02-06-2025  3:29 pm   •   PDX and SEA Weather

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4

NORTHWEST NEWS

Pastor Mark Knutson on Strengthening Sanctuary and Responding to Trump’s Threats

Augustana Lutheran Church is part of an interfaith network in Portland organizing to protect immigrants.

“Young Black Men Are ___”, A Multimedia Interactive Storytelling Project, Opens February 1

Word Is Bond partners with the 1803 Fund to explore Black identity.

PHOTOS: The World Arts Foundation Presents Lifetime Achievement Award on MLK Day in Portland

Bernie and Bobbie Foster, The Skanner News founders, were presented with the award.

Cascade Festival of African Films Celebrates 35th Year

The Cascade Festival of African Films runs from Jan. 31 through March 1, featuring more than 20 films from 14 countries

NEWS BRIEFS

Budget Committee Ranking Member Merkley: Vought Dangerously Unfit to Lead OMB

Merkley spoke on the Senate floor to kick off Democratic opposition to Trump’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) nominee and...

Portland Trail Blazers Host First-ever Albina Rose Alliance Game

Game to highlight the Albina Rose Alliance – a partnership between Albina Vision Trust and the Portland Trail Blazers ...

Big Brothers Big Sisters of America Launches Research on the Long-Term Impacts of Mentorship

“This new research proves what we’ve known for years— mentorship has an incredibly positive impact, not just to our Littles, but...

Rayfield Announces Initial Victory in Lawsuit Challenging Trump’s Illegal Federal Funding Freeze

Today a federal judge in Rhode Island issued a temporary restraining order in the lawsuit filed by Oregon and a coalition of 22...

Creative Homies & 1803 Fund to Open ‘Black, Black History Month’ Pop-up Experience

Monthlong exhibition to celebrate Black creativity, community spaces and more ...

Fresh lawsuit hits Oregon city at the heart of Supreme Court ruling on homeless encampments

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The small Oregon city at the heart of a major U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year that allowed cities across the country to enforce homeless camping bans is facing a fresh lawsuit over its camping rules, as advocates find new ways to challenge them in a legal landscape...

Western Oregon women's basketball players allege physical and emotional abuse

MONMOUTH, Ore. (AP) — Former players for the Western Oregon women's basketball team have filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging emotional and physical abuse. The lawsuit, filed on Wednesday in Marion County, seeks million damages. It names the university, its athletic...

Slaughter leads Missouri against No. 5 Texas

Missouri Tigers (12-10, 1-6 SEC) at Texas Longhorns (20-2, 6-1 SEC) Austin, Texas; Thursday, 9 p.m. EST BOTTOM LINE: Missouri visits No. 5 Texas after Grace Slaughter scored 31 points in Missouri's 78-77 victory against the Mississippi State Bulldogs. The...

Slaughter leads Missouri against No. 5 Texas after 31-point game

Missouri Tigers (12-10, 1-6 SEC) at Texas Longhorns (20-2, 6-1 SEC) Austin, Texas; Thursday, 9 p.m. EST BOTTOM LINE: Missouri visits No. 5 Texas after Grace Slaughter scored 31 points in Missouri's 78-77 win over the Mississippi State Bulldogs. The...

OPINION

Bending the Arc: Advancing Equity in a New Federal Landscape

January 20th, 2025 represented the clearest distillation of the crossroads our country faces. ...

Trump’s America Last Agenda is a Knife in the Back of Working People

Donald Trump’s playbook has always been to campaign like a populist and govern like an oligarch. But it is still shocking just how brutally he went after our country’s working people in the first few days – even the first few hours – after he was...

As Dr. King Once Asked, Where Do We Go From Here?

“Let us be dissatisfied until America will no longer have high blood pressure of creeds and an anemia of deeds. Let us be dissatisfied until the tragic walls that separate the outer city of wealth and comfort from the inner city of poverty and despair shall...

A Day Without Child Care

On May 16, we will be closing our childcare centers for a day — signaling a crisis that could soon sweep across North Carolina, dismantling the very backbone of our economy ...

AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE NEWS

Trump consoles crash victims then dives into politics with attack on diversity initiatives

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday responded to the deadliest American aviation disaster in more than two decades by blaming diversity initiatives for undermining safety and questioning the actions of a U.S. Army helicopter pilot involved in the midair collision with a...

US Supreme Court rejects likely final appeal of South Carolina inmate a day before his execution

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Thursday what is likely the final appeal of a South Carolina inmate the day before his scheduled execution for a 2001 killing of a friend found dead in her burning car. Marion Bowman Jr.'s request to stop his execution until a...

Trump's orders take aim at critical race theory and antisemitism on college campuses

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is ordering U.S. schools to stop teaching what he views as “critical race theory” and other material dealing with race and sexuality or risk losing their federal money. A separate plan announced Wednesday calls for aggressive action to...

ENTERTAINMENT

Book Review: Hunted by the FBI and Russian Oligarch, a hedge fund manager flees into the wilderness

Paul Brightman, a former hedge fund manager, has been keeping a low profile, changing his name to Grant Anderson and making a modest living as a boat builder in a small New Hampshire town. But Paul fears it’s only a matter of time before he’s found. The FBI is hunting him. The CIA...

Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni get March 2026 trial date for her 'It Ends With Us' lawsuit

NEW YORK (AP) — A New York judge set a March 2026 trial date on Monday and moved an initial conference from mid-February to next week as the public feud between Blake Lively and her “It Ends With Us” costar and director Justin Baldoni continued to grow and accelerate. And in a...

Movie Review: Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon collide in comedy 'You're Cordially Invited'

Are you with the bride or the groom? Hold on, scratch that. Are you with Reese Witherspoon or Will Ferrell? “You're Cordially Invited,” a new comedy directed by Nicholas Stoller, brings together two stars whose movie worlds are nearly as divided as wedding guests on separate sides...

U.S. & WORLD NEWS

Richard Allen Greene CNN

LONDON (CNN) -- Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch said he does not believe in journalists using phone hacking or private detectives, calling it "a lazy way of reporters doing their job," as he was grilled Wednesday about press ethics and his political influence in Britain.

He denied using the power of his press for personal gain, saying his newspapers did not lobby for his commercial interests and he had "never asked a prime minister for anything."

Even as he was speaking, British Prime Minister David Cameron said politicians from across the political spectrum had been too close to the powerful media baron over the years.

"I think we all, on both sides of this house, did a bit too much cozying up to Mr. Murdoch," he told the House of Commons as his government was battered over testimony Murdoch's son had given the day before.

James Murdoch testified at the Leveson Inquiry Tuesday that he had had drinks with Cameron at a pub before Cameron became prime minister and dined with him once he was in office.

Inquiry lawyer Robert Jay pressed James Murdoch over the extent of his contact with politicians as the company moved to take full ownership of satellite broadcaster BSkyB, a bid that collapsed because of the phone-hacking scandal.

Evidence published Tuesday suggests that News Corp. was getting inside information from the government minister with the power to approve or block the acquisition, Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt.

An aide to Hunt resigned Wednesday, saying his contacts with Murdoch representatives had gone beyond what the culture secretary had authorized.

But Hunt told the House of Commons he would not quit.

Rupert Murdoch spent Wednesday morning fending off Jay's efforts to demonstrate that Murdoch wielded considerable influence over British politicians.

He was particularly insistent that there had been no quid pro quo with Tony Blair as Murdoch's papers switched support from the Conservative party to Blair's Labour party in 1997 -- not long before Blair swept into power as prime minister.

"I, in 10 years in his power there, never asked Tony Blair for any favors and never received any," Murdoch said, pounding his hand on the table for influence.

"I take a particularly strong pride in the fact that we've never pushed our commercial interests in our newspapers," said Murdoch, who owns the Sun and the Times in London, the New York Post and Wall Street Journal, and papers in Australia as well as television stations and book publishers.

And he said he does not hold a grudge against Cameron, who established the probe into press ethics to which Murdoch gave testimony. The panel was created in response to phone hacking at Murdoch's News of the World tabloid.

Murdoch said rumors that he could not forgive Cameron for setting up the Leveson Inquiry are "untrue."

James Murdoch insisted before the Leveson Inquiry Tuesday that he knew little about the scale of phone hacking by people working for the News of the World, as he continued his fight to limit the damage the scandal does to him and his family's media empire.

The scandal has reverberated through the British political establishment, led to dozens of arrests on suspicion of criminal activity and forced News Corp. to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds in compensation to the victims of phone hacking.

James and Rupert Murdoch have been hammered over the past year about what they knew about phone hacking by people working for them.

Underlings did not tell James Murdoch how pervasive the practice was when he took over News Corp.'s British newspaper publishing arm, he testified Tuesday.

He agreed with a suggestion that the reason was because they knew he would put a stop to it.

"I think that must be it, that I would say, 'Cut out the cancer,' and there was some desire to not do that," he told the Leveson Inquiry.

Former Murdoch employees testified earlier that they told him about the problem.

The younger Murdoch has already been called twice to testify before British lawmakers and resigned from a number of top management positions at British subsidiaries of his father's media empire.

He and his father have always denied knowing about the scale of phone hacking, which police say could have affected thousands of people, ranging from celebrities and politicians to crime victims and war veterans.

James Murdoch said Tuesday that he had no reason to look into illegal eavesdropping by his employees when he took over the company's British newspaper subsidiary in December 2007.

A News of the World reporter and a private investigator had been sent to prison that year for hacking the phones of the staff of Princes William and Harry, but Murdoch said he had been assured that the problem went no further.

"I was not told sufficient information to go and turn over a whole bunch of stones that I was told had already been turned over," he said. "I don't think that, short of knowing they weren't giving me the full picture, I would've been able to know that at the time."

The journalist who went to prison, Clive Goodman, had been saying that phone-hacking went beyond his case, Leveson Inquiry counsel Robert Jay said.

"I was not aware of that," Murdoch replied.

He acknowledged meeting with Cameron and his predecessor as prime minister, Tony Blair, but denied having lobbied them improperly about his family's business interests.

And he denied having made a "crass calculation" about how The Sun's endorsement of Cameron's Conservative party before the 2010 elections would affect News Corp.

Dozens of people have been arrested in criminal investigations into phone and e-mail hacking and police bribery, and police asked prosecutors last week to charge at least eight people.

The suspects include at least one journalist and a police officer, the Crown Prosecution Service said, declining to name them.

No charges have been filed, and the Crown Prosecution Service said it did not know when a decision would be made about charges.

In addition to the Leveson Inquiry, two parliamentary committees also are looking into media conduct.

James Murdoch, 39, resigned as chairman of British Sky Broadcasting this month, saying, "I am determined that the interests of BSkyB should not be undermined by matters outside the scope of this company." However, News Corp. still has a controlling stake in the company.

Rupert Murdoch testified before lawmakers in July alongside his son.

News Corp. shut down its British Sunday tabloid, The News of the World, last summer after public outrage at the scale of illegal eavesdropping its journalists did in search of stories.

CNN's Dan Rivers, Erin McLaughlin, Elaine Ly and Claudia Rebaza contributed to this report.

The-CNN-Wire/Atlanta/+1-404-827-WIRE(9473)

™ & © 2012 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.