PORTLAND, Oregon (AP) -- The Boy Scouts of America call them "perversion files," internal documents used to track Scout leaders suspected of sexually abusing young boys. A judge who had ordered the Scouts to release them received 1,247 files into evidence near the end of the day Friday -- the third day of trial that began with a lawyer saying "you will be the first jury to see them."

Portland has nine high school campuses: Benson, Cleveland, Franklin, Grant, Lincoln, Madison, Marshall, Roosevelt and Wilson -- named after six presidents, one chief justice, an inventor and a timber baron. But in 2011, only seven of those schools may be neighborhood schools, with the two others morphing into smaller, "focus" schools. Last week, in a six to two vote, the school board gave the thumbs up to the plan. They will vote on a more detailed plan in April or May.

The first day of bargaining over the Portland police union's contract with the City of Portland was shut down Friday morning over the issue of public access to the negotiations.

New research indicates that electronic control devices are more deadly than previously thought.
Dr. Marjorie Lundquist, a scientist from Milwaukee, Wis. presented her research at the meeting of the American Physical Society Monday, which identifies four different ways people can die from the administration of an electronic control device such as the Taser...

"If it 'ain't broke don't fix it." That's the message Portland Public Schools is getting in dozens of emails from parents whose children attend the city's most popular high schools, says John Wilhelmi, the administrator in charge of proposals to change Portland's high school system.

The trouble with that idea, Wilhelmi said, is that the system most definitely is broken – to the point it may violate the civil rights of Portland's less affluent students – many of them students of color.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- A journalist able to avoid being shut out of a public meeting by looking up the law on a cell phone is a small victory for Oregon Attorney General John Kroger in a battle over government transparency.

Calls for changes in the way Portland police do their job are coming to a boil over the next week, as members of the public will have two major events to make their voices heard on the issue of police accountability.

Back in 1992, little more than year into Portland's experiment with "community policing" Officer Wayne Kuechler said the transition was proving hard for many of the Bureau's entrenched interests...Today, there are remnants left of that philosophy, although some experts say the notion of an officer that works and lives in the neighborhood they serve has been lost in an era of increasing use of paramilitary tactics...

The 13th Annual Portland Clowns Without Borders Benefit Show, raising funds for relief work in Haiti, is this Friday, March 12, 7:30 p.m. at Da Vinci Middle School, 2508 NE Everett.

McKenna's High-Tech Unit goes international to throw the book at eBook sellers