Rep. Chip Shields hopes to bring fairness to the way prisoners are counted in Oregon. Currently, prisoners are counted as residents of the correctional institution in which they are serving time, inflating population statistics of the mostly rural communities in which prisons exist. This population count inaccurately skews congressional representation in sparsely populated areas, says Shields. This bill would rectify that inconsistency . . .

If you ride a bike on a public street, several state lawmakers want you to register that vehicle with the state of Oregon.
Rep. Wayne Krieger, R-Gold Beach, is sponsoring a mandatory registration bill that would essentially treat bicycles like automobiles. Every adult who owns a bike that is ridden on a public street would be required to pay $54 every two years to the state of Oregon – the same price  it currently costs to register a car and $14 more than it costs to register a motorcycle . . . 

The Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center recently got word that $80,000 in city funding would be cut from their budget next year. ... "Like everybody, we were prepared to tighten our belts. What we'd been told was 5 and 10 percent." What they weren't prepared for was a 30 percent drop in funds . . . .

After evaluating his consumption habits, Jefferson Athletic Director Mitch Whitehurst discovered it would take 6.17 Earths to support a population that used the same amount of resources as he did. The Earths Chart was part of a Carbon Footprint Fair held by the students of Jefferson High School . . .

The African Women's Coalition will be holding a press conference and meeting to discuss the issue of domestic violence within the African immigrant community at 6 p.m. on Thursday, March 19 at the Center for Intercultural Organizing, 700 N. Killingsworth St. The meeting is being held in response to the tragic murder of Nabitou Kelekele, a Congolese mother of five children. Nabitou's husband, Namegabe, is accused of murdering Nabitou . . .

The technical program for the 2009 Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference, including papers, papers, panels, workshops, posters, Birds-of-a-Feather sessions, a Doctoral Consortium, and a Robotics Competition, is the strongest in the conference series history, according to Ron Metoyer, Oregon State University, and Manuel Perez, Virginia Tech, co-chairs of the technical program. The 2009 event, the fifth in the series, will take place April 1-4, 2009 at the Portland Oregon Marriott Downtown Waterfront. Register Now at . . .

Starting March 30, Seattle residents can recycle more than ever before! 
Check your mailbox for more information and to find your collection day . . .

YAOUNDE, Cameroon (AP) _ Pope Benedict XVI told Muslim leaders on Thursday that true religion rejects violence, and he held up peaceful coexistence between Christianity and Islam in Cameroon as "a beacon to other African nations.''
In Cameroon's capital, a clapping, swaying crowd of 40,000 faithful from Africa's expanding, vibrant Catholic flock later welcomed him to a football stadium where he celebrated Mass. There, he delivered a message of encouragement for Africa and expressed compassion for the children being forced by paramilitaries to fight in some countries ...

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) _ Gov. Bill Richardson, who has supported capital punishment, signed legislation to repeal New Mexico's death penalty. The new law replaces lethal injection with a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
"Regardless of my personal opinion about the death penalty, I do not have confidence in the criminal justice system as it currently operates to be the final arbiter when it comes to who lives and who dies for their crime,'' Richardson said.
He is also concerned about the high number of minorities who are put to death across the country ...

ATLANTA (AP) _ The Southern Christian Leadership Conference hopes to mobilize 50,000 people in the Mississippi Delta this summer in a campaign to draw attention to the poverty of a region where some Americans still live in homes with dirt floors and brown water flows from their faucets.
The effort is much like the one envisioned by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who was planning a Poor People's Campaign and march on Washington before he was assasinated in 1968. ...