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The Portland Police Bureau declared an unlawful assembly Saturday night when people gathered outside a police precinct in Oregon’s largest city and threw bottles towards officers, police said.Until that point, federal, state and local law enforcement had been seemingly absent from the protests Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The demonstrations – that for weeks ended with tear gas, fireworks shot towards buildings, federal agents on the street and injuries to protesters and officers – have recently ended with chanting and conversations.Activists and Oregon officials urged people at Saturday night’s protest in Portland to re-center the focus on Black Lives Matter, three days after the Trump administration agreed to reduce the presence of federal agents.Groups gathered Saturday evening in various areas around downtown Portland to listen to speakers and prepare to march to the Justice Center and Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse.One of the more popular events, “Re-centering why we are here – BLM,” was hosted by the NAACP. Speakers included activists as well as Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley and Portland City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty.Merkley and Hardesty spoke about policies they are putting forward, including to cut police funding and restrict chokeholds.“The next thing we need you to do is vote like your life depends on it, because guess what, it does,” Hardesty said.For the first time since the presence of federal agents in Portland diminished law enforcement and protesters noticeably clashed Saturday night.As one group of protesters gathered outside the courthouse another marched to a precinct for the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office and Portland Police Bureau.Police stated that protesters threw glass bottles and directed lasers at officers. Just before 10 p.m., Portland police declared an unlawful assembly and told people to disperse or they may be subject to use of force or be arrested. Police could be seen charging, multiple times, at protesters in the area.At the courthouse, the scene was different. Around 11:30 p.m. hundreds of people remained, standing and listening to speakers.By midnight, protesters again began to march through the streets downtown.Thursday and Friday’s protests also attracted more than 1,000 people _ both nights were relatively peaceful. In a news release early Saturday, the Portland Police Bureau described Friday’s crowd as subdued and said there was no police interaction with protesters.At one point during Friday’s protest, a lone firework was shot at the courthouse. In the weeks past the action would be met with more fireworks or teargas canisters being dropped over the fence into the crowd. This time, protesters chastised the person who shot the firework, pleading to keep the demonstration peaceful.The relative calm outside a federal courthouse that’s become ground zero in clashes between demonstrators and federal agents had come after the U.S. government began drawing down its forces under a deal between Democratic Gov. Kate Brown and the Trump administration.Portland had seen more than two months of often violent demonstrations following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. In early July, President Donald Trump sent more federal agents to the city to protect the federal courthouse, but local officials said their presence made things worse. 
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Wilford Brimley, who worked his way up from movie stunt rider to an indelible character actor who brought gruff charm, and sometimes menace, to a range of films that included “Cocoon,” “The Natural” and “The Firm,” has died. He was 85.Brimley’s manager Lynda Bensky said the actor died Saturday morning in a Utah hospital. He was on dialysis and had several medical ailments, she said.The mustached Brimley was a familiar face for a number of roles, often playing characters like his grizzled baseball manager in “The Natural” opposite Robert Redford’s bad-luck phenomenon. He also worked with Redford in “Brubaker” and “The Electric Horseman.”Brimley’s best-known work was in “Cocoon,” in which he was part of a group of seniors who discover an alien pod that rejuvenates them. The 1985 Ron Howard film won two Oscars, including a supporting actor honor for Don Ameche.Brimley also starred in “Cocoon: The Return,” a 1988 sequel.For years he was pitchman for Quaker Oats and in recent years appeared in a series of diabetes spots that turned him at one point into a social media sensation.“Wilford Brimley was a man you could trust,” Bensky said in a statement. “He said what he meant, and he meant what he said. He had a tough exterior and a tender heart. I’m sad that I will no longer get to hear my friend’s wonderful stories. He was one of a kind.”Barbara Hershey, who met Brimley on 1995′s “Last of the Dogmen,” called him “a wonderful man and actor. … He always made me laugh.”Though never nominated for an Oscar or Emmy Award, Brimley amassed an impressive list of credits. In 1993’s John Grisham adaptation “The Firm,” Brimley starred opposite Tom Cruise as a tough-nosed investigator who deployed ruthless tactics to keep his law firm’s secrets safe.John Woo, who directed Brimley as Uncle Douvee in 1993′s “Hard Target,” told The Hollywood Reporter in 2018 that the part was “the main great thing from the film. I was overjoyed making those scenes and especially working with Wilford Brimley.”A Utah native who grew up around horses, Brimley spent two decades traveling around the West and working at ranches and racetracks. He drifted into movie work during the 1960s, riding in such films as “True Grit,” and appearing in TV series such as “Gunsmoke.”He forged a friendship with Robert Duvall, who encouraged him to seek more prominent acting roles, according to a biography prepared by Turner Classic Movies.Brimley, who never trained as an actor, saw his career take off after he won an important role as a nuclear power plant engineer in “The China Syndrome.”“Training? I’ve never been to acting classes, but I’ve had 50 years of training,” he said in a 1984 Associated Press interview. “My years as an extra were good background for learning about camera techniques and so forth. I was lucky to have had that experience; a lot of newcomers don’t.”“Basically, my method is to be honest,” Brimley said told AP. “The camera photographs the truth — not what I want it to see, but what it sees. The truth.”Brimley had a recurring role as a blacksmith on “The Waltons” and the 1980s prime-time series “Our House.”Another side of the actor was his love of jazz. As a vocalist, he made albums including “This Time the Dream’s On Me” and “Wilford Brimley with the Jeff Hamilton Trio.”In 1998, he opposed an Arizona referendum to ban cockfighting, saying that he was “trying to protect a lifestyle of freedom and choice for my grandchildren.”In recent years, Brimley’s pitchwork for Liberty Mutual had turned him into an internet sensation for his drawn-out pronunciation of diabetes as “diabeetus.” He owned the pronunciation in a tweet that drew hundreds of thousands of likes earlier this year.Brimley is survived by his wife Beverly and three sons. 
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Israeli police used force to disperse protesters gathered outside the official residence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Sunday morning.Several thousand demonstrators had been rallying at the square in central Jerusalem since Saturday evening.The Jerusalem protest was one of the largest turnouts since demonstrations calling for Netanyahu to resign began. The anti-Netanyahu protests have been the largest in Israel since the 2011 demonstrations against the country’s high cost of living.Smaller gatherings took place in the capital Tel Aviv and near Netanyahu’s beach house in central Israel.Eventually, police forcefully cleared the square, carrying away protesters who were refusing to leave. There have been no reports of any arrests.Many Israelis believe that prime minister has mishandled the country’s coronavirus crisis. Others say Netanyahu should not remain in office while on trial on corruption charges. 
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A former Spanish prime minister once described the rock of Gibraltar, which Spain ceded to Britain in 1713, as a stone in the shoe of Anglo-Spanish relations. But Gibraltar currently isn’t the only source of Spanish irritation with the British.Last week’s abrupt decision by London to require Britons returning from vacation in Spain to quarantine for 14 days has angered a Spanish government desperate to salvage something from the wrecked summer tourism season. And it augurs badly for Britain’s ongoing, fraught negotiations with the European Union for a post-Brexit free-trade deal.The two governments have been at loggerheads since Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his advisers abruptly reintroduced the quarantine measures six days ago — to howls of protests not only from the Spanish government but also from Britain’s struggling airlines and Spanish hoteliers trying to stave off bankruptcy.Johnson’s official spokesman warned “no travel is risk-free during this pandemic.” Since then, Luxembourg has been added to Britain’s list of risky countries to visit.The Spanish government has been lobbying Downing Street to change its mind, pointing out that large parts of Spain, including the tourist hotspots of the Canary and Balearic Islands, are safer than Britain and have much lower coronavirus infection rates.In an interview last week with the Telecinco TV network, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said his government was “talking with British authorities to try to get them to reconsider.” He said Britain had made an error by lumping all of Spain together and not taking a more clinical and sophisticated regional approach.He noted nearly 65 percent of Spain’s new cases are occurring in two regions — Catalonia in the northeast and neighboring Aragón. Britain’s quarantine requirement is “not well adjusted” to the epidemiological situation, he said. The Spanish point out that other European countries, notably France and Germany, have only advised their citizens against visiting Catalonia.Under relentless pressure from Madrid, the British government says it will review in 10 days’ time the quarantine requirement, which has prompted tens of thousands of would-be vacationers to cancel their travel plans. Low-cost airlines have halted flights to Spain. The review gives some hope to Spain that Britain may reverse its decision.But Britain’s quarantine decision is prompting a fierce backlash on the Iberian Peninsula that risks significant impact on Brexit talks.Spanish ministers are fuming. They were given no warning by London. The Spanish see the move as a stab in the back. Britons account for more than a fifth of the 80 million tourists who visit Spain in average every year. Nearly half a million Britons own vacation homes in Spain. The Spanish tourism association has offered to pay for British travelers to take virus tests in Spain.The dispute is threatening to reignite tensions between the two countries over the fate of Gibraltar, analysts say. Spanish politicians, goaded by the country’s tabloid press, are warning that they won’t do Britain any favors in the deadlocked negotiations over Britain’s relationship with the EU. A key stumbling block in the negotiations is over fishing rights in Britain’s waters.Gibraltar could well be sued to further complicate Brexit negotiations. The current government in Madrid has dropped pushing Spain’s sovereignty claim to Gibraltar, but it might revive it under pressure from Spain’s parliament.Gibraltar is desperate to ensure it will be able to benefit from a free-trade pact, if one is ever concluded, between Britain and the EU. Spain could wield a veto over that happening, shutting Gibraltar out of any easy relationship with the rest of the EU. Spain’s EU Affairs Minister Juan Gonzalez-Barba warned last month, before the current spat, that talks over Gibraltar’s future relationship with Spain and the EU “will not be easy.”And he hinted Spain could revive sovereignty ambitions. Ninety-six percent of Gibraltar’s voters opposed Brexit in the 2016 EU referendum.Spain’s Iberian neighbor, Portugal, also is in dispute with Britain. Portugal was not included on Britain’s safe-last of countries, which was first published last month. The country’s foreign ministry blasted the exclusion, noting that 28 times more people had died from COVID-19 in Britain than in Portugal. An infuriated António Costa, the prime minister, tweeted a graph illustrating it was safer in the tourist hotspot the Algarve, favored by British sun-seekers, than it was in Britain.While Portugal has enjoyed centuries of good relations with Britain, Anglo-Spanish relations have been more uneasy, stretching back to Tudor times when Henry VIII offended Spain by ditching and humiliating his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. British piracy during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I in the “Spain Main” off the coastline of the Americas and in the Caribbean Sea set the scene for Spain’s bid to invade England. But the Spanish Armada was defeated by legendary English seadogs like Sir Francis Drake.   
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The coronavirus pandemic, declared by the World Health Organization on March 11, will be a lengthy one, the WHO said Saturday.Citing the likelihood of response fatigue, the health organization’s emergency committee anticipates the COVID-19 pandemic will be long and the global risk level of COVID-19  very high, it said in a statement.So far worldwide, at least 17.7 million people have been infected and at least 681,000 people have died, according to Johns Hopkins University data.”It’s sobering to think that six months ago,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said before entering the meeting as it began Friday, “there were less than 100 cases and no deaths outside China.”In the United States, which leads the world in confirmed cases, 4.6 million, and deaths, more than 145,000, another member of the U.S. Congress has tested positive for the virus.Rep. Raul Grijalva, 72, a Democrat from Arizona, on Saturday became at least the 11th member of Congress to test positive for the coronavirus. Grijalva is the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, where he sat close to Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert, who earlier this week tested positive for the virus. It is unclear where Grijalva was exposed to the virus, and like Gohmert, he has no symptoms.“While I cannot blame anyone directly for this, this week has shown that there are some members of Congress who fail to take this crisis seriously,” Grijalva said in the statement. “Numerous Republican members routinely strut around the Capitol without a mask to selfishly make a political statement at the expense of their colleagues, staff, and their families.”Lawmakers for the Navajo Nation, another area hit hard by the pandemic, passed nearly $651 million in spending to fight the coronavirus. The funds came from more than $714 million the tribe received as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act.A man walks his dog as the sun sets in Asuncion, Paraguay, Aug. 1, 2020, amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.About 175,00 people live on the reservation that spreads across parts of New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. About one-third of the homes lack running water, and quarantining is an unfamiliar concept.As of Friday, the tribe reported more than 9,000 people infected and 456 deaths.On Saturday, Vietnam said it plans to test everyone in Danang, a city of 1.1 million, for the coronavirus.The country had been a success story, passing 100 days without a new case of coronavirus, when a cluster of cases surfaced in the popular resort city.Forty new cases were reported Saturday and four more Sunday, for a total of nearly 600 confirmed cases of coronavirus and three deaths.Up to 800,000 visitors to Danang have left for other parts of the country since July 1, the Health Ministry said Saturday, adding that more than 41,000 people have visited three hospitals in the city since.New coronavirus cases in other cities, including Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, have links to Danang.Also Saturday, France began testing travelers for the coronavirus when they arrive at airport or port from one of 16 countries. Travelers can skip the test if they have proof of a negative test within 72 hours.France is not allowing most travel to or from those 16 countries, which include the U.S. and Brazil.Daily confirmed cases of COVID-19 have increased in France recently to more than 225,000 and more than 30,200 deaths. It is now mandatory to wear a face mask in indoor public spaces. 
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Eastman Kodak Co. on Monday granted its executive chairman options for 1.75 million shares as a result of what a person familiar with the arrangement described as an “understanding” with its board that had previously neither been listed in his employment contract nor made public.One day later, the administration of President Donald Trump announced a $765 million financing deal with Eastman Kodak, and in the days that followed the stock soared, making those additional options now held by executive chairman Jim Continenza worth tens of millions.The decision to grant Continenza options was never formalized or made into a binding agreement, which is why it was not disclosed previously, according to the person familiar with the arrangement. The options were granted to shield Continenza’s overall stake in the company from being diluted by a $100 million convertible bond deal clinched in May 2019 to help Eastman Kodak stay afloat, according to the person’s account.While Kodak’s approach is permissible, it is unusual because executives are paid to grow a company’s long-term value and are not usually given extra compensation personally to cover events that may hurt share prices, several experts said.Kodak disclosed the stock options award to Continenza in a filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which was previously reported. But the person familiar with the arrangement told Reuters that the transaction occurred because of the understanding with the board.Unexpected windfallThat arrangement reported by Reuters for the first time sheds new light on Eastman Kodak’s handling of the unexpected windfall for its top executives.An Eastman Kodak spokeswoman said that Continenza had no comment. The spokeswoman said the gains reflected by the rise in the share price are only on paper: Continenza, she said, “is a strong believer in the future of the company and has never sold a single share of stock.”Prior to this week’s financing deal, the company warned investors it was at risk of not continuing as a going concern, but it was boosted by the agreement with the Trump administration on Tuesday to supply drug ingredients.As a result, Continenza’s gains at the end of this week amounted to about $83 million following a roughly tenfold increase in Eastman Kodak’s stock, compared with the approximately $53 million in gains he would have seen were it not for the additional options, according to a Reuters analysis of company filings.Roughly 29% of the options Continenza received on Monday vested immediately, giving him the right to cash them out as soon as possible.FILE – The Kodak logo is shown during the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, Jan. 6, 2017.Wide latitude on optionsWhile most corporate boards and their committees have wide latitude in awarding options, three corporate governance experts interviewed by Reuters said the move to mitigate the impact of dilution on Continenza’s stake in the company without a prior contractual obligation was unusual.”The compensation committee’s job is not to protect the CEO from every adverse effect on the stock price,” said Sanjai Bhagat, a finance professor at the University of Colorado. “It’s to get the CEO to think about long-term value.”A fourth expert, Robin Ferracone, chief executive of compensation consultant Farient Advisors, said the company might have offered the prospect of additional options to executives as they worked toward the convertible bond offering — to avoid their being “disincentivized” to seal a deal that would help the firm but potentially water down their holdings.The additional options awarded to Continenza, a former telecommunications executive, were approved by the board’s compensation committee on Monday, the spokeswoman said. Shareholders had voted in May of this year to increase the shares available for executive compensation.”The issue is the board wanted to make sure the CEO had the same economic alignment as was contemplated when he took the job,” said a person close to the company.The company’s market capitalization jumped from a little over $100 million at the start of the week to almost $1 billion by Friday following the deal.Other executivesEastman Kodak also granted options on Monday to three other executives, worth $712,000 each, according to regulatory filings. Kodak declined to comment on the reason for these awards.The company has struggled to reinvent itself from a flagging camera company after emerging from bankruptcy in 2013. Its selection by the U.S. government for the production of key pharmaceutical ingredients surprised many industry analysts who expected such a deal to go to a major generic drugmaker.The government’s U.S. International Development Finance Corp. released a July 28 statement quoting Continenza as saying: “Kodak will play a critical role in the return of a reliable American pharmaceutical supply chain.”Trump, too, hailed the development. “I want to congratulate the people in Kodak,” he said at a press briefing. “They’ve been working very hard.”
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Connie Culp, the recipient of the first partial face transplant in the U.S., has died at 57, almost a dozen years after the groundbreaking operation.The Cleveland Clinic, where her surgery had been performed in 2008, said Saturday that Culp died Wednesday at the Ohio clinic of complications from an infection unrelated to her transplant.Dr. Frank Papay, chair of Cleveland Clinic’s dermatology and plastic surgery institute and part of Culp’s surgical team, called her “an incredibly brave, vibrant woman and an inspiration to many.””Her strength was evident in the fact that she had been the longest-living face transplant patient to date,” Papay said in a statement. “She was a great pioneer and her decision to undergo a sometimes-daunting procedure is an enduring gift for all of humanity.”Culp’s husband shot her in the face in 2004 in a failed murder-suicide attempt for which he was imprisoned for seven years. The blast destroyed her nose, shattered her cheeks and shut off most of her vision. Her features were so gnarled that children ran away from her and called her a monster, The Associated Press previously reported.Culp underwent 30 operations. Doctors took parts of her ribs to make cheekbones and fashioned an upper jaw from one of her leg bones. She had countless skin grafts from her thighs. Still, she was left unable to eat solid food, breathe on her own or smell.80% replacement from donorIn December 2008, Dr. Maria Siemionow led a team of doctors in a 22-hour operation to replace 80% of Culp’s face with bone, muscles, nerves, skin and blood vessels from a donor, Anna Kasper. It was the fourth face transplant in the world, though the others were not as extensive.After the operation, her expressions were a bit wooden and her speech was at times difficult to understand, but she could talk, smile, smell and taste her food again. In 2011, Siemionow said Culp had “a normal face” after doctors refined the droopy jowls and extra skin they purposely left to make checkup biopsies easier.”She’s smiling, she’s perfect. When she jokes, she kind of flickers her eyes. Her face is vivid. You can see emotions,” Siemionow said.Also in 2011, a Texas man severely disfigured in a power line accident underwent the nation’s first full face transplant.Culp made several television appearances and become an advocate for organ donation. Two years after her operation, Culp met with the family of Kasper, the donor, who had died of a heart attack. Culp told The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer: “They’re just really nice people.”Kasper’s daughter, Becky Kasper, 23, said she could see part of her mother in Culp, though their bone structures were different.”I can definitely see the resemblance in the nose,” she said. “I know she’s smiling down on this, that she’s very happy.”
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