Oregon County Plants Trees to Honor Victims of Killer 2021 Heat Wave
Family members of people killed by record-breaking heat in the Portland area three years ago gathered over the weekend to plant trees across Multnomah County in honor of its 72 victims. Authorities say more people died from the heat in the greater Portland area that June than in the entire state over the past 20 years.
Washington State Bar Association OKs Far Lower Caseloads for Public Defenders
The Washington State Bar Association has approved far lower case limits for public defenders in an effort to stop them from quitting, to help with recruiting and to fairly represent defendants. Skeptics agree the system is breaking down but are concerned about finding more attorneys to hire. Many counties, especially rural ones, already struggle to employ enough public defenders and get almost no state funding, which some say should change.
Portland Establishes Monument Review Process
City Council unanimously votes to create policy for questioning public monuments, now classified as separate from public art.
Lawsuit Accuses Portland Police Officer of Fatally Shooting Unarmed Black Man in the Back
According to the complaint, in 2022, the officer shot Immanueal Clark in the back as he ran away.
Black Girls Do Engineer is a nonprofit dedicated to getting more Black and brown girls into STEM ...
Rose Festival Princess From Grant High School Selected
On March 14, Daniela Gray was named a Princess of this year's court. ...
Portland Rose Festival 2024 Court Member from Cleveland High School Announced
The Rose Festival Princess from Cleveland High School, Zora Forsberg, was selected March 14. ...
Portland Rose Festival 2024 Court Member from Central Catholic High School Announced
The Rose Festival Princess from Central Catholic High School, Jayda Jackson, was selected March 8. ...
Portland Rose Festival 2024 Court Member from Lincoln High School Announced
The Rose Festival Princess from Lincoln High School, Isabelle Muresan, was selected on March 12. ...
Oregon man found guilty of murder in 1980 cold case of college student after DNA link
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A man living in the suburbs of Portland, Oregon, has been found guilty in the 1980 cold case murder of a 19-year-old college student. Multnomah County Circuit Judge Amy Baggio on Friday found Robert Plympton, 60, guilty of first-degree murder in the death of...
Oregon county plants trees to honor victims of killer 2021 heat wave
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Family members of some of the people killed by record-breaking heat in the Portland, Oregon, area three years ago gathered over the weekend to plant trees across Multnomah County in honor of its 72 victims. The event, coordinated by county and local officials...
Georgia ends game on 12-0 run to beat Missouri 64-59 in first round of SEC tourney
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Blue Cain had 19 points, Justin Hill scored 17 off the bench and 11th-seeded Georgia finished the game on a 12-0 run to beat No. 14 seed Missouri 64-59 on Wednesday night in the first round of the Southeastern Conference Tournament. Cain hit 6 of 12 shots,...
Georgia faces Missouri in SEC Tournament
Missouri Tigers (8-23, 0-18 SEC) vs. Georgia Bulldogs (16-15, 6-12 SEC) Nashville, Tennessee; Wednesday, 9:30 p.m. EDT FANDUEL SPORTSBOOK LINE: Bulldogs -3; over/under is 147 BOTTOM LINE: Georgia plays in the SEC Tournament against Missouri. ...
OP-ED: Congress Is Right: Federal Reserve’s Reg II Will Hurt Minority Communities in America
The Fed is taking every effort to promote income equality and workplace diversity and inclusion, but Regulation II would undercut its great work in this respect and cause potential harm to millions of minority families. Now that a congressional coalition has...
OP-ED: A Silent Killer No More
Data from Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City shows that more than 13 percent of African American men between the ages 45 and 79 will develop prostate cancer in their lifetimes. And Black men have a 70 percent higher rate of developing...
Message from Commissioner Jesse Beason: February is 'Black History and Futures Month'
I am honored to join the Office of Sustainability and to co-sponsor a proclamation to mark “Black History and Futures Month” ...
Ending Unfair Contracts Harming Minority Businesses Will Aid Gov. Kotek’s Affordable Housing Goals
Senate Bill 1575 will protect small businesses from state and local government’s unfair contract practices while also allowing the building industry to help the governor meet her affordable housing project goals. ...
6 former Mississippi law officers to be sentenced for torture of 2 Black men
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Six former Mississippi law enforcement officers who pleaded guilty to a long list of state and federal charges for torturing two Black men will be sentenced by a federal judge starting Tuesday. U.S. District Judge Tom Lee will sentence two defendants each day...
Supreme Court appears receptive to NRA free-speech lawsuit against a former New York state official
WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court justices appeared receptive Monday to National Rifle Association claims that a former New York state official violated its free-speech rights by pressuring banks and insurance companies to blacklist the group after the deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida. ...
Descendant of judge who wrote infamous Dred Scott decision pens a play about where we are now
NEW YORK (AP) — Writer and actor Kate Taney Billingsley has been thinking a lot about America's racial history and her family's part in it. One of her ancestors had an outsized role. Billingsley's great-great-great-great uncle was Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney, who made arguably...
The Lionheart: Dan Wheldon documentary covers grief, loss, love and familial legacy
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — It was 10 years after the death of their father that associates of filmmaker Laura Brownson brought her an article to read about the late Dan Wheldon. Standing below the monument on Dan Wheldon Way along the downtown St. Petersburg race course that honors...
Music Review: Kacey Musgraves’ 'Deeper Well' trades country-pop hooks for deep, folk-y meditation
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A new generation of readers embraces bell hooks' 'All About Love'
NEW YORK (AP) — In the summer of 2022, Emma Goodwin was getting over a breakup and thinking hard about her life and how to better herself. She decided to try a book she had heard about often, bell hooks’ “All About Love: New Visions." “I loved it. It takes seriously a subject...
Housing Secretary Fudge Resigning. Biden Hails Her Dedication to Boosting Supply of Affordable Homes
The average bonus on Wall Street last year was 6,500. That's down slightly from 2022
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US defense chief vows continued aid to Ukraine, even as Congress is stalled on funding bill
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Tuesday's primaries include a key Senate race in Ohio and clues for the Biden-Trump rematch
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The UK's contentious plan to send asylum-seekers to Rwanda is close to clearing Parliament
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South Korea will suspend licenses of 2 senior doctors in first punishment for doctors' walkouts
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Notre Dame Cathedral's restoration has been a 5-year journey of dedication and recovery
PARIS (AP) — The restoration of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris following a tragic blaze in April 2019 is a story...
"Venus Williams" by Edwin Martinez from The Bronx - US Open 2013 Licensed under CC via Wikimedia Commons
After watching a half dozen college football bowl games and the first two rounds of the NFL Playoff over the past two weekends, I continue to be proud of how many women are now involved in covering professional and college sports. My favorite sport of football seems to employ the most women. I can’t even name all of the professional sports broadcasters now, with a line-up of women that includes Whites, Blacks, Asians and Latinas. It’s great!
I was only a kid when CBS first hired African-American actress and model Jayne Kennedy for reporting and interview duties on The NFL Today. WHAT? Jane Kennedy is covering football? It was the coolest thing in the world for a kid who had a bunch of Jet magazine “beauties of the week” taped on his walls, wearing swimsuits. But to have a bonafide fox like Jayne Kennedy covering my favorite game and football stars on TV was way cooler.
With a weekly subscription to Sports Illustrated magazine before I was even teenager, my original love for women in sports started with track and field. I remember watching the television movie of Olympic track star, Wilma Rudolf, with my mother and being inspired by it. From there, we watched the 1980s Olympic track stars together, including my mother’s favorite, Evelyn Ashford, alongside Mary Decker Slaney, Valerie Briscoe-Hooks, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, and who could ever forget Florence “Flo Jo” Griffith Joyner. In the 1990s, we watched Gail Devers and Gwen Torrence.
My mother and I also watched Carol Lewis—the younger sister of decorated Olympian, Carl Lewis—go from being an Olympic long jumper in her own right, to becoming one of the first African-American women to cover track and field broadcasts. I was very proud of Carol for that. Don’t just compete in sports, become one the experts who analyze it. I was as proud to see Carol on TV for every track event as I was to see the athletes. I loved listening to Carol speak her calm knowledge about track and field. You go get it, sister!
Before there were the Williams girls—Venus and Serena—in professional tennis, my mother told me stories about she and her friends rooting for African-American legend, Althea Gibson, when they was younger. Althea Gibson played tennis and golf with passion, fearlessness and dignity, inspiring a nation of Black women to not only dream about it, but to do it.
However, my most intimate love for women in sports came from my own hometown of Philadelphia. In my last few years of high school at Central in the late 1980s, there was this city-wide hype and conversation about a girl from North Philly.
People were crazy excited about this girl, explaining the scene in all of their Philadelphian vernacular. “Yo, you gotta see this girl play, cuz. She ballin’! Straight up!”
So I caught the train and bus into the heart of North Philadelphia—where I had no friends, family members or security detail—to attend a girl’s basketball game at Murrell Dobbins Tech High School for my first glimpse of Dawn Staley, up close and personal. My friends thought that I was crazy.
“You went to Dobbins by yourself just to see a girl’s basketball game?”
Yes, I did. And my mind was blown away forever. Dawn Staley was not only the point guard at Dobbins, she led the team in scoring, steals, rebounds, assists, blocked shots and highlight moments before ESPN ever existed. She had the whole Harlem Globetrotter thing going on in with the around the back passes, dribbling through the legs, stop and gos, twists and turns, look-aways, finger rolls, girls tripping and falling down in front of her, and then she would stop and pop 3-pointers on fast breaks before Steph Curry was even born.
You could barely drink a cup or a can of soda when Dawn Staley played. People were constantly screaming, yelling, pointing, jumping and grabbing you every couple of seconds, whether she was on offense or defense.
“Did you see that steal? You see that block? You see that pass? You see that shot?”
Dude, I’m watching her just like you’re watching her. Of course, I saw it! Now can I enjoy the game in peace for a minute, please? God!
After winning several Philadelphia Public League Championships and a national high school player of the year award, Staley went on to star at the University of Virginia, where the Cavaliers were never quite able to get over the hump for a national championship, but she kept them in the hunt for a title every single year. She then played balled overseas, became a WNBA star, a 3-time Gold Olympian, and the head coach at North Philadelphia’s own Temple University—my mother’s proud alma mater—before coaching the University of South Carolina, where Staley’s undefeated Gamecocks are presently the number #1 ranked women’s basketball team in the country.
And me? I went on to cover dozens of live sports events and write interview features as a print journalism major at Howard University, including plenty of exciting girl’s games and track meets, all up and down the East Coast. I’ve also rooted for national television legends; Cheryl Miller, Sheryl Swoops, Chamique Holdsclaw, Candace Parker, Angel McCoughtry, Brittney Griner and Skylar Diggins on the college level, as well as for Cynthia Cooper, Tina Thompson, Teresa Edwards, Diana Taurasi, Lisa Leslie and Seimone Augustus in the WNBA.
I could go on and name many more competitive women, including Marion Jones, Allyson Felix, Sanya Richards-Ross, Dee Dee Trotter, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and dozens of young girls, who have competed inspirationally in track and field at Philadelphia’s annual Penn Relays carnival, hailing from Vere Tech Jamaica to Long Beach Poly, California. Don’t forget about Dominique Dawes, Gabby Douglas and Simone Biles in American gymnastics, along with Claressa Shields, Marlen Esparza and the gifted veteran, Liala Ali, in boxing.
And what about Philadelphia’s Mone Davis, pitching a no-hitter in Little League Baseball this past summer?
The point is that women’s excellence in sports is here stay, and it will continue to grow. So there should naturally be more professional women available to broadcast, prognosticate and critique their peers, as well their husbands, sisters, brothers, cousins, nephews, nieces, sons and daughters.
I stand as a proud supporter of women being involved in sports in every capacity. If it’s good for the competitive and professional spirit of men, then it’s also good for that of women. And I will continue to watch, report, listen, enjoy, learn from and be inspired by you all.
Omar Tyree is a New York Times bestselling author, an NAACP Image Award winner for Outstanding Fiction, and a professional journalist, who has published 27 books, including co-authoring Mayor For Life; The Incredible Story of Marion Barry Jr. View more of his career and work @ www.OmarTyree.com