Think Out Loud

Between AI chatbots, social media influencers and websites offering medical advice, it can be difficult to parse the vast amount of health information online. It also presents a challenge to physicians and other healthcare providers who are fielding questions from patients based on what they’ve read online.   Kristin Whitman is the head of information and learning services at the Oregon Health & Science University Library. Fabrice Jotterand directs the university’s Center for Ethics in Health Care. They join us to offer advice on how to navigate chatbots and other online resources in health-related situations.  

At a time when many rural hospitals are either closing or merging with larger, urban health systems, a group of Oregon hospitals want to try something different.   Eleven hospitals and health systems are asking for state approval to form a clinically integrated network. They say the partnership will allow them to share resources while maintaining their independence.    Landon Dybdal is the CEO of Lake Health District and the chair of the proposed Cascade High Value Network. Nate White is the CEO and president of Cibolo Health, which has helped establish these networks in other states. They both join us to talk about the new partnership.  

The Major League Baseball playoffs began on Tuesday. As fans around the nation watch the action, one lifelong fan of the sport in Sisters is busy fielding emails or answering calls to see if he might be available to talk baseball, or rather, baseball cards.    Michael Blesius is the owner of Sports Card Ink, a store in downtown Sisters that specializes in vintage baseball cards and is open for just about three hours a week, by appointment only. Blesius opened it roughly six years ago as a place to house – by his estimation – nearly 2 million baseball cards he has collected over the decades, along with sports memorabilia dating to the 19th century.    The Bulletin recently profiled Blesius, who refers to Sports Card Ink as his “high blood pressure medicine” and a place for making connections, not profits. A good day at work might be spent appraising a collection, hearing stories from a retired professional player, or giving away cards to children who never got to see Willie Mays make an over-the-shoulder catch at the Polo Grounds.  

The future of a new homeless shelter in Grants Pass is in question after the shelter and the organization providing wraparound services ended their working agreement. Under the terms of a lawsuit settlement, Grants Pass is required to provide space for 150 unhoused people in the city, which the shelter is meant to fulfill.   The shelter, known as Parker’s Place Village, is required to provide case management, housing navigation and other wraparound services in addition to basic needs such as clean drinking water, around-the-clock staffing and sanitation. Local organization MINT agreed to provide those services and was already paying for security, utility and trash service at the shelter. But it will end those services Oct. 15.   Reporter Jane Vaughan has been covering these developments for Jefferson Public Radio. She joins us with more details.  

Mazama Energy, a Texas-based geothermal company, has recently secured more than $135 million to dig deeper and harvest heat for renewable energy. Project Ceres, which the funding will be put toward, is a horizontal well development in Central Oregon and could generate more than 15 megawatts of power next year. That’s enough to power 4,500 homes. OPB climate reporter Monica Samayoa joins us to share more on geothermal energy in Oregon and its future.

Tape Op is an independently published magazine about the art and science of recording music founded 30 years ago and edited by Portland music producer and studio owner Larry Crane. The magazine features interviews with the skilled technicians and creative minds who help bands and artists realize their vision in the recording studio. The albums they’ve worked on span decades and genres, from hip-hop to bluegrass, pop to death metal and more.    “Making Music: Conversations with Record Producers,” is a newly published collection of interviews from the Tape Op archives. Crane co-edited the book with Tape Op publisher John Baccigaluppi. It contains two dozen conversations Crane and others did with producers who’ve worked with artists like U2, Kendrick Lamar and The Beatles. Crane joins us to share the enduring appeal of Tape Op and the songs that still inspire him in the studio and beyond.  

 A course at Portland Community College is currently being taught where students use styrofoam, clays, paints and their imaginations to create “haunted” charcuterie boards adorned with fake moldy cheeses, unappetizing crackers and rancid-looking slices of deli meats.    Olivia Vavroch, a Portland artist, teacher and theater designer, is teaching the Halloween-themed class. The Portland Mercury recently profiled Vavroch in its Fall Arts issue, describing the career transition she made into the world of theater several years ago after contracting long COVID-19. Vavroch designs and dresses sets, specializing in making custom theater props that include fake foods like cake or lasagna that can help bring depth to performances and layers of authenticity to the story. She is also one of dozens of artists whose work is being featured in “Inconvenience Store,” an interactive art exhibit currently taking place inside a former 7-Eleven in downtown Seattle.    Vavroch joins us to share more details about the delicious art of making fake food.   

More than 2,500 zoo and aquarium professionals will gather in Portland this week for the annual Association of Zoos and Aquariums conference.The nonprofit organization is dedicated to advocating for the advancement of zoos and aquariums, as well as being the accrediting body for high-standards of care for animals. Dan Ashe is the president and CEO of the AZA. He joins us to discuss the role of zoos today and their future.

Public school districts across the region are facing dropping enrollment, budget cuts, and other financial strains. Many districts are planning for school consolidation and closures as a solution. Closing schools is one way to preserve resources and balance budgets, but it’s a deeply personal matter to families, teachers, administrators, and the broader community. Two of the school districts that have announced they’re weighing options for school closures in coming years: Evergreen Public Schools in Washington, and Salem-Keizer in Oregon. We speak with Will Denner, education reporter at The Columbian, as well as Eddy Binford-Ross, a Report for America Corps member who covers education for the Salem Reporter. They share more about the challenges the districts are facing and the solutions they’re deliberating.  

Menopause is one of the biggest transitions women go through, and for some, the most difficult. For many, it’s a challenge to get medical care and other support during those years. That’s because research and education about menopause and perimenopause has been severely lacking, as well as the cultural space to center women’s experiences — particularly around menses, perimenopause and menopause.   Oregon author Lidia Yuknavitch aims to expand that space with a new book of essays she edited. “The Big M” is a collection by 13 different writers reflecting on their experiences of menopause and perimenopause. The book uses these distinct but unified perspectives to rebrand and reinvent our understanding of “the big change.”   Portland authors Cheryl Strayed and Monica Drake contributed their stories to the book. They join us, along with Yuknavitch, to discuss their essays and their perspectives about the cultural conversation about menopause.  

George Saunders’ biting, imaginative short stories and novels have made him one of America’s most celebrated authors. His 2017 novel “Lincoln in the Bardo,” which won the Man Booker Prize, follows Abraham Lincoln as he grapples with a host of spirits following his son’s death. In his most recent novel, “Vigil,” Saunders returns to the afterlife to explore corporate greed, climate change and the nature of salvation.    Saunders joins us to talk about life, death and everything in between in front of a live audience of students at Portland’s McDaniel High School. 

Freddy Trujillo has a long history in Portland. Originally from California, he moved to Portland in 1993 and has made a name for himself as a bassist. He has performed with Richmond Fontaine and the Delines, but his latest work is a solo project.   “Ave Trujillo,” his fifth solo album, will be released Friday. It is shaped and inspired by his love of avian creatures and birding, which he uses to tell stories of grief, displacement and environmental change. Trujillo joins us to share more on his latest album and gives an in-studio performance.  

Retiree Christina Maier moved from Portland five years ago to Tollgate, a subdivision two miles west of Sisters surrounded by the Deschutes National Forest. She quickly set to work helping her community improve its wildfire resiliency, starting with her own home. Nearly two years ago, it became the first home in Oregon to receive a Wildfire Prepared Home designation by the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety. She has also made fire risk assessments on 175 properties in Tollgate and won a state grant to remove diseased ponderosa pines and conduct other forest thinning work.    Maier is now receiving national recognition for her wildfire resiliency efforts. Last week, she was named one of 10 finalists in the national Neighbor of the Year contest sponsored by Neighbors Bank, which will award $20,000 to the winner. Maier was nominated by Kellen Klein, executive director of Sisters nonprofit Citizens4Community. (Klein was interviewed on “Think Out Loud” last September to talk about community-building efforts and recovery from the Flat Fire.)     Maier joins us to discuss her nomination and efforts to help her neighbors.  

The Trump administration's approach to immigration enforcement has been multi-pronged: detentions and rapid deportation, warrantless arrests, the deployment and attempted deployment of the National Guard, and in some cases lethal force. All of these tactics have been challenged in courts. In Oregon, civil rights groups and immigrant advocates won a significant victory in February, when a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction preventing ICE agents from making arrests without a warrant, except in certain circumstances. But the Innovation Law Lab says that the Administration is still carrying out warrantless arrests, and the non-profit was in court this week asking the judge to enforce his order. We get the details from Joni Auden Land, legal affairs reporter for OPB.

When you hear the term sex education, you might think of classes for kids in public schools. But what Charla Hathaway means by that is far broader. She’s an author with a PhD in human sexuality, and she also became a sex worker for a short time at age 55. She’s now 78, and over the last two decades, Hathaway has given a wide variety of classes and workshops about intimacy, touch, sensuality and sexuality. She says she wants to remove shame around bodies and sexuality in the culture and make those topics normal—not taboo—to talk about. Hathaway joins us to share more about her life and work and the one-woman show based on her work, titled “Naked at My Age.” She’s now performing a follow-up called “More Naked Than Ever.”

Today is the last game and the official end of the season for the Rose City’s WNBA team the Portland Fire. After more than two decades since the team folded, the return of the Fire made it the 15th team to be a part of the WNBA. While the team did not make play-offs, they did better than expected and won the hearts of many fans. Tonight they will face the Golden State Valkyries at the Moda Center. Kyra Buckley is OPB’s business reporter and has been covering the Fire. She joins us to share more on the team's first season.

On average, more than 3 calls a day are made to 911 that report someone who may be trying to end their life at a Portland bridge. That’s according to new reporting from the Oregonian/OregonLive.com. In Goose Hollow, the Vista Bridge saw five suicides in one year, leading to a bridge barrier being built in 2013. These barriers are often fences or netting aiming at preventing suicides. But why can’t these be built on other bridges? And how safe are Portland's other bridges and overpasses today? Oregonian reporter Isabel Funk wrote about this and joins us now to share more about what she found.

In Europe, dogs have been used for centuries for their keen sense of smell to locate prized black and white truffles which can fetch hundreds or thousands of dollars a pound depending on their variety. In Oregon and the Pacific Northwest, using dogs to sniff out truffles is relatively new and growing in popularity. There are even training classes and an annual truffle dog contest held at the Oregon Truffle festival.    Oregon has four varieties of gourmet edible truffles, but there are hundreds of species of these mysterious fungi growing on the roots of conifer and oak trees across the state. So what if you could use a dog’s nose to home in on the odor signatures of all sorts of truffles, not just the commercially valuable ones, for a better scientific understanding of truffle biodiversity? That’s the goal of Heather Dawson, a doctoral student in the biology department at University of Oregon. She trained her golden retriever, Rye, to detect dozens of different kinds of truffles in the Willamette Valley alone. Dawson joined us in March 2025 to share her work and the attention it’s attracting among other scientists and forest foragers.  

Frederick Law Olmsted, best known for designing Central Park in New York City and Prospect Park in Brooklyn, is regarded as the pioneer of modern landscape architecture. The Olmsted firm went on to design over 6,000 landscapes in North America under general guiding principles of creating accessible green spaces and preserving nature. A colleague of the Olmsted brothers, Emanuel Mische, went on to become the Portland Parks Superintendent in 1908 and had a hand in designing Laurelhurst, Sellwood, Kenilworth, Peninsula and Washington parks in Portland under the Olmsted school of thought.   This year’s annual Olmsted Conference, which is taking place in Portland, is focused on the theme of sustaining public landscapes. Sue Brietkoph, president of the Olmsted Network, and Jim Sjulin, longtime Portland Parks employee and board member of the 40-Mile-Loop Land Trust, both join us to discuss how this rich history and legacy of landscape architecture overlaps with Oregon’s green spaces.  

In 2024, two civic organizations began partnering on a yearly survey to gauge how residents in Portland felt about some important elements that contribute to quality of life in a city. North Star Civic Foundation and the Oregon Values and Beliefs Center asked more than 1,200 Portland adults how effective they feel local government is, whether they feel represented and what services they think should be prioritized.  North Star Civic Foundation Research Director Marina Kaminksy joins us to share results from the latest survey and how they compare to the last two years.

On Saturday, the Maryhill Museum of Art in Goldendale will celebrate its centennial anniversary with free admission and activities honoring the museum’s unique history and identity. Perched on a bluff overlooking the Columbia Gorge, visitors can explore the museum’s many collections that include Indigenous baskets and beadwork, sculptures by Auguste Rodin and hundreds of chess sets from around the world. The museum’s sprawling grounds boast a full-scale replica of Stonehenge and sculptures made by Pacific Northwest artists.    The day's festivities also include Romanian folk dancing and music as a tribute to Queen Marie of Romania’s visit to the site 100 years ago to dedicate the museum co-founded by her friend and entrepreneur,  Sam Hill. Three current exhibits showcase the museum’s cultural ties to Romania, including new displays of Romanian pottery and embroidered textiles.    Amy Behrens is the executive director and CEO of the Maryhill Museum of Art. Michael Oros is the master of ceremonies for Saturday’s events, president of the Romanian American Society and a member of the museum’s board of trustees. They join us to preview Saturday’s program and the special exhibits celebrating the museum’s history.   

MusicOregon recently embarked on a statewide listening tour to hear from musicians, venue owners and others in the industry. The nonprofit held sessions online and in Hood River, Tillamook, Salem, Eugene, Jacksonville, Bend and Pendleton to get a sense of how the music industry is faring across the state. Music professionals can also share their thoughts with the organization through an online survey.   Tim Wilson is the board president of MusicOregon. He joins us to share what they learned about Oregon’s music landscape.  

Since January 2025, the Trump administration has drastically slashed the size of the federal workforce through layoffs, cuts and buyout offers led initially by the Department of Government Efficiency. The scope of staff losses recently came into focus at one agency – the  U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.    The Center for Biological Diversity found that the agency lost 36% of its staff between 2024 and 2026. CBD obtained USFWS staff rosters in response to a Freedom of Information Act records request the advocacy organization had filed. As first reported by the Oregon Capital Chronicle, the data shows a loss of 40% USFWS staff in Oregon alone, including wildlife biologists, wildland firefighters and equipment operators.    Noah Greenwald is the endangered species co-director at the CBD. He says that the loss of experienced USFWS employees with specialized expertise of vulnerable plants and animals jeopardizes the agency’s ability to carry out its obligations under the Endangered Species Act. That includes listing species as endangered or threatened, like the monarch butterfly and Chinook salmon. Earlier this month, CBD and two other organizations sued the USFWS to spur ESA protections for northwestern and southwestern pond turtles.     Greenwald joins us to share more details about the agency’s reduced workforce and its impact in Oregon.   

President Trump has proposed cutting the funding for cleaning up the radioactive waste at Hanford by $400 million, and the House Appropriations Committee proposed even bigger cuts. Washington’s senior U.S. Senator Patty Murray long fought for “a budget that lives up to the federal government’s moral and legal obligation” to clean up decades of highly radioactive waste. Although Hanford got a record $3.2 billion for the current fiscal year, the Washington State Ecology Department said the actual amount needed to fully fund the cleanup is $6.15 billion, and that $6.76 billion will be needed for 2027. We talk with Murray about Hanford and how Congressional budget negotiations are going.

During the 2020 Labor Day fires in Oregon, Sierra Lindsey Kos saw first hand the effects of climate change. As she was rushing to take her sick newborn to a hospital in Portland, she had to traverse through burning fires, a red sky and ash all around her, filling her with fear. As reported in the New York Times, she would then help found and lead Extreme Weather Survivors, a support group and advocacy network that has grown to more than 2,500 people.   Amy Dishion is one of those members. Before moving to Salem, Oregon, she lost her husband to extreme heat in Arizona. Dishion and Kos join us to share their stories and the work the group does for survivors across the country.   

How can older adults with mobility or vision impairments safely evacuate during an emergency? What medications or assistive devices would they need to bring with them to a shelter? How can emergency workers communicate the urgency of a situation to older adults with cognitive impairments?   A new training program has been helping first responders in some of Oregon’s rural communities answer those questions. The training was conducted by the Oregon Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Program, which aims to increase access to age-friendly care in underserved areas.   Union County Emergency Manager Nick Vora participated in the training. He joins us, along with Laura Byerly, program director for the Oregon Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Program.  

Last week, Portland State University hosted its first ever Indigenous Foods Summit. Across two days, presenters taught a host of workshops sharing place-based knowledge focused around food sovereignty.   Emma Johnson, Cowlitz, is the program coordinator of the Indigenous Traditional Ecological and Cultural Knowledge Program at PSU, and Isabel Lacourse is a Colville descendant and on the planning team for the Northwest Indigenous Food Sovereignty Alliance. They both organized the summit and join us to share their takeaways from the inaugural event.   9/16 Portland State University hosted their first ever Indigenous Foods Summit last week, with presenters who taught a host of workshops on topics sharing place-based knowledge focused on food sovereignty. We’ll hear from two of the organizers and presenters about some takeaways from the inaugural event.   

PassinArt began in 1982 and is the oldest continuously operating Black theatre in Oregon. Based in Portland, its mission is to “entertain, educate, and inspire artists and audiences while addressing critical issues facing our community.” The name is a nod to its vision of passing on art, history and culture from one generation to another. The company doesn’t just mount full scale theatrical productions, it also holds free monthly readings, festivals of new works, and other events.    And this weekend, PassinArt is inviting the whole Portland community to its Open House & Block Party. Artistic Director Jerry Foster says they want to introduce people to the new headquarters at the Albina Arts Center on NE  Killingsworth, along with all the different kinds of work PassinArt offers. We talk with Foster to learn about the kinds of plays the company stages, the new work it supports, and the community events it hosts.  

Ralph Bloemers has spent over two decades working in and around wildfire science and technology. He’s used documentary filmmaking as a vehicle for probing and documenting wildfires across the American West and contends that while wildfires are inevitable in Oregon, catastrophic community loss doesn’t have to be.   He makes a case for wildfire readiness techniques that homeowners can employ to reduce the risk of community conflagration or urban wildfire, like Spokane communities endured earlier this summer. We’ll speak to Bloemers about his recommendations for how homeowners can assist firefighters through wildfire readiness techniques and how his work documenting wildfires has informed his perspective on wildfire management.  

Heaven Doherty is the City of Hermiston’s building inspector. She starts her day at 7 a.m. by answering emails and sorting through same-day inspection requests filling up her inbox. By 9 a.m., she is in the field, doing 20 to 50 inspections until about 5 p.m. on projects ranging from single family homes to apartment complexes with hundreds of units and data centers the size of football fields. On one particularly busy day, she said she racked up six miles’ worth of steps while walking through job sites to inspect the plumbing, wiring, load-bearing walls and more.    And now, after just 18 months on the job, Doherty was awarded the Building Inspector of the Year award from the Oregon Building Officials Association. The Hermiston Herald previously reported news of the award which comes amid a construction boom in the city and rising demand for inspection services. Last year, Hermiston generated more than $200 million in building permit fees and 130 new homes were built.     Doherty shares what it’s like to be, as she says, a building inspector “living my best life in Eastern Oregon.”   

The Sonic Silents film festival opens Thursday at the Hollywood Theatre in Portland. The film composer and multi-instrumentalist Mark Orton recruited over 20 musicians to compose new, original scores for a curated selection of silent films at the inaugural festival that he created. Orton and his fellow musicians will peform the new compositions live in front of audiences inside the 100-year-old theater.    Among the highlights is Buster Keaton’s “The General,” which was filmed in Cottage Grove in 1926. For the film’s and the theater’s centennial anniversary, Orton will premiere an updated score he wrote for the 90th anniversary of “The General.”    Todd Sickafoose, a Eugene-based Tony and Grammy Award-winning producer, composer and bassist will join Orton on stage for the weekend performances. Sickafoose has also contributed an original score for “Daisy Doodad’s Dial,” a 1914 comedy short showing at the festival.    Orton and Sickafoose join us for a preview of Sonic Silents.   

Crime Stoppers of Oregon is shutting down at the end of this month after more than four decades of operation. Since its launch in 1983, the organization says it has received tens of thousands of anonymous tips from the public that have helped law enforcement solve hundreds of crimes, ranging from bank robberies to cold case homicides.     Chairman Henry Groepper is a retired Portland police officer who has been with Crime Stoppers of Oregon since its start. He served as its first coordinator and narrated public service announcements that aired on radio stations across the state offering cash rewards as high as $2500 for information about unsolved felonies.    But Groepper says in recent years, there has been a decline in the number of cash rewards the board has given out, including none so far this year. He says another factor in the board’s decision to end Crime Stoppers of Oregon was a data breach in March of a third-party company’s platform that Crime Stoppers programs, law enforcement and schools use to access confidential tips.    Groepper joins us to share more details about the decision to end Crime Stoppers of Oregon and his decades of service to it.  

Last Tuesday, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek appeared at an anti-data center rally in Salem where she announced she now supports a moratorium on new data centers. As OPB reported, the announcement shows Kotek has abandoned the cautious approach she had previously taken on an issue that’s gaining momentum with voters and raising the stakes in her bid for reelection in less than two months.    Within hours of Kotek’s announcement, gubernatorial opponent state Sen. Christine Drazan told KATU that she too supports an immediate pause on data centers and that they should provide benefits for communities that host them, among other requirements for approval. That’s a shift from just a few weeks ago when Drazan told OPB that she doesn’t support ending existing tax breaks for the roughly 120 data centers in the state.    Think Out Loud features OPB political reporters Dirk VanderHart and Lauren Dake explaining all this in the latest episode of the OPB Politics Now podcast.

Last month, Elijah Callan left Bend for a two-year road trip around the world. His primary mode of travel will be his Royal Enfield Himalayan motorcycle that he’ll log tens of thousands of miles on while traversing 64 countries across six continents.     Callan quit his job as a geologist to embark on this trip of a lifetime which he’s been planning for 14 years, ever since he was a student at Oregon State University and discovered the writings of Jack London one winter break. Those tales of hardship and adventure set on the high seas and frigid tundra inspired Callan’s love of writing, travel and meeting people from places a world away from his hometown of Bend.    Callan’s globe-trekking journey also opens a new professional chapter in his life as travel writer. The Bend Bulletin is publishing bimonthly dispatches written by Callan under a column he’s calling “Our Oregonian Abroad.” Callan joins us to talk about the first stop he wrote about and other places he’s excited to visit and share his experiences of.

There are over 130 data centers across Oregon. In the eastern part of the state, there are more than 50, many of which are owned and operated by Amazon Web Services. The tech-giant has brought millions to cities such as Hermiston, allowing for renovations to its city hall and library. But the data centers have also drawn criticism from local advocates for their water and energy use and environmental impacts. Roger Wehner is the vice president of economic development for Amazon. He joins us to share his company's perspective on data center investments in Oregon.

For adults of a certain age, the September 11th terrorist attacks in 2001 were a defining event, just as the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X were for earlier generations. The geopolitical world was forever altered, along with how many Americans thought about the country’s place in the world, and even how they thought about their own identity as citizens. Longtime journalist and University of Oregon professor Peter Laufer documents all of this in his new book, "We Are All Americans." It’s a series of interview excerpts, photos and reflections from the people he talked with on three separate cross-country road trips: one just days after 9/11, another in 2011, and the last in 2021. We talk with Laufer about what he learned, and we take your calls to hear your memories and reflections about this day in history, 25 years later.

Recent reporting from Investigate West shows that a disproportionate number of children in Oregon’s rural counties are more likely to enter the foster care system compared to those in urban areas. The reporting notes that wider barriers to health and social services in rural counties is often pointed out by providers and experts as a likely cause for this disparity.   Danielle Dawson is a collaborative investigative reporter and Report for America corps member at InvestigateWest. She joins us with more details.  

As the school year for Oregon universities begins, some international students may not be able to start classes with their peers. As first reported in the Oregon Capital Chronicle, travel bans, changes to the length of stay for student visas and increased immigration enforcement have led to a 20% decline in international students choosing to study in the U.S. Even more so, students from foreign countries who do choose to attend university in the states are seeing delays in the student visa process that could mean they will not be able to start classes in the fall.   Eowyn Brown is the associate vice provost for global engagement at Portland State University. Dennis Galvan is the dean and vice provost for global engagement at the University of Oregon. They both join us to share what they are hearing from students about the visa application process and what the overall decline in international students means for Oregon schools.  

 If you live in the Portland-metro area, you might’ve heard about the plan to improve and expand I-5 through the Rose Quarter. On Friday night, that stretch of freeway through the Rose Quarter will be closed as the project begins in earnest for about 5 weeks. Rose Gerber is the Public Outreach and Media Manager for the I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project with the Oregon Department of Transportation. We get details from her about the scope of the project, how it is likely to affect traffic patterns in the coming weeks, and what ODOT and Portland transportation managers are doing to try to mitigate delays and encourage drivers to choose other routes and ways to travel during these major closures.    

In the event of a tsunami triggered by a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake, residents of coastal communities in Oregon have less than 20 minutes from the time ground shaking starts to evacuate from Tsunami Hazard Zones. That’s according to a new report, published last week, by the Oregon Department of Emergency Management. According to the report, for many residents and visitors in the area, that wouldn’t be enough time to reach high ground. The report releases guidance for implementing Vertical Evacuation Structures on the Oregon Coast — buildings that are made to withstand tsunami waves. Officials say the state has only one structure, and would need at least 15 to adequately fit the area for a disaster of that scale.     Bridget Good is the Mitigation Program Analyst at the Oregon Department of Emergency Management, and she joins us to discuss the report and the guidelines.  

OPB’s sister station KMHD has organized a month of events and programming this September celebrating the centennial birthday of of legendary jazz saxophonist John Coltrane. The community events include a concert performance next Wednesday of Coltrane’s seminal album “Blue Train” at the Aladdin Theater in Portland.    Hailey Niswanger, who grew up in West Linn and performs as the jazz-expansive saxophonist and flutist MAE.SUN, will lead the sextet of musicians. They include Charlie Brown III on piano and Garrett Baxter on upright bass.     MAE.SUN, Baxter and Brown III join us for a preview of next week’s concert. We’ll also talk with MAE.SUN about the influence Coltrane’s spiritual, boundary-breaking music has had on her, and her return to Portland after her home in Altadena near LA burned in January 2025.   

The Higher Education Coordinating Commission distributes funding and sets policies for Oregon’s community colleges and public universities. As OPB reported, HECC’s  Board approved last month a $4.7 billion budget request for the 2027-2029 biennium. Gov. Tina Kotek will consider the proposal as part of the overall state budget recommendations given to the state Legislature when it reconvenes next year.    Oregon public colleges and universities are facing multiple financial headwinds that have grown worse in recent years. That includes stagnant state funding for higher education that has left Oregon near the bottom compared to other states.     HECC board members have warned that greater investment in higher education is necessary amid rising administration and labor costs, canceled federal grants, inflation and other challenges. Year-over-year tuition increases amid declining student enrollment adds to the uncertainty facing Oregon’s public universities.    Greg Hamann is the chair of HECC. He joins us for a discussion of the state of higher education funding for Oregon’s public colleges and universities.