Think Out Loud

The Oregon Youth Authority is under heightened scrutiny following a wave of lawsuits alleging sexual abuse and a culture of neglect in the state’s youth correctional facilities. The agency, which has faced criticism for mishandling abuse complaints, now has a new appointed leader — Michael Tessean — who takes over from interim director Jana McLellan. That's after Gov. Tina Kotek fired longtime director Joe O’Leary earlier this year over a backlog of unaddressed abuse reports.   OPB politics reporter Lauren Dake joins us to discuss the recent lawsuits, the agency’s troubled history and what new leadership could mean for the future of juvenile justice in Oregon.  

 The third annual PNW Survival Games kick off this Friday at a campground in Molalla. Fifty people, organized into teams of two, will compete in a series of weekend-long challenges designed to test their outdoor survival skills, from building a fire and shelter to purifying water and building a raft from saplings and other foraged materials.    Participants who register for the $495 event are first taught the basics of those skills by survival instructors, some of whom have competed in reality TV shows such as “Naked and Afraid” and “Alone.” Each team then launches into a timed challenge to test their application of that skill, but with a twist – like trying to build a fire while shivering and cold after a plunge into the river. First, second and third-place teams win cash prizes and outdoor gear from sponsors.    PNW Survival Games’ co-founders Tony Peniche and Phil Robinson have aspirations to take their concept beyond its Oregon roots onto a much bigger stage by transforming it into a reality TV show picked up by Netflix or Amazon. They join us to share their vision and a preview of this weekend’s competition, along with Tom Ratts, a Vancouver resident who was part of a team that won first place in 2023 and who now volunteers at the games.  

A recent paper published in JAMA shows that Idaho has lost approximately 35 percent of doctors specializing in obstetrics and gynecology, leaving many counties without any maternal or reproductive health care providers at all.  That comes after the state passed one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the country after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. Amber Nelson, executive director of the Idaho Coalition for Safe Healthcare, says 85% of these practicing specialists work in just seven of the state’s urban counties.   Dr. Amelia Huntsberger was a practicing OBGYN in Idaho for many years before the ban. But after the ban, the emotional strain of navigating patient care amid the possibility of prosecution, led to the painful decision to uproot her family and move out of state. Huntsberger now practices in Eugene, but she says her family still deals with the grief that transition brought. We talk with her and Nelson about the larger trends and what they mean in the lives of women seeking reproductive and material care.  

The Portland-based nonprofit Smashing Barriers works with organizations including the Boys & Girls Clubs of America and Friendly House to offer free tennis clinics and organizes charity tournaments. Jiya Mehta and Rohan Shah, the co-founders, started the nonprofit while in high school. They aim to bring the organization to each state in the U.S. In addition to Oregon, the nonprofit already has chapters in Arizona, California and Texas. Shah and Mehta join us with more on how tennis has shaped their lives and their plans for growing Smashing Barriers.

The Sunset Empire Transportation District has provided public transportation in Clatsop County for more than 30 years. In 2023, the district had to temporarily stop service and lay off workers after it ran out of money due to financial mismanagement. The district has since gone through several leadership changes — the most recent executive director, Craig Johnston, stepped down late last year for personal reasons.David Carr recently took over as executive director of the district. He joins us to share his vision for public transit in Clatsop County amid state and federal funding challenges.

After a turbulent year in Deschutes County law enforcement, newly appointed interim Sheriff Ty Rupert says the office is at a turning point. Sworn in Aug. 1, Rupert steps into the role after the resignation of Kent van der Kamp, whose tenure ended after an investigation and a lifetime law enforcement ban. With 15 months to stabilize the department before next year’s election, Rupert inherits a department facing challenges with morale, public trust, and employee retention after the controversy.He joins us to discuss how he hopes to rebuild trust with the public and address cultural challenges within the sheriff’s office while serving the Deschutes County community.

For the past decade, pension investments made by the state have leaned heavily towards private equity. As reported in the Oregon Journalism Project, this choice has cost the state billions as this form of investments continued to be made despite advice from experts to diversify Oregon’s portfolio. Jim Neff is the managing editor for OJP and reported on this story. He joins us to share why the state stood by private equity investments and what this choice means for Oregonians.

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A mysterious wasting disease has been decimating sea star populations along the West Coast since 2013. The illness works quickly, causing sea stars to lose limbs and reducing them to a pile of goo in a matter of weeks. Sunflower sea stars have been particularly hard-hit —  roughly 90% of their global population has succumbed to the disease, possibly contributing to the demise of many West Coast kelp forests.   The cause of the wasting disease has stumped scientists for more than a decade. But now, a team of Northwest researchers have identified a bacteria that appears to be behind the illness.    Alyssa Gehman is a marine disease ecologist at the Hakai Institute, a marine research organization in British Columbia. She joins us with more details on what the breakthrough could mean for sea star recovery.  

Drywall is one of the most commonly used materials in construction — and one of the most wasteful. It's estimated that more than 10 percent of drywall from new buildings end up in landfills. The material can release harmful gasses, such as hydrogen sulfide, and act as a potential contaminant for groundwater. But two architecture professors at Washington State University’s School of Design and Construction have developed a way to turn this waste into something useful.   Taiji Miyasaka and David Drake have spent years developing and patenting a process to transform drywall scraps into usable building blocks — a substitute for bricks — and fire-resistant wall panels that are both known as Drywall Waste Technology. Made with up to 90 percent drywall waste, WSU estimates that excess material from just 16 new homes could produce enough DWT material to build one tiny home. Miyasaka and Drake’s products have earned international acclaim, winning the AZ Award for Environmental Leadership in Azure magazine’s global design competition.   David Drake joins us to explain how this technology could be a resource in addressing both housing shortages and construction waste.  

Earlier this summer, Clackamas Community College President Tim Cook embarked on an unique and physically daunting challenge: running roughly 1,500 miles to visit all 17 community colleges in Oregon. He kicked off his run on June 16 at Treasure Valley Community College in Ontario as a way to raise money and awareness of the financial hardships community college students in Oregon face, from food insecurity to not having enough money to pay rent or utility bills. In 2023, for example, nearly two-thirds of Portland Community College students who responded to a basic needs survey reported experiencing either homelessness, housing insecurity or food insecurity.   On Wednesday, Cook completed the last leg of his 52-day journey in Hood River when he arrived at Columbia Gorge Community College. His “Running for Oregon Community College Students” campaign has raised so far more than $130,000 for community colleges to distribute directly to students in need. Cook joins us for more details and to share his thoughts about the current and long-term challenges Oregon community colleges face.

There are nearly 5,000 wild horses grazing throughout Oregon. But according to the Bureau of Land Management, the state can only sustainably provide for just over 2,600 horses on public lands. To help manage herd populations, the agency works to find some wild horses new homes, and it's people like Kimber Teatro who help turn these wild mustangs into domesticated horses. Teatro has been a participant in the Mustang Adoption Challenge since 2019, where wild horse trainers are given more than 100 days to work with an animal and get them ready for adoption. During most of the year, Teatro can actually be found working as a tattoo artist in Portland, but during the summer, she takes a different tack, spending her days working with these wild horses. This year she will be showing her horse Finn at the competition, which takes place at the end of August in Albany. She joins us to share more

When musician Jermaine Malone set out to run an all ages venue in Portland, he wanted it to be a place for musicians and bands to perform and for fans young and old to come see them, sure. But he also wanted so much more. He wanted to provide good food and drinks of all kinds — and a space for open-mic nights, makers markets and even after school programs. The Heights Lounge and Events Space that opened in April is now exactly that. We sit down with Malone to talk more about his space, which he says is the only wholly Black-owned venue in the state.

Southern Oregon University recently announced plans to cut 15% of its budget over three years. The proposal would eliminate 15 majors and 11 minors, and lead to the elimination of more than 60 positions through a combination of layoffs, voluntary retirements and not filling vacancies. SOU President Rick Bailey attributes the university’s ongoing financial crisis to a number of factors including declining enrollment, decreased state funding and federal actions by the Trump administration.   Sage TeBeest is a creative arts program assistant at SOU and the president of SEIU 503 Sublocal 84, which represents classified staff at the university. She joins us with more on how union members are reacting to the cuts.  

While still a junior at Grant High School in 2022 Alex Sahli submitted a design for a LEGO set of the Italian Riviera. At 17 years old, he had already submitted five designs for sets to LEGO Ideas. That’s an online platform which allows fans of the iconic toy building blocks to upload a design of their own creation and win enough votes of support from fellow LEGO enthusiasts for the company to review it and possibly turn it into a mass produced set. Sahli’s submission of an Italian village scene featured, among other details, a Vespa scooter, fishing boat, gelato shop and brightly colored buildings with tiled roofs.   But it wasn’t until two years later, in 2024, when Sahli was a college freshman, that LEGO informed him that his design had been accepted for production. Later this month, the Italian Riviera set will go on sale, with more than 3,000 pieces and nine minifigures, including one immortalizing the designer himself as a camera-toting tourist.  Sahli joins us to talk about the experience of designing a LEGO set and his other original creations that are attracting a following on social media. 

Nearly 50 years ago, a Seattle juvenile court judge came up with the idea of using trained volunteers to appear in court to speak on behalf of abused and neglected children as a way to get more information about their individual cases. Today, nearly a thousand local Court Appointed Special Advocate programs exist in 49 states, including Oregon. CASA volunteers provide the court with regular updates about a child’s particular case and make recommendations about their placement, informed through monthly visits with the child and discussions with their teachers, counselors and others involved in their welfare.   But meeting the growing need for CASAs in Oregon and the rest of the nation is getting tougher. In April, the national CASA organization announced the termination of federal grants totaling millions of dollars which would have been disbursed to state and local CASA programs. That’s in addition to the loss of a $1.7 million federal community project grant earmarked for Oregon’s 19 local CASA programs.    Joining us to share their experiences are Amy Muñoz, who has been serving Jackson County as a CASA volunteer for seven years, and Rachel Robb, who was sworn in as a CASA volunteer serving  Malheur County in January.  

With the Trump administration’s dismantling of environmental regulations and total reversal on policies to combat climate change, activists have filed lawsuits and requests for injunctions all over the country. The latest development is the Trump-led Environmental Protection Agency reversing the long-standing “endangerment finding” that greenhouse gases threatened human health and welfare. One environmental law professor at Harvard called it “an assault on the foundation of all federal climate policy.” Lewis & Clark environmental law professor Melissa Powers says Oregon — and other states — do have options to fight climate change, besides filing individual lawsuits. She says one viable strategy would be for Oregon to create a Climate Superfund. We talk with her about what unraveling of environmental regulations is likely to mean in Oregon and more about the potential for an Oregon Climate Superfund.

The Oregon Bee Atlas provides comprehensive data about the state’s native bees and the plants they need to thrive. With the help of volunteers, researchers have gathered information of about 800 different bee species in the state. Andony Melathopoulos is an associate professor in the Department of Horticulture at Oregon State University. Lincoln Best is a taxonomist for the Oregon Bee Atlas. They join us with more on the project and the role volunteers have played in uncovering more about Oregon’s bees.

The warmth and sunshine of summer makes it an especially ideal time  in Oregon to recreate outdoors and experience the state’s bounty of hiking trails, rivers, mountain peaks and other scenic attractions. But that spike in outdoor recreation can also lead to more calls for potentially life-saving search and rescue missions by law enforcement in remote locations. Linn County is one of the many counties in the state that have well-established search and rescue programs that rely heavily on unpaid volunteers, including youth as young as 14 years old.    The Linn County Sheriff’s Office has been operating a youth search and rescue program for more than 30 years. The bootcamp-style training academy is open to youth ages 14 to 18 years old who are taught first aid, shelter and fire building, navigation using compasses and maps and learning how to search for and gather evidence of possible crimes in wilderness areas. The majority of the personnel responding to search and rescue missions in Linn County are youth volunteers, who age out of the program when they turn 21.    Ric Lentz, emergency manager and search and rescue coordinator for the Linn County Sheriff’s Office, and Drew Funk, a 19-year-old volunteer who has been with the county’s youth SAR program for four years, join us to share the critical role youth play in SAR missions and describe how that role has evolved in recent years.  

The Trail Blazers are up for sale for the first time in 37 years. And there’s a real fear among fans — and elected officials —that if Portland doesn’t play its cards right, the new owner could move the team to another city. Gov. Tina Kotek and Portland Mayor Keith Wilson sent a letter recently to NBA Commissioner Adam Silver stating their emphatic support for keeping the team here. Marshall Glickman, whose father founded the team and served as the president of the organization, along with former player and gubernatorial candidate Chris Dudley are among those who created Rip City Forever to advocate for doing whatever it takes to keep the Blazers in Portland. Specifically, the team will need a new or upgraded arena. Glickman and Dudley join us to tell us how they hope to help the city avoid losing the economic boost and civic pride that the Blazers bring.

The College Assistance for Migrants Program, or CAMP, has supported children of migrant farmworkers for more than 50 years — helping students who often face financial hardship, language barriers, and limited academic preparation navigate their first year of college. But this year, the federal funds that sustain CAMP programs across the country have been frozen, despite being approved by Congress for the 2025 fiscal year. At Portland Community College, the delay in nearly $475,000 in funding threatens to halt scholarships, mentorship, and key support services that many students rely on to stay enrolled and succeed.Greg Contreras, who runs PCC’s program, and sophomore Atziri Lopez — a former CAMP student and current peer mentor for the program — join us to discuss how the funding freeze is already disrupting students’ lives, and what could be lost if the program is forced to shut down.

Two new laws that passed in the Oregon Legislature are pushing the state toward what other countries have done to address housing: state-level zoning laws. As Sightline Institute reports, HB 2258 and HB 2138 seem to give the state much more authority and the power to override local zoning codes. Oregon has been making changes to zoning laws since 2017, and this new approach follows countries such as Japan and Australia. Micheal Andersen is the director of Cities and Towns at Sightline Institute. He joins us to share more on what these new laws could mean for the future of home development in the state.

Southern Oregon University is currently facing a financial emergency. The current budget for the institution is roughly $71 million, but cuts need to be made to drop that number to $60 million. President Rick Bailey points to a number of factors contributing to the crisis, including the lack of state support and actions from the Trump administration. Bailey’s new proposal to cut costs includes declaring a financial exigency that could impact more than 60 employees and possibly result in cutting 15 academic majors. Bailey joins us to share more on the financial state of the institution.

In western Lane County, the unincorporated community of Mapleton has struggled with its water infrastructure. Community leaders had stitched together funding to improve Mapleton’s system. That patchwork included federal funding from the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and FEMA, according to reporting by KLCC.  While it’s been able to claw back some money with the help of lawmakers, the community has still lost funds and resources after federal changes. Art Donnelly is the vice chair of the board of commissioners of the Mapleton Water District. He joins us with more details about Mapleton's situation and what’s at stake for those living in rural areas with failing infrastructure.

Several communities in Oregon have bought portions of their surrounding forests to more directly manage their natural resources. The “community forest” model has been used to manage for wildfire risk, drinking water quality, recreation and more. The Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board recently awarded grants to six cities to protect forests around their drinking water sources. The funding allows them to purchase land, arrange for conservation easements and pay back debt on property they’ve already acquired within their watershed.   We’ll hear more from Ann Vileisis, mayor of Port Orford, which received one of the grants. We’ll also learn about community forests more broadly from Dylan Kruse, president of the conservation nonprofit Sustainable Northwest.  

A group of Native American youth recently completed the first full descent of the Klamath River since the four largest dams on the river were removed last fall. Kayakers traveled more than 300 miles over 30 days on the source-to-sea trip, which was organized by the Paddle Tribal Waters program. Julian Rogers and Kiahna Allen both participated in the trip. They join us to share more about their experience.

Orcas, also known as killer whales, are among the most well-studied marine mammals, captivating the public and scientists alike with their intelligence, strong social bonds and complex behaviors. Scientists recently documented critically endangered Southern Resident orcas in the Salish Sea using kelp as a grooming tool. They have also been observed wearing carcasses of salmon on their heads, either as a sign of playfulness or to eat at a later date, according to marine scientists.     And now another surprising behavior of orcas has come to light. A recently published paper documented nearly three dozen examples recorded over a 20-year period of wild orcas offering prey like dead birds, seals, and fishes to humans. The displays appear to be efforts by both male and female orcas around the world to share their food with another apex predator, possibly done out of altruism, relationship-building or for play.  Joining us to share more is Jared Towers, the lead author of the paper and executive director of Bay Cetology, a research and whale conservation organization in British Columbia. 

Earlier this month, Mount Rainier experienced its most powerful seismic swarm ever recorded by the U.S. Geological Survey. More than 1,000 earthquakes have been detected at the mountain since July 8 — far above the volcano’s usual activity level — and the swarm is still continuing.    However, despite the levels of seismic activity, the USGS’s Cascades Volcano Observatory say there’s no sign of magma movement or volcanic unrest. Instead, they believe the swarm was triggered by underground fluids shifting through cracks deep below the mountain.  Research geophysicist Alexandra Iezzi joins us to explain what makes Rainier a unique geological phenomenon and what scientists are watching for.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has recently leased out more than 5,000 acres of public land for geothermal energy in Malheur County. Leasing of the land is the first step in developing geothermal resources - specifically, the production of electricity from heat within the earth. But how common is geothermal energy in the U.S. and what potential is there for its widespread use  in Oregon? Adam Schultz is a geophysics professor at Oregon State University and the president of Enthalpion Energy LLC, a geothermal company. He joins us to answer these questions and more.

Multnomah County won’t renew its contract with Rockwood Community Development Corporation, a nonprofit based in Gresham, according to reporting by Willamette Week. The county stated it had stopped funding the homeless service provider after the organization double-counted costs and charged for rooms that were closed for repairs, according to Willamette Week. Rockwood CDC disputed the allegations and stated Multnomah County owed it $1.1 million in overdue payments. Anthony Effinger is a Willamette Week reporter. He’s been covering the issue and joins us with details.

Lakeridge High School senior Elaina Stuppler is no stranger to the spotlight. She performs in the Portland Youth Philharmonic, playing trombone - but she also plays tuba, piano and composes music as well. She’s regularly featured on All Classical Radio as a reporter and Artist in Residence. But the last few months have been a veritable cavalcade of honors and opportunities. Stuppler won the Musical Theater Songwriting Challenge. Her winning composition, about the life of Maria Anna Mozart, was performed  by Broadway musicians and singers in New York this summer. She was just one of five students in the U.S. chosen by the Grammy Museum for its summer screen scoring program in LA. She is also a winner of the prestigious YoungArts Award with Distinction, Stuppler joins us to share some of her compositions, and tell us about what these honors mean to her and what opportunities they may open up for her future.  

The federal government recently ended its specialized suicide prevention hotline for LGBTQ+ youth. Previously, callers could press 3 when they called the national suicide and crisis lifeline to be connected with counselors who were specifically traines to help queer youth. Now, all calls will be directed to the general 988 hotline.    Lines for Life operates several crisis hotlines in Oregon, including a dedicated YouthLine. It also answers the majority of 988 calls made in the state. Greg Borders, the organization’s chief clinical officer, joins us to talk about the suicide prevention resources still available to LGBTQ+ communities.   If you or someone you know is struggling, you can call or text 988 to reach the national suicide and crisis lifeline. Help is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  

From students using artificial intelligence for schoolwork, to others seeking chatbots for companionship, our relationship with technology continues to change. But are the ways we use AI healthy, and what long-term effects could they have on us socially? Naomi Aguiar is the associate director of research at OSU’s Ecampus and an expert on children and adult relationships with imaginary friends and AI chatbots. She joins us to answer these questions and more.

In the late 2000s, unexplained mass die-offs of oysters at Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery in Tillamook, Oregon helped scientists uncover a major threat to coastal ecosystems: ocean acidification.    Today, Oregon’s coast remains one of the areas most affected by this phenomenon. Each summer, deep ocean waters rich in carbon dioxide and low in oxygen rise to the surface — a natural process known as upwelling — creating corrosive conditions that make it harder for shellfish like oysters and crabs to form shells and survive.    Researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Oregon State University are currently on a scientific cruise to track acidification and low oxygen levels in real time along the Oregonian coast. Zachary Gold, a researcher with NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Lab joins us to share what scientists are seeing right now in Oregon’s waters.  Alan Barton, production manager at Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery, talks about what these conditions mean for local shellfish growers and how they’re working to adapt.  

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 two years ago, 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 hear more from Deevers about the creation of the club and how he hopes to see it grow in the future.

Unlike some other counties in Oregon and across the country, Multnomah County has remained committed to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts. However, a recent audit found that the county has some work to do on its DEI initiatives.  Across the county Asian employees are less likely to be supervisors, Black or African American employees are less likely to pass the trial service period and are more likely to be fired, and LGBTQIA employees are more likely to quit. Multnomah County Auditor Jennifer McGuirk joins us to discuss the audit findings.

Isha Marla is a 14-year-old with a love for science who recently finished her last year at Tumwater Middle School in the Beaverton School District. She is also just one of 10 students in the nation, and the only one from Oregon, who made it to the finalist round of a national science competition sponsored by Discovery Education and 3M, which manufactures a vast array of products, from Post-It Notes to stethoscopes.    The 3M Young Scientist Challenge is open to middle school students who for this year’s competition submitted a short video to describe their scientific solution to a real-world problem. Marla’s entry focuses on using a material she made from seaweed and other ingredients to produce an environmentally sustainable fabric for making clothes. Her proposal aims to counter the phenomenon of fast fashion associated with brands like Shein, H&M and Uniqlo that are popular with consumers eager to buy the latest fashion trends at low prices. But chasing those trends at bargain prices can take a heavy environmental toll, with nearly two-thirds of discarded clothes ending up in a landfill, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.    Marla joins us for more details about her entry and chance to win a cash prize and the title of “America’s Top Young Scientist” this fall.  

Everyone Village, a transitional shelter program in Eugene, is partnering with PeaceHealth to open 10 tiny homes where unhoused patients can safely recover from surgery. As reported by KLCC, the project will also include a medical clinic to provide primary care to all residents of the village. Patients in the recuperation cottages will have full access to Everyone Village’s suite of wraparound services during their stay.    Gabe Piechowicz is the founder and executive director of Everyone Village, and Susan Blane is the director of community health at PeaceHealth Oregon. They both join us to talk about the new effort to improve health outcomes in Eugene’s homeless population.  

Public broadcasters large and small have been reacting to the unprecedented Congressional vote to pull already-approved funding for public media. In Oregon and Washington, public radio stations face an array of challenges, depending on their size and resources. Some radio stations play nationally-produced NPR content, but not all. Many are squarely focused on covering their local community news with locally produced programs. Tribal stations, rural stations, student-driven stations and classical music stations are among those  hardest hit. Joining us to tell us more are KMUN Station Manager Susan Peterson in Astoria; Northwest Public Broadcasting’s Director of Audience and Programming Sueann Ramella in Pullman, WA; KWSO's Sue Matters on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation; and KLCC reporter Zac Ziegler in Eugene. OPB is among the public media organizations affected by the rescission cuts.

Renaissance fairs have long been a place for workers and visitors alike to find community amid the trappings of a fictional medieval town. “Merchants” bring their wares to hawk, while various “guilds” provide the entertainment, from jousting to smithing to demonstrating medieval textile arts.   But some longtime guild workers at the Washington Midsummer Renaissance Faire have pulled out of the festival due to what they describe as bad management and poor working conditions. They say the organization that puts on the fair – which also operates the Oregon Renaissance Faire and Oregon Celtic Festival – has prioritized profits over maintaining the sense of community that workers and volunteers value. Nathalie Graham is a former freelance reporter who now writes for The Seattle Stranger. She looked into these complaints in a recent article for InvestigateWest and joins us with more details.

Last October, Patrick Leonard opened Postcard Bookshop, fusing his love for literature with his love for travel. Located in Portland’s Central Eastside neighborhood, the store’s shelves are organized according to countries or regions, from Africa to Oceania and the Pacific Northwest. In addition to travel guides, phrase books and cookbooks showcasing world cuisines, novels on display provide passage to new cultures and worldly journeys.   But running a bookstore geared to customers planning or returning from vacations has made Leonard rethink what it means to be a global traveler today. From Google Translate to Instagram, Airbnb and Uber, social media and apps are changing tourism and the communities impacted by it. Throngs of visitors to popular destinations are fueling a rise in overtourism which is straining resources, prompting street protests and pricing locals out of the housing market, from Hawai’i to Portugal. Leonard joins us for a discussion about overtourism and the challenge of being an ethical tourist.

Many states in the U.S. have legalized cannabis either medically or recreationally, but without legalization at the federal level regulation is left to states, including testing for contaminants and THC levels. New reporting from Undark, an online science magazine, found that in some states, including Oregon, independent labs were inflating THC level numbers and providing fraudulent results. Teresa Carr, a senior contributor at Undark, joins us to share more on lab testing and what some states are doing to combat fudged results.