Think Out Loud

Since July, a new streamlined process in Washington allows family members of children in the foster care system to become licensed caregivers. As first reported in the Imprint, the change allows "kinship caregivers" to receive resources that were initially not available to them. The updates made by the state of Washington come after federal policy changes made under the Biden administration to all...

Some Portlanders will be seeing a single issue on their ballot, a 75% increase in the current levy that funds parks. Under this new increase , the average homeowner would pay an extra $133 a year in taxes. The levy would help fund swim lessons, summer camps, sports programs and allows the Parks Bureau to provide free or reduced cost programs to low-income residents. However, the levy would not be...

 Indigenous tribes in what is now the northeastern U.S. and Canada have played lacrosse for millennia. Similar stick-and-ball games were played by tribes across the Southeast and Great Lakes region. But according to NCAA data , less than 1% of college lacrosse players are American Indian or Alaskan Native, and more than 80% are white.   Pacific Northwest Native Lacrosse is trying to chan...

A decade ago, nearly every country in the world adopted the Paris Agreement , which aims to limit the rise in global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius by 2100. Member nations are required under the legally binding treaty to submit every five years their climate action plans, or Nationally Determined Contributions, that detail the voluntary actions they commit to take to cut their carbon emis...

President Trump’s use of federal immigration officers to arrest people alleged to be in the country without legal status has led to mass arrests, detentions and deportations. Some of those are U.S. citizens, and at least one such man in Milwaukie is suing the federal government over his unlawful detention. Alyssa Walker Keller is a coordinator for the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition (PIR...

Charles Yu has written a lot about the nature of reality, how we understand what is real, and the assumptions we make about each other and the universe we live in. Yu’s first novel, “How to live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe,” follows a time machine repairman who is searching for his father who is lost in time and memory. His latest book, National Book Award winning &ldq...

The Alcan 5000 Rally isn’t the kind of car race you might think of. It runs from Kirkland, Washington over 5,000 miles up to the Arctic Circle over 11 days. It’s what’s known as a time-speed-distance rally, where following the course, maintaining the right speed and arriving at checkpoints on time is what matters the most. Portlanders Andy and Mercedes Lilienthal placed first in...

 Last year, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center received nearly 18,000 reports of confidence/romance scams that resulted in losses of more than $672 million. Perpetrators of romance scams typically find their victims online, often through social media. They use a fake persona to deceive victims into trusting them or believing they’re interested in them romantically while mak...

 Earlier this month, Eugene paused the use of its automatic license plate reader cameras. They use AI to capture a car’s characteristics, like model and color, and can be used as a tool by law enforcement.   Local officials said the cameras have helped close more than 60 cases. But opponents of the technology say it can be used for mass surveillance, since the system is linked to a...

According to reports from U.S. adoption agencies, only 5% of domestic infant adoptions in recent years were completely closed, meaning no contact between the adoptee and their birth parents. Research suggests that some level of openness tends to benefit adoptive families, birth parents and adoptees , but navigating those relationships still presents a host of challenges.   Author Nicole...

  Portland Mayor Keith Wilson’s big campaign promise was to end unsheltered homelessness in the city by 2026. One part of that effort involves reuniting unhoused people with family members or loved ones outside of Portland.    Individuals can opt into the program or be referred by a member of the city’s outreach team. Outreach workers then connect with the person’s...

In Oregon, employment in the newspaper industry has fallen nearly 80% since 2000, according to OPB reporting.     And when communities lose journalists, information gaps can be exploited. The Ashland Daily Tidings closed in 2023, and the newspaper’s website was later invaded by artificial intelligence .    When a community loses a local newsroom, residents have fewer plac...

On Monday, a majority of a 3-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled that the Trump administration can send members of the National Guard to Portland. The immediate impact of the ruling, however, is unclear. The Ninth Circuit’s decision only applies to one of the two temporary restraining orders U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut issued earlier this month blo...

Starting in elementary school, students might begin learning about the epic expedition Lewis and Clark led 220 years ago to explore the newly acquired territory of the Louisiana Purchase, an 8,000-mile journey through present-day Oregon to the Pacific Ocean and back. While the names Lewis and Clark have been etched into history books, the name York is largely unknown. York , William Clark’s...

The Portland Trail Blazers’ first game of the 2025-2026 NBA regular season  tips off tomorrow at the Moda Center against the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Blazers’ roster this season consists of several exciting new additions, including rookie Yang Hansen . The Blazers selected the 7-foot-1 center from China as the 16th-overall pick in the first round of the NBA draft in June. ...

Your Tech Q is a youth-led nonprofit that gives free workshops and presentations on technology and digital literacy in various communities, with a focus on older adults. It’s run by 16-year-old Catlin Gabel high school junior Atef Siddiqui . He got involved with the workshops about a year after the organization was founded in 2022 by Portland students. At the time he was in middle school and...

JR Ujifusa is a Multnomah County senior deputy district attorney and heads its Human Trafficking Team. He’s also the chair of the National Advisory Committee on the Sex Trafficking of Children & Youth. His team and other partners working to eliminate trafficking and support survivors are trying to locate anyone who was trafficked on the now defunct Backpage(dot)com, which was one of the...

More than 40 thousand people turned out in Portland alone for the No Kings protest, and people turned up en masse in scores of cities and towns throughout Oregon and Washington. They were part of an estimated 2,500 coordinated demonstrations across the country against President Trump’s use of presidential authority, extrajudicial deportations, immigration sweeps and attempts to deploy the Na...

“We do not need any more nonprofits in Oregon,” Libra Forde  wrote  that in an op-ed published by The Oregonian/OregonLive in June 2025, calling it a “difficult truth.” She’s the executive director of Women’s Foundation of Oregon, a philanthropic organization which does grant-making, research and policy advocacy. We heard more from Forde on how  n...

Pacific Northwest National Lab scientist and Hanford manager on radioactive tank waste, vitrification and clean-up progress In September 2024, we packed up our van and drove about four and a half hours from Portland to Richland, WA, to set up a mobile broadcast studio on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities, in partnership with Northwest Public Broadcasting. We broadcast a week of...

Elizabeth Gilbert rocketed to fame for her best-selling romp “Eat, Pray, Love.” Her  latest memoir has a very different tone. “All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation” details her journey to heal from sex and love addiction. It is also about the love of her life, Rayya Elias, a Syrian-born recovering addict and musician. Elizabeth Gilbert joins us for a li...

The author of the Bakeshop Mystery Series used the city of Ashland for her inspiration, with many real shops and restaurants in the city appearing in the novels, which now number more than 20. And for the third year in a row, Ellie Alexander is partnering with Travel Ashland to bring fans of “cozy mysteries” to the city for the Ashland Mystery Festival , with tours, talks and other eve...

The community transition program is for students with disabilities who have graduated high school with a modified diploma or a certificate of completion. The program serves people ages 18 to 21 and helps prepare them for life after high school through job training and volunteer opportunities.     Sally Golden is a special education transition teacher for the Springfield School Distr...

 Protesters at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland may have had their identifiable information from their cellphones surveilled, new reporting from Straight Arrow News found. An analysis done by the news organization found evidence that suggests a cell-site simulator was used in the area. These devices mimic cell towers and are able to capture a phone's unique SIM car...

Before colonization and the decimation of Indigenous people, Nez Perce, or Nimíipuu, lands encompassed 17 million acres that would become parts of Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana. The Nez Perce Indian Reservation currently consists of 750,000 acres in North-Central Idaho. The Oregon Origins Project aims to bring the traditions, art and storytelling of Oregon’s first peoples to a...