02-16-2025  10:38 pm   •   PDX and SEA Weather

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NORTHWEST NEWS

Californians Brace for Mudslides in Areas Torched by Fires as Freezing Rain, Snow Aim for Oregon

Officials in Oregon’s Multnomah County, which includes Portland, extended a state of emergency through at least Thursday and said six emergency shelters would be open.

Labor Leaders Push for Strike Support in the Capital

Lawmakers, picket line veterans argue in favor of SB 916, which would allow individuals involved in qualifying labor disputes to collect unemployment while waiting for a contract.

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.

NEWS BRIEFS

AG Rayfield Files Multistate Lawsuit to Stop Elon Musk’s Power Grab

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Swift Victory in Lawsuit Stopping DOGE’s Attacks on Americans

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AG Rayfield Reacts to Latest Victory in Trump’s Attempt to Block Birthright Citizenship Order

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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 ...

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

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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

U.S. & WORLD NEWS

Laura Smith-Spark CNN

LONDON (CNN) -- The British Broadcasting Corporation has issued a formal apology for broadcasting false claims by a sex abuse victim that a senior political figure of the 1980s had abused him, in the latest in a series of painful missteps by the UK public broadcaster.

The BBC did not name the alleged abuser, but the allegations on its flagship Newsnight program sparked a furor of Internet speculation over who the perpetrator, described as a high-up figure in the government of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, might be.

The broadcaster's apology Friday came hours after Lord McAlpine, who was treasurer of the Conservative Party from the late 1970s until 1990, responded to the online speculation with a statement vehemently denying any involvement.

McAlpine, who now lives in Italy, threatened legal action against those who had wrongly alleged he was the person responsible for the abuse.

The damaging scandal comes in the wake of extensive criticism of the BBC over its handling of sexual abuse allegations against its late TV presenter Jimmy Savile. The broadcaster has set up two inquiries, one into how Savile's abuse went undetected by the BBC over decades, and the second into why an investigation by Newsnight into claims of abuse by Savile was shelved last year, shortly before two tribute programs were broadcast lauding his charity work. The police also face questions over how they handled claims against Savile.

The latest controversy stems from a Newsnight program broadcast November 2 and involves separate allegations made by Steve Messham who was sexually abused in the 1970s and '80s while living in a home in Wrexham, north Wales, where children were cared for by the state.

The scandal picked up such steam that Prime Minister David Cameron was on Thursday presented live on air on Britain's ITV1 channel with a list of names of people who were being speculated about on the Internet.

That action prompted Cameron to warn "that this could turn into a sort of witch hunt, particularly against people who are gay," on the basis of unfounded online rumors.

"If anyone has any information about anyone who's a pedophile, no matter how high up in British society they are, that is what the police are for," he said.

A day later, Messham said in a statement to UK media that he had been wrongly informed by the police that a man he identified as his abuser was the Conservative politician.

"After seeing a picture in the past hour of the individual concerned, this [is] not the person I identified by photograph presented to me by the police in the early 1990s, who told me the man in the photograph was Lord McAlpine," he said, according to the BBC.

Messham told the BBC he was "sincerely sorry" over the mistake, saying he wanted justice for everybody who was abused, but that "I certainly don't want the wrong people accused, that is also wrong."

The BBC apology, read out live on air and posted online Friday, said: "We broadcast Mr. Messham's claim but did not identify the individual concerned. Mr. Messham has tonight made a statement that makes clear he wrongly identified his abuser and has apologised.

"We also apologise unreservedly for having broadcast this report."

The BBC also announced an "immediate pause" to investigations by Newsnight.

BBC Director General George Entwistle, who became embroiled in the Savile scandal last month only days after taking the helm at the broadcaster, said on BBC Radio 4's Today program Saturday that the Newsnight claims should not have been broadcast -- but warned against a knee-jerk reaction

"We apologized for it because we should not have put out a film that was so fundamentally wrong. What happened here was completely unacceptable, in my view the film should not have gone out," he said.

A senior BBC editor is to look into the editorial decisions made and disciplinary action may follow, Entwistle said.

But, he added, "The key here is o understand completely what happened before we leap to judgment."

The BBC Trust, which oversees the BBC, said Saturday it was a "deeply troubling episode" and offered its own apology.

"The Trust has impressed upon the Director General the need to get to the bottom of this as a matter of the utmost urgency and will expect an explanation as quickly as possible so that we can ensure that appropriate action is being taken," it said.

In his statement, McAlpine said he had "every sympathy" for Messham and others who were subjected to "abhorrent" sexual abuse while residents of the children's home in Wrexham.

But, he said, he had been to Wrexham only once, in the company of a Conservative Party aide, to visit a local political office, and had never stayed in a hotel there -- the scene of the alleged abuse.

"I did not sexually abuse Mr. Messham or any other residents of the children's home in Wrexham," he said.

"I wish to make it clear that I do not suggest that Mr. Messham is malicious in making the allegations of sexual abuse about me. He is referring to a terrible period of his life in the 1970s or 1980s and what happened to him will have affected him ever since.

"If he does think I am the man who abused him all those years ago I can only suggest that he is mistaken and that he has identified the wrong person."

McAlpine threatened legal action against those who have libeled him.

He said he had decided to make the lengthy statement in response to a "media frenzy" around the "wholly false" allegations against him circulating on the Internet.

"My name and the allegations are for all practical purposes linked and in the public domain and I cannot rewind the clock," he said. "I therefore have decided that in order to mitigate, if only to some small extent, the damage to my reputation I must publicly tackle these slurs and set the record straight."

Home Secretary Theresa May has ordered an inquiryinto how claims of abuse at a number of children's homes run by Clwyd County Council in north Wales were investigated in the past.

A 1991 police investigation led to eight prosecutions and the conviction of seven former care home workers but questions remained over information gathered by the local authority, May said in a statement Tuesday.

A second inquiry into care home abuse in 1996 named more than 80 people as abusers, many of them care workers and teachers, but "found no evidence of a paedophile ring beyond the care system, which was the basis of the rumours that followed the original police investigation, and indeed one of the allegations that has been made in the last week," the statement said.

In response to the latest furor, May has instructed the head of the National Crime Agency to assess any new claims and review past police investigations into alleged abuse in north Wales care homes.

CNN's Per Nyberg and Alexander Felton contributed to this report.

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