From the very beginning, some observers say, Jefferson High School's Johnson Young Men's Academy seemed set up to fail. Enrollment never made it above 60 students, crippling the district's ability to provide enough teachers for the small all-boys academy ...

For Leslie Storm, the effects of the current financial crisis can be heard in her office almost every day — over the last two months, the suicide prevention line she helps run has seen a 55 percent increase in call volume....

Attorneys for four African American men who were awarded a multimillion dollar racial discrimination suit in August were back in court Monday – this time on the defense. Asbury Automotive is appealing the court's original ruling, saying the $19.5 million judgment against them was excessive ...

Gentrification Listening Project .... Kids' Basketball Camps ... Roundtable on Marriage Ban ....

North Portland Library on 512 N. Killingsworth St. is currently scheduling young readers to participate in their twice monthly Read to the Dogs program. It's just what it sounds like – a very friendly, trained and certified companion dog sits down next to a young person and listens as the kid reads out loud from his or her favorite book. It's a good way to improve reading skills of all kinds with a supportive, special friend ....

The African American Outdoor Society celebrated a year of fantastic events with a dinner at the Audubon Society headquarters in Forest Park. Left to right, Lisa Fisher, Annmarie Rainford, Ellecia and Elliot Williams and their son and daughter, Cameron, 4, and Eva, 6, meet Finnegan the peregrine falcon, with his handler, Jennifer Parks.
Photo by Julie Keefe

The National Organization of Black Elected Legislative Women (NOBEL/Women) and its 2008 national president, Oregon State Senator Margaret Carter, are hosting an educational symposium called "Living Without My Sugar!" Diabetes and the Heart, Friday, Nov. 14 from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Embassy Suites, 319 SW Pine St. Portland ...

Tickets for the 6th annual 2009 Portland Jazz Festival are on sale now. The festival runs Feb. 13-22 and celebrates a lifetime of Blue Note Records. Titled "Somethin' Else: Blue Note Records @70," the festival celebrates 70 years of all the artists that have been a part of the legendary record company ...

Poets, performers, teachers, writers – Walidah Imarisha and Turiya Autrey are all that. Now they're becoming promoters. Starting this week, they host a new series of conscious hip hop shows featuring the X-Vandals at shows, film screenings and lectures stretched between Portland and Eugene ...

The nation's unemployment rate bolted to a 14-year high of 6.5 percent in October as another 240,000 jobs were cut. The latest release of information by the Labor Department shows the crucial jobs market deteriorating at an alarmingly rapid pace ...