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OFF PAGE ONE
East Oregonian
Friday, January 6, 2017
WORLD BRIEFLY
No doubt Russia interfered
in election, intel chief says
Frozen on the river
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
A semitrailer crosses the Highway 730 bridge over a frozen Umatilla River on
Thursday in Umatilla. Sub-zero temperatures have led to the freezing over of the
entire river near the mouth of the Umatilla, but the ice is only a few inches thick
and not safe to walk over.
HOUSE: Cameras were facing wrong way
Continued from 1A
“She was very helpful,
and asked me to pull the
tiny house in front of the
shop so she could see it,” he
said. “And because she said
cameras were facing it.”
The two exchanged
information, and Thomas
continued on to Las Vegas.
Then, on New Year’s Eve,
he found out the house was
gone — and the surveillance
cameras he was told would
be on his house were in fact
facing another direction.
“The
manager
said
they’re going to try to find
it,” he said. “They found
out the cameras were not
pointing that way. The house
was locked down and dead-
bolted, but someone used
bolt cutters and took the
house.”
Thomas is now living
in Las Vegas with a friend.
He spent about 6 months
building the house.
“I really like the idea of
a tiny house,” he said. “You
save money, and you don’t
have a mortgage. My idea
was to buy a plot of land and
then make the tiny house as
off-grid as possible. You can
enjoy a higher quality of life
without having to spend all
your money on rent.”
Thomas estimates the
house’s value at about
$25,000.
“My house was small
— even for a tiny house,”
he said. The 95 square-foot
structure was 17 feet long by
7.5 feet wide. Thomas lived
in it with his two dogs.
He said he’s unsure of
why the people at the truck
stop assured him that the
surveillance cameras would
be on his house when they
weren’t — but doesn’t really
think anyone there was
involved. He said he just
hopes he can find the house.
Umatilla County Sheriff
Terry Rowan said his office
took a report of the theft soon
after it was reported on Jan. 1
and is investigating.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Brushing
aside Donald Trump’s dismissiveness,
the nation’s intelligence chief insisted
Thursday that U.S. agencies are more
confident than ever that Russia interfered
in America’s recent presidential election.
And he called the former Cold War foe an
“existential threat” to the nation.
Did Russian hacking sway the results?
There’s no way for U.S. agencies to
know, said James Clapper, the director of
national intelligence.
Asked about the possible effect of
the disclosure of private information
stolen by hackers, Clapper said, “The
intelligence community can’t gauge the
impact it had on the choices the electorate
made.” But he did say Russian hacking
“did not change any vote tallies.”
Clapper’s testimony to the Senate
Armed Services Committee was short on
concrete evidence of Russian activities,
but it raised the stakes in the intelligence
community’s standoff with Trump.
Clapper indicated the agencies he leads
would not back down in their assessment,
even if that threatens a prolonged crisis of
confidence with their next commander in
chief.
That puts the pressure back on
Trump, who has raised the possibility
of more positive relations with Russia
and has repeatedly disparaged the
U.S. intelligence agencies. He will be
briefed Friday on the classified evidence
concerning Russian interference.
Trump selects former Sen.
Coats for top intel post
WASHINGTON (AP) — President-
elect Donald Trump has selected former
Indiana Sen. Dan Coats to lead the Office
of the Director of National Intelligence, a
role that would thrust him into the center
of the intelligence community that Trump
has publicly challenged, a person with
knowledge of the decision said Thursday.
Coats served as a member of the
Senate Intelligence Committee before
retiring from Congress last year. If
confirmed by the Senate, he would
oversee the umbrella office created after
9/11 to improve coordination of U.S. spy
and law enforcement agencies.
The person with knowledge of
Trump’s decision, as well as others who
spoke to The Associated Press about
intelligence matters involving Trump,
were not authorized to discuss the matters
publicly and spoke on condition of
anonymity.
Since winning the election, Trump
has repeatedly challenged intelligence
officials’ assessments that Russia
interfered with the election on his behalf,
setting up an unusually public battle
with the spy agencies. On Friday, senior
intelligence officials will try to justify
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
Director of National Intelligence James
Clapper listens to questions while tes-
tifying on Capitol Hill in Washington,
Thursday, before the Senate Armed
Services Committee hearing: “Foreign
Cyber Threats to the United States.”
their claims when they brief Trump on the
findings of a full report into the Russian
hacking of Democratic groups. The report
was ordered by President Barack Obama,
who was informed of the conclusions
Thursday.
On the eve of his briefing, Trump
continued to challenge the intelligence
community’s assertion that Russia was
behind the hacking of the Democratic
National Committee. He questioned how
officials could be “so sure” about the
hacking if they had not examined DNC
servers.
Judges decide to keep
N.C. election law blocked
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A law North
Carolina Republicans approved scaling
back the new Democratic governor’s
control over election boards won’t be
enforced until his legal challenge to it is
resolved, state judges decided Thursday.
A panel of trial court judges is
granting the request by Gov. Roy
Cooper to extend a temporary 10-day
block on the law, which Cooper argues
is unconstitutional because it shifts
appointment powers from him to
legislative leaders.
Cooper sued GOP legislative
leaders just before his New Year’s
Day swearing-in, challenging a law
the General Assembly approved in a
surprise special session barely a week
after Republican incumbent Pat McCrory
conceded to Cooper in their close race.
Barring any appeals, the incremental
victory for Cooper keeps separate the
State Board of Elections and the State
Ethics Commission and halts what his
allies considered an illegal power grab
by Republicans. But GOP legislators
said the blocked law would promote
bipartisanship in carrying out elections.
“We’re pleased with the result,”
Cooper spokeswoman Noelle Talley said
in an email.
Staff photo by Jayati Ramakrishnan
Andy Hall, a new math teacher at Hermiston High School, looks on as a student
works out a problem.
SCHOOL: Hermiston graduate Andy Hall
returns to the high school as a math teacher
Continued from 1A
look up to her is another one
of the job’s rewards.
“It makes me feel like I
have a positive impact,” she
said.
She has also enjoyed
being able to work in Herm-
iston.
“It’s nice to be outside of
my hometown and make my
own name,” she said.
———
Madeline Laan is teaching
her first-grade students about
numbers — through coins,
clocks and graphs.
“A quarter past one,” she
calls out, as students look at
the blank clock face on their
worksheets, and draw on
hands on to show 1:45. Laan
goes around to each student
with a blue marker in hand,
helping and steering them
in the right direction. In the
same lesson, the students go
over the value of each coin,
and learn how to draw a bar
graph.
Laan is in her first year as
a teacher, and has enjoyed
finding new ways to help her
students learn.
“I love to hear kids’
thoughts,” she said. Her
favorite thing to teach is
writing — especially creative
writing.
“They improve so much
in writing in the first grade,”
she said. “There’s so many
activities you can do.”
Laan, a native of
Middleton, Idaho, attended
Eastern Oregon University
before coming to Highland
Hills Elementary. She has
always wanted to be a
teacher.
“I love learning new
things,” she said.
The new job can be over-
whelming, but Laan praised
the supportive coworkers
and staff for helping her
through the learning process.
Laan said one surprise
was the amount of time
teachers put in outside the
classroom — something she
finds herself wanting to do.
“It’s hard as a teacher
to keep work from going
home,” she said. “You carry
it with you. I don’t have any
children, but they’re like my
kids.”
Laan enjoys teaching the
younger students.
“It’s different every day,”
she said. “They’re still
learning all the rules, and
they still need you — I love
that. And their responses —
they’re so funny!”
———
Andy Hall is no stranger
to the halls of Hermiston
High School, but this year,
he’s seeing them from a new
perspective.
The HHS graduate is a
new math teacher at his alma
mater, and is implementing
some new teaching strategies
he picked up from his prior
experiences.
“I did all my schooling at
Oregon State,” he said. “And
I spent six years teaching in
Denver.”
Hall recently came back
to Hermiston and bought a
house, and is glad to be back
in his old stomping grounds.
He is impressed with the
students he’s encountered so
far.
“The student energy and
attitude is way higher than
what I saw in Denver,” he
said. “The instructional
strategies I try here actually
work.”
One of those strategies
Hall has introduced is
Math 360, an instructional
concept where whiteboards
are placed all around the
room, and students are up
and moving around to solve
problems.
“It gets them up moving,
and allows me to see the
work being done,” Hall said.
The district recently installed
several whiteboards in Hall’s
class, and is starting to do so
in other rooms.
“This is the first class to
have that done,” he said.
Hall has enjoyed collab-
orating with other teachers,
and getting involved with
the school outside of class —
he’s a coach for the football
and wrestling teams.
As a new teacher at the
school, Hall says the biggest
challenge is balancing time
in the classroom with other
requirements.
“The district does a lot
of professional development
for new teachers, which
is good,” he said. “It’s an
opportunity to share ideas
and pick up new ideas. But
we’re out of the classroom
for a lot of training, so some
of the challenges we face as
new teachers are not being
able to spend as much time
as we’d like with students.”
He added that as a coach,
his work with athletes after
school can limit the number
of hours he has to support
students outside of class.
Hall is excited to be
teaching at Hermiston High
School.
“I hope to be here for a
long time,” he said. “Maybe
one day work my way up
to administration and make
changes that way.”
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