11-26-2024  5:26 pm   •   PDX and SEA Weather

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NORTHWEST NEWS

Forecasts Warn of Possible Winter Storms Across US During Thanksgiving Week

Two people died in the Pacific Northwest after a rapidly intensifying “bomb cyclone” hit the West Coast last Tuesday, bringing fierce winds that toppled trees and power lines and damaged homes and cars. Fewer than 25,000 people in the Seattle area were still without power Sunday evening.

Huge Number Of Illegal Guns In Portland Come From Licensed Dealers, New Report Shows

Local gun safety advocacy group argues for state-level licensing and regulation of firearm retailers.

'Bomb Cyclone' Kills 1 and Knocks out Power to Over Half a Million Homes Across the Northwest US

A major storm was sweeping across the northwest U.S., battering the region with strong winds and rain. The Weather Prediction Center issued excessive rainfall risks through Friday and hurricane-force wind warnings were in effect. 

'Bomb Cyclone' Threatens Northern California and Pacific Northwest

The Weather Prediction Center issued excessive rainfall risks beginning Tuesday and lasting through Friday. Those come as the strongest atmospheric river  that California and the Pacific Northwest has seen this season bears down on the region. 

NEWS BRIEFS

Vote By Mail Tracking Act Passes House with Broad Support

The bill co-led by Congressman Mfume would make it easier for Americans to track their mail-in ballots; it advanced in the U.S. House...

OMSI Opens Indoor Ice Rink for the Holiday Season

This is the first year the unique synthetic ice rink is open. ...

Thanksgiving Safety Tips

Portland Fire & Rescue extends their wish to you for a happy and safe Thanksgiving Holiday. ...

Portland Art Museum’s Rental Sales Gallery Showcases Diverse Talent

New Member Artist Show will be open to the public Dec. 6 through Jan. 18, with all works available for both rental and purchase. ...

Dolly Parton's Imagination Library of Oregon Announces New State Director and Community Engagement Coordinator

“This is an exciting milestone for Oregon,” said DELC Director Alyssa Chatterjee. “These positions will play critical roles in...

Eggs are available -- but pricier -- as the holiday baking season begins

Egg prices are rising once more as a lingering outbreak of bird flu coincides with the high demand of the holiday baking season. But prices are still far from the recent peak they reached almost two years ago. And the American Egg Board, a trade group, says egg shortages at grocery...

Two US senators urge FIFA not to pick Saudi Arabia as 2034 World Cup host over human rights risks

GENEVA (AP) — Two United States senators urged FIFA on Monday not to pick Saudi Arabia as the 2034 World Cup host next month in a decision seen as inevitable since last year despite the kingdom’s record on human rights. Democrats Ron Wyden of Oregon and Dick Durbin of Illinois...

Missouri hosts Browning and Lindenwood

Lindenwood Lions (2-4) at Missouri Tigers (5-1) Columbia, Missouri; Wednesday, 6:30 p.m. EST BOTTOM LINE: Lindenwood visits Missouri after Markeith Browning II scored 20 points in Lindenwood's 77-64 loss to the Valparaiso Beacons. The Tigers are 5-0 on...

Pacific hosts Paljor and UAPB

Arkansas-Pine Bluff Golden Lions (1-6) at Pacific Tigers (3-4) Stockton, California; Wednesday, 10 p.m. EST BOTTOM LINE: UAPB faces Pacific after Chop Paljor scored 22 points in UAPB's 112-63 loss to the Missouri Tigers. The Tigers are 1-1 on their home...

OPINION

A Loan Shark in Your Pocket: Cellphone Cash Advance Apps

Fast-growing app usage leaves many consumers worse off. ...

America’s Healing Can Start with Family Around the Holidays

With the holiday season approaching, it seems that our country could not be more divided. That division has been perhaps the main overarching topic of our national conversation in recent years. And it has taken root within many of our own families. ...

Donald Trump Rides Patriarchy Back to the White House

White male supremacy, which Trump ran on, continues to play an outsized role in exacerbating the divide that afflicts our nation. ...

Why Not Voting Could Deprioritize Black Communities

President Biden’s Justice40 initiative ensures that 40% of federal investment benefits flow to disadvantaged communities, addressing deep-seated inequities. ...

AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE NEWS

Trump vows tariffs over immigration. What the numbers say about border crossings, drugs and crime

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a Monday evening announcement, President-elect Donald Trump railed against Mexico and Canada, accusing them of allowing thousands of people to enter the U.S. Hitting a familiar theme from the campaign trail and his first term in office, Trump portrayed the...

Walmart's DEI rollback signals a profound shift in the wake of Trump's election victory

NEW YORK (AP) — Walmart's sweeping rollback of its diversity policies is the strongest indication yet of a profound shift taking hold at U.S. companies that are re-evaluating the legal and political risks associated with bold programs to bolster historically underrepresented groups. ...

Louisville police officer alleges discrimination over his opinion on Breonna Taylor's killing

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A Kentucky police officer who was shot in 2020 during protests over Breonna Taylor’s death is suing his department, alleging his superiors discriminated against him after he expressed his opinion about Taylor's shooting. Louisville Officer Robinson Desroches...

ENTERTAINMENT

Book Review: 'How to Think Like Socrates' leaves readers with questions

The lessons of Socrates have never really gone out of style, but if there’s ever a perfect time to revisit the ancient philosopher, now is it. In “How to Think Like Socrates: Ancient Philosophy as a Way of Life in the Modern World,” Donald J. Robertson describes Socrates' Athens...

Music Review: The Breeders' Kim Deal soars on solo debut, a reunion with the late Steve Albini

When the Pixies set out to make their 1988 debut studio album, they enlisted Steve Albini to engineer “Surfer Rosa,” the seminal alternative record which includes the enduring hit, “Where Is My Mind?” That experience was mutually beneficial to both parties — and was the beginning of a...

Celebrity birthdays for the week of Dec. 1-7

Celebrity birthdays for the week of Dec. 1-7: Dec. 1: Actor-director Woody Allen is 89. Singer Dianne Lennon of the Lennon Sisters is 85. Bassist Casey Van Beek of The Tractors is 82. Singer-guitarist Eric Bloom of Blue Oyster Cult is 80. Drummer John Densmore of The Doors is 80....

U.S. & WORLD NEWS

After delay, Trump signs agreement with Biden White House to begin formal transition handoff

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday reached a required agreement with President Joe...

Trump's threat to impose tariffs could raise prices for consumers, colliding with promise for relief

DETROIT (AP) — If Donald Trump makes good on his threat to slap 25% tariffs on everything imported from Mexico...

Biden proposes Medicare and Medicaid cover costly weight-loss drugs for millions of obese Americans

WASHINGTON (AP) — Millions of Americans with obesity would be eligible to have popular weight-loss drugs like...

AP Photos: A look back at over a year of fighting as Israel and Hezbollah agree to a truce

Smoke rising from the rubble of multistory buildings in Beirut. Rockets streaking over the blackened hills of...

A look at the Israel-Hezbollah war, by the numbers

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel has agreed to a ceasefire with Lebanon-based Hezbollah militants after nearly 14 months...

Trump's threat to impose tariffs could raise prices for consumers, colliding with promise for relief

DETROIT (AP) — If Donald Trump makes good on his threat to slap 25% tariffs on everything imported from Mexico...

By Tom Foreman CNN












Graph shows hiring over the last year (Department of Labor)


The Mississippi River rolls muddy and wide beneath a gray, spitting sky. The St. Louis Arch, symbol of the once unimaginable promise of the nation's westward expansion, looms above the barges pushing past and the summer traffic below. Across the water, at 35 years old, Lolanda Ohene is staring at the skyline and wondering what has happened to her future.

"I thought I'd be more successful right now," she says, "have better health insurance, better (working) conditions, just better everything, because I'm in America." She laughs softly. "We're supposed to have better quality everything here, but we don't."

Ohene is a forklift operator at a warehouse and one of the countless working Americans struggling with the long, slow economic recovery, characterized by the latest jobs report, which once again shows unemployment above 7 percent. The rate has not dipped below that number since November 2008, two months before Barack Obama became president. His defenders point out that the nose dive in jobs began under President Bush; his detractors counter that Obama has not exactly proven a wizard at reversing the trend.

Forget the politics: The bottom line is that sustained unemployment of more than 7 percent is wreaking havoc in ways that many economists fear are being overlooked as the nation grows numb to the dreadful monthly numbers.

"It's a total employers' market," says John Schmitt, a senior economist at the progressive Center for Economic and Policy Research. He argues that the first and foremost effect is an erosion of the bargaining positions for workers everywhere. "If you are looking for a job, you take whatever is offered. If you have a job, you don't complain. If wages are going to be frozen, if benefits are going to be cut, you suck it up. There's not much you can do."

Other profound changes emerging from the 7 percent landscape: The Labor Department reports four times as many workers are now being offered temporary or part-time positions than full-time jobs; reports have abounded for many months about how even the full-time positions now don't pay as well as those lost in the Great Recession.

Certainly, President Obama is sensitive to all that. He has been barnstorming the country in recent weeks leading sing-along choruses of "The Let's Save the Middle Class Rag," the song that got him re-elected. But aside from the politics, there are practical reasons he, his Democrats, and Republicans, too, need to see the 7 percent floor broken, and soon. As Schmitt puts it, "Seven out of a hundred workers that would like to have a job don't have one. That's an enormous amount of lost resources in the economy. That means people aren't producing goods and services, aren't consuming goods and services. ..."

And they aren't paying taxes. At least not at the rate that governments require to keep up with benefits for a population trying to claw out of an economic hole. That's why, back in St. Louis, Mayor Francis Slay gets agitated over people growing accustomed to such a high unemployment rate.

"For people to accept that as the norm would be very, very dangerous," he tells me as we sit in the office of St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley, who chimes in. "I think it is not the American way of life. We can do better than that. We've got to continue to invest in our infrastructure. You've got to have amenities." And both men know, you can't do any of that with a crippling unemployment rate hanging around year after year. Missouri, by the way, has a current unemployment rate just under 7 percent, but across the river in Illinois, it's over 9 percent.

To be sure, some progress is being made. Look at the charts from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and you'll see creeping improvements in the jobs numbers over the past few years. But the National Conference of State Legislatures in its spring report said while most states are no longer teetering on the edge of economic calamity, there is still "a dose of uncertainty, as states continue to plod their way through an extended economic recovery."

What everyone wants, of course, is "full employment." That's a term economists don't like much because while it describes a simple idea (everyone who wants a job has one), the details are squishy. For starters, "full employment" does not and will never mean 0 percent unemployment. People are always changing jobs, looking for new positions, or taking breaks, so some percentage of the population is expected to be out of work at any given time.

Furthermore, some economists -- not many, but some -- believe that whenever an unemployment rate stabilizes for a period of years at any number, like say 7 percent or above, that is by definition "full employment" because the economy is essentially "full" of workers or it would hire more.

William Dickens, however, is not one of them. "I have a lot of problems with that."

Dickens is a distinguished professor of economics at Northeastern University in Boston, who has written and researched extensively into the causes and effects of unemployment. "Before the recession, (full employment) was typically estimated to be in the range of 4 to 6 percent. Since the recession, there are indications that number may have gone up. My own estimates suggest it is somewhere between 5 and perhaps a little bit over 6 percent now, although nowhere near 7 or 7½ percent."

The ways in which those numbers can change are complicated. Imagine a chalkboard filled with elaborate, baffling equations and you'll get the gist even if you don't get the picture.

But it all comes down to the idea that 7 percent is not even close to "full employment" in the eyes of most economists, and some parts of the population are disastrously far from even that mark. Last year, for example, African-American males faced an unemployment rate of 15 percent.

And here is the thing: Young workers -- all those bright-eyed, optimistic kids with their iPhones -- who are being pounded by the employment situation now, will likely never recover from the beating. Read that again: They will never recover. "There is evidence that entering a troubled labor market has a permanent scarring effect," Dickens says. "Somebody who enters a labor market during a downturn, they're going to see lower wages throughout their career."

All that is the damning legacy of that stubborn 7 percent-plus that keeps coming out each month. Blame whomever you wish politically, but even if the number has started looking benign after all these months, there is no denying the economic tidal wave rumbling beneath it.

Even now, it is washing around Lolanda Ohene, as she stands on the riverbank while her friend Vernon Glenn roams up. He is 27, works in a factory and has a strategy for economic survival: "Just got to try to keep your head up high and save all you can, if you can."

She smiles and turns back to the river. Until that number changes, it is as good a plan as any.

 

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