11-18-2024  4:13 pm   •   PDX and SEA Weather

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NORTHWEST NEWS

More Logging Is Proposed to Help Curb Wildfires in the US Pacific Northwest

Officials say worsening wildfires due to climate change mean that forests must be more actively managed to increase their resiliency.

Democrat Janelle Bynum Flips Oregon’s 5th District, Will Be State’s First Black Member of Congress

The U.S. House race was one of the country’s most competitive and viewed by The Cook Political Report as a toss up, meaning either party had a good chance of winning.

Trump Was Elected; What Now? Black Community Organizers on What’s Next

The Skanner spoke with two seasoned community leaders about how local activism can counter national panic. 

Family of Security Guard Shot and Killed at Portland Hospital Sues Facility for $35M

The family of Bobby Smallwood argue that Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center failed to enforce its policies against violence and weapons in the workplace by not responding to staff reports of threats in the days before the shooting.

NEWS BRIEFS

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...

Multnomah County Library Breaks Ground on Expanded St. Johns Library

Groundbreaking marks milestone in library transformations ...

Janelle Bynum Statement on Her Victory in Oregon’s 5th Congressional District

"I am proud to be the first – but not the last – Black Member of Congress from Oregon" ...

Veterans Day, Monday, Nov. 11: Honoring a Legacy of Loyalty and Service and Expanding Benefits for Washington Veterans

Washington State Department of Veterans Affairs (WDVA) is pleased to share the Veterans Day Proclamation and highlight the various...

More logging is proposed to help curb wildfires in the US Pacific Northwest

U.S. officials would allow increased logging on federal lands across the Pacific Northwest in the name of fighting wildfires and boosting rural economies under proposed changes to a sweeping forest management plan that’s been in place for three decades. The U.S. Forest Service...

AP Top 25: Oregon is the unanimous No. 1 team again; Georgia is back in top 10 and LSU out of Top 25

Oregon remained the unanimous No. 1 team in The Associated Press Top 25 college football poll Sunday after its close call at Wisconsin, Notre Dame and Alabama each jumped up two spots and Georgia returned to the top 10. LSU is unranked for the first time in two years. The unbeaten...

Cal Poly visits Eastern Washington after Cook's 24-point game

Cal Poly Mustangs (2-2) at Eastern Washington Eagles (1-2) Cheney, Washington; Sunday, 7 p.m. EST BETMGM SPORTSBOOK LINE: Eagles -6.5; over/under is 157.5 BOTTOM LINE: Eastern Washington hosts Cal Poly after Andrew Cook scored 24 points in Eastern...

Sellers throws career-high 5 TD passes, No. 23 South Carolina beats No. 24 Missouri 34-30

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina coach Shane Beamer got a text recently from an SEC rival coach impressed with freshman quarterback LaNorris Sellers. “You've got ‘Superman’ back there,” the message read, Beamer said. Sellers may not be the “Man of...

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 says he is naming former Wisconsin Rep. Sean Duffy to be transportation secretary

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump said Monday he is naming former Wisconsin Rep. Sean Duffy as his nominee to be transportation secretary, as he continues to roll out picks for his Cabinet. Duffy is a former reality TV star who was one of Trump’s most...

Agent says GPS data puts Georgia student Laken Riley in same area as man accused in her death

ATHENS, Ga. (AP) — An FBI special agent testified Monday that electronic location data seems to place Georgia nursing student Laken Riley and the man accused of killing her in the same wooded area at the time of her death. Jose Ibarra, 26, is charged with murder and other crimes in...

'Interior Chinatown': Its cast has faced Hollywood struggles uncannily like its characters

Jimmy O. Yang once played “Chinese Teenager #1.” He's now No. 1 on the call sheet in “Interior Chinatown” — despite playing downtrodden background actor Willis Wu in the new Hulu series. There’s no escaping the layers of meta around “Interior Chinatown,” an adaptation...

ENTERTAINMENT

Music Review: Gwen Stefani's 'Bouquet' is a romantic return to mellow rock — with an ageless voice

Words and phrases like “nostalgia” or “back to her roots” come to mind when listening to Gwen Stefani’s fifth studio album, “Bouquet” — and it is in no way negative. Across 10-tracks, the powerhouse singer leans into the mellow rock of her youth — think Hall &...

Meet the woman behind some of your favorite casts, from ‘The Exorcist’ to ‘Sleepless in Seattle’

Juliet Taylor does not give herself credit for Meryl Streep. In her over 40 years as top casting director behind so many classics, “Annie Hall,” “Heartburn” and “Sleepless in Seattle” to name just a few, she did, technically give Streep her first film role. She gave many...

Celebrity birthdays for the week of Nov. 24-30

Celebrity birthdays for the week of Nov. 24-30: Nov. 24: Country singer Johnny Carver is 84. Former Beatles drummer Pete Best is 83. Actor-comedian Billy Connolly is 82. Singer Lee Michaels is 79. Actor Dwight Schultz (“Star Trek: Voyager,” “The A-Team”) is 77. Actor Stanley...

U.S. & WORLD NEWS

Today he is a high school football player. Soon he'll be a Buddhist lama in the Himalayas

ISANTI, Minn. (AP) — The young Buddhist lama sat on a throne near an altar decorated with flowers, fruits and...

Jury seated in human smuggling case involving deaths of Indian family at Canada-US border

FERGUS FALLS, Minn. (AP) — Nearly three years after a couple from India and their two young children froze to...

Trump says he is naming former Wisconsin Rep. Sean Duffy to be transportation secretary

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump said Monday he is naming former Wisconsin Rep. Sean...

New Zealand's founding treaty is at a flashpoint. Why are thousands protesting for Māori rights?

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A proposed law that would redefine New Zealand’s founding treaty between the...

Today he is a high school football player. Soon he'll be a Buddhist lama in the Himalayas

ISANTI, Minn. (AP) — The young Buddhist lama sat on a throne near an altar decorated with flowers, fruits and...

Abuse survivors urge the Vatican to globalize the zero-tolerance policy it approved in the U.S.

ROME (AP) — Survivors of clergy sexual abuse urged the Vatican on Monday to expand its zero-tolerance policy...

Michael Graczyk the Associated Press

HOUSTON (AP) -- It's a tradition with roots that can be traced far back in history: Before being put to death, a condemned prisoner can choose his last meal.

Not so anymore in Texas.

Officials who oversee the country's busiest death chamber stopped the practice on Thursday after a prominent state senator complained about a hefty request from a man executed for his role in a notorious dragging death. Now, inmates get to eat only what the kitchen serves.

The controversy began after Lawrence Russell Brewer, pictured at left, who was executed on Wednesday for the hate crime slaying of James Byrd Jr. more than a decade ago, asked for two chicken fried steaks, a triple-meat bacon cheeseburger, fried okra, a pound of barbecue, three fajitas, a meat lover's pizza, a pint of ice cream and a slab of peanut butter fudge with crushed peanuts. Prison officials said Brewer didn't eat any of it.

"It is extremely inappropriate to give a person sentenced to death such a privilege," Sen. John Whitmire, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, wrote in a letter Thursday to Brad Livingston, the executive director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Within hours, Livingston said the senator's concerns were valid and the practice of allowing death row offenders to choose their final meal was history.

"Effective immediately, no such accommodations will be made," Livingston said. "They will receive the same meal served to other offenders on the unit."

That had been the suggestion from Whitmire, who called the traditional request "ridiculous."

"It's long overdue," the Houston Democrat told The Associated Press. "This old boy last night, enough is enough. We're fixing to execute the guy and maybe it makes the system feel good about what they're fixing to do. Kind of hypocritical, you reckon?

"Mr. Byrd didn't get to choose his last meal. The whole deal is so illogical."

Brewer, a white supremacist gang member, was convicted of chaining Byrd, 49, to the back of a pickup truck and dragging him to his death along a bumpy road in a case shocked the nation for its brutality.

It was not immediately clear whether other states have made similar moves. Some limit the final meal cost - Florida's ceiling is $40, according to the Department of Corrections website, with food to be purchased locally. Others, like Texas, which never had a designated dollar limit, mandate meals be prison-made. Some states don't acknowledge final meals, and others will disclose the information only if the inmate agrees, said K. William Hayes, a Florida-based death penalty historian.

Some states require the meal within a specific time period, allow multiple "final" meals, restrict it to one or impose "a vast number of conditions," he said.

Historical references to a condemned person's last meal go as far back as ancient Greece, China and Rome, Hayes said. Some of it is apparently rooted in superstition about meals warding off possible haunting by condemned people once they are put to death.

The Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington-based anti-capital punishment organization that collects execution statistics, said it had no data on final meals.

Since Texas resumed carrying out executions in 1982, the state correction agency's practice has been to fill a condemned inmate's request as long as the items, or food similar to what was requested, were readily available from the prison kitchen supplies.

While extensive, Brewer's request was far from the largest or most bizarre among the 475 Texas inmates put to death.

On Tuesday, prisoner Cleve Foster's request included two fried chickens, French fries and a five-gallon bucket of peaches. He received a reprieve from the U.S. Supreme Court but none of his requested meal. He was on his way back to death row, at a prison about 45 miles east of Huntsville, at the time when his feast would have been served.

Last week, inmate Steven Woods' request included two pounds of bacon, a large four-meat pizza, four fried chicken breasts, two drinks each of Mountain Dew, Pepsi, root beer and sweet tea, two pints of ice cream, five chicken fried steaks, two hamburgers with bacon, fries and a dozen garlic bread sticks with marinara on the side. Two hours later, he was executed.

Years ago, a Texas inmate even requested dirt for his final meal.

Until 2003, the Texas prison system listed final meals of each prisoner as part of its death row website. That stopped at 313 final meals after officials said they received complaints from people who found it offensive.

A former inmate cook who made the last meals for prisoners at the Huntsville Unit, where Texas executions are carried out, wrote a cookbook several years ago after he was released. Among his recipes were Gallows Gravy, Rice Rigor Mortis and Old Sparky's Genuine Convict Chili, a nod to the electric chair that once served as the execution method. The book was called "Meals to Die For."

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