Think Out Loud

 Portland Mayor Keith Wilson’s big campaign promise was to end unsheltered homelessness in the city by 2026. One part of that effort involves reuniting unhoused people with family members or loved ones outside of Portland. 

Individuals can opt into the program or be referred by a member of the city’s outreach team. Outreach workers then connect with the per...

In Oregon, employment in the newspaper industry has fallen nearly 80% since 2000, according to OPB reporting. 

And when communities lose journalists, information gaps can be exploited. The Ashland Daily Tidings closed in 2023, and the newspaper’s website was later invaded by artificial intelligence. 

When a community loses a local newsroom, re...

On Monday, a majority of a 3-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled that the Trump administration can send members of the National Guard to Portland. The immediate impact of the ruling, however, is unclear. The Ninth Circuit’s decision only applies to one of the two temporary restraining orders U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut issued earlier this month bloc...

Starting in elementary school, students might begin learning about the epic expedition Lewis and Clark led 220 years ago to explore the newly acquired territory of the Louisiana Purchase, an 8,000-mile journey through present-day Oregon to the Pacific Ocean and back. While the names Lewis and Clark have been etched into history books, the name York is largely unknown. York , William Clark’s s...

The Portland Trail Blazers’ first game of the 2025-2026 NBA regular season  tips off tomorrow at the Moda Center against the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Blazers’ roster this season consists of several exciting new additions, including rookie Yang Hansen. The Blazers selected the 7-foot-1 center from China as the 16th-overall pick in the first round of the NBA draft in June. 

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Your Tech Q is a youth-led nonprofit that gives free workshops and presentations on technology and digital literacy in various communities, with a focus on older adults. It’s run by 16-year-old Catlin Gabel high school junior Atef Siddiqui. He got involved with the workshops about a year after the organization was founded in 2022 by Portland students. At the time he was in middle school and d...

JR Ujifusa is a Multnomah County senior deputy district attorney and heads its Human Trafficking Team. He’s also the chair of the National Advisory Committee on the Sex Trafficking of Children & Youth. His team and other partners working to eliminate trafficking and support survivors are trying to locate anyone who was trafficked on ...

More than 40 thousand people turned out in Portland alone for the No Kings protest, and people turned up en masse in scores of cities and towns throughout Oregon and Washington. They were part of an estimated 2,500 coordinated demonstrations across the country against President Trump’s use of presidential authority, extrajudicial deporta...

“We do not need any more nonprofits in Oregon,” Libra Forde wrote that in an op-ed published by The Oregonian/OregonLive in June 2025, calling it a “difficult truth.” She’s the executive director of Women’s Foundation of Oregon, a philanthropic organization which does grant-making, research and policy advocacy. We heard more from Forde on how nonprofits sh...

Pacific Northwest National Lab scientist and Hanford manager on radioactive tank waste, vitrification and clean-up progress

In September 2024, we packed up our van and drove about four and a half hours from Portland to Richland, WA, to set up a mobile broadcast studio on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities, in partnership with Northwest Public Broadcasting. We broadcas...

Elizabeth Gilbert rocketed to fame for her best-selling romp “Eat, Pray, Love.” Her  latest memoir has a very different tone. “All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation” details her journey to heal from sex and love addiction. It is also about the love of her life, Rayya Elias, a Syrian-born recovering addict and musician. Elizabeth Gilbert joins us for a live broadcast i...

The author of the Bakeshop Mystery Series used the city of Ashland for her inspiration, with many real shops and restaurants in the city appearing in the novels, which now number more than 20. And for the third year in a row, Ellie Alexander is partnering with Travel Ashland to bring fans of “cozy mysteries” to the city for the Ash...

The community transition program is for students with disabilities who have graduated high school with a modified diploma or a certificate of completion. The program serves people ages 18 to 21 and helps prepare them for life after high school through job training and volunteer opportunities.  

Sally Golden is a special education transition teacher for the...

 Protesters at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland may have had their identifiable information from their cellphones surveilled, new reporting from Straight Arrow News found. An analysis done by the news organization found evidence that suggests a cell-site simulator was used in the area. These devices mimic cell towers and are able to capture a phone's unique SIM card...

Before colonization and the decimation of Indigenous people, Nez Perce, or Nimíipuu, lands encompassed 17 million acres that would become parts of Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana. The Nez Perce Indian Reservation currently consists of 750,000 acres in North-Central Idaho.

The Oregon Origins Project aims to bring the traditions, art and storytelling of Oregon’s first ...

The threat of a 9.0-magnitude earthquake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone has hung over the Pacific Northwest for decades. Seismologists and emergency managers say “The Big One” could be one of the worst natural disasters in the region’s history, but it may not be the worst-case scenario. New research from Oregon State University suggests the Cascadia Subduction Zone may be link...

Over the weekend, protesters gathered in the buff to speak out against the Trump administration’s attempts to mobilize the National Guard. Last week, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem visited Portland’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility and met with high-profile leaders, including the city&rs...

With its focus on characters and narratives outside the mainstream, horror is considered by some to be an inherently queer genre. According to the founders of the Stage Fright Festival, horror has “a special and symbiotic connection to queer culture.” The festival celebrates that connection with a lineup of performances that range from campy to creepy to chilling. This year’s fest...

Nearly 30 years ago, Newport resident Kent Gibson headed out with his dog to the beach one day to look for agate and jasper, types of gemstones he collected as a hobby at the time. He picked up what looked like a baseball-sized rock, threw it for his dog to fetch and then took it home for his dog to play with. But it turns out it wasn’t a rock. It was a fossil of a skull from a porpoise that ...