04-30-2024  8:52 am   •   PDX and SEA Weather
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NORTHWEST NEWS

City Council Strikes Down Gonzalez’s ‘Inhumane’ Suggestion for Blanket Ban on Public Camping

Mayor Wheeler’s proposal for non-emergency ordinance will go to second reading.

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. 

NEWS BRIEFS

April 30 is the Registration Deadline for the May Primary Election

Voters can register or update their registration online at OregonVotes.gov until 11:59 p.m. on April 30. ...

Chair Jessica Vega Pederson Releases $3.96 Billion Executive Budget for Fiscal Year 2024-2025

Investments will boost shelter and homeless services, tackle the fentanyl crisis, strengthen the safety net and support a...

New Funding Will Invest in Promising Oregon Technology and Science Startups

Today Business Oregon and its Oregon Innovation Council announced a million award to the Portland Seed Fund that will...

Unity in Prayer: Interfaith Vigil and Memorial Service Honoring Youth Affected by Violence

As part of the 2024 National Youth Violence Prevention Week, the Multnomah County Prevention and Health Promotion Community Adolescent...

A massive Powerball win draws attention to a little-known immigrant culture in the US

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Cheng “Charlie” Saephan wore a broad smile and a bright blue sash emblazoned with the words “Iu-Mien USA” as he hoisted an oversized check for jumi.3 billion above his head. The 46-year-old immigrant's luck in winning an enormous Powerball jackpot in Oregon...

Winner of jumi.3 billion Powerball jackpot is an immigrant from Laos who has cancer

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — One of the winners of a jumi.3 billion Powerball jackpot this month is an immigrant from Laos who has had cancer for eight years and had his latest chemotherapy treatment last week. Cheng “Charlie” Saephan, 46, of Portland, told a news conference held by the...

The Bo Nix era begins in Denver, and the Broncos also drafted his top target at Oregon

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (AP) — For the first time in his 17 seasons as a coach, Sean Payton has a rookie quarterback to nurture. Payton's Denver Broncos took Bo Nix in the first round of the NFL draft. The coach then helped out both himself and Nix by moving up to draft his new QB's top...

Elliss, Jenkins, McCaffrey join Harrison and Alt in following their fathers into the NFL

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (AP) — Marvin Harrison Jr., Joe Alt, Kris Jenkins, Jonah Ellis and Luke McCaffrey have turned the NFL draft into a family affair. The sons of former pro football stars, they've followed their fathers' formidable footsteps into the league. Elliss was...

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

Court upholds Milwaukee police officer's firing for posting racist memes after Sterling Brown arrest

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a former Milwaukee police officer was properly fired for posting racist memes related to the arrest of an NBA player that triggered a public outcry. Officer Erik Andrade was involved in the 2018 arrest of Sterling...

Judge holds Trump in contempt, fines him ,000 and raises threat of jail in hush money trial

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump was held in contempt of court Tuesday and fined ,000 for repeatedly violating a gag order that barred him from making public statements about witnesses, jurors and some others connected to his New York hush money case. And if he does it again, the judge warned, he...

Supporters, opponents of Minnesota trooper charged with murder confront each other at courthouse

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Supporters and critics of a white Minnesota state trooper who's charged with murder for killing a Black motorist confronted each other at a courthouse Monday in an exchange that was heated but peaceful, reflecting the strong emotions that the politically charged case has...

ENTERTAINMENT

Seinfeld's upcoming Netflix movie about Pop-Tarts to be featured in IndyCar race at Long Beach

Jerry Seinfeld's upcoming Netflix comedy will be featured during this weekend's IndyCar race at Long Beach as rookie Linus Lundqvist will drive a car painted to look like a Pop-Tart in recognition of the movie “Unfrosted.” Chip Ganassi Racing's No. 8 will be painted in the texture...

'I was afraid for my life' — Orlando Bloom puts himself in peril for new TV series

NEW YORK (AP) — Orlando Bloom wanted to test himself for his latest adventure project. Not by eating something gross or visiting a new country. He wanted to risk death — with not one but three extreme sports. The Peacock series“Orlando Bloom: To the Edge” sees the “Pirates...

The 2024 Latin Grammys will return home to Miami after a controversial move to Spain

The 2024 Latin Grammys will return to Miami — where the Latin Recording Academy is headquartered. The 25th annual event will air live from the Kaseya Center on Nov. 14. Nominations will be announced on Sept. 17. Last year's ceremony was held in Sevilla, Spain — the...

U.S. & WORLD NEWS

A massive Powerball win draws attention to a little-known immigrant culture in the US

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Cheng “Charlie” Saephan wore a broad smile and a bright blue sash emblazoned with the...

5 takeaways from the global negotiations on a treaty to end plastic pollution

OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — The world’s nations finished a round of negotiations early Tuesday on a treaty to end...

The Latest | Executive director of C-SPAN's archives called to the stand in Trump's hush money case

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump’s hush money trial resumed Tuesday with Judge Juan M. Merchan first ruling on...

Kazakhstan arrests ex-interior minister in connection with unrest that left 238 dead

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Authorities in Kazakhstan arrested a former interior minister on Tuesday, in connection...

Mexico proudly controls its energy but could find it hard to reach its climate goals

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico's taking control of its oil sector from U.S. and British companies is taught in...

Sword-wielding man attacks passersby in London, killing a 14-year-old boy and injuring 4 others

LONDON (AP) — A man wielding a sword attacked members of the public and police officers in a east London suburb...

By Ed Payne CNN




Authorities expect to file charges Wednesday against the three men arrested following the dramatic discovery of a trio of missing women who police say had been held captive for close to a decade.


An administrative judge granted police an extension of the city's usual 36-hour window to charge suspects, giving them until Wednesday evening to charge Ariel Castro, 52, who lived in the home where the women were found, and his brothers, 54-year-old Pedro Castro and 50-year-old Onil Castro, police Det. Jennifer Ciaccia said Tuesday.



Police arrested the three brothers Monday night after one of the women, 27-year-old Amanda Berry, staged a daring escape with the aid of a neighbor. In addition to Berry and a 6-year-old daughter apparently born to her during her captivity, police say Georgina "Gina" DeJesus, 23, and Michelle Knight, 32, also were freed.



The three women disappeared from the same Cleveland street -- Lorain Avenue -- between 2002 and 2004.



The Castro brothers had not been questioned by police as of Tuesday night, Ciaccia said.



Meanwhile, the women were reuniting with family members they had not seen in nearly 10 years.



"I love you honey, thank God," Berry's tearful grandmother Fern Gentry could be heard telling the young woman in a telephone call recorded by CNN affiliate WJHL. "... I've thought about you all this time. I never forgot about you."



Berry sounded upbeat -- telling Gentry that she felt "fine" and that the 6-year-old girl also rescued Monday from the Cleveland home is indeed her own.



At the home of 23-year-old Georgina "Gina" DeJesus, balloons dotted the front yard. Also present: a sign that was first hung on a fence outside the home when Gina was first reported missing nine years ago.



Her 32-year-old sister, Mayra DeJesus, told CNN's Poppy Harlow Tuesday that Gina -- for all the hell she's gone through -- is in "good spirits."



DeJesus spent the day with family, who didn't focus on what she'd gone through but more on lifting her up, her sister said.



Fewer details have emerged about Knight.



Her mother, Barbara Knight, told NBC Wednesday that she had not yet spoken to her daughter, but believed that her sons -- Michelle's brothers -- had.



"She's probably angry at the world because she thought she would never be found but thank God that somebody did," Knight told NBC.



When asked what she would say to her daughter, she said, "I love you and I missed you all this time."



Police say Berry, Knight and DeJesus were being held in a home just three miles from the area where they were abducted.



They escaped after Berry broke out the bottom of a screen door and called for help Monday evening, startling neighbor Charles Ramsey, who came over and helped kick in the door.



"I've been kidnapped, and I've been missing for 10 years," the 27-year-old woman said in a frantic 911 call. "And I'm here. I'm free now."



Some neighbors of Ariel Castro spent Tuesday second-guessing themselves, questioning why they hadn't noticed signs earlier and if they could have prevented the horrors.



"This is a heartbreaking moment for us, because I'm always out there (and) I've heard nothing," said Daniel Marti, who's known Ariel Castro since junior high school and lived near him for some 22 years.



"... To us, it was like nothing was happening. But yet it was happening, right in front of our face and we didn't even know."



'He didn't want nobody back there'



The predominantly Latino neighborhood, made up mostly of two-story frame homes, sits within sight of downtown. The gentrification that has spiffed up districts on either end hasn't extended to the blocks around Castro's home, where a number of houses are boarded up. But the churches in the neighborhood still ring the bells in their steeples, and the neighbors say they look out for one another.



Authorities and several neighbors say they had no prior indication anything suspicious was going on at the nondescript home on Seymour Avenue, where a Puerto Rican flag hung from the porch.



But after Monday's discovery, they reflected back and noticed things that, in retrospect, might have signaled something awry.



Marti, for one, asked himself why he didn't question why Castro -- who, he thought, lived alone -- would return each day with bags of McDonald's food, or who would watch the little girl he occasionally took outside. He also recalled how Castro seemed to steer him away from the house when they talked: "Now that I think of it, he didn't want nobody back there."



Another neighbor, Israel Lugo, said he saw Castro at the park Sunday with a little girl and asked who she was: "He said it was his girlfriend's daughter."



Lugo said his sister got a bad vibe from the house and asked him not to let the children play unsupervised nearby. He said he heard yelling in the house in November 2011 and called police to investigate, but they left after no one answered the door.



And Nina Samoylicz, who lives nearby, said she called police about two years ago after spotting a naked woman in the backyard of Castro's house. Samoylicz said when she called out to the woman, a man told the woman to get in the house, then ran in himself.



"She was just walking around and naked," Samoylicz said. "We thought that was weird. We thought it was funny at first, and then we thought that was weird, so we called the cops. They thought we was playing, joking, they didn't believe us."



She said she had also seen tarps covering the backyard.



But Sgt. Sammy Morris, a Cleveland police spokesman, told CNN that the department had no record of a 911 call reporting a naked woman at Castro's address.



In fact, authorities never had any indications that the women were being held in the home or that anything suspicious was going on there, Cleveland Public Safety Director Martin Flask said. Neighbors had not provided any tips, he added.



Police had visited the home twice, authorities said Tuesday, once after Castro called about a fight in the street and another time to investigate Castro -- a former school bus driver -- on an unrelated incident involving a child who had been left on a bus.



The 2004 incident was the first of four exhibitions of "bad judgment" that led to Castro's November firing by Cleveland's school district, according to records released Tuesday night.



"He previously had been suspended for 60 days for leaving a child on a bus; 60 days for making an illegal U-turn in rush hour traffic with a bus load of students, and last school year for using the bus to do his grocery shopping," the letter recommending his dismissal states. His firing came after he had left his bus unattended outside a school after his preschool routes had been canceled, without notifying his dispatcher or depot.



Tito DeJesus, a bandmate of Castro's, said he had been inside the bass player's home once, about two years ago, to help deliver a washer and dryer he'd sold to the suspect and saw "a normal environment." DeJesus said he isn't related to the rescued Gina DeJesus but had known the family for years.



"It didn't seem to be a place where women were being held against their will," he said. "Of course, mind you, I didn't go throughout the entire house. I was just at the beginning of the house, in the living room, but it seemed normal."



 



Finally free



Berry was last seen after finishing her shift at a Burger King in Cleveland on April 21, 2003. It was the eve of her 17th birthday. DeJesus disappeared nearly a year later, on April 2, 2004. She was 14.



Knight vanished on August 22, 2002. She never returned after going to a neighborhood store to use a pay phone, cousin Brenda Dinickle told CNN's Zoraida Sambolin.



The family reported her missing the next day, Flask said. She was 21.



Dinickle described her cousin as mentally challenged.



"She had a mind of a child. She was slow," Dinickle said.



Nicknamed "Shorty," because of her diminutive 4-foot, 7-inch stature, the family thought Knight might be with the brother of a brother-in-law, but had no phone number to contact him.



News of her discovery came as a shock to brother Freddie Knight, who didn't know she was missing until he saw the story on TV.



"I was freaking happy as hell, because I didn't know my sister was kidnapped," he said. "My mom never tells me anything."



Knight said their mom, who now lives in Naples, Florida, kicked him out of the house when he was 14 and they remain estranged.



CNN not could immediately confirm the details of Knight's account.



Knight said he met with his sister at the hospital and gave her a hug, saying the ordeal had left her traumatized.



"I hugged her because she wanted a hug," he said. "My sister is going to move on, forget the past ... , leave it behind, start anew."



The three women and the child were released Tuesday from the hospital where they had been taken for evaluations, a spokeswoman said. Cleveland's Deputy Police Chief Ed Tomba said all four appeared to be in good condition, if in need of a good meal.



'We're hoping for a miracle'



Investigators had previously speculated that the disappearances of Berry, DeJesus and another girl, 14-year-old Ashley Summers, may have been connected. Summers' family last saw her in July 2007, when she was 14.



"We did in fact believe there was an association between the Berry case and the DeJesus case as well as the Summers case," said former FBI agent Jennifer Eakin. Eakin is now a case manager at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, which in 2008 held a comprehensive review of the cases with the FBI and Cleveland police.



Now the Summers family is hoping that the Cleveland investigation will yield information about Ashley, her aunt, Debra Summers, said.



"We're hoping for a miracle," she said.



Vicki Anderson, the spokeswoman for the Cleveland FBI office, said investigators will question the three women found Monday in the hope that they know something about Summers' disappearance.



 



CNN's Zoraida Sambolin reported from Cleveland and Ed Payne reported and wrote in Atlanta. Matt Smith, Greg Botelho, Michael Pearson, Tory Dunnan, Martin Savidge, Jason Hanna, Josh Levs, Steve Almasy, Laura Ly and Rande Iaboni also contributed to this report.

The Skanner Foundation's 38th Annual MLK Breakfast