"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

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) – Gov. Ted Kulongoski named Ted Wheeler to succeed Ben Westlund as state treasurer. Westlund, an independent spirit in Oregon politics and a passionate advocate of health care reform, died of lung cancer Sunday. He was 60.

SEATTLE (AP) -- Coffee chain Starbucks Corp. is sticking to its policy of letting customers carry guns where it is legal and said it does not want to be put in the middle of a larger gun-control debate.

The Central District Forum for Arts & Ideas presents a new event to explore the issue of children no longer eligible for foster care at Northwest African American Museum in Seattle on Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 7 p.m.

Even in a brand-new building, problems arise. The state-of-the-art environmentally sound Humboldt Gardens complex is no different. So BJ decided to form a resident's association at the new Housing Authority complex to help deal with problems they were having ...