Think Out Loud

If you’ve always dreamed of singing in a band, a karaoke night might scratch the itch. But on Monday nights in Portland, you can actually sing karaoke with a live band at Dante’s pub. Karaoke from Hell is now a 33-year-old tradition featured in a new documentary of the same name. The documentary will be screened on Wednesday, Dec. 17th at the Star Theater in Portland. We talk to band members Dawn Panttaja and Brian Saunders, along with co-director of the documentary Chip Mabry, about the joys of live karaoke and how Portland’s art scene has change...

As social media and AI advance, it can be hard to know how to best help kids navigate the ever-changing digital landscape and keep them safe online. Jen Doty, an Associate Professor in the Department of Counseling Psychology and Human Services at the University of Oregon, has studied cyberbullying since 2013 and has recently developed a program for middle school students to manage their social media and internet use. She joins us with her guide to conversations about internet use with school-aged kids.

More than 90% of all liquid fuel in Oregon is stored along a 6 mile stretch of the Willamette River just north of downtown Portland known as the Critical Energy Infrastructure hub. Studies have shown that a major earthquake could cause the release of as much toxic liquid as the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, with oil reaching all the way to the mouth of the Columbia River. This fall, the city released a draft proposal to reduce the fuel stored at the site and require seismic upgrades. Eric Engstrom, director of the Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, joins us...

Sparked by pandemic-era baking trends, interest in small-batch, locally-milled flour is growing among commercial and home bakers. Operations like Camas Country Mill in Oregon and Cairnspring Mills in Washington supply restaurants, bakeries and amateur bakers with high-quality flour sourced from local farmers who use regenerative growing practices.  

A new partnership between Cairnspring and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation will bring a flour mill to the reservation in Eastern Oregon. The new facility is expected to expand Cairnspring’s production capacity twelvefold and create 20-25 new jobs. 

Kevin Morse is the co...

Big changes are in store for the federal student loan program. President Trump’s tax and spending bill, which was signed into law last summer, ends a supplemental loan for graduate students and caps  the amount they can borrow from the government. It also allows students in professional programs, such as law and medicine, to borrow more than students in other graduate programs, such as nursing or social work.

The bill reduces students’ loan repayment options from seven to two. It also phases out the Biden-era SAVE plan, which was the most flexible income-driven repayment option...

 After months of searching, Portland has officially named Raymond Lee as the first long-term city administrator. The position, which was created with the city’s new form of government, oversees thousands of city employees and the day-to-day public services including public safety, public works and city operations to name a few. But Lee isn’t the first city administrator. Michael Jordan has filled the role in the interim since 2024. In this time in the position, he has responded to federal actions, made recommendations for the city’s budget and more. Jordan joins us to share more on what his time wa...

The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit’s Eventual Tenant Ownership program is meant to give people the chance to buy the home they're renting. It works by providing developers with Low-Income Housing Tax Credits for building homes that would qualify for this program in exchange. But new reporting from Underscore Native News and ICT highlights how the Washington program, which mainly serves tribal lands and governments, has failed to convert a single home to ownership. Luna Reyna is the Northwest Bureau Chief for the publication. She joins us to share more.

Staffing shortages and rising labor costs have caused many 24/7 businesses to reduce their hours since the COVID-19 pandemic. But Rose City Coffee Co. is bucking the trend. 

The Southeast Portland coffee shop is now open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We’ll talk with owner Christie Gryphon about what it takes to run a 24-hour business in today’s economy.

Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington counties recently launched a regional dashboard that tracks the health impacts of climate change in the metro area. It includes data on heat and cold events, air quality, infectious diseases and the effects climate change can have on mental health. The dashboard is an evolution of the counties’ Regional Climate and Health Monitoring Report, which was previously released every two years as a lengthy PDF. 

Sarah Present is the Clackamas County Health Officer, and Kathleen Johnson is a senior program coordinator at Washington County Public Health. They join us to talk about the...

Oregon is the leading producer of Christmas trees in the nation, accounting for about a third of all real Christmas trees sold in the U.S. Christmas tree farmers in Oregon grew more than 3 million Noble fir, Douglas fir and other Christmas tree varieties in 2023, the most recent year for which statistics are available. 

Priya Rajarapu is an assistant professor in the college of forestry at OSU and the Christmas tree specialist at OSU Extension Service. In the past year, she has visited 20 Christmas tree farms in Oregon where she has offered advice, diagnosed diseased tr...

 A new investigation by ProPublica and High Country News reveals how wealthy ranchers and corporations are profiting from federal subsidies for fees they pay to graze cattle on public land. The three-part investigation used data from the Bureau of Land Management to analyze grazing fees and identify the largest ranchers on public lands. Joining us for more details is Mark Olalde, an investigative reporter at ProPublica.

Columbia Memorial Hospital in Astoria is currently undergoing a $300 million expansion. The new facility will include a more secure foundation, a vertical tsunami evacuation staircase and other features meant to make it more resilient during a potential earthquake.

That work was supposed to be covered by a $20 million grant from the federal Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program. But the Trump administration cancelled the program this spring, leaving projects across the country and state stranded. 

Work on the hospital is proceeding despite the loss of federal funding. Columbia Memorial CEO Erik Thorsen jo...

According to the AARP, one in four adults in the U.S. provides care to a spouse, relative or friend with a serious health concern. Roughly 18% of those caregivers are between the ages of 18 and 34. 

That group includes Emily Quandt, a 23-year-old Beaverton resident who put her post-college plans on hold when her mother, Angie, was diagnosed with ALS in 2022. Emily and Angie Quandt both join us to talk about the dynamics of family caregiving.

The Secure Rural Schools act has provided crucial federal funding for rural schools and counties for 25 years. But for the past two years, funding has lapsed as efforts to renew the act failed and House Republicans omitted the program’s funding from federal spending in July. Now, that funding could be reinstated.

On Tuesday, the U.S. House of Representatives voted in favor of the Secure Rural Schools Reauthorization Act, which was approved by the Senate earlier this year. The bill now heads to the president to be signed and made into law. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Pe...

 A recent report by the Portland City Administrator shows traffic deaths in the city have continued to fall after a spike during the COVID-19 pandemic. Are Portlanders driving differently now than they were when the streets were emptier? Are earlier state and federal investments in traffic safety now just taking shape? Nonprofit leaders and city officials agree there are multiple factors involved in the decline. But as pandemic recovery continues, and the future of Gov. Tina Kotek’s road funding bill remains unclear, it’s an open question whether the city will be able to keep the trendline down. 

...

Diagnosed in 2024, Portland resident Christy Scattarella has been using her own journey with Alzheimer’s to uplift others and erase stigma surrounding the disease. She began speaking out about Alzheimer's a year after her diagnosis, and champions her “Optimist’s Guide to Alzheimer's" as a way to combat the fear and shame those with Alzheimer’s often face.

For years now, scientists have shown that daily exposure to bright light therapy, which simulates the intensity of outdoor light, can be beneficial for people with insomnia and other sleep disorders, Seasonal Affective Disorder or other forms of depression. But what if bright light therapy can help people recover from concussions or other traumatic brain injuries? And what if it can also lower the risk of neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s, which people with TBIs are at higher risk for? 

Scientists at Oregon Health & Science University were recently awarded a $4 million grant from t...

Last week, President Trump attacked Somali immigrants in the nation during a Cabinet meeting, calling them “garbage” and saying that he didn’t want them in the U.S. Meanwhile, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is ramping up its activity in the Minneapolis metro area in Minnesota. That state is home to nearly 80,000 people of Somali descent, the largest such population in the nation. 

In Oregon, there are roughly 12 to 15,000 people of Somali descent, most of whom live in Multnomah County, according to a 2016 county report. Musse Olol emigrated from Somalia to Oregon in 1981 and is...

Five years ago, Joseph-based pianist Seth Kinzie was awarded a Rotary Peace Fellowship to study peace and social change in Uganda. Since then, Kinzie has created the African Peacemaking Database in Ethiopia and Malawi. He has now released a new album, “Bright Violet,” with the Kinzie Steele Octet and will be performing in Portland at Holocene on Dec. 7. We talk to Kinzie and hear a performance of some of the music inspired by his travels.

When we look at the night sky, we can see the moon, stars, planets and sometimes even faraway clouds of gas and dust. All that visible matter — the stuff we can see — has a gravitational force, the same way the moon pulls on our oceans and creates the tides. But for decades, physicists have noticed something weird: There’s more gravity in the universe than we should expect. Why?

Physicists think the answer lies with dark matter, an invisible form of matter that accounts for that extra gravity they're observing. University of Washington physicist Alvaro Chavarr...

From camping gear to gorpcore, consumers may not realize that the functional, tactical and practical clothing worn today has deep connections to the U.S. military. In the latest season of “Articles of Interest,” host and producer Avery Trufelman takes listeners on a journey to learn more about how civilian and military fashion intersect and the ways in which the uniforms of soldiers have influenced the outdoor apparel industry. Trufelman joins us to share more on the history of military gear, the civilian-veteran divide, Portland’s Functional Fabric Fair and more.

The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted Friday morning to change its recommendation on hepatitis B vaccines for newborns. 

For more than three decades, the agency has recommended that all infants receive a hepatitis B vaccine, regardless of their risk status. Now, the vaccine will only be recommended for infants born to mothers who test positive for the infection or whose status is unknown. The committee’s decision still needs approval from the CDC’s acting director.

A group of researchers conducted a modeling study to assess the impacts of delayi...

Since 1999, there have been more than 430 school shootings across the nation. Oregon alone has had eight incidents since 2008, according to CNN. With school shootings being a concern for parents, teachers and students, a new industry around school safety has emerged. Estimated to be worth $4 billion, school shooting preparedness and security is projected to continue to grow. From panic buttons and bullet-resistant backpacks to drill simulations and AI gun detection software, the amount of products and services being sold to schools and districts varies wildly.

A new HBO documentary, “Thoughts and Prayers,” takes a look at this indu...

Jeanne Maddox Peterson was 13 years old when she began teaching dance lessons out of her family’s living room in Astoria.  

That was 75 years ago. Today, at the age of 89, Peterson is still teaching students at Maddox Dance Studio, which is now located in Warrenton and offers classes ranging from ballet to tap, hip-hop to acrobatic dance. As first reported by The Daily Astorian, Clatsop County Commissioners honored Peterson last month when they proclaimed Dec. 6, 2025 “Jeanne Maddox Peterson Day” in recognition of her many contributions to the community. That day marks the 50th anniversary of “The Nutcrac...

Law enforcement agencies across Oregon and Washington use automated license plate readers to identify vehicles and manage traffic. Many of those cameras are run by a company called Flock Safety, which has been criticized for sharing data with immigration officials. A new study from the University of Washington’s Center for Human Rights found that U.S. Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement have access to Flock license plate data from at least 18 of 31 law enforcement agencies in WA state. Phil Neff, the coordinator for the UW Center for Human Rights, joins us to discuss the research.

The Ashland Sarcasm Festival is a three-day comedy festival that kicks off this Friday in Ashland. Held in various venues across Ashland, from local bars to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Bowmer Theater, the inaugural festival aims to make the Southern Oregon city a destination for comics on the touring circuit in a place more famous for soliloquies than stand-up. 

ASF features headliners like nationally renowned comedian, writer and actor Ron Funches, who graduated from high school in Salem and achieved early success in Portland’s stand-up comedy scene before he relocated to Los Angeles in 201...

Paul Smith, dean of the Linfield University School of Nursing in Portland, was recently appointed chair-elect of the National League for Nursing. Smith is the first male to ever be elected to the post in the organization’s 132 years. 

The National League for Nursing is the oldest nursing organization in the U.S., aiming to create a standardized nursing curriculum since 1893. The organization also advocates for healthcare legislation. Smith joins us to talk about his new role and the responsibility of representing nursing education in the Pacific Northwest on a national and international stage.

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A recently published paper led by an Oregon State University researcher suggests that installing floating solar panels on top of existing reservoirs could have a variety of positive results. Those include cooling the solar panels, allowing for greater energy generation from those panels, and preventing the water in shallower reservoirs from warming to temperatures that are challenging for fish and other aquatic life.

According to lead researcher Evan Bredeweg, there are relatively few of these kinds of installations in the U.S., but in countries that have embraced solar and non-fossil fuel energy, they are relatively...

 The 2024 Lonerock Fire burned over 137,000 acres in Gilliam County, much of it rangeland. Ranchers whose lands were destroyed faced a common yet costly hurdle to wildfire recovery: new fencing. According to the Gilliam County Soil and Water Conservation District, to replace about 300 miles of fence that had burned in the fire would have cost over $9 million. With financial support from Gilliam County, two ranchers, Jason and Anthony Campbell, turned to virtual fencing, which they say is a promising wildfire recovery solution. Now, a year after the fire, they join us to talk about their experience with the technology.

Nutrition Inside is a Portland nonprofit that launched last year to improve the quality of food for adults in custody in Oregon prisons. It delivers between 500 and 3,000 pounds of surplus food obtained from farms and hunger-fighting charities to correctional facilities across Oregon each week. The organization is volunteer-based and led by a group of current and former students from Lewis & Clark College. Co-founder Aidan O’Connor joins us for a conversation about the organization’s work. Also joining us is Noelle St John, an advisor to the organization who was formerly incarcerated at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility.

 The Portland band Møtrik is known for laser lights and fog machines and a driving 4/4 beat. The five piece band pumps out playful, danceable krautrock and has just released its fourth full length album. We talk to Erik Golts, Jonah Nolde, Dave Fulton, Cord Amato and Lee Ritter about their new album “Earth.”

Data from the Sentencing Project, a nonprofit which advocates for criminal justice reforms, shows that Native American children in Washington are nearly five times more likely on average to be incarcerated than their white peers. Furthermore, Native American children are less likely to receive a second chance once they are in juvenile court, according to a recently published series from InvestigateWest about the inequities Native American youth face in Washington’s criminal justice system. Melanie Henshaw, Indigenous affairs reporter at InvestigateWest, joins us to discuss her findings.

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...

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...

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.

A...

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 info...

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...

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 t...

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 dela...

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...

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 Newpo...

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 mem...

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 scene...

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...

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 o...

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 Ashl...

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 Perci...

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, bu...

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, ab...

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 a...

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 Mort...

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 clearl...

 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...

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 “eval...

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 Zielins...

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...

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. O...

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...

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 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...

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’...

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...

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 tour...

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 m...

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 system...

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 w...

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...

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 an...

 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...

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...

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 sa...

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 Feb...

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 especia...

 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 immigran...

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 w...

 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...

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.  

Daniel...

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 t...

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 sl...

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...

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 wr...

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 prof...