This month's episode finds the boys -- now officially including Producer Bill -- back in town, contemplating semi-historic and overtly political bar decor...poking around Shanghai Tunnels...eating a by-god bar burger...ogling a PERFECT men's room...possibly having one round too many...and putting their age/surliness/cynicism aside to have life affi…

This episode was created by students from the University of Oregon’s Graduate School of Journalism and Communication. Listeners producer Kristen Mico speaks with Fiona Conneely and Shelley Schuler about how food hubbing models offer solutions to small farms, markets and food assistance programs. At a time when programs that support access to fresh …

This episode was created by students from the University of Oregon’s Graduate School of Journalism and Communication. For this episode, we invite listeners into the realities of rural Oregon, where questions of identity, belonging, and resilience are part of everyday life. In this episode, Kristina Path and Leif Olsen travel to Monmouth to meet Ama…

This episode was created by students from the University of Oregon’s Graduate School of Journalism and Communication. Listeners producer Daniel Bloomfield speaks with the Executive Director of the Oregon Humanities, Adam Davis, about the Trump administration’s recent cuts to the National Endowment for the Humanities and how they’ve impacted the wor…

Beat Check with The Oregonian is taking a short break for the summer while we work to bring you our next exciting project and reimagine the format of the show. In the meantime, you can look forward to several episodes of “Oregon Speaks: Voices from this moment,” a limited-series podcast from the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Commu…

This episode was created by students from the University of Oregon’s Graduate School of Journalism and Communication. Producer Kaiya Laguardia-Yonamine speaks with Duncan Hwang about the importance of local organizing and turning inward to sustain our communities. Duncan reflects on his experience as the Community Development Director at APANO, as …

Thought you'd heard the last of History by the Glass? Think again! After a 6-month hiatus, Alfredo & Nate are back for their fourth season of vintage bar-going adventures. As part of their annual curiosity-laden Bourdain Day observance, the boys squeezed into an 8-seat turboprop bound for the cowboy town of Pendleton — "The Real West" of Oregon — f…

Therese Bottomly, editor of The Oregonian/OregonLive and a frequent host of Beat Check with The Oregonian, is retiring next month after 42 years in the newsroom. On this episode of Beat Check, Bottomly reflects on the stories that shaped her career, and Oregon. She discusses how the newsroom rose to the challenge of covering some of the most signif…

Features reporter Samantha Swindler talks about the hidden gem stories she finds in some of Oregon's smallest towns. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesBy The Oregonian/OregonLive

The Oregonian’s investigative reporter Yesenia Amaro talks on Beat Check about the recent immigration enforcement ramp-up, Trump’s approach to immigration and the impact on Oregon communities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesBy The Oregonian/OregonLive

Lawmakers in Salem recently enacted a series of substantive tweaks to the state’s beloved Bottle Bill, which allows residents to return cans and bottles for 10 cents apiece. Those changes have helped amplify a growing and complicated debate about Oregon’s first-in-the-nation program, now more than 50 years old. Does Portland and some other pockets …

In the digital age, true crime content has exploded in popularity across podcasts, social media and streaming platforms. But with this growth comes a troubling trend: The blurring of verified facts and speculative theories. On a recent episode of Beat Check with the Oregonian, guests Emily Reeder and Ashley Desanno from the Books with Your Besties …

In 2010, digital tools for journalists were emerging, but the gritty, time-intensive methods of traditional reporting still dominated newsrooms. The disappearance of 7-year-old Kyron Horman from his Portland elementary school thrust The Oregonian’s journalists into a high-stakes investigation that demanded old-school techniques now increasingly rar…

When a child goes missing, the first hours can be critical. In Kyron Horman’s case, investigators didn’t even know he was missing until about six hours had passed — a devastating delay that may have forever altered the trajectory of one of Oregon’s most haunting unsolved cases. In a recent discussion on the Beat Check with The Oregonian podcast, ve…

Fifteen years after 7-year-old Kyron Horman vanished from Skyline Elementary School in Portland, his disappearance continues to haunt not just the Pacific Northwest, but parents everywhere. In this special episode of Beat Check, engagement editor Julie Evensen and social media producer Destiny Johnson talk to investigative reporter Noelle Crombie a…

A trio of journalists joined Editor Therese Bottomly on Monday’s episode of “Beat Check with The Oregonian” to talk about the 2020 street protests that started in Portland after the police killing of George Floyd. Multimedia journalist Beth Nakamura, social media producer Ryan Fernandez, and reporter Zane Sparling (who covered protests for the Port…

When Portland Trail Blazers owner Paul Allen died in 2018 from complications related to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, it was matter of when, not if, his beloved professional sports team would be sold. Seven years later, that time has finally arrived. Allen’s estate announced on May 13 that is has initiated a formal sales process for one of Oregon’s most …

Watchdog reporter Ted Sickinger joined Editor Therese Bottomly on this episode of “Beat Check with The Oregonian” to talk about his extraordinary reporting into Skyline CDL School, which operated in Oregon and Washington. On this episode of Beat Check, we talk about: --How the alleged bribery scheme operated, according to regulators --How the newsr…

For this week’s episode of Beat Check with The Oregonian, education reporter Julia Silverman tackles a series of burning questions from readers and listeners who are weighing how to vote on the $1.83 billion bond. Have a listen, and don’t forget to turn in your ballot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

It is a bleak time for mass transit all throughout the U.S. The challenges here in the Portland metro area are many and pronounced.TriMet is providing about 30 million fewer rides each year than it did in 2019 — and the recovery appears to be slowing way down. Rider safety has been a persistent concern since the pandemic. Fare evasion is rampant. M…

In recent months, climate and environmental work have been under threat in the U.S., with the Trump administration dismantling climate legislation, freezing funds and intimidating universities, states and nonprofits. Despite the chaos, there’s still a place for hope, says award-winning environmental journalist Alan Weisman, author of the new book H…

When President Trump raised tariffs against China and other countries earlier this month, stock markets plunged, chaos rippled through the global economy and anxiety hit business owners across the United States. The specifics of the tariffs — which soared as high as 145% on China and affected virtually every country on earth — have been changing we…

In this week’s episode, Politics and Education Editor Betsy Hammond breaks down the key finding of a survey of 600 metro area voters by DHM Research, commissioned by The Oregonian. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesBy The Oregonian/OregonLive

With wildfire season approaching and southern California still reeling from the January wildfires, Portland leaders are making sure the city can withstand a major urban wildfire. Forest Park, the city’s crown jewel and one of the largest urban forests in the U.S., has been identified as one of the areas most at-risk for wildfire in the city. Kim Ko…

First-class airfare to Hawaii. Five-star hotel stays. Lots and lots of food. All of it footed — directly or indirectly — by customers of a large Portland-area utility. A recent Oregonian/OregonLive investigation found that executives with Clean Water Services, Washington County’s sewer agency, have spent years enjoying fancy business trips to Hawai…

A series of headlines has brought bad news about the management of Oregon’s Department of Corrections and Oregon Youth Authority to public attention. Numerous leadership changes have also resulted at the two departments. The agencies are separate divisions in Oregon’s state government but share the responsibility to care for people incarcerated for…

When the Mt. Bachelor ski resort abruptly went up for sale in August, a couple of Central Oregon mountain enthusiasts had an audacious thought: Maybe we should buy it. Before they knew it, the me — who had not met beforehand — put in motion a plan to purchase one of Oregon’s most cherished landmarks. They organized a GoFundMe and formed a company. …

But will it be a home run? The Portland Diamond Project has so far struck out on its years-long efforts to bring Major League Baseball to Portland. But now they’ve got a new site on the South Waterfront, fresh energy from city leaders and a pitch to the Oregon Legislature, not to mention swoon-y renderings of a new stadium along the Willamette. Spo…

Preliminary results from a new state survey on wood combustion show more people are using fireplaces and woodstoves in urban areas in Oregon, despite efforts by state and local governments to decrease their use. Why the increase? And just how dangerous are wood stoves and wood-burning fireplaces to our health and the health of the planet? John Wasi…

It’s undeniably good news that deadly violence in Portland continued to tick downward last year. The city recorded 71 homicides in 2024. That’s six fewer than the year prior and a 30% drop from the record-shattering 101 killings Oregon’s most populous city saw in 2022. Reported shootings, meanwhile, fell below 1,000 for the first time since 2020. D…

The second Trump administration has barely begun, but an avalanche of policy changes and executive orders have already had repercussions in Oregon. Editor Therese Bottomly is joined by politics co-editor Jamie Goldberg and watchdog editor Brad Schmidt to discuss local coverage of the Trump effect in Oregon. They discuss the many lawsuits already fi…

When Oregon became the third state in the United States to legalize recreational marijuana use, proponents envisioned a double dose of green. Residents were given a chance to light up legally, finally bringing the state’s underground cannabis culture out of the shadows. Nowadays, Oregon boasts twice as many cannabis shops as Starbucks coffeehouses.…

It’s no secret that Oregon has an affordable housing problem. Gov. Tina Kotek has set an ambitious goal of building 36,000 units of housing a year, but so far, the state is nowhere close to hitting that target. Housing and real estate reporter Jonathan Bach recently went to Bend to spotlight a small but meaningful piece of the affordable housing pu…

Oregon’s residential electricity rates have gone up nearly 50% in the Portland area in just the past four years. Those increases have primarily been driven by the rising costs to buy power from the open energy market. But there’s growing concern that the rapid expansion of power-hungry data centers could significantly drive up residential power bil…

A housing, homelessness and behavioral health crisis. Flagging student test scores. Billions of dollars needed for road and bridge repairs.Oregon legislative leaders will kick off their 2025 session this week at the Capitol with no shortage of significant challenges to tackle and tame. And while Democrats and Republicans say right now that they sha…

Business reporter Matthew Kish just completed a three-part series on one of Oregon’s signature companies, Nike. He took a deep dive into the so-called “Starfish” surveys, a clandestine effort to document problems employees had with harassment and discrimination. The surveys are at the heart of a court case set to be argued this winter at the 9th Ci…

In one of their most professional efforts ever (even with Alfredo's audio sounding like a Jack in the Box drive-thru speaker) the HBTG boys visited with Samantha Swindler -- features reporter, videographer, chronicler of all things weird, intriguing, and off-the-beaten path for The Oregonian/OregonLive -- to learn more about her recent efforts to d…

Large solar farms are on the rise in Oregon, in a push to fulfill the state’s ambitious clean energy mandates. But their rapid rise is leading to worries about how they could reshape the state’s agricultural economy and rural vistas. In November, the Oregon Energy Facility Siting Council, a board that oversees the siting of large energy facilities,…

Season 3 of History by the Glass reaches its culmination with a trip into the heart of Portland's historic Chinatown district to visit the century-ish old Republic Cafe (222 NW 4th Ave.) — the oldest Chinese-American restaurant in the city — and its random and remarkable Ming Lounge. Still stuffed with Christmas ham and eggnog, Alfredo and Nathan s…

Schools may be closed for the holiday break, but there’s a lot ahead for Oregon’s public education system in 2025. We asked three of the superintendents of Oregon’s largest public school districts — Kimberlee Armstrong of Portland Public Schools, Gustavo Balderas from the Beaverton School District and Andrea Castaneda from Salem-Keizer Public Schoo…

On the evening of Saturday, Dec. 7, a series of curious and unusual red lights illuminated the Oregon night sky. They moved around dramatically, zooming up and down at speeds so extreme, so uncharacteristic, nearby pilots were left in awe as they watched it all unfold from 30,000 feet. “I don’t even know how to describe it,” one pilot said. “It’s p…

Last week, plans for the largest U.S. supermarket merger in history imploded in spectacular fashion. First, an Oregon federal judge blocked the $24.6 billion bid by Kroger to take over Albertson’s, its next largest rival. Less than 24 hours later, Albertsons, which also owns Safeway, pulled out of the deal entirely — and then filed a massive lawsui…

For decades, The Oregonian has sponsored an annual fundraising drive, featuring local nonprofits making a difference in our community. Its part of The Oregonian/OregonLive’s mission to strengthen and empower the communities we serve. This year, we are featuring 13 nonprofits. Once the board chooses a nonprofit, reporters and photographers find an e…

Filled with immense thanks for all YOU who have traveled with the two of US for the past six years, we celebrated Thanksgiving weekend with our second annual HBTG Audience Choice Episode. The ridiculously over-complicated Thunderdome selection process saw 12 audience-nominated old bars enter, one bar leave as chic NW Portland's beloved Rasputinesqu…

Roger A. Pearce Jr. spent three decades as a successful attorney in the Northwest, representing prominent people and high-profile businesses in Oregon and Washington. He dedicated his free time to nonprofit boards and planning commissions. He spent countless hours doing pro bono legal work. He was well-liked in social circles and part of a happy ma…