Latest news with #Portland-based
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Data Speaks Officially Launches to Redefine Marketing Measurement for the Digital Era
Portland-based firm introduces transparent, AI-powered platform to help marketers identify true sales drivers and stop wasting budget PORTLAND, OR, May 30, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- After a year of rigorous testing in private beta, officially launches to the public on May 15, bringing a new level of transparency and accuracy to the world of marketing attribution. Designed for modern brands navigating increasingly complex digital ecosystems, Data Speaks offers a unified, AI-powered platform that finally answers the question: 'What's really driving your sales?'Media mix modeling and incrementality testing platform Founded by a team of data scientists from Stanford and MIT alongside veteran marketers, Data Speaks is built to eliminate the guesswork surrounding campaign performance. Unlike platform-specific tools that provide a limited view, the platform unifies marketing data across every major channel like Meta, Google Ads, TikTok, Amazon, Shopify, and more to deliver a full-picture analysis of actual incremental marketers face a paradox. While data is more abundant than ever, it's also harder to trust. Legacy attribution models, often reliant on third-party cookies and click-based logic, fall short in capturing the true impact of omnichannel campaigns. This leads to a fragmented view of performance and misplaced budget decisions. 'Marketers are not short on data; they're short on clarity,' said Zeke Camusio, CEO and Founder of Data Speaks. 'We built this platform to change that. Our goal is to provide the kind of transparency and insight that empowers brands to invest with confidence, knowing exactly what's working and what's not.' Backed by advanced media mix modeling, incrementality experiments, first-party tracking, and AI analytics, the platform aims to deliver enterprise-level intelligence at a scale and cost accessible to growth-stage DTC brands and performance-driven agencies. What the Launch Includes The official public release of comes with a suite of robust capabilities designed to close attribution gaps and improve decision-making: Attribution Modeling: Understand how each touchpoint contributes to revenue. Incrementality Testing: Separate correlation from causation to determine actual lift. Privacy-Friendly First-Party Tracking: A future-proof solution that complies with evolving browser policies and user privacy standards. Ecommerce Analytics: Connect marketing outcomes to real business metrics across digital and retail. Strategic Consulting: Optional advisory services for teams seeking expert interpretation and support. These tools are aimed at helping brands stop relying on black-box attribution and start embracing evidence-based growth strategies. Why It Matters Now Recent industry data highlights the urgency for more accurate ecommerce attribution: 42% of conversions go untracked due to ad blockers and privacy settings. 38% fall outside limited attribution windows. 53% of conversions are claimed by multiple channels simultaneously. Only 61% of platform-attributed conversions are actually incremental. The result? Marketing teams are left guessing. This gap not only wastes budget but also obscures opportunities for scale. With Data Speaks, brands report a 35% improvement in ROAS, 10X better attribution accuracy, and 72% more conversions tracked, offering a compelling case for rethinking how performance is measured. Designed for the Marketer, Not the Algorithm While many analytics tools cater to data engineers, Data Speaks prioritizes usability for marketers. Its interface is intuitive, insights are visualized clearly, and reports are built to drive real-world actions. Whether managing a single brand or multiple clients, users can compare campaigns, forecast impact, and reallocate spend with clarity. The platform's flexibility also ensures it adapts to changing market dynamics and emerging channels, making it an ideal long-term partner for modern marketing teams. Built for the Future of Attribution In a landscape where digital marketing is evolving rapidly, staying ahead means moving beyond legacy systems. Data Speaks represents a shift toward measurable, meaningful outcomes supported by unbiased modeling and transparent data science. 'Brands deserve better than guesswork,' Camusio added. 'They deserve answers grounded in evidence, not assumptions. With Data Speaks, we're helping them reclaim control of their marketing strategy.' As adoption of AI analytics and first-party tracking accelerates, Data Speaks is positioned to be the go-to solution for brands that demand clarity in their performance metrics. About Data Speaks Data Speaks is a marketing measurement platform that helps brands uncover what truly drives their sales. Founded by data scientists and seasoned marketers, the platform combines media mix modeling, incrementality testing, and AI analytics to offer an accurate, transparent view of marketing performance across every channel. Based in Portland, Oregon, Data Speaks supports ecommerce brands, agencies, and growth-stage businesses looking for smarter, more reliable insights without the complexity of enterprise tools. Learn more at Speaks - Marketing analytics and attribution platform CONTACT: Media Contact Company Name: Data Speaks Contact Person: Zeke Camusio Email: zeke@ Phone: 503-367-7561 Country: United States Website:
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Data Speaks Officially Launches to Redefine Marketing Measurement for the Digital Era
Portland-based firm introduces transparent, AI-powered platform to help marketers identify true sales drivers and stop wasting budget PORTLAND, OR, May 30, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- After a year of rigorous testing in private beta, officially launches to the public on May 15, bringing a new level of transparency and accuracy to the world of marketing attribution. Designed for modern brands navigating increasingly complex digital ecosystems, Data Speaks offers a unified, AI-powered platform that finally answers the question: 'What's really driving your sales?'Media mix modeling and incrementality testing platform Founded by a team of data scientists from Stanford and MIT alongside veteran marketers, Data Speaks is built to eliminate the guesswork surrounding campaign performance. Unlike platform-specific tools that provide a limited view, the platform unifies marketing data across every major channel like Meta, Google Ads, TikTok, Amazon, Shopify, and more to deliver a full-picture analysis of actual incremental marketers face a paradox. While data is more abundant than ever, it's also harder to trust. Legacy attribution models, often reliant on third-party cookies and click-based logic, fall short in capturing the true impact of omnichannel campaigns. This leads to a fragmented view of performance and misplaced budget decisions. 'Marketers are not short on data; they're short on clarity,' said Zeke Camusio, CEO and Founder of Data Speaks. 'We built this platform to change that. Our goal is to provide the kind of transparency and insight that empowers brands to invest with confidence, knowing exactly what's working and what's not.' Backed by advanced media mix modeling, incrementality experiments, first-party tracking, and AI analytics, the platform aims to deliver enterprise-level intelligence at a scale and cost accessible to growth-stage DTC brands and performance-driven agencies. What the Launch Includes The official public release of comes with a suite of robust capabilities designed to close attribution gaps and improve decision-making: Attribution Modeling: Understand how each touchpoint contributes to revenue. Incrementality Testing: Separate correlation from causation to determine actual lift. Privacy-Friendly First-Party Tracking: A future-proof solution that complies with evolving browser policies and user privacy standards. Ecommerce Analytics: Connect marketing outcomes to real business metrics across digital and retail. Strategic Consulting: Optional advisory services for teams seeking expert interpretation and support. These tools are aimed at helping brands stop relying on black-box attribution and start embracing evidence-based growth strategies. Why It Matters Now Recent industry data highlights the urgency for more accurate ecommerce attribution: 42% of conversions go untracked due to ad blockers and privacy settings. 38% fall outside limited attribution windows. 53% of conversions are claimed by multiple channels simultaneously. Only 61% of platform-attributed conversions are actually incremental. The result? Marketing teams are left guessing. This gap not only wastes budget but also obscures opportunities for scale. With Data Speaks, brands report a 35% improvement in ROAS, 10X better attribution accuracy, and 72% more conversions tracked, offering a compelling case for rethinking how performance is measured. Designed for the Marketer, Not the Algorithm While many analytics tools cater to data engineers, Data Speaks prioritizes usability for marketers. Its interface is intuitive, insights are visualized clearly, and reports are built to drive real-world actions. Whether managing a single brand or multiple clients, users can compare campaigns, forecast impact, and reallocate spend with clarity. The platform's flexibility also ensures it adapts to changing market dynamics and emerging channels, making it an ideal long-term partner for modern marketing teams. Built for the Future of Attribution In a landscape where digital marketing is evolving rapidly, staying ahead means moving beyond legacy systems. Data Speaks represents a shift toward measurable, meaningful outcomes supported by unbiased modeling and transparent data science. 'Brands deserve better than guesswork,' Camusio added. 'They deserve answers grounded in evidence, not assumptions. With Data Speaks, we're helping them reclaim control of their marketing strategy.' As adoption of AI analytics and first-party tracking accelerates, Data Speaks is positioned to be the go-to solution for brands that demand clarity in their performance metrics. About Data Speaks Data Speaks is a marketing measurement platform that helps brands uncover what truly drives their sales. Founded by data scientists and seasoned marketers, the platform combines media mix modeling, incrementality testing, and AI analytics to offer an accurate, transparent view of marketing performance across every channel. Based in Portland, Oregon, Data Speaks supports ecommerce brands, agencies, and growth-stage businesses looking for smarter, more reliable insights without the complexity of enterprise tools. Learn more at Speaks - Marketing analytics and attribution platform CONTACT: Media Contact Company Name: Data Speaks Contact Person: Zeke Camusio Email: zeke@ Phone: 503-367-7561 Country: United States Website:
Yahoo
5 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Oregon bill streamlining payout process for wrongfully convicted draws support
A new bill aiming to speed up and improve the compensation process for wrongfully convicted individuals is gaining support in the Oregon Legislature. Oregonians who have been wrongfully imprisoned can petition the state for tens of thousands of dollars in compensation and an official finding of innocence, a process that criminal justice reform advocates have long complained drags on and shortchanges exonerees. But a new bill introduced in February, Senate Bill 1007, aims to solve that problem by making it easier and faster to obtain compensation and findings of innocence from the state. The measure's provisions would set a deadline for an initial written decision on compensation at 180 days and allow the state to consider new evidence that comes to light after previous trials. 'We have not seen this kind of delay and fight everything to the death attitude across the country,' said Janis Puracal, executive director of the Portland-based Forensic Justice Project. 'Oregon is doing that entirely differently than what the rest of the country is doing.' Forty states currently have laws on the books ensuring a pathway for wrongfully convicted individuals to receive compensation. The measure unanimously cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee in March, and it's currently sitting in the Joint Ways and Means committee, where it will be evaluated alongside other spending priorities in the state budget. The bill's fiscal impact is 'indeterminate,' according to a bill analysis, because the deadline will reduce legal costs but the bill may prompt more settlements and claims. Lawmakers have yet to set a hearing date. 'I'm hoping it can be made a priority,' said Sen. Kim Thatcher, R-Keizer, one of the bill's two primary authors, in an interview. Far too often, settlements with Oregon's Department of Justice have actually resulted in 'pennies on the dollar' for exonerees, she said. That process, she said, was fueled by 'hostile compliance' from former Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum. 'They're not the party who committed the crime and therefore shouldn't have done the time,' she said. 'To execute what was intended is what we're trying to do now.' The new bill's thrust traces back to a 2022 law allowing those who have been wrongfully accused of a crime to receive reimbursements of $65,000 for each year of imprisonment and $25,000 additionally for each year of post-release supervision. So far, only eight of the 35 petitions for redress filed have been settled, according to an Oregon DOJ spokeswoman. The department successfully resisted two petitions by winning trials, and another eight were dismissed by the court system. The other 19 cases are still being negotiated, and the department estimates that another 35 cases are still awaiting petitions to be filed. SB 1007 would build on previous law by broadening the scope of proof acceptable for those cases to show innocence. Receiving clemency or pardon by the governor, or being listed on a 'nationally recognized' registry for exonerated individuals would all be ways to meet the requirements. The bill would also allow for petitions claiming losses in education through standardized college tuition and health insurance fees, as well as reimbursements for costs paid to expert witnesses. Under amendments passed in a March committee hearing, the legislation would go into effect July 15, mandating the Oregon Department of Justice and Attorney General Dan Rayfield review all cases, past and present, in which exonerees have petitioned for compensation. He would have 180 days to make a written determination. The campaign to reform Oregon's compensation process gained steam in the wake of several stories from formerly incarcerated activists who have pointed to new evidence after trial and procedural errors by authorities. One of them is Philip Scott Cannon. Cannon was arrested for a 1998 murder in Polk County on the eve of his oldest son's ninth birthday, he recalls. A jury found him guilty just two years later, and he received three life sentences. When he alleged his trial lawyer failed to adequately challenge prosecutors' bullet casing evidence in 2009, however, his conviction was vacated for a new trial. But forensic evidence had also gone missing in exchanges between local prosecutors and the Oregon Department of Justice, and it wasn't uncovered until 2011. A year later, the local district attorney announced that he would be reconsidering the evidence and whether to charge Cannon again. No charges have been filed. Twenty-four years after his arrest, Cannon filed in 2022 for compensation with the state, but he said nothing has come of the case. He already missed the birth of his youngest son while he was in custody awaiting trial. The first time he held him in his arms was in prison. He's spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on trials and litigation, seeing how his kids changed after being bullied in school amid the publicity of his case. 'There should be something that is done to make things right, at least some effort,' he said. 'Right now, it's been like pulling teeth to get the DOJ to do anything.' The Oregon DOJ and Rayfield have taken a neutral position on the legislation. But they have been providing input to the bill's supporters so that the law can be implemented if passed. 'We take our responsibility seriously when it comes to ensuring access to justice,' Oregon DOJ spokeswoman Jenny Hansson said in a statement. 'We've worked with advocates to craft clearer legal language in the bill and suggested ways to move away from time-consuming trials to a more streamlined administrative process, as some other states have done.' Thatcher said she supports the effort to streamline an administrative process, but the specifics need to be 'spelled out in statute' to avoid variation depending on different elected attorney general's enforcement policies. 'I want it to be as specific as it can be, while allowing them latitude in how they're going to execute it,' she said. 'What we did last time was allowing too much.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
This Portland collective keeps the city clean — and helps unhoused people find stability
On a Thursday morning in Portland's Old Town neighborhood, two dozen people mill around a warehouse, waiting for the results of a lottery. At 7:45 sharp, a woman sitting in an interior office calls out three numbers in quick succession. She repeats the last one a few times before someone finally comes forward. '234?' she says into the crowd. 'Who's 234?' Chris Parker is 234. He is tall and thin and wears Garneau cycling gloves and a baseball cap from the power tools company DeWalt. 'Are you kidding me?' he says, happy and shocked. Across the room, one of the other selectees — number 237 — does a kind of end-zone victory dance, shimmying with arms above his head. The lottery determines who will participate in that day's waste collection program from Ground Score Association, a Portland-based collective for people who 'create and fill low-barrier waste materials management jobs.' Through this particular program, called GLITTER — short for Ground Score Leading Inclusively Together Through Environmental Recovery — Parker will join a group of Ground Score employees on a four-hour walk around Portland, clearing the city's sidewalks of plastic and other trash. At the end of the shift, he'll get $80 in cash — $4.55 more per hour than the Portland metro area minimum wage. Participating in the lottery doesn't require passing a drug or sobriety test or providing a social security number. It's meant to provide low-barrier employment to people who might otherwise struggle to find or keep a job. Parker, for example, told me he totaled his car last summer — the latest in a string of misfortunes. He said he used to work at a rail yard on the Columbia River, but he was laid off when he got COVID. It's been difficult to find a stable job, he said, especially one that pays enough for the 'affordable' apartments he sees advertised at $1,300 a month. For now he's living in a small apartment near Ground Score's headquarters. Most people are homeless when they start working with Ground Score. But after a year on payroll, there's an 80 percent chance they will have secured housing, according to the organization. Terrance Freeman, one of the employees leading a GLITTER group on Thursday, wears wraparound sports sunglasses and a yellow scarf. He's been working at Ground Score for six months. Previously, he worked at a nearby Chevron gas station and struggled with alcohol. Another member of his group, Dana Detten — aka Peanut — was homeless for eight years and worked various jobs at Dollar Tree and FedEx before joining the GLITTER program. Kevin Grigsby, the lankiest of the team, says he came to the organization while trying to overcome mental health issues and a 'huge cocaine problem.' Now he's splitting a $630-a-month garage apartment on Portland's outskirts with his girlfriend. 'If Ground Score didn't hire me I would be on a different path,' Grigsby says, using a long grabber tool to pinch up an Oreo wrapper. Grigsby and the other people employed by Ground Score are 'waste pickers,' a catch-all term for the 20 million people worldwide who make a living collecting, sorting, recycling, and selling discarded materials. In recent years, waste pickers have fought for their work to be recognized and formalized in the global plastics treaty being negotiated by the United Nations. Ground Score, which sees its mission as building community while also 'changing society's perceptions of what and who is considered valuable,' shows what that recognition and formalization look like on a local level. It's a model with huge potential, given the urgent global need to create stronger social safety nets and combat the growing plastic waste crisis. Could it work in other cities, too? Waste pickers tend to work outside of governments' formal waste management programs, meaning the services they provide — keeping streets clean, ensuring high recycling rates, sifting hazardous e-waste out of landfills — are underappreciated and poorly remunerated. The International Alliance of Waste Pickers, or IAWP, which represents unions, collectives, and organizations across 34 countries, says waste pickers manage as much as 80 percent of some cities' municipal waste, with the highest percentages in developing countries that lack extensive waste management infrastructure. One study from 2020 estimated that waste pickers collect 58 percent of all the plastic that ever gets recycled. They boost recovery rates for cardboard, aluminum, and other metals too. Waste pickers also recover e-waste — often so they can sell the metals inside of them — as well as textiles that can still be worn, repaired, or refashioned into new goods. In some jurisdictions, including Oregon, waste pickers collect aluminum cans and plastic bottles in order to claim a rebate determined by a so-called 'bottle bill' — a law that tacks an extra 5 to 15 cent deposit onto the containers' purchase price. But these policies are a relative rarity. Within the U.S., only nine other states and Guam have one, and the majority of similar laws internationally are concentrated in Europe, Canada, and Australia. Waste pickers in poorer countries often have to buy or sell their wares directly to recycling companies or brokers, and they can't rely on a government-mandated return rate per item collected. These activities not only provide waste pickers with a living, they also help to address climate change. According to one study published in March, a subset of waste pickers in just one city — Salvador, Brazil — helped avoid more than 27,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions between 2010 and 2022, mostly by enabling recycling that displaced the need for raw materials like aluminum and PET, the kind of plastic used in water bottles. (For context, 27,000 metric tons of emissions is about as much as what's emitted by 6,300 gasoline-powered cars in a year.) Removing paper and cardboard from landfills also reduces emissions, because these materials would otherwise release methane — a potent greenhouse gas — as they decompose. Read Next How waste pickers are fighting for recognition in the UN global plastics treaty Erin X. Wong Waste pickers' services have recently gained attention thanks to negotiations for a binding United Nations treaty to 'end plastic pollution,' which began in early 2022 and are ongoing. One paper published last year, quoting an unnamed negotiator, described waste pickers as 'the human face' of the treaty, since they're on the front lines of plastic pollution. In the negotiations, the IAWP has allied with many countries and environmental groups that want to put limits on global plastic production. But it's also calling for the treaty to include a distinct article ensuring a 'just transition' for waste pickers whose livelihoods could be at risk from greater formalization of the waste management sector. Broadly, IAWP wants countries to build better waste management systems around the work waste pickers are already doing, instead of bringing in private companies that would take their place. Ground Score is showing how to implement that goal on a small scale — in part through partnerships with city, county, and state government, but also through a participatory organizational structure that gives waste pickers a sense of ownership over Ground Score's activities. Workers in the program 'feel like it's a privilege that they can actually help their own community rather than just perpetuating this culture of, you know, giving and taking 'handouts,'' said Taylor Cass Talbott, Ground Score's co-executive director, who is also the advocacy director for the IAWP. Cass Talbott, Laura Tokarski, and Barbra Weber co-founded Ground Score in 2019 as a 'peer-led initiative,' meaning it would be organized by and for the city's waste pickers. Weber had been collecting cans in Portland since 2015 — she had previously worked in marketing, but a brain lesion affected her ability to speak and put her on the street. Tokarski had already founded the Portland-based Trash for Peace, a nonprofit that engagess with communities to reduce and reuse waste. Ground Score is now fiscally sponsored by Trash for Peace. In contrast to most waste pickers' activities, Ground Score's GLITTER program doesn't focus on recovering and selling recyclable material. According to one of the organization's co-directors, Nic Boehm, 26 percent of what participants collect is nonrecyclable 'microtrash,' like cigarette butts. Much of the rest is food wrappers, containers, plastic bags, needles — things that can't be recycled and are instead destined for landfills or incinerators. GLITTER's workers are compensated thanks to funding from the City of Portland's Homelessness and Urban Camping Impact Reduction Program, as well as contracts with local businesses associations. The Homeless Services Department, a partnership between Portland and overlapping Multnomah County, has also supported the program through funds raised by a 2020 'supportive housing services' tax, though a department spokesperson told Grist that funding for 'employment programs' like GLITTER may be reduced in the 2026 budget. GLITTER highlights the value that waste pickers provide outside the recycling value chain, by keeping city streets clean. 'Trash attracts other trash,' Boehm told me as his group swept up fast food containers and wrappers around an overflowing garbage can. The goal was to keep the buildup at bay. Ground Score also has another program that more closely resembles the type of waste picking that is common in other jurisdictions. It's called The People's Depot, and it serves as a dropoff point for those who collect and sell used cans and bottles, who are sometimes called 'canners.' The people who visit the depot gather empty water bottles and aluminum cans, whether from the side of the road or from unsorted residential recycling bins, and then lug them to a small lot underneath the Morrison Bridge, in Portland's Central Eastside neighborhood. At the depot, canners sell their goods for 10 cents a pop — a value assigned to them by the current version of Oregon's 54-year-old bottle bill. Ground Score's payroll employees, some of whom are current or former canners, dole out more than $4,000 in cash each day. The money comes from beverage companies that pay into the Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative, a nonprofit that manages implementation of the bottle bill. Deposited bottles are hauled off at the end of each day to an Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative warehouse, where they're weighed so that Ground Score can be reimbursed for their value. Read Next Does the plastics industry support waste pickers? It's complicated. Joseph Winters Kris Brown is the operational manager at The People's Depot. He's worked there since 2021, but before that, starting in 2016, he made a living collecting cans — one night a week in Portland's Southeast quadrant, a couple nights a week near Willamette Park in Southwest. Apartment complex dumpsters were hotspots, he says, because many apartment buildings lacked a separate recycling bin, meaning there would be lots of cans and bottles to pull out. Brown lived in tent camps around town, and under Portland's Tilikum Crossing bridge during the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic. 'There's this stigma that if you're homeless, then you're useless. Like, 'Why don't you get a real job?'' he says. 'But collecting bottles and cans — it is work. It wasn't enough money to get a house or an apartment, but it was enough for me that I didn't have to go begging or steal anything. I could be me and feel good about it.' Where deposit return systems do exist, the data suggests that they play a big part in boosting the number of containers that get reclaimed and recycled. According to an industry estimate, cans covered by deposit systems are recycled in the U.S. at a rate of 74 percent, compared to the national average of 43 percent. Plastic bottles eligible for a deposit are returned at rates of up to 81 percent, compared to a national average of under 30 percent (although not all of what's collected is ultimately recycled due to technological and economic limitations on plastic recycling). In Portland, The People's Depot offers an alternative to deposit locations attached to supermarkets and convenience stores, where waste pickers say they're treated with disdain by shoppers and passersby. Last year, hundreds of Portlanders blocked a new bottle dropoff location proposed in the neighborhood of St. Johns. They cited 'safety' concerns and a 'potential increase in crime or vandalism.' Brown, who regularly invites mutual aid groups and a mobile library to visit The People's Depot so its patrons can benefit from free books and food, calls the program a 'more humanizing experience.' He suggests it could be a model for scaling up waste picker-led recycling programs in other cities. 'It becomes more of a community space for [canners] to show up to,' he says. 'And the community shows that respect back to us.' Ground Score has had a presence at all five negotiating sessions for the global plastics treaty so far. Weber and Cass Talbott helped draft the IAWP's 2023 report, 'Vision for a Just Transition for Waste Pickers under the UN Plastics Treaty,' which describes the environmental importance of waste pickers' work. The report calls for, among other things, the direct involvement of waste pickers in plastics-related policymaking, as well as 'universal registration' of waste pickers in local and national databases, so they can be enrolled in social benefits programs and more formally included in the plastics recycling value chain. In order to create more programs like Ground Score, Cass Talbott said waste picker collectives around the world should cultivate relationships with policymakers inside local and regional governments, who can help educate their peers on the benefits waste pickers provide. Ground Score has one particularly strong connection within Portland's Homelessness and Urban Camping Impact Reduction Program, which has helped Ground Score negotiate nearly all of its contracts with the city, according to Cass Talbott. Waste pickers and their allies often talk about a 'just transition' for the waste sector, a concept that seeks to resolve the apparent tension between reducing plastic production and protecting waste pickers' livelihoods: If oil and gas companies stop making so much plastic, waste pickers could have less work to do. For their part, Ground Score's employees and day workers are aware of that tension. Brown, at The People's Depot, stressed that plastic production should be reduced and that companies should be 'held accountable' for the waste they create. Detten, the GLITTER group member, says she wishes we could send a big laser up into space to 'zap' away the world's plastic pollution. Christine Alix is more reserved than some of her co-workers. She has dark blue hair peeking out from under her baseball cap, and wears bright yellow sunglasses despite the overcast day. She says that, before she started waste picking, she would get angry with people for throwing plastic onto the street. Her feelings are more complicated now: 'Thanks for giving me a job,' she jokes. Alix says her bigger priority is trying to keep streets looking clean in order to 'reduce the impacts of sweeps,' referring to the police clearing of tents and other shelters from parks, sidewalks, and other places. Most of the team is effusive about Ground Score's social mission and the way a simple, low-barrier job can change people's trajectory. At least three people tell me Ground Score saved their life. Others say their work with the organization has given them a renewed sense of purpose and self-respect. 'I love my job,' Detten says. 'It's fulfilling in a way that just expands my humanity.' This story was originally published by Grist with the headline This Portland collective keeps the city clean — and helps unhoused people find stability on May 28, 2025.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Portland woman's estate accuses ex-wrestler husband, murder suspect of elder abuse
PORTLAND, Ore. () — The former wrestler who was involving his wife's death has been sued by her estate. In a complaint filed with the Multnomah County Circuit Court on May 23, Janette Elaine Becraft's estate accused William 'Billy Jack' Albert Haynes Jr. of elder abuse. Haynes, who started his career as a professional wrestler in 1982, was 70 years old when his 85-year-old wife died in the Lents neighborhood last year. Stolen baby goats returned to Vancouver feed store, rabbit still missing In February 2024, the Portland Police Bureau ordered a shelter-in-place in the Lents neighborhood after a fatal shooting at 6000 SE 100th Ave. Authorities later identified Becraft as the shooting victim, and revealed that Haynes was arrested as the potential suspect . He has with second-degree murder and unlawful use of a weapon. The new lawsuit against Haynes alleges he abused his disabled wife mentally, physically and financially in the five years leading up to her death. Plaintiffs claimed the suspect isolated Becraft from friends and family, coerced her into abandoning treatment from her own medical providers and influenced her to consume substances like heroin and methamphetamine. 'Defendant even deprived her of normal nutritional support, even when her family attempted to arrange food deliveries and prevented such interventions, and refused to allow her to spend her own funds on appropriate food,' Portland-based attorney Daniel Lorenz wrote. Former corrections officer sentenced after sexual misconduct at Coffee Creek facility Plaintiffs also alleged Haynes coerced his wife into withdrawing hundreds of thousands of dollars from her bank accounts and accessing a firearm he couldn't legally own due to his criminal record, among other claims. Becraft's estate is seeking $750,000 in damages. Earlier this month, Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Angela Lucero ruled Haynes was unfit to help in his own defense 'due to a qualifying mental disorder.' He is now being held in Oregon State Hospital. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
