04-23-2024  3:47 pm   •   PDX and SEA Weather
  • Cloud 9 Cannabis CEO and co-owner Sam Ward Jr., left, and co-owner Dennis Turner pose at their shop, Thursday, Feb. 1, 2024, in Arlington, Wash. Cloud 9 is one of the first dispensaries to open under the Washington Liquor and Cannabis Board's social equity program, established in efforts to remedy some of the disproportionate effects marijuana prohibition had on communities of color. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

    The Drug War Devastated Black and Other Minority Communities. Is Marijuana Legalization Helping?

    A major argument for legalizing the adult use of cannabis after 75 years of prohibition was to stop the harm caused by disproportionate enforcement of drug laws in Black, Latino and other minority communities. But efforts to help those most affected participate in the newly legal sector have been halting.  Read More
  • Lessons for Cities from Seattle’s Racial and Social Justice Law 

    Lessons for Cities from Seattle’s Racial and Social Justice Law 

     Seattle is marking the first anniversary of its landmark Race and Social Justice Initiative ordinance. Signed into law in April 2023, the ordinance highlights race and racism because of the pervasive inequities experienced by people of color Read More
  • A woman gathers possessions to take before a homeless encampment was cleaned up in San Francisco, Aug. 29, 2023. The Supreme Court will hear its most significant case on homelessness in decades Monday, April 22, 2024, as record numbers of people in America are without a permanent place to live. The justices will consider a challenge to rulings from a California-based federal appeals court that found punishing people for sleeping outside when shelter space is lacking amounts to unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

    Supreme Court to Weigh Bans on Sleeping Outdoors 

    The Supreme Court will consider whether banning homeless people from sleeping outside when shelter space is lacking amounts to cruel and unusual punishment on Monday. The case is considered the most significant to come before the high court in decades on homelessness, which is reaching record levels In California and other Western states. Courts have ruled that it’s unconstitutional to fine and arrest people sleeping in homeless encampments if shelter Read More
  • Richard Wallace, founder and director of Equity and Transformation, poses for a portrait at the Westside Justice Center, Friday, March 29, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)

    Chicago's Response to Migrant Influx Stirs Longstanding Frustrations Among Black Residents

    With help from state and federal funds, the city has spent more than $300 million to provide housing, health care and more to over 38,000 mostly South American migrants. The speed with which these funds were marshaled has stirred widespread resentment among Black Chicagoans. But community leaders are trying to ease racial tensions and channel the public’s frustrations into agitating for the greater good. Read More
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NORTHWEST NEWS

The Drug War Devastated Black and Other Minority Communities. Is Marijuana Legalization Helping?

A major argument for legalizing the adult use of cannabis after 75 years of prohibition was to stop the harm caused by disproportionate enforcement of drug laws in Black, Latino and other minority communities. But efforts to help those most affected participate in the newly legal sector have been halting. 

Lessons for Cities from Seattle’s Racial and Social Justice Law 

 Seattle is marking the first anniversary of its landmark Race and Social Justice Initiative ordinance. Signed into law in April 2023, the ordinance highlights race and racism because of the pervasive inequities experienced by people of color

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.

NEWS BRIEFS

Mt. Tabor Park Selected for National Initiative

Mt. Tabor Park is the only Oregon park and one of just 24 nationally to receive honor. ...

OHCS, BuildUp Oregon Launch Program to Expand Early Childhood Education Access Statewide

Funds include million for developing early care and education facilities co-located with affordable housing. ...

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 ...

Ex-Washington police officer is on the run after killing ex-wife and girlfriend, officials say

SEATTLE (AP) — A former Washington state police officer who court documents say had a child with a teenage girl he met through a school resource program was on the run Tuesday after killing two people, including his ex-wife, who had recently obtained a protection order against him, authorities...

Officials identify Idaho man who was killed by police after fatal shooting of deputy

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Officials have released the name of the Idaho man who was killed last weekend after being identified as the suspect in the fatal shooting of a sheriff's deputy, and Boise police officers are asking the public for more information about him. Dennis Mulqueen, 65,...

Missouri hires Memphis athletic director Laird Veatch for the same role with the Tigers

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri hired longtime college administrator Laird Veatch to be its athletic director on Tuesday, bringing him back to campus 14 years after he departed for a series of other positions that culminated with five years spent as the AD at Memphis. Veatch...

KC Current owners announce plans for stadium district along the Kansas City riverfront

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The ownership group of the Kansas City Current announced plans Monday for the development of the Missouri River waterfront, where the club recently opened a purpose-built stadium for the National Women's Soccer League team. CPKC Stadium will serve as the hub...

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

Transgender Tennessee woman sues over state's refusal to change the sex designation on her license

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A transgender Tennessee woman sued the state's Department of Safety and Homeland Security on Tuesday after officials refused to change the sex on her driver's license to match her gender identity. The lawsuit was filed in Davidson County Chancery Court in...

Biden's Morehouse graduation invitation is sparking backlash, complicating election-year appearance

ATLANTA (AP) — President Joe Biden will be the commencement speaker at Morehouse College in Georgia, giving the Democrat a key spotlight on one of the nation’s preeminent historically Black campuses but potentially exposing him to uncomfortable protests as he seeks reelection against former...

New Fort Wayne, Indiana, mayor is sworn in a month after her predecessor's death

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) — Democrat Sharon Tucker was sworn in Tuesday as the new mayor of Indiana’s second-most populous city, nearly a month after her predecessor's death. Tucker, who had been a Fort Wayne City Council member, took the oath of office Tuesday morning at the Clyde...

ENTERTAINMENT

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...

Book Review: 'Nothing But the Bones' is a compelling noir novel at a breakneck pace

Nelson “Nails” McKenna isn’t very bright, stumbles over his words and often says what he’s thinking without realizing it. We first meet him as a boy reading a superhero comic on the banks of a river in his backcountry hometown in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Georgia....

U.S. & WORLD NEWS

After 4 decades in music and major vocal surgery, Jon Bon Jovi is optimistic and still rocking

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — When Jon Bon Jovi agreed to let director Gotham Chopra follow him with a documentary...

Modi is accused of using hate speech for calling Muslims 'infiltrators' at an Indian election rally

NEW DELHI (AP) — India's main opposition party accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of using hate speech after...

Get better sleep with these 5 tips from experts

Spending too many nights trying to fall asleep — or worrying there aren’t enough ZZZs in your day? You’re...

Review of UN agency helping Palestinian refugees found Israel did not express concern about staff

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — An independent review of the neutrality of the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees...

United Methodists open first top-level conference since breakup over LGBTQ inclusion

Thousands of United Methodists are gathering in Charlotte, North Carolina, for their big denominational meeting,...

Abortion returns to the spotlight in Italy, 46 years after it was legalized

ROME (AP) — Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni’s far-right-led government scored a victory Tuesday with the Senate...

Paramedics rush a stabbing victim away on a gurney Sunday, June 26, 2016, after members of right-wing extremists groups holding a rally outside the California state Capitol building in Sacramento clashed with counter-protesters, authorities said. Sacramento Police spokesman Matt McPhail said the Traditionalist Workers Party had scheduled and received a permit to protest at noon Sunday in front of the Capitol. McPhail said a group showed up to demonstrate against them. (AP Photo/Steven Styles)
OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ, Associated Press

 

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Ten people suffered stab wounds and other injuries on Sunday after members of a white nationalist group that planned to rally outside the California state Capitol building in Sacramento clashed with a larger group of counter protesters, authorities said.

The fight broke out when about 30 members of the Traditionalist Worker Party gathering to rally around noon Sunday were met by about 400 counter-protesters, California Highway Patrol Officer George Granada said.

As people tried to leave the area, smaller fights broke out, Granada said.

Of the injured, two were taken to the hospital with critical stab wounds, but they were expected to survive, officials said.

Police were investigating two assaults that happened outside the Capitol grounds, but no arrests have been made, the Sacramento Police Department said in a statement.

The Capitol was on lockdown until protesters cleared the area.

Videos from the melee posted on social media showed mounted police officers dispersing a group of mostly young people, some with their faces covered, while some throw stones toward a man holding a stick and being shielded by police officers in riot gear.

A KCRA-TV reporter and his cameraman were caught in an altercation with protesters who shouted "no cameras" as they tried to grab their equipment and shove them away from the crowd.

Sacramento Fire Department spokesman Chris Harvey said nine men and one woman, ranging from 19 to 58 years old, were treated for stab wounds, cuts, scrapes and bruises.

"There was a large number of people carrying sticks and rushing to either get into the melee or see what was going on," Harvey said.

The victims were all present while the protest took place, said Sacramento Police spokesman Matt McPhail but he said it was still unclear whether and how they were involved.

The Traditionalist Workers Party had scheduled and received a permit to protest for two hours in front of the Capitol. Law enforcement was aware of the counter-protest effort and police deployed more than 100 officers to the Capitol, McPhail said.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has described TWP as a group formed in 2015 as the political wing of the Traditionalist Youth Network, which aims to "indoctrinate high school and college students into white nationalism."

Matthew Heimbach, chairman of the Traditionalist Worker Party, told the Los Angeles Times that his group and the Golden State Skinheads organized the Sunday rally. Heimbach said that in the clash, one of their marchers had been stabbed in an artery and six of the counter-protesters had also been stabbed.

Vice chairman Matt Parrott, who was not present at the Sacramento rally, blamed "leftist radicals" for instigating the violence.

A message left at a phone number for the Traditionalist Worker Party was not immediately returned to The Associated Press.

A post recently uploaded to site of the Traditionalist Youth Network said TWP members planned to march in Sacramento to protest against globalization and in defense of their right to free expression. They said they expected to be outnumbered 10-to-1 by counter-protesters.

"We concluded that it was time to use this rally to make a statement about the precarious situation our race is in," the Traditionalist Youth Network statement said. "With our folk on the brink of becoming a disarmed, disengaged, and disenfranchised minority, the time to do something was yesterday!"

The clash Sunday follows a confrontation in March between Ku Klux Klan members and counter-protesters in Anaheim, California in which three people were stabbed.

 

 

The Skanner Foundation's 38th Annual MLK Breakfast