10-14-2024  10:58 am   •   PDX and SEA Weather

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NORTHWEST NEWS

Washington State Voters will Reconsider Landmark Climate Law

Supporters of repealing the Climate Commitment Act say it has raised energy costs and gas prices. Those in favor of keeping it say billions of dollars and many programs will vanish if it disappears. The law is designed to cut pollution while raising money for investments that address climate change. 

In Pacific Northwest, 2 Toss-up US House Races Could Determine Control of Narrowly Divided Congress

Oregon’s GOP-held 5th Congressional District and Washington state’s Democratic-held 3rd Congressional District are considered toss ups, meaning either party has a good chance of winning. If Janelle Bynum wins in November, she'll be Oregon’s first Black member of Congress. 

Salmon Swim Freely in the Klamath River for 1st Time in a Century After Dams Removed

“It’s been over one hundred years since a wild salmon last swam through this reach of the Klamath River,” said Damon Goodman, a regional director for the nonprofit conservation group California Trout. “I am incredibly humbled to witness this moment and share this news, standing on the shoulders of decades of work by our Tribal partners, as the salmon return home."

Taxpayers in 24 States Will Be Able to File Their Returns Directly With the IRS in 2025

The pilot program in 2024 allowed people in certain states with very simple W-2s to calculate and submit their returns directly to the IRS. Those using the program claimed more than million in refunds, the IRS said.

NEWS BRIEFS

Senator Manning and Elected Officials to Tour a New Free Pre-Apprenticeship Program

The boot camp is a FREE four-week training program introducing basic carpentry skills to individuals with little or no...

Prepare Your Trees for Winter Weather

Portland Parks & Recreation Urban Forestry staff share tips and resources. ...

PSU’s Coty Raven Morris Named a Semifinalist for GRAMMY 2025 Music Educator Award

Morris, the Hinckley assistant professor of choir, music education and social justice, is one of just 25 music teachers selected as...

Washington State Fines 35 Plastic Producers $416,000 For Not Using Enough Recycled Plastic

The Washington Department of Ecology issued the first penalties under a 2021 state law aimed at reducing waste and pollution from...

Washington state's landmark climate law hangs in the balance this election

SEATTLE (AP) — A groundbreaking law that forces companies in Washington state to reduce their carbon emissions while raising billions of dollars for climate programs could be repealed by voters this fall, less than two years after it took effect. The Climate Commitment Act, one of...

AP Top 25: Oregon, Penn State move behind No. 1 Texas. Army, Navy both ranked for 1st time since '60

Oregon and Penn State each moved up a spot in The Associated Press college football poll on Sunday following thrilling wins in high-profile games, and Top 25 newcomers Navy and Army are in the rankings together for the first time since 1960. Texas strengthened its hold on No. 1 with...

Luther Burden's long TD run gets No. 21 Missouri started in 45-3 rout of Minutemen

AMHERST, Mass. (AP) — Missouri receiver Luther Burden scored on a 61-yard jet sweep less than a minute into the game, and the 21st-ranked Tigers went on to beat Massachusetts 45-3 on Saturday. “The first play Luther scored on I thought set the tone,” Missouri coach Eliah...

After blowout loss to Texas A&M, No. 21 Missouri hopes to bounce back against struggling UMass

AMHERST, Mass. (AP) — Missouri coach Eliah Drinkwitz is hoping his No. 21 Tigers can make people forget about their embarrassing 41-10 loss to then-No.25 Texas A&M. And that’s bad news for UMass (1-4). Mizzou (4-1) heads to Amherst, Massachusetts, on Saturday for...

OPINION

The Skanner News: 2024 City Government Endorsements

In the lead-up to a massive transformation of city government, the mayor’s office and 12 city council seats are open. These are our endorsements for candidates we find to be most aligned with the values of equity and progress in Portland, and who we feel...

No Cheek Left to Turn: Standing Up for Albina Head Start and the Low-Income Families it Serves is the Only Option

This month, Albina Head Start filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to defend itself against a misapplied rule that could force the program – and all the children it serves – to lose federal funding. ...

DOJ and State Attorneys General File Joint Consumer Lawsuit

In August, the Department of Justice and eight state Attorneys Generals filed a lawsuit charging RealPage Inc., a commercial revenue management software firm with providing apartment managers with illegal price fixing software data that violates...

America Needs Kamala Harris to Win

Because a 'House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand' ...

AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE NEWS

Indigenous Peoples Day celebrated with an eye on the election

As Native Americans across the U.S. come together on Monday for Indigenous Peoples Day to celebrate their history and culture and acknowledge the ongoing challenges they face, many will do so with a focus on the election. From a voting rally in Minneapolis featuring food, games and...

Most AAPI adults think legal immigrants give the US a major economic boost: AP-NORC/AAPI Data poll

WASHINGTON (AP) — Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander adults are more likely than the overall U.S. population to view legal immigration as an asset to the country's economy and workforce, according to a new poll. When it comes to the risks posed by illegal...

Former President Bill Clinton travels to Georgia to rally rural Black voters to the polls

ALBANY, Ga. (AP) — Former President Bill Clinton urged churchgoers in Albany, Georgia, on Sunday to rally behind Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign for the office he once held. “Uniting people and building, being repairers of the breach, as Isaiah says, those are the things...

ENTERTAINMENT

Music Review: James Bay's 'Changes All the Time' is soulful folk-pop for the stomp and holler crowd

“Talk,” like much of British troubadour James Bay 's latest album, “Changes All the Time,” ends with a rousing chorus sung above a guitar melody. To get there, he starts with a confession: “I don’t know how to talk to you/I gotta give you something true.” The truth is,...

Book Review: Deborah Levy's 'The Position of Spoons' may be just for the diehard fans

Deborah Levy is a celebrated novelist, memoirist and playwright whose latest book — “The Position of Spoons” — is a petite collection of essays spanning the last few decades of her career. Though Levy calls the entries in her book “intimacies,” at times that feels like the wrong word,...

Book Review: Paula Hawkins returns with psychological thriller ’The Blue Hour'

Since bursting on the scene in 2015 with “The Girl on a Train,” Paula Hawkins has established herself as a reliable writer of psychological thrillers set in the U.K. “The Blue Hour” doesn’t plow any new ground on that front, but it’s a tight story with interesting characters that keeps...

U.S. & WORLD NEWS

Republican lawsuits target rules for overseas voters, but those ballots are already sent

ATLANTA (AP) — The latest method of voting to fall into the political crosshairs is the way overseas voters —...

Trump's protests aside, his agenda has plenty of overlap with Project 2025

ATLANTA (AP) — Donald Trump insists that Project 2025, a nearly 1,000-page blueprint for a hard-right turn in...

Ailing and silenced in prison, Belarus activist symbolizes the nation's repression

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — The last time any of Maria Kolesnikova's family had contact with the imprisoned...

Netanyahu mulls plan to empty northern Gaza of civilians and cut off aid to those left inside

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is examining a plan to seal off humanitarian aid to...

In Denmark, 50 well-preserved Viking Age skeletons have been unearthed, a rare discovery

AASUM, Denmark (AP) — In a village in central Denmark, archeologists made a landmark discovery...

France’s far-right leader Marine Le Pen faces court on charges of embezzling EU funds

PARIS (AP) — French far-right leader Marine Le Pen strongly denied committing any wrongdoing at a Paris court...

Cynthia E. Griffin Special to the NNPA from Our Weekly

Life has gone on since Sept. 11, 2001. And as the nation pauses to remember—10 years beyond the cataclysmic events of that morning—there is time to reflect and observe.

However, one major question that has gotten little attention amid the calls for commemoration is this one: What impact did the events have on African Americans? Some observers feel Blacks were somewhat excluded from coverage of 9/11 remembrances, a fact that has left their voices, emotions and recovery unheard.

 "I was watching the television special 'Children of 9/11,'" said Atlanta-based psychotherapist Joyce Morely, Ed. D. "Ironically, I was seeing that the majority of the focus was on White families and White children.  There was only one African American, (a) male profiled, and it was from the perspective of how much trouble he had gotten into over time, before he finally pulled himself together last year."

In fact, Morely, said she has seen Indian families who lost loved ones in the tragedy saying the same thing about their stories being ignored.

"A lot of times when people have latent issues, they so internalize them that if they are not dealt with, they manifest themselves in other behaviors; negative behaviors . . . when your grief is not seen as important and when your grief seems to be minimized as opposed so someone else's grief, it makes it very difficult."

Rev. DeQuincy Hentz of Shiloh Baptist Church, in New Rochelle, a bedroom community to New York, recalled many of his members being in shock at the attack and believing that God had protected them going to work that day at the towers.

"A lot of people express how they felt God had protected them.  Some people were headed to towers, but were delayed."

He added that there were no members of his church lost, and they don't talk about the tragedy much.  They sort of relate to it like knowing where you were when Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy were assassinated.

"I think, as a people, African Americans have such a history of tragedy and terrorist acts against us that something within us that is part of our history and fabric helps us to just move on.  Now that may not always be good," Hentz said, adding that in some respects 9/11 enabled Black people to feel that there could actually be a equalization of terror—that hate knows no color, and when unchecked, it can impact everyone.

There are Black stories to tell.  From those who died on the planes, to survivors who walked away without a scratch on their bodies.

Perhaps one of the most poignant is the three 11-year-olds, who were on Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon.

Asia Cottom, Rodney Dickens and Bernard Curtis Brown II, had been selected from three different middle schools in Washington, D.C., to travel to the Channel Island National Marine Sanctuary near Santa Barbara, Calif., to participate in a National Geographic Society research project called Sustainable Seas Expedition.  They were each traveling with a teacher, and two National Geographic staff members accompanied the group.  All perished.  But in November 2001, the then-mayor of Washington, D.C., in conjunction with the D.C. public schools, the Department of Parks and Recreation of Washington, D.C., the National Geographic Society, the Anacostia Watershed Society and the Earth Conservation Corp. turned the islands of Kingman and Heritage into sanctuaries in honor of the children and their adult companions.

The islands are located in the Anacostia River, which flows through D.C.

And then there was a close friend of Pastor Gregory Robeson Smith of New York's Mother A.M.E. Zion Church, whose sister was on vacation from her job at the Pentagon, but stopped in that morning to pick up some papers before meeting with her husband for lunch.  She never made it.

Marcy Borders too had a story to tell.  She had been working only one short month in a bank in one of the towers, when the planes hit.  She was led to the lobby of the second tower, where a photographer captured the image of her covered from head to toe in ash and cast in a strange yellowish light.

During the 10 years since the attack, Borders struggled with unchecked fear and paranoia, drug addiction and the inability to work a day.

In April, she checked into rehab, and is working to regain control of her life.

There is also Genelle Guzman-McMillan who laid trapped nearly 27 hours in the rubble of the towers.  She said she had an angelic encounter with a man named Paul, who grabbed her hand, called her name and said he was there for her.  Once she was freed, neither Guzman-McMillan nor anyone else was ever able to find Paul.

As she lay with her crushed leg awaiting help, the young New Yorker pledged to God, she would dedicate her life to him, if he rescued her.

She kept her promise by joining a church and travels the world telling her testimony through speaking and in her book "Angel in the Rubble."

Brent Watson literally walked away from his experience at Ground Zero with the same understanding that Guzman-McMillan had developed—life is not promised and must be lived to its fullest and with a profound reverence for God.

Watson, who was then an employee with Merrill Lynch, now Bank of America Merrill Lynch, had gone into work early for a company meeting in World Financial Center 2, a 43-story-high structure that was about 100 yards from the World Trade Center Towers.

"I was in our conference room (which seated about 200 people) that morning, when I heard this sound like a piece of heavy equipment had been dropped on the floor right outside of our conference room," recalled Watson.

"There was a former Army officer in our management at the time, and he started moving to investigate.  I said to myself, 'if he's moving, I'm moving . . . .' All my instincts started to kick in.

"Someone said a plane had hit one of the Twin Towers.  We assumed it was a single-engine plane or a helicopter because there had been a number of close calls with small planes."

"Then our risk manager came in, and I'll never forget her face.  She said we are evacuating the building."

Watson remembers that a ridiculously practical thought about refusing to wait for hours at the New York Department of Motor Vehicles for another license popped into his head.  So he went to his desk, retrieved his jacket, wallet, laptop and other personal belongings and headed for the exit.  He and his colleagues debated taking the stairs or the elevator, and decided on the elevators.

Had Watson taken the stairs, he like his son's godfather (who was also in the World Trade Center in 1993, when dynamite exploded in the garage, killing five and wounding at least 1,000), would have seen people falling from the towers.  Instead, he and others gathered in a plaza that was about 50 feet from his building and the Hudson River.

"We could see the building burning: white flames, jet fuel.  I said that building is not going to be able to sustain itself with that intense heat.  I could tell it was going to melt.  I felt it might tip over and fall toward us.  A few minutes later, here came the second plane.  It cut through almost like a knife.  That's when everybody scattered out of fear.  My spirit said to me, get as far away as you can."

Taking about five of his colleagues with him, Watson began walking toward the Westside.

"I kept telling them to stop looking back, and I talked to them about Sodom and Gomorrah.  After walking about 18 blocks, the group heard the first tower collapse.

Watson said he knew that the next thing that would happen would be F-16s arriving on the scene.

"Sure enough, shortly after the collapse, you could hear the F-16s traveling at mach [speed]. They were trying to see if another plane was coming."

Continuing to walk, Watson and his group arrived at Grand Central Station, but the trains were not running because of a bomb scare.  He decided not to try for a cab, because he said cabdrivers were gouging people and exploiting the situation by charging people $500 to get out of Manhattan.

Watson eventually ended up in Harlem at a relative's house after a four-and-a-half-hour walk. "Ain't no terrorists coming to Harlem," the wealth management adviser remembers thinking.  He also remembers a woman he encountered remarking that he looked like he could walk to Canada.

The 15-year financial veteran credits his strength to an inner spirit honed by a lifetime of growing up in the church and believing in God.

Watson described the first few days after Sept. 11 as a time of shock and questioning how you go on, particularly if you've lost someone close to you, and he had.

" . . A colleague of mine, who had spent time mentoring me, David Grady; he was trapped at the top in Windows of the World.  He was there for a breakfast appointment.  He only had enough time to call his father and wife to say goodbye.  His remains were never found.  We have a conference room in our company in his memory.  He always had inspirational things to say to me . . . he was one of those guys who believed in what Charlie Merrill said: 'Put your client's needs ahead of your needs, and you will be successful."

Rather than let himself be paralyzed and prevented from reaching full potential in a space where he knew that seeing a Black man working was rare, Watson said he decided to work harder doing things that benefited others.

But he also relied on conversations with members of the male chorus at his church, people in his investment club, a cousin who was a church deacon, discussions with pastors and his own personal relationship with God to sustain him.

"You focus on things bigger than yourself.  You dream big," Watson said.  In his case, he is also more aggressive toward things he wants to achieve.  "It's galvanized me to know that tomorrow is not promised and to not be afraid to go it alone."