04-24-2024  1:08 pm   •   PDX and SEA Weather
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4

NORTHWEST NEWS

A Conservative Quest to Limit Diversity Programs Gains Momentum in States

In support of DEI, Oregon and Washington have forged ahead with legislation to expand their emphasis on diversity, equity and inclusion in government and education.

Epiphanny Prince Hired by Liberty in Front Office Job Day After Retiring

A day after announcing her retirement, Epiphanny Prince has a new job working with the New York Liberty as director of player and community engagement. Prince will serve on the basketball operations and business staffs, bringing her 14 years of WNBA experience to the franchise. 

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

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 ...

Biden administration announces plans for up to 12 lease sales for offshore wind energy

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A new five-year schedule to lease federal offshore tracts for wind energy production was announced Wednesday by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, with up to a dozen lease sales anticipated beginning this year and continuing through 2028. Haaland...

A conservative quest to limit diversity programs gains momentum in states

A conservative quest to limit diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives is gaining momentum in state capitals and college governing boards, with officials in about one-third of the states now taking some sort of action against it. Tennessee became the latest when the Republican...

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

Biden just signed a bill that could ban TikTok. His campaign plans to stay on the app anyway

WASHINGTON (AP) — When President Joe Biden showed off his putting during a campaign stop at a public golf course in Michigan last month, the moment was captured on TikTok. Forced inside by a rainstorm, he competed with 13-year-old Hurley “HJ” Coleman IV to make putts on a...

2021 death of young Black man at rural Missouri home was self-inflicted, FBI tells AP

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A federal investigation has concluded that a young Black man died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound inside a rural Missouri home, not at the hands of the white homeowner who had a history of racist social media postings, an FBI official told The Associated Press Wednesday. ...

Ancestry website cataloguing names of Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The names of thousands of people held in Japanese American incarceration camps during World War II have been digitized and made available for free, genealogy company Ancestry announced Wednesday. The website, known as one of the largest global online resources of...

ENTERTAINMENT

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....

Cardi B, Queen Latifah and The Roots to headline the BET Experience concerts in Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Cardi B, Queen Latifah and The Roots will headline concerts to celebrate the return of the BET Experience in Los Angeles just days before the 2024 BET Awards. BET announced Monday the star-studded lineup of the concert series, which makes a return after a...

U.S. & WORLD NEWS

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...

Biden says the US is rushing weaponry to Ukraine as he signs a billion war aid measure into law

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that he was immediately rushing badly needed weaponry to...

A conservative quest to limit diversity programs gains momentum in states

A conservative quest to limit diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives is gaining momentum in state capitals...

A Russian deputy defense minister is ordered jailed pending trial on bribery charges

A Russian deputy defense minister in charge of military construction projects and accused of living a lavish...

Poland's prosecutor general says previous government used spyware against hundreds of people

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland's prosecutor general told the parliament on Wednesday that powerful Pegasus spyware...

China blasts US military aid to Taiwan, saying the island is entering a 'dangerous situation'

BEIJING (AP) — China on Wednesday blasted the latest package of U.S. military assistance to Taiwan on Wednesday,...

MELINDA DESLATTE, Associated Press

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — The threat of violence by people inspired by foreign extremists invokes fear in a majority of young Americans across racial groups. But for young people of color, particularly African-Americans, that fear is matched or surpassed by worries about violence from white extremists.

A new GenForward poll of Americans age 18-30 shows widespread anxiety among young people about attacks from both inside and outside the United States.

Sixty-two percent of young African-Americans and 55 percent of Hispanics surveyed said they were very concerned about the threat of violence committed by white extremists, compared to one-third of whites and 41 percent of Asian-Americans.

NEWS Fears resized

GenForward is a survey by the Black Youth Project at the University of Chicago with the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The poll is designed to pay special attention to the voices of young adults of color, highlighting how race and ethnicity shape the opinions of a new generation.

Gregg Higgins, 27, was one of the whites who said he was very worried about violence by extremists in his own race. In fact, he said he was more concerned about "the homegrown white extremists" than the threat of violence from people outside the United States or people inspired by foreign extremists.

A social worker in Pittsburgh, Higgins said the growing political tension during the current election cycle has "shown a really ugly part of our past coming through and being more heard." He described it as "white males who are angry and who aren't now afraid to show that anger."

"That fear of loss of control and loss of privilege is what's inspiring this vitriol and this hate," Higgins said.

Worry about attacks from people currently living in the U.S. who are motivated by foreign extremists spreads more evenly across racial groups, with at least half of whites, blacks, Asians and Hispanics describing themselves as very concerned about that threat.

Violence committed by people from outside the country also caused unease, especially among Hispanic young adults. Fifty-six percent of Hispanics polled said they were very concerned, compared to 49 percent of African-Americans, 40 percent of Asian-Americans and 41 percent of whites.

The angst comes after a spate of mass shootings. Nine black people were shot and killed last year at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, by a white man who officials say talked of starting a race war. In June, a gunman born in the U.S. to Afghan immigrants opened fire in a crowded gay dance club in Orlando, Florida, killing 49 people in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. An autopsy report identified him as a white male.

Last month, five police officers in Dallas were killed by a black gunman during a protest against police shootings of black men, and three law enforcement officers in Baton Rouge were shot and killed by a black man who authorities said appeared to be targeting people wearing a badge.

Darsi Vazquez, a 25-year-old Hispanic college student from Huntsville, Alabama, described herself as very concerned about the threat of violence from foreign and domestic extremists alike, but she thinks the fear is exacerbated by news coverage of mass shootings around the country and the types of overt racism that appear in social media.

"A few years back technology wasn't where it's at it now, so you couldn't see things like this happening like you see it now," Vazquez said. "I don't know if it's necessarily getting worse, but we're seeing it more now. We don't just see what's happening outside our window, we also see what's going on outside other people's window."

Most young adults in the poll labeled as hate crimes both the shooting deaths at the Charleston church and the Orlando night club, against African-Americans and against LGBT people, respectively.

But the poll shows people view the Orlando shooting differently, depending on their race.

Among young whites, most also described the Orlando shooting as a terrorist attack. Fifty-eight percent of whites considered it that, compared to only 32 percent of African-Americans, 40 percent of Hispanics and 44 percent of Asian-Americans. Gunman Omar Mateen pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group during a call with police dispatchers during a standoff before he was shot and killed.

A third or less of young people of each racial and ethnic group called the Charleston attack terrorism.

Terrorism concerns have young Americans across racial groups largely in agreement that some rights and freedoms should be sacrificed in efforts to prevent an attack. Eleven percent of all young adults polled said they believe such sacrifices are always necessary, while 54 percent said they're at least sometimes necessary.

But most young people said Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's calls to temporarily ban Muslims from coming to the U.S. goes too far.

More than two-thirds of those surveyed said they oppose a temporary prohibition on any Muslim who isn't a U.S. citizen from entering the country: 64 percent of whites, 66 percent of Hispanics and 79 percent of African-Americans and Asian-Americans.

___

The poll of 1,940 adults age 18-30 was conducted July 9-20 using a sample drawn from the probability-based GenForward panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. young adult population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.

The survey was paid for by the Black Youth Project at the University of Chicago using grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Ford Foundation.

Respondents were first selected randomly using address-based sampling methods, and later interviewed online or by phone.

The Skanner Foundation's 38th Annual MLK Breakfast