Think Out Loud

Portland General Electric residential customers saw an 18% increase in the cost of their electricity bills since the beginning of January, the highest rate increase within the past two decades. Now, a new proposal from the utility aims to raise those rates again. If approved, electricity bills could be 7% higher than they are now starting at the beginning of 2025. Bob Jenks is the executive direct...

In Washington, school districts are working on how they interact with truant students. The state has laws in place that allow for school districts to work with kids and understand why they’re missing school so often. Rules include referring students to community engagement boards and working with juvenile court. But district success with current policies vary widely from county to county, an...

In just 31 days, Oregon lawmakers ended the 2024 legislative session. They passed bills with bipartisan support that targeted affordable housing, homelessness, campaign finance and the fentanyl crisis. They also delivered on Governor Tina Kotek’s top legislative priority with a $376 million housing package to boost affordable housing construction, help counties acquire land to develop proper...

A recent study shows that chronic exposure to discrimination and stigma can negatively impact the health of trans and nonbinary people. But it also shows that a strong sense of community can help alleviate those impacts. The findings are part of the broader Trans Resilience and Health Study, co-led by Jae Puckett, an assistant professor at Michigan State University, and Zachary DuBois, an assistan...

Jenn McPoland has been homebrewing beer for about 20 years. It’s become her main hobby and something she loves to share. She likes to tell people, “If you can cook, you can brew.” McPoland says while the industry remains pretty male dominated, more women than ever are getting into the craft all the time. When she first got into SheBrew, a one day festival celebrating women in the...

City councilors in Ashland voted 5 - 1 this week to close its 24/7 emergency homeless shelter. The city opened the shelter last November. Oregon state officials had offered Ashland $1.8 million for renovations and $800,000 for operational funds for the facility. But the councilors voted to decline the funding and shut the shelter down when the current state funding ends March 31. Meanwhile, the co...

The Eugene School District 4J board voted Wednesday night not to renew the contract of Superintendent Andy Dey. The departure comes a month after Eugene Weekly broke the news that Dey was under investigation following complaints of discrimination and retaliation. Since then, the paper has reported on the board’s formal reprimand of Dey and a new allegation that Dey kissed a teacher without h...

Hannah Glavor’s music used to lean toward singer-songwriter folk. But her newly released single, Otherside, shows an indie rock side to the Portland musician. She writes about loss and hope, and about darkness and the light on the other side. Hannah Glavor joins us in the studio to perform songs from her new album.

Oregon is on the verge of reshaping how political campaigns are financed. HB 4024 would limit contributions for individuals and for organizations. If passed, limits would not begin until January 2027. Jason Kafoury is the co-chair of Honest Elections Oregon. He joins us to share more details of the bill. 

Astoria author Kama O’Connor thinks a lot about romance and love. Writing under the pen name Kristine Lynn, her seventh romance novel - “Accidentally Dating His Boss” - was published last month by Harlequin. In addition to being a romance novelist, O’Connor is also a writing and English instructor at Clatsop Community College in Astoria. Next month, those two passions will...

It’s been just over three months since the only hospital in Eugene closed, leaving Oregon’s second-largest city without a dedicated emergency department. PeaceHealth announced the closure of its University District hospital last August and ceased most operations at the facility in December. Since then, emergency patients have been transported to the McKenzie-Willamette Medical Center o...

Washington’s Department of Natural Resources manages over 100,000 acres inside the border of the Yakama Nation. The lands are held in trust and managed to provide revenue for the state’s K-12 schools and prisons. A new investigation from High Country News and Grist found that nearly 2 million acres of state trust lands lie within the borders of 83 federally recognized Indian reservatio...

The Deschutes Basin Water Collaborative draws together water users In Central Oregon who are often put in the position of competing for water. Irrigators, fish and wildlife advocates and managers, the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, cities and county residents using groundwater from private wells have been working together for more than 20 years with notable successes. Those include funding a...

Certain foods are often marketed in ways that reinforce gender stereotypes. Think, for example, of the deep, masculine voice who proclaims “We have the meats!” as the tagline from a popular fast food chain, or advertisements aimed at women that tout the low-calorie appeal of a brand of yogurt. A new study from researchers at University of Oregon suggests that these gender stereotypes a...

Voters in the Portland metro region passed a tax in 2020 to fund homeless services. But Multnomah County is far behind in spending the hundreds of millions of dollars that tax has generated. Clackamas and Washington counties also have unspent tax money. Now, the Metro regional government wants to divert some of those dollars to build more affordable housing. We'll talk with Willamette Week reporte...

On Friday, the Oregon Senate passed House Bill 4002, which now heads to Governor Tina Kotek. Under the proposal, people caught with small amounts of illicit drugs like fentanyl could face jail time. HB 4002 also creates new addiction service facilities. OPB political reporter Dirk VanderHart joins us with details.   

Behind the laughter and bright lights of sitcoms, some of America’s favorite shows featured queer storylines – whether viewers realized it or not. From Bewitched to the Golden Girls, “Hi Honey, I’m Homo!: Sitcoms, Specials and the Queering of American Culture” explores how sitcoms played a role in the advancement of LGBTQ+ rights by embracing queer culture. Matt Baume...

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...

For many, the name Audubon conjures up images of birds or birdwatchers venturing into nature with a pair of binoculars to catch a glimpse of a beloved warbler or bird of prey. But for some, the name can evoke a painful reminder of the legacy of John James Audubon – an artist, self-taught ornithologist and naturalist who owned slaves, opposed abolition and stole human remains from Native Amer...

This school year, Oregon received more than $17 million to fund and strengthen career and technical education. Right now there are more than 1,000 CTE programs offered throughout the state and many schools continue to expand their offerings. The Oregon Department of Education is in the process of creating its latest strategic CTE plan. But what does demand look like at schools right now? To help a...

Last Saturday marked the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and more than 6 million refugees have fled the fighting since the war began. Yulia Brockdorf is a Ukrainian American psychotherapist who lives in Hillsboro. She is also the co-founder and president of DAWN, a nonprofit that has been sending medical supplies, w...

The Oregon Public Use of Land Act protects local governments from lawsuits if someone is injured while recreating on public land. But a 2019 lawsuit threw the “recreational immunity” law into question when a judge sided with a Newport woman who sued the city after slipping on a wet footbridge. Since walking, running and bicycling aren’t explicitly included in the recreational act...

Oregon lawmakers are considering a bipartisan bill that would create some of the strictest limits in the nation on corporate ownership of primary care and specialty medical clinics. The bill has passed the House already, and senators on the health care committee voted Tuesday to pass it on to the full Senate for consideration. Some of the bill’s toughest provisions would not apply to hospita...

The ringtail is a big-eyed, bushy-tailed relative of the raccoon whose range extends from northern Mexico to Southern Oregon. The squirrel-sized carnivores are active during the night and spend the day resting in hollowed-out trees. It’s a reclusive species, but a recent study from the Hoopa Valley Tribe and Oregon State University shed new light on the ringtail's habitat and behavior. By un...

 The Oregon legislature is considering a bill which would make state agencies pay a fee to compensate the city of Salem for fire, police and emergency medical services. The proposal would require paying roughly $6 million a year to the city, and would launch as a three-year pilot project this year if approved by lawmakers. Supporters say the payment is needed since Salem misses out on million...