Grammy award winning singer Fergie autographs a poster for Franklin High School student Mizan Demissie on May 8. Demissie was one of the trend-setting students from Franklin who helped win a free concert by Fergie after the high school was named "most glamorous school" in a Verizon Wireless contest open to high schools throughout the West Coast. Fergie performed in Franklin's gymnasium May 8.

King County NAACP President James Bible is calling for the resignation of Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske and the dismissal of two Seattle police officers following an investigation exonerating the officers of abusing and planting evidence on a suspected drug dealer.
"We are concerned that the Office of Professional Accountability and it's exoneration of these officers at the hand of the chief is an empty, hollow and weak system which doesn't afford anyone justice in this city," Bible said.

Local Microsoft employee Felicia Guity was recently honored by EBONY magazine at the eighth annual EBONY Outstanding Women in Marketing and Communications Awards Luncheon.
EBONY President and CEO Linda Johnson Rice hosted the event May 3 in New York City, and about 1,000 people attended the red carpet event.
Guity travels the world for Microsoft and was in Germany working when she heard she would be honored.
"I was speechless, I was just sort of paralyzed for the first 24 hours," Guity said. "EBONY thinks I'm worthy of an honor in marketing. I'm humbled and honored to be recognized in this way."

LITTLE ROCK -- Fifty years after nine Black teenagers advanced the civil rights movement with the integration of Little Rock Central High School, the same principles apply in efforts to attain social justice, members of the Little Rock Nine said Saturday.
A good education, family support, love, determination, and a belief in oneself are the essentials that got them through those years of threats, jeers, and physical harassment from white segregationists, Little Rock Nine members attending an NAACP education summit told an audience at the school.
Elizabeth Eckford, who alone braved a jeering crowd on her first attempt to enter the school, urged young people to stand up to others who make cruel and ignorant remarks. And she reminded her mostly black audience members to treat themselves with respect.

WASHINGTON -- Justice Clarence Thomas sat through 68 hours of oral arguments in the Supreme Court's current term without uttering a word.
That's saying something -- or not -- even for the taciturn justice.
In nearly 16 years on the court, Thomas typically has asked questions a couple of times a term.
He memorably spoke up four years ago in cases involving cross burning and affirmative action, the court's only Black justice in the unusual role of putting his race on display through questions to lawyers.
But the last time Thomas asked a question in court was Feb. 22, 2006, in a death penalty case out of South Carolina. A unanimous court eventually broadened the ability of death-penalty defendants to blame someone else for the crime.
Thomas has said in the past that he will ask a pertinent question if his colleagues don't but sees no need to engage in the back-and-forth just to hear his own voice.

The Life Change Christian Center Choir performs to a packed congregation May 6 at Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church in North Portland. The choir was part of an all-day conference for women titled "Unity – Bend us Together in Love," sponsored by Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church's women's ministry.

Members of the jazz quartet Devin Phillips and New Orleans Straight Ahead jam at pianist Andrew Oliver's house on Monday, May 7, before heading out to teach middle school students the basic elements of jazz. Pictured from left to right is Devin Phillips on sax, Oliver on piano and Mark DiFlorio on drums. Bassist Eric Gruber is not pictured here. The band will tour Africa or Asia next fall as part of the American jazz ambassadors program started by Dizzy Gillespie in the mid-1950s.

A recent audit of the Housing Authority of Portland's largest housing project to date – New Columbia in North Portland – shows that this public agency is walking its talk on minority hiring practices.
Last November, HAP authorities said they wanted to use at least 20 percent minority- and women-owned contractors on its housing projects. Six months later, a city audit shows that the agency has far exceeded this goal.

TriMet Director Fred Hansen said the biggest challenge for construction in the dense urban environment has been the relocation of utilities. Utility lines and pipes under the streets aren't always where the century-old designs say they are, and digging under the streets can be unpredictable. But no buried treasure yet, Hanson said.
Construction on the I-205 line – which includes seven bridges and one underpass – continues in an easier fashion than the Fifth Avenue stretch, as much of the I-205 line is being constructed in an established transportation corridor.

Ruth Estrella hands out a sample of the cheese produced at her family's dairy, Estrella Family Creamery, on May 2, the first day of the Columbia City Market. Farmers and vendors sell fresh fruit and vegetables, organic meat and poultry, flowers, cheese, baked goods and much more at the popular farmers market, which will be open from 3 to 7 p.m. Wednesdays, now through October 31.