Think Out Loud

Washington County is revising how it implements diversity, equity, and inclusion policies in order to comply with new federal grant requirements tied to executive orders from President Trump. Local officials say the move is necessary to protect access to $135 million in federal funding that supports housing, infrastructure, and critical services for thousands of low-income residents in the county....

Last week, Avelo Airlines announced it would end service out of the Salem-Willamette Valley Airport on Aug. 10. Avelo has been operating out of Salem as the only airline carrier servicing the airport since October 2023 with weekly flights to Burbank and Las Vegas. The budget airline also said it plans to pull out of other West Coast markets, including Eugene in December, when it aims to close its...

Portland artist Arvie Smith is known for colorful, larger-than-life oil paintings that explore oppression and injustice against Black Americans through symbolism and visual tropes. He’s also a professor emeritus at Pacific Northwest College of Art after a 35-year tenure. His murals can be seen on buildings in North Portland and at the Donald E. Long Juvenile Center, where he spent time teach...

Seattle poet Kathleen Flenniken grew up in Richland and worked as a civil engineer at Hanford in the 1980s. She served as Washington State Poet Laureate from 2012-2014. In her first year as poet laureate, she published a collection called Plume, which deals directly with how her Hanford area upbringing influenced her.  The book explores the history of the site, the death of her best friend's...

Krista Catwood, also known by the stage name Vera Mysteria, can be found at the Lloyd Center mall every Sunday leading Portlanders in a group workout. But the exercises aren’t done on machines and do not take place in a retail space — instead, they’re done throughout the entire mall. As first reported in the Oregonian, Catwood, armed with a neon track suit and a Bluetooth speaker...

This weekend marks the first MXPDX: Mexico/Oregon Collaboration Festival of Culture and Cerveza. The festival brings together 13 brewers from Oregon and 13 brewers from Mexico to collaborate on ciders and beers of their own creation using Mexican ingredients to showcase both regions working together. It is the newest creation from Beer Friends, the nonprofit behind Fuji to Hood. Ezra Johnson-Green...

About 150 organizations that support Oregon crime victims have lost much of their federal funding. With more than $18 million in cuts and no additional state funds, nonprofits and government programs that serve survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking and child abuse are preparing to lay off staff and severely reduce the support they provide to victims — both in and...

Over the weekend, Special Olympics Oregon hosted its summer games in Corvallis. Athletes with intellectual disabilities compete in various events for the season, including track & field, golf and softball and bocce, Rachel Parsons is an athlete that competed in bocce. Ben Fields is an athlete who competed in softball. They both join us to share how this weekend went and why they compete.

Amazon has said they want to build small scale nuclear reactors along the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest to power AI data centers. Yesterday we heard from Oregon’s NuScale Power, which has achieved regulatory approval for their small scale nuclear reactor design. Today we hear from Kelly Campbell, policy director for Columbia Riverkeeper, about her organization's concerns about usin...

As soon as President Trump signed his tax-cut and spending package into law on July 4, one of the ways it impacted Oregon was to immediately make all Planned Parenthood clinics ineligible to receive Medicaid reimbursement for one year. In Oregon, those reimbursements make up approximately 70% of budgets. That is, if they continued to perform abortions - even for the approximately 90 percent of hea...

At a glance, Spirit of Grace church in Beaverton might appear to be just one of many progressive Protestant churches, not unusual in the Pacific Northwest. Its website and featured introduction video emphasizes that all are welcome, with an emphasis on LGBTQ people of faith who may not have been welcomed in other religious faiths - and even people who may be questioning their beliefs. But read the...

 Matt Donegan is a wildfire and land management consultant.  He led a wildfire council convened by Gov. Kate Brown in 2019. Now, he says Oregon is behind on wildfire management and federal, state and private organizations need to come together to figure out the future of Oregon’s forests. Donegan joins us with more about why Oregon needs to overhaul the way it approaches wildfire a...

This spring the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved a design from Oregon’s NuScale Power for a 77 megawatt nuclear reactor. The company is already underway designing for a site in Romania and says they have received interest from numerous U.S. companies. Amazon has said they want to build small scale nuclear reactors along the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest to power AI data cente...

The 55th annual summer music festival by Chamber Music Northwest is now underway. This year’s theme is Echoes of Bach , featuring the composer's work and dozens of other masterpieces from other eras that resonate with it. For decades, the nonprofit was led by the renowned clarinetist David Shifrin . In 2020, pianist Gloria Chien and her husband, violinist Soovin Kim, were named as artistic d...

Public transit agencies across the state may soon be seeing some changes in services as some face funding troubles. The Federal Transportation Administration recently made revisions to its agreement with rural transit agencies, requiring them to comply with federal immigration enforcement action , contradicting Oregon’s sanctuary state law. This dispute has left some federal reimbursements i...

If you’ve seen live music in Portland over the last couple of decades there’s a decent chance you’ve seen Jenny Conlee on the accordion or keyboard. She may be best known for her work with The Decemberists, with whom she’s played for the last 23 years. She has also played with Casey Neill and the Norway Rats, Jerry Joseph, Little Sue, The Minus Five, Stephanie Schneidermano...

We revisit a conversation we first aired in April 2023 which was the first installment of our series on people’s professions. We’ll learn what it takes to do different kinds of jobs and how these professions change us. David Beer is Portland’s Squeezebox Surgeon. He has studied the inner workings of accordions in Italy and at A World of Accordions Museum in Wisconsin. He operates...

"Fair," as those who attend regularly call it, began in 1969 as a simple fundraiser for an alternative school. But over the last 56 years, it has turned into a veritable Oregon institution. Its mission is to create “experiences that nourish the spirit, explore living artfully and authentically on earth, and transform culture in magical, joyous and healthy ways.” In 2013, “Think O...

Ann Patchett’s latest novel is set during the pandemic, but it is also set in the past. The main character, a mother of three adult daughters, tells her children the story of her own youthful romance with a man who is now a famous movie star. The story is told over long days picking cherries on their family farm, where everyone has gathered together for the lockdown. Though the central story...

In 2020, the Almeda Fire ripped through Jackson County, destroying homes and ecosystems. The “Think Out Loud” team traveled to Southern Oregon recently and talked to residents about how they’re thinking about fire in their communities now. Mountain View Estates, a manufactured home park in Talent, was destroyed by the Almeda Fire. Now, it’s a nationally recognized Firewise...

The entire state of Oregon is facing a housing crisis, and the coast – where second homes and short-term rentals can skew the market – is no exception. “Think Out Loud” traveled to Lincoln County recently to talk about solutions.  We had a series of conversations about different approaches residents and organizations are taking to create more units, more affordability...

Even though the Roman empire came to an end thousands of years ago, we still tell stories about the emperors who ruled during that time. From Caligula, who threatened to make his horse a senator, to Nero, who killed his own mother and set fire to the city to make room for his palace, classicist Mary Beard argues that the stories we tell about the Roman emperors might say more about us than they do...

  Swan Songs Portland has a simple but powerful mission: to provide free, intimate concerts for people at the end of their lives and pay local musicians to perform them. The nonprofit fulfilled its first concert request last autumn when it hired a mariachi band to play for a person terminally ill with cancer, surrounded by her friends and family. It is the first affiliate of Swan Songs , whic...

Oregon got a huge federal grant after the devastating 2020 Labor Day fires left thousands of people without homes, as Nigel Jaquiss reported for the Oregon Journalism Project, but most of it still remains unspent. In Southern Oregon, Representative Pam Marsh, D-Ashland, has been talking with the Oregon Housing and Community Services, the state agency in charge of getting the money to people who ne...

After a marathon session on Wednesday night, Republican lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives are poised to pass a massive tax and spending bill which President Trump has said he wants to sign on July 4. On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate passed their version of the bill after a tie-breaking vote from Vice President JD Vance. The bill passed by the Senate is expected to add $3.3 trillion to the...