Portland’s Homelessness and Urban Camping Impact Reduction Program does a lot of outreach to people living on the streets. They are also responsible for fielding angry calls and emails from housed residents who are upset by the presence or behavior of campers.

All 3- and 4-year-olds in Multnomah County will have access to free preschool, as promised by a ballot measure that was overwhelmingly approved by voters. Kimberly Melton is one of the people in charge of working out the mechanics of turning the new tax on high-income earners into preschool for all.

As coronavirus cases and deaths skyrocket across Oregon, pandemic fatigue is setting in. In some rural areas, skepticism about the governor’s new restrictions on businesses and social gatherings is common.

Oregon recently became the first state in the nation to approve the therapeutic use of psilocybin.

Maxine Dexter, a pulmonary and critical care physician in Clackamas County, has been taking care of some of the sickest COVID-19 patients in Oregon since the pandemic began. Dexter is also a state House representative for Oregon’s 33rd district.

Artists in Oregon and throughout the country have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. Live music performances and touring, which most musicians previously relied on, have dried up. New state orders to try to bring skyrocketing COVID-19 case rates down mean that for a lot of musicians the struggle that began in March with the full shutdown is far from over.

After some tense moments at racial justice protests in Klamath Falls this summer, residents asked the city to form an equity task force. Members of that task force have called on the city council to adopt language stating that racism and economic inequity are a societal crisis in Klamath Falls. Public testimony about that proposal grew heated last week.

Khanh Pham has spent decades working in community organizing and climate policy. Now, she’s heading to Salem, where she will serve in the House of Representatives representing East Portland.

In the 1920s, the Osage were considered the richest people per capita in the world, thanks to oil wells on their land. But in the early 1920s, about two dozen tribal members were killed mysteriously. Author David Grann delves into those deaths and the conspiracy behind them in his book “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the F.B.I.” Host Geoff Norcross spoke with Grann in 2017 in front of an audience at the Portland Book Festival.

George Saunders is the author of numerous short story collections, including "Tenth of December," "In Persuasion Nation," and "Pastoralia." His most recent novel, "Lincoln in the Bardo," was a New York Times bestseller and shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Saunders has won a Guggenheim, a McArthur, and many other awards. We spoke to him in 2017 in front of an audience at Literary Arts.

The largest river restoration project in U.S. history is back on track.

Portland artist and activist Isaka Shamsud-Din has captured the lives and histories of African Americans in paintings throughout his life. He draws on his experiences growing up in Portland for his work. His exhibit, "Rock of Ages," is currently on display at the Portland Art Museum. We spoke to him in January 2020.

Before this week, there were no emergency cold-weather shelters in the city of Bend.

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Ayad Akhtar’s latest novel, “Homeland Elegies,” is a meditation on American identity through the lens of an American son and his immigrant parents. It is also a treatise on American economics, Muslim identity in this country, the power of dreams, and syphilis.

The Oregon Employment Department says it is preparing for a surge in unemployment claims after Gov. Kate Brown announced a statewide “freeze” to combat the spread of COVID-19.

In June, we talked with two immunocompromised families who were concerned that Oregon was reopening too soon. We check back in to hear how they are doing as Oregon grapples with another wave of COVID-19.

On Wednesday, Oregon will enter a two week period of new restrictions on businesses and social interactions meant to decrease the spread of coronavirus. Restaurants and bars across the state will be limited to take-out service only. We’ll check in with Robert Holmes, the owner of Bob’s Steak N’ Spirits in Nyssa, Oregon, and Carlo Lamagna, owner of Magna restaurant in Portland.

New coronavirus shutdown measures will impact Oregon winemakers, many of whom were already struggling to recover from the early shutdowns of their tasting rooms and the public-facing parts of their businesses. Over the summer, grape growers in the vicinity of the Oregon wildfires suffered from what’s known as smoke taint. In some cases, growers have lost buyers altogether.

Portland-based comics journalist Joe Sacco’s new book is an emotionally complex and historically informed portrait of the Dene First Nation people, the indigenous subarctic communities that have lived in what is now known as Canada's Northwest Territories for thousands of years. “Paying the Land” tells how economic and cultural colonialism and residential schools nearly destroyed the Dene’s ancient way of life. It also chronicles the impacts of mining, drilling and fracking, along with climate change on the land and people.

Voters in Jefferson and Union counties just passed measures that will force local officials to consider moving the borders of their counties — and many others — into Idaho. The measure was the work of Move Oregon’s Border, a petition group seeking to move wide swaths of rural Oregon into Idaho, citing similar values and politics.