DES MOINES, Iowa -- Gov. Chet Culver on Thursday signed into law a bill that will require lawmakers to look at the impact proposed sentencing laws will have on racial and ethnic groups.
The new law comes as Iowa tries to shake the reputation of having the greatest prison racial disparity in the nation.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton talks to a crowd in Hillsboro last week. She was greeted by 6,000 people across the state. Just the week before, Sen. Barack Obama made his second appearance in Oregon. Both candidates are vying for the state's 52 electoral votes.

Radio talk show host Warren Ballentine is heading to Portland next week to help lead a conference on law enforcement. The Northwest Chapter of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives will hold its annual training meeting, "Leadership through Excellence: A Dialogue to Mentor Our Future" from April 17 – 20 at the Crowne Plaza Holiday Inn. A civil rights advocate, whose radio handle is 'the people's attorney,' Ballentine will host a town hall meeting for 200 students and give the keynote speech at the closing banquet.
Last November, Ballentine was a key instigator of National Blackout Day, urging African Americans to join him in refusing to spend any money on one chosen Friday. The idea was to highlight the spending power of Black America and at the same time draw attention to the persistence of racism and injustice. The University of Georgia's Selig Center for Economic Growth has estimated that African American spending power is about  $845 billion a year (after taxes) — more than $2.3 billion a day.
Ballentine helped draw national attention to the Jena 6 case, advocated for Genarlow Wilson, the teen jailed for consensual oral sex, who now has been released, and spoke out in support of Megan Williams, the Virginia woman who was kidnapped and tortured by six Whites.
The Skanner interviewed Ballentine on the phone last Monday. ...

Moloy Good, the council's executive director and Jill Fuglitzer, of the Coalition for a Livable Future, will discuss what's happening in Portland and Sherrill Frost-Brown from National Fair Housing Alliance will discuss fair housing issues arising across the country. The event will culminate in an award ceremony that will honor the winner of the 2008 children's poster competition and other fair housing heroes.

Despite talk of a recession, Cheryl Roberts is optimistic that things still will be good in the North and Northeast neighborhood come June. The chair and chief fund-raiser for the annual Good in the NeighborHood festival says it's time to start finding the ingredients for Portland's premier multicultural food and music celebration. Roberts is going to need volunteers, entertainers, vendors and a grand marshal....

This is a screen shot from the film "Yokes and Chains," a documentary about a Camano Island family who has traveled around the country, as well as historic slave ports around the world, apologizing for slavery. Local filmmaker Michael Lienau will be in attendance at the screening of the film at 4:30 p.m., Monday, April 14. ...

Three candidates have emerged as finalists for the national NAACP's top position, the Free Press has learned.
But an undercurrent of discontent over the choices of a special NAACP search committee may force the nation's oldest civil rights organization to find an alternative from within its own upper ranks.
According to sources who wish to remain anonymous, the three finalists for president and chief executive officer are:
• Benjamin Todd Jealous, 35, a former executive director of the National Newspaper Publishers Association and now president of the Rosenberg Foundation in California;
• The Rev. Frederick D. Haynes III, 47, a Dallas megachurch leader;
• Alvin Brown, 37, a former White House senior advisor to President Bill Clinton and urban policy director for Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign.
Contacted at the NAACP's Baltimore headquarters this week, Richard McIntire, a spokesperson for the national organization, would neither confirm nor deny the names. However, he did say the first opportunity for the NAACP's 64-member board to take any action would be at its May 16 and 17 meeting in Baltimore.
Leaks have sprung from what was to be a highly guarded process because of the antipathy with which the three finalists are viewed by many insiders....

Over the past 40 years since the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., extensive advancements have been made in the Black community.
 For example, the African-American high school graduation rate has increased by more than 214 percent and the college graduation rate for African-Americans has increased by more than 400 percent, according to the Institute for Policy Studies in a special report released last week.
However, at the rate of the advancements over the past 40 years, in most instances, it would take more than another decade for Blacks to catch up with the current graduation rate of Whites

"I'm about to blow the top off of everything I saw," writes Bruce Williams, longtime friend and former right-hand man to successful rapper and record executive, Dr. Dre, one of the best hip-hop mega producers of all time and the brains behind the record label Aftermath.
In "Rollin' With Dre: The Unauthorized Account," by Williams with Donnell Alexander, Dre's former go-to guy gives readers an inside look at the roller coaster that is hip-hop culture."
You can see Williams in the flesh at noon, Saturday, April 12 at Barnes & Noble Bookstore, 300 Andover Park W., Suite 200 in Tukwila.

Mahki Sanders 12 and Malcolm Tyson 11, read some of the biography of Paul Robeson at the 11th annual Paul Robeson Peace and Justice Awards,  April 5 at the Montlake Community Center. The event is sponsored by Mother's for Police Accountability and honors community members who fight for justice,  This years honorees included the ACLU: Voter Restoration Project-Coalition Partner of the Year; Christie Hedman, of Washington State Defenders Association-Lawyer if the Year; Black Student Union, Foster High School-Youth of the Year and Jenna Stephens, Volunteer of the Year.