The Oregonian called it a symbol, but Sen. Avel Gordly said it was much more than that: "This is how beloved community behaves," she told the audience at The Skanner's Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast, last Monday. What were they talking about: Mayor Tom Potter's decision to move his office to Jefferson High School for a week. It was a week he called the best week in his administration.
As Portland's bigwigs descended on the school before the mayor's State of the City Address Friday, students between classes were laughing, socializing and trying to figure out if their teachers were allowing them to attend the City Club meeting....

CLARK COLLEGE JAZZ FESTIVAL. Held through Jan. 26.... "CHALLENGES FACING RELIGION TODAY" Imam Mamadou Toure of the Institute of Islamic & Interfaith Studies will speak at the Quaker Meeting House.... KBOO AT A CROSSROADS and needs to hear from the community to set its direction and goals for positive change.....

Patrick Kimbrough, 14, joined at least 100 young people on Jan. 19 at the 7th annual "We have a Dream" Martin Luther King Jr. March and Event sponsored by the Seattle Parks and Recreation Teen Signature Programs.
The marchers walked from Martin Luther King Jr. Park to the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center.

The Metropolitan King County Council today unanimously approved $443,000 for public health pilot programs. The programs – part of the Children's Health Initiative — are designed to ensure that uninsured children have greater access to health care.
"Healthy children grow up to be healthy adults. Children who lack health care face a future of health disparities that will impact the rest of their lives," said Councilmember Larry Gossett, prime ...

Oregon State Sen. Avel Gordly, after receiving The Skanner Foundation's Drum Major for Justice Award, talked to the crowd of over 1,000 about the importance of community-based mental health centers. She called upon Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski (left) and Senate President (right) Peter Courtney to act to protect patients at the Oregon State Hospital.

Charges of domestic violence have been dropped against Seattle Councilmember Richard McIver after a judge ruled that statements his wife made to police were hearsay.
Marlaina Kiner-McIver gave two different accounts of an argument to 9-1-1 operators and police, and has refused to testify at trial against her husband of 30 years. The Oct. 10 9-1-1 call Kiner-McIver placed stated that the couple had gotten into a purely verbal argument after McIver had come home after several drinks...

NAIVASHA, Kenya -- Ethnic clashes convulsed western Kenya on Sunday as gangs fought with crude weapons and set homes ablaze in this tourist gateway, pushing the death toll from a month of violence over the country's flawed presidential election to nearly 800.
The bloodshed -- with Sunday marking exactly one month since the Dec. 27 vote -- has transformed this once-stable African country, pitting longtime neighbors against each other and turning towns where tourists used to gather for luxury holidays into no-go zones....

COLUMBIA, South Carolina (AP) -- Overwhelming support from Black voters fueled Barack Obama to a decisive win over Hillary Rodham Clinton in South Carolina's primary, a boost to his campaign just 10 days before a coast-to-coast presidential nomination competition in which nearly half the U.S. states will vote.
Former Sen. John Edwards, who has yet to win any of the early state contests, finished third Saturday, a sharp setback in his native state, where he triumphed in the 2004 campaign....

Thanks to globalization, many blue-collar manufacturing jobs have packed up and left the country. Workers in developing countries will do the same jobs, but for far less money. And costs for employers are lower all round. For American workers, however, this exodus has left a huge void where traditional living wage jobs used to be. Now a new environmental justice movement says the future security of working class families will depend on "green collar" jobs.
"The chief moral obligation of the 21st Century is to build a green economy that is strong enough to lift people out of poverty,"....