09-30-2024  3:19 pm   •   PDX and SEA Weather

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NORTHWEST NEWS

Companies Back Away From Oregon Floating Offshore Wind Project as Opposition Grows

The federal government finalized two areas for floating offshore wind farms along the Oregon coast in February. But opposition from tribes, fishermen and coastal residents highlights some of the challenges the plan faces.

Preschool for All Growth Outpaces Enrollment Projections

Mid-year enrollment to allow greater flexibility for providers, families.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden Demands Answers From Emergency Rooms That Denied Care to Pregnant Patients

Wyden is part of a Democratic effort to focus the nation’s attention on the stories of women who have faced horrible realities since some states tightened a patchwork of abortion laws.

Governor Kotek Uses New Land Use Law to Propose Rural Land for Semiconductor Facility

Oregon is competing against other states to host multibillion-dollar microchip factories. A 2023 state law created an exemption to the state's hallmark land use policy aimed at preventing urban sprawl and protecting nature and agriculture.

NEWS BRIEFS

Celebrate Portland Arbor Day at Glenfair Park

Portland Parks & Recreation’s Urban Forestry team presents Portland Arbor Day 2024, Saturday, Oct. 12, 10 a.m. - 2...

Dr. Pauli Murray’s Childhood Home Opens as Center to Honor Activist’s Inspiring Work

Dr. Pauli Murray was an attorney, activist, and pioneer in the LGBTQ+ community. An extraordinary scholar, much of Murray’s...

Portland-Based Artist Selected for NFL’s 2024 Artist Replay Initiative Spotlighting Diverse and Emerging Artists

Inspired by the world of football, Julian V.L. Gaines has created a one-of-a-kind piece that will be on display at Miami Art Week. ...

University of Portland Ranked #1 Private School in the West by U.S. News & World Report

UP ranks as a top institution among ‘Best Regional Universities – West’ for the sixth consecutive year ...

Portland Diamond Project Signs Letter of Intent to Purchase Zidell Yards for a Future MLB Baseball Park

Founder of Portland Diamond Project said signing the letter of intent is more than just a land purchase, it’s a chance to transform...

Oregon DMV waited weeks to tell elections officials about voter registration error

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Oregon transportation authorities waited weeks to tell elections officials about an error that registered over 1,200 people to vote, despite them not providing proof of U.S. citizenship. Oregon's Driver & Motor Vehicle Services, or DMV, first learned of the...

As many forests fail to recover from wildfires, replanting efforts face huge odds -- and obstacles

BELLVUE, Colo. (AP) — Camille Stevens-Rumann crouched in the dirt and leaned over evergreen seedlings, measuring how much each had grown in seven months. "That's two to three inches of growth on the spruce,” said Stevens-Rumann, interim director at the Colorado Forest Restoration...

No. 7 Mizzou overcomes mistakes once again, escapes with a 30-27 double-OT win over Vandy

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — There are two very different ways to look at seventh-ranked Missouri's last two wins, a pair of come-from-behind affairs against Boston College and a double-overtime 30-27 victory over Vanderbilt in its SEC opener on Saturday night. The Tigers were good enough...

Blake Craig overcomes 3 FG misses, hits in 2OT to deliver No. 7 Missouri 30-27 win over Vanderbilt

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Blake Craig made up for three missed field goals in regulation by hitting from 37 yards in the second overtime, and Vanderbilt kicker Brock Taylor missed a 31-yarder to keep the game going to allow No. 7 Missouri to escape with a 30-27 win in double-overtime Saturday night. ...

OPINION

No Cheek Left to Turn: Standing Up for Albina Head Start and the Low-Income Families it Serves is the Only Option

This month, Albina Head Start filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to defend itself against a misapplied rule that could force the program – and all the children it serves – to lose federal funding. ...

DOJ and State Attorneys General File Joint Consumer Lawsuit

In August, the Department of Justice and eight state Attorneys Generals filed a lawsuit charging RealPage Inc., a commercial revenue management software firm with providing apartment managers with illegal price fixing software data that violates...

America Needs Kamala Harris to Win

Because a 'House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand' ...

Student Loan Debt Drops $10 Billion Due to Biden Administration Forgiveness; New Education Department Rules Hold Hope for 30 Million More Borrowers

As consumers struggle to cope with mounting debt, a new economic report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York includes an unprecedented glimmer of hope. Although debt for mortgages, credit cards, auto loans and more increased by billions of...

AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE NEWS

Cincinnati Opera postpones Afrofuturist-themed `Lalovavi' by a year to the summer of 2026

CINCINNATI (AP) — The Cincinnati Opera has postponed the premiere of the Afrofuturist-themed “Lalovavi” by one year to the summer of 2026. The company said Monday the libretto by Tifara Brown is still being worked on, delaying the music composition by Kevin Day. ...

Man is sentenced to 35 years for shooting 2 Jewish men as they left Los Angeles synagogues

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A California man was sentenced Monday to 35 years in prison for shooting and wounding two Jewish men as they left synagogues in Los Angeles last year, federal prosecutors said. Jaime Tran, 30, pleaded guilty in June to two counts of hate crimes with intent to...

A Black man says a trucking company fired him because he wouldn't cut off his dreadlocks

A Black man alleges in a lawsuit that an Iowa trucking company fired him as a driver because he wouldn't cut off his dreadlocks, the latest in a series of incidents across the country over an issue activists have dubbed hair discrimination. Drew Harvey, 26, of Crete, Illinois, accused...

ENTERTAINMENT

Book Review: Sally Rooney’s latest novel 'Intermezzo' examines unacknowledged grief

Ivan and Peter Koubek’s father has just died, but neither seems willing to talk much about it, let alone to one another. After all, it’s not like the two brothers are even friends. Peter, the eldest by a decade, pities his awkward, 22-year-old brother, a competitive chess player...

Music Review: Andy Rourke's posthumous album, Blitz Vega's 'Northern Gentleman,' is a soft swan song

Blitz Vega, the band helmed by The Smiths' bassist Andy Rourke and Kav Sandhu of Happy Mondays, formed in 2016 and ended when Rourke died from pancreatic cancer in 2023. He was 59. The band’s lone album, “Northern Gentleman,” has finally been released — 10 tracks largely written and...

Drag queen Pattie Gonia aims to give the climate movement a makeover with joy and laughter

NEW YORK (AP) — Dressed in a sequin-laced, sleeveless top and puffy pink skirt, drag queen Pattie Gonia strides around the stage in white high-heeled boots that come up to the knees, telling the crowd that nature must be a woman. “She is trying to kill us in the most...

U.S. & WORLD NEWS

Trump is pointing to new numbers on migrants with criminal pasts. Here's what they show

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans are pointing to newly released immigration enforcement data to bolster their...

NYC Mayor Eric Adams accepted harmless 'courtesies,' not bribes, his lawyer says

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams launched a legal attack on the federal corruption case against...

Lindor homer sends Mets to playoffs with 8-7 win over Braves, who need victory in twin-bill 2nd game

ATLANTA (AP) — The Mets are headed to the postseason after Francisco Lindor's two-run homer in the ninth capped...

Britain's last coal-fired electricity plant is closing. It ends 142 years of coal power in the UK

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s last coal-fired power plant is closing on Monday, ending 142 years of coal-generated...

As big supermarkets pursue profits, new research shows growing exploitation of shrimp farmers

BANGKOK (AP) — Indonesian shrimp farmer Yulius Cahyonugroho operated more than two dozen ponds only a few years...

Mother of Egyptian activist starts hunger strike to call for his release

LONDON (AP) — The mother of a prominent Egyptian rights activist said Monday that she started a hunger strike to...

By The Skanner News | The Skanner News


More prosecution witnesses in the court-martial of admitted Fort Hood gunman Maj. Nidal Hasan are expected to testify Friday, adding to the roughly 30 others who quickly gave their accounts over two days, in part because Hasan declined to cross-examine them.

This is the third day of testimony in Hasan's trial on charges that he shot and killed 13 people and wounded 32 in the November 2009 rampage at the Army installation near Killeen, Texas.

The prosecution has raced through nearly half of their scheduled 80 witnesses, many of them survivors of the attack at the Fort Hood medical building where soldiers were being prepared for deployment to Afghanistan and Iraq.

Hasan, an Army psychiatrist who was paralyzed by a police bullet during the rampage, is representing himself in the trial. So far, he has not asked questions of the witnesses.

If convicted, he could face the death penalty. In a military capital trial, a guilty plea is not an option, so Hasan's official plea is that he is not guilty of the charges. But on Tuesday he used his opening statement to declare, "I am the shooter."

The prosecution called victims to the stand on Thursday. One after another, the survivors told similar stories of horror and heroism from personal vantage points.

Sgt. Alan Carroll testified that he was sitting and talking with a friend, awaiting his turn with the doctors at the medical building, when the shooting began.

"We heard the shouts of 'Allahu Akbar,' and I looked over," Carroll said. "I didn't exactly know what was going on, and then I realized it was a lot louder than a pop gun should be. I then felt a sharp pain in my shoulder."

He had been shot, but didn't realize it.

"I had my hand over my left shoulder and I was sitting there trying to figure out what was going on," Carroll testified. "I turned around and there was a man behind me and he was laughing ... and I figured it was a training exercise ... but it got harder and harder to move my shoulder."

Carroll said he was shot four more times before he managed to escape.

Sgt. Michael Davis testified that he was waiting to receive an injection for his readiness exam when the shooting began.

"I still thought it was a drill, but ... I heard young lady screaming, 'My baby! My baby! My baby!"

Davis said he took cover under a desk and awaited an opportunity to escape. A few moments later, he took a chance.

"Someone said, 'Go! Go! Go! He's reloading,'" Davis testified. "We started to move. As soon as I stood up, I got hit in the back and hit the ground pretty hard -- face first."

Wounded, Davis played dead until he heard the sound of gunfire transition to the outside. He said he stood up and made his escape through what had become a killing field.

He described the scene for the court: "There was a lot of bodies on the ground. The chairs were overturned. Lot of blood on the floor -- smelled like gunpowder, feces, blood. ... It was pretty bad."

He said he later learned that the woman screaming "My baby!" was Pvt. Francheska Velez. She had become pregnant while serving in Afghanistan and had recently returned to the United States.

She and her unborn child were shot and killed that day.

Sgt. Monique Archuletta testified that when the shooting began, she took cover in the office of her boss. Wiping a tear from her eye, Archuletta painted a brutal picture for the jury.

"You could hear people screaming, the chairs going everywhere," she said. "The metal chairs sounded like they were being scraped across the floor. It sounded like absolute chaos down there."

Lance Avilez, a private at the time of the shooting, testified that he'd been talking with a friend, Pfc. Kham Xiong, who was looking at pictures of his children when the shooting began.

Avilez said he dove to the ground. Xiong never made it, he said.

"I heard a sound," Avilez said. "If you hear it, you'll never forget it, but it's hard to describe. It's like dead weight, a slump. As I get down, I see my battle buddy on the floor. He had an exit wound through the back of his skull."

A U.S.-born citizen of Palestinian descent, Hasan had been scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan before the killings. Prosecutors hope to show that the devout Muslim had undergone a "progressive radicalization," giving presentations in defense of suicide bombings and about soldiers conflicted between military service and their religion when such conflicts result in crime.

Hasan did not want to deploy to fight against other Muslims and believed "that he had a jihad duty to kill as many soldiers as possible," Col. Michael Mulligan, the lead prosecutor in the case, said earlier in the trial.

Hasan told the panel in his opening statement Tuesday, "We mujahedeen are trying to establish the perfect religion." But, he added, "I apologize for the mistakes I made in this endeavor."

The mujahedeen consider themselves warriors who defend the Islamic faith.

Hasan told his family he had been taunted after the al Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001. Investigations that followed the Fort Hood killings found he had been communicating via e-mail with Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yemeni-American radical cleric killed by a U.S. drone attack in 2011.

The case was first set to begin in March 2012, but was delayed repeatedly, notably over a previous judge's unsuccessful demand that the beard Hasan has grown while in custody be forcibly shaved.

Although Hasan was granted his request to represent himself, the judge, Col. Tara Osborn, ruled before the court-martial began that defense lawyers would act as standby counsel during the proceedings.

The defense attorneys brought the trial to a halt Wednesday when they tried to drop out of the case, telling the judge they believed Hasan was trying to help the prosecution achieve a death sentence. But Osborn ruled Thursday that they must continue.

CNN's Josh Rubin reported from Fort Hood. CNN's Ed Lavandera contributed to this report.