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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (March 23, 2021)
A6 THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, MARCH 23, 2021 Supply bottlenecks leave ships stranded By JOYCE M. ROSENBERG Associated Press NEW YORK — A trade bottle- neck born of the COVID-19 out- break has U.S. businesses anxiously awaiting goods from Asia — while off the coast of California, dozens of container ships sit anchored, unable to unload their cargo. The coronavirus pandemic has wreaked havoc with the supply chain since early 2020, when it forced the closure of factories throughout China. The seeds of today’s prob- lems were sown last March, when Americans stayed home and dra- matically changed their buying habits — instead of clothes, they bought electronics, fi tness equip- ment and home improvement prod- ucts. U.S. companies responded by fl ooding reopened Asian factories with orders, leading to a chain reac- tion of congestion and snags at ports and freight hubs across the country as the goods began arriving. Main Street businesses are now forced to wait months instead of the usual weeks for a delivery from China, and no one knows when the situation will be resolved. Owners do a lot of explaining to customers, order more inventory than usual and lower their expectations for when their shipments will arrive. Journalist: ‘LAPD has such political power’ Continued from Page A1 When he got a job off er from the legendary editor Jim Bellows at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, he jumped at it and returned to the West Coast as front-page editor with a daily column. He won a Los Ange- les Press Club award for the series “LAPD: A Matter of Black and White.” “It was all about the way Black cops were being treated and mar- ginalized,” Sullivan said. “It really forced the LAPD to start hiring and promoting more Black cops.” Two years later, Jann Wenner, the publisher of Rolling Stone , recruited Sul- livan. A working relation- ship developed that would last more than 20 years. Sul- livan made his home base in Portland while raising twins, a boy and a girl. “I was going back and forth to LA constantly,” he said. “I was the highest-paid writer on the staff and got the most free- dom by far. I did have a really privileged position.” Sullivan said t he majority of clues collected by investi- gators assigned to Notorious B.I.G.’s murder pointed in the same direction as the word on the street. According to Sullivan’s account, an inmate at Califor- nia’s Corcoran State Prison said his cellmate had confi ded that Suge Knight, the founder of Death Row Records, from behind bars, had hired another gang member to take out Biggie, whose name was Christopher Wallace. A former Death Row employee claimed he could provide police with evi- dence that Biggie had been murdered by members of Knight’s “goon squad.” T he Los Angeles Police Department and the FBI took the case to prosecutors, who refused to proceed. Neither the Los Angeles County D is- trict A ttorney’s O ffi ce nor the U.S. attorney’s offi ce explained why. “After he decided he liked me, Russ said he wanted to show me something,” Sulli- van said. Sullivan followed Poole to a storage unit that revealed an entire wall lined with boxes of documents he had carried ing; normally, there’s no more than a handful, according to the Marine Exchange of Southern California, a service that monitors port traffi c and operations. “With this type of backlog, it will take several weeks to work through that. It doesn’t go away. And new ships are sailing to the U.S. even as we speak,” says Shanton Wilcox, a manufacturing adviser with PA Consulting. The cluster of ships off shore are perhaps the most dramatic symptom of an overwhelmed supply chain. As production surged in Asia, more ships began arriving in the fall at ports in Los Angeles, Long Beach and other West Coast cities than the gateways could handle. Ships holding as many as 14,000 con- tainers have sat off shore, some of them for over a week. At times there have been as many as 40 ships wait- County reports four new virus cases The Astorian Clatsop County on Monday reported four new coronavirus cases. The cases include a female between 10 and 19, a man in his 30s, a woman in her 50s and a woman in her 70s living in the northern part of the county. All four were recovering at home. The county has recorded 808 cases since the start of the pandemic. Eighteen people have been hospi- talized and seven have died. Forest Whitaker plays journalist in ‘City of Lies.’ R.J. Marx/The Astorian Journalist Randall Sullivan in Gearhart. His book on the killing of the rapper Notorious B.I.G. has been made into a movie debuting this month. out of the police department’s robbery-homicide division. “I made copies and when I read them, knew this was an incredible story of corruption and cover-up,” Sullivan said. “The people who know the truth are haunted by it, it was almost impossible for them to live with it and accept. It almost kills them inside.” ‘City of Lies’ In “City of Lies,” Poole is played by Depp. The char- acter of the journalist, orig- inally modeled on Sullivan, is renamed and played by Whitaker. Sullivan wrote early drafts of the fi lm’s screen- play from his book. The fi nal script is by Christian Contreras. Brad Furman is the director. Sullivan has an executive producer credit. “City of Lies” received its international premiere in Italy in 2019. Saban Films took on distribution rights a and the fi lm is now play- ing throughout the country, including at theaters on the North Coast. Sullivan’s follow up to “LAbyrinth,” “Dead Wrong: The Continuing Story of City of Lies, Corruption and Cov- er-Up in the Notorious BIG Murder Investigation,” was published in 2019. Sullivan said he hopes a result is to see the wrong- ful-death case fi led by Biggie’s mother, Voletta Wallace, against Los Angeles reopened. Wallace could seek $1 billion in dam- ages. Sullivan thinks she can win. “Absolutely, the only hope is this lawsuit,” he said. “That’s all that’s left. (Wal- lace) will win if they get it past the 9th Circuit, which would have to rule to reopen it. I think there’s enough for a criminal conviction, and certainly enough to win a civil trial. “LAPD has such political power. I t is the most politically connected and powerful police department in the country, even the New York City Police Depart- ment,” he added. “ They control the local agenda to an incredible degree. Even through all this, the Black Lives Matter movement, they still have had the power to scare people. They still haven’t felt the repercus- sions for this.” Seaside: ‘The reality is our classrooms adjust every year anyway’ Continued from Page A1 consortium continues to be the best option for cer- tain students to meet their needs, they may move on to classrooms in other dis- tricts as they move up in grade levels. “We’re really thank- ful to our other school dis- tricts in the county for the collaboration through the consortium over the years,” Penrod said. “It’s been wonderful partnering with them and we are really thankful for the consortium teachers in Warrenton and Astoria for their dedication to our students.” But Seaside School Dis- trict administrators and par- ents worried what mov- ing back and forth between other districts meant for children. These students might be in classrooms in Astoria and Warrenton until they returned to their home district in Seaside for the special education classes the district off ered at the high school level. “That was a big con- cern to parents, that stu- dents weren’t having an ability, through school, to build relationships with their peers in their neigh- borhood, in their neighbor- hood school,” Penrod said. S ome families also had students in multiple build- ings and across multiple districts. The logistics of getting everyone to the right school in the morning or the pivot that might be nec- essary if one child became sick at school could be very diffi cult to manage, said Lynne Griffi n, the director of special services for the Seaside School District. With Seaside’s depar- ture, there will be some challenges, noted Travis Roe, director of special programs for the Astoria School District. Still, he added, con- sortium classrooms can look very diff erent from year to year depending on the needs of the students enrolled. “The reality is our class- rooms adjust every year anyway,” he said. The consortium already has teachers who bring with them a wealth of experience across a variety of special needs challenges and pro- grams. In Warrenton, one teacher especially brings “a lot to the table,” Roe said. Even with a change in the consortium this year, her presence means the dis- tricts still in the consortium already have key resources on hand. Details of both Seaside’s program and what the con- sortium classrooms will look like without Seaside are still being determined. Seaside plans to begin hir- ing for its programs this spring. Newsome: Coronavirus pandemic has altered the way people use libraries Continued from Page A1 librarian and later as head of reference in charge of adult services for the Middle Geor- gia Regional Library System. After Newsome and his girlfriend, also a librarian, both received job off ers, the couple settled in Washington County to live with family. He started work in Sea- side seven months ago with COVID-19 precautions in place, limited library hours and, in November, additional closures. The pandemic has altered the way people use libraries . “E-books have gone from something barely on any- one’s mind to something really common,” he said. E-books bring more read- ers, he added, but can create fi nancial pressures for pub- lic libraries. It costs librar- ies more to subscribe to an e-book service than if they purchased the physical book. Libraries must renew the ser- vice or pay additional fees depending on the times the e-book is requested. “It can circulate 52 times, and you can have it for two years,” he said. “If you cross either of those thresholds in two years, you lose access and you have to buy it again.” Newspapers have gone off a little bit, but the biggest change he’s seen in is mag- azines, which he said are not being sent out as much. “Books are continuing to cir- culate,” he said, “but it isn’t growing like it used to.” In Georgia, Newsome said, everyone has access to the joint collection for the entire state. “If you have a ‘I’M REALLY IMPRESSED WITH THE COMMUNITY AND THE SUPPORT FOR THE LIBRARY. IT’S AN AMAZING LIBRARY FOR A CITY OF THIS SIZE.’ Micah Newsome | assistant library director in Seaside. library card in Georgia you can use it in any library,” he said. “For smaller libraries to be able to have that is really nice.” Seaside’s collection, which he says is really good for the size of the library, will benefi t from new inter- library services with Asto- ria and Warrenton. “Seaside, Warrenton and Astoria are basically doing what Geor- gia is doing, just on a smaller scale, ” he said. Newsome said he is nav- igating Oregon’s roads and mountains with snow tires and careful driving. “I actu- ally prefer cold weather to hot weather,” he said. “In Georgia, summer starts now. It goes into the early 90s in May and doesn’t stop until the end of September.” He enjoys brewing beer, although he has yet to culti- vate a taste for most India pale ales . “My favorite is Belgian abbey ales,” he said. “I love the malty character, depth of fl avor and complexity.” For his reading enjoy- ment, he favors science fi c- tion and cookbooks, but explores a variety of genres — mysteries, literary fi ction and bestsellers — to help guide readers. He’s looking forward to meeting patrons and resi- dents, many of whom he has met only remotely or masked. “With everything being virtual at the moment it’s really hard to fi gure out what can we add that only we can provide that’s really adding that ‘library touch, ‘” he said. Newsome hopes to reopen community spaces in the library and fi nd things that are of local interest , includ- N E W ing makerspace opportuni- ties that focus on both high- and low-tech projects. “I really want to get in touch with people in the community and spend some time talking and fi nd out what people are looking for. T here’s a really thriving set of programming going on here,” Newsome said. “I’d like to fi nd out what do peo- ple really want back most and what new things they would like to see. “It’s a beautiful build- ing and great collection and it’s well utilized,” he added. “I’m really impressed with the community and the sup- port for the library. It’s an amazing library for a city of this size. I’m really look- ing forward to getting to the other side of some of these pandemic restrictions.” E X H I B I T 3D Theater • Lightship Tour • Gift Store OPEN DAILY 9:30 TO 5:00 • 1792 Marine Drive, Astoria, OR 503.325.2323 • www.crmm.org T H E T W I N PA L A C E S O F T H E PA C I F I C