04-19-2024  10:59 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 ...

The drug war devastated Black and other minority communities. Is marijuana legalization helping?

ARLINGTON, Wash. (AP) — When Washington state opened some of the nation's first legal marijuana stores in 2014, Sam Ward Jr. was on electronic home detention in Spokane, where he had been indicted on federal drug charges. He would soon be off to prison to serve the lion's share of a four-year...

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,...

Two-time world champ J’den Cox retires at US Olympic wrestling trials; 44-year-old reaches finals

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) — J’den Cox walked off the mat after dropping a 2-2 decision to Kollin Moore at the U.S. Olympic wrestling trials on Friday night, leaving his shoes behind to a standing ovation. The bronze medal winner at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016 was beaten by...

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...

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

The drug war devastated Black and other minority communities. Is marijuana legalization helping?

ARLINGTON, Wash. (AP) — When Washington state opened some of the nation's first legal marijuana stores in 2014, Sam Ward Jr. was on electronic home detention in Spokane, where he had been indicted on federal drug charges. He would soon be off to prison to serve the lion's share of a four-year...

Lawsuits under New York's new voting rights law reveal racial disenfranchisement even in blue states

FREEPORT, N.Y. (AP) — Weihua Yan had seen dramatic demographic changes since moving to Long Island's Nassau County. Its Asian American population alone had grown by 60% since the 2010 census. Why then, he wondered, did he not see anyone who looked like him on the county's local...

USC cancels graduation keynote by filmmaker amid controversy over decision to drop student's speech

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The University of Southern California further shook up its commencement plans Friday, announcing the cancelation of a keynote speech by filmmaker Jon M. Chu just days after making the controversial choice to disallow the student valedictorian from speaking. The...

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

The Latest | Opening statements in Trump hush money trial set for Monday after latest appeal fails

NEW YORK (AP) — Opening statements in Donald Trump's hush money case are set to begin next week after a jury of...

Final jurors seated for Trump's hush money case, with opening statements set for Monday

NEW YORK (AP) — The final jurors were seated Friday in Donald Trump’s hush money trial, and an appellate judge...

Not a toddler, not a parent, but still love 'Bluey'? You're not alone

PHOENIX (AP) — A small blue dog with an Australian accent has captured the hearts of people across the world. ...

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...

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...

Republican presidential candidates, from left, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., businessman Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush take the stage before the Fox Business Network Republican presidential debate at the North Charleston Coliseum, Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016, in North Charleston, S.C. (AP Photo/Rainier Ehrhardt)
JIM DRINKARD, CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ted Cruz stretched matters involving Iran and his own finances. Donald Trump seemed to forget he proposed a massive tax on Chinese goods. Chris Christie took a magic eraser to things he's said and Ben Carson was caught unaware of the punishing ways the Islamic State group says, Thank You for Not Smoking.
The first Republican debate of the new year brought a blizzard of dubious claims and some outright errors.
A look at some claims and how they compare with the facts:

CRUZ: "President Obama's preparing to send $100 billion or more to the Ayatollah Khamenei."
THE FACTS: Cruz makes it sound like the U.S. is bestowing the largest-ever foreign aid payment on longtime foe Iran. The reality is much more ordinary: A seven-nation nuclear deal commits Tehran to curbing its nuclear activities. In exchange, Iran regains access to about $100 billion of its own money that had been frozen under international sanctions.
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TRUMP on Syrian refugees: "When I look at the migration, I looked at the line, I said ... where are the women? It looked like very few women. Very few children. Strong, powerful men, young and people are looking at that and they're saying what's going on?"
THE FACTS: Apparently whatever Trump saw of the refugees wasn't complete. Of the 4.6 million Syrians identified by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees as humanitarian "persons of concern," men ages 18 to 59 make up 21.4 percent. The rest are women, children or people age 60 or older.
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JEB BUSH: "We need to move our embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to send a serious signal that we're back in the game with Israel."
THE FACTS: This political chestnut is the Energizer bunny of political promises, made by candidate after candidate over recent decades. But as long as Israel and the Palestinians remain in conflict over Jerusalem's status, the idea remains an issue in on-again, off-again peace talks and no president has been willing to follow through.
The promise has been made in various forms at least since Bill Clinton adopted it in "principle" in 1992. Congress three years later passed a law calling for the U.S. embassy to be moved to Jerusalem by 1999, but presidents of both parties always have waived the requirement. Bush's brother, George W. Bush, upped the ante when he promised in 2000 to start the move "as soon as I take office," then didn't.
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MARCO RUBIO: "Unfortunately, Gov. Christie has endorsed many of the ideas that Barack Obama supports," including "the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor" to the Supreme Court.
CHRISTIE: "Let's set the facts straight. First of all, I didn't support Sonia."
THE FACTS: Actually, he supported her appointment, despite reservations.
Christie's own statements when he was running for governor of New Jersey in 2009 show that while he wasn't crazy about Sotomayor as a Supreme Court justice, he wasn't dead set against her, either.
"After watching and listening to Judge Sotomayor's performance at the confirmation hearings this week, I am confident that she is qualified for the position," he said, arguing that Obama should be allowed to choose a nominee "who has more than proven her capability, competence and ability," adding, "I support her appointment."
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CARSON on pursuing Islamic State militants wherever they can be found: "Why should we let their people be sitting there smoking their cigars, sitting in their comfortable chairs in Raqqa?"
THE FACTS: Carson is not likely to find IS fighters lounging with cigars in Raqqa, their de facto capital in Syria. The group has imposed a strict smoking ban throughout its territory in Syria and Iraq. In fact, the militant group implements stiff fines for anyone caught smoking, and even more brutal punishments for those caught selling cigarettes, water pipes or anything that can be smoked, cigars included.
Also in the debate, Carson suggested Syrian refugees be allowed to settle in "al-Saqqa province, where they'll be in their own country."
But there is no such place. He probably meant al-Raqqa, or Raqqa. As an IS stronghold, it would not be much of a safe haven for people trying to flee the group.
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CHRISTIE, countering Rubio's criticisms for his past positions: "Common Core has been eliminated in New Jersey." ''I never wrote a check to Planned Parenthood."
THE FACTS: Common Core has not been eliminated in his state — far from it.
A panel Christie put together recommended a series of changes to state standards this week, but only recommended changes to 232 out of 1,427 standards in math and English. The panel also proposed renaming the standards the New Jersey Student Learning Standards. A separate Christie panel recommended the state continue using a Common Core-aligned test — and require it for graduation by 2021.
On Planned Parenthood, Christie's denial is at odds with a Sept. 30, 1994, Newark Star-Ledger story that quotes Christie as saying, "I support Planned Parenthood privately with my personal contribution, and that should be the goal of any such agency, to find private donations."
Christie was running for local office in Morris County, New Jersey, at the time. The same quote appeared again in a book, "Chris Christie: The Inside Story of his Rise to Power," a book with which Christie cooperated.
The original story was written by Star-Ledger reporter Brian Murray, who now works as a spokesman for Christie in the governor's office. On Tuesday, Christie said he was misquoted in the 1994 story.
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TRUMP, denying he told The New York Times he favored a 45 percent tax on Chinese goods: "That's wrong. They were wrong."
THE FACTS: Trump began wriggling out of his idea for a massive tax on Chinese goods soon after he told the paper last week that he would impose one and that "the tax should be 45 percent."
Several days later, he said the tariff could well be much less than that and might not be needed at all because China probably would start trading more fairly in order to avoid it. Now, he denies ever proposing 45 percent, despite his remarks on the record.
More broadly, China no longer appears to be the economic powerhouse portrayed by Trump. Its major stock market has had a rocky start in 2016 and its manufacturing sector began contracting last March as growth slowed, according to a purchasing manager index.
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CRUZ, asked about loans from two large banks totaling as much as $1 million that fueled his 2012 Senate campaign, said he and his wife "ended up investing everything we owned." He acknowledged his failure to disclose the loans to the Federal Election Commission, saying: "Yes I made a paperwork error."
THE FACTS: Cruz did, as he asserted, eventually disclose the loans in personal financial forms filed with the Senate. But citing a mere "paperwork error" in failing to report the loans to the FEC glossed over the fact that the law requires candidates to make such reports to the election regulators.
He also did not address the fact that a large chunk of the loans came from Goldman Sachs, where his wife works as an executive, and whether that might have made the loan possible.
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CRUZ, asked to explain his slam against Trump's "New York values," said, "not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan. I'm just sayin'."
THE FACTS: Cruz may dislike New Yorkers, but he's been willing to take a bundle of money from one of them. Wall Street hedge fund mogul Robert Mercer contributed $11 million in April to a Cruz-aligned super PAC, according to federal filings. And there's also that Goldman Sachs loan.
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CRUZ: Any country that makes U.S. service members get on their knees like the 10 sailors whose boats were boarded and seized by the Iranian military this week "will feel the full force and fury of the United States of America."
CHRISTIE: "Tin pot dictators ... are taking our Navy ships."
THE FACTS: Neither candidate addressed the fact that the short-lived crisis was created by the U.S. sailors who steered their boats into sovereign Iranian waters, where they were boarded and seized by Iranian naval forces. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Thursday that the U.S. sailors had made a navigation error.
Under such circumstances it would not be unusual to disarm members of a foreign military force — even a small one like the two Navy boats — and hold them temporarily for questioning. What was exceptional about this episode — and perhaps a provocation — is that the Iranians videotaped the Americans during the encounter and posted the images on the Internet.
The suggestion by Cruz that he would have launched a military attack on Iran in response to such an incident is hard to square with accepted international tests for the use of force.
Iran returned the sailors unharmed and their boats undamaged.
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Associated Press writers Josh Cornfield in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, Jill Colvin in Des Moines, Iowa, and Vivian Salama, Chad Day, Josh Boak, Robert Burns and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

The Skanner Foundation's 38th Annual MLK Breakfast