KGW’s Straight Talk

Oregon’s 5th Congressional District is one the most closely watched races in the nation as the winner of the general election could determine which political party controls the U.S. Congress.

One of the most consequential and closely watched races coming up in Oregon's primary election heats up with accusations of outside money entering the race.

How will the Oregon Health Authority deal some of the states biggest challenges from drug abuse to the behavioral health system — and lack of access to treatment.

The guests of Oregon's Congress members at President Joe Biden's State of the Union address talk takeaways from his speech.

This episode was recorded prior to the announcement that Day would be appointed permanent chief of Portland Police, which is why he is still referred to in the show as serving on an interim basis, and why he says he has not made any commitments yet when asked about staying in the role past June 2025.

There's a new sheriff in town in Portland — or rather, three sheriffs over the past four years. And now for the first time in history, all three sheriff's in the city's tri-county area are women: Multnomah County Sheriff Nicole Morrisey O'Donnell, Washington County Sheriff Caprice Massey and Clackamas County Sheriff Angela Brandenburg. All three sheriffs were guests on this week's episode of Strai...

There's a new sheriff in town in Portland — or rather, three sheriffs over the past four years. And now for the first time in history, all three sheriff's in the city's tri-county area are women: Multnomah County Sheriff Nicole Morrisey O'Donnell, Washington County Sheriff Caprice Massey and Clackamas County Sheriff Angela Brandenburg. All three sheriffs were guests on this week's episode of Strai...

Coming this November, Portlanders will face many decisions on the ballot, including picking the city’s next city mayor. Whoever wins will become the first mayor under Portland's new system of government starting in January 2025. So far, there are three leading candidates in terms of money raised, and they're all current Portland City Commissioners: Rene Gonzalez , Mingus Mapps and Carmen Rubio. Ru...

Central City Concern’s President and CEO Andy Mendenhall and Senior Director of Supportive Housing and Employment Sarah Holland join Straight Talk’s Laural Porter to discuss Portland’s affordable housing and homelessness crisis. The organization has been serving Portland for 45 years as an affordable housing developer and service provider.

As  foreign aid and border security remain as hot topics in U.S. Congress, Republican and Democratic lawmakers in the House of Representatives unveil a new funding bill to provide aid and security — one week after Speaker Mike Johnson rejected a similar bill. The $66.3 billion bipartisan package, titled the " Defending Borders, Defending Democracies Act ," a new funding bill includes both aid to U...

The race for district attorney in Multnomah County in the 2024 election is stacking up to be one of the most important races, as crime and homicide rates have spiked in recent years. Nathan Vasquez , a career prosecutor and senior deputy district attorney, is running against his boss Mike Schmidt, who was elected as the district attorney in a lopsided victory in 2020 during racial justice protests...

While Portland leaders have touted recent progress on metrics like crime, new polling shows that many people in the metro area remain deeply pessimistic about their quality of life and how it compares to the area's cost of living. The polling comes from the Portland Metro Chamber, formerly known as the Portland Business Alliance. The group takes an annual assessment of voter sentiments, and they c...

Portlanders will face a large number of decisions on the ballot in November, but one of the most of important and consequential will be choosing the city's next mayor. Whoever wins will take office right when the city switches to a brand new form of government, one completely different from the one Portland has used for more than a century. The new mayor will immediately be tasked with hiring Port...

Oregon’s 2024  legislative session  got underway last Monday, tackling big state challenges like housing, homelessness and the drug crisis. On this week’s episode of Straight Talk,  Gov. Tina Kotek  stopped by to discuss her own bill that she hopes will make big gains on  Oregon’s critical housing shortage , plus what she would like to see come out of talks to amend  Measure 110 , a voter-approved...

While the race for Portland City Council has gained a lot of attention as the city transitions the form of government it has used for over a century. At Multnomah County, the four seats on the ballot, have high stakes too. Elected officials will have the responsibility of dealing with some the region's toughest challenges, like homelessness, behavioral health and public safety. Commissioner Julia...

Portland is now less than a year away from abandoning the commission-style form of government that the city has used for more than a century. It's a dramatic change, and the plan that Portlanders approved in late 2022 gave the city only two years to prepare. With half of that time already gone, city leaders are racing against the clock to meet that deadline. The mayor and commissioners function as...

Portland city commissioner Dan Ryan has announced that he will be run for City Council this year. As a longtime resident of North Portland, Ryan said he will be aiming for one of the three seats that will represent District 2 on the expanded 12-person council that will take over city governance at the start of 2025. Ryan is the first of the city's current five council members to make a bid for a p...

Four out of five Black Portlanders once lived in Albina, a portion of inner Northeast Portland that includes the Elliot, Boise, King, Humboldt, Overlook, Irvington and Piedmont neighborhoods, but many of those residents were displaced by the construction of Interstate 5, during which Black-owned homes and business were destroyed through eminent domain and urban renewal policies. Albina Vision Trus...

This week, Laural Porter sat down with two key figures organizing the project to replace the Interstate Bridge that links Oregon and Washington. Unlike the last time this happened, the project is making slow but steady progress and appears to have much of the necessary funding lined up. Construction is expected to begin in late 2025.

U.S. Rep. Andrea Salinas is nearing the end of her first year in Congress representing Oregon's 6th Congressional District, and she called in to this week's episode of Straight Talk from Washington DC to talk about the ups and downs of her first term so far.  Salinas won the first election for the newly-created district in November 2022 after previously serving three terms in the Oregon House of R...

When Oregon legalized recreational cannabis use eight years ago, people flocked from all over the country to either use it for themselves or get in on the ground floor of the burgeoning business. Today cannabis is a billion-dollar industry, producing hundreds of millions of tax dollars each year for state coffers. Oversaturation remains a big problem for Oregon's cannabis industry, and product pri...

On this week's Straight Talk, KGW's Ashley Korslien speaks to three experts about how to identify domestic violence and access resources for victims.

When students of  Portland State University  head back to class on Tuesday, there will be a new leader at the helm of Portland's public research university, located right in the heart of the city. PSU's board of trustees voted unanimously to name Dr. Ann Cudd the university's 11th president. She takes over from former president Stephen Percy, who retired in July. Dr. Cudd is only the second woman...

Portland is about to switch to an entirely new form of government, following a charter reform plan that voters approved last November. The transformation won't happen in earnest until January 2025, when the winners of the November 2024 election will take office as the first mayor and city councilors under the new system. But there's an enormous amount of preparation that must take place first, and...

Portland's 2024 election is likely to be the busiest in recent memory. The city council is expanding from four commissioners to 12 councilors, and every one of those seats will be up for grabs at the same time. The mayor's office will be on the ballot as well, and whoever wins will become the first mayor under Portland's new system of government starting in January 2025. The first person to throw...