Sage Van Wing

Playing in a park or on a street corner isn’t new for musician Johnny Franco. Franco and his brother Domenico are buskers, and during the pandemic they started taking requests from people who wanted to be serenaded from outside their windows with concerts.

Last month, Governor Tina Kotek announced the creation of a new state resource to help Oregon businesses reach international markets.

Sophocles wrote “Antigone” almost 2,500 years ago, but the themes in the story are timeless. Nez Perce scholar and author Beth Piatote was inspired to write an Indigenous version of “Antigone,” featuring a young woman torn between a moral duty to her family and ancestors and the will of the state. Playwright Beth Piatote joins us, along with Nathan Woodworth, one of the actors in a new production from the Native Performing Arts Network and Bag and Baggage Productions in Beaverton. We are also joined by Jeanette Harrison, Creative Director of the Native Performing Arts Network.

Sunshine Division, a Portland food relief organization, has opened a new food pantry that takes the form of a free grocery store. People in need can sign up for a time slot to come to the market and choose the groceries that best fit their household’s needs.

Pacific University professor and former footballer Jules Boykoff points out that while soccer is a beautiful game, the high ticket prices, FIFA corruption, high carbon footprint and scandals of this year’s competition bring a world of contradictions.

Katherine Lee Bates’ greatest hope in life was to write a poem that people would remember after she died. Soon, 133 years later, millions of people across the United States will sing “America the Beautiful,” commemorating the nation’s 250th anniversary. However, some of the same problems America faced at the time Bates wrote her poem are still relevant today.

Oregon students missed classes, left school and struggled to learn as the fear of ICE undermined the school year. Washington County saw Oregon’s highest number of recorded immigration arrests from July to December. In all, Operation Black Rose led to the detention of more than 1,400 people statewide. That number includes some of the 39 kids who were arrested in Oregon between January 2025 and this February, according to the Deportation Data Project. OPB reporters Holly Bartholomew and Elizabeth Miller join us to talk about what they’ve learned in terms of how immigration enforcement has impacted Oregon students.

Last year over 7,000 people gathered on camp chairs and picnic blankets to hear the opera “Carmen” at Peninsula Park in Portland. It was a performance staged by the organization Opera in the Park, which aims to share the love of opera with as many people as possible. This year the organization will bring the Oregon premiere of the world’s first Mariachi opera, “Cruzar la Cara de la Luna,” to both Portland and Hillsboro.

In January of 2027, people on Medicaid will need to meet a slate of new requirements

One of the most watched congressional races in the country is in Southwest Washington, and yesterday’s primary yielded few surprises.