GALVESTON, Texas (AP) _ Crews navigated debris-strewn streets to reach people still stuck in some of the thousands of homes flooded by Hurricane Ike, while authorities in the fourth-largest U.S. city imposed a curfew and warned residents that it would be weeks before Houston is fully back up and running.
Heavy morning rains hampered early rescue efforts in the hardest-hit areas of the Texas and Louisiana gulf coasts, while those who had evacuated and tried to return to the Houston area on Sunday found both interstate highways and sidestreets blocked by flooding and debris.
Authorities hoped to spare thousands of Texans -- 140,000 by some estimates who ignored orders to flee ahead of Hurricane Ike -- from another night amid the destruction.
At least seven deaths were blamed on the storm -- two in Louisiana and five in Texas, and authorities worried the toll could rise. Authorities said Sunday three people were found dead in Galveston, including one person found in a submerged vehicle near the airport.
In Houston, a weeklong curfew from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. was announced because most of the city was still without power. Highways, darkened streetlights and pooled water made it difficult to drive.
"In the interest of safety, we're asking people to not be out in the streets in their vehicles or on foot," Chief Harold Hurtt said.
Sunday morning, residents of the tiny community of Seabrook near the Johnson Space Center began trying to return home. They were met by a roadblock, and three Seabrook police officers standing in the rain, turning folks away. At times the line was six to 12 cars deep....

DENVER (AP) _ A man who sparked fears of an assassination plot against presidential contender Barack Obama missed a federal court hearing on a drug charge Friday because he's in the Denver jail on another case.
Tharin Gartrell was to be arraigned on Friday. The hearing has been rescheduled for Sept. 19....

LOS ANGELES (NNPA) - He turned the Nation of Islam towards the East and incorporated the fundamentals of Orthodox Islam to his followers.
Imam Warith Deen Mohammed, the spiritual leader of the American Muslim Community, and the son of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and Sister Clara Muhammad, died on September 9, 2008. He was 74. He assumed the leadership of the Nation of Islam (Nation) in 1975 and began dismantling the Nation bringing it closer to traditional "Orthodox" Islam. He rejected his father's teachings and eventually changed the name of the followers to Bilalian and the "Muhammad Speaks" newspaper to "Bilalian News." Ministers became Imams and mosques became masjids....

Imagine the chaos if a tremendous earthquake …

Is Howard Mitchell El Gato Negro? Or is El Gato Negro Howard Mitchell? Even the artist himself has trouble differentiating the two at times.
"I like reinventing myself," Mitchell told The Skanner about his penname, given to him by friends some years ago. The independent filmmaker, formerly of Seattle, has been living in Portland for 8 months now and has already nearly completed filming a shoestring budget short film, "Throwing Rocks at Boys," about the friendship and struggles of life between two young women.
On the set – which has been filming at various locations around Portland for the last several weeks – Mitchell says he is extremely serious. Sometimes, he admits, he borders on the tyrannical.
"I realized I could be quite difficult," he says. "I get very serious on set. … It's not a democracy."
Which could be why he feels the need to be called "El Gato Negro" when he's working. With a very limited budget, underpaid cast and crew and limited time and patience from everyone on set...

Juvenile crime in Multnomah County dropped 11 percent in 2007, according to a new report from the Multnomah County Department of Community Justice.
The department's annual survey also found that juvenile recidivism is at the lowest rate in six years, and that the rate fell more sharply than the statewide average.
Compared to Oregon's overall rate of recidivism, which decreased by half of one percent from 2005 to 2006, Multnomah County's re-incarceration rate decreased 1. 9 percent.
Dave Koch, Assistant Director of the Department of Community Justice, oversees the juvenile division. The department serves approximately 1,000 youth and 9,000 adults. 
"It's probably the steepest decline in one year that we've ever seen," Koch said...

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) _ Minority enrollment increased at Oregon's seven colleges and universities over the past decade, but just barely, and not as fast as the state's general and high school populations.

The number of minority faculty at the universities also increased only marginally, by 1 percentage point to 9 percent in 2007-08...

NEW ORLEANS (NNPA) - Tears dripped down her face as she searched for her missing suitcase in the busy New Orleans bus station.  

"It had my ID, my children's birth certificates, my money and my credit cards," she softly cried. It was Sunday morning, one week after she was bused out of New Orleans to a military base in Arkansas. She was supposed to be at work. Her three children needed her. But she needed that suitcase...

Home for at least two months, soldiers with a combat brigade still are in the fight.
They've stopped fighting in Iraq and begun grappling with the memories and trauma of their 14-month deployment.
In turn, the 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division Stryker Brigade Combat Team, is arming soldiers and families with information like never before so combat-related stress doesn't destroy relationships or lead to alcoholism, suicide or murder.
Post-traumatic stress disorder has taken a heavy toll on soldiers, many of whom have deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq three or four times. The Army now requires soldiers to undergo psychological screening before and after a deployment to identify problems, and has hired more counselors to treat them.
The leadership of an infantry battalion took another step. The officers invited a PTSD expert to speak to the soldiers and the families of the entire brigade after its return...

For lovers of live music, MusicFest Northwest offers one of the largest lineups of musical performances in the Pacific Northwest. From Wednesday, Sept. 3 to Saturday, Sept. 6, hundreds of bands will perform all over Portland for the festival, now in its eighth year....