Last Friday, Klickitat County commissioners voted 2-1 during a special session to close the county jail following disturbing incidents that have called into question conditions in the facility and the treatment of inmates detained there. In January, the family of Ivan Howtopat filed a $20 million wrongful death lawsuit. Howtopat was withdrawing from fentanyl at the time of his detention and was found dead in his jail cell last May. Last November, a female inmate at the county jail was transferre...
Apr 03, 2024•17 min
The iconic 1980s mockumentary “This Is Spinal Tap” follows a fictional British band as their first North American tour slowly – and hilariously – falls apart. The movie serves as inspiration for the “Too Much Effing Perspective” podcast, hosted by Portlander Alex Hofmann and LA-based Allen Keller. Hofmann and Keller kick off conversations by asking guests about their “Spinal Tap” moments — situations where everything that could go wrong, did. The podcast has featured several Northwest artists si...
Apr 02, 2024•20 min
Mohammad Usrof came to the U.S. from his hometown in Gaza 12 years ago for school. He has since married and settled in the Pacific Northwest. Usrof shares what he hears from friends and family in Gaza and Egypt, and what it’s like living so far away from this conflict.
Apr 02, 2024•20 min
The task force that investigates online child exploitation in Oregon has long been understaffed, leading to a serious backlog of tips to follow up on. But as reported in Willamette Week, state lawmakers recently approved an extra $2.7 million for the team, allowing it to nearly quadruple in size. The money will also support community outreach efforts and training for local law enforcement to aid in their investigations. Michael Slauson is chief counsel for the Criminal Justice Division at the Or...
Apr 02, 2024•13 min
Public health agencies are playing an increasingly important role in alerting residents to the risks of wildfire smoke as climate change increases the frequency and intensity of wildfires in the West. But that messaging can lack important information about the severity of that risk and specific actions that can be taken to mitigate it, according to a new study from the University of Oregon. The study examined nearly 1,300 messages about wildfire smoke exposure that were sent in 2022 by federal, ...
Apr 01, 2024•21 min
The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department is actively trying to hire 250 seasonal park ranger and ranger assistants in anticipation of another busy summer this year. The recruitment drive started in February, two months earlier than last year, and has already yielded more than 4,200 applications for seasonal park ranger assistants - a nearly 100% increase compared to the number of applications the agency received for this position during this same time last year. The OPRD won approval from stat...
Apr 01, 2024•17 min
Culverts are all around us and you may not even know it. Culverts are pipes and tunnels, often under roadways and railroads, that allow water to pass through them. While water easily passes through them, the same can’t be said for some migratory fish like salmon. Ben Goldfarb is an environmental journalist who reported on the efforts being made to fix culverts for Hakai Magazine. He joins us to share more on the impacts the infrastructure can have and what it takes to replace them.
Apr 01, 2024•14 min
Earlier this month, Oregon State University received $10 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to work with a coalition of Native American tribes to explore opportunities to manufacture products and materials made from hemp. Some of those industrial applications include turning it into carbon for use inside energy storage devices, processing hemp fiber for use in car door panels and floorboards and mixing the interior part of the stalk with lime and water to make a lightweight alternat...
Mar 29, 2024•24 min
Last week, the Yurok Tribe signed a historic agreement with the National Park Service, California State Parks and Save the Redwoods League to transfer a 125-acre property back to tribal ownership. The site, known as ‘O Rew, is roughly in the center of Yurok ancestral territory and sits at the southern gateway to Redwood National Park. The agreement marks the first time that a national park will be co-managed by a Native tribe. Nika Bartoo-Smith recently wrote about the agreement for Underscore N...
Mar 29, 2024•8 min
Last week the VA Portland Health Care System opened the Social Neuroscience & Psychotherapy Lab, known as the SNaP Lab, focused on psychedelic therapy and clinical trials. Dr. Christopher Stauffer, a psychiatrist, clinical researcher and director of social neuroscience and psychotherapy at Portland VA, joins us to talk about the new lab, and the two clinical trials currently underway.
Mar 29, 2024•21 min
Oregon’s Bottle Bill, which offers cash refunds for empty bottles and cans, was a landmark piece of legislation when it first passed in 1971. Since then, it’s served as a model for similar bills in other states and led to some of the highest recycling rates in the nation. The bill was originally intended to discourage littering, but the cash refunds it offers have increasingly become a lifeline for low-income Oregonians and people experiencing homelessness. As extensively reported in Willamette ...
Mar 28, 2024•35 min
Mismanagement, inequity and turnovers plague Oregon’s Department of Early Learning and Care, a new story from InvestigateWest shows. The agency is responsible for more than $1.3 billion in early learning investments and has seen more than five managers and directors leave the office in the past 18 months, with some employees describing office culture as “toxic.” Kaylee Tornay is an investigative reporter who has been reporting on this issue. She joins us with more on what some workers have been ...
Mar 28, 2024•18 min
You may have heard that wildfire seasons are getting longer, with blazes burning more intensely and lasting longer than ever. In 1993, fires were fought across nearly 1.8 million acres - but by 2021, that area had quadrupled. Not surprisingly, the resources and workforce needed to combat these conflagrations has been increasing as well. But exactly the opposite is happening: more and more of these critically important wildland firefighters are quitting or retiring, and they are not being replace...
Mar 27, 2024•16 min
Three nonprofits in Oregon and one nonprofit in Southwest Washington will receive funding from billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott. The Pacific Northwest organizations were recently selected along with hundreds of other nonprofits across the country and are sharing a pot of about $640 million in unrestricted grant money. Jackson Street Youth Services works with young people at risk of or experiencing homelessness. The organization provides housing and other supportive programs in Linn and...
Mar 27, 2024•22 min
Last week, three of Gov. Tina Kotek’s top aides announced their departure from the Governor’s Office. Sources with knowledge of the matter told OPB that the shakeup could have come from personality conflicts between staff and the governor's wife, Aimee Kotek Wilson. Now, Kotek is considering establishing an Office of the First Spouse and has already hired two state-funded staffers to accompany First Lady Kotek Wilson to an out-of-state conference in Salt Lake City. Dirk VanderHart is OPB’s polit...
Mar 27, 2024•15 min
Edwidge Danticat is an award-winning writer of novels, short stories, essays, and memoirs, with a focus on the rich experiences of the Haitian diaspora. Her latest book is the collection of short stories “Everything Inside.” We listen back to a conversation with Danticat in front of an audience at Woodburn high school in 2022.
Mar 26, 2024•52 min
OPB's latest podcast, “Salmon Wars,” tells the story of salmon in the Northwest in a way you haven’t heard before — through the voices of one Yakama Nation family who have been fighting for salmon for generations. In episode one, host Tony Schick introduces us to Randy Settler and his family. The Settlers, members of the Yakama Nation, have been deeply affected by the Northwest’s salmon policies for generations. They lost their home, their primary food source, and their ancestral fishing grounds...
Mar 25, 2024•23 min
Portland city officials are currently considering what to do with one of downtown’s largest venues. The Keller Auditorium is more than a century old and was last renovated in the 1960s. A 2020 analysis found that the building needs a seismic upgrade and a number of accessibility improvements to bring it up to modern standards. Some are arguing for an extensive renovation of the current space, while others are pushing for a new auditorium to be built on the Portland State University campus or as ...
Mar 25, 2024•14 min
On June 3, 2016, a train carrying crude oil derailed in Mosier, a Wasco County community in the Columbia River Gorge. Several rail cars caught fire and oil leaked into the Columbia River. For some officials, the incident was a wake-up call. Trains carrying oil regularly pass through the Columbia River Gorge. In Oregon, agencies are coordinating with officials from Washington, tribal and federal governments to prepare for future oil spills. Chuck Thompson is the editor of Columbia Insight, a nonp...
Mar 25, 2024•16 min
With spring break around the corner, many students will be enjoying their time away from school work, but some may find themselves picking up jobs as babysitters. Margie House is the 4-H program coordinator at Oregon State University’s Extension program and runs a babysitter teaching program. She joins us to share more on the demand for the course and what students are learning.
Mar 22, 2024•15 min
After seeing an all-time high for gun violence at the end of 2022, Portland saw a 22% decrease in overall shootings last year. In late February, Mayor Ted Wheeler attributed this decline to a community-city partnership known as Portland Ceasefire. Marcell Frazier is the director of the city’s Office of Violence Prevention. Mike Myers is the community safety transition director. They have collaborated on Ceasefire and join us to discuss what gun violence currently looks like in the city and what ...
Mar 22, 2024•23 min
Inadequate state funding and the end of COVID-19 relief dollars have left school districts across Oregon with multimillion-dollar budget deficits. Portland Public Schools officials are planning to cut $30 million out of next year’s budget and administrators at Salem-Keizer Public Schools need to cut $60 million. The Bend-La Pine School Board recently voted to place a local tax levy on the spring ballot in an effort to close their funding gaps. And in Southwest Washington, Evergreen Public School...
Mar 22, 2024•14 min
Every year, students across the country memorize and recite poems for the Poetry Out Loud competition. But for Deaf students, memorization isn’t the only challenge – they first have to translate the poem from English to American Sign Language. From there, they work to interpret the poem’s meaning and incorporate it into their performance in ASL. Traiton Kramer and Brayden Olson are seniors at Oregon School for the Deaf. They both competed at the state Poetry Out Loud competition this year and jo...
Mar 21, 2024•24 min
In 2017, Vancouver resident Lois Smith got the idea to put out a succinct print guide to resources and services for people experiencing homelessness. She’d been volunteering with Friends of the Carpenter, a faith-based nonprofit that runs a day center for people experiencing homelessness. She says the stories from the unhoused people she talked to stayed with her, and realized she could put something tangible into their hands to help direct them to services, shelter and other resources. She knew...
Mar 21, 2024•13 min
Within the last three years, there has been a 449% increase in children under the age of 6 being exposed to fentanyl, according to a new study from Oregon Health and Science University. Researchers looked at U.S. poison control data and found significantly more incidents compared to previous years. There were no reported incidents of fentanyl poisoning in Oregon in 2020, but by 2023, there were 16. Robert Hendrickson is the medical director of the Oregon Poison Center at OHSU. He joins us to sha...
Mar 21, 2024•16 min
Three college basketball teams from Oregon are competing in the March Madness NCAA tournament which started on Tuesday. Oregon State University women’s basketball team is a No. 3 seed and will make its first NCAA tournament appearance since 2021 on Thursday, when it hosts Eastern Washington University. The University of Portland women’s basketball team is making its second consecutive tournament appearance this year after winning the West Coast Conference championship game with a one-point victo...
Mar 20, 2024•14 min
SafeSpace is a children’s advocacy center in Hood River that serves five counties in the Columbia River Gorge. It offers an array of services, including forensic interviews, medical exams and psychological counseling, to suspected victims of child abuse, maltreatment or neglect, as well as their family members. The organization also accepts referrals of suspected child abuse cases from the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Police Department. As reported previously by Columbia Gorge News, SafeSpace is ...
Mar 20, 2024•17 min
Keizer-based nurse Yvonne Groenhout has decades of experience as an intensive care unit nurse. She’s officially retired, but fills in at a local hospital in Southern Oregon when the need arises. Groenhout has also volunteered her medical expertise in Chicago, Los Angeles, Ukraine and, most recently, Gaza. As reported in the Salem Reporter, she recently spent five weeks in Rafah in a demilitarized area where she and her fellow volunteers with the nonprofit International Medical Corps had set up a...
Mar 20, 2024•22 min
For many Indigenous people, it isn’t a question of whether Bigfoot exists, but whether you have seen him. A new exhibit at the High Desert Museum in Bend features the work of many Indigenous artists exploring a relationship with Sasquatch. Phil Cash Cash and Frank Buffalo Hyde are two artists featured in the exhibit. They join us to talk about their work.
Mar 19, 2024•15 min
According to a recent Pew Research Center report, nearly half of adults in the U.S. use Instagram. The social media platform is also popular with influencers who amass a large online following around a particular interest, like health and wellness. They can then leverage that popularity to profit from the sale of products and services they promote through their accounts. But some influencers on Instagram are also profiting from the spread of misinformation, according to a new study from research...
Mar 19, 2024•21 min
