April 9, 2019

Gov. Brown renews push for new Columbia River Crossing

Oregon's governor is renewing efforts to discuss a new bridge connecting Portland and Vancouver.

Talks over the proposed Columbia River Crossing collapsed some five years ago after lawmakers in Washington failed to pass the bridge's funding.

The I-5 bridge opened to traffic in 1917 and, for the last 20 years, people have been talking about replacing it.

Now, the proposed bridge may once again become a relevant topic. The issue is partly spurred on by the potential for Oregon and Washington to both lose money if they don't resume talks.

Read more: https://pamplinmedia.com/pt/9-news/424579-330415-brown-renews-push-for-new-columbia-river-crossing

April 9, 2019

'Rolling pipeline' of oil trains baffle Oregon regulators

If oil is moving through Oregon, it's Michael Zollitsch's job to know about it. He oversees the state's emergency responses to oil spills and other environmental disasters.

But last March, when Bloomberg News reported oil from Canada's tar sands was rolling through Zenith Energy's storage facility in Northwest Portland on its way to Asia, it caught him by surprise.

"News to me!!" he wrote to his staff at Oregon's Department of Environmental Quality, and to Richard Franklin, a regional spill coordinator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

"Me, too!" Franklin wrote back.

It wasn't the first time oil spill regulators were in the dark about oil shipments through Oregon, and it wouldn't be the last.

Read more: https://pamplinmedia.com/pt/9-news/424792-330803-rolling-pipeline-of-oil-trains-baffle-oregon-regulators

April 9, 2019

Why Oregon teachers are talking about a possible May 8 strike

Educators across Oregon are planning to walk out of class Wednesday, May 8 should the Oregon Legislature not add an additional $2 billion per biennium needed to maintain and improve K-12 schools.

Over the last two decades, the state has financed schools at 21 to 38 percent below what its own research suggests districts need to be successful.

Many educators argue the lack of funding has resulted in teachers having to do more with less. They say this is reflected in the state's low graduation rates, high dropout and absenteeism rates, as well as rising issues with disruptive behaviors, mental health needs and large class sizes.

The Joint Committee on Student Success was created in 2018 to figure out what is going well in schools, what isn't and how the state can create a new source of revenue to fund game-changing improvements. |

Read more: https://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/education/2019/04/08/oregon-teacher-strike-may-8th-what-we-know-now-education-funding-legislature/3380208002/

April 9, 2019

Business-backed PERS reforms aim for ballot

SALEM — Current and future public employees wouldn't have as generous a retirement under initiative petitions being pushed by business interests in yet another effort to reform the state's notoriously complex and expensive retirement system.

The effort has attracted two big names in Oregon politics — former Gov. Ted Kulongoski and Chris Telfer, a former state senator and a member of the Oregon Lottery Commission.

Kulongoski and Telfer say the amount that local governments, like cities and school districts, pay to the Public Employees Retirement System each year is poised to grow so much that they will struggle to provide basic services.

Oregon PERS Solutions, a business-funded group backing the petitions, estimates those payments will increase by $10 billion over the next eight years if the system isn't changed.

Read more: https://pamplinmedia.com/pt/9-news/424810-330835-business-backed-pers-reforms-aim-for-ballot-

April 9, 2019

A small liberal arts college in Dallas is doing the hard work of busting generational poverty

Educating students in poverty requires going far beyond the classroom to prepare them to learn. This is true for small children, and it is true for young adults, many of whom carry the traumas of a lifetime of bearing the physical and emotional stress of living with scarcity.

Paul Quinn College, a historically black college in Dallas, is taking on the challenge of halting generational poverty. Administrators are learning that students' needs for help and care go deeper than they could have anticipated. So President Michael Sorrell and his band of problem-solvers keep innovating to address each issue as it crops up. Sorrell and his top leaders met recently with the Dallas Morning News editorial board to talk about a new set of approaches they are implementing.



Michael Sorrell, president: We believe the higher educational institutions should turn themselves outward, and address the issues of the day — whatever are the issues that are important to the communities that the school serves, however they choose to define that.

We think that one of the reasons why higher education is so poorly thought of right now is because quite candidly the institutions themselves have behaved selfishly. They haven't spoken to the needs that communities have.

And we started doing that, almost from Day One. You know? We turned the football field into a farm, to address issues of food insecurity. You know? We look at environmental justice issues, and the work program is really an attempt to redefine how students see themselves and their lives and to address preparedness, and access and affordability issues. So for us, what we as an institution decided to do is, we want to eradicate any generational poverty. That's sort of our North Star of ambition. And we decided to do that by creating a version of higher education which we think allows us to poverty-proof students who have the experience.

And the way to think about what we do now is to really look at it in sort of three tranches. Number one, we created the model of the urban work college. Work college is not a new concept, but it's never been applied in an urban environment. Our version of it requires students to work for a couple years on campus. But then to go work off-campus.

Read more: https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2019/04/07/a-small-liberal-arts-college-in-dallas-is-doing-the-hard-work-of-busting-generational-poverty

Cross-posted in the Texas Group.

April 9, 2019

A small liberal arts college in Dallas is doing the hard work of busting generational poverty

Educating students in poverty requires going far beyond the classroom to prepare them to learn. This is true for small children, and it is true for young adults, many of whom carry the traumas of a lifetime of bearing the physical and emotional stress of living with scarcity.

Paul Quinn College, a historically black college in Dallas, is taking on the challenge of halting generational poverty. Administrators are learning that students' needs for help and care go deeper than they could have anticipated. So President Michael Sorrell and his band of problem-solvers keep innovating to address each issue as it crops up. Sorrell and his top leaders met recently with the Dallas Morning News editorial board to talk about a new set of approaches they are implementing.



Michael Sorrell, president: We believe the higher educational institutions should turn themselves outward, and address the issues of the day — whatever are the issues that are important to the communities that the school serves, however they choose to define that.

We think that one of the reasons why higher education is so poorly thought of right now is because quite candidly the institutions themselves have behaved selfishly. They haven't spoken to the needs that communities have.

And we started doing that, almost from Day One. You know? We turned the football field into a farm, to address issues of food insecurity. You know? We look at environmental justice issues, and the work program is really an attempt to redefine how students see themselves and their lives and to address preparedness, and access and affordability issues. So for us, what we as an institution decided to do is, we want to eradicate any generational poverty. That's sort of our North Star of ambition. And we decided to do that by creating a version of higher education which we think allows us to poverty-proof students who have the experience.

And the way to think about what we do now is to really look at it in sort of three tranches. Number one, we created the model of the urban work college. Work college is not a new concept, but it's never been applied in an urban environment. Our version of it requires students to work for a couple years on campus. But then to go work off-campus.

Read more: https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2019/04/07/a-small-liberal-arts-college-in-dallas-is-doing-the-hard-work-of-busting-generational-poverty

Cross-posted in the African American Group.

April 9, 2019

Hearing set for lawsuit over West Virginia gov's residency

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - A hearing has been scheduled for a lawsuit over whether West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice should be required to live in the state's capital of Charleston.

The Intelligencer reports the court on June 5 will hear motions to dismiss or stay the lawsuit by Democratic Del. Isaac Sponaugle.

Sponaugle says Justice should be ordered to live in Charleston because the state constitution requires the governor to "reside at the seat of government." Justice said he lives at his Lewisburg home, not at the governor's mansion.

This is the third time Sponaugle has sued over Justice's residency. It was first thrown out because the state didn't get advance notice of the lawsuit. It was later thrown out on a technicality, with Justice's lawyers arguing the constitution didn't define "reside."

Read more here: https://www.star-telegram.com/news/politics-government/national-politics/article229009059.html

April 9, 2019

US moves to put new tariffs on billions worth of EU imports

Source: AP

LONDON -- The United States wants to put tariffs on $11.2 billion worth of EU goods — from airplanes to Gouda cheese to olives — to offset what it says are unfair European subsidies for plane maker Airbus.

While the size of the tariffs is small compared with the hundreds of billions the U.S. and China are taxing in their trade war, it suggests a breakdown in talks with the European Union over trade at a time when the economy is already slowing sharply. The U.S. and EU have been negotiating since last year about how to avoid tariffs that President Donald Trump has wanted to impose to reduce a trade deficit with countries like Germany.

The U.S. Trade Representative's office released late Monday a list of EU products it would tax in anticipation of a ruling by the World Trade Organization this summer.

The U.S. had in 2004 complained to the WTO, which sets the rules for trade and settles disputes, that the EU was providing unfair support to Airbus. The WTO ruled in May last year that the EU had in fact provided some illegal subsidies to Airbus, hurting U.S. manufacturer Boeing.

Read more: https://www.star-telegram.com/news/politics-government/national-politics/article229008549.html

April 9, 2019

State agency issues landslide alert for much of Oregon

PORTLAND, Oregon -- State officials are urging Oregon residents to be alert for landslides across much of the state with recent heavy rains and flooding.

The Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries said Monday afternoon that heavy rain can trigger landslides and debris flows in steep terrain and that the risk is higher in burn areas.

The agency says debris flows move quickly and are extremely destructive landslides containing boulders and logs and that they can move faster than a person can run.

Officials say people should stay alert, track flooding and travel with extreme caution.

Read more: https://www.star-telegram.com/news/politics-government/national-politics/article229009149.html

April 9, 2019

Joe Biden's campaign nearly imploded before it began. Here's why he could still win

Wanting to be president is not something that White House wannabes ever really get over. Remember Richard Nixon? John McCain? Hillary Clinton?

Now comes Joe Biden — again. Most likely.

He’s late starting his third bid, which should launch shortly after Easter, a good time, symbolically speaking, to attempt political resurrection. Biden is so of the 1980s and ‘90s, olden times that seem much longer ago than they really are.

Watch today’s growing mob of progressive jump-on-the-counter, government-should-do-everything, sure-I’ve-inhaled-marijuana, watch-my-dental-cleaning, yes-I-took-Mom-to-a-porn-flick crowd of ambitious, uber-liberal Democrats. And you’d think Joe belongs in a bat-lined mausoleum with the likes of Tip O’Neill, Hugh Scott, Mike Mansfield and Everett Dirksen.

Read more: https://www.star-telegram.com/opinion/article228988759.html
(Fort Worth Star-Telegram)