In 1973, eight Americans – including four Oregonians – set out to climb the highest mountain in the Andes on an expedition organized by the Mazamas, a Portland mountaineering club. Two of those climbers never returned. The mysterious deaths of Janet Johnson and John Cooper caused a whirlwind of speculation in Argentina, which was never fully resolved. The cold case largely faded from public memory until Johnson’s camera was discovered in 2020, not far from where her body was found in 1975. John ...
Dec 19, 2023•20 min
The Echo Fund, meant for working musicians in Oregon, can help pay for creative, non-performance projects. These projects can range from music production and promotion, to distribution of physical albums. The fund is intended to help independent musicians with career development. The winners were recently announced and 18 musicians in Oregon received funding for their projects. The program is a part of MusicOregon, a nonprofit that supports independent and contemporary music in the state. We lea...
Dec 18, 2023•19 min
In early 2020 a group of behavioral scientists from around the world came up with about 20 science-based recommendations for public policymakers regarding COVID-19. Ellen Peters, the director of the University of Oregon’s Center for Science Communication Research, was among them. Those recommendations were published in the April 2020 issue of Nature and included messaging recommendations from social distancing to how to work with individual communities. Now, nearly four years later, those same r...
Dec 18, 2023•15 min
Last week delegates from Washington state announced that the effort to replace the Interstate 5 bridge spanning the Columbia River will get $600 million from a U.S. Department of Transportation grant. Replacing the century-old bridge is expected to cost around $6 billion. Planners overseeing the project hope $2.5 billion of that will come from federal grants. Oregon and Washington state have each committed $1 billion to the project. Troy Brynelson, OPB’s Southwest Washington bureau chief, joins ...
Dec 18, 2023•19 min
Last week, the Food and Drug Administration approved two new gene therapies to treat sickle cell disease. Roughly 100,000 people in the U.S. live with the debilitating and painful blood disorder, most of whom are African American. One of these “milestone treatments'' is a drug using powerful gene-editing technology never before approved for human use. It can repair a mutation that produces sickle-shaped red blood cells that can lead to stroke, organ damage and premature death. But the millions o...
Dec 15, 2023•32 min
Portland filmmaker Irene Taylor’s new film isn’t about any one person or tree or culture. She tells a series of braided distinct stories, like English Ivy around one of the towering trees in her own backyard. Taylor interweaves her own personal story with the overlapping and intersecting narratives of George Weyerhaeuser, photographer Beth Moon, Oregon bonsai professional Ryan Neil and others, illustrating a variety of relationships between humans and trees. We talk with Taylor about the stories...
Dec 15, 2023•21 min
A new effort has launched at Oregon State University in Corvallis to specifically address the mental health needs of veterans, active duty service members and students who are dependents of service members. Don Phillips was hired in August as OSU’s new coordinator of veteran and military-connected student mental health and wellness. He served four years as an active duty Army medic, including a deployment to Iraq, and graduated from OSU in 2016 before becoming a licensed counselor. He joins us t...
Dec 14, 2023•15 min
The Washington Secretary of State’s Office is making a new effort to track and address misinformation about voting and elections. It recently hired the British company Logically to scan social media sites for misleading narratives that could threaten election integrity, as well as physical threats to staff, and generate biweekly reports on its findings. The move led to backlash from the state Republican Party, which called the effort “unethical” and “tyranny.” A similar contract between the Oreg...
Dec 14, 2023•16 min
About two dozen environmental organizations and eight elected officials have sent a public letter to Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum calling for her to follow up on misleading and false information put out by NW Natural about the health impacts of gas stoves. The methane-based fossil fuel has been increasingly linked to health problems, particularly asthma in children, and cities in Oregon have attempted to ban new gas hookups in new construction. Calls for greater oversight increased af...
Dec 14, 2023•22 min
For years, conservationists have been at loggerheads about how exactly to decide what land should be preserved. Should the focus be on large contiguous tracts of land, or would it be better to focus on the most valuable, biodiverse plots of land, and save them, no matter the size? This disagreement has had real implications for landowners and conservationists and has led to fights about research, results and strategy. Matthew Betts, a professor in the department of Forest Ecosystems & Societ...
Dec 13, 2023•23 min
Drivers license suspensions for unpaid traffic fines is an issue that affects millions of Americans across the country. An Oregon law that went into effect in 2020 halted the practice of automatically suspending driver’s licenses for people who failed to pay traffic fines on time. But the law wasn’t retroactive, so thousands of Oregonians are without licenses for exactly that reason. Last year, then-governor Kate brown made it possible for about 8,000 people to get their licenses back. Last week...
Dec 13, 2023•20 min
Portland Rescue Mission receives thousands of pounds of donated clothing every year, which they then redistribute to people in need. Most of that clothing is lightly used and is more about keeping warm than looking flashy. So when one of the workers sorting donations spotted a bright gold pair of new Nike Air Jordan 3 sneakers, they took notice. It turns out those shoes are one of only 4 or 5 custom sneakers made for director Spike Lee and his friends. The auction house Sotheby’s values the shoe...
Dec 13, 2023•11 min
Before the advent of cardboard boxes, wooden crates were used to pack apples, pears and other iconic fruits of the Northwest to ship across the region and the nation. Up until the 1950s, the crates were adorned with elaborately illustrated labels bearing the name of the orchard that grew the fruit packed inside. These fruit crate labels reflect the histories of the growers, distributors, printers and artists involved with them from the late 19th to the mid-20th century. As such, they’re coveted ...
Dec 12, 2023•16 min
The Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries has failed to collect nearly $5 million in wage theft claims from employers since 2015 according to a new analysis from InvestigateWest. It also found that employers in industries with more low-wage and undocumented workers, like construction and agriculture, left more wages and penalties unpaid. Kaylee Tornay, investigative reporter with InvestigateWest, joins us to discuss her findings.
Dec 12, 2023•15 min
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek convened a task force in August to make concrete and actionable policy recommendations to revitalize downtown Portland. The task force issued its recommendations on Monday,including increasing police presence in downtown Portland, outlawing public drug consumption, removing protective plywood from buildings, and increasing social services for those living on the streets. The governor also wants tax relief for downtown businesses and a 90-day state of emergency to address t...
Dec 12, 2023•21 min
If you’re looking to check out some great new place the next time you go out for a meal, look no further than Eater Portland. It’s set the table with 2023 awards for the best new restaurant, bar, pop-up and food cart. Editor Brooke Jackson-Glidden joins us in studio to tell us about Xiao Ye, Astral at Duality Brewing, The Houston Blacklight, Frybaby and more.
Dec 11, 2023•14 min
English holly certainly looks festive this time of year, with its dark, spiky leaves and bright red berries. But as recently reported in High Country News, the invasive plant poses a significant threat to Pacific Northwest forests. Much like English ivy, English holly is shade-tolerant, meaning it can thrive in the dense forests of western Washington and Oregon. It forms a dense undergrowth that can overtake native species, significantly changing forest composition and reducing biological divers...
Dec 11, 2023•25 min
According to U.S. Census data, the average age of foreign-born workers is 41 years old. Earning roughly $15 an hour, on average, many cannot afford to retire, and Social Security benefits are unavailable for those who are undocumented. Miriam Jordan is the national immigration correspondent for the New York Times. She joins us to talk about her recent reporting on aging members of this workforce as they approach retirement age.
Dec 11, 2023•14 min
Roz Chast's first New Yorker cartoon was published in 1978, and she has since published more than one thousand. Chast is the author of the graphic memoirs “Going Into Town” and “Can’t we Talk About Something More Pleasant.” Chast spoke about latest book, “I Must be Dreaming” with Dave Miller at the 2023 Portland Book Festival.
Dec 08, 2023•53 min
‘May December’ showcases riveting performances in film based on Northwest teacher convicted of child rape LONG SYNOPSIS: “May December,” by Portland director Todd Haynes, may be the most unsettling movie you’ll see all year. It’s set in Savannah, Georgia, with fictional characters, but the real-life scandal that it’s more than loosely based on unfolded near Seattle in the late '90s. Seattle-area second grade teacher Mary Kay Letourneau sexually abused Vili Fualaau, beginning just before his 13th...
Dec 07, 2023•26 min
During the pandemic, alcohol consumption increased more than it has in the last 50 years. Alcohol related deaths have also been increasing, according to the National Institute of Health. In Oregon, six people die each day on average from alcohol related causes, according to the Oregon Health Authority. As the holiday season approaches, the state agency wants Oregonians to talk to their loved ones about excessive drinking. Tom Jeanne is the deputy state healthy officer and epidemiologist at the p...
Dec 07, 2023•27 min
Charity Woodrum grew up in Oregon. While she first explored a career in nursing, she realized that she was meant to gaze at the stars. The University of Oregon alum has interned with NASA and is now working on obtaining a doctoral degree in astronomy and astrophysics from the University of Arizona. She’s also a member of the James Webb space telescope team and is researching galaxy evolution. Her journey is the focus of a documentary screening hosted by the Carlton Observatory at the Evergreen A...
Dec 06, 2023•17 min
In a recent survey of Oregon parents, 40% responded that they or their partner had to quit, turn down or “greatly change” their job in the last year due to difficulty finding child care. It also found that families of color and those who speak a language other than English were more likely to be impacted. The findings reflect similar surveys from 2020 and 2019 which showed that the high cost and limited availability of child care slots in the state present major challenges for parents. Katherine...
Dec 06, 2023•22 min
Thousands of Oregonians are dealing with having to pay back some unemployment benefits the state now says they shouldn't have received. The Oregon Law Center filed a lawsuit in 2022 arguing that the Oregon Employment Department is violating the due process clause of the constitution. The case is ongoing and represents the confusion around paying back benefits. Meanwhile the agency says it was overwhelmed by requests during the pandemic, and it’s possible that more than $5.5 million could be waiv...
Dec 06, 2023•14 min
Last week, a state report showed that 38% of all Oregon students are chronically absent, meaning they miss at least 10% of school days. Charan Cline is the superintendent of the Redmond School District in Central Oregon. He joins us to share more on what this issue looks like in his district. Stacy Parish is the leader of Oregon Department of Education’s Tribal Attendance Promising Practices. She joins us to share more on what this issue is looking like for Oregon’s Indigenous students.
Dec 05, 2023•14 min
Last month, Multnomah County fined ambulance service provider AMR more than $500,000 for slow response times to emergency 911 calls. According to its exclusive contract service with the county, AMR is required to respond to 90% of life-threatening calls within 8 minutes in urban areas. But in August, AMR ambulances were delayed in responding to 14% of emergency calls. The company has appealed the fine and claims the problem is largely due to the county’s staffing requirement of two paramedics pe...
Dec 05, 2023•39 min
Every Thursday night for nine years THE THESIS brings artists and audiences who love hip-hop to celebrate together at Kelly’s Olympian in downtown Portland. The event is Portland’s longest-running hip hop showcase. We talk to Mac Smiff and Grant Stolle, two of the founders of THE THESIS, about creating a safe space to uplift local hip hop artists.
Dec 04, 2023•24 min
A coalition of environmental groups and tribes who are suing the federal government over the condition of salmon on the Snake River have been in talks with the government for over a month. Those talks are tentatively scheduled to reach an agreement by December 15, but last week, a leaked draft agreement showed that the federal government may agree to take down the four lower Snake River dams. The agreement also revealed federal government commitments to investing in habitat restoration and alter...
Dec 04, 2023•14 min
A team of scientists at Oregon State University has recently received more than $4 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to lead a study to understand a disease threatening honey bees. The bacterial disease targets the larvae within a honeybee colony, killing them within a few days before they can emerge from their cocoons as adults. Although the disease is not new, it appears to have gotten worse in the past five years, according to Andony Melathopoulos, an associate professor in the ...
Dec 04, 2023•15 min
When we talked with Chas Hundley in 2017, it was after he’d been running his first paper, the Gales Creek Journal for about 4 years and was about to take it — along with a second news site, The Banks Post — to print. To do that he had to leave his job in tech, and devote himself full time to local journalism. Now, 10 years and one global pandemic later, he’s still at it, largely on his own. But in that time he’s gone to weekly printing and launched the online Salmonberry Magazine, which focuses ...
Dec 01, 2023•17 min
