03-30-2023  1:55 am   •   PDX and SEA Weather
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4

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...

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...

Indonesia stripped of hosting Under-20 World Cup by FIFA

GENEVA (AP) — Indonesia was stripped of hosting rights for the Under-20 World Cup on Wednesday only eight weeks...

EU slams prison term for Russian father in antiwar art case

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Russia's prosecution of a single father whose daughter drew an antiwar sketch at school...

Reza Sayah, Michael Pearson and Holly Yan CNN

CAIRO (CNN) -- A day after ferocious clashes left more than 500 people dead in Egypt, four more people were killed in clashes in Alexandria, state media reported. Elsewhere, protesters stormed a government building in Giza and blocked a road near the nation's iconic pyramids.

State-run Nile TV reported the Alexandria deaths occurred in fighting between Muslim Brotherhood members and residents of the city.

Earlier Thursday, the Giza Governate building was evacuated after supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsy stormed the building, Nile TV reported. Televised images later showed the building on fire. Nile TV also said protesters had blocked a road near the pyramids while others staged a sit-in at a mosque in Nasr City. It was unclear if anyone had been injured.

State-run TV also said Morsy supporters were attacking police stations, hospitals and government buildings in areas outside Cairo, despite a state of emergency declared Wednesday by the military-backed interim government which limits public gatherings and gives more power to security forces to make arrests.

In Cairo, meanwhile, an eerie and tense calm prevailed Thursday, one day after hundreds died in violence sparked when security forces moved in to clear two camps of Morsy supporters. Traffic on the city's normally teeming streets was light amid fears of further fighting.

The Muslim Brotherhood vowed Thursday that protests would go on, despite violence Wednesday that brought international criticism of Egypt's interim government.

"We will continue our sit-ins and demonstrations all over the country until democracy and the legitimate rule are restored in Egypt," said Essam Elerian, a senior member of the Islamist movement.

Egypt's short-lived experiment with democracy took a gruesome turn Wednesday, culminating in mass carnage and a return to the repressive state of emergency that had gripped the country for 30 years.

The Egyptian Health Ministry said at least 525 people died and more than 3,700 were injured Wednesday in clashes that began when security forces moved in to break up protesters demonstrating in support of Morsy. Among the dead were 43 police officers, the interior ministry said.

The death toll could rise. On Thursday, Muslim Brotherhood officials displayed at least 100 bodies, wrapped in white, blood-stained sheets, at the Emam Mosque in Cairo, some of the 500 people the group said were brought to the mosque after the violence.

The Muslim Brotherhood and other activists on the ground told CNN those bodies had not yet been registered with authorities.

While Egypt's interim government said the violence began after protesters violently resisted their peaceful efforts to disperse pro-Morsy sit-ins, demonstrators said security forces had staged a "full-on assault."

CNN journalists on the ground said many of those injured or killed were unarmed. It was Egypt's bloodiest day since the 2011 revolution to oust Morsy's predecessor, Hosni Mubarak.

The shocking violence brought criticism from countries around the world and threatened to further destabilize Egypt's already precarious economy and political situation.

On Thursday, U.S. President Barack Obama strongly condemned the bloodshed, saying the government chose violence and arbitrary arrests over an opportunity to resolve its crisis through peaceful dialogue.

"The United States strongly condemns the steps that have been taken by Egypt's interim government and security forces," Obama said in a statement from his summer vacation home. "We deplore violence against civilians."

He urged the government to lift the state of emergency imposed Wednesday and to launch a reconciliation process immediately.

He also canceled joint U.S.-Egyptian military training exercises scheduled next month, and warned that the traditional cooperation between the two nations "cannot continue as usual when civilians are being killed in the streets."

His comments came a day after Secretary of State John Kerry said the crackdown was "a serious blow to reconciliation and the Egyptian people's hopes for a transition towards democracy and inclusion."

Denmark suspended economic aid to the country. China urged restraint. Germany, Italy, France and other nations summoned Egypt's ambassadors to their nations to express dismay over the violence.

The raid

Security forces raided the pro-Morsy camps Wednesday after weeks of simmering tension. Clashes and gunfire broke out, leaving pools of blood and bodies strewn all over the streets.

Authorities bulldozed tents and escorted hundreds of people away. Some mothers and fathers managed to whisk away their children, gas masks on their faces.

The dead included cameraman Mick Deane, who'd worked for UK-based news channel Sky News for 15 years and for CNN before that.

Morsy supporters also reportedly attacked a number of Christian churches. It's not clear how many were targeted, but Dalia Ziada, of the Ibn Khadun Center for Development Studies, said Thursday that the center had documented the burning of 29 churches and Coptic facilities across the country.

"This is horrible to happen in only one day," she said.

The Bible Society of Egypt said 15 churches and three Christian schools had been attacked, some set on fire.

At least 84 people, including Muslim Brotherhood members, have been referred to military prosecutors for charges including murder and the burning of churches, the state-run EGYNews site reported.

But protesters vowed to remain defiant until Morsy is reinstated.

Elerian, the senior Muslim Brotherhood member, said he's not deterred by calls for his arrest.

"They can arrest me and 100 of us, but they can't arrest every honorable citizen in Egypt," Elerian told CNN Thursday. "They can't stop this glorious revolution."

The government's state of emergency declaration mirrors the kind of stifling police state that the nation lived through under Mubarak, before the Egyptian people rose up in protests that resulted in Mubarak's overthrow in 2011 and eventually Morsy's rise to power as the country's first democratically elected president.

Morsy's rise, fall

But rather than uniting Egypt after Mubarak's fall, divisions intensified during Morsy's time as president.

Critics accused him of being authoritarian, trying to force the Muslim Brotherhood's Islamic agenda on the country and failing to deliver freedom and justice.

Morsy's supporters say the deposed president wasn't given a fair chance, and say his backers have been unfairly targeted for expressing their opinion.

Though Morsy has not appeared in public since he was taken into custody, his supporters have amassed on the streets nationwide to slam military leaders and demand his reinstatement.

More setback

Even Egypt's interim government suffered a major setback after the raid.

Mohammed ElBaradei -- a secular leader who was one of Morsy's biggest critics -- submitted his resignation Wednesday as vice president.

ElBaradei said he didn't agree with the decisions carried out by the ruling government and "cannot be responsible for a single (drop of) blood."

CNN's Reza Sayah reported from Cairo; Michael Pearson wrote from Atlanta. CNN's Ian Lee, Frederik Pleitgen, Laura Smith-Spark and Holly Yan also contributed to this report.

 

MLK Breakfast 2023

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