Think Out Loud

Earlier this year, Gov. Tina Kotek, Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson and Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler declared a 90-day state of emergency to address what has become widely seen as a fentanyl crisis in downtown Portland. The idea was to bring more coordination and resources to bear on the crisis that is claiming lives through fatal drug overdoses and draining the resources of law enforce...

Hearing loops are an assistive listening device that can significantly reduce background noise for hearing aid users. The device is relatively simple: a loop of copper wire encircles a desk, room or entire building, creating a magnetic field. People within that field can activate a particular setting on their hearing aids that allows sound from a microphone to be transmitted directly into their ea...

Oregon Business and Industry, a business advocacy group, recently released the 2024 Oregon Competitiveness Book. The report is the first of a yearly look at how Oregon compares to other states as a place to do business. Angela Wilhelms, the president and CEO of OBI, joins us to reflect on the data compiled in this report.

Reporters with the Portland State University Vanguard have been on the ground as protesters have taken over the Branford Price Millar Library. The university closed campus on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Thursday morning, Portland Police began to clear protesters from the building. [Does the campus remain closed?] Student journalists have provided updates on Instagram throughout the occupation. Kat L...

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...

Joel David Beal was a U.S. Marine veteran who served from 2006 until 2010 including deployment to Iraq in 2008. As reported by the military media outlet, Task and Purpose, Beal received multiple military awards for his service and left the service with the rank of Lance Corporal.   After he left the marines, he worked as a mechanic and a technician, repairing wind turbines. A year ago Beal we...

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is thinking of adding some federal protections for a turtle found in Oregon. The western pond turtle is found in fresh water and wetlands west of the Cascades. It is also found in Nevada, Washington and California. If the agency’s proposal is approved, the turtle would be labeled as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Public comments are being take...

On Monday, students at the University of Oregon began setting up tents on the Eugene campus to protest the conflict in Gaza. They joined students at scores of other universities across the nation, including at Portland State University, where students set up camps, barricades and broke into Branford Price Millar Library. Student organizers of the protest on the UO campus are calling on the adminis...

District Attorney Mike Schmidt is facing a challenge from one of his own senior deputy attorneys, Nathan Vazquez. Schmidt came into office as a reformer, with the goal of ending mass incarceration and racial disparities in the criminal justice system. Vasquez says Schmidt has made Portland “unsafe and unrecognizable.” We talk to Vasquez about why he thinks he deserves the job. 

The Salem Police Department recently released an annual report revealing trends and changes in the number of homicides, aggravated assaults, burglaries and other crimes over the past 15 years. Last year, there were 10 homicides in Salem, a 15-year high for the city of nearly 180,000 residents. Violent crime overall has increased by 35% since 2009 in Salem, while property crime has declined by 3% o...

Oregon’s 5th Congressional District has received national attention as a highly competitive race, with the winner of the May primary challenging Republican incumbent Lori Chavez-DeRemer in November. Jamie McLeod-Skinner is an attorney and engineer. Janelle Bynum is a small business owner and the Democratic state representative of District 39 which includes Happy Valley and North Clackamas. T...

As the head of Willamette Riverkeeper, Travis Williams has worked to protect the river for much of his professional life. The environmental nonprofit’s efforts have been both wide and deep, from helping enforce the Clean Water Act, clearing up trash, restoring habitat, contributing to the Portland Harbor Cleanup, working to protect fish populations and preventing concentrated animal feeding...

Attorney Mike Schmidt is facing a challenge from one of his own senior deputy attorney’s, Nathan Vazquez. Schmidt came into office as a reformer, with the goal of ending mass incarceration and racial disparities in the criminal justice system. We talk to Schmidt about his tenure, and his case for why he deserves to be reelected. We talk to Vasquez on Monday, April 29th.  

Landowners and federal agencies in rural Oregon don’t always have the best relationships, especially when it comes to fire management. But as first reported in the Blue Mountain Eagle newspaper, landowners and managers in Grant County have been working with state and federal agencies to reduce wildfire risk. The Top Road Fuel Break project would clear vegetation from a stretch of public land...

 Traditionally, refugees from around the world who are accepted into the United States receive aid from one of a handful of refugee resettlement agencies. But a new approach is aimed at helping create more capacity to better support refugees in American communities and to help more of them escape violence and persecution in their countries of origin. Last year, Amy Kasari, a pastor at the Ant...

The Clark County Sheriff’s Office recently began partnering with mental health providers from Sea Mar Community Health Centers to respond more effectively to people in crisis, who may otherwise go to jail or the emergency department. The Columbian reported on the new Co-responders program which was modeled on a similar partnership launched in October 2020 between Sea Mar and the Vancouver Po...

In the spring of 2021, Natalie Mastick, a graduate student in the University of Washington’s School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, dissected filets from nearly 200 cans of salmon, some of which were more than 40 years old. The cans contained filets from pink, chum, coho and sockeye salmon that were caught in Alaska between 1979 and 2021. Mastick acquired the cans from the archives of the S...

Portland Police Bureau spent nearly $68,000 on drones and equipment between April and September of 2023. Some of the drones used by the bureau feature cameras that can closely zoom in on people or cars and are made by a manufacturer based in Shenzhen, China. The FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency have warned companies to be wary of drones manufactured in China because usi...

In May, Eugene residents will see a proposal that could change how voting is done in the city. STAR Voting is a system that allows voters to score all candidates on a scale from zero to five. The top two candidates with the highest scores will enter an automatic runoff election and the one with the most number of voters supporting them wins. If passed by voters, city elections for Eugene’s m...

Earlier this month, Gov. Tina Kotek threatened to veto $14 million in state funding for seven local infrastructure projects across Oregon unless they could clearly show they would result in new housing development. Last week, she announced that no line-item vetoes would be made to the projects state lawmakers had already approved funding for during this year’s short legislative session. Shad...

Records show that since the beginning of this year,  there were 9 druggings of University of Oregon students, and the university failed to alert students about what was happening, violating their own protocols. These incidents were potentially linked to fraternity parties. That’s according to a new story from Eugene Weekly. We're joined by reporter Eliza Aronson, who is also a UO  ...

 “Unrelenting pressure” on the nation’s rural healthcare  safety net means more hospital closures and many operating on the brink. That’s according to a new report by the Chartis Center for Rural Health. The center says hospitals have been in crisis mode for the last 15 years, but even in just the last 12 months the situation has worsened further, with the percent...

Gun sales in Washington have dropped significantly this year as new gun safety laws have taken effect. The drop follows a spike in sales last year that happened when buyers scrambled to purchase guns as lawmakers debated legislation. David Gutman recently wrote about this for The Seattle Times. He joins us with more on Washington’s gun laws. 

On Monday, April 22nd, the U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments on a case out of Oregon that could have national implications on homelessness policy. The question at the heart of Grants Pass v Johnson is whether cities can regulate where and when people can sleep outside, especially if there isn’t shelter space available. Jeremiah Hayden, a reporter for Street Roots Newspaper, tells us ab...

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...