09-20-2024  1:37 am   •   PDX and SEA Weather

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NORTHWEST NEWS

Governor Kotek Uses New Land Use Law to Propose Rural Land for Semiconductor Facility

Oregon is competing against other states to host multibillion-dollar microchip factories. A 2023 state law created an exemption to the state's hallmark land use policy aimed at preventing urban sprawl and protecting nature and agriculture.

Accusations of Dishonesty Fly in Debate Between Washington Gubernatorial Hopefuls

Washington state’s longtime top prosecutor and a former sheriff known for his work hunting down a notorious serial killer have traded accusations of lying to voters during their gubernatorial debate. It is the first time in more than a decade that the Democratic stronghold state has had an open race for its top job, with Gov. Jay Inslee not seeking reelection.

WNBA Awards Portland an Expansion Franchise That Will Begin Play in 2026

The team will be owned and operated by Raj Sports, led by Lisa Bhathal Merage and Alex Bhathal. The Bhathals started having conversations with the WNBA late last year after a separate bid to bring a team to Portland fell through. It’s the third expansion franchise the league will add over the next two years, with Golden State and Toronto getting the other two.

Strong Words, Dilution and Delays: What’s Going On With The New Police Oversight Board

A federal judge delays when the board can form; critics accuse the city of missing the point on police accountability.

NEWS BRIEFS

St. Johns Library to Close Oct. 11 to Begin Renovation and Expansion

Construction will modernize space while maintaining historic Carnegie building ...

Common Cause Oregon on National Voter Registration Day, September 17

Oregonians are encouraged to register and check their registration status ...

New Affordable Housing in N Portland Named for Black Scholar

Community Development Partners and Self Enhancement Inc. bring affordable apartments to 5050 N. Interstate Ave., marking latest...

Benson Polytechnic Celebrates Its Grand Opening After an Extensive Three Year Modernization

Portland Public Schools welcomes the public to a Grand Opening Celebration of the newly modernized Benson...

Attorneys General Call for Congress to Require Surgeon General Warnings on Social Media Platforms

In a letter sent yesterday to Congress, Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum, who is also president of the National Association of...

Takeaways from AP’s story on the role of the West in widespread fraud with South Korean adoptions

Western governments eagerly approved and even pushed for the adoption of South Korean children for decades, despite evidence that adoption agencies were aggressively competing for kids, pressuring mothers and bribing hospitals, an investigation led by The Associated Press has found. ...

Western nations were desperate for Korean babies. Now many adoptees believe they were stolen

Yooree Kim marched into a police station in Paris and told an officer she wanted to report a crime. Forty years ago, she said, she was kidnapped from the other side of the world, and the French government endorsed it. She wept as she described years spent piecing it together, stymied...

No. 7 Missouri, fresh off win over Boston College, opens SEC play against Vanderbilt

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Vanderbilt and Missouri both got wake-up calls last week, albeit much different ones. The Commodores got the worst kind: one that ended with a loss on a last-minute touchdown by Georgia State, preventing them from getting off to a 3-0 start for the first time...

Vanderbilt heads to seventh-ranked Missouri as both begin SEC play

Vanderbilt (2-1) at No. 7 Missouri, Saturday, 4:15 p.m. ET (SEC) BetMGM College Football Odds: Missouri by 21. Series record: Missouri leads 11-4-1. WHAT’S AT STAKE? Vanderbilt and Missouri begin SEC play after wildly different results in...

OPINION

No Cheek Left to Turn: Standing Up for Albina Head Start and the Low-Income Families it Serves is the Only Option

This month, Albina Head Start filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to defend itself against a misapplied rule that could force the program – and all the children it serves – to lose federal funding. ...

DOJ and State Attorneys General File Joint Consumer Lawsuit

In August, the Department of Justice and eight state Attorneys Generals filed a lawsuit charging RealPage Inc., a commercial revenue management software firm with providing apartment managers with illegal price fixing software data that violates...

America Needs Kamala Harris to Win

Because a 'House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand' ...

Student Loan Debt Drops $10 Billion Due to Biden Administration Forgiveness; New Education Department Rules Hold Hope for 30 Million More Borrowers

As consumers struggle to cope with mounting debt, a new economic report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York includes an unprecedented glimmer of hope. Although debt for mortgages, credit cards, auto loans and more increased by billions of...

AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE NEWS

French cult film 'La Haine' returns as hip-hop musical with tensions persisting in poor suburbs

Watching “La Haine” nearly 30 years ago, there was a sense of something inexorable about violence in the French suburbs. French director Mathieu Kassovitz’s critically acclaimed black-and-white film opens with video images of news footage of urban riots. The film then follows...

Trump vows to be 'best friend' to Jewish Americans, as allegations of ally's antisemitism surface

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Thursday decried antisemitism hours after an explosive CNN report detailed how one of his allies running for North Carolina governor made a series of racial and sexual comments on a website where he also referred to himself as a “black...

Rwanda begins vaccinations against mpox amid a call for more doses for Africa

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Rwanda has started a vaccination campaign against mpox with 1,000 doses of the vaccine it obtained from Nigeria under an agreement between the two countries, the African health agency said Thursday. The vaccinations started Tuesday targeting seven districts...

ENTERTAINMENT

After docs about Taylor Swift and Brooke Shields, filmmaker turns her camera to NYC psychics

Filmmaker Lana Wilson had never thought much about psychics. But the morning after Election Day in 2016, in Atlantic City, New Jersey, she found herself drawn towards a sign that promised “ psychic readings” and wandered in. Much to her surprise, she found it to be a rather...

Book Review: Raymond Antrobus transitions into fatherhood in his poetry collection 'Signs, Music'

Becoming a parent is life changing. Raymond Antrobus’ third poetry collection, “Signs, Music," captures this transformation as he conveys his own transition into fatherhood. The book is split between before and after, moving from the hope and trepidation of shepherding a new life...

Wife of Jane's Addiction frontman says tension and animosity led to onstage scuffle

BOSTON (AP) — A scuffle between members of the groundbreaking alternative rock band Jane’s Addiction came amid “tension and animosity” during their reunion tour, lead singer Perry Farrell’s wife said Saturday. The band is known for edgy, punk-inspired hits “Been Caught...

U.S. & WORLD NEWS

Hezbollah leader vows retaliation against Israel for attacks on devices as both sides trade strikes

BEIRUT (AP) — The leader of Hezbollah vowed Thursday to keep up daily strikes on Israel despite this week's...

The FBI says Iran tried to send hacked files to Democrats. It's another sign of foreign meddling

WASHINGTON (AP) — When the FBI said this week that Iran had tried to provide Democrats with material stolen from...

Justice Department opens civil rights probe of sheriff's office after torture of 2 Black men

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The Justice Department has opened a civil rights investigation into a Mississippi...

UK leader Starmer is facing flak for taking freebies. He says he's done nothing wrong

LONDON (AP) — Less than three months after he was elected on a promise to restore trust in politics, British...

Takeaways from AP’s story on the role of the West in widespread fraud with South Korean adoptions

Western governments eagerly approved and even pushed for the adoption of South Korean children for decades,...

Flood-hit regions in Central Europe will get billions in EU aid

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday pledged billions of euros in aid for...

Errin Haines the Associated Press

ATLANTA (AP) -- Police guarded newly-cleared plazas early Wednesday in Atlanta and Oakland, Calif., after clearing Occupy Wall Street protest camps in both cities. Dozens of demonstrators were arrested in swift crack-downs by riot squads after local authorities lost patience with the rallies.

Helicopters hovered and trained spotlights on downtown Atlanta as police in riot gear moved into a small city park just after midnight and arrested more than 50 protesters who had been there in tents for about two weeks.

Police and some neighbors in cities around the country have started losing patience as protesters prepare to settle in for winter in camps without running water or working toilets. Businesses and residents near New York's Zuccotti Park, the unofficial headquarters of the movement that began in mid-September, are demanding something be done to discourage the hundreds of protesters from urinating in the street and making noise at all hours.

In Oakland, riot police cleared protesters from in front of City Hall on Tuesday morning, leaving a sea of overturned tents, protest signs and trash strewn across the plaza. Hundreds of officers and sheriff's deputies went into the two week-old encampment with tear gas and beanbag rounds around 5 a.m., police said.

Eighty-five people were arrested, mostly on suspicion of misdemeanor unlawful assembly and illegal camping. About 170 protesters were at the site.

Early Wednesday, police stood guard and metal barricades surrounded Atlanta's Woodruff Park, which was where - like in many American cities - protesters had camped out to rally against what they see as corporate greed and a wide range of other economic issues. Before police marched in, protesters were warned a couple times around midnight to vacate the park or risk arrest.

Inside the park, the warnings were drowned out by drumbeats and chants of "Our park!"

Organizers had instructed participants to be peaceful if arrests came, and most were. Many gathered in the center of the park, locking arms, and sang "We Shall Overcome," until police led them out, one-by-one to waiting buses. Some were dragged out while others left on foot, handcuffed with plastic ties.

Oakland was less peaceful. Police fired tear gas and beanbag rounds as they cleared out the makeshift city Tuesday. After nightfall, protesters gathered at a downtown library and began marching toward City Hall in an attempt to re-establish a presence in the area of the disbanded camp.

They were met by police in riot gear. Officers cleared the area by firing tear gas over a roughly three-hour stretch of evening scuffles.

In Atlanta, State Sen. Vincent Fort was among those arrested after coming to the park in support of the protesters. He said the police presence was "overkill."

"He's using all these resources ... This is the most peaceful place in Georgia," Fort said, referring to Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed. "At the urging of the business community, he's moving people out. Shame on him."

Police included SWAT teams in riot gear, dozens of officers on motorcycles and several on horseback. By about 1:30 a.m. Wednesday the park was mostly cleared of protesters.

"It's real simple: This is a crisis of priorities that this small group of campers ... is the greatest threat in this city. It's outrageous," said organizer Tim Franzen.

The protesters who were arrested have bond hearings at Atlanta Municipal Court starting at 8 a.m., the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Several protesters with signs waited outside the courtroom for the hearings to begin.

Reed said he was upset over an advertised hip-hop concert that he said drew 600 people to the park over the weekend but didn't have a permit and didn't have security guards to work the crowd, calling it irresponsible.

Reed told reporters he had serious security concerns that he said were heightened Tuesday when a man was seen in the park with an assault rifle. The mayor said authorities could not determine whether the weapon was loaded, and were unable to get additional information about it.

An Associated Press reporter talked to the man with the gun slung across his back earlier Tuesday as he walked in the park. He wouldn't give his name, but said he was an out-of-work accountant who doesn't agree with the protesters' views, but was there, armed, because he wanted to protect the rights of people to protest. There's no law that prevents him from carrying the weapon in public, but several police followed him for about 10 minutes before moving off.

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Associated Press reporters Terry Collins in Oakland, Calif., and Marcus Wohlsen contributed to this report

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