05-14-2024  6:38 am   •   PDX and SEA Weather
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NORTHWEST NEWS

Portland OKs New Homeless Camping Rules That Threaten Fines or Jail in Some Cases

The mayor's office says it seeks to comply with a state law requiring cities to have “objectively reasonable” restrictions on camping.

Safety Lapses Contributed to Patient Assaults at Oregon State Hospital

A federal report says safety lapses at the Oregon State Hospital contributed to recent patient-on-patient assaults. The report by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services investigated a recent choking attack and sexual assault, among other incidents. It found that staff didn't always adequately supervise their patients, and that the hospital didn't fully investigate the incidents. In a statement, the hospital said it was dedicated to its patients and working to improve conditions. It has 10 days from receiving the report to submit a plan of correction. The hospital is Oregon's most secure inpatient psychiatric facility

Police Detain Driver Who Accelerated Toward Protesters at Portland State University in Oregon

The Portland Police Bureau said in a written statement late Thursday afternoon that the man was taken to a hospital on a police mental health hold. They did not release his name. The vehicle appeared to accelerate from a stop toward the crowd but braked before it reached anyone. 

Portland Government Will Change On Jan. 1. The City’s Transition Team Explains What We Can Expect.

‘It’s a learning curve that everyone has to be intentional about‘

NEWS BRIEFS

Governor Kotek Issues Statement on Role of First Spouse

"I take responsibility for not being more thoughtful in my approach to exploring the role of the First Spouse." ...

Legislature Makes Major Investments to Increase Housing Affordability and Expand Treatment in Multnomah County

Over million in new funding will help build a behavioral health drop in center, expand violence prevention programs, and...

Poor People’s Campaign and National Partners Announce, “Mass Poor People’s and Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly and Moral March on Washington, D.C. and to the Polls” Ahead of 2024 Elections

Scheduled for June 29th, the “Mass Poor People’s and Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly and Moral March on Washington, D.C.: A Call to...

Legendary Civil Rights Leader Medgar Wiley Evers Receives Presidential Medal of Freedom

Evers family overwhelmed with gratitude after Biden announces highest civilian honor. ...

April 30 is the Registration Deadline for the May Primary Election

Voters can register or update their registration online at OregonVotes.gov until 11:59 p.m. on April 30. ...

Who's laughing? LateNighter, a digital news site about late-night TV, hopes to buck media trends

NEW YORK (AP) — At first glance, Jed Rosenzweig's new venture would seem like a fool's errand: launching a digital news site during brutal economic times for the media to cover an industry that, by traditional measures, is waning in influence. That didn't dissuade him. LateNighter,...

No criminal charges in rare liquor probe at Oregon alcohol agency, state report says

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Criminal charges are not warranted in the rare liquor probe that shook Oregon’s alcohol agency last year and forced its executive director to resign, state justice officials said Monday. In February 2023, the Oregon Department of Justice began investigating...

Defending national champion LSU boosts its postseason hopes with series win against Texas A&M

With two weeks left in the regular season, LSU is scrambling to avoid becoming the third straight defending national champion to miss the NCAA Tournament. The Tigers (31-18, 9-15) won two of three against then-No. 1 Texas A&M to take a giant step over the weekend, but they...

The Bo Nix era begins in Denver, and the Broncos also drafted his top target at Oregon

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (AP) — For the first time in his 17 seasons as a coach, Sean Payton has a rookie quarterback to nurture. Payton's Denver Broncos took Bo Nix in the first round of the NFL draft. The coach then helped out both himself and Nix by moving up to draft his new QB's top...

OPINION

The Skanner News May 2024 Primary Endorsements

Read The Skanner News endorsements and vote today. Candidates for mayor and city council will appear on the November general election ballot. ...

Nation’s Growing Racial and Gender Wealth Gaps Need Policy Reform

Never-married Black women have 8 cents in wealth for every dollar held by while males. ...

New White House Plan Could Reduce or Eliminate Accumulated Interest for 30 Million Student Loan Borrowers

Multiple recent announcements from the Biden administration offer new hope for the 43.2 million borrowers hoping to get relief from the onerous burden of a collective

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...

AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE NEWS

Takeaways from AP investigation into police training on the risks of handcuffing someone facedown

For decades, police across the United States have been warned that the common tactic of handcuffing someone facedown could turn deadly if officers pin them on the ground with too much pressure or for too long. Recommendations first made by major departments and police associations...

Risks of handcuffing someone facedown long known; people die when police training fails to keep up

For decades, police across the United States have been warned that the common tactic of handcuffing someone facedown could turn deadly if officers pin them on the ground with too much pressure or for too long. Recommendations first made by major departments and police associations...

AP Investigation: In hundreds of deadly police encounters, officers broke multiple safety guidelines

In hundreds of deaths where police used force meant to stop someone without killing them, officers violated well-known guidelines for safely restraining and subduing people — not simply once or twice, but multiple times. Most violations involved pinning people facedown in ways that...

ENTERTAINMENT

Doug Liman, Matt Damon and the Afflecks made a heist comedy for Apple. 'The Instigators'

Filmmaker Doug Liman realized quickly he wasn't on his home turf anymore. Matt Damon, who he’d directed in “The Bourne Identity” over 20 years ago, had recruited Liman for his new movie “The Instigators,” an action-comedy about a heist gone wrong. Though two decades of...

Book Review: Coming-of-age meets quarter-life crisis in Fiona Warnick's ambitious debut 'The Skunks'

Usually when I see a book described as an “ambitious debut” I read it as a cop-out. Isn’t a debut inherently ambitious? What does that even mean? “The Skunks” is what that means. And Fiona Warnick makes it look effortless. A coming-of-age novel with a...

Police investigating shooting outside Drake's mansion that left security guard wounded

TORONTO (AP) — Police are investigating a shooting outside rapper Drake's mansion in Toronto that left a security guard seriously wounded. Authorities did not confirm whether Drake was at home at the time of the shooting, but said his team is cooperating. The shooting happened...

U.S. & WORLD NEWS

Dispute over transgender woman admitted to Wyoming sorority to be argued before appeal judges

DENVER (AP) — A U.S. appeals court in Denver is set to hear arguments Tuesday in a lawsuit brought by six...

Primaries in Maryland and West Virginia will shape the battle this fall for a Senate majority

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Voters across Maryland and West Virginia will decide key primary elections Tuesday with...

Takeaways from AP investigation into police training on the risks of handcuffing someone facedown

For decades, police across the United States have been warned that the common tactic of handcuffing someone...

Indonesian rescuers search through rivers and rubble after flash floods that killed at least 52

TANAH DATAR, Indonesia (AP) — Rescuers on Tuesday searched in rivers and the rubble of devastated villages for...

A town in western Canada prepares for a possible 'last stand' as wildfires rage in British Columbia

FORT NELSON, British Columbia (AP) — An intense wildfire could reach a town in western Canada this week, fire...

A monarchy reform activist in Thailand dies in detention after months of a hunger strike

BANGKOK (AP) — A young Thai activist who went on a hunger strike after being jailed for advocating reform of the...

By CALVIN WOODWARD and JOSH BOAK

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump is displaying a spotty memory about his past views on foreign policy.

Just as he claimed to have loudly opposed the Iraq invasion before it happened, which he didn't, Trump claimed in the latest Republican presidential debate that he never called for U.S. intervention in Libya, which he did.

Some claims made in the Thursday's debate and how they stack up against the facts:

TED CRUZ: Trump "agreed with the Obama-Clinton policy of toppling the government in Libya. That was a disaster. It gave the country over to radical Islamic terrorism and it endangered America."
TRUMP: "He said I was in favor of Libya? I never discussed that subject. I was in favor of Libya? We would be so much better off if Gadhafi were in charge right now."

THE FACTS: He actually argued on numerous occasions, and fervently so, that the U.S. should intervene to stop a humanitarian disaster in Libya. He said the U.S. would have a "major black eye" if it didn't take out Moammar Gadhafi, the autocratic leader.

In a February 2011 video captured on BuzzFeed not long before the U.S. and NATO stepped in, he said, "Gadhafi in Libya is killing thousands of people, nobody knows how bad it is.

"And we're sitting around, we have soldiers all over the Middle East, and we're not bringing them in to stop this horrible carnage. And that's what it is. ... We should go in, we should stop this guy, which would be very easy and very quick, we could do it surgically. ... This is absolutely nuts, we don't want to get involved."

True to his business principles, Trump proposed sending Libya's successor government a bill for the U.S. intervention: "From your oil, we want reimbursement."

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CRUZ: "The Obama-Clinton economy has done enormous damage to the Hispanic community."

THE FACTS: The bursting of the housing bubble in late 2007 is what really damaged the Hispanic community, before Barack Obama took office.

Under Obama, Hispanics have made strides from the depths of the Great Recession. Their unemployment rate is 5.9 percent. The rate is above the national average of 4.9 percent, but it's well below the 2009 peak of 13 percent.

Hispanics have gained 5 million jobs under Obama, a 25 percent increase since 2009. Under George W. Bush, there was a 21 percent growth of 3.45 million jobs.

But there is one key area where Hispanics are struggling to recover: Median income for that group was $28,757 in 2014, about $1,644 less than in 2007 after adjusting for inflation.

Cruz exaggerates when calling it the Obama-Clinton economy. Hillary Clinton was his secretary of state with little or no influence on his economic policy.

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MARCO RUBIO: "It is a health care law that is basically forcing companies to lay people off, cut people's hours, move people to part-time. It is not just a bad health care law, it is a job-killing law."

THE FACTS: The claim that Obama's health care law is a job-killer is hard to square with the fact that the economy has added more than 13.4 million jobs since the law took effect. The unemployment rate has fallen to 4.9 percent from 9.9 percent since Obama signed the act.

Nor is there evidence that workers are being moved en masse to part-time hours. The number of part-time workers has actually fallen slightly since the health care law was passed: There were 27.6 million part-timers working in March 2010, and there are 26.3 million now.

To be sure, about 6 million of those with part-time jobs would prefer full-time work but have been unable to find it. That figure has declined steadily from 9 million since the Great Recession ended in June 2009, though it is still high.

The persistence of "involuntary" part-time employment has led many economists to worry that it could be a long-term problem, but they disagree on whether the health care overhaul is the root cause of that.

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TRUMP on coarse language used by former Mexican President Vicente Fox over Trump's proposal to make Mexico pay for a fortress-like wall along the border: "I saw him use the word that he used. I can only tell you, if I would have used even half of that word, it would have been national scandal. This guy used a filthy, disgusting word on television, and he should be ashamed of himself, and he should apologize, OK?"

THE FACTS: At issue, it must be said, is the F-bomb. Fox dropped it when denouncing Trump's plans for the wall.

Trump, meantime, has run a profanity-laced campaign, blurted out the S-word on multiple occasions and used an offensive term for coward against rival Ted Cruz.

But what about THAT bomb?

At a rally in New Hampshire, he declared: "We're not going to let Mexico steal all our businesses. ... We're going to bring business back. ... And you can tell them to go" — pausing — "themselves because they let you down, and they left."

He didn't say the word. He mouthed it.

And Trump used the word loudly and several times in a 2011 Nevada speech before he was a candidate.

___

RUBIO: Repeats a flawed claim to have wiped out an insurance "bailout" in President Barack Obama's health care law. "When they passed Obamacare they put a bailout fund in Obamacare ... we led the effort and wiped out that bailout fund."

THE FACTS: Rubio was a vocal opponent of the "bailout." But Republicans weren't able to wipe it out — just to limit it. And other GOP lawmakers say Rubio did not engineer the maneuver.

At issue is a part of the health care law called "risk corridors," intended to compensate insurers that signed up sicker-than-expected patients under the health care law, incurring high costs. The government could pay just 13 percent of risk-corridor claims last year because of lower-than-expected fees paid by insurers who were doing well financially. Congressional Republicans barred the administration from using taxpayer dollars to make up the difference, but Rubio wasn't responsible for that move.

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TRUMP: Challenged by former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney to release his tax returns, he said, "I will absolutely give my return, but I'm being audited now for two or three years, so I can't do it until the audit is finished, obviously." He further said that he's been audited for "12 years, or something like that. Every year they audit me, audit me, audit me."

THE FACTS: It was the first time Trump has mentioned audits as a reason to delay releasing his returns — after saying over the last several weeks he planned to make them public soon.

But in any event, no level of scrutiny prevents him from making his returns public, said Joseph Thorndike, a tax law professor and contributing editor to Tax Analysts, an industry publication.

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TRUMP: Criticizing Romney for delaying filing his own tax returns, said, "Mitt Romney looked like a fool when he delayed and delayed and delayed ... And Mitt Romney didn't file his return until September 21st of 2012, about a month and a half before the election. And it cost him big league."

THE FACTS: Trump is wrong. Romney released his 2010 tax returns and 2011 tax estimates in January of 2012, earlier in the election season than any of the current leading Republican candidates have offered comparably recent information. But Romney continued to face scrutiny over his reluctance to produce filings from earlier years, and released additional tax information during the general election campaign.

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RUBIO: Trump "hired workers from Poland. And he had to pay a million dollars or so in a judgment."

TRUMP: "That's wrong. That's wrong. Totally wrong."

THE FACTS: Rubio is at least partially correct. A labor union sued Trump in 1983 over his use of Polish immigrants in the country illegally who had been hired to help with demolition on property that would become Trump Tower. The lawsuit claimed the 200 workers had poor job conditions and were owed back pay.

The union sought about $1 million in payments to its pension fund it claimed he avoided by hiring the immigrant workers, according to a New York Times report of the case in 1990. Trump denied knowing that the workers were in the country illegally or details of their working conditions, but according to news reports a judge concluded he had known. The case was settled in 1999 and court records were sealed.

At the time, it wasn't the legal responsibility of employers to check on workers' legal status before hiring them.

The Skanner Foundation's 38th Annual MLK Breakfast