Think Out Loud

Derrell Sekou Walker teaches West African dance to elementary and middle schoolers at two Portland public schools. He loves his job, but as the founder and artistic director of Sebé Kan Youth African Dance Company, he is bringing his love of this art form — along with the feelings of joy and freedom it inspires — to the larger community. He first formed Sebé Kan more than 20 years ago, but since 2018, he’s been focused on teaching the dance traditions from Mali, Guinea, Ivory Coast and other West African nations to children and youth. On May 16, the company will present a one night only, multigenerational dance performance and concert called “Mobaya: A Coming of Age” at Portland’s Newmark Theatre.  

Walker joins us, along with his wife Karida Walker, who is a dancer in the troupe; and high school senior Nylah Jae Holt, who has been dancing with Sebé Kan since she was 8 years old. 

When Rep. Ricki Ruiz (D-Gresham) was growing up with immigrant parents, the pervasive fear of deportation was integrally woven into his experience of childhood. He told KGW that even today, as an adult and a U.S. citizen, he’s always looking over his shoulder. That’s why he’s co-sponsoring SB 703, which would provide funding to nonprofits to help immigrant families that are eligible to apply for legal status to do so. On his Instagram account, he posted about the proposal’s bipartisan support, saying it indicates that “despite the federal landscape, Democrats & Republicans can still come together & work on immigration policies.”

Ruiz joins us to tell us more about the bill and the impact it would have on immigrants and their families. House Republicans were either unavailable or did not respond to invitations to participate in this discussion.

The North Portland peninsula, which includes the St. Johns and Cathedral Park neighborhoods, could become isolated from the rest of the city after a major earthquake. If the St. Johns Bridge and the railroad bridges on the peninsula’s eastern border fail, emergency responders could have no way into the area — and residents will have no way out. A bill in the Oregon Legislature would partially address the issue by designating funding for the city to design a seismically-safe bridge over the railroad tracks at Columbia Boulevard.    

Sameer Kanal is a Portland City Councilor representing District 2, which includes North Portland. Jeff Bissonnette is the co-chair of the St. Johns-Cathedral Park Neighborhood Emergency Team. They join us to talk about how residents and the city are preparing for this potential disaster.

During the last year of the first Trump presidency, M. Gessen wrote a book about what lessons Americans could learn from countries like Russia and Hungary. The book, called “Surviving Autocracy,” draws on Gessen’s own experiences growing up in Russia and the scholarship of European philosophers who have written about modern day authoritarianism. We talk to Gessen in front of a student audience at Grant High School.

Transportation funding is a priority for Oregon lawmakers this legislative session. The Democratic proposal includes a major gas tax hike and other new taxes. The Republican plan puts less money towards public transportation, biking and pedestrian infrastructure. Sarah Iannarone is the executive director of The Street Trust. John Charles is the president and CEO of the Cascade Policy Institute. They join us with their perspectives on what approach lawmakers should take.

A bill in the Oregon Legislature would make it easier for law enforcement to use drones. Senate Bill 238 passed in the state house with bipartisan votes and is now being considered in the senate. It would give law enforcement agencies more authority to use drones without a warrant. Many law enforcement officers have testified that it would make their work more efficient and more safe. Opponents of the bill have concerns about its constitutionality and the future of automated policing more broadly. Michael Abrams, the policy counsel at ACLU of Oregon, opposes the bill. Aaron Scmautz is the president of the Portland Police Association and the Oregon Coalition of Police & Sheriffs, who support the bill. We’ll hear from both sides to learn more. 

Since her birth in February, Asian baby elephant Tula-tu has become a star attraction at the Oregon Zoo. Asian elephants are endangered, with roughly 40,000 of them remaining in the wild, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. With all the attention Tula-tu has been getting, it’s easy to overlook the presence of Chendra, a Bornean elephant who has been in the zoo’s care for more than 25 years and whose relatives in the wild are even more at risk of extinction. 

Only about a thousand Bornean elephants remain, mostly in the forested northern tip of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. 

For more than a decade, the Oregon Zoo has been supporting efforts to help save Bornean elephants. Last month, the zoo sponsored a symposium in Borneo attended by government officials; NGOs that are helping to protect habitat and reduce conflicts between people and elephants; representatives from the palm oil and tourism industries and other participants. At the symposium, the Sabah Wildlife Department launched a new plan co-developed by the Oregon Zoo to care for the growing number of calves and juvenile elephants that are being separated from their herds or found orphaned, like Chendra. 

Dr. Sharon Glaeser is the Oregon Zoo’s elephant conservation lead. She joins us with more details about the fight to save the world’s smallest elephant.  

A federal education program known as TRIO is effectively zeroed out in President Trump’s proposed budget. It began as part of Lyndon Johnson's so-called War on Poverty in the 1960s. Today close to a million low income and disadvantaged students in the U.S. get help from these grants. Earlier this year, the Trump administration excluded students without legal status from being eligible for these programs. We'll hear what TRIO means for Oregonians from the executive director of Oregon TRIO Association, Matt Bisek, and Oregon State University student Brianna Eck. 

 On Monday, Oregon Health and Science University and Legacy Health announced they are mutually walking away from an effort to combine the two healthcare organizations. The merger was first announced last August, when OHSU agreed to acquire 8 hospitals, $3 billion in assets and promised a whopping $1 billion in upgrades to Legacy facilities. The merger garnered scrutiny from a citizen review committee and public comments have reflected opposition to the deal. Amelia Templeton is OPB’s Healthcare reporter and has been following this story. She joins with the latest.

Oregon hospitals are “on the brink” according to a recent Oregon Hospital Association report. Half of them are losing money on operations, and more than two-thirds say they don’t have the resources to keep up with patient care. The data is from 2024, and anticipated federal cuts to Medicaid make the outlook even worse. Becky Hultberg, the President and CEO of the Hospital Association of Oregon, said in the report that if the trends continue or worsen, the state will see “a cascade of service closures, hospital consolidations or hospital closures.” Hultberg also said, “Oregon already has the second fewest hospital beds per capita. We can’t afford to lose these beds.” Hultberg joins us to tell  us more about some of the interrelated and complex factors that have led to this state of affairs, and what she sees as possible solutions.

From acidic excrement that eats through bridge coating to nesting near roadways causing accidents, cormorants have been known to create some problems for humans here in Oregon. But for more than a decade now, researchers at Oregon State University have been using these diving birds to better understand oceans in Oregon and around the world. As recently featured in Audubon Magazine, by strapping sensors to birds, researchers are able to chart and understand data around underwater terrains, temperatures and more. Rachael Orben is an assistant professor at OSU’s Department of Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation. Jim Lerczak is the associate dean for research and a professor at OSU’s College of Earth Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences. They both join us to share more on what we’ve been able to learn from cormorants.

Between the on-again-off-again tariffs and the cancellation of federal funding, Oregonians across the state are affected by the many changes coming from the federal government. Reporters at the Portland Business Journal set out to take the temperature of business, nonprofit and political leaders across the state, three months into the Trump administration. Elizabeth Hayes, reporter for the Portland Business Journal, joins us to share what they found out.

On Monday, the U.S. Department of Education is expected to resume collections on student loans that are in default, ending a five-year pause that first began at the start of the pandemic. According to the agency, more than 5 million borrowers are in default, which typically happens after nine months of non-payment on a federal student loan. The federal government can force collections on defaulted student loans by garnishing wages, tax refunds or Social Security benefits. 

About 500,000 Oregonians have student loans, most of which have balances between $10,000 and $40,000, according to Lane Thompson, the Oregon Student Loan Ombuds. That position was created through the passage of SB 485 in 2021 that also required all companies that service student loans in Oregon to be licensed by the state’s Division of Financial Regulation. Thompson joins us to share more information about her office and offers advice for borrowers in Oregon. 

When Dennis Nyback died in 2022, the Portland film archivist and programmer had amassed a collection of thousands of reels of films, whether they were black and white cartoons, 1960s-era commercials or educational films shown in classrooms. Nyback would share his eclectic finds through curated screenings at independent movie theaters not only in Portland, but also across the U.S. and Europe. 

As reported by Oregon ArtsWatch, Nyback’s friends and fellow cinephiles faced a daunting challenge after his death to track down and sort through the thousands of mostly 16mm reels of film he left behind. That effort evolved into The Nyback Archive, with a group of volunteers working to catalogue Nyback’s collection and eventually make it available for public viewing and study. The team leading this effort began sharing some of the gems they’ve found through monthly theater screenings, like the “16mm Nyback Showdown” between dueling projectionists on May 6 at the Clinton Street Theater. 

Joining us to talk about the value of preserving analog film in our digital age are Greg Hamilton, a film curator and co-founder of The Nyback Archive, and filmmakers and curators Ioana Cherascu and Garrett Schroeder. Hamilton organizes screenings of films from the archive through his Psychotron Afterschool Special series, while Cherascu and Schroeder curate films from the archive and other acquisitions through their Astral Projections series shown in Portland and beyond.  

On Monday, Portland Mayor Keith Wilson unveiled a budget for the city as it faces a massive budget shortfall. That deficit is $65 million if you don’t include the cost of the mayor’s ambitious plan to end unsheltered homelessness, or the city's new obligations to pay for homeless shelters that Multnomah County previously paid for. Mayor Wilson’s budget calls for staff layoffs and cuts to some programs and services, while also expanding staffing for homeless services outreach, Portland Street Response and Portland Fire & Rescue. In February, City Administrator Michael Jordan outlined the scope of the deficit in the city’s general fund that is due to a range of factors, from steep declines in property and business tax revenues to mounting overtime and healthcare costs. 

The 12-member city council has until June to approve a budget and has held budget listening sessions where it’s heard from constituents concerned about cuts to city programs and services. Joining us to share details about Mayor Wilson’s proposed budget is OPB’s Portland city government reporter Alex Zielinski.

On May 2, 2000, the U.S. government lifted restrictions that made GPS technology more accurate and accessible to the general public. This day became known as Blue Switch Day, and this decision inadvertently created a new outdoor hobby. Geocaching is an activity where participants use GPS and coordinates to hunt down hidden containers, known as geocaches or caches, often located in parks, forests and cities around the world. The first cache was hidden just outside of Estacada, Oregon, only one day after Blue Switch Day. Twenty-five years later, there are now more than 3.3 million caches hidden around the world.

PJ Hubbard is the treasurer for GEOregon, a nonprofit dedicated to creating a community for geocachers in Oregon. The group is holding a Block Party event in September at Champoeg State Park to celebrate this anniversary. Hubbard joins us to share more about the past, present and future of geocaching.

The late Pope Francis brought attention to the plight of refugees and immigrants around the world, as well as to the climate crisis. He also took a different view of the role of women in the church and a more inclusive approach to gay rights and many other social issues, compared with his predecessors. Nearly one and a half billion Catholics around the world revere the Pope, and address him as “Your Holiness” or “Holy Father,” but even among non-Catholic Christians and those of other faiths, the voice and role of the Pope is unique on the world stage.
As we look to the start of the conclave next week to choose his successor, we’ll reflect on Pope Francis’s legacy and how it might influence the future of the Catholic Church. We’re joined by two different Catholic leaders in Oregon. Suzanne Thiel is a Bishop ordained by the Roman Catholic Womenpriests. Frank So, a lifelong Catholic,  is the executive director of Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, which includes nearly 90 faith partners, including the Archdiocese of Portland, along with Protestant, Jewish, Muslim and Baha’i congregations.

Big changes could soon be coming to the way college athletes can profit off their name, image and likeness, or NIL. Since NIL legislation was first passed in 2021, student-athletes have had to pursue deals independently of their universities. But under the terms of a legal settlement announced last year, colleges could devote up to $20.5 million in athletic revenue to directly paying athletes for use of their name, image and likeness. The agreement still needs final approval from a federal judge, but is expected to be resolved in the coming weeks.

Lauren Anderson is the director of the Warsaw Sports Business Center at the University of Oregon. She joins us with more details on the settlement and its implications for college athletic programs in Oregon.

A bill in the Oregon Legislature would set up a structure for social media companies to compensate local news producers whose content is shared on those sites. SB 686 is based in part on bills in California and New Jersey, as well as a law that recently went into effect in Canada. It was meant for the largest social media companies to compensate local news media organizations whose content is shared on the platforms — thus supporting news outlets, many which have seen advertising revenues plummet. But the law has had some unintended consequences, including Meta simply deciding not to allow news to be shared at all in Canada. 

Joining us to talk about the law's intentions, its unintended consequences and possible solutions is Ryan Adam, formerly the vice president of government and public relationships for the Toronto Star. He led efforts to pass the country’s Online News Act, also known as the C-18 law, and testified in Salem in April about Canada’s law. 

OPB is among the news media organizations that testified in support of the Oregon bill.

Washington lawmakers have ended their legislative session by sending a $78 billion budget to Gov. Bob Ferguson’s desk. It includes nearly $6 billion in cuts and over $9 billion in taxes. Legislators also passed rent cap increases and a new gun permit system. Olympia correspondent Jeanie Lindsay joins us to share what the Washington Legislature accomplished this session. 

For the last year, Grants Pass has been at the center of a national conversation about where people who are homeless can stay. A lawsuit brought against the city by a group of homeless people had made its way all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court: Grants Pass v. Johnson. Last June, the court released a six-to-three decision finding that it is not cruel or unusual punishment to penalize people for living outdoors even if they have nowhere else to go.But that ruling was not an end to legal battles about homelessness in Grants Pass or around the country. Earlier this year, after the city council closed one of its two sanctioned camp sites, a new lawsuit was filed, leading a judge to order another injunction -- and the city council to re-open one of those sites.Scott Nelson is the board president of MINT, a homeless services nonprofit. Susan Clark is the executive director of Mid Rogue Foundation, a nonprofit focused on housing. Indra Nicholas is a city councilor and small business owner.  Brock Spurgeon is a tile contractor and one of the founders of Park Watch Grants Pass. They joined us in front of a live audience to talk about homelessness at the Performing Arts Center at Grants Pass High School on April 29

Brit Bennett’s book The Vanishing Half was on a lot of best-of lists in 2020. Though spanning the second half of the 20th century, the novel speaks to questions about race and identity that have been central to national conversations for the last two years. In that novel and her other writing, Bennett deals with the bonds of family, the importance of storytelling, and nature of identity. We spoke to Bennett about her essays and novels in front of an audience of students at Grant High School in Portland in 2021.

Jack Reacher may be one of the most iconic action book heroes of all time. Over 100 million copies of author Lee Child’s books have been sold. But the author who has taken over the series is perhaps a little less well known. Andrew Child, who also writes under the name Andrew Grant, is now carrying on the legacy of Jack Reacher for his older brother. He came to Portland for the 2024 Portland Book Festival to talk about the 29th book in the series, “In Too Deep.” 

Amid the flurry of executive orders President Trump signed on his first day in office was one that called for a 90-day pause and review of all foreign assistance programs. Three months later, that has resulted in the cancellation of thousands of contracts and grants distributed through the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the gutting of the agency’s workforce. 

Portland-based Mercy Corps is one of the many organizations that USAID had awarded grants to for the delivery of humanitarian assistance around the world. Mercy Corps says 40 of its 62 programs that were funded through those grants have now been terminated, from a project that would have provided clean drinking water to 12,000 villagers in Afghanistan to health centers in Nigeria that provided lifesaving food and nutrition services to tens of thousands of young children and pregnant women at risk of starvation and malnutrition.

Mary Stata is the chief development officer of Mercy Corps. She joins us to share the scope and human toll of the terminated programs and the future of international humanitarian aid without U.S. government support.

The number of registered voters who choose not to be members of any political party is growing. In fact, in Oregon, the percentage of these voters is bigger than both registered Democrats and Republicans. But those who vote in the major party primaries are the ones that decide which candidates appear on the general election ballot that is open to all voters. While Oregon’s neighbors, Washington and California, have made changes to their primary systems to allow for more participation, Oregon voters have said "no" in the past to doing the same. Nonetheless, Rep. Mark Gamba, D-Milwaukie, is among the sponsors of HB 3166, which would scrap the closed primary system that only allows party members to vote.

Gamba joins us to discuss how to best enfranchise non-affiliated voters (NAVs), along with attorney and political consultant Julie Parrish, who served four terms as Republican representative in the Oregon House.