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OFF PAGE ONE
East Oregonian
Tuesday, November 28, 2017
Shoppers take to
their phones for
Cyber Monday deals
By JOSEPH PISANI
AP Retail Writer
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Shane Manke fills a water bin for dogs confiscated from a home near Hermiston over the weekend at PAWS on
Monday in Pendleton.
DOGS: People needed to help socialize the dogs
Continued from 1A
into fights, so volunteers spread the
food out in lines and multiple mounds to
separate the dogs.
“The dogs are underweight,” Barker
said. “A lot of them are unsocialized so
they just come up to you and sniff and
run off.”
The animal rescue workers are trying
to gently convince the owner to relin-
quish the animals so they can get the care
they need. So far, they are guarding the
person’s identity, and law enforcement is
not involved.
PAWS welcomed 17 of the dogs
this weekend and expects five more by
Wednesday.
“None of the animals have been
spayed or neutered,” said Amy Word,
president of the PAWS board. “Most of
the females are likely pregnant.”
PAWS board member Cindy Spiess
said the owner isn’t a bad person, just
unequipped to deal with the demands of
pet owning.
“We’re trying to help her,” Spiess said.
“She can’t care for all these animals.”
“Sometimes people who are hoarders
are collectors,” Spiess said. “Initially,
they think they are doing good.”
Other shelters — Blue Mountain
Humane Society in Walla Walla and the
Oregon Humane Society — have agreed
to take some of the animals.
On Monday morning, PAWS staff
member Shane Manke examined each
dog for wounds and fleas. He spoke to
each animal in a calming voice.
“I’m a big doggie socializer,” he said.
“I get them out of their shells.”
Most of the dogs inside the pens
seemed fairly unperturbed, though a few
of them trembled. A pit bull terrier, who
had been locked in a dark shed, looked
out eagerly from one of the pens. Since
none of the dogs had names, shelter
workers named him Paul.
Such care is expensive. PAWS, which
is running on a deficit, hopes for an
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
A year old American bull terrier confiscated from a home near Hermiston
now resides in a kennel at PAWS in Pendleton.
influx of donations to get through this
crisis. In fact, Word said, the shelter is
on track for closure in a year if income
doesn’t increase. Union Pacific Railroad,
which owns the property, recently raised
the lease amount to $1,000 per month,
up from $700.
“The railroad apparently reassessed
the property,” Word said. “That’s an
extra $300 per month we don’t have.”
Monthly income runs about $14,500
(including $1,300 from the city of Pend-
leton, grants and donations). Expenses
run about $17,500 per month. A recent
fundraiser at 40 Taps brought in a couple
of thousand dollars.
Each dog receives shots, deworming
medication, flea medicine, a microchip
and spaying or neutering at a total
expense of about $100. That doesn’t
cover extra staff time necessary to
process and care for the dogs, so the
$130 adoption fee doesn’t quite cover
the cost.
Those wishing to donate can do so
through PAWS Facebook page, the
webpage at www.pendletonpaws.org/
donate or by stopping by during hours
of operation. Word and Spiess encour-
aged anyone wishing to adopt a dog to
come in to the shelter at 517 SE 3rd St.
and reserve one. They urged people to
come down and interact with the dogs to
socialize them.
Spiess and Word worry about dogs
still stuck in situations of neglect. They
say they know of puppy mills in the
county that stay under the radar.
“This is not an isolated incident,”
Spiess said. “There are a bunch of
horrific situations out there that we need
to address, but we don’t have the means
to do it.”
“This could happen again next week,”
Word said. “We want these animals
taken care of and in good homes. That’s
why we’re here. “
———
Contact Kathy Aney at kaney@
eastoregonian.com or 941-966-0810.
LAB: Has received about 26,500 requests so far this year
Continued from 1A
case,” she said. “I feel like
there needs to be attention
brought to what’s lacking in
how rape cases are handled.”
The captain who oversees
the Oregon State Police
crime lab told The Orego-
nian/OregonLive that the
delay is unacceptable.
“In nobody’s mind is
that OK,” said Capt. Alex
Gardner.
The sexual assault kit
from Simmons’ exam was
submitted to the state police
crime lab on Dec. 28, 2016.
Oregon’s stockpile of
thousands of untested sexual
assault kits is a longstanding
problem that the Legislature
tried to address last year with
Melissa’s Law, named for
Portland teen Melissa Bittler,
who was killed in 2001 by a
serial rapist.
The law is intended
to ensure sexual assault
evidence is tested in a
timely way. The state got
$1.5 million to hire nine
DNA and biology evidence
technicians, bringing the
total number of staff who
analyze the kits and other
evidence to 44.
But Gardner said training
new staff has taken more
than 18 months and required
the assistance of current
employees, taking them
away from analyzing kits
themselves.
The agency has chipped
away at the backlog even
as thousands of new cases
stream in, Gardner said.
So far this year, the lab
has received about 26,500
requests to analyze a wide
variety of evidence, such as
firearms, fingerprints and
DNA. Of those, 2,123 were
for DNA, the majority of
them in sex cases.
As of this week, the lab
has a total backlog of 1,197
requests for DNA, an esti-
mated 800 or so related to
sex crime investigations.
Gardner said 20 “higher
priority cases” are ahead of
Simmons’ case.
WORK: Labor shortage has only worsened over the last decade
Continued from 1A
people to start in June and
work through November, but
that’s becoming more and
more rare.”
Labor woes are not unique
to Smith Frozen Foods — it
is an issue that has affected
all corners of the agricultural
and manufacturing industries,
from the farm to the factory.
Earlier this year, the Capital
Press documented workforce
worries from cherry growers
in Chelan, Washington, all
the way down to Linden,
California, while the Orego-
nian/OregonLive also spoke
to orchards in The Dalles and
vineyards in the Willamette
Valley.
Locally, both AgriNorth-
west and Threemile Canyon
Farms declined to speak
specifically about experi-
ences at their own operations,
though Matthew Vickery,
land and government affairs
director for AgriNorthwest,
did acknowledge that labor
shortage “is a growing
problem for everyone in
agriculture.”
Neither
the
Oregon
Department of Agriculture
or Department of Labor and
Industries keep statistics
on the farm labor. Dallas
Fridley, region economist
for the Columbia River
Gorge and Columbia Basin,
provided information from
the U.S. Department of
Labor’s National Agricultural
Workers Survey, which was
last updated in 2013-14.
According to that report,
approximately two-thirds of
hired farmworkers were born
in Mexico, and 80 percent
of all farmworkers were
Hispanic. Just more than
half of farmworkers, or 53
percent, had work authoriza-
tion, and the vast majority, or
84 percent, were settled in the
country.
The reason for the
shortage is difficult to prove,
Lesko said. Some point to
an improved economy in
Mexico, while others may
finger the country’s failure
to adopt a comprehensive
immigration policy. For his
part, Lesko said he does not
see anything happening on
a macro-political scale as
having much effect on labor
at Smith Frozen Foods.
“It is all speculative,” he
said. “There’s no one reason
that I think it’s a problem.”
In fact, Lesko said the
problem has only worsened
over the last decade. Smith
Frozen Foods has taken a
number of steps to fill shifts,
such as billboards, radio ads,
hiring temporary workers
from local staffing agencies
and providing bonuses to
workers who agree to stay
through the end of the season.
“We’re just short,” Lesko
said. “We’re constantly
looking.”
Labor shortage was
a major undertone at the
Future Farm Expo earlier
this year in Pendleton, where
growers met with leaders in
cutting-edge technology and
automation for agriculture.
The three-day showcase
featured a variety of trials
using equipment such as
drones, smartphone apps and
even virtual reality.
Lesko said Smith Frozen
Foods is automating where
it can, though a lot of that
tech may not be available or
affordable for the plant.
“I don’t see any solution
(to labor shortage) on the
horizon,” he said.
Fortunately, Lesko said
the issue did not affect the
size or quality of this year’s
harvest at Smith Frozen
Foods. Crews have not been
forced to bypass fields, and
the company has managed to
keep up with its orders.
“We
haven’t
been
bypassing fields based on
the fact that we can’t harvest
the product or process the
product,” he said. “We typi-
cally try to harvest to what
we think our orders are. That
hasn’t changed.”
NEW YORK — Weeks
of deals didn’t stop people
from heading online to
shop on the Monday after
Thanksgiving.
Cyber
Monday
is
likely to be the biggest
U.S. online shopping day
ever, according to Adobe
Analytics, the research arm
of software maker Adobe.
Nearly $6.6 billion in sales
were forecast by the end of
the day, up about 17 percent
from a year ago, Adobe
said. And more people are
picking up their phones
to shop: Web traffic from
mobile devices, including
tablets, is expected to top
desktop computers for the
first time this year, Adobe
said.
When Frank Yanover
browsed Amazon’s Cyber
Monday deals through his
phone, he wasn’t looking
for anything in particular.
But he spent $300 on a
Vitamix blender that he had
eyed before, which he said
was a $200 discount.
“I never bought it because
it was so expensive,” said
Yanover, who is retired and
lives in Hollywood, Florida.
Over
the
holiday
weekend, he bought an iPad
from Best Buy through his
phone and then picked it
up at a store. And using his
voice-activated Echo, he
bought Amazon’s $30 Echo
Dot for his bedroom, which
was $20 off.
Others seem to be doing
the same. The Echo Dot was
the top-selling electronic
item on Amazon, followed
by the Fire TV. Board
games, Fingerlings and
Legos were best-sellers in
Amazon’s toy section.
Over at eBay, one $745
Apple MacBook Air was
sold every five seconds, the
company said. And J.C.
Penney said its top-selling
items on its website were
towels, $25 diamond stud
earrings and a Liz Claiborne
bag that has a built-in phone
charger.
Target and Toys R Us
offered 15 percent off most
items. Walmart.com tripled
the amount of items avail-
able on its site from last year.
But Amazon is expected
to be the big winner over
the holiday season, with
Bain & Co. expecting the
online retailer to capture 50
percent of all online sales
growth this year.
C. Britt Beemer, the
chairman of the consum-
er-focused
America’s
Research Group, says
computers and smaller elec-
tronics were the top-sellers
this
Cyber
Monday,
followed by clothing. “It’s
easier to ship,” he says
about apparel.
The shift to online
shopping has been notice-
able even before Cyber
Monday. At a Toys R Us
in Toledo, Ohio, on Friday,
the parking lot was about
half full. Melissa Wetzel,
who said she would also do
some shopping online, said
her Black Friday in-store
shopping had been relaxing
since she didn’t have to fight
the crowds.
“It’s been pretty easy,”
she said. “I guess most are
shopping online.”
L’Osservatore Romano/Pool Photo via AP
Pope Francis is welcomed by Cardinal Charles
Maung Bo upon his arrival at the airport in Yangon,
Myanmar, Monday.
Pope meeting Suu Kyi
on Myanmar refugee
crisis amid outcry
YANGON, Myanmar
(AP) — Pope Francis begins
his first full day in Myanmar
traveling to the country’s
capital Tuesday to meet with
the civilian leader, Nobel
laureate Aung San Suu Kyi,
a day after hosting the mili-
tary general in charge of the
crackdown on the country’s
Muslim Rohingya minority.
Francis’ speech to Suu
Kyi, other Myanmar author-
ities and the diplomatic
corps in Naypyitaw is the
most anticipated of his visit,
given the outcry over the
crackdown, which the U.S.
and U.N. have described
as a campaign of “ethnic
cleansing” to drive out the
Rohingya from northern
Rakhine state.
The operation, launched
in August after Rohingya
militants attacked security
posts, has sent more than
620,000 Rohingya into
neighboring Bangladesh,
where they have reported
entire villages were burned
and looted, and women and
girls were raped.
Myanmar’s
Catholic
leaders have stressed that
Suu Kyi has no voice
to speak out against the
military over the operation,
and have urged continued
support for her efforts to
move Myanmar toward
a more democratic future
that includes all its religious
minorities, Christians in
particular. How Francis
bridges the local Catholic
concerns with his legacy of
speaking out for oppressed
minorities is the key to watch
in his speech in Naypyitaw.
Francis dove into the
crisis hours after arriving on
Monday by meeting with
the commander responsible
for the crackdown, Gen.
Min Aung Hlaing, and three
members of the bureau
of special operations. The
Vatican didn’t provide
details of the contents of the
15-minute “courtesy visit,”
only to say that “They spoke
of the great responsibility
of the authorities of the
country in this moment of
transition.”
Gen. Min Aung Hlaing’s
office said in a statement on
Facebook that he is willing
to have “interfaith peace,
unity and justice.” The
general added that there
was no religious or ethnic
persecution or discrimina-
tion in Myanmar, and that
the government allowed
different faith groups to
have freedom of worship.
Rohingya Muslims have
long faced state-supported
discrimination
in
the
predominantly
Buddhist
country and were stripped of
citizenship in 1982, denying
them almost all rights and
rendering them stateless.
They cannot travel freely,
practice their religion, or
work as teachers or doctors,
and they have little access
to medical care, food or
education.
Myanmar’s
Catholic
Church has publicly urged
Francis to avoid saying
“Rohingya,” a term shunned
by many here because
the ethnic group is not a
recognized minority in the
country. And they have
urged him to toe a delicate
line in condemning the
violence, given the poten-
tial for blowback against
Myanmar’s tiny Catholic
community.