5A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2016
WORLD IN BRIEF
About 14,000 tractor-trailers cross the border daily in Laredo,
the nation’s busiest inland port. Local officials say roughly 1 in
every 3 jobs benefits from international trade.
“We are NAFTA on wheels,” Mayor Pete Saenz said.
Free trade across the border, he explained, is the “backbone”
of this city of 255,000 people. The Democrat endured a back-
lash from his party for welcoming Trump in July 2015 after the
then-candidate called immigrants from Mexico criminals and
rapists.
Associated Press
All set for Syria rebels, civilians
to start leaving Aleppo
BEIRUT — The warring sides in Syria confirmed today that
the evacuation of rebel fighters and thousands of civilians from
the last sliver of the besieged eastern city of Aleppo is imminent,
with a Syrian army official saying all is ready for them to leave
“at any moment.”
Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group said overnight negotia-
tions had reinforced a cease-fire deal to allow the rebels and civil-
ians to leave the besieged last rebel holdout in Aleppo.
The evacuations were back on track after a cease-fire deal,
mediated by Ankara and Moscow, unraveled amid fighting on
Wednesday. Shiite Hezbollah militiamen are fighting in the Syr-
ian civil war on the side of President Bashar Assad’s forces.
The handover of Aleppo’s remaining opposition-run neigh-
borhoods to government control would be a turning point in Syr-
ia’s civil war, allowing Assad control of most of the country’s
urban centers.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said
the fighting that scuttled Wednesday’s truce stopped in the city
around 4 a.m. today.
Abandoned vehicles abound
after rare snow storm in Portland
PORTLAND — Abandoned vehicles littered streets in the
Portland area today, a day after a rare snow storm brought Ore-
gon’s largest city to a halt.
The National Weather Service said commuters should be pre-
pared for snow-covered streets this morning and possibly some
more snow, but no real accumulation.
“We might get to barely above freezing but it would only be
for an hour or two,” meteorologist Colby Neuman said. “The
snow that we have in Portland is going to stick around for the
next couple of days.”
Only 1-to-3 inches of snow fell around Portland on Wednes-
day, but ice and the rush-hour timing created havoc.
Many commuters found themselves on streets clogged with
traffic that was inching along on snow-slick streets. Cars fish-
tailed, spun out and collided. Semi-trucks littered Interstate 5,
some of them unable to move to the side before getting stuck.
After more than three hours of waiting to travel just a few
miles, some motorists abandoned their vehicles and started walk-
ing. Others hoped they wouldn’t run out of gas.
Kimberly Wrolstad had been stuck on I-5 heading to Tigard
for about 90 minutes Wednesday afternoon. She had a quarter
tank of gas left.
“It’s frustrating,” she said. “I don’t know what’s going on.”
Drugmakers push profitable,
but unproven, opioid solution
Pilloried for their role in the epidemic of prescription pain-
killer abuse, drugmakers are aggressively pushing their remedy
to the problem: a new generation of harder-to-manipulate opioids
that have racked up billions in sales, even though there’s little
proof they reduce rates of overdoses or deaths.
More than prescriptions are at stake. Critics worry the drug-
makers’ nationwide lobbying campaign is distracting from more
productive solutions and delaying crucial efforts to steer physi-
cians away from prescription opioids — addictive pain medi-
cations involved in the deaths of more than 165,000 Americans
since 2000.
“If we’ve learned one lesson from the last 20 years on opioids
it’s that these products have very, very high inherent risks,” said
Dr. Caleb Alexander, co-director of Johns Hopkins University’s
Center for Drug Safety and Effectiveness. “My concern is that
they’ll contribute to a perception that there is a safe opioid, and
there’s no such thing as a fully safe opioid.”
The latest drugs — known as abuse-deterrent formulations,
or ADFs — are generally harder to crush or dissolve, which the
drugmakers tout as making them difficult to snort or inject. But
they still are vulnerable to manipulation and potentially addictive
The electoral voters speak and
they’re not out for a revolt
Stephanie Yao Long/The Oregonian
Abandoned cars litter the side of Northwest Barnes Road
near St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland today.
when simply swallowed. National data from an industry-spon-
sored tracking system also show drug abusers quickly drop the
reformulated drugs in favor of older painkillers or heroin.
In the last two years, pharmaceutical companies have made a
concerted under-the-radar push for bills benefiting the anti-abuse
opioids in statehouses and in Congress, where proposed legisla-
tion would require the Food and Drug Administration to replace
older opioids with the new drugs.
Yahoo’s big breach helps usher
in an age of hacker anxiety
SAN FRANCISCO — Yahoo has become the worst-case
example of an unnerving but increasingly common phenomenon
— massive hacks that steal secrets and other potentially revealing
information from our personal digital accounts, or from big orga-
nizations that hold sensitive data on our behalf.
On Wednesday, Yahoo disclosed a gargantuan breach affect-
ing more than a billion user accounts, the largest such attack in
history. The company said that attack happened in August 2013,
although Yahoo only discovered it recently. Worse, the compa-
ny’s announcement followed a similar announcement last Sep-
tember of a 2014 hack — one Yahoo ascribed to an unnamed for-
eign government — that affected 500 million accounts.
Neither Yahoo breach has yet been linked to online fraud or
any specific repercussions for Yahoo users. But their disclosure
closely follows U.S. intelligence concerns about Russian hacking
of Democratic emails during the presidential campaign — not to
mention other recent attacks on a major health insurer, a medical
lab-test company and the government office that manages mil-
lions of federal employees.
“The lesson is clear: no organization is immune to compro-
mise,” said Jeff Hill, director of product management for cyber-
security consultant Prevalent. And since most of us are dependent
on big organizations that hold our digital lives in their hands, in a
broad sense that effectively means no one is safe.
Border cities worry that ending
NAFTA would hurt economies
LAREDO, Texas — Donald Trump’s only visit to the
U.S.-Mexico border while running for president was a stop in
Laredo that lasted less than three hours. On some days, that’s not
long enough for 18-wheelers hauling foreign-made dishwashers
and car batteries to lurch through the gridlocked crossing.
Trump’s campaign promise to tear apart the North American
Free Trade Agreement helped win over Rust Belt voters who felt
left behind by globalization. But the idea is unnerving to many
people in border cities such as Laredo and El Paso or Nogales in
Arizona, which have boomed under the 1994 treaty.
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Revolutionary Guard faces new
foe in Iran’s opening economy
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran’s Revolutionary Guard
faces a new enemy: the gradual opening of the country’s econ-
omy after the nuclear deal with world powers.
Though better known for its hard-line fervor as an elite force
created to defend Iran’s cleric-led system, the Guard holds vast
business interests both public and hidden across the Islamic
Republic. In times of international sanctions, the organization
won massive no-bid government contracts and expanded its
influence.
But comments made by one Guard general about a new ship
deal worth $650 million betray the worry felt in the organization
over potential competition, analysts say. It also offers a possible
secondary motive for its detention of dual nationals on purported
espionage charges and its confrontations with the West: keeping
its share of Iran’s market of 80 million people.
“They are worried about competition internally,” said Alireza
Nader, an analyst at the RAND Corporation who long has stud-
ied the Guard. “They want to make sure for any given deal, they
get a part of it.”
Last Friday, the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines Co.
signed a deal with South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries for
10 container ships. It marked the first deal with a foreign ship-
builder since the nuclear accord that limited Iran’s enrichment
of uranium in exchange for the lifting of some international
sanctions.
LISTINGS
THE DAILY
ASTORIAN
A
WASHINGTON — Although pestered to a fare-thee-well to
abandon Donald Trump, Republican electors appear to be in no
mood for an insurrection in the presidential campaign’s last vot-
ing ritual. This most untraditional of elections is on course to
produce a traditional outcome Monday — an Electoral College
ticket to the White House for the president-elect.
Whether they like Trump or not, and some surely don’t,
scores of the Republicans chosen to cast votes in the state-capi-
tal meetings told AP they feel bound by history, duty, party loy-
alty or the law to rubber-stamp their state’s results and make
him president. Appeals numbering in the tens of thousands —
drowning inboxes, ringing cell phones, stuffing home and office
mailboxes with actual handwritten letters — have not swayed
them.
The Associated Press tried to reach all 538 electors and inter-
viewed more than 330 of them, finding widespread Democratic
aggravation with the electoral process but little expectation that
the hustle of anti-Trump maneuvering can derail him. For that to
happen, Republican-appointed electors would have to stage an
unprecedented defection and Democrats would need to buck tra-
dition, too, by peeling away from Hillary Clinton and swinging
behind a consensus candidate in sufficient numbers.
Still, people going to the typically ho-hum electoral gatherings
have been drawn into the rough and tumble of campaign-season
politics. Republicans are being beseeched to revolt in a torrent of
lobbying, centered on the argument that Clinton won the popular
vote and Trump is unsuited to the presidency. Most of it is falling
on deaf ears, but it has also led to some acquaintances being made
across the great political divide.
“Let me give you the total as of right now: 48,324 emails
about my role as an elector,” said Brian Westrate, a small-busi-
ness owner and GOP district chairman in Fall Creek, Wisconsin.
“I have a Twitter debate with a former porn star from California
asking me to change my vote. It’s been fascinating.”
Evening listings
THURSDAY
D ECEMBER 15
A - Charter AstoriaT Seaside - L - Charter Long Beach
6:30
7 PM
7:30
8 PM
8:30
9 PM
9:30
10 PM
10:30
11 PM
11:30
KATU News at 6
Jeopardy!
Wheel of Fortune Prep & Landing
Prep/ Landing 2
Baking Show "Pies and Tarts Week" (N) You Do? "Holiday Edition" (N)
KATU News at 11 (:35) Jimmy Kimmel
KOMO 4 News
Wheel of Fortune Jeopardy!
Prep & Landing
Prep/ Landing 2
Baking Show "Pies and Tarts Week" (N) You Do? "Holiday Edition" (N)
KOMO 4 News
(:35) Jimmy Kimmel
(5:20) NFL Football Los Angeles Rams at Seattle Seahawks Site: CenturyLink Field -- Seattle, Wash. (L)
5th Quarter
Evening
Evening
Dateline NBC
KING 5 News
(:35) Tonight Show
KOIN Local 6 at 6 CBS Evening News Extra
Ent. Tonight
The Big Bang (N) Great Indoors (N) Mom (N)
Life in Pieces (N) Pure Genius
KOIN 6 News @ 11 (:35) S. Colbert
KIRO 7 News
CBS Evening News The Insider
Ent. Tonight
The Big Bang (N) Great Indoors (N) Mom (N)
Life in Pieces (N) Pure Genius
KIRO News
(:35) S. Colbert
(5:20) NFL Football Los Angeles Rams at Seattle Seahawks Site: CenturyLink Field -- Seattle, Wash. (L)
Paid Program
Paid Program
Inside Edition
Dateline NBC
KGW News at 11 (:35) Tonight Show
Last Man Standing Last Man Standing Modern Family
Modern Family
Jingle Ball The iHeartRadio Jingle Ball in New York City. (N)
Whose Line Is It? KGW News at 10 Two and a Half
Two and a Half
Met Your Mother
Painting the Town Business (N)
PBS NewsHour
Oregon Art Beat Oregon Guide
Midsomer M.
(:45) Midsomer Murders
(:35) Vera "Changing Tides"
6 O'Clock News
Family Feud
Family Feud
Hell's Kitchen "Let the Catfights Begin" Rosewood "Secrets and Silent Killers"
10 O'Clock News
11 O'Clock News 2 Broke Girls
Mike & Molly
Mike & Molly
Big Bang Theory Big Bang Theory FOX 12's 8 O'Clock News on PDX-TV FOX 12's 9 O'Clock News on PDX-TV Family Guy
Family Guy
American Dad
Cleveland Show
Modern Family
Modern Family
Big Bang Theory Big Bang Theory Hell's Kitchen "Let the Catfights Begin" Rosewood "Secrets and Silent Killers"
Q13 News at 10
Q13 News
The Simpsons
Seinfeld
Seinfeld
Seinfeld
Seinfeld
2 Broke Girls
2 Broke Girls
Big Bang Theory Big Bang Theory Big Bang Theory Big Bang Theory Conan (N)
Two and a Half
Two and a Half
Last Man Standng Last Man Standng Modern Family
Modern Family
Q13 News at 9
Big Bang Theory Big Bang Theory Friends Pt. 2 of 2 Friends
H.S. Basketball (L)
SportsCenter The day's news in the world of sports.
SportsCenter
SportsCenter
SportsCenter
NCAA Studio
NCAA Volleyball Division I Tournament (L)
The Herbies
30 for 30 "Catholics vs. Convicts"
Jalen & Jacoby (N) The Herbies
Henry Danger
Henry Danger
Henry Danger
The Thundermans Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (‘09) Voices of Maile Flanagan, Eunice Cho. Friends "The One in Barbados"
Nashville "Sneak Peek" (N)
Happy Feet Two (‘11) Robin Williams, Elijah Wood.
Hannah Montana Hannah Montana Liv Maddie Cali
Liv Maddie Cali
(:40) Frozen Lights (:10) Stuck Middle (:35) Girl Meets W. Jessie
Bunk'd
(5:00) Arthur Christmas James McAvoy. The Santa Clause (‘94, Comedy) Judge Reinhold, Wendy Crewson, Tim Allen. The Search for Santa Paws (2010, Children) Diedrich Bader, Reese Alexander.
The 700 Club
(5:55) Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance Nicolas Cage.
(:45) Knight and Day (2010, Action) Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz,
(:05) FXM Presents Dragonball Evolution (‘09) Justin Chatwin.
PR Fashion Startup "On Point" (N)
Project Runway "A Power Trip"
Project Runway "Bold Innovation"
Runway (N)
(:50) P.Runway (N) Project Runway "Finale, Part One" 1T2 (N)
Champions Tennis Legends
AMA Supercross -- Foxborough, Mass.
UFC UFC Fight Night
(5:00) UFC UFC 200
Fox Sports Live
TMZ Sports (N)
Speak for Yourself
Skip and Shannon: Undisputed Opinions on the biggest sports topics of the day.
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (‘06, Act) Brandon Brendel, Zachery Ty Bryan, Lucas Black.
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (‘06) Brandon Brendel, Lucas Black.
(5:00) Four Brothers (‘05) Mark Wahlberg.
(:20) Futurama
(:50) Futurama
(:20) Futurama
(:50) Tosh.0 "Hillary in the House"
(:25) Tosh.0
Tosh.0
Tosh.0
Tosh.0
Tosh.0
The Daily Show (N) @midnight (N)
Pawn Stars
Pawn Stars
Pawn Stars
Pawn Stars
Alone "A New Land"
Alone "First Blood" (N)
(:05) Selection "Hell & High Water" (N)
(:05) Alone "First Blood"
The First 48 "MoonieT Dark Impulse"
The First 48 "Bloodline"
The First 48 "Killer Contact" (N)
Nightwatch "The Ties That Bind" (N)
Gangland Under. "The Devil You Know" (:05) The First 48 "Taken for a Ride"
Long Lost Family
My 600-lb Life "Brittani's Story"
My 600-lb Life "Amber's Story"
My 600-lb Life "Chay's Story"
Extreme Weight Loss "Rod"
My 600-lb Life "Brittani's Story"
(5:00) Harley and "Amazing Machine"
Harley and the Davidsons "Race to the Top"
Harley and the Dav. "Legacy" The founders take a risk to save their company.
Vegas Rat Rods "Stampede Rod"
Wild Indonesia "Lost Worlds"
Wild Thailand
Wild Japan "Fiery Heart"
Wild Japan "Island on the Edge"
Wild Japan "The Enchanted Deep"
The Last Shangri-la
(5:00) NBA Basketball Chicago Bulls at Milwaukee Bucks (L)
NBA Basketball New York Knicks at Golden State Warriors Site: The Oracle -- Oakland, Calif. (L)
Inside the NBA
NBA Basketball Chicago vs Milwaukee
(5:30) Monster-in-Law (‘05, Com) Jane Fonda, Michael Vartan, Jennifer Lopez. Four Christmases (‘08, Com) Reese Witherspoon, Robert Duvall, Vince Vaughn. Four Christmases (‘08, Com) Reese Witherspoon, Robert Duvall, Vince Vaughn.
Law & Order: S.V.U. "Deadly Ambition" Law&Order: SVU "Catfishing Teacher" A Madea Christmas (‘13, Comedy) Tyler Perry, Tika Sumpter, Chad Michael Murray. Falling Water "No Task for the Timi" (N) Law&Order: SVU "Traumatic Wound"
Chopped "Without Missing a Beet"
Chopped "Grandma vs. Grandma"
Chopped "San Franchopco"
Chopped "Betting on the Farm" (N)
Beat Flay (N)
Beat Bobby Flay Beat Bobby Flay Beat Bobby Flay
Flip or Flop
Flip or Flop
Flip or Flop
Flip or Flop
Flip or Flop
Flip or Flop
Flip or Flop (N)
Flip or Flop
House Hunters (N) House Hunters (N) House Hunters
House Hunters
Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011, Animated) Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, Jack Black.
(5:30) Rango (2011, Animated) Isla Fisher, Timothy Olyphant, Johnny Depp.
Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011, Animated)
Anderson Cooper 360
CNN Tonight With Don Lemon
CNN Tonight With Don Lemon
Anderson Cooper 360
Anderson Cooper 360
CNN Tonight With Don Lemon
The Kelly File With Megyn Kelly
Hannity
The O'Reilly Factor
The Kelly File With Megyn Kelly
Hannity
On the Record
Shark Tank
Shark Tank
Shark Tank
American Greed: Scam
Greed "Union Bu$terT The Fool's Gold" Paid Program
Paid Program
Million Listing "Zeppo Marx the Spot" Listing "Nightmare on Altman Street"
Million Dollar List "Turn and Burn"
Million Dollar List "Surf vs. Turf" (N)
Top Chef (N)
WatchWhat (N)
Million Dollar List
Christmas in Connecticut (‘45) Dennis Morgan, Barbara Stanwyck.
Love Finds Andy Hardy (‘38) Mickey Rooney.
(5:00) The Shop Around the Corner
(:45) Desk Set (‘57) Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn.
I, Frankenstein (2014, Fantasy) Aaron Eckhart, Bill Nighy, Yvonne Strahovski. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008, Adventure) Karen Allen, John Hurt, Harrison Ford.
(2:30) Final Destination 3
SF Machinery
Small Town
Rural America 'Live' "AARP"
Steve Lantvit
Rural Eve. News Market Journal
GA Farm Monitor SF Machinery
Small Town
Time Life Library