05-04-2024  10:28 pm   •   PDX and SEA Weather
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4

NORTHWEST NEWS

Police Detain Driver Who Accelerated Toward Protesters at Portland State University in Oregon

The Portland Police Bureau said in a written statement late Thursday afternoon that the man was taken to a hospital on a police mental health hold. They did not release his name. The vehicle appeared to accelerate from a stop toward the crowd but braked before it reached anyone. 

Portland Government Will Change On Jan. 1. The City’s Transition Team Explains What We Can Expect.

‘It’s a learning curve that everyone has to be intentional about‘

What Marijuana Reclassification Means for the United States

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is moving toward reclassifying marijuana as a less dangerous drug. The Justice Department proposal would recognize the medical uses of cannabis but wouldn’t legalize it for recreational use. Some advocates for legalized weed say the move doesn't go far enough, while opponents say it goes too far.

US Long-Term Care Costs Are Sky-High, but Washington State’s New Way to Help Pay for Them Could Be Nixed

A group funded by hedge fund executive Brian Heywood is attempting to undermine the financial stability of Washington state's new long-term care social insurance program.

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...

Escaped zebra captured near Seattle after gallivanting around Cascade mountain foothills for days

SEATTLE (AP) — A zebra that has been hoofing through the foothills of western Washington for days was recaptured Friday evening, nearly a week after she escaped with three other zebras from a trailer near Seattle. Local residents and animal control officers corralled the zebra...

Safety lapses contributed to patient assaults at Oregon State Hospital, federal report says

Safety lapses at the Oregon State Hospital contributed to recent patient-on-patient assaults, a federal report on the state's most secure inpatient psychiatric facility has found. The investigation by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services found that staff didn't always...

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

New White House Plan Could Reduce or Eliminate Accumulated Interest for 30 Million Student Loan Borrowers

Multiple recent announcements from the Biden administration offer new hope for the 43.2 million borrowers hoping to get relief from the onerous burden of a collective

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...

AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE NEWS

As US spotlights those missing or dead in Native communities, prosecutors work to solve their cases

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — It was a frigid winter morning when authorities found a Native American man dead on a remote gravel road in western New Mexico. He was lying on his side, with only one sock on, his clothes gone and his shoes tossed in the snow. There were trails of blood on...

The Kentucky Derby is turning 150 years old. It's survived world wars and controversies of all kinds

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — As a record crowd cheered, American Pharoah rallied from behind and took aim at his remaining two rivals in the stretch. The bay colt and jockey Victor Espinoza surged to the lead with a furlong to go and thundered across the finish line a length ahead in the 2015 Kentucky...

Congressman praises heckling of war protesters, including 1 who made monkey gestures at Black woman

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Israel-Hamas war demonstrations at the University of Mississippi turned ugly this week when one counter-protester appeared to make monkey noises and gestures at a Black student in a raucous gathering that was endorsed by a far-right congressman from Georgia. ...

ENTERTAINMENT

Celebrity birthdays for the week of May 5-11

Celebrity birthdays for the week of May 5-11: May 5: Actor Michael Murphy is 86. Actor Lance Henriksen (“Millennium,” ″Aliens”) is 84. Comedian-actor Michael Palin (Monty Python) is 81. Actor John Rhys-Davies (“Lord of the Rings,” ″Raiders of the Lost Ark”) is 80....

Select list of nominees for 2024 Tony Awards

NEW YORK (AP) — Select nominations for the 2024 Tony Awards, announced Tuesday. Best Musical: “Hell's Kitchen'': ”Illinoise"; “The Outsiders”; “Suffs”; “Water for Elephants” Best Play: “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding”; “Mary Jane”; “Mother...

Book Review: 'Crow Talk' provides a path for healing in a meditative and hopeful novel on grief

Crows have long been associated with death, but Eileen Garvin’s novel “Crow Talk” offers a fresh perspective; creepy, dark and morbid becomes beautiful, wondrous and transformative. “Crow Talk” provides a path for healing in a meditative and hopeful novel on grief, largely...

U.S. & WORLD NEWS

I-95 overpass in Connecticut scorched during a fuel truck inferno has been demolished

NORWALK, Conn. (AP) — A bridge damaged in a fiery crash that kept Interstate 95 in Connecticut closed Thursday...

King Charles III’s openness about cancer has helped him connect with people in year after coronation

LONDON (AP) — King Charles III’s decision to be open about his cancer diagnosis has helped the new monarch...

As US spotlights those missing or dead in Native communities, prosecutors work to solve their cases

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — It was a frigid winter morning when authorities found a Native American man dead on a...

AP PHOTOS: South and Southeast Asian countries cope with a weekslong heat wave

South and Southeast Asian countries have been coping with a weekslong heat wave rendering record high temperatures...

Israel has briefed US on plan to evacuate Palestinian civilians ahead of potential Rafah operation

WASHINGTON (AP) — Israel this week briefed Biden administration officials on a plan to evacuate Palestinian...

Kremlin critics say Russia is targeting its foes abroad with killings, poisonings and harassment

The military defector was killed in a hail of gunfire and then run over by a car in Spain. The opposition figure...

Nima Elbagir CNN

MOGADISHU, Somalia (CNN) -- Bashir Osman moves hurriedly along a white sandy beachfront, giving instructions to a driver operating a bulldozer. Near them, a large truck is ferrying away piles of rocks, clearing a sun-soaked beach lapped by the azure blue waters of the Indian Ocean.

Work here is well underway as Osman presses ahead with his new multi-million dollar project: to build a luxury beach resort in Mogadishu, the capital of war-torn Somalia.

"I knew one day that Mogadishu will become peace and we'll get stability," says Osman, who already owns two hotels in the city. "That is why I started to buy that land."

After more than 20 years of violence, Somalia moved a step closer to stability last September after picking its first president elected on home soil in decades.

And now, hope is gradually returning to parts of the East African country.

Although security is still an issue, Mogadishu has been experiencing an economic renaissance in recent months, boosted by members of the diaspora returning home to rebuild the country, as well as the efforts of local businessmen who never left.

Osman, who stayed in Somalia throughout its conflict, hopes his new development will attract holidaymakers from abroad. He says that he's already had American and British visitors staying in his hotels.

"More than 20 tourists they came," he says. "Some of them they came with their family to show Somalia, especially Mogadishu," adds Osman. "And really when they went back, they were so excited when they saw how Mogadishu looks like, how beautiful city we have, how beautiful beach we have and that is what we want to show them again and again."

Osman's ambitious new projects are part of a growing building activity that is reshaping many of the neighborhoods of bullet-ridden Mogadishu.

"If you go to Mogadishu the construction is very, very booming," says Osman. "That is the sign of peace," he adds. "Especially the people who came back from America and Europe, they start to open the new businesses."

Mogadishu's growing economy is manifested not just in real estate and the hotel sector. Telecommunications is also on the rise, while the aviation industry is spreading its wings too, with about 15 daily domestic and international flights.

"We have six different routes and basically next we'll be eight," says Osman Abdullahi, a young Somali entrepreneur who set up the ODAY express airline. "There is a lot of airlines that are planning to (come to) this country and hoping to (have) a hub over here."

Abdullahi admits that leaving the United States in 2010 to return home and start his business was a "100% huge risk."

He says that when moved back back to Somalia, it was too dangerous to even drive in Mogadishu. "That picture is already gone. It's a different picture today," he says.

This new picture can also be witnessed at Mogadishu's seaport -- Somalia's key national asset -- where creaking cranes lift goods from the commercial ships and boats lining the harbor. The wide array of imported construction materials, household goods and food are then loaded onto rows of waiting trucks.

The customs revenue collected from here has increased exponentially in recent times. And while the system is far from perfect, the income is crucial to the newly formed government in rebuilding the city, whose basic infrastructure has been shattered by war.

Currently, Somalia's economy is largely supported by aid from donor governments, while the relatively peaceful business environment is propped up by the African Union Mission in Somalia African (AMISOM).

The security forces squeezed the al Qaeda-linked Islamist militant group Al-Shabaab out of Mogadishu, but the insurgents still lurk and periodically launch terror attacks.

Brigadier Michael Ondoga, of AMISOM, told CNN recently that although Al-Shabaab was "largely defeated" in Mogadishu, there were still issues with its members "melting into the population" and taking advantage of the city's large size to hide.

But Somali security forces have succeeded in pre-empting many suicide attacks and have arrested some of the Al-Shabaab operatives hiding among the capital's population.

"The situation is generally good at the moment -- the security forces are controlling it very well," Ondoga said. "Here in the city now, the big guns are quiet, the streets are lit, many (in the) diaspora are coming back, new construction is going on, business is booming," he said.

And despite the long list of challenges, Mogadishu businessmen like Osman are hopeful of a brighter future.

"For me I was here (during the conflict) and the situation I see now is a situation I have never seen before. So the situation now is getting better," he says.

 

The Skanner Foundation's 38th Annual MLK Breakfast