This is KGW news at sunrise.
We've been sent here to finish the job,
President Biden remaining
steadfast that the country is
heading in the right direction.
But Republicans in Congress are skeptical.
Coming up this morning,
our verified team fact checks a
few of the claims in last night's
state of the Union address,
and a KGW crew was out reporting on a
homeless camp getting cleared when a
shooting happened right in front of them.
What they saw. And why the people
at that camp are worried about where
they're supposed to go next, plus.
Coming to the end
of the third quarter,
LeBron James is shot in history.
With that shot,
LeBron James moved to the top.
Fade away then.
Yeah, he's pretty good.
Yeah, he's a pretty good player.
You recognize that guy right there?
Rob? The other gentleman that
was on the screen when Jabbar
it was. Yep. Kareem Abdul Jabbar was
the NBA's all time leading scorer.
Now that honor belongs to LeBron James.
We're gonna have more on that
awesome moment last night in the
world of sports at 5:15.
Hey, good morning, everybody.
Thanks for watching on this Wednesday.
Can you throw your hands in the
air for the forecast? Do your best.
Can you do it? No, no, no.
Did you do not want it? No.
No, I didn't get my arms up there.
Holy cow. Lot of physical activity.
Still care. There you go. Alright,
pretty impressive.
Number of showers still lingering.
All indications are once the
sun pops up around 7:30,
this rain activity will quickly fade
away and we will go on to be dry.
It's actually partly cloudy out there,
mixed around the scattered showers.
We're 41 at the airport,
but some of you down around
Corvallis are actually closer to 35,
so we have lingering showers.
If they're moving forward
partly sunny and noon 47,
then this afternoon kind of
filtered sun to mostly cloudy
temperatures could get up to 50 for
a high and winds will be light.
That's your forecast,
Rob. Thank you.
A one day after
his state of the Union address,
President Biden is taking
his message on the road.
In case you missed it,
here are the highlights from his first
speech in front of a divided Congress.
He largely focused on economic issues,
as recent polls show most voters think the
country is heading in the wrong direction.
President Biden also vowed to stand
up to China following the controversy
over that spy balloon the US
military shot down earlier this week.
But overall,
the president remained optimistic
about the last year and the future.
Already
we won't. We funded over 20,000 projects,
including major airports from
Boston to Atlanta to Portland.
Projects are going to put thousands of
people to work rebuilding our highways,
our bridges, our railroads,
our tunnels, ports, airports,
clean water, high speed Internet,
all across America.
The President will hit some of
those same themes later today
as he travels to Wisconsin,
then heads on to Florida.
The Republican response to the
president's address came from Arkansas
Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Our verify team Fact Check claims from
her and the president last night.
Here's Casey Decker with a first look
verify here to Fact Check the state of
the Union and the Republican response.
Here you can see the sources we went to
one of the first things President Biden.
In his speech was take credit for
economic growth during his presidency,
citing booming jobs numbers.
After we've created,
with the help of many people in
this room, 12 million new jobs,
more jobs created in two years than
any president created in four years.
Because of you all
the first half of that claim is true.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,
there were 143 million jobs
when Biden took office.
Now, two years later, there are 155 million
but the second-half of the claim. Is false.
The BLS has data going back to 1939,
and we found that between 1996 and 2000,
when Bill Clinton was president,
more than 12.4 million jobs were added.
That's more than the 12.1 million
added in Biden's two years. Now.
Those years span Clinton's first
and second terms in office,
so the growth wasn't just in one term,
but it was over 1/4 year span.
Next, Biden also claimed he'd taken huge
steps towards balancing the budget.
My administration has cut the
deficit by more than $1.7 trillion.
That's true.
According to the Federal Reserve,
the national deficit before Biden took
office was more than $3.1 trillion.
By 2022, that number had
dropped below 1.4 trillion.
No other two year span saw a
decrease that large since the Fed
began reporting that data in 1901.
Still, the claim needs context.
The deficit ballooned above 3
trillion in 2020 because of massive.
Ending programs the government
launched to respond to the pandemic.
So a lot of the deficit shrinking is
a result of those programs expiring,
not necessarily any specific
action taken by Biden.
OK, moving on to the Republican response from
Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders,
100,000 Americans a year are
now killed from drug overdoses,
largely from fentanyl.
We can verify that's true.
The CDC's most recent data puts
drug overdose deaths at 101,000
over the last 12 months.
Roughly 70,000 of those deaths are
from synthetic opioids like fentanyl.
It's a figure President Biden himself
highlighted in the state of the Union,
calling for more drug detection
equipment at the border.
But Sanders also claimed the drugs
came across the southern border.
But where the fatal drugs are
coming from simply isn't trapped
with your state of the Union.
Verify. I'm Casey Decker.
Now to Portland's homeless
crisis and a shooting that
played out right in front of our
cage W crew at a camp in the St.
John's neighborhood.
Reporter Blair Best at a photographer
were at the camp as it was getting
cleared when they saw a fight
break out between two people.
Then they say they heard a gunshot.
One of them collapsed,
then hobbled into the woods.
Both were gone by the time police arrived,
and no one in the camp would talk to
police about what happened last week.
The city posted it.
Notice saying it intended to clear the
camp and put in a safe rest village
site with temporary outdoor shelters.
Blair spoke with some of the
people being told to clear out.
And
then they don't help out the
people here. So they've told you
guys about this tiny home village
that'll open, but they haven't
said that you'd get a bed.
No, no, no, they didn't. They don't do.
And I've lived here for six years.
The mayor's office responded to the
shootings, saying it underscores
the need for temporary shelters
and safe rest villages.
In response to a recent spike in
fentanyl deaths in Clark County,
the regional Drug Task Force and
Fort Vancouver High School hosted
a forum last night to bring more
awareness to the dangers of the drug.
Last year alone, the task force seized
over 135,000 suspected fentanyl pills.
Last night's presentation aimed to
teach families how deadly fentanyl is,
what it looks like and how
it's being marketed to.
Kids don't want them going into middle
school and high school with just
being unaware so that when it comes
up and it becomes becomes an issue,
you know, at least I can speak
intelligently to my boys about it
and to their friends who may not be
going to presentations like this.
We were told that the full presentation
will be available to watch online.
There is another in person session
happening at the Evergreen High
School Auditorium tomorrow and a
Spanish version will be held at the
Evergreen High School Student Center.
Other headlines this morning,
Eugene
just became the first city in Oregon
to ban natural gas in new homes.
The City Council held a special
meeting this week and approved the
ordinance in a five to three vote.
The ban will begin on March 9th.
And applies to new homes that
are three stories or less,
but this will not affect homes
already under construction.
Supporters say the ban helps
with their climate goals,
but those opposed worried developers
will choose to build elsewhere.
If you think you've seen a man
impersonating a police officer,
Clackamas County deputies
want to hear from you.
They just arrested Jacob Benz and accused
him of pretending to patrol the Mount
Hood Meadows parking lot on Saturday.
Authorities say he claimed to be
with Oregon State police while
driving a silver car that looked
like an unmarked police cruiser.
Investigators say Benz was
also arrested back in 2011,
driving recklessly through traffic
with a light bar and siren
at the Hillsborough Air Show.
Also this morning we have a few more
details about the latest Powerball winner.
They bought the tickets Sunday
at a Fred Meyer in Auburn, WA.
So far, they haven't claimed their prize.
Which is a whopping 754,000,000 bucks.
$4.00 of that is.
Everyone's trying to guess who could it be,
but we're so excited for the person
and can't wait to see who it is.
So the store is gonna get $50,000
for selling the winning ticket.
Whoever bought it can choose a
lump sum of 406 million or they
can spread it out over 30 years.
Maybe freddy's.
When I go in next time we'll give me
$2.00 I'll I'll settle for two half of my 4.
He's going down swinging.
Ohh. You were trying
to bark something out there as
we were running that sound bite.
Something about $4 being
yours. $4.00 of that jackpot money is
the money that I spent on my ticket
and you donated it to
the winner. You don't get that back,
apparently, yeah. Put that back.
You do have a chance to earn
your paycheck right now.
Thank you. So, nice transition.
He lost focus.
I know he did. Bring him back to business.
Hey, this is Valentine's Tuesday, right?
This is next Tuesday after the
day's over 11 PM. It shows that
basically Monday through Tuesday,
at about 5000 feet up on Mount Hood,
there could be 18 inches of new snow.
That'd be fantastic, right?
It also shows. Snow over the coast range.
It also snows, at least shows, pardon me,
at least pockets up and down the valley
of some light snow on the ground.
We'll talk more about what looks
to be a chilly Valentine's Day
upcoming at 5:38 this morning,
but in the meantime we have
lingering showers this morning.
At this hour we have a weather
system holding offshore.
We'll start to get some of these clouds
spilling into our sky later today.
So once the early morning showers end,
I think probably around 8:00 o'clock or so,
we'll see the showers quickly.
Fade away.
We'll go on to be partly sunny to
maybe a little bit of an increase
of cloud cover this afternoon.
Right now it is partly cloudy
in spots where 41 degrees.
Good visibility out there.
Your planner shows us 47 all dry at noon.
Temperatures probably get
up to 50 for an actual high.
We're starting off.
Not too bad.
It's near freezing down in Eugene
Salem's holding at 37 Kelso 3937.
The Newport 42 degrees out in the Dows
Hood River at last check was 36 degrees,
by the way,
holding above freezing.
Do you want to mention that we've
had good snow up at Timberline?
10 inches of new snow over the past 24 hours?
32 up at the Lodge currently and passes are
snow covered so odot's been out plowing.
But you get the idea that cascade travel
will be slow going this morning due to
all that new snow that's on the roadways.
Here's our seven day so today
about 50 becoming dry.
Tomorrow partly sunny there's an
evening shower chance tomorrow night.
56 tomorrow by the way, really nice
showers Friday from a week system.
Some rain not a lot.
Still looks like both
weekend days will be dry.
The cold front comes in Monday.
This is air straight down
from the Gulf of Alaska.
No levels plummet Monday overnight in
the Tuesday does look likely at this
point that we would see sticking snow,
certainly below 1000 feet
and maybe below 500 feet.
I've got Portland temperatures
at lowest elevations,
33 in the morning with a high of 41
and a mix of rain and snow showers.
The excitement for Valentine's.
The NBA's all time scoring
record now belongs to LeBron
James. That is right.
LeBron passing Kareem Abdul,
Jabbar becoming the NBA's
all time leading scorer.
Fantastic moment last night
in the world of sports.
We're going to go back and relive
it right after this quick break.