OPB Audio

In 2022, Portland musician and storyteller Joe Kye created Tiger Tiger, a festival in Portland celebrating the region’s diverse Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. The festival was also a way to bring joy and healing to those communities after a surge of anti-Asian bias and hate crimes during the pandemic. After Tiger Tiger, Kye decided he needed to focus on his own healing with a jou...

The Portland Trail Blazers kicked off their new NBA season Wednesday night at the Moda Center with a resounding 41-point victory over the Phoenix Suns. It marked the return of 9-time NBA All-Star Damian Lillard to the Blazers and his first regular season game since an Achilles injury he suffered in April 2025 while playing for the Milwaukee Bucks. Lillard scored 25 points, including six 3-pointers...

Monarch butterflies in the Pacific Northwest are currently making their annual migration south for the winter. Around 200 of them are carrying innovative digital trackers that will allow researchers — and the public — to follow their path for the first time. David James, an associate professor in Washington State University’s entomology department, is overseeing the project. He joins us to talk ab...

Investigators probe Bend school shooter's ties to online extremist groups

A candidate for Clark County auditor casts doubt on the office she hopes to win

Silver Rail Elementary remains closed indefinitely after a former student shot and killed four people in a special education classroom last week.

Ayad Akhtar is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and the author of the novels “Homeland Elegies” and “American Dervish.” His works explore themes that span religion and identity, cultural assimilation and immigrant aspiration drawn from his upbringing as a Pakistani American in the Midwest. His latest book is “The Radiance.” It’s written in a style that fuses the autobiographical with the fictio...

Portland community solar project shines new light on former 82nd Avenue dumpsite

With a chill in the air and Halloween around the corner, there is no denying that the scariest time of the year is here for Oregon. While some will be celebrating the season by shopping for costumes, decorating their homes and stocking up on candy, others will be trying to experience the scares first hand. Broadly, so-called dark tourism is a $32 billion industry and includes many ghost tour compa...

Ballots are hitting Oregon mailboxes and for voters in Multnomah County, there’s a lot more to choose than in previous elections.

A dance recital for Saylor Graham was among many weekend efforts as people in Bend searched for ways to help and grieve.

Voters in Multnomah County will see three familiar names on their ballots running for county chair. It’s the first time ranked-choice voting will be used for this position. Julia Brim-Edwards is a current county commissioner who previously served on the Portland Public Schools Board of Education. She was also a senior director for Nike. Sharon Meieran is an emergency department medical. She previo...

Big changes are coming to the individual health insurance marketplace in Central Oregon. PacificSource, Moda and Providence are all pulling out of the region, leaving just two options for people shopping for their own health insurance: BridgeSpan Health and Regence BlueCross BlueShield. Both carriers are raising their rates by roughly 20% next year. Erik Wood is an enterprise market president at P...

Portland fee waiver program hasn’t spurred massive increase in new construction

Bend-LaPine schools prepare to resume after tragic mass shooting

Hundreds of people gathered to share songs and prayer at a vigil in Drake Park hours after Thursday’s shooting.

School safety is top of mind for many families and students, a day after a mass shooting at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend. Three children and a teacher died, as well as the suspected shooter. It’s a horrific situation for Bend and communities well beyond it. Kent McIntosh is a professor in the College of Education at the University of Oregon and an expert on school violence. He joins us to...

The Portland Public Schools proposal to close up to 14 schools is getting a lot of pushback. Earlier this week, School Board Chair Eddie Wang answered questions from parents who would be affected. He emphasized that even though the district has had to make a series of significant cuts over the last several years, the closures would not be helping fill a budget gap. Instead, they are aimed at bette...

Dozens of volunteers across the state have now signed up to help tally wildlife they observe either dead or alive along Oregon’s roadways. That might mean, for example, taking out their phone to snap a photo of an elk munching on moss next to a country road or a photo of a dead opossum struck by a vehicle. The images will be collected from Oct. 17 to Oct. 25 and uploaded to the iNaturalist communi...

The Central Oregon community is grieving after a gunman opened fire at Silver Rail Elementary School on Thursday afternoon, killing three children and a teacher, according to police. Another child and teacher are also hospitalized. Police said that the suspected shooter, a 16-year-old boy, is also dead after he was shot by a community member who followed him into the school. The community gathered...

What we know so far about the Bend school shooting

Author Michael Copperman wrestles with loss and celebrates the legacy of his friend, following Kenny Cox’s adventures and sharing interviews with his loved ones.

The shooting occurred at Silver Rail Elementary School. The suspected shooter died at the scene, according to police. We get the latest from OPB's Emily Cureton Cook.

Southern Oregon was the only region in the state to see more wine production in 2025 than 2024. That’s according to the Oregon Vineyard and Winery Report released this summer. USA Today also named the Rogue Valley the best wine region in the country in its annual poll. The recognition comes amid falling wine sales nationwide due to rising prices, changing drinking habits and other factors. Eric We...

Christopher McKnight Nichols taught history at Oregon State University for a decade and was also the director of its Center for the Humanities until 2022. He left that year for Ohio State University where he is today the Wayne Woodrow Hayes Chair in National Security and a professor of history. He is also the co-chair of the university’s America at 250 Initiative, a series of programs commemoratin...