Think Out Loud

Washington state made several changes in the last few years to prioritize keeping kids with their birth families. But a new investigation from KUOW found that over the same time period, more babies and children from families who’ve been investigated by Child Protective Services (CPS) workers have died. Eilis O’Neill, a reporter for KUOW, joins us to talk about the story.

According to its website, The Lavender Network is Eugene’s only LGBTQ+ service and community center. The coalition of five nonprofits offers health care, counseling, a free clothing closet and more to queer communities in Lane County. After renting different spaces around Eugene, the network opened its first permanent space near downtown on Feb. 10.   Laura Henry is the manager of The L...

Last month, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek signed an  executive order creating an interagency council to better support immigrants and refugees in the state. According to the Oregon Department of Human Services, there are more than 400,000 immigrants in Oregon, making up nearly 10% of the state’s population and nearly 13% of the state’s workforce.    The Office of Immigrant and...

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...

Portland author David F. Walker and illustrator Marcus Kwame Anderson have worked together before - on a 2021 graphic novel about the Black Panther Party. This time they’ve teamed up on something a little different: an update of the classic American novel “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” In their version, the escaped slave Jim is more than just Huck’s companion; he&rsq...

Much of our understanding about the earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and floods that shaped the geology of the Pacific Northwest comes from Western scientists. But those records almost always overlook the oral traditions of Native American tribes who witnessed those events.   An exhibit at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry in Portland looks at the eruption of Mount Mazama, the Ice Age...

Rep. Maxine Dexter (D-Portland) escorted a family — including a 7-year-old girl — from an ICE detention facility in Texas back to Oregon on Saturday. The Crespo-Gonzalez family was detained last month while bringing their sick child to urgent care. We sit down with Dexter to hear about that experience and her work in Congress focused on ICE funding and policy. OPB reporter Holly Bartho...

In books like “Breathe” and “South to America,” National Book Award and MacArthur “genius” grant winner Imani Perry writes about Blackness in America with clarity, elegance, rage, and joy. Perry is a Professor of Studies of Women, Gender and Sexuality and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. Her latest book is “Black in Blues,&rdq...

When Chuck Sams was sworn in as director of the National Park Service in 2021, he became the first Native American to lead the agency. Sams previously served as a member of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council and as executive director of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation.   Not long after Sams returned to Oregon after leaving the agency last year, the Trump a...

 Lawmakers are meeting in Salem to discuss and decide the fate of a flurry of bills during Oregon’s short legislative session this year. One of those is a bipartisan bill that would hike the state’s lodging tax at places like campgrounds, hotels and Airbnbs from 1.5% to 2.75%.    The tax increase is expected to raise tens of millions of dollars for wildlife protection, h...

Logan Patterson graduated in May 2025 from Washington State University’s College of Medicine and is currently a resident at the Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane. During his four years of medical school, he says that he got almost no formal training in end-of-life care, including how to talk with patients and their families about death and dying.       It turns...

In 2024, Oregon State University assistant professor of psychology Steven Sanders created a scale to measure toxic masculinity. Researchers say for masculine behavior to be deemed as “toxic,” it  must be damaging to the person or people around them. But why should we study this? What impacts does it have in our society? Sanders joins us to answer these questions and more.

 Portland filmmaker Jan Haaken has a new short documentary called “ SUMUD: A doctor’s report on genocide and survival in Gaza .” “Sumud” in Arabic means “steadfast perseverance.” The film follows Oregon Health and Science University anesthesiologist Travis Melin as he provided volunteer medical care in Gaza in August of 2025. We’re joined by Haa...

Ten of Oregon’s 34 rural hospitals have no labor and delivery units , and even more are at risk of shutting their doors . This raises concerns for those seeking maternal healthcare in rural areas as residents face high drive times to the remaining providers, limiting their access to prenatal visits and increasing risk in cases of emergency.   Late last month, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek...

Like many ideas, it started over a round of drinks. Musicians, Shorty Delgado, James Jones and Joshua Josué were discussing where they stood in the world of music, each of their sounds not classically Country music, Americana and having spanish thrown into the mix, doesn’t make them Tejano either. Thus, Electric Chololand Records was born. An indie-start up record label celebrating Ch...

The Columbian recently reported that Clark County recorded the highest rate of evictions per capita in Washington state for the third year in a row. In 2025, Clark County landlords filed 2,275 cases to evict tenants, an increase of roughly 33% since 2023.    Washington has passed legislation in recent years to help tenants, including a new law Governor Bob Ferguson signed last May that l...

Yabusame is a form of Japanese horseback archery that dates back centuries. The sport has traditionally only been practiced in Japan, but in recent years, students outside the country have been allowed to participate — including in Oregon. As reported in Eugene Weekly , Carey Norland participated in one of the first yabusame clinics outside Japan last summer. He then traveled from Eugene to...

The Portland-based Innovation Law Lab was in federal court Wednesday, challenging the ICE policy of arresting immigrants and U.S. citizens without warrants and without due process. If successful, Oregon would join Washington, D.C. and Colorado in preventing this tactic.    From warrantless arrests to unlawful use of force to arresting of journalists and other violations of civil rights,...

 The U.S. Forest Service is responsible for over 370,000 miles of roads and around 160,000 miles of trails, much of which are on federal lands. But, a government report from 2013 found that only about a quarter of these trails met safety or maintenance standards. Even more recent, in November an internal report from the agency showed a 100% loss of trail staff and widespread declining morale....

If a 10-billion-ton hunk of glacial ice falls into the arctic ocean and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?   Erin Pettit and researchers at Oregon State University were set to find out.   They’ve been studying melting glaciers by dropping hydrophones — specialized underwater microphones — into the water near these massive ice formations. It turns out, gl...

A vast amount of our built environment is made of concrete. It’s largely affordable, durable and easy to make. It’s also responsible, by some estimates , for roughly 8% of global CO2 emissions.   But the U.S. is also facing a significant housing demand shortage , and since concrete is one of the primary building materials for houses and apartments, scientists are working to make i...

 Last year, when Kaarin Knudson became the mayor of Oregon’s third -largest city, her plan was to revitalize downtown Eugene, build more housing and shrink the city’s roughly $10 million budget gap for the 2025-2027 biennium.    The goalposts haven’t shifted much, except now there’s a growing problem. Knudson says many of her constituents are concerned about...

 Over the weekend thousands gathered to peacefully protest in S. Portland to speak out against  increased immigration enforcement across the country. But demonstrations did not stay peaceful as federal agents near the ICE facility deployed tear gas that traveled several blocks, affecting many who gathered, including families, children and elderly people. Soon after these events, Portland...

A few months ago, Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny guest hosted an episode of “Saturday Night Live” where he appeared in a skit as a Spanish nobleman from the Middle Ages wearing an inky blue robe with gold threading on the collar and sleeves. The costume he wore didn’t come from the show’s wardrobe department. Instead, it was shipped overnight by the Oregon Shakespeare Festiv...

The podcast “Conspirituality” digs into the conspiracy theories arising at the intersection of health, wellness and spirituality. As reported in Willamette Week, the show’s three co-hosts combine their expertise in health journalism, psychology and cult research to "discuss the stories, cognitive dissonances, and cultic dynamics tearing through the yoga, wellness, and new spiritu...