02-14-2025  5:47 am   •   PDX and SEA Weather

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NORTHWEST NEWS

Californians Brace for Mudslides in Areas Torched by Fires as Freezing Rain, Snow Aim for Oregon

Officials in Oregon’s Multnomah County, which includes Portland, extended a state of emergency through at least Thursday and said six emergency shelters would be open.

Labor Leaders Push for Strike Support in the Capital

Lawmakers, picket line veterans argue in favor of SB 916, which would allow individuals involved in qualifying labor disputes to collect unemployment while waiting for a contract.

Pastor Mark Knutson on Strengthening Sanctuary and Responding to Trump’s Threats

Augustana Lutheran Church is part of an interfaith network in Portland organizing to protect immigrants.

“Young Black Men Are ___”, A Multimedia Interactive Storytelling Project, Opens February 1

Word Is Bond partners with the 1803 Fund to explore Black identity.

NEWS BRIEFS

Swift Victory in Lawsuit Stopping DOGE’s Attacks on Americans

Attorney General Dan Rayfield has released a statement after an early morning victory in court last week. ...

AG Rayfield Reacts to Latest Victory in Trump’s Attempt to Block Birthright Citizenship Order

“This just proves what we’ve been saying all along. No president can rewrite the Constitution with the stroke of a pen,” said...

Budget Committee Ranking Member Merkley: Vought Dangerously Unfit to Lead OMB

Merkley spoke on the Senate floor to kick off Democratic opposition to Trump’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) nominee and...

Portland Trail Blazers Host First-ever Albina Rose Alliance Game

Game to highlight the Albina Rose Alliance – a partnership between Albina Vision Trust and the Portland Trail Blazers ...

Big Brothers Big Sisters of America Launches Research on the Long-Term Impacts of Mentorship

“This new research proves what we’ve known for years— mentorship has an incredibly positive impact, not just to our Littles, but...

Fresh lawsuit hits Oregon city at the heart of Supreme Court ruling on homeless encampments

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The small Oregon city at the heart of a major U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year that allowed cities across the country to enforce homeless camping bans is facing a fresh lawsuit over its camping rules, as advocates find new ways to challenge them in a legal landscape...

Western Oregon women's basketball players allege physical and emotional abuse

MONMOUTH, Ore. (AP) — Former players for the Western Oregon women's basketball team have filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging emotional and physical abuse. The lawsuit, filed on Wednesday in Marion County, seeks million damages. It names the university, its athletic...

Slaughter leads Missouri against No. 5 Texas

Missouri Tigers (12-10, 1-6 SEC) at Texas Longhorns (20-2, 6-1 SEC) Austin, Texas; Thursday, 9 p.m. EST BOTTOM LINE: Missouri visits No. 5 Texas after Grace Slaughter scored 31 points in Missouri's 78-77 victory against the Mississippi State Bulldogs. The...

Slaughter leads Missouri against No. 5 Texas after 31-point game

Missouri Tigers (12-10, 1-6 SEC) at Texas Longhorns (20-2, 6-1 SEC) Austin, Texas; Thursday, 9 p.m. EST BOTTOM LINE: Missouri visits No. 5 Texas after Grace Slaughter scored 31 points in Missouri's 78-77 win over the Mississippi State Bulldogs. The...

OPINION

Bending the Arc: Advancing Equity in a New Federal Landscape

January 20th, 2025 represented the clearest distillation of the crossroads our country faces. ...

Trump’s America Last Agenda is a Knife in the Back of Working People

Donald Trump’s playbook has always been to campaign like a populist and govern like an oligarch. But it is still shocking just how brutally he went after our country’s working people in the first few days – even the first few hours – after he was...

As Dr. King Once Asked, Where Do We Go From Here?

“Let us be dissatisfied until America will no longer have high blood pressure of creeds and an anemia of deeds. Let us be dissatisfied until the tragic walls that separate the outer city of wealth and comfort from the inner city of poverty and despair shall...

A Day Without Child Care

On May 16, we will be closing our childcare centers for a day — signaling a crisis that could soon sweep across North Carolina, dismantling the very backbone of our economy ...

AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE NEWS

Trump consoles crash victims then dives into politics with attack on diversity initiatives

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday responded to the deadliest American aviation disaster in more than two decades by blaming diversity initiatives for undermining safety and questioning the actions of a U.S. Army helicopter pilot involved in the midair collision with a...

US Supreme Court rejects likely final appeal of South Carolina inmate a day before his execution

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Thursday what is likely the final appeal of a South Carolina inmate the day before his scheduled execution for a 2001 killing of a friend found dead in her burning car. Marion Bowman Jr.'s request to stop his execution until a...

Trump's orders take aim at critical race theory and antisemitism on college campuses

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is ordering U.S. schools to stop teaching what he views as “critical race theory” and other material dealing with race and sexuality or risk losing their federal money. A separate plan announced Wednesday calls for aggressive action to...

ENTERTAINMENT

Book Review: Hunted by the FBI and Russian Oligarch, a hedge fund manager flees into the wilderness

Paul Brightman, a former hedge fund manager, has been keeping a low profile, changing his name to Grant Anderson and making a modest living as a boat builder in a small New Hampshire town. But Paul fears it’s only a matter of time before he’s found. The FBI is hunting him. The CIA...

Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni get March 2026 trial date for her 'It Ends With Us' lawsuit

NEW YORK (AP) — A New York judge set a March 2026 trial date on Monday and moved an initial conference from mid-February to next week as the public feud between Blake Lively and her “It Ends With Us” costar and director Justin Baldoni continued to grow and accelerate. And in a...

Movie Review: Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon collide in comedy 'You're Cordially Invited'

Are you with the bride or the groom? Hold on, scratch that. Are you with Reese Witherspoon or Will Ferrell? “You're Cordially Invited,” a new comedy directed by Nicholas Stoller, brings together two stars whose movie worlds are nearly as divided as wedding guests on separate sides...

U.S. & WORLD NEWS

Anna Challet New America Media

Both of Mailee Wang's parents were incarcerated for part of her youth, her father for two years and her mother for much of her life. Now 30, she recalls what it was like, particularly after her mother was released.

"Having a prison mentality is real … It doesn't shut off and that's what I lived though with my mom," says Wang. "The trauma that [the incarcerated] experience, it's chaos when they return home."

After her father was released from prison, he had the support of his family, which Wang says made a difference in his reentry. Because of his family, he knew he would have a place to live; he was also able to find employment. Her mother, though, suffered from mental health problems, was not employable, and did not have the help of her family.

"I know what worked with my dad. I know what's possible," she says. "Having family there is so important."

Children and youth who go through the experience of having an incarcerated parent are forced to become parents themselves at an early age, according to Wang; they have to figure out how to take care of not only themselves, but also their parents after they are released.

Today, Wang is the program and policy director of Project WHAT!, part of the advocacy organization Community Works based in Oakland, which provides training for service providers on how to effectively serve children and youth who have or have had an incarcerated parent. She spoke at a community forum on Friday held by New America Media that put a spotlight on the experiences of "children of reentry" – children and youth whose incarcerated parents have returned home.

The forum showcased a series of video portraits of parents coming home, as viewed through the eyes of their children. The filmmakers included Jean Melesaine, Daniel Zapien, and Andrew Bigelow of Silicon Valley De-Bug, David Meza and Anthony May of Richmond Pulse, and Valerie Klinker of New America Media.

Melesaine's video profiles Steeda McGruder, age 30, and her two daughters; McGruder gave birth to her daughter Malaysia while incarcerated. McGruder now runs a support group for formerly incarcerated women in Santa Clara County called Sisters That Been There.

"I had painted a vision of what it was going to be like. I got the house ready, I stocked it with food," says Steeda, who is African American, of preparing to be reunited with her children. "And then they came home, and they ate the food, and then the toys were played out … I only thought to that point. And now we're beyond that point and we're struggling."

More than one in ten children nationwide have a parent under criminal supervision (meaning that they are in jail or prison, or on probation or parole). One in fifteen African American children has a parent who is currently in prison, as opposed to less than one percent of white children.

Responding to the film about McGruder at the forum, Jessica Flintoft, a division director of the San Francisco Probation Department, said that the justice system "probably could have not sent [McGruder] to prison," especially when she was pregnant with her daughter.

"The criminal justice system is nothing but a series of decisions, and we can make different decisions at every turn," she says.

She points to programs that work with the Probation Department to help parents stay connected to their kids, like Cameo House in San Francisco, which provides transitional housing and support to single mothers who have recently been released from prison and have children under the age of 7.

Flintoft says that children of parents in the criminal justice system are three times more likely than their peers to become involved in the criminal justice system themselves, which points to a need for alternatives to incarceration, as well as more services and programs that address the needs of children of reentry.

Nell Bernstein, who coordinates the San Francisco Children of Incarcerated Parents Partnership and is the author of "All Alone in the World: Children of the Incarcerated," says that "post-prison punishments" are instrumental in high recidivism rates that keep parents separated from their children. Felony drug offenders, for example, are banned from receiving General Assistance or living in public housing; there's also a "huge array" of jobs from which reentering offenders are legally restricted, she says.

The California Department of Corrections reported in 2012 that the recidivism rate (the number returning to prison within three years of release) for the formerly incarcerated in California was 65 percent.

"Before we start helping, we just have to stop hurting," says Bernstein.