West
Drug users outside Portland daycare cause preschool children to play inside for safety: 'This is awful'
Drug addicts positioned outside a school and a daycare center in Portland, Oregon are causing children to be forced to play inside due to safety concerns, according to a recent report.
“Usually, I do mostly meth,” Violet, a local drug user who often smokes outside of the school, told NBC affiliate KGW. “And this area always has been known to be a heavy drug area,” she said, adding that “they shouldn’t have put a preschool right f—ing there.”
“We don’t want [the children] to be exposed to that because it’s their innocence that we’re defiling,” Violet added.
“Probably the next block is going to be over, and then, two blocks over are going to be the next spot soon,” Violet told KGW, explaining that drug users will find a different place to meet even if police move them away from the area near Saint James Lutheran Church on Southwest Jefferson and 10th Avenue.
ALL ROADS ‘LEAD BACK TO FENTANYL’: CITY OVERRUN WITH DRUGS SEES PROGRESS AFTER OVERWHELMED POLICE GET NEW HELP
Drug addicts posted up outside a school and a daycare center in Portland, Oregon are causing children to be forced to play inside due to safety concerns, according to a recent report. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images and Hannah Ray Lambert/Fox News Digital)
“I mean, that sucks, but this sucks too,” another drug user told the outlet about the problem on Portland streets. “They can move if they want, or they can help us get rid of the problem.”
“It’s untenable,” local parent Kelly Forsyth said. “We often will walk over needles with our kids. They’re within ten feet, you’ll see people shooting up, passed out.”
“It feels like my kids aren’t being set up well for their future,” Forsyth said.
KGW reported that the preschoolers have been told to play inside by teachers due to safety concerns about the surrounding neighborhood.
Some local police officers in Portland spoke out against the rampant drug use around the daycare and school. “It’s really concerning for me,” officer David Baer said of the scores of drug users around Saint James Lutheran Church. “I’ve been here a long time; nothing really seems to bother me anymore, but as a parent to a 2-year-old, I was like, ‘This is awful.’”
PORTLAND SECURITY GUARD TEARS UP OVER DEADLY CONSEQUENCES SINCE DRUG LAW: ‘EVERYONE DESERVES BETTER THAN THIS’
Some local police officers in Portland spoke out against the rampant drug use around the daycare and school. (Hannah Ray Lambert/Fox News Digital)
“We want to be downtown. We want to spend time here. We want our kids to remain safe and do the things they like to do. I want the city to listen to us, and I want them to take action,” local parent Ryen Salo said.
The drug problems come as staffing at the Portland Police Bureau’s Central Precinct is down over 50%.
On a statewide level, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek directed OSP last fall to send some troopers to Portland to help local law enforcement track and bust fentanyl dealers.
Fentanyl started taking off in Oregon around 2018. Since then, overdose deaths attributed to synthetic opioids have surged 533% in Multnomah County, according to local health officials.
Public drug use is currently “not a crime” under Oregon law, KGW reported.
The office of Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler told Fox News Digital it was “aware of the concerns regarding the Park Blocks near the St. James Child Development Center, and Mayor Wheeler empathizes with the frustrations shared,” and laid out steps it had taken to address the issue, including the Portland Police Bureau and the Oregon State Police making “numerous points of contact with the folks near the site.”
The downtown skyline and the Broadway Bridge are viewed in the early morning on Feb. 11, 2012, in Portland, Oregon. (George Rose/Getty Images)
“We are continuing to move forward immediate solutions both at the local level and through legislative action at the state level,” a spokesman said. “Through our engagement with parents at the school, St. James staff, and engaging with those loitering near the site, the Mayor’s office and our public safety partners have taken the following recent actions to address the problem:
- The Street Services Coordination Center removed numerous tents along the Daycare entrance and on Park this week and posted additional sites.
- This morning, staff from the Mayor’s office visited St. James during drop off hours and met with the daycare director and parents in-person after walking around the church and attached apartments.
- The Mayor’s staff have repeatedly engaged directly with people loitering near the entrance.
- The Portland Police Bureau and the Oregon State Police have made numerous points of contact with the folks near the site.
- The Mayor’s intent is that the 90-day Fentanyl Emergency (in-tandem with Multnomah County and the State of Oregon) will result in stronger, more responsive coordination with our public safety and behavioral health partners and ultimately durable solutions to sites like this one.
“It has to be noted that state laws do not prohibit public use and do not permit cities enacting laws to the contrary. Police are unable to make arrests without a crime. Mayor Wheeler will continue advocating that the Oregon State Legislature take swift action in changing drug use laws so that law enforcement has the tools they need to engage. This remains a top priority for our team.”
Fox News’ Hanna Ray Lambert contributed to this report.
Read the full article from Here
New Mexico
New Mexico confirms latest measles case at a local jail
The number of confirmed measles cases in New Mexico increased to six after the state’s Department of Health confirmed Wednesday a new case inside a local jail in Las Cruces.
A federal inmate being held in the Doña Ana County Detention Center is the latest person to have tested positive for measles. The New Mexico Department of Health said others may have been exposed to the highly contagious disease from this confirmed case if they visited the U.S. District Court building in Las Cruces on Feb. 24.
State heath officials are now urging anyone who was at the courthouse that day to check their vaccination status and report any measles symptoms from now until March 17 to a health care provider.
“The New Mexico Department of Health continues to urge people to get the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination,” Dr. Chad Smelser, New Mexico’s deputy state epidemiologist, said in a statement. “Vaccine is the best tool to protect you from measles.”
Measles spreads through the air and people who contract the virus may experience symptoms such as runny nose, fever, cough, red eyes and a distinctive blotchy rash. These symptoms can develop between one and three weeks after exposure.
All of the six confirmed measles cases in New Mexico so far are federal detainees.
The first measles case was detected in the Hidalgo County Detention Center on Feb. 25, when a detainee, whose vaccination status was unknown, tested positive for the disease by the New Mexico Department of Health’s Scientific Laboratory.
Two days later, a second federal inmate in the same jail tested positive for the virus alongside two detainees in the Luna County Detention Center and another in the Doña Ana County Detention Center.
Both the Luna County and Doña Ana detention centers are local jails that also serve as holding facilities for federal immigration enforcement.
New Mexico health officials said they are the state’s first confirmed cases of this year, following a statewide outbreak in 2025 that sickened 100 people from mid-February to mid-September.
With two measles cases reported on each of the three local jails, Smelser said that the New Mexico Department of Health has sent vaccination teams to all three facilities.
State health officials are also “coordinating with all the facilities to assure all quarantine, isolation, testing and vaccination protocols are followed to minimize risk of measles spread.”
According to the NBC News measles tracker, more than 1,000 cases have been counted nationwide just in the first two months of this year. That’s nearly half the amount of cases confirmed in the United States in all of last year.
As 2026 already stands as one of the three worst years for measles infections in the country since 2000, another measles outbreak was confirmed this week in Texas inside the nation’s largest immigration detention facility.
On Wednesday, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesperson told NBC News that a least 14 cases of measles were confirmed inside Camp East Montana, which is located on the Fort Bliss Army base in El Paso.
The people who tested positive for measles have been “cohorted and separated from the rest of the detained population to prevent further spread,” the ICE spokesperson said.
Oregon
Where Oregon Ducks rank in industry recruiting rankings for 2027 class
With the winter evaluation period of high school football recruiting now behind us, we’ve seen some of the top recruiting sites update their rankings over the past few weeks and start to reset their boards for the 2027 class. In February, On3 shifted players around after getting fresh looks at the class, and 247Sports did the same earlier this week.
So with Oregon’s handful of commits getting new ratings, where does the Ducks’ class rank nationally in this cycle?
If you look at sites individually, it looks different, with 247Sports having Oregon sitting at No. 13 in the nation. At Rivals, though, they take the industry ranking, which factors in their own rankings, plus an average from 247Sports and ESPN.
In the industry rankings, Oregon sits at No. 9 in the nation, with five commitments.
Going into the summer months, the Ducks are in a great spot, leading or among the top schools for a handful of the top prospects in the nation, like 5-star QB Will Mencl or 5-star WR Dakota Guerrant. We will see what movement Oregon can make in the coming months after official visits take place early in the summer.
Contact/Follow @Ducks_Wire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oregon Ducks news, notes, and opinions.
Utah
22-year-old arrested in Utah in connection to Las Vegas double-homicide
LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — Officials have identified a 22-year-old man as the suspect in a Las Vegas homicide case that killed two people in a Southern Highlands neighborhood.
Detectives say 22-year-old Ziaire Ham was the suspect in the case. According to officials, Ham was located on Tuesday, March 3, by the Ogden City Police Department and the Utah Highway Patrol.
Ham was taken into custody and booked into the Weber County Jail. Las Vegas authorities said he will be charged with open murder with the use of a deadly weapon and will be extradited back to the valley.
MORE ON FOX5: LVMPD corrections officer arrested on multiple felony charges
The shooting occurred Monday night at the 11000 block of Victoria Medici Street, near Starr Ave and Dean Martin Drive.
According to police, officers were conducting a vehicle stop in the area when they heard gunfire. After searching nearby neighborhoods they found a car with bullet impacts with a woman and a toddler inside suffering from gunshot wounds.
The pair were transported to hospital where they later died. The Clark County Coroner’s Office identified them as Danaijha Robinson, 20, and 1-year-old Nhalani Hiner.
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