The first call to Deschutes County dispatchers came in at 12:59 p.m. from someone in a vehicle outside Silver Rail Elementary School. Someone was shooting at them with a long gun in the parking lot of a Bend grade school, they said.

Then more calls, dozens of them: A shooter had entered the building at the school, Police Chief Mike Krantz recounted at a press conference Thursday, just hours later.

At 1 p.m., a minute after the initial call, the alert went out to all law enforcement in the area. Within another minute, the school was in lockdown.

Erin Johnson was in the house next door when she heard it all unfold: gunfire, where usually she hears children play. “Three shots and then two shots.” A familiar sound from her time in the military — but here in Bend, at the neighborhood school her children used to attend. “Then my neighbor began to scream,” she said, and she heard sirens.

At 1:02 p.m., the first officers arrived on the scene. But someone else had responded first, before the first responders, Krantz said.

“A community member who had seen the suspect” entering the school followed him, Krantz said, and shot the 16-year-old boy. Three children — ages 5, 8, 11 — died in the shooting, and so did a teacher. A 7-year-old and a 54-year-old teacher were critically hurt and taken to St. Charles Medical Center in Bend.

Silver Rail Elementary is in a quiet residential neighborhood on the east side of Bend surrounded by new houses, large open spaces and the omnipresent juniper trees. On a normal day, kids ride their bikes through these areas.

But Thursday afternoon, the school was cordoned off with yellow tape. For hours, officers moved from classroom to classroom, escorting children to buses to be taken to their families. Other officers walked shoulder to shoulder in a line outside the school, searching for evidence on the campus grounds.

Word of the shooting spread quickly through Bend, a city of about 100,000, as police started their sweep of Silver Rail.

Within an hour of the shooting, hundreds of parents and community members were flocking to Journey Church — the designated “reunification center” for children bussed away from Silver Rail. There, they were met by more police, more yellow tape as officers managed access — helping family members park as they sought updates about their children.

By evening, the people of Bend came together to mourn.

A dozen local clergy members were among the first to arrive at Drake Park’s amphitheater, circling together for prayer.

Then more people arrived. Individuals, families, friends, strangers, adults and children.

Adam Jorgensen attended with two friends.

“We’re here doing the Lord’s work, being here for people who need hope and need understanding of why tragedies like this happen,” Jorgensen said. “The entire city of Bend is here together.”

Hundreds of people filled the park as the sky fell into darkness. They held candles and huddled together, filling the air with hymns and prayers — a tight knit community, gathering together to mourn.

Kevin Desrosiers, who was there with his two daughters, said he knew the grandparents and parents of the 5-year-old who died. He had attended a birthday party for the only child a couple years ago, he said.

“They’re a great local family, been here for years,” Desrosiers said, choking back tears, as clergy members spoke in the background.

“It’s super tough to know that it could have been your kid’s school or campus,” he said. “You never want to say goodbye to your kids in the morning and even assume that you wouldn’t see them again at the end of the school day.”

This story was reported by Emily Cureton Cook, Jireh Deng and Joni Auden Land in Bend, and written by Courtney Sherwood in Portland.

5:30 p.m. — A bystander who saw the 16-year-old suspected shooter enter Silver Rail Elementary School followed him, confronted and fatally shot him, officials said during a press conference Thursday.

Officials confirmed three children — ages 5, 8 and 11 — are dead. A teacher died, as well. A 7-year-old and 54-year-old were hospitalized, officials said.

The details emerged during a press conference at Bend City Hall hours after the attack.

The suspected shooter, who officials have not identified, used a “long gun” during the attack, a category of firearm that includes rifles and shotguns. His connection to the school — if any — wasn’t clear.

The incident unfolded in the early afternoon. At 12:59 p.m., a person in a vehicle called 911 to report being shot at multiple times.

A dozen 911 calls quickly followed reporting that a “shooter had entered the building” of the elementary school, according to Bend Police Department Chief Mike Krantz. Dispatchers alerted law enforcement at 1 p.m.

The school went into lockdown at 1:01 p.m., Krantz said. He said the suspected shooter gained access to the school by firing at locked doors. It wasn’t clear where in the school he went before being killed.

The first officers arrived at 1:02 p.m., Krantz said.

“Moments later, an officer reported that the suspect had been shot by a community member who had seen the suspect enter the school, and pursued him into the school and engaged him,” Krantz told media.

The identity of the bystander was not immediately clear.

Officers then confirmed the suspect’s death, cleared the scene, and ultimately confirmed the fatalities, Krantz said.

5:15 p.m. — The suspect in a Thursday shooting at a Bend elementary school was a minor, four sources confirmed to OPB.

All four individuals who spoke to OPB are law enforcement sources with knowledge of the investigation. One of those sources said the suspected shooter, who died at the scene, was 16 years old.

It remains unclear what motivated the attack and how the suspected shooter was killed.

The sources also confirmed that one adult is among those killed, bringing the total number of fatalities to five. That includes the previously reported three children and the suspected shooter.

All four sources requested anonymity because the information has not yet been made public.

4:10 p.m. — Three children were killed in Thursday’s shooting at a Bend elementary school, three sources confirmed to OPB.

Police said earlier Thursday that the suspected shooter was killed at the scene. The total number of fatalities and injuries have not been officially confirmed by law enforcement.

All three sources OPB spoke to were close to the law enforcement investigation and requested anonymity because the information had not yet been made public.

A press briefing is set for 5:30 p.m.

2:45 p.m. — Sheila Miller, a spokesperson for the Bend Police Department, told reporters at the scene that the shooting suspect was fatally shot.

Details about the suspected shooter’s death remained unclear, but Miller said that the suspect was “possibly” shot by a bystander.

Miller said that emergency dispatchers first received calls around 12:59 p.m. The caller reported a shot fired into a vehicle near Silver Rail Elementary School.

Officers first arrived around 1:02 p.m., Miller said. The shooter reportedly had entered the school and begun shooting.

First responders transported at least two people to an area hospital. Their conditions remain unclear, according to Miller.

2:20 p.m. — A Bend Police Department spokesperson confirmed multiple victims at Silver Rail Elementary School, including children.

According to the spokesperson, the status of the victims wasn’t yet clear. The spokesperson confirmed that the shooting suspect has died.

2:02 p.m. — Police in Bend said Thursday afternoon that they’re responding to reports of an active shooting at Silver Rail Elementary School.

The Bend-La Pine School District said on social media Thursday that there was an active lockdown at the school, and that police were on the scene.

A press release issued this afternoon says there is a large police presence in the area. The public should avoid the area.

Multiple law enforcement agencies are on the scene, according to law enforcement officials, including the Oregon State Police and local agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Further details have not been released.

Another child, age 7, and a teacher are being treated at St. Charles Medical Center Bend. The children who died have not been identified, but police said they were 5, 8 and 11 years old.

Live blog covering shooting at Silver Rail Elementary School

According to Bend police, initial calls reported that an unknown man had shot into a car at the school, where more than 400 students are enrolled. Subsequent 911 callers said somebody had entered the school and started shooting.

“Our officers were on scene at approximately 1:02 p.m. Seconds later we received word over the radio that the suspect in this incident was down,” Sheila Miller with the Bend Police Department said at a media briefing.

“I heard what I thought was gunshots,” said Erin Johnson, who was visiting her parents next door to the school. “Then my neighbor began to scream shortly thereafter — her kids go to school there, at Silver Rail. Then I heard the police coming in.”

Johnson was able to confirm that her neighbor’s children are OK, but said she mourned for the community. “It’s heartbreaking. I don’t know any details right now about who was injured. But they’re babies.”

Hundreds of parents and other community members flocked to Bend’s Journey Church, where officials set up a reunification center, as news of the shooting spread.

Bend police said law enforcement officers took hours to clear the school as they moved from classroom to classroom. Officials said they expect a heavy law enforcement presence to remain at the school for the indefinite future.

Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek said in a statement that she’s carefully monitoring the situation, and said she’d share more as she learns more. The Republican candidate for governor, state Sen. Christine Drazan, expressed horror at the incident and said she is praying for those affected.

“We are stunned and heartbroken by this senseless tragedy,” said Bend-La Pine Schools Superintendent Steven Cook. “Our immediate priorities are caring for our students and staff and assisting law enforcement and emergency responders.”

All classes in the Bend-La Pine school district are canceled Friday.

Deschutes County is assembling mental health professionals to support children and the broader community in the aftermath of the shooting, commissioner Phil Chang told OPB by text message. Local clergy have planned a vigil for 7 p.m. Thursday at the city’s Drake Park.

This story was written by Courtney Sherwood with reporting from Emily Cureton Cook in Bend, Joni Auden Land, Troy Brynelson, Jen Baires and other OPB staff.

Kenny Cox lived a life of paradoxes.

He strived for success as a wrestler through high school in Eugene and while attending the University of Oregon. Cox was recognized as the best high school wrestler in the nation in 1997.

Off the mat, he pushed himself to live in a way that often defied societal expectations. Cox walked from Oregon to Mexico and back. In his final adventure, he lived in the wilderness of Hawaii for weeks with limited supplies.

Author Michael Copperman is a former wrestler and he spent much of his athletic career emulating Cox. Copperman’s new book, “Seeking Kenny: A Wrestler’s Journey,” shares the story of his training partner and friend, a journey that ultimately ends with Cox’s unexpected death in Hawaii.

Copperman spoke with OPB “Morning Edition” host Jess Hazel about the book.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Jess Hazel: Wrestling seems to encapsulate a lot of what Western society expects in traditionally masculine roles. You describe ways Kenny both strived to meet those expectations and in others subverted them. How did you approach writing about that?

Michael Copperman: Well, I thought that in many ways, at least in his high school wrestling career, Kenny was this sort of archetypal warrior gentleman. The kind of person who would open doors for old ladies, give to charity and never swear. And he really tried to pour himself into sport in a way that would sort of purify him, sanctify him and bear him to glory.

At the same time, in doing that, he ultimately needed to find a place for himself in the world and a way to live that was more than just being a wrestler. Understanding that he would always be a wrestler, but that he also needed to find another place in the world. That was the story that I wanted to tell. And I wanted to tell it through the eyes of all of the people who he’d known and loved the best.

Hazel: As you just mentioned, this book features a lot of interviews with different people who knew and loved Kenny. What was it like to have these conversations with people, many of whom you have a long history with, and then ask them to share their memories and their grief?

Copperman: It was really quite incredible that his family were so open with me because I could not have written this book without them. But it was also a bit of a personal journey for me. I think I had lost a combined eight or nine different [wrestling] state titles to different people who I interviewed for this book, because a lot of them were elite wrestlers who became Kenny’s best friends in college at the University of Oregon. And I had competed against them in high school where I was also elite. This book in many ways is me seeking Kenny and trying to understand Kenny’s story, so that I could understand what had happened to myself, trying so hard to follow his North Star.

Hazel: Yeah, that leads perfectly into another question I had. For much of the book, as much as you are in search of Kenny, he is in search of answers to some of life’s most pressing existential questions. We can never know for certain if he found satisfying answers, but what about you? What discoveries about yourself felt most important while following Kenny’s journey?

Copperman: Tracing his journey and trying to sort of understand what had happened to him, I had to look at that part of myself who had believed that the only thing that gave my life value was my achievements on the mat. I was able to understand what Kenny was looking for is closer to what I would like to find in my own life as well. Which is, a way to live in the world and a way to be in relation to both nature — and also to my fellow humans on this planet — in a way that is in balance. That takes into account our responsibility to one another, that tries to honor the land and the environment that we live in. So, in many ways trying to seek Kenny was the best possible way for me to come to terms with some of my own demons and also to look ahead.

Hazel: The way you write about nature really popped off the page for me. Sometimes you engage all five senses. I remember a scene where you eat a berry and then explain what the taste and the amount of seeds mean or say about the season that you’re in. What kind of details do you focus on while gathering material for your writing so that you can capture that later, or does that just happen naturally?

Copperman: In that scene you’re thinking of, I traveled with Kenny’s father out the McKenzie River Highway to a cabin Kenny had loved to go to as a child. In all of those cases, in traveling, in looking and thinking, I’m often taking notes and trying to think about my senses. But I often wrote most immediately after those experiences so that I could really capture those things vividly. The natural world was so important to Kenny: the wilderness in Oregon, the whole entire length of the Pacific Coast that he trekked barefoot — from Oregon to Baja and back — the Nāpali Coast. I wanted to take all of that in and try to make it live.

Hazel: What do you think the role of storytelling is when it comes to how people process loss?

Copperman: For me at least, I think that stories can help us reckon. I think that they can help us mourn more fully, if we’re able to lean in and listen. It is a way of communally reckoning with the tragic loss of what was really a young man. He died at 31. There is real hope in story. Not that story itself is transformative, but I think that it can be.

It’s been exactly 60 years since President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) into law, alongside half a dozen conservation bills.

“We have come here this morning to give part of our country back to its people,” Johnson declared at the bill signing on Oct. 15, 1966.

Now, historic preservation advocates say, the government is trying to yank the public’s power away.

“Preservation, from its inception, has worked best with public and private partnership,” Brent Leggs, the president and CEO of the nonprofit National Trust for Historic Preservation, told NPR. “Over the last year and a half, the federal government has divested that responsibility.”

It’s a far cry from 1966, when the NHPA created a mechanism for identifying and protecting the country’s historic sites — ranging from a single tree to an entire district.

Because of that law, those landmarks — today, more than 100,000 of them — are listed on the official National Register of Historic Places. And federal agencies must consult with states, tribes and stakeholders before beginning any projects that could potentially harm them, through a process called Section 106 review.

“Section 106 is in many ways the teeth behind the National Historic Preservation Act,” said Elihu Rubin, a professor of architecture and urban studies at the Yale School of Architecture. “It is Section 106 that insists … that federal projects that threaten historic resources can only proceed when efforts are made to mitigate the impacts on those resources.”

Section 106 has saved historic buildings from demolition and prevented development on archaeological sites, according to “success stories” recently compiled by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. But, Rubin stresses, the review process doesn’t necessarily stop projects from happening — and that’s the point of participating in it.

“Some of the most interesting projects that come out of it are surveys of fascinating buildings or places that will be lost,” he said. “But we gain a lot from that process.”

That process is now facing dual threats. A federal council packed with Trump appointees voted this summer to weaken Section 106 regulations, while a bipartisan permitting reform bill gaining traction in the Senate would significantly narrow the review process in order to speed up infrastructure and energy projects.

“It will effectively rewrite the National Historic Preservation Act in ways that, for all intents and purposes, gut its meaning and protections for hundreds of thousands of sites across the country,” said Greg Werkheiser, whose law firm, Cultural Heritage Partners, is leading a coalition to protect Section 106.

“Section 106 Strong,” which officially launched Thursday, says it spans 1,000 organizations — including religious, environmental and civil rights groups — and Tribal Nations collectively representing more than 9 million Americans.

“I’ve been involved in historic preservation and politics for 30 years, and I’ve rarely seen a movement come together this quickly,” he told NPR. “I think Americans are simply fed up with watching their history manipulated, defaced, or destroyed as an instrument of political power.”

Historic preservation law was a reaction to widespread destruction

During the Great Depression, the federal government hired workers to survey historic buildings across the U.S. They documented 12,000. But by 1965, when Johnson convened a committee to study the issue, half of those buildings had been either destroyed or damaged beyond repair.

“Folks concluded that if … we don’t have some strong federal provisions, the natural instinct to just build as fast as you can, wherever you can, is going to take over,” Werkheiser said.

The push for historic preservation was borne out of public backlash to post-World War II urban renewal and highway construction, which displaced entire communities and destroyed many American landmarks — including New York City’s original Penn Station.

“Because so much of the funding and impetus from these projects were coming from federal housing policy, there was an idea here that there needed to be a framework put in place to identify historic resources and to — if not protect them entirely — at least to acknowledge them and then to mitigate the negative impacts,” Rubin explains.

The 1966 law provided that framework. Among other provisions, it tasked every state with opening its own office to administer national preservation programs.

Native American tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations weren’t included in those duties until 1992, one of the last major amendments to the law. Leaders of the Tribal Historic Preservation Officers (NATHPO) told NPR that tribal communities now risk losing the seat at the table that it took them so long to get.

“The changes that are being proposed now — both on the regulatory front and the statutory front — would represent an enormous and devastating setback not just to pre-1992, but to pre-1966 historical preservation and the state of tribal voice and perspectives being considered,” said Valerie Grussing, NATHPO’s executive director of legislative affairs and strategic partnerships.

Historic preservation experts maintain that Section 106 gives experts and the public visibility into federal construction projects without significantly slowing them down. In fact, the National Trust for Historic Preservation says the nationwide average for a review is 16 days, and that 98% of those reviews conclude that the project will have no adverse effect on nearby historic resources.

“At the end of the day, it’s [about] whether or not the federal government can come into your backyard and to your community and do whatever they want,” said Chris Cody, senior associate general counsel for the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

These days, Cody estimates that his two-person team spends about 70 hours a week answering calls for help from local jurisdictions while also fighting federal cases in Washington, D.C. For example, the National Trust sued the Trump administration over the construction of its White House ballroom, but lost after the Supreme Court ruled the nonprofit lacked legal standing.

That’s one of many of President Trump’s controversial renovations — including his proposed arch and municipal golf course redevelopment — that critics say are bulldozing over historic preservation laws and norms. It’s against this backdrop that the National Trust for Historic Preservation recently launched a defense fund, aiming to raise an initial $10 million to protect the places and laws now in the crosshairs.

Cody calls this a “moment of existential crisis” for preservation efforts nationwide, not just in D.C.

“There is somewhat of a trickle-down effect happening around the country, as various, I would call them, bad actors are trying to push the limits of the law in regards to historic preservation,” Cody said. “It just seems to be a moment in time where everyone … who does not care about preservation or has it sublimated to other goals is trying to push the envelope.”

Leggs, who leads the National Trust, said “every American should be concerned” about this trend, not only because it could spell trouble for a church or cemetery of personal significance, but because of the “wisdom, lessons, education and inspiration that is imbued in historic places” — and could be lost — to future generations.

Advocates fighting a double-headed threat look to November

The 1966 law also created the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, a federal agency tasked with advising Congress and the president on such matters. Twenty of its 24 current members were appointed by Trump.

In July, the council voted to weaken Section 106 regulations in a few notable ways. It would limit what kinds of properties can be considered historic in the first place, excluding “significant landscape features” like the Grand Canyon. The change would also make public comment on new projects optional and remove the requirement to consult with Native American tribes.

Those changes are still going through the federal rulemaking process, which includes a 30-day public comment period that has not yet opened. The council next meets on Nov. 10. In the meantime, another threat to Section 106 has emerged in Congress — one that historic preservation advocates say is even more serious.

“[The regulatory changes have] been the biggest five-alarm fire for our membership and our constituency in our mission … in decades,” said Grussing, of NATHPO. “And now with the proposed statutory changes, I would say it’s turned into more of a wildfire.”

In late September, a bipartisan group of senators introduced a bill they say will “reform the federal environmental review and permitting process” to “deliver cheaper energy, more jobs, and responsible growth” across the U.S. One of its provisions would streamline Section 106 in similar ways — curtailing public and tribal input, narrowing the scope of analysis and restricting legal remedies for violations.

The Senate says it plans to consider the bill when it returns from recess on Nov. 9.

These changes would be enshrined in the law, as opposed to regulations that could more easily be reversed in the future, says NATHPO Executive Director Ira Matt, a citizen of the Salish Tribe.

“A lot of the preservation community’s looking at this, saying: ‘We do not want to be party to these changes that are going to outlive most of our careers. We do not want to saddle the next generation with … the failures that are coming out of this permitting reform,’” Matt said.

Matt says it is “unfortunate” to see senators join forces on a bill that would restrict tribal sovereignty, particularly since its Democratic sponsors have otherwise been strong allies in tribal and historic preservation issues.

Last week, NATHPO and other tribal groups sent a letter to Senate leaders urging them to drop this provision from the proposed bill and consult with tribes about a better approach.

“Instead of bringing this permitting reform [bill], bring the promise that you’ll do something next year — informed by committees, developed through consultation and in conjunction with the preservation community — where we can bring in facts, we can bring in requests, we can bring in experience to actually build something sustainable,” Matt said.

Critics of the Senate bill say it actually introduces more questions and confusion about the Section 106 process. For example, it doesn’t define specific terms (like what constitutes a “minor” restoration or “required metrics” for state and tribal officials to meet).

Both Matt and Werkheiser told NPR that when they asked Senate staff about this during recent lobbying meetings, they were told that Democrats and Republicans couldn’t agree on definitions and expected those questions to end up in court.

“The thing that they keep saying about the bill is it’s going to create efficiency and keep these controversies out of the court,” Werkheiser said. “And then, on the other hand, they’re like, ‘Well, we haven’t really done any of the work of deciding what any of this means. And so the court’s going to have to sort it out.’”

Werkheiser says the bill wouldn’t create efficiency by streamlining Section 106 — it would actually create “a much greater chance of controversy, objection and litigation further down the process” by excluding public and expert consultation at the start. That’s one of many reasons he hopes more people will join the fight to protect historic preservation law in the weeks and months ahead.

“You can disagree about politics. You can disagree about the future,” he said. “But you shouldn’t have to fight your own government for the right to remember your past.”

The head of Washington state’s education agency is urging the governor to reject a new federal tax credit that would bring billions of dollars worth of scholarships into the state.

The opposition from Chris Reykdal, the superintendent of public instruction, comes at a time when the state’s school system is facing a budget crisis driven by rising costs and funding cuts. Critics of Reykdal’s opposition say schools need this potential funding source.

Gov. Bob Ferguson has until Jan. 1 — the program’s start date — to decide whether to participate. More than half of states have signed on already.

Reykdal, in an Oct. 9 letter to Ferguson, said that the Trump administration’s program, also known as the Education Freedom Tax Credit, would sidestep state oversight and funnel money into religious institutions that might discriminate against certain groups of people.

 ”We shouldn’t accept that any dollar is worth getting even if it violates our state laws or our moral values,” Reykdal said.

The program would offer federal tax credits up to $1,700 for individuals ($3,400 for married couples) who donate to nonprofits that provide scholarships for things like school tuition, tutoring, after-school programming, and school supplies.

Reykdal’s concerns center around those nonprofits — called “Scholarship Granting Organizations” or SGOs — that the money would flow through. In his letter to Ferguson, Reykdal said the new tax program would not allow states to have any control over which of those groups receive money.

“That includes SGOs that turn students away because of their religion or lack of religion, disability status, sexual orientation, or gender identity,” Reykdal wrote. “It also includes SGOs that provide funding to private organizations with these discriminatory practices.”

He recommended that Ferguson wait a year before deciding to enroll the state in the program.

Critics from across the political spectrum, however, have urged the state to consider participating as soon as possible.

“When the question is, should we give ourselves the opportunity to capture these dollars, or should we automatically let them to flow out of the state? I ask myself, in what world is that a difficult decision?” said Jorge Elorza, CEO of Democrats for Education Reform, a national organization that has been urging blue states to enroll in the tax credit program.

Elorza said that, contrary to Reykdal’s concerns, states would in fact be able to regulate which organizations dole out the money.

Democrats for Education Reform estimates that Washington could bring in about $1.5 billion for school scholarships if 30% of taxpayers participate in the program.

Republicans generally back the program. Twenty-four state House Republicans introduced legislation earlier this year, recommending the governor opt in to the program.

“The current governor is playing games to avoid opting into the federal education tax credit program,” Jim Walsh, head of the state GOP and a representative from Aberdeen, wrote Tuesday on Facebook.

The Washington Student Success Coalition, an education advocacy organization, and the Seattle Metro Chamber, the largest business group in the state, are throwing their support behind the tax as well.

“We’re in a budget shortfall. There’s all these scarcity issues that are facing us right now, but you kind of have to address these things head on, is our choice to play politics or is our choice to help students?” Joe Nguyen, president and CEO of the Seattle Metro Chamber, said. “If our goal is to help students, it should be to get them as much resources as possible.”

A little over a million students across Washington state are enrolled in public, charter, or tribal schools. Another 82,000 are enrolled in private schools. Other Democratic-led states like California are currently holding off on making a decision on enrolling in this new tax program. New York has already chosen to enroll.

In Oregon, Gov. Tina Kotek has said she won’t join during this first year of the program, but it might not be a “no” forever.

“If I look at the guidance when I get a chance and we see other states that are doing it in a way that does support public education, then I’m open to maybe considering it for the next year,” Kotek said during an interview on “OPB Politics Now.”

Kotek added that she doesn’t trust the Trump administration.

“I’ve been fighting him for two years now to stop taking money out of our schools and trying to undermine our efforts here to make sure every student can be successful,” she said. “So he doesn’t have a great track record that I can trust at the moment.”

Kotek is running for reelection this November. Her opponent, state Sen. Christine Drazan, R-Canby, said in an OPB interview that she would opt Oregon into the program.

“These resources give them the opportunity potentially to provide that to their students in a public school setting,” Drazan said. “I don’t think we have to view it like it is a threat.”

OPB reporter Elizabeth Miller contributed to this story.

Sarah Mizes-Tan is a reporter with KNKX & KUOW. This story comes to you from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.

It is part of OPB’s broader effort to ensure that everyone in our region has access to quality journalism that informs, entertains and enriches their lives. To learn more, visit our journalism partnerships page.

Portland City Council made the first step Wednesday toward restricting aerial drone delivery services, a system that Amazon has begun rolling out in cities across the country. Councilors voted overwhelmingly to “consider” a moratorium on building facilities that support delivery drones.

“You may disagree with the idea of having a moratorium, you may love the idea of having a moratorium,” said Councilor Sameer Kanal, who introduced the policy with fellow District 2 Councilor Elana Pirtle-Guiney. “But this resolution is simply asking you if you think we should be allowed to consider one.”

This is the first step required to eventually adopt a citywide moratorium on any kind of land development. Pirtle-Guiney said an eventual moratorium would give councilors time to update city code to regulate these new types of facilities.

“A moratorium, to be clear, doesn’t say this can never happen,” said Pirtle-Guiney. “It just says we’re pausing anything happening here until we can set code.”

The decision follows news of Amazon planning to launch its drone delivery program in Portland next year. The company applied for a land use permit last month to build a drone delivery base at its North Portland warehouse, located in District 2. The company was scheduled to have its first meeting with the city’s permitting department to review the request next week. But Amazon canceled the meeting Tuesday and has yet to reschedule, according to a city spokesperson.

News of the company’s drone plans drew swift condemnation from some Portlanders who live near the Amazon warehouse, located in the East Columbia neighborhood just north of the Columbia Slough. They raise concerns about noise pollution, invasion of privacy, environmental impacts and other issues experienced by neighbors in other states, like Texas, who have already been invaded by delivery drones.

“The cost of voting today is practically nothing,” said Jessica Marquez, a Kenton neighborhood resident who testified at council Wednesday. “If these operations are approved, council can’t easily undo it, and every application and company that follows will point to the precedent set by Amazon.”

Amazon’s drone program promises rapid delivery of lightweight items — under 5 pounds — within a 7.5-mile radius of a distribution center. It currently operates in 11 U.S. cities.

Eleven councilors voted to consider the moratorium Wednesday. Councilor Loretta Smith was absent.

Per state land use policy, Wednesday’s vote allows the city to officially discuss and vote on a moratorium in no fewer than 45 days.

Amazon did not immediately respond to OPB’s request for comment.

Editor’s note: This story was updated to reflect that Jessica Marquez was not speaking on behalf of her neighborhood association.

Superintendent Miriam Mickelson told the school board last week that she plans to bring a resolution to its Oct. 21 meeting seeking authorization to begin budget forecasting and reduction planning. The resolution would include preliminary forecasts, but the district has not proposed any specific cuts.

Eugene 4J also started its budget process early last year amidst declining enrollment and increasing costs. It ended up eliminating more than 260 jobs.

Interim Director of Finance Bob Blyth said 4J has enough money to operate, though its cash balance is low ahead of larger, annual property tax revenues expected later this fall.

As of Aug. 31, the district had about $3 million in cash – roughly equivalent to one week of expenses, Blyth said.

“I will tell you that in the 10 years that I’ve been here, this has been the leanest period of time,” Blyth said.

The district is also facing higher than expected fuel costs, which are about 36% above initial projections. Blyth said the outlook for state funding next school year remains highly uncertain, and the district may not have a clearer picture until April or May.

During public comment, Eugene Education Association President Jamie Myers raised concerns about teacher workloads, citing larger classes, increased student caseloads and more students needing additional support.

“In this fourth full week of school, our teachers are exhausted, overworked, and disheartened,” Myers said.

Myers said teachers are routinely working 10 to 12 hour days and that some are considering leaving the district or the profession.

4J’s finance and human resources departments are tracking staffing changes and spending. Blyth said about 90% of district expenditures are tied to personnel, and the district now runs financial reports on a weekly basis.

The Oct. 21 resolution would begin the planning process as 4J waits for more information about state funding.

Ellie Graham is a reporter with KLCC. This story comes to you from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.

It is part of OPB’s broader effort to ensure that everyone in our region has access to quality journalism that informs, entertains and enriches their lives. To learn more, visit our journalism partnerships page.

He is also the co-chair of the university’s America at 250 Initiative, a series of programs commemorating the 250th anniversary of our nation’s independence.

Nichols is returning to Oregon to give a free lecture tonight in Portland that will explore the political parallels between our nation’s present and its past and the role that we, as citizens, can play in shaping our democracy’s future.

The nonprofit Senior Advocates for Generational Equity is organizing the discussion that takes place less than three weeks before the general election and amid intense political polarization in the U.S.

Nichols joins us for a preview of his talk.

“Think Out Loud®” broadcasts live at noon every day and rebroadcasts at 8 p.m.

If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983.

Since four Klamath River dams came down in 2024, researchers, tribes and conservation officials have all been waiting to see whether salmon would return to the rivers and streams they last populated 100 years ago. A study published in the journal “Nature” this summer shows that they have.

Researchers documented thousands of salmon migrating upstream in 2024 and 2025. They found that Chinook salmon in particular have repopulated 88% of their historical range in the Klamath and its tributaries.

Damon Goodman is the lead author of the study and the Shasta Cascade director for the nonprofit California Trout. He joins us with more details.

“Think Out Loud®” broadcasts live at noon every day and rebroadcasts at 8 p.m.

If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983.

USA Today also named the Rogue Valley the best wine region in the country in its annual poll. The recognition comes amid falling wine sales nationwide due to rising prices, changing drinking habits and other factors.

Eric Weisinger is an owner and winemaker at Weisinger Family Winery in Ashland. Meghann Walk is the general manager of Hummingbird Estate in Central Point. They join us to talk about the rise of the Rogue Valley’s wine industry and share how their harvests are looking this year.

“Think Out Loud®” broadcasts live at noon every day and rebroadcasts at 8 p.m.

If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983.

The series also details an investigation into Jeff Stanek, who intermittently coached the girls basketball team at Centennial High School from the ’90s until 2022.

Katy Klein and Syd Gladu are independent journalists based in Seattle. We hear more about their work, the reasons these stories have been seldom brought to light and the institutional failures that perpetuated instances of educator sexual misconduct at the Gresham school.

OPB reached out to Jeff Stanek, and he has not responded to our request for comment.

“Think Out Loud®” broadcasts live at noon every day and rebroadcasts at 8 p.m.

If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983.

Las preocupaciones por el incremento de los costos, los altos impuestos, el sinhogarismo crónico (o la condición de las personas sin hogar), y el liderazgo deficiente son factores determinantes para los habitantes de Oregón, y están contribuyendo a que la contienda por la gobernación se mantenga muy reñida este año, sin que haya señales de inclinarse en favor de alguna de las candidatas.

Esa es la principal conclusión de una nueva encuesta encargada en septiembre por Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB, por sus siglas en inglés). La encuesta, realizada a 915 potenciales votantes, es el muestreo más grande hasta la fecha sobre opiniones políticas en el “Estado del Castor” en este año electoral, y será objeto de futuras historias sobre el sentimiento de los votantes en Oregón y el suroeste de Washington.

La encuesta sugiere que la contienda entre la gobernadora demócrata Tina Kotek y la senadora republicana del estado Christine Drazan está prácticamente empatada a escasas dos semanas de que las boletas de votación se envíen a los votantes.

Cuando se les preguntó inicialmente a los encuestados por quién era más probable que votaran, el 46 % de los potenciales votantes eligió a Drazan y el 44 % mencionó a Kotek. Un 3 % adicional escogió a Brett Smith, el único candidato de un tercer partido en la contienda, y el 8 % se mostró indeciso.

Los resultados cambiaron un poco cuando los encuestadores presionaron a los votantes indecisos para que indicaran por cuál candidato se inclinaban más, un paso que, según el encuestador John Horvick, ofreció un reflejo más claro del estado actual de la contienda por la gobernación. Como resultado, Drazan recibió el 47 % del apoyo frente al 46 % recibido por Kotek. Smith mantuvo el 3 % y el 4 % de los encuestados siguieron indecisos.

El margen de error de la encuesta es del 3,24 %.

Los hallazgos son la señal más reciente de que los demócratas nuevamente están luchando para vender un récord de logros a un público escéptico, un tema que se ha repetido en cada una de las últimas tres contiendas por la gobernación.

Menos del 30 % de quienes respondieron a la encuesta de OPB dijeron creer que el estado va en la dirección correcta, mientras que un 58 % señaló que va por el camino equivocado.

Kotek, quien está buscando un segundo mandato de 4 años, ha dedicado buena parte de su campaña a relacionar a Drazan con las impopulares políticas del presidente Donald Trump, en lugar de promover su propio récord. La encuesta de OPB sugiere que la gobernadora tiene una imagen apenas ligeramente mejor que la de Trump entre los votantes de Oregón: un 38 % de favorabilidad frente al 37 % del presidente.

“Todavía hay muchos votantes indecisos de cara a noviembre. Sin embargo, cuando la opción es clara en una elección, ellos siempre aparecen. La opción no podría ser más clara en esta contienda: Christine Drazan está lista para abrirle la puerta a la agenda de Trump y la gobernadora Kotek está luchando cada día para proteger a los habitantes de Oregón de la intromisión y el daño federal”, indicó Federico Araujo, director de comunicaciones de la campaña de Kotek, en un comunicado en respuesta a la encuesta.

Drazan, mientras tanto, ha trabajado para convencer a los votantes de que Kotek ha fallado en asuntos clave como el rendimiento escolar, la vivienda y el mejoramiento de la economía. Ella tiene una valoración favorable entre el 45 % de los potenciales votantes.

“Encuesta tras encuesta está evidenciando que los habitantes de Oregón de todas las corrientes políticas están cansados de la falta de liderazgo de Tina Kotek y encontrando más y más razones para apoyar a Christine Drazan”, señaló Trey Rosser, un consultor de la campaña de Drazan, en una respuesta enviada a OPB.

“Mientras Kotek está ocupada culpando y avergonzando a otras personas por problemas que han empeorado bajo su gestión, Christine está construyendo apoyo alrededor de su plan para disminuir los costos, hacer frente a la situación de las personas sin hogar, construir más viviendas, mejorar la educación y exigir responsabilidad al gobierno estatal”, añadió.

El argumento de Drazan parece ser más exitoso entre quienes la apoyan, por ahora. Entre quienes dijeron que probablemente votarían por Kotek, menos del 80 % afirmó tener una opinión favorable de la gobernadora. Mientras tanto, más del 90 % de quienes votarían por Drazan tienen una imagen positiva de su candidata.

“Drazan ha realmente consolidado su base. No necesita hacer nada para conseguir que los republicanos la apoyen. ¿Puede atraer a suficientes demócratas, independientes con tendencia de izquierda o votantes no afiliados a ningún partido para ganar?”, expresó Horvick, vicepresidente sénior de DHM Research, la firma que condujo la encuesta para OPB.

Horvick añadió que “el otro lado de la historia es que hay un grupo de votantes que quizá deberían ser naturalmente de Kotek, y tendrá la oportunidad de atraerlos de nuevo durante el próximo mes”.

El área metropolitana de Portland, de gran importancia, es probablemente una prioridad para las dos candidatas. La encuesta de OPB evidenció que Kotek atrae actualmente al 54 % de los votantes de la región de los tres condados, una cifra inferior al 61 % de los votantes que obtuvo allí en la elección de 2022. Drazan logró el apoyo del 40 % de los votantes del área metropolitana, pero lideró a Kotek entre los votantes del resto del estado.

 (edited)

Este año, los principales asuntos en la mente de los votantes de Oregón son, en gran medida, económicos. Cuando se preguntó por el problema más importante que enfrenta el estado, el 52 % de los encuestados respondió que el costo de vida, la asequibilidad de la vivienda, los altos impuestos o el mercado laboral. La situación de las personas sin hogar y el deficiente liderazgo también estuvieron entre las preocupaciones de los votantes.

Esos resultados cambian, de alguna manera, dependiendo del partido.

Las principales preocupaciones de los demócratas este año incluyen el costo de vida, la asequibilidad de la vivienda, Trump y el cambio climático. Los republicanos están más enfocados en los altos impuestos, el deficiente liderazgo, la dominancia política de los demócratas en Oregón y la situación de las personas sin hogar. Los votantes no afiliados a un partido, que superan en número a los miembros de cada uno de los partidos, pero están menos inclinados a votar, dijeron que los altos costos, la situación de las personas sin hogar, los impuestos y el deficiente liderazgo fueron los principales desafíos que enfrentó el estado.

Los centros de datos y la inteligencia artificial, dos temas que se han convertido en puntos de tensión en la política estatal y nacional, apenas figuraron entre las principales preocupaciones de los encuestados. Sin embargo, cuando se les preguntó específicamente sobre asuntos que motivarían su voto este año, el 72 % de los potenciales votantes indicó que los centros de datos influenciarían su voto, pero muy por detrás de asuntos como el costo de vida, la economía o la educación de preescolar, primaria y secundaria (K-12).

Quizá, alentador para Drazan, un grupo mayoritario de votantes dice que confía más en un líder conservador en materias económicas. La encuesta muestra que el 44 % de los potenciales votantes preferiría un conservador para enfrentar esos asuntos. Drazan ha hecho del recorte drástico de las regulaciones a los negocios y el impulso de la economía estatal una pieza central de su campaña.

También hay noticias positivas para Kotek. Los habitantes de Oregón preferirían que su gobernador fuera un liberal en asuntos sociales, con un 42 % que aseguró inclinarse por ese enfoque. La gobernadora ha destacado sus posturas sobre la protección del acceso al aborto y la salvaguarda de los derechos LGBTQ+ en su campaña para un segundo mandato.

Horvick anotó que los asuntos que animan a los votantes este año son muy diferentes a los de hace cuatro años, cuando Kotek enfrentó a Drazan por primera vez. En esa contienda, la situación de las personas sin hogar, la delincuencia y el consumo descontrolado de drogas fueron las principales preocupaciones.

La encuesta de OPB sugiere que la carrera por la gobernación se está haciendo más reñida mientras se acerca el día de las elecciones. Encuestas aplicadas a finales de junio y a principios de septiembre mostraban que Drazan subió 4 % y 2 %, respectivamente. La encuesta de OPB muestra menos votantes indecisos que en los resultados pasados y que el margen republicano es solo de un 1 %, muy dentro del margen de error de la encuesta.

La encuesta fue realizada entre el 17 y el 27 de septiembre. Se utilizó una combinación de entrevistas telefónicas y mensajes de texto que dirigieron a los votantes de Oregón a un formulario en línea.

A pesar de que ningún republicano ha ganado la gobernación desde 1982, hay precedentes de que el partido ha tenido ventaja en esta fase de la campaña. En 2022, Drazan lideró la mayoría de las encuestas públicas hasta noviembre, solo para ver colapsar su liderazgo en los días finales.

“Este es el verdadero problema de Kotek: Si pierde, va a perder porque ha perdido el apoyo de demócratas moderados en términos generales del área metropolitana de Portland. ¿Podrá Kotek mantener a esos demócratas escépticos? Tenemos 40 años de historia que sugieren que es más probable que eso ocurra, pero cuando un demócrata pierde es precisamente por eso”, mencionó Horvick.

Este año, la principal preocupación de los republicanos puede ser de carácter financiero. Drazan ha reportado un recaudo de 11,1 millones de dólares desde enero de 2025, unos 2,5 millones de dólares menos que Kotek. Sin embargo, dado que tuvo que navegar una elección primaria republicana muy competitiva, Drazan tiene menos de 1 millón de dólares en sus manos, comparado con los más de 8 millones del fondo de campaña de Kotek.

Drazan ha agendado apariciones al lado de figuras republicanas nacionales, mientras busca impulsar la recaudación de fondos. La semana pasada, apareció junto al gobernador de Florida Ron DeSantis en una cena del Partido Republicano en Hillsboro, inspirando fuertes críticas por parte de los demócratas que describen al floridano como un secuaz de Trump. El miércoles, agendó una aparición junto al gobernador de Montana Greg Gianforte en Eugene.

Nota del editor: Un enlace a una encuesta en este artículo fue actualizado para corregir un error de copiado y pegado de la firma DHM. Ese dato no se incluyó en el reportaje de OPB.

CORRECCIÓN: Esta historia originalmente indicó erróneamente el porcentaje de votantes que seguían indecisos tras ser presionados para que dijeran por qué candidato se inclinaban. OPB lamenta el error.

A Benson Polytechnic High School student who was charged with domestic terrorism will remain at a local mental health facility and out of the state’s custody following a dramatic hearing at Multnomah County Circuit Court on Wednesday.

The move disappointed prosecutors, who argued during the two-hour hearing that the student — who allegedly released toxic chemicals at Benson in an attempt to kill himself and others — posed a safety risk and should be at a juvenile detention center.

Prosecutors during the hearing revealed for the first time that multiple employees of the Parry Center for Children, where the teen has been receiving treatment, are also parents of Benson High School students. Judge Amy Holmes Hehn eventually decided that the student should return to the Parry Center, but would have to change facilities as soon as possible.

Wednesday marked the third hearing to decide whether the student should remain at a mental health facility or be transferred to a juvenile detention center.

It will not be the final time the two sides discuss the teen’s detention. But it saw a dramatic last-second reversal, with the student only minutes away from being taken into custody at a local detention center.

The student faces 19 separate charges, including domestic terrorism and attempted murder. OPB is not naming him because he is a minor and has not been convicted. Multnomah County District Attorney Nathan Vasquez has said his office will seek to try the student as an adult.

Throughout the court process, the district attorney’s office has staunchly maintained that the teen is a threat to public safety and needs to be kept at the Donald E. Long Juvenile Detention Center. They also took issue with the fact that the Parry Center school is operated by the same school district that operates Benson.

“The state doesn’t believe it’s fair to have this youth placed in Portland Public Schools,” said Deputy District Attorney Eric Zimmerman.

Zimmerman called three witnesses during the hearing: two were parents of Benson High students and one was a behavioral health supervisor at Donald E. Long.

One parent, identified only as “Anonymous father and teacher,” told the court he was a teacher at the Parry Center, and that his son was only feet away from the initial chemical attack at Benson. The man said it was traumatic working at the same center where the alleged attacker now resides. He said it’s impacted his ability to teach his classes.

“I’m not able to do part of my job,” the parent said. “I can’t work with my kids, because we’re worried about taking care of a student that caused harm to my family.”

Defense attorneys were miffed by the timing of the revelation that a victim worked at the Parry Center. Attorney Noah Horst told the judge it felt “a bit like an ambush.”

As of late Wednesday evening, Pat Dooris, spokesman for the district attorney’s office, declined to comment, citing Oregon laws concerning juvenile proceedings.

The teen’s attorneys, Horst and Norah Van Dusen, said their client has a history of self-harm and his life could be in danger at a juvenile facility.

“We are talking about this young person’s life,” Van Dusen told the court. “We are talking about a young person with a very, very high rate of suicidality.”

Silvia Gomez, a juvenile services senior manager at Multnomah County, said that Donald E. Long is currently understaffed, and that the facility is ill-equipped to handle a youth with so many acute mental health needs.

“I think we have to be very real about detention,” Gomez said. “Our recommendation is that this young person be in the place where they need to be in order to get stable.”

Holmes Hehn initially said that the student could not remain at the Parry Center and ordered him to be taken into custody. She acknowledged that Donald E. Long did not have the resources to meet the mental health needs of the student.

“But I can’t find that those trump the rights of a victim,” Holmes Hehn said.

With two Multnomah County Sheriff’s deputies waiting to take the teen into custody, defense attorney Horst made a last-ditch effort — he asked if they could take a few minutes to find an alternate place for their client to stay.

“If we can make a few phone calls before the 5 o’clock hour and try to figure out an alternative disposition, that seems like a much smarter way to balance the constitutional and statutory issues that are in tension here,” Horst said.

With the judge’s permission, the defense team ducked out of the courtroom, frantically calling to find him another facility. Meanwhile, the teen’s parents sat at his side, offering hushed words of reassurance.

Soon, the attorneys returned before the judge. Van Dusen said the Benson high parent worked in a separate building at the Parry Center from where her client is residing. She said the teen’s therapist assured her that he could be kept away from the victims.

That was enough for Judge Holmes Hehn. She issued an order saying the teen had to be kept in his unit and away from the school building. She also said that he needed to be moved to another facility as soon as could be arranged.

The next hearing will take place on Nov. 9.

Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek and Republican state Sen. Christine Drazan sat down with OPB for separate interviews in recent days ahead of their gubernatorial rematch on Nov. 3.

What did they have to say about the major issues?

This week on “OPB Politics Now,” we are dropping those interviews as full episodes. We talked about education issues, vote by mail, abortion and more. You can listen anywhere you get your podcasts or watch the full interview above.

Listen to OPB’s election interview with Tina Kotek here.

According to the Portland Business Journal, Amazon plans to build a Prime Air drone delivery center at its fulfillment center in North Portland and is expected to meet with city officials this month to discuss its proposal. Although the drones haven’t started flying yet, members of the Piedmont Neighborhood Association in North and Northeast Portland have begun expressing their concerns around safety, noise and impacts on local retailers.

Portland Business Journal reporter Sara Edwards joins us to share more details.

Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s a tube of toothpaste and a stapler being delivered by a drone? Amazon says it plans to expand its Prime Air delivery service to nearly 500 cities and towns by the end of the year. Portland is on that list, but according to the Portland Business Journal, members of the Piedmont Neighborhood Association, just south of Amazon’s planned takeoff site, are concerned about safety and noise and impacts on local retailers. Sara Edwards has been writing about this for the Business Journal, and she joins us now. It’s great to have you back on the show.

Sara Edwards: Yeah, thanks for having me back on.

Miller: How did you first hear about Amazon’s plans to deploy drones from its fulfillment center in North Portland?

Edwards: So I check the city’s permit website regularly and I saw that Amazon had filed a pre-application conference request, and it essentially said they were proposing to build out a drone fulfillment center at its same day distribution center in North Portland.

Miller: How much do we actually know about what their plans are? That’s just pulling a file to talk to people about this plan, right? So what do we know about it?

Edwards: Everything is still very preliminary. So, a pre-application conference is nothing. It’s not an official “This is happening.” It’s essentially a chance for Amazon to meet with city officials and talk about any potential challenges or issues that could come up during the permitting process. So this isn’t a definitive “This is coming,” but likely given how Amazon is looking to ramp up drone delivery service, it can be assumed that they are planning to move forward with this. What we do know is that they’re looking to bring drone delivery to Portland. They want the drone hub for where these drones will be housed and dispersed from to be at that North Portland fulfillment center, and that’s kind of what we know so far.

Miller: What kinds of things can an Amazon drone deliver?

Edwards: Yeah, anything five pounds or less. So think maybe an iPhone or cosmetics, medication. If it weighs five pounds or more, it’s too heavy for the drone, and you can’t deliver it. So you’re probably only getting one or two items in this delivery.

Miller: Do customers pay more for 30 minute drone delivery?

Edwards: Yes. So if your order is $50 or above, so technology, it will be free. Prime members, they will have to pay a fee of $2.99 if it’s $50 and less, and then non-Prime members will pay $4.99.

Miller: Where is this kind of Amazon drone delivery already happening?

Edwards: Multiple states across the country, think Arizona, Texas, Florida, they’re beginning to launch more drone delivery locations in at least four other cities. I’m not sure at what point, but those are actively in the works as well.

Miller: Is Amazon the only one who’s doing this or is this other folks as well?

Edwards: No, there are a lot of retailers who are quickly trying to move forward on this. I believe Walmart was one of the first, if not with Amazon on drone delivery. They actively have that going on in Texas and similar states like I mentioned earlier. DoorDash is currently working on a DoorDash Air with partner restaurants like Chipotle. I think Popeye’s is another one. And then I believe I saw that Lowe’s, the hardware store, is also looking to implement drone delivery service.

Miller: So, I mean there’s a kind of a rush right now to have burritos and everything come to us from the air.

Edwards: Very much so.

Miller: The Jetsons version of the commercial future, at least.

Edwards: Yeah.

Miller: What have you heard about places where Amazon’s delivery drones are already being used? What kinds of stories have emerged?

Edwards: Amazon’s spokesperson directly has said that the implementation of drone delivery has been largely positive. However, over the last couple of weeks we have seen reporting, the main one being from The New York Times, about how drone delivery has essentially taken over this neighborhood in Richardson, Texas, which is actually not far from where I grew up.

And residents and neighbors told The New York Times that there are so many drones flying overhead, it sounds like a lawnmower sometimes. And drone hours are typically between sunrise and sunset, so 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. And for people who are at home all day, they’ve reported it’s just constant drones all over. They actually have a picture with their story. And I think there’s like three or four drones in just this one pretty far away shot. Media has not reported a lot of positive things about it.

Miller: So this gets us to some pushback that you’ve been reporting on in Portland, the Piedmont Neighborhood Association. Piedmont is a neighborhood directly south of this North Portland existing fulfillment center where Amazon wants to put its drones. There are a couple of different categories of concerns that were outlined in your conversation and in the letter from this neighborhood association. I want to start with the safety ones. What did you hear from this group?

Edwards: So when I spoke with the board chair who sent this letter to me, she mentioned that this is a family neighborhood, a lot of single family residents, a lot of people who are walking around and being outside, and they had concerns of, these drones are big. We have a picture on our website of someone loading a drone, and they’re easily the size of one to two people, and they raised concerns of what happens if one of these drones were to crash or malfunction. A lot of these houses are also over a century old. And so they brought up concerns of if they’re to crash, that could hit a child, it could hurt pets and chickens and animals that reside outside. So they’re concerned about just the safety of this detection technology that Amazon touts.

Miller: What has Amazon said about safety?

Edwards: They, of course, have said they’re prioritizing safety. They say that the drones have detection technology that can help them navigate clotheslines, telephone wires, trees. Amazon has said, in order to be able to execute a delivery, you do need to have a decent amount of space for the drone to lower in the air and release your package. So they’ve said people, pets need to be at least 10 feet away from the drone to be able to do that or else it won’t be able to make the drop. And from what Amazon has said is they’re actively trying to continue to improve detection. Something they’ve noticed is these drones cannot fly in unfavorable conditions. So if it is storming, particularly windy, they will not execute drone delivery for that day.

Miller: What about months of constant drizzle? I guess we’ll find out.

Edwards: I guess we’ll find out. Yeah.

Miller: How do drones navigate tree canopies and telephone wires?

Edwards: So their technology is able to handle static things like a chimney or a telephone wire. I think if an area is too particularly covered in trees and a drone can’t safely lower, I don’t think it will deliver there. From what I’ve gathered with research is Amazon, when they’re looking to launch in an area, they have specific delivery zones that are safe for the drone and others where they just can’t be there because the ground is obstructed from the drone to land, too many telephone wires or poles, or there’s just not a safe way to lower the drone without it being obstructed.

Miller: What did the neighborhood association say about the nuisance of delivery drones, which is separate from safety concerns?

Edwards: They’re mostly concerned of what the Richardson, Texas residents were saying about the noise. The board chair had seen The New York Times article right around when I wrote my pieces. And so when they saw that this, paired with Amazon’s plans to bring drone delivery, the neighborhood association was worried that this was just going to negatively impact neighborhood life.

Miller: What does Amazon say specifically about noise?

Edwards: They’ve said that they are continually working on reducing the noise emitted by drones and that the current model of drones, it’s able to only emit a sound as loud as a passing car. So they say it’s consistently something they’re working on, but hasn’t really said much other than that.

Miller: The head of the Piedmont Neighborhood Association wrote this, in the letter to you: “In addition to the physical and auditory disruptions to people, pets, and wildlife, this is adding insult to injury for our small businesses who sell similar products.” So there’s a kind of small business or local business argument that obviously we’ve heard versions of that about Amazon pre-drone delivery and Walmart before them and a long-standing issue. I’m curious about all of these together. Who is the neighborhood association making all these, whether it’s the nuisance, the retail or the safety arguments, who are they making these arguments to? I mean, who regulates this?

Edwards: So to start, the excerpt you just read, the letter was addressed to me and then an editor with the Portland Tribune. This letter was kind of a preliminary action of, this is where we’re going to start. Let’s talk with the media first. I did talk with the board chair last night, actually, and they’re working with local representatives, counselor’s offices, just to kind of raise awareness of their concerns, if this were to go through. As for who regulates airborne drones, that’s all regulated by the FAA.

Miller: But would city council members have the ability to say “No, we don’t want this,” or is it just in a realm of zoning and it’s already allowed in, or it’s the FAA, so it has nothing to do with the city anyway? I mean, in the end, who could say no to this or yes?

Edwards: So a lot of this is going to come from permitting. At this pre-application conference, Amazon will learn if they’re able to fly drones and have a drone fulfillment center for the area that if that’s zoned correctly. I think city councilors will be able to raise awareness of just how they feel about these drones. But as far as immediately stepping in, I’m not sure if that’s something they’re able to do. And it’s hard because a lot of this is still preliminary. So even though this isn’t in the permitting stage yet, there’s not really a lot that can be done other than to raise awareness that this is coming or potentially coming.

Miller: What has the FAA said about delivery drones?

Edwards: This is kind of a toss up. So earlier this year, the FAA said they were going to conduct a study just on the safety, environmental impacts of these drones. And then in July, the New York Times had reported that the FAA deemed that these drones pose no significant impact. And you know that if any company who wanted to pursue drone delivery, they just had to get a certification called Part 135. I think it’s a longer name, but that’s what came up for me. They have to operate under 400 feet and so retailers are just working with the FAA to get that certification.

I did see at the end of September, multiple states, including a county in Texas, Harris County, which includes Houston, are actually suing the FAA. They’re claiming that the findings the FAA reported of these drones not having a significant impact, they said that this was not adequately done. And so they are asking the FAA to revisit those regulations and just truly do more work to make sure that people who are living under these flight paths are thought of.

Miller: Back to Portland, is there any sense for what the timeline is? When this could start in Portland or when it could be denied?

Edwards: So Amazon wants to launch drone delivery service by early 2027. I’m not sure what time frame from there. I believe on October 20, that’s when the pre-application conference will take place. Typically residents in the neighborhood where development is impacted will be able to listen in. It’s not a comment period, so people can’t necessarily go in and support or oppose this development or these plans again, because everything’s so preliminary. But it will be an opportunity just for more people to hear what’s happening, and those are available on the city’s website with a team’s link. They all take place online. So that’s happening and then after that, Amazon will get any challenges or changes that should be made when it’s ready to pursue permits, and after that it’ll kind of just be whenever they’re ready to begin building.

Miller: Meanwhile, you’ve also been reporting that Amazon has other plans also in the works to expand delivery options or fulfillment center footprints in Portland. So more there as well. Sara, thanks very much.

Edwards: Yeah, thank you.

Miller: Sara Edwards is a staff reporter who covers commercial real estate for the Portland Business Journal.

“Think Out Loud®” broadcasts live at noon every day and rebroadcasts at 8 p.m.

If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983.

Charles Torok is a music instructor at Antonia Crater Elementary in Newberg, and Brenda Olvera is a general music and choir teacher at Monmouth Elementary. They join us to share what draws them to music education and how their first year in the classroom is going.

Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.

Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. With both education and arts facing cuts all across the country, it’s not an easy time to be a music teacher in a school. Research shows that music educators have been leaving the field in recent years, especially since the pandemic. But young music educators are still embarking on classroom careers, and we have two of them on the show with us right now. They’re each just about one month into K-12 teaching. Charles Torok is a music instructor at Antonia Crater Elementary in Newberg. Brenda Olvera teaches music and choir at Monmouth Elementary. It’s great to have both of you on Think Out Loud.

Charles Torok: Thank you so much for having me.

Brenda Olvera: Yes, thank you so much.

Miller: Charles, one month in, how is the year going so far?

Torok: It’s going really well. Every day, I’m more and more pleasantly surprised with how excellent of an environment, students, co-workers, the community around the school, everything is really excellent.

Miller: What are you teaching, exactly?

Torok: I’m teaching K-5 general music. This is singing, recorders, the drums.

Miller: People still do recorders?

Torok: Still doing the recorders.

Miller: That has survived since I went to school 4,000 years ago.

Torok: Yes. Folk dancing, all different types of hand games, cooperative games, and things of that nature.

Miller: From kindergarteners up to fifth graders.

Torok: Correct.

Miller: So that’s a huge developmental range.

Torok: Certainly.

Miller: Brenda, what about you? How is your year going so far?

Olvera: It’s going so amazing. I feel really grateful to have finally gotten to the stage of being a teacher. It’s been my lifelong dream, and the kids are amazing.

Miller: And what are you teaching?

Olvera: I teach also K through 5, general music and choir at Monmouth Elementary and, like Charles, I teach all those things, but we also do units on ukulele and keyboards.

Miller: What has the biggest challenge been so far for you, Brenda?

Olvera: I’d say knowing what to start with in teaching them, because they had a previous music teacher and usually you come into it like, oh, and you have that trade-off, but unfortunately I didn’t have that trade off, so it’s just a lot of like, OK, let me see if the kids know this. Some of them do, some of them don’t. And trying to scaffold that and layer it so that it benefits the students where they’re at in what they know. That’s been difficult for me.

Miller: Charles, what about you? The biggest challenge?

Torok: Well, I certainly agree with Brenda. Figuring out what they already know so that we can build on top of that and not boring them with activities that they’ve done in the past. But in addition, 260 names across ages, across classrooms, I’m in name soup sometimes.

Miller: That seems literally impossible, but I know teachers do it.

Torok: Yeah.

Miller: OK, I started with a challenge. Maybe I should have started with this one instead, but what’s the biggest joy? Charles, you seem actually very exuberant right now. What’s the best thing been so far?

Torok: Well, the best thing is getting to meet 260 young musicians and teaching them about the thing that I love the most in the world which is music, and seeing them relate to it, seeing them enjoy it, seeing them thrive in it, and engage in that productive struggle that is music making.

Miller: Brenda, what about you? The biggest joy?

Olvera: I’d say seeing the look on their faces when they finally get something that they’ve worked so hard on. Like today with my second grade class, we were learning our quarter note and eighth note rhythms and we were able to go through a flashcard exercise, and they were nailing every single one. And the look on their faces, oh, it just brightened my day. It was amazing.

Miller: It’s interesting because both of you emphasize there… So Charles, your term for that was the productive struggle, which is maybe related to what Brenda was just talking about. These kids in this case figuring out this rhythm, after not having figured out before that. What does productive struggle mean to you, Charles?

Torok: Well, it’s the journey between not knowing or having some semblance of knowing and that “aha” moment, the light bulb, the flash in the pan when the student is just lit up and so excited. But I love being a guide to those students and showing them along the path, helping identify where we may have messed up a little bit, highlighting the successes, just that whole messy process of learning that we all go through whenever we do something new, right?

Miller: Brenda, you said that you are now, you’ve achieved your lifelong dream. For how long have you wanted to be a music teacher?

Olvera: I knew I wanted to be a teacher when I was probably in like fourth grade, but I knew that I wanted to be a music teacher when I entered high school. That was when things started shifting. I initially wanted to be a dermatologist, then I was like, oh, maybe not, a lot of schooling, and then I stepped into that choir room in high school, my life changed instantly.

Miller: It was as dramatic as that. There was a moment when your life changed?

Olvera: Absolutely, yes.

Miller: Can you describe it?

Olvera: Oh yes, I would love to. It was my sophomore year of high school. We went on my high school’s chamber choir to Oregon State University – go Beaves, my alma mater – and we performed with their chamber choir at their Orange and Black Concert, and we had just finished performing. We were sitting in the audience and I was watching Doctor Zielke, who is the director of choral studies at Oregon State, conduct the chamber choir, and I immediately came into tears. It was kind of like a come to Jesus moment, like, oh my goodness, this sounds amazing. What he’s doing is super cool. I need to do that for the rest of my life.

Miller: It’s one thing to have some moment of deep pleasure and joy and being moved by music or art. But it seems like you were also focusing on the conductor, on the teacher, on that aspect of this.

Olvera: Yeah, I really enjoy conducting and my final year of undergrad, I did as much as I could, because I just find so much joy in it.

Miller: We asked folks on Facebook if they had a music teacher who influenced them. We got some great responses. Candy Lopez wrote, “Yes, Chuck Thatcher in my elementary school in New York, who helped me overcome the fear of singing on tape. Jack Woodard in my California junior and high schools who got me into acappella music and sponsored some of us to form an all-girl barbershop quartet outside of school. They both loved and supported their students as much as they loved music without making us feel like perfection was required.”

And Patrick Allen wrote, “Mrs. Bostwick at Fernwood changed my life by introducing me to multiple instruments in band. That love of making music carried on to my own kids who all played in the high school band in Sherwood, one of whom traveled to Taiwan with the Oregon State Wind Ensemble and one of whom played in the Band of the Fighting Irish. Thank you Mrs. Bostwick.”

Charles, what about you? Did you have significant music teachers who are part of the reason you became a music teacher yourself?

Torok: Absolutely. Every day I meet a new music teacher that inspires me to be a teacher. In high school…

Miller: Every day you meet a new music teacher?

Torok: Every day. Some of them are second graders. Some of them are fellow musicians that I play music with outside of an educational context. But the one that comes to mind is my high school music teacher. His name was Dennis Mauricio. And Dennis ran what’s now called a modern band program at my high school in Chula Vista, California. And the moment that I knew that this was the thing for me was sharing a stage with Dennis and playing serious music for serious people, adult music with a guitar and with a keyboard. And having that musical conversation with another person, it’s unlike any other thing.

Miller: Was that moment about performance primarily, do you think, when did education enter into it?

Torok: Well, I think the moment was about connection. And in the same way that many of us connect to that teacher in our lives, that moment of performance I think was about connection. But I became attracted to education slowly over a long period of time. I initially was interested in performance, and then I started teaching private guitar lessons, group guitar lessons, an afterschool program. And then I’m substitute teaching and I thought to myself like, yes, this is the move.

Miller: All right. And then you and Brenda, both of you went to music school. I’m curious what you were experiencing last year when graduation was getting closer. What did job prospects, Brenda, what did they look like this time last year?

Olvera: Oh my goodness. This time last year, I was a little bit terrified. A lot of my professors would tell me, you just got to apply, apply, apply, apply to the thing. If you need a job, you will find the job, and you will take whatever you can get.

Miller: And the last part, but it may not be the job you were looking for or where you wanted to be?

Olvera: Yeah. I started the job application process probably in January, February and surprisingly, with my current position now, I found out about it during one of my classes that I have with my cohort that I graduated with, cause my professor mentioned like, “Oh hey, you should check the Oregon music job posting website, and there is a job on there,” and I was like, “Oh, I haven’t applied to that one. I’ll go ahead and apply for it.” And the next day got the interview, had the interview, and within like three days I had gotten the job. So it’s just also like a matter of luck and chance.

Miller: Charles, what about you? What was the job hunt like?

Torok: It was a marathon more than a sprint, definitely. The second that I finished school and finished my student teaching, I found myself online applying to as many jobs as I could. I was recommended to apply to this job in Newberg by my cooperating teacher – Tony James Berry, shout out – and found the interview, went out and that’s how it happened. But I applied to quite a few jobs before.

Miller: And am I right that this is a 0.6 full-time equivalent, so meaning three days a week, not five?

Torok: That’s correct, yes.

Miller: Were you hoping for five?

Torok: Three is great for me, both because I commute pretty far to get to my job, but as well, first year music teachers don’t necessarily have a curriculum that the district gives you to teach. So having three days a week at the job and two days a week off the job to kind of work on it and write my lesson plans and plan and practice the pieces that I’ll be doing with the kids.

Miller: That sounds like a very good deal for the district, but a lot of unpaid labor for you who is right in front of me right now.

Torok: That’s for sure, yes.

Miller: I imagine some not small number of your students, you could be the first, maybe the only exposure to music that these kids have had. Brenda, what’s it like to be the steward of that kind of experience?

Olvera: It feels like a privilege. That’s just the first word that comes to mind. A lot of the time, especially as the students get older, like fourth, fifth grade, they’re like, oh, music, you gotta participate, I’m too cool, I’m nonchalant. But getting to know that, OK, we do some cool things, I at least try to incorporate the type of music that they like to listen to. Like at the beginning of the year, I got all of their, oh, what’s your favorite song, and as they come in, they listen to it and they’re like, oh, the songs that I listen to can be heard in my music room?

Miller: It’s not just John Philip Sousa or Mozart.

Olvera: Yeah, exactly, exactly. It could be K-pop, it could be Katseye, it could be Natasha Bedingfield, like any and everything.

Miller: Charles, a different question for you. How much instruction in classroom management did you get in music school? I imagine there’s a lot of theory then. Did they tell you how to talk to a kindergartner?

Torok: Well, when I got my jazz guitar performance degree, there wasn’t very much talk about kindergartners, no. But when I went to Portland State for a year of post-bachelor studies in music education, there was a bit of a front loading of that information, some tips and tricks and things like that.

Miller: But I imagine, when you said that every day you encounter music teachers, some of them are second graders, I imagine you’re also, as an early career teacher, learning every day simply how to be a teacher?

Torok: Yes, absolutely. There’s nothing that compares to being in the room with the kids. And as many pep talks or lectures or tips and tricks that you’ll get in teacher school, nothing compares to the real thing. And when the rubber hits the road, I feel like that’s when you really learn those lessons.

Miller: Do you feel like your job is stable? I guess I mean both your current position at this one school, but also just your kind of position in American education. Charles first, do you feel stability?

Torok: Well, I feel stable in my position right now. There are a lot of factors that mean that the educational environment are going to wane and wax, as the years go on. There is what appears to be a concerted effort to dismantle the American education system right now. And those actors are trying very hard, and in some ways succeeding. However, I feel like as the most creative nation in the world, I think that together, it’s apparent the value of arts education. I feel like you can’t walk down the street without seeing the product of an arts education, whether it be a sign, a song, design in all of its forms. So I don’t really think that the arts are going anywhere, but their position in public education may wane and wax.

Miller: And Brenda, what about you? How much stability do you feel job-wise right now?

Olvera: I feel pretty stable. When I came and did my interview, my interviewing team were like, our district is very supportive of music ed, we make sure that it’s the last thing that goes because it’s so critical in the development of children and learning how to grow and do things all by themselves. Because I think of music as the fertilizer as to what they’re learning in school, because we combine absolutely everything in this room. So, I feel pretty stable and Charles brought up some very great points. There is likely a chance of it being removed from the public education world, but right now I’m feeling hopeful, we still got time.

Miller: I want to give the last word to some of our listeners. Brett Burmeister wrote “At Pleasant Valley School on Foster, I had both a piano and trombone teacher who taught me enough to be in the Awesome Eagle Marching Band at Centennial from 1984 to 1988. We won every Rose Festival and even went to Saint Petersburg, Florida to compete as a marching band. I don’t play the trombone anymore, but I sing and I thank my choir teachers.”

And Marty Keon wrote, “I remember very interesting lessons with Mrs. Khambatta. She taught us old music, rhythm instruments. Music is so good for the brain, right and left. It’s good for verbal skills, emotional regulation, collaboration and engagement. It’s physical. It’s the truest brain break. It’s something one can enjoy all throughout their life. It’s something for people of all abilities and backgrounds to enjoy or practice.”

Brett and Marnie, thanks so much. And Charles Torok and Brenda Olvera, thank you both very much.

Torok: Thank you so much.

Olvera: Thank you.

Miller: Brenda Olvera and Charles Torok are first year music teachers. Brenda at Monmouth Elementary School, Charles Torok at Antonia Crater Elementary in Newberg.

“Think Out Loud®” broadcasts live at noon every day and rebroadcasts at 8 p.m.

If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983.

The voter-passed Portland Clean Energy Fund, or PCEF, has been awarding grants for about five years. The tax on large retailers who do business in the city has raised far more money than expected. Now Eugene voters will decide whether to pass their own clean energy fund, called ECEF. It’s modeled after PCEF, but it differs.

We’re joined by representatives from both sides of the campaign: Co-Chief Petitioner Aya Cockram and Laura Sedwick, with the no campaign.

Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. The voter-passed Portland Clean Energy Fund, or PCEF, has been awarding grants for about five years now. The tax on large retailers who do business in the city has raised far more money than expected. Next month, Eugene residents will vote on a measure to create their own clean energy fund called ECEF. I’m joined now by representatives from both sides. Aya Cockram is a Co-Chief Petitioner. She works for the Breach Collective. It’s a climate justice nonprofit. Laura Sedwick represents the no campaign. She works in technology project management. Welcome to you both.

Aya Cockram: Thanks so much for having us.

Laura Sedwick: Thank you.

Miller: Aya Cockram, first. What is the local problem that you are trying to solve with this ballot measure?

Cockram: Yeah, I’ll just say that as soon as the Portland Clean Energy Fund passed and started doing all of the amazing work that it does, we have been looking to it and wanting to replicate it for a long time. But simultaneously in Eugene we have these really ambitious climate goals, and we have just been running into the same problem over and over again, which is that any attempt to kind of meet those climate goals hits a funding problem.

So it’s become increasingly clear that we need to have dedicated funding to make sure that we can prioritize meeting our climate goals while simultaneously dealing with the climate crisis, which is here as we can feel in October as it’s 70 degrees outside, and as we see with low snowpack and heat domes and the like. And this fund has so many other co-benefits, our community is feeling the strain of inflation. Affordability is on top of mind for folks, and this fund would really address climate head on while also creating green jobs in our community and making our community a more resilient and livable place.

Miller: Laura, there’s a lot to get into there and I do want to focus more squarely on affordability and price in a little bit, but if you want to first start by responding to Aya about the main point that she started with that the important thing here is to get dedicated funding for climate change response and resiliency in the city. What’s your response?

Sedwick: I think that the challenge here is that there are so many critical issues in the city that are underfunded. When we take a lot of revenue and put it into one bucket, we’re keeping that revenue out of other buckets that are equally hurting and need revenue. So we take a mechanism that can bring in a lot of money, and then we lock all of that money in this one pot when there are other vital funding needs around education, homelessness, public safety, infrastructure, etc.

Miller: Aya, your response?

Cockram: Well climate is, obviously, I think the most pressing challenge of our time. It is an existential crisis, but at the same time, funding climate is not distinct from funding other areas, right? Climate touches so many different issues. So this fund would not just only reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It would also create jobs, as I mentioned earlier. There would be dedicated funding for apprenticeships and job training programs. This would also increase affordability.

We would expect increased subsidies for weatherization, for clean energy technologies to increase efficiency in home, reduce people’s bills, solar on roofs, more availability of electric vehicles. These things are going to help reduce costs every day for families as well as addressing the climate crisis. So we just see so many co-benefits that come with this fund that we don’t see it as distinct as taking away from anything else. We see it as creating benefits across our community.

Miller: Laura, your response?

Sedwick: A lot of the problems with funding – I’ll take education, for an example. Yes, I understand that this fund could create money that could go into, let’s say, making a school more energy efficient or more climate safe, but that doesn’t pay teachers. When you look at the most essential problems with some of our other areas, this fund doesn’t necessarily reach those problems. It’s taking the money and it’s putting guardrails on it. That doesn’t let those issues compete in a central budget.

So instead of taking money, putting it into a city budget where it can be allocated across the city based on the most critical needs, it really is all going into this area. And I understand that there are some elements of the funding that could hit other things, but it can’t pay teachers’ salaries. It can’t build a homeless shelter. It can’t pay police officers. It can’t build a road. There are actual limitations here.

Miller: So let’s dig into some of the details here. Aya, can you explain the actual revenue raising mechanism that is in this measure?

Cockram: Yeah, absolutely. The Eugene Clean Energy Fund, if passed, would place a 2% business license fee on retailers operating in Eugene that earn over $1 billion in gross profits nationally, as well as half a million dollars in gross profits locally. So these companies that meet the threshold, which does not capture our local businesses, would have to pay the fee to get a business license, starting in 2029.

Miller: 2% of what?

Cockram: 2% of the gross profits that they make in Eugene.

Miller: OK. Laura, how do you feel about the mechanism itself of the revenue raising? We can talk about what you see as the effects of it in just a second, but what do you make of the system that is embedded in this measure?

Sedwick: Well, I do think that it is essentially a tax. I think that calling it, yes, it’s technically a business license, I think that that can be a little bit misleading for voters. When you tax the gross profits, that’s a figure that’s before things like rent and payroll. There are retail margins that are going to be impacted, and I think we know that it’s going to raise costs. It’s being presented as a fee that doesn’t raise costs, but I think that’s a misleading claim. The state has found in multiple nonpartisan commissions that taxes like this do increase consumer prices. So, I think that that is something that needs to be part of the conversation.

And I think that it’s unclear how much money it will raise. The city has not been able to do a cost analysis on that. The Portland one has raised a lot more money than anticipated, and then what we’ve seen is that money being reappropriated or reallocated back to other things. I think that there are just some questions about the structure that need to be part of the conversation.

Miller: Aya, your response?

Cockram: Yeah, there’s a lot to unpack there. First of all, it is the Eugene city attorney that has characterized this as a fee. So do with that what you will, but it was the city attorney that has characterized this as a fee. I don’t think that it’s misleading. This is a fee that is exchanged for a privilege which is operating within the city. So this is a fee. We also know that these retailers set their prices at a national level, and this means that these costs can’t be passed on, and we have the example of Portland to look at.

At the end of the day, it’s not the voters who are going to be paying this. I’ve given this example before, but you can look at the price of something in Portland online and change your zip code and look at the price of it in Eugene. It’s not different. The Portland Clean Energy Fund, of course, has been in effect for over five years, as you’ve said, so we would have seen that price difference reflected in Portland already, if that were true.

So at the end of the day, it’s the shareholders and these big corporations who are going to have to pay this fund fee, and of course they don’t want to. And so they’re going to misconstrue the Eugene Clean Energy Fund in any way that they can to try and kind of capitalize on the fear people feel about rising prices, when really, this is only gonna affect their profits.

Miller: Laura, I’m gonna give you a chance to respond to that. She’s saying, no, this will not lead to higher prices for Eugene residents.

Sedwick: Yeah, I mean, this is something that Aya and I really disagree about. I think that while national retailers do set prices on an online platform to be similar, and a lot of that I think has to do with how online shopping and online platforms work. There are a lot of studies and evidence that show that on the ground stores do absolutely pass costs on to local residents, and the Oregonian published an article showing how a WinCo receipt had to show the price increase on the receipt to the items.

The measure is also written with an exemption for groceries and medicine. If we don’t have a concern of it raising costs, why do we have to exempt groceries and medicine? I think that there’s a lot of evidence that costs for consumers can go up, and that measures like this in the past have led to costs going up. And if taxpayers are going to vote for something that’s going to increase their costs, they should very much understand that they’re voting to increase their costs, especially in the economy we are in and the cost of living increases that families are facing.

Miller: Aya, let me give you a chance to respond to that specific point that Laura just brought up there in the middle. Why exempt groceries and medicine if you’re saying that this will not increase costs?

Cockram: Yeah, and I think that this has come up before. So reiterating again and again, there is no evidence to show that this would be passed on to customers. In fact, there is evidence that says the opposite, when we look at Portland. But the reason why we exempted essential services like medicines, like credit unions and utilities is because cost is at the top of mind for voters and when they have their ballots in front of them, voters may not have all of these arguments in their ear, but we wanted them to rest assured that we had their absolute best interests at heart when we wrote this initiative and that they can have the confidence to know that that they won’t be affected adversely.

Miller: Let me make sure I understand what you’re just saying there, that you’re saying that you actually don’t think that it would have been a problem to include all those different essential services, but you kept them out so that voters wouldn’t think that those prices would go up?

Cockram: Yeah, well, that is a piece, that is absolutely a piece to show that we have folks’ best interests at heart. But I think the second piece that goes along with that that’s very important is that it’s not really in the spirit of the initiative to take revenue from these essential services, from groceries, from utilities. What we’re trying to do here is hold billion dollar corporations accountable who reinvest little to nothing back into our community, but whose profits are growing year after year.

Miller: But I just, the only reason that I guess I remain confused by this line of reasoning and why I’m not letting it go yet is that billion dollar companies also provide medicine and utility services in some cases, and food. I guess I don’t see what the distinction is.

Cockram: Yeah, I mean, it’s a complicated issue, it absolutely is. But at the end of the day, what we’re trying to do here is find a way to reassure the voters that we have their best interests at heart, that we’re only addressing these billion dollar corporations and it’s a difficult needle to thread.

Miller: In the time we have left, there’s some other issues I want to get to. I’m curious what lessons, because I imagine there are a lot of them that both of you have taken from Portland’s five years of grant making and more years than that of revenue from the Portland tax. So Laura first, what lessons, positive or negative, have you taken from Portland’s experience?

Sedwick: Yeah. I think the thing that catches my attention the most is that the city of Portland has reallocated money out of this fund to use for other things. They’ve pulled money to fill holes in their general fund, and there is a proposal on the table to take money out of this to retrofit the stadium in Portland. And while I understand that retrofitting the stadium is making it more green, I mean, that’s the thing that helps climate change, when I look at that, I come back to the question of, if we have so much money in a pot that we’re talking about retrofitting a basketball stadium, why are we not putting it into schools? Why are we not building a homeless shelter? Why are we not shoring up library budgets? Why are we putting so much money into one place when we have such a funding issue in Eugene across the board?

I spend time every week in a public elementary school classroom and I can just tell you that the funding is so critical, that the funding needs just in that one area that it frustrates me to see this amount of money being pulled out of the economy and then put in this one area. And when I see Portland moving that money around, it makes me ask, why aren’t we just collecting money to put into the government to use in the critical areas that they see a need for, going by the highest priority?

Miller: Aya, feel free to respond to that. I’m also curious broadly about your positive or negative lessons that you’ve taken from Portland’s experience.

Cockram: Yeah, to Laura’s point about the Moda Center, I think Portland voters and a good portion of the city council would agree with you. That is something that has not happened yet. Steve Novak was on Think Out Loud a few weeks ago, I believe, talking about this very issue and how he said that using Portland Clean Energy Fund dollars for the Moda Center is a nonstarter, and we’ve heard that from other council members as well.

So, the Eugene Clean Energy Fund has very clear parameters about where the funding could go. To divert it elsewhere would not be legal, and the the initiative would have to be changed, or the ordinance would have to be changed in order to divert funding elsewhere. And that is something that would involve process and accountability to voters. So I think that that’s really important to stress, that city council can’t just willy-nilly spend this wherever they want to. It’s very clear where the funding should go. And I would love to address this point about schools as well, if we have time.

Miller: Please, please. Yeah, we have about two minutes left.

Cockram: Absolutely. So as we’ve said, this fund would have a lot of co-benefits, but I want to stress that schools can apply for this funding directly for projects that would help them reduce greenhouse gas emissions, do carbon sequestration projects and make the schools more green, and that does reduce costs for them. That does free up money that they can spend elsewhere.

And that’s why the Oregon Teacher Federation of Oregon, the Eugene Education Association, and a huge host of our school board members: Tom Di Liberto, Jenny Jonak, Maya Rabasa, all 4J board members, Austin Fölnagy, the head of the LCC board, Tai Pruce-Zimmerman, on the Bethel School District board, have all supported the Eugene Clean Energy Fund. So I understand the fear, but we have our community leaders who are dedicated to education saying, no, we support this. This is what Eugene needs. So I think that’s really important to remember.

Miller: Laura, I’m going to give you one last chance to respond.

Sedwick: Yeah, I think that if the city council can vote to move the money around, I just don’t see how those protections are in place. What I hear is, yes, the intention of the fund is to go towards these areas, but the accountability is the Eugene City Council and the Eugene City Council can decide in a meeting with a vote, we’re going to do something else with this money.

So I don’t see those protections. I also don’t find the ways education can use the fund for these green building projects, I don’t see that as a big enough push towards the funding gaps. I really, really don’t. And I know there’s school board members that support it, but there are school board members that don’t support it for those reasons.

Miller: Laura Sedwick and Aya Cockram, thanks very much to both of you.

Sedwick: Thank you.

Cockram: Thanks for having us.

Miller: Laura Sedwick is a no on the ESEF campaign spokesperson. Aya Cockram is co-chief petitioner for this measure.

“Think Out Loud®” broadcasts live at noon every day and rebroadcasts at 8 p.m.

If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983.

It’s a familiar experience for anyone who has walked through an American shopping mall: A friendly salesperson approaches with a free sample of skincare cream, offering the promise of younger-looking skin. As you pass, they launch into a stream of chatter — a compliment on your handbag or a question about what’s in your shopping bag. It’s the kind of encounter that shoppers often walk away from without a second thought.

But behind this familiar mall ritual, NPR uncovered something far more costly: customers hit with thousands of dollars in charges they never authorized and products they didn’t want and can’t return.

In Michigan, an elderly man with dementia was charged $42,000 for skincare products and devices. His family didn’t realize the situation until his credit score dropped, his son told NPR.

In New Mexico, a spa employee sold a woman a $30,000 red-light therapy device. She alleged in a lawsuit that he also charged $78,000 for what he said was sales tax without her consent.

In Hawaii, a disabled woman was shown to the back room of a spa for a “free” facial. The salesperson took her walker, she wrote in a complaint to the state, and refused to let her leave for hours until she spent $2,600.

These stories share a common thread: The stores they visited have contracts to buy skincare products from Mazal Group, a California-based company managing dozens of brands sold in thousands of stores worldwide. And those brands are all owned by one family.

Over the past year, NPR spoke with more than 50 people impacted by this enterprise, including customers who say they were taken advantage of, their family members and former employees. This investigation draws from state and federal court lawsuits, hundreds of online reviews and nearly 500 consumer complaints that NPR obtained from agencies via Freedom of Information Act requests. NPR staff visited stores selling products from Mazal Group in Virginia, Maryland and California, as well as the company’s Chatsworth, Calif., headquarters.

NPR’s investigation finds that stores selling skincare products purchased from Mazal Group have routinely pressured shoppers, including older adults and people with disabilities, into buying expensive skincare products and services they did not want, could not afford or tried to refuse. The business model that a decade ago federal agents called a “credit card overcharge scheme” is active today in malls and shopping districts from Honolulu to Annapolis, Maryland.

Some store and kiosk operators have faced more serious legal consequences than consumer complaints. Federal agencies have investigated individual operators for employing young Israelis on tourist visas to sell these products, resulting in more than a dozen guilty pleas for visa fraud and money-laundering schemes. NPR reviewed social media posts and messages indicating that some stores connected to Mazal Group continue to employ salespeople on tourist visas today. The government hasn’t brought similar charges for a decade, and Israel’s admission to the U.S. Visa Waiver Program in 2023 has removed a key barrier to entry for unauthorized workers.

Though Mazal Group and the family behind it have publicly shifted responsibility for any wrongdoing onto individual store owners, NPR obtained documents that show their brands suggest stores sell products at abnormally high markups while adhering to a strict refund policy set by the group. And a lab test commissioned by NPR raises questions about whether some of the products they sell contain the ingredients their labels promise.

The playbook

Across the hundreds of complaints reviewed by NPR — filed with state attorneys general, the Federal Trade Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Better Business Bureau and other watchdogs — customers describe their experiences in strikingly similar ways.

Their stories start with a young salesperson standing outside a store or mall kiosk offering free samples. Customers say that if they stop, the salesperson quickly escorts — and in some accounts, physically pulls — them into the store and begins a barrage of sales pitches.

In the complaints, customers describe being kept in stores for an hour or more, sometimes isolated in a back room, while salespeople refuse to take no for an answer. The products carry no price tags, they say, which frees the salesperson to negotiate “special sales” and throw in “free gifts” to sweeten the deal on an expensive cream, facial or red-light therapy device.

Shoppers reported to agencies that salespeople did not disclose the amount they charged at the register, which was often much higher than the agreed-upon price. One told authorities that the salesperson added a zero, increasing the sum tenfold from $1,300 to $13,000. In police reports, others allege a store employee told them their card declined when it had not and charged a second card as well.

In court cases, shoppers alleged the salesperson instructed them to sign on a tablet at checkout, not mentioning it was a final-sale policy that could be used against them in credit card disputes. Some said they were signed up for a “payment plan” that salespeople didn’t disclose was really a high-interest loan. In some reports, customers said the salesperson instructed them to authorize charges flagged by their bank as potentially fraudulent.

At the bottom of the bag, many said, the salesperson buried a receipt that said, “All sales final. No refunds. No exchanges.”

In official reports and NPR interviews, customers said they were left angry, stunned and ashamed at how much they were charged, from several hundred dollars to more than $100,000 in one case. Records show some customers recovered partial or full amounts through their credit card companies, while others remained on the hook for thousands. Police reports show numerous shoppers tried to escalate their complaint to authorities, but arrests were almost never made.

In written reports, customers compared the ordeal to being robbed, held hostage or physically assaulted. NPR spoke to five individuals who hid the experience from their families for months or years. One woman said she went into a period of deep depression: “I just felt like if this is the way people are, I don’t want to live in a world like this.”

“We usually don’t see a business that is this brazen”

In New Mexico, Attorney General Raúl Torrez’s office received dozens of complaints about a store called Santa Fe Spa Center by Voupre that, he said, “painted a picture that this was a business that was just brazenly taking advantage of people.”

One woman said a salesperson kept her in the store for hours until she agreed to spend $600 on products from the skincare brand Voupre. The salesperson said her credit card was declined, so she provided another. Later that day, she was “mortified” to see two charges totaling $44,280 in her banking app.

“I thought, ‘How did they do that?’ I really didn’t know what had happened,” said the 67-year-old woman, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal from the spa owner.

When the store would not refund her, she successfully disputed a charge for $27,000 with one credit card company. But she was responsible for $17,280 for a shopping experience she called “traumatic.”

Torrez filed a lawsuit against the store in 2024, alleging violations of New Mexico’s Unfair Practices Act.

“The scale of the price increases, the aggressive tactics, the repeated practice of misquoting prices and then elevating prices while refusing to return a product — we usually don’t see a business that is this brazen and this out in the open, in terms of what they’re trying to do to take advantage of consumers,” said Torrez.

The spa’s owner is Sahar Hori, an Israeli national who, according to court records, is also a U.S. citizen. Hori closed the spa and settled his case with New Mexico in 2025, agreeing to pay $350,000 in restitution to customers.

One of those customers is Mary Lee, an artist from Duluth, Minnesota. She said Hori’s employees pressured her into spending nearly $19,000 on products while she was visiting Santa Fe for a writer’s retreat. She said she tried to get her money back before returning home, but the refund she said a salesman promised her never came through.

The debt weighed on her like “a lead vest, an anchor,” she told NPR. Lee is 65 and retired from full-time work. This year, through New Mexico’s settlement, she was made whole.

“I feel a ton has been lifted off my shoulders,” she said. “I don’t feel like Atlas carrying the world anymore.”

A small group of customers brought a second case against Hori, which settled in February 2026 for an undisclosed amount. While his customers were complaining to the New Mexico Department of Justice, financial records obtained in that lawsuit show the store’s bank account was used to pay a lease to Mercedes-Benz and rent for a downtown Miami high-rise apartment. On his Instagram, Hori posted pictures of beach vacations in Europe and the Caribbean.

“Mr. Hori acknowledges that some customers were unhappy,” his lawyers told NPR, “but he disputes any characterizations that his business intentionally deceived anyone.”

A pattern around the country

The aggressive tactics documented in Santa Fe are replicated in shopping centers nationwide.

In Ann Arbor, Mich., Michele Anliker said her elderly mother was “preyed upon” at a Briarwood Mall store called Beauty Essentials during a 2024 Christmas trip, ultimately leaving with $5,000 in Voupre skincare products she did not want. When Anliker confronted the employees, she said, they accused her mother of stealing.

Anliker complained to mall management, filed a police report and distributed flyers warning shoppers away from Beauty Essentials. She posted on Facebook and connected with more than 30 people with complaints about the store. It wasn’t until she escalated the situation to the mall’s owner, Simon Property Group, that she secured a refund.

Cheryle Grounds’ 84-year-old father was unable to recover the almost $10,000 he spent at Beauty Essentials on New Year’s Day 2025. He has poor hearing and eyesight, and he walks the mall for exercise. Grounds told NPR that her father believed he bought a facial package but was also charged for Voupre items he understood to be gifts with purchase.

Grounds and Anliker declined to identify their parents by name, citing privacy concerns for their elderly parents.

In Manhattan Beach, Calif., 82-year-old retired teacher Mary Ellen Eckhert — who uses a motorized wheelchair — stopped for a free sample outside the store Mia’s by Voupre. She would return to the spa for regular facials over the next year, where store employees ultimately charged her $53,500 across four credit cards, including $24,045 on one visit.

“What kind of a spa charges anyone $54,000?” said her son, Marc Eckhert, who discovered the charges after his mother’s bank account overdrew. While the family managed to dispute much of the debt, Mary Ellen Eckhert remains out more than $17,000.

“I’m feeling like I have to continue working in order to pay for all this,” she said.

NPR reached out to the former owner of Beauty Essentials, Guy Gabay, and did not receive a response. The store closed in 2025. The Briarwood Mall and Simon Property Group did not respond to NPR’s request for comment.

NPR visited Mia’s by Voupre and reached representative Daniella Vanon by phone, who declined to comment. The Manhattan Village Mall, where the store is located, did not respond to NPR.

The family behind the operation

While Santa Fe Spa Center by Voupre, Beauty Essentials and Mia’s by Voupre were independently owned and located thousands of miles apart, the stores all sold customers Voupre products, a brand sold exclusively by Mazal Group in Chatsworth, California.

The company is a family business, owned by Daphna Oded Weingarten, who operates the group alongside her husband, Eli Weingarten; her brother, Avihu Oded; and his ex-wife, Adi Sharvit Oded.

Mazal translates to “luck” or “good fortune” in Hebrew. The Weingartens and Odeds are originally from Israel, as are the majority of corporate employees and licensees (store owners), according to former staff members.

Five former corporate employees agreed to speak with NPR on the condition of anonymity, fearing retaliation from Mazal Group. A small cohort of non-Israelis staffs the design, engineering and marketing departments, they said, as well as the on-site warehouse that fulfills orders.

The Weingartens and Odeds founded their first brand together in 2005 — a line of hair straighteners called HerStyler, under the company HerStyler Inc. A host of sister brands soon followed, and various other companies to house those brands. In 2015, Daphna Weingarten established Mazal Group to centralize operations for the family’s growing portfolio.

The family currently holds more than 50 active trademarks for skin and hair care brands. Among the most prominent are Voupre, Avinichi, Introstem, CbGäRDN, Venofye, Lionesse and Orogold Cosmetics, which sell a nearly identical line of products.

Loading...

“The reason why they have so many brands is because they had to keep remaking brands with different names to sell it a different way to the malls so that they could get a lease,” one former employee told NPR.

Another said store owners who purchased from Mazal Group distanced themselves from a brand once it started to accumulate bad reviews and complaints.

“People would complain about a line, about a brand being destroyed and having a bad reputation,” the former worker said. “So they would constantly come out with something fresh, something new.”

A former corporate employee said it’s difficult to measure Mazal Group’s precise global footprint because stores open and close frequently, but estimated the company contracts with at least 2,000 stores worldwide.

While reporting this story, NPR attempted to reach the Weingartens, Odeds and Mazal Group via phone and email, as well as visiting the Chatsworth headquarters to request an interview. They did not acknowledge this outreach until NPR sent a letter describing its findings, and lawyers for the group provided a brief statement.

“Mazal Group does not own or operate any retail locations that sell cosmetic products or any other products for that matter. Nor does Mazal Group manufacture any products,” said Brian Tilker of the firm Cox Fricke in Hawaii.

Mazal Group looms large in the skincare kiosk industry, but it’s not the only player in the market. Premier Dead Sea, an Israel-based skincare company, was once widespread in U.S. malls but has scaled back its footprint in recent years. Its subsidiary, Avologi, manufactures many of the red-light therapy devices that customers reported being pressured to buy inside stores contracted with Mazal Group.

Premier Dead Sea and Avologi also did not respond to NPR’s requests for comment.

Operation “Salty Winds”

Federal agencies have investigated crimes associated with the Israeli-owned skincare industry in the past, but a lack of sustained and coordinated oversight has allowed it to thrive from coast to coast.

In 2010, the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel, sent a cable to the Department of Homeland Security warning of fraudulent activity linked to the “Dead Sea industry,” which had spread to 36 states.

The term refers to the many Israeli-owned stores and kiosks that were marketing the benefits of products made with salt or minerals from the Dead Sea. The Odeds and Weingartens faced competition from companies like Premier Dead Sea, which was also gaining a foothold in the States with its own family of brands.

In the cable, published by WikiLeaks, the embassy said recruiters in Israel were targeting young people finishing mandatory military service and promising large sums to be made working at American malls. The workers were coached to lie to U.S. consular and border officials to obtain a tourist visa and travel to the U.S. without work authorization, the cable reads. In the States, they were paid under the table and store owners failed to withhold or pay required payroll taxes on their wages, it continues.

The embassy also released a series of public service announcements on YouTube in 2011, featuring the cautionary tales of young Israelis who had been caught by U.S. authorities for illegally working on tourist visas and were either deported or later denied reentry to the United States.

Soon after, federal agencies coordinated to investigate two businesses selling products from brands owned by the Weingartens and Odeds for immigration and financial crimes. The combined efforts of the departments of Labor, State and Homeland Security, the FBI and the IRS culminated in raids, international extraditions and more than a dozen guilty pleas.

In a 2013 operation code-named “Salty Winds,” a task force of federal agents surveilled stores and apartments leased to Israeli national Shai Cohen in the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia region. Cohen had kiosks selling Vine Vera and Orogold Cosmetics, brands owned by the Weingartens and Odeds, as well as locations selling Premier Dead Sea and its affiliates.

Cohen’s enterprise employed an estimated 60 unauthorized workers and brought in nearly $4 million between 2011 and 2013, according to federal records.

Cohen, two managers and at least seven salespeople engaged in fraudulent marriages to stay in the country long term, according to a Department of Labor interview of Cohen’s business partner that NPR obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request. One salesman paid an American woman working at another store in the mall $10,000 to marry him.

Special Agent Matt Grimm, then an investigator for the Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General, led the task force. Grimm recently retired from the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division.

While agents were pursuing immigration fraud and tax evasion charges, they also documented a “credit card overcharge scheme” used to dupe shoppers at Cohen’s stores.

“There’s no price tag,” said Grimm, who observed sales and made purchases himself. “Whatever the salesperson on the spot thinks that they can charge for a particular thing, they’re going to get. The more they sell, the higher their commission is going to be.”

In a Christmastime raid, Grimm’s team arrested a dozen young Israelis working at Cohen’s stores on tourist visas. The store owner was in Israel at the time, triggering a yearslong extradition process.

Cohen pleaded guilty in 2023 in Virginia to conspiracy to launder money and facilitate the illegal entry, harboring and transporting of noncitizens. He served 11 months of a two-year prison sentence. NPR tried to reach Cohen through his real estate business in Israel and did not receive a response.

One of Cohen’s contemporaries was another Israeli national, named Omer Gur, owner of a larger group of stores along the East Coast, including Orogold Cosmetics locations.

“Instead of looking at one kiosk or one store in one location, we wanted to cut the head off the snake,” FBI Special Agent Sara Shalowitz said of Gur.

Shalowitz led a team that covertly surveilled Gur’s stores for three years before apprehending him in Raleigh, N.C., as he attempted to board a one-way international flight.

Gur pleaded guilty in 2016 to a visa fraud and money-laundering conspiracy that included over 140 unauthorized workers and earned more than $14 million, according to the Justice Department. He was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison and served 30 months. A dozen of his associates pleaded guilty on related charges, Shalowitz said.

“I think we set a real deterrence for why this matters,” Shalowitz told NPR. “It’s not just some administrative thing to come to the U.S. under false pretenses, defraud numerous agencies … for the profit of your business and your business partners, at the expense of violating U.S. law.”

NPR reached Gur, who also works in real estate in Israel, by phone. He declined to comment.

The recruitment pipeline

Cohen’s and Gur’s prison sentences may not have been a lasting deterrent for store owners or prospective salespeople.

On Facebook groups and Instagram pages, recruiters advertise jobs working in mall kiosks, or “agalot” — Hebrew for “carts.” They promise young people the opportunity to bring in a high income and live in American cities with others their age. One account posts memes about the highs and lows of working in the agalot: long hours, difficult customers and boatloads of money to be made.

A young Israeli man posted a video to YouTube in November 2025 describing his last three months working at a store that sells Introstem, a brand owned by the Weingartens and Odeds and distributed by Mazal Group. NPR confirmed the store location in a Texas mall through photographs on his social media accounts.

“There is a lot of money in the agalot,” he said. “A seller who is good after a few months, you sharpen your skills, and you become an expert. You can make $10,000 a month like it’s nothing.”

He described having a company vehicle and furnished apartment, with rent deducted from his pay. Workers make a 30% commission on their sales, he said.

“It’s hard work, not easy,” he said. “But it’s a good job considering the fact that you can print money just based on your silver tongue.”

NPR reached the 20-year-old to request an interview. He said he wanted payment, which NPR does not do. NPR is not using his name because it would expose him to federal officials for immigration crimes that he admits to in the video.

“It’s illegal,” he said. “Why is it illegal? Because you are tourists. You are on a tourist visa, and you come to work.”

“But immigration authorities aren’t looking for us. Immigration is looking for the Mexicans who sell drugs, less for the Israelis who contribute to their economy.”

NPR staff also engaged online with recruiters for stores selling the Weingartens and Odeds’ products. One, hiring for a store selling their brand Lionesse in South Carolina, told NPR staff to obtain a visa before they could share more details about the job. They “don’t help with visas,” the recruiter said.

Between the lines is the suggestion to work on a tourist visa, legal experts told NPR. Companies legally employing foreign staff submit mandatory paperwork to the State Department for nonimmigrant work visas.

Travel to the U.S. has also become easier for Israelis since Israel’s 2023 admission to the U.S. Visa Waiver Program. Most Israelis can now visit the U.S. for up to 90 days for business or tourism, visa-free, by completing a short online application 72 hours before travel.

“That removes a key step in the recruitment process,” said Grimm, who previously served as a diplomatic security special agent with the Department of State. Since most Israelis no longer need to interview with a U.S. consular official before departure, he said, “it’s as simple as getting on the airplane and going. But, you’re still not authorized to work.”

NPR reached out to the departments of Homeland Security, Labor and State, the IRS and the FBI to comment on whether they continue to investigate Israeli-owned skincare stores for federal crimes. They would not say whether oversight or enforcement is ongoing.

NPR contacted dozens of current and former salespeople at stores selling products from Mazal Group to hear their side of the story. None agreed to be interviewed, even on the condition of anonymity. Two asked to be paid, which NPR declined.

NPR also reached out to Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to ask whether it is taking action to discourage unauthorized work in the U.S. or address recruitment pipelines.

“The State of Israel unequivocally opposes violations of U.S. law, including U.S. immigration law,” said Ester Buzgan, deputy spokesperson for the ministry. “Israeli citizens seeking employment in the United States must hold a valid work visa and comply fully with the law.”

“Predatory and systematically unfair”

Because the stores it sells products to are independently owned and operated, Mazal Group claims it isn’t responsible for the customer experience. But the company recently settled a class action lawsuit that made public reams of evidence showing that Mazal Group is directly involved in store operations and sets top-down policies that impact shoppers.

Attorneys for a class of former customers filed suit in 2022 in the 1st Circuit Court of Hawaii, alleging Mazal Group, the Weingartens and Odeds, and store owners in the state violated consumer protection laws via a “predatory and systematically unfair and deceptive enterprise.”

Mazal Group asked the judge, unsuccessfully, to dismiss the case on the grounds that the company is merely a distributor that “drop ships” products for a “third-party” and owns no brands of its own.

The Weingarten and Oded family directly owns brands and manages the operations of those brands through Mazal Group. And the company’s website advertises services beyond distribution, including product development, marketing, leasing, customer relations and accounting.

NPR confirmed with former Mazal Group employees that the company helps store owners secure retail space in malls and assists with the design and layout of individual locations. The company’s marketing team designs product packaging and manages brand websites and social media accounts, they said.

“The Mazal Group owners and officers are involved in every step of the process, from product design to distribution to store design and development to sales to post-sale concerns,” concluded a research firm hired by the plaintiffs’ attorneys.

Mazal Group’s agreements with stores also reveal a direct link between company policy and customer complaints. The company requires branded stores — e.g., locations with Voupre or Lionesse in the store name — to exclusively sell products purchased from Mazal Group, adopt a refund policy determined by the group and direct all customer service inquiries to its headquarters, court records show. These agreements also establish guidelines for how salespeople should offer samples to passersby.

After four years of pretrial action, the Hawaii class action case was scheduled for a jury trial in July 2026 in Honolulu. In June, the parties announced they had reached a settlement.

Mazal Group, the Weingartens and Odeds, and two licensees in Hawaii agreed to pay $950,000 in restitution, according to a copy of the settlement agreement obtained by NPR. Mazal Group and the family are responsible for $650,000 of the total payout. After legal fees, funds will be distributed proportionately to 110 class members who filed a complaint with the state of Hawaii.

Mazal Group and the Weingartens and Odeds have denied wrongdoing, and the settlement releases them from future liability for the allegations in the case.

“Highly unusual” pricing and missing ingredients

To understand why salespeople can negotiate the price of a product on the fly, NPR looked into what these items actually cost to make and what’s inside them.

NPR obtained internal order forms for Voupre and Avinichi — brands owned by the Weingartens and Odeds and distributed via Mazal Group. These documents show the brands set manufacturer-suggested retail prices at up to 130 times the wholesale price they charge to stores. Voupre’s Cannabis Caviar Transforming Mask, for example, costs $23 wholesale, with a suggested retail price of $3,000.

“Pricing at that level typically raises red flags,” said Joe Rowett, CEO of VELOX, an Idaho-based marketing agency for skincare and beauty brands.

Well-known luxury brands rarely stretch the suggested retail price to even 20 times the wholesale cost, and most skincare brands operate far below that, Rowett said, making Voupre’s suggested markups “highly unusual.”

Federal investigators and former employees suggested to NPR that this wide margin gives salespeople the flexibility to negotiate the best sales price to earn maximum commission.

NPR sent a single unopened box of a Voupre “best-seller” for chemical testing. The sample — one box of one product — is limited, but the results of the analysis raise questions about what the label promises and what the product contains.

Many shoppers described being lured into a store with a sample of Voupre Anti-Aging Rescue Solution, which Mazal sells to stores for $19.50 per unit with a suggested retail price of $1,300. NPR obtained an unopened box of the solution from Suzann Roberts, a 90-year-old woman in Ann Arbor who bought the product from Beauty Essentials in 2024 and was unable to return it.

NPR sent the sample to Founders Science Group in Taunton, Massachusetts. CEO Robert Munroe has worked as a pharmaceutical scientist for three decades.

By looking at the product’s ingredients list, Munroe identified three ingredients for analysis that could support Voupre’s anti-aging claims: vitamin A to accelerate skin-cell turnover, vitamin E to fight collagen breakdown and acetyl hexapeptide-8, a powerful peptide that some call “Botox in a bottle.”

The lab could not detect any trace of vitamin A or E, which Munroe said was “surprising and definitely suspicious.” Vitamin A can degrade in strength over time without proper preservatives, he said, but it’s not possible for vitamin E to disappear entirely. If the manufacturer did not include the actives at production and Voupre listed them on the packaging, he said, “that would be misbranding.”

Based on what the lab detected, which included a high concentration of the peptide, Munroe said the solution is comparable to The Ordinary’s 10% Argireline Solution, which retails for under $10.

“As far as getting peptide on the skin, you don’t need to spend $1,300 to do it,” he said.

The formula for Voupre’s Anti-Aging Rescue Solution is the basis for nearly identical wrinkle creams that the Weingartens and Odeds sell across other brands like Introstem, CbGäRDN, Venofye and Lavelier.

A new company, the same family

New stores selling the Weingartens and Odeds’ brands crop up regularly across the U.S. and globally, especially in port cities and tourist destinations.

Complaints haven’t slowed them down, one former Mazal Group employee told NPR.

“It wasn’t like it was stopping the business. They were still expanding, opening, expanding, opening, expanding, opening.”

The Weingartens and Odeds have also closed companies and shuttered numerous brands over the years. Just last month, Mazal Group itself — the hub of operations for the family business — terminated its business license in California.

NPR reporters visited the Chatsworth headquarters weeks before that, in August 2026. The building, which once sported a Mazal Group logo more than 10 feet high and wide, bore a similar sign saying INV Brands.

Innovation Brands Inc. was founded by Daphna and Eli Weingarten in 2024.

“Streamlining the journey from concept to consumer,” the company’s website reads. “We leverage global expertise to build, manage, and scale exceptional personal care brands.”

If you have information to share, you can reach Caley Fox Shannon and Monika Evstatieva on Signal at caley_fox.17 and monikanpr.38.

Additional reporting from Israel was provided by Daniel Estrin and Itay Stern. The story was edited by Barrie Hardymon and Robert Little, with additional editorial support from Arielle Retting and editorial review by Kristian Monroe. Preeti Aroon was the copy editor. Matt Pollack conducted the legal review, with additional legal support from Mayeesha Galiba.

Design and development by Connie Hanzhang Jin and Alyson Hurt, with visual editing by Emily Bogle. Mito Habe-Evans and Bronson Arcuri produced and edited the video. Mia Venkat produced the audio.

They parried on an array of subjects for the better part of an hour, with some exchanges exposing clear differences, others few degrees of separation.

In the waning moments, Gluesenkamp Perez got personal, questioning Braun’s lack of outreach to the family of a man killed in an accident at Braun’s company two years ago. She raised the matter hours after launching a campaign ad featuring a son of the man who died in that workplace incident who says that Braun “never called.” The son worked for the company at the time.

“You owe that family an apology,” she said in the debate.

Braun responded curtly. “This is a new low for Marie,” he said. “Here’s the reality. I talked to the son twice that day. I didn’t call him. I talked to him in person.”

Moments later when the debate concluded, Braun approached and spoke briefly to the two-term incumbent before they exited the studio of Portland television station KATU.

“I said I didn’t think she had a soul,” Braun told the Standard on Wednesday.

“This is a character attack,” he continued. “This was a terrible tragic accident. We did everything we could to do this right. To say we didn’t try, it’s heartless.”

Gluesenkamp Perez did not reply to Braun’s post-debate comment, her campaign manager said Wednesday.

The man’s son “came to us because he believed voters deserved to hear what happened to him, despite knowing it could cost him personally. It’s disappointing that Braun has resorted to personal attacks,” campaign manager Tim Gowen wrote in email.

The ad-fueled tension is the latest flashpoint in this match-up in the 3rd Congressional District seat in southwest Washington. It is among a handful of competitive congressional races nationwide, the outcome of which could help determine which party holds the majority in the House next year.

Gluesenkamp Perez is seeking a third term against Braun, the Republican leader in the state Senate. The district encompasses Clark, Cowlitz, Lewis, Pacific, Wahkiakum, and Skamania counties and a small part of Thurston County.

President Donald Trump won it three times, evidence of its Republican lean. But the GOP lost the congressional seat in 2022 when Gluesenkamp Perez, co-owner of an auto repair and machine shop and a Democratic newcomer, beat Republican Joe Kent, a former Army Special Forces soldier who Trump backed.

She defeated him in their rematch in 2024 by a wider margin while in the presidential race, Trump soundly beat Democrat Kamala Harris in the congressional district.

Braun, a Centralia resident in his fourth term as a state senator, brings legislative experience, electoral know-how and a brand of Republicanism he hopes will appeal to independent and moderate GOP voters who shunned Kent, who promoted conspiracy theories and asserted that the 2020 election results were fraudulent.

On Tuesday, each candidate stuck to their general talking points as they worked through an array of topics.

On tariffs, both frowned on the Trump administration approach.

Gluesenkamp Perez said they “are a tool that can be used recklessly or productively” and the administration has done “a terrible job” of carrying out “a strategic, thoughtful” policy that will help restore manufacturing.

Braun, owner of Braun Northwest Inc., an emergency response vehicle manufacturer, said tariffs are not a means to revitalize the manufacturing sector. “With our allies, indiscriminate use of tariffs is not helpful and ultimately leads to an increase of prices for manufacturers and consumers,” he said.

On a question about the Iran war, Gluesenkamp Perez said she had voted against U.S. military action and pushed for Congress to exercise its oversight under the war powers resolution. The president “has gone into this war recklessly, with no clear objectives and no strategy to achieve them,” she said.

Braun, in his response, said Iran cannot be allowed to build nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles. But, he sounded ready to buck Trump – who has endorsed him. “I will not, and I do not support a war without clear objectives and without a clear ending point. I think Congress has a very important role here, one they should exercise,” he said.

On data centers, Braun says they can be “enormously positive” if companies “build trust” with communities and assure promised benefits are delivered. Each “absolutely should either provide power or work with the local utility to make sure they’re investing in infrastructure that will bring down the cost of power for everyone,” he said.

Gluesenkamp Perez said communities surrounding data centers “need to be held harmless” from effects of noise pollution and rising energy costs. There should be thresholds for how much power a center is allowed to consume or a different rate set for their energy usage, she said.

On the subject of allowing trans girls to play in girls’ sports, they both said it is unfair.

Braun would ban their participation. “For decades, we fought for a fair playing field for women. Now, for reasons I can’t fully explain, here in 2026, we want to undo all that. I think it’s unfair. I think it’s unsafe, and it’s the wrong path for our state and our country,” he said.

Gluesenkamp Perez described herself as “libertarian on this issue.” Continuing, she said, “fundamentally, I agree it’s not fair for boys to compete in girls’ sports” but the final decisions on competition “are best made by local stakeholders.”

This republished story is part of OPB’s broader effort to ensure that everyone in our region has access to quality journalism that informs, entertains and enriches their lives. To learn more, visit opb.org/partnerships.

Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek and Republican state Sen. Christine Drazan sat down with OPB for separate interviews in recent days ahead of their gubernatorial rematch Nov. 3.

What did they have to say about the major issues?

This week on “OPB Politics Now,” we are dropping those interviews as full episodes. We talked about Kotek’s record as governor, what she would do in a second term and much more. You can listen anywhere you get your podcasts or watch the full interview above.

Listen to OPB’s election interview with Christine Drazan here.

On a sunny fall day on Washington’s Puget Sound last October at what appeared to be a typical dock, Luan Roberts lay down on her belly, positioned her head over the edge, and peered down.

Nearby, a fishing boat puttered, a ferry shuttled passengers and cars, and seagulls cawed. As a family passed Luan’s prone body, the mother muttered, “People are so weird.”

Luan had heard variations of this before.

“It definitely looks a bit goofy,” she admitted. “But that’s just because people don’t know what you’re doing.”

What the passing family couldn’t see is what Luan saw just below the surface of the water.

Clinging to the dock’s pilings were layers of sea life swaying with the rhythm of the current, including skeleton shrimp, mussels, anemones, tube worms, barnacles and sea stars.

“The side of a dock is basically a living reef,” Luan said. From her perspective, docks offer a window into an “untapped niche in the ecosystem” that few people know about.

Her mission is to get more folks involved in the emerging citizen science known as “dock fouling” with Dock of the Month Club meetups around Puget Sound.

This month, she’s inviting everyone to join the Doctober global bioblitz to document wildlife living under docks worldwide.

‘Like birding, but more punk rock’

The term “dock fouling” traditionally describes the common state of marine life growing on and “fouling” the human-made parts of a marina such as pilings, boat hulls, and even ropes and floats. But it has also become the name for the activity of observing those communities in a way that’s similar to tide pooling but at docks instead of ocean shores.

Unlike tide pooling, with dock fouling there is no need to consult a tide table and wait for a minus tide. A floating dock rises and falls with the water, bringing its underwater community along with it.

As far as pastimes go, “it’s definitely a bit out there still,” Luan said. “You have this funky name for it, ‘dock fouling,’ which sounds like something you might get in trouble for with your landlord.”

Or, as Luan described: “It’s like birding, but more punk rock.”

Luan likes to stop after work or head to a dock on a day off. She has her favorite spots, but she might drive several hours just to check out a marina she hasn’t visited before.

Each dock is different, and the same dock can be different from week to week and season to season, she said.

Luan has spent years exploring the hidden life beneath docks, photographing what she finds and recording observations on iNaturalist, the online platform where professional scientists and amateurs document plants and animals. Luan contributes hundreds of observations every month.

She even wrote a how-to book, “Dock Fouling Adventures: A Guide to Exploring Marine Life on Public Docks.”

The rise of Docktober

Every October, Luan encourages people to get involved in a monthlong event she calls “Docktober.”

She describes the idea as a “bioblitz”: an invitation for people to visit a dock, look underneath it, photograph the organisms they find and upload those observations for others to see and identify.

The idea gained momentum during the COVID-19 pandemic. The community that developed around dock fouling allowed for a kind of “asynchronous socializing,” she said. People could visit the same places without necessarily visiting them together.

Conversations and friendships developed online. Eventually, some began meeting “in the wild,” as Luan calls it. The community has continued to grow.

This year, Luan launched the Dock of the Month Club, which attracted more than 150 members to meet up at least once a month at a different dock.

During Docktober, the schedule gets busier, with multiple meetups planned at docks around Puget Sound.

With Luan’s efforts, the popularity of Docktober has gone far beyond Puget Sound. Last Docktober, Luan counted roughly 32 participants contributing nearly 1,000 observations of about 180 species from as distant as Scotland and South Korea. Already in the first week of Doctober this year, there have been 3,237 observations of 312 species, Luan said.

“It’s super exciting that we’ve gone international with the project,” Luan said.

‘You’re actually contributing to science’

For Luan, the accumulated observations create a useful baseline of data. Thousands of observations, accumulated over years and locations, can begin to reveal patterns in what species are living where, and how many. Over enough years, the data points tell even more important stories, when a species appears in a location — or vanishes.

“A few years ago there were very few people doing this kind of thing, and now there is a whole network of us that are contributing to the scientific record,” Luan said.

This has changed the way she thinks about her favorite pastime.

“You’re not just doing something for yourself,” she said. “You’re actually contributing to science.”

With every peek under a dock, there seems to be something waiting to be discovered.

“And that just pushes you further to keep on going and seeing what else is there,” she said.

So this October, if you find yourself walking down a dock, take a moment and peek over the edge. Passersby may think you look a little strange, but you might be amazed by the underwater world hiding in plain sight.

DHM Research encuestó a 543 potenciales votantes de ese distrito entre el 17 y el 27 de septiembre.

Los resultados evidencian una contienda increíblemente reñida entre la actual representante demócrata, Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez, y su rival republicano, el senador del estado de Washington John Braun. Unos porcentajes muy reducidos, que se encuentran dentro de un margen de error del 4,2 %, separan a los candidatos.

Al ser preguntados por quién votarían si las elecciones se celebraran hoy, el 46 % de los potenciales votantes respondió que estaría más inclinado a votar por Braun, mientras que el 44 % sería más propenso a votar por Gluesenkamp Pérez.

Sin embargo, otro 11 % de los posibles votantes respondió que aún no está seguro de por quién votará. Según John Horvick, de DHM, para tener un panorama más preciso del estado actual de la contienda electoral, los encuestadores instaron a los votantes indecisos a decir hacia qué candidato se inclinarían más.

Braun obtuvo el 48 % frente al 47 % que alcanzó Gluesenkamp Pérez, una diferencia que está dentro del margen de error. Otro 5 % de los encuestados afirmó que seguía indeciso.

“Es un distrito muy reñido independientemente de los candidatos o el ambiente político”, señaló Horvick, vicepresidente sénior de DHM Research, la firma que condujo la encuesta para OPB. Sin embargo, añadió, este año parece haber dos fuerzas contrapuestas en la contienda electoral.

Braun, quien cuenta con el respaldo del presidente Donald Trump, es un candidato “más alineado con el establishment” que Joe Kent, quien enfrentó a Gluesenkamp Pérez en 2022 y 2024, explicó Horvick.

Durante su campaña, Kent aseguró falsamente que Trump ganó las elecciones presidenciales de 2020 y sugirió que el FBI había instigado, en secreto, el ataque del 6 de enero contra el Capitolio de EE. UU.

Horvick manifestó que, al mismo tiempo, el panorama político nacional en 2026 está favoreciendo más a los demócratas en medio de una inflación constante y del aumento de los precios de la gasolina.

“Siento como si estas dos fuerzas estuvieran chocando entre sí, … resultando en lo que parece que será una elección muy reñida”, indicó.

También será una de las elecciones más importantes. La puja por el tercer distrito congresional está entre las 22 contiendas más disputadas a la Cámara de Representantes, según el sitio de análisis no partidista The Cook Political Report, y ambos partidos la están siguiendo de cerca.

En cierto sentido, el distrito es un microcosmos del país, con comunidades rurales arraigadas en la agricultura, la manufactura y el comercio que contrastan con el rápido crecimiento de ciudades como Vancouver. El distrito votó por Trump tres veces por márgenes de un solo dígito y, al mismo tiempo, eligió y reeligió a la demócrata Gluesenkamp Pérez.

Desde la década de 1990, tanto demócratas como republicanos han representado al distrito durante largos periodos. El grupo más numeroso de posibles votantes encuestados, el 35 %, se considera a sí mismo más independiente que alineado con los partidos demócrata o republicano.

La encuesta encontró que el estado de la economía, el costo de vida, la atención de la salud y la situación de las personas sin hogar fueron los asuntos predominantes en la mente de los votantes, aunque la gran mayoría de los encuestados dijo que tienen poca o ninguna confianza en que el Congreso logre avances en esos temas.

Al otro lado del río Columbia, los votantes expresaron sentimientos similares cuando se les encuestó sobre sus actitudes frente a la elección del gobernador de Oregón. Las respuestas a una encuesta de OPB muestran que la gobernadora demócrata Tina Kotek y la senadora estatal republicana Christine Drazan están prácticamente empatadas, en medio de un descontento general con el statu quo.

En el suroeste de Washington, tanto Gluesenkamp Pérez como Braun están haciendo campaña bajo la promesa de poner las necesidades de las comunidades locales por encima de la política nacional, enfatizando su independencia respecto a sus partidos.

Gluesenkamp Pérez ha hecho hincapié en el apoyo a los pequeños empresarios y los comercios, la protección del acceso a los servicios de salud en las áreas rurales y el fin de la guerra de Irán. Braun se ha centrado principalmente en la reducción de los impuestos, el apoyo a las autoridades y la expansión de la producción nacional de energía.

“Esta encuesta confirma lo que ya sabíamos: es una contienda reñida. Estamos haciendo todo lo posible para mostrarle a los votantes que John Braun comparte sus valores y va a proteger sus salarios”, señaló la campaña de Braun en un comunicado enviado a OPB.

En respuesta a la encuesta de OPB, el gerente de campaña de Gluesenkamp Pérez, Tim Gowan, atribuyó el estrecho margen de la contienda al gran incremento del gasto por parte de los comités de acción política (PAC, por sus siglas en inglés) republicanos y alineados con Trump durante las últimas semanas.

No Going Back PAC Inc., un nuevo super PAC vinculado con Trump, ha gastado hasta el momento 1,7 millones de dólares en la contienda electoral.

“Candidatos financiados por las bases como Marie no pueden igualar ese tipo de gasto. Estamos viendo el mismo patrón en distritos electorales claves disputados en todo el país, donde la diferencia en las encuestas se está haciendo más estrecha por una ola de dinero externo casi ilimitado”, indicó Gowan en un comunicado.

Según los registros de la Comisión Federal Electoral (FEC, por sus siglas en inglés), el gasto total externo de los grupos demócratas en la carrera por el tercer distrito congresional ascendía a 354.000 dólares hasta el miércoles 30 de septiembre.

Como parte de la encuesta, DHM Research solicitó a los encuestados que calificaran qué tan importante es la posición de los candidatos en varios asuntos a la hora de influir en su voto.

Entre los potenciales votantes, el 100 % afirmó que la economía y el costo de vida eran “muy importantes” o “algo importantes”. La atención de la salud y la situación de las personas sin hogar fueron otros asuntos que se ubicaron en lugares destacados en la lista, pues el 89 % los calificó como “muy importantes” o “algo importantes”. Una gran mayoría también consideró la educación pública desde preescolar hasta duodécimo grado (K-12), la delincuencia y la política internacional como temas importantes.

No obstante, el 88 % de los votantes señaló tener poca o ninguna confianza en que los representantes elegidos a nivel nacional puedan avanzar en los asuntos que más les interesan.

Entre los potenciales votantes, el 62 % manifestó que la educación preescolar, primaria y secundaria en sus comunidades no está preparando adecuadamente a los estudiantes para el mundo real; el 91 % considera que es difícil encontrar un lugar asequible para vivir, y el 80 % cree que los niños que están creciendo hoy en el estado de Washington tendrán una situación peor que la de las generaciones actuales cuando lleguen a la edad adulta.

📲Follow the midterms & more in the NPR App

Some key voters say deep frustration and disappointment with President Trump are motivating their election plans just weeks before Election Day.

NPR observed two online focus groups Tuesday night with 12 Georgians who voted for President Biden in 2020 and then supported Trump in 2024.

Almost every voter — 11 out of 12 — said they were disappointed with the overall job Trump has been doing. And 10 said they regret voting for him.

“I’ve been disappointed,” said Charles P., 43, who identified as a Democrat. (The voters participated under the condition their last names would not be used.)

“I just don’t feel like there’s any positive to this administration at all,” he continued. “Inflation has only gotten worse, there’ve been more wars. The tariffs haven’t done anything. It seems like we have more enemies now than ever. I just don’t see anything positive with his tenure.”

Richard A., a 56-year-old Republican, said he’s been out of work for 10 months and there is a long list of problems he sees with the direction of the country under Trump.

“Food crisis, starting the war with Iran, inflation,” he said. “ICE immigration has just torn families apart, has caused deaths. ... It just seems like everything has gone downhill.”

The comments align with Trump’s faltering approval rating and a darkening midterm outlook for Republicans. Trump has picked up his campaign travel in recent days, touting his record and arguing for the GOP to retain control in Washington.

These focus groups with swing voters are conducted every month in battleground states across the country. They are run by messaging firm Engagious and market research recruiting firm Nelson Recruiting. NPR partners with them each month as part of the Swing Voter Project.

Focus groups are not scientifically significant like polls, but they do provide insight into what voters are thinking. And in this case, they provide some insight into how voters are deciding who they are supporting this fall.

Swinging to Democrats

Rich Thau, president of Engagious, moderates these focus groups. He said for the first time this year, a majority of swing voters said Trump was going to influence their midterm decisions.

“In previous months, when we asked people whether President Trump would influence how they vote, they would say things like, ‘Well, I’m looking mainly at the candidates themselves,’ or ‘I’m looking at the overall sort of environment in the country,’” Thau said.

“This month, seven out of 12 said that he would influence them to vote for Democrats. And that was new.”

Karla S., a 49-year-old Democrat, was one of those seven.

“I did vote Republican for 2024,” she said. “I made up my mind. I’ve been so disappointed that I’m just going to go straight and just do Democrat, Democrat, Democrat. Because I’m so disappointed with how this administration has been doing.”

Cedric, a 41-year-old independent, said he won’t be voting for any politicians that are closely aligned with Trump.

“I think we’re not going in the right direction, so I don’t want to vote for a candidate that’s not going to stand up to him or they’re going to go along with his policies,” he said. “I’m looking for something different.”

Ten out of the 12 participants said they plan on voting for Georgia incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff. Some voters said they wanted to keep him in office specifically because he wouldn’t be aligned with Trump.

Restoring order

Thau said some voters felt that if Democrats take control of Congress, it could provide some needed stability to the country — and the economy, in particular.

“There was some sense that Democrats could restore some semblance of order, and that they’d be able to control a bit of what the president is trying to do or has been doing, to the point where that might restore some of their confidence in the economy,” he said.

That’s what Thomas M., a 65-year-old independent voter, said is his expectation of a Democratic-run Congress.

“I think there would be more controls placed on Trump with people who are not afraid to stand up to him,” he said.

In contrast, if Republicans retain power, Thau said “some respondents told us they thought that the president would have even more control over what goes on because Republicans are afraid to stand up to him.”

Jennifer W., a 43-year-old Republican, said she worries “Trump would have free rein.”

President Trump has canceled the livestreaming of the execution of the man behind the Fort Hood attack. In a social media post, Trump wrote, “I think streaming the execution for all to see might have been a strong deterrent,” but that “many very good and well meaning people would rather not watch him die.” Nevertheless, some religious scholars worry that damage was done the moment that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth declared that a public execution would take place.

“I think one of the most worrisome parts of this development is that … it pushes the boundaries of what’s acceptable,” said Julie Ingersoll, a professor of religion at the University of North Florida who specializes in the religious right and Christian Reconstruction. “Just saying it out loud moves the boundary.”

The last time the U.S. government conducted a high-profile public execution was 90 years ago. But Hegseth suggested that livestreaming Nidal Hasan’s death by firing squad would deter future, similar attacks. Hasan, a former U.S. Army major and violent Islamist extremist, killed 13 people and injured 32 in a 2009 attack at Fort Hood. His execution is set for Dec. 3.

“We’ll make sure that people are able to … watch it, that it’s public, because people need to understand that … there’s serious consequences for these types of things,” Hegseth said in an interview with Real America’s Voice, a right-wing streaming network.

For Ingersoll and some other religious scholars, Hegseth’s promotion of an idea that has largely fallen out of favor with the American public ties in closely with his religious background. Hegseth affiliates with the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, or CREC, whose leader identifies as a Christian Nationalist, envisions a theonomous America where women are denied the right to vote and has defended the institution of slavery.

“These are extreme ideas and these are extreme leaders, and I don’t have a better way of phrasing it than to just note that Pete Hegseth is a religious extremist,” said Matthew Taylor, a visiting scholar at the Center on Faith and Justice at Georgetown University. “He holds ideas that are far outside the mainstream. He is trying to implement those ideas within the U.S. military structure within the Pentagon.”

Near “unanimous endorsement” of the death penalty in the CREC

Hegseth’s announcement of a livestreamed execution elicited reactions of disgust and condemnation from some faith leaders and politicians. Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who serves Catholics in the U.S. military, issued a statement of disapproval on the proposal and instructed any Catholics who may be assigned to the firing squad to request an excusal. Taylor said he believes Hegseth’s idea represents “an outlier position within American Christianity,” including, he said, within right-wing Christianity.

But Ingersoll said that within Hegseth’s church, it is not an outlier.

“The religious community from which Hegseth comes is very comfortable, shall we say, with the death penalty. There’s a pretty much unanimous endorsement of it,” Ingersoll said. “The crimes discussed in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament that carried the death penalty are understood by them to still carry the death penalty. So execution, and even public execution, is very much a part of the way they see the punishment for crime in general.”

But some are also asking whether Hasan’s religion may partly account for a public proposal that is, to many Americans, abhorrent.

“The question is, why is he being punished differently than everyone before him?” said Joshua Salaam, president of the Association of Muslim Chaplains. “And the answer that most people from my community will say is it has something to do with his religious beliefs, his religious identity.”

Indeed, Ingersoll said that the CREC goal to enact Christian governance, and Hegseth’s own apparent animus toward Islam, are key factors in this discussion.

“I think he sees himself as engaged in a battle on behalf of God against the infidels,” she said.

A new “crusade” from the Pentagon

When Hegseth was nominated to head the Pentagon, his tattoos drew national attention. At the time, he had tattoos of the Jerusalem Cross and of the phrase “Deus Vult” on his body. At some point later, he also added another tattoo in Arabic script of a word that means “infidel.” Taylor said all this, plus his authorship of a book titled American Crusade, point to a clear worldview.

“Hegseth is, for lack of a better term, obsessed with the Crusades,” Taylor said.

Within the context of the CREC’s goals, this history of civilizational conflict between Western Christendom and Islam holds particular importance, said Ingersoll.

“There is an idealization of the Christendom of the medieval period,” she said. “Because that was a Christian society, it was the theocratic kind of world that they wanted built. So, much of the viewpoint that seems medieval, actually is.”

Today, Ingersoll said, a term often used to describe this project is “dominionism.” It is a concept that extends beyond the CREC to other strands within the Christian nationalist movement. It holds that Christians have a Biblical mandate to assert their version of religious governance over every aspect of society. In the U.S., concern over the growth in Christian Nationalism over the last decade has largely centered on the fundamental conflict between dominionism and American principles of inclusive democracy.

Perhaps among the most concerning aspects of the discussion around a livestreamed execution, said Taylor, is the possibility that Hegseth may be instrumentalizing the U.S. military in pursuit of his personal religious goals.

“What Hegseth is trying to do is consolidate the military around a particular ideology – an ideology of Christian nationalism, an ideology of Christian supremacy, an ideology of Western supremacy, that also has racial undertones and patriarchal and misogynistic undertones and anti-LGBTQ undertones,” he said.

NPR reached out to the Pentagon for comment, but did not hear back by the publishing deadline.

Normalizing an extreme idea

But the idea of reviving public executions has, in fact, been openly discussed in more mainstream right-wing circles, beyond the CREC. In a 2024 podcast, the late hard-right activist Charlie Kirk argued in favor of it, saying, “It should be public, it should be quick, it should be televised.” Kirk even suggested that large corporations might underwrite the televising of executions to raise money for public coffers.

“Part of what is underneath Christian nationalism and the coalitions that Christian nationalists have made with … the ‘tech bros’ and the ‘podcast bros’ and that whole world is this interest in being transgressive,” Ingersoll explained.

The name of the podcast where Kirk floated these ideas was Thoughtcrime.

Even if a livestreamed execution of Hasan does not take place, Taylor said the proposal serves as a warning sign of how someone in a position as powerful as Hegseth’s can reorient government and society toward what he calls extremist goals.

“Somebody like Hegseth presents an opportunity for them to test some of these ideas, to enact them on a more shortened timeline, and to create precedence within American culture, within the U.S. military, for the ultimate vision that they hope for,” Taylor said.

Amid all the discussion, Salaam said it is important also to reflect on the potential damage that public executions do to the moral fiber of the country.

“It does something to all of us to have to watch something like that publicly,” he said. “This is not normal for us to promote something like that for our children, for men and women and community members to watch this.”

Trump said on social media that publicly airing the execution “might have been a strong deterrent for the World to witness how America deals with Terrorists and SCUM like Hasan.”

But, he continued, “any very good and well meaning people would rather not watch him die, through streaming, or through any other visual device.”

The Pentagon has said Hasan’s execution is scheduled for Dec. 3. Trump said the execution can be viewed in person by immediate families of the victims, “if they so choose.”

The announcement earlier this month from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that Hasan’s execution would be public — and subsequent confirmation from the Pentagon that it would be livestreamed — prompted significant blowback from both Republicans and Democrats, with many pointing out that the images could be used to fuel radicalization.

When asked how the public execution comported with his Christian faith earlier this month, Vance said “I don’t know that that’s actually going to happen.”

“So whatever the controversy is about the method of the execution, I hope that people don’t forget that this is a guy who brutally murdered a lot of innocent people,” Vance said.

But he continued: “Now, that said, I mean, look, if it’s ultimately livestreamed, I’m not going to be watching it.”

Hasan, an Army psychiatrist who held the rank of major, walked into a medical building on Nov. 5, 2009, where soldiers were waiting in long lines to receive immunizations and medical clearance for deployment. He shouted “Allahu akbar” — Arabic for “God is great!” — and opened fire with a laser-sighted handgun. He also shot at the backs of soldiers fleeing toward the parking lot.

Hasan said it was an effort to stop them from going to Afghanistan and killing his fellow Muslims. A military judge barred him from presenting that as a defense during his 2013 trial. Hasan was left paralyzed from the waist down after being shot in the back by law enforcement, and he now uses a wheelchair.

Hasan could seek a lengthy delay of his execution, though given his behavior at trial, he may not want to.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — The roof of a private school collapsed in northwestern Pakistan on Thursday, killing at least 28 children and a female teacher and injuring more than 50 other people, a hospital spokesman said, as rescuers searched the rubble for anyone still trapped. Six girls were among the dead.

Several children were also trapped under the rubble in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, said Bilal Faizi, a spokesman for the emergency services.

A hospital spokesman, Mohammad Asim, also confirmed the casualties, saying some of the injured were in critical condition. All the children killed or injured were age 13 or younger, he said. The hospital declared an emergency as medical staff treated the wounded.

Hours later, rescue officials said that everyone trapped beneath the rubble had been pulled out and crews were clearing the debris. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Gov. Faisal Karim Kundi expressed sorrow over the collapse and sought a report from the relevant authorities about the cause of the collapse. He directed officials to provide the best possible medical care to the injured children.

Mahwish Zaman, an injured teacher speaking from a hospital bed, said that the three-story school had an estimated 1,200 students enrolled in nursery through fifth grade. She told The Associated Press that she was in her classroom when the roof collapsed and felt as if the sky had fallen. She regained consciousness in the hospital.

According to witnesses, residents were among the first to reach the school in a congested neighborhood in central Peshawar. Rescue workers arrived within minutes of being alerted, according to accounts from the scene.

A resident, Samiullah Khan, said that he rushed to the school after learning of the collapse and helped rescue three girls. Khan said his son, who attends the school, survived because he had stepped out of his classroom to drink water.

A resident, Mohammad Khan, said rescuers carefully removed debris, trying to reach children and staff feared trapped beneath the collapsed roof. Outside the school and at the state-run Lady Reading Hospital, anguished parents sought information about their children, unsure whether they had survived.

The cause of the collapse was under investigation. Peshawar police chief Saeed Ahmed said that the school’s owner had been arrested. He said that the building was structurally weak.

The provincial government said that the school occupied a three-story building and that a committee had been formed to investigate the cause of the roof collapse.

The provincial government spokeswoman, Samar Haroon Bilour, said that the government directed hospital officials to provide prompt medical care to the injured children and praised rescue workers for their swift response. She said that the government was using all available resources to bring those trapped beneath the rubble to safety.

In Islamabad, President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed sorrow over the deaths and offered condolences to the bereaved families in separate statements.

“The entire nation shares the grief of the affected families in this hour of sorrow,” Zardari said.

He also called for a comprehensive investigation into the collapse and stressed the need to ensure school buildings meet safety standards to prevent similar tragedies.

In July, a roof collapsed at a tutoring center under construction in Lahore, killing four schoolchildren.

Building collapses are common in Pakistan, where construction standards are often poorly enforced. Many structures are built with substandard materials, and safety regulations are frequently ignored to reduce costs.

Good morning, Northwest.

The “OPB Politics Now” podcast has dropped separate 30-minute interviews with Oregon gubernatorial candidates Tina Kotek and Christine Drazan this morning.

You can find links to those in the podcast section of the newsletter just below 3 Things To Know.

We start this morning’s newsletter with coverage from court of a Benson High School student accused of a chemical attack.

Here’s your First Look at Thursday’s news.

— Bradley W. Parks

Top story

Judge orders Benson student to remain in mental health facility, for now

A Benson Polytechnic High School student who was charged with domestic terrorism will remain at a local mental health facility and out of the state’s custody following a dramatic hearing at Multnomah County Circuit Court yesterday.

The move disappointed prosecutors, who argued during the two-hour hearing that the student — who allegedly released toxic chemicals at Benson in an attempt to kill himself and others — posed a safety risk and should be at a juvenile detention center.

Prosecutors during the hearing revealed for the first time that multiple employees of the Parry Center for Children, where the teen has been receiving treatment, are also parents of Benson High School students. Judge Amy Holmes Hehn eventually decided that the student should return to the Parry Center, but would have to change facilities as soon as possible. (Joni Auden Land)

Learn More

3 things to know

• Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek and her opponent for the governorship, Republican state Sen. Christine Drazan, weighed in this week on Portland Public Schools’ proposal to close schools. (Bryce Dole)
• Portland City Council made the first step yesterday toward restricting aerial drone delivery services, a system that Amazon has begun rolling out in cities across the country. (Alex Zielinski)
• The team behind the Central Oregon Children’s Museum announced yesterday it had secured a permanent home in Bend’s growing Central District. (Jen Baires)

Kotek, Drazan election 2026 interviews with OPB

Democratic Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek and Republican state Sen. Christine Drazan sat down with OPB for separate interviews in recent days ahead of their gubernatorial rematch Nov. 3. Click the links below to watch or listen to our conversations with each candidate:

• Gov. Tina Kotek, Democrat
• Sen. Christine Drazan, Republican

Or click the button below to head to our “OPB Politics Now” page, where you’ll find the candidate interviews and more episodes of the show. (Lauren Dake, Dirk VanderHart, Elizabeth Miller)

Listen Now

Northwest headlines

• New art building seen as bridge to unite PSU programs, communities (Natalie Pate)
• New book ‘Seeking Kenny: A Wrestler’s Journey’ chronicles extraordinary life of Oregon wrestling champ (Jess Hazel)
• Corvallis city workers strike over union contract negotiations (Nathan Wilk, KLCC)
• In bitter rematch, Oregon’s 4th Congressional District candidates clash over their own records, immigration (Rebecca Hansen-White, KLCC)
• Oregon unemployment ticked down slightly in September on strong growth in construction (Zac Ziegler, KLCC)
• Oregon elections chief urges early voting as test of USPS service shows slow mail service (Alex Baumhardt, Oregon Capital Chronicle)
• Galaxy blank Timbers 2-0 as Portland’s autumn cold streak continues (AP)

Listen in on OPB’s daily conversation

“Think Out Loud” airs at noon and 8 p.m. weekdays on OPB Radio, opb.org and the OPB News app. Today’s planned topics (subject to change):

• A historian’s perspective on where we are as a nation
• Rogue Valley faring better than other Oregon wine regions amid industry-wide downturn
• Salmon are returning to the Upper Klamath River after 100 years

One more look

Docktober invites folks to join citizen scientists in peeking under docks

On a sunny fall day on Washington’s Puget Sound last October at what appeared to be a typical dock, Luan Roberts lay down on her belly, positioned her head over the edge and peered down.

Her mission is to get more folks involved in the emerging citizen science known as “dock fouling” with Dock of the Month Club meetups around Puget Sound.

This month, she’s inviting everyone to join the Docktober global bioblitz to document wildlife living under docks worldwide. (Ian McCluskey)

Learn More

Subscribe to OPB’s First Look to receive Northwest news in your inbox six days a week.

Marco Reus had a goal and an assist to back JT Marcinkowski and the Los Angeles Galaxy beat the Portland Timbers 2-0 on Wednesday night.

Reus staked the Galaxy (10-11-9) to a 1-0 lead in the 17th minute when he used assists from Robert Taylor and Pablo Ruiz to score his eighth goal of the campaign.

That’s where the score stood until Reus set up up Justin Haak in the 80th minute for his second goal this season and his fourth in 110 career matches. It was the career-high 11th assist for Reus.

Marcinkowski finished with five saves for Los Angeles. It was his fourth clean sheet in 24 starts this season.

James Pantemis stopped three shots for Portland (9-14-6).

The two clubs played to a 1-1 draw in Portland to close out March.

The Galaxy improve to 6-4-5 at home, while the Timbers fall to 2-10-3 on the road.

Portland has gone 1-4-2 since the start of September.

Up next

Portland: Hosts Colorado Rapids on Saturday.

Los Angeles: Hosts San Diego FC on Saturday.

___

See AP’s full soccer coverage here

At a storefront space in northwest Bend over the weekend, children with caretakers in tow streamed in to explore stations dedicated to science and art. The adults mostly watched from the sidelines as the kids took over the space. No corrections or warnings of ‘don’t touch’ were needed.

Nine-year-old Jack Segal carefully cut strips of paper into tiny pieces before scooping the small mountain of scraps and heading across the room toward a large plastic tunnel with a fan at one end.

He dropped his paper mountain into the tube and turned on the fan, blasting paper snow out of the wind tunnel and onto his little brother, who erupted into giggles.

In another corner of the room, Kora Neil, 7, precariously balanced green foam blocks, building a tower higher than her head.

This was the first weekend of a monthlong, indoor, pop-up of the Central Oregon Children’s Museum. Since 2024, the emerging museum has been on wheels — traversing thousands of miles across the region at over a hundred events. The goal is to engage kids with science, technology, engineering and art, or STEAM learning.

The museum’s Sunday event, its first in a brick-and-mortar building, was a sign of changes to come.

On Wednesday, the team behind the museum announced it had secured a permanent home in a different space in Bend’s growing Central District. Along with the location comes a new name: “Ruckus: A Children’s Science Museum.”

Construction of the museum’s exhibits in the nearly 8,000-square-foot building is set to begin next year, while the opening date is unclear.

Organizers started the mobile events in 2015, but the momentum of those early years was cut short when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020. That year, the Portland Children’s Museum closed its doors.

Bend is currently the only metropolitan region in Oregon that does not have a dedicated children’s or science museum, said Erica Segal, the museum’s director. While there are other institutions attuned toward natural history and youth programming, like the High Desert Museum, Segal said Ruckus will fill a significant gap.

“We are unique in that we are one hundred percent intentionally a space built for kids. There will be no ‘Please don’t touch’ signs in our museum.”

The museum also comes at a time when children in the region are struggling with proficiency in STEAM categories.

Only 1 in 4 students in Central Oregon are proficient in science, according to the museum organizers’ analysis of Oregon Department of Education data, which also found that by state metrics, fewer than 1 in 3 students in the region are considered proficient in math.

Creating opportunities outside of the classroom to explore STEAM concepts in a hands-on environment is key to early intervention, according to Segal.

After two years on the road and meeting tens of thousands of people at pop-up events, she said the team has seen the need firsthand. At every event, she said she gets asked the same two questions: “Where are you located?” And, “When are you opening?”

The permanent museum is designed for elementary-aged children with three core exhibit zones that play off the natural landscape of the region. A computer rendering of the proposed space features a topographical sound table, rock hounding zone and a vertical lookout tower for children to climb.

Ryan Neil, a father who lives in Bend, visited the Sunday pop-up event. He has been taking his daughter to museum events around town all year. Between adding stories to a wooden block house with his daughter, Neil talked about how much his family has enjoyed the events and how needed a permanent space is in a region booming with population growth.

“I think it’s great,” said Neil. “It seems like with Bend getting bigger, there’ll probably be more people willing to support them financially and it’ll get more popular.”

The museum started fundraising to meet its $3 million goal last month. So far they’ve raised about $450,000, according to Segal.

Supporters celebrated the grand opening Tuesday evening, though students have been taking classes there since the term started in late September.

The 106,000-square-foot building brings together programs that have been in separate facilities across the downtown campus for years.

It also marks an investment in art education amid ongoing budget cuts in higher education, as well as national concerns about the effects of generative AI on creative fields.

Close to 1,200 students majoring or minoring in related fields will take courses at the building, including drawing, sculpture, textiles, photography and graphic design.

But PSU President Ann Cudd said all of the university’s roughly 20,000 students can attend events, view the art, take classes and visit friends and professors there. Other Oregonians can, too.

“Portland State University is an anchor institution for Portland, and our motto is ‘Let knowledge serve the city,’” Cudd said. “And we really feel that it’s important to have the kinds of spaces that are welcoming to the community as well as to our students.”

As visitors walk through the new building, they’ll see light stream in through large windows. It has studios, labs, seminar rooms and social spaces. And there’s art displayed throughout, including colorful prints of the late entertainment icons Dolly Parton and Tim Curry.

The new building cost $90 million to complete, raised through public bonds and matching donations. The largest individual donation came from the building’s namesake, philanthropist and art collector Jordan Schnitzer. He donated $10 million in 2024, with half set aside for the building.

PSU spokesperson Katy Swordfisk said the school’s naming honors “decades of transformative giving” from the Schnitzer family totaling $26 million.

Schnitzer made a point to thank Oregon taxpayers.

“Oftentimes, we wonder whether the state is spending our money wisely,” he told OPB. “This was a wise investment — an investment not only in Portland State, but in Multnomah County, and for thousands and thousands of students from Oregon and all over the world.”

The opening of the new art building downtown comes as Portland continues to struggle economically, years after the pandemic stifled commerce in the central city. The public celebration of the new art facility also coincides with PSU’s ongoing discussions with the city to build a performance venue downtown.

Leroy Bynum, dean of PSU’s College of the Arts, said the building has been in the making for 45 years, since the university started its art program.

“As the program grew, they needed to be in these various and different spaces,” he explained, “and they grew to the point that no building would contain them. And so, they’ve been spread over into non-contiguous buildings all over this campus since the 80s.”

In the years since, Bynum said they’ve had to prove their excellence and lobby to get to this point.

Tiffany Nguyen, a senior in the graphic design program, said being in one building is already bringing students closer as a community.

“I feel really supported,” Nguyen said. “It feels like it’s really impactful to what I’m working towards and how I can grow as a creative person.”

The building opened as PSU continues to navigate tough budget decisions. Layoffs have served as a key part of the university’s multi-year effort to shore up a projected $35 million budget shortfall before the start of the 2027-28 school year. No arts faculty were part of the layoffs earlier this year.

Bynum argues that, even during tough financial times, we as a society need to “disabuse ourselves of the notion that the arts are okay when times are good, or the arts are dessert.”

“Arts are economic engines,” he said. “Every television program you watch, there’s an artist that is involved in the music, in the script, and in the storyline. And in every ad you see, every car that goes down the street, an artist had their hand in the design.”

The investment in an art building also comes amid conversations about artificial intelligence and its impact on creative work.

Colleges nationwide are grappling with two pathways — the technological world of AI and the humanities. It’s not always one or the other. PSU students, for example, can earn an undergraduate certificate in “AI applications in human contexts.”

“We all still believe that creating something by hand, that bringing humanity into what we’re doing is incredibly important, and that being able to tell our individual stories and perspectives really matters,” said Lis Charman, director of the Schnitzer art school.

Thomas Robinson founded the building’s design firm, LEVER Architecture, which has offices in Portland and Los Angeles.

The new building is the first on the PSU campus made of mass timber — the manufactured wood material that’s growing in use, including in recent renovations at Portland International Airport.

Robinson said he sees PSU’s new facility as a cultural bridge: it connects students studying different art forms; it connects major city blocks; and it sources materials from the Pacific Northwest.

“A big part of the design was really thinking about how to create a new type of art school that really connects with the way people live today and connects with the way students coming to PSU will feel sort of welcome and comfortable,” he said, adding that students gave a lot of input into the design.

Robinson noted that, as a large commuter school, PSU students needed spaces to socialize.

“Architecture is fundamentally about experience that you feel as you walk into a space,” he said. “We want a space that people come into, and they not only feel comfortable, but they feel inspired.”

The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at PSU is a contributor to OPB.

Meanwhile, a top Iranian official said Iran must be prepared for war even as it is negotiating with the U.S. And a hospital in Gaza said a woman was killed in an Israeli strike.

Here is the latest news from the Middle East on Wednesday. Read our full coverage here.

Iran says a cargo ship sank after hitting a naval mine

A cargo ship sank after striking a naval mine in the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps navy said. It was the first time Iran had reported a ship sinking after hitting a mine during the war.

Shipping officials, meanwhile, said two Singapore-registered cargo vessels had been hit by “unknown projectiles” as they went through the strait on Tuesday and Wednesday. One sank, while the other reached safety. All crew members were evacuated from the first ship, and no injuries were reported in either incident, the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore said.

“Such attacks are unprovoked, unjustifiable, and a breach of international law,” the authority said.

It was unclear, however, if the Singapore-flagged vessel that sank was the same ship Iran said had struck a mine.

There were few details from Iranian officials, including about the fate of the crew. State television quoted a Guard statement saying the ship was traveling on what it called an illegal and dangerous route when it hit the mine Wednesday morning. The Associated Press couldn’t independently verify the images.

The unidentified ship, which was shown tilted in the water and spewing a thick plume of smoke, was carrying 2,500 containers, the broadcast said.

Iran has repeatedly warned ships against trying to transit through the strait without its approval. The U.S. military has been guiding ships through the strait on a route nearer to Oman’s coast.

Houthi rebel strike hits Saudi oil company’s headquarters

The headquarters of the Saudi state-owned oil company Aramco were hit in an overnight Houthi strike, two regional officials said, damaging the offices of the firm’s chief executive and other top officials. It was the latest demonstration of the Iran-backed rebels’ ability to attack high-profile targets.

There were no casualties in the attack, which the officials said targeted the top three floors of a building used by top executives in the city of Dhahran. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the matter with the media.

Earlier Wednesday, new explosions were heard in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, residents said, as blame again quickly fell on Houthi rebels in neighboring Yemen.

The sight of smoke rising in recent days from some of Saudi Arabia’s most sensitive facilities has rattled the region and global oil markets while increasing questions for U.S. President Donald Trump, who has said he is evaluating whether the U.S. should join Saudi strikes against the Houthis.

— By Samy Magdy in Cairo

Top Iran official says country must prepare for war as it negotiates

Iran must be prepared for war even as it negotiates with the U.S., the country’s parliament speaker said Wednesday.

Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf said in a televised speech that his country’s main concern is preventing the United States from attacking again. But, he added, a signed agreement with Washington is no guarantee.

“They break their promises,” said Qalibaf. As a result, Iran must be prepared to fight “against a bullying enemy,” and ”we must truly fight courageously on the battlefield.”

“That is when we will have achieved sustainable deterrence,” he said. “America must be punished. America must change its behavior. It must understand that it has to come to terms with the Iranian people.”

Israeli strike in Gaza City kills a woman

An Israeli strike on an apartment in Gaza City killed one woman early Wednesday, according to officials at Shifa hospital.

Israel’s military said it struck a Hamas militant but was still assessing the strike’s outcome, without elaborating.

Just over a year since a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas went into effect, Israel still launches near-daily deadly strikes on the Palestinian enclave.

More than 1,490 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Its figures are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts. It doesn’t give a breakdown of civilians and militants, but says almost half the dead are women and children.

Katie Zacharia has long described herself as a lawyer as she has worked to establish herself as a commentator for conservative outlets like Fox News and Newsmax. But so far, she and the White House have offered no evidence that she passed the bar exam in any state or in China, where she worked for a large law firm years ago.

The questions add to the confusion surrounding President Donald Trump’s decision to hire Zacharia, who had worked for his social media company for only a few months when he announced her appointment and whose debut at the podium on Tuesday has been widely panned.

Afterward, the president was asked by reporters where Zacharia had passed the bar exam, following a report by the independent outlet Popular Information that she did not appear to be licensed in any state.

Trump stepped aside to allow Zacharia to answer.

“When I moved to China,” she responded over the sound of Marine One whirring in the background. It is not clear what she had intended to say or whether she had finished the sentence.

China’s notoriously difficult National Unified Legal Professional Qualification Examination can only be taken by Chinese citizens.

Asked what credentials she held, the White House passed along a statement from Zacharia, who received a bachelor of arts degree from Pepperdine University in 2007 and received her law degree from Pepperdine Caruso School of Law in 2011, according to the school and her LinkedIn bio.

“I practiced international transaction law, with all the appropriate credentials,” it read.

Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, added that Zacharia was “uniquely qualified and whip smart to help inform the American people about all the great things President Trump and his Administration have been doing, and she will do an incredible job as press secretary.”

A resume under scrutiny

According to her LinkedIn profile, Zacharia has been the senior communications adviser at the Trump Media & Technology Group since June and spent two months as deputy assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security earlier this year.

From 2011 to 2013, it says, she served as an associate on the International Practice Team at the Zhong Lun Law Firm in Beijing. She also worked as the manager of fundraising and communications for Compassion for Migrant Children, which assists the children of migrant workers, from 2012 to 2013.

More recently, it says she served as general counsel for Fix California, a group started by Trump administration official Richard Grenell.

Neither the firm nor the two groups responded to questions about her tenure and background.

Zacharia has long called herself a lawyer. On Instagram, she describes herself as the White House press secretary, “Wife, Mom, & Lawyer” (with four heart emojis after “Mom”).

And her official author page at the California Globe, where she wrote occasional commentary, says that, in addition to being a “regular commentator on Fox News, Newsmax,” she has “extensive experience in political advocacy, international corporate law, and non-profit work, including time as outside counsel for the World Bank and IFC in Beijing.”

A June 2026 press release from NovaRed Mining Inc. announcing her appointment to the company’s advisory board, which was first reported by Popular Information, said her “professional experience includes work related to international legal and financial transactions, including matters involving organizations associated with the World Bank Group and the International Finance Corporation during her tenure with Zhong Lun Law Firm in Beijing.”

In announcing her hire on his social media site, Trump described Zacharia as “a distinguished Graduate of Pepperdine University, and the Pepperdine Caruso School of Law, an attorney, and a frequent Commentator on outlets, including Fox News and Newsmax.”

“She has an unblemished record of support, and has been a loyal and brilliant supporter, right from the beginning. She is, likewise, a devoted fan and member of MAGA!” he added.

‘No Record’ found

Zacharia is not listed as a member of the state bar in California, where she currently resides, according to a public database.

Rick Coca, a spokesperson for the State Bar of California, a regulatory agency that oversees state licensing, said in a statement that they have “no record of Kate Sharon Zacharia or Kate Sharon Black” or any version of her married or maiden names ”having been licensed to practice law in California.”

Popular Information said the same was the case in all 50 states they had queried, plus Washington, D.C.

In response, the watchdog group Campaign for Accountability filed a complaint Wednesday with the State Bar of California asking them to investigate whether Zacharia misrepresented herself as a lawyer in violation of California law.

“In California, calling yourself a lawyer without a license isn’t puffery; it’s a crime. The State Bar should investigate whether Ms. Zacharia has misled the public about her credentials and hold her accountable if she has,” said CfA Executive Director Michelle Kuppersmith in a statement.

The State Bar said they could not confirm whether they had received the complaint or were conducting an investigation, citing confidentiality laws.

__

An earlier version of this story said Zacharia’s Instagram profile shows three heart emojis. It has four.

Oregon’s job market saw a boost in September, according to the latest report from the Oregon Employment Department. The state added 5,800 jobs last month, along with a revised gain of 2,600 jobs in August.

Healthcare jobs continued a long-term growth trend, adding 1,700 jobs after seasonal adjustments. But the lone sector to add more jobs than healthcare is one that appears to be pulling up after years in decline.

Oregon’s construction had its strongest month since the spring. The sector traditionally loses 1,800 jobs in September. Instead, it added 200 jobs, making for a seasonally adjusted gain of 2,000 jobs.

The uptick may have more to do with a more literal use of the term seasonal trends.

“When it comes to these monthly changes, if we get really nice weather stretching further into the fall, sometimes that can affect activity going further into the fall than we’d expect,” said Oregon Employment Economist Gail Krumenauer.

Job growth was strongest in the “Construction of Buildings” subsector, which has added 900 jobs in the past year. That sector employs those who build commercial and residential buildings but are not a part of a specialty trade.

While the monthly numbers go against what is normal, they also follow a longer-term trend that began in February.

The construction sector reached its recent peak in June 2023 and hit its recent low in March.

Since then, the industry has added 3,600 jobs

Growth in Oregon construction jobs isn’t just about a mild fall.

The sector has grown by about 3% since July, when it reached its lowest jobs level since the Great Recession.

Construction is not the only sector that has seen recent growth after years of decline. Manufacturing has a similar trend.

“We’ve really seen manufacturing level out and manage to get a couple of months of gains, and that’s really helped with buoying private sector job growth over the past couple of months,” Krumenauer said.

Manufacturing began declining in November 2022 at 195,000 jobs. It hit its recent trough in July with 171,400 jobs, and has since grown to 173,100 jobs.

Zac Ziegler is a reporter with KLCC. This story comes to you from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.

It is part of OPB’s broader effort to ensure that everyone in our region has access to quality journalism that informs, entertains and enriches their lives. To learn more, visit our journalism partnerships page.

Corvallis city workers went on strike Wednesday as the fight continues over a new contract.

In the morning, supporters were marching picket lines in front of City Hall and the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library.

“Management’s just been playing games, and that’s why we’re here,” said library worker Stephen Whitener. “We almost thought we had something yesterday, but then they just wouldn’t work with us on the financials.”

The union represents more than 240 city workers, including for parks, public works, the library and wastewater management. They’re trying to reach a deal with the city on a new three- or four-year contract.

But the union is demanding higher cost-of-living adjustments than the city’s current offer, and it wants more pay steps so that long-time employees can receive additional raises.

“We have a lot of people here that work part time, and a lot of people that can’t afford to live in Corvallis, whether because of rent or house prices,” said Whitener. “There’s a real disparity here between the management and represented employees.”

The city, meanwhile, argues it’s offering competitive wages at a time when it’s also dealing with a $20 million budget gap which could cut into core services.

“The City must make decisions that protect long-term financial health and the public services our community members depend on,” the city said in a press release Wednesday. “Despite that challenge, we have put forward a meaningful compensation package because we recognize the value of our employees.”

During negotiations, the union and the city have also disagreed about how to calculate the costs of the contract. The city claimed late last month it believed a previous union offer was $1.9 million more expensive than the union had said.

Shilo Anway, an alternate for the union bargaining team, said there’s still confusion about those numbers, but he believes the parties’ methods are now closer together. City spokesperson Patrick Rollens said Wednesday that the issue hasn’t yet been resolved.

The parties met in a last-minute mediation session on Tuesday.

Anway said the union has offered to concede to the city’s proposal to increase workers’ healthcare burden, but the union wants to push those changes to the last six months of the contract.

In exchange, Anway said the union also offered to push the creation of the new step increases to the last six months as well. But he said the city rejected that offer.

“I think they’re really stuck on just maintaining their contract language because we don’t want to set a precedent,” said Anway. “I understand that, but at the same time, neither do we.”

Strike impacts

Anway said a follow-up session had not been scheduled as of Wednesday morning, although there were tentative talks about future meetings.

In a press release Wednesday, Corvallis City Manager Mark Shepard said the city will continue to work toward a deal.

In the meantime, the city said it will provide updates on its operations during the strike on its website. As of Wednesday, it said the Public Works Department will be closed to the public.

The city said the strike could also affect seasonal street sweeping, park maintenance and city billing support, while the library will be open with limited services aside from pre-planned closures Thursday and Friday.

“Thankfully, it seems like the impact will be minimal for now,” Rollens wrote in an email to KLCC Wednesday.

Whitener said in the library, there are specialized, trained workers that won’t be easy for the city to reproduce. As the strike entered its first day, he said he was feeling cautiously optimistic for a good result.

“I am hoping that this strike will be short and powerful and painful, so it can be successful and be over,” Whitener said, “and we can get a great contract and get back to work.”

Nathan Wilk is a reporter with KLCC. This story comes to you from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.

It is part of OPB’s broader effort to ensure that everyone in our region has access to quality journalism that informs, entertains and enriches their lives. To learn more, visit our journalism partnerships page.

Protesters in Albania attacked government buildings, banks, businesses and other sites during riots that lasted more than eight hours across the capital Tirana on Wednesday in a violent escalation of an anti-government movement that has staged rallies for months.

Hundreds of youths smashed storefronts, set fires and caused damage to at least four government ministry buildings during running battles with riot police, who used tear gas and water cannon to try and hold back the crowds. Authorities said 23 police officers and six other people were being treated for injuries, while 35 people were detained.

President Bajram Begaj condemned the violence and appealed for calm, adding: “The constitution and the law must remain the boundaries for everyone, without exception.”

The latest demonstrations, continuing for a second day, were organized by student groups seeking education reforms. But the protesters have joined a broader anti-government campaign opposed to a development project linked to U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

The so-called flamingo movement is calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama over allegations of widespread corruption. The movement earned the name after protesters used signs depicting the pink bird.

Rallies staged for months against the proposed coastal project have fueled political tensions in Albania, which is aspiring to join the European Union. It has struggled with repeated bouts of instability since the collapse of a harsh communist regime in the early 1990s.

On Wednesday, officers in riot gear clashed with youths who dismantled police cordons and set up their own street barricades using burning trash bins. Police struggled to cope with the multiple outbreaks of violence. Health Minister Klodiana Spahiu, who visited the injured officers in hospital, called the violence “intolerable.”

The EU delegation in Albania called for a proportionate response from authorities following protest organizers’ “allegations of excessive violence by the police against protestors and journalists.”

“We express concern on the violent escalation at the protest in Tirana,” the delegation said. “Freedom of assembly and expression are fundamental rights and core European values.”

--- Zana Cimili reported from Pristina, Kosovo and Derek Gatopoulos reported from Athens, Greece

For the first time in more than a quarter-century, Americans have a new option when shopping for sunscreen: a skin-protecting chemical that’s long been a go-to option in Europe and other parts of the world.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved bemotrizinol — sometimes called BEMT — in June. The first sunscreens containing it are now hitting U.S. store shelves, including formulas from Neutrogena and other manufacturers.

Dermatologists say the chemical fills an important market gap by offering broad protection, like the most well-established sunscreen ingredients, but without their cosmetic downsides, including white streaking.

BEMT has decades of safety data behind it, including studies showing it has minimal absorption into the skin. That’s been a concern with some older sun-blocking chemicals.

“It’s not a brand-new ingredient that you’re going to be the first person to try,” said Dr. Jennifer Stein, a dermatologist at NYU Langone Health.

Here’s what to know:

New ingredient offers broad protection without streaks

To be effective, sunscreens must protect against both forms of ultraviolet light that can damage the skin — UVB rays, which cause most sunburn, and UVA rays that pose the greatest risk of skin cancer and wrinkles.

Sunscreens that block both forms are labeled “broad spectrum protection.” Those that don’t must carry an FDA warning label.

BEMT is the first chemical-based sunscreen in the U.S. that offers this dual protection. Previously, manufacturers had to mix multiple ingredients to protect against both UVA and UVB light.

“This ingredient provides a solution for what is currently a big gap with respect to providing strong UVA protection,” said David Andrews, chief science officer of the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit that advocates for higher sunscreen standards.

A different class of sunscreens, using minerals such as zinc oxide and titanium dioxide, has long been shown to offer strong protection against both forms of ultraviolet light. These mineral-based formulas work by physically blocking harmful rays from the skin.

But some people — particularly those with darker complexions — tend to avoid them because they cause white streaking and discoloration. In other cases, people don’t like their texture or consistency.

“Those are good sunscreens,” Stein said. “But for people who aren’t so inclined to use them — maybe they don’t like how it feels on their skin — this is a nice option.”

There’s less skin penetration with the new formula

The fact that chemical-based sunscreens are absorbed into the skin means they have to be carefully studied to make sure they aren’t building up in the body at unsafe levels.

Last month, the FDA revoked approval of an older chemical ingredient, oxybenzone, after determining it was “absorbed through the skin to a greater extent than previously understood.”

That’s not a problem with BEMT.

“It’s a molecule that’s too big to really penetrate through the skin and get absorbed into the bloodstream,” Stein said. “The older chemical sunscreens had small molecules.”

As part of its safety review, the FDA reviewed studies of BEMT in more than 500 patients conducted by Dutch manufacturer DSM Nutritional Products. Levels of the chemical absorbed into the skin were nearly undetectable, the studies found.

Agency reviewers said research in people who used the sunscreen daily for up to three weeks showed that BEMT “did not cause irritation” or allergic reactions. As a result, the FDA designated the ingredient as “generally recognized as safe and effective,” alongside the older mineral ingredients zinc oxide and titanium dioxide.

More than a dozen other ingredients are currently used in U.S. sunscreens, but the FDA has said they will require additional evidence to support their safety and effectiveness. The FDA review is part of an ongoing effort to overhaul U.S. sunscreen ingredients that kicked off in 2019.

More evidence is needed about the impact on coral reefs

Scientists have shown that some sunscreen ingredients can trigger bleaching and damage coral reefs. That’s led to bans on two chemical ingredients — oxybenzone, the ingredient recently targeted by the FDA, and octinoxate — in Hawaii and parts of Florida. It’s estimated about 25% of the sunscreen people apply to their skin washes off while swimming or wading in the ocean.

The U.S. government doesn’t classify the environmental impact of sunscreens, and marketing claims like “reef safe” or “reef friendly” have no standard definition or requirements. The European Union’s environmental agency has found “limited evidence of environmental toxicity” with BEMT, but longer-term research is needed.

Mineral ingredients like zinc oxide are generally considered safer for the environment, although some experts recommend staying away from so-called nano formulations. Those products are made with tiny particles that are more likely to be inhaled or absorbed by marine organisms.

Older chemicals were often unstable

Experts say BEMT has one other key advantage, in that it doesn’t quickly break down in the sun. That’s been a particular issue for avobenzone, the only other chemical-based ingredient that filters UVA light.

“Avobenzone has been known to be particularly unstable on its own, and a lot of work and reformulation efforts have gone into trying to find ways to stabilize it,” said Andrews. “BEMT is significantly more stable.”

As with all sunscreens, dermatologists say it’s important to reapply every few hours — more frequently if you’re swimming or sweating a lot.

Also, people shouldn’t rely on sunscreen alone when spending time outside, Stein said. Taking breaks in the shade, wearing a hat and sun-protective clothing are all important protections.

“Sunscreen is just one part of an overall sun-protection plan,” Stein said. “Clothing is even better.”

___

The Associated Press’ health and science coverage receives financial support from the AP Fund for Journalism and private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

U.S. stocks dropped to their worst day since July on Wednesday following the latest signal that inflation is getting worse.

The S&P 500 sank 1.1% for a fifth loss in the six days since setting its all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 48 points, or 0.1%, and the Nasdaq composite slid 1.9% as stocks in the artificial-intelligence industry led the way lower.

Stocks felt pressure from rising yields in the bond market, where worries grew after a report said U.S. consumers had to pay prices for fuel, food and other costs of living last month that were 3.7% higher overall than a year earlier. That means inflation accelerated from its 3.4% rate in August and was worse than the 3.6% that economists expected.

Inflation has remained more painful than anyone would like since the economy catapulted out of the crevasse created by the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s accelerated recently in part because of jumps in fuel prices caused by the war with Iran, and the price for a barrel of Brent crude added 0.4% Wednesday to $106.06.

That has added to the longstanding worries about fast-rising debt loads for governments, signals that the U.S. economy is still growing and other factors that have sent bond yields to their highest levels in years.

The centerpiece of the U.S. bond market, the 10-year Treasury, saw its yield briefly jump above 5.32% from less than 5.17% just before the inflation report’s release. It eventually gave back much of the gain.

Yields on shorter-term Treasurys had even bigger leaps as traders raised their expectations for coming hikes to interest rates by the Federal Reserve, though they also moderated as the day progressed.

The Fed recently raised the interest rate that it controls, which affects very short-term loans, for the first time in three years in hopes of reining in inflation. Higher rates do that by making it more expensive for everyone to borrow money and slowing the overall economy.

Traders now see a nearly 35% chance the Fed will raise the federal funds rate at its next meeting in two weeks, up from the 22% probability seen a day earlier, according to data from CME Group.

Part of what’s keeping inflation high is that Americans overall are continuing to spend, which encourages businesses to keep raising prices for their products and services. As Americans become more “price-sensitive” and the economy also benefits from greater productivity by workers, Vanguard Senior Economist Adam Schickling said inflation should slow, but “patience will be required.”

Much of Wall Street’s pain on Wednesday was due to drops for companies riding the AI frenzy to huge profit growth and stellar stock gains.

Higher bond yields making borrowing money more expensive could make it more difficult for companies to raise cash to build data centers and fill them with AI chips. Drops of 3.2% for Nvidia, 3.1% for Broadcom and 5.7% for Advanced Micro Devices were among the day’s heaviest weights on the S&P 500.

CoreWeave, which offers AI computing power to customers over the cloud, tumbled 15.5% for its worst day since February. GE Vernova, which is hoping to electrify power-hungry data centers, dropped 6.2%, and Oracle sank 8.8%.

Smaller companies also feel the bite of higher interest rates because many need to borrow to grow. The Russell 2000 index of the smallest U.S. stocks fell 1.9%.

Higher yields in the bond market push downward on prices for all kinds of stocks, and the main way companies can offset that is by delivering bigger profits. That’s exactly what analysts are expecting, and it’s how the S&P 500 has been able to set records despite the many challenges weighing on Wall Street.

But the high expectations also mean companies will likely get punished if they fall short of targets for growth.

Bank of America dropped 4.8% after reporting weaker profit and revenue for the summer than analysts expected. The profit would have failed to meet expectations even if the U.S. Treasury Department had not announced $1.2 billion in fines late Tuesday for alleged violations of anti-money laundering and sanctions laws by the bank.

State Street sank 4.1% after reporting weaker revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected, even though its profit was slightly above their forecasts.

All told, the S&P 500 fell 86.51 points to 7,718.94. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 48.62 to 51,621.48, and the Nasdaq composite sank 511.51 to 26,692.87.

In stock markets abroad, indexes ticked higher in Europe following a weaker finish in Asia. They rose 0.7% in London and fell 0.9% in Shanghai for two of the world’s bigger moves.

___

AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Michelle Chapman contributed to this report.

J. Schuberth, or “Pencil,” as they are known, first donned a 6-foot tall pencil costume for a write-in Governor campaign this past spring to call attention to Oregon’s education shortcomings.

“Pencil’s encounter with Gov. Kotek was a complete surprise, and Pencil was thrilled,” Schuberth said. The chance meeting happened as Pencil was walking the halls of the Capitol, delivering petitions to lawmakers about improving literacy.

“We need to move from conversation to action, and do some of the hard things so Oregon kids get what they need,” Schuberth said.

Kotek has made overhauling Oregon’s education system a priority of her first term, but, as OPB reported Monday, state leaders delivered a plan that more than 20 experts and advocates say faces the challenges of past failures: toothless mandates, inconsistent guidance, and opt-out policies for key measures of success.

The resemblance between Oregon’s latest plan and its past failures is no coincidence. The persistent issues OPB revealed in the first part of this series are the result of layers of unfocused bureaucracy and lawmakers’ partisan paralysis, experts told OPB, which reward short-term thinking and a hesitancy to take bold action around a shared vision and strategy.

A pencil running for governor is the most prominent example in a new groundswell of everyone from past government advisors to parents to teachers plunging into Oregon’s statewide educational morass with a new urgency.

These coalitions say successes in states like Mississippi, Louisiana and Rhode Island provide a road map — and hope — for Oregon. But they are up against a state legislature that relies on guidance and support from entrenched stakeholders representing the very groups — educators, administrators and local school boards — that major reforms would force to change. And in Oregon, the only state in the nation where the governor is also the state superintendent, educational priorities shift with political whims and term limits.

Interact with the data: How Oregon reading scores compare nationally

Oregon spent more than 31 other states in 2024, but its outcome on the National Assessment of Educational Progress 4th Grade Reading Assessment was far below average. Reading abilities at this age are a strong predictor of later academic success. Select a state below to view its details.

Lillie Bahrami, OPB. Sources: Edunomics Lab analysis of data from The Nation’s Report Card and the U.S. Census Annual Survey of School System Finances. Data as of 2024. Spending is an average of per-student spending encompassing all sources (including federal, state and local).

Kotek’s office emphasized the governor’s willingness to take action, saying she is “unflinching in her commitment to improving student outcomes and has been focused on using all tools available to her.”

Her record has been in the public eye as Kotek fights to hold on in a deadlocked race for a second term against state Sen. Christine Drazan, who has made education a focus of her campaign.

Advocates like Sarah Pope, the executive director of Stand for Children, said the governor’s plan will let years go by before the state intervenes at failing schools.

“A kid only has one shot at third grade, one shot at elementary school,” Pope said. “We are doing a disservice if we wait.”

The push and pull of legislators and an “alphabet soup” of statewide organizations

Year-in, year-out, the debate over school funding brings busloads of parents, teachers and students to rallies in Salem, with budget negotiations often lasting until the last minute of legislative sessions. But while the demonstrations from concerned constituents spark headlines and viral videos, their impact fades after the buses leave Salem.

Often, those who stick around as education bills get hashed out are lobbyists from statewide organizations who legislators lean on for their expertise. But these lobbyists often have specific agendas based on their membership. Unions are for school employees, such as the Oregon Education Association for teachers. The Coalition of Oregon School Administrators is for superintendents. The Oregon School Boards Association is for school board members.

Support from these groups can help move policies, but they can also push back on big changes that threaten their members’ interests.

One recent example is the way Oregon calculates how much money schools need.

A 2025 report on school funding from the American Institutes for Research found Oregon’s model doesn’t account for how student needs vary across the state. It also found the funding calculations are only tied to one education goal: high school graduation.

Senate Bill 1555 would have overhauled Oregon’s school funding calculations based on that report. Some superintendents, like ones from the Salem-Keizer and Reynolds school districts, said it was a step in the right direction.

Yet the bill faced opposition from the Coalition of Oregon School Administrators, the Oregon School Boards Association, the Oregon PTA, and the Oregon Education Association, who argued the bill was moving too fast, and without enough stakeholder engagement.

When that bill died in committee, efforts to address the issue failed. Oregon’s way of calculating funding goals remains unchanged.

A common theme among these statewide groups is a desire for more state funding without more state mandates. That approach can trip up even well-regarded policy proposals. Take Measure 98, for instance: the state’s highly regarded fund aimed at high schools faced pushback when it was first proposed from the same statewide groups that now champion it.

Enrique Farrera, president of the Oregon Education Association, pushed back on the idea that groups like OEA maintain a status quo. He said his association supports “meaningful change” in the state education system.

“Change must be evidence-based, equitably funded, and informed by the educators and communities responsible for implementing,” Farrera said in an emailed response to OPB. “We regularly advocate for ambitious agendas that do not accept the status quo.”

He mentioned OEA’s advocacy to raise the state’s cap on special education funds, an effort backed by many in Oregon education.

Ryan Noss, board president of the Coalition of Oregon School Administrators, which represents over 3,000 administrators, said pushback comes when there is no funding attached to whatever school leaders are being asked to do. Without funding, he said, superintendents want flexibility.

“We would prefer it to come in a way that allows us to be more agile,” Noss said.

Each year, the legislature responds to pressure from these various groups with piecemeal changes that often come without sufficient funding or accountability.

Last spring, for example, the Oregon City School District’s budget detailed seven different “unfunded mandates” from the legislature. District officials said the cost of just one of them — unemployment for 10-month employees — has tripled in the past year to more than $378,000.

Six hours east, in the opposite corner of the state, Vale superintendent Alisha McBride feels it too.

“We’re constantly responding to legislation,” said McBride, the reigning state Superintendent of the Year. Her rural district less than 30 minutes from the Idaho border has fewer than 900 students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

McBride wants to see the governor, legislators, and elected officials get beyond the capitol and its lobbyists and spend more time in schools.

“We all want Oregon’s education system to be one of the best in the nation,” McBride said. “And I think we have a lot to offer when it comes to making those decisions.”

The only state with a Governor-Superintendent

The other major force in Oregon education is also a political one: the Governor.

Fifteen years ago, Gov. John Kitzhaber signed into law an overhaul of the state’s education system that made him, as governor, the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Other changes included hiring a chief education officer and creating an “investment board” of education and business leaders. But legislators let the chief education office sunset and they dismantled the investment board after Kitzhaber resigned in 2015. All that remained from his overhaul was the Governor’s role.

Oregon remains the only state in the country in which the governor is also the superintendent of schools, giving the state’s top politician extraordinary power over the education system.

In addition to her power to introduce or reject school-related legislation, Kotek appoints the nine members of the State Board of Education, the panel of experts that makes policy for schools to follow. The governor also appoints the leader of the education department, the state agency that implements policies adopted by the education board.

Forest Grove superintendent Suzanne West said with campaigning and Oregon’s legislative session, big changes can’t take root.

“We’re stuck in a two-year election cycle for almost all decisions related to education,” West said. “You gotta have the soundbite and the headline for your next election cycle.”

Instead, West said, “if we really want to realize the type of transformative educational improvement that people are talking about, it needs a whole system overhaul. We can’t just continue to nip at the sides.”

Before the governor became state superintendent, it was its own elected position in Oregon for more than 100 years. And some in education argued even then that the office was too political.

Northwest Regional Education Service District superintendent Dan Goldman said Oregon’s current model still has that problem.

“You are bound to not have great alignment,” Goldman said. “There is too much pressure, money and politics.

Today, a handful of states, including nearby California and Washington, have Oregon’s old model of an elected schools chief. Other states have an education chief who is appointed, often by the governor.

Some in education argue that having a governor with so much power over the system provides opportunities to better the education system.

Charlene Williams, whom Gov. Kotek appointed to lead the Oregon Department of Education, said having a governor who is a “champion for education” is important to spur changes.

“When you have the governor’s clarity and political backing and support in terms of getting resources and in this case, you know, clear about accountability, it’s helpful to move a system,” Williams said.

Some education advocates and district leaders OPB talked to support Oregon’s current system. They say it’s better to have a Governor-appointed chief with more “experts” on the state board of education, the rulemaking body for education policy.

Pooja Bhatt, who worked as a policy advisor for Gov. Kotek and for Gov. Kate Brown, said the system doesn’t work.

“We are short shrifting public education and young people by expecting that a governor who is busy running the state is somehow going to hold education at the same level as our roads are crumbling, or [our] economy is not prosperous,” Bhatt said.

The Governor’s office did not directly answer when asked what makes Oregon’s unique governor-as-superintendent model successful. But in a statement, Kotek’s office said she would use all the tools available to her, naming executive orders, legislation, targeted investments and direction to the agency.

Kotek has twice issued executive orders: Once for districts to create cell phone policies after a bill to limit cell phone use in schools failed to pass in the legislature, and again to bar school districts from cutting instructional time.

But Kotek’s moves have been small, far from the sweeping changes that could have big impacts on Oregon’s education system.

That record is now being challenged by Kotek’s opponent, state Sen. Christine Drazan, who has made education a focus of her campaign and pledged to replace the ODE director and state board members.

How other states approach this

As the federal government sheds responsibility for public education, it’s created an opportunity for state education agencies to do more.

In a July report, the Center for Reinventing Public Education, a research organization based at Arizona State University, puts it bluntly: state education agencies “are being asked to do something they have rarely been asked to do before: lead.”

Whoever fills the role of governor next year can look to other states for examples of what’s worked better than in Oregon.

In Washington, elected superintendent Chris Reykdal often leads the conversation on educational priorities. Reykdal’s separate position allows him to disagree with Gov. Bob Ferguson, as he did recently on the topic of education spending. Washington routinely outperforms Oregon on standardized tests.

Rhode Island developed a strategic plan that inspired Oregon’s. Yet, Rhode Island’s features a strict “theory of action” that outlines the state’s education goals and puts part of the obligation on the state. Oregon’s plan doesn’t include similar language. ODE officials said its implementation plan connects “priority outcomes to high-leverage strategies.”

Rhode Island is far from its goals in English and math achievement, but 2025 data show slight improvement, as well as a declining rate of chronic absenteeism.

Additionally, Rhode Island publishes several school attendance data dashboards and updates the information on a daily basis for educators and the public. They create heat maps with the data so they can diagnose attendance problems. Under state law, a guardian can be fined if their child misses school, with a possibility of jail time if a student misses more than 30 days in a year.

Rhode Island and Washington schools have the advantage of spending more per-student than Oregon does. But that’s not the case for some other states that have made recent improvements, like Louisiana and Mississippi.

“If you’re a student experiencing poverty, those might be two of the best states to be a student, increasing your chances of learning how to read and do math and succeed,” said Angela Uherbelau, a Portland schools parent who started the advocacy group Oregon Kids Read. “And so why are we not looking to those states and what have they done well?”

Mississippi’s improvements on the National Assessment of Education Progress have been deemed the “Mississippi Miracle.”

State leaders in Mississippi instituted a slew of new policies, including new standards and assessments, as well as school ratings based on student achievement, growth and credits in advanced courses. Mississippi also passed a law more than a decade ago that held third graders back if they couldn’t read. Education advocates there say the focus on standards, accountability and consequences, led to success.

Recently, Mississippi advocates have started reframing the “miracle” as the “Mississippi Marathon” due to the two decades it took to actually effect change for students. The state’s targeted focus to reach one set of goals draws a striking contrast to Oregon, where focus has shifted constantly.

Nationally, spending is up over the last decade. But compared to Mississippi, where reading gains have steadily improved with increased spending, Oregon’s outcomes have been in decline since 2015.

A “groundswell” of new voices

The disparity between Oregon and other states isn’t missed on parents as they move here.

With years of experience working in education policy in Delaware and D.C., Portland parent Sara Kerr has seen what works. One of her proudest moments was her work changing the relationship between Delaware and its school districts.

“We put students at the center in ways that they weren’t always,” she said. They brought the state and districts together in conversation, using student data to drive change. She said Oregon can do that too.

“Let’s leverage that expertise that’s closest to kids, and let’s marry that with empirically, what do we know works, and shape solutions that have the right amount of funding, that have the alignment and support,” Kerr said.

“Let’s do these things and try them and give them a fighting chance of working by not just changing it up every two years.”

Earlier this year, Kerr joined the Champions for Oregon Kids Coalition, a group of families, teachers, and business leaders founded by Portland parent and Open School Inc. president Christine Pitts. Pitts said the Champions coalition breaks down what’s happening in Oregon education policy “from the Capitol to the classroom,” with a goal to start asking Oregon’s education leaders hard questions.

The state’s public education system, she said, “is functioning exactly how we designed it.”

The emphasis, she said, is on paperwork, rather than improvement.

Oregonians support the work of these grassroots coalitions. A 2024 Oregon Values and Belief Center survey of 1,600 adults found 90% “somewhat support” or “strongly support” setting “attainable, realistic, and ambitious goals” for progress and reviewing that progress.

Oregon can have local control and still see improvement, Pitts said. But accountability needs to be in the mix, too.

If the state won’t hold schools accountable, “the public can do it,” Pitts said. “But that means you have to have data and reporting and transparency, and consistency with all of that.”

Her group is working on a data book that can be useful in future legislative sessions.

Now, advocates like Pitts are inviting new voices into a room that had been exclusively filled with statewide associations and the Oregon Department of Education.

“There’s a level of momentum and energy around reform right now that feels very positive,” Pitts said.

These coalitions rallied behind the Pencil, and their petition.

The petition outlines five steps Oregon should take to improve literacy: train teachers using research-backed methods, require teachers to pass a licensure exam, updating the state’s funding formula, repeal the state’s assessment opt-out law, and offer high-dosage tutoring to students who need it the most.

Pencil delivered that petition to lawmakers on September 8.

About two weeks later, new test scores came out. Mediocre results stoked the outrage of advocates like Pencil, Pitts and Uherbelau.

“Our kids are just as capable and just as extraordinary,” Uherbelau said. “There’s nothing inherently wrong with them. There’s something right now very, very wrong with our system and the adults in charge of the system.”

Read Part 1: Set up for success or destined to fail? Oregon’s accountability plan is latest test for a long-struggling schools system

This story was written and reported by Elizabeth Miller, edited by Rob Manning, Tony Schick and Gillian Flaccus and digitally produced by Francisca Benitez, with visual editing by Kristyna Wentz-Graff.

As Katherine Cusumano writes in The Believer magazine, the blood, sweat and tears that go into wrestling take a toll on the body and mind, but the spirit and drive keep many in-ring, including Derek Drexl and Amira Lukens, both Portland-based pro-wrestlers who were profiled recently.

They join us to share their wrestling careers, match stories and more.

Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. When you think about professional wrestling, the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) might come to mind. It’s the highest profile and the biggest money version of the violent, in-the-ring soap operas. But the Pacific Northwest is home to its own indie wrestling scene. Katherine Cusumano spent a year covering this scene and wrote a great article about it in The Believer. She focused on two local wrestlers, Derek Drexl and Amira Lukens.

Drexl and Amira join me now to talk about the tears, sweat and blood of wrestling and why they keep getting back into the ring. It’s great to have both of you on the show.

Amira Lukens: Thank you. Thank you for having us.

Derek Drexl: Thank you so much. Is it actually that order: tears, sweat, then blood?

Miller: Normally it’s blood, sweat and tears. I switched it, ending with blood [laughter]. You can tell me, is that the right order or not?

Drexl: I mean, it depends on the wrestler. She probably sweats and cries more than me, and I bleed more, so it all depends on which one.

Lukens: Yes [laughs].

Miller: How did you become, Drexl, the Homicidal Artist, the Human Horror Show, the Devil Himself?

Drexl: Well, it’s a 21-year story to get here. I moved to Portland years ago working for one of the top 40 radio stations as a morning radio DJ and producer, and Portland wrestling was still on TV at that point. So I contacted them and wanted to do a little cross promotion. So they agreed to it. I was going to come in as an announcer and get to do some color commentary, but they wanted The Grappler, one of the legends from Portland, to do an angle with me.

So they had Grappler train me for about two months, that just consisted of me rolling, bumping, hitting the ropes, getting chopped, and making sure that when I went to the radio station twice a week after I had trained, I had as many marks on my body as possible. So I would go on there and talk about how real pro wrestling was.

I got my foot in the door as an announcer for Portland Wrestling. And I thought at that point, if I just become a manager like Bobby “The Brain” Heenan or Jimmy Hart back in the day, who I grew up watching, I thought that would be perfect. And somehow 21 years later, I’ve wrestled in three or four countries and across the United States. So it’s kind of crazy.

Miller: It seems like your first idea was I want to talk behind a microphone, I want to be near this scene but not be in the ring. But clearly something happened and you decided, no, actually, I want to be in the ring.

Drexl: I always wanted to be part of that, but back then it was the land of giants. I’m legit 5′11” at that point, probably about 180 pounds with a morning radio body. So I had the gut sticking out, and this was before we were getting a lot of free sponsorships for gyms and stuff like that at radio stations. But I just wanted my foot in the door. And as things came up, they’re like, “hey, will you do that?” Yeah, I’ll do that. And it just kept going from there.

I was at Portland when I became a manager, so I was more involved in the ring, I was more involved with the story. I wasn’t just behind a microphone interviewing people, so I was excited about that. But about a year-and-a-half in, I was doing some of the smaller companies up in like Wenatchee, Washington, or Tulalip or something. And I would be managing these guys who didn’t know what they were doing out there as far as storytelling. I just had a much better grasp on it, and I was sick of telling them what to do to get them over as I’m just playing a secondary character. I was like screw this, I’m just going to be a wrestler myself.

For a while I wrestled under a mask so I could keep both personas separate, so I wouldn’t ruin the mystique of the skinny little manager, and him getting killed, and being this cockroach that kept coming back. Or I was wrestling under a mask and getting destroyed by much bigger wrestlers, but they had no idea that it was the same person. It kept growing, and the more I did it, the more I loved it. I couldn’t give it up. That’s why I’m still doing it at 51 years old.

Miller: Amira, what first got you into wrestling?

Lukens: I didn’t grow up watching wrestling or anything like that. I had never really thought about it, except for my friends would ask if I would want to go to some local shows in Portland – which I said no to every single time. But several years ago, I broke my ankle in a rock climbing incident, and I had to get surgery. I was bedridden for three months. My partner at the time, he’s like, “you should watch this show called ‘Lucha Underground,’” which was on Netflix at the time. Well, I have nothing else to do.

And I started watching it, and I got really into it. And I think it’s just because it was storytelling mixed with the wrestling. It’s kind of like a very violent telenovela, that’s how “Lucha Underground” was.

Miller: And you responded to both of those, the drama of it and the physicality?

Lukens: Yeah, I grew up doing musical theater, so I think the drama of it really kind of blended my love for musical theater. I’ve also been a fitness instructor for 10 years, so I’ve also been very active. So combine both of those together.

When I was able to walk, they took me to my first live event, which Katie actually talks about in the article, Prestige Wrestling. First time they ran at the Roseland Theater. I was at that show as a fan, and from there, I started going to more shows. I got way more into it than my friends were that introduced me to it. And then one day I was like, I should give this a try.

Miller: What was it like the first time you got in the ring?

Lukens: It was a little scary. But also, I felt like this was something I really wanted to do. Because it just was a thought that popped into my head randomly. I was at a show by myself, I was like, “I could give this a shot.” And then COVID happened right after I had that thought. So I had to wait for a really long time before I could actually start wrestling school and step into a ring. So I was very excited and very ready to kind of tackle it, even though I was also really scared.

Miller: What’s wrestling school like?

Lukens: Painful [laughter]. It’s fun, but it’s also probably one of the more emotionally and physically taxing things I’ve ever done. Sure, it’s physically challenging, and it is really rough on your body. I think the first few weeks I was covered in bruises and I had to explain to my bosses that I’m OK, this is just something I decided to do for fun. But to really get over some fears I had, cause I had a lot of fears going into it, and I had a lot of doubt in myself. I was afraid of heights after a rock climbing injury. So it was a lot of emotional things I had to get through and work through, in addition to putting my body through what is essentially like a mini car accident every single time I fall down in that ring.

Miller: That you can sort of prepare for, but you still have to go through it every single time?

Lukens: Pretty much. You learn how to do things in a safer way, like you’re not gonna break your arm every time you get into the ring because we learn how to fall and do stuff like that. But it still hurts. It’s safer, but it still hurts.

Drexl: Gravity’s real. We learn how to land flat, to put our body weight out as much as possible. That’s how we’re able to protect ourselves with those falls, by tucking our chin and throwing all the weight out, so it disperses throughout your entire body. But to do that is completely unnatural. The thought of tucking your chin, throwing yourself back. Naturally your arms just want to grab, like if you slip on ice, naturally you reach down.

Miller: And you break your wrist.

Drexl: Yes. And you have to be able to retrain your body to be able to do something that’s completely unnatural. And to do that, you’re callusing up your body. Things like running the ropes – “Oh, it’s just like a trampoline, you’re just bouncing off of it.” Those ropes are legit rope. For the company I run, DOA, we have legit rope. It will just tear you apart. You are bruised from your armpit down to your hip when you learn how to run those ropes, until you callus your body up.

Then after that, after about two to three months of callusing your body, I’ve never had that problem again. But it’s that weird callusing. And that’s part of the school, the repetitive nature to retrain your body to do things not natural, and callusing the body to be able to take it.

Miller: What you’re talking about is that even if the final outcome, who raises their hand at the end, is predetermined, the physicality and the physical toll is very real.

Drexl: One hundred percent.

Miller: Can you describe, Derek, the, the injuries you’ve gotten over the years? Do we have time for you to go into this?

Drexl: You can see a metal plate for a collarbone right here.

Miller: Oh, yeah. Well, I don’t see the metal plate, but…

Drexl: My collarbone was broken three spots. You see the squared off right there instead of a collarbone, it’s an actual square. Yeah, the collarbone are broke in three spots, so they basically put an 8-inch plate that’s about that wide and eight screws in there to hold it together.

I’ve got two herniated discs in my neck that, at one point, when I was wrestling and training people down in Paraguay in South America, I had a wrestler’s boot come down straight on the top of my head. And because of previous injuries and stuff, it gave me a stinger where I couldn’t feel anything on the left side of my body for about 45 seconds. Legit laying there long enough to go “you are now paralyzed in South America. What are you going to do?”

Miller: And that’s because, in a fraction of a second or a fraction of an inch, the person you’re wrestling with just made a slight mistake, or you made some slight mistake?

Drexl: The people down there were very inexperienced when we went down there. It was a Canadian company that brought us down to train these guys. So I had two locals with me on the outside to do a big catch and a guy coming out over the top rope. When he came, his foot got caught, so he came up way short. They didn’t have the muscle memory or know how to shoot in there. I shot in as fast as possible with my hand to get behind his head so that he didn’t crash headfirst. But that opened me straight up for his boot heel to hit me in the head on that. So it was me trying to protect him, hurting myself in the process.

Miller: Amira, what makes you say after a match, “Man, that was a good match. What we just put out there for fans, that was good?”

Lukens: I think the number one thing is crowd reaction. You could go in there and have what you think is a good match, but if the crowd doesn’t react to it, it doesn’t feel good in the moment. And it’s really hearing the cheers, hearing them react to specific moments, that gets me really fired up. And then when you’re all done, you get to the back, you’re like OK, the adrenaline’s still there, you’re still remembering everybody reacting to stuff, and that is what makes it feel like a great match.

Miller: As everybody knows, as we’ve said, the final outcome is predetermined. But the understanding I have is that there’s a lot of planning and some kind of in the moment improvisation, like a dance, sort of. Does it feel like a partnership, you and the person you’re wrestling with or the people you’re wrestling with?

Drexl: One hundred percent, because our job is to make each other look as good as possible, just like you would with a dancing partner. So you’re trying to highlight what they do the best as they highlight what you do the best.

Miller: How do you help someone else look good?

Drexl: It all depends on the person, because everyone has their own qualities. The article talks about this big match that the two of us had at Roseland, this big deathmatch where it was insane – glass, barbed wire. I shoved shish kebab skewers into her head, just insanity in this match.

Miller: This is called hardcore or death match, sort of an extreme version of wrestling – folks can see versions of it online or see it in person if they want to. Maybe the short version is, it’s a lot bloodier.

Drexl: Yes, as you can see, my head is covered in scars from doing this stuff

Miller: Your hat brim had been covering it. But yeah, it is a crisscrossing of white.

Drexl: Yes, of a whole bunch of scars from over the years. But in that match, what she considered one of her big moments of getting her over in this crowd, she’d already proven over the previous two years that she was good in the ring. She could do everything, it looked realistic, she was strong, a really great underdog. That was the match where people are like, “she’s not just an underdog, she is a badass.” Simple as that. She survived going out there and doing all this crazy stuff with me.

So for her, it was just for that match, it was showing her legit toughness, and showing people that she’s not just the cute girl that can do cool wrestling stuff. Oh my God, she can go out there and she can really fight with the most dangerous of creatures in the ring and survive it.

Miller: This gets me to one of the really interesting tensions, the extent to which you feel like you’re yourself in the ring, the extent to which you’re a character. Because even as Derek was just describing your wrestling persona’s transformation in the eyes of fans, it’s not clear to me how much he’s talking about you, the real person in front of me, versus you, the wrestler. How do you think about that?

Lukens: For me, my character, I always say it’s just me dialed up. I’m a very quiet, introverted person. But I think that Amira in the ring is very much me, I’m just dialing up my internal emotions and everything. I try to take my real emotions from things I’ve gone through in my life and put it into my wrestling matches, cause it makes it more real. The audience can connect with you more if you draw from real emotions. So, all of that is me. I just show it a little bit more in the ring cause I can’t go out and punch guys in real life. Not normally.

As soon as my music hits, I am exploding out of the curtain. It’s a switch for me. It’s still me, but it’s just me a little bit bigger.

Miller: Does it matter to you if you’re slated to win or lose? Do you have a preference for the version of the performance that you are gonna be taking part in?

Lukens: It doesn’t really matter to me. My main thing is just getting the crowd to interact and react. That’s really all I care about. So win or loss doesn’t really matter.

Miller: The more screaming, the more cheering, the more engaged a crowd, the better.

Drexl: The more emotional investment. You get fans that they love a big flippy type move, and guys are doing flips off the top, and they’ll cheer for that. But the cheer that you hear on that compared to the cheer of an actual emotional investment where they really love this character, it doesn’t matter what the characters do in the ring, they just love that character so much. And for that character to overcome whatever the odds are set in front of them, that response you get is like nothing else. And it’s completely different than just the response to a cool move or something. That’s what we’re always striving for.

Miller: Correct me if I’m wrong … and Amira, as you said, you came from musical theater, so you came from the dramatic side in addition to being a physical trainer and being very physical. But I would imagine it might even be easier to teach someone some of the physical moves than to teach them to be an entertainer.

Drexl: Yes, 100%. When I was in my mid-20s there’s a guy named Scott D’Amore who had worked for TNA Wrestling and runs a company up in Canada now. I’d met him in an independent show when I lived in Michigan. He said, “Come out to my school. You’re a morning radio DJ, you’re already a performer, you play in a band. That’s the stuff I can’t teach. I can teach you how to wrestle. I can teach you the stuff in the ring. I can get you a better body. But the charisma, being a natural performer, that’s the stuff that you either have or you don’t.” People will learn it, but it’s much more of a natural thing if you’re a character that can go out there and perform and want to be a center of attention for this, even if you’re not the center of attention in your normal life.

Miller: Derek, about two years ago, we talked to a pair of fans who were working to preserve the history of Portland’s wrestling scene in the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s. How much has changed, economics wise, since then?

Drexl: So when you look at entertainment in general, back when territories were big and these companies were running five times a week in the different cities, you had three stations on TV, maybe you had your three networks, you might have one local station for the area. Movies had way higher attendance than what happens now. Everything is in people’s pockets, in their phone, all entertainment. So getting people to come out to events, there’s just too many more things to do now compared to just going to wrestling. So now I feel like, a company can do well for running a few shows a month. My company DOA will run usually one big Saturday show in Portland, and then usually one in Independence. We just did one in Corvallis last weekend.

But we’ll spread it out and get two or three shows throughout the month. And that’s pretty much a successful independent company that’s doing that and not losing money. Compared to back then, it was a minimum of five to six shows a week. And then if you look at WWE back in the ‘80s, they were doing three shows a night. It was insane, the touring schedule. But you look at WWE and AEW, the main companies, they don’t even run every day anymore. They run their TV shows, they’ve got their big pay-per-view or their premium live events. But the house shows running every single day in these small towns just doesn’t exist anymore.

Miller: Amira, what does that mean for the economics of being a wrestler? How do you make it work?

Lukens: It’s a little bit harder, cause a lot of times I’m paying for my own travel. So I don’t just wrestle here. I go across the U.S., and I go to Canada, and I went to Japan. It’s a lot of me using my outside of wrestling job and picking up other little jobs here and there to try and fund this dream, in hopes that one day I could get to a WWE and AEW. Even if I don’t stay there forever, I can at least add some value to my name to maybe try and make a little bit more off of wrestling, to kind of try and survive off of just my sole passion.

Miller: The only way to explain you putting yourself through the pain of what you’re doing in the ring and paying for your own travel, you have to be super passionate about this. What do you most like about wrestling?

Lukens: It is a really hard thing, because I work pretty much Monday through Friday at my regular job. I have two jobs outside of wrestling. And then most weekends, sometimes Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I am wrestling the whole entire time.

Miller: Or driving to British Columbia, flying to Chicago or something.

Lukens: So a lot of my time is traveling, wrestling, working. And it gets really hard. But the thing for me is a lot of times little girls will come up to me at the merch table, and just the sparkle in their eyes when they can say hi. That makes it all worth it. There’s this girl that comes to the DOA show, she has a binder that has signed 8 x10s, a bunch of them just for me. And a lot of the parents will come up to me and be like she’s super shy, but she wants to say hello, you’re her favorite wrestler. And then I’ll have newer fans come up to me and say, this little girl was sitting behind us and we didn’t know who you were, but she said “just watch.”

So being that inspiration makes it all worth it in the end, because I want people to believe in themselves. I think that’s ultimately why I like wrestling. I feel like it’s one of the truest art form to my spirit, where I can help people believe in themselves a little bit more.

Miller: And Derek, why are you still doing this? You’re in your 50s now, an age, I read in Kate’s article, past which you thought you’d either be alive or be doing this.

Drexl: Yeah, I didn’t think I was gonna make it past 40.

Miller: Why are you still doing it?

Drexl: So I’ve played in bands. I was in radio. I’ve been on stage for major concerts or for acting. I’ve done some TV, some movies. I’ve done everything in entertainment, performing wise. And there is no other feeling like wrestling. The rush of adrenaline from the physical nature of it, but then also the ability of the art to get people so drawn into what you’re doing, where they are just emotionally connected to it. I’ve seen people get sick over … they’re so upset over something. I’ve seen kids start dry heaving because they’re so upset. Getting people, working people’s emotions, this whole combo of what wrestling is, the weirdness of we’re performing, we’re ad-libbing, we’re doing all this crazy stuff all combined together, the rush you have is like nothing in the entire world. And I just can’t give it up.

Miller: Derek Drexl, the Homicidal Artist, the Human Horror Show, the Devil Himself, and Amira, the “Tower of Power” Lukens, thank you very much. It was really fun talking to both of you.

Lukens: Thank you.

Drexl: Thanks.

“Think Out Loud®” broadcasts live at noon every day and rebroadcasts at 8 p.m.

If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983.

For more than 20 years, Oregon has been monitoring toxic algal blooms. Other states such as Utah, Wyoming and California have been monitoring the blooms as well.

Now, new reporting from High Country News highlights how these blooms are happening more frequently and are lasting longer. Reporter Christine Peterson joins us to share more on why this is happening and what states are doing to try to address it.

“Think Out Loud®” broadcasts live at noon every day and rebroadcasts at 8 p.m.

If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983.

Since 1986, the Portland-based nonprofit Ukandu has offered a week-long, free camp for children with cancer, ages 8 to 18, and their siblings. In 2022, Ukandu began offering a free week of camp on the Oregon coast for the entire family.

Ukandu is now about to expand its programming year-round with the opening of The Loft on Oct. 21. The roughly 22,000-square-foot community center in the Lair Hill neighborhood of South Portland includes a two-story climbing wall, an arts and crafts room, a lounge for caregivers and other amenities. Free mental health counseling for children, adolescents and parents will also be available on-site, along with support groups and upcoming workshops on financial literacy and cooking.

Jason Hickox started as a volunteer with the organization as a camp counselor in 1988 and is today the CEO of Ukandu. Shauna Lugar is a mother whose 8-year-old son, Mason, has brain cancer and attended Camp Ukandu for the first time this year with his older brother, Avery. Hickox and Lugar join us, along with the mother of a 16-year-old daughter who is a brain cancer survivor, to share their hopes for The Loft.

“Think Out Loud®” broadcasts live at noon every day and rebroadcasts at 8 p.m.

If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983.

OPB is made possible by the generosity of our supporters. Your contribution helps bring trusted local journalism and essential programming to our region. Qualifying members get extended access to stream thousands of programs on demand with OPB Passport. Support OPB and stream your favorite shows, like Masterpiece, Antiques Roadshow and Ken Burns documentaries, whenever you want. You’ll also support OPB’s Oregon Field Guide, Oregon Art Beat and Oregon Experience and more stories, reporting and podcasts for the Pacific Northwest. Discover the benefits of an OPB membership.

Join a Giving Circle, Leave a Legacy

Become a part of a community of passionate, engaged supporters who make significant investments to support OPB’s work and receive special opportunities to connect more deeply through exclusive updates and behind-the-scenes access. Join an OPB Giving Circle.

Cornerstone Society: $1,000-$9,999 annually

As a Cornerstone Society member, you will help ensure that OPB continues to be the place where you and your neighbors can turn for essential coverage of the world around us.

President’s Council: $10,000 annually

President’s Council members provide transformational support to advance OPB’s mission-driven coverage of the Pacific Northwest and the programs you love.

Corporate Circle: where purpose meets marketing

The OPB and KMHD Corporate Circle is a group of businesses and non-profits whose investment in OPB underscores their commitment to independent, local journalism and our community at large. Learn more here!

Legacy Society: include OPB in your will, trust, or annuity

When you include OPB in your estate plans, your generosity builds a brighter future for everyone

by connecting people across Oregon and the Pacific Northwest through the power of a shared story, ensuring OPB’s mission remains accessible to all for generations to come.

Sponsorship Opportunities

Put your brand alongside the content audiences trust. From digital and audio to events and beyond, our sponsorship solutions are designed to help marketers increase visibility, drive engagement, and create lasting impressions. Explore the possibilities and discover what a OPB or KMHD partnership can do to help you grow.

Other Ways to Give

There are many ways to support independent journalism in our region. Follow a link below to learn more about other ways you can support the news and storytelling you love.

Contribute to OPB Directly by Mail

Send your gift to:

Oregon Public Broadcasting
PO Box 4373
Portland, OR 97208-4373

Oregon Public Broadcasting is a 501(c)(3), Tax ID 93-0814638.

]]>https://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/14/portland-public-schools-oregon-edcuation-school-closures/https://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/14/portland-public-schools-oregon-edcuation-school-closures/Wed, 14 Oct 2026 18:55:45 +0000

Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek wants Portland Public Schools to take its time as leaders weigh a flurry of school closures — but she stopped short of saying the district should retract its plans altogether.

Kotek, who is running for re-election, said in a Tuesday letter to Superintendent Kimberlee Armstrong and School Board Chair Eddie Wang that district families have expressed “shock,” “disappointment” and “confusion” in response to the district’s proposed plans to close up to 14 schools.

She said families in the district deserve to know the factors and trade-offs that come with the decision.

“I urge you to take the time to work through these challenging discussions with transparency, accessibility, and listening through authentic engagement,” Kotek wrote. “Taking the time to get this right is not a delay in making difficult decisions, but rather an essential part of the commitment to community partnership.”

But leaders say the district is running out of time to make the appropriate changes to schools, boundaries and programs. The district — Oregon’s largest — has been beset by financial problems that its leaders blame largely on rising personnel costs and declining enrollment. It’s weighing two different options, each of which could affect more than 7,000 students.

In a statement first sent to The Oregonian/OregonLive, a district spokesperson said it plans to hold regular listening sessions in the coming weeks, adding leaders are “expanding those efforts to give families, students and staff additional opportunities to share their perspectives.”

“We are listening and taking action to ensure community voices help inform the decisions ahead,” spokesperson Valerie Feder said.

Kotek said, “Confusion about the process is not something that we should accept. That is why the district must take the necessary time for families to understand and adequately weigh in before decisions are made.”

Families are trying to stop the closure plans, accusing leaders of rushing a process that is poised to reshape the district. Their concerns come as education becomes a core issue in this year’s gubernatorial race.

Kotek is facing off in a tight race with her political rival, Republican state Sen. Christine Drazan, who has said the district needs to try to keep its schools open.

Kotek, Drazan square off in final debate of governor’s race

In a Wednesday press release, Drazan said: “Taxpayers have invested millions in some of these schools through voter-approved bonds, and parents deserve to know whether closures will actually deliver meaningful savings.”

“Declining enrollment is part of a much bigger problem. Homelessness, public safety concerns, rising costs and a struggling economy are making Portland and communities across Oregon less attractive places to live and raise a family,” Drazan said. “As governor, I’ll restore livability, rebuild our economy and bring families back to Oregon. We need to fill our classrooms, not close them.”

]]>Eli Imadalihttps://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/14/urban-league-portland-state-of-black-oregon/https://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/14/urban-league-portland-state-of-black-oregon/Wed, 14 Oct 2026 13:12:58 +0000A new report examining how Black Oregonians have fared in recent years found significant gains in measures of civic engagement, such as voting and political representation, but almost no progress in education metrics, such as the number of Black teachers in Oregon classrooms.

The full report by the Urban League of Portland compares statistics going back at least 16 years and will be released next month. But researchers released top-line findings last week during a panel event at Portland State University’s Urban Center Building.

Jazzmine Waugh, who led the study for the League, walked students, academics, nonprofit leaders and community members through the 2026 State of Black Oregon.

The report, following a similar study released in 2015, offers new data on strong gains as well as persistent challenges facing Black Oregonians.

“It’s been a long, hard road,” Waugh said after the presentation. “How do you advocate for and represent Black people from all throughout Oregon?”

According to census data, more than 100,000 Black Oregonians live in Oregon, making up about 2.5% of the state’s population of 4.2 million.

Voting and political representation

According to the report, some of the strongest improvements were made in civic engagement.

It found voter registration among Black Oregonians increased 24% between 2012 and 2024. In that same period, the percentage of Black Oregonians who voted rose from 37% to 63%.

One of the panelists, PSU Black studies professor Bright Alozie, said multiple pivotal moments of the 20th century — like the Civil Rights Movement — have spurred Black Oregonians to organize politically.

“What we are seeing is a culmination of a much larger history,” Alozie said.

More recent and ongoing events, he said, include federal funding cuts and threats to mail-in voting in Oregon.

“Participation often rises when people feel their access or services are at stake, as they are right now,” Alozie said.

Joy Alise Davis, executive director of Imagine Black, also said the racial justice protests of 2020 were “a really big moment for Black people” and sparked even more participation.

“We’re realizing that to be Black in Oregon is inherently political,” Davis said.

Waugh also said the percentage of Black representation in both chambers of the Oregon Legislature has roughly doubled between 2015 and 2026, an indication of people “wanting to platform and pay attention to the issues that the Black community are facing.”

Former Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt, who now serves as in-house general counsel for the Urban League of Portland, also praised those increases.

“I think we’ve seen over the last couple years now democracy be under attack, and so to see that people are increasingly exercising their right to vote, I think, is such a positive thing,” Schmidt said.

Shifting health outcomes

Black Oregonians have seen some gains in health outcomes since the early 2010s, the new data show.

The report found fewer Black Oregonians died of cancer in 2024 than in 2015. It also showed a drop in diabetes diagnoses between two three-year periods in the last decade.

But other study results — particularly those around mental, maternal and infant health — didn’t see those same improvements.

More Black Oregonians died by suicide in 2024 than in 2017, and the rate for suicides among Black youth ages 10-24 hasn’t changed since 2014.

And between 2016 and 2024, the percentage of infants born to Black mothers with a low birth weight increased from 9.4% to 10.7%, compared to a smaller increase among infants born to white mothers.

“And that leads to all kinds of negative health outcomes, especially in the long term,” Schmidt said. “When you start thinking about health outcomes, you’re talking about housing, you’re talking about food and you’re talking about education.”

Ongoing challenges in education

The report said education, a long-acknowledged road to upward mobility, still raises many barriers for Black students in Oregon.

The report found a lower percentage of Black children received early intervention services for disabilities than white children in the 2020-21 school year, when the COVID-19 pandemic was putting additional strain on schools.

Mirroring some ongoing challenges for students across the state, English and math proficiency among Black students declined between 2014 and 2025 for both fourth-graders and high schoolers.

In that same period, the percentage of Black students with one or more disciplinary incidents rose more than it did for white students.

The report also found a minimal rise in the percentage of Black teachers compared to Black students. During the 2024-25 school year, 2.5% of Oregon students were Black while just 0.9% of the teachers were Black.

Writer and nonprofit leader Lakayana Drury, who was on a panel discussion that afternoon, leveled criticism at the state’s education system. That included Portland Public Schools, which recently proposed closing up to 14 school buildings across the district.

“It’s not just directly to PPS, but I question whether public schools are even capable of educating Black students as a whole, and when we look at these results, they don’t support it,” Drury said.

“How are you gonna get Black teachers when the school district at a baseline can barely retain the teachers it has?”

Higher education fared better, with the percentage of Black Oregonians holding a bachelor’s degree increasing from 17% in 2015 to 22% in 2023.

Economic outcomes remained mixed

The percentage of Black-owned businesses in Oregon increased from 1% in 2012 to 3% in 2021. And unemployment among Black Oregonians above the age of 16 dropped from 2015 to 2024.

The report found the gap in yearly income between Black and white households widened by about $9,000 between 2010 and 2023.

The percentage of Black households that own the units they live in also fell between 2010 and 2024.

The number of Black households with extremely low income — less than 30% of the median family income — between 2010 and 2021 has largely remained the same when adjusted for inflation.

Stalled improvements on criminal justice

While the percentage of incarcerated Black adults has stayed the same, the percentage of Black youth in juvenile detention increased from 8.6% in 2015 to 14% in 2024.

Between 2019 and 2024, the percentage of traffic stops for Black Oregonians barely increased while the pedestrian stops went up, from 7.1% to 8.6%.

Community members look to next decade

After her presentation of the data, Waugh asked the panel what they would want Black students to see in an updated report some 10 years from now.

Alozie said Black students need to see evidence that they’re “thriving in a robust educational system.”

“I hope that they see that Black graduates, whether high schoolers or college graduates, that they are finding real definitive paths in their careers.”

Alozie also called for a future where Black Oregonians can decide to leave the state not out of necessity, but out of choice — something he calls “durable belonging.”

“Durable belonging means, ‘Can I afford to live here as a black person?’” Alozie said. “‘Can I buy a home without going through the hoops and without all those barriers that prevent me from owning a home as a Black person?’ Durable belonging means, ‘Can I even raise my children here?’”

That resonated for Sierra Warren, who works in communications at Portland-based social services nonprofit Self Enhancement Inc.

“As a young professional, I want to see my other Black — especially female — counterparts and peers want to stay here,” Warren said. “I want people to want to be here because it’s fruitful for them.

Sabrina Taylor, a PSU student, said she wants to see higher literacy among Black students, a desire rooted in her own love of reading after struggling with it as a kid.

She remembers staying up at night learning how to sound out words using the “Hooked on Phonics” books her parents bought her, which soon turned into an obsession with reading, then history.

“20 odd years later, I’m here at Portland State, majoring in Black history in hopes that I could take that education and pour it back into my community,” Taylor said. “I wanna prove that, you know, this is a great place to be Black, young, educated.”

]]>Riley Martinezhttps://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/14/us-sen-jeff-merkley-was-headed-for-retirement-president-trumps-actions-changed-his-mind/https://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/14/us-sen-jeff-merkley-was-headed-for-retirement-president-trumps-actions-changed-his-mind/Wed, 14 Oct 2026 13:00:00 +0000

For a period last year, U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley was considering retiring from Congress, spurring rumors that Oregon could see its first open Senate seat in 30 years.

But the longtime Democrat says President Trump’s decisions — courting billionaires, appointing loyalists and federalizing the National Guard among them — prevented him from walking away.

“Our Republic’s in deep trouble,” Merkley, a Democrat who turns 70 this month, said in an interview with OPB. “And we’re not sure we can keep it.”

Congressional Democrats throughout the country are facing pressure to make way for a crop of candidates who want to chart a new course for the party. Not in Oregon. Merkley eased through the May primary without a major Democratic challenge. He’s seeking another term amid political gridlock in Congress and a president who routinely tests the bounds of his executive authority.

Merkley, who has served in Congress for nearly 18 years, faces a challenge from state Sen. David Brock Smith. The Port Orford Republican is trying to become Oregon’s first Republican U.S. Senator since Merkley ousted Gordon Smith in 2008.

Merkley has outraised Brock Smith this cycle, with $4.5 million in campaign contributions to the state senator’s roughly $120,000, according to federal filings as of June 30. Midterm elections seldom go well for the party in power, and pollsters are predicting Democrats like Merkley will sail to victory. The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan election forecaster, lists the Senate race as “solid Democrat.”

Despite those headwinds, Brock Smith believes the high taxes gripping Oregonians, coupled with the overall soaring cost of living, will generate support from voters frustrated with the state’s Democratic leaders.

“As I travel around the state and talk to individuals, they’re not seeing the return on their investment,” Brock Smith said, adding: “One party rule in Oregon has put us last in almost all metrics across the country.”

Gary Lyndon Dye, the Libertarian party candidate, and Chris Henry, of the Pacific Green and Progressive parties, are also running.

Merkley is honing his campaign messaging on President Trump, saying voters should choose him to push back against the president and his wealthy allies. Taken together, he said the president’s moves amount to “a series of strategies that an authoritarian uses to unravel a democracy.”

“I looked at all that and said, ‘Wow, this man really is the biggest threat to our constitution and our separation of power since the Civil War,’” Merkley said. “And I cannot describe this and lay it out to people and emphasize the danger and then say, ‘But good luck. I’m walking away from the fight.’”

Merkley touted his efforts to bring drought relief to farmers and keep a U.S. Coast Guard rescue helicopter in Newport. But he says his work remains unfinished, from the fight against dark money in politics to the ongoing effort to overhaul the filibuster.

Polls suggest some Senate seats could flip from red to blue. If Democrats regain control of the chamber, Merkley would be well-positioned to become the chair of the Senate Budget Committee.

Should that happen, Merkley said he would use his power to slim the country’s mounting debt, which he blames in part on the ongoing war in Iran and the decades-long Afghanistan war. To do so, he wants to hone in on wasteful defense spending and reverse Republican-backed tax breaks that he sees as disproportionately benefitting the wealthy.

“This century is going to belong to the nations that invest the most in education and infrastructure, not the ones that dribble away their national wealth in foreign wars and foreign military bases,” Merkley said.

Brock Smith, a 50-year-old who has served in a variety of civic roles, was elected to the Oregon Legislature in 2017, serving first in the state House and then the Senate. He decided to run for higher office during the government shutdown last year, which he blamed on Democrats, who temporarily held out on a deal to force concessions on health care subsidies.

“I just felt that it was time to have a pragmatic lawmaker in the United States Senate that can work across the aisle to get things done for Oregonians rather than just constantly blaming every single problem on (President Trump),” Brock Smith said.

In Brock Smith’s view, the biggest problem in Oregon is affordability. He attributed the problem partly to the war in Iran, but stopped short of outright condemning it.

At the same time, he said, Oregonians are frustrated with the vast amounts of money spent on education, roads and other government programs with middling results. He argued that the changes to social services programs, enacted by the Republican tax and spending cut bill, were necessary to reduce fraud and encourage work.

“We are in a situation where nearly a third of Oregonians are under SNAP, which is one of the highest in the country,” he said of the federal food assistance program. “And that in itself is a problem because we have too many people that are dependent upon these social safety net programs that shouldn’t be.”

Brock Smith continued: “I truly believe that we’re in a place that we need that pragmatic, level-headed, issue-focused work in the United States Senate so that we can bring Oregon into brighter days.”

Ballots are set to be mailed to Oregon voters this week.

]]>Courtesy of the campaignshttps://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/14/washington-supreme-court-watchers-law-election/https://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/14/washington-supreme-court-watchers-law-election/Wed, 14 Oct 2026 18:13:40 +0000

Court watchers around the country have an eye on Washington state this fall. That’s because a majority of the court’s seats are on the ballot.

While the races are nonpartisan, liberals say the court has a trailblazing reputation to safeguard, while conservatives say some of the court’s rule-making and decisions are out of step with state residents. Together, the five races are drawing record spending, including from outside groups.

The nonpartisan but left-leaning Brennan Center for Justice highlighted the Washington Supreme Court races as significant nationally. Douglas Keith, deputy director of Brennan’s judiciary program, said Washington state has become an example to other states of how to protect citizens’ rights under state constitutions rather than the federal one.

“The Washington Supreme Court has been a leader in recognizing protections against discrimination under the state Constitution in various contexts — from juries to criminal justice to police stops — in ways that other states have not, or at least have not yet,” Keith said.

He pointed to the court’s rulings barring mandatory life sentences for anyone under 21 and striking down the death penalty.

Keith said as the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court has pulled back protections around abortion and voting, people will turn more to state high courts like Washington’s to seek them.

Meanwhile, Republican Rob McKenna, the former state attorney general who has led legal challenges to Washington’s capital gains and income taxes, said the state Supreme Court has become more uniformly liberal in the last 20 years.

“It would be good to see some ideological diversity,” he said. “The court has taken a notable turn to the left.”

McKenna attributed that shift to fewer contested races and fewer judges finishing their terms, which enabled the state’s Democratic governors to appoint their replacements. But McKenna said this year’s races are bucking some of these trends; there’s more robust competition and no candidate is running unopposed. He and other Republicans formed the organization Full Court Press to support conservative candidates.

“This year is notable because, of course, you have an unusual number of supreme court positions up, with five slots out of nine, because the two appointees have to stand for election this fall.”

The court’s newest appointee is former K&L Gates attorney Theo Angelis. At a recent election forum hosted by the King County Bar Association, Angelis said the biggest challenge facing the judicial system is access to justice. He supports broadening the definitions of who can do legal work and the use of technology to streamline “formulaic” efforts like creating wills.

Angelis also defended the court’s caseload reductions for public defenders, which some counties have criticized as unattainable.

“These standards themselves are not unduly burdensome,” Angelis said. “The question is how do we find the resources to implement them. In many ways, our [state] Constitution is one big unfunded mandate, and as the judicial branch, we have to have courage to be able to say, ‘This is what due process looks like.’”

His opponent is retired Federal Way Municipal Court Judge Dave Larson, who said the biggest challenge to the current system is the number of governor-appointed justices and lack of contested races. Larson said these trends are causing voters to tune out and skip these races on their ballot. He lost his 2024 Supreme Court race against Justice Sal Mungia by less than 1%, while 675,000 people cast a ballot for governor but skipped the Supreme Court race.

“The biggest challenge is trust and confidence, even the way we elect and appoint judges,” Larson said. “Without trust and confidence, we can’t accomplish much whether it’s at the Legislature, with the public, or anything else.”

Larson said he’d like to see a bipartisan commission to vet judicial candidates.

Justice Colleen Melody also was appointed by Gov. Bob Ferguson and is now running to retain her seat. She said her previous experience running the civil rights division under Ferguson at the Washington Attorney General’s Office helps her administer the judicial branch and evaluate the impact of the court’s decisions.

“I think government needs to stay in its lane. That’s the role of the judiciary is to check it,” Melody said, “but it’s also not the role of the judiciary to hobble it.”

Her opponent is tax attorney Scott Edwards, who has sued unsuccessfully to block progressive taxes in the past.

“We don’t have the technical expertise I would bring to the bench,” he said, “and I think I would also add to that a diversity of perspective as a result.”

The state’s new high-earners income tax is expected to make its way before the state Supreme Court at some point. That’s drawn more attention to these races as well.

Two of the Supreme Court seats on the ballot are open with no incumbent. Position 3 pits two superior court-level judges against each other: Jaime Hawk from King County and Mason County’s David Stevens.

Hawk is a former ACLU attorney who said she appreciated the state Supreme Court’s letter in 2020, which condemned the court’s own role in “devaluing” Black lives and pledged to seek changes.

She said, “Some of the cases that I’ve appreciated the court providing leadership to proactively overturn have been really in the context of where there’s been racist decisions made.”

Hawk offered the example of the court’s 2021 decision overturning a ruling from 60 years earlier that barred a Black child from being buried in a whites-only children’s section of Evergreen Washelli Cemetery.

Her opponent Stevens, a former prosecutor and public defender, said the court hasn’t shown enough respect for precedent. He especially condemned the 2021 Blake decision that struck down the state’s felony drug possession law.

“I believe there was an ideological decision,” he said, in which the justices “overturned that decision, allowing drugs, and I think the effects were terrible.”

The Legislature ultimately enacted a new law making drug possession a gross misdemeanor.

The other open seat on the ballot also involves two judges: Washington State Court of Appeals Judge Ian Birk and King County Superior Court Judge Sean O’Donnell are running for Position 4.

Both have extensive endorsements from Democrats, but O’Donnell also has Republican backing. Birk’s campaign materials accused O’Donnell of having a “partisan agenda.” O’Donnell’s campaign said he has no political affiliation and issued a letter signed by dozens of judges. It called Birk’s accusations “false” and said “bipartisan support is something to be celebrated rather than demonized.”

In a recent debate, O’Donnell called Birk “a very smart person” but said Birk’s “judgement” on this campaign tactic “has been exceptionally poor.”

Birk stood by his campaign materials, saying: “I think the voters are entitled to know who is backing a candidate because that is material information for them.”

Birk and O’Donnell also disagreed about the impact of the state Supreme Court’s rule-making – O’Donnell condemned the court’s reduced caseloads for public defenders saying cases are being dismissed and “the impact is going to be on public safety.” Birk defended the decision to reduce caseloads and said counties have ten years to phase them in. But Birk also said the court should slow down its rule-making in general because it’s hard for the legal community to keep up.

Chief Justice Debra Stephens is also running for reelection. Gov. Christine Gregoire appointed Stephens in 2007 as the first female justice from Eastern Washington.

In the state’s video voter guide, Stephens said as a former law professor at Gonzaga University, “I understand and respect legal precedents and constitutional principles.”

She said, “In an era of growing attempts to politicize the judicial system, I work every day to safeguard the fairness and integrity of our courts.”

Stephens’ opponent is U.S. Navy veteran, tax attorney, and CPA Todd Bloom of Tacoma.

Bloom told the state voter guide he supports the “distinct” role of the judiciary.

“Judges are not legislators,” he said. “A judge’s role is not to decide which policy outcome they personally prefer.”

Altogether, the five state Supreme Court races have reported approximately $2.8 million in donations so far, which campaigns say is a record for judicial races in Washington.

The Birk/O’Donnell race and the Angelis/Larson race have attracted the lion’s share of the contributions at nearly $1 million each. Independent expenditures are also being made by groups like business-backed Concerned Taxpayers of Washington and labor-backed Beware the Attacks on Our Courts.

Amy Radil is a reporter with KUOW. This story comes to you from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.

It is part of OPB’s broader effort to ensure that everyone in our region has access to quality journalism that informs, entertains and enriches their lives. To learn more, visit our journalism partnerships page.

]]>Teo Popescuhttps://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/14/thousands-of-observers-are-slated-to-monitor-polling-places/https://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/14/thousands-of-observers-are-slated-to-monitor-polling-places/Wed, 14 Oct 2026 17:59:05 +0000

It was loteria night at the offices of Living United for Change in Arizona, or LUCHA, in Phoenix.

A small group of young people were playing this bingo-like card game in the hopes of taking home an array of prizes: a camping chair, reusable water bottles and coolers.

Conveniently, the prizes would be useful if you plan to camp out somewhere for a while. Which happens to be what these players were getting trained to do last week.

LUCHA, a left-of-center community organizing group, has been training volunteers to be what they call “constitutional observers” ahead of this year’s midterms. This was the first of many in-person sessions the organization plans to hold as Election Day nears.

Carime Rodriguez, who led the training, told volunteers that their main job will be to just observe.

“Monitor the polling environment,” she said. “Stay aware of what’s happening on the ground … just make sure you are kind of keeping your eyes open.”

For many election cycles, groups have fanned out to monitor polling places, but the charged midterm environment has many organizations stepping up efforts. They plan to have thousands of individuals with eyes on this election.

Fears of ICE at the polls

For LUCHA’s Rodriguez, immigration is a concern. She told her training volunteers that during Arizona’s primaries earlier this year, there was an uptick in immigration enforcement — including around polling sites in Maricopa County, where Phoenix is located.

And in case this happens again, LUCHA and other similar groups want to have people on the ground, to keep an eye out for anything they think could intimidate voters. Chiefly, groups say they are worried about Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agents at election sites.

“I feel like these last two years, everyone has been holding on by the edge of their seats,” said Alejandra Gomez, LUCHA’s executive director. “And so that has made us incredibly forward thinking and making sure that we are preparing. We’re hoping for the best, preparing for the worst.”

It would be illegal for the Trump administration to send armed agents to polling sites. And administration officials have said ICE has no plans to target polling locations. But right-wing political figures close to Trump like Steven Bannon have been calling for the president to send them anyway, and Trump officials have said ICE could serve warrants at polling places.

Mary Corcoran, co-founder and executive director of the left-leaning Save America Movement, said that’s enough for her to take this potential threat seriously.

“The point is to scare people and use fear as an intimidation factor to keep people home,” she told NPR. “So, our perspective was that the way that we could make a difference in this election was working in communities that would be most likely impacted by the threat of ICE coming to the polls this fall.”

Corcoran’s group is partnering with the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, as well as various unions, like the American Federation of Teachers, in an effort they are calling Vote Safe.

She said members of the effort plan to be in major population centers with large and growing Black, Latino, Asian and immigrant populations — particularly in states with key Senate races, like Ohio, North Carolina, Georgia and Michigan.

“The volunteers are not there to engage with any ICE folks that could show up,” she said. “It’s really about having a de-escalatory impact by way of really bearing witness.”

She said the presence of clergy, veterans, teachers and nurses from the community will hopefully have a “de-escalatory impact and a deterrent impact.”

DOJ election observers

Left-leaning groups won’t be the only folks at the polls. The Republican National Committee, for one, recruits observers to keep elections secure and transparent. And leaders of the Justice Department, which regularly monitors polling places, say they plan to step up their usual presence.

Harmeet Dhillon, the head of DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, said on Real America’s Voice that she plans to send a thousand people from the agency to monitor polling sites.

“This is going to be the biggest DOJ election observer effort in history,” she said. “And I’m so excited to be leading that effort.”

She said that DOJ staff will play a similar role to other observers that will be at the polls, which is just to watch.

“They’re not going to be interfering in any way or running the election, they’re going to be observing, making notes,” she said.

Wyoming’s Republican governor criticized the actions of DOJ observers in the state in August.

“Not normal times”

Tammy Patrick with the National Association of Election Officials says election administrators have been hearing of big plans of large groups of observers for a while now. But Patrick said it’s important to note that this is something they hear most election cycles.

“Every two years it seems, for at least the 20 or so years I’ve been doing this, we hear that there’s going to be massive observation, and thousands of people are going to show up to observe at the polling place,” she said.

“It hasn’t manifested in that way in the past, but these are not normal times.”

Which is why she says election administrators are educating the public. Rules about who can observe what, or how close you can be to a polling site, for example, vary from state to state.

Also, there is only so much observers can actually do at the polls. If something goes wrong, it’s up to election workers and local law enforcement to sort it out.

Patrick said most years many observers get bored and leave.

“The actual process tends to be ... pretty dry,” she said. “And one might even say boring to watch people walk in, give their name, sign their name, get their ballot.”

But if things are not boring, Jane Kleeb with the Association of State Democratic Committees — which is part of the Democratic National Committee — said she wants people on the ground recording.

For political parties, the stakes of problems at the polls are high — particularly in close elections, where lawsuits are common.

“We’re going to record any bad behavior,” she said. “So that might be on audio. It may be still pictures, and it will be video that will then be sent to each state party. So, then they can get that information up to the DNC. So, we have a very clear process to make sure that we’re documenting all of this in case lawsuits have to be filed.”

]]>Olivier Touronhttps://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/14/bitter-rematch-oregon-4th-congressional-district-candidates-clash/https://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/14/bitter-rematch-oregon-4th-congressional-district-candidates-clash/Wed, 14 Oct 2026 17:43:54 +0000

Democratic incumbent Val Hoyle is in a rematch against critics on both the left and right in the race to represent Oregon’s 4th Congressional District.

Hoyle again faces Republican Monique DeSpain, a retired Air Force colonel, and Pacific Green Party candidate Justin Filip.

During DeSpain’s first run for Congress in 2024, she repeatedly accused Hoyle of corruption, calling her opponent a career politician and a liar.

She said her opinion of Hoyle hasn’t changed and she’s used the last two years to educate as many voters as she can.

“I’ve really learned a lot about how dirty politics is and how corrupt Val Hoyle is,” DeSpain said. “She’s so willing to lie to her constituents to just get their vote, and then not serve them in the end.”

DeSpain has worked as a military lawyer in the Air Force and a private attorney. Hoyle was Oregon’s labor commissioner, served in the Oregon Legislature and worked in the bicycle industry before she was elected to Congress. She said DeSpain’s accusations, such as that she violated congressional stock trading disclosure law, are old news that she already addressed appropriately.

“She’s been running for this seat for four years,” Hoyle said. “[She] loves the attention it brings but really has no concrete plans other than attacking me.”

Hoyle also argued that a vote for her opponent is a vote for President Donald Trump’s agenda.

DeSpain disagreed with that characterization. She said if elected, she has no plans to support bills to ban abortion, same-sex marriage or mail-in voting. She said she believes strongly in local control and the Constitutional right of states to govern themselves.

“I’ve been very clear that I would not support any federal policy that encroaches on the law of Oregon,” DeSpain said.

DeSpain is one of two Republican congressional candidates in Oregon not endorsed by Oregon Right to Life this election cycle, according to the group’s online voters guide. Oregon Right to Life endorsed five other Republican congressional candidates.

House majority

According to a September analysis by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, Democrats are on track to win the House this year. If that comes to pass and Hoyle wins, it would be her first time being a part of the majority since she was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2022.

Hoyle said she’s been able to make progress while in the minority, pointing to the inclusion of legislation she worked on making into a major housing bill that is now law. She said her office has been able to bring back resources to the district and her constituent services team recently won an award for excellence.

“Our office is very effective and we will continue to do that, hopefully in the majority where we will be able to have an agenda that delivers for working people,” Hoyle said.

She said her first goal, if she’s a part of a Democratic majority, is to roll back cuts to the social safety net, especially new Medicaid restrictions that Congressional Republicans passed last year.

She said she also wants to use her congressional authority to force companies to negotiate on drug prices, and pursue other measures to lower healthcare costs.

“We have to get hedge funds and venture capital firms out of our healthcare system,” Hoyle said. “They are specifically to make money for their shareholders, not to deliver care.”

Homelessness

DeSpain said her number one issue is homelessness. She said Eugene, and many rural communities in the district, are seeing more people on the street, despite hundreds of millions of dollars in state and federal spending on the issue.

She argued Hoyle, as a member of Congress, should provide stronger oversight to ensure every taxpayer dollar is going where it should, and getting results.

“We are a generous, compassionate society,” DeSpain said. “I don’t think any of us would mind paying the taxes if we really felt that the money was hitting the target, and that is the addicted, the mentally ill.”

Meanwhile, Pacific Green Party candidate Justin Filip said he’s an alternative for voters who are tired of big money in politics. He argued both major party candidates are more focused on donor and partisan interests than the needs of their constituents.

Filip said his number one issue is also homelessness. He argued neither of his opponents have real solutions to help the district’s most vulnerable residents.

“The biggest moral catastrophe is that we have so many people, our neighbors, living on the street,” Filip said. “I think the government serves a role of taking care of the people. That’s what it should be there for.”

Filip said he also sees himself as the most anti-war candidate in the race, saying he would oppose military action regardless of who was in the White House.

“We just need a vocal person in Congress that is anti-war all the time,” Filip said. “Not just when the other party’s in charge, but have a consistent moral compass to call these things out for what they are.”

Immigration, healthcare

Hoyle and DeSpain also offered differing visions on immigration.

Hoyle called Immigration and Customs Enforcement the Trump Administration’s personal army, pointing to shootings of detainees and bystanders. She called for the agency to be abolished.

“In the next Congress I will continue to work to hold this administration accountable for the murders they have committed,” Hoyle said. “And, make sure we have control at the border, but make sure we are not terrorizing communities of color.”

Hoyle also said she has been concerned about her own constituents, saying she has been periodically visiting those who have been arrested by immigration enforcement and detained in Tacoma.

DeSpain said “rogue officers” who work in Immigration and Customs Enforcement should be prosecuted, but disagreed with disbanding the agency altogether.

She said if elected to Congress, she’d like to create a pathway to legal status for those who are already here, but haven’t been arrested for a crime. She said the federal government also needs to continue to strengthen the border to stop the pipeline of illegal entries.

“We have an exacerbated problem with a lot of people here illegally, and that was a terrible mistake on the part of the government,” DeSpain said. “I don’t think that the individuals who came into our country under those circumstances should bear the full burden of that terrible mistake.”

Both Filip and Hoyle have said they support universal healthcare.

DeSpain said she’s also worried about healthcare costs, but argued more government spending isn’t likely to solve the district’s healthcare problems, saying Congress should focus on curtailing middlemen in the healthcare industry, like pharmacy benefit managers, to try and lower overall costs.

DeSpain said she also supported accountability measures to prevent Medicaid and Medicare fraud.

Campaign ads

In addition to trading barbs over their own records, Hoyle and DeSpain have also clashed over campaign ads.

Both candidates have recycled talking points from the first time they faced each other in 2024. DeSpain launched a website this spring with a timeline of controversies during Hoyle’s tenure as Oregon’s Labor Commissioner, including Hoyle’s relationship with scandal-plagued cannabis company LaMota.

Hoyle has previously said the owners of the company misled her and she returned their campaign contributions.

In an online ad, Hoyle has again drawn attention to DeSpain receiving the Constitution Party’s nomination in her 2024 bid for Congress. The minor political party lost its status in August of this year because it had too few members.

Hoyle said DeSpain had to take a pledge to follow conservative, anti-abortion principles to receive the nomination and argued it was still relevant two years later.

DeSpain accused Hoyle of misleading voters about her stances on abortion and has sent Hoyle a cease and desist letter.

In this cycle, Hoyle has raised about $1.2 million, according to the Federal Election Commission.

About $300,000 in independent expenditures from a pro-artificial intelligence-linked PAC has been spent in support of Hoyle this cycle. Another PAC, Safer Stronger Oregon, has spent about $425,000 in independent expenditures against Hoyle and in support of DeSpain, according to FEC documents filed on Oct. 13.

DeSpain has raised about $680,000 in campaign contributions.

Filip is not fundraising.

The 4th Congressional District includes a significant portion of the Oregon Coast and the Roseburg area, as well as Eugene-Springfield.

This story was updated on Oct. 13 to include additional campaign finance information that became available after the publication deadline.

Rebecca Hansen-White is a reporter with KLCC. This story comes to you from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.

It is part of OPB’s broader effort to ensure that everyone in our region has access to quality journalism that informs, entertains and enriches their lives. To learn more, visit our journalism partnerships page.

]]>Courtesy of the candidateshttps://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/14/snap-funding-cuts-presents-challenges-to-fight-skimming-schemes/https://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/14/snap-funding-cuts-presents-challenges-to-fight-skimming-schemes/Wed, 14 Oct 2026 17:52:22 +0000

As Jayeleauna Lewis listened to an automated voice system describe the unauthorized charges on her food assistance card, a pit formed in her stomach. She pictured her 3-year-old daughter and their empty fridge back home.

On the 13th of each month, Lewis, a 20-year-old single mom from Indiana, receives $486 from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP. But in September, just minutes after funds were loaded onto her account, they disappeared.

" I was heartbroken because that’s how I feed my daughter," she says.

Lewis is unsure how her benefits were stolen, but cybersecurity experts say she might have been a victim of skimming — when thieves extract card information from payment terminals and drain money from accounts.

In recent years, SNAP has become a fraud magnet for criminals who view both the nation’s poorest Americans and the government program’s outdated technology as easy to exploit. The U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of Inspector General projected that, over the past two years alone, $233 million may have been lost due to food assistance theft — largely driven by skimming. And in most states, stolen benefits are not replaced.

The Trump administration has vowed to eliminate SNAP fraud, adding that it’s preventing the program from serving those who truly need it. But states’ efforts to curb skimming are likely to get harder due to federal funding cuts that began earlier this month, according to Kathryn Larin, a director at the Government Accountability Office, a congressional watchdog agency that has been examining SNAP fraud prevention efforts for years.

“It will increase the budgetary pressure and will make it more difficult for states to allocate funds to benefit card theft prevention,” she says.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers SNAP, told NPR there had been “continued inaction” against skimming long before new funding changes were proposed.

“Skimming has been plaguing recipients for years, and States sat idly, allowing benefits to be stolen from those who need them. SNAP administrative funding changes should not make it harder to fight skimming, as it simply holds these complaining lawmakers accountable,” according to a statement from the USDA.

‘They know they’re stealing from the poor’

Lewis says she has never been to the Northeast. But on Sept. 13, between 12:11 a.m. and 12:13 a.m., her benefits were spent across eight stores in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, her physical food assistance card, also known as an EBT card, remained tucked in her wallet.

Two weeks earlier, Lewis says she had swiped her card at a gas station to buy a Powerade. Swipe-pay is vulnerable to theft because the magnetic stripe behind cards does a poor job of securing personal information, according to Scott Schober, the CEO of Berkeley Varitronics Systems who has invented several skimming detectors.

It typically goes like this: When a cashier is distracted, fraudsters secretly place a skimming device onto a payment terminal. The device captures troves of card information, which thieves later collect in order to clone cards. With stolen food benefits, criminals typically mass-purchase items that are easy to resell, such as baby formula.

“So it’s a very quick ecosystem from the point of stealing the card to drain,” Schober says. “Sometimes it’s within hours. It’s that well-orchestrated.”

Skimming first emerged over two decades ago. Most banks in the U.S. have since upgraded their debit and credit cards with microchips that make it harder to copy personal information. SNAP, on the other hand, has lagged in making the switch. Organized criminal rings caught on and zeroed in on food stamp recipients — often timing their theft to the start of each month when benefits arrive, according to Michael Peck, an assistant special agent in charge of the Secret Service’s Criminal Investigative Division. Peck oversees the agency’s skimming investigations.

“These transnational organized crime groups are coming into the U.S. specifically to target our benefits system,” he says. “They know they’re stealing from the poor.”

The ‘human cost’ of stolen benefits

Anti-hunger advocates say part of what makes food assistance theft striking is the double standard compared to other victims of fraud.

Christopher Branch, a part-time Walmart employee from Illinois, says he has experienced both credit card and food stamp theft before. While his bank refunded him for the money he lost, the food benefits he used to feed himself and his two children were never recovered. During the month without his food assistance, Branch says he had to take on side jobs such as fixing cars to afford groceries.

" I was very upset and disappointed," he says. “I couldn’t get no type of help.”

Debit and credit holders are reimbursed for unauthorized transactions under the Electronic Funds Transfer Act. In 1996, Congress voted to exclude SNAP recipients from receiving those same protections due to concerns that it would be too costly, according to a 2025 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The federal government temporarily replaced more than $320 million in stolen benefits for nearly 670,000 households between October 2022 and December 2024 — giving some insight into the scale of this type of fraud.

But now, there’s no federal recourse — so when food assistance disappears, SNAP recipients are forced to make difficult choices. Earlier this year, Propel, an app that helps users check their SNAP balance, surveyed individuals who said they were victims of SNAP theft. A majority of respondents said they skipped or ate fewer meals as a result. Nearly half said they borrowed money or went into debt, while more than a third said they struggled to pay their bills or rent.

“That’s the real kind of human cost of SNAP benefits being stolen,” says Jimmy Chen, the CEO of Propel.

Then, there’s shame. After Mary Barclay from Massachusetts saw her food assistance vanish, she recalled her SNAP caseworker faulting her for not taking more security precautions, like locking her EBT card. When Barclay went to the police, she says her story was met with skepticism.

“They made me feel as if I had something to do with it,” she says.

‘It can’t all be arrests’

In early 2025, California became the first state to start issuing chip-enabled EBT cards. It wasn’t a silver bullet, but over the next several months, the state reported a consistent and rapid decline in SNAP theft.

So far, fewer than a third of states have upgraded or plan to upgrade their EBT cards, according to the USDA. States are addressing skimming in other ways, but most of them put the burden on SNAP recipients to be hypervigilant — like changing their card’s PIN number on a monthly basis or keeping their cards locked until they’re ready to make a purchase.

“It can be difficult for some people to do that if you don’t have a cellphone, for example, that has the app that allows you to do the locking,” says Larin from the GAO.

On the law enforcement side, federal and state authorities are working to find and remove skimming devices. But Secret Service agent Peck says operations alone can’t solve this problem.

“The issue we run into is the fact that the groups that conduct this fraud aren’t afraid to go right back to a store and install again,” he says.

Funding challenges have compounded

The biggest barrier to chip-enabled cards is cost.

In a report published last year, the GAO found that chip-enabled cards are about 10 times more expensive to produce than magnetic strip ones. The initial transition alone can cost states millions of dollars upfront.

The USDA supports chip adoption, but it provides limited funds to help states do so. For instance, last year, the department awarded seven states a combined total of $5 million to address fraud.

Starting this month, states have fewer federal dollars to operate the food assistance program altogether. That’s because of President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which cut federal funding for states’ operational costs by half. At the same time, the law requires state SNAP agencies to focus on reducing their payment error rate — which is a measure of overpayments and underpayments to SNAP recipients — or they’ll face harsh financial penalties.

Gina Plata-Nino, the SNAP director for the Food Research & Action Center, says these changes will make it harder for states to combat skimming.

" The likelihood of states being able to switch to chip-tap technology without federal support is going to be even more less likely," she says.

At least five states have said they plan to delay issuing chip cards or related investments as a result of the federal funding changes, according to a survey conducted by the American Public Human Services Association and the Urban Institute earlier this year.

Congress considers mandating chip-enabled cards nationwide. Will it happen?

While modernizing SNAP may be costly and slow, the country has done it before. When states switched from paper food stamps to electronic benefits in the early 2000s, it was largely driven by a desire to prevent food stamps from getting lost, stolen or sold. They did so through federal legislation.

In recent years, Congress has introduced legislation to upgrade EBT cards nationwide or replace stolen food benefits. Right now, the Senate version of the Farm Bill, which provides funding for an array of programs, includes a provision to move toward chips. But the House version does not, meaning it’s unclear if the measure will make the final cut. Although the program has bipartisan support, Congress is at a major impasse over SNAP — in particular, the hundreds of millions of dollars possibly imposed on states with high payment error rates.

" The conversation about boosting cybersecurity standards is hard to make as long as Republicans refuse to restore the food assistance," says Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), who has been pushing for more secure EBT cards since the Biden administration. " What I’m committed to doing is getting both of these over the finish line."

Back in Indiana, Lewis’ stolen food assistance has had a ripple effect. Her mother, Johna Hammontree, says she typically lives paycheck to paycheck, but has been stretching every dollar to ensure her daughter and granddaughter do not go hungry.

“It’s really, really rough for me already,” Hammontree says. “But I will take from my rent money, my bill money, my grocery money … Whatever I need to pull from financially to make sure that she’s okay.”

]]>Octavio Jones for NPRhttps://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/13/think-out-loud-portland-public-schools-pps-closures/https://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/13/think-out-loud-portland-public-schools-pps-closures/Tue, 13 Oct 2026 13:00:00 +0000

Fourteen neighborhood schools in Portland would close if the Portland Public Schools Board approves a district plan. The “rightsizing” plan also includes consolidating or eliminating programs, as well as major boundary changes. Parents, students and staff have been pushing back on both the process and substance of the plan, and are calling for a pause.

School Board Chair Eddie Wang joins us to share more details about the budget and the school closure proposals. And we’ll be taking calls this hour from those who would be affected by school closures and the other changes. Our number is 888-665-5865.

“Think Out Loud®” broadcasts live at noon every day and rebroadcasts at 8 p.m.

If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983.

]]>Eli Imadalihttps://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/07/restaurants-coming-to-portland-and-eugene-this-autumn/https://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/07/restaurants-coming-to-portland-and-eugene-this-autumn/Wed, 07 Oct 2026 21:42:07 +0000Portland’s got a reputation for food — the New York Times has called the city “the dining capital of the Pacific Northwest.” And last year, a Eugene establishment made it into the publication’s top 100 restaurants of 2025.

Zoe Baillargeon is a freelance food writer based in Portland, and Taylor Gobel is the Food Correspondent at Lookout Eugene-Springfield.

They join us to break down some of the regional trends in restaurants and some of the exciting openings to look out for this fall in Portland and Eugene.

Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.

Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. Eugene and Portland are both seeing a number of restaurant openings this fall, and I’m joined now by two folks who’ve been covering them. Zoe Baillargeon is a freelance food writer based in Portland. Taylor Gobel is the food correspondent at Lookout Eugene-Springfield. Welcome to you both.

Zoe Baillargeon: Thanks for having us.

Taylor Gobel: Thanks.

Miller: Zoe, as I mentioned, you’ve both written recent articles about this season of restaurant openings. Is the fall a strategic time to open a restaurant? A good time to open a restaurant?

Baillargeon: Yeah, there are lots of good reasons for restaurants to open up this time of year. A big one is that it gives you kind of a runway to open up and iron out any operational kinks before you get into the busy holiday season. So that’s one reason why restaurants would target this time of year. And also, you have a wealth of hospitality workers available because the summertime rush is over, seasonal work has wound down, so you’ve got tons of great hospitality workers at your disposal.

Miller: Taylor, I imagine a lot of those things are true, but you’re also a university town, a college town. How does that play into the feel of fall restaurant openings in Eugene and Springfield?

Gobel: I think that during the summer, school’s out, so everybody’s back home, wherever they’re coming from. I think when people come back, we have Ducks games galore, there’s just a reason to go out to watch the game. It’s also the fall season, so there’s so many great festivals and just reasons to be outside, and just kind of coming alive before everything turns dark and rainy. There’s like a different kind of energy to Eugene when fall arrives.

Miller: So we are going to be focusing on these fall openings, but you did write recently about a summer opening. Can you tell us about a place called Moss Culinary Studio?

Gobel: So this is a really cool story. It was started by a couple, they moved down here from Seattle. They were working in the tech industry, and through a series of crazy events, they decided to start up a really cool scratch-made bakery using probably 90% to 100% local ingredients. So all of their flour, their produce is local. And the way they started this was at the Lane County Farmers’ Market. They were a booth and they were using ingredients that they were buying literally from their neighbors.

They found a space, lucky for the Lookout staff, just a couple of blocks down on Willamette Street. It was a former Greek restaurant, so the food theme lives on. They pretty much every week put out new things. I would give you some examples of food, but it changes so often. So I just recommend just stopping by for a bite for breakfast or lunch there.

Miller: How does that fit into a trend of starting as a food truck or a pop-up before going to a brick and mortar location? How common is that these days in Eugene and Springfield?

Gobel: I would say it’s really common. I probably should have calculated from the stories the percentage of people I’ve talked to who started at one place and ended up somewhere else. I think in the restaurant industry, which is just such an insane industry to get into, to survive in, to thrive, what it takes to be successful is the ability to pivot, and then having a vision for what you want. I’ve talked to folks who had a full service restaurant, and they pivoted and said we want to do a food truck instead, and it works out for them.

I actually just ate out at a restaurant that just opened, and it is all seasonal, local – again, huge theme down here. Shout out to the Willamette Valley for having such a bountiful harvest of produce and goods. But they were operating out of a brewery, so they were doing kind of upscale pub food, and then they decided to branch out and do their own thing, and it’s been really good for them. I think this idea of experimenting with different models, but starting small in particular means more room to try different things to kind of see what people want before you move on to maybe a more permanent space or a bigger investment.

Miller: Zoe, up in Portland, you’ve been covering a reopening. Can you remind us what happened to a bakery called JinJu Patisserie?

Baillargeon: So JinJu Patisserie is absolutely beloved here. They’re a James Beard Award winning bakery. And at the end of last year, last December, they announced that they were closing up shop and wanting to find a space that better fit their needs for various reasons. They stressed that it was not a permanent closure, they were looking for a new space. So the city’s been very excited when they recently announced that they’ve found a new location, and it’s actually super close to where they used to be. So that should be coming up within the next month or so, that reopening. I’ve been following them on Instagram and seeing announcements about staff getting hired. The city’s really excited for that one.

Miller: You also wrote about a place called Feli from the folks that started the Spanish restaurant Urdaneta. What can people expect there?

Baillargeon: That one will be a fun one because Urdaneta is more focused on Northern Spain, on Basque Country. And Feli will be more looking into the cuisine of Southern Spain. It’ll be Chef Javier looking more into the culinary background of his family from the south of Spain, his paternal grandmother, and his family and roots in that area. They’ll get to play with fun new ingredients like Iberian pork. The bar menu is gonna be more sherry-focused. I think that’ll be a really nice compliment and a great addition to the Spanish cuisine scene we have going on here.

Miller: Zoe, what are some other restaurants that are on your radar right now?

Baillargeon: Another great one that people should know about is Bar Sprezzatura, which is coming to us from Chef Michael Mina. He’s a very well-known chef with an empire of restaurants all across the world, locations in Dubai, Las Vegas, a whole bunch of different culinary ventures. This will be his first Portland outpost. It’s gonna be popping up in the Heathman Hotel. That’ll be Italian inspired, so pastas, Venetian-inspired food. And of course, for the bar part, tons of great Italian drinks, got Negronis, spritzes, all that jazz.

Some other great ones: Bossa, which will be a new Brazilian-focused cafe/bar – cafe in the morning, bar in the evening – is something to look forward to. And one that Portlanders will be really excited about is there’s going to be a new restaurant opening up in the space that used to be the Douglas Fir Lounge over on Burnside. So that’ll be Galleria & Grotto, that will be contemporary global cuisine. Whole new look, refresh. And hopefully the lower level will also host performances like the Doug Fir used to. So I think that that is one that Portlanders will be really excited about.

Miller: And Taylor, what about you? What else are you paying attention to right now?

Gobel: We’re really excited about a couple of new and upcoming places. I’ll give two. One of the places that just opened, the couple who was operating out of a brewery for the past year, they just opened Seasoned, and it is very much PNW ingredients. They’re kind of known for listing all of the farmers, mushroom growers and ranchers they buy from, and it’s just this kind of idea of wanting you to taste the Willamette Valley. I got to dine there the other night, it was a great little experience.

And then I’m actually really, really excited about – going back to the theme of going from small to big – this Detroit-style pizza place that was takeout only, and they are moving into a full service restaurant. So we are awaiting opening dates from them, but we’re expecting more of a culinary experience. There’s going to be a great little cocktail bar, a chef’s table, just a really nice space to gather.

Miller: Zoe, we’re talking about openings, which is a hopeful way to approach an industry. But we also could talk about closures as well. What do you think it takes to survive as a restaurant in the Portland area right now?

Baillargeon: Oh my gosh, I think it’s tricky. Restaurants are always a very difficult business to be in. I think that the industry is facing a lot of headwinds right now. Rising gas prices are elevating the price of everything. It’s also making patrons be a bit more mindful about dining out and where they’re spending their money.

But I think what’s great about Portland is, as we can see from just this incredibly packed slate of openings, is that even with all these difficulties, Portlanders love dining out, they love trying new things, they love supporting local. So restaurants here are really lucky to have a strong backing community that want to support them and show up. So I think restaurants that can tap into that, get the word out using social media, making it feel like a sense of community.

A great example of that actually is a recently opened restaurant called The Malarkey. It’s a new steak and seafood spot down in The Pearl, and there’s no place quite like it here in Portland. It’s like a party. I was actually just dining there last night. It’s a Tuesday night and the restaurant was absolutely packed. Everybody was having a great time eating, drinking. They were doing ski shots where you do like the shots on a ski. So I think that bringing restaurants that give a place for people to come together and feel connected right now, that’s really something that’s making a difference as well.

Miller: Finally, I’d love to hear from each of you the tastiest single thing you have eaten recently. Zoe, what comes to mind?

Baillargeon: Two great spots actually come to mind. First was another recent opening, Sushi Fukami from Chef Cody Auger of Nimblefish. He recently opened this new venture, and he does an absolutely fantastic omakase spread. That was one I think about a lot. And then also last night at The Malarkey, I tried this Dungeness crab cake that was just packed with crab meat, the size of a hockey puck. I’m gonna be thinking about that one for a while.

Miller: And Taylor, what about you?

Gobel: So like I said, I was at Seasoned the other night – Eugene restaurant that just opened. We had this mushroom risotto, and I love a simple dish that is executed so well. They used, I believe it was the local chanterelles. And I don’t know about you, Dave, if you’ve ever made risotto before, but I usually end up sweating and frustrated.

Miller: It’s a lot of stirring [laughter].

Gobel: It’s just one of those things where the rice is cooked perfectly. It’s got that nice kind of creaminess, a little hint of wine in there. It was just a perfect vegetarian dish.

Miller: Well, it was a pleasure talking with both of you. Zoe and Taylor, thanks very much.

Gobel: Thanks, Dave.

Baillargeon: Thank you for having us.

Miller: Taylor Gobel is food correspondent at the Lookout Eugene-Springfield. Zoe Baillargeon is a freelance foodwriter based in Portland.

“Think Out Loud®” broadcasts live at noon every day and rebroadcasts at 8 p.m.

If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983.

]]>https://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/07/think-out-loud-oregon-gubernatorial-election/https://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/07/think-out-loud-oregon-gubernatorial-election/Wed, 07 Oct 2026 13:00:00 +0000

Polling from OPB shows that the Oregon gubernatorial race is neck-and-neck in the rematch between Republican state Sen. Christine Drazan and the Democratic incumbent, Gov. Tina Kotek. That’s with roughly a week to go before Oregon voters start receiving their ballots.

OPB politics reporters Lauren Dake and Dirk VanderHart join us to talk about the key issues in the race and where things stand now.

Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. We start today with a check-in on Oregon’s gubernatorial race. Recent polling from OPB found that the rematch between Republican state Sen. Christine Drazan and the Democratic incumbent Tina Kotek is neck and neck. That’s with roughly a week to go before Oregon ballots are sent out. OPB politics reporters Lauren Dake and Dirk VanderHart join us now to talk about this race. Great to have both of you in the studio.

Dirk VanderHart: Hey, Dave.

Lauren Dake: Hi, Dave.

Miller: Dirk, I want to start with the big picture. Nationally, Democrats are mounting serious challenges in Senate races in deep red states like Kansas and Texas, getting a ton of attention. But as I mentioned, the governor’s race in very blue Oregon is, according to polls, including an OPB one, a toss-up. How do you explain that?

VanderHart: I think one factor is that people are just not happy right now. In that poll you mentioned, we found that roughly 60% of likely voters don’t think the state’s headed in the right direction. About the same percentage have an unfavorable impression of Governor Tina Kotek. So I think on one level voters are looking around, seeing a bunch of things they don’t like about their state, and thinking about how Democrats have been in control for a very long time now. Maybe they want to try something else. That’s one factor.

I think the other factor is that this is just kind of how Oregon works. We are very blue, as you say, in that we have not elected a Democratic governor for four decades. But it’s rarely a blowout. I think in each of the last two gubernatorial races, polling has been very, very close at this time in the race, and it doesn’t always end up that way.

Miller: Lauren this is, as I mentioned, a rematch. How different does it feel from four years ago?

Dake: There are quite a few differences between this race and the race four years ago. First, there’s no Betsy Johnson. She was the well funded, pretty well known state senator who left the Democratic Party. She ran as an unaffiliated candidate, she got a big check from Phil Knight, and she was a real contender. Without her in the race this time, it frees up Senator Drazan to focus more on the urban areas, which we have seen her doing. Before, she felt like she really had to fight for rural voters with Johnson. That isn’t the case this time around. She’s been more of a presence in more populated areas of the state.

But perhaps the most noteworthy thing is that this time around, the governor has a record and she has to defend that, and it gives something very tangible for Drazan to attack.

Miller: I want to hear more about that, but Dirk, I’m curious about the other side of this. How much is Governor Kotek trying to tie Christine Drazan to Donald Trump?

VanderHart: I think as much as she possibly can at any opportunity she has. The governor does not mention Drazan without mentioning Trump very often, and that’s partly because the president is one politician who is even less popular than Kotek in Oregon, though our polls and other polls I’ve seen show it’s very, very close.

Miller: Which I think is not a contest you want to be competing in.

VanderHart: Right, and it’s, I think, surprising to some people how evenly matched that is. And the major message of Kotek’s campaign has been, hey voters, we know you’re not happy, but we think Trump is largely to blame for that for X, X and X reasons. And if you let Christine Drazan into the governor’s office, the state is just going to be inundated with more Trumpian policies. You will lose me as a bulwark trying to fend this stuff off. Instead, it’s just an open gate.

Miller: Does it seem like that’s working? Do non-affiliated voters or other voters who seem to be up for grabs, do you get the sense that they see a vote for Drazan as an endorsement of Trump?

VanderHart: There is no question in my mind that it works for a segment of voters. And actually I’ve been digging into some of our polling data, chatting with some of the folks who took that poll. One theme that emerges is there are these people who have a negative impression of Kotek, but a very, very negative impression of Trump, and that the more negative impression sort of wins the day, so they plan to vote for Kotek. It’s essentially a vote against Trump and Republicanism for all it stands for rather than a vote for Kotek, if that makes sense.

Kotek clearly, as we’ve been suggesting, believes this is a winning path to reelection for her. They talk about it all the time. They get made fun of for talking about it all the time, but they’re not really showing any intention to turn away from that strategy.

Miller: So then Lauren, let’s go back to what you were talking about. How much is Christine Drazan focusing on what she sees as Kotex’s failures?

Dake: Well, like Dirk said, as much as the governor repeatedly tries to tie Drazan to the Trump administration, Drazan tries to pivot that conversation as much as she can back to what is happening in the state and locally. Drazan’s talking about, look around, look at the homeless crisis, look at our public schools. She’s talking about where tax dollars are going and government accountability. She frequently has been using this line that when Kotek tries to fix anything, whether it’s the schools or the roads, her solution is to raise taxes. Drazan’s message has really been, hey, people, look around the state. Is your life better than it was four years ago? Is the status quo working for you? Because if you want more of the same, then vote for Kotek.

Miller: So she’s saying a lot about why she does not think Kotek shouldn’t get a second term. How much has she said about why she should get a first?

Dake: Certainly, her more consistent message has been why Kotek shouldn’t get a second term. But she did release a plan in August, she called it the Drazan Plan. She held a press conference at the time, she took extensive questions on it. And there are some specifics in the plan. She wants a government accountability office, whose goal is to identify waste and inefficiencies. Her plan contains a lot of red meat conservative-friendly ideas. Her first day, she would issue an executive order directing state agencies to freeze new regulations. She would veto new tax increases. She would make major changes to the rather unpopular corporate activity tax, the CAT tax. Her platform just contains a lot of ideas that conservatives have been fighting for for decades in this state.

Miller: Dirk, affordability has emerged as the top concern of voters in polls, including OPB’s poll. How is the issue shaping this race?

VanderHart: I think in my mind, it’s become a lens in which the larger themes of the race, being unpopular Trump, unpopular Kotek, are being sold or viewed. So Kotek will tell voters that the affordability problem stems from Trump’s tariffs, or the Iran War, or cuts to Medicaid, rolling back Affordable Care Act subsidies, all that stuff. And she will say, by proxy, Drazan is squarely to blame for these things. Republican policies got us here, that’s why you are so unhappy right now.

And Drazan says, no, Oregon’s cost concerns fall squarely on the shoulder of Democratic policies that have raised taxes or imposed environmental regulations on fuels that can hike costs, or excessively regulated building things, and so housing is more costly. A big part of her pitch is, I’m going to reduce regulation, I’m gonna fight costs, and this is all a Democratic problem. Probably both campaigns have a point to make and are not fully portraying the issue, I would say.

Miller: Lauren, one of the big issues in recent months had or has been data centers. My desk upstairs faces a bunch of TVs, and for weeks, it seemed like every ad that I was subjected to from both of these candidates had images of data centers. Then the messaging was “my opponent is to blame for this, my opponent would make things worse.” But then the two candidates seem to converge and solidify their anti-data center stances, mirroring a bipartisan movement against these all across the country. So at this point, are data centers a dividing line?

Dake: I think you’re right that it was like this head jarring shift toward both of them sort of walking this fine line, not being really clear where they stood for quite some time. I think it was the exact same week they both came out and basically declared that they’re in support of a statewide moratorium. So yes, I think big picture, there’s very little daylight in between that big picture stance. I think there’s always some nuance within that. Kotek thinks that she needs legislative approval in order to declare a statewide moratorium, and Drazan is saying no you don’t, go ahead, just make this happen.

One rather significant sticking point that has come up is in regards to what’s called the POWER Act. That was a bill that lawmakers passed to shift rising utility costs onto these big energy users like data centers rather than the little guy residential rate payers. Kotek’s campaign has repeatedly pointed out that Drazan did not vote for this act in the state legislature. In fact, it came up in the debate. Drazan sort of dismissed this POWER Act as what she called “window dressing.” But it has shifted some of the costs from the big energy users to residential ratepayers, so I think it is going to be an issue that the governor will continue to try and hammer as a real difference.

Miller: What do you see as some of the other big issues that have come to the fore in this election?

Dake: Education has been a big one. I think that’s clearly on the top of people’s minds, even before Portland Public Schools announced this week they were considering closing 14 schools. Drazan has repeatedly blamed the governor for low student performance. Oregon’s reading scores are quite low, and we’re spending more money than we have in previous years, and yet our schools are still struggling. So that’s been a big one.

Obviously, housing. We touched on affordability already. And I think with the governor continually trying to tie Drazan to federal policies, there have been some of those issues that have also surfaced, like where does Drazan stand on reproductive health rights? Where does she stand on vote by mail? They have their second debate tonight, so I’m looking forward to watching.

Miller: Second debate, but Dirk, there’s only been that one debate so far. How would you describe the two campaigns’ approaches to joint appearances and also media availability?

VanderHart: Let’s start with the fact that there won’t be a debate, as far as we can tell, in Portland this year for maybe the first governor’s campaign or race in decades. And that’s because of this kind of weird power struggle where Kotek agreed to one but wouldn’t agree to another, and Drazan was vice versa. They just wouldn’t agree to be on the same stage. So very striking there. We will still see three public debates this year, which is the same amount as we had in 2022. So on that level, some of that voter access is there.

But generally, I think I’m seeing more caution from Kotek’s campaign this year than some other past Democratic campaigns. They’re not telegraphing her appearances or campaign events very well. They seem to be operating under an assumption that too much exposure just introduces more risk. I think Drazan’s campaign has a little bit of a different calculus because she wants to reach out to all these voters that might never consider a Republican and paint her as this kinder, gentler person. But I don’t think either campaign is like holding big rallies, inviting the media in and inviting all this scrutiny. It’s been a little bit closed this year, it feels like.

Miller: Dirk and Lauren, thanks very much.

VanderHart: Thanks, Dave.

Dake: Thank you, Dave.

Miller: Dirk VanderHart and Lauren Dake, members of OPB’s political reporting team.

I should note that we have reached out to both Christine Drazan and Tina Kotek’s campaigns for one-hour long interviews, something we have done in the past on this show in other governor’s races. We very much hope to schedule those soon. If you are listening, this is one more official ask.

“Think Out Loud®” broadcasts live at noon every day and rebroadcasts at 8 p.m.

If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983.

]]>Saskia Hatvany and Kristyna Wentz-Graffhttps://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/14/oregon-elections-chief-urges-early-voting-usps-service-slow-mail/https://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/14/oregon-elections-chief-urges-early-voting-usps-service-slow-mail/Wed, 14 Oct 2026 17:04:24 +0000Following President Donald Trump’s escalating attacks on vote-by-mail in the run-up to the Nov. 3 midterm elections, Oregon’s secretary of state, 36 county clerks and election officials in August conducted an experiment.

They sent and tracked 108 pieces of mail on three separate weekdays to see if they could identify how long it was taking for the U.S. Postal Service to postmark and deliver regular mail to a county elections office in each of Oregon’s 36 counties.

Secretary of State Tobias Read shared the results of the experiment at a news conference Tuesday. Despite the results showing that all pieces of mail would have been postmarked in time to count in an election if they were a ballot, there were wide discrepancies in timing in eastern Oregon and rural counties due to years of Postal Service budget cuts, including the loss of night pickup at many rural post offices.

One piece of mail delivered to the elections office in Harney County took 11 days to arrive from the day it was sent, though it had been postmarked within a few days. Under Oregon law, ballots that arrive up to a week after Election Day can be counted if they receive a postmark on or before Election Day.

“You can be confident your ballot will be postmarked and delivered on time if you mail it at least a week before election day,” Read said.

Learn more about the key races in OPB's 2026 election guide

That means completed ballots must be in the mail by Tuesday, Oct. 27 to be counted in the Nov. 3 election. If a ballot is not in the mail by then, Read urged Oregonians to take it to a ballot drop box or county elections office.

Election workers will mail ballots beginning Wednesday.

Read also previewed a soon-to-launch statewide ballot tracking website that was previously only available to Oregonians in Multnomah, Washington, Clackamas, Yamhill and Marion counties.

Oregonians in the state’s other 31 counties will be able to sign up at OregonVotes.gov/track to receive a text, call or email alerting them when their ballot is sent to their address, when it’s received by the county elections office and when it’s accepted for counting. The site is not yet live but is expected to launch within the next few days.

The statewide expansion of the ballot tracking service is only available for the 2026 midterm election, and it is being funded with part of a $1.25 million allocation in September from the Legislature’s Joint Emergency Board. Some of that money has also been used to add more than 20 new ballot boxes to several counties across the state, bringing the total across Oregon to more than 300.

Daniel Cortez, president of the Oregon chapter of the American Postal Workers Union, joined Read at the news conference and reiterated his calls to get ballots in the mail at least a week in advance of Nov. 3.

“It used to be postmark meant: when the postal service received that item. Now, it’s when it goes across a machine. And as the secretary said, that could be a few days after originally being dropped off or placed in the mail,” Cortez explained.

He said Oregonians are also welcome to walk up to a USPS retail counter, get a postmark from the clerk on the spot and submit their ballot.

He said his union members, who have handled Oregon’s primarily vote-by-mail system for nearly two decades, will be taking election materials seriously.

“The attacks on vote-by-mail that we’re seeing, both from our nation’s capital and, unfortunately, here in Oregon, are terrible,” he said. “Not only are they an affront to our democracy, but they are attacking my members’ integrity, and trying to say that somehow we will not deliver mail that we have been entrusted to deliver. It’s a sacred trust.”

Read encouraged Oregonians to “remain vigilant” in the face of any voter intimidation attempts over the next three weeks, especially from federal officials. Trump has refused to rule out sending troops to polling locations, and armed National Guard troops have been photographed in front of ballot boxes in Washington, D.C., though Guard officials have said the troops were loitering around the boxes, not guarding them.

Read said if Oregonians notice tampering at ballot boxes or intimidation they should not physically intervene, but either call law enforcement at 911, call their local elections office or call the Secretary of State’s hotline.

“It’s completely unacceptable, but unfortunately, it is not surprising for this administration,” Read said. He added that the recent surge in Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and arrests in the state late last week, including agents who surrounded a fruit and vegetable processor in Brooks to conduct arrests, and who tear-gassed a crowd of protestors in Salem over the weekend, raises questions about federal interference in Oregon close to an election.

“I cannot believe that that timing is coincidental,” he said. “This is another important reminder to know your rights and be prepared to vote this November.”

This republished story is part of OPB’s broader effort to ensure that everyone in our region has access to quality journalism that informs, entertains and enriches their lives. To learn more, visit opb.org/partnerships.

]]>Kathryn Styer Martínezhttps://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/13/49-million-settlement-reached-in-wrongful-death-of-vancouver-teen/https://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/13/49-million-settlement-reached-in-wrongful-death-of-vancouver-teen/Tue, 13 Oct 2026 23:25:13 +0000

The State of Washington and Evergreen Public Schools have agreed to pay more than $49 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit involving Karreon Adams-Franks, a 15-year-old student from Vancouver who died of starvation in 2020.

The state and the school district are splitting the settlement obligation going to the estate of Adams-Franks and his two surviving brothers, according to a press release from the Davis Law Group.

Adams-Franks, who was autistic, nonverbal and legally blind, was 61 pounds when he died. His adoptive parents, his biological aunt Felicia Adams and her partner, Jesse Franks, were convicted in 2023 of homicide by abuse in his case and of criminal mistreatment of his two younger brothers. Adams was sentenced to 35 years in prison and Franks to 30 years.

Attorneys for Adams-Franks alleged all three boys suffered years of abuse in the home and were repeatedly choked and beaten with objects. They were locked in their bedroom for days and denied food as a form of punishment, according to the Davis Law Group.

In the lawsuit, Washington’s Department of Children, Youth and Families and the Department of Social and Health Services were accused of failing to take action after receiving reports of abuse about the family.

A family relative reported to the state that Adams-Franks looked like “a walking skeleton” and was falling down due to malnourishment, according to the suit. The state declined to comment on the settlement.

Evergreen Public Schools staff at Shahala Middle School and Mountain View High School were accused of failing to report abuse to the state, despite documenting concerns for the boys years before Adams-Franks died.

Under Washington law, school staff who have reasonable cause to believe a child is being hurt or neglected must report it to law enforcement or the state.

In a statement Tuesday, the school district said none of its staff failed to make mandatory reports to the state, and that district staff members are “well-trained and understand their mandatory reporting responsibilities.”

Attorneys in the case say that Washington state officials agreed to pay $25 million and Evergreen Public Schools is paying $24.3 million.

“The district recognizes the profound loss of Karreon’s life and the lasting impact on his family,” the school district said in a statement to OPB. “This was a tragic situation, and the perpetrators of these horrendous crimes are in prison for their actions. Evergreen Public Schools hopes that this settlement will allow Karreon’s brothers to continue healing without the burden of enduring a trial.”

Evergreen said the school district’s insurers made the decision to settle, to “avoid the risk of a jury verdict exceeding the district’s available insurance coverage.”

According to the Davis Law Group, the settlement money received from the school district “represented the entire insurance coverage available.”

]]>Erik Neumannhttps://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/14/black-oregonians-report-urban-league-first-look/https://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/14/black-oregonians-report-urban-league-first-look/Wed, 14 Oct 2026 15:56:01 +0000Subscribe to OPB’s First Look to receive Northwest news in your inbox six days a week.

Good morning, Northwest.

The Urban League of Portland recently published a report detailing the successes of and challenges facing Black Oregonians.

OPB reporter Riley Martinez unpacks statistics on voting, education, healthcare and more from the report to start today’s newsletter.

Also this morning, we’re dropping a new video outlining the major issues at stake for the Pacific Northwest in this fall’s midterm election.

Here’s your First Look at Wednesday’s news.

— Bradley W. Parks

Top story

Urban League of Portland highlights the ‘State of Black Oregon’

A new report examining how Black Oregonians have fared in recent years found significant gains in measures of civic engagement, such as voting and political representation, but almost no progress in education metrics, such as the number of Black teachers in Oregon classrooms.

The full report by the Urban League of Portland compares statistics going back at least 16 years and will be released next month. But researchers released top-line findings last week during a panel event at Portland State University’s Urban Center Building.

Jazzmine Waugh, who led the study for the League, walked students, academics, nonprofit leaders and community members through the 2026 State of Black Oregon.

“It’s been a long, hard road,” Waugh said after the presentation. “How do you advocate for and represent Black people from all throughout Oregon?” (Riley Martinez)

Learn More

3 things to know

• Portland Public Schools Board Chair Eddie Wang appeared on OPB’s “Think Out Loud” yesterday to hear from listeners about the district’s proposal to close schools and make boundary and program changes in response to declining enrollment. (Elizabeth Miller)
• For a period last year, U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley was considering retiring from Congress, spurring rumors that Oregon could see its first open Senate seat in 30 years. But the longtime Democrat says President Trump’s decisions — courting billionaires, appointing loyalists and federalizing the National Guard among them — prevented him from walking away. (Bryce Dole)
• State regulators have found dangerous levels of arsenic, a naturally occurring element, in well water supplied to several mobile home parks in Eastern Oregon’s Malheur County. Mobile home parks across rural Oregon are susceptible to drinking water contamination. (Monica Carrillo-Casas)

Northwest headlines

• Election 2026: What you need to know about Oregon and Southwest Washington’s biggest races (OPB staff)
• Kotek, Drazan square off in final debate of governor’s race (Dirk VanderHart)
• Gov. Kotek expands Oregon data center moratorium (April Ehrlich)
• $49 million settlement reached in wrongful death of Vancouver teen (OPB staff)
• Oregon settles lawsuit over sexual abuse at MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility (Joni Auden Land)
• Ferguson calls for salary survey after Washington ferry sickout (Jake Goldstein-Street, Washington State Standard)
• More residents facing eviction filings in southwest Oregon (Jane Vaughan, JPR)
• Damian Lillard is back on the court for the Trail Blazers with something to prove (Anne M. Peterson, AP)

Listen in on OPB’s daily conversation

“Think Out Loud” airs at noon and 8 p.m. weekdays on OPB Radio, opb.org and the OPB News app. Today’s planned topics (subject to change):

• Algal blooms are happening more often in Oregon and around the West

One more look

Mining seawater? Northwest researchers see a motherlode of critical minerals in the waves

Anyone who’s swam in seawater knows how salty it is, but those same waves are also a gold mine for dozens of elements and compounds.

“Just 0.1 percent of seawater contains enough critical minerals like magnesium and lithium … to meet humanity’s needs for the next 50,000 years or more,” chemical oceanographer Jessica Cross said in a recent press release.

Cross is part of a team of scientists at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory working to extract those “critical minerals” considered essential for the U.S. economy or national security.

The team has already created a system to extract magnesium and plans to test it at their lab on the Washington Coast. (Jes Burns)

Learn More

Subscribe to OPB’s First Look to receive Northwest news in your inbox six days a week.

]]>Riley Martinezhttps://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/13/oregon-governor-amazon-data-centers/https://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/13/oregon-governor-amazon-data-centers/Tue, 13 Oct 2026 18:34:33 +0000

Kelly Doherty had been in elected office for less than a month when Amazon reached out.

In a July 2023 email, an Amazon representative congratulated Doherty on winning a seat on the commission that oversees the Port of Morrow in Eastern Oregon and offered to introduce her to Sheena Sharma and Courtney Lee.

Sharma and Lee weren’t just any Amazon employees. Three years after Doherty received the email, Amazon selected the pair of executives to make the case for data centers to legislators in Salem during a September public hearing.

From Oregon’s highest corridors of power to an inland industrial port serving a rural county of 12,000 people, Amazon has spent the better part of the past 15 years ingratiating the company with government officials and elected representatives as the tech and e-commerce giant has steadily expanded its data center footprint in the state. But more than a decade of behind-the-scenes work hasn’t prevented the political winds from rapidly shifting against the data center industry.

A recent poll commissioned by OPB showed that nearly two-thirds of likely Oregon voters favor a temporary ban on data centers. An even bigger group — more than 70% — are against a data center being built near their home, according to the survey conducted by the nonpartisan firm DHM Research.

The two major party candidates for governor – incumbent Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek and Republican state Sen. Christine Drazan – have already noticed the shift in opinion. Recent polls by OPB and the Oregonian/Oregon Live show the candidates are in a statistical tie. Both candidates have lately come out in favor of a moratorium on new data centers, while attacking each other over not doing more to crack down on them previously.

Amazon has noticed too. It’s not the only data center company in Oregon, but it has one of the largest buildouts through its base of operations in Morrow and Umatilla counties. The company has attempted to burnish its image in the state by sponsoring more events in Eastern Oregon. This month, it pledged $1 billion dollars to offset the impacts of the data center industry nationwide, and the company stepped up its political contributions to Oregon legislators from both parties.

A potential moratorium could have significant ramifications for Eastern Oregon. Amazon has four data centers in Morrow County alone, with local approval in hand for 10 more. The company’s footprint is even larger in neighboring Umatilla County, where boosters like Umatilla County Commissioner Dan Dorran say Amazon is a great partner to local governments.

“I don’t know on what grounds we would ban them,” he said about efforts to impose a local moratorium on data centers.

But others, like Doherty, have become more skeptical as data centers have grown more prominent. Around 1,000 Eastern Oregon voters elected the port commissioner three years ago, and when she first ran, her top campaign issue was not data center development. Now, Doherty actively opposes the industry.

“This isn’t Oregon,” she said. “Not the Oregon I grew up in.”

Data centers hit the political stage

The anti-data center political ads started in early September.

Drazan’s ad was first, accusing Kotek of having “rolled out the red carpet” for data centers through the state’s tax incentive program. Kotek fired back a few days later with an ad that said Drazan “put data centers ahead of Oregonians” when Drazan voted against the POWER Act, 2025 legislation that required some operations to pay more for electricity.

The back-and-forth continued at a debate between the two candidates earlier this month, where Drazan dismissed the POWER Act as a “gimmick” that targeted “small communities.”

Both candidates are campaigning like it’s a close race. The DHM Research poll commissioned by OPB showed Drazan with a 2% lead. Another recent poll commissioned by The Oregonian/OregonLive had the results reversed, with Kotek coming out on top by two points. Both poll results were within the margin of error.

But as the two major candidates for governor consolidate against data centers, a new group called Oregon Connects is pushing back with TV and web ads of its own.

“There’s a lot of misinformation about data centers. Here are the facts,” a narrator says in one Oregon Connects advertisement before touting the energy and economic benefits of data centers.

Oregon Connects was founded in March by the Data Center Coalition, a national industry group whose membership includes Amazon, Google and Meta.

Roger Wehner, vice president for economic development for Amazon Web Services, said in an interview these commercials were a chance for Amazon to share its environmental stewardship.

“All we can do is tell people how we operate, our commitments to the environment and responsible development, and how we partner with our utilities and others to be good partners in the community. Sharing that is super important,” he said.

While Oregon politicians might be publicly taking a more skeptical stance to data centers, Amazon continues to donate to both Republican and Democratic campaign accounts.

State records show that Amazon has spent $65,000 on contributions to a bevy of sitting legislators, statewide officials and political groups since September 2024. That includes Drazan, who received $2,000 from Amazon last December.

Amazon isn’t just sending money to candidates directly, but also to groups like the Sustainable Agriculture and Energy Political Action Committee, or SAGE PAC. The committee is controlled by three large Eastern Oregon farms, and Amazon began contributing in 2023. The tech giant has since become its biggest donor.

Amazon has given $40,000 to the PAC in the last three years, as it doled out donations to politicians, mostly to sitting lawmakers. Both Kotek and Drazan have gotten donations from the SAGE PAC, but Kotek got her only contribution in 2020, when she was still the Oregon House speaker and before Amazon got involved with the committee.

Wehner said he wasn’t involved in Amazon’s political operations but said the company was “happy to engage in all levels of government.”

A billion-dollar pledge

Farmer Barrett Dash grows a variety of crops in Morrow County, including sunflowers, hay and medical cannabis. He said he relocated to the small town of Irrigon to escape the “unmitigated” growth of Central Oregon and now fears something similar is happening in Eastern Oregon with data centers.

While Dash worries that data centers will compete with farmers for water, he’s also wary of the way Amazon does business.

Amazon has long asked local public officials it works with to sign non-disclosure agreements, or NDAs, a way of keeping many details of its projects confidential until they are done deals.

“A lot of the activities that have happened out here have happened totally behind closed doors, with no input from the public at all,” Dash said.

But Amazon is changing its approach. This month the company announced it was no longer going to ask public officials to sign NDAs. The policy change was accompanied by a promise to spend $1 billion nationwide on communities with Amazon data centers.

Wehner said non-disclosure agreements are a standard feature of economic development, a way for Amazon to protect itself against competition and keep a low profile as it evaluates business opportunities.

But he admitted that the public was starting to view Amazon’s use of NDAs negatively.

“We never did any of this to hide anything, just to reduce cost structures,” he said. “We hear everybody, and it can be perceived the wrong way, and we want to remove that perception.”

Amazon also used its announcement to warn against the crop of data center moratoriums popping up around the country, with a company executive saying the effort to meet demand for AI was a matter of economic and national security.

Wehner said Amazon has created prosperity in Eastern Oregon, and a moratorium would only slow that down. The company says it has contributed more than $70 million in taxes to Morrow and Umatilla counties in 2025, despite taking advantage of the state’s tax incentive program, while its Eastern Oregon operations employ more than 2,500 full-time staff.

Wehner added that Amazon already holds itself to a high standard, and instead of proposing bans, governments should negotiate with the company to address their concerns.

A recent report from ECOnorthwest and the University of Virginia added some fuel to the debate. It found that data centers account for nearly a quarter of all retail electricity sales statewide. Researchers expect data center energy consumption to continue to rise over the next several years.

Dorran, a Umatilla County commissioner from Hermiston, said data center technology was advancing at such a pace that a lot of the environmental concerns Oregonians have were already being addressed.

“Like all good partner industries, I hope our relationship stays strong,” he said. “And as we scale our partnership, that the community is always first in mind.”

But support from some local governments hasn’t kept the idea of a local moratorium from cropping up.

Dash is supporting a petition from La Grande nonprofit Oregon Rural Action to institute an immediate moratorium on data centers in Eastern Oregon specifically. The group hopes to collect 1,000 signatures to encourage local officials to support a ban.

Dash admitted Amazon had brought some economic success to Morrow County. But the benefits simply didn’t outweigh the costs.

“We cannot eat, drink, or breathe data,” he said.

‘Let Data Reign’

Kotek and Drazan’s positions on data centers put them at odds with the president.

In August, President Donald Trump wrote on social media that communities that rejected data centers would become “backwards and poor” and encouraged the country to “let Data Reign.”

Trump’s support for data centers is also felt in federal policy: A California energy company is currently developing a data center on federal land in Umatilla County, which means the development won’t go through local or state channels deciding land use.

Nearly two-thirds of likely Oregon voters view Trump negatively, according to the DHM poll OPB commissioned.

In speech after speech, Kotek has tied her opponent to the president ahead of a midterm election political observers expect will be a referendum on his policies and his party. Drazan’s stance on data centers allows her to draw a contrast with the president, without publicly criticizing him.

For her part, Doherty, the Morrow County port commissioner, said she’s skeptical that either candidate will follow through on their commitment to place a moratorium on data centers. She thinks their promises are just ploys to get votes.

Doherty never responded to that 2023 email from the Amazon representative, but that didn’t stop data centers from bleeding into her everyday life.

Doherty recently noticed some of the listings in Range Writer Magazine were changing.

The real estate publication advertises farm and ranch properties across the western U.S., but embedded among the usual ads was farmland explicitly marketed for potential data center development.

Doherty has had her own run-ins with people she called data center “speculators.” She said a real estate agent from California approached her family about selling their Boardman ranch for data center development, and she heard similar stories from her neighbors.

“They were certainly quite nice to us in the beginning, until we said, ‘We don’t want to live next to you,’” she said.

Doherty’s desire to protect farmland and other wide-open spaces has many sympathizers across the state. According to the DHM Research poll, 84% of likely voters support laws that “continue to protect farm, forest, and coastal lands in Oregon.”

With Morrow County becoming increasingly unrecognizable to Doherty, she wants to go a step further than Kotek or Drazan. In areas with water quality or shortage issues, Doherty wants a permanent ban.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify the time frame during which Amazon said the company paid $70 million in taxes in Morrow and Umatilla counties.

]]>Saskia Hatvanyhttps://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/13/kotek-drazan-square-off-in-final-debate-of-governors-race/https://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/13/kotek-drazan-square-off-in-final-debate-of-governors-race/Wed, 14 Oct 2026 03:54:06 +0000

The concerns of Central and Eastern Oregon were in the spotlight Tuesday, as the top candidates for governor held their final debate in Bend.

In an event that featured few new issues but plenty of barbs, Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek and Republican state Sen. Christine Drazan each pitched themself as the most qualified person to guide the state for the next four years.

Kotek brought a trusty argument to the high-desert showdown: blaming many of the state’s woes on President Donald Trump and insisting Drazan will carry water for the president.

“My opponent and I don’t agree on some very key issues, and I think her record doesn’t back up what she says she will do,” Kotek said. “And for those really consequential, consequential things where we disagree, I think at the end of the day that she will choose to side with President Donald Trump and not with Oregon.”

Drazan was toting her favorite line, too, casting the governor as ineffective and lacking vision.

“Four years ago, Tina Kotek told Oregonians that she would solve all the problems facing Oregon,” Drazan said. “She’s failed, and now we’re in the heat of an election, and she’s going to ask Oregonians to ignore the last four years and her record of failure.”

The debate was hosted by KTVZ and moderated by station anchor Lee Anderson. It featured questions from the station’s politics reporter, Spencer Sacks, and Aaron Switzer, publisher of weekly newspaper The Source.

The questions touched on topics that have dominated the race. Housing, schools, healthcare, the economy and data centers all got their due. But the debate also provided a forum to discuss how those issues are playing out in the eastern two-thirds of the state.

When asked how she would give voice to deep-red Eastern Oregon, where the idea of seceding to join Idaho is popular among some, Kotek described visiting each of the state’s 36 counties in her first year in office. She said she was fighting for rural Oregonians everyday by trying to preserve the state’s Medicaid system from cuts under Trump.

“No matter where you live in the state, I’m a governor for you,” Kotek said. “I will fight for you.”

Drazan, who grew up in Southern Oregon, used the same question to paint the governor as out of touch on rural issues. She recounted a gas tax increase Kotek recently attempted to pass to fund road maintenance, and a 2020 climate change bill Drazan and Republicans blocked by walking away from the Capitol while Kotek was House speaker.

“I won’t need to wait until I am elected to see what Oregon’s really about. I’ve lived it,” Drazan said. “I love this place, and I also recognize that for the people that are thinking Idaho is looking pretty good right now, it’s because Idaho actually provides opportunity.”

In fast growing Bend, where housing prices have soared since the pandemic, both candidates were asked for their prescription for helping people afford homes and reducing homelessness.

Drazan pledged to slash building regulations and overhaul Oregon’s strict land use laws, crafted 50 years ago to ensure the state’s farmland and wild areas didn’t become victim to sprawl.

“We can’t lose our communities and the culture within our communities, but we’ve got to do everything we can for government to get to ‘yes’ and get out of the way,” she said.

Kotek, for her part, answered that government needs to make things “simpler” for people who want to build housing. She stopped short of calling for major change. While Oregon is on pace to add fewer units this year than the year before Kotek was elected, she pointed to a recent upturn in new units that she said shows Oregon is on the right track.

“Sure, we need more, but we are compared to the rest of the country actually seeing increases,” Kotek said.

On the question of curbing homelessness, Kotek was in somewhat friendly territory. The governor’s efforts to shelter and rehouse Oregonians are one reason why year-over-year homelessness was down 19% in Central Oregon. She touted that success when asked about the issue.

But Drazan, who often points to less positive stats surrounding Oregon’s homeless crisis, said the state needs to change its direction entirely. She advocates steering people who are homeless into recovery or mental health treatment, if needed.

“The metrics have to be that someone has moved from homelessness into detox, into treatment, into long-term recovery, and the governor has failed to deliver this,” Drazan said, later adding: “My approach is to recognize that the actual challenge that we’re facing isn’t as simple as giving somebody a key to a tiny house.”

On the subject of healthcare, Kotek repeatedly criticized Drazan for voting against a state tax package that the state counts on to fund the Oregon Health Plan for low-income residents.

“My opponent has voted to defund the Oregon Health Plan and will not be supportive of saving the Oregon Health Plan,” Kotek said.

Drazan said her reason for voting against that bill and others were because they enacted new taxes. She said majority Democrats should look for more creative ways to fund priorities with money the state already has.

“The governor’s solution to every problem is a new tax,” Drazan said. “There are plenty of ways to fund these essential services to Oregonians. The governor made the decision to increase taxes to do it.”

The debate touched on education, economic development and data centers before closing with a question about water rights: What changes would the candidates make to the state’s system of allocating finite water in order to deal with drought?

Kotek suggested some changes may be necessary, though she did not offer any specifics.

“It is important for us as Oregonians to think about the future of water,” she said. “Systems that were established a century ago to manage a resource that is different under different conditions have to be examined.”

Drazan suggested she would take a hands-off approach.

“Water is a fighting word,” she said. “But I can tell you this: I respect water rights. I am not going to be the one to attach a meter to your well. I’m not going to be to be the one to put your farm at risk.”

Polling in this year’s race suggests Drazan and Kotek are locked in a tight contest. Ballots for the Nov. 3 election will be sent to voters beginning Wednesday.

]]>Will Yurman/Pool LookOut Eugene-Springfieldhttps://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/14/judge-blocks-trump-s-east-potomac-golf-course-tree-clearing/https://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/14/judge-blocks-trump-s-east-potomac-golf-course-tree-clearing/Wed, 14 Oct 2026 15:00:00 +0000

A federal judge has temporarily barred the Trump administration from cutting down additional trees at a D.C. municipal golf course, the latest example of a court intervening in the government’s efforts to reshape pieces of the nation’s capital.

The long-simmering fight over East Potomac Golf Links — which President Trump wants to redevelop into a championship-level course — erupted over the weekend, after the administration cut down hundreds of trees with little notice.

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes had ordered the administration in May to get court approval before cutting down more than 10 trees at the golf course. Officials notified the court just before 5 p.m. on Friday of their plan to remove “up to 529 trees” in phases starting on Saturday — and had razed at least 430 by the end of the day, prompting Reyes to call an emergency hearing on Monday.

“What has happened has cost the government all of its credibility with me in this case,” Reyes said during the nearly four-hour hearing, held via videoconference.

Reyes ordered a short-term stop to the tree-clearings, which she extended on Tuesday through Oct. 26. She warned Monday that “if that order is violated by two seconds, there are going to be contempt proceedings.”

Reyes also ordered top officials from the Department of Interior and the National Park Service to testify at a hearing next Monday, to shed more light on the government’s motivations and the future of the historic course.

“The questions go to whether or not I’ve been lied to,” Reyes said. “Whether I’ve been lied to in declarations about the plans, whether or not I’ve been lied to about the timing of things, and whether I’ve been lied to about what kind of notice the court was going to receive.”

East Potomac has emerged as another flashpoint in Trump’s unilateral quest to remake D.C., and it’s the subject of a lawsuit by critics who fear it could go the way of the now-lost White House East Wing unless a court intervenes. The D.C. Preservation League, along with two concerned residents, sued the government in February over what it calls an unlawful takeover.

“This is a tactic we’re seen before from the Trump-Vance administration – act quickly to irrevocably alter a cherished national landmark, just to advance another one of President Trump’s pet vanity projects,” Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward — one of the firms involved in the lawsuit — said in a statement this weekend.

Perryman told NPR on Tuesday that the golf course is the latest in a pattern of the Trump administration “undermining the entire checks and balances process in this country, which includes undermining court proceedings.”

Trump has long floated the idea of redeveloping East Potomac into a championship-caliber course and announced plans to do so earlier this year, though his target Sept. 1 start date has come and gone without a formal proposal.

The prospect — and the lack of clarity since — has raised alarm among locals concerned about losing access to the historically affordable course and to the surrounding recreational area, which is popular with cyclists, runners, fishers and picnickers.

Loading...

“This is a broader story than just about golf, especially when there’s been this little transparency, … to say, ‘Here’s what the future of this little man-made peninsula is actually going to look like,’” Alex Rosen, a D.C.-based consultant who started the nonprofit Save East Po, told NPR in July.

A National Park Service official said in a Friday court filing that plans for renovations “remain in the conceptual stage.” And the Interior Department told NPR in a statement on Tuesday that it is “committed to continuing the relationships we have built with the local golf communities to ensure these courses are safe, beautiful, open, affordable, enjoyable, accessible, and world-class.”

But critics are growing increasingly concerned about the process itself. They worry the Trump administration is using so-called routine maintenance as a pretext to begin redevelopment without the proper authorization.

“You can’t continuously say, ‘There’s no plan’ … while you’re clearly taking steps to effect a plan,” Rosen, who is not involved in the lawsuit, told NPR after watching the hearing. “It’s just frankly lying.”

Why the rush? The court hopes for answers next week

At Monday’s hearing, Reyes expressed regret that she hadn’t issued a formal restraining order earlier, which she said was because “I have done everything humanly possible to give the government the benefit of the doubt in this case.”

For example, after the administration quietly removed what it has since said were roughly 150 dying and invasive trees in late August, Reyes acknowledged that people were upset but declined to intervene: “I am not the Lorax,” she said at an early September hearing.

By Monday, that benefit of the doubt was gone. When a government lawyer said they had done their best to notify the court, Reyes offered a sharp rebuke.

“You did not do your best,” she said, voice raised. “You did your absolute worst.”

Perryman, of Democracy Forward, said, “What was really remarkable about the hearing yesterday is that the government did not appear to have a defense for its failure to notify the court.”

In Friday’s court filing, National Mall and Memorial Parks Superintendent Kevin Griess described the tree-clearing as part of an effort “to address deferred maintenance needs and implement treatment recommendations to restore the cultural landscape.”

Griess specifically cited a 2019 National Park Service report about D.C. municipal golf courses, which says several waves of tree planting at East Potomac over the last century have obscured views and changed the feel of the course from its original 1920s “links-style” design.

Griess said in his filing that NPS was able to act on the report because it had received a temporary surge of “approximately 20 to 50 trained personnel capable of performing labor-intensive grounds maintenance activities.” Under questioning in court, he confirmed that surge was connected to the administration’s 250th anniversary events, including the IndyCar race on the National Mall in August.

But critics are skeptical, given the president’s public statements. Alex Dickson, one of the plaintiffs, said in a statement that “the administration is using a preservation report as cover to begin tearing out the course it was written to save.”

Griess said he had gotten the green light last week from Frank Lands, the park service’s deputy director of operations. At the judge’s request, Lands then joined the hearing from his car in a parking lot. He said he had gotten the directive from Greg Wischer, deputy chief of staff to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.

Wischer was not reachable to join the hearing, despite Reyes’ request that he do so. She has ordered Wischer and Jessica Bowron, the acting director of the National Park Service, to testify at another hearing next Monday.

The Interior Department didn’t answer NPR’s questions about the timeline and resources for the tree-clearing, but said in a statement that “President Donald J. Trump is fulfilling his commitment to make D.C. Safe and Beautiful as shown by the working fountains, clean parks and safe streets across the district for the first time in decades.”

In granting the plaintiffs’ request for an extended restraining order on Tuesday, Reyes wrote that they had “proven they will likely suffer irreparable harm absent injunctive relief.” She also said the government must provide “three business days’ written advance notice prior to making any irreparable modification” to the golf course.

]]>Tyrone Turner/WAMU for NPRhttps://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/14/inflation-sizzled-and-social-security-benefits-get-boost/https://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/14/inflation-sizzled-and-social-security-benefits-get-boost/Wed, 14 Oct 2026 14:40:23 +0000

Nights are getting colder, but inflation is heating up.

A report from the Labor Department on Wednesday showed consumer prices in September were up 3.7% from a year ago. That’s a larger annual increase than the previous month.

A spike in energy prices tied to the U.S. war with Iran drove the cost of living higher. Prices jumped 0.6% between August and September.

“It’s not looking good,” said economist Brian Bethune of Boston College. “The main problem, of course, that everybody knows is gasoline prices. But also heating oil.”

Heating oil is a close cousin of diesel fuel. The cost of the fuel oil has jumped 74% in the last year, which is hard on families in New England who rely on heating oil to stay warm.

Stripping out volatile energy and food prices, what’s known as “core inflation” was 2.6% in September. That’s also a bigger annual increase than was tallied in August.

The artificial intelligence boom has raised the cost of memory chips, affecting all sorts of consumer electronics. Apple, for example, raised the price of older-model iPhones last month by $100 apiece.

Social Security recipients will get a raise

Shortly after the inflation report was released, the Social Security Administration announced that benefits will increase by 3.6% next year. The annual cost-of-living adjustment is based on prices in July, August and September.

The jump in benefits amounts to an extra $75 a month for the average Social Security recipient.

Advocates for seniors welcomed the increase.

“It helps millions of Americans keep up with rising costs for groceries, routine bills, healthcare and other everyday expenses,” said AARP CEO Myechia Minter-Jordan.

Loading...

But critics complain that the cost-of-living adjustment doesn’t reflect seniors’ actual expenses, which often include higher costs for healthcare.

“It won’t be enough for most seniors to even tread water financially,” said Max Richtman, president of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

Treading water would be an improvement for most workers, whose paychecks are not keeping pace with today’s rising prices.

Prices are climbing faster than paychecks

Average wages in September rose just 3%, so the typical worker’s buying power has eroded over the last year.

“People are kind of saying, ‘Something isn’t right with that,’” Bethune said. “I’m working harder. I’m more productive. And this is not a square deal.”

Inflation is not nearly as high as it was in 2022, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But every time prices start to level off, the economy is rattled by a new supply shock, such as President Trump’s double-digit tariffs or the war with Iran.

Beth Hammack, who heads the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank, worries the cumulative effect of these shocks could make inflation more entrenched. Hammack told a group of economists this week about a Cleveland-area retailer she’d heard from who is raising prices not just to cover today’s costs but the higher costs that may come in the future.

“This could be a sign that an inflationary mindset is taking hold,” Hammack said. “When people expect higher prices, they make decisions with this in mind. It can become a self-fulfilling prophecy that makes it harder for monetary policy to bring inflation back down.”

Policymakers at the Federal Reserve will weigh the new inflation data when they meet in two weeks to discuss interest rates. Investors now see about a 50-50 chance the Fed will raise its benchmark rate in October in an effort to combat inflation.

Correction: An earlier version of this story said that inflation was higher in 2002, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The invasion and the resulting spike in prices were in 2022.

]]>Isabelle Souriment/Hans Lucashttps://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/14/zelenskyy-interview-u-s-warns-ukraine-it-could-cut-intel-sharing/https://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/14/zelenskyy-interview-u-s-warns-ukraine-it-could-cut-intel-sharing/Wed, 14 Oct 2026 14:34:04 +0000

KYIV, Ukraine — The Trump administration warned it could cut off intelligence-sharing with Ukraine unless Ukrainian forces stop long-range drone strikes on oil refineries inside Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told NPR.

In an interview with NPR on Tuesday, Zelenskyy said the Trump administration’s decision to lift sanctions on Russian diesel will not bring down fuel prices. He also refuted President Trump’s assertion this weekend that Ukraine was to blame for the rise in diesel fuel prices. Zelenskyy pointed out it is because of the Iran war.

“Mostly people in the world know why their prices on any kind of energy, including diesel, raised up, why they increased. Because of Hormuz. Yes. Because of blocking the Strait of Hormuz,” Zelenskyy said, referring to the vital shipping chokepoint between the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman.

President Zelenskyy’s sit-down with NPR comes as Russia’s full-scale invasion nears the five-year mark, at a time when the White House has renewed efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine war. Tensions between Zelenskyy and President Trump have also flared up again after the U.S. made a key concession to Moscow.

On Friday, Trump moved to ease sanctions on Russian diesel exports. Zelenskyy said in a statement it was a “a weak decision by strong partners.”

Trump lashed back hard at Zelenskyy, saying, “I think it’s time for Ukraine to get a new president,” a leader who can reach a peace deal with Putin.

Then on Sunday, Trump announced on social media Russia and Ukraine had allegedly agreed to a partial ceasefire to halt attacks on each other’s energy infrastructure — catching Kyiv by surprise — even as Russian strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure continued.

Zelenskyy told NPR he found out about Trump’s assertion of an energy ceasefire agreement “through social like you” — meaning, from Trump’s post on his Truth Social account.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was asked Sunday about the announced energy truce and told reporters that contacts were ongoing.

Zelenskyy told NPR his country is striking Russian energy and logistics sites to weaken the Kremlin’s ability to wage war. Ukraine wants the war to end, he said, but will not stop these strikes unless Russia stops attacking Ukrainian energy sites.

Putin doesn’t respond to diplomacy, the Ukrainian leader said, “he understands force.”

Meanwhile, high fuel prices have been a major concern in the U.S. as the midterm elections approach next month. In the U.S., diesel fuel costs an average of $6.27 per gallon — more than 70% above what it was a year ago when it was a little over $3.65 a gallon, according to AAA.

Zelenskyy said said Trump’s decisions to temporarily lift sanctions on Russian diesel would not influence “the price in the United States. I’m sure … because the volume is not enough.”

What it would do, he said, is provide the Kremlin with more money to spend on its war.

Last year, the Trump administration paused intelligence-sharing with Ukraine amid tensions with Zelenskyy. The White House did not comment on whether the administration has threatened to do so again, instead referring NPR to comments Trump made Tuesday. “We are helping them and we are sharing intel, we want the war to end. So, we’re working with them and with Russia on getting the war to end,” Trump told reporters.

Later, Zelenskyy described a new Russian attack on the Ukrainian capital. “A Russian ballistic missile attack on Kyiv. Once again, no early warning from our partners,” he wrote on social media.

He said the target was a power plant, and added, “It is important that the United States really see what is happening and who is responsible for this war continuing.”

]]>Svet Jacqueline for NPRhttps://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/14/gop-senators-join-democrats-seeking-to-stop-russia-diesel-deal/https://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/14/gop-senators-join-democrats-seeking-to-stop-russia-diesel-deal/Wed, 14 Oct 2026 14:32:32 +0000

A bipartisan group of senators is calling on President Trump to rescind his recent diesel deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin, calling it a “betrayal of the people of Ukraine.”

Last week, Trump announced via social media he had struck a deal with Putin, whereby Russia will supply more than 300,000 tons of diesel to the American and global market, followed by an additional 500,000 tons in November and one million tons “immediately thereafter.”

“Additionally, based on the condition of their Diesel Refineries, Russia will then deliver, within a short period of time, 3,000,000 Tons of Diesel Fuel,” Trump wrote.

His announcement stunned lawmakers, who passed legislation this summer directing the president to impose significant tariffs on the top importers of Russian oil.

Those sanctions are aimed at targeting Russian officials, companies and financial institutions helping fuel Russia’s war in Ukraine. The legislation was named in memory of the late GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, who helped negotiate Trump’s support for the package.

“This deal is a gift to our adversary and a betrayal of our allies; it should be rescinded,” wrote six Republican and six Democratic senators in a letter Tuesday to the president.

“The deal you struck with President Vladimir Putin on October 9^th will not achieve just ends, nor will it benefit Americans,” it read.

Senators said they recognized the need to lower energy costs for Americans — but maintained that allowing Russian diesel into global markets will offer “limited to no relief to Americans.”

They added the deal “only provides Putin with more fuel to finance his war machine and enables Russia to continue its brutal attacks on Ukrainian civilians.”

When asked about the letter, the White House referred back to comments President Trump made to reporters on Tuesday about concerns that Russia will use proceeds from the diesel agreement to purchase weapons.

“Nobody’s telling me anything,” Trump said. “That’s a diesel deal. Not for us. That’s being released into the world. That’s not being released to us. That’s a diesel deal that’s going to be released into the world for the world market, because the world market suffered with high prices.”

The letter was signed by Democrats Richard Blumenthal, Chris Coons, Dick Durbin, Jack Reed, Jeanne Shaheen and Sheldon Whitehouse. They were joined by Republicans Alan Armstrong, Susan Collins, John Cornyn, Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski and Thom Tillis.

]]>Win McNameehttps://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/14/cnn-ms-now-and-politico-prevail-against-white-house-for-now/https://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/14/cnn-ms-now-and-politico-prevail-against-white-house-for-now/Wed, 14 Oct 2026 14:29:38 +0000

A federal judge ruled late Tuesday that President Trump cannot ban news organizations from covering him at the White House because he does not like the nature of their coverage — at least, not until the matter goes to a formal trial.

U.S. District Court Judge Timothy J. Kelly found that Trump’s decision to bar more than 70 journalists from CNN, MS NOW and Politico violated their fundamental free speech in two separate ways as well as their due process rights. Both rights are enshrined in the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution.

The news organizations sued last month after the Trump administration denied them access. The judge granted a temporary restraining order to CNN, MS NOW and Politico on Sept. 24.

Kelly pointed repeatedly to Trump’s own public statements and social media posts to construct his conclusion that Trump was not responding to national security concerns. Instead, he wrote, Trump sought to pressure news outlets to cover him more favorably by stripping them of press credentials to gain access to the White House.

“President Trump’s own comments suggest that he intended the revocation of Plaintiffs’ hard passes to alter their reporting on him, bolstering the case that his action here is sufficient to deter a reporter of ordinary firmness from reporting in the same way she had before,” Kelly wrote in the opinion.

He later continued, “[T]he ban threatens to cut off all Plaintiffs’ access to the White House press area — a space open to many of their competitors — thereby restricting their ability to observe happenings there firsthand, immediately report on those activities, and try to engage with government officials.”

Theodore J. Boutrous, the noted First Amendment attorney representing the three U.S. news outlets, had argued in court last week that Trump was the best witness his clients could offer for their case — because the president was so blatant about not liking the tenor of their coverage. Late Tuesday, after the release of Kelly’s ruling, he hailed the judge’s words.

“When the President issued his ‘ban on the free press,’ he blatantly and explicitly violated due process and the First Amendment,” Boutrous said in a statement shared with NPR.

“Since then, the President has repeatedly, candidly, and consistently admitted in public that he banned our clients from the White House to punish reporting he doesn’t like and to try to force journalists to cover him in ways he prefers,” Boutrous wrote. “The harm this ban did to our clients, the First Amendment, and the public as a whole is profound.”

The White House did not immediately return NPR’s requests for comment. Nor did the president speak publicly about the ruling in the first hours after the ruling was released.

Kelly, a Trump appointee, turned aside the U.S. Justice Department’s arguments invoking national security concerns and the objections the White House took with their reporting. Trump has said coverage is framed in a way to drag him down and make his Democratic critics look good.

The judge also rejected the department’s claims that the court should not weigh in on such matters. Kelly had ruled against the Trump administration during the president’s first term in office on a related matter involving efforts to bar then CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta. And Kelly pointed to other precedents that he said must guide his conclusions, even as the Justice Department argued in court they were wrongly decided.

Even so, Kelly took pains to note that he did not utterly dismiss those as valid governmental concerns.

“No one should interpret the Court’s decision to suggest that President Trump’s concerns about accuracy and fairness in the media’s reporting are unfounded,” Kelly wrote, “or that the government is powerless when its true aim is to protect national security when classified information is unlawfully disclosed.”

Even so, Kelly found that the White House’s actions to put the president’s words into practice had caused a kind of irreparable harm. Trump was not required to admit the reporters to the White House. Once they were credentialed to do so, under earlier court rulings, those credentials could not be stripped away simply because the president or other administration officials do not like their coverage.

The Justice Department invoked national security only in court filings days after the White House acted against the reporters. And the news outlets were neither given fair warning of what was ahead nor a means to object ahead of time. The White House communications office sent letters expressing concern over accuracy and what it said were national security disclosures days later and gave the journalists several days to respond and appeal.

Kelly wrote that the Justice Department’s presentation was inadequate to make a compelling case. And he said that after-the-fact notification did not constitute an adequate process to be warned about consequences and to appeal the punishment.

“It is not hard to conclude that President Trump likely banned Plaintiffs from the White House because he believes that their reporting is generally inaccurate and biased against him,” Kelly wrote. And that, he wrote, represents a form of unlawful retaliation.

The ruling did not, however, address the question of the administration’s periodic refusal since the ban to permit CNN’s journalists into smaller spaces where the full press corps cannot fit simultaneously, such as Air Force One or the Oval Office.

That has made it impossible for CNN to serve as the designated representative of the video pool.

The pool - made up of CNN and four competitors (ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC) - share costs and logistical obligations to capture video of Trump at every public appearance, even in tightly held locations.

Even after Kelly earlier issued a temporary restraining order compelling the administration to allow the reporters back into the White House, the order was observed unevenly. CNN was periodically blocked by the administration from representing the pool either generally or in tight spaces. In one recent instance, CNN was blocked from accompanying Trump aboard Air Force One on a trip to Tennessee.

The three major U.S. news organizations sued shortly after reporters for the outlets reported their credentials, which give them daily access to the White House, were confiscated.

The administration has waged a multi-front battle against the press, including an early review of the broadcast licenses for ABC’s local TV stations that could lead to them being revoked. It also forced news outlets out from the Pentagon when they did not agree to withhold any reports that had not been authorized for release ahead of time. The administration has launched investigations of all major networks — including NPR — except Fox, which is controlled by Rupert Murdoch, the president’s ally, and successfully pressured the Republican leaders of Congress to pull back all federal funds for public media.

Last week, the Department of Justice said it was investigating five major television networks - CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox News, alleging that they have broken antitrust laws when they decided to stick together after the president banned CNN.

As a private citizen, Trump has sued the New York Times, CNN, the Des Moines Register, the BBC, and Wall Street Journal (also owned by Murdoch). ABC settled a Trump lawsuit ahead of his return to office and CBS settled days before its corporate owner received the green light from Trump’s pick as the nation’s chief broadcast regulator to sell itself to its new owners, allies of the president.

]]>Graeme Sloanhttps://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/14/trump-s-ambassador-to-greece-kimberly-guilfoyle-resigns/https://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/14/trump-s-ambassador-to-greece-kimberly-guilfoyle-resigns/Wed, 14 Oct 2026 14:26:32 +0000

WASHINGTON — The White House publicly asked for U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle’s resignation on Tuesday as she faced mounting accusations of improper conduct, and she announced within two hours that she was quitting, ending days of talk and speculation about her professional fate. Guilfoyle insisted that she would “vigorously defend” herself.

President Donald Trump’s administration had said earlier Tuesday it had asked Guilfoyle to leave her post after she faced severe criticism over allegations she engaged in improper and possibly illegal conduct before and during her tenure in Athens.

That revelation came in response to a question to freshly minted White House press secretary Katie Zacharia at her first media briefing Tuesday morning. Zacharia said Guilfoyle “has been a wonderful asset to the team, and we wish her well.”

“She went to Greece. She was doing a good job, but we didn’t like what we were reading,” Trump said just after Guilfoyle’s resignation, which was posted on her X account. He said he had not spoken to her but “she will not be there.”

Guilfoyle’s departure comes after its possibility was previewed to The Associated Press over the weekend and Trump registered his unhappiness on Monday at reports about her alleged conduct. Those comments came a day after the AP, citing a senior U.S. official, reported that Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio were “extremely pissed off” by Guilfoyle’s reported conduct.

Guilfoyle denies the accusations and cites her ‘decades of public service’

In a series of stories dating to late last month, The Wall Street Journal has reported questionable conduct by Guilfoyle, including an alleged threat to a host country official, accepting improper gifts and services and offering to use her influence inside the Republican administration in return for the payment of a large credit card bill.

Guilfoyle addressed the accusations directly in her resignation post on X, saying, “These allegations are false, and I intend to vigorously defend my name, my reputation, and my integrity.”

“I have dedicated my professional life to fighting for justice, standing up for what is right, and defending the values that make America exceptional,” she said. “I will not allow false accusations to define my decades of public service.”

In a statement released late Sunday, Guilfoyle’s lawyers denied that she had done anything wrong and claimed that the money she was seeking from a Trump donor was payment for services — public appearances and speaking engagements that predate her ambassadorial nomination — that had not been paid.

The lawyers, David Schwartz and Jesse Binnall, also rejected allegations of impropriety related to Guilfoyle’s travel on private planes, saying that before every such trip she “sought, obtained and followed State Department guidance and followed the Department’s travel regulations.”

They did not immediately return calls Tuesday.

The allegations began surfacing weeks ago

After defending Guilfoyle following the first report, Rubio declined to comment publicly on the growing allegations. Last week, Rubio said: “Our ambassador has been a strong ambassador here.”

But after another report appeared later, Rubio — speaking Thursday before leaving Athens — berated journalists for asking about the allegations. He said that he didn’t know if they were true and that he would not respond if he could not confirm them.

“You guys walk around thinking that because some source told you something and you reported it, it’s the gospel. It’s not the gospel. It’s not the gospel for me. That’s not the way we do things,” Rubio said at the foot of his plane as Guilfoyle, who was there to see him depart, looked on.

A second U.S. official, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters, said the State Department’s inspector general was looking into the allegations, which first began surfacing in the Journal late last month and have since multiplied.

The second official could not say if a formal IG probe had begun. Inspectors general often conduct informal inquiries into complaints against staffers, and many times those inquiries do not result in a full-on investigation, which can result in disciplinary action up to and including dismissal. The State Department has declined to comment on a potential IG investigation.

There was no immediate response to Zacharia’s statement from the Greek government or Cabinet members.

Ahead of Tuesday’s announcement, Greek opposition parties had called on the Foreign Ministry to summon Guilfoyle to respond to the allegations made against her. “This, most importantly, is an issue of national dignity,” Sia Anagnostopoulou, a former deputy foreign minister, said in parliament Friday. Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis responded that Guilfoyle had been treated “the same way as every other ambassador” and argued that an official summons had not been necessary.

Hours earlier, Guilfoyle had posted photos of her meeting this week with the Spanish ambassador to Athens as well as birthday wishes for Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law, accompanied by Dua Lipa’s “Dance the Night,” from the 2023 soundtrack of the movie “Barbie.”

Greece has taken on an increasingly important and influential role because of its geographic location in Southeastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean, particularly on energy issues as the war with Iran has spiked global oil prices. Besides the vast number of Greek-registered oil tankers that regularly ply the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea, Greece is well positioned to be a pipeline conduit for liquefied natural gas imports into the Balkans and beyond.

As the U.S. ambassador to Greece, Guilfoyle had put an emphasis on energy issues, although her close association with executives in that sector was part of what got her into trouble.

Democrats call for an investigation

The top two Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs and Senate Foreign Relations committees, Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, as well as the ranking member on the House Committee for Oversight and Government Reform, Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., have already called for an investigation into Guilfoyle.

Since late September, the Journal has detailed numerous accounts of questionable conduct by Guilfoyle. Its first report said that she had told guests at a reception that the United States could undermine the Greek government if it chose to, promoted the business interests of one particular Greek construction and energy company and allowed its lobbyist into private diplomatic meetings.

While Rubio was in Athens, the Journal reported — citing text messages — that Guilfoyle had asked a Trump donor and supporter to pay a $100,000 credit card bill just before her confirmation hearing, promising him access to administration officials if he did.

The Journal then reported that Guilfoyle had been enraged about not being invited to a Greek-themed event at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, earlier this year and demanded to attend while boasting about luxury travel to France with energy company executives.

Another report, from the British tabloid The Daily Mail, said that Guilfoyle had alienated staff at the U.S. Embassy in Athens and had pushed the bounds of behavior appropriate for the top representative of the U.S. government to Greece.

Guilfoyle is a former Fox News Channel host and California prosecutor who was married to Democrat Gavin Newsom when he was San Francisco’s mayor, before he became California’s governor. She later was engaged to Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr.

]]>Jacquelyn Martinhttps://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/15/northwest-researchers-mining-seawater-motherlode-critical-minerals/https://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/15/northwest-researchers-mining-seawater-motherlode-critical-minerals/Wed, 14 Oct 2026 13:00:01 +0000

Salt may be the first mineral that comes to mind when we think about seawater, but in every drop, there are actually dozens of elements and compounds. Calcium, silicon, copper, uranium and even silver and gold are all there, albeit in trace amounts.

Given the sheer volume of the oceans, even trace amounts could add up to significant quantities — if we could get them out of the water.

“Just 0.1 percent of seawater contains enough critical minerals like magnesium and lithium … to meet humanity’s needs for the next 50,000 years or more,” chemical oceanographer Jessica Cross said in a release.

Cross is part of a team at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory working to find ways of extracting them.

Magnesium and lithium are considered “critical minerals,” a political definition given to elements and minerals considered essential for the U.S. economy or national security. They’re often important for manufacturing items like batteries and electronics — and many are not readily available in the United States. The Trump Administration is putting more than a billion dollars behind securing domestic supplies.

After chloride and sodium, magnesium is the most abundant mineral found in seawater. An Olympic-size pool of ocean water contains more than 6,500 pounds of the element, according to the lab.

The PNNL researchers have created a system to extract magnesium from seawater. They run a stream of ocean water alongside a stream of dissolved sodium hydroxide — an extreme base commonly known as lye. Where the liquids meet, magnesium hydroxide solidifies and sinks out of the water.

This magnesium hydroxide can be further processed into magnesium metal, or it can be used as-is in environmental cleanups, ceramics and steel production, as an ingredient in fire-resistant construction materials, or even for medical needs (it’s the active ingredient in Milk of Magnesia, a common antacid and laxative).

The researchers say the system could be easily installed at existing desalination plants where seawater is processed into drinking water.

The lab is planning to test the system at their lab on the Washington Coast.

In these All Science Snapshots, “All Science. No Fiction.” creator Jes Burns features the most interesting, wondrous and hopeful science coming out of the Pacific Northwest.

Find full episodes of “All Science. No Fiction.” here.

]]>Ian McCluskeyhttps://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/14/election-2026-what-to-know-oregon-southwest-washington-races/https://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/14/election-2026-what-to-know-oregon-southwest-washington-races/Wed, 14 Oct 2026 13:00:01 +0000

Ballots will start hitting mailboxes later this week and there is a lot to consider in the 2026 election.

Nationally, the big story is whether Republicans will keep control of Congress; one congressional seat in Southwest Washington could help tip the balance of power in D.C.

And Oregon’s race for governor is one of the closest the state has seen in years. A Republican hasn’t been elected as governor in Oregon for more than four decades. Could 2026 break the streak?

Oregonians can continue to cast their vote by mail, but the Oregon Secretary of State advises voters to consider using drop boxes this year to return ballots.

Ballots must be postmarked by Election Day to count.

Watch this overview video to see what the big stories are in Oregon in Southwest Washington.

]]>Andy Adkinshttps://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/14/portland-schools-board-chair-hears-from-parents-on-school-closure-plan/https://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/14/portland-schools-board-chair-hears-from-parents-on-school-closure-plan/Wed, 14 Oct 2026 13:00:00 +0000Portland Public Schools Board Chair Eddie Wang appeared on OPB’s Think Out Loud Tuesday to hear from listeners about Portland’s recent announcement to “rightsize” the district by closing schools and making boundary and program changes. Last week, PPS leaders heard vocal opposition to its two options for making changes to district schools in response to declining enrollment.

“Scenario A” includes 14 school closures, boundary changes and program moves affecting 8,000 Kindergarten through eighth-grade students.

“Scenario B” would result in 11 schools closing, with other boundary changes and program moves, affecting 7,000 students.

The district shared several other changes that would take effect under either scenario. A third option is keeping the status quo and making no changes.

The author of the closure plan, PPS Superintendent Kimberlee Armstrong, is scheduled to appear on Think Out Loud on Friday. On Tuesday, just over a week after the closure plans were announced, board chair Eddie Wang took questions from host Dave Miller and OPB listeners.

Wang said that his initial reaction to the district’s closure plan was “shock”.

“At the same time, it’s an interesting mix of both sadness and excitement for what the future might hold in terms of stabilizing the system so that all our kids can have what they deserve,” Wang said.

However, sadness was the main feeling listeners shared Tuesday. Callers to Think Out Loud only shared their first name.

“It’s hard to string a sentence together when your heart is in your throat,” said Giles, parent of a Sunnyside Environmental School graduate and a current student. Under the district’s plans, Sunnyside would shrink down from a K-8 school to an elementary program, and lose its focus on environmental education.

“It should be considered one of the crown jewels of the PPS system.”

Several people came to the defense of schools that are slated to close completely.

“I don’t want my school to close because I don’t get to see my friends and teachers anymore,” shared Dahlia, a first grader at Rose City Park Elementary, in a voicemail.

“Why do we have to move so fast? Can we emphasize reflection over action? Can we do a tiered approach?” asked a parent at Sellwood Middle School, the only middle school proposed for closure under the scenarios.

Wang answered questions but also acknowledged the reality that PPS as a school system is smaller than it was in the past. Since 2019-20, PPS enrollment has declined by 11%, or about 5,200 students.

Wang said PPS started conversations related to closures even earlier, citing a committee that released boundary recommendations ten years ago. The conversations then were about boundaries and school building utilization, but Wang said past PPS leaders have avoided making tough decisions.

“Back then, the leaders were not encouraged or brave enough to make the changes that were recommended, so … the can got kicked down the road, and we’re at a point where there’s no more road left to kick the can,” Wang said.

PPS’ current plan sets a couple of deadlines: next month, Superintendent Armstrong is scheduled to present her recommendation to the school board, with a vote on the recommendation in December. Currently, PPS is hosting community engagement sessions to hear from students, parents, families and staff.

Listeners shared their frustration with the process.

“The outreach feels like PR rather than collaboration,” said a caller named Wendy.

“We’ve yet to see a detailed transition plan that addresses the building vacancies, transportation costs, environmental impacts, employment matters, class sizes, childcare for working families and economic consequences,” said Michelle, another caller.

“So I think the board should not vote to move forward with any school closures until this information is provided for every impacted school in the district.”

Serena, another listener, left a voicemail sharing how her experience as a teacher at Aloha High School in Beaverton informs her thinking as a parent of two students at Stephenson Elementary, one of the schools proposed for closure. Serena said she sees her students find success in school because of the community they’ve built.

“[It] informs a lot of my thinking about the dangerous, unintended consequences that we might experience closing elementary schools in Portland,” Serena said.

Wang has called himself a “veteran” of PPS’ Southeast Guiding Coalition, which started in 2020 as an effort to balance neighborhood boundaries and program offerings in several schools. He described his own experience as a parent representative on the coalition and the benefits he saw from that process, like Lent Elementary School serving more dual language immersion students. Under current proposals, Lent would receive students from Atkinson Elementary’s DLI program.

A parent of an eighth grader at Mt. Tabor Middle School mentioned that the SE Guiding Coalition process left her child’s school underenrolled. But as part of the current boundary change proposals, Mt. Tabor is expected to receive middle schoolers from Laurelhurst, as that school would change from a K-8 to an elementary school. Mt. Tabor would grow by nearly 200 students, according to district projections.

“It’s important to recognize there are some options in this plan that to me do make a lot of sense,” the parent said.

]]>Eli Imadali