In celebration of the first eighth grade class as well as the wonderful neighborhood that  is Boise Eliot, the students in Boise Eliot K-8th's Leadership Program are interviewing and photographing members of their school and their community to create large-scale photograph and text banners that will become a permanent art installation on the exterior walls of their school. These photographs show the students creating the portraits that will eventually become the artwork. . . .

Concordia University business students will have the unique opportunity to help people in North and Northeast Portland improve existing small businesses and start new business ventures through a new partnership with the Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE), an organization sponsored by the Small Business Administration. . . .

Every year, The Skanner Foundation awards thousands of dollars in college scholarships through the help of our sponsors. Full-time undergraduate students are eligible to receive $1,000 to $3,000 scholarships, awarded each year at The Skanner's annual Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast in January. Applications are due by Oct. 15 for the following year. Here are some updates from several of the Oregon Lottery-funded scholarship recipients after a year in college. . . .

During the third day of a hearing to determine whether former Bay Area Rapid Transit officer Johannes Mehserle will stand trial for murder, Mehserle's partner Officer Jon Woffinden said the New Year's Day incident was one of the most frightening he had experienced in his 12 years as an officer.

Voting rights, safety and job opportunity are just a few of the benefits that citizenship brings. On May 30 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Citizenship Day will provide free services to legal permanent residents in Washington state who are seeking the American dream.

A partially obscured license plate gave police enough reason to pull over a Hispanic driver, Arkansas' highest court ruled Thursday, overturning a state Court of Appeal's ruling in a case one judge described as racial profiling.

President Barack Obama on Saturday named former shuttle commander Charles Bolden to lead NASA at a critical time for the space agency.
The White House has ordered a complete outside review of NASA's manned space program, including plans to return astronauts to the moon.
Bolden flew in space four times -- twice as shuttle commander - and once was assistant deputy administrator at NASA headquarters in Washington. The 62-year-old Columbia, S.C., native left NASA in 1994. . . .

HOBSON CITY, Ala. (AP) - The cafes, the school and the roller rink are long gone from Alabama's oldest Black city. Empty homes and businesses line the narrow streets.
Hobson City has no police or fire department, and weeds have overgrown the oldest part of the cemetery and a park.
But this small town once thrived as a place where Black people were in charge in the midst of the Jim Crow South.
Now, with the town on the verge of dying, preservationists have put the east Alabama landmark on the critical list. The Alabama Historical Commission this month included the town of 878 people on its annual inventory of "Places in Peril." . . .

More Africans than ever want democracy - though violent, rigged elections and failure to translate freedom into better lives have left a bad impression among some, according to a survey published Monday. Only 45 percent of African citizens support democracy, up from 40 percent in 2005. Afrobarometer, which has done such surveys every three years since 1999, questioned more than 25,000 people in 19 countries for the latest survey.

President Barack Obama chose federal appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor to become the nation's first Hispanic Supreme Court justice on Tuesday, praising her as "an inspiring woman'' with both the intellect and compassion to interpret the Constitution wisely. Obama said Sotomayor has more experience as a judge than any current member of the high court had when nominated, adding she has earned the "respect of colleagues on the bench, the admiration of many lawyers who argue cases in her court and the adoration of her clerks, who look to her as a mentor.'' . . .