A4 The BulleTin • Friday, FeBruary 19, 2021
TODAY
Today is Friday, Feb. 19, the 50th
day of 2021. There are 315 days
left in the year.
Today’s Highlights in History:
On Feb. 19, 1942, during World
War II, President Franklin D. Roo-
sevelt signed Executive Order
9066, which paved the way for
the relocation and internment of
people of Japanese ancestry, in-
cluding U.S.-born citizens. Impe-
rial Japanese warplanes raided
the Australian city of Darwin; at
least 243 people were killed.
In 1807, former Vice President
Aaron Burr, accused of treason,
was arrested in the Mississippi
Territory, in present-day Alabama.
In 1846, the Texas state govern-
ment was formally installed in
Austin, with J. Pinckney Hender-
son taking the oath of office as
governor.
In 1878, Thomas Edison re-
ceived a U.S. patent for “an
improvement in phonograph or
speaking machines.”
In 1945, Operation Detachment
began during World War II as
some 30,000 U.S. Marines began
landing on Iwo Jima, where they
commenced a successful month-
long battle to seize control of the
island from Japanese forces.
In 1968, the children’s program
“Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,”
created by and starring Fred
Rogers, made its network debut
on National Educational Televi-
sion, a forerunner of PBS, begin-
ning a 31-season run.
In 1976, President Gerald R.
Ford, calling the issuing of the
internment order for people of
Japanese ancestry in 1942 “a sad
day in American history,” signed
a proclamation formally con-
firming its termination.
In 1986, the U.S. Senate ap-
proved, 83-11, the Genocide Con-
vention, an international treaty
outlawing “acts committed with
intent to destroy, in whole or in
part, a national, ethnical, racial or
religious group,” nearly 37 years
after the pact was first submitted
for ratification.
In 1992, Irish Republican Army
member Joseph Doherty was de-
ported from the United States to
Northern Ireland following a nine-
year battle for political asylum.
In 1997, Deng Xiaoping, the last
of China’s major Communist rev-
olutionaries, died at age 92.
In 2003, an Iranian military
plane carrying 275 members of
the elite Revolutionary Guards
crashed in southeastern Iran,
killing all on board.
In 2008, an ailing Fidel Castro
resigned the Cuban presidency
after nearly a half-century in
power; his brother Raul was later
named to succeed him.
In 2019, President Donald Trump
directed the Pentagon to devel-
op plans for a new Space Force
within the Air Force, accepting
less than the full-fledged depart-
ment he had wanted.
Ten years ago: Security forces
in Libya and Yemen fired on
pro-democracy demonstrators
as the two hard-line regimes
struck back against the wave
of protests that had already
toppled autocrats in Egypt and
Tunisia.
Five years ago: Harper Lee, au-
thor of “To Kill a Mockingbird,”
died in Monroeville, Alabama,
at age 89.
One year ago: About 500 pas-
sengers left the Diamond Prin-
cess cruise ship in Japan at the
end of a two-week quarantine
that failed to stop the spread
of the coronavirus among pas-
sengers and crew; the number
of confirmed cases aboard the
ship topped 600. The number of
deaths in China from the virus
rose past 2,000.
Today’s Birthdays: Singer
Smokey Robinson is 81. Actor
Carlin Glynn is 81. Former Sony
Corp. Chairman Howard Stringer
is 79. Singer Lou Christie is 78.
Actor Michael Nader is 76. Rock
musician Tony Iommi (Black Sab-
bath, Heaven and Hell) is 73. Ac-
tor Stephen Nichols is 70. Author
Amy Tan is 69. Actor Jeff Daniels
is 66. Rock singer-musician Dave
Wakeling is 65. Talk show host
Lorianne Crook is 64. Actor Ray
Winstone is 64. Actor Leslie Da-
vid Baker is 63. NFL Commission-
er Roger Goodell is 62. Britain’s
Prince Andrew is 61. Tennis Hall
of Famer Hana Mandlikova is 59.
Singer Seal is 58. Actor Jessica
Tuck is 58. Country musician
Ralph McCauley (Wild Horses)
is 57. Rock musician Jon Fish-
man (Phish) is 56. Actor Justine
Bateman is 55. Actor Benicio Del
Toro is 54. Actor Bellamy Young
is 51. Rock musician Daniel Adair
is 46. Pop singer-actor Haylie
Duff is 36. Actor Arielle Kebbel is
36. Christian rock musician Seth
Morrison (Skillet) is 33. Actor
Luke Pasqualino is 31. Actor
Victoria Justice is 28. Actor David
Mazouz (TV: “Gotham”) is 20. Ac-
tor Millie Bobby Brown is 17.
— Associated Press
LOCAL, STATE & REGION
Thousands remain without power in Portland
Utility says most will
be restored by Friday
BY KALE WILLIAMS
The Oregonian
More than 63,000 homes
and businesses were still with-
out power in the Portland area
Thursday morning as many
customers were nearing a full
week without electricity.
The majority of the outages
were in Clackamas County
where just over 50,000 cus-
tomers had no electricity as of
6 a.m., according to Portland
General Electric. Multnomah
County had another 13,600
outages. In Marion County, at
least 32,000 customers were
Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian via AP
A resident poses by a large ice-covered tree along NE 24th Avenue on
Monday in Portland after a weekend winter storm toppled it.
still in the dark. Some of those
outages were first reported last
Friday.
On Wednesday, the utility
unveiled a new map where cus-
tomers can track repair crews in
real time and Larry Bekkedahl,
a PGE vice president, said util-
ity officials expect 90% of their
customers who were without
power to have their electricity
restored by Friday night.
“For the remaining 10%, due
to the significant damage and
access challenges, we expect
that it will take several more
days,” Bekkedahl said in a state-
ment.
All the substations that had
been knocked offline by the
powerful winter storm that wal-
loped the region last weekend
had been restored, the utility
reported, but more than 6,400
individual wires were still in
need of repair. More than 3,000
people were working to restore
service, PGE said.
A handful of Portland-area
school districts have announced
they won’t hold virtual classes
Thursday as some who have
had power restored continue
to suffer from internet outages.
Comcast said Wednesday that
around 76,000 customers had
no service and some could be
waiting a week or more to get
back on the internet.
Rain is expected to return
to the Portland area Thursday,
continuing through the week-
end, but temperatures are ex-
pected to remain well above
freezing and there is no snow
or freezing rain forecast for the
Willamette Valley’s lowest ele-
vations.
Amid the pandemic
Marriage & divorce: Couples’ challenges abound
BY DAVID CRARY
The Associated Press
F
or many U.S. couples
yearning to be mar-
ried, the pandemic has
wreaked havoc on their wed-
ding plans while bolstering
their teamwork and resilience.
For couples already married, it
has posed a host of new tests,
bringing some closer, pulling
others apart.
Spending more time to-
gether — a common result of
lockdowns, furloughs and lay-
offs — has been a blessing for
some couples who gain greater
appreciation of one another.
For other spouses, deprived of
opportunities for individual
pursuits, the increased time
together “may seem more like
a house arrest than a fantasy,”
suggested Steve Harris, a pro-
fessor of marriage and family
therapy at the University of
Minnesota and associate direc-
tor of a marriage counseling
project, Minnesota Couples on
the Brink.
Gregory Popcak, a psycho-
therapist in Steubenville, Ohio,
who specializes in marriage
counseling for Catholics, says
the pandemic has been partic-
ularly troublesome for spouses
whose coping strategies have
been disrupted.
“For couples who had a ten-
dency to use their business to
avoid problems, the pandemic
has made things infinitely
worse,” he said. “The lock-
down has raised the emotional
temperature a few notches. ...
Things that were provocative
before are now catastrophic.”
Overall, people have be-
come more cautious amid the
pandemic, said sociologist W.
Bradford Wilcox, director of
the National Marriage Project
at the University of Virginia.
“This caution is making
them less likely to get divorced,
less likely to get married, less
likely to have a child,” he said.
Comprehensive national sta-
tistics on marriage and divorce
during the pandemic won’t be
compiled for many months, but
the numbers available thus far
from a few states suggest there’s
a notable decline in each cat-
egory.
In Oregon, divorces in the
pandemic months of March
through December were down
about 24% from those months
Kristen Pritchard Photography via AP
Kayleigh and Cody Cousins pose for wedding photos at Mission Trails Regional Park in San Diego, California,
on Dec. 27. They initially planned an April 2020 wedding, postponed it after the pandemic took hold, re-
scheduled it for December, then had to shift gears again when a new lockdown was imposed. “That was dev-
astating,” said Kayleigh. “We said, ‘Let’s just do it on Zoom.’”
in 2019; marriages were down
16%. In Florida, for the same
months, divorces were down
20% and marriages were down
27%. There also were decreases,
though smaller, in Arizona.
One reason for fewer di-
vorces: In many states, access
to courts for civil cases was se-
verely curtailed during the pan-
demic’s early stages. Another
reason, according to marriage
counselors, is that many cou-
ples backed off from a possibly
imminent divorce for fear it
would only worsen pandem-
ic-fueled financial insecurity.
The Rev. Russ Berg, who
runs a faith-based marriage
counseling ministry in Minne-
apolis, tries to encourage that
kind of hesitancy among the
couples he advises.
“Some come in saying they’re
overwhelmed, fighting over fi-
nances, their kids’ education,”
Berg said. “Without going to
work, they don’t have that buf-
fer of being physically gone.
They feel they’re on top of each
other.”
“I try to put it in perspective,
that everyone is stressed out
right now and it’s not a good
time to make decisions about
the future of your marriage,”
he said. “I say, ’Let’s work on it
for six months and make sure
you don’t add the pain of regret
to the pain of divorce. Explore
all your options before you de-
cide.”
For countless couples on the
brink of marriage, the pan-
demic plunged fine-tuned wed-
ding plans into disarray due to
restrictions on large gatherings
and wariness about long-dis-
tance travel.
In San Diego, Kayleigh and
Cody Cousins initially planned
an April wedding, postponed it
after the pandemic took hold,
rescheduled it for December,
then had to shift gears again
when a new lockdown was im-
posed.
“That was devastating,” said
Kayleigh. “We said, ‘Let’s just
do it on Zoom.’”
So they set up an altar at
home, recruited a friend to
officiate virtually, and had a
wedding ceremony Dec. 27
watched remotely by about 40
of their friends and family.
Professionally, Kayleigh helps
her husband run a tree-cutting
service, so they understand
each other’s work demands. For
many couples, there’s work-re-
lated friction.
Danielle Campoamor, a
freelance writer in New York
City, says she and her part-
ner of seven years find them-
selves arguing frequently as
the pandemic complicates the
challenges of raising their two
children and earning needed
income. She works from home;
he commutes to an Amazon
fulfillment center.
“He goes to work for 12-
hour shifts,” said Campoamor,
34. “I’m left alone helping my
6-year-old with online learning,
potty-training my 2-year-old,
cooking and cleaning.
“There are days when I
think, ‘Yes, we can do this,’ and
other days I say, ‘No way that I
can do this,’” she said. “We don’t
have time to discuss our rela-
tionship, to work on improving
it, or on separating. Sometimes
I don’t have the capacity to re-
member what day it is.”
Atlanta-based attorney Eliz-
abeth Lindsey, president of the
American Academy of Matri-
monial Lawyers, says she and
other divorce lawyers generally
have kept busy, in some cases
grappling with pandemic-re-
lated complications regarding
child visitation rights.
She expects there will be
pent-up demand for divorces
once the COVID-19 threat
eases.
“Plenty of people I’ve con-
sulted with were not ready to
pull the trigger during the pan-
demic,” she said.
Recent months have been
busier than usual for Louise
Livesay, a lawyer in St. Paul,
Minnesota, who specializes in
collaborative divorce — a pro-
cess in which the spouses are
represented by attorneys seek-
ing to negotiate outcomes fair
to both parties.
Livesay said the stresses of
the pandemic exacerbated
existing strains in some mar-
riages, pushing couples toward
divorce. But she said many of
her clients were eager to avoid
contentious litigation and were
open to equitable financial ar-
rangements.
“I found people to be a bit
more willing to work toward
solutions when things are diffi-
cult,” she said.
In the Catholic diocese of
Arlington, Virginia, psycholo-
gist Michael Horne, who coun-
sels couples on behalf of Catho-
lic Charities, has observed one
heart-warming development
that he attributes partly to the
pandemic. There are now 20
couples enrolled in the agen-
cy’s adoption program, up from
seven a year ago.
“Having more time together
has afforded couples time to
have those really important
conversations,” he said. “What
does it mean to be a family?”