OPB Audio

In 2024, two civic organizations began partnering on a yearly survey to gauge how residents in Portland felt about some important elements that contribute to quality of life in a city. North Star Civic Foundation and the Oregon Values and Beliefs Center asked more than 1,200 Portland adults how effective they feel local government is, whether they feel represented and what services they think shou...

What does a typical day in the life of a psychic look like

On Saturday, the Maryhill Museum of Art in Goldendale will celebrate its centennial anniversary with free admission and activities honoring the museum’s unique history and identity. Perched on a bluff overlooking the Columbia Gorge, visitors can explore the museum’s many collections that include Indigenous baskets and beadwork, sculptures by Auguste Rodin and hundreds of chess sets from around the...

Since January 2025, the Trump administration has drastically slashed the size of the federal workforce through layoffs, cuts and buyout offers led initially by the Department of Government Efficiency. The scope of staff losses recently came into focus at one agency – the  U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  The Center for Biological Diversity found that the agency lost 36% of its staff between 2024 a...

MusicOregon recently embarked on a statewide listening tour to hear from musicians, venue owners and others in the industry. The nonprofit held sessions online and in Hood River, Tillamook, Salem, Eugene, Jacksonville, Bend and Pendleton to get a sense of how the music industry is faring across the state. Music professionals can also share their thoughts with the organization through an online sur...

In a fast-growing Washington city, pressure for growth clashes with love for a wildlife refuge

A first-of-its-kind report details the footprint of the controversial facilities.

How can older adults with mobility or vision impairments safely evacuate during an emergency? What medications or assistive devices would they need to bring with them to a shelter? How can emergency workers communicate the urgency of a situation to older adults with cognitive impairments? A new training program has been helping first responders in some of Oregon’s rural communities answer those qu...

President Trump has proposed cutting the funding for cleaning up the radioactive waste at Hanford by $400 million, and the House Appropriations Committee proposed even bigger cuts. Washington’s senior U.S. Senator Patty Murray long fought for “a budget that lives up to the federal government’s moral and legal obligation” to clean up decades of highly radioactive waste. Although Hanford got a recor...

During the 2020 Labor Day fires in Oregon, Sierra Lindsey Kos saw first hand the effects of climate change. As she was rushing to take her sick newborn to a hospital in Portland, she had to traverse through burning fires, a red sky and ash all around her, filling her with fear. In response, she would help found and lead Extreme Weather Survivors, a support group and advocacy network that has grown...

Last week, Portland State University hosted its first ever Indigenous Foods Summit. Across two days, presenters taught a host of workshops sharing place-based knowledge focused around food sovereignty. Emma Johnson, Cowlitz, is the program coordinator of the Indigenous Traditional Ecological and Cultural Knowledge Program at PSU, and Isabel Lacourse is a Colville descendant and on the planning tea...

PassinArt began in 1982 and is the oldest continuously operating Black theatre in Oregon. Based in Portland, its mission is to “entertain, educate, and inspire artists and audiences while addressing critical issues facing our community.” The name is a nod to its vision of passing on art, history and culture from one generation to another. The company doesn’t just mount full scale theatrical produc...

Ralph Bloemers has spent over two decades working in and around wildfire science and technology. He’s used documentary filmmaking as a vehicle for probing and documenting wildfires across the American West and contends that while wildfires are inevitable in Oregon, catastrophic community loss doesn’t have to be. He makes a case for wildfire readiness techniques that homeowners can employ to reduce...

Longtime Camp Crier and his horse prepare for final ride at Pendleton Round-Up

The Sonic Silents film festival opens Thursday at the Hollywood Theatre in Portland. The film composer and multi-instrumentalist Mark Orton recruited over 20 musicians to compose new, original scores for a curated selection of silent films at the inaugural festival that he created. Orton and his fellow musicians will peform the new compositions live in front of audiences inside the 100-year-old th...

Crime Stoppers of Oregon is shutting down at the end of this month after more than four decades of operation. Since its launch in 1983, the organization says it has received tens of thousands of anonymous tips from the public that have helped law enforcement solve hundreds of crimes, ranging from bank robberies to cold case homicides. Chairman Henry Groepper is a retired Portland police officer wh...

Heaven Doherty is the City of Hermiston’s building inspector. She starts her day at 7 a.m. by answering emails and sorting through same-day inspection requests filling up her inbox. By 9 a.m., she is in the field, doing 20 to 50 inspections until about 5 p.m. on projects ranging from single family homes to apartment complexes with hundreds of units and data centers the size of football fields. On...

Mail-in voting in Oregon and other states will continue as usual this election year. This week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against a Trump Administration effort to restrict mail-in ballots. Oregon election workers have been watching the legal back-and-forth on this issue closely because Oregon is one of the few states that conducts elections solely by mail. We check in with Deschutes County Cler...

With the Labor Day holiday over, the race to be the next governor of Oregon is speeding up and it’s safe to expect the candidates will hone and amplify their messaging.

There are over 130 data centers across Oregon. In the eastern part of the state, there are more than 50, many of which are owned and operated by Amazon Web Services. The tech-giant has brought millions to cities such as Hermiston, allowing for renovations to its city hall and library. But the data centers have also drawn criticism from local advocates for their water and energy use and environment...

Last month, Elijah Callan left Bend for a two-year road trip around the world. His primary mode of travel will be his Royal Enfield Himalayan motorcycle that he’ll log tens of thousands of miles on while traversing 64 countries across six continents. Callan quit his job as a geologist to embark on this trip of a lifetime which he’s been planning for 14 years, ever since he was a student at Oregon...

Last Tuesday, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek appeared at an anti-data center rally in Salem where she announced she now supports a moratorium on new data centers. As OPB reported, the announcement shows Kotek has abandoned the cautious approach she had previously taken on an issue that’s gaining momentum with voters and raising the stakes in her bid for reelection in less than two months. Within hours...

For adults of a certain age, the September 11th terrorist attacks in 2001 were a defining event, just as the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X were for earlier generations. The geopolitical world was forever altered, along with how many Americans thought about the country’s place in the world, and even how they thought about their own identity as citizens. Lo...

For the Jewish new year, a Portland Torah study group asks ‘queer’ questions of ancient texts

Fans of the 2000s pop-culture phenomena are using online communities to fundraise for the tribe that says they never saw a cent after having their likeness used. We speak with Underscore Native News reporter Lyric Aquino.