04-25-2024  4:56 am   •   PDX and SEA Weather
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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 ...

Boeing's financial woes continue, while families of crash victims urge US to prosecute the company

Boeing said Wednesday that it lost 5 million on falling revenue in the first quarter, another sign of the crisis gripping the aircraft manufacturer as it faces increasing scrutiny over the safety of its planes and accusations of shoddy work from a growing number of whistleblowers. ...

Authorities confirm 2nd victim of ex-Washington officer was 17-year-old with whom he had a baby

WEST RICHLAND, Wash. (AP) — Authorities on Wednesday confirmed that a body found at the home of a former Washington state police officer who killed his ex-wife before fleeing to Oregon, where he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, was that of a 17-year-old girl with whom he had a baby. ...

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

Bishop stabbed during Sydney church service backs X's legal case to share video of the attack

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — A Sydney bishop who was stabbed repeatedly in an alleged extremist attack blamed on a teenager has backed X Corp. owner Elon Musk’s legal bid to overturn an Australian ban on sharing graphic video of the attack on social media. A live stream of the...

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. ...

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

The Latest | Israeli strikes in Rafah kill at least 5 as ship comes under attack in the Gulf of Aden

Palestinian hospital officials said Israeli airstrikes on the southern city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip killed at...

Columbia's president, no stranger to complex challenges, walks tightrope on student protests

Columbia University president Minouche Shafik is no stranger to navigating complex international issues, having...

US growth likely slowed last quarter but still pointed to a solid economy

WASHINGTON (AP) — Coming off a robust end to 2023, the U.S. economy is thought to have extended its surprisingly...

Ship comes under attack off coast of Yemen as Houthi rebel campaign appears to gain new speed

JERUSALEM (AP) — A ship traveling in the Gulf of Aden came under attack Thursday, officials said, the latest...

With war in Ukraine on its border, Poland wants to be among the countries setting Europe's agenda

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland’s foreign minister called on NATO to increase its defense preparedness on...

Biden meets 4-year-old Abigail Edan, an American who was held hostage by Hamas

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden met Wednesday with Abigail Edan, the 4-year-old American girl who was held...

Jared Kushner, son-in-law of of President-elect Donald Trump walks from Trump Tower, in New York, Nov. 14, 2016. Kushner is taking steps to distance himself from his sprawling New York real estate business, in what is the clearest sign yet he is planning to take a position in his father-in-law's administration. Kushner, who is married to Trump's daughter Ivanka, must clear a series of hurdles before he takes any post in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
JULIE BYKOWICZ and CHAD DAY

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump pledged to step away from his family-owned international real estate development, property management and licensing business before taking office Jan. 20. With less than two weeks until his inauguration, he hasn't stepped very far.

Trump has canceled a handful of international deals and dissolved a few shell companies created for prospective investments. Still, he continues to own or control some 500 companies that make up the Trump Organization, creating a tangle of potential conflicts of interest without precedent in modern U.S. history.

The president-elect is expected to give an update on his effort to distance himself from his business at a Wednesday news conference.

He told The Associated Press on Friday that he would be announcing a "very simple solution."

Ethics experts have called for Trump to sell off his assets and place his investments in a blind trust, which means something his family

would not control. That's what previous presidents have done.

Trump has given no indication he will go that far. He has said he will not be involved in day-to-day company operations and will leave that duty to his adult sons, Eric and Donald Trump Jr. The president-elect has not addressed the ethical minefield of whether he would retain a financial interest in his Trump Organization.

A look at what's known about what Trump has and hasn't tried to resolve his business entanglement before his swearing-in:

 

FOREIGN INVESTMENTS

Trump has abandoned planned business ventures in Azerbaijan, Brazil, Georgia, India and Argentina. The Associated Press found he has dissolved shell companies tied to a possible business venture in Saudi Arabia.

It's unclear whether those moves are signs that Trump is dismantling the web of companies that make up his business. Trump Organization general counsel Alan Garten has insisted none of the closures is related to Trump's election. He calls them "normal housecleaning."

The Trump Organization still has an expanding reach across the globe: The Trump International Golf Club in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, is set to open next month.

Trump has said there will be "no new deals" while he's in office. But Eric Trump, an executive vice president at the Trump Organization, told Argentinian newspapers last week that the company was open to another business venture in the country.

"We would like to find something," Eric Trump told Clarin, as he toured a Trump building construction site. "We'll find a project."
The younger Trump did rule out expansion in Russia, at least any time soon.

"Is there a possibility sometime in the next 20, 30 years we end up in Russia? Absolutely. Is it right for us right now? Probably not," Eric Trump said, in a video interview with La Nacion posted on the newspaper's website.

Asked about the potential for conflicts of interest if the business continues to operate, Eric Trump compared the separation between the Trump-led government and Trump-led company to the separation between church and state.

"These two things will be unfailingly separate," he said, adding, "we will not share functions."
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DOMESTIC BUSINESSES

Of Trump's U.S. portfolio, no venture has become more emblematic of the potential conflicts of interest facing Trump than his hotel at the Old Post Office in the nation's capital.

The federal government, which he soon will oversee, holds the lease on the building he turned into a sparkling luxury hotel that opened shortly before Election Day.

The terms of Trump's contract with the government expressly prohibit elected officials from having a financial interest in the property. Democratic senators said the General Services Administration told them that the moment Trump takes office, he would violate the terms of his contract

Neither GSA nor Trump transition officials responded to inquiries about what steps, if any, Trump has taken with regard to that contract provision.

Trump is still listed as a producer for the reality TV show, "Celebrity Apprentice." He has said he will not spend time working on the show. Financial disclosures he filed during the campaign show his company, Trump Productions, earned about $5.9 million from "The Apprentice" shows in 2015.

Trump has a considerable amount of business debt that could put creditors in the position of having leverage over an enterprise with close ties to the U.S. president and his family.

Last May, Trump reported on his financial disclosure that he had at least $315 million in debt related to his companies. The disclosed debt, mostly mortgages for his properties, is held by banks, including Deutsche Bank and investors who bought chunks of the debt from the original creditors.
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CHARITIES

Last month, Trump announced that he would shutter his charity, the Donald J. Trump Foundation, to avoid conflicts of interest.

The decision came after the foundation admitted in a tax filing that in 2015 and an unspecified number of previous years it violated IRS prohibitions against self-dealing, broadly defined as using charity money or assets to benefit Trump, his family, his companies or substantial contributors to the foundation.

A Washington Post investigation revealed the Trump Foundation has repeatedly broken those rules including using foundation money to settle lawsuits and to buy paintings of Trump.

The New York attorney general's office has said the foundation cannot dissolve until it completes its investigation into whether Trump used the foundation for personal gain. The attorney general's office has not said whether the investigation will be wrapped up by Trump inauguration.

Eric Trump has decided to shut down his charity, which primarily raised money for St. Jude's children's hospital, to pre-empt conflicts of interest. That move came after the younger Trump was found to be offering in a charity auction a coffee date with his sister, Ivanka Trump, who is expected to take a position in the White House.

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FAMILY

Questions remain about how Ivanka Trump and husband Jared Kushner, who is planning to advise the president, will separate from their own businesses.

On Saturday, representatives for Kushner told the AP that he has been talking with the Office of Government Ethics and is exploring taking steps to disentangle himself from his business, The Kushner Companies, in preparation for taking a White House role.

Under those plans, Kushner representatives say he would resign as CEO of the real-estate development business, which has been involved in some $7 billion in acquisitions in the past 10 years.

Kushner would divest "substantial" assets including his stake in a New York City skyscraper that has been the subject of months of negotiations between Kushner and Anbang Insurance Group, a real estate giant with close ties to the Chinese government. Kushner's negotiations with the company were first reported by The New York Times.

Ivanka Trump, in addition to serving as an executive at her father's company, has developed a lifestyle brand selling shoes, jewelry and other products.

She caught heat after her fine jewelry company marketed the $10,800 bracelet she wore during a postelection "60 Minutes" interview with her father.

Representatives for Ivanka Trump and her companies did not respond to requests for comment about her business plans. In order to take posts in the administration, both Kushner and Ivanka Trump would need to argue that a federal anti-nepotism law that bar officials from appointing relatives to government positions does not apply to them.

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LAWSUITS
Trump also is set to take office while battling a number of lawsuits. The president-elect sat for a videotaped deposition on Thursday involving a dispute with a celebrity chef who pulled out of a deal to open a restaurant at his new hotel in the Old Post Office building.

When Jose Andres scuttled his plans for the restaurant citing Trump's campaign comments about some Mexican immigrants being rapists and criminals, The Trump Organization sued him for breach of contract.

Trump also sued another celebrity chef, Geoffrey Zakarian, for similar reasons.

Trump did act to close out one of the highest-profile disputes, over his now-defunct Trump University real estate school. After his election in November, he agreed to pay $25 million to settle two class-action suits and one by New York Attorney General EricSchneiderman that alleged the school misled and defrauded students.

Trump admitted no wrongdoing and has yet to pay the fine, according to court records.

 

AP Business Writer Bernard Condon and Associated Press writer Jonathan Lemire in New York, and AP White House Correspondent Julie Pace contributed to this report.

The Skanner Foundation's 38th Annual MLK Breakfast