A7
B USINESS
THE BULLETIN • FRIDAY, APRIL 30, 2021
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BRIEFING
Portland Business
Alliance fined over
city lobbying rules
The city of Portland’s
auditor’s office has fined
one of the Portland area’s
most influential business
organizations for repeat-
edly violating city lobby-
ing rules last year.
An investigation
found the Portland Busi-
ness Alliance failed to
disclose at least 25 times
it had contacted city of-
ficials to request access,
funding or action, Oregon
Public Broadcasting re-
ported.
The violations come
with a maximum penalty
of $75,000.
But the auditor’s office
fined the alliance $450
and recommended alli-
ance staff get compliance
training.
She also said the of-
fice rarely issues fines for
these violations, but, it
could not overlook the
matter this time given the
number of violations.
In an emailed state-
ment to the media outlet,
the alliance said it would
review the violations and
work with the auditor’s
office.
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More Americans
buying homes
More Americans
signed contracts to buy
homes in March after
two months of declines,
pointing to a healthy
housing market as sum-
mer approaches and the
economy continues what
is shaping up to be a
rapid recovery.
The National Associa-
tion of Realtors’ index of
pending home sales rose
1.9% to 111.3 in March
after declining 11.5%
in February and 2.4% in
January.
The increase Thurs-
day, however was weaker
than the 3.5% analysts
surveyed by FactSet had
projected.
Contract signings, con-
sidered a barometer of
purchases that will take
place in the next two
months, are 23.3% ahead
of where they were last
year, largely due to lock-
downs put in place when
the pandemic hit U.S.
shores in March 2020.
— Bulletin wire reports
EURO
$1.2126 +.0002
OREGON
Grants will cover missed rent for 12K
State opens applications for second round
BY JAMIE GOLDBERG
The Oregonian
Oregon will distribute more
than $40 million in grants
through the first round of its
new Landlord Compensation
Fund to cover the missed rent
of nearly 12,000 households.
Applications for a second
round open Thursday.
Nicole Stingh, a spokesper-
son for Oregon Housing and
Community Services, the state
agency administering the new
program, said the first round
will pay 1,940 landlords state-
wide.
The money comes from
$150 million that state law-
makers allocated in December
to seed the program, which
partially reimburses landlords
when tenants fall behind due
to the coronavirus pandemic.
Landlords who accept fund-
ing will receive grants to cover
80% of their tenants’ outstand-
ing rent and, in turn, must for-
COVID-19 | DISNEYLAND
First order: Shorten
the Rise of Resistance
Clocking in at 18 minutes, the ride’s original duration is
3 minutes over California’s suggested time limit for indoor
rides, meaning Disney will alter portions to comply
See Recovery / A8
First Order and finally escape with the help of members of the rebellion.
panded its virtual queuing sys-
tem for the ride, allowing park
visitors to join the queue through
the Disneyland app twice daily —
at 7 a.m. and at noon — instead
of once. In the morning session,
visitors can join the queue with-
out having to be in the park. To
join the queue at noon, parkgoers
must be inside either Disneyland
or Disney California Adventure
Park.
The ride is Disneyland’s new-
est attraction, added only two
months before the pandemic
closed the park last year.
See Star Wars / A8
PHOTO:
An early scene from the Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance ride features a holographic image of Daisy Ridley’s Rey
at Disney’s Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Jay L. Clendenin/Los Angeles Times
Drought may hurt honey bees;
experts say cover crops could help
BY SIERRA DAWN McCLAIN
Capital Press
via Capital Press
John Jacob, beekeeper and owner
of Old Sol Apiaries, displays a
panel of honeycomb and bees.
Beekeepers and researchers
say drought across the West
this year will likely hurt honey
bee colonies.
Bees are expected to strug-
gle most in California fol-
lowed by Oregon, where me-
teorologists predict a hot, dry
summer.
“I’m really worried about it,”
said John Jacob, beekeeper and
owner of Old Sol Apiaries in
Southern Oregon. “Seems like
it’s going to be extremely dry.”
Honey bee colonies can
typically handle extreme heat
as long as they have access to
uncontaminated water, polli-
nation experts say. The more
serious problem is a potential
lack of pollen sources — espe-
cially during late summer.
Lack of food sources can
lead to colony collapse.
BY MARTIN CRUTSINGER
AND PAUL WISEMAN
The Associated Press
See Bees / A8
adventure in which riders join the resistance movement, get captured by the evil
“dwelling points,” where riders
wait or stroll through the attrac-
tion.
That could include the seg-
ments when visitors are waiting
to be interrogated by the First
Order’s leader Kylo Ren or when
they are allowed to linger before
a unit of stormtroopers in a Star
Destroyer’s hangar bay, according
to Disneyland representatives.
A speech given at the begin-
ning of the ride by a hologram of
resistance hero Rey may also be
shortened, they said.
To help reduce crowding in
the park, Disneyland has also ex-
Recovery
showing
energy
“Colonies are probably
going to do really well this
spring,” said Andony Mel-
athopoulos, pollinator health
specialist at Oregon State Uni-
versity Extension. “There’s
enough moisture in the
ground and a lot of things are
still blooming. Where the rub-
ber will hit the road is when
blackberries stop blooming
around the end of June.”
he Disneyland ride Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance is an 18-minute space
But even in a galaxy far, far
away, Earth’s deadly pandemic
has had an impact: California
health protocols mandate that all
indoor rides last no longer than
15 minutes. To offer Rise of the
Resistance, Disneyland has to
shorten it.
Disneyland officials promised
that when the park reopened Fri-
day, the ride’s major plot points
will remain intact, including lots
of explosions, drama and high-
tech mayhem.
Disneyland representatives
said the overall experience would
be shortened by cutting down the
See Rent / A8
WASHINGTON — Pow-
ered by consumers and fu-
eled by government aid, the
U.S. economy is achieving
a remarkably fast recov-
ery from the recession that
ripped through the nation
last year on the heels of the
coronavirus and cost tens of
millions of Americans their
jobs and businesses.
The economy grew last
quarter at a vigorous 6.4%
annual rate, the government
said Thursday, and expec-
tations are that the current
quarter will be even better.
Economists say that wide-
spread vaccinations and
declining viral cases, the re-
opening of more businesses,
a huge infusion of federal
aid and healthy job gains
should help sustain steady
growth. For 2021 as a whole,
they expect the economy to
expand around 7%, which
would mark the fastest cal-
endar-year growth since
1984.
As American consum-
ers have stepped up their
spending in recent months,
they have consumed physi-
cal goods far more than they
have services, like haircuts,
airline tickets and restau-
rant meals: Spending on
goods accelerated at an an-
nual pace of nearly 24% last
quarter; services spending
rose at a rate below 5%.
But now, that dispar-
ity will likely shift as more
restaurants and entertain-
ment venues reopen and
people look to spend more
on experiences and less on
tangible items. On Friday,
for example, Disneyland
opens, with limited capacity,
to California residents.
Online sites that have
capitalized on goods pur-
chases during the pandemic
— from Amazon to Etsy to
eBay — are under pressure
to show they can sustain ac-
celerating growth even as
consumers look more to-
ward services and less on
goods.
So far, Amazon, the dom-
inant site by far, is hardly
showing signs of slowing
down. On Thursday, it re-
ported that its first-quar-
ter profit more than tripled
from a year ago, fueled by
online shopping.
The speed of the re-
bounding U.S. economy has
been particularly striking
given the depth of dam-
age the pandemic inflicted
on it beginning last year.
With businesses all but shut
down, the economy con-
tracted at a record annual
pace of 31% in the April-
June quarter of last year be-
fore rebounding sharply in
the subsequent months.
The bounce-back has
been swift.
BY HUGO MARTÍN • Los Angeles Times
T
give the other 20%.
The first round covered
missed rent accumulated be-
tween April 2020 and February
2021. Stingh said the agency
funded every eligible landlord
who applied.
Pandemic
recession
Jobless claims
drop to 553,000
The number of Amer-
icans applying for un-
employment benefits
dropped by 13,000 last
week to 553,000, the
lowest level since the
pandemic hit in March
2020 and another sign
the economy is recover-
ing from the coronavirus
recession.
The Labor Department
reported Thursday that
jobless claims were down
from 566,000 a week
earlier.
They have fallen
sharply over the past year
but remain well above
the 230,000 weekly figure
typical before the pan-
demic struck the econ-
omy in March 2020.
The four-week moving
average, which smooths
out weekly gyrations, fell
44,000 to 611,750.
Nearly 3.7 million peo-
ple were receiving tradi-
tional state unemploy-
ment benefits the week
of April 17.
Including federal pro-
gram designed to ease
economic pain from the
health crisis, 16.6 million
were receiving some type
of jobless aid the week of
April 10.
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