of Emergency Communication for Portland, joins us for details on how this new system of automatic responses will play out.
Since the legalization of marijuana, authorities have reported an influx of illegal cannabis growing in southern Oregon. This has led to detrimental effects such as fire hazards, clear-cutting and water theft. Brandon Boice of Oregon State Police joins us to share details on what is happening in the southernmost part of the state, along with Chris Kaber of Klamath County to share what he’s seen as a sheriff.
In the 1980s and early 90s, neo-Nazi and anti-racist skinheads frequently clashed in the streets of Portland. OPB’s Conrad Wilson and investigative reporter Bryan Denson team up to tell the story of Jon Bair, who shot and killed Erik Banks in 1993. It’s one of the rare instances in this country of someone on the far left killing someone on the far right.
The Athletic broke the news last week that two professional women’s soccer players have accused former Portland Thorns coach Paul Riley of sexual harassment. Now the team's organized fan club — known as the Rose City Riveters — says the Thorns management isn’t doing enough to hold people accountable, and guard against abuse in the future. They are calling on the team’s owner to fire Gavin Wilkinson, who serves as the general manager for the Thorns and the Timbers, and they have a list of other specific demands. The Riveters and the Timbers Army are jointly calling for a boycott of team merchandise and concessions at Providence Park until the demands are met. We hear from Gabby Rosas, chair of the Rose City Riveters and president of the107IST, the nonprofit organization that supports both the Rose City Riveters and the Timbers Army.
Marine protected areas are parts of the ocean that are managed to protect habitat and species. Oregon State University researchers led the effort to create The MPA Guide, a tool to help people around the world better understand those protected areas and help safeguard the spaces. Kirsten Grorud-Colvert is a research professor at OSU and the lead author of the guide. Jenna Sullivan-Stack is a postdoctoral scholar at OSU and is a co-author. They join us with details.
Last week, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, released a Department of Homeland Security report detailing the agency’s intelligence operations targeting racial justice protesters in Portland last summer. Wyden is also the architect of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which established a legal separation between entities like Facebook and the users that create their content. Section 230 is in the spotlight again after a whistleblower testified before Congress about how Facebook harms users, particularly young people. We talk with Wyden about these issues as well as ongoing negotiations in Washington D.C. over the infrastructure bill.
Detroit, Cougar and Big Cliff dams are primarily used for flood control. But, environmental groups have argued for years that the dams affect salmon and steelhead. The dams can also be used to generate power, but produce far less power than those with more turbines. Congress has ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to examine the possibility of turning off the turbines at Detroit, Cougar and Big Cliff dams. Bill Poehler wrote about this issue for the Statesman Journal. He joins us with details.
Even before the pandemic it was hard for childcare centers to attract workers, for parents to get affordable childcare and for workers to make a living wage. The pandemic has put some providers out of business and those that remain are struggling to attract the workers they need to stay afloat. We talk with Andy Dettman, the director of the New Dream Family Center, Betsy Levitt, who just launched her own childcare business, and Zekiel Thomas, who worked for a childcare provider but is now a nanny and personal assistant.
The co-student body presidents at Ashland High School are calling on the school board to add a COVID-19 vaccination requirement for students who are eligible to get the shots. Luke Seeley and Joshua Datz started an online petition after appealing directly to the school board. They say they’re frustrated by the board’s inaction so far. Meanwhile, a staff analysis presented to the board of Portland Public Schools last week recommended a vaccine mandate for students 12 and older. The school board’s student representative, Jackson Weinberg, was the first to speak at the meeting, saying a vaccine mandate would make students safer. We hear from Weinberg and Datz.
Oregon Health and Sciences University has been on the forefront of using the genetic editing technique known as CRISPR for years. Now, they have successfully used CRISPR to edit the genes in patients with a rare eye disease. Mark Pennesi is a professor of ophthalmology at OHSU, and Carlene Knight is one of the patients who received this treatment.
The pandemic has caused some people to reassess their plans for retirement in a number of different ways, depending on their economic circumstances. Some people happily decided to retire early as their priorities shifted away from work, while others were pushed out of the workforce before they felt prepared to retire. And some people who were hoping to retire soon now feel like they have to keep working longer because their financial situation has changed. We hear from listeners and reflect on the ways the pandemic has changed retirement with Bandana Shrestha, state director for AARP Oregon.
Today we bring you selections of three interviews from last year’s Portland Book Festival. Jon Mooallem talked with John Notarianni about his book “This is Chance: The Shaking of an All-American City, A Voice That Held it Together.” Aida Salazar spoke with Jenn Chavez about her book for middle-grade readers, “Land of Cranes.” And Shayla Lawson spoke with Tiffany Camhi about her book of essays, “This is Major.”
Last winter, an anonymous artist installed a statue in Mt. Tabor park in place of one that had been taken down during racial justice protests. The statue depicted York, a Black man who accompanied Lewis and Clark on their expedition. The statue was later vandalized and removed. What does the York statue teach us about history, protest, and the value of public art? Portland State University Professor Darrell Millner and the statue’s sculptor, Todd McGrain, join us.
Seventy-nine schools across Oregon are currently reporting active COVID-19 outbreaks. Before the school year began, the Oregon Department of Education issued guidance to school districts on how to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus to allow students to continue with in-person learning. We talk to ODE director Colt Gill, and Patrick Allen, director of the Oregon Health Authority, about whether that guidance is working.
The Texas law prohibiting most abortions is giving rise to a number of other states enacting more restrictions. Mark Nichols is a professor at OHSU and a practicing physician who has been providing abortion services for 40 years. Anuj Khattar is a family practice doctor in Washington and travels out of state on a regular basis to provide abortions where access to the service is low. They join us to share their experience and tell us how policies in other states are likely to affect patients and providers in the Northwest.
How can a region scarred by fire welcome back wildlife and biodiversity? The Finn Rock Reach restoration project is an effort to rehabilitate an area of the McKenzie River that was scorched by the Holiday Farm Fire and has been affected by human interference. Joe Moll is the executive director of the McKenzie River Trust. He shares details about the project and how the restoration work can benefit the region.
Public health officials in Umatilla County say they are seeing a spike in COVID-19 cases linked to the Pendleton Round-Up. The annual rodeo was September 11-18 and compliance with the statewide mask mandate was apparently low. Umatilla County Public Health Director Joseph Fiumara said some people were symptomatic but chose to attend Round-Up anyway. In response to the surge in cases, the board of trustees for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation have declared a public health emergency. Interim CEO of the Yellowhawk Tribal Health Center Aaron Hines joins us to talk about what this means for staff and patients.
We know smoke can have detrimental effects to our body’s physical and mental health, but how is it affecting Oregon cows? Researchers in Idaho are now looking into some of the effects of wildfire smoke on cattle with some preliminary findings on milk production and health. We spoke with Amy Skibiel, a professor at University of Idaho, and Zach Rose, a dairy farmer at Rogue Creamery.
The Washington State Patrol is 100 years old this year. Demographically it doesn’t look a whole lot different than when it started. The vast majority of troopers patrolling the state’s highways are still white and male. In recent years, one stage in the hiring process has drawn particular scrutiny: the psychological evaluation. That’s because of the high number of candidates who are screened out by the patrol’s psychologist -- including some who are lost to other police departments. But now there are fresh concerns that the process appears to disproportionately reject candidates of color. Reporter Austin Jenkins worked on this investigation with Mike Reicher of The Seattle Times. He tells us more.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown signed legislation to create 90 legislative districts as well as add a sixth congressional district. The bills passed largely along party lines. Republican lawmakers say the process is “rigged” to give Democrats an advantage in elections, but showed up to allow the passage. We talk with two legislators a part of the Committees on Congressional Redistricting and State Legislative Redistricting . Rep. Shelly Boshart Davis (R-Albany), is a member of both, and Rep. Andrea Salinas (D-Lake Oswego) is the chair for both.
Doug Spencer teaches law at the University of Colorado and manages the All About Redistricting website. He joins us to share how the Oregon process compares with other states and how redistricting and gerrymandering are now deeply embedded in American politics.
The worst of this year’s wildfire season appears to be over, but it has been another tough year. The Bootleg Fire scorched 413,000 acres in Southern Oregon before it was contained and, at one point, it was the largest wildfire burning in the United States. This summer, cities in Southern and Central Oregon were socked in by wildfire smoke for weeks. Last year, Portland had the worst air quality in the world for a few days in September after the Labor Day fires. Is this the new normal? Chris Dunn is a research associate in the College of Forestry at Oregon State University. He joins us to talk about the future of wildfire.
Oregon Health & Science University’s latest forecast suggests COVID-19 hospitalizations will stay at extremely high levels until early October. Peter Graven is a lead data scientist at OHSU. He joins us with details.
The Oregon State Public Research Group has released a report on bankruptcies and medical debt within the state. Their findings show that in counties with bankruptcy filings, such as Multnomah County, 52% of them had some form of medical debt involved, while others like Linn County have up to 69%. We spoke with Francis Wong, Assistant Professor of Economics at the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich, on his research regarding the state of U.S. medical debt.
Oregonians have had yet another summer impacted by wildfires and lingering smoke. The immediate threat of fires is traumatic for those whose homes and businesses are directly in the path of a blaze. But the smoke from these fires spreads farther than the flames themselves, and has led to weeks of unhealthy, or even hazardous, air in cities around the region. David Eisenman is one of the few scientists who has studied the mental health impacts of wildfire smoke. His work also focuses on solastalgia — the specific grief people feel when a landscape we love is lost or dramatically altered. Eisenman is a professor of medicine and public health at University of California, Los Angeles and the director of the UCLA Center for Public Health and Disasters. We talk with him about his work.
Year after year, wildfires continue to blaze through the West. How can wineries and grape growers combat smoke exposure? Tom Collins is an assistant professor of viticulture and enology at Washington State University. He joins us with details on research about what tools can help reduce this growing problem.
After years of wrangling, the Oregon Transportation Commission has granted conditional approval for a plan to widen Interstate 5 through Portland's Rose Quarter corridor. The original funding was approved by the Oregon Legislature in 2017. The newest plan includes "caps" over the freeway to enable some redevelopment of the former Albina district, the historically Black neighborhood that I-5 destroyed when the highway was initially constructed. There are still a lot of unanswered questions about how all this will work, and where the money will come from. We dig into the details with Oregon Transportation Commission Chair Bob Van Brocklin and OTC Vice Chair Alando Simpson.
Scientists from the U.S. Forest Service have analyzed the soil in the area burned by the Bootleg Fire for danger of erosion. The Klamath Tribes are concerned that the rainy season will bring large amounts of sediment and nutrients from the burn area into the Upper Klamath Lake, which is already having problems with toxic algae blooms. Alex Schwartz, environmental reporter for the Klamath Falls Herald and News and Report For America, wrote about all this in a recent article.
Oregon State University is bringing together experts from across the United States to search for the oldest ice in Antarctica. The air bubbles trapped in ice from millions of years ago could tell us a lot about the earth’s last period of global warming. Ed Brook is a paleoclimatologist at OSU and the director of COLDEX, the Center for Oldest Ice Exploration.
The opiate fentanyl is 50-100 times more powerful than methadone, heroin and other narcotics. And it’s behind recent spikes in fatal and nonfatal overdoses in Oregon. Some teens are using social media like Facebook messenger and Snapchat to connect with dealers and buy the drug. John McIlveen is the State Opioid Treatment Authority at the Oregon Health Authority. He joins us to tell us more about the rise in fentanyl use and some of the strategies to prevent fatal overdoses.
Growth in Deschutes County continues to outpace the rest of the state. But as places like Bend continue to boom, how can the county grow responsibly? We hear details from Ben Gordon, the executive director of Central Oregon LandWatch, and Deschutes County Commissioner Phil Chang.
The National Scientific Council on Adolescence released a report on how anti-black racism affects adolescents and gives suggestions on ways to support them. Three University of Oregon professors were a part of the council. Jennifer Pfeifer is a professor of Psychology at UO and is the co-director. We speak with Pfeifer and co-director Joanne Lee Williams, a professor at Rutgers University, about their work.
Malheur county commissioners have passed an emergency declaration for the county in response to Gov. Kate Brown’s vaccination mandate for state workers, healthcare workers, and K-12 employees. The chair of the commission, Judge Dan Joyce, says Malheur is not the only one pleading with the governor to provide vaccine mandate exemptions. Joyce says it’s likely that the region will not have any EMTs after Oct. 18, the deadline for those workers to be vaccinated. We talk with him about the emergency situation and his perspective on how the county should approach COVID-19 outbreaks.
Many remember the record-breaking heatwave that Oregon had over the summer. Now the state will be seeing another, but this time in the water. A marine heatwave is projected to hit the state within the next month, causing water on the west coast to have higher temperatures than normal. Dr. Andrew Leising is a research oceanographer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and joins us to tell us what these heat waves are and how they might affect us.
The State of Oregon and many private employers are requiring workers to get the COVID-19 vaccine. But there are exceptions. According to the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, “employers with mandatory COVID-19 vaccine policies will need to consider requests for exceptions for individuals with either (1) sincerely held religious convictions, or (2) a disability that prevents them from receiving a COVID-19 vaccination.” But how do those religious exemptions work exactly? And how can an employer determine if someone’s convictions are “sincerely held”? We dig into the details with Lewis and Clark Law professor Jim Oleske.
Pfizer just announced that a small dose of its COVID-19 vaccine prompted a strong immune response in kids ages five to 11. Oregon Health Authority Director Patrick Allen tells us what a vaccine rollout would look like for youth in this state if it gains approval. We also ask about booster shots for Oregonians over 65.
Rallies this weekend in Olympia, Salem, and Washington D.C. drew small crowds. The events were organized in support of the January 6th rioters. Sergio Olmos was at the event in D.C.
With COVID-19 cases continuing to overwhelm hospitals, an Oregon nonprofit is helping counties up and down the West coast do an essential job better: contact tracing. The Oregon Public Health Institute launched its Tracing Health program this summer, training hundreds of new contact tracers and helping people exposed to the coronavirus get the financial help they need to be able to quarantine. Emily Henke is the executive director of the organization. She joins us to tell us more about this program and how it fits into OPHI’s overall focus on health equity.
According to Josh Lehner, inflation is “one of the most interesting economic developments to watch” in both the short and long term. Lehner is an economist with the state of Oregon, and he says that despite job losses and supply chain problems in many sectors, incomes are up and so is productivity. He’s hopeful that increased costs for goods and services will correct themselves over time, and it won’t be necessary for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates, which could trigger a recession. We hear from Lehner about the data he’s watching and what it means for Oregonians.
From 2012 to 2019, in order to graduate with an Oregon diploma, students had to show proficiency in nine “Essential Skills” including reading, writing, math, critical thinking, technology usage, and civic and community engagement. Students showed that proficiency either by passing state standardized tests or submitting work samples. This summer, the Oregon legislature passed Senate Bill 744, which suspends the Essential Skills requirement for the classes of 2022, 2023 and 2024 to graduate, and orders a review of state graduation requirements. OPB education reporter Elizabeth Miller explains.
Nationwide and across Oregon, schools are having trouble finding bus drivers. This means changing routes, heavy workloads and frustrated parents. We hear from Craig Beaver, the administrator for transportation for the Beaverton School District, about what his district is facing and what families should keep in mind during an exceptionally hectic start to the school year.
We'll hear the first episode of "Dying For A Fight," the new podcast from Somethin’ Else, in partnership with OPB and Sony Music Entertainment. Hosted by investigative journalist Sergio Olmos, the new series examines the unsolved homicide of a young anti-fascist in Portland.
Sometimes a flower or a bird or an overheard snippet of conversation is enough to bring joy. Perhaps especially in a year like this one, focusing on the small things is important. That’s something poet Ross Gay spent a long time doing for his latest collection of essays, “The Book of Delights.” Gay’s definition of delight is expansive and palpable, and his essays range from the smallest of natural wonders to the largest of societal problems. This year, Multnomah County Library is encouraging everybody to read “The Book of Delights.” Ross Gay joins us to talk about his book.
Umatilla County currently has the highest number of COVID-19 cases per capita in Oregon. And this week, the Pendleton Round-Up is bringing an influx of people. The rodeo and surrounding events are requiring people to wear masks, but anecdotal evidence suggests that compliance is low and enforcement minimal. We hear from Umatilla County Public Health Director Joseph Fiumara about hospital capacity, case numbers and the outlook for the next few weeks.
Last night, the Newberg school board held a chaotic meeting that ended without addressing its ban on political symbols in classrooms. The ban, which was approved in August, covers clothing and symbols with political affiliation of any kind, including Black Lives Matter and pride flags, but makes an exception for the American and Oregon state flags. Ryan Clarke has been covering this story for the Newberg Graphic and attended the meeting last night.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has decided to list a bumble bee found only in Northern California and Southern Oregon as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. Franklin’s bumble bee hasn’t been seen since 2006. We hear more from Rich Hatfield, a senior conservation biologist and bumble bee program lead with The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation.
Portland OB/GYN Jennifer Lincoln has been trying to combat misinformation about sexual health on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. Her videos on topics such as menstruation, birth control and the many questionable products marketed towards people with vaginas have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times. Lincoln joins us to tell us about her work on social media and her new book, "Let's Talk About Down There."
The Oregon commercial salmon fishing seasons of 2016 and 2017 were declared a disaster by the federal government. Now, the Oregon Salmon Commission and a group of coastal legislators are asking Governor Brown to start the disaster declaration process for 2018, 2019, and 2020 as well. We talk to Oregon State Rep. David Gomberg (D, Central Coast) and Mark Newell, owner of Newell Seafoods in Newport, about how bad the last few years have been for salmon fishing off the coast.
Students at community colleges are getting some relief for education costs incurred during the pandemic, thanks to money from federal relief packages. At Clatsop Community College, students’ financial accounts can include tuition, books and fees. The overall amounts range from a handful of dollars to $7,000, with an average of about $600. Jerad Sorber is the Vice President of Student Success, and he joins us to tell us more about the program and the severe financial distress some students face as the pandemic continues.
Organizations that take in-kind donations are often in the awkward position of declining items that actually belong in the trash. Thrift stores and community centers want gently used items that they can feel good about passing along to new owners. And while some donors do their homework to find out what these organizations actually need, many are mainly focused about getting rid of stuff they’d rather not throw away. This means volunteers have to spend a lot of time sorting through donations and nonprofits have to spend money getting rid of large items they can’t use. We hear more about how to donate used goods responsibly from Community Warehouse program manager Joe Glode, Marie Ellsworth, in-kind donations coordinator for Rose Haven and Carrie Hoops, executive director of William Temple House.
While ICU beds are full and healthcare workers are overworked, they’re not the only ones dealing with an influx of patients. Throughout the state, veterinary hospitals and clinics are facing large amounts of new patients, understaffing and burnout. Beyond this, Oregonians seeking care for their pets are seeing longer wait times and being referred to locations other than their neighborhood vet. We speak with Dr. Heidi Houchem, president of the Oregon Veterinary Medical Association and emergency veterinarian at VCA Northwest, as well as Ron Morgan, CEO of DoveLewis Emergency Animal Hospital.
Before the pandemic, Astoria was welcoming thousands of tourists on cruises who would spend the day in town when their ship docked. The number of cruise ships stopping in Astoria was at an all time high when the pandemic shut down cruise business altogether. Will Isom, executive director at the Port, says they saw no passenger cruises in 2020 or 2021. We talk with Isom about how the region has weathered this significant loss in tourism and what he expects to see this fall.
From epic hold times at the Oregon Employment Department to the rocky rollout of rental assistance, government agencies have struggled to keep up with the demand for public assistance. A big part of that is the outdated and clunky technology these agencies are using and Oregon is certainly not alone. Remember Healthcare.gov? So, why is software such a struggle for the public sector? We get some insights from Mark Lerner, senior manager for federal technology strategy and programs at Partnership for Public Service.
Dr. Ishmael Togamae [TOE-gah-my] spends a lot longer with some of his patients than most primary care doctors. He runs the weekly refugee clinic at the Mid County Health Center. Lately, that has meant long conversations with patients through a phone translation service. It also means seeing patients who have been through a great deal before they were able to make it to the U.S. Dr. Togamae joins us to talk about how he and his colleagues are preparing for an influx of refugees from Afghanistan.
As the 9/11 terrorist attacks unfolded, Portland Fire and Rescue Lt. Neil Martin and his fellow firefighters saw a familiar face on TV. They had befriended New York City firefighter William "Billy" Quick years earlier when Quick came to Oregon to climb Mt. Hood. Quick had been close to the Twin Towers when they collapsed and had survived. Martin and three other firefighters swiftly made a plan and flew to New York City to help in whatever way they could. Martin says he expected to be attending funerals or helping pick kids up from school, but since the New York City Fire Department had lost so many people in the terrorist attacks, the Portland firefighters were deployed to Ground Zero to dig through the rubble. Martin shares his story ahead of a ceremony in Portland marking the 20th anniversary of 9/11.
When we think of beavers many of us think of the dams they build, but along the Oregon coast, some just aren’t doing that. Little research has been done to explain why, but it is a part of a larger story of relocation and reintroduction of Oregon’s state animal. Beavers have a long history within the United States, and over the years, the animals have been extensively relocated. They've been moved by bus, train and even parachuted out of planes from Wyoming to New York. Oregon State University’s Dr. Clint Epps and Vanessa Petro wanted to know what genetic effect all that relocation has had on these large rodents. They join us to share the results from their latest study on coastal beavers.
The new People for Portland nonprofit advocacy group was co-founded by two consultants usually on opposite sides of political causes. Dan Levy and Kevin Looper are calling for “bold action” from city government to house people living outside, clean up city streets and fund public safety, including non-police response to some emergencies. They say these objectives are not political but practical. Levy and Looper join us to give us more details about these goals and how they want to accomplish them.
At least two school superintendents in Oregon have been fired by their school boards recently for work they thought was essential to their jobs. Running a school district has become even more complicated with COVID safety protocols, remote school and the political divisions in this country. Craig Hawkins, Executive Director of the Coalition of Oregon School Administrators, tells us what he’s been hearing from superintendents around the state.
The Almeda Fire roared through Phoenix and Talent last September. Now, students are beginning a new school year. We hear from Brent Barry, the superintendent of Phoenix-Talent Schools, about what he expects as classes begin.
It’s been one year since wildfires burned through Detroit, Oregon, leaving many residents without homes. State lawmakers have aided the town and those affected by passing bills focused on easing requirements for building permits and funding relief packages for residents and programs to prevent future fires. We speak with State Representative Brian Clem on what these policies do and how they’re helping Oregonians affected.
Oregon has a $220 million plan to prevent the kind of destructive wildfires that burned thousands of homes and killed nine people last year. The plan covers everything from removing fuel from forests and de-energizing power lines to changing how we build and maintain our homes and communities. OPB’s Cassandra Profita has been reporting on the aftermath of last year’s big fires.
The founder of the first Black law firm in Oregon will now be working for the prosecution. Defense lawyer Ernie Warren will be running the Justice Integrity Unit for the Multnomah County District Attorney’s office. He’ll be in charge of reviewing old cases with an eye towards wrongful convictions or opportunities to reduce prison time. Warren joins us to talk about his new job.
Two Republican state lawmakers from Eastern Oregon are pushing Oregon Gov. Kate Brown to allow broad exemptions for health care workers, teachers and other state employees who will soon have to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a documented exemption to keep their jobs. The lawmakers say requiring vaccines will not lead to more shots in arms and will only fuel distrust from rural Oregonians who are already skeptical of government mandates. Meanwhile, a doctor in Harney County is hesitant to recommend the vaccine to patients, instead encouraging them to “read both sides and make a decision.” OPB’s Central Oregon Bureau Chief Emily Cureton spoke to the lawmakers and the Harney County doctor. We get details from her.
We listen back to a conversation recorded before the 2016 election with a room full of teenagers at the CENTER in N Portland about the American Dream.
We listen back to a conversation with students and teachers in the Portland area about how race and racial identity is playing out in high schools and in class discussions.
With the U.S. military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan complete, officials are urging veterans to seek help if they’re being retraumatized by the news and images coming out of the country. We hear from Kelly Fitzpatrick, the director of the Oregon Department of Veterans’ Affairs and Jerry Glesmann, an Army National Guard veteran who served in Afghanistan.
The Newberg school board has tabled the motion to rescind its August ban of Pride and Black Lives Matter flags on its campuses. Newly elected conservative board members set about in July to reverse inclusive and anti-racist policies. But the extreme action drew national media attention, threats of lawsuits and community backlash. School board members came to a 4-3 vote to table on the September 1 meeting as they await official language on the ban from the district’s policy committee. The four conservative members still face possible repercussions for taking actions in violation of open meeting laws, including hiring a “supplemental attorney” in connection with the policy. We get reaction to the board’s actions from three students as they prepare to start school next week. Ruth Hyland is a senior at Catalyst alternative high school and a member of the Gender and Sexuality Alliance. Newberg High School junior Alexus Small helped found the Black Student Union last year, and freshman Katia Pender is a member of said group.
As Oregon students across the state are beginning classes, many are returning to campuses with new rules and regulations for COVID-19. We talk with students, parents and teachers about their concerns for the upcoming school year. Tania Neubauer is a parent in Portland public schools. Jordan Gerdes is a sixth grade teacher in Jefferson County. And Marley Rose Zimtbaum is a junior at Gladstone High School. Also, on the first day of classes for Portland Public Schools, we hear from Deputy Superintendent Shawn Bird about the protocols in place to protect kids in the classroom from COVID-19, and the options available for online instruction
Penned by the leader of indie rock project Japanese Breakfast, “Crying in H Mart” grapples with identity and grief. When Michelle Zauner learned her mother was diagnosed with cancer, she stopped pursuing her music career in Philadelphia and headed home to Eugene to take care of her family. After Zauner loses her Korean mother, she worries she’ll lose that connection to her identity altogether. In her memoir, Zauner details her journey of caring for someone with cancer to creating familiar Korean dishes as a way to honor her heritage.
As students gear up for a school year unlike any other, some Portland high schoolers are also getting ready to take on the role of teacher. The student-led organization Mission: Citizen helps immigrants prepare to become naturalized U.S. citizens with a 10-week course. The classes are designed to help them pass the citizenship exam and prepare them to be active participants in democracy. We hear from Roosevelt High School senior Nina Gutierrez-Desrosiers and Lincoln High School senior Kyler Wang, who serve as co-executive directors of Mission: Citizen.
The Oregon State Fair opened on Friday, the same day the statewide outdoor mask mandate took effect. While the fair is requiring vendors and security staff to mask up, it’s unclear exactly how the mandate is being enforced for the general public. Marion County, where the state fair takes place, reported 528 new COVID cases over the weekend. We hear from Marion County Commissioner and Chair of the Oregon State Fair Council Board Kevin Cameron.
The practice of prospective homebuyers writing a letter to the owners of the house they’d like to buy is a longstanding one. And in a hot real estate market it can be the deciding factor when a seller has multiple offers. But Oregon State Rep. Mark Meek (D, Clackamas County), who is also a real estate agent, began to reconsider the practice as he became more involved in work to combat housing discrimination. The details in those letters often contain information including race, religion, sexual orientation and other personal information that could contribute to a buyer facing discrimination. The law prohibits a seller’s agent from accepting such letters. Mark Meek joins us to share more about his 25 years as a real estate agent and why he championed the bill.
Firefighters face intense conditions, but women in the industry not only face fire dangers, they are also at risk for job-related reproductive complications. Little research is available on the subject. Amy Hanifan is Operations Chief at the McMinnville Fire Department and President of Women in Fire. Stephanie “Steph” Adams is a Lieutenant at the Portland Fire Department. They join us to share their experiences in the industry and efforts to make departments inclusive.
The Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems is requesting more resources and changes to regulations it says are critical to be able to take care of those with COVID-19 and other patients. CEO Becky Hultberg says the recent influx of 500 nurses and staff from other states helps, but Oregon is still desperately short of staff and resources. She says it will take a collective will and collective sacrifices to meet this moment. We talk with Hultberg about what she sees as the way forward.
The Hillsboro School District and Portland Community College have teamed up to offer a training program for high schoolers. The Oregon Aerospace Careers for Everyone Program offers students a pathway to aviation careers. The program aims to diversify the aviation industry. Sheri Fisher is a high school teacher for the program and Ivette Alonso Garcia is a student enrolled in the program. They join us with details.
Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives have a thin majority, which means they need to keep their party together to pass legislation. Kurt Schrader (D-OR) is a moderate Democrat. Schrader, along with a handful of other moderates in his party, successfully lobbied House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to decouple the bipartisan infrastructure bill and Biden’s $3.5 trillion spending bill. Moderates also got a commitment from Pelosi to hold a vote on the infrastructure bill by September 27. Kurt Schrader joins us to talk more about what’s in these bills and the behind-the-scenes jockeying going on to move legislation forward.
At 15, Josh Pierson has more driving experience than many adults. He first sat in a racing kart at age two and went on to win numerous kart championships. United Autosports recently announced he will join their team for the 2022 Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile World Endurance Championship, which includes the Le Mans 24-hour race. He’ll be 16 by then, but he’s still expected to be the youngest driver in that race. We hear from Pierson fresh from his trip to Le Mans for this year’s race, where he attended as a guest of United Autosports.
While countless suffered through the Pacific Northwest heat waves this summer, some of Oregon’s most vulnerable communities faced the harshest conditions. In the Pacific Northwest, those at risk were outdoor workers, the elderly and people experiencing homelessness. JournalistJeff Goodell chronicles the life and death of Sebastian Perez, an immigrant farm worker in Oregon who died during the record-breaking heat at the end of June. Goodell joins us to give details on his Rolling Stones story and how the state could do a better job of protecting workers.
In the spring of 1941, Woody Guthrie came to Portland for a one-month job. He was hired by the Bonneville Power Administration to write songs extolling the virtues of dams, irrigated land and federally subsidized hydropower. He ended up giving the government 26 songs in 30 days. Greg Vandy’s 2016 book about the project is titled “26 Songs in 30 Days: Woody Guthrie’s Columbia River Songs and the Planned Promised Land in the Pacific Northwest.”
This summer more than 200 people in the Klamath Basin have lost running water in their homes as their wells dried up. The water shortage there has long affected farmers, tribes and endangered species, but the area has not seen this kind of widespread drinking water shortage. We talk with Jefferson Public Radio reporter April Ehrlich about what she’s heard from residents she’s talked to and what recourses are available for them.
With operations in Portland, Zenith Energy has been transporting crude oil from North Dakota and Canada by rail and loading it onto ships for distribution since 2017. The company has been operating on an old land-use permit that was granted before Zenith began its operations. The company needs an air permit from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality but it can’t do that without first getting the land-use permit from the city of Portland. Environmental groups have been lobbying city hall for months to deny the permit, based in part on the city’s own commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and use of fossil fuels. Zenith is expected to sue the city if it’s denied the permit. We talk with Susan Smith about this project, the permits Zenith needs to continue and what legal issues the city has been weighing.
Federal health officials recently announced that COVID-19 booster shots will be available to adults in the U.S. in September. Corey Casper is the CEO of the Infectious Disease Research Institute and a professor of medicine and global health at the University of Washington. He joins us to tell us more about the science behind booster shots.
With the Taliban's retaking of Afghanistan as the U.S. completes its withdrawal of forces, Afghans are desperate to get out of the country. Federally funded Oregon nonprofits like Lutheran Community Services Northwest (LCSN) are preparing to help meet the needs of refugees who arrive from Afghanistan in the coming weeks or months. Salah Ansary came to the U.S. in 1978 when he was in his mid-20s, after the coup in Afghanistan and the Soviet Union invasion of the country. His mother and siblings came a few years later. Ansary has been working with immigrants and refugees from his home country for almost as long as he's been in Portland, and he says their stories have become his. He joins us to tell us more about his life and work and how LCSN is working to help those fleeing Afghanistan.
Pandemic restrictions are in effect across Oregon, and many residents of long-term care facilities continue to be impacted by the dangers of COVID-19. The latest numbers from the Oregon Health Authority show a slight increase in vaccinationsover the last few months, but the goal for staff vaccinations is still not met. The report provides the most recent, available data since many facilities have residents and staff that fluctuate frequently. OHA aims to monitor the vaccination rate over time, says Rebecca Pierce, manager of the Healthcare Associated Infections Program at OHA. We hear from Pierce on how to interpret these vaccination numbers. We also hear from Fred Steele, Oregon’s long-term care ombudsman on how long-term care facilities can better serve their residents during times of crisis.
Many people think of Hood River as a place for windsurfing. But soccer may actually be the sport the community cares about the most. A new documentary, “Hood River,” follows the 2018 Hood River Valley High School boys soccer team as they attempt to win the state championship and forge a bond across cultural divides. We’ll hear from the director of the documentary Jono Field and Jaime Rivera, the coach of the soccer team.
Extra dry conditions and longer fire seasons have some local governments considering firework bans. Melanie Kebler is a city councilor for Bend. Heather Buch is a commissioner for Lane County. They join us with details.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Oregon prisons have felt the impact with reports from inmates saying conditions are “unbearable.” Among the complaints, one inmate died unrelated to COVID-19 and those in custody have also said there has been a lack of concern for inmates' mental and physical health. Lisa Hay is a public defender who is asking a judge to inspect Sheridan, Oregon’s only federal prison, get updates on vaccination rates of it’s staff and examine the length of time inmates are confined to their cells. Hay joins us to share details on the health conditions these inmates are in and what lockdown has been like while in prison.
In our coverage of recently elected conservative school board members advocating for changes across the state, there’s one name that kept popping up: Reagan Knopp. He is the political director for Oregon Right To Life and the founder of a political strategy firm called Knopp and Company. In these dual roles, Knopp has supported dozens of conservatives running for their local school boards. He says he sees school boards as a “proving ground” for the kind of experience necessary to run for higher office and he’s hoping to deepen the Republican bench in Oregon politics. We talk with Reagan Knopp about his political strategy.
No part of the state is dealing with a bigger COVID-19 surge right now than Southwest Oregon. Dr. Jason Kuhl, Chief Medical Officer at Providence Medford Medical Center, and Dr. Jason Gray, Chief Medical Officer at CHI Mercy Health in Roseburg, update us on what their hospitals are facing.
Earlier this week, 30 patients filled Oregon Health & Science University's COVID ICU, and all of them were unvaccinated. OPB’s Amelia Templeton toured the ICU yesterday, and tells us what she saw and heard.
The city of Vancouver is moving forward with its plan to create a series of sanctioned camps for people experiencing homelessness. The camps would be supported, meaning that they would include sanitation and possibly other facilities like showers, kitchens and common spaces. They would also include someone to help connect campers to other social services. Jamie Spinelli, the city’s Homeless Response Coordinator, joins us.
One of the chapters in the latest report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was written largely by Oregon State University professor Alan Mix. The IPCC report plays a role in addressing the ongoing issue of global warming by highlighting what is currently happening, such as extreme weather and rising sea levels, and what is expected in the future. Mix is a distinguished professor of Earth, ocean and atmospheric sciences and was the lead author on the “Ocean, Cryosphere and Sea Level Change” chapter. He joins us to share details on his findings.
After a short reprieve in political violence on Portland streets following the January 6th insurrection, the city is once again bracing for street fights. Far right groups have circulated flyers promoting violence planned downtown this weekend. And antifascist counterprotesters say they plan to show up too. The opposing rallies will happen just a year after some of the bloodiest -- and deadliest -- political fighting that happened in Portland leading up to last year’s election. OPB’s Jonathan Levinson fills us in.
This summer’s heat waves, catastrophic wildfires, and blistering drought have made climate change feel both very real and very overwhelming. What can we do, as individuals, in the face of such massive global disruption? That’s the question Lisa Wells set out to answer in her new book “Believers: Making a Life at the End of the World.” Wells, who grew up in Portland, talked to people all over the country who are trying to figure out new ways to live in a new world.
The Department of Veterans Affairs recently required nearly every worker in its health care system to be vaccinated against the coronavirus. Meanwhile, COVID-19 cases in Oregon continue to increase. Chris Pfeiffer is the chief of infectious diseases with the VA Portland Health Care System. He joins us with details on what the system is seeing as the delta variant continues to spread.
The city of Portland and Multnomah county commissioned a study to learn what damage a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake would do to the Critical Energy Infrastructure Hub, a six mile stretch of fossil fuel storage along the Willamette river. Laura Marshall of ECONorthwest, which coproduced the report, says the release of fuel that would result from the subduction zone earthquake would be a massive environmental disaster. Marshall joins us, along with Multnomah County Commissioner Sharon Meieran, to give us more details about the potential damages and what might be done to mitigate them.
When a retired librarian in Oregon started corresponding with a man in a Louisiana prison, neither of them could have imagined it would lead to his release and exoneration. Yutico Briley was sentenced to 60 years without parole at the age of 19 for an armed robbery he didn’t commit. He wrote to journalist and author Emily Bazelon, pleading with her to cover his case and the many injustices that lead to his conviction. His letter remained unread until Briley’s longtime penpal, Karen Oehler, emailed Bazelon and urged her to look at it. Bazelon chronicled the years-long struggle that followed in a recent New York Times Magazine article. After he was released in March, Briley visited Oehler in Oregon. We hear from Briley and Oehler about how their ongoing friendship has affected both of their lives.
The city of Vancouver is moving forward with its plan to create a series of sanctioned camps for people experiencing homelessness. The camps would be supported, meaning that they would include sanitation and possibly other facilities like showers, kitchens and common spaces. They would also include someone to help connect campers to other social services. Jamie Spinelli, the city’s Homeless Response Coordinator, joins us.
The pandemic has been a time of unprecedented need and unprecedented financial support. The Oregon Community Foundation is the state’s largest philanthropic organization. It doubled its giving last year. The money it distributes includes support for housing, education, health, arts and emergency response. We talk about this with Max Williams, OCF’s President and CEO.
Joanne Zuhl started volunteering for Street Roots 18 years ago and went on to become one of the first paid staff at the newspaper focused on housing and homelessness. Under her leadership, Street Roots has hired more journalists and broadened its scope to include a variety of topics related to economic and social justice. Now, Zuhl is moving on from Street Roots. We talk with her about her time with the newspaper and her hopes for the future.
Last month Oregon started distributing three monthly payments of up to $408 per child to families. That money is to make up for the free or reduced cost meals that were lost during the last pandemic year. Dan Haun, Director of Self-Sufficiency Programs at the Oregon Department of Human Services, explains how those benefits work. And Matt Newell-Ching, Public Policy Manager at the Oregon Food Bank, explains how the payments fit into the broader picture of food insecurity in Oregon.
Researchers from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife are spending nearly 10 weeks at sea surveying black, blue and deacon rockfish. The fish is important to coastal communities like Charleston, which rely on tourism from people who plan fishing trips. Businesses like charter boats, hotels and restaurants depend on that tourism for their local economies. In 2017, ODFW abruptly closed rockfish season early, devastating local businesses. Leif Rasmuson is the lead researcher on the rockfish project. He joins us with details on the survey and what the team hopes to learn.
Vivek Shandas is a professor of climate adaptation at Portland State University. His research shows that how people fare in heat waves varies greatly depending on where they live. According to Shandas, some low-income neighborhoods in Portland are more vulnerable to extreme heat because of the way buildings are constructed and configured as well as what surrounds them. If there’s more asphalt than trees, for example, that makes for even hotter temperatures during a heat wave. We talk with Shandas about what he found when he looked into the dozens of deaths that occurred during the extreme heat in June, and what we can do to create more resilience as heat waves continue to impact the region.
In March of 2020, Landon Payne stopped breathing after officers restrained him at a Lane County jail. Oregon was two weeks into a statewide shutdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Payne’s wife Angie had originally called the Eugene Police Department when he was experiencing a mental health crisis. Two of the three officers who first responded did not have mandatory crisis intervention training and made a series of decisions that Angie Payne says led directly to her husband’s death. Video from the jail is available, but so far the EPD has not released the officer’s body camera footage. Reporter Ardeshir Tabrizian uncovered the details of Payne’s death in reporting he did for Eugene Weekly and the University of Oregon’s Catalyst Journalism Project. The paper is appealing the decision to withhold the body camera video. We talk with Tabrizian about Landon Payne’s death, the coverup he discovered and what happens next.
Earlier this month, the federal government extended the eviction moratorium until October. In Oregon, renters can get protection from eviction if they have applied for rental assistance. But the state agency that handles those applications, and its nonprofit partners, are facing a huge backlog. Margaret Salazar, Director of Oregon Housing and Community Services tells us about the work they are doing to get rental assistance to people who need it.
A forecast issued by Oregon Health & Science University found that the impact of the delta variant could be grim for Oregon. Peter Graven is the lead data scientist at OHSU, and Dawn Nolt is a professor of pediatrics and infectious diseases there and the OHSU Doernbecher Children’s Hospital. They join us with details on the forecast and what Oregonians should know as the delta variant continues to spread.
George Saunders is the author of numerous short story collections, including “Tenth of December,” “In Persuasion Nation,” and “Pastoralia.” His most recent novel, “Lincoln in the Bardo,” was a New York Times bestseller, and shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Saunders has won a Guggenheim, a McArthur, and many other awards. We spoke to him in 2017 in front of an audience at Literary Arts.
How can technology be more accessible? What does the future of robotics look like? These are some of the questions on the minds of Caroline Gao, a junior at West Albany High School and Pauline Petersen, a senior at Lakeridge High School in Lake Oswego. They have received regional and national recognition by the National Center for Women and Information Technology. They join us with details on how they plan to use their skills to make technology more accessible.
Oregon Governor Kate Brown recently announced that masks will be required for all students and staff inside school buildings this fall. But there are still a lot of unanswered questions about what the new school year will look like. We check in with Oregon Department of Education Director Colt Gill and the Oregon State Epidemiologist Dean Sidelinger about what students and families can expect.
For the first time in a long time, all students in the Baker School District will have the option to start the school year this fall in person full time. There are also full seasons of sports and extracurricular activities planned. And, in accordance with state guidelines, all students will be wearing masks. Superintendent Mark Witty joins us to discuss what the school year will look like for students in his district.
The number of people headed to work in downtown Portland has been on the rise in the last month, according to Jim Mark, CEO of Melvin Mark Companies, a commercial real estate firm. Now that the delta variant has led to an increase in COVID-19 cases, many large firms are reconsidering a full back-to-the-office plan, but Mark remains optimistic about the health of downtown Portland’s commercial real estate market.
So far, New York is the only city to create an official policy requiring proof of vaccination for indoor activities like dining and working out at a gym. In San Francisco and Seattle, more and more businesses are implementing these policies, finding strength in numbers as they face backlash from people who are choosing not to get vaccinated for political reasons. In the absence of government mandates, some Oregon businesses are creating vaccine requirements of their own.
We hear from Tate Metcalf, owner of the Sisters Athletic Club, where proof of vaccination is required for people who want to work out without a mask, and Michael Shea. He’s the owner and bartender at Rum Club, which is part of a loose coalition of Portland businesses that have decided to ask customers to prove they've been vaccinated in order to eat and drink indoors.
Like the rest of Oregon, Lane County is seeing a surge in COVID-19 cases as the delta variant continues to sweep through the state. The county is also struggling with contact tracing, not only because of the volume of cases but because many people refuse to answer or return calls from the public health department. We talk with Lane County Public Health Director Jocelyn Warren about the situation.
A community organization in Portland helps Black homeowners renovate their homes in an effort to combat gentrification. We hear from Randal Wyatt, the founder and executive director of Taking Ownership PDX, about how he hopes this effort can empower Black homeowners.
Earlier this summer, businesses in Pendleton experienced an influx of customers as thousands of tourists flocked to the town for the Pendleton Whisky Music Fest. While the visitors created a boost in revenue, some businesses were scrambling because they lacked enough employees to handle the rush. Bryce Dole is a reporter for the East Oregonian. Bobbi McGee is a manager of the Marigold Hotel in Pendleton. They join us with details about how the town handled the rush and what businesses expect as Pendleton Round-Up approaches.
As fires blaze through Oregon, many people need to evacuate their homes at a moment’s notice. And some might have pets that need to be evacuated too. That’s where Central Oregon’s Pet Evacuation Team steps in. The organization works with partners like the American Red Cross and county emergency services to help evacuate pets in disasters like wildfires.
Vikki Sheerer is a regional coordinator for the Pet Evacuation Team. Julie Rosqvist-Gerard is a dairy farmer who recently used the organization’s services for her goats, dogs, cats and bunnies. We learn more about the organization and how it can help people with pets in an emergency situation.
For 40 years, Portland’s Central City Concern (CCC) has been helping people experiencing homelessness find shelter, and provide people what they need to transition to permanent housing and be able to keep it. CCC provides detox services, follow up substance abuse treatment, harm reduction programs, mental health counseling and even jobs for those in recovery. The nonprofit serves 14,000 people each year and recently broke ground on another affordable housing building that provides an array of services.
We hear from Rachel Solotaroff, the CEO of the nonprofit, about CCC’s integrated services, their new Cedar Commons building, and the possibilities she sees for the future. And we meet Charlotte Severns who overcame homelessness and 17 years of substance abuse. She is now housed, employed full-time in Washington and has renewed her relationships with her three children and five grandchildren.
Following racial justice protests last summer, the Klamath Falls City Council created an equity task force. The goal was to better understand inequities in the city and to come up with recommendations for how to address those inequities. A year later, just before task force members presented their final report to the city council, a man in council chambers physically threatened Eric Osterberg, the person leading the equity task force. Osterberg is leaving his job as assistant to the city manager of Klamath Falls to be the city manager of Ferguson, Missouri. He joins us to reflect on the task force recommendations and what happened at the meeting on Monday night.
Governor Kate Brown has announced that healthcare workers in Oregon have until the end of September to get a COVID-19 vaccine or face weekly tests. Andy Van Pelt, executive vice president of the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems, joins us to talk about what the new requirements mean for hospitals in the state.
As the Klamath Basin continues to be plagued by drought, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that it will invest $15 million to assist agricultural producers. Mark Johnson is the deputy director of the Klamath Water Users Association. He joins us with details on how the funding will help producers in the region.
School board meetings have been increasingly contentious in districts around the state including Bend-La Pine, Albany and Newberg. Conservative school board members recently elected after appealing to people frustrated by COVID-19 restrictions are reflecting deep divisions in these communities. These same candidates are also resistant to schools’ efforts to talk more frankly about race and racism in the curriculum. At a recent school board meeting in Newberg, newly elected school board members advocated for banning Black Lives Matter Signs and gay pride flags in district facilities, as well as repealing anti-racist policies previously enacted by the board and the state Legislature. The school board in Albany recently voted to fire its superintendent, Melissa Goff. Though the board did not give a reason, Goff believes it has to do with her diversity, equity and inclusion work at the district.
We talk with Goff and hear from OPB education reporter Elizabeth Miller.
Journalists covering wildfires in Oregon have very different kinds of access than their peers in California. In Oregon, journalists often can't go behind fire lines and if they do, a fire official needs to be with them at all times. Under California law, journalists are able to move much more freely to get images and information from active wildfires.
We talk with two journalists about what all of this means in terms of public perception and accountability. April Ehrlich is a reporter for Jefferson Public Radio and the president of the Oregon chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. Noah Berger is a Pulitzer-prize winning photographer for the Associated Press and other outlets.
When Oregon became as state in 1859, Black people were specifically prohibited from living here. The legacy of that systemic and institutional racism exists in many forms, including racial exclusion language on home deeds. Representative Julie Fahey (D-Eugene, Junction City) discovered she owned a home with such language and spearheaded a 2018 bill to try to simplify the complex legal process to remove the discriminatory language. The racially restrictive covenant on Fahey's deed reads: “No member of any race other than the Caucasian race shall use or occupy any building except as domestics in the home of an owner or tenant.” The process for removing the language from deeds is still complicated, she says, and must go through the court system. We talk with Fahey and with Riccardo Waites, founder and CEO of the Central Oregon Black Leaders Assembly, which just launched the Good Deeds program to help rid homeowners of this racist language
Umatilla County has the highest COVID-19 case rate in Oregon. It also has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the state. And the hospitals in the region say they’re seeing a surge in coronavirus cases. Joseph Fiumara, Public Health Director of Umatilla County, joins us.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline provides free and confidential support 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The number is 1-800-273-8255 or you can text the word “HOME” to 741 741. For additional resources, visit linesforlife.org, the American Farm Bureau Federation or the Western Regional Agricultural Stress Assistance Program.
Farmers are among those who are at greater risk of dying by suicide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This is driven in part by extreme stress of debt, drought and the possibility of losing their farms. Don McMoran is the director of Washington State University’s Skagit County Extension and Jon Iverson is the chair of the American Farm Bureau Federation’s National Young Farmers & Ranchers Committee. They join us with details about what’s being done to raise awareness and what resources are available for farmers and their families.
Omar el Akkad’s newest novel, “What Strange Paradise,” takes place largely on an island in the Mediterranean that has served as a landing place for people fleeing from their homelands. The main characters are children trying to navigate the inhumanity of our world, and instead finding solace in each other. Omar el Akkad joins us to discuss the novel.
Wildfires, extreme heat and other weather events, like the ice storm this past February, have Oregonians thinking about climate change in a much more personal way. We talk with clinical psychologist Thomas Doherty, who helps people cope with anxiety, depression and other mental health issues brought on by the climate crisis. In 2008 and 2009, Doherty served on the American Psychological Association’s Task Force on the Interface Between Psychology and Global Climate Change. He says in the intervening years, he’s had more and more clients come to him looking for help with difficult feelings related to the warming climate and changes in the natural world.
The Portland Winterhawks rolled out a new logo earlier this month. The image of a hawk replaces the old logo, a racist caricature of a Native American man. Even though Native Americans and others in the community had been pushing for this change for some time, the junior ice hockey team did not acknowledge a reason for the change beyond needing “something that better represented the team.” Paul Lumley is the executive director of the Portland-based Native American Youth and Family Center and led the effort to get rid of the offensive Winterhawks mascot. He says that while the change is welcome, he’s disappointed that the team is not acknowledging the harm caused by the old mascot.
We hear what these kinds of changes mean to Indigenous Americans and tribal nations. We talk with Lumley and hear from Cynthia Connolly, who is on the executive board of the Lake Erie Native American Council and was part of the effort to get Cleveland's professional baseball team to change its name and logo.
When the Northwest Forest Plan was first enacted under the Clinton administration, one of the considerations was protecting enough old growth forest to keep the northern spotted owl species alive. The spotted owl remains a lightning rod and symbol of the conflict between the timber industry and conservationists. In the intervening years, wildlife managers observed barred owls encroaching on spotted owl habitat ranges. Barred owls are aggressive and prolific, edging out threatened spotted owls. One of the only things that will keep spotted owls from going extinct is killing some of their fierce and prolific competitors. Wildlife managers say they’ve seen the evidence of this for years, and now a new OSU-led study confirms it. We talk to the state supervisor for the Oregon office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Paul Henson about the ethical and practical considerations of reducing one species to save another.
The Playa retreat center in south central Oregon has been threatened by wildfire before. The Toolbox fire burned through the region 19 years ago. Last fall, the center cancelled workshops because of the Brattain fire. And now the Bootleg fire sits on the edge of the area. Elizabeth Quinn, interim executive director of Playa, joins us to talk about how the fires and the pandemic have affected the retreat center.
This week Multnomah County, the Oregon Health Authority, and the CDC all issued guidance recommending that everyone - including vaccinated people - wear masks indoors again. That comes as the number of coronavirus cases across the country are surging again, with the highly transmissible delta variant leading the way. OHA Public Helath Director Rachael Banks, and Multnomah County Public Health Director Jessica Guernsey, talk to us about what these rising numbers mean for Oregonians.
Earlier this month, Portland City Commissioner Dan Ryan’s office released a list of potential sites for the “safe rest villages,” the outdoor homeless shelters City Council approved in June. The list includes 71 city-owned parcels of land that could support individual structures as well as bathrooms, laundry, showers and other services for people experiencing homelessness. Ryan’s office says it will narrow down the list to six properties and have the shelters up and running by the end of the year. In the meantime, neighborhoods are considering what it would mean to have a city-sanctioned outdoor shelter in their community.
We hear from Kenton Neighborhood Association Vice Chair Tyler Roppe, Casey Boggs who is the chair of the homeless update committee for the Overlook Neighborhood Association and Sabina Urdes, chair of the Lents Neighborhood Association and executive director of the East Portland Collective.
Facing some of the deadliest wildfire seasons in recent history, wildland firefighters are in high demand. In a personal essay for Grist, forestry technician Zora Thomas writes about the work of firefighters and their most pressing needs. Thomas says wildland firefighters are underpaid and experiencing a lack of retention. Thomas joins us to share what she thinks firefighters need and how they can be better supported.
To say Lidia Yuknavitch's newest novel "The Book of Joan" is a re-imagining of the Joan of Arc story in a dystopian science-fiction context would be accurate, but it's much more complicated than that. Yuknavitch is a national bestseller, an Oregon Book Award winner and a writing instructor in Portland. She spoke with Allison Frost in 2017.
Even before the pandemic, there were not enough gender-affirming medical care providers to meet patient demand. When elective surgeries were temporarily banned as hospital resources focused on an influx of COVID patients, many trans and nonbinary Oregonians had their gender-affirming surgeries delayed even further. While these surgeries, along with other gender-affirming treatments, were deemed “elective” because they could be planned for a specific time, they’re also urgent and even life-saving care for people experiencing gender dysphoria. We hear from Annaliese McDermond, a trans woman whose gender-affirming surgery had to be rescheduled during the pandemic, and Amy Penkin, clinical program manager for OHSU’s Transgender Health Program.
When Marc Trice went to prison, Beanie Babies were hip, Whitney Houston sang “I Will Always Love You” and “internet” was not a household word. He was 15 years old and had never held a job. When Trice was released 21 years later, he had to learn how to negotiate the new century as a man in his mid-30s with a felony on his record. And the family of Trice’s murder victim, Sandra Lee Raph, had to learn to live with the knowledge that he was now free. We listen back to a conversation with Marc Trice, and Angela Thomas, the sister of his victim.
Portland-based comics journalist Joe Sacco’s new book is an emotionally complex and historically informed portrait of the Dene First Nation people, the indigenous subarctic communities that have lived in what is now known as Canada's Northwest Territories for thousands of years. “Paying the Land” tells how economic and cultural colonialism and residential schools nearly destroyed the Dene’s ancient way of life. It also chronicles the impacts of mining, drilling, and fracking, along with climate change on the land and people. We listen back to an interview with Joe Sacco that was part of the Portland Book Festival in 2020.
Author Min Jin Lee’s latest novel, “Pachinko,” was a finalist for the National Book Award. It’s an epic story about four generations of one family through migration, heartbreak, oppression, financial success, and trauma. We spoke to Lee in front of an audience at Portland’s Franklin High School in January, 2020.
The Pulitzer prize-winning novel, “The Overstory,” takes place largely in the forests of the Pacific Northwest. In fact, the trees themselves are almost like characters in book. We’ll listen back to an interview with author Richard Powers discusses his book, his life, and what forests can tell us about humanity.
The Native Arts and Cultures Foundation has been awarded a multi-million dollar gift to support its mission of equity and cultural knowledge. We hear more about what that will mean for the organization and its work from Lulani Arquette, President and CEO of NACF. We also meet Natalie Ball, one of the organization's fellows. Ball’s art focuses on her Klamath and Modoc tribal heritage and contemporary culture.
Portland garbage and recycling haulers have been dealing with a shortage of drivers, even before the pandemic. Now, a new program aims to recruit and train women and people of color for these jobs, with the hopes of both filling vacancies and diversifying the workforce. We hear from Richard Holmes, a newly hired Portland Disposal and Recycling, who was in the first cohort to complete the program, and Patrick Gihring, chief program officer at Worksystems, who helped design the curriculum.
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, Oregon and the U.S. were facing a significant shortage of nurses. But with the additional stress of the pandemic, more nurses are burning out and leaving the profession altogether. We hear from Jodi Barschow, RN and President of the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, and Lisa Powell, VP and Chief Human Resources Officer at Providence St. Joseph Health.
Earlier this year, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner was fired from his job as a tenured professor at Linfield University after he spoke out about sexual harassment allegations against university trustees. Pollack-Pelzner is now suing Linfield. Two professors also recently filed suits against Pacific University saying they were wrongfully forced out of their jobs. All of this comes at the same time as Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones was initially denied tenure at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill because a major donor raised concerns about The New York Times's "1619 Project," which Hannah-Jones led. Linfield University Professor Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt says all of this amounts to the “corporatization" of universities and that one of the goals is “to attack and even destroy tenure.” Dutt-Ballerstadt wrote about all of this for “Inside Higher Ed.” She joins us to discuss her recent piece.
In January of 2020, the nonprofit The Contingent launched a program called Know Me Now to facilitate visits for kids with their incarcerated parents. Oregon has more than 14,000 people in prison. An estimated 75 percent of the women incarcerated at the state’s Coffee Creek Correctional Facility are mothers, and more than half of men serving time in Oregon are fathers. During the pandemic, the program quickly retooled and shifted focus to virtual visitations. Hosheman Brown is the director of community engagement for Know Me Now. He says creating strong parent-child relationships is part of creating the pro-social networks that prevent recidivism and support parents’ success when they are released. We talk with Brown and two parents: Antoinette So’Fine, who is a mother currently serving time in the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, and Irvin Hines, a father who was released last year.
As fires scorch parts of Oregon, the American Red Cross is offering shelters and other services for those affected. Darrell Fuller is a volunteer with the American Red Cross and he shares details about how the organization can help.
Marcus LeGrand is among a handful of Black fathers in Bend who got together to support each other as they saw their kids experiencing racism at school. LeGrand says what formed as a support group grew into a mission-driven non-profit after last year’s murder of George Floyd. The group plans to launch an after school leadership program for BIPOC high school and middle school students. LeGrand is a board member of The Father’s Group, a school board member and a college and career coach at Central Oregon Community College. He joins us to tell us more about the impact The Father’s Group is having in the community and its future goals.
A bill to legalize cannabis at the federal level passed in the U.S. House late last year. Now, legislation backed by Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is making big waves. Though widely believed to be unlikely to draw the 60 votes needed in the Senate to pass, those closest to the industry say it’s significant. Public opinion polling suggests support for legalization is close to 70%. The legislation would decriminalize use, allow for research, expunge marijuana convictions and fund restorative justice programs. Alex Tinker is a lawyer and the co-chair of the Cannabis Industry Practice Group. He joins us to talk through what legalization would mean for the U.S. economy, and specifically how it would grow Oregon’s cannabis business and the larger state economy.
The Bootleg Fire blazing through Southern Oregon continues to grow and currently covers about 300,000 acres. We hear from Joe Siess, a reporter for the Herald and News about what he’s seeing. We’ll also talk to Suzanne Flory, Interagency Fire Communication specialist for the U.S. Forest Service.
This week, Think Out Loud has traveled to the Klamath Basin to have conversations with people affected by the severe drought in the region. Today we follow the Klamath River from one of the dams that is slated to come down, to the ocean. We talk to Mark Bransom, CEO of the Klamath River Renewal Corporation, Karuk tribal council member Troy Hockaday, Barry McCovey, Fisheries Department manager for the Yurok tribe, and Amy Bowers Cordalis, lawyer for the Yurok tribe.
We listen back to a radio road trip recorded in 2016 from the California border through Klamath Falls, we talked to people in hardware stores, diners, mobile home parks and campgrounds.
On Monday, Anna Scharf was sworn in after being appointed as Oregon state representative from House District 23. She is replacing former State Rep. Mike Nearman, whom lawmakers voted to expel from the legislature in June. Scharf worked for Nearman and has been a lobbyist in the past. She has also served on her local school board and helps to run her family’s farm. We talk with her about her policy goals.
This week, Think Out Loud has traveled to the Klamath Basin to have conversations with people affected by the severe drought in the region. As a result of the water crisis, many farmers in the Klamath Basin have needed to make difficult choices and are unable to irrigate portions of their land. We hear from Ben DuVal, an Alfalfa farmer and president of the Klamath Water Users Association. He shares details on how the water crisis is affecting producers in the region.
This week, Think Out Loud has traveled to the Klamath Basin to have conversations with people affected by the severe drought in the region. A group of people calling themselves the “Coalition of the Willing” have been meeting for years now to try to find common ground on water issues in the basin. We talk with two of them. Dan Keppen is executive director of the Family Farm Alliance and Chrysten Lambert is the Oregon director of Trout Unlimited. They both work on the coalition as private citizens.
Like many other school districts around the country, Klamath Falls City Schools mobilized quickly to put federal and state pandemic-related dollars to work to pay for summer school programs. The district is hosting more than 45 free in-person summer camps for students who spent much of the year learning remotely. Gayle Yamasaki and Dan Stearns, co-coordinators of the summer programs, tell us about the unique offerings this year.
The Klamath Basin is home to six national wildlife refuges which support a diverse population of resident and migratory wildlife, including over three quarters of the Pacific Flyway waterfowl. As multiple parties vie for water, what happens to the Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuge Complex? Jim McCarthy, Southern Oregon Program Director for WaterWatch of Oregon, shares details about what happens when a group of refuges fall further down a list of water needs.
This week, "Think Out Loud" has traveled to the Klamath Basin to have conversations with people affected by the severe drought in the region. The Bootleg fire is currently the largest burning in the U.S. Rancher Becky Hyde is a mile and a half from the fire. She says, “If you take the drought, and then you add the fire on top of it ... you have ranchers in this area who are in a horrible situation.”
The Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) enacted new temporary rules to protect workers from extreme heat events in the future. This comes after more than 100 people died during the record-breaking heat wave at the end of June. At least two deaths have been linked to workplace conditions. Sebastian Francisco Lopez died while working at a farm in Marion County, and an unnamed worker died shortly after collapsing at a Walmart distribution center in Hermiston.
Agricultural businesses across the region experienced a variety of impacts due to the recent heat wave. For some, the timing of their harvests meant little damage, but others faced major losses for the season. Sunburnt, deformed and stunted growth has made some fruit unsellable, leading to major losses for growers. We hear from Cathryn Polehn-Oxford, a sales representative at Mt. Adams Fruit Company on what she heard from farmers across the region. We also hear from cherry orchardist Gary Wade on how this never-before-seen heat impacted his cherry harvest.
This week, Think Out Loud has traveled to the Klamath Basin to have conversations with people affected by the severe drought in the region. The Klamath Tribes have major concerns about the health and survival of the C’waam and Koptu, also known as the Lost River and shortnose suckers. Clayton Dumont is a tribal councilman for the Klamath Tribes. He joins us from the side of the Williamson River in Chiloquin to share details about what’s going on with the fish and other ecological and cultural issues facing the region.
The Oregon Zoo’s California condor breeding program expects to hatch more condor chicks. The program received financial backing from Avangrid Renewables, a Portland-based wind power company, which aims to offset possible condor deaths due to their wind farms. We hear from Oregon Zoo veterinarian Kelly Flaminio about what the program has been able to do for condors, and why the species is important.
Since 1968, the J Bar J Ranch in Central Oregon has been a place where at-risk youth could be cared for and learn skills they need to be successful in their communities. The ranch is a residential program that can provide up to 28 youth with court ordered rehabilitative services. Bruce Waldrup, director of J Bar J Youth Services, tells us about how the program works with youth, and we’ll meet Caesar and Luis who are in the program now.
After fifteen months of COVID restrictions, Oregon is open again. But almost 2800 Oregonians have died, and our state will never be the same. We talk about the last year and a half, and the path forward, with Oregon Governor Kate Brown.
Travel restrictions and concerns about contracting COVID-19 made camping and hiking more attractive than ever in 2020. Millions of people around the country went camping for the first time last year, and it seems like that trend is continuing this summer, even as pandemic restrictions are ending. An influx of new and inexperienced visitors presents challenges and opportunities for campground hosts, park rangers and surrounding communities. We dig into those challenges and opportunities with Zach Urness, outdoors editor for the Statesman Journal. We’ll also hear from Jason Wagoner, an Oregon park ranger at Silver Falls State Park and Renee Tkach, a project manager for Friends of the Columbia River Gorge.
The recent record-breaking heat wave, a severe drought and the fear of looming wildfires have severely affected Oregon’s infrastructure, public health and agriculture. A recent study concluded that the deadly heat wave could not have occurred without human-caused climate change. We hear from Larry O’Neill, OSU professor and State Climatologist of Oregon, on what to expect for the remainder of the season and what mitigation measures are needed.
The staff and board at Chamber Music Northwest decided to take a risk back in February when they committed to holding their summer festival concerts in person. That risk paid off as the festival has coincided with Oregon lifting its mask mandate and ending most restrictions put in place because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The concerts from the four-week festival will also be available online for a limited time. We talk with Chamber Music Northwest’s new artistic directors Gloria Chien and Soovin Kim about what it’s been like to welcome audiences back to live performances.
Oregon Governor Kate Brown has granted more pardons and commutations than any governor in recent state history. Aliza Kaplan is a law professor at Lewis & Clark and directs the Criminal Justice Reform Clinic. For the last six years Kaplan and her students been working to get applications to Brown. The former inmates granted clemency were guilty, she says, but they are extraordinary individuals and have demonstrated that they can be contributing members of the community. For those who were already out of prison but were denied housing or jobs based on their convictions, a pardon clears their way forward. We talk with Kaplan and with two men granted clemency by the governor, Larry Turner and Tacuma Jackson.
Most COVID-19 restrictions have been lifted in Oregon. But should Oregonians still be worried about the delta variant? And what vaccination disparities remain in the state? Kim Repp, chief epidemiologist for Washington County, joins us to discuss what to keep in mind as restrictions ease.
The town of Detroit was devastated by the Labor Day fires that destroyed much of the Santiam canyon area. Now, the town is focused on recovering, rebuilding and hoping for more visitors, as tourism drives the area’s economy. We hear from Detroit Mayor, Jim Trett on how their Independence Day weekend fared and what he expects for the rest of the summer.
The fossil fuel economy and other factors driving climate change created dramatic impacts on the natural environment and the wildlife that call those places home. Countless species have disappeared and others are threatened or endangered. In her latest book, “Wild Souls: Freedom and Flourishing in the Non-Human World,” Emma Marris says human activity has touched so much of the planet that it raises the question of whether any part of the Earth can truly be considered “wild.”
The efforts to save ecosystems and species and preserve biodiversity may seem to be harmonious endeavors. But, Marris says the decisions to save one species may well damage another, and she wonders if striving for “pure” or “natural” states is actually the most effective strategy for the well-being of non-human animals. Research suggests many animals possess what has long been thought of as a primarily human domain: self-awareness and sentience. We talk with Marris about the effect of human activity on non-human life and how she’s thinking about the underlying values and assumptions that often shape conservation and preservation strategies.
We revisit a radio road trip up and down Washington's Long Beach Peninsula, from Cape Disappointment to Leadbetter Point State Park.
We listen back to a radio road trip from Fruitland, Idaho, to McDermitt, Nevada, through the sparsely populated and beautiful corner of Southeast Oregon.
Michael Pollan is best-known for his best-selling books about food and our relationship to food and the natural world. His new book explores the little-known history about the promising medical and scientific studies of psychedelics in the 1950s and 60s. He’s been writing about this subject in The New Yorker and elsewhere for a few years now. In “How to Change Your Mind,” Pollan also details the modern revival of this research and describes his own experience with a variety of these drugs, mostly with a professional — albeit underground — guide.
For a week last June, we visited Wheeler County in Eastern Oregon. While we were there, we met the ranchers behind Painted Hills Natural Beef, talked to the mayor/pastor/barber in the tiny town of Mitchell, and learned about the company town of Kinzua. We listen back to some of our favorite moments from our week in Wheeler County.
In ten years of armed conflict in Syria, nearly 400,000 people have lost their lives. More than 11 million others have been forced from their homes.
The U.S., Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and many other countries have gotten involved in the conflict. Millions of refugees have flooded into neighboring countries and Europe.
In 2018, Geoff Norcross sat down with three authors who wrote three very different books about syria in front of an audience at the Portland Book Festival. Alia Malek is a journalist who’s memoir, “The Home that was our Country,” chronicles her family’s history in Syria. Elliot Ackerman is a former U.S. marine who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, and whose novel, “Dark at the Crossing,” tells the story of an Iraqi American who wants to fight for the resistance in Syria. And Emily Robbins is a scholar whose novel, “A Word for Love,” chronicles a forbidden love affair in Damascus.
Phil Klay has emerged as perhaps our most effective explainer of the theories, intricacies, complexities, atrocities and consequences of modern warfare. His book “Redeployment,” a collection of short stories emerging from his service as a marine in the Iraq war, won the National Book Award. His latest book “Missionaries” goes to Iraq, and Afghanistan, and Yemen, and - most notably - Colombia. Most of the book is set in that country in the run up to the 2016 peace accord between the government and the left-wing guerrilla group, the FARC. OPB’s Geoff Norcross spoke with Klay as a part of the Portland Book Festival put on by Literary Arts
Portland has named two new Creative Laureates. The role was created in 2012 to serve as an ambassador and advocate for Portland’s arts community. Now, Leila Haile and Joaquin Lopez will share the role, and follow in the footsteps of outgoing Creative Laureate Subashine Ganesan. All three artists join us for a conversation about the state of the arts in the city right now.
Oregon’s groundbreaking Bottle Bill turns 50 next week. Since then, other states followed Oregon’s lead and passed deposit and redemption programs for beverage containers. Oregon's program has since been updated. Peter Spendelow is a solid waste analyst with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality and Jules Bailey is the chief stewardship officer for the Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative. They join us with details on how the law is working now and some possible changes.
The pandemic exacerbated isolation and loneliness for older adults. To combat these health issues, the Council on Aging of Central Oregon launched the Caring Connections program last year. Through phone calls, the program connects adults 60 and older experiencing isolation with volunteers. Emily Freeman is a program outreach manager for the council. Joyce Parker is a client of the program and is matched with Roberta Nye, a program volunteer. They join us with details on Caring Connections and what’s next as COVID-19 restrictions ease in the state.
Readers of The New York Times’ Sunday print edition couldn’t help but notice a full-page ad in the paper last weekend that began with the sentence “This is Portland.” It goes on to say, “We’re a place of dualities that are never polarities. Two sides of the same coin that keeps landing right on its edge.” The ad appeared in a few other newspapers as well and it’s part of a Travel Portland campaign, designed to promote tourism in the city. It has elicited mixed reactions among Portlanders.
We dig into the ad campaign — what it says and what it doesn’t say — and the larger effort to rehabilitate Portland’s reputation. Our guests are Portland State University Associate Professor Lisa Bates, Portland Mercury News Editor Alex Zielinski and Amy Lewin, vice president of strategic communications for the Portland Business Alliance.
While some small music shows are beginning to return to venues, one of Portland’s largest music festivals has announced it won’t be returning for the second year in a row. Pickathon, the three-day festival hosted by Pendarvis Farm in Happy Valley, issued a statement saying there simply wasn’t enough time to plan such an event. Zale Schoenborn, founder of Pickathon, tells us what’s in store for the festival.
The pandemic prompted a lot of people to get outside and do things they hadn’t done before. But this means more inexperienced hikers and outdoor enthusiasts are roaming unfamiliar Oregon terrain. And that’s led to an increase in calls for search and rescue. Scott Lucas is the state of Oregon’s search and rescue coordinator. Brent Neely is the captain of Wallowa County Search and Rescue. They join us with details on those rescue situations and what to keep in mind before heading out.
Portland Community College announced this week it will not require COVID-19 vaccinations for students and faculty. Eric Blumenthal is the Vice President for Finance and Administration for Portland Community College and a member of the college’s COVID-19 Opening Leadership Team. He joins us with details on the college’s decision.
Portlander Asya Miller is one of 12 athletes who will represent the United States at the Paralympic Games in Tokyo in the sport of goalball. Miller has been playing goalball, a sport for blind or visually impaired athletes, since college. This will be her sixth Paralympic Games.
After the Black Lives Matter protests for racial justice erupted when George Floyd was murdered last year, teachers, children and youth in SE Portland’s Sunnyside neighborhood began holding their own events. Their “kid-centered” demonstrations and marches were weekly last summer, and they’ve held events in 2021, with plans for less frequent but larger events to come. Tiffany Koyama-Lane is one of the organizers who lives in the neighborhood and she teaches third grade at Sunnyside Environmental School. Sara just graduated from eighth grade there. We are not using her last name by request. We talk with Sara and Koyama-Lane about the kid-centered activism they’ve been doing since last June and their hopes for the future.
Before the pandemic Portland's Saturday Market was open weekends from March through most of December. But the outdoor market's vendors have suffered from closures during the pandemic. Executive director Howie Bierbaum says all told the market was only open 22% of its usual run last year. Now the market is open for business again, although just on Saturdays. Still, about a third of vendors haven’t returned. We hear from Bierman and Dagny Haug, owner of Bonus Pants about weathering the pandemic and how Portland Saturday Market is planning for the rest of the year.
Some states are passing laws restricting curriculum related to racism and history. Portland area teachers rallied last week as part of a Day of Action opposing those bans and in support of educators around the country who are coming up against opposition for their work teaching history. They say you cannot learn history or current events without understanding the role that racism plays in our culture. We talk with two of those teachers: David Scholten, a fifth grade teacher at Abernathy Elementary school and Suzanna Kassouf, a 9th grade social studies teacher at Grant High School.
Sarah Taylor wants to create what she calls “a green working waterfront” on the lower Willamette River. Taylor is the founder of the Braided River Campaign and a longtime environmentalist. She’s on a mission to reimagine the area in Portland’s Linnton neighborhood bordered on one side by the Willamette River and on the other by NW St. Helens Road, specifically the industrial area that’s currently home to oil tanks, a rail yard and a Superfund site. Taylor has partnered with local organizations such as Portland Audubon and has been meeting regularly with the city's Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. Part of her mission includes reckoning with the area’s ugly history. A recent Street Roots article details the history of displacement Taylor showcases on the tours she gives. We’ll dig into some of that history and learn more about Taylor’s vision for the future.
In November, Oregon voters approved Measure 109, which allows the use of the psychedelic drug psilocybin in supervised facilities. The program won’t be up and running until 2023, and there’s a lot of work to be done before then. Oregon’s Psilocybin Advisory Board convened earlier this year and is currently learning about the safety and efficacy of psilocybin in treating a variety of mental health conditions. The Oregon Health Authority recently named Angie Allbee as the manager for the agency’s Psilocybin Services Section. We hear from Allbee and André Ourso, administrator of the Center for Health Protection at OHA and the agency's representative on the Psilocybin Advisory Board.
Oregon’s eviction moratorium is set to expire at the end of June. Lawmakers are considering a 60-day extension for tenants who can show proof that they’ve applied for rental assistance, even if that assistance hasn’t come through just yet. It’s unclear if that will pass before the end of the 2021 legislative session, which is fast approaching. We hear from Community Alliance of Tenants Executive Director Kim McCarty and Jason Miller, legislative director for the Oregon Rental Housing Association, a group which represents landlords.
A new study from OHSU shows that people infected by the COVID-19 virus may have immunity against new variants of the novel coronavirus for as long as 11 months following infection. This study looks at the body’s backup immune cells, which seem to be able to adapt to different variants of COVID-19. Bill Messer, a physician and a scientist at OHSU, joins us to explain the implications of this study.
We spoke to poet Claudia Rankine in front of a live audience at Literary Arts in downtown Portland in 2018. Rankine is the author of five collections of poetry, including National Book Award finalist "Citizen: An American Lyric." Rankine was awarded the MacArthur "genius" grant in 2016 and founded the Racial Imaginary Institute to explore whiteness in American culture. We listen back to that interview today.
There is a shortage of affordable housing on the Oregon coast. This is not a new problem, and it only intensified with the COVID-19 pandemic, as coastal real estate became even more attractive to people who could afford to work remotely. A 2019 housing study in Clatsop County on Oregon’s north coast flagged vacation rentals as one of the contributing factors to the lack of affordable housing in the area. Some coastal communities have come up with their own short-term rental regulations, with varying levels of success. Clatsop County commissioners are currently considering a temporary moratorium on new short-term rental licenses in order to give themselves more time to craft a county-wide policy. We talk with Astorian reporter Nicole Bales.
Portland musician Aaron Nigel Smith calls the genre he works in “family music.” He writes songs for kids and their families to enjoy together. For Juneteenth this year he’s releasing a special collaboration album with songs from 23 other artists. The album is called All One Tribe, and it’s a celebration of Black musicians, children, and families. Aaron Nigel Smith joins us, along with the musician Shine, to talk about the album.
The Oregon legislature’s 2021 session is drawing to a close, and it’s been an eventful five months, with a slow start but then a lot of activity: on pandemic response, policing, gun laws, and much more. Democratic lawmakers, who hold sizable majorities, will also be leaving some of the priorities undone. OPB political reporter Sam Stites gives us an overview of the bills that passed, and a preview of the final weeks of the session.
Rupert Kinnard introduced his character the Brown Bomber in 1977, and later, BB's sidekick Diva Touché Flambé. Kinnard created the first African American LGBTQ characters in comics, and his stories are featured in the new documentary, “No Straight Lines: The Rise of Queer Comics.” Throughout his career, Kinnard contributed to Willamette Week and co-founded Just Out. He was also the first Black member of the first LGBTQ-rights umbrella organization in Oregon. Through the Brown Bomber and Diva Touché Flambé, he provided commentary on social issues including gay rights and racial justice. Kinnard joins us to share more about his life and work and the new film that highlights both.
As Oregon moves closer to hitting the 70% first-dose vaccination rate statewide, disparities remain. Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Oregonians have the highest vaccination rate by race and ethnicity, according to data from the Oregon Health Authority. Latinx and Hispanic Oregonians have the lowest. Alyshia Macaysa is the incoming executive director of the Oregon Pacific Islander Coalition. Oralia Mendez is a manager of workforce development and community programs at Oregon State University’s Center for Health Innovation. They join us with details behind some of the state’s vaccination rates.
Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt announced Tuesday that his office indicted Portland Police Bureau officer Corey Budworth with one count of fourth degree assault. The indictment is the second against a Portland police officer stemming from last year’s racial justice protests during which the bureau documented more than 6,000 use of force incidents against protesters. DA Schmidt explains what happens next.
In February, trees in cities and towns across the state crashed down after a devastating ice storm. Months later, several cities in Oregon are still dealing with tree damage from the storm. We hear from Megan Big John, parks manager for Lake Oswego Parks and Recreation, and Mark Becktel, Salem’s public works operations manager, on how tree damage can create new issues, especially as fire season begins in Oregon.
Teachers' unconscious racial bias in the classroom can significantly affect how different students are taught — and what they learn. Portland State University Math Education professor Eva Thanheiser has just won a $640,000 grant to preemptively reduce bias among K-12 math teachers. The effort does not develop a curriculum. Instead, it takes a professional development approach for teachers to bring in the experience of students from all racial backgrounds into what and how they’re teaching. We learn more from Thanheiser about how she uses this basic approach in her college classes and the broader effort to excite and engage all students in math and boost their achievement.
Voters in Multnomah County approved the Preschool for All program last November. The program is slowly ramping up with the goal of enrolling up to 1,000 kids in the fall of 2022. The program has ambitious goals, including raising wages for preschool teachers and, eventually, providing free access for all 3 and 4-year-olds in the county. There are also a lot of challenges, including the volatile nature of income tax revenue. Multnomah County Commissioner Jessica Vega Pederson joins us to talk about the program she’s championed since its inception.
Rep. Mike Nearman was expelled from the Oregon House in a widely anticipated vote June 10, a first in state history. Only Nearman himself voted against the resolution, finding that he had engaged in “disorderly behavior” by facilitating the Capitol building incursion by armed far-right protesters six months ago. We get perspectives on what’s next for state GOP lawmakers and the Legislature, just a couple of weeks before the 2021 session wraps up. Our guests are: Jim Moore, Director of the Tom McCall Center for Policy Innovation at Pacific University; Eric Fruits, Research director at the Cascade Policy Institute; and Kalpana Krishnamurthy, National Field and Policy Director at Forward Together Action.
Oregon is the first state where legislative aides are unionized. The effort has been afoot since last year, overcoming some opposition from lawmakers who attempted to prevent it. Staffers prevailed and now the union is poised to negotiate its first contract after the 2021 session wraps up. We ask two newly unionized staffers Logan Gilles and Claire Prihoda about what was behind this effort and what changes and protections they’re hoping to see in their workplace.
The NCAA track and field championships took place this weekend in Eugene at the historic Hayward field, hosting collegiate athletes from across the country. Oregon’s Carmela Cardama Baez beat the current cross-country champion from Alabama to win the 10,000 meter race. We’re joined by former sports writer for The Oregonian, Ken Goe and sports desk editor for The Daily Emerald Charles Gearing, who tell us how other runners fared and who came out on top.
Portland’s annual Pride celebration was hastily moved online last year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and a statewide ban on large gatherings. This year, even though outdoor gatherings have been sanctioned once again, the Pride parade, and most accompanying events, will be virtual, with the exception of a Drag Diva Brunch and an LGBTQ-friendly vaccination clinic. Meanwhile, the Eastern Oregon city of Pendleton will have its first Pride Parade. We’ll hear from Aiden Bork, the Pendleton High School student who organized the event and talk with Pride Northwest Executive Director Debra Porta about what Portland’s Pride celebration will look like this year.
The Oregon Senate has passed a bill that would allow college athletes to be compensated for their name, image and likeness. A number of other states have passed similar bills, and the NCAA and federal lawmakers are taking up the issue as well. Courtney Cox, an assistant professor at the University of Oregon, explains how all of this will affect athletes in Oregon.
Climate change activists have a lot to celebrate this week with the cancelation of the Keystone oil pipeline. Closer to home, a bipartisan bill to move Oregon’s energy grid to 100% renewable energy is on a trajectory toward Gov. Kate Brown’s desk. We get more details from Rep. Khanh Pham, D-Portland, and Allie Rosenbluth, campaigns director for Rogue Climate, a climate action group based in Southern Oregon.
South Salem High School graduate Kundai Kapurura says last year, between the pandemic, the movement for racial justice and the wildfires, she was overwhelmed with a desire to help. She reached out to fellow student Sophia Cobb after noticing her eye-catching Instagram pictures of clothing she’d made. The two soon created Philanthropy Phabrics, a company that sells embellished and customized clothes and donates a portion of the proceeds to rotating charities. They join us to tell us more about their unique clothing lines and their hopes for the future of their business centered on fashion and philanthropy.
In the past, Oregon’s indigenous students couldn’t wear eagle feathers on their graduation caps, mukluks on their feet, or traditional stoles over their graduation gowns without the fear that they would be stopped or have these items confiscated by school administrators. Now, a new law signed by Gov. Kate Brown ensures that Native American students in Oregon can wear culturally significant items at public school events, including graduation ceremonies.
We hear from Leya Descombes, a senior at NAYA Many Nations Academy and Leilani Sabzalian, assistant professor of Indigenous Studies in Education and co-director of the Sapsik'wałá Education Program at the University of Oregon. Both testified in favor of the bill.
Oregon House Republicans are calling on one of their own to resign. A video surfaced last week of state Rep. Mike Nearman, R-Independence, telling a group of supporters how he would let them into the closed state capitol building. He did just that five days later. We’ll talk about this, and look ahead to the last weeks of the legislative session, with Oregon House Minority Leader Rep. Christine Drazan, R-Canby.
Jacqueline Woodson is the author of “Miracle’s Boys,” “Harbor Me” and many other books for children and young adults. Her bestselling memoir “Brown Girl Dreaming” is written in verse and in 2015, the Poetry Foundation named her the Young People’s Poet Laureate. She was awarded a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" in 2020. We spoke with Woodson in front of a small audience at Literary Arts in downtown Portland in 2019.
An Oregon State University report shows that even before the pandemic, all Oregon counties were considered "child care deserts,” meaning they lack adequate child care for infants and toddlers. And in many counties, parents of preschool-aged children also lacked childcare options. Megan Pratt is an assistant professor of practice in the College of Public Health and Human Services at Oregon State University and the lead author of the report. Alyssa Chatterjee is the acting early learning system director of the Oregon Department of Education’s Early Learning Division. It funded the report. They join us with details on what the findings mean for Oregon families.
During the pandemic, cities all across the country turned hotel rooms into emergency housing for people who were living outdoors. Now, some states are doubling down on that model by providing funding to nonprofits to turn motels into shelters and supportive housing. The Community Development Corporation of Oregon in Gresham just got a grant from the Oregon Community Foundation to do just that. Brad Ketch is the Chairman of the Board of Rockwood CDC. and Nan Roman is the President and CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelesssness, which has looked at hotel conversion projects across the country.
For some families, the pandemic has meant constant close contact. But for many who live alone, the pandemic has deepened their sense of isolation. We hear from listeners on how they have explored dating online, grief and hope while single in the pandemic, and what they are looking forward to as pandemic restrictions ease.
The Klamath Basin is suffering the worst drought in the state. Competing need for the water by local tribes to sustain endangered fish populations, farmers and ranchers and commercial and tribal fisheries has been a persistent issue, and has led to conflicts in the past. The Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement, which took 10 years to plan, was a turning point and a compromise for the parties needing access to the water. The KBRA was ultimately not successful in Congress, but some say the relationships forged when crafting those agreements persist and can be built on to revisit new solutions. We're joined by geography professors at Oregon State University, Hannah Gosnell and Aaron Wolf who tell us about the possibilities for mediating this issue.
Climate justice activists are urging people and institutions to divest from fossil fuel companies. The organization 350PDX recently held an event with Oregon’s State Treasurer, Tobias Read, to encourage him to divest the state’s pension fund dollars from fossil fuels. We talk with Read about what it would take for the state to do that.
Sparkle Lynn More is the stage name of a then 11-year-old drag queen from Portland. More has been performing in drag shows for the past two years. We talk to More's mother Michelle Porter, the performer's brother, Charlie and Sparkle Lynn More. They all say they’ve found a second family in Portland’s drag community.
Summer is the season of outdoor concerts, festivals and weddings. Large outdoor gatherings are beginning to happen again after last year's widespread cancellations hit the live events industry. Dwayne Thomas, founder of the Live Events Industry Coalition of Oregon, and Christina Fuller, Owner of Fuller Events, join us to discuss how the last year has affected their industry, and what the future holds.
Many businesses took major financial hits this last year during the pandemic. But, some were able to recover with grace and find new approaches to their businesses that they intend to keep. We hear from Tammi Packer of Packer Orchards and Jeff Wong of CS Fishery. They share details about the pivots they made to their businesses and what went well during a year of uncertainty.
The Klamath basin is facing the worst drought in the state. As in years past, there’s not enough water to meet the demand for farmers, tribes and endangered fish and other wildlife. A group led by two farmers is threatening to break into the federally owned main irrigation canal. Twenty years ago some farmers facing this same water crisis did just that. We talk with Jefferson Public Radio reporter Erik Neumann about the rising tensions and what we might expect in the coming weeks.
Although Oregon’s towns and cities glow brighter with night lights, Prineville Reservoir State Park is the first Oregon park to be certified as an International Dark Sky Park. This means it’s earned a spot alongside less than 200 locations around the world. We hear from Mike Simonsen, a park manager who worked on landing Prineville’s designation. Bob Grossfeld, manager of the Oregon Observatory in Sunriver, joins as well. Sunriver earned an International Dark Sky Place designation last year. They share details about why protecting the night sky is important and how seeing stars helps Oregonians connect with the universe.
How can Oregonians change their recycling habits and make sure their efforts are actually effective? Pam Peck, Metro’s policy and compliance program director, joins us with details on
Last September’s Almeda fire took the lives of three people. Thousands lost their homes, and many are still struggling to get permanent housing. But some are getting back on their feet. Alan and Carole Balzer are the first to rebuild their home in Talent. We talk to them about the support they got from family, friends and neighbors and how it feels to be in a home of their own again.
The Salem-Keizer school district is the second largest school district in Oregon and serves a large Latinx student body. A progressive slate of newcomers ran for school board seats hoping to better serve the Latinx families who they say have been largely unheard in past decision-making. We speak with two newly elected school board members, Osvaldo Avila in Zone 1 and Maria Hinojos Pressey in Zone 7, on their motivations to run and what goals they have for Salem-Keizer schools.
The parts of the Rogue River Valley in Southern Oregon that aren’t in severe drought are in extreme drought. This has led to a shortage of irrigation water for ranches, farms and orchards in the region. We talk with Bryan Baumgartner, a rancher and board president of the Rogue River Valley Irrigation District.
For more than 30 years, Eugene's CAHOOTS program has been in place for situations that don’t need an armed police response, like mental health crises, overdoses and homelessness. Once dispatched, workers go to the location of someone in crisis and determine how they can connect the person with social services or other resources they need. The program has gotten a lot of national attention this year, and the model has been an inspiration for cities across the country, including Portland. But full funding for these responses remains elusive. We talk with CAHOOTS Director Ebony Morgan about her local and national advocacy to fully fund these efforts and what it takes to peacefully and successfully intervene in a crisis.
Last summer’s wildfires devastated communities all over Oregon. In the Rogue Valley, hundreds of people lost their homes and are still unable to find housing in the towns they had to leave. The challenges are both personal and collective, as communities also struggle with how to rebuild public buildings and recover economically, as tourist season begins. We talk with Jocksana Corona who lost her family home in Talent and now lives in Central Point, 15 miles away. And John Carlile shares how his Lane County community of McKenzie Bridge and others along Hwy 126 are trying to recover, even as this year’s fire season begins.
The Oregon Shakespeare Festival will resume its first in-person production since closing in March 2020. On July 1st, OSF will open the musical, “Fannie,” which recounts the life of civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer. It will be performed in the outdoor Allen Elizabethan Theatre. Artistic director Nataki Garrett tells us more about the musical and about what theatre goers can expect this summer.
Last Monday morning, Clackamas High School principal Nate Muñoz found the front doors on campus plastered with Trump stickers and beans, widely interpreted to be an expression of hate directed at Latinx people. Muñoz posted a public video on Instagram addressed to the school community, denouncing the act and expressing support for Latinx students and families. We talk with two parents of students at the high school, Prisca Diaz and Shannon McArthur, who fundraised for a catered lunch for CHS staff, provided by Cha-Cha-Cha, co-owned by Diaz.
The book ‘An American Marriage’ tells the story of a wrongfully incarcerated African American man, his wife, and her lover. We listen back to a conversation with author, Tayari Jones, in front of a small audience at Literary Arts in downtown Portland. Geoff Norcross hosts.
After being postponed in 2020, the Tokyo Olympics are scheduled to begin in July. However, many are calling for the games to be canceled due to growing concerns that the event would be a superspreader. We hear from Olympic fencer, Mariel Zagunis on how she’s been preparing after last year’s postponement. We’re also joined by Jules Boykoff, former Olympic athlete and political scientist on why he thinks the Tokyo Olympics should be canceled.
The Reimagine Oregon project launched last summer with an ambitious policy agenda to dismantle systemic racism in the state — in housing, education, health care, policing and more. We hear from three project organizers about what progress Oregon has made over the past year, what still needs to happen and where their focus is right now. Our guests are KairosPDX Executive Director Kali Thorne Ladd, JOIN Executive Director Katrina Holland and Nkenge Harmon Johnson, president and CEO of the Urban League of Portland.
How do you talk to kids about sex? Or drug use? Or bullying? What makes children feel comfortable enough with adults that they are willing to disclose abuse or trauma? Having conversations with young people about difficult topics can feel daunting to any adult. But talking about trauma is an important part of healing. Sonia Manzano spent years making kids feel comfortable playing the role of Maria on Sesame Street. We listen back to a conversation with Manzano, and Desiree Bansile, a Wraparound Partner Manager for Youth ERA, Dr. Kristan Collins, a pediatrician, and Bob Stewart, Superintendent of the Gladstone School District.
Journalist Katie Engelhart is the author of a new book — “The Inevitable: Dispatches on the Right To Die.” The book examines thorny questions about mental health, disability rights and costs of care when it comes to laws like Oregon’s pioneering Death With Dignity Act. Engelhart also explores what happens when people can’t legally access a physician’s aid in dying.
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Recent graduates from Willamette University College of Law formed a racial justice task force to examine a tool attorneys use during jury selection. A peremptory challenge can be used by lawyers to remove jurors without having to state a reason. Oregon’s policy around this legal tool needs to be changed or dropped completely, according to the task force’s report. We hear from Willamette graduates and racial justice task force co-chairs Sam Klausen and Eden Vasquez.
“Mr. Wolf’s Class” is a series of graphic novels for middle grade readers by Portland elementary school teacher Aron Nels Steinke. He and his wife, Ariel Cohn, won an Eisner award for their book "Zoo Box" in 2014. We listen back to a conversation with Steinke from 2019 about teaching and about creating graphic novels for kids.
Fern Wexler loves birds. As a kid, he focused on birds around age 7 and, more than a decade later, remains fascinated. Wexler has attended numerous camps at Portland Audubon and even became a counselor himself. He recently wrote an essay for the organization’s website about what birds mean to him, specifically as an autistic person.
“Birds made—and still make—more sense to me than other people," Wexler wrote. “Especially as it became obvious to my younger self that whatever was ‘wrong’ with my brain wasn’t something animals could pick up on. Only humans could do that. Ravens, jays, and juncos didn’t care that I functioned differently from everyone else. To them, we’re all just humans.”
We talk with Wexler about his essay, and about birds.
Portland State University’s Archaeology Roadshow is aimed at bringing the science of studying past human cultures to life. PSU professor emerita Virginia Butler organized the event and hopes next year it can get back to an in-person event, so that people can get up close and personal with the artifacts. But since it’s virtual this year, it has the potential to reach more people than ever before. Presentations include the archaeological discovery of a historical Chinatown in the Dalles, the relationship between video games and archaeology and indigenous perspectives of archaeology and heritage. We talk with Butler and archaeologist Diane Teeman with the Burns Paiute Tribe.
When the coronavirus hit the world last spring, Portland poet Samiya Bashir was in Italy for the prestigious Rome prize. She had given up her housing in Portland because she was supposed to be there for a year. But soon Bashir and the other prize-winners were told to leave before the borders closed. Bashir has spent the last year in a borrowed house on Cape Cod wondering about the nature of home and solitude. Bashir has an essay about her experience in the new book “There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love.”
Lake County’s vaccination rates are some of the lowest in the state.What’s behind the numbers? Charlie Tveit, Lake Health District CEO, joins us with details on the region’s vaccination status.
The city of Portland is adopting a “more assertive approach” to dispersing encampments of people experiencing homelessness. The new guidelines allow city contractors to more quickly clear out campsites due to fire risk, biohazardous materials, reported criminal activity and tents blocking the sidewalk, among other reasons. This is an abrupt change in policy from the past 15 months when the city has adhered to CDC guidance, which cautioned against dispersing homeless camps to avoid spreading COVID-19.
Marisa Zapata is the director of the Portland State University Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative. She says requiring people to move out of these camps will promote destabilization, erode trust in service providers and lead to more criminalization of homelessness in general. Zapata joins us.
As COVID-19 vaccination rates increase and numbers of infections and deaths decrease, the Oregon Health Authority is lowering the designated risk levels for some counties. Last week it announced that if counties had a 65 percent vaccination rate and a plan to close vaccine equity gaps, they would be eligible for the lower risk designation. That would mean significantly fewer restrictions on masking, indoor gatherings and social distancing. Multnomah county chose to wait to submit its equity plan until Friday, so the lower risk designation is not likely to come until sometime next week. We talk with Multnomah County Commission chair Deborah Kafoury about the details of the equity plan and more about the county’s overall COVID-19 strategy.
Last year major companies emphasized, “Black Lives Matter,” but how much progress has actually been made?
Portland-based entrepreneur Stephen Green joins us to discuss the work that still needs to be done to uplift Black-owned businesses.
The United States has been willing to lead the world in large-scale strategic planning in the past. The creation of the United Nations, or the fight against HIV/AIDs are good examples. A new book edited by Oregon State University’s Christopher McKnight Nichols makes the case that “grand strategies” do not have to be military in nature. In fact, Nichols argues that global strategic planning, led by powerful nations like the U.S., will be necessary to forestall future pandemics. Christopher McKnight Nichols and Elizabeth Bradley, president of Vassar College and contributor to the new book, join us to discuss the history and future of grand strategy.
The state’s newest mask guidelines leave it largely up to businesses to decide mask-wearing policies in their establishments. The Oregon Health Authority’s guidelines require that those that allow their patrons indoors without masks must request proof of vaccination. However, some business owners may choose to continue requiring masks for all their employees and customers. We speak with Will Cervarich, co-owner of the Betsy and Iya jewelry shop; Kaie Wellman, co-owner of Providore Fine Foods; and Susan Vaslev, co-manager of the Enchanted Forest.
Photographer Ivan McClellan went to his first rodeo grudgingly. He grew up in Kansas City and lived in New York before moving to Portland. McClellan is a city boy. And he’s Black. He didn’t think there was anything for him at a rodeo. Now, McClellan has a new exhibit of his photos of Black cowboys at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West.
Pendleton Round-Up was cancelled last year for the first time since 1943 because of the pandemic. Last week, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown said she fully expects the event can proceed this year. Steve Chrisman is the economic development director for the City of Pendleton and Pat Reay is the Pendleton Round-Up publicity director. They join us with details on what the return of the iconic event could mean for the city.
The Oregon Health Authority said this week that businesses and venue operators can establish more restrictive mask policies at their own discretion. They also clarified that mask requirements no longer apply to anyone outdoors. Patrick Allen, Director of the Oregon Health Authority, joins us to talk about the new rules.
Mercedes Muñoz was Oregon’s teacher of the year in 2020. She was awarded the honor before the pandemic changed life for teachers and students completely. Muñoz joins us to reflect on the challenges and opportunities of the last year.
Some service industry employees who were suddenly thrown out of work last year at the start of the pandemic are now grappling with how and whether to return to work. For those on extended unemployment making as much or more than they made working, the prospect of risking a coronavirus infection for low wages is less than appealing. We ask three Oregonians who were working in service industries, how they’ve been making ends meet and what their plans are as Oregon opens back up. Brianna Relick, Jason Dallam and Erica Carr share their stories.
The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation has created an online Umatilla language dictionary. Modesta Minthorn is the director of education for the confederated tribes and Thomas Morning Owl is the General Council interpreter. They join us to reflect on the importance of the online dictionary and how it can be used to support the language.
The pandemic has taken away a key element for performing artists — a live audience. Many artists and performers have moved their shows online since the start of the pandemic. Now, some are starting to think about what returning to in-person shows will be like. We talk with comedian and owner of The Siren Theater and Bad Reputation Productions, Shelley Mclendon about her ambitions to return to the stage. We’re also joined by Anjali Hursh and Stephen Strausbaugh of DJ Anjali and the Incredible Kid, who moved their dance parties online during the pandemic.
Oregon lawmakers are considering a bill to create an Oregon Wildlife Council. The eight-member council would be appointed by the governor with the stated purpose of developing a “comprehensive media-based program to promote and educate the public on the roles of hunting and fishing in wildlife conservation.” The council would not include anyone from a wildlife conservation organization and many of those groups are opposed to the bill. The proposed legislation does have the backing of the Oregon Hunters Association. Reporter Brian Oaster wrote about the Oregon Wildlife Council for Street Roots. They join us to talk about what their reporting revealed.
A mentorship program at Albany’s Memorial Middle School aims to provide a safe space for Black students to gather and get community support. We hear from Quincy Casey and Christopher Hughbanks, co-facilitators of the program, on why the program is important and what students can learn.
This week, Oregon Governor Kate Brown said most COVID-19 restrictions in the state will be lifted when 70% of eligible Oregonians have had at least one vaccine shot. Just two days later, the CDC put out new guidance saying that people who are vaccinated against the virus can stop wearing masks in most places. But are tired and traumatized Oregonians ready to start returning to something like pre-pandemic life? We’ll talk about the challenges of entering the next phase of the pandemic. Our guests are Julia Silverman, news editor for Portland Monthly Magazine, who recently wrote about this issue, and David Ropeik, author of “How Risky Is It Really? Why Our Fears Don’t Always Match the Facts.”
Fifteen-year-old Mariana Robins is still dealing with symptoms from a COVID-19 infection that dates back to September of 2020. At first, she says, it was just a runny nose, mild fever and fatigue. But sometime in October, she started passing out for no discernable reason. She experienced dizziness, intense pain all over her body and memory loss. She had to stop going to school because she could no longer focus on reading. Now, she’s slowly improving and has started attending classes at Edison High School in Beaverton, where she is a sophomore. She’s sharing her story in the hopes that it will motivate her peers to get vaccinated as soon as they can.
When Brian Grant retired from the NBA, he sunk into a deep depression. The life that he had fought so hard for seemed to evaporate, and his marriage started to crumble. Also, he noticed a strange twitch in his hand. Eventually Grant was diagnosed with Young Onset Parkinson’s disease. He tells the story of his life and struggles in his new memoir, “Rebound: Soaring in the NBA, Battling Parkinson’s and Finding What Really Matters.”
Ridership on TriMet buses and trains significantly decreased in mid-March of 2020. And that hasn’t changed much, due to public health restrictions and an overall drop in demand. But that could be changing as more people get vaccinated. We’ll hear what the last year has been like for the agency and what the future might hold from JC Vannatta, executive director of public affairs at TriMet.
Coos County has moved to the “moderate risk” level for COVID-19, a downward shift from high, giving businesses there more freedom to open up. The county moved into high in April after remaining in the extreme risk category longer than any other county in the state.
A conservative slate of candidates for the Bend-La Pine school board have gotten national media coverage, but have avoided local candidate forums. Jackson Hogan, education reporter for The Bulletin, tells us about how the non-partisan race has gotten so political.
The FDA has just approved the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for adolescents 12-15 years old. Research shows that the vaccine works as well in this age group as it does in those who are 16 and older. Nevertheless, some parents still have questions and aren’t sure about vaccinating their kids. Happy Valley pediatrician Ryan Hassan talks with his patients and their parents about immunizations, including the COVID-19 vaccine. He also gives presentations and answers lots of questions through Boost Oregon, a parents group focused on vaccine education. Hassan serves on the group's medical board, and he joins us to share what he’s hearing from patients and the public — and what he thinks could be done to increase vaccination rates more broadly.
In April, two men were killed along NE 82nd Ave. Last year, community members and traffic safety advocates requested that the same stretch of road have a lower speed limit. Hours before a planned online community rally demanding emergency safety improvements to 82nd Ave, the Oregon Department of Transportation announced its intention to seek a $10 million investment for pedestrian safety projects along the same road. We hear from Sarah Iannarone, Interim Executive Director of The Street Trust and Don Hamilton the Public Information Officer for ODOT.
In her latest novel, Portland writer Karen Thompson Walker explores the terrifying possibility of a world altered by a highly contagious disease. The disease causes people to fall into a seemingly endless sleep. We’ll listen back to a conversation with Thompson Walker about her book, “The Dreamers.”
How can Oregonians come together against racism toward Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders? That’s what a coalition of AAPI leaders wants to address following the increase in racism toward Asian Americans in the last year. Rise Against Hate Oregon is hosting a virtual event to talk about how Oregonians can stand against racism. We hear from organizers, Anne and Erica Naito-Campbell.
Portland Trail Blazers fans will be able to see their team play in-person at the Moda Center on Friday for the first time since March of last year. The Blazers are the last team in the NBA to decide to allow spectators. Attendance will be limited to about 1,900 people, or 10% of the arena’s full capacity.
We'll talk about it with Blazers president and CEO Chris McGowan.
Last week Centennial school district discovered their computer system had been infiltrated by hackers in a ransomware attack. The district cancelled all classes for a week and brought in a cybersecurity firm to help. Starting Monday, students were able to come back into the building for a few hours a week in the hybrid model, but all computer systems are still shut down. Carol Fenstermacher, Chief Communications Officer for the district, explains the impact of this attack on students and teachers.
Portland Public Schools have been doing some form of in-person classes for about a month now. Some older students have only been back for a couple of weeks. We talk with PPS superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero and chief of schools Shawn Bird about how it's going, what they expect the end of the school year will be like and what they anticipate learning may look like in the summer and fall.
The state has already removed nearly 30,000 hazard trees along roads and properties that burned in last year’s wildfires, and it plans to remove a total of 140,000 trees. Last week, Oregon lawmakers heard numerous allegations of mismanagement and haste in the tree removal process. OPB’s Cassandra Profita has been covering the story and fills us in.
Two recent studies conducted at Oregon Health and Science University give some answers to questions about variants and vaccines. One study shows that people who have been infected with COVID-19, and therefore have natural immunity, are still vulnerable to new variants. And the Pfizer vaccine can help protect people with natural immunity against variants. At the same time, another study showed that the Pfizer vaccine is less effective at offering protection against variants in general than it is against the “wild-type” strain of the virus that originated the pandemic. This means people will probably have to get booster shots at some point. Marcel Curlin is an associate professor of medicine within OHSU’s infectious disease division and co-senior author of both studies. He says the hope is that we can learn to live with the coronavirus in the same way we live with influenza. We hear from Curlin and co-senior author Fikadu Tafesse, who is also an assistant Professor of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at the OHSU School of Medicine.
Redemption House Ministries in Prineville runs two shelters for people experiencing homelessness and also provides meals to anyone in need. The food is served at the nonprofit’s cafe, known as Craig’s Compassionate Cafe, and charges $.50 per meal or offers people the option to trade a chore for a meal. Thé café has been closed during the pandemic but recently reopened to resume its mission. Cindy Burback is the executive director of Redemption House Ministries and she says that since the cafe also brings meals out to people in camps, volunteers may feed as many as 30 people in a day. We talk with Burback about the cafe and Redemption House Ministries' larger role in caring for some of the most vulnerable members of the community.
After multiple COVID-19 cases, the Wallowa School District announced in an April 29 Facebook post that the high school would be closed and distance learning for students will continue through May 11. Tamera Jones, the superintendent of the Wallowa School District, tells us more about what’s happening at the school.
How can the music world create a more inclusive environment for all voices? That's a question that’s top of mind for some musicians and educators. We hear from Ash, the artistic director of Transpose PDX, a Portland nonprofit that has a community choir and acapella group aimed at empowering transgender, non-binary and gender non-conforming musicians. We’ll also hear from Sarah Maines of the Maines Studio, a singing voice specialist and adjunct professor at the University of Portland, who teaches healthy vocal technique. They join us with details.
People with substance use disorders have suffered in the past not only from the consequences of their addiction but also from the stigma that their condition is a moral failing, rather than a disease. The field of addiction medicine has shifted over time to one that treats people with these disorders as patients who suffer from a disease and who may benefit from a medication to treat it. One of the prescription medications is buprenorphine, also known as Suboxone. Oregon State University Professor of Pharmacy Daniel Hartung says overdoses in the U.S. have risen significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic, but even before that, buprenorphine has been a life saving drug that can effectively keep patients from abusing opioids. But Hartung's new study of nearly a thousand pharmacies in about 500 counties across the U.S. with high rates of opioid overdoses found 20 percent of them would not dispense the drug. The Biden administration has just loosened buprenorphine restrictions to make it easier for doctors to prescribe the drug and we talk to Hartung about the significance of this move and what role pharmacists play in substance use disorder more broadly.
Oregon lawmakers could change a powerful but controversial tool known as involuntary civil commitment. It means that people with serious mental illness can be hospitalized against their will under certain circumstances. The new bill aims to create a clearer legal standard for what qualifies someone for civil commitment. A similar bill failed in the 2019 session.
We hear from Pat Wolke, a circuit court judge in Josephine County and co-chair of the Workgroup to Decriminalize Mental Illness, which helped craft the bill, and R. Drake Ewbank, a mental health service provider who opposes it.
In the summer of 2018 Jacob Hendrickson pushed off from the coast of Washington in a boat made especially for him by a boat builder in Portland. He spent the next 10 months rowing across the Pacific Ocean. We spoke to him via sattelite phone when he was anchored 30 miles off the coast of Australia, waiting for the weather to allow him to complete what will be the longest solo rowing voyage from North America across the Pacific.
In an effort to model decolonization among churches, the Wallowa United Methodist Church was returned to the Nez Perce tribe by the Oregon-Idaho Conference of The United Methodist Church. Instead of selling the property, church leaders saw an opportunity to strengthen their relationship with the Nez Perce Tribe. Reverend Dr. Allen Buck is a pastor at Great Spirit United Methodist Church and member of the Cherokee Nation. Casey Mitchell is the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee Vice-Chairman. They join us to talk about what the return of the church means for their communities.
On Friday, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown officially put fifteen counties into what’s known as the “extreme risk” category. That means a return to stricter capacity limits on places like movie theaters and gyms — and a complete ban on indoor dining.
It affects counties where some of the biggest cities in the state are located, including Portland, Eugene, Salem, Bend, and Medford. We hear what this means for three restaurant owners: Betsy McDonald of The Lemon Tree, Carlo Lamagna of Magna, and Valarie Rachelle of the Oregon Cabaret Theatre.
Umatilla County’s vaccination rate is about 23 percent, according to the Oregon Health Authority’s data dashboard. That's the lowest vaccination rate in the state. And Oregon Governor Kate Brown announced earlier this week that the county will move back into the COVID-19 “high risk” category. Still, the county has seen a decline in residents attending mass vaccination sites. It has told the state that it does not need any additional doses. We hear from Joseph Fiumara, the county’s public health director, about the challenges facing the region.
A hot, dry spring has let many in the Pacific Northwest to worry about this year's fire season. In some ways, for Glenn Casamassa, the last fire season never ended. Casamassa is the regional forester for the Forest Service region 6. He’s tasked with preparing for this year's wildfires while still recovering from the last one. We talk to Casamassa about how the forest service is facing fire, climate change, and a new federal administration.
The health and vitality of forest ecosystems in the Northwest, and how much timber should be cut from those forests, is laid out in the Northwest Forest Plan. But that plan was created in the mid-1990s, and has not changed substantially since then, says Norm Johnson, one of its developers. He and his longtime colleague, Jerry Franklin, recently penned an opinion piece in The Register Guard newspaper, opposing the planned logging of about 2,000 acres of mature trees (100 -150 years old) in Oregon’s Willamette National Forest. Johnson and Franklin say that in the time since the plan was written, forestry science has yielded a much deeper understanding of the ecological importance of these trees, including how they sequester carbon and provide habitat for countless species. Johnson and Franklin join us to discuss what’s at stake with this specific planned cut, and why they think new science should change the direction of forest management in Oregon.
Changes may soon arrive at a gas pump near you thanks to new fuel standards that just landed on Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s desk. The state’s new fuel standards will slowly lower the amount of heat-trapping greenhouse gases allowed from vehicle tailpipes through 2035. That means cleaner biodiesel or renewable natural gas will get a boost over gasoline and regular diesel. The standards are similar to others enacted in Oregon, California and British Columbia. Peter Fairley, an editor at InvestigateWest, recently wrote about clean fuels and electric vehicles, and what they could mean for Cascadia.
Multnomah County Library buildings will begin reopening in June after being closed for well over a year. Director Vailey Oehlke joins us to talk about how libraries are thinking differently about how best to fulfill their mission, serve diverse communities and offer services to people in multiple languages.
Bend resident Sherry Tran has long worked professionally with organizations and companies to turn workplace cultures toward diversity and inclusion. Tran says Bend is far more diverse than people might think. But people of color have experienced bigotry and harassment there, as they have in cities everywhere. Now the city has a new Human Rights and Equity Commission, of which Tran is a member. We talk with them about the commission and about their own personal experiences as an Asian American in Bend.
On Tuesday, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown announced that 15 counties will move to the extreme risk category effective Friday. Patrick Allen, the director of the Oregon Health Authority, gives details on the update.
As Oregon schools open their doors, students are heading back to school in droves for hybrid instruction — with some time spent at school, in-person, and the rest of the time continuing to learn at home. Students heading back to physical classrooms have found the experience isn’t the same as they remembered before the pandemic. Bend La-Pine was the first large district Oregon to go back to in-person instruction for all grades. Since the district went all in two weeks ago, COVID-19 has surged in Deschutes County. Now case metrics threaten the reopening. But health officials say school-related transmission of the virus is low, and that spread is mostly happening outside of classrooms. OPB reporters Elizabeth Miller and Emily Cureton join us to talk about the challenges schools and students face as they approach the end of this school year.
Bend resident Rue McKenrick wants to create a hiking trail that connects the contiguous United States. According to McKenrick, the American Perimeter Trail will be more than 14,000 miles long once it’s developed. He set out last year to hike the whole thing and made it about 10,000 miles before weather conditions and health problems forced him to come back to Bend. He was diagnosed with overtraining syndrome and spent a few months recuperating. Now, he’s heading back to North Dakota to pick up where he left off and hike the remainder of the trail he hopes will be nationally recognized one day. McKenrick joins us to talk about the triumphs and challenges he’s encountered on his journey.
Blue carbon is what scientists and policy makers say is a critical part of the global effort to mitigate climate change. Coastal environments are home to mangroves, tidal marshes and seagrass, all of which sequester carbon at rates greater than mature tropical forests. U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Oregon, is sponsoring the bipartisan “Blue Carbon for Our Planet Act.” We talk with her about this bill and about how it fits into larger legislative efforts to combat climate change.
Multnomah County Commissioner Susheela Jayapal sees a strong connection between the COVID-19 pandemic and a recent spike in gun violence in her district and many other places. According to Jayapal, the economic desperation some communities are experiencing, along with social isolation — particularly for young people — are contributing factors. We discuss prevention and solutions with Jayapal and Larry Summerfield, a community health specialist with Multnomah County’s Community and Adolescent Health Program.
With a global surge in new COVID-19 cases, the U.S. has been facing mounting pressure to share medical equipment and vaccines with other countries. The Biden administration just announced plans to make 60 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine available around the world. We talk to the CEO of Mercy Corps, Tjada Mckenna, about global health equity in the pandemic.
How can rural communities better manage challenges like abandoned buildings, housing shortages and population loss? That’s a question that a degree program at Eastern Oregon University aims to tackle. Shannon Donovan is an associate professor of Sustainable Rural Systems at Eastern Oregon University. Benjen Lilly is a student in the program. They tell us more about how graduates of the program might help transform their communities.
A bipartisan group of Oregon lawmakers are sponsoring a bill that would create a Prescription Drug Affordability Board. The board would have the power to set a maximum price buyers in the state could pay for some drugs. The goal is to reduce prices for consumers. But critics, including the Oregon Society of Health-System Pharmacists, say the proposal will not have the intended results and that federal regulation is needed. Our guests are Sen. Deb Patterson, (D-Salem) and Mike Millard, legislative affairs chair for the Oregon Society of Health-System Pharmacists.
National surveys gauging how much Americans know about the basics of their system of government show a decided lack of competency. About a quarter of Americans could not name at least one of the three branches of government, according to a study last year. A new bipartisan bill in the Oregon legislature requires high school students to pass at least one civics class before they can graduate. We’re joined by Sisters High School social studies teacher Gail Greaney and Erin Esparza with Oregon’s Classroom Law Project to find out how civics is taught now and how it will be different.
Elizabeth Furse died this week at the age of 84. Furse represented Oregon’s first U.S. House district from 1992 to 1999. She was a strong advocate for Native Americans and helped five Oregon tribes restore their federal recognition. After leaving Congress, Furse founded the Institute for Tribal Government at Portland State University. Delores Pigsley, tribal chairman of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, joins us to remember her.
Earlier this month, Multnomah County commissioners voted unanimously on a resolution to declare racism a public health crisis. The resolution acknowledges Oregon’s historical institutional racism including the genocide of Indigenous people and Black exclusion laws. It says, “The experience of racism causes toxic stress and trauma on BIPOC individuals and communities at-large that affect their mental health, and are linked to a range of negative impacts on physical health and well-being.” The resolution includes language about accountability measures, upstream solutions, community engagement and strategies to address health inequities. We hear from Ebony Clarke, the interim director of the Multnomah County Health Department and Leslie Gregory, founder and director of Right To Health.
We spoke with economist Bob Whelan in February of 2020 about how what we called the “novel coronavirus” could affect Oregon’s economy. Now, more than a year later, he joins us to reflect on the consequences the state has experienced due to the pandemic and talk about what it will take for Oregon to recover.
Portland Opera’s “Journeys To Justice” features a variety of compositions focused on the Black experience. Damien Geter is an artistic advisor to Portland Opera and the curator of the program. He selected pieces that connect the civil rights movement of the 1960s to current events and explore both joys and pain specific to Black Americans. The organization also asked Geter to include his own composition, “The Talk: Instructions for Black Children When They Interact with the Police.” The 75 minute show is streaming now through May 31.
We hear from Geter and Chip Miller, director of “Journeys To Justice” and the associate artistic director for Portland Center Stage.
The private liberal arts university Lewis & Clark college, in Portland, is the first in the Pacific Northwest to require its students to get COVID-19 vaccines in order to attend in the fall. Students can register for the fall regardless of their vaccination status but they must be fully vaccinated by Oct. 15. Faculty and staff are strongly encouraged to get the COVID-19 vaccine but are not required. The university’s Associate Dean for Health & Wellness, John Hancock, said Lewis & Clark’s twin goals are to keep students safe and get back to their mission of an in-person, hands-on liberal arts environment. We get more details from him about how the vaccine requirement will roll out and what it means for students and families.
A wildfire burning about five miles north of Beatty in Klamath County covers more than 1,600 acres. Lane and Marion Counties have extended burn bans through Friday. Multnomah and Clackamas Counties had temporary burn bans in place through Wednesday and will re-assess conditions Thursday. And warm, windy weather has increased fire risk throughout Oregon. Ian Yocum is a battalion chief for Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue. He gives us details on this year’s fire season and how the threat of fires is increasing across the state.
Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty on all three counts he faced in the murder of George Floyd. Floyd’s killing set off protests for racial justice across the world. We hear a variety of perspectives from Oregonians on the verdict and what comes next.
Oregon lawmakers are considering 10 bills to increase police accountability. The bills passed out of the House Judiciary Committee with bipartisan support earlier this month. We hear about the details House Judiciary Committee Chair Rep. Janelle Bynum, D-Clackamas, and committee vice chair, Rep. Ron Noble, R-McMinnville.
The Republican party is in the minority in the Oregon legislature and members have staged three walkouts in the last two sessions to prevent Democratic legislation from being voted on. This month, six Republican senators face heat from some constituents and colleagues for not walking out to deny a vote on a gun bill. We talk with one of those lawmakers, Oregon Sen. Bill Hansell (R-Athena), about why he chose to “stay and fight” rather than “run and hide.”
The Community Investment Trust in Portland allows people to “buy back the block” by becoming investors in local buildings. The project aims to provide affordable real estate investment opportunities for people of color whose neighborhoods have been impacted by gentrification. The first building using this model is in Southeast Portland, and more than 200 people in the neighborhood have invested in the property. Now, several cities are interested in replicating the model. We talk with John Haines, the executive director of the Community Investment Trust, and Jennifer Breedlove, one of the neighborhood investors.
A new study for Oregon State University shows that the choices coastal planners make about where to allow development and where to build seawalls may have just as much of an impact on coastal communities as climate change. Peter Ruggiero, one of the authors of the study, joins us to talk about the choices that coastal communities can make and how they impact the future.
Students from six Portland-area high schools have created a vaccine finder. The tool can be accessed on any device that sends a text. The finder can search Oregon zip codes to find available appointments at pharmacies. Rye Scholin, a senior at St. Mary’s Academy cofounded the Portland Student Pandemic Response group a year ago. In that time, students have collaborated on a variety of projects, from mask making to raising money and donations for the Community Transitions School for kids experiencing homelessness. The vaccine finder is the basis for another program that goes beyond finding a vaccination site. The program provides information on the vaccine: what it is, what to expect and how to follow up after getting the shot. We talk with cofounder Rye Scholin and Cole Songster, a service project coordinator with the group.
Oregon lawmakers are considering changes to the state’s mandatory minimum sentencing law, created by the passage of Ballot Measure 11 in 1994. Senate Bill 401 would convert mandatory minimum sentences for violent crimes — except for murder — to presumptive sentences. This means judges would have discretion over sentencing with some guidance written into the state law. Oregon district attorneys are divided over the bill. We hear from Clackamas County DA John Wentworth, who is opposed to SB 401 and Multnomah County DA Mike Schmidt, who is in favor.
Last year, Oregon faced a destructive and disastrous fire season. And this year, the fire rate in Oregon has already surpassed normal. That’s why Baker County Commissioner Mark Bennett says homeowners need to put in the work to protect themselves and their property against wildfires. And, he says, residents should be less complacent and more proactive about fire protection. Baker served on the Governor’s Council on Wildfire Response and will be featured in a speaker series by the World Forestry Center on how to create fire adapted communities. He joins us.
We listen back to a conversation with Mitchell Jackson about his book, “Survival Math.” The book is by and about a man trying hard to make sense of where he came from and how that place formed him. Most simply, it’s a memoir about his life growing up in Northeast Portland among pimps and drug dealers, about how he survived, and eventually thrived, becoming a celebrated writer and a professor at NYU. The book is also woven through with history, criminology, sociology and mythology. But it’s much more than just a personal memoir. Mitchell gives voice to other men in his life: a dozen family members, each of whom answered the same question: “What’s the toughest thing you’ve survived?”
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof grew up in rural Yamhill County. Years later, he found that about a quarter of the children who rode the school bus with him had later died in adulthood from drugs, alcohol, suicide or accidents. We talk with Kristof and his wife Sheryl WuDunn about the lives of poor, rural Americans in their new book, “Tightrope.”
Use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is paused while regulators investigate rare blood clots found in six women between the ages of 18 and 48. The pause has affected vaccination efforts for some Oregon health providers and county officials. Kim Toevs is the communicable disease director for Multnomah County. Sarah Poe, is the director for the Malheur County Health Department. And Laura Byerly is the medical director of the Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center. They join us to tell us how the pause is affecting those they serve.
The city of John Day in Grant County is deciding what to do with its police department. The police chief is retiring later this year, and the city’s budget shortfall has left the town with two options: keep the department by pursuing a levy or combine forces with the sheriff’s department. We talk with John Day Mayor Ron Lundbom and City Manager Nick Green.
Klamath county commissioners were recently awarded a major grant to help provide for its estimated 259 residents experiencing homelessness. The money was allocated by Oregon lawmakers last fall, and the grant is administered by the Oregon Community Foundation. Klamath county commissioners closed a deal last week to buy a property with a motel and RV park, which will eventually provide shelter for some of those 259 people. We get more details from Commissioner Derrick DeGroot and Christina Zamora, the executive director of Klamath Lake Community Action Services.
Oregon Governor Kate Brown recently declared a drought emergency in Klamath County saying, “the Klamath Basin faces one of the most difficult water years in recent memory.” This means that there won’t be enough water to sustain farmers who depend on the watershed for irrigation and endangered fish that are particularly important to local tribes. Last month, we spoke to Mark Johnson, deputy director of the Klamath Water Users Association. Today, we hear from Amy Bowers Cordalis, attorney for the Yurok Tribe and principal at the Ridges to Riffles Conservation Fund.
Seniors in Klamath County are getting vaccinated against COVID-19, but at a slower rate than health workers would like. The county health department has partnered with other community organizations to get the word out to seniors and address whatever barriers they have to get them vaccinated. One of those organizations is the Klamath and Lake Counties Council on Aging, and we hear from its executive director Kim Estes in conversation with Valeree Lane from the Klamath county health department.
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed nearly every aspect of our lives, including the ways that we use city streets. University of Oregon professors Marc Schlossberg and Rebecca Lewis recently published the book “Rethinking Streets During COVID-19” to look at the ways that the pandemic has changed public use of streets around the world. We talk with Schlossberg about what they found, and what it could mean for the future of street usage.
Oregon lawmakers have been battling Secretary of State Shemia Fagan in court over who gets to draw political boundaries based on the latest census data, a process known as redistricting. It might sound arcane, but this process has big implications for the state’s political future, including the possibility of a sixth congressional district. The Oregon Supreme Court sided with lawmakers in a ruling Friday. OPB political reporter Dirk VanderHart fills us in.
Reported acts of racism, violence and hate crimes directed at Asian Americans have increased significantly during the pandemic. But new research shows that Asian Americans are the racial group that is least likely to report hate incidents to authorities. Hoa Nguyen, a candidate David Douglas School Board, recently found a racist note left on her door. We talk with Nguyen and Úmi Vera, Interim Program Director for Portland United Against Hate, about reporting bias incidents.
State parks will become much more accessible under a new plan from the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department. Doors, parking lots and restrooms account for about half of the existing barriers for people with disabilities. Those should take about five years to fix, but the full plan is expected to take about 25 years. Advocates for people with disabilities say they’re heartened that parks will be brought into compliance with the federal Americans With Disabilities Act, passed more than 30 years ago. Our guests are Helena Kesch, the ADA coordinator for Oregon Parks & Rec, and Ashley Schahfer, owner and consultant of Empowering Access, who is a park user with disabilities.
Reported acts of racism, violence and hate crimes directed at Asian Americans have increased significantly during the pandemic. Last month a white man shot and killed eight people, including six Asian American women in Atlanta, Georgia. After the Atlanta shooting, five Asian American restaurant and food cart owners in Portland gathered together to talk about the violence and how to move forward. They decided to form a group, called the Rice Bowl Posse, to support one another and lift up other Asian American and Pacific Islander restaurant owners. We talk with two members of the group: Thuy Pham, the owner of Mama Dút Foods, and Richard Vân Lé, the owner of the Vietnamese food cart Matta.
A recent survey found that more than two thirds of incarcerated women in Oregon said that past trauma led to their involvement in the criminal justice system. Oregon lawmakers are considering a bill that would require that judges take domestic abuse into account during sentencing if it was a significant contributing factor to a defendant’s criminal behavior. Crystal Magaña testified in favor of the bill. Rep. Anna Williams, D-Hood River, sponsored the bill. And Kevin Barton, Washington County District Attorney and Vice President of the Oregon District Attorney’s Association, has raised concerns about the proposal. They join us.
The Lovejoy Surgicenter closed its doors in January, leaving many Portlanders and others seeking abortion services without a place to go. The Lilith Clinic opened last month and aims to fill the gap left by Lovejoy. Oregon is unique in that it does not have state restrictions on abortion, but access remains an issue. Many counties do not have any abortion providers at all. Dr. Charlie Browne owns the Portland Lilith Clinic. He's based in Seattle, and his clinic there provides abortions, as well as other reproductive health services. Browne joins us to tell us more about Lilith, his patients and how he hopes to expand his services in the future.
The operating agreement between the city of Eugene and local gas utility Northwest Natural is set to expire in May. But the renegotiations are stalled because the city wants to include a carbon fee program to fund its climate goals and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. If passed, the contract could be a model for other cities looking to reduce carbon emissions. Carl Segerstrom, assistant editor at High Country News, recently wrote about the contract negotiations. He joins us.
Gun violence is on the rise in Portland. The city has seen 284 shootings so far this year, which is more than double the number from the same time last year. Lakayana Drury has some ideas to respond to the root causes of gun and gang violence. Drury is the founder and executive director of Word Is Bond, an organization that aims to change the relationships between young, Black men and law enforcement. His proposals include a plan to offer more resources to young people likely to engage in gun violence through a program called the Rose City Investment Plan. It would provide $1000 monthly stipends as well as wrap-around services including job training, mentoring and mental and behavioral health support. Drury also wants to see the city offer free access to higher education for BIPOC students, covering not only tuition and textbooks but room and board as well. We talk with Drury about his proposals and next steps.
Artwork from more than 100 students is featured in a virtual art show hosted by the Clackamas Education Service District. The art pieces represent students from school districts throughout Clackamas County. The works illustrate the students' feelings and emotions as they navigate the pandemic. Bonnie Kayser is an art educator at Clackamas High School and curated pieces from her students. Hannah Olson is a sophomore at Clackamas High School and has art in the show.
Oregonians opposed to the planned expansion of Interstate 5 in Portland’s Rose Quarter are paying close attention to the Biden Administration’s response to a controversial highway expansion in Texas. Federal officials halted the expansion of Interstate 45 in Houston after receiving letters objecting to the project over concerns that it violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964. As with the Rose Quarter project, opponents of the freeway expansion in Houston argue that it would negatively impact historically African-American neighborhoods.
Bloomberg News reporter Max Reyes has written about the Biden Administration’s approach to highway infrastructure and he joins us to talk about the role of racial justice in that approach.
The Oregon Department of Corrections has offered a COVID-19 vaccine to every inmate in custody. Nearly 70% of people in prison have given consent to be vaccinated. After months of outbreaks and 42 COVID-related deaths in Oregon prisons, there are currently 9 active COVID cases in state prisons, down from a high of 730. We talk to Colette Peters, director of the Oregon Department of Corrections, about the department’s progress in vaccinating inmates and staff, and in fighting COVID-19 outbreaks in prisons.
At its peak, renting a movie from Blockbuster Video was a common experience for many households. But thousands of Blockbuster locations were slowly whittled down to one on the planet. And it’s in Bend. “The Last Blockbuster,” a documentary about the last location, is streaming on Netflix. Taylor Morden is the director of the film and Zeke Kamm is the writer. They join us to tell us more about the film and the iconic location left in Bend.
Reported acts of racism, violence and hate crimes directed at members of the Asian American Pacific Islander community have increased significantly during the pandemic. Last month, eight people, including six Asian American women, were shot and killed in Atlanta, Georgia. The attacks have had a profound impact on mental health for many in the AAPI community. Jenjee Sengkhammee has made creating a supporting and safe space for BIPOC clients a key element of her practice. She joins us to share what she’s been hearing from her clients and her own experience as a Hmong American woman.
Oregon officials are warning of a fourth wave of COVID-19 infections, even as more people become eligible for vaccines each week. Oregon Health Authority Director Patrick Allen joins us to discuss the latest projections and the new timeline that will allow all Oregonians 16 and up to get a vaccine starting April 19.
Oregon’s health care goals include eradicating health inequities by 2030. A big part of meeting that goal is making sure all residents, including undocumented workers, can get health insurance. We talk with Representative Wlnsvey Campos, D-Aloha, chief sponsor of HB 3352.
The pandemic has changed some of the ways cities and counties have handled homelessness. Some of those changes include allowing more camps and homeless villages, paying for people to stay in motels and more access to public restrooms. Now, Street Roots executive director Kaia Sand says, it's important that Oregon doesn't go backward. We talk with Sand and Marc Jolin, Director of the Joint Office of Homeless Services, about how the last year has changed homelessness policies and what comes next.
For many college students, how to afford their education is never far from their minds. They’re dealing with rising prices for food, housing, textbooks and tuition. Oregon State University and the University of Oregon were recently named in lawsuits filed on behalf of students who object to paying for facilities and other in-person experiences while classes were online. Isaiah Boyd is the president of the University of Oregon’s student government. Isabel Nuñez Pérez is Oregon State University’s student government president. They join us to share their thoughts and experience about paying for college.
Eddy Binford-Ross has been looking into some unusual financial contributions from special interest groups to Salem-Keizer School Board members and candidates. She reports meticulously on her findings in The Clypian, the student newspaper at South Salem High School where Binford-Ross is a senior and the paper’s editor-in-chief. She garnered national attention for her coverage of racial justice protests in Salem and Portland last year. We talk with her about her recent reporting and her experience as a student journalist.
A year ago, Oregon Governor Kate Brown issued an executive order creating the Oregon Climate Action Plan. The plan called on state agencies to take action to reduce and regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Now, a coalition of environmental advocacy groups has put out a detailed progress report to hold those agencies accountable for following the governor's directive.
We hear from Nora Apter, climate program director at the Oregon Environmental Council, and Brad Reed, campaign manager for Renew Oregon. Both of them worked on the report.
The pandemic has posed many challenges for young people. The disruption in routine, along with stress and other factors have contributed to weight gain among some children and teens. Some struggle with eating disorders.
We talk with two doctors who are working with young people and their families to address these issues. Kimberly Reynolds is a psychologist and medical director of the Healthy Lifestyles Clinic at Doernbecher Children’s Hospital and Naghmeh Moshtael is the medical director of Kartini Clinic For Children and Families.
Sometimes a flower or a bird or an overheard snippet of conversation is enough to bring joy. Perhaps especially in a year like this one, focusing on the small things is important. That’s something poet Ross Gay spent a long time doing for his latest collection of essays, “The Book of Delights.” Gay’s definition of delight is expansive and palpable, and his essays range from the smallest of natural wonders to the largest of societal problems. This year, Multnomah County Library is encouraging everybody to read “The Book of Delights.” Ross Gay joins us to talk about his book.
The Oregon Symphony has chosen its new music director for the 2021-2022 season. David Danzmayr will take the place of Carlos Kalmar, who stepped down in 2020. Danzmayr grew up in Austria and came to the U.S. as the music director of the Illinois Philharmonic in Chicago. He will start at the Oregon Symphony in June. He joins us to talk about stepping into his new role.
The Albany company Agility Robotics now has a bipedal robot called Digit available for companies to purchase. These machines can walk, carry objects and may be used in warehouse work, and even package delivery. We hear more about Digit from the company’s chief technology officer, Jonathan Hurst, and about the broader economic, social and ethical implications in the advancing field of robotics from Kagan Tumer, director of the Oregon State University robotics program.
The beloved Oregon author Beverly Cleary died last week at the age of 104. OPB producer Katrina Sarson visited Cleary at her home on the California coast 6 years ago for an interview. We play an excerpt from that interview today.
Nicole Georges grew up believing that her father was dead. That’s what her family told her, after all. But when she was in her 20s, a palm reader told Georges something different. Turns out, that palm reader was right. Based on the award-winning 2013 graphic memoir "Calling Dr. Laura," this six-episode podcast will take us through Georges’ investigation, the stories she was told, and the rollercoaster of belief and identity she went through in the process. Because if family is a story we tell ourselves, what happens when those fictions break apart?
The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde purchased the old Blue Heron paper company site at Willamette Falls several years ago. They have recently released their plans for the area. In addition to the long-awaited riverwalk, there will be housing, retail and plenty of environmental restoration. Kathleen George, a council member of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, tells us about the tribe’s emphasis on community and healing in their plans for this sacred site.
An estimated 10% to 30% of coronavirus patients exhibit symptoms long after the initial illness has faded. Oregon Health and and Science University has started a program to treat those patients. Eric Herman is the lead physician for the new OHSU Long COVID-19 Program.
Oregon is consistently ranked one of the worst states in the country when it comes to access to mental health care. And fewer than one in five mental health care providers in the state is a person of color. Rep. Janelle Bynum has proposed a bill to make several policy changes in order to increase recruiting and retention of mental health care clinicians of color.
One of those changes would be to reduce the number of direct supervision hours with clients that clinicians are required to complete to get their license. Currently, counselors in Oregon are required to complete 2,400 direct supervision hours with clients. In comparison, the state of Washington only requires half that. Bynum’s bill proposes that Oregon reduces its required hours to 1,200 to be in line with Washington. Proponents of the bill say that change would reduce the barriers to becoming licensed in Oregon and could result in more diversity among clinicians.
Keleigh Blount is a licensed mental health counselor and an assistant professor of counseling at George Fox University. Gianna Russo-Mitma is a licensed marriage and family therapist and a board member of Coalition of Oregon Professional Associations for Counseling and Therapy. They join us.
Some school districts in east Multnomah County had been planning to stick with comprehensive distance learning until the end of the school year. Then, Oregon Governor Kate Brown announced that all schools in the state would be required to offer in-person instruction by mid-April. We hear from OPB education reporter Elizabeth Miller about how east county districts are making the switch to hybrid models.
The lack of diversity in the outdoor recreation world can make people of color feel excluded or unwelcome when they do outdoor activities. Bend skier Mallory Duncan recently wrote in Ski Magazine about his experience as a Black ski mountaineer. He wrote about a ski tour in June 2020, the week that George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police.
After a 25-year struggle, citizens of the Compact of Free Association nations living in the United States had their Medicaid eligibility restored by Congress at the end of 2020. COFA islanders, who are from the Marshall Islands, Palau and Micronesia, have a unique relationship with the United States that began in 1986, but they lost access to Medicaid in 1996 and advocates have been working to restore eligibility ever since.
We talk with David Anitok and Kara Miller of COFA Alliance National Network about what this change means for COFA islanders living in Oregon.
Oregon lawmakers are considering bills that would expand access to services and support foster kids in the state’s troubled child welfare system. Royce Bowlin is the executive director of the Oregon Alliance, a coalition of 40 child advocacy groups in the state. Those member groups work with OHA, DHS Child Welfare and the Oregon Youth Authority. They are also the second biggest provider of foster care in the state. Bowlin says the state must boost wages to bring down the sky-high turnover rate, which is between 40-60 percent.
We talk to Bowlin about those bills and about SB 707, which would allow all Oregon youth sent across state lines between 2016 and 2019 to access all their relevant records documenting their treatment during that time. In those out-of-state facilities, children and youth experienced abuse, neglect, and sexual assault.
Oregon lawmakers are considering a bill that would expand coverage requirements for mental health and addiction treatment services, whether through private insurance or the Oregon Health Plan. The bill, HB 3046, is based on a similar California proposal that passed in 2020. Chris Bouneff, the executive director of NAMI Oregon, is a proponent of the bill. Carol Dickey testified in favor of it. They join us.
Oregon will soon have its first tribally owned and operated opioid treatment clinic. The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde plans to open the Great Circle Recovery Opioid Treatment Program in Salem later this month. The facility will focus on a comprehensive and culturally specific approach, offering ceremonial sage burning and other spiritual practices along with medication-assisted treatments like suboxone and methadone.
We talk with Kelly Rowe, the health and wellness director for the tribes about the vision for this project and future plans for tribally-focused health care.
The Oregon Health Authority mistakenly offered about 11,000 vaccination appointments to people ineligible until April 19. The agency plans to honor appointments made because of the error. And Oregon Secretary of State’s audit division released a report this week detailing the state’s COVID-19 response in long-term care facilities. OPB health reporter Amelia Templeton gives us the details.
When Oregon schools shut down in March 2020, no one knew that it would be more than a year before students began returning to their classrooms. Now that that transition is imminent for many students around the state, we talk with Ajit Jetmalani about the mental health impacts on kids and families. Jetmalani is a professor and director of the division of child and adolescent psychiatry at the OHSU School of Medicine.
Oregon State University president F. King Alexander resigned Tuesday. This comes after the OSU Board of Trustees initially voted to place Alexander on probation, following a report that detailed the mishandling of sexual misconduct allegations at Louisiana State University, where Alexander served as chancellor and president before he came to OSU last year. Students, faculty, alumni and others were clearly not satisfied with the board’s initial decision and ramped up the pressure, with the Faculty Senate expressing “no confidence” and even calling for board members to resign as well.
We hear from OSU Faculty Senate President Selina Heppell and Millicent Durand, a senior at OSU and a reporter for the student newspaper, the Daily Barometer.
A large earthquake could be powerful enough to breach the Detroit Dam and cause disastrous flooding. The concerns have prompted the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to propose a plan to lower levels of the Detroit Lake. The work would begin in April and the Corps is accepting public comments on the draft environmental assessment until March 30. Zach Urness, the outdoors editor for the Statesman Journal, joins us to tell us more about the proposal.
We listen back to our interview with science journalist Jon Palfreman about Parkinsons disease. Palfreman had written about the disease as a journalist long before he got diagnosed with it himself. His book is “Brain Storms: The Race to Unlock the Mysteries of Parkinson’s Disease.”
Dr. Jane Lubchenco, a distinguished professor and former Obama administration official has been appointed as the Deputy Director of Climate and Environment within the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Lubchenco told OPB that in her new role, she will help “ bring good science to the policies that are being implemented, in addition to thinking about policies in a practical and sensible fashion.” This is the first time a presidential administration has elevated the Office of Science and Technology Policy to the cabinet level. We talk more with Lubcheno about her role and hopes for the future of climate change policy
Many music venues have been devastated by the pandemic. And people have been without access to a lot of these important gathering places in their communities. But some have survived in spite of the odds. Our guests are Jim Brunberg, founder and co-owner of Mississippi Studios in Portland, and Angeline Rhett, owner of The Belfry in Sisters.
In some ways Oregon’s motor voter law has had exactly its intended effect: more Oregonians registered to vote. But John Horvick with DHM Research says that influx is having an unintended consequence. It’s actually disempowering that very group of new voters. That’s because the vast majority are non-affiliated voters and cannot vote either major party primary. Horvick says one way to address the problem would be to open those primaries. But as voters have twice rejected that plan, he says, Oregon must find a way to change the system so that non-affiliated voters can be on par with those registered as Democrats or Republicans. We talk with Horvick about some of the possible solutions.
In Multnomah County, health workers and volunteers are going door-to-door vaccinating eligible people at their homes, including homebound seniors who would have a challenging time getting to an outside vaccination site. Dr. Ann Loeffler, a deputy health officer for Multnomah County, joins us to tell us more about the program and how it's been going.
This week, a federal judge sanctioned the Portland Police Bureau and ordered the agency to retrain officers on their use of crowd control devices. This came a day after Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler held a press conference condemning protesters who took to the streets again last weekend. Wheeler is also pushing his fellow city council members to fund gun violence prevention efforts, including the PPB’s new Enhanced Community Safety Team. Mayor Wheeler, who is also the city’s police commissioner, joins us to talk about all of this and more.
Najiah Knight aims to be the number one bull rider in the world. The 14 year old from Arlington, Oregon is already a record setter. She was the first girl in the Mini Bull Riders circuit and the first girl to ride a bull in Madison Square Garden. Knight is featured in a new special on OPB’s Oregon Field Guide.
For the second year in a row, there will likely not be enough water in the Klamath basin to sustain fish, farmers and birds. Klamath county commissioners recently declared a drought in the basin and asked the state to do the same. Mark Johnson, deputy director of the Klamath Water Users Association, tells us about the impact of water conditions on farmers in the region.
Portland City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty was falsely implicated in a March 3 hit-and-run, despite having nothing to do with the incident. The allegation was then leaked to the media. The mayor’s office has since opened an investigation into the leak, and the president of the Portland Police Association stepped down due to his handling of the incident. Commissioner Hardesty joins us to discuss how race and racism have affected her career as an elected official. And Joseph Torres, senior director at Free Press and co-author of the book “News for All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media,” tells us how this one incident fits into a larger history of news media perpetuating stereotyped and inaccurate coverage of people of color.
Portland filmmaker Skye Fitzgerald’s newest short documentary, “Hunger Ward” follows a doctor and nurse who work in two of the biggest therapeutic feeding centers in Yemen. Their job is to try to save starving children. The United Nations calls Yemen “the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.” Six years of civil war have led to mass starvation and cut off food aid to much of the country. In his first foreign policy address last month, President Joe Biden said the U.S. would end its support for the Saudi coalition in Yemen, who are fighting Houthi rebels backed by Iran. “Hunger Ward” is the third in Fitzgerald’s trilogy focused on the Middle East and has been nominated for an Oscar. We talk with him about the film and what he and his crew experienced in their time in Yemen.
Working from home started as a quick fix at the beginning of the pandemic. But, the last year could alter the way some employees work, even when the pandemic ends. Businesses with large office spaces are starting to think through what that might look like. Jonathan Bach, a reporter for the Portland Business Journal, joins us.
Last week, President Biden set an ambitious goal to make everyone over the age of 16 eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine by May 1. But Oregon officials said the state timeline would not change until the federal government provides more vaccine doses. Last month, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown said that all adults would be eligible as of July 1.
We talk with Oregon Health Authority Director Patrick Allen about vaccine timelines and the guidance his agency is offering to schools as they plan to reopen for in-person instruction after spring break.
After protests for racial justice last summer, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown created a Racial Justice Council to help shape the state budget and legislative priorities. Now, the Criminal Justice Reform & Police Accountability sub-committee has released a list of reforms it wants to see the legislature take on in the 2021 session. The list includes more options for restorative justice and creating local police oversight committees around the state. We talk with the co-chairs of the committee, Lamar Wise and Paul Solomon.
Many older Oregonians have struggled to get access to a COVID-10 vaccine. Timoney Korbar experienced the challenge firsthand when she struggled to get her mother a vaccine appointment. In response, she set up Portland Vaccine Helpers, a volunteer effort to help seniors get signed up for vaccine appointments. We talk with Korbar about the effort.
Oregon lawmakers are considering a bill that would prohibit beaver trapping and hunting on federally managed public land. Employees of federal land management agencies would be exempt from the restrictions. Workers would still have the power to remove beavers that are causing issues like road and campground flooding. Suzanne Fouty is a retired hydrologist and co-authored the bill. She joins us.
High school sports are back in some schools around Oregon. Some athletes at Baker High School have been playing outdoor sports since last summer but only recently got the go-ahead for indoor sports like volleyball. We’ll get more details from Baker Athletic Director Buell Gonzalez, track and field runner Sydney Keller, and Peter Weber, head of the Oregon School Activities Association.
Students and their families have experienced trauma during the COVID-19 pandemic -- ranging from illness to financial hardship to the effects of increased isolation. A new program at Eastern Oregon University aims to help educators take a trauma-informed approach to teaching. We talk with a Dr. Karyn Gomez, an Eastern Oregon University professor, and Jennifer Azure, a La Grande teacher who is in the program.
Nationwide, white Republicans are more hesitant about getting the COVID-19 vaccine than any other demographic group. We talk about why, and what public health officials are doing to reach this group. Our guests are Malheur County Health Department Director Sarah Poe and Chunhuei Chi, professor and director of the Center for Global Health at Oregon State University.
A fugitive on the run for more than a decade for his alleged role in a string of arsons will soon be facing trial on charges of domestic terrorism. The fires were set along the West Coast as part of an environmental activist group over 20 years ago. OPB reporter Conrad Wilson spoke with Joseph Dibee, who is under house arrest in Seattle.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown ordered all public schools to offer some kind of in-person instruction by mid-April. But parents still disagree on what's best for schools and students. Rashelle Chase, an activist and Portland mother, joins us to talk about what she thinks schools must have before safely reopening. Rene Gonzalez, an activist and Portland father, tells us why he thinks in-person instruction is long overdue.
Oregon voters amended the state constitution to allow campaign finance limits. Now, lawmakers are trying to figure out: what should those financial limits be? We talk with Rep. Dan Rayfield, D-Corvallis, and Sen. Tim Knopp, R-Bend, who have been working hard on that question.
All those home goods you may have been buying to make the last year a little more comfortable have led to significant delays at ports. And that means industries that rely on exporting products, like Northwest hay or apple farmers, are not able to get their crops to market. Pandemic-related shutdowns and labor shortages at ports have exacerbated the problem. Jessica Fu, a reporter for The Counter, explains the impact of this global shipping delay.
For some military veterans, their service comes with a host of challenges: PTSD, traumatic brain injury and other forms of trauma. And it can be tough to enter a legal system that doesn’t have those challenges in mind. In Deschutes County, a diversion program helps veterans access treatment as an alternative to the criminal justice system.
Still, some are pushing for a judge-staffed specialty court that would address the needs of veterans. We hear from the Deschutes County District Attorney John Hummel, who helped to create the county’s current program. The mayor of La Pine also joins us. He served in the Marine Corps and advocates for other veterans.
As covid vaccines become more available, public health efforts are starting to focus on education and access. Charlene McGee manages a program in Multnomah county that aims to improve health for Black residents and African immigrants and refugees. Those at greatest risk for preventable disease and negative health outcomes before the pandemic are also the ones at greatest risk from covid, McGee says. McGee joins us to talk about the Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health (REACH) program, and how they are partnering with community organizations to educate people about the vaccines, and working to make sure those who are eligible for the shots can get them.
The COVID-19 pandemic is at an inflection point. More people are getting vaccinated every day, but we’re also seeing a rise in variants as the virus mutates. We talk with Kim Repp, Washington County’s chief epidemiologist, about best case and worst case scenarios for the summer and fall, and how both vaccines and variants are changing the way we think about the pandemic.
On any given Sunday night in Portland, there may be hundreds of spectators and cars shutting down parking lots and intersections in street racing spectacles. These events can be dangerous, and have been deadly. And there seem to be more of them now than ever before. Kevin Allen, a sergeant with the Portland Police Bureau, tells us about the challenges the police face in addressing street racing.
Oregon Legislators have unveiled proposals to build more shelters, protect people who live in tents, and create paths to homeownership for tribal members and people who live in manufactured homes. For years, housing issues in the state legislature were considered more of an afterthought; issues to be tackled primarily at the local level. But in more recent history, the topic has taken center stage inside the state Capitol. OPB political reporter Lauren Dake fills us in.
Viral genetics now lie at the heart of the most important question about the pandemic: Will we eradicate COVID-19 for good, or will it be something, like the flu, we live with - and die from - every year? Brian O’Roak, co-director of the SARS COV-2 genome sequencing center at Oregon Health and Sciences University, is searching for and studying viral variants in Oregon. OPB health reporter Amelia Templeton tells us more.
Umatilla County has the lowest rate of COVID-19 vaccinations per capita in Oregon. County commissioners have argued that they are not getting enough vaccine doses from the state despite having high COVID infection rates. Joseph Fiumara, public health director of Umatilla County, joins us to talk about the county’s vaccination rate.
Author Tim O’Brien is best known for his book “The Things They Carried,” about the Vietnam War. His latest book, “Dad’s Maybe Book,” is a compilation of anecdotes and reflections on becoming a parent in late middle age, and what he wants his young children to know about him before he dies. This conversation was recorded in front of an audience at the Portland Book Festival last fall.
OPB reporter Rebecca Ellis revealed long-standing internal issues at the Portland Office of Community and Civic Life. Employees have filed numerous complaints about dysfunctional and abusive managers. Now, a new commissioner is in charge of the bureau. Ellis joins us to talk about what she learned and what might change under Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty.
Local filmmaker Dawn Jones Redstone's new short film "See Me" premiered at the Portland International Film Festival. It tracks the lives of three Black Portlanders during last year’s statewide shutdown — and how their lives intersect with the chaotic world outside. Director Dawn Jones Redstone and Executive Producer Kisha Jarrett tell us more about the film and the stories behind it. “See Me” runs at the festival through March 14.
Nearly a year after she ordered public schools to close due to COVID-19, Gov. Kate Brown has issued an order for them to return to in-person learning. The order requires public schools to transition to in-person instruction through either fully on-site education or a hybrid model that includes distance learning as well. OPB education reporter Liz Miller has been looking into how the hybrid model is working in Oregon and Washington schools. She joins us.
Oregon lawmakers are considering a bill that would increase the tax on alcohol producers in order to fund addiction recovery services. But, opponents of the bill worry the tax could devastate the industry. We’ll hear from Mike Marshall. He’s the co-founder and executive director of Oregon Recovers, an organization behind the bill. Christina LaRue also joins us. She’s the executive director of the Oregon Brewers Guild, an organization opposed to the proposal.
Oregon is one of 15 states without a formal way to compensate people who have been wrongly convicted of crimes. Sen. Kim Thatcher (R- Kaizer) is sponsoring a bill that would provide a special fund for people who have been exonerated. Steven Wax with the Oregon Innocence Project testified in favor of the bill this week. He said the state needs a fund to help those who have served time for crimes they did not commit. Sen. Thatcher joins us to discuss the proposal.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown announced she is ordering all public schools in the state to offer in-person classes in the coming weeks. Students in kindergarten through fifth grade will be first, followed by grades six through 12., followed by grades six through 12. We talk with OPB editor Rob Manning about what this order means for Oregon’s school districts.
Oregon lawmakers are considering a bill that would create three peer respite centers across the state. The centers are homelike facilities where people who are experiencing mental health crises can go, and are staffed by people who have experienced mental health crises themselves. The centers are meant to be an alternative to emergency rooms or jails, where many people in crisis currently end up.
Fourteen other states already have peer respite centers. The Rose Houses, run by People USA, are centers in New York. We talk with Steve Miccio, the CEO of People USA.
Oregon Cabaret Theatre in Ashland has reopened. “The Spitfire Grill,” is its pandemic premiere, the 1990s hit musical based on a movie and book of the same name. The state COVID-19 restrictions are being observed, including temperature checks at the door, limited seating of 25 percent of capacity, tables six feet apart and masks required anytime audience members are not eating. Artistic Director Valerie Rachelle joins us to share how the show is going under the safety measures and how she’s feeling about the health of theatre in Ashland more broadly.
We are at yet another crossroads in the pandemic. It's a race to see how many people can get vaccinated before new variants start to spread widely. Richard Corsi is an indoor air quality expert and dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science at Portland State University. He says public health messaging has focused too heavily on sanitizing surfaces and not enough on preventing the way the coronavirus spreads through the air. He says it's ventilation that's going to be key in preventing another spike in cases.
Oregon lawmakers are considering two bills that would allow prisoners to vote. House Bill 2366 and Senate Bill 571 would restore voting rights to the roughly 12,600 prisoners in custody around the state. The bills would also allow inmates to register to vote in their last place of residence prior to being incarcerated. If passed, Oregon would become the third state in the nation to allow people to vote while incarcerated. The Oregon Justice Resource Center is one of the groups in favor of the bills, and there is no organized opposition. We talk with OJRC Executive Director Bobbin Singh.
Community symphonies are designed to make music accessible, engage the public and maybe even spark a lifelong love of music. That’s at the heart of the Imagine Symphony Live film and music education project. The composer of the film’s music Chris Thomas recently won a big industry award for the score. Both he and the Imagine Symphony Live creator Evan Sigvallsen play cello in the Central Oregon Symphony, and their whole project, like symphony performances, are free to the public. We talk with Thomas and Sigvallsen about their music and how they hope it will be enjoyed and used to enrich children’s lives.
People experiencing homelessness are frequently cited for public intoxication, illegal camping and trespassing. In 2018, the Oregonian/OregonLive reported that people experiencing homelessness accounted for over half of the arrests made by Portland Police the previous year.That number has only increased since that time. High Country News correspondent Leah Sottile joins us to talk about her recent article on how homelessness is criminalized in the west and about a homeless man who died after being tased by police in Albany.
As confrontations between police officers and protesters become increasingly common, the Civil Liberties Defense Center is suing the city of Eugene and police officers from the Eugene Police Department over the treatment of activists and city residents during Black Lives Matter protests last year. We hear from Lauren Regan, the executive director and a senior staff attorney with the center, about updates to the lawsuit.
Last week, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation distributed nearly a thousand vaccine does to reservation residents and tribal employees. The tribe has already vaccinated tribal members over age 55, healthcare workers and first responders. Chuck Sams, Deputy Executive Director of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, joins us to talk about the tribes’ vaccination strategy.
Israel Bayer stepped down as the director of Street Roots in 2017. Now, he is the director of the International Network of Street Papers North America. We talk with Bayer about his current role, plus housing and homelessness in the Northwest.
Scientists with Oregon State University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have sequenced the genome for one of the most popular hop varieties in the United States. The research has implications for the craft brewing industry as well as the medical field.
We hear from John Henning, a USDA research geneticist who also has an appointment in the Oregon State College of Agricultural Sciences. He is a co-author of the paper about the hop findings in the journal, “The Plant Genome.”
Nearly a quarter of Oregonians said they would not get the COVID-19 vaccine, and another third said they weren’t sure, according to a December survey by the University of Oregon. Also, according to the Pew Research Center, Black Americans are less likely than white Americans to say they’ll get the vaccine. We talk with Dr. Cliff Coleman, an associate professor of family medicine at OHSU, about the vaccine hesitancy he has heard from his patients, and what doctors can do to address it.
Bernie Madoff’s spectacular Ponzi scheme fraud was exposed in 2008, the year Alicia Jo Rabins was working in a studio on the ninth floor of an abandoned office building on Wall Street. Her new film “A Kaddish for Bernie Madoff” came from what she calls her obsession with the man, his Ponzi scheme, and the system that allowed them to thrive for decades. The Kaddish, a Judaic prayer for the dead, can also be said as a kind of excommunication for a person who has committed a heinous crime. The film is playing this Friday, March 5, at the Portland International Film Festival. We talk with Rabins about her genre-bending, first-person documentary, blending elements of memoir, documentary and musical theatre to create a compelling historical narrative.
“How do we atone for the worst thing we’ve ever done?” That is the question at the heart of a new podcast that features men serving time in the Oregon State Penitentiary. University of Washington professor Steve Herbert brought together a group of men at the prison for a class on atonement with the goal of creating a podcast. “Making Amends” tells the personal stories of six men and the circumstances and choices that landed them in prison. The podcast questions the system of incarceration in the U.S. that makes remorse and atonement difficult and instead prioritizes punishment. Herbert tells us about the podcast and his perspective on the relationship between atonement and accountability.
This week, Oregon State University will host a Wikipedia editathon for Black History Month. The event will bring together a group of people - virtually - to add more information and diversity to Wikipedia entries about Black history in the Pacific Northwest. Tiah Edmunson-Morton is an archivist at OSU and one of the organizers of the event.
As the pandemic continues, food insecurity among Oregonians remains at an all-time high. Part of the problem is food waste. But larger, systemic issues play a role too. We hear from Susannah Morgan, the CEO of the Oregon Food Bank, about how to get hungry Oregonians access to food.
High school seniors are starting to receive acceptance letters from colleges and universities for the fall term, but it’s hard to imagine what the fall will actually look like on campus. Some schools have already begun welcoming students back to in-person classes and on-campus housing, while others are still finalizing their plans for in-person learning in the fall.
We hear how schools and students are navigating the uncertain future from University of Portland Dean of Admissions Jason McDonald, Oregon State University Provost for Student Affairs Dan Larson and Kagan Young, a school counselor at David Douglas High School.
The Portland Jazz Festival has long been a mainstay in the city’s jazz scene and this year it’s more accessible than ever before. All of the acts are live streamed, and you can still catch many of the acts before the festival wraps up on Saturday, Feb. 27. Isabel Zacharias is the producer and host of “Takin’ Off” on KMHD Jazz Radio and she joins us to highlight some of her favorites from this year's festival.
In a few weeks, Oregon will have a ShakeAlert system — a network of sensors that can detect seismic shifts and send out an alert via mobile devices seconds before shaking begins. California has had a ShakeAlert system in place since 2019 and has used it more than a dozen times. We hear about how it works from Emily Holland, earthquake early warning public policy specialist for California’s Office of Emergency Services.
After an extended back-and-forth between Portland city officials, the future of the self-governed homeless village called Hazelnut Grove in Portland is still unclear. In January, city officials said that they would close the village, citing environmental concerns. Now, the city says that Hazelnut Grove will lose some services, but residents who want to remain can do so. We talk about the future of Hazelnut Grove with Jesse Sadler, a resident, and Peggy Zebroski, an activist with the “Save Hazelnut Grove” campaign.
Hundreds of thousands of Oregonians were left without power last week due to ice, snow and fallen trees. As severe weather becomes more common, experts say that these types of power outages will too. We hear from Robert McCullough, an energy consultant in Portland, about what needs to change to make Oregon’s power grid more resilient.
Extreme weather delayed vaccine shipments headed to Oregon and forced the cancellation of many appointments. Despite this, officials say Oregon’s vaccination plan remains on track. We hear an update from Patrick Allen, the director of the Oregon Health Authority, on the state’s latest vaccination efforts.
White Oregonians are vaccinated against COVID-19 at higher rates than many Oregonians of color. But they are less likely to contract COVID-19 than Black, Indigenous and Pacific Islander people. Earlier this year, Oregon’s Vaccine Advisory Committee was tasked with deciding which groups to prioritize in order to make vaccine distribution more equitable. Dr. Kalani Raphael, an associate professor at OHSU, represented the Oregon Pacific Islander Coalition on the committee. Musse Olol represented the Somali American Council of Oregon. They join us to talk about racial disparities in vaccine distribution, and their work on the Vaccine Advisory Committee.
Students, parents and teachers at Summit High School in Bend have been on a pandemic rollercoaster. The school closed down for in-person instruction just days after it had transitioned from online learning. Dozens of its students tested positive for COVID-19 in an outbreak connected to a party. The high school reopens Monday. We ask the Regional Director of School Safety Julianne Repman and Emily Freeland, Branch director of the COVID-19 Response team with Deschutes county public health about the incident and efforts to prevent future outbreaks.
Oregon Democratic lawmaker, Rep. Diego Hernandez, has faced allegations of harassment for months. On Sunday he resigned. OPB reporter Lauren Dake has the story.
The pandemic has increased everyone’s dependence on technology, but that technology is out of reach for thousands of people in the Portland area alone. According to 2018 data from the American Community Survey, 32,000 households in Multnomah County are not connected to the internet, and at least 16,230 households do not have computing devices of any kind. The City of Portland allocated $5 million in CARES Act funding from the federal government to help bridge the digital divide that has left so many already vulnerable communities without access to critical resources. The project was able to help 25% of those who requested technology devices, training and internet access support.
We hear about this effort, and the work still left to be done, from Christine Kendrick, Smart City PDX coordinator and Alan Hipolito, executive director of Suma, who worked on the project as well.
Portland biomedical engineer Arlyne Simon has been interested in science and invention ever since she was a small child. Later, she realized women are vastly underrepresented in professional science fields. Now she is determined to help change that. Simon is also an inventor, and an author of a series of books aimed at girls called “Abby Invents.” Simon mentors girls and young women as part of her work with the IF/THEN nonprofit, which provides resources and opportunities for middle school girls in a wide range of scientific fields.
Violence and harassment against Asian Americans has increased significantly across the country over the past year. In Portland, several Asian-owned businesses were recently vandalized. That came after two other recent bias crimes that targeted Asian Americans. We talk with Allie Yee, development and communications director at APANO; Yaejoon Kwon, assistant professor of Sociology and Comparative Race and Ethnicity Studies at Reed College; and Artthew Ng, a student at Portland State University.
While some schools in Oregon have in-person instruction, others remain closed. We hear from John Larson, president of the Oregon Education Association, about getting more kids back in schools.
Billy Williams has served as Oregon’s top federal law enforcement officer since 2015, but has been asked by the Biden administration to step down at the end of this month. We’ll talk to Williams about his tenure as Oregon’s U.S. Attorney, including his role prosecuting protesters in Portland this summer, and his pledge to charge Oregonians who took part in last month’s insurrection.
A new multimedia project tells the stories of young Black men in the Pacific Northwest from their perspectives. “I Got a Story to Tell” launched this month by the community organization Word is Bond. We hear from Lakayana Drury, the founder of Word is Bond, and Ristom Habtemariam, a community ambassador with the group. Habtemariam is also featured in the project.
While the majority of families with kids in Oregon schools have been coping with virtual learning for almost a year, many preschools and child care centers have remained open. We hear from Miriam Calderon, Early Learning System director for the State of Oregon, about what K-12 schools can learn from child care centers and preschools about preventing the spread of COVID-19 in classrooms.
Oregon Senator Ron Wyden recently wrote a letter urging the Biden administration to push Turkey on its human rights record. Senator Wyden has been vocal in his criticism of the Turkish government for several years. In that time, he has also become close to Enes Kanter, the Turkish-born star of the Portland Trail Blazers. Senator Wyden and Enes Kanter join us to discuss their mutual bond over basketball and politics.
Now that Oregon’s most populous counties can resume indoor dining, many restaurants are facing a new set of choices. On Tuesday, we heard from Riane Welch, co-owner of Boxwood Kitchen, about their decision to reopen indoor dining. Today, we hear from Eric Nelson, co-owner of Eem, a Thai barbecue and cocktail restaurant in North Portland that is choosing to stick with takeout and outdoor dining for the foreseeable future.
With the Oregon ban on indoor dining lifted, many restaurants are working hard to attract customers inside while minimizing the risk of exposure to the coronavirus. In Bend, Riane Welch and her fiancé are reopening their Boxwood Kitchen dining room. The small restaurant, like many others in the state, has struggled to stay afloat over the last year, trying everything from takeout and delivery to maximizing outdoor seating. Nevertheless, it has had to close for extended periods since the pandemic shutdowns began in March 2020. Riane Welch tells us about how the first weekend of indoor dining went and what she’s planning for the future.
More than 220,000 Oregonians are without power after an ice and snow storm this weekend. The storm downed trees and power lines, and several school districts canceled classes on Tuesday as a result of power outages. Mike Myers, director of the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management, joins us to discuss how the city is responding to the damage from the storm.
Oregon could be facing a huge financial burden — from $1 to $3.3 billion dollars — when the eviction moratorium ends in June. That’s one of the findings of the Portland State University Homeless Research and Action Collaborative. Researcher Lisa Bates says the costs from the anticipated mass evictions come from additional shelter, including emergency shelter, medical care, and child welfare services. An estimated 90 percent of those facing eviction have lost jobs, and about 40 percent are BIPOC. Bates joins us to tell us more about these families and some of the strategies the report details that could prevent many of these evictions — and the accompanying costs to taxpayers.
Oregon lawmakers are considering two bills that would allow prisoners to vote. House Bill 2366 and Senate Bill 571 would restore voting rights to the roughly 12,600 prisoners in custody around the state. The bills would also allow inmates to register to vote in their last place of residence prior to being incarcerated. If passed, Oregon would become the third state in the nation to allow people to vote while incarcerated. The Oregon Justice Resource Center is one of the groups in favor of the bills, and there is no organized opposition. We talk with OJRC Executive Director Bobbin Singh.
More than 24,000 Oregonians applied for assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) after wildfires destroyed their homes in September, 2020. FEMA denied almost two thirds of those requests. We talk with Jefferson Public Radio reporter April Ehrlich about what she’s heard from wildfire survivors, FEMA and legal advocates.
This summer, when Oregonians flock to the Willamette to enjoy river sports, there will be a new set of rules to follow. The Oregon State Marine Board recently banned wake surfing on a large section of the Lower Willamette from downtown Portland to Oregon City. The board also limited the use of water skis, wake boards, and jet skis. Josh Mulhollem, environmental and policy program manager for the Oregon State Marine Board, tells us about the new rules.
On any given Sunday night in Portland, there may be hundreds of spectators and cars shutting down parking lots and intersections in street racing spectacles. These events can be dangerous, and have been deadly. And there seem to be more of them now than ever before. Kevin Allen, a sergeant with the Portland Police Bureau, tells us about the challenges the police face in addressing street racing.
The Salem-Keizer school board has chosen its first ever student advisor. Leanette Mabinton is a senior at McKay High School, and will advise the board until she graduates this spring. Mabinton testified in front of the school board for the first time when she was a freshman. This year, she has served on a student task force advising the board on the issue of school resource officers.
President Biden has taken a number of executive actions early on in his administration that made many tribal communities feel their needs will be represented. For example, Biden nominated Deb Haaland to be the first Native American Interior Department Secretary. He also signed a memorandum reaffirming tribal sovereignty through tribal consultation.
Cheryle Kennedy, Chairwoman for the Tribal Council of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde and Jaime Pinkham, the Executive Director of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, discuss what their hopes are for their working relationship with the Biden administration and moving forward on issues from native health to climate change.
Dean O’Donnell fled his home in the middle of the night as the Labor Day wildfires roared. The flames destroyed much of the town of Detroit in Marion County. O’Donnell lost his dream home and now rents in Salem. His business, Mountain High Grocery, still stands, but suffered major smoke damage. We speak with O’Donnell about life since the fires and what comes next.
Earlier this week, a judge ordered Oregon to offer inmates the COVID-19 vaccine. And for some who are already in line, confusion remains on how to sign up and where to get the vaccine. We talk with Patrick Allen, the director of the Oregon Health Authority, about how the rollout is going and what Oregonians should know about access to the vaccine and the state's COVID-19 response.
It’s been almost a year since students across Oregon started online learning. It has been difficult and, in some cases impossible, to translate special education services to virtual platforms. Students with disabilities have missed out on things like physical therapy and speech therapy, as well as the accommodations that make it possible for them to receive a free, appropriate public education.
We hear from Tom Stenson, deputy legal director for Disability Rights Oregon and Maria Rangel, a mother of three school-aged children, including a daughter who experiences Down Syndrome. Rangel is also the bilingual program coordinator for NW Disability Support.
Oregon’s vaccine advisory committee was tasked with creating recommendations for who should be prioritized next in the state’s vaccination roll-out. Last week, the committee finalized its recommendation to Gov. Kate Brown. After health care workers, seniors and educators, the committee recommends the state prioritize four groups: adults 65 and under with underlying health conditions, frontline essential workers, adults and youth in custody 16 years and older, and people living in low income and congregate senior housing. We speak with Oregon Health Authority Public Health Director Rachael Banks about what OHA will do with the recommendations.
The play is no longer the thing for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. OSF has shifted to film and other digital content, in the pandemic. Its new short film, “Ash Land” is a meditation on race, history and identity, as reflected in the life of a Black woman coming to terms with the past. It is streaming on the OSF website and has been selected to be part of the Pan African Film Festival. Director Shariffa Ali and actor Cyndii Johnson tell us more about their creative process and how the film speaks to this moment.
People displaced by the Santiam Fire in and around Mill City, Oregon are moving into manufactured homes provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Also known as FEMA trailers, these homes are available to people who are not able to find other temporary housing options and have been living in motels or doubled up with friends and family for the past five months. We hear from FEMA public information officer Paul Corah.
Helensview Alternative High School in Portland is designed for students with high needs. Many are experiencing homelessness or live in neighborhoods with high levels of violence and crime. Eight students have died in the last school year. Four others have been shot. Helensview principal Dawn Joella Jackson says the needs of her students are becoming ever more urgent in the pandemic. We talk to her about her students and how she and her staff are struggling to provide the support they need.
It’s been five months since the Labor Day fires ripped through Oregon’s Santiam Canyon and residents are still in recovery mode. Angela Rasmussen is the principal of Santiam Junior/Senior High School. After the devastating fires, she set up a fund to raise money for students who lost so much. While most of their basic food and shelter needs are met, many lost personal possessions and a sense of safety. We talk with Rasmussen about her efforts to help students.
Gyms are allowed to open back up again across Oregon, although in a limited capacity. Randy Lauer is the owner of 3-46 Grit CrossFit gym in Gresham, and the mayor of Troutdale. His gym opened Monday at 5:30am with capacity for 12 people at a time.
Latinos in Oregon are five times more likely to get COVID-19 than the white population. That’s what Portland State University professor Roberto Orellana found last May. In response, he started a program to train bilingual college students to become contact tracers. We talk with Orellana and Gabby Perez Winder, one of the students in the program.
Portland City Commissioner Dan Ryan is now in charge of the Housing Bureau. He is also the commissioner in charge of the city and county's Joint Office of Homeless Services. Ryan talks with us about his vision for tackling some of the most entrenched problems facing Portlanders, especially those who are experiencing homelessness.
Two weeks ago, the Klamath County Chamber of Chamber of Commerce issued a press release supporting some businesses making the “tough choice” to reopen. Klamath County currently falls in the “extreme risk” category of OHA guidelines. The Chamber says that local business owners are facing tough financial decisions, but should be allowed to make the responsible choice as long as they follow guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to keep employees and customers safe.
We listen back to several conversations with Oregonians who fled the holocaust. Ruth Lindemann was born into a Jewish family in Vienna in 1933. Five years later, Nazi Germany annexed Austria. Lindemann and her immediate family were able to escape – narrowly — when Lindemann was seven. Anita Diamant Holmstrum also grew up in Vienna. She escaped with her triplet sisters when she was 13 years old.
The 2021 Oregon Legislative session is officially underway, and lawmakers have a lot on their plates. We talk with Democratic House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Portland, and Republican Leader Christine Drazan, R-Canby, about their priorities and how they plan to address the many crises facing the state.
The Oregon Health Authority has confirmed multiple cases of the coronavirus strain that originated in the U.K. Other variants which originated in Brazil, South Africa and California are expected to land in Oregon as well. Scientists are hard at work sequencing the virus’s genome in order to provide data to help with treatment and vaccination. Dr. Donna Hansel heads OHSU’s Department of Pathology, which is partnering with the Oregon SARS-CoV-2 Genome Sequencing Center. Hansel joins us to talk about this work and what people should know about the variants of the coronavirus.
Michael Harrington’s brother has underlying conditions and lives in a congregate care setting, but he’s not on the list to get a vaccine anytime soon. That’s because his brother is an inmate in Department of Corrections custody. We talk to Michael Harrington about his brother’s experience testing positive for COVID-19 while incarcerated.
An Oregon law that went into effect in 2020 halted the practice of automatically suspending driver’s licenses for people who failed to pay traffic fines on time. One town is taking that a step further. Phoenix, Oregon is clearing all debt owed to its now-shuttered municipal court from 2010 or earlier.
The Oregon Law Center is applauding this move and hopes more local governments will follow Phoenix’s example. The nonprofit also has a pending case before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals challenging the practice of suspending driver’s licenses for failure to pay traffic debt.
We hear from Kelsey Heilman, a staff attorney with the Oregon Law Center’s Portland regional office and Tracy Chavez, a grandmother with court debt living in Bend.
Many sports have been cancelled or significantly changed to keep athletes safer during the pandemic. Trapshooting, however, has been able to continue largely unchanged. And the Eastern Oregon University trapshooting team has done particularly well this year. Savannah Shorts placed 15th in the nation in an event last year, and hopes to compete in the national competition this spring.
On his first day in office, President Joe Biden proposed a bill that would immediately grant legal status to over a million undocumented farmworkers. Sierra McClain, reporter for Capital Press, tells us how Pacific Northwest farm groups are reacting to the proposal.
Best-selling author Michael Pollan has written a psychedelic history. And that's no metaphor. He details the scientific research into psychedelics prior to the 1970s and what's driving the modern revival of interest. This conversation was recorded in 2018.
Oregon Humanities started its ‘Dear Stranger’ letter-writing program in 2014, but it took on a new meaning during the COVID-19 pandemic. People send letters, anonymously if they choose, and in some cases, strike up a correspondence. The nonprofit organization behind the project saw a surge in interest in the program in 2020 and, for some letter writers, it became an essential connection during a time of social isolation. We hear from letter-writers Rebecca McCroskey and Justin Chin.
Disinformation has become a growing problem in the United States and around the world in recent years. Experts say that disinformation has played a role in the increased partisan divide in the U.S., and was a major factor in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in early January. But Kate Weber, the president of the Oregon Association of School Libraries, says that teacher-librarians have a role to play in teaching students how to distinguish fact from fiction online. Weber joins us.
On his first day in office, President Biden signed an executive order that will enforce federal laws that prohibit sex discrimination to include discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Advocates for transgender rights are particularly hopeful that this administration will reverse the policy impacts and the transphobic rhetoric of the previous administration. Mikki Gillette from Basic Rights Oregon tells us what LGBTQ advocates hope for.
Teachers have spent this entire school year teaching classes online. They’ve had to adapt their curriculum and teaching style, educate students about monumental current events, and support the children in their virtual classrooms. Two Portland middle school teachers join us to discuss the challenges, changes and silver linings of online teaching.
The Salem City Council has proposed a plan to phase out camping in city parks. In March, the city passed an emergency declaration to allow people who were homeless to camp in two city parks in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Now, they plan to open more shelter options as camps are phased out in the coming months. Jimmy Jones, the executive director of the Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency, joins us to discuss the proposed plan.
The 2021 legislative session was delayed due to security concerns, but lawmakers will convene in person for the first time today. OPB’s Dirk VanderHart tells us what’s on the agenda, including COVID-19 response, wildfire prevention, and addressing racial equity.
Today, Joe Biden takes the oath of office in Washington D.C. and becomes the 46th president. OPB reporter Sergio Olmos is in the capital to follow potential protests there. OSU historian Christopher McKnight Nichols will help to put this day in historical context. Eric Ward, Executive Director of the Western States Center, will tell us about how the country should deal with extremism and conspiracy theories going forward. And we’ll talk to two young Oregonians from different political backgrounds about what this moment means to them.
Just days before a new administration takes over, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced it would remove protections for 3.4 million acres of forest land currently considered critical habitat for the northern spotted owl.
The owl is listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, and inspired bitter fights between the logging industry and environmentalists in the 1990s. Timber industry groups are hailing the rule change as a positive step, while conservationists say it could lead to extinction for the spotted owl.
We hear from Chris Cadwell, forester and natural resource analyst with the Association of O&C Counties and Susan Jane Brown, staff attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center.
Gregory McKelvey came into Portland’s spotlight as an activist. More recently, he’s made a name for himself as a political strategist: the 27-year-old ran Sarah Ianarrone’s 2020 mayoral campaign and now works as a political consultant at Praxis Political. He’s also the chief of campaigns at Zealous, an organization that supports public defenders in moving their advocacy outside of court. He says his mission in Portland has been to fuse activism and politics, and he joins us to discuss his journey.
Last week Umatilla County Health Department set up a vaccine distribution clinic in a parking lot at the Pendleton Convention Center. Public Health Director Joseph Fiumara says they could distribute up to 1,000 vaccine doses in a day if they had access to them. But last week, Oregon officials found out the state would not get more doses from the federal government, because there was no federal supply. Now, the county isn’t sure when they’ll get new doses.
School districts around the state are deciding whether to return to in-person instruction after Gov. Kate Brown loosened pandemic-related restrictions. Many parents who are advocating for schools to reopen say that the longer distance learning continues, the more likely that the achievement gap widens between students of color and white students. But Rashelle Chase, an early childhood educator and Portland mother, says that the voices of families of color are not being included in those conversations. She wrote a piece recently criticizing white parents for making these arguments in bad faith and for speaking on behalf of families of color. Chase joins us.
School districts around the state are deciding whether to return to in-person instruction after Gov. Kate Brown loosened pandemic-related restrictions. Schools in the Bend-La Pine district are reopening their classrooms to students later this month. And Lake Oswego announced plans to re-open schools for its youngest students in February, despite concerns from teachers. We talk with Lora Nordquist, the interim superintendent for the Bend-La Pine Schools, and Sara Pocklington, chair of the Lake Oswego School Board.
Oregon will not receive increased shipments of the COVID-19 vaccine from the federal government, because there is no federal reserve of doses, Gov. Kate Brown said on Friday morning. That puts Oregon’s vaccinations efforts at “grave risk,” according to Oregon Health Authority Director Patrick Allen. Allen joins us to discuss Oregon’s vaccination efforts.
Portland-based comics journalist Joe Sacco’s new book is an emotionally complex and historically informed portrait of the Dene First Nation people, the indigenous subarctic communities that have lived in what is now known as Canada's Northwest Territories for thousands of years. “Paying the Land” tells how economic and cultural colonialism and residential schools nearly destroyed the Dene’s ancient way of life. It also chronicles the impacts of mining, drilling, and fracking, along with climate change on the land and people. Sacco joins us as part of the Portland Book Festival, put on by Literary Arts.
In 2015, we visited the Thurston Creek Oxford House in Albany. It’s an intentional living facility for recovering addicts - one of over 200 Oxford Houses in Oregon. We talked to Stacy Warwick, Trish Hodeck, and Michael Regan about their experience of living in the home, and their journey on the path to recovery
Fifty-four people died due to traffic accidents on Portland’s streets in 2020. There haven’t been that many traffic fatalities in the city in 24 years. Portland Bureau of Transportation Public Information Officer Dylan Rivera joins us to discuss the increased number of traffic fatalities last year.
College enrollment is on a decline across Oregon. Community colleges have been hit the hardest, with an overall 23% enrollment decline, compared to 3.8% across all institutions. This could spell lasting consequences for both the colleges and students. We speak with administrators from Clatsop Community College and Portland Community College about the factors behind the enrollment decline and how it will impact higher education.
As Oregon continues to roll out vaccinations for health care workers and nursing home residents and staff, the Oregon Health Authority is gearing up to distribute vaccines to the next group on their priority list: K-12 education workers.
Oregon’s teachers, campus staff and bus drivers are all next in line to receive the COVID-19 vaccine ahead of Gov. Kate Brown’s Feb. 15 goal to get students back into schools.
But they’ll be ahead of thousands of home-based Oregonians over the age of 65.
We hear from John Larson, president of the Oregon Education Association, and AARP Oregon’s communications director Joyce DeMonnin on the state’s handling of vaccinations for teachers and seniors.
Pacific Islanders in Oregon have experienced disproportionate rates of COVID-19 infection. In the Salem-Keizer School District, Pacific Islander students have also been more likely to fall behind during distance learning. Ken Ramirez, a community resource specialist for the district's Pacific Islander community, is making socially-distanced home visits and planning incentive programs to keep students on track. Kathleen Jonathan, the district’s outreach coordinator for Marshallese students, is working to stay connected with families who mainly speak Marshallese. We talk with Ramirez and Jonathan about how Pacifc Islander students have been impacted by the pandemic.
Oregon City Police now have the option of calling a behavioral health specialist when they encounter someone experiencing a mental health crisis. Valentina Muggia started the job a few weeks ago, but she’s spent the last 5 years working with the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office in a similar position. We’ll talk to Muggia about what her job entails.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler was narrowly reelected for a second term in office in a runoff election in November. Wheeler is the first mayor since Vera Katz who will serve consecutive terms as mayor of Portland. He’s recently pledged a tougher stance on people who commit violence and vandalism at protests following demonstrations on New Years Eve. We check in with Wheeler about his plans and goals for his second term in office.
After Gov. Kate Brown loosened pandemic-related restrictions on in-person education, both school districts in Klamath County announced they would return to in-person learning on Jan. 11. We talk with Klamath County School District Superintendent Glen Szymoniak about the decision to open the schools, and how the district plans to reduce the risk of COVID-19 spread among students and staff.
Oregon planned to vaccinate 100,000 people against COVID-19 by the end of December. But less than a third have actually gotten a dose of the vaccine. Oregon is trailing behind other states in the speed of vaccine rollouts. Now, Gov. Kate Brown is calling on the Oregon Health Authority to ramp up its vaccination efforts in the next two weeks. We talk with OHA Director Patrick Allen about the rollout and how the agency plans to meet that goal.
Last year, researchers at Oregon State University led a group of 11,000 scientists worldwide to declare a climate emergency. This week, those same researchers renewed their calls for action. William Ripple, a professor of ecology at OSU, explains why he thinks climate change is a moral issue.
Extremists emboldened by President Donald Trump flooded into the U.S. Capitol building yesterday in an attempt to disrupt the certification of the electoral college. We hear from members of Oregon’s congressional delegation, including Democratic representatives Kurt Schrader and Peter DeFazio, and Republican representative Cliff Bentz.
We also hear from hip hop journalist Mac Smiff, who has been participating in protests against police brutality in Portland, about how the police response to the insurrection in Washington, D.C. differed from what he has seen here. And journalist Leah Sottile talks about the connections between far-right extremism in the Pacific Northwest and the pro-Trump mob at the Capitol.
Portland-based comics journalist Joe Sacco’s new book is an emotionally complex and historically informed portrait of the Dene First Nation people, the indigenous subarctic communities that have lived in what is now known as Canada's Northwest Territories for thousands of years. “Paying the Land” tells how economic and cultural colonialism and residential schools nearly destroyed the Dene’s ancient way of life. It also chronicles the impacts of mining, drilling, and fracking, along with climate change on the land and people. We listen back to a conversation with Joe Sacco that was part of the 2020 Portland Book Festival, put on by Literary Arts.
Before last summer, the nearest ambulance service to the Fort McDermitt Paiute-Shoshone Reservation in Malheur County was 74 miles away. That meant if tribal members needed emergency medical care, they’d have to wait and then pay large sums of money in ambulance bills. But in June 2020, Ron Eagleye Johnny started the Fort McDermitt Tribe EMS Rescue, a government-funded service that is based on the reservation. It also serves people in the surrounding area. Johnny joins us to talk about providing emergency medical services in rural Oregon.
Logging in Oregon rakes in billions of dollars annually, but an investigation by OPB, The Oregonian/OregonLive, and ProPublica found that the state has prioritized corporations over its small logging communities and the environment. OPB Reporter Tony Schick fills us in on the investigation.
The city of Hillsboro launched its city-funded broadband internet service in December. Over the next decade, Hillsboro plans to expand the project to establish Oregon’s largest publicly run fiber network. We’ll speak with Hillsboro Mayor Steve Callaway about how rollout is going so far and his vision for HiLight.
In May, a nationwide survey found that Black- and Latinx-owned small businesses struggled to get financial assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Recent surveys in Marion County by PCUN found that many small business owners of color in the area also faced barriers to accessing aid. Through a grant from the Oregon Latinx Leadership Network, PCUN is offering workshops and stipends for small business owners. Omar Alvarado, advocacy organizer for PCUN, has been leading several workshops. And Lorena Heredia, who owns the business Desi Trucking, has taken workshops through the program. They join us.
After months of congressional disagreement and a last-minute veto threat from President Donald Trump, the federal government passed a new COVID-19 relief bill in late December. There was concern that the bill’s late passage would cause as many as 70,000 Oregonians to see a lapse in benefit payments for the end of December. But the U.S. Department of Labor and Sen. Ron Wyden said benefits won’t lapse after all. We talk with David Gerstenfeld, interim director of the Oregon Employment Department, about when the new relief money will reach Oregonians.
n 2015, the City of Portland passed an affordable housing strategy that was the first of its kind in the nation: It would give preference for housing and home loans to those who’d been displaced from historically Black and now gentrifying neighborhoods in North and Northeast Portland. We check in on the effects of the policy with Leslie Goodlow, the equity business operations manager for the Portland Housing Bureau. And we hear from Gaelan Andrade Booker, who bought his house last year with help from the policy, and Portland Housing Center home buying specialist Shalonda Menefee, who helps people purchase homes using assistance from the policy.
Today we bring you selections of three interviews from this year’s Portland Book Festival. Jon Mooallem talked with John Notarianni about his book “This is Chance: The Shaking of an All-American City, A Voice That Held it Together.” Aida Salazar spoke with Jenn Chavez about her book for middle-grade readers, “Land of Cranes.” And Shayla Lawson spoke with Tiffany Camhi about her book of essays, “This is Major.”
Pulitzer-prize winning playwright Ayad Akhtar’s latest novel, “Homeland Elegies,” is a meditation on American identity through the lens of an American son and his immigrant parents. It is also a treatise on American economics, Muslim identity in this country, the power of dreams, and syphilis. We listen back to a conversation that was part of the Portland Book Festival put on by Literary Arts.
Phil Klay has emerged as perhaps our most effective explainer of the theories, intricacies, complexities, atrocities and consequences of modern warfare. His book “Redeployment,” a collection of short stories emerging from his service as a marine in the Iraq war, won the National Book Award. His latest book “Missionaries” goes to Iraq, and Afghanistan, and Yemen, and - most notably - Colombia. Most of the book is set in that country in the run up to the 2016 peace accord between the government and the left-wing guerrilla group, the FARC. OPB’s Geoff Norcross spoke with Klay as a part of the Portland Book Festival put on by Literary Arts.
From the pandemic, to racial justice protests, to wildfires, to the election — how have the events of this year changed us? Nkenge Harmon Johnson, Scott Bruun and Christopher McKnight Nichols help us make sense of a very interesting year.
The legendary Oregon writer Barry Lopez has died after a long illness. We remember him by listening back to a conversation we had in March of 2019 about his book "Horizon."
Portland-based comics journalist Joe Sacco’s new book is an emotionally complex and historically informed portrait of the Dene First Nation people, the indigenous subarctic communities that have lived in what is now known as Canada's Northwest Territories for thousands of years. “Paying the Land” tells how economic and cultural colonialism and residential schools nearly destroyed the Dene’s ancient way of life. It also chronicles the impacts of mining, drilling, and fracking, along with climate change on the land and people. WE listen back to a conversation with Sacco as part of the Portland Book Festival, put on by Literary Arts.
We listen back to an interview with author Reza Aslan in front of an audience at Literary Arts in downtown Portland. Aslan spoke with Geoff Norcross about his book “God: A Human History” in 2017.
For 20 years, Lessie Williams worked for the Portland non-profit Highland Haven. She created youth violence prevention programs and expanded access to culturally-relevant mental health services and health education. Now she’s retired, but in August, Williams received the REACH Lark Galloway-Gilliam Award for Advancing Health Equity from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We talk with Williams about her work.
More than 300,000 people in the United States have died from COVID-19. At the same time, the pandemic has upended typical grieving practices like funerals. That means that grief may be affecting people differently this holiday season. We speak with Donna Schuurman, the senior director of Advocacy & Training at the Dougy Center, about grieving during the pandemic. And Portland writer Laura Stanfill tells us about losing her best friend to COVID-19 this year.
Starting Jan. 1, pharmacies in Oregon will be required to be able to provide labels in multiple languages on prescription bottles. One in five emergency room visits are due to misunderstanding medication. Advocates for the new law say it will save money and lives. Kristen Beiers-Jones, assistant professor of clinical nursing at OHSU, and Kate Ballard, pediatric nurse at OHSU, both advocated for the new law.
In 2014, Orion Falvey co-founded Orchid Health, a network of clinics in Oakridge, Estacada and Blue River. Falvey says the clinics address major shortages in primary preventative medical care for rural Oregonians. In November, Falvey received the 2020 Oregon Rural Health Hero of the Year Award from the Oregon Office of Rural Health. We talk with Falvey about how Orchid Health has increased access to rural healthcare.
OHSU has gathered 13,000 volunteers for its Phase 3 AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine trial. The university is the only Oregon institution participating in the nationwide trial. We speak with Dr. Marcel Curlin, the lead researcher of the study and associate professor of medicine within OHSU’s infectious disease division.
The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted many holiday traditions this year, including children’s in-person visits with Santa Claus. But the people who play Santa have come up with creative solutions to adapt their visits online or at a distance. We’ll speak with professional Santas Jeff Reuter and Dr. Leroy Barber about how they’ve managed to spread some holiday cheer amid a trying year.
The vaccine that has so far been approved for use in the U.S. is based on RNA, a relatively new vaccine technology. The vaccine delivers information on RNA molecules, which are inherently unstable. That’s partly why they need to be kept at extremely cold temperatures. Corey Casper, President and CEO of the Infectious Disease Research Institute in Seattle, explains the challenges in delivering these new vaccines to everyone who needs them.
Community Transitional School in NE Portland has been teaching kindergarten through eighth grade students who are homeless for 31 years. Since coronavirus hit Oregon in March, the school has been delivering worksheets and food to students throughout every week. We talk with Cheryl Bickle, school president and third grade teacher, about how teachers are staying connected with students during the pandemic.
LONG SYNOPSIS: National surveys have found that depression and anxiety have increased significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the winter, the stressors of the pandemic are coinciding with seasonal affective disorder. We talk with Dr. George Keepers, the Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at OHSU, about the pandemic’s effect on mental health in Oregon. And we talk about access to mental health care in Oregon with Chris Bouneff, the executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness Oregon.
Oregon's only women's prison has adopted a program designed to help inmates transform the thinking that led them to engage in destructive behavior and rediscover their innate well-being. We listen back to a conversation with women in the Insight Alliance program at Coffee Creek prison recorded in 2019.
As hundreds of Oregon-based soldiers return from overseas deployment, more than 60 have tested positive for coronavirus after a 10-month deployment in Kosovo. According to the Oregon Military Department, it’s unclear if service members contracted the virus overseas, or if they were infected upon their return to Fort Bliss, Texas. Members of Oregon’s congressional delegation wrote a letter to the U.S. Department of the Army expressing concern for the soldiers’ safety amid a surge in coronavirus infections. We speak with Col. Eric Riley, the commander of the 41st Infantry Brigade Combat Team, about what the military is doing to keep service members safe before they return home to Oregon.
The first COVID-19 vaccine shipments arrived in Oregon this week. One of the locations that will get a shipment is Marquis Companies, which oversees Consonus Healthcare and a number of senior long-term care facilities. Marquis Companies will be the first to distribute the vaccines to long-term care facilities in Oregon. We talk with CEO Phil Fogg about the vaccine rollout and the challenges it presents.
Ryan Petteway is a social epidemiologist and assistant professor at the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health. He’s trying to expand and humanize the way public health entities can communicate with the public: through poetry and art. We’ll speak with him about his efforts to expand public health outreach.
As COVID-19 cases skyrocketed in Klamath County over the last month, county commissioners criticized some of Gov. Kate Brown's restrictions on businesses. In response, a large group of medical workers in Klamath Falls urged them to take the virus seriously. We talk with Dr. Holly Montjoy and Dr. Grant Niskanen of Sky Lakes Medical Center about how their community and local leaders are handling the pandemic.
The Portland family at the center of a months-long protest and occupation intended to block an eviction has reached a tentative deal with the city. In exchange for the barricades on North Mississippi Avenue coming down, the developer and city of Portland have promised not to enforce an eviction order while the family and developer are negotiating a resolution in good faith. OPB’s Jonathan Levinson gives us the latest.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an economic recession, but it’s different from what economists are used to seeing. In March, the country saw a sharp increase in unemployment and a severe recession, but economic trends have shifted since then. We speak with Josh Lehner, an economist with the state of Oregon, about how the state’s economy is faring 10 months into the pandemic.
A group of students at the University of Oregon, called the “Corona Corps,” are working in conjunction with Lane County Public Health to do contact tracing for COVID-19 cases. With budget shortfalls at the county, the students are taking on more responsibility for tracing the virus across the UO community and Lane County.
Steve Stenkamp is a retired Bend firefighter, high school teacher, city councilor and mayor. Now, he’s taken on the task of chronicling the history of lost ski areas in Oregon. From Lava Butte to Crater Lake, Stenkamp has made it his mission to discover the forgotten slopes of the state.
Billy Baggett spent the majority of his life behind bars before being released as he faced his imminent death. Managing Editor Emily Green spent a year chronicling Baggett's reentry into society and wrote about his life and death for Street Roots.
The last time the U.S. had to navigate a global pandemic, Americans were a lot more used to giving up personal comfort in sacrifice to the greater good. Oregon State history professor Christopher McKnight Nichols says that since the end of WWII, politicians have suggested that what makes a good citizen is American’s willingness to carry on with their daily lives and continue to spend money. Nichols argues in a new Op-Ed in the Washington Post that we have lost the language of collective sacrifice.
For three days, protesters in Portland have been in a standoff with law enforcement over an eviction effort in North Portland. Protesters have rallied against the eviction of the Kinney family, a Black and Indigenous family in the heavily gentrified neighborhood. The protest has several similarities to the Moms 4 Housing protest in Oakland last fall, when homeless mothers occupied a house in West Oakland and argued that housing is a human right. Erin Baldassari is a housing reporter for KQED, and co-host of the podcast Sold Out: Rethinking Housing in America. She tells us about Moms 4 Housing, and what the protests say about the state of housing in the United States.
We listen back to a 2017 conversation with author and essayist Roxane Gay as she talks about feminism, politics, and her story collection “Difficult Women.”
Since the early months of the pandemic, scientists at Oregon State University have been trying to understand the prevalence of the virus in communities in real time. They started in Corvallis, going door to door, and have expanded to Newport and Eugene. Now they plan to take their strategy and toolkit to other communities nationwide. Ben Dalziel run’s OSU’s TRACE program.
In June, the coastal community of Newport was hit by one of the largest COVID-19 outbreaks in the state at the time: More than 120 workers at a seafood processing plant were infected with coronavirus.
As Lincoln County health officials began contact tracing, language barriers complicated their efforts to effectively communicate with impacted workers.
While some of them were native Spanish speakers, others belonged to an Indigenous group that speaks the Mayan language Mam, primarily spoken in Guatemala and Southern Mexico.
In the wake of that outbreak, Portland nonprofit Vive Northwest and the Oregon Health Authority teamed up to develop a helpline that translates critical COVID-19 resources that Indigenous families can understand. We speak with Vive NW executive director Jorge Guzman and OHA community partner outreach program manager Oliver Vera about the communities the helpline serves.
Ellen Waterston was a rancher in Oregon’s high desert sagebrush before she moved to Bend to live in the city. But she never lost her love for the desert and the people who live there. Waterston’s newest book, “Walking the High Desert,” chronicles her exploration of parts of the Oregon Desert Trail, and her conversations about issues that govern the lives of people living in that remarkable terrain.
Reports of hate crimes, harassment and other bias incidents have increased in Oregon recently. The Oregon Department of Justice has received a sharp increase in calls to its bias crime hotline since May, when protests against racial injustice began. In recent weeks, several Black leaders in Portland have received letters threatening their lives. Candace Avalos, a Portland State University Student Advisor and co-founder of the Black Millennial Movement, was among those named in the letters. Lindsey Schubiner, director of the Momentum program at the Western States Center links the rise in hate to white nationalist groups.
For decades, coho salmon returning to Puget Sound’s urban streams have been dying before they can spawn. Scientists haven’t been able to figure out why -- until now. Just last week, researchers published an article revealing that a chemical from tires is largely responsible for the salmon deaths. We speak with Ed Kolodziej, a researcher from the study, about its findings.
For nearly 50 years, Enchanted Forest has been the backdrop to countless childhood memories for Oregonians. In a normal season, the family-owned fairytale theme park welcomes nearly 200,000 guests a year. But as coronavirus cases continue to surge, the park has been closed for months. Fearing the park would be closed permanently, founder Roger Tofte and his daughters Susan Vaslev and Mary Tofte turned to crowdfunding to keep the park alive. We talk to the Tofte family about the challenges of keeping Enchanted Forest alive and the generous support of community members.
A group of 19 elected leaders from across the political spectrum in Deschutes County wrote a letter to Governor Brown last week. The letter asked the governor to allow K-5 elementary schools to reopen in January. Bend Mayor Sally Russell and Councilor-elect Anthony Broadman tell us why they think schools should reopen, even as coronavirus case numbers surge in Oregon.
Last month, the City of Portland cleared an encampment of 70-100 people experiencing homelessness in Laurelhurst Park. Now, those people are figuring out how to move forward — and some are living back in the park. We talk with Tyler James-Hardy, a man who is currently experiencing homelessness and camping at Laurelhurst Park.
The Oregon Department of Transportation must decide how to allocate $2.2 billion in funding for its 2024-2027 Statewide Transportation Improvement Program. The program originally had five funding scenarios, but ODOT has since proposed five new hybrid funding options not previously discussed with the public. That delayed the vote that was supposed to happen on December 1. The new options were based on public comment, according to ODOT, but some community members believe the changes were too last minute.
After a close race and a recount, Travis Stovall has been elected the next mayor of Gresham by 13 votes. Stovall is a small business owner, and will be the city’s first Black mayor. We talk with Stovall about his election, and his hopes for Gresham.
The majority of bowling alleys across Oregon had to shut down again when Gov. Brown imposed stronger coronavirus restrictions in November. Some, like Tawnya Zwicker’s bowling alley Silver Creek Lanes in Silverton, had been open since June. Others, like those in Portland, only just reopened in mid-November for the first time since March. We check in with Zwicker, who is also the executive director of the Oregon State Bowling Proprietors Association, about how bowling alleys across the state are faring through the pandemic.
A pianist from Joseph, Oregon has been named a Rotary Peace Fellow for 2021. He will travel to Uganda with 18 other fellows next fall to study peace and social change in that country. Then he will work on building a global peacemaking index. We’ll talk to Seth Kinzie about what the fellowship means to him.
As coronavirus cases continue to surge nationwide, collegiate athletic conferences have dealt with an unusual season. The Pac-12 has had to cancel or postpone games as it works to keep players and staff safe. We check in with Oregon State University Athletics Director Scott Barnes to see how his department is working to ensure player safety amid a constantly shifting sports schedule.
After former Portland NAACP president E.D. Mondainé resigned from his position following allegations of sexual abuse, the organization has a new leader. Sharon Gary-Smith, a longtime community activist, hopes to lead the oldest NAACP chapter west of the Mississippi with transparency and accountability as its newest president-elect.
COVID-19 rates are at the highest level they’ve ever been in Oregon. For almost 10 months, frontline workers have been facing the virus head-on. Now, medical professionals are working longer hours as more ICU beds keep filling up. We speak to two health care workers in Oregon who have been caring for COVID-19 patients since March.
Lawmakers are working on a proposal that would extend the state’s eviction moratorium. Currently it’s set to expire at the end of the year. The new proposal would allow renters to delay rental payments until June 30th, and not be evicted from their homes. The proposal also creates a fund for landlords whose tenants cannot pay rent. Representative Julie Fahey is the chair of the house housing committee.
Eight years ago, OPB began following a group of children in Portland as they started kindergarten. Now the class of 2025 is in middle school, living in a world where school and social drama meet a pandemic, online learning, and an economic downturn. We'll hear the first episode of the latest Class of 2025 podcast.
A white man has been charged with fatally shooting a Black teenager in an Ashland hotel parking lot last week. Robert Paul Keegan has been charged with second-degree murder for the death of Aidan Ellison, 19, who was shot after the two argued over music played in Ellison’s car. A vigil is being held for Ellison today at the Jackson County Courthouse. We talk with Precious Edmonds, a spokesperson for Southern Oregon Black Leaders, Activists and Community Coalition (SOBLACC) and Kokayi Nosakhere, a member of the Truth and Conciliation Council.
The Pulitzer prize-winning novel, “The Overstory,” takes place largely in the forests of the Pacific Northwest. In fact, the trees themselves are almost like characters in book. We’ll listen back to an interview with author Richard Powers discusses his book, his life, and what forests can tell us about humanity.
After the Civil War ended, Gen. Oliver Otis Howard was put in charge of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, the first social welfare organization in this country. But after the efforts of Reconstruction collapsed, Howard got as far away from the politics of Washington, D.C. as he could — he came to Portland. And it was in Oregon that he met Chief Joseph and led a four-month military campaign against the Nez Perce Tribe. Historian Daniel Sharfstein’s latest book, “Thunder in the Mountains: Chief Joseph, Oliver Otis Howard and the Nez Perce War,” tells that story. We spoke to Sharfstein in 2017.
For residents in long-term care facilities, the realities of COVID-19 have made it very difficult to see their loved ones. While some have been able to visit outdoors, most visitors haven’t been allowed inside facilities for months — except for a brief two week window — as coronavirus cases continue to surge. We speak with Oregon’s long-term care ombudsman Fred Steele on striking a balance between quality of life and keeping families safe.
Courthouses across Oregon have a backlog of civil and family trials. The coronavirus pandemic has made it difficult for judges to plan trials and hear case motions as courthouse hours and in-person appearances are limited. This leaves families and people seeking financial redress in difficult, sometimes dangerous situations. Sonya Fischer is a family law attorney in Lake Oswego and a Clackamas County commissioner. Brian Dretke is a civil litigation lawyer in Deschutes County. We talk with Fischer and Dretke about how delays in the civil and family court systems are impacting the public.
COVID-19 rates in Oregon are at the highest they’ve ever been. OPB Health Reporter Amelia Templeton has been covering the pandemic since March, and recently spoke with health professionals about the increasing spread of COVID-19 in Oregon as the holidays grow closer. We get details from Templeton, as well as a doctor and epidemiologist, on the higher risks around gathering right now and advice to celebrate the holidays safely.
For many people, this holiday season may be quite different from usual. Large family gatherings may be off the table, but your favorite foods are still there to provide consolation. What foods do you turn to for comfort and reassurance? What foods remind you of the people you won’t be able to spend time with this year?
In the 1920s, the Osage were considered the richest people per capita in the world, thanks to oil wells on their land. But in the early 1920s, about two dozen tribal members were killed mysteriously. Author David Grann delves into those deaths and the conspiracy behind them in his book “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the F.B.I.” Host Geoff Norcross spoke with Grann about the Osage murders, how the investigation into the deaths shaped the early years of the FBI and why we’re so fascinated by true crime stories.
George Saunders is the author of numerous short story collections, including Tenth of December, In Persuasion Nation, and Pastoralia. His most recent novel, Lincoln in the Bardo, was a New York Times bestseller, and shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Saunders has won a Guggenheim, a McArthur, and many other awards. We spoke to him in 2017 in front of an audience at Literary Arts.
As coronavirus cases and deaths skyrocket across Oregon, pandemic fatigue is setting in. In some rural areas, skepticism about the governor’s new restrictions on businesses and social gatherings is common. Reporters in rural areas have been writing about how some local officials and community members are flouting the state’s restrictions. We check in with newspaper reporters Kelly Kenoyer of The New Era in Sweet Home, Antonio Sierra of the East Oregonian and Becca Robbins of the Klamath Falls Herald and News.
Portland’s Homelessness and Urban Camping Impact Reduction Program does a lot of outreach to people living on the streets. They are also responsible for fielding angry calls and emails from housed residents who are upset by the presence or behavior of campers. Lucas Hillier, Katie Lindsay and Jonathan Lewis describe the work of the HUCIRP team.
All 3 and 4-year-olds in Multnomah County will have access to free preschool, as promised by a ballot measure that was overwhelmingly approved by voters. Kimberly Melton is one of the people in charge of working out the mechanics of turning the new tax on high-income earners into preschool for all.
Oregon recently became the first state in the nation to approve the therapeutic use of psilocybin. The measure that legalized the therapy directs the Oregon Health Authority to create a state-licensed, psilocybin-assisted therapy program over the next two years. We hear from two people who have used psilocybin therapy: Chad Kuske, a retired Navy SEAL who was struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder, and Mara McGraw, a retired social worker who was diagnosed with cancer three years ago.
Oregon hospitals are worried that they will soon start to hit capacity with people infected by COVID-19. Maxine Dexter, a pulmonary and critical care physician in Clackamas County, has been taking care of some of the sickest COVID-19 patients in Oregon since the pandemic began. Dexter is also a house representative for Oregon’s 33rd district. We talk with Dexter about her work in the ICU and as a lawmaker.
Artists in Oregon and throughout the country have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. Live music performances and touring, which most musicians previously relied on, have dried up. New state orders to try to bring skyrocketing COVID-19 case rates down mean that for a lot of musicians, the struggle that began in March with the full shutdown is far from over. Two musicians tell us what their lives have been like in the last eight months: Maria Maita-Keppeler, who fronts the band MAITA, and jazz trumpeter Noah Simpson.
Khanh Pham has spent decades working in community organizing and climate policy. She built the Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon’s climate justice program, and worked on the campaign for the Portland Clean Energy Fund. Now, she’s heading to Salem, where she will serve in the House of Representatives representing East Portland. Pham will also be the only Asian American lawmaker in the state, representing Oregon’s fastest growing demographic. She joins us.
After some tense moments at racial justice protests in Klamath Falls this summer, residents asked the city to form an equity task force. Members of that task force have called on the city council to adopt language stating that racism and economic inequity are a societal crisis in Klamath Falls. Public testimony about that proposal grew heated last week. We hear from Eric Osterberg, assistant to the city manager in Klamath Falls.
Portland artist and activist Isaka Shamsud-Din has captured the lives and histories of African Americans in paintings throughout his life. He draws on his experiences growing up in Portland for his work. His exhibit, “Rock of Ages,” is currently on display at the Portland Art Museum. We spoke to him in January.
The largest river restoration project in U.S. history is back on track. In July, a federal regulatory decision stalled the plan to remove four dams along the Klamath River in Oregon and California. On Tuesday, the two states announced a new agreement along with two northwest tribes and PacifiCorp, which owns four dams on the Klamath River, that will allow the project to continue. We’ll hear about the new agreement from Mark Bransom, CEO of the Klamath River Renewal Corporation, and Amy Bowers Cordalis, general counsel for the Yurok Tribe.
Before this week, there were no emergency cold-weather shelters in the city of Bend. Last week, a man who was homeless died as temperatures dropped. He was on the waitlists for several area shelters. A cold-weather shelter is now set to open next week. In the meantime, Morgan Schmidt, a pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Bend, organized an emergency shelter at her church. And Stacey Witte, the executive director of REACH, tells us why Bend has struggled to establish low-barrier shelters.
Pulitzer-prize winning playwright Ayad Akhtar’s latest novel, “Homeland Elegies,” is a meditation on American identity through the lens of an American son and his immigrant parents. It is also a treatise on American economics, Muslim identity in this country, the power of dreams, and syphilis. Ayad Akhtar joins us as part of the Portland Book Festival put on by literary arts.
New coronavirus shutdown measures will impact Oregon wine makers, many of whom were already struggling to recover from the early shutdowns of their tasting rooms and the public facing parts of their businesses. Over the summer, grape growers in the vicinity of the wildfires suffered from what’s known as smoke taint. In some cases, growers have lost buyers altogether and are struggling to find a way to survive. We discuss how the industry looks right now with Jim Bernau, the founder and CEO of Willamette Valley Vineyards.
The Oregon Employment Department says it is preparing for a surge in unemployment claims after Gov. Kate Brown announced a statewide “freeze” to combat the spread of COVID-19. The department has struggled with delays in getting people unemployment benefits throughout the pandemic. We speak with OED acting director David Gerstenfeld.
On Wednesday, Oregon will enter a two week period of new restrictions on businesses and social interactions meant to decrease the spread of coronavirus. Restaurants and bars across the state will be limited to take-out service only. We’ll check in with Robert Holmes, the owner of Bob’s Steak N’ Spirits in Nyssa, Oregon, and Carlo Lamagna, owner of Magna restaurant in Portland.
In June, we talked with two immunocompromised families who were concerned that Oregon was reopening too soon. 15-year-old Kira Bailey survived leukemia in February, but now has to stay extra careful to protect herself from the virus. Michelle Fullington’s 17-year-old daughter, also named Kira, requires complex 24/7 medical care. We check back in with Bailey, her mother Sara Bailey, and Fullington to hear how they are doing as Oregon grapples with another wave of COVID-19.
Portland-based comics journalist Joe Sacco’s new book is an emotionally complex and historically informed portrait of the Dene First Nation people, the indigenous subarctic communities that have lived in what is now known as Canada's Northwest Territories for thousands of years. “Paying the Land” tells how economic and cultural colonialism and residential schools nearly destroyed the Dene’s ancient way of life. It also chronicles the impacts of mining, drilling, and fracking, along with climate change on the land and people. Sacco joins us as part of the Portland Book Festival, put on by Literary Arts.
Voters in Jefferson and Union counties just passed measures that will force local officials to consider moving the borders of their counties — and many others — into Idaho. The measure was the work of Move Oregon’s Border, a petition group seeking to move wide swaths of rural Oregon into Idaho, citing similar values and politics. Jefferson County Commissioner Kelly Simmelink acknowledges that moving the Oregon-Idaho border is a long-shot. Mike McCarter, a LaPine resident, is the president and chief petitioner of the Move Oregon’s Border movement. We hear from McCarter about the petition and Simmelink about how he's thinking about the measure and its possible effects on his county.
Long-time Grant County law enforcement officer Todd McKinley just unseated incumbent Sheriff Glenn Palmer. It was McKinley’s second bid for the position. Palmer had been criticized over the years for his handling of the anti-government standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Palmer was also recently criticized for deputizing his county commissioner brother and for continuing to pay more than $100,000 in salary to one of his deputies under criminal investigation." We talk with sheriff-elect McKinley about his goals for the office.
As COVID-19 cases spike in Oregon, homeless advocates are worried. This week, a coronavirus outbreak closed the Union Gospel Mission of Salem, the city’s largest homeless shelter for men. We'll hear from the shelter's staff about how they'll handle COVID-19 now and in the months to come.
As coronavirus cases surge across Oregon, hospitals are filling up. Health officials have said the state’s hospitals could hit capacity in December if cases continue to climb. Hospitals in rural areas are especially at risk as revenues plunge and employees are asked to work longer, harder hours. Dr. Lesley Ogden is the CEO of Samaritan North Lincoln Hospital in Lincoln City and Samaritan Pacific Communities Hospital in Newport. We check in with Ogden about how rural, coastal hospitals are faring as cases rise.
Voters in Benton County approved ranked choice voting for county races in 2016, and it was utilized for the first time in the 2020 election. Now, voting rights advocates want to expand ranked choice voting statewide in upcoming elections. We speak to Blair Bobier, one of the chief petitioners for Benton County’s ranked choice measure, and Samantha Gladu, executive director for Next Up, a nonprofit devoted to promoting civic engagement.
Gov. Kate Brown has issued a “pause” in several Oregon counties to stop the increasing coronavirus case count. The rising numbers are due in part to the colder weather and more people choosing to gather indoors with members outside their households without masks. Public health officials say the success of the pause depends entirely on people and businesses complying with the restrictions. With Thanksgiving just around the corner, Kim Repp, chief epidemiologist for Washington county joins us to discuss the recommendations in detail.
Phil Klay has emerged as perhaps our most effective explainer of the theories, intricacies, complexities, atrocities and consequences of modern warfare. His book “Redeployment,” a collection of short stories emerging from his service as a marine in the Iraq war, won the National Book Award. His latest book “Missionaries” goes to Iraq, and Afghanistan, and Yemen, and - most notably - Colombia. Most of the book is set in that country in the run up to the 2016 peace accord between the government and the left-wing guerrilla group, the FARC. OPB’s Geoff Norcross spoke with Klay as a part of the Portland Book Festival put on by Literary Arts.
We thought maybe you could use a little break from all the serious news, we we’re listening back to one of our favorite fun interviews from the last few years. Three years ago we spoke to Jorge Filevitch, the founder of Portland’s underwater hockey team. Yes, underwater hockey. And it’s just what it sounds like: a six-on-six hockey game with a puck and a goal and little hockey sticks. Plus, masks and flippers and snorkels.
Victims of Oregon wildfires are getting some pro bono legal advice from members of the Oregon Trial Lawyers. Chris Cauble with Cauble Selvig & Whittington is one of those providing this help. He says the need will only grow as the weather gets colder and short-term aid runs out for those displaced from their homes and whole communities. We talk with Cauble and with Steve Nielsen, whose home was damaged in the Beachie Creek fire.
The Oregon State Police have been in the spotlight recently for their role in the police response to Portland protests. Terri Davie is taking over as superintendent of the state agency during a tumultuous time. We talk with her about how OSP has responded to the protests, and what her goals are for her new position.
The majority of Portland voters did not vote for Mayor Ted Wheeler last week. In fact, he won the election by the smallest vote margin in a mayoral general election in more than a generation. Mayor Wheeler says the lesson he takes from the election is that people are ready for change.
Despite Oregon’s green reputation, residents continue to throw too much of their trash into their recycling bins. The Department of Environmental Quality now has a comprehensive plan to overhaul the system and combat “wishcycling” once and for all. It includes changes to how packaging is labeled, a master list of recyclable materials for the entire state and getting companies that sell paper and packaging to help pay for solutions. The DEQ is drafting the legislation for lawmakers to take up in the 2021 session. We get details from David Allaway, senior policy analyst in the DEQ’s Materials Management Program.
On Sunday night in Portland, protesters graffitied the Multnomah County Democrats office, and chanted in front of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement center. In other words, the results of the election did little to change the reality on the ground in Portland. We check in with reporter Sergio Olmos about what the protests may look like going forward in Portland.
COVID-19 cases in the state have surged to levels not previously seen in the pandemic’s first nine months. This rapid spike in new diagnoses comes as the state prepares to enter a two-week “pause” on social gatherings in counties that have been the epicenters of outbreaks: Multnomah, Marion, Malheur, Jackson and Umatilla. Diagnoses are also surging across the U.S. and in Europe. We talk with Multnomah County Deputy Health Officer Jennifer Vines about how the county is responding and what residents can do.
According to the Transportation Security Administration, more people are choosing to travel on commercial airplanes now than they have over the past seven months. That’s despite a recent spike in COVID-19 cases around the country. So, how safe is it to be on an airplane, or at an airport, right now? We get some answers to those questions, as the holiday season gets underway. Our guests are Dan Pippenger, chief operating officer for the Port of Portland, which operates the Portland International Airport and Richard Corsi, an indoor air expert and dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science at Portland State University.
Oregon officials recently announced new school reopening guidelines that would allow in-person instruction for about 20 percent of Oregon students. But some schools in rural and less-populated areas have already been open for months. Austyn McNew, a teacher at Fort Vannoy Elementary School in Grants Pass, has been teaching his 17 second-graders in-person since September. First-grade teacher Rachel Sorenson of Parkside Elementary School in Grants Pass has also been teaching her 15 students, but in a “hybrid” model with both in-person and remote instruction. We talk with McNew and Sorenson about what returning to the classroom is like as the coronavirus pandemic continues.
Nafisa Fai was elected to the Washington County Commission this week, becoming the commission’s first Black and Muslim member. That reflects the growing push for the county’s leadership to reflect the diversity of its residents — one-third of Washington County’s residents are non-white. We speak with Fai about her campaign, and her goals as commissioner.
Oregonians just reelected Sen. Jeff Merkley to his third term. Over the past six years, the U.S. Senate, along with the rest of the country has suffered from deep partisan divisions. The results of the election suggest these divides are likely to remain. We talk with Merkley about how he's feeling about the state of the nation now and how he's approaching working across the aisle in the next session.
Conspiracy theories about the election, coronavirus and social justice movements have flown across social media in the past few months. But when you see someone you love sharing information that is false, how can you approach them? Rachel Moran, Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Washington Center for an Informed Public, says you have to start from a place of care and respect. Moran joins us to debrief major conspiracy theories that impacted this election, and share tips for communicating with your loved ones who believe in them.
Democrats in Oregon had a lot to celebrate in Tuesday’s election, taking all statewide races and maintaining their supermajority in the state legislature. Oregon Republicans prevailed in a number of hard fought races, and Cliff Bentz handily won the open 2nd Congressional seat. We talk with political strategist Rebecca Tweed and Cascade Policy Institute research director Eric Fruits to get their takes on the state of the GOP in Oregon.
Eric Ward is a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center and the executive director of the Western States Center. We talk with Ward about what this year’s contentious election could mean for protests in Portland and across the country.
Portland City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty was a prominent figure in the 2020 election, despite the fact she wasn’t on the ballot. She pushed for a ballot measure to overhaul the city’s police oversight system, which passed with more than 80 percent of the vote. Hardesty talks with us about the election, and how the make-up of the new city council will affect her work going forward
While the outcome of the presidential race remains undecided, Democrats won many statewide races in the Northwest on election night. Oregonians passed measures that will legalize psilocybin, boost taxes on nicotine and limit political campaign contributions. We round up the election results.
We listen back to a conversation about how activism has evolved over almost 50 years in an intergenerational conversation about what it takes to change the world.
We hear from Eva Jones, a high school sophomore who is a newly energized advocate against gun violence and Cathy Wood Wyrick, who took part in anti-war protests at Portland State University in 1970. We also hear from Cameron Whitten who has been in the news most recently for his event series known as "Reparations Happy Hour" or "Reparations Power Hour" and Art Alexander, who volunteered with the Black United Front before going on to a career in public policy.
This show was taped in 2018 with an audience as part of an event put on by Senior Advocates for Generational Equity (SAGE) and their Citizen Project.
In 2018, the Carr Fire burned nearly 270 homes in Redding, Calif. and forced almost 30,000 residents to evacuate. Two years later, Redding is rebuilding, but the process is from over. Entire sections of the city are still scarred from the flames. Redding City Manager Barry Tippin joins us to talk about the aftermath of the Carr Fire, and shares how his city's experience could inform communities in Oregon still reeling from recent wildfires.
Election Day is tomorrow, and for many voters, it has felt like a long time coming. For the last three and a half years, Donna Cohen has been holding a series of education classes focused on the fundamentals of the political process. Her “Civics for Adults” series includes classes on misinformation, fake news and propaganda, the constitution and citizen activism. Cohen joins us to tell us more about her work and how she’s feeling on the eve of Election Day.
The two middle-aged white men shared a common backstory: Both were raised in the rural Pacific Northwest and found a sense of greater purpose and belonging on opposite sides of radical politics. Then both ended up dead. The moment Jay Danielson and Michael Reinoehl collided was a random encounter between two armed men with extreme political beliefs. It was also a dangerous harbinger of what the election could bring. OPB’s Conrad Wilson shares his latest story.
Racial justice protests have continued in Portland for five months, and the 2020 election is just around the corner. We sit down with two young Black men and a teenager to hear about their experiences growing up in Portland and how they are thinking about this historical moment.
Jamartae Brown teaches in the Brothers Reflecting Brotherhood program at Self Enhancement Inc. and is a paraeducator for special education students in Portland Public Schools. Jalen Ladd is a junior project manager at Thesis. And Mekhi Gardner is a seventh grader at Faubion School.
This week we're talking with voters in Washington and Clackamas counties before Nov. 3, Election Day. They’re sharing how their political perspectives inform the issues most important to them ahead of the election. Today we're joined by voter Itsel O’Dee, a Washington County Republican who lives in Tualatin.
Black Americans have been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic across the country and that’s true in Oregon as well. Professors in the Black Studies department at Portland State University have been offering direct aid to students through an Oregon Community Foundation Grant. Students are using one-time stipends of $500 or $1000 to help with everything from medical bills to food and rent assistance and other expenses associated with both economic and health impacts from the pandemic. But the demand for funds has already exceeded what is available. We hear from Ethan Johnson, chair of the Black Studies department at PSU and Quinn Foster, a senior at PSU majoring in Black Studies.
There are nearly 3,000 designated historic landmarks across the country, each with their own set of descriptive plaques and associated tours. But how many of those monuments contain information about the racial injustice or white supremacy that were inherent in their history? That’s a question University of Oregon professor Laura Pulido has set out to answer. Pulido joins us to discuss how these monuments reflect what the U.S. chooses to remember and represent in history.
Violence at political events in Bend earlier this month led to criminal charges against seven people today, far short what police officials recommended to the Deschutes County District Attorney for prosecution.
The cases reveal starkly different responses from two of Central Oregon’s largest law enforcement agencies. The charges stem from a confrontation between racial justice demonstrators, people at a pro-Trump rally, and police at Pilot Butte Neighborhood Park on Oct. 3. Reporter Emily Cureton joins us to explain.
This week we’re talking with voters in Washington and Clackamas counties before Election Day. They share their perspectives and how they’re voting on a variety of issues ahead of the election. Sara Koppy is a senior at Southridge High School in Beaverton. She joins us to talk about her experience voting for the first time as a Democrat.
The Oregon Health Authority has developed a plan to distribute COVID-19 vaccines and submitted it to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The plan involves prioritizing distribution to those in health care and other essential workers. In addition, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, and California have all agreed to independently review vaccines before distributing them to the public. Patrick Allen, director of the Oregon Health Authority, joins us to explain Oregon’s approach to vaccines.
The vast majority of K-12 students in Oregon are going to school online. How is attendance being tracked for these students? What counts as “attending” online school and how are different districts handling that? We hear from Jennifer Patterson, assistant superintendent of the Office of Teaching Learning and Assessment at the Oregon Department of Education and Alexa Pearson, director of Standards and Instructional Support at ODE.
This week we're talking with voters in Washington and Clackamas counties before Nov. 3, Election Day. They share their perspectives and how those inform the issues most important to them ahead of the election. Today we're joined by Molalla voter Aaron Palumbo, who describes himself as a libertarian-leaning Republican.
Masha Gessen left the Soviet Union as a teenager, and then moved back to Russia after perestroika to work as a journalist. Gessen left Russia again in 2013 when the country passed new anti-LGBTQ laws. Gessen says it’s the things we know about President Trump and Russia that should scare us, not necessarily the things we don’t know.
Gessen is the author of numerous books, including “The Man Without A Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin,” and “The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia.”
This week we're talking with voters in Washington and Clackamas counties about how they're voting on a variety of issues ahead of the election. We speak with Jesse Townsend, an Independent voter from Beaverton.
Oregon State University researchers have developed a new method of measuring poverty across Oregon. The researchers say their method measures the impact of social safety programs on poverty. It also sheds light on the demographics and geographic distribution of poverty in Oregon. We talk with post-doctoral OSU scholar Leanne Giordono about what the new research can tell us.
For the last three years, Rachael Banks has served as public health director for Multnomah County. Now, she’s preparing to take her skills to the Oregon Health Authority. We talk with Banks about her new role as director of OHA’s public health division, and what she hopes to address amid the pandemic.
In July, Portland-based dinner collective Black Feast started regularly distributing free desserts, care packages and love letters to Black Portlanders. Salimatu Amabebe, a creator of the “Love Letters to Black Folks” project, said it began as a way to support Black Lives Matter protesters and help her community. We talk with Amabebe about the inspiration behind the ongoing project.
Foster youth from the group Oregon Foster Youth Connection have released a series of policy recommendations to lawmakers for the 2021 session. Past OFYC recommendations for the troubled foster care system have been approved in prior sessions, including tuition waivers for foster youth in community colleges or state universities, a Foster Child Bill of Rights, and access to ongoing extracurricular activities. The latest recommendations include ways to remove bias in the foster care system, provide universal access to trauma-informed mental health resources, and a major change in the way decisions are made to remove a child from their biological family in the first place. We talk with Kathleen Rodriguez Perez and Hannah Royal, who each entered the foster care system when they were 14 and helped draft the recommendations.
Multnomah County’s in-person voter outreach has been curtailed this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. But Election Director Tim Scott says voter turnout is especially high. We talk with Scott about how his office has been connecting with voters during the pandemic, and how ballot counting is going.
Women are leaving the workforce in much higher numbers than men in Oregon and across the country. We’ll talk about why and what the long-term consequences could be with Andrea Paluso, executive director of Family Forward Action.
The challenges of “comprehensive online learning” are proving too great for many parents and prompting some into activism. Groups like Clackamas county’s “Clack to School” are lobbying Gov. Brown and the Oregon Department of Education to re-examine what’s possible in the pandemic and provide an option for students to return to the classroom, starting with younger students and those with special needs. Jennifer Dale is one of the organizers of the group. She has three children in the Lake Oswego school district, one with Downs Syndrome.
Portland writer Vanessa Veselka is out with a new novel. “The Great Offshore Grounds” follows the misadventures of two half-sisters, their adopted brother, and the mother who raised them all. It’s two parts family tragicomedy and one part critique of capitalism. It was long-listed for a 2020 National Book Award.
State regulators say there are currently 73 active COVID-19 workplace outbreaks. More than 4000 workers have contracted the virus from their workplaces. Union leaders have been working with Oregon's Occupational Safety and Health Authority to draft a new set of COVID-19 workplace protection standards. The standards are nearly finalized, but union leaders say they don't go far enough. We talk with Michael Wood, the administrator of Oregon OSHA, and Jessica Giannettino Villatoro, the political director for Oregon AFL-CIO, about the new standards which are set to begin by November 1st.
When coronavirus restrictions began to ease earlier this summer, some restaurants and bars were able to use Portland streets for outdoor dining. But as Oregonians brace for the winter, restaurants will have to adapt to the bad weather, or make do with limited indoor seating. We check in with Naomi Pomeroy, chef and owner of Beast and Expatriate, and Tom O’Leary, owner of T.C. O’Leary’s. They tell us how business has been so far, and what restaurants still need to survive.
Jack Forrest is a senior at the University of Oregon, majoring in journalism and political science and news editor of the university newspaper, the “Daily Emerald.” He says he thought he was informed about COVID-19 and following the guidelines to keep himself safe — until he tested positive for the coronavirus and came down with severe symptoms. He joins us to talk about the essay he wrote about his experience, “Getting COVID Isn’t Cool,” and what he wishes he’d done differently.
Washington Governor Jay Inslee is seeking a third term this year, as are the incumbent Secretary of State and Attorney General. Olympia reporter Austin Jenkins walks us through some of the big races on the ballot in Washington this election.
Even before the pandemic, it wasn’t easy to make a living as an artist in the United States. The digital economy has certainly made it easier to reach an audience, but it presents a number of other challenges. Portlander William Deresiewicz’s new book, "The Death of an Artist," chronicles the economic threats to art and artists in the U.S. today.
Detailed reporting by Portland Mercury news editor Alex Zielinski chronicles multiple allegations of sexual and psychological abuse by Portland NAACP president E.D. Mondainé. The allegations come from former members of Celebration Tabernacle, the North Portland Pentecostal church where Mondainé serves as senior pastor. Mondainé denies the allegations, but has announced he will no longer be running for a second term as president of the Portland NAACP chapter. We hear from Zielinski about her reporting.
Reporter Ashley Ahearn spent more than a year talking to ranchers, conservationists, scientists, a tribal elder and the vice president of an energy company for her new podcast “Grouse.” The series focuses on the greater sage grouse, a bird with a complicated history, asks complex questions such as, “Can we have beef and sage grouse?” and “What can the greater sage grouse teach us about our relationships with the Earth and one another?” We hear from Ahearn about “Grouse” and what the project means to her.
Laurie Doherty started painting cartoons and illustrations on Pendleton storefront windows when she was in her early 20s. This year marks the 50th year she’s been painting windows. To mark the anniversary, the Pendleton Center for the Arts organized a display of Doherty’s work on downtown storefront windows. Doherty joins us to talk about her painting career.
Kati Parazoo grew up in Roseburg, and graduated from Douglas High School. She was proud to return to the school as a teacher in 2018. But last week, she resigned. That’s because the rural southern Oregon school district decided to reopen its high school with a hybrid model, allowing for some in-person learning, despite a recent spike in COVID-19 cases in the county. We hear from Parazoo about her difficult decision to leave a job she loved.
The Northwest chapter of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives has been around for over 20 years, but they’ve been especially busy this year. The group has held a number of events for Black law enforcement officers to get together and share their feelings about doing the work of law enforcement in a summer of social justice reckoning. In addition, the group has organized trainings for members and for some local police departments. Derrick Peterson, the president of the local chapter of NOBLE, joins us to explain his organization’s work.
: It might never be possible to determine exactly what happened in the estimated 15 seconds of gunfire that left self-described antifa activist Michael Reinoehl dead last month. A new report from ProPublica and OPB details what we do know from eye witness accounts. OPB reporter Conrad Wilson fills us in
On Sunday night, protesters in downtown Portland knocked down two statues of former U.S. presidents and damaged several businesses including the Oregon Historical Society. The protesters were participating in an event called “Indigenous People’s Day of Rage.” Some local Indigenous leaders have condemned the violence and characterized it as counterproductive. We reflect on the targets of Sunday’s property damage and its aftermath with David Harrelson, cultural resources department manager for the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, and Rep. Tawna Sanchez, D-North and Northeast Portland, the second Native American elected to the Oregon Legislature.
The challenges of “comprehensive online learning” are proving too great for many parents and prompting some into activism. Groups like Clackamas county’s “Clack to School” are lobbying Gov. Brown and the Oregon Department of Education to re-examine what’s possible in the pandemic and provide an option for students to return to the classroom, starting with younger students and those with special needs. Jennifer Dale is one of the organizers of the group. She has three children in the Lake Oswego school district, one with Downs Syndrome.
There was already an affordable housing shortage in Jackson County before the Almeda fire. Now many of the most affordable homes in the area - mobile homes - are lost, and hundreds more people are unsure if they can afford to stay in the area. Niria Alicia is a climate justice organizer in southern Oregon. Her father lost his mobile home in the fire, along with 14 others he refurbished and rented out. Jocksana Corona’s family also lost their mobile home in the fire. We talk with Alicia and Corona about how their families are rebuilding.
When Chloe Eudaly beat then-Portland City Commissioner Steve Novick four years ago, it was the first time in many years an incumbent had lost a race. But now Eudaly faces a runoff election from challenger Mingus Mapps, who has earned many prominent endorsements. Eudaly and Mapps will discuss neighborhood planning, police reform, and more in this debate.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler is running for a second term, marking the first time in decades a Portland mayor has done so. He's challenged by Sarah Iannarone. And the race comes at pivotal time for the city: The coronavirus pandemic has radically altered the city’s budget, ongoing racial justice protests have raised questions about the city’s relationship with policing, and Portland has become a touchstone in the national election. We hear from Iannoarone and Wheeler about their visions for the city moving forward.
Measure 110 would decriminalize the possession of personal amounts of drugs and boost funding for drug treatment. But critics of the measure say that its backers have failed to consult with many of the main stakeholders dealing with addiction and treatment in Oregon. Anthony Johnson, a longtime drug reform advocate who led the Measure 91 campaign to legalize marijuana, supports the measure. Mike Marshall, the co-founder and director of the addiction support non-profit Oregon Recovers, opposes the measure. They join us.
The 2020 presidential election is less than a month away, with voting already underway in some parts of the country. Regina Lawrence, associate dean of the University of Oregon’s journalism school, specializes in political communication. She says the news media’s coverage of the presidential campaigns has improved compared with the 2016 election. However, she says reporters and editors are still grappling with the challenge of covering misinformation, propaganda and outright lies without appearing partisan. Lawrence is part of the U of O’s series of civic conversations leading up to the election. We talk with her about those hurdles, how COVID-19 and President Trump’s diagnosis is playing out so far, as well as which Oregon races she’s following most closely.
Oregon movie theatre owners and operators are awaiting a response to the letter they sent Gov. Kate Brown asking why theatres are subject to different reopening metrics than other places, like churches. Meanwhile, some theatres are turning to online screenings, private showings and selling concessions. Portland’s Hollywood Theatre is also doing online and private screenings. This summer they played a series of drive-in shows at the convention center before wildfires devastated communities and filled others with toxic levels of smoke. In Silverton, the operators of the Palace Theatre made the decision to close for good. COVID-19 was not the only factor in the theatre’s series of setbacks, but it was a big one. Our featured movie guests are Doug Whyte of the Hollywood Theatre and Roger Paulson of the Palace Theatre in Silverton.
Wheeler County is the only county in Oregon, and one of four in the nation, with no confirmed cases of COVID-19. Dr. Robert Boss is the public health officer for the county. He joins us to talk about what’s gone right in Wheeler County, and how they are preparing for the colder months ahead.
Wild horses are the stuff of American myth — but unbeknownst to some, large herds of mustangs still roam the West today. In fact, the Bureau of Land Management has attempted to control wild horse numbers for decades with a costly program of roundups and long-term holding that its critics view as mismanaged. We’ll listen back to a conversation with Dave Philipps about his 2017 book, "Wild Horse Country," dives into the history, the myth and the future of wild horses in the West.
Two state senators are vying to be Oregon’s next secretary of state. Democrat Shemia Fagan won the May primary by a very slim margin and now faces Republican Kim Thatcher in the general election. The secretary of state oversees elections, public records and the auditing of state agencies. In Oregon, the secretary of state is also first in the line of succession should the governor unexpectedly leave office, as Gov. John Kitzhaber did in 2015.
The Phoenix-Talent school district has already resumed distance learning, amid the chaos and destruction the Almeda fire left in its wake. Superintendent Brent Barry says about 30 percent of families lost their homes, which equates to 700 students. The district is partnering with local nonprofits to help families in need. If students do not have a home or a place to go with internet, they can go to one of three socially-distanced hubs the district has set up in Ashland, Central Point and White City. We talk with Brent Barry about all of this and what he sees in the future for his community.
Nicole Butler-Hooton, a second-grade teacher at Irving Elementary in the Bethel School District, is Oregon’s Teacher of the Year for 2021. Butler-Hooton says ever since she started teaching in 2006, she has centered equity and cultural acceptance of her students in her work. As a Siletz woman and member of the Apache Tribe, Butler-Hooton is also a board member of the Oregon Indian Education Association. We talk with Butler-Hooton about her teaching career and how she is connecting with students and families during the pandemic.
Reed political science professor Paul Gronke says early voting is more crucial than ever in the 2020 election. And while local and statewide elections in Oregon might not look that different from past years, no one really knows what will happen at the national level. Gronke is watching several states closely. We hear what’s top of mind for him less than a month before Election Day.
The ancestral lands of the Karuk tribe in Northern California are burning. They used to burn a lot more frequently. That’s because, before the land was stolen, and managed by private landowners and the federal government, the Indigenous people who lived there set fires on the land themselves. Frank Lake grew up learning about how fire had been used by his tribe to manage natural resources. Now, he works for the US Forest Service. Lake’s research looks at the lessons the Forest Service can learn from the way Native American tribes used fire.
After Oregon Republicans walked out of the legislature to prevent the passage of a cap-and-trade bill for two sessions in a row, Governor Kate Brown took action. She issued an executive order meant to accomplish some of the same goals of the failed legislation. More than six months later, we hear from environmental advocates about how the executive order is working and what they still want to see from state government. Our guests are Meredith Connolly, Oregon director of Climate Solutions, and Martha Sonato, political director at PCUN, Oregon’s farm worker union.
The Oregon Department of Education temporarily relaxed COVID-19 standards for schools, making it easier for some schools to return to in-person learning. ODE started the school year using two measures — test positivity rate and number of cases — to determine whether counties could reopen schools for in-person learning. When wildfires burned through Oregon, medical facilities were unable to process as many COVID-19 tests, which skewed test positivity rates for counties across the state. As a result, ODE decided to temporarily stop using test positivity rates as a measure for reopening. ODE director Colt Gill says it essentially allows schools to reopen that were already on track to do so before the wildfires. We hear from Gill.
The coronavirus pandemic has hit the residents of the outer southeast neighborhood of Rosewood, near the Gresham border, particularly hard. Between job losses, food insecurity and online school, The Rosewood Initiative, a wide-ranging community resource center, has its hands full like never before. Sabrina Wilson recently stepped into the role of executive director of the Initiative, after being a resident of the area and getting to know the nonprofit as part of her work in Portland city government. She joins us to talk about the challenges residents are facing and The Rosewood Initiative’s role in helping meet those challenges during the ongoing pandemic.
Researchers around the world are busy trying to develop a vaccine for COVID-19. How safe is the vaccine research? How many vaccines will we eventually get, and how effective will they be? How will the vaccines be distributed? Three leading scientists from the Pacific Northwest will help us understand the vaccine research and development process. Lucy Savits is Director of the Center for Health Research at Kaiser Permanente Northwest. Corey Casper is CEO of the Infectious Disease Research Institute, and Jacob Estes is Chief of the Pathobiology and Immunology division at OHSU.
We listen back to a conversation with Robert J. Lang, a leading origami artist and former physicist for NASA. He came to town in the fall of 2019 for the Pacific Coast OrigamiUSA Convention. We talked with Lang about how the mathematics and beauty behind origami can be used to solve real-world problems.
One of the biggest and most well-known crusades to preserve old growth forests in Oregon was the battle to preserve Opal Creek Wilderness. One of the people who wanted to preserve that wilderness was George Atiyeh. Atiyeh died three weeks ago in the Beachie Creek Fire. We’ll listen back to a conversation that we recorded in 2016 with George Atiyeh in the home he shared with his wife, Hillary, outside of Opal Creek Wilderness.
As the 2020 school year starts, many college freshmen in Oregon are living on campus despite most classes being taught online. In recent weeks, there have been increases in COVID-19 cases in Lane County, which is home to the University of Oregon. Oregon State University and other universities in Oregon have also reported an increase in cases on campus as students move back. We’re joined by a University of Oregon freshman and an Oregon State University freshman. They tell us what it’s like to live on campus right now.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced Oregon students to start the year online, but some families are choosing that option for the entire school year. Enrollment in virtual charter schools is up and some say lawmakers should raise the cap on how many students can choose this option. The statewide teachers’ union — the Oregon Education Association — is against that idea, arguing that virtual charter schools are less equitable for students with special needs or who speak English as a second language. There's also the issue of funding, because every student who leaves their local school district takes thousands of dollars in state money with them. We hear from Eric Fruits, research director at the Cascade Policy Institute, and John Larson, president of the Oregon Education Association.
John Carlile evacuated his McKenzie Bridge home earlier this month when the Holiday Farm Fire burned through Lane County. Carlile’s home was safe, but 431 residential buildings and 24 commercial buildings were destroyed. Survivors of the fire have struggled to access WiFi, phone service and mail in the communities east of Eugene along Highway 126. To help, Carlile and a group of volunteers set up a relief center in the town of Rainbow. We hear from Carlile about the Rainbow Relief Center, and how survivors are doing.
Several years ago, a group of Oregon inmates came up with the idea to put together a magazine with poetry, essays and art from incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people. The first issue of "All Rise" magazine will be published this year. The magazine’s creators hope that sharing the stories of incarcerated people in their own voices will shift the ideas that Americans have about prisons. We talk with Joshua Wright, one of the co-creators of the magazine.
The Oregon Historical Society will be displaying a quilt made by 15 Portland women. It was included in the 1976 Bicentennial celebration as a way to mark the overlooked contributions of Black Americans and their ongoing fight for their civil rights. The quilt has been displayed prominently, including at the Smithsonian and Harvard before the quilters gave it to OHS. Saudra Sorenson recently wrote about this project for The Skanner. She joins us along with Sylvia Gates Carlisle, the only surviving member of the group of quilters.
Oregon Governor Kate Brown announced Monday that the state’s eviction moratorium - set to expire at the end of September - will now extend through December 31, 2020. Local jurisdictions and the federal government have also extended protections against evictions, but it’s unclear what happens when these protections eventually run out. We talk it over with Coya Crespin, Portland metro community organizer for the Community Alliance of Tenants, and Sage Coleman, president of the Oregon Rental Housing Association.
The new School Safety and Prevention System requires every Oregon school district to have plans for suicide prevention, intervention and response, and creates resources to help make that happen. Kahae Rikeman is the School suicide prevention and wellness program manager for Lines for Life, the nonprofit partnering with the Oregon Health Authority and the Oregon Department of Education to work with districts on their their plans.
Thousands of Oregonians were evacuated from their homes because of wildfires earlier this month. For people with disabilities, evacuating required additional time and notice that wasn’t always possible with the rapidly spreading fires. That means that evacuating created additional stressors, and for some, disruptions in disability services they rely on. Ross Ryan is a community advocate for Oregon Self Advocacy Coalition. And Dennis Weirich is the board president and CEO of the Blanche Fischer Foundation, a private non-profit that makes grants on behalf of people with physical disabilities. They were both evacuated from their homes during the wildfires. They tell us how they and others with disabilities were affected.
Data from the U.S. Department of Labor shows that 43% of Oregonians whose unemployment benefits came through in July had been waiting more than ten weeks. That’s far higher than the national average. OPB reporter Kate Davidson has been following the state’s unemployment disaster.
Saturday’s rally organized by the Proud Boys — designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center — drew far fewer participants than was expected. Meanwhile, the evening Black Lives Matter protest was marked by aggressive police action. OPB reporter Sergio Olmos tells us more.
Four Oregon prisons were fully evacuated earlier this month due to wildfires. Accounts from inmates, their lawyers and family members characterize the evacuation conditions as unsafe and unsanitary. Women evacuated from the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility say they were zip-tied together on school buses without access to restrooms, food or medication for many hours. We hear from attorney Tara Herivel, who leads a team of public defenders and Paula Myers, superintendent of the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility.
In 2013, science writer David Quammen wrote an editorial in the New York Times entitled “The Next Pandemic: Not if, but When.” Quammen has been writing about the spread of diseases between humans and animals since his book "Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic" came out that same year. Quammen will be giving a lecture sponsored by Oregon State University [today/tomorrow/friday]. We’ll talk to him about the ecology and evolution of the coronavirus.
When Emily Halnon’s mother died of cancer earlier this year, she wanted to honor her with something big. Last month, Halnon set the overall speed record for the Oregon section of the Pacific Crest Trail — 455 miles in 7 days, 19 hours and 23 minutes. In the process, she raised over $33,000 dollars toward cancer research. We talk with Halnon about her trek through the Oregon PCT, and what the run means to her.
Portland police officers feel underappreciated and unsupported by city leadership, according to new reporting from OPB. Activists who have been protesting for months demanding police reform are also frustrated with the lack of action from political leaders. What is the path forward? OPB reporter Jonathan Levinson has been working on this story.
Online learning presents challenges for both students and parents, who may be working from home, looking for work or need childcare. Some are forming in-person pods to deal with some of those challenges. We talk with moms from two families who formed a pod for their 4th graders, Maru Ceara-Cortiña and Sara Hobbs. And Julie Fong shares her experience putting her 3rd grader in a more formal pod structure called the Element Academy. All three parents talk about their reservations, why they moved forward despite them, the precautions they’re taking and the conversations they’re having.
The fire chief for the Idanha/Detroit area works part time, and leads a team of 24 volunteers. When the Beachie Creek Fire roared into the Highway 22 corridor, chief Will Ewing and volunteer firefighters helped to lead nearly 80 people to safety. Most of the buildings in Detroit burned to the ground, including the district office and one of their fire trucks, and Ewing says the road to recovery is very long indeed.
Many Oregonians are in dire need following the Almeda Fire, the catastrophic blaze that burned down much of Phoenix and Talent in southern Oregon. Community members throughout the state have formed a network of volunteers to meet the need. The Southern Oregon Relief Team has banded together to collect food, air purifiers, hygiene products and more supplies for fire-stricken residents. We talk with organizer Jesse Azzopardi about delivering supplies amid devastating wildfires.
OPB’s new podcast,"Timber Wars," tells the behind-the-scenes story of how a small group of activists and scientists turned the fight over ancient trees and a bird that no one had heard about into one of the biggest environmental conflicts of the 20th century.
The 242 fire in Southern Oregon burned through thousands of acres, many of them hunting and gathering grounds for the Klamath Tribes. The fire also burned the tribes’ cemetery and at least one tribal member’s house. At the same time, the tribes have seen an uptick in COVID-19 cases. Zakary Jackson, Emergency Manager for the Klamath Tribes joins us.
As many Oregon students return to school remotely, educators have raised concerns about how distance learning can widen inequities in education. Those issues are top of mind for Nichole Watson, the new principal at Prescott Elementary School in Portland. We talk with Watson about how she’s navigating the school year amid the global pandemic and uprising against racial injustice.
It’s still unclear exactly how the recent wildfires in Oregon complicated the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We do know that raging wildfires and hazardous air around the state meant testing was less available last week than before the fires broke out. Oregon Health Authority director Patrick Allen joins us to discuss the latest trends in infection rates in the state and how the wildfires have complicated data collection.
Multnomah County DA Mike Schmidt isn’t pursuing charges against most of the protesters Portland police have arrested, but police continue to make arrests. The police union and others have vociferously objected to his failure to prosecute, especially in cases involving rioting without accompanying charges related to property damage or violence. We talk with Schmidt about how he’s approaching criminal justice reform, protesters and police — and how the coronavirus pandemic is affecting all of it.
Molly Wizenberg and her husband had started three successful restaurants in Seattle and were raising their four-year-old daughter when suddenly something inside Wizenberg shifted. Wizenberg’s new book, "The Fixed Stars," chronicles her recognition that she is attracted to women, the dissolution of her marriage, and her realization that our sense of who we are as a person is always changing, and that’s a good thing.
Susan McMillan, 76, lost her home and all of her possessions in the Almeda fire that decimated the southern Oregon towns of Talent and Phoenix. Luckily, she was able to evacuate the fire with a handful of possessions and “all the beating hearts in the house” — her dogs Chico, Boehne and Sammy, and cat, Kiki. We talk with McMillan about her experience, and how she is thinking about rebuilding her life in the wake of the disaster.
As Portland protesters demand change within city law enforcement, Portland Street Response has been touted as an alternative way to respond to crisis without involving police. But with coronavirus shutdowns and repeated delays, the program has been set back nearly a year. We speak with Portland Street Response project manager Robyn Burek and paramedic Tremaine Clayton about the future of the pilot program.
At the end of June, a long-time resident of Portland’s Albina neighborhood resigned from the Oregon Department of Transportation’s Community Advisory Committee on the I-5 Rose Quarter expansion project. Liz Fouther-Branch explained in her resignation letter that she was frustrated that all of the key decisions on the project seemed to have been made, leaving little opportunity for the restorative justice ODOT has said it wants for the neighborhood. Shortly after Fouther-Branch’s resignation, ODOT abruptly disbanded the entire committee, saying it would instead rely on input from a new entity called the Historic Albina Advisory Board. Many committee members responded with a letter that said, “We hope that this new Historic Albina Advisory Board (HAAB) will not feel unheard and undervalued in the same way that we have felt as part of the CAC.” We hear from two former CAC members — John Washington, executive director of the Soul District Business Association and Claire Vlach, an urban planner and volunteer for Oregon Walks. Brendan Finnn, director of ODOT’s Urban Mobility Office, also joins us.
New Seasons started giving its grocery store workers “Thank You” bonuses at the start of the pandemic in March. In June, New Seasons stopped distributing the extra pay to workers because they said it was no longer feasible for the company. Grocery story worker Tekiah Elzey recently created a petition asking New Seasons to reinstate the bonus pay because workers are still at risk of COVID-19. We hear from Elzey about the petition, and what it is like to work in a grocery store right now.
Three members of Portland's Citizen Review Committee abruptly resigned recently. The eleven-member board is a part of the the city's complex system of police oversight. And an upcoming ballot measure to overhaul police reform in Portland may replace the CRC entirely. We talk to Candace Avalos, the chair of the CRC, about where they go from here.
Since Oregon wildfires destroyed thousands of homes and entire communities last week, heavy smoke has lingered in the air across the state. In many places, air quality reached record-breaking levels of danger, and continues to be hazardous in many populated areas. Perry Hystad is an associate professor in the College of Health and Human Sciences at Oregon State University, and has studied long-term and short-term health effects of air pollution. He says the long-term health impacts of wildfire smoke are still unknown. We talk with Hystad about his research, and how the lingering smoke is affecting Oregonians.
Rates of suicide for physicians are among the highest for any profession. And the strain of the coronavirus pandemic is making already strenuous working conditions nearly impossible to bear for some and impossible for others. We talk with two Oregon doctors involved in responding to the mental health crisis in medicine and ask what is being done to prevent it. Pamela Wible practices medicine in Eugene and is the author of “Human Rights Violations in Medicine: A-to-Z Action Guide.” Don Girard is professor emeritus at Oregon Health Sciences University and chairs the executive committee of the Oregon Wellness Program.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-TALK (8255), or you can text the word “home” to 741-741.
In the last four months of Black Lives Matter protests across the country, Eastern Oregon organizers and activists have been holding marches and events for rural Oregonians. Last month, 200 people turned out for a march in Pendleton. Briana Spencer was one of the organizers of the march. She's a Black, Puerto Rican woman who is also a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. Spencer says the movement in Pendleton is still going strong. We talk with her about Black Lives Matter and the changes she wants to see in Pendleton.
Last Friday, Andrew Phelps, director of Oregon's Office of Emergency Management, said on MSNBC that the state was preparing for a "mass fatality incident." With multiple wildfires burning near major metropolitan areas in the last few weeks, the number of lives and structures threatened was hard to calculate. Andrew Phelps joins us to talk about how OEM is preparing for these massive emergencies and what lessons he’s learned from the last few weeks
The school year is starting up for students across the state, and many districts are holding classes online. Koko Urban, an 8th grader at da Vinci Arts Middle School, is concerned with how school is working so far. Urban, who has a learning disability, says it is hard for her to get support she needs online. Erandi Jones-Vega, a high school senior at Portland Community College’s Gateway program, feels similarly. Jones-Vega, who also has a learning disability, recently transferred out of Central Catholic High School. She said she felt unsupported by the school for her disability and her recent Black Lives Matter activism. We hear from Urban and Jones-Vega about what school is like right now, and how they think it should be different.
The Portland Underground Grad School offers classes in a variety of topics from history to improv comedy. This fall, PUGS is once again offering a course called “Interrogating Whiteness: An American Unstory.” We hear from Sarah DeYoreo, the Portland writer and educator who teaches the class, about what it means to critically examine white racial identity.
Last year, Gov. Brown’s Wildfire Prevention Council issued a report with detailed recommendations for immediate actions the state could take to prevent wildfires. The Republican walkout on the legislative session meant that most of those recommendations were never implemented. Matt Donegan is chair of the Wildfire Prevention Council. He joins us to share what lessons he’s learned from the last week
After years of demand from students, faculty and community members, the University of Oregon is launching a Black studies program this fall. The program has been in development for more than two years, but its roots go back to the 1960s, when members of the Black Student Union advocated for the program in 1968. Over four decades later, the demands resurfaced in 2015 when members of the Black Student Task Force released a list of demands to the university aiming to address racial issues on campus. We hear from Avinnash Tiwari, the program’s acting director, about bringing the program into fruition.
Jack Depew met his wife Mary 10 years ago at a Klamath Falls sports bar. He was setting up a pool shot when Mary came over to bump his cue on purpose. They were married a few months later. At the start of the pandemic, the couple weren’t taking coronavirus seriously or wearing masks. Then they both contracted the virus, and Mary died in June. Jack is now on a mission to spread awareness about the importance of wearing masks. He first shared his story with KOBI and the Klamath Falls Herald and News. We talk with Jack about his wife, and their experience with coronavirus.
Over the weekend, Portland had the worst air quality of any major city in the world due to wildfire smoke. Other parts of the state were also suffering from hazardous air quality. Health officials recommended people stay inside because the smoke could have a serious impact on health. But for people who are homeless and living outside, it can be a challenge to find indoor spaces to shelter from the hazardous air. Marc Jolin, the director of the Joint Office of Homeless Services, tells us how Multnomah County is aiding those who are living outside.
A week after wildfires began consuming thousands of acres in western Oregon, firefighters are making progress on some of the most destructive blazes in state history. At least nine people have died, and countless homes and businesses have been scorched. OPB reporter Erin Ross gives us the latest updates and we want to hear from you. How are the wildfires affecting your life?
Many of the people evacuating their homes in Jackson county have found their way to the Expo Center. The center is providing some socially distanced indoor shelter, outside camping, and car camping in the parking lot. People can also come to get help with filing insurance papers, getting a DMV ID, or getting a replacement phone. Helen Funk directs the Expo Center and is now serving as the fire incident public information officer. She says while there are smaller shelters, from churches to business parking lots, she hopes people will at least stop by the Expo to get food, water and the other help they can provide.
The Oregon Department of Education has laid out the recommendations and requirements school districts need to follow for this unprecedented school year. The department has made updates and changes throughout the summer, and it released the newest version of its guidelines earlier this week. We hear from ODE director Colt Gill and Jennifer Patterson, the assistant superintendent of the office of teaching, learning and assessment.
Wildfires continue to rage in much of Oregon and new evacuation orders continue to be issued in communities all over the state. About a half a million people in the state are now under level 1, 2 or 3 evacuation orders with 30 - 40 thousand people already displaced (check). In Phoenix and Talent residents are struggling to comprehend the enormity of the losses in their communities, which have been characterized as “substantially destroyed.” We get the latest from OPB news reporter Conrad Wilson or Erin Ross, and talk with the city manager for Talent, Sandra Spelliscy.
“Evolve” is the latest production by the Red Door Project, a nonprofit theater group whose aim is “to change racial ecology through the arts.” That mission has special resonance as the months of protests for racial justice continue. The Project’s past shows featuring monologues based on the experiences of police officers and Black community members became a new show called “Evolve,” which is now being adapted for the pandemic. Co-creator Kevin Jones says the experience of hearing these real-life stories “challenges our biases and takes this charged, complex conversation to a level that generates compassion and empathy.” On Sept. 15, he’ll present the show to a Zoom audience of law enforcement leaders from around the state. Jones joins to discuss his experience over the last few months, and what his hopes are for “Evolve” moving forward.
Tens of thousands of people would usually be flocking to Eastern Oregon right now for the annual Pendleton Round-Up rodeo. But this year, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the rodeo was canceled for the first time since 1943. Local restaurants and hotels that usually rely on the Round-Up are hurting. We hear from Steve Chrisman, economic development director for the city of Pendleton, about how the Round-Up’s cancellation is impacting the community.
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many Oregon courts to operate with reduced hours and hold many services remotely. In Lane County, that’s led to delays in hearings and trials, and overwhelming caseloads for public defenders. Tatiana Parafiniuk-Talesnick, a reporter for The Register-Guard, recently reported on the delays. And Brook Reinhard is the executive director for Public Defender Services of Lane County. They join us.
The Bend-La Pine school district has gaping socioeconomic differences among its students. Educators say they are working hard to make school an equitable experience for all. But they’re confronting challenges with addressing language barriers, spotty internet connections and the needs of students with disabilities who relied on the routine of the school day. We talk with Jackson Hogan with the Bend Bulletin who has been following this story.
In a press conference yesterday, Gov. Kate Brown listed five communities as “substantially destroyed” by unprecedented wildfires that continue to burn: Detroit in Marion County, Blue River and Vida in Lane County, and Phoenix and Talent in Jackson County. Today there are conflicting reports, and it appears Vida and Blue River may not have been hit quite as hard as first thought. We hear from Detroit Mayor Jim Trett about the damage and how he and his community are responding.
Oregon is experiencing an unprecedented number of fires at one time in places that are densely populated. We talk with OPB reporter Jes Burns about the evacuations in Medford, and her own evacuation. And we hear Gov. Kate Brown and state officials give updates on the fires in a live press conference.
The Salem Leadership Foundation has tapped into a network of community partners to fulfill the need for childcare in the Salem-Keizer area. The organization hopes to provide 40 to 50 sites throughout the area to give students a space to access wifi and other extracurricular activities while schools are closed and distance learning takes place.We'll be speaking to Zyanya Aguilar-Nelson and Jonathan Patterson who have been helping organize these efforts.
Portland journalist and author Sarah Mirk worked with a team of illustrators from around the world to create ‘Guantanamo Voices: True Accounts from the World’s Most Infamous Prison.’ The chapters are based on interviews with former prisoners, members of the military and lawyers for people who are still incarcerated at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. We hear from Mirk about the book and what she learned along the way.
Klamath river tribes have been advocating for the removal of four large dams along the river for nearly 20 years. The dams — one in Oregon and three in California — were built in 1912. Before the dams, tribes had stewarded and fished from the Klamath river for 1000s of years. But after the dams were built, the health and number of fish in the river dramatically decreased. In 2010, the tribes, the company that owns the dams and other stakeholders reached an agreement to remove the dams in 2020. The plan was later delayed to 2022, and now, it may stall again because of a recent decision by federal regulators. We hear from Amy Bowers Cordalis, general counsel for the the Yurok tribe, about the river’s history, and what’s going on with the dam removal project.
A windstorm on Labor Day fueled wildfires across Oregon and Washington, burning thousands of acres and prompting evacuation notices for thousands of people. Several towns along Highway 22 in Oregon were told to evacuate immediately, and others were told to be prepared to leave at a moment’s notice. The windstorm also caused almost 100,000 Oregonians to lose power on Monday night. OPB’s Erin Ross fills us in about the wildfires and what to expect next.
What makes it possible for firefighters to do the work they do? A very well-organized incident command team sets up a small city on the edge of the wilderness. We listen back to a show recorded in 2018 on a visit to one of these small cities, then set up to fight a fire in Southern Oregon.
For the past 25 years, the nonprofit ¡Salud! has provided healthcare for vineyard workers who would otherwise have little to no access otherwise. Agricultural workers are at a heightened risk of contracting the coronavirus than the general population. ¡Salud! has responded to this risk by adding coronavirus screening, education and follow up care to its existing multicultural and multilingual services. We talk with ¡Salud! nurse Erika Sanchez Lerma about her experience providing healthcare to some of the Oregon's most vulnerable workers.
Special education serves students with a wide variety of disabilities. Some need support in the classroom, while others need additional services outside of their classes, in small groups or one-on-one with a teacher. Special education teachers, students and parents are still trying to figure out how to make all of this work now that most Oregon students are starting school online. We hear from three teachers: Kesia Micheletti, a special education teacher at Roosevelt High School in Portland, Amy Neff, who teaches special education at Pacific Crest Middle School in Bend, and Jeff Gierer, a speech language pathologist at Woodlawn Elementary School in Portland.
Downtown Portland business owners are asking city leaders to clean debris and vandalism they say is a result of months of protests.Greg Goodman, co-president of the Downtown Development Group, says many businesses have relocated or left downtown. "Their departure has absolutely nothing to do with [the] Black Lives Matter movement (which has been a positive), but does have most everything to do with the lawlessness you are endorsing downtown,” he wrote in a letter to the mayor and city commissioners. On the 100th day of protests, we hear from Goodman about how business owners are feeling.
Many Oregon colleges and universities have released their plans to hold remote and online classes for the lion’s share of their instruction. The University of Oregon and Southern Oregon University say they’ve worked hard to help instructors make their distance learning instruction as engaging and effective as possible. They say they’re also making sure any student gatherings, including the residents of their dorms, are distanced, masked and disinfected. Patrick Phillips, provost and senior vice president of the University of Oregon and Southern Oregon University provost Sue Walsh join us.
Eighteen school districts in Eastern Oregon have come together to offer online instruction via a virtual learning academy. Students will continue to be enrolled in their home district, and will receive services from that district, but will be talking classes online. Erin Lair is Director of Teaching and Learning for InterMountain Education Service District, which has developed the curriculum. Scott Carpenter is Director of educational rograms at La Grande School District, which is part of the collaboration.
It was not that long ago that Ammon Bundy led an armed takeover of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon. More recently, militia groups came out to defend small towns like Klamath Falls from busloads of antifa agitators who were falsely rumored to be coming to town. Freelance writer and host of the Bundyville podcast Leah Sottile recently wrote an investigative piece for the New York Times Magazine about a relatively new group called the Boogaloo, or Boogaloo Bois. The group’s beliefs seem to run the gamut from anti-racist to white supremacist, but they are united in their love of guns, their anti-government views and the Hawaiian shirts they wear under their body armor. They’ve been spotted at reopening rallies and Black Lives Matter protests. The Boogaloo is a decentralized group and tends to communicate in memes, making them attractive to a younger crowd of men than militia groups like the Three Percenters or Bundy’s followers. We hear from Sottile about what she was able to learn about this elusive group.
For the last three years, students at Lincoln Middle School at Cottage Grove have been learning about mental health in addition to physical health. It’s a mindfulness-based curriculum developed by researchers at the University of Oregon and private partners including Lori Allen, the executive director of the Oregon Mind Body Institute. They say the idea is to help 6th graders cope and manage their stress at a critical time in their development and also to help remove the stigma around talking about mental health. Allen joins us, along with Lincoln Middle School teacher Heather Devine and her 7th grade son Nate Schlitt, who was taught the curriculum in school and now uses it in his daily life.
Three months after George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer, the U.S. is continuing to grapple with how to address police violence and systemic racism against Black Americans. For four Oregonians whose loved ones were killed by police, the past few months have been a time of processing grief, building community and coming up with strategies to end police violence. Joe Keller’s son Deontae Keller was killed by Portland police in 1996. Kayla Washington’s father Jason Washington was killed by Portland State University police in 2018. Donna Hayes’ grandson Quanice Hayes was killed by Portland police in 2017. Stephanie Babb’s brother Brian Babb was killed by Eugene police in 2015.
Last week, The Canton Grill Southeast 82nd Avenue in Portland announced that they were closing. The restaurant was opened in 1944, and was owned and operated by the same family for three generations. Last year, for the restaurant’s 75th anniversary, we sat down with owner Cindy Louis and her father, Fred Louis.
On Saturday, a man was fatally shot amid conflicts between protesters in downtown Portland. In response, Oregon Gov. Brown has announced a plan for more involvement from federal authorities, along with assistance from state and county agencies. OPB reporter Jonathan Levinson tells us about the events on Saturday. Bobbin Singh, Executive Director of Oregon Justice Resource Center, also joins us. OJRC is among the groups calling for Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler to resign.
Oregon is dominated by Democrats, but Portland played an important role this week in the Republican National Convention. This week, we look at GOP efforts to make Portland a symbol in President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign. And we’ll examine whether there are any benefits for Republicans hoping to eat away at Democratic majorities in Oregon.
We listen back to a conversation with Carolyn and Ira Hodge. They lost their home to the Canyon Creek wildfire in 2015. We talked to them just a few weeks afterwards.
Sloane Leong’s new graphic novel “A Map To The Sun” explores friendship, family dynamics and coming-of-age through the story of a teenage girls basketball team. We talk Leong about the book and the personal experiences that shaped it.
For the past seven years, students and faculty at Portland State University (PSU) have called for campus police to be stripped of their firearms. In 2018, the movement gained momentum after campus police shot and killed Jason Washington. Now, two years later, university officials have decided to disarm campus police officers. We hear about the decision from Willie Halliburton, PSU’s new chief of police. We also hear from Angeline Booth, a student who has been involved in the Disarm PSU movement.
The Portland City Council recently passed a dramatic overhaul of its zoning code to allow more housing density in the city’s residential neighborhoods. The Residential Infill Project allows duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes to be built in neighborhoods currently zoned for single-family homes. Proponents of the policy say that it will lead to more affordable housing in the city. But Andre Baugh, a former Planning Sustainability Commission member, fears that the policy will actually displace the city’s most vulnerable communities. He joins us to talk about his concerns.
A recent analysis by reporter Karina Brown at Courthouse News Service shows that Black people are nearly twice as likely as white people to be arrested at Portland protests. We hear from Mark Leymon, associate professor of criminology and criminal justice at Portland State University about why he thinks these numbers are so significant.
Candace Avalos and Salomé Chimuku noticed something missing in the coverage and conversations about the Black Lives Matter uprising in Portland: the voices of Black millennials like them. So, with a group of other young Black leaders in Portland, they started the Black Millennial Movement. The group focuses on building community for young Black leaders, and helping them access the resources they need to succeed. Avalos and Chimuku join us.
Movie theaters in the Portland area have been shuttered since March, when the majority of businesses closed to help slow the spread of COVID-19. They will be allowed to reopen under Phase 2 guidelines set out by Oregon Gov. Kate Brown. Now, theater owners are petitioning Gov. Brown to allow them to reopen under Phase 1 guidelines, like restaurants, bars and other businesses. Theater owners argue that they can follow all the same guidelines and restrictions that restaurants and bars do and that their spaces might even be safer. We hear from Tom Ranieri, owner of Cinema 21 in NW Portland. He wrote the letter to Gov. Brown that was signed by many other movie theater owners in the state.
It’s been a busy summer for Danny Martinez, emergency manager for the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. Of course, there’s the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and in July, Martinez had to help residents cope with compromised drinking water. That problem has been fixed, at least temporarily, for the majority of homes in the area but some residents are still relying on bottled water. Now, there are two wildfires burning on the reservation, causing road closures and Level 1 evacuation orders for some residents, including Martinez. We’ll talk with him about how the Warm Springs Reservation is coping.
During the nightly protests against police brutality in Portland, officers have been allowed to cover over their nametags. Police bureau officials say that’s necessary to protect officers from getting doxed - having their private information put online. Doxing is a tool that’s been used with increasing frequency across the political spectrum. Howard Graves, a senior research analyst with the Southern Poverty Law Center, fills us in.
Two generations of the McAllister family have attended Columbia River High School, which uses a Native American mascot. Each family member has felt the negative impacts of the school’s inaccurate depiction of Native Americans. After the Washington D.C. professional football team recently agreed to scrap its racist name and mascot, the McAllisters hope that the high-profile decision could reignite a local conversation in Vancouver. We hear from Stacey Naswytee-McAllister and her two daughters on what it was like to attend Columbia River High School and see their culture being used as a mascot.
Over the last 20 years, the problem of California sea lions and Steller sea lions feasting on threatened Northwest salmon has worsened. The animals have returned year after year to fish ladders on dams where the fish are concentrated, making them easy prey. Wildlife managers have used techniques like hazing and other non-lethal methods to deter the sea lions, with little to no long-term effect. Now a new federal rule shifts management to geographic areas, rather than individual sea lions, and for the first time gives Indigenous tribes the ability to kill the sea lions that are threatening salmon runs. We talk with Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission senior scientist Doug Hatch about what this will mean for sea lions, salmon and tribes.
The pandemic has drastically changed business for Oregon farmers. For farmers who sell to food service distributors like Reed Anderson, owner of Anderson Sheep Company in Brownsville, business is down. Anderson said sales are about 60 percent of what they were last year, partly because lamb is a specialty meat that most people purchase at restaurants. But for Laura Masterson, founder of 47th Avenue Farms in Portland, sales have picked up. Masterson has seen increased interest in her CSA business as more people buy food to prepare at home. We hear from Anderson and Masterson about how things are going and how the pandemic could impact their companies in the long term.
The pandemic has drastically changed Roberta Joy Kirk, a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs, has been honored as a recipient of the 2020 Governor’s Arts Award. She’s a traditional artist and educator who lives and works on the reservation. Kirk learned to sew and bead when she was a young girl after her family lost priceless Indigenous family heirlooms in a house fire. She makes dresses, pants and ceremonial clothing — many intricately beaded — for family and others. She has also taught her art through classes and mentoring over the years. The other honorees of the Governor’s Arts Award are musician Darrell Grant, writer and typographer John Laursen, Toni Pimble of the Eugene Ballet, and the Portland Gay Men’s Chorus.
A group of protesters supporting police and President Trump’s reelection engaged in physical violence with counterprotesters in downtown Portland this weekend. Police waited to intervene, saying later they don’t have the resources due to staffing nightly protests against police violence and racial injustice. Sergio Olmos was at the protests on Saturday, and gives us an update.
The changing metrics for school reopenings in Oregon have allowed some students to return to in-person instruction while others will do distance learning. In Eastern Oregon, Umatilla School District will be operating remotely, while Fossil School District will conduct in-person instruction. We hear from both school districts' superintendents about their plans for the upcoming school year and how they have made these transitions.
Last week, the Portland City Council passed a dramatic overhaul of its zoning code to allow more housing density in the city’s residential neighborhoods. The Residential Infill Project allows duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes to be built in neighborhoods zoned for single family homes. Non-profit developers like Habitat for Humanity say that means they will be able to build more affordable housing. We talk with Steve Messinetti, the CEO of Habitat for Humanity Portland, about what the change means for low-income housing.
We get opinions and analysis on some of this week’s biggest local headlines with former Oregonian editor George Rede, Oregon CAIR board chair Zakir Khan and Julie Parrish, who served four terms as a Republican in the Oregon House of Representatives.
Tourists have been flocking to Crater Lake in the past few months. With reduced staffing due to coronavirus, the park is struggling to keep visitors from following important safety and environmental rules. Park superintendent Craig Ackerman says visitors are climbing down the caldera, and dragging prohibited boats and flotation devices into the lake. He says this can introduce invasive species into the water. We hear from Ackerman about how the park is doing, and what you should know if you plan to visit.
More than 3 thousand people live on the Umatilla Indian Reservation. Tribal leaders urged all residents to comply with Oregon Gov. Kate Brown’s "stay at home" order in March, and in the intervening time have gone even further than state guidelines in terms of mask wearing and social distancing. Now that the county has been put back to baseline status, we talk with Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation’s Chuck Sams about how the community is responding to the ongoing pandemic and about the newly formed Intergovernmental Task Force.
Homeless camps in the Portland metro area have continued to grow during the pandemic, as people who are homeless struggle to access shelters and other services that were available before. Raven Drake lived in homeless camps for several months during the pandemic. She is also the medical program coordinator providing medical services to people in homeless camps for JOIN. She joins us to talk about living outside during the pandemic and navigating the medical concerns of COVID-19.
Bend’s new police chief started the job last week amid a global pandemic, a societal reckoning about police killings of Black people, and a local community blockade of Immigration and Customs Enforcement buses. Mike Krantz was an assistant chief for the Portland Police Bureau before taking the job in Bend. We talk to him about his philosophy for the Bend police department.
In 1998, researchers from the CDC and Kaiser-Permanente put out a groundbreaking study. They catalogued a variety of what they called ACEs. It stands for "Adverse Childhood Experiences." ACEs included things like sexual or physical abuse, or living in a home with domestic violence or substance abuse.
The researchers found that the more ACEs someone has, the higher the chance of all kinds of negative health outcomes — from heart disease to cancer to mental illness.
Now the public health community is catching up with this cutting-edge science. Pediatricians, social workers and teachers are asking: Since we know just how damaging childhood traumas are, how do we respond to them? And how can we prevent them in the first place?
We listen back to a conversation with national expert Nadine Burke Harris, author of "The Deepest Well;" RJ Gillespie, pediatrician at The Children's Clinic; Amy Stoeber, child and adolescent psychologist; Sue Skinner, pediatrician at The Children's Center; Ellen Baltus, social worker in the North Clackamas school district and Fariborz Pakseresht, Director of Oregon's Department of Human Services
Colson Whitehead won the Pulitzer Prize in 2017 for his novel "The Underground Railroad." It's an alternate history of slavery in America from an author who has built a reputation on tweaking the boundaries of reality in order to reveal more about the world we live in. We listen back to an interview with Whitehead at Oregon State University.
We listen back to a conversation with students and teachers in the Portland area about how race and racial identity is playing out in high schools and in class discussions.
Oregon Route 82 arcs from La Grande to Joseph, around the north side of the Wallowa Mountains. We took a road trip along the highway and talked to ranchers, small business owners, life-long residents and visitors.
U.S. intelligence officials say Russian interference in U.S. election politics is evolving. Rather than fake news and bogus social media accounts, Russians are now seeding stories that include factual elements, but are otherwise untrue. One of the first documented examples is a story by a Kremlin-backed news agency about a “Bible burning” by protesters taking part in the nightly Black Lives Matter demonstrations in downtown Portland. We talk with New York Times reporter Julian E. Barnes about the story, which President Trump and other prominent Republicans retweeted and amplified, and about evolving Russian election interference tactics.
In July, the Multnomah County Library announced it would be making staffing cuts due to branches being closed during the coronavirus pandemic. Last week, library staff started to learn which positions were being eliminated. Multnomah County Library Director Vailey Oehlke told OPB that the library was eliminating about 13 percent of all staff. We hear from Oehlke about how the library is handling the layoffs and from library assistant Elleona Budd, a member of the AFSCME Local 88 union that represents library workers, about how employees are responding.
Kindergarten is about so much more than ABCs. It’s about learning how to be in school — how to hold a pencil, how to share, how to sit still during story time. So, how do you do that when school is all online? We hear from two kindergarten teachers about what distance learning will be like for them and for some of the state’s youngest students. Marissa Ching is a kindergarten dual-language teacher in the Beaverton School District and Sarah Adams teaches kindergarten at Mill Park Elementary in the David Douglas School District.
Angela Haseltine Pozzi makes art out of trash found on Oregon beaches. These “Washed Ashore” sculptures are designed by the artist and educator at her studio in Bandon. Her traveling art exhibit will be on display at the Oregon Zoo for the first time. We talk to Pozzi and Kathayoon Khalis, the zoo’s Conservation Impact Manager at the Oregon Zoo.
The PAC-12 conference announced this week that it will postpone all fall sports, including college football, through at least the end of 2020. The same day, Oregon State University President F. King Alexander announced that the majority of fall classes would be online. We talk with Alexander about how the college football season’s postponement will affect the university, and how the university will approach an online fall term.
A tax put forth by Metro is expected to bring in up to $250 million per year to support people who are homeless in Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington counties. The Tri-County Recovery Coalition is asking Metro for more representation of people who have experienced homelessness, mental illness and substance abuse recovery to advise their efforts to address homelessness. The coalition includes various organizations that focus on addiction and recovery services. We hear from Tony Vezina and Miguel Tellez, both members of the coalition who work in recovery based services.
Morrow County in Eastern Oregon currently has the highest amount of COVID-19 cases per capita and the highest percentage of positive tests in the state. At the end of July, Morrow County rolled back its reopening to Phase 1. County officials are hoping to avoid going back to "baseline", or another shutdown. We talk with Morrow County Chair Melissa Lindsay.
Portland activist Demetria Hester has been attending nightly protests against police violence and systemic racism since demonstrations began in Portland more than two months ago. After the collapse of the Wall of Moms, Hester and other Black leaders organized the group Moms United for Black Lives. Hester, who was arrested Sunday night, tells us about the group, her organizing at the nightly protests and what changes she wants to see.
The increase of COVID-19 cases throughout the state and a limited number of ICU beds has forced the St. Charles hospital in Bend to prepare contingency plans. We hear from St. Charles Chief Physician Executive Dr. Jeff Absalon about how things are going, and what he’s learned since the start of the pandemic
The Oregon Legislature kicks off its second special session of the summer on Monday. The focus this time is closing the budget gap, which is now over $1 billion. It remains to be seen whether lawmakers will also take up bills related to policing that did not pass in the June special session. Businesses, school districts and local governments are also hoping to gain liability protection from lawsuits related to the COVID-19 pandemic. We break it all down with OPB political reporter Dirk VanderHart.
Necessary conversations about racism cannot always happen in person during the coronavirus pandemic. So diversity, equity and inclusion consultant Alexis Braly James has been holding a series of free Zoom talks through the Multnomah County Library. After maxing out capacity in her first few sessions this summer, James planned a second series to start in September. We hear how James has been connecting with participants in her online workshop series, "Let's Talk About Race.
Federal officers have remained in Portland for more than a week after a negotiated agreement between the state and Trump administration to pull back. They have stayed largely out of sight as hundreds of racial justice protesters have gathered outside the Mark O. Hatfield federal courthouse some nights. Ken Cuccinelli, Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security tells us how long federal officers are likely to stay in Portland, and what their role will be.
We hear opinions and analysis on some of the biggest local news stories of the week from Danielle Pacifico-Cogan, Rebecca Tweed and Ryan Haas.
The coronavirus pandemic has altered every aspect of our traditional food systems, from small farms to massive grocery store chains. We hear from Michelle Miller, Associate Director of the Center for Integrated Agriculture at the University of Wisconsin, about how national food supply chains have changed in the last few months. We also hear from Sarah Sullivan, Executive Director of the Gorge Grown Food Network, about how small farmers in Oregon and Washington are faring. Riccardo Salvador, a director at the Union of Concerned Scientists, explains how the pandemic sheds light on inequities that already existed in the food system.
We hear opinions and analysis on some of the biggest local news stories of the week from Danielle Pacifico-Cogan, Rebecca Tweed and Ryan Haas.
Vincent Jones-Dixon was recently appointed to the Gresham city council. Jones-Dixon, a Program Manager for Africa New Life and a licensed funeral director, is the first Black man to serve on the council. He says he feels a weight of responsibility to bring more civic engagement and inclusivity to the city. We hear about his plans, and what inspired him to apply for the position.
The Billy Webb Elks Lodge on North Williams Ave is now on the National Register of Historic Places, in recognition of its historical significance for the city’s Black community. The Lodge was originally built in the early 1900s as an YWCA, then known as the “colored YWCA,” and was also the headquarters of the Portland chapter of the NAACP. Kim Moreland is on the board of the Architectural Heritage Center and helped put the application together. She tells us about the Lodge, other historical sites that have already been demolished, and what this national recognition means to her.
Oregon’s parks will be eligible for nearly double the amount of federal funds they normally receive after President Donald Trump signed the Great American Outdoors Act this week. The bill set aside almost $10 billion for maintenance in the nation’s National Parks, and funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund. We hear about the bill, and how it will impact parks in Oregon from Kelley Beamer, executive director of the Coalition of Oregon Land Trusts.
Books about Black Lives Matter and antiracism have been flying off the shelves of Multnomah County libraries. But how do you build the best anti-racist reading list? Kirby McCurtis, library manager at Multnomah County, says it’s important to include Black fiction, and stories about Black joy. McCurtis has led a Black Storytime group at the Multnomah County Library, and taught a workshop on speaking to preschoolers about race. She shares her perspective on the power of fiction in helping people become antiracist, and the role of libraries in the Black Lives Matter movement.
For more than two decades, Chuck Hudson has been an advocate for both salmon and Indigenous people in his role as the intergovernmental affairs director for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. As he starts his retirement, we talk with Hudson about his legacy and his hopes for the future.
The U.S. Census Bureau is ending its count efforts a month earlier than expected. That means the bureau now has less than two months to reach people of color and other historically undercounted groups. Additionally, President Donald Trump signed an order that would exclude undocumented immigrants from the census count. We talk with Esperanza Tervalon-Garrett, the campaign manager for We Count Oregon, about what these changes could mean for Oregon.
Inmates at the Lane County Jail have been on a hunger strike for more than six weeks. They are demanding the jail provide stronger protections against COVID-19, as well as better access to religious services, meetings with lawyers and family, and lower bail. We hear from Momo Wilms-Crowe, an organizer with Lane County Mutual Aid, about what prompted the strike, and how the inmates are doing.
Kris McAlister was homeless in Lane County as a teenager. He’s now bringing that experience to his advocacy and policy work, leading the nonprofit Carry It Forward. We talk with McAlister and Lane County Joint Housing & Shelter Strategist Sarai Johnson about how the plan to meet the needs of unhoused people is coming together, and what still needs to be done.
Umatilla County is experiencing one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in Oregon. In response, Gov. Kate Brown halted reopening in the county and moved Umatilla back to what’s known as baseline. This means that businesses deemed nonessential must remain closed for at least 3 weeks, and restaurants are limited to takeout only. Umatilla County vice chair George Murdock told OPB, “Hopefully this will be a strong enough message to the 80,000 residents of Umatilla County that if we open back up, we’re all going to have to be in it together.” We talk with Murdock about how the community is dealing with the setback, and how it’s approaching the political and public health challenges to get COVID-19 cases down.
Mike Schmidt campaigned for Multnomah County District Attorney on a platform of criminal justice reform, one of a number of similarly progressive DAs around the country who won office. His predecessor Rod Underhill stepped down early, so Schmidt could get started on enacting his agenda in the midst of the political uprising for racial justice and police reform. We talk with Schmidt about what his priorities will be in his first few weeks in office, and how he sees the justice system changing over the next four years.
Portlanders will vote by August 11 to choose a successor for City Commissioner Nick Fish, who died in January. We hear from the two candidates: former Multnomah County Commissioner Loretta Smith and Dan Ryan, former CEO of the education nonprofit All Hands Raised.
For the first time in more than three weeks, federal law enforcement officers were not present at Thursday night’s protests in Portland. Portland activist and hip-hop journalist Mac Smiff has been out at the protests against police violence and systemic racism nearly every night since they began more than two months ago. He tells us how the presence of federal officers changed the protests, and what comes next for him if they leave the city.
We get opinions and analysis on some of the biggest news of the week with Camilla Mortensen, Lisa Bates, and Eric Fruits.
When Portland protests and the federal law enforcement’s treatment of protesters received national media attention, the predominantly white women in the Portland Wall of Moms went viral. But, as activists and academics pointed out, stories of the Black mothers who’d been protesting long before did not get the same attention. Dani McClain is an independent journalist who covers race and reproductive health, and the author of “We Live For The We: The Political Power of Black Motherhood.” She joins us to discuss how race influences perceptions of motherhood, and why non-Black mothers at protests are getting more attention than Black mothers.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter uprising have highlighted problems that Leslie Gregory has been working to change for a long time. Gregory is the founder and director of Right To Health, a Portland-based nonprofit that highlights health disparities that are the result of racial injustice and economic inequality. She has been pushing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to recognize racism as a public health crisis for years. She tells us what it’s like to find her work at the intersection of two historical world events.
Zachary Stocks recently started as the Oregon Black Pioneers’ first ever executive director. As the latest Black Lives Matter movement has sparked efforts to rename racist geographic locations across Oregon and take down racist monuments, Stocks has been reflecting on the role of his organization in uncovering and preserving the history of Black Oregonians. We hear from Stocks about his new job, and how he plans to build on the historical work of the Oregon Black Pioneers. We also hear from Bruce Fisher, president of the Oregon Geographic Names Board, about why there are still geographic locations with racist names.
After Portland protests and federal law enforcement’s treatment of protesters made national headlines, stories and photos of predominantly white mothers in the Portland Wall of Moms received national attention. But Black mothers like Julianne Jackson have been involved with the protests against systemic racism and police violence since the beginning. Jackson, an activist in Salem, has organized several events for racial justice and is advocating for the removal of school resource officers in Salem schools.
Matt Bors lives and works in Portland as a cartoonist and founder of The Nib. Bors says making a living was challenging at the beginning of 2020, but with the pandemic, he says between childcare and healthcare, he just can’t make it work. We talk with Bors about his move to Canada, where his spouse is from, and how things will be different for him, his family and The Nib.
As cases of COVID-19 continue to rise in Oregon, people of color are disproportionately testing positive for the virus. The Oregon Health Authority has pledged to increase outreach and testing to vulnerable communities. Dawn Mautner is the OHA senior health advisor. She tells us about how OHA is addressing racial disparities during the pandemic.
Brian Bennett moved to Portland last year from Chicago. Bennett is the only Black dancer in the full company at Oregon Ballet Theatre. (There is also a Black dancer in the role of apprentice at OBT.) He says the artistic director who hired him was frank about the fact that he’d be coming in to a predominantly white institution. Now, he’s practicing his ballet moves at home, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and attending Portland protests against racism and police violence. Bennett joins us to reflect on this moment and how he thinks things might be different for him when he returns to the studio.
Some restaurants in Portland are slowly beginning to reopen. But will they be able to make money? Will they be able to hire back the staff they let go? What kind of food service makes the most sense until we get a vaccine? Lisa Schroeder (Mother’s Bistro and Bar), Peter Cho (Han Oak), and Kyo Koo (Danwei Canting) all own very different kinds of restaurants. They tell us what the last few months have been like, and what the future may hold.
After COVID-19 cases spiked at the Eastern Oregon Correctional Institute in Pendleton, families of inmates have gathered at the prison to protest conditions there. Lydia Jarrell has been attending those protests. Her husband is an inmate at the EOCI, and has told her that the prison has not done enough to stop the spread of COVID-19.
A new group of Black-led community groups called a press conference today with Oregon elected leaders. They have developed a two-year plan to begin dismantling systemic racism in Oregon. Nkenge Harmon Johnson, President and CEO of the Urban League of Portland, is one of the organizers of today's press conference.
Author Min Jin Lee’s latest novel, “Pachinko,” was a finalist for the National Book Award. It’s an epic story about four generations of one family through migration, heartbreak, oppression, financial success, and trauma. We spoke to Lee in front of an audience at Portland’s Franklin High School in January, 2020.
We get opinions and analysis on some of the biggest stories of the week on our news roundtable. This week our guests are Christopher McKnight Nichols, Marisa Zapata and Scott Bruun.
A 23-year-old civil rights activist from Alabama named John Lewis was the youngest speaker at the famous March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom led by Martin Luther King Jr, delivering a fiery speech to hundreds of thousands of marchers gathered on the Washington Mall. Lewis went on to serve on the Atlanta City Council, and was elected to Congress in 1986. Lewis died last week at the age of 80. We spoke to him in 2014 after he had completed a three volume graphic nonfiction series about his life titled “March.”
School districts all over Oregon are getting ready for the start of a new school year. But what that will exactly look like is still being determined in the midst of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Gov. Kate Brown has just expanded the mandatory mask requirement to include children 5 or older. One thing is certain, students will be learning differently in every school, whether rural or urban — some more differently than others. We talk with educators Laura Thomas, Toni Myers and Leanne Goff in the Grant, Baker and Umatilla school districts to hear how they’re preparing.
Oregon Supreme Court Justice Adrienne Nelson says unconscious racial bias — or any kind of bias — has no place in jury trials. And yet, she acknowledges, every person has these biases. Nelson helped create a video that jurors can watch before a trial starts that’s designed to help them identify unconscious bias and minimize the effect those may have on their deliberations. At the same time, the Oregon Judicial Department is launching what it calls a strategic campaign, which includes partnering with organizations to bring equity to “underserved, vulnerable or marginalized” Oregonians, like juveniles and those with mental and behavioral health issues. It also includes training for judges and staff.
A Portland contemporary arts center is transferring ownership of its building and land to the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation. Yale Union has held art events and exhibitions in an old brick building in Southeast Portland since 2010. The space will now be used to host Indigenous artists and exhibits, and promote conversations for social change. Flint Jamison is president of the board of Yale Union. Lulani Arquette is president and CEO of the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation.
Black Lives Matter organizers in rural Oregon are figuring out next steps for their movements. In Bend, Riccardo Waites started the Central Oregon Back Leaders Assembly, a nonprofit aiming to reduce police violence and racial discrimination in the community’s schools. In Umatilla, Selene Torres-Medrano is organizing to keep School Resource Officers out of school districts. And in Hermiston, John Carbage is pushing local officials to talk about systemic racism, and the racial profiling he has experienced from local law enforcement.
For Portland Black comedians Christian Burke and Dahlia Belle, writing jokes can be a way to process traumatic events, challenge social norms, and build community through laughter. Many Portland comedy events have been canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic, but Black-owned production company Dirty Angel Entertainment has recently started holding socially distanced open mics again. We hear from Burke, Belle, and Dirty Angel Entertainment executive producer Courtenay Collins about the role of comedy in both the Black Lives Matter uprising and the pandemic.
The Springfield Police Department has agreed to a multi-million dollar settlement with the family of a Springfield resident killed by officers. At $4.55 million, it’s the largest settlement for a police use of force case in Oregon. We talk with Barbara Kenny, the mother of Stacy Kenny, and Dave Park, the family’s lawyer to hear about Stacy’s life, how she died, and about the police reform measures the settlement also requires. The Springfield Police Department declined our request for an interview.
The Native American Youth and Family Center recently became the only federally designated EnVision Center in Oregon, and one of only three in the country to focus on services Native Americans. The federal designation could make it easier to access federal support to reduce Native housing instability and food insecurity, which is especially pressing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Paul Lumley, the executive director for NAYA, tells us about the new designation for NAYA and the work that it will do as a result.
: Portlanders have turned out to protest racism and violence in the criminal justice system for over 50 nights. Some independent journalists have been there to cover those protests, and clashes with police and federal officers, nearly every one of those nights. Tuck Woodstock and Sergio Olmos tell us what they’ve seen on the streets of Portland over the last two months.