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OPB's daily conversation covering news, politics, culture and the arts. Hosted By Dave Miller.
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Many concert venues rely on alcohol sales for revenue, meaning people under age 21 are often left out of shows. Not so at The Off Beat. Portland nonprofit Friends of Noise opened the venue in the Kenton neighborhood last fall and held a grand-opening show headlined by Team Dresch last month.
André Middleton is the executive director of Friends of Noise. Clara Kornelis is a musician and a booker for The Off Beat. They join us to talk about the importance of creating an all-ages space for young performers and live music fans.
Last month, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office began testing drones to respond to traffic crashes, crimes or other emergencies deputies might be dispatched to following a 911 call. Skydio, a California-based drone manufacturer, has provided the county with two of its drones and the “Drone as First Responder” software platform that it markets to law enforcement agencies across the nation.
A team of sheriff’s deputies who are FAA-certified drone pilots have been assigned to work on Washington County’s DFR trial program, which is expected to end in mid-April. The pilots work in shifts listening to incoming emergency dispatch calls. A pilot can respond to a call by remotely launching a drone, which has a range of roughly three miles, from its base in Aloha to the scene of an emergency to collect evidence or assess a crash site minutes before the arrival of deputies or other first responders. The DFR drones have responded to more than 90 calls for service since Feb. 20.
Matt Frohnert, a lieutenant in the patrol division of the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, joins us to share more details about the program.
Last month, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office began testing drones to respond to traffic crashes, crimes or other emergencies deputies might be dispatched to following a 911 call. Skydio, a California-based drone manufacturer, has provided the county with two of its drones and the “Drone as First Responder” software platform that it markets to law enforcement agencies across the nation.
A team of sheriff’s deputies who are FAA-certified drone pilots have been assigned to work on Washington County’s DFR trial program, which is expected to end in mid-April. The pilots work in shifts listening to incoming emergency dispatch calls. A pilot can respond to a call by remotely launching a drone, which has a range of roughly three miles, from its base in Aloha to the scene of an emergency to collect evidence or assess a crash site minutes before the arrival of deputies or other first responders. The DFR drones have responded to more than 90 calls for service since Feb. 20.
Matt Frohnert, a lieutenant in the patrol division of the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, joins us to share more details about the program.
Researchers at Oregon State University are using satellite imaging to measure damage in Iran. The Conflict Ecology Lab works to assess the effect peace and conflict have on land. The lab has previously done work around Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan. Jamon Van Don Heok is an associate professor of geology and geopolitical sciences at OSU and leads the lab. He joins us to share more on what he’s seeing.
Morgellons disease is a rare skin condition described by intense itching, burning and crawling sensation underneath the skin. Many living with the condition also experience painful sores and, as a 2024 study found, have a lower quality of life. Oregon Health and Science University Dermatologist Jesse Keller is one of the authors of that study. He was also recently featured in an article about the condition in Undark. Keller joins us to share more on what Morgellons disease is and what he hears from the patients he treats.
As a company, Oregon-based Nike has previously said that the average factory worker in the 13 countries it has contracts with is paid twice the amount of the local minimum wage. Past reporting from ProPublic found that less than 1% of Cambodian workers made that. Now, a new story from the publication, in partnership with The Oregonian/OregonLive, found that workers in Indonesia also do not reach that standard. On top of that, the reporting found that Nike is also shifting much of its manufacturing to parts of the country that are less-developed and where workers make much less. Rob Davis is a reporter covering the Northwest for ProPublica. Matt Kish is the business reporter for The Oregonian. They join us to share more on what their reporting revealed.
Oregon foster kids now have a state “Bill of Rights,” which Oregon lawmakers passed nearly unanimously with only a single House member voting no. The legislation was vetoed by the governor last year but modified this year to address her concerns. The Oregon Foster Children’s Bill of Rights expands protections for children and youth in the state’s care, including assurance that kids can still see their siblings even when removed from their family of origin, and that they can bring precious possessions with them — among other protections. We talk with OPB Politics Reporter Lauren Dake to get more details about the legislation and how it’s expected to affect the lives of some of the most vulnerable children in the state.
The city of Hoboken, New Jersey, has had no traffic deaths for nine years straight. This streak is no fluke. It’s the result of focused efforts by the city’s planners and concerted leadership from elected representatives. Portland and other cities in Oregon are making some progress in their efforts to reduce these same kinds of deaths, which transportation planners like Lake McTighe say are largely preventable. McTighe is the principle transportation planner for Portland’s regional government Metro. She also manages its Safe Streets for All program, which aims to reduce deaths and serious injuries from traffic crashes. We sit down with McTighe to hear about the best practices that Hoboken and some other cities in the U.S. and other countries have used to eliminate traffic deaths — and get an update on the region’s progress toward that goal.
According to a new investigation from ProPublica, the U.S. Forest Service knew for years that firefighters were wearing clothing containing “forever chemicals” for years. Abe Streep, a reporter at ProPublica, joins us to discuss his story.
There’s a course being taught at the University of Oregon that’s unlike any class offered there before — and possibly the first of its kind in the nation, according to UO. Now in its second year, the course on hostage diplomacy is attracting undergraduates interested in pursuing careers in journalism, public relations and advertising.
The students hear from guest speakers, including family members of current and former hostages and experts who’ve helped negotiate the release of hostages and journalists who have been wrongfully detained by foreign governments. In the spring, students travel to Washington, D.C. to meet with Congressional staffers, U.S. State Department officials and NGOs like The James W. Foley Legacy Foundation and HostageUS.
The course is being co-taught by Jason Rezaian, the 2026 Eric W. Allen Faculty Fellow at UO and The Washington Post’s Director of Press Freedom Initiatives. While reporting in Tehran for The Washington Post, Rezaian was arrested by Iranian authorities in 2014 and wrongfully imprisoned for 544 days before the U.S. government secured his release in January 2016.
Rezaian joins us, along with three UO students who share their experiences with the course: Maren Fullerton, a senior double majoring in advertising and political science; Taylor Parker, a sophomore double majoring in advertising and cinema studies; and Aishiki Nag, a senior double majoring in political science and global studies.
When you open your eyes in the morning, become aware of the world around you and have your first thoughts about the day ahead … what exactly is happening inside your brain and body? What are the actual mechanisms of consciousness? And how did we go from single celled organisms to conscious beings? Or, for that matter, are single celled organisms conscious? All of these questions and more are addressed in Michael Pollan’s new book “A World Appears.” We talk to Pollan in front of an audience at Revolution Hall in Portland.
PeaceHealth Oregon has decided to use the Atlanta-based company ApolloMD to staff its emergency departments in Lane County, ending a decadeslong contract with Eugene Emergency Physicians. The decision led the group to hold a no-confidence vote in PeaceHealth leadership, which the hospitals’ medical staff supported overwhelmingly. In a statement, PeaceHealth said it selected ApolloMD based on “Lane County’s future emergency medicine needs and the type of resource required to meet increasingly high patient volumes and medical complexity.”
Margaret Pattison is the emergency department medical director at PeaceHealth RiverBend in Springfield and a member of Eugene Emergency Physicians. She joins us to talk about the decision and how the group is responding.
Snowpack in the West is facing a historic drought, and new research from the University of Washington shows that forest thinning with modern tools cannot only reduce wildfire risk, but it can also increase the snowpack in winter by up to 30%. The researchers suggest this could help recover lost water and safeguard future water supply.
Forest thinning involves shredding and mulching small trees, shrubs and brush -- vegetation that is least resistant to fire. Creating more gaps between trees opens up sections of the forest floor that are shaded by the remaining forest. Snow that's on shaded ground faces less sun exposure, preserving snowpack more efficiently than when the snow is caught by trees.
Cassie Lumbrazo, a research scientist at the University of Washington and the University of Alaska Southeast, joins us to explain the wide range of benefits these thinning methods can have on forest ecosystems and the impact these findings could have during a record-low year for snowpack in our region.
An unassuming house in Southeast Portland’s Buckman neighborhood was recently added to the National Register of Historic Places. Once known as “Juniper House,” the building served as one of the first end-of-life care homes for AIDS patients in the Pacific Northwest in the late 1980s. An OPB documentary at the time explored the lives of some of the patients in Juniper House and the neighboring Assisi House, which provided a range of care for patients with HIV/AIDS. Jan Weyeneth is one of the co-founders of Juniper House. Cayla McGrail is a former associate project manager for Portland’s LGBTQ+ Historic Sites Project, which sponsored the house’s listing. We first spoke with Weyeneth and McGrail in April 2025 about Juniper House and the importance of documenting queer history in Portland.
Rodger Deevers knows he’s a lucky man. He’s a financial advisor in Eugene with all his basic needs met — and then some. But in 2023, after he and his wife took a vacation to the island of Curaçao off the Venezuelan coast, he wanted to bring some of the sense of community and vibrant public art back to the Eugene-Springfield area — and contribute to area nonprofits.
He says he didn’t know quite how to begin, so he just started with an idea for one mural, at nonprofit NextStep Recycling, and decided to see if people were interested in helping him paint it. Dozens of people showed up — and the nonprofit was thrilled to have a mural on a space that would otherwise have remained unadorned. Deevers calls the project Lucky Enough Social Club, and now has a system of sorts, and volunteers who show up to paint. But he does most of the legwork, outreach and designing of the mural, in collaboration with whatever nonprofit is getting painted.
He says he’s seen the transformative power of creativity in the people who show up to volunteer, and calling attention to mental health and suicide prevention is one of the biggest motivations driving him. We first spoke with Deevers in July 2025 about the creation of the club and how he hopes to see it grow in the future.
Lakayana Yotoma Drury is an educator, social entrepreneur, community advocate, writer, poet, filmmaker—and now an editor-in-chief. He’s published a new magazine-formatted publication with a collection of essays, poems, and photographs he calls a “defiant anthem of Black joy and resilience against a backdrop of gentrification, community violence, miseducation, and white supremacy.” It’s called “503” and Yotoma Drury says the magazine is dedicated to Portland youth and also describes it as a “love letter to Portland.” We sit down with him to hear more about this new collection and its compelling themes — including Black history and stories, educating Black children and youth, and “Black Portland transplants” and their relationship to historic Black Portland.
The Trump administration attacked Iran over the weekend, bringing the US into a now widening conflict in the middle east. Airstrikes have killed leaders and senior officials in Iran, including the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Gatherings were held in Portland over the weekend to both protest and celebrate the military action in Iran. On Saturday, protesters gathered to condemn the US involvement in a war in Iran. On Sunday, hundreds of Iranian people in Portland gathered to celebrate the death of Khamenei, and to support the US and Israel’s military action against the Iranian government.
Samira Sahebi is the secretary of the board of directors at Free Iran PDX, a community support organization for Iranians living in Portland. Sahebi joins us to discuss the Iranian community in Oregon’s response to the ongoing conflict.
The Tualatin High School co-ed cheer team entered this competition season with the pressure of defending the state title they won last year. In response to that pressure? The team not only took first place at the state championships in Oregon City, but one week later, took home first place in the USA Spirit Nationals championship. They competed in the Advanced Co-Ed Varsity Large division, against varsity teams from across the US.
The team had just a few days to alter their routine for the national championships before they traveled to Anaheim, California, to compete for the national title.
Crystal Corona, the team’s coach, has been with the team at Tualatin High School for the last five years. She’s seen the class of 2026 through their entire high school careers. One of the team’s seniors is Elizabeth Klups, who said her role was “to keep the team calm” through their fast-paced competition season. Corona and Klups join us to discuss the wins and what it means to represent Oregon on a national stage.
The Columbia River Gorge Commission oversees land use and stewards both economic development and conservation efforts within the National Scenic Area. Robert Liberty served as the Multnomah County appointee to the commission since 2015, and was most recently reappointed in 2023. But he resigned earlier this year with more than a year to go in his term, citing “the gentrification of working lands with luxury homesites for the wealthy” and “the anti-conservation, pro-development interest of some of the Commission members,” among other reasons.
Oregon lawmakers must end the legislative session by March 8th. Bills are still moving through chambers, but several major issues remain unsettled, among them balancing the state’s general fund budget and solving transportation funding. OPB political reporter Dirk VanderHart joins us to talk about the key bills and developments in Salem as the session nears its end.
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I was impressed by Ms. Hardesty. She had lots of information and data and really seems to know her stuff. The others seemed light on data and heavy on the kind of phrases that don't contain any specifics about policy or plans, unfortunately. Dave Miller, as usual, is a fantastic interviewer. He never fails to ask what I would want to ask. Great episode.
Dave Miller (Interviewer): Let me make sure that we understand the numbers correctly. What I had understood from reporting- Chuck Bennett (the CITY MAYOR WHO AGREED TO THIS INTERVIEW): Well that may be the mistake right there haha Dave Miller: That's not a fair way to talk about the broad world of journalism.
Is this episode the "extended version"? If not where can I find the extended version?
great story Amelia! I can really tell how much work you put into this story