0910 INT India Fuel Price Protests
Protests in India have led to school closures, blocked highways, and around one-hundred arrests.
Over 20 political opposition parties are participating in a nationwide strike called Bharat Bandh [BAH-RAHT BOND] in response to India’s increased fuel prices.
The political parties are protesting together in order to criticize the government for failing to control rising fuel prices.
Around 100 protestors were arrested in the Northeast state of Arunachal Pradesh [AH-ROO-NA-CHAL PRA-DESH] due to the protests.
The Leader of the main opposition party, Rahul Gandhi said about the Indian Prime Minister, QUOTE “Narendra Modi [Moe-dee] is silent, he has not spoken a word on rising prices of fuel, or the condition of farmers, neither on atrocities against women.”
India imports around eighty percent of its oil, which makes the country more vulnerable to changing global prices.
In India’s capital of New Delhi, fuel prices have increased by about fourteen percent this year.
Dipankar Bhattacharya [DEE-pan-car bah-ta-CHAR-ya], an opposition leader, told Al Jazeera QUOTE “It’s a mass protest of the common people. The prices of petrol, diesel, and cooking gas are sky high, the rupee is on a nosedive, and the government is in the lap of big corporations, so the people have to come out on the streets to raise their voice.”
Fuel is heavily taxed in India where taxes can account for up to fifty percent of the cost.
Some legislators are now calling on the government to review fuel taxation.
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0910 OR Beaverton police shooting
Police shot and wounded a man in Beaverton Friday morning, after responding to a report of a man riding a bike while carrying a large knife.
They eventually contacted the man at a Bottle Drop in the ninety-three hundred block of Beaverton Hillsdale Highway.
He had allegedly threatened people with the knife at a nearby Seven-Eleven.
After the police tried to talk to the man inside the Bottle Drop, he left through a side door, holding the knife out towards them.
They followed him outside, where, in the words of the police, officers continued to try to make contact with the individual, with the contact ultimately resulting in an officer-involved shooting.
KBOO reached out to the Beaverton Police for more information.
They are not releasing the names of either the involved officers or the civilian who was shot at this time.
However, Public Information Officer Jeremy Shaw was able to confirm that the civilian remains in the hospital.
There is no word yet on how many officers fired their weapons, how many shots they fired, and where the bullets ended up.
The incident is the 29th officer involved shooting counted by KBOO in Oregon, so far this year, and the first since late July.
This is the most since 2013, according to data from Portland Copwatch. The state saw twenty-nine deadly force incidents in that entire year.
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0910 OR Innocent Deschutes County Man Exonerated
A Deschutes county man has been exonerated because of an investigation by the Oregon Innocence Project and the Deschutes County District Attorney’s office.
Josh Horner was convicted in 2017 of sexually abusing his daughter, and was sentenced to fifty years in prison.
Several months after his conviction, Horner contacted the Oregon Innocence Project, or O-I-P, for help.
There were no witnesses, no forensics, and no D-N-A evidence, but in the course of its investigation, the O-I-P uncovered serious discrepancies in the case.
Critically, there had been testimony that Horner had shot and killed their dog in front of his daughter.
The D-A’s office and the O-I-P discovered that the dog was actually alive and well, living with a new owner, and had never been shot.
The complainant’s credibility was further damaged when it was revealed she had also filed a false abuse report against Josh Horner’s wife.
These facts led Deschutes County District Attorney John Hummel to agree to look into the case.
After that review, Hummel’s office conducted a joint investigation with the O-I-P, after which Hummel agreed that the evidence didn’t support the accusations.
D-A Hummel then filed a motion to dismiss, which the court agreed to today, allowing Horner to go free.
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0910 OR Innocent Deschutes County Man Exonerated Part 2
The jury in Horner’s case was not unanimous in its decision to convict, but Oregon law allows for convictions by non-unanimous juries when only ten out of twelve vote to convict.
Louisiana is the only other state in the U-S that allows such convictions.
The Louisiana law was adopted specifically to make convictions easier, in order to increase the prison labor workforce, which means more revenue for the state.
Oregon adopted its non-unanimous jury law in 1934, after a Jewish man, who had been charged with murdering a Protestant, was convicted of manslaughter, instead of first degree murder, because one juror had held out against the death penalty.
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0910 OR Lake Oswego Couple dies after being swept out to sea.
A Lake Oswego couple has died after being swept out to sea near Depoe bay on Sunday.
Forty-nine year old Miaochan Chen [Meow-chin Chen] and forty-one year old Wenjun Zhu [When-jin Jue] had followed a trail down to rocks overlooking the Pacific Ocean when a wave swept them away.
They were with their 10-year old daughter who was not injured in the incident.
The girl has been taken to foster care and family members have been notified.
A U.S coast guard helicopter crew and a 47-foot motor life boat recovered the parents, who were both unresponsive, and flew them to rock creek state park.
They were then rushed to a hospital but were both pronounced dead on arrival.
The family had recently moved from China to the U.S in July.
State troopers released a statement saying, QUOTE “The US Coast guard and Oregon State Police remind all beach goers, residents and visitors to the Pacific Northwest coast, to always be aware of dangerous conditions that exist on the coastline regions. Being aware of tidal changes, and wave patterns, can help you avoid these types of tragic situations.”
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0910 US 26 year old Artist Mac miller dies
26-year old artist Mac Miller has died from an apparent drug overdose in his Los Angeles home.
One of the biggest hip hop artists of his generation, Mac Miller had a huge influence on music, with his original and stylish approach to the culture.
Mac Miller openly discussed his addiction throughout his career along with other struggles.
He had been sober for the past year although he recently started drinking again
A Los Angeles medical examiner said in a statement on Friday, QUOTE “In the late morning of sept. 7th Malcom McCormick was found dead at the scene at 11:51 am. At this time, an autopsy is pending and a cause of death has not been determined.”
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0910 US Nuclear power plants face hurricane
Hurricane Florence has strengthened to a major hurricane, and is heading for the central East Coast of the United States.
It is projected to be the first Class Four storm to hit the area since Hurricane Hugo in 1989, which caused widespread devastation.
All thirty thousand persons on Hatteras Island are being advised to immediately evacuate.
Catastrophic damage is expected, if the storm remains at Category Four level winds.
The computer models used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Hurricane Center are showing that it may dwell over land, dumping a great deal of water, in the manner of Hurricane Harvey.
The worst impact from Florence is expected to be Thursday night, when the maximum storm surge, flooding, and winds may hit somewhere between Washington, D.C., and northern Florida, and most likely centering on North Carolina.
Several nuclear power plants are now in the projected path of the hurricane, including the two Brunswick plants on the coast near the North Carolina towns of Southport and Wilmington.
The Brunswick Nuclear power plants are General Electric Mark One boiling-water reactors, the same as at Fukushima, except that they are far older, built in the 1970s.
Mary Catherine Greene, spokesperson for Duke Energy, which runs the plants, says that the plant operator has brought in emergency staffing.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission website listed both plants this morning as running at one hundred percent power, despite the approaching major hurricane. “We’re hoping it goes the other way,” Greene said.
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