Portland and its surrounding counties are taking part in Topoff 4, a full-scale disaster preparedness exercise, organized and funded by the Department of Homeland Security. The idea is to prepare the city to act quickly and effectively in the event of a disaster—which could be anything from an earthquake, to a flu epidemic or a terrorist attack. For many people simply mentioning disaster preparation brings up Hurricane Katrina and the way African Americans ....

Lacy Steele, Seattle NAACP president emeritus, asks Robert Vaughn, director of advanced learning for Seattle Public Schools a question about a program at the Martin Luther King Jr. Rally and Work Shop for Public Education Oct. 6 at Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center.  The event, which was sponsored by the NAACP, was designed to provide information to parents, teaches and students with access to information that will help to improve the quality of public education.

The rapidly increasing cost of health care is driving the cost of living out of reach for many hard working Washingtonians. With increases in out-of-pocket costs for health insurance of over 60 percent over the last five years, many across the Northwest are struggling to find work that pays enough to afford these increasing costs. 
These are the findings of a new study, "Living in the Red, Northwest Family Budgets Falling Behind: 2007 Northwest Job Gap Study," compiled by the Northwest Federation of Community Organizations. According to the report, between 2002 and 2006, the costs for employer-based health insurance grew by over 60 percent, almost nine times the growth in actual wages in Washington.   
"Since I started this job in 2003, my health care costs have gone from $50 per month to $300 per month, but my wages haven't kept up," said David Miles, a ....

A statewide effort to divert people suffering from mental illnesses and chemical dependency away from jails and emergency rooms and get them into proper treatment moved a step forward today as the Metropolitan King County Council accepted the Mental Illness and Drug Dependency Action Plan ....

The Nielsen Company has selected Seattle, the nation's 14th largest television market, to introduce Local People Meter (LPM) technology which reports what television shows are being viewed by the general public.
The data collected helps television networks tailor programming to what the viewing public wants to see and will help them market themselves to advertisers who are trying to reach a particular demographic group ...

On the second day that the racist skinhead group, Hammerskins Nation was meeting in the Portland area, the Ad Hoc Committee Against Racism and Fascism discovered exactly where this secret gathering was being held. The hate group was celebrating its 20^th anniversary with a three-day festival at the Sherwood Elks Club. Elk Club representatives say the Hammerskins lied about who they were.
The White supremacist Hammerskins, an international neo-Nazi organization that began as a violent Dallas, Texas gang, had succeeded in keeping the location of its festivities very quiet. So quiet, in fact, that organizers for Saturday's anti-racist rally in Lents Park didn't find out until after their protest rally had dispersed ....

On Oct. 11 The Skanner web site published a letter from the National Newspaper Publisher's Association sanctioning Seattle-based publisher Christopher H. Bennett. The NNPA board chair John B. Smith, states that Bennett acted without NNPA authority in requesting $50,000 in funds from the Eli Lily Company. The matter is still under investigation.
Last week, Bennett, speaking on a local radio station, demanded an apology from The Skanner. So readers can make up their own minds, The Skanner today is publishing both the letter of sanction, issued in July, and a letter from the Eli Lily Company to Bennett dated last June. 

In a letter dated July 10, 2007, Mr. John B. Smith, Sr., Board Chair of the National Newspaper Publisher's Association (NNPA) advised the members that Christopher H. Bennett and Christopher B. Bennett were sanctioned.
"Please accept this letter as final vote of the National Newspaper Publisher's Association's (NNPA) Executive Committee (hereunto "Committee) to sanction you for inappropriate behavior).

What if the government tried to give American taxpayers some of their money back, but the taxpayers didn't seem to want it?
That's what happened this year, as taxpayers collected only about half the $8 billion the IRS expected to pay them in its phone tax refund, the most far-reaching refund in the agency's history.
The telephone excise tax was created in 1898 to fund the Spanish-American War. After losing several lawsuits disputing the legitimacy of the tax, the IRS created a program to refund the 3 percent tax paid on long distance or bundled service from March 2003 to July 2006.

House Democratic leaders said Sunday they were working to gather votes to override a veto on a popular children's health program, but pledged to find a way to cover millions without insurance should their effort fail.
In talk show interviews, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer did not dispute claims by Republican leaders that the GOP will have enough votes to sustain President Bush's veto when the House holds its override vote on ...

If you aren't registered to vote for this November's election, you have until Tuesday Oct. 16 to do so. All voter registration cards postmarked by the 16^th will be accepted as valid for the November election.
Voter registration forms are available online at the Oregon Secretary of State's Web site at www.sos.state.or.us/elections, as well as U.S. Post Offices, libraries and other ....