Think Out Loud

The Beaverton Sobriety Opportunity for Beginning Recovery treatment court is open to Beaverton or Washington County residents who have at least one prior Driving Under the Influence of Intoxicants conviction and who agree to the program’s strict requirements. About 200 people have graduated from B-SOBR since its launch in 2011.  Participants must agree to wear an ankle monitor and submi...

Oregon has invested millions in workforce development across the state. But a program aimed at helping workers and businesses along the coast will be ending soon. Northwest Oregon Works serves Benton, Clatsop, Columbia, Lincoln and Tillamook counties.    The nonprofit has supported the state’s maritime industry and has funded projects for organizations including Newport Fishermen&r...

Soccer season has started in Oregon, but Timbers and Thorns fans might have to dig a little deeper to cheer their teams this year. Both teams face a lot of player injuries and offseason departures of some star players. Anne Peterson, sports writer for the Associated Press, joins us to preview what’s ahead for Portland soccer fans.

The lack of public restrooms remains an issue across the country. In Portland, there are about 17 public restrooms per 100,000 citizens, according to some estimates.  When the city placed more than 100 red portable toilets around town in 2020, some residents vehemently opposed their arrival. In 2023, only about 16 of the toilets remained, according to KGW.  Public restrooms offer a low b...

Measure 114, which was narrowly approved by Oregon voters in 2022, bans the purchase of magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition and requires a permit for anybody purchasing a firearm. The measure never went into effect after it faced a number of legal challenges, but on Wednesday the Oregon Court of Appeals declared the measure constitutional. This overturns a 2023 decision from an E...

As a 9-year-old boy, Javier Zamora traveled over 3,000 miles to be with his parents, who had fled El Salvador to live and work in the United States. Zamora traveled with a group of people who were initially strangers and the various people they paid to help them survive the two month journey. Zamora’s memoir about the experience, “Solito,” is the choice for Multnomah County&rsquo...

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...

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...

One of the many training programs the Portland Police Bureau requires before officers go out into communities on their own is a simple exercise called Talk A Mile. Police officers are paired with high school students of color and sent off to walk around the track together with four different topics on a note card for each of the four laps in a mile. Justin and Erika Fogarty started the program wit...

Lawmakers in Olympia are considering a proposal that would create tougher regulations around youth labor in Washington. HB 1644 would set minimum penalties for youth labor violations and prohibit companies with multiple serious safety violations from hiring minors.  In 2023, a Washington teen lost both of his legs working on a construction site through a school program. An investigation by Ca...

Oregon lawmakers are once again debating how best to allocate education funding to improve attendance, graduation rates, test scores and other key metrics of success. Meanwhile, parents and educators are pushing to remove restrictions on the amount of money school districts can receive for students with special needs. Lawmakers are also considering a bill that nearly passed last year that would bl...

There were two gun-related homicides in Gresham in January 2025. That's two too many, says Gresham Police Chief Travis Gullberg. Gullberg is one of the people involved in the city’s new Ceasefire initiative, which brings together community-based organizations, city leadership, law enforcement and public health experts to reduce gun violence through focused outreach. Gullberg joins us, along...

Clark County Jail in Vancouver recently became the first jail in Washington state licensed to provide methadone on-site through a treatment program for opioid use disorder. A team of specialists at the jail also administer buprenorphine, another medication approved by the FDA to manage withdrawal symptoms and the cravings associated with drugs like fentanyl.  More than half of the jail popula...

Portland’s Aurora Chorus is an inclusive, non-audition women’s chorus that formed in 1992 with the goal of elevating women’s voices through the art of choral music. Led for much of its history by renowned composer and conductor Joan Szymko , the chorus also emphasizes female conductors and composers as well. Rebecca Parsons has directed the chorus for the last few years and says...

Libraries worldwide broke digital lending records last year as Overdrive, the company that operates Libby and Sora, recently reported seeing more than 739 million borrows of audiobooks, e-books and digital magazines — a 17% increase from 2023. But while many library card holders may be enjoying the latest bestseller at no cost, the bill public libraries pay to provide this service grows just...

Federal DOGE layoffs and hiring freezes continue to hit Oregon as local offices of the National Weather Service are down to about 30% to 40% of its workforce, the Statesman Journal reports. The NWS plays a critical role in monitoring, predicting and delivering expected weather conditions, as well as issuing warnings about potential weather-related dangers. The NWS isn’t just relied on by the...

The bipartisan Arts and Culture Caucus in the Oregon legislatures has a slate of bills it’s pushing for this session. One proposal would merge two major arts funding organizations: The Oregon Arts Commission and the Oregon Cultural Trust.  Another bill would help owners of historic buildings by lowering their assessed tax, while others would allocate funds for grants to artists, art pro...

On March 4, 25% tariffs on imported goods from Canada and Mexico, our nation’s largest trading partners, are expected to go into effect. China will also be hit with an additional 10% hike on its goods entering the U.S.  We hear from a broad range of business owners and representatives from different industries in Oregon about the impact tariffs may have on them and consumers. Joining us...

The Quadraphonnes, Portland’s all-women sax quartet, will perform the music of the eccentric artist Moondog at the Alberta Rose Theater on March 7. Moondog was a blind street musician in New York City who worked with some of the biggest names in music in the mid-20th century, including Philip Glass, Leonard Bernstein, Charlie Parker and Benny Goodman. We’ll hear more about the show and...

It’s been eight months since the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on Grants Pass v. Johnson, which determined that cities can punish unhoused people for sleeping outside, even if they have nowhere else to go. Since then, Grants Pass officials have restricted public camping to two city-owned lots, one of which closed earlier this year. The city council recently voted to reopen the site after...

In Europe, dogs have been used for centuries for their keen sense of smell to locate prized black and white truffles which can fetch hundreds or thousands of dollars a pound depending on their variety. In Oregon and the Pacific Northwest, using dogs to sniff out truffles is relatively new and growing in popularity. There are even training classes and an annual truffle dog contest held at the Orego...

Karen Thompson Walker’s last book, "The Dreamers," imagined a mysterious virus that quickly spreads through a small college town and induces perpetual sleep. That book came out just before the covid pandemic changed our collective relationship to viruses. Thompson Walker’s new book, "The Strange Case of Jane O.," also seeks to understand the way our brains work, this time looking at me...

On Tuesday, the House narrowly approved a Republican budget proposal calling for $2 trillion in federal spending cuts. The proposal specifically calls for the House Agriculture Committee to find $230 billion worth of reduced spending, which will be challenging without touching the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. At the same time, cabinet officials in the current administration support l...

Guide Dogs for the Blind operates two campuses — one in San Rafael, California, and one in Boring, Oregon. The nonprofit raises and trains dogs to work with people experiencing vision loss, and provides a variety of programs for the humans who will one day partner with them. Plans are underway to expand GDB’s Boring campus through a new community hub, which would double the number of c...

 Abortion is illegal in Idaho, which borders Oregon to the east. For years leading up to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, women’s health advocates warned that maternal care and abortion services were part of an intrinsically woven set of OB/GYN care that women’s health depended on. Now that Idaho has outlawed abortion – the state's ban i...