04-20-2024  4:36 am   •   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

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...

The NBA playoffs are finally here. And as LeBron James says, 'it's a sprint now'

There’s a 64-win team in Boston that ran away with the league’s best record. The defending champions in...

Record Store Day celebrates indie retail music sellers as they ride vinyl's popularity wave

PHOENIX (AP) — Special LP releases, live performances and at least one giant block party are scheduled around...

Seeking 'the right side of history,' Speaker Mike Johnson risks his job to deliver aid to Ukraine

WASHINGTON (AP) — Staring down a decision so consequential it could alter the course of history -- but also end...

As Russia edges toward a possible offensive on Kharkiv, some residents flee. Others refuse to leave

KHARKIV, Ukraine (AP) — A 79-year-old woman makes the sign of the cross and, gripping her cane, leaves her home...

Panama Papers trial's public portion comes to an unexpectedly speedy end

PANAMA CITY (AP) — The public portion of a trial of more than two-dozen associates accused of helping some of...

By Ed Payne CNN




Authorities expect to file charges Wednesday against the three men arrested following the dramatic discovery of a trio of missing women who police say had been held captive for close to a decade.


An administrative judge granted police an extension of the city's usual 36-hour window to charge suspects, giving them until Wednesday evening to charge Ariel Castro, 52, who lived in the home where the women were found, and his brothers, 54-year-old Pedro Castro and 50-year-old Onil Castro, police Det. Jennifer Ciaccia said Tuesday.



Police arrested the three brothers Monday night after one of the women, 27-year-old Amanda Berry, staged a daring escape with the aid of a neighbor. In addition to Berry and a 6-year-old daughter apparently born to her during her captivity, police say Georgina "Gina" DeJesus, 23, and Michelle Knight, 32, also were freed.



The three women disappeared from the same Cleveland street -- Lorain Avenue -- between 2002 and 2004.



The Castro brothers had not been questioned by police as of Tuesday night, Ciaccia said.



Meanwhile, the women were reuniting with family members they had not seen in nearly 10 years.



"I love you honey, thank God," Berry's tearful grandmother Fern Gentry could be heard telling the young woman in a telephone call recorded by CNN affiliate WJHL. "... I've thought about you all this time. I never forgot about you."



Berry sounded upbeat -- telling Gentry that she felt "fine" and that the 6-year-old girl also rescued Monday from the Cleveland home is indeed her own.



At the home of 23-year-old Georgina "Gina" DeJesus, balloons dotted the front yard. Also present: a sign that was first hung on a fence outside the home when Gina was first reported missing nine years ago.



Her 32-year-old sister, Mayra DeJesus, told CNN's Poppy Harlow Tuesday that Gina -- for all the hell she's gone through -- is in "good spirits."



DeJesus spent the day with family, who didn't focus on what she'd gone through but more on lifting her up, her sister said.



Fewer details have emerged about Knight.



Her mother, Barbara Knight, told NBC Wednesday that she had not yet spoken to her daughter, but believed that her sons -- Michelle's brothers -- had.



"She's probably angry at the world because she thought she would never be found but thank God that somebody did," Knight told NBC.



When asked what she would say to her daughter, she said, "I love you and I missed you all this time."



Police say Berry, Knight and DeJesus were being held in a home just three miles from the area where they were abducted.



They escaped after Berry broke out the bottom of a screen door and called for help Monday evening, startling neighbor Charles Ramsey, who came over and helped kick in the door.



"I've been kidnapped, and I've been missing for 10 years," the 27-year-old woman said in a frantic 911 call. "And I'm here. I'm free now."



Some neighbors of Ariel Castro spent Tuesday second-guessing themselves, questioning why they hadn't noticed signs earlier and if they could have prevented the horrors.



"This is a heartbreaking moment for us, because I'm always out there (and) I've heard nothing," said Daniel Marti, who's known Ariel Castro since junior high school and lived near him for some 22 years.



"... To us, it was like nothing was happening. But yet it was happening, right in front of our face and we didn't even know."



'He didn't want nobody back there'



The predominantly Latino neighborhood, made up mostly of two-story frame homes, sits within sight of downtown. The gentrification that has spiffed up districts on either end hasn't extended to the blocks around Castro's home, where a number of houses are boarded up. But the churches in the neighborhood still ring the bells in their steeples, and the neighbors say they look out for one another.



Authorities and several neighbors say they had no prior indication anything suspicious was going on at the nondescript home on Seymour Avenue, where a Puerto Rican flag hung from the porch.



But after Monday's discovery, they reflected back and noticed things that, in retrospect, might have signaled something awry.



Marti, for one, asked himself why he didn't question why Castro -- who, he thought, lived alone -- would return each day with bags of McDonald's food, or who would watch the little girl he occasionally took outside. He also recalled how Castro seemed to steer him away from the house when they talked: "Now that I think of it, he didn't want nobody back there."



Another neighbor, Israel Lugo, said he saw Castro at the park Sunday with a little girl and asked who she was: "He said it was his girlfriend's daughter."



Lugo said his sister got a bad vibe from the house and asked him not to let the children play unsupervised nearby. He said he heard yelling in the house in November 2011 and called police to investigate, but they left after no one answered the door.



And Nina Samoylicz, who lives nearby, said she called police about two years ago after spotting a naked woman in the backyard of Castro's house. Samoylicz said when she called out to the woman, a man told the woman to get in the house, then ran in himself.



"She was just walking around and naked," Samoylicz said. "We thought that was weird. We thought it was funny at first, and then we thought that was weird, so we called the cops. They thought we was playing, joking, they didn't believe us."



She said she had also seen tarps covering the backyard.



But Sgt. Sammy Morris, a Cleveland police spokesman, told CNN that the department had no record of a 911 call reporting a naked woman at Castro's address.



In fact, authorities never had any indications that the women were being held in the home or that anything suspicious was going on there, Cleveland Public Safety Director Martin Flask said. Neighbors had not provided any tips, he added.



Police had visited the home twice, authorities said Tuesday, once after Castro called about a fight in the street and another time to investigate Castro -- a former school bus driver -- on an unrelated incident involving a child who had been left on a bus.



The 2004 incident was the first of four exhibitions of "bad judgment" that led to Castro's November firing by Cleveland's school district, according to records released Tuesday night.



"He previously had been suspended for 60 days for leaving a child on a bus; 60 days for making an illegal U-turn in rush hour traffic with a bus load of students, and last school year for using the bus to do his grocery shopping," the letter recommending his dismissal states. His firing came after he had left his bus unattended outside a school after his preschool routes had been canceled, without notifying his dispatcher or depot.



Tito DeJesus, a bandmate of Castro's, said he had been inside the bass player's home once, about two years ago, to help deliver a washer and dryer he'd sold to the suspect and saw "a normal environment." DeJesus said he isn't related to the rescued Gina DeJesus but had known the family for years.



"It didn't seem to be a place where women were being held against their will," he said. "Of course, mind you, I didn't go throughout the entire house. I was just at the beginning of the house, in the living room, but it seemed normal."



 



Finally free



Berry was last seen after finishing her shift at a Burger King in Cleveland on April 21, 2003. It was the eve of her 17th birthday. DeJesus disappeared nearly a year later, on April 2, 2004. She was 14.



Knight vanished on August 22, 2002. She never returned after going to a neighborhood store to use a pay phone, cousin Brenda Dinickle told CNN's Zoraida Sambolin.



The family reported her missing the next day, Flask said. She was 21.



Dinickle described her cousin as mentally challenged.



"She had a mind of a child. She was slow," Dinickle said.



Nicknamed "Shorty," because of her diminutive 4-foot, 7-inch stature, the family thought Knight might be with the brother of a brother-in-law, but had no phone number to contact him.



News of her discovery came as a shock to brother Freddie Knight, who didn't know she was missing until he saw the story on TV.



"I was freaking happy as hell, because I didn't know my sister was kidnapped," he said. "My mom never tells me anything."



Knight said their mom, who now lives in Naples, Florida, kicked him out of the house when he was 14 and they remain estranged.



CNN not could immediately confirm the details of Knight's account.



Knight said he met with his sister at the hospital and gave her a hug, saying the ordeal had left her traumatized.



"I hugged her because she wanted a hug," he said. "My sister is going to move on, forget the past ... , leave it behind, start anew."



The three women and the child were released Tuesday from the hospital where they had been taken for evaluations, a spokeswoman said. Cleveland's Deputy Police Chief Ed Tomba said all four appeared to be in good condition, if in need of a good meal.



'We're hoping for a miracle'



Investigators had previously speculated that the disappearances of Berry, DeJesus and another girl, 14-year-old Ashley Summers, may have been connected. Summers' family last saw her in July 2007, when she was 14.



"We did in fact believe there was an association between the Berry case and the DeJesus case as well as the Summers case," said former FBI agent Jennifer Eakin. Eakin is now a case manager at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, which in 2008 held a comprehensive review of the cases with the FBI and Cleveland police.



Now the Summers family is hoping that the Cleveland investigation will yield information about Ashley, her aunt, Debra Summers, said.



"We're hoping for a miracle," she said.



Vicki Anderson, the spokeswoman for the Cleveland FBI office, said investigators will question the three women found Monday in the hope that they know something about Summers' disappearance.



 



CNN's Zoraida Sambolin reported from Cleveland and Ed Payne reported and wrote in Atlanta. Matt Smith, Greg Botelho, Michael Pearson, Tory Dunnan, Martin Savidge, Jason Hanna, Josh Levs, Steve Almasy, Laura Ly and Rande Iaboni also contributed to this report.

The Skanner Foundation's 38th Annual MLK Breakfast