‘Mayor of NE Portland’ Honored With Affordable Housing Building
The Paul & Geneva Knauls Building will provide wraparound services for military veterans.
On Steps of US Supreme Court, AG Rosenblum Rallies Abortion Rights Supporters
Speaking at an ACLU-organized rally on the steps of the United States Supreme Court this morning, Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum made an impassioned defense of abortion as essential healthcare, and of medication abortion as a key part of those healthcare rights. The rally coincided with arguments being presented inside the Supreme Court in the AHM (Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine) v. FDA (Food & Drug Administration) case.
Should College Essays Touch on Race? Some Feel the Affirmative Action Ruling Leaves Them No Choice
When the Supreme Court ended affirmative action, it left the college essay as one of few places where race can play a role in admissions decisions. Yet the added weight of the college essay has fallen unevenly on students of color, who often feel pressure to exploit their hardships as they compete for a spot on campus.
Bird Flu, Weather and Inflation Conspire to Keep Egg Prices Near Historic Highs for Easter
The cost of filling a basket or completing a Seder plate reflect a market scrambled by disease, high demand and growing costs for farmers. While global prices are lower than they were at this time last year, they remain elevated.
The Portland Art Museum presents Future Now: Virtual Sneakers to Cutting-Edge Kicks
Exhibition on view March 30 - August 11, 2024. Programs to include sneaker-focused Summer Camps and in-gallery activities ...
Portland Street Response Hosts Town Hall
PCCEP is seeking community input to help shape their recommendation in support of Portland Street Response. ...
Joint Center Responds to the U.S. House Office of Diversity and Inclusion Disbandment
This decision jeopardizes the establishment of policies to support diverse communities and threatens the pursuit of inclusivity for...
Bonamici, Kaine Praise Billion Dollar Increase for Child Care, Early Childhood Learning
Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR) and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) —members of the House Committee on Education and Workforce and the...
Portland Rose Festival 2024 Court Member from Benson Polytechnic High School Announced
The Rose Festival Princess from Benson Polytechnic High School, Laedyn Romero, was selected March 22. ...
California's commercial Dungeness crab season will end April 8 to protect whales
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The commercial Dungeness crab season in California will be curtailed to protect humpback whales from becoming entangled in trap and buoy lines, officials announced Thursday. The state Department of Fish and Wildlife said commercial crabbing will end April 8 for...
Oregon city can't limit church's homeless meal services, federal judge rules
BROOKINGS, Ore. (AP) — A federal judge has ruled that a southern Oregon city can't limit a local church's homeless meal services. U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Clarke found that an ordinance passed by the small city of Brookings, on the southern Oregon coast, violated the religious...
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. ...
COMMENTARY: Is a Cultural Shift on the Horizon?
As with all traditions in all cultures, it is up to the elders to pass down the rituals, food, language, and customs that identify a group. So, if your auntie, uncle, mom, and so on didn’t teach you how to play Spades, well, that’s a recipe lost. But...
A Full Court Press to Get the Lead Out
With a “goal of identifying and remediating lead hazards in at least 2,800 Lancaster County homes,” LG Health is setting an example for the private sector. And the Biden-Harris administration’s focus on environmental justice and access to clean and safe...
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...
Former US Sen. Joe Lieberman remembered at hometown funeral service
STAMFORD, Conn. (AP) — Political dignitaries, family and friends gathered Friday to honor the late Joe Lieberman at a funeral service in Stamford, Connecticut, the hometown of the four-term U.S. senator who grew up as the son of a liquor store owner and came within hundreds of votes of becoming...
Louis Gossett Jr., 1st Black man to win supporting actor Oscar, dies at 87
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Louis Gossett Jr., the first Black man to win a supporting actor Oscar and an Emmy winner for his role in the seminal TV miniseries “Roots,” has died. He was 87. Gossett's first cousin Neal L. Gossett told The Associated Press that the actor died in Santa...
Louis Gossett Jr., the first Black man to win the best supporting actor Oscar, dies at 87
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Louis Gossett Jr., the first Black man to win the best supporting actor Oscar, dies at 87....
How to make an Easter ham last all week
The beauty of making a baked ham for Easter (or any holiday or large gathering) is that there's bound to be leftovers. Leftover ham, which will last for up to five days in the fridge, can be a springboard for other meals during the week. Of course you’ll want a sandwich or two, but...
Book Review: 'Glorious Exploits' turns classical history into an endearing comedy about tragedy
Best friends Lampo and Gelon are potters by trade, but their souls are filled with poetry. It’s 412 B.C. and the city of Syracuse doesn’t know what hit it when these two hatch up the best worst idea: They’ll put on a play using the Athenian prisoners of war who are starving to death down in...
Willie Nelson's Fourth of July Picnic lands in the Philadelphia area for the first time
SPICEWOOD, Texas (AP) — Willie Nelson 's Fourth of July Picnic is two-stepping out of Texas to the Philadelphia area. The country luminary's mostly annual mega-concert, hosted in his native Texas for most of its 50-year-history, will be held for the first time in the Northeast this...
UN top court orders Israel to open more land crossings for aid into Gaza
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The top United Nations court on Thursday ordered Israel to take measures to...
Easter is March 31 this year. Here's why many Christians will wake up before sunrise to celebrate
On Easter morning, many Christians wake before dawn to celebrate their belief in the resurrection of Jesus, the...
The Moscow concert massacre was a major security blunder. What's behind that failure?
Hours before gunmen last week carried out the bloodiest attack in two decades in Russia, authorities made an...
A Filipino villager is nailed to a cross for the 35th time on Good Friday to pray for world peace
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A Filipino villager has been nailed to a wooden cross for the 35th time to reenact...
US-funded Radio Free Asia closes its Hong Kong bureau over safety concerns under new security law
HONG KONG (AP) — The president of U.S.-funded Radio Free Asia said on Friday that its Hong Kong bureau has been...
A Lebanese nun's request to pray for Hezbollah fighters highlights schisms over the group's weapons
BEIRUT (AP) — The nun stood in front of a group of young students at a Lebanese Christian school and asked them...
BALTIMORE (AP) — Rioters plunged part of Baltimore into chaos Monday, torching a pharmacy, setting police cars ablaze and throwing bricks at officers hours after thousands mourned the man who died from a severe spinal injury he suffered in police custody.
The governor declared a state of emergency and called in the National Guard to restore order — but authorities were still struggling to quell pockets of unrest after midnight.
The violence, which began in West Baltimore — within a mile of where Freddie Gray was arrested and pushed into a police van earlier this month — had by the end of the day spread to East Baltimore and neighborhoods close to downtown and near the baseball stadium.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch, in her first day on the job, said she would send Justice Department officials to the city in coming days. A weeklong, daily curfew was imposed beginning Tuesday from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m., the mayor said, and Baltimore public schools announced that they would be closed on Tuesday. At least 15 officers were hurt, including six who remained hospitalized late Monday, police said. Two dozen people were arrested.
Officers wearing helmets and wielding shields occasionally used pepper spray to keep the rioters back. For the most part, though, they relied on line formations to keep protesters at bay.
Monday's riot was the latest flare-up over the mysterious death of Freddie Gray, whose fatal encounter with officers came amid the national debate over police use of force, especially when black suspects are involved. Gray was African-American. Police have declined to specify the races of the six officers involved in his arrest, all of whom have been suspended with pay while they are under investigation.
But Gray's family said violence is not a way to honor him.
"I think the violence is wrong," Grays twin sister, Fredericka Gray, said late Monday. "I don't like it at all."
The attorney for Gray's family, Billy Murphy, said the family had hoped to organize a peace march later in the week.
Emergency officials were constantly thwarted as they tried to restore calm in the affected parts of the city of more than 620,000 people. Firefighters trying to put out a blaze at a CVS store were hindered by someone who sliced holes in a hose connected to a fire hydrant, spraying water all over the street and nearby buildings. Later Monday night, a massive fire erupted in East Baltimore that a spokesman for Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake initially said was connected to the riots. He later texted an AP reporter saying officials are still investigating whether there is a connection.
The Mary Harvin Transformation Center was under construction and no one was believed to be in the building at the time, said the spokesman, Kevin Harris. The center is described online as a community-based organization that supports youth and families.
Kevin Johnson, a 53-year-old resident of the area, said the building was to have been earmarked for the elderly. Donte Hickman, pastor of a Baptist church that has been helping to develop the center, shed tears as he led a group prayer near the firefighters who fought the blaze.
"My heart is broken because somebody obviously didn't understand that we were for the community, somebody didn't understand that we were working on behalf of the community to invest when nobody else would," he said.
Earlier Monday, the smell of burned rubber wafted in the air in one neighborhood where youths were looting a liquor store. Police stood still nearby as people drank looted alcohol. Glass and trash littered the streets, and other small fires were scattered about. One person from a church tried to shout something from a megaphone as two cars burned.
"Too many people have spent generations building up this city for it to be destroyed by thugs, who in a very senseless way, are trying to tear down what so many have fought for, tearing down businesses, tearing down and destroying property, things that we know will impact our community for years," said Rawlings-Blake, a lifelong resident of the city.
Police urged parents to locate their children and bring them home. Many of those on the streets appeared to be African-American youths, wearing backpacks and khaki pants that are a part of many public school uniforms.
The riot broke out just as high school let out, and at a key city bus depot for student commuters around Mondawmin Mall, a shopping area northwest of downtown Baltimore. It shifted about a mile away later to the heart of an older shopping district and near where Gray first encountered police. Both commercial areas are in African-American neighborhoods.
Later in the day, people began looting clothing and other items from stores at the mall, which became unprotected as police moved away from the area. About three dozen officers returned, trying to arrest looters but driving many away by firing pellet guns and rubber bullets.
Downtown Baltimore, the Inner Harbor tourist attractions and the city's baseball and football stadiums are nearly 4 miles away. While the violence had not yet reached City Hall and the Camden Yards area, the Orioles canceled Monday's game for safety precautions.
On Monday night, Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings and about 200 others, including ministers and mostly men, marched arm-in-arm through a neighborhood littered with broken glass, flattened aluminum cans and other debris, in an attempt to help calm the violent outbursts. As they got close to a line of police officers, the marchers went down on their knees. After the ministers got back on their feet, they walked until they were face-to-face with the police officers in a tight formation and wearing riot gear.
In a statement issued Monday, Attorney General Lynch said she would send Justice Department officials to the city in coming days, including Vanita Gupta, the agency's top civil rights lawyer. The FBI and Justice Department are investigating Gray's death for potential criminal civil rights violations.
Many who had never met Gray gathered earlier in the day in a Baltimore church to bid him farewell and press for more accountability among law enforcement.
The 2,500-capacity New Shiloh Baptist church was filled with mourners. But even the funeral could not ease mounting tensions.
Police said in a news release sent while the funeral was underway that the department had received a "credible threat" that three notoriously violent gangs are now working together to "take out" law enforcement officers.
Gray was arrested on April 12 after making eye contact with officers and then running away, police said. He was held down, handcuffed and loaded into a van without a seat belt. Leg cuffs were put on him when he became irate inside.
He asked for medical help several times even before being put in the van, but paramedics were not called until after a 30-minute ride. Police have acknowledged he should have received medical attention on the spot where he was arrested, but they have not said how his spine was injured. He died on April 19.
___
Associated Press writers Juliet Linderman and Jeff Horwitz contributed to this report.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.