Beat Check with The Oregonian

Laura Hill was about 30 years old when she helped create one of Portland’s most-iconic designs.

When the Port of Portland was redesigning Portland International Airport in 1986, architecture and design firm SRG Partnership led the project.

Hill retired from the firm in 2008, but at the time she was a principal interior designer for SRG.

In this bonus episode of Beat Check with The Oregonian, reporter Lizzy Acker shares her interview with Hill.

Hill explains how the famous design came to be, the research SRG did at other airports and what other designs were pitched. Here's their conversation.

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True crime is popular in the podcast world, and romance novels are seeing a surge in popularity. The Oregonian/OregonLive’s new podcast, in partnership with Wondery, marries the two topics for a six-part exclusive look at the case of Nancy Crampton Brophy, who was convicted of murdering her husband, Dan.

Reporters Zane Sparling, who covered the trial, and Shane Dixon Kavanaugh, who reported on her arrest and its aftermath, joined Editor Therese Bottomly on “Beat Check with The Oregonian” to discuss the new podcast, which is available on all major platforms today.

In this episode of Beat Check, we talk about:

--Why investigators zeroed in on Crampton Brophy

--How Crampton Brophy took the stand at trial and it backfired

--Her previous role in the Portland community of romance writers

--Why humans can’t resist anthropomorphizing animals -- that is, attributing human behaviors and motives and emotions to our pets

“Happily Never After: Dan and Nancy,” with Wondery, now has two of the six episodes available.

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In recent years, people have killed increasingly larger numbers of wolves in Oregon as the animals have rebounded in the state. And poisoning has emerged as one of the most common tools used to target wolves. Roblyn Brown, wolf program coordinator with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, talked on Beat Check about the poisonings, what they mean in the context of Oregon’s stagnant wolf population and how to bridge the divide between people who love wolves and those who want them gone.

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Portland and Multnomah County voters are casting ballots this week in a number of local contested races. Candidates in each of them have offered competing visions for how to best address some of the most pressing issues facing Oregon’s most populous county — be it crime, livability concerns or the deadly fentanyl crisis.

In particular, the outcome in the race between Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt and challenger Nathan Vasquez, a longtime prosecutor in that office, could have a profound impact on key policy decisions and priorities in those areas — and provide a telling look at where the Portland area stands politically after weathering some of the most chaotic years in recent memory.

On the latest Beat Check, reporters Shane Dixon Kavanaugh and Noelle Crombie discuss the state of that closely-watched race.

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The Oregonian/OregonLive last week published the results of a series of polls that shed light on the sentiments of Portland-area residents heading into a May election.

John Horvick, senior vice president of polling partner DHM Research, joined the podcast Beat Check with The Oregonian to review the results and discuss some of the most interesting findings. Also on the panel are reporters Mike Rogoway and Shane Dixon Kavanaugh.

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Any newspaper editor will tell you readers love animal stories. The Oregonian/OregonLive’s Samantha Swindler took that axiom to the next level this spring with a 12-part video series on the mysterious disappearance of Cosmo, the talking crow.

She joins Editor Therese Bottomly on “Beat Check with The Oregonian” to discuss the narrative, which also was published on Instagram, Facebook and, of course, OregonLive.

Cosmo first came to the newsroom’s attention after a viral story out of Williams about a talking crow that had “befriended” an elementary school. Swindler, who works on the Here is Oregon features team, reached out to obtain audio or video of this supposed talking crow.

She quickly learned Cosmo was missing and the crow may not have been the beloved local fixture we first envisioned. Originally conceived as a podcast, “The Mystery of Cosmo the Talking Crow” quickly morphed into an experiment in creative multimedia storytelling on TikTok, the social media platform so much in the headlines these days.

In this episode of Beat Check, we talk about:

--Why Swindler was drawn to the quirky story

--The reporting challenges she faced

--The question of whether Cosmo really did talk

--Why humans can’t resist anthropomorphizing animals -- that is, attributing human behaviors and motives and emotions to our pets

Within the episode, Swindler refers to “Serial,” the groundbreaking and hugely popular true crime podcast (We are careful to note nothing about the Cosmo story involves actual true “crime.”).

She also makes reference to a “milkshake duck” moment, a reference to a fictional duck that is cute and beloved until it is revealed to be racist. Like that internet meme, Cosmo, too, was cute on the outside but perhaps had a touch of evil within, depending on who is talking.

And Swindler still hopes for “The Jinx” reveal, as in the HBO docuseries hot-mic moment where Robert Durst appears to confess. Alas (spoiler alert), Swindler and the rest of us are still waiting for the final word on Cosmo’s fate.

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Semiconductor manufacturing is critical to Oregon’s economy: it’s the state’s largest manufacturing sector in terms of employment, exports and contributions to its gross domestic product. Intel, the state’s top chipmaker, employs 23,000 people and is Oregon’s largest corporate employer.

But the chips – celebrated by state lawmakers, ubiquitous in thousands of computer systems, from desktops and cell phones to medical devices and wind turbines – also come with a major disadvantage. Chipmaking is a heavy industry that’s one of the dirtiest in the state. Chip manufacturing pollutes the air, uses huge quantities of water and energy and generates a greenhouse gasses, significantly contributing to the state’s slice of global warming.

Mike Rogoway, who covers the business of technology for The Oregonian/OregonLive, talks about why Intel and other semiconductor companies are so polluting, what they’re doing about it and why it’s so difficult to clean up this essential industry sector.

“It’s not clear at this point whether we can have our cake and eat it too, whether we can have our more advanced semiconductors and have more clean materials used in the manufacturing process,” said Rogoway. “I think the companies are committed to finding a way there. I just don’t think we have clarity at this point as to how they will get there or how long it will take.”

Read more about Intel/chip manufacturers’ environmental impact:

Intel’s expansion plans revive concerns about Oregon factories’ environmental impact

Intel wins air quality permit for Oregon expansion despite underreporting carbon emissions

Intel contractor sues for $550,000, says toxic chemicals in Oregon factory cost him his sense of taste and smell

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As many by now know, Oregon ranks miserably when it comes to addressing residents’ mental health needs compared to the rest of the U.S.

Especially troubling: Our state is dead last — the absolute worst in the nation — in balancing the prevalence of youth mental illness with access to care.

That’s left many families with a teen in crisis or struggling with addiction no choice but to send them out of state for treatment.

But efforts are also underway to fill some of the most glaring gaps in Oregon’s youth mental health system.

On the latest Beat Check, I talk with Oregonian/OregonLive reporter Nicole Hayden about her recent three-part series on youth mental health in our state.

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The Oregonian/OregonLive is in the midst of its annual update of the Oregon Public Employee Retirement System beneficiary database.

Last week, we published an update that showed nearly 6,000 retirees tapped into the pension benefit system in 2023. In a week or so, we’ll have our database fully updated and available so readers can lookup all current retirees and their benefits.

Reporter Ted Sickinger, who has examined the system for more than a decade, joined Editor Therese Bottomly for this week’s installment of “Beat Check with The Oregonian” to talk about the challenges facing PERS and Oregon public agencies. Sickinger talks about his analysis of the new retirees and their benefits and also the outliers in the system as a whole. The conversation covers:

--How we got here and the real-life impact of the system’s shortfall

--What reforms have already been made to the system?

--What the Legislature and the PERS board can do about the shortfall?

--What’s behind some of the outsized benefits packages?

To learn more about PERS:

How did we get here? A short video

How a serial killer kept receiving PERS in prison

The Oregonian wins Pulitzer Prize for PERS editorials

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Many homeowners in Oregon are feeling the impacts of higher electricity bills and facing the prospect of yet another rate increase next year. As electricity bills have skyrocketed, causing widespread anger and frustration, many people have begun to question how and why utilities recoup money from their customers.

Last month, the Oregon Citizens’ Utility Board, a state nonprofit group that advocates for those customers, asked Oregon regulators to dismiss Portland General Electric’s newest rate increase proposal – an unprecedented move that diverges from the state’s standard rate-setting process. Since then, the case has generated well over 1,000 comments from frustrated PGE customers.

They raise important questions: Are back-to-back rate increases fair? Why should customers bear all of the cost of infrastructure upgrades and other investments and not the utility and its shareholders? Does the clean energy transition translate into higher rates? And if clean energy is supposedly cheaper than fossil fuel-powered energy, why are rates going up exponentially?

Dain Nestel, the Director of Customer Solutions at Portland General Electric, talked on Beat Check about the reasons for the steep increases and how the company is trying to reign in costs and help its customers in an era of increasing electricity demand, extreme weather and aging infrastructure.

For a different perspective, Beat Check previously hosted Bob Jenks, the executive director of the Oregon Citizens’ Utility Board, to address those issues from utility customers’ perspective.

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