Think Out Loud

Amy Tan might be best known for her fiction, including "The Joy Luck Club" and "The Kitchen God’s Wife," but her latest book takes its drama from her backyard bird feeder. In 2019, Tan began drawing birds she saw in nature, particularly the ones who visited her tree-filled backyard in Northern California. The result is a book of reflections, observations, detailed drawings and cartoon sketch...

The Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries is facing a massive backlog of wage theft complaints. According to its annual report, the agency saw a 208% increase in wage claims from 2020 to 2024. In response, the agency implemented an income threshold for investigations, meaning investigators are not following up on any claims from workers who make more than $25.34 an hour. BOLI officials say the age...

By 2040 about 78 million Americans will be 65 or older, according to the Administration on Aging. In Oregon, lower birth rates combined with longer life expectancies means that Oregon’s population is rapidly growing older. The shift in population affects sectors like healthcare and affordable housing. AGE+ is a nonprofit that advocates for older Oregonians. It’s pushing for a statewide...

Oregon launched a program last summer to pay parents who care for their children with severe disabilities or medical needs. Advocates pushed for the Children’s Extraordinary Needs waiver after a similar COVID-era program ended in 2023.  But parents say the state program is underfunded and falling short of its promise. It can only serve a tenth of the families that qualify, and only pays...

A new study made national headlines, estimating that in the next three decades, around 42% of adults over the age of 55 will develop dementia. Allison Lindauer is an associate professor of neurology at the Oregon Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at OHSU. She joins us to share what we know about dementia and what people can do to prevent it.

Around 14,000 subscribers read the locally-owned community newspaper Hoodview News every month. Along with community events, feel-good stories about the East County area and advertisements, readers find columns that espouse and encourage a transphobic worldview. Hoodview News is published by longtime Oregon political operative Mike Wiley — perhaps best known for his work as communications di...

The bridge connecting Oregon and Washington on Interstate 5 has needed replacement for decades. Experts say it would not withstand earthquakes of the size that the Northwest is certain to experience in coming years. Hundreds of millions of state and federal dollars went under the metaphorical bridge when the Columbia River Crossing project fell apart more than a decade ago. Now the I-5 replacement...

 Earlier this month, Stephanie Johnson, a first grade teacher at Pine Ridge Elementary School in Bend, found out she won a Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. Central Oregon Daily News first reported on Johnson’s achievement. The award is considered to be the highest national honor a K-12 educator can receive for teaching science, technology, engineeri...

Glyphosate is an herbicide that’s widely used in agriculture in the U.S. and around the world. It’s the active ingredient in Roundup, which is commonly applied to crops like soy, cotton and corn that have been genetically modified to withstand the weed killer. The Environmental Protection Agency maintains that glyphosate is “not likely to be carcinogenic to humans,” althoug...

In 2020, the Almeda Fire ripped through the Rogue Valley and it destroyed about a third of the town of Talent. Among the losses were nearly 90 homes located at the Talent Mobile Estates park. Years later, the town continues to rebuild, including a groundbreaking ceremony for the mobile home park last year. We check in on recovery efforts from Darby Ayers-Flood, the mayor of Talent.     &...

Oregon lawmakers gathered in Salem on Tuesday for the start of the 2025 legislative session. They’ll have five months to tackle the state’s pressing challenges, including passing a two-year budget. Last month, Governor Kotek unveiled a budget proposal that boosts spending on her top priorities such as building more affordable housing, combating homelessness and funding for K-12 schools...

Looking at the history of psychological operations, “Stories Are Weapons: Psychological Warfare and the American Mind” is the latest book by author and journalist Annalee Newitz. It explores misinformation, propaganda and how the stories we hear can manipulate us. The book also features a chapter on the work the Coquille Indian Tribe has done to undo damage these operations did to some...

Oregon's reigning – and two time – state champion in chess is a junior at Westview High School in Beaverton. Zoey Tang has been playing since she was 7 years old and joined a chess club at her small charter school. She was hooked. She recently became the first Oregonian ever to achieve the title of “woman grandmaster.” She joined us to share her thoughts on the title and he...

One of Mayor Keith Wilson’s main campaign platforms was his commitment to ending unsheltered homelessness in the city. On Wednesday, he presented his $28 million “Blueprint” for how he plans to achieve that goal. OPB Portland City Government Reporter Alex Zielinski joins us to share details about the plan and the reaction of regional officials and homeless experts who have been w...

President Donald Trump has wasted no time in enacting his immigration policy. On his first day in office, he issued an executive order that aims to end birthright citizenship, the constitutional provision that automatically grants citizenship to children born in the U.S., regardless of their parents’ status. Attorneys general across the country, including in Oregon, have already sued to bloc...

Last summer, more than 12,000 of Deschutes County residents received a letter inviting them to participate in a civic assembly, convened by nonprofit groups and with support from the city of Bend and the county. Only 30 were selected in a lottery system, all coming from various ages and backgrounds. They met in the fall to brainstorm ideas to address youth homelessness. Their ideas ranged from cha...

Marion County once burned its trash — and generated some of its electrical power   —  using the Reworld incinerator. But since that facility has previously announced it would be closing and stopped accepting residential waste, the county’s garbage is now going to the Coffin Butte Landfill in Benton County. However, as reported in the Statesman Journal, Reworld is challe...

The fentanyl crisis has taken a toll on communities all across Oregon. It has also shined a light on the challenges frontline responders face when trying to get people help for substance use disorder, especially in rural areas and jails or prisons where treatment can be hard to obtain.   But a training program in addiction medicine offered by OHSU is providing help by sharing resources, best...

 Oregon has a rich tattoo history, from indigenous practitioners to sailors. And Oregon newspapers have run stories about tattoos since the early 20th century. Within the state you can see all styles represented, from American traditional to fine lines and realism.  There is no shortage of inked skin in the state, but as data obtained by OPB from OHA's Board of Electrologists and Body Ar...

Researchers have long known there was some kind of aquifer in the Cascade Mountains that feeds rivers like the McKenzie and the Deschutes. But they never knew just how big it might be — until now, that is. A new study found that the Central Oregon aquifer holds 80 cubic kilometers of water, roughly three times the size of Nevada’s Lake Mead. Leif Karlstrom is an associate professor of...

Democratic Representative Maxine Dexter has begun her first term on Capitol Hill, representing Oregon's 3rd Congressional District. Earl Blumenauer, who represented the region for nearly 30 years, has now joined the faculty at Portland State University. In the first two weeks of her term, Dexter has already voted on bills about immigration and transgender student athletes, and she has been assigne...

A 23-year-old civil rights activist from Alabama named John Lewis was the youngest speaker at the famous March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom led by Martin Luther King Jr, delivering a fiery speech to hundreds of thousands of marchers gathered on the Washington Mall. Lewis went on to serve on the Atlanta City Council, and was elected to Congress in 1986, where he has earned a reputation as one...

Oregon’s legislative session is set to begin on Tuesday. Lawmakers will consider a slew of bills on issues such as housing, infrastructure, mental health care and more. House Speaker Julie Fahey, D-Eugene, and House Minority Leader Christine Drazan, R-Canby, join us to share their parties’ priorities for the upcoming session.

Kaarin Knudson became the mayor of Oregon’s second largest city, Eugene, on Monday. She delivered her first state of the city address shortly after being sworn in. Knudson says increasing housing capacity and revitalizing the city’s downtown are among her top priorities. But first, she faces a budget shortfall and will need to work with the city council to find a way to fill it.  ...

By the early 1900s, the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist group founded by former Confederate soldiers after the Civil War, had all but faded from existence in the U.S. Then, in 1915, a second Klan was founded in Georgia, and soon spread across the country. By the mid-1920s, it had as many as eight million members across the U.S., including many chapters in the Pacific Northwest, and a strong base...