OPB Audio

Keith Z's new photography book "Outside" hopes to documente the beauty and dignity, strength, and intelligence of the Portland homeless community.

The cozy fantasy shares the story of a goblin trying to find her place in a mystical marketplace where the deals don’t always feel fair.

Moderates Pam Treece and Steve Callaway face more left-leaning opponents in Nafisa Fai and Kipperlyn Sinclair in races to lead Oregon’s most diverse county.

The Immigrant Story began in 2017 with a mission of highlighting the humanity of individual immigrants and refugees with photos and accompanying short descriptions of their experiences. Sankar Raman founded the nonprofit after immigrating to the U.S. from India. Since then, it has evolved into a multimedia organization that also features live storytelling. Now for the first time, on the 250th anni...

Earlier this month, Oregon became the 25th state to sanction girls flag football as a high school sport, starting next spring. The sport has grown rapidly in the Beaver State since the Oregon School Activities Association voted just two years ago to designate girls flag football as an emerging activity. This past spring, nearly 60 girls high school flag football teams competed in the state, compar...

You’d be hard-pressed to find a cyclist in Portland who doesn’t know the name Jonathan Maus. Since 2005, he’s reported on Portland’s evolving bike culture and transportation policy through his blog, BikePortland. But after taking a hiatus in April, Maus announced last week that he’s stepping away from the publication for good. Maus joins us to talk about what’s next — both for himself and for Bike...

Scientists at Oregon State University set up cameras and recorded 12,000 hours of video footage to track changes in how marbled murrelets feed their chicks across four years of varying ocean conditions. Poor ocean conditions, for example, are generally associated with warmer marine temperatures that can affect the availability of fish like Pacific sand lance the small, stocky seabirds catch to fee...

Last week, the city of Umatilla voted to declare a state of emergency in response to Gov. Tina Kotek’s data center moratorium. The city says preventing future data centers could cost their community millions. Data centers have drawn growing bipartisan opposition across the country. They've also created increasing concern for Oregonians on both sides of the aisle. Umatilla City Manager Dave Stockda...

It’s been nearly two weeks since the shooting at a Bend elementary school. As new details emerge, experts have shared their ideas for preventing school shootings in the future. School shooter prevention has grown to a $4 billion industry, but researchers and advocates say many of the current efforts turn schools into places that can actually bring more fear to students. Amie Wexler is the executiv...

The Bureau of Land Management intended to capture an entire herd of wild horses in southeastern Oregon this month after a wildfire burned much of the vegetation in the area. But a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order limiting the roundup, stating that the agency failed to adequately study how it would affect the herd’s genetic diversity. The BLM began its reduced roundup last week. A...

Earlier this month, the Urban League of Portland released top-line findings from a new report that examined how Black communities across Oregon are faring. The latest State of Black Oregon — which follows up on a report of the same name from 2015 — found persistent challenges in education, while documenting substantial gains in several measures of civic participation, including voter registration...

Last Wednesday, thousands of students in Bend-La Pine Schools returned to class following a school shooting at Silver Rail Elementary in Bend on Oct. 15. A 16-year-old former student at Silver Rail killed three children and a teacher, and seriously injured another educator and young student that day. A Silver Rail parent, Kaylub Giamanco, who was passing by the school at the time of the attack, pu...

The Oregon Department of State Lands wants to strengthen protections and ensure Oregonians get fair compensation for use of the seafloor.

Kaylub Giamanco is a 36-year-old carpenter and father of two children who attend Silver Rail Elementary school in Bend. In an exclusive interview with OPB News Regional Managing Editor Emily Cureton Cook, Giamanco described the “split second decisions” he made when his life forever changed on Oct. 15. That afternoon, Giamanco pursued and fatally shot an armed 16-year-old who had forcibly entered t...

While juggling her graduate studies in computer science at the University of Washington, Yael Eiger has been volunteering at two prisons in the Seattle metro area to teach math and other subjects. Her weekly visits exposed her to technologies such as electronic kiosks and tablets incarcerated people are required to use for communicating with loved ones or for buying and playing digital content. Ei...

Within the first week of classes, the University of Oregon received five reports of sexual assault on or near campus. At least four of those reports involved students. In response, the president of the university in a statement urged students to complete their annual required sexual assault-prevention training online. But as new reporting from Inside Higher Ed shows, these trainings when used alon...

In less than a decade, Portland-based coffee influencer Morgan Eckroth went from being a brand new barista to competing (and winning) coffee competitions around the world. Along the way, she also captured the attention of more than 8 million fans via their social media platforms. Now, they have a new book out called “Coffee, for Here”.

The shooting at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend has resurfaced a long simmering debate on how to prevent gun tragedies. But those working in the special needs community say it also underscores broader failures, and many wonder if the tragedy could have been prevented.

Oregon and Washington are asking the public to weigh on future rail plans.

A million people in the Portland area get their water from the Bull Run watershed, about 25 miles east of the city. The city council voted in 2017 to build the water filtration plant to protect against cryptosporidium to comply with Environmental Protection Agency standards. The project was originally estimated at $500 million, but since then it’s risen to $2.58 billion. The water bureau says a nu...

Oregon’s 2026-27 Teacher of the Year is Nate Jackson, a social studies teacher at Willamette High School in Eugene. He also advises the school’s Black Student Union, helping to organize student trips and the first Black Summit for students across the district. Before becoming a teacher, Jackson had a career as an entertainment journalist and emcee for college sporting events. He joins us to talk a...

Some families living in mobile home parks in Malheur County have been dealing with arsenic in their drinking water supply for years. And water tested recently at one location where unsafe levels of arsenic have been found since 2004, recently found levels six times higher than federal standards for safe drinking water. We’re joined by OPB Eastern Oregon reporter Monica Carrillo-Casas, who’s been f...

In an exclusive interview with OPB, Kaylub Giamanco, the man who fatally shot the teenage school shooter at Silver Rail Elementary, shares what he wants people to know about his experience.

Father who killed Silver Rail school shooter grapples with the aftermath

Cyrus Javadi switched parties -- will his Oregon district reelect him anyway