04-19-2024  1:16 pm   •   PDX and SEA Weather
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NORTHWEST NEWS

Don’t Shoot Portland, University of Oregon Team Up for Black Narratives, Memory

The yearly Memory Work for Black Lives Plenary shows the power of preservation.

Grants Pass Anti-Camping Laws Head to Supreme Court

Grants Pass in southern Oregon has become the unlikely face of the nation’s homelessness crisis as its case over anti-camping laws goes to the U.S. Supreme Court scheduled for April 22. The case has broad implications for cities, including whether they can fine or jail people for camping in public. Since 2020, court orders have barred Grants Pass from enforcing its anti-camping laws. Now, the city is asking the justices to review lower court rulings it says has prevented it from addressing the city's homelessness crisis. Rights groups say people shouldn’t be punished for lacking housing.

Four Ballot Measures for Portland Voters to Consider

Proposals from the city, PPS, Metro and Urban Flood Safety & Water Quality District.

Washington Gun Store Sold Hundreds of High-Capacity Ammunition Magazines in 90 Minutes Without Ban

KGW-TV reports Wally Wentz, owner of Gator’s Custom Guns in Kelso, described Monday as “magazine day” at his store. Wentz is behind the court challenge to Washington’s high-capacity magazine ban, with the help of the Silent Majority Foundation in eastern Washington.

NEWS BRIEFS

Governor Kotek Announces Chief of Staff, New Office Leadership

Governor expands executive team and names new Housing and Homelessness Initiative Director ...

Governor Kotek Announces Investment in New CHIPS Child Care Fund

5 Million dollars from Oregon CHIPS Act to be allocated to new Child Care Fund ...

Bank Announces 14th Annual “I Got Bank” Contest for Youth in Celebration of National Financial Literacy Month

The nation’s largest Black-owned bank will choose ten winners and award each a $1,000 savings account ...

Literary Arts Transforms Historic Central Eastside Building Into New Headquarters

The new 14,000-square-foot literary center will serve as a community and cultural hub with a bookstore, café, classroom, and event...

Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Announces New Partnership with the University of Oxford

Tony Bishop initiated the CBCF Alumni Scholarship to empower young Black scholars and dismantle financial barriers ...

Firefighters douse a blaze at a historic Oregon hotel famously featured in 'The Shining'

GOVERNMENT CAMP, Ore. (AP) — Firefighters doused a late-night fire at Oregon's historic Timberline Lodge — featured in Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film “The Shining” — before it caused significant damage. The fire Thursday night was confined to the roof and attic of the lodge,...

Idaho's ban on youth gender-affirming care has families desperately scrambling for solutions

Forced to hide her true self, Joe Horras’ transgender daughter struggled with depression and anxiety until three years ago, when she began to take medication to block the onset of puberty. The gender-affirming treatment helped the now-16-year-old find happiness again, her father said. ...

University of Missouri plans 0 million renovation of Memorial Stadium

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — The University of Missouri is planning a 0 million renovation of Memorial Stadium. The Memorial Stadium Improvements Project, expected to be completed by the 2026 season, will further enclose the north end of the stadium and add a variety of new premium...

The sons of several former NFL stars are ready to carve their path into the league through the draft

Jeremiah Trotter Jr. wears his dad’s No. 54, plays the same position and celebrates sacks and big tackles with the same signature axe swing. Now, he’s ready to make a name for himself in the NFL. So are several top prospects who play the same positions their fathers played in the...

OPINION

Op-Ed: Why MAGA Policies Are Detrimental to Black Communities

NNPA NEWSWIRE – MAGA proponents peddle baseless claims of widespread voter fraud to justify voter suppression tactics that disproportionately target Black voters. From restrictive voter ID laws to purging voter rolls to limiting early voting hours, these...

Loving and Embracing the Differences in Our Youngest Learners

Yet our responsibility to all parents and society at large means we must do more to share insights, especially with underserved and under-resourced communities. ...

Gallup Finds Black Generational Divide on Affirmative Action

Each spring, many aspiring students and their families begin receiving college acceptance letters and offers of financial aid packages. This year’s college decisions will add yet another consideration: the effects of a 2023 Supreme Court, 6-3 ruling that...

OP-ED: Embracing Black Men’s Voices: Rebuilding Trust and Unity in the Democratic Party

The decision of many Black men to disengage from the Democratic Party is rooted in a complex interplay of historical disenchantment, unmet promises, and a sense of disillusionment with the political establishment. ...

AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE NEWS

Attorneys argue that Florida law discriminates against Chinese nationals trying to buy homes

An attorney asked a federal appeals court on Friday to block a controversial Florida law signed last year that restricts Chinese citizens from buying real estate in much of the state, calling it discriminatory and a violation of the federal government's supremacy in deciding foreign affairs. ...

Mississippi legislators won't smooth the path this year to restore voting rights after some felonies

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Kenneth Almons says he began a sentence in a Mississippi prison just two weeks after graduating from high school, and one of his felony convictions — for armed robbery — stripped away voting rights that he still has not regained decades later. Now 51,...

Chicago's response to migrant influx stirs longstanding frustrations among Black residents

CHICAGO (AP) — The closure of Wadsworth Elementary School in 2013 was a blow to residents of the majority-Black neighborhood it served, symbolizing a city indifferent to their interests. So when the city reopened Wadsworth last year to shelter hundreds of migrants, without seeking...

ENTERTAINMENT

Celebrity birthdays for the week of April 21-27

Celebrity birthdays for the week of April 21-27: April 21: Actor Elaine May is 92. Singer Iggy Pop is 77. Actor Patti LuPone is 75. Actor Tony Danza is 73. Actor James Morrison (“24”) is 70. Actor Andie MacDowell is 66. Singer Robert Smith of The Cure is 65. Guitarist Michael...

What to stream this weekend: Conan O’Brien travels, 'Migration' soars and Taylor Swift reigns

Zack Snyder’s “Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver” landing on Netflix and Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department” album are some of the new television, movies, music and games headed to a device near you. Also among the streaming offerings worth your time as...

Music Review: Jazz pianist Fred Hersch creates subdued, lovely colors on 'Silent, Listening'

Jazz pianist Fred Hersch fully embraces the freedom that comes with improvisation on his solo album “Silent, Listening,” spontaneously composing and performing tunes that are often without melody, meter or form. Listening to them can be challenging and rewarding. The many-time...

U.S. & WORLD NEWS

Soldiers who lost limbs in Gaza fighting are finding healing on Israel's amputee soccer team

RAMAT GAN, Israel (AP) — When Ben Binyamin was left for dead, his right leg blown off during the Hamas attack on...

The Latest | Iran says air defense batteries fire after explosions reported near major air base

Iran fired air defense batteries Friday reports of explosions near a major air base at the city of Isfahan, the...

Indians vote in the first phase of the world's largest election as Modi seeks a third term

NEW DELHI (AP) — Millions of Indians began voting on Friday in a six-week election that's a referendum on...

The West African Sahel is becoming a drug smuggling corridor, UN warns, as seizures skyrocket

NIAMEY, Niger (AP) — Drug seizures soared in the West African Sahel region according to figures released Friday...

5 Japanese workers in Pakistan escape suicide blast targeting their van. A Pakistani bystander dies

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) — A suicide bomber targeted a van carrying Japanese nationals in Pakistan's port city of...

A trial is underway for the Panama Papers, a case that changed the country's financial rules

PANAMA CITY (AP) — Eight years after 11 million leaked secret financial documents revealed how some of the...

Samaria Rice, center, the mother of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old boy fatally shot by a Cleveland police officer, watches the video of Tamir's shooting during a news-conference in Cleveland. Attorney Benjamin Crump, left, and attorneys Walter Madison, right, watch. Attorneys for the family of Tamir Rice have asked a prosecutor to allow their use-of-force experts to testify before the grand jury. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak, File)
MARK GILLISPIE, Associated Press

CLEVELAND (AP) — Prosecutors in Ohio on Saturday released a frame-by-frame analysis of the surveillance camera footage first made public a year ago that shows a white Cleveland police officer fatally shooting a black 12-year-old boy who had a pellet gun.

The additional images taken from surveillance video at a recreation center where Tamir Rice was shot and killed don't appear to contain any new or substantive information. The new footage was released in the "spirit of openness," said Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty.

The analysis also doesn't show whether Tamir, as police officials have maintained, was reaching into his waistband for the pellet gun when then-rookie patrolman Timothy Loehmann shot him less than two seconds after getting out of the car.

The enhancement by a video expert will be presented to a grand jury that will decide if Loehmann or his field training officer should be charged criminally for Tamir's death. Loehmann shot Tamir outside Cudell Recreation Center on Nov. 22, 2014.

Saturday's release of the enhancement comes the same day that attorneys for the boy's family asked the prosecutor to allow their use-of-force experts to testify before the grand jury. The request follows the release of reports by use-of-force experts hired by prosecutors that concluded the shooting was justified because the officers had no way of knowing that Tamir's pellet gun wasn't a real firearm.

Loehmann and Frank Garmback were sent to a Cleveland recreation center after a man called 911 to report that a man was waving a gun and pointing it at people. The caller told the dispatcher that the gun might not be real. The call also said the man might be a juvenile, but that information wasn't passed on to the officers.

In a letter to Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty dated Friday, attorneys for the Rice family reiterated their demand that McGinty step aside and allow a special prosecutor to take over the case. The letter called the prosecutor's presentation to the grand jury "biased" and "improper" after the release of three expert reports that called the shooting justified. The grand jury began hearing evidence about the shooting five weeks ago.

The use-of-force experts hired by the Rice family "strenuously disagreed with the conclusions of your so-called experts who concluded the shooting of Tamir Rice was reasonable and justified," the letter said.

A spokesman for McGinty said Saturday that there will be discussions with the Rice family attorneys about allowing their experts to testify before the grand jury.

The family's experts said bad police tactics led to Tamir's death. Roger Carr, a consultant from Santee, California, noted in his report that Loehmann's training officer, patrolman Frank Garmback, should have stopped the cruiser a distance away from Tamir to give the officers time to assess the situation.

"The officers created the alleged danger here," Carr wrote in his report.

Carr criticized the prosecutors' experts for assuming that Loehmann warned Tamir to raise his hands before he shot him, which a Cleveland deputy chief told reporters shortly after the shooting. Investigators from the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Office noted in a report that there was no evidence Loehmann shouted anything.

Jeffrey Noble, the family's other California-based expert, noted in his report that the "reckless tactical decision" by Garmback and Loehmann to stop so close to the boy "directly led to Tamir's death."

Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The Skanner Foundation's 38th Annual MLK Breakfast