Think Out Loud

NW Natural told Oregonians it had a new source of clean energy: renewable natural gas derived from decomposing organic waste at sites like landfills or dairy farms. In 2017 the company helped to write a law promoting the development of the new fuel, with the promise that it could replace fossil natural gas in our pipelines. Internal documents obtained by ProPublica reveal how the company painted a...

In 1990, Barbara Roberts became the first woman elected governor of Oregon. She began her political career as a member of the Parkrose school board and then the board of Mount Hood Community College. She was elected to the Oregon House of Representatives in 1980 and was chosen by her colleagues to be the House majority leader two years later. Two years after that, she became Oregon's Secretary of...

Each year, there are nearly three million cases of antibiotic-resistant infections in the U.S. caused by MRSA and other antibiotic-resistant bacteria, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While many of these infections happen during hospital stays, less is known about the role wastewater treatment facilities can play in the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the env...

Coastal tribes in the Pacific Northwest are set to face some of the most dramatic effects of climate change in the region, from rising seas to more severe storms. The University of Washington’s Climate Impacts Group and the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians conducted a series of listening sessions with leaders and citizens of 13 coastal tribes to hear how they were responding to climate...

Portland voters will decide 12 city council races and choose a new mayor this November. Willamette Week’s Sophie Peel found that some of the candidates running agreed to swap campaign donations in order to qualify for the city’s system of matching funds. That practice violated campaign finance law, according to attorneys and experts quoted in the stories, although the secretary of stat...

 Like beavers and woodpeckers, porcupines play an important role in their ecosystem. But, because they have a tendency to damage trees, porcupines are often considered a nuisance species. In the Pacific Northwest, it’s becoming harder to find living porcupines, according to a Columbia Insight report. We learn more about the rodent from Dawn Stover, a freelance writer and regular contrib...

The new Climate Friendly Public Schools program is just beginning. It will provide as much as $10,000 per school for public middle and high school students in seven districts over the next five years. The Portland Clean Energy Fund is providing the program $50 million. Portland Public Schools' share is close to $20 million. The idea is to support public school students to create their own projects...

The November general election is just eight weeks away. In Oregon, the responsibility for local, state and federal races falls to the state’s 36 county clerks. But that job has gotten harder in recent years with budget cuts, staffing shortages, the spread of misinformation, physical threats and intimidation of election workers in Oregon and around the nation. A survey of Oregon county clerks...

Human Rights Watch and Nurturely released a report last month that shows how pregnant people are affected by wildfires. It also suggests that officials and agencies place an emphasis on reproductive justice when providing support and information around disasters. Additionally, it recommends better education for health workers on environmental determinants of health. We learn more about the report...

U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek H. Murthy recently issued an advisory saying stress from parenting is a public health issue. The nation's doctor shared his concerns over the well-being of parents, noting overwhelming stressors affecting parents today – from financial pressures to worries around kids' health and safety. The advisory notes that nearly half of parents say most days their stress...

month, the National Women’s Soccer League announced it’s getting rid of the draft. This winter, promising college players will instead choose among their favorite teams and negotiate a contract. The NWSL will still have roster limits and a salary cap, but under its new collective-bargaining agreement, no player may be traded without her consent. The League is the first in the U.S. to g...

Since 2017, the Vancouver nonprofit Share has been operating a program that removes roughly 20 tons of trash each month from homeless encampments, parks and other sites in the city. As reported by The Columbian, the Talkin’ Trash program recently received a grant to purchase three large containers and a donated dump truck to improve efficiency and safety for its work crew. But perhaps the bi...

The U.S. Department of the Interior announced the creation of the Willamette Valley Conservation Area last month. The area is part of an effort to protect oak and prairie habitat and the species that live there like the monarch butterfly and Western Meadowlark. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service published a conservation study in 2017.  It found that grasslands, oak woodlands and riparian ha...

Wilma Acosta, an unenrolled Pascua Yaqui woman living in Portland, went missing in November of last year. Her body was found in the Willamette River in January 2024. The Portland Police Bureau said she was suicidal.  Her family insists she was not. Communication between Acosta’s family and the Portland Police Bureau illustrates some of the challenges in Missing and Murdered Indigenous P...

The award winning poet, writer and essayist Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s genius lies in making connections between the astonishments of the natural world and the particular wonders of her own - and all of our - lives. Nezhukumatathil is the author of four collections of poems, including “Oceanic, and her latest book, a bestselling collection of essays, is called “World of Wonders.&rdq...

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...

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal shows that movie ticket sales are still lagging behind from prepandemic numbers. At the same time, one in three TikTok users say the app drove them to watch a movie in theaters, according to marketing research from the company. What has pandemic recovery looked like for Oregon theaters? Did Barbenheimer save some cinemas? To answer these questions and mo...

The Portland Police Bureau’s annual budget has risen by nearly $90 million - roughly 40% - since 2016. But increased funding doesn't always equate to reduced crime.  A recent investigation by Street Roots shows that Portland hasn't been having a crime wave. It found that reported crimes have increased less than 10% over the past four years, according to data from PPB. K. Rambo is the ed...

Albina Head Start provides free daycare and preschool for nearly 900 low-income children who qualify for the Head Start program at 20 locations across Portland. But the nonprofit is now at risk of losing nearly $50 million in funding after it was found to be “deficient” by the federal agency which administers the program. It must now also recompete for grant funds despite decades of se...

Former Oregon Poet Laureate Kim Stafford wrote a “A Proclamation for Peace” poem several years ago. But today it has a new resonance. It’s been published in a new book, along with translations into more than 50 languages and notes from the dozens of translators who were involved. The poem appears in Arabic and Hebrew, Russian and Ukrainian, Tibetan and Mandarin, Tamil, Vietnamese...

Fences are a key part of managing livestock on rangeland. But physical fencing is expensive, maintenance-heavy and potentially harmful to wildlife. Virtual fencing could solve some of those problems by offering a more flexible way to manage grazing herds. It could also help ranchers and rangeland managers adapt to the effects of climate change, including more frequent and intense wildfires. As rec...

Church at the Park, the nonprofit that operates Village of Hope homeless micro shelter site in Salem, plans to add 40 additional beds, according to the Salem Reporter.  The expansion aims to serve people who are experiencing homelessness and are 55 and older. People 50 or older are the fastest growing group of those experiencing homelessness in the US, according to the National Alliance to En...

Gabrielle Zevin is a lifelong devotee of video games, which is obvious to readers of her newest book, the bestseller “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.” The book tells the story of two video game designers who find professional creative and intellectual synergy that doesn’t always match in their personal lives. The book starts from the premise that designing video games is th...

A few years ago, three Oregon musicians and artists started getting together to play and share music, informally calling themselves Diaspora Songs. They are all lovers of country and folk music, as well as writers and scholars. Dao Strom is a poet, musician, and multimedia artist  — she’s the author of the book “Instrument.” Julian Saporiti is a musician and creator of...

“Women of the Dirt” is designed for all ability levels and creates space for riders who are women. Guides work with riders on closed trails to build skills and camaraderie.  Events have been held throughout the summer, and a weekend camp takes place in September.  We learn more about the series from Jaclyn Walles, a Mt Bachelor summer athlete and ambassador