03-30-2023  1:01 am   •   PDX and SEA Weather
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NORTHWEST NEWS

Legislative BIPOC Caucus Announces 2023 Priorities

In a historic milestone for the state, this is the most diverse Legislature in Oregon history, with 20 BIPOC legislators serving this session.

32% Rent Increases? Oregon Bill Takes Aim At ‘Rent Control Loophole’

Vulnerable households, seniors find themselves priced out of even rural areas.

Starbucks' Howard Schultz Defends Union Stance Before Senate

Longtime Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz insisted his company hasn't broken labor laws and is willing to bargain with unionized workers

2 High School Students Killed in Portland Triple Homicide

Detectives continue to ask that anyone with information contact them

NEWS BRIEFS

County Distributes $5 Million in Grants to Community-Based Organizations

Awards will help 13 community-based organizations fund capital improvements to better serve historically marginalized...

Call for Submissions: Play Scripts, Web Series, Film Shorts, Features & Documentaries

Deadline for submissions to the 2023 Pacific Northwest Multi-Cultural Readers Series & Film Festival extended to April 8 ...

Motorcycle Lane Filtering Law Passes Oregon Senate

SB 422 will allow motorcyclists to avoid dangers of stop-and-go traffic under certain conditions ...

MET Rental Assistance Now Available

The Muslim Educational Trust is extending its Rental Assistance Program to families in need living in Multnomah or Washington...

Two for One Tickets for Seven Guitars on Thursday, March 23

Taylore Mahogany Scott's performance in Seven Guitars brings to life Vera Dotson, a woman whose story arose in August Wilson's...

Seattle Audubon changes name, severing tie to slave owner

SEATTLE (AP) — Seattle Audubon is changing its name to Birds Connect Seattle to move away from a name with a racist legacy. The Seattle chapter said Tuesday the name change is one step toward creating a more inclusive and anti-racist organization, The Seattle Times reported. The...

Idaho law could criminalize helping minors get abortions

Idaho lawmakers are considering making it illegal for an adult to help a minor procure an abortion without parental consent. The measure would create a new crime of “abortion trafficking,” barring adults from obtaining abortion pills for a minor and “recruiting, harboring, or...

MLB The Show breaks barrier with Negro League players

LOS ANGELES (AP) — MLB The Show has broken a video game barrier: For the first time, the franchise will insert some of the greatest Negro League players — from Satchel Paige to Jackie Robinson — into the 2023 edition of the game as playable characters. Video gamers are now able...

Jacksonville's Armstrong: HR surge 'out-of-body experience'

Jacksonville’s Kris Armstrong could always hit for power, but never like this. Armstrong slugged six home runs over eight at-bats against Central Arkansas this past weekend, and he's gone deep eight times in 15 trips to the plate since Thursday. “It's kind of an...

OPINION

Oregon Should Reject Racist Roots, Restore Voting Rights For People in Prisons

Blocking people with felony convictions from voting started in the Jim Crow era as an intentional strategy to keep Black people from voting ...

Celebrating 196 Years of The Black Press

It was on March 17, 1827, at a meeting of “Freed Negroes” in New York City, that Samuel Cornish, a Presbyterian minister, and John Russwurn, the first Negro college graduate in the United States, established the negro newspaper. ...

DEQ Announces Suspension of Oregon’s Clean Vehicle Rebate Program

The state’s popular incentive for drivers to switch to electric vehicles is scheduled to pause in May ...

FHA Makes Housing More Affordable for 850,000 Borrowers

Savings tied to median market home prices ...

AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE NEWS

Anatomy of a political takeover at Florida public college

SARASOTA, Fla. (AP) — Florida's Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has targeted a tiny, public liberal arts college on the shores of Sarasota Bay, as a staging ground for his war on “woke.” The governor and his allies say the New College of Florida, known as a progressive school with...

California reparations amount, if any, left to politicians

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The leader of California's first-in-the-nation reparations task force on Wednesday said it won't take a stance on how much the state should compensate Black residents whom economists estimate may be owed more than 0 billion for decades of over-policing, disproportionate...

Social issues dominate in Women's Hall of Fame's new class

SENECA FALLS, N.Y. (AP) — A new group of National Women's Hall of Fame inductees includes social justice pioneers, groundbreaking physicians and women who have championed Jewish feminist theology and the financial well-being of Native Americans, the institute announced Wednesday. ...

ENTERTAINMENT

Grisham's 'The Exchange,' sequel to 'The Firm,' out in fall

NEW YORK (AP) — One of literature's most famous whistleblowers, attorney Mitch McDeere of John Grisham's “The Firm,” will soon be back in action — and back in trouble. Doubleday announced Wednesday that Grisham's “The Exchange,” a sequel to his million-selling breakout...

Review: A vibrant portrait of NYC, family in Sundance winner

There is a dread that hovers over “ A Thousand and One,” writer-director A.V. Rockwell’s remarkably vivid and tender debut feature about a mother and son in New York in the 1990s. The film does not play out like a mystery or a thriller — it’s about the mundanities and...

Gwyneth Paltrow's ski trial defense leans heavily on experts

PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — Gwyneth Paltrow's attorneys came close to wrapping up their case on Wednesday by relying on more experts to mount their defense on the seventh day of trial over her 2016 ski collision with a 76-year-old retired optometrist. Paltrow's defense team called to the...

U.S. & WORLD NEWS

GOP lawmakers override veto of transgender bill in Kentucky

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Republican lawmakers in Kentucky on Wednesday swept aside the Democratic governor’s veto...

Harris enters the fray over democracy with visit to Tanzania

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania (AP) — U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris will step onto the front lines of the battle...

Gwyneth Paltrow's widely watched ski crash trial nears end

PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — The closely watched trial over a 2016 ski collision between Gwyneth Paltrow and the...

Some in dry Somalia break Ramadan fast with little but water

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — This year’s holy month of Ramadan coincides with the longest drought on record in...

Pope to be hospitalized for days with respiratory infection

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis was hospitalized with a respiratory infection Wednesday after experiencing...

UN seeks court opinion on climate in win for island states

The countries of the United Nations led by the island state of Vanuatu adopted what they called a historic...

Ed White the Associated Press

LINCOLN PARK, Mich. (AP) -- A Michigan lottery winner was charged with fraud Tuesday for collecting food stamps and public health insurance despite pocketing a $735,000 jackpot.

Amanda Clayton, 25, was silent during a brief court hearing after spending a night in jail. A not-guilty plea was entered, and her lawyer vowed to fight the charges.

Lottery winners collecting welfare benefits have embarrassed Michigan officials. Clayton is the second person in the state caught with food stamps despite newly minted wealth, and Gov. Rick Snyder last week signed a law requiring the lottery to notify the Human Services Department when someone wins at least $1,000.

Clayton is charged with failing to inform the state that her income had changed as a result of the lottery prize and a job. She won a $1 million jackpot on a game show, "Make Me Rich!" and chose a $735,000 lump sum, before taxes, last September.

"It's simply common sense that million-dollar lottery winners forfeit their right to public assistance," said Attorney General Bill Schuette, whose office filed the charges. The maximum penalty is four years in prison.

Clayton, the mother of a 1-year-old, is accused of collecting approximately $5,475 in food stamps and public medical benefits over eight months until Detroit TV station WDIV broke the story in March. She told WDIV that she believed she could collect food aid because she didn't have a job at the time.

Outside the court in suburban Detroit, defense attorney Stanley Wise said he would ask that charges be dropped at the next hearing, on April 24, when a judge is expected to decide whether there's enough evidence to send the case to trial. He didn't elaborate on his strategy.

After a night in jail, Clayton was "upset but she'll be fine," Wise said.

Euline Clayton told reporters that her daughter used bad judgment but that a criminal case is "crap." She said Amanda called the Human Services Department about her winnings but could never reach anyone.

The charges "are very extreme. ... They arrested her like a vulture," the elder Clayton said. "She didn't steal $1 million."

Asked why her daughter didn't write a check weeks ago to fix things, she replied: "It's not that easy. Come on."

Clayton wasn't the first Michigan lottery winner to keep claiming public benefits. Leroy Fick, 60, of Bay County was using the food program despite winning an $850,000 lump sum prize in 2010. He told officials about his wealth but was allowed to temporarily keep his card because one-time windfalls at that time were not counted as regular income under the program.

The state has since banned anyone with assets of more than $5,000, excluding a car, from the food stamp program. That knocked Fick off the rolls.

Michigan Human Service Director Maura Corrigan said the new law requiring communications between the lottery and her agency "will make it easier to ensure that outrages involving instant millionaires on public assistance don't happen in the future."

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MLK Breakfast 2023

Photos from The Skanner Foundation's 37th Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Breakfast.