12-10-2024  7:05 am   •   PDX and SEA Weather

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4

NORTHWEST NEWS

1803 Fund Will Invest £8 million in 11 Community Partners to Strengthen Black Portland

The 1803 Fund has announced it will invest £8 million in 11 community-based partners aimed at strengthening Black Portland. Founded in 2020, the investment fund aims to grow shared prosperity, through a mix of financial investments and investments in community-based organizations.

Social Worker, Housing Advocate Sworn In Early to Multnomah County Board

Shannon Singleton’s election victory was followed by a hectic two weeks. 

Q & A With Sen. Kayse Jama, New Oregon Senate Majority Leader

Jama becomes first Somali-American to lead the Oregon Senate Democrats.

Oregon Tribe Has Hunting and Fishing Rights Restored Under a Long-Sought Court Ruling

The tribe was among the dozens that lost federal recognition in the 1950s and ‘60s under a policy of assimilation known as “termination.” Congress voted to re-recognize the tribe in 1977. But to have their land restored, the tribe had to agree to a federal court order that limited their hunting, fishing and gathering rights. 

NEWS BRIEFS

Congress Honors Shirley Chisholm with Congressional Gold Medal for Trailblazing Legacy

In 1972, she made history as the first Black candidate and the first woman to seek the Democratic presidential nomination. ...

House Votes to Rename Post Office in Honor of Elijah Cummings

Elected to the Maryland House of Delegates in 1982, Cummings became the youngest chair of the Legislative Black Caucus and the first...

House Passes Bonamici Bill to Rename Post Office in Honor of Former Rep. Elizabeth Furse

Furse represented Oregon’s First Congressional District for three terms from 1993-1999 and established her legacy as a champion for...

Portland Parks & Recreation Wedding Reservations For Dates in 2025

In-person applications have priority starting Monday, January 6, at 8 a.m. ...

Grants up to $120,000 Educate About Local Environmental Projects

Application period for WA nonprofits open Jan. 7 ...

Oregon's Gabriel, Colorado's Hunter, Boise State’s Jeanty, Miami's Ward are named Heisman finalists

Oregon's Dillon Gabriel, Colorado's Travis Hunter, Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty and Miami's Cam Ward were announced as the Heisman Trophy finalists on Monday night. The Heisman has been given to the nation’s most outstanding college football player since 1935. This year’s winner...

News groups sue Idaho prison leader for increased witness access to lethal injection executions

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The Associated Press and two other news organizations are suing Idaho's top prison official for increased access to lethal injection executions, saying the state is unconstitutionally hiding the actual administration of the deadly drugs from public view. The AP,...

Purdue hires UNLV's Barry Odom as its next football coach

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Barry Odom is getting a second chance to put a Power Four program back to prominence. He can't wait. Purdue athletic director Mike Bobinski announced Sunday he had hired the 48-year-old Odom to replace Ryan Walters, who was fired last week after...

Tamar Bates scores 29 points to help Missouri beat No. 1 Kansas 76-67

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Tamar Bates had 29 points and five steals to help Missouri beat Hunter Dickinson and No. 1 Kansas 76-67 on Sunday. Mark Mitchell scored 17 points in Missouri’s first win over Kansas since a 74-71 victory on Feb. 4, 2012. Anthony Robinson II had 11 points and...

OPINION

OP-ED: The Future of American Education: A Call to Action

“Education is a non-negotiable priority. Parents and community leaders must work to safeguard the education system. The future of our children—and the fabric of our society—depends on advocating for policies that give every student the chance to...

A Loan Shark in Your Pocket: Cellphone Cash Advance Apps

Fast-growing app usage leaves many consumers worse off. ...

America’s Healing Can Start with Family Around the Holidays

With the holiday season approaching, it seems that our country could not be more divided. That division has been perhaps the main overarching topic of our national conversation in recent years. And it has taken root within many of our own families. ...

Donald Trump Rides Patriarchy Back to the White House

White male supremacy, which Trump ran on, continues to play an outsized role in exacerbating the divide that afflicts our nation. ...

AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE NEWS

Nikki Giovanni, poet and literary celebrity, has died at 81

NEW YORK (AP) — Nikki Giovanni, the poet, author, educator and public speaker who went from borrowing money to release her first book to spending decades as a literary celebrity who shared blunt and conversational takes on everything from racism and love to space travel and mortality, has died....

Descendant of last native leader of Alaska island demands Japanese reparations for 1942 invasion

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Helena Pagano's great-grandfather was the last Alaska Native chief of a remote island in the Bering Sea, closer to Russia than North America. He died starving as a prisoner of war after Japanese troops invaded during World War II, wresting the few dozen residents from...

Biden creates Native American boarding school national monument to mark era of forced assimilation

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — President Joe Biden designated a national monument at a former Native American boarding school in Pennsylvania on Monday to honor the resilience of Indigenous tribes whose children were forced to attend the school and hundreds of similar abusive institutions. ...

ENTERTAINMENT

Kendrick Lamar and SZA announce 2025 North American stadium tour

NEW YORK (AP) — “Not Like Us,” it's like them — Kendrick Lamar and SZA will hit the road together in 2025. On Tuesday morning, Lamar and SZA announced the Grand National Tour, which will hit 19 stadiums across North America next spring and summer. The news...

Sean Penn accuses Academy Awards of cowardice at Marrakech Film Festival

MARRAKECH, Morocco (AP) — Sean Penn on Tuesday blasted the organizers of the Oscars for being cowards who, in effect, limit the kinds of films that can be funded and made. The 64-year-old actor said at the Marrakech Film Festival that he gets excited about the Academy Awards only on...

Lauren Mayberry steps out of the band Chvrches for a solo album that shows her influences

NEW YORK (AP) — The birth of Lauren Mayberry as a solo artist should be marked by something like a wolf cry. And that's exactly what it sounds like. The vocalist and percussionist from the Scottish pop band Chvrches has punctuated her debut album with a playful howl while telling...

U.S. & WORLD NEWS

Syrian government services come to a 'complete halt' as state workers stay home after rebel takeover

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Syria's prime minister said Monday that most cabinet ministers were back at work after...

Trump promises to end birthright citizenship: What is it and could he do it?

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump has promised to end birthright citizenship as soon as he gets...

Veteran Daniel Penny is acquitted in NYC subway chokehold case over Jordan Neely's death

NEW YORK (AP) — A Marine veteran who used a chokehold on an agitated subway rider was acquitted on Monday in a...

Serbia's president says he won't flee his country like Syria's Assad did despite growing protests

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Serbia's president accused Tuesday foreign intelligence services of trying to unseat him...

France flies out 2 Mirage fighter jets from Chad to signal beginning of military withdrawal

PARIS (AP) — France flew out the two Mirage fighter jets it had stationed in Chad on Tuesday, signaling the...

Police in Kenya hurl tear gas at protesters angry about gender-based violence

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Police in Kenya’s capital hurled tear gas canisters Tuesday at hundreds of protesters...

Jethro Mullen and Michael Pearson CNN

(CNN) -- Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who spilled U.S. surveillance secrets to the world, is a "free man" biding his time in a Moscow airport, Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters Tuesday in Finland.

Putin said that Snowden, who flew to Moscow from Hong Kong on Sunday, remains in the "transit area" of Sheremetyevo International Airport -- the zone between arrival gates and Russia's passport control checkpoints.

"The sooner he selects his final destination point, the better both for us and for himself," Putin said of Snowden, who is wanted by U.S. officials on espionage charges for disclosing classified details of U.S. surveillance programs.

Putin's confirmation ends, for now at least, the international pastime of "Where's Snowden" and speculation that the former CIA worker and National Security Agency contractor had perhaps duped the world into thinking he was in Moscow to throw pursuers off his trail as he seeks a safe haven from U.S. prosecution.

Noting the United States and Russia do not have an extradition agreement, Putin said Snowden can't be turned over to U.S. authorities and has committed no crimes on Russian soil.

But he also said Russian security forces have not been "working with" Snowden and expressed hope that the incident would not "affect the cordial nature of our relations with the U.S."

A senior Obama administration official called Putin's comments "potentially positive" while reiterating hopes that Snowden would be expelled from Russia and returned to the United States.

Before Putin's statements, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov intimated Tuesday that Snowden was in the airport's transit area, saying the former contractor for Booz Allen Hamilton had not crossed Russia's borders.

Snowden left Hong Kong on Sunday after a couple weeks spent doling out details of classified U.S. intelligence programs to journalists.

With his passport revoked by U.S. officials, Snowden traveled out of the semi-autonomous Chinese territory on refugee papers issued by Ecuador, one of the countries from whom he is seeking asylum.

International tiff

His travels have sparked an international dust-up between the United States and Russia and China, with U.S. officials accusing China of making a "deliberate choice" to let Snowden go free and Russian authorities of failing to hand him over in a spirit of international cooperation.

On Tuesday, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman rejected the U.S. claims as "unreasonable," according to the official Xinhua news service.

"The accusation that the U.S. side made against the Central Government of China fell short of proof. The Chinese side will absolutely not accept it," spokeswoman Hua Chunying said.

In Moscow, Lavrov called the U.S. complaints "absolutely groundless and unacceptable."

"I want to say, right away, that we have nothing to do with Mr. Snowden, or his movements around the world," Lavrov said.

The White House is eager to avoid a repeat of what happened in Hong Kong, where authorities let Snowden leave despite a U.S. request for his arrest and extradition. Washington has described that move as a "serious setback" to building trust between the United States and China.

But the Obama administration doesn't have much leverage with Moscow, said Matthew Rojansky, an expert on U.S. and Russian national security at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

"We really need Russian cooperation, I think, much more in most areas than the Russians need us," he said.

U.S. diplomatic headache

Washington is also telling other countries where Snowden might end up -- notably Ecuador, which says it's analyzing an asylum request from Snowden -- that they should hand him over should he land on their soil. They note that his U.S. passport has been revoked.

"The U.S. is advising these governments that Mr. Snowden is wanted on felony charges and as such should not be allowed to proceed in any further international travel other than is necessary to return him here to the United States," Carney said.

But CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said the issue now "is much more of a political and diplomatic matter than it is a legal matter."

"In an ordinary case, sure, you need a passport to get around," Toobin said. "But here, where this case is causing increasing embarrassment for the United States, governments that want the United States to be embarrassed are only too happy to waive some of the technical legal rules."

The leak controversy

Snowden has acknowledged that he leaked classified documents about the NSA's surveillance programs to the Guardian newspaper in Britain and to The Washington Post.

The documents revealed the existence of programs that collect records of domestic telephone calls in the United States and monitor the Internet activity of overseas residents.

The disclosures shook the U.S. intelligence community and raised questions about whether the NSA is eroding American civil liberties.

Snowden worked as a Hawaii-based computer network administrator for Booz Allen Hamilton, an NSA contractor, before he fled to Hong Kong last month with laptops full of confidential information.

The South China Morning Post newspaper published a story Monday quoting Snowden as saying he took the job to gather evidence on U.S. surveillance programs.

He told the Guardian that he exposed the surveillance programs because they pose a threat to democracy, but administration officials said the programs are vital to preventing terrorist attacks and are overseen by all three branches of government.

Carney questioned Snowden's assertion that he acted in defense of democratic transparency, saying his argument "is belied by the protectors he has potentially chosen -- China, Russia, Ecuador."

"His failures to criticize these regimes suggests that his true motive throughout has been to injure the national security of the United States, not to advance Internet freedom and free speech," Carney told reporters.

Snowden's search

Snowden is seeking asylum from Ecuador, Iceland and other, unspecified countries, a WikiLeaks attorney said Monday.

Ecuador has already given WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange freedom if he can find a way out of the country's embassy in London.

In his aslyum request read by Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo, Snowden compared himself to Pvt. Bradley Manning, the U.S. soldier accused of leaking classified information through WikiLeaks.

He said U.S. officials have treated Manning inhumanely by holding him in solitary confinement, and he predicted a similar "cruel and unusual" fate for himself if he falls into U.S. hands.

Snowden has come under some criticism for seeking out help from nations with questionable histories on free speech and press freedom.

For instance, The Committee to Protect Journalists has criticized Correa's government for pushing legislation that would roll back press freedoms, calling its policies increasingly repressive.

Snowden isn't looking for "political nirvana," said Glenn Greenwald, the columnist for the Guardian who broke Snowden's revelations.

"He's searching for a place where he can be safe and remain free and participate in the debate, and Ecuador seems to be the place he has chosen," Greenwald told CNN's "The Lead."

CNN's Phil Black, Matt Smith, Catherine E. Shoichet, Jill Dougherty, Carol Cratty, Nic Robertson and Alla Eshchenko contributed to this report.

 

theskanner50yrs 250x300