OLYMPIA — The First Amendment rights of high school and college journalists are up for debate in Washington state, as lawmakers consider whether young scribes should have the same free-press rights as their professional colleagues.
Rep. Dave Upthegrove, D-Des Moines, has introduced a bill that would ensure student journalists aren't censored and would not allow public schools or universities to discipline or fire a student media adviser for refusing to censor students.
"I don't think you lose your freedom of speech rights just because you're young," Upthegrove said. "The right of free press is more important than the fear of inappropriate content."

Washington, D.C., February 1, 2007 – Dr. Claud Anderson, president of the Harvest Institute Freedmen Federation (HIFF) announced that it has filed a Complaint in the United States Federal Court of Claims in Washington, D.C. against the United States Department of Interior and its Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) seeking legal redress and civil and property rights for the descendants of Black Indians and Black Freedmen. HIFF discussed background and details of the Complaint at a noon press conference. Dr. Anderson said, "The Complaint is based upon treaties of 1865 and 1866 that were negotiated after the Civil War, between the United States government and slave-holding Indian tribes who had fought on the side of the Southern Confederacy during the Civil War."

CAREER OPPORTUNITY in Digital Video Recording. The newly developed North Portland Multi Media Center at The Skanner Foundation is seeking trainees. Must be 18 or over. Exciting opportunity for the right individuals. Families and minorities encouraged to apply. APPLICATION DEADLINE February 16.

Luke Visconti, keynote speaker for the Skanner's 21st annual Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast, said the key to a thriving economy is the inclusion of people of color into corporate America. Businesses that establish a high level of racial diversity tend to be more successful than companies who do not, he said. In his rousing speech, Visconti called upon policy makers to be more inclusive of differences, more attentive to Iraqi civilian deaths and to quickly rebuild New Orleans.

Instead of selling cookies or setting up for camp, the Girl Scouts in troops 60 and 1501 are visiting the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville — Oregon's only prison for women. Most of the girls are visiting their mothers; others visit aunts, sisters or grandmothers.

WASHINGTON — For all those historians and political naysayers, Sen. Barack Obama's allies like to point out that Abraham Lincoln served just two years in the House before becoming president.
It's a comparison certain to be repeated as Obama, with slightly more than two years in the Senate, continues to align himself with the Civil War president. The senator's expected campaign kickoff is scheduled for Feb. 10 in Lincoln's hometown of Springfield, Ill. — where both men served in the state Legislature.
Obama filed paperwork for a presidential exploratory committee Tuesday, which allows him to raise money and organize a campaign structure before his formal announcement. He also talked about his plans in a video on his Web site.
If elected, he would be an obvious subject for the history books — the first Black president.

Hundreds of people braved the unusually cold weather on Jan. 15 to participate in the 25th annual Martin Luther King Day Rally and March at Franklin High School. The event is one of the largest and longest continually running King celebrations in the country.

OLYMPIA, Wash. — Vowing to keep pressure on lawmakers to do more to help the poor, a few hundred anti-poverty activists marched to the Capitol and rallied on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Speakers invoked the memory of King, saying that by focusing on poverty they were continuing his work.
"If Martin could die for the struggle of the poor, I can live for it," Jeffrey Carrol of VOICES, a Spokane-based anti-poverty group, said Monday.
Carrol, who said he marched in civil rights rallies in Mississippi and Louisiana in the 1960s, led marchers in chants as they walked the six blocks from St. John's Episcopal Church to the Capitol in frigid temperatures.
"We came to let (lawmakers) know that they're not paying attention," Carrol said. "Poor people are dissatisfied."
Jesse Miller, vice chairwoman of the Statewide Poverty Action Network, said the groups were trying to pressure lawmakers to solve some of the root causes of poverty, such as lack of health care and education.

SEATTLE — The Puget Sound area, known for months of off-and-on drizzle rather than subfreezing winter weather, was hit by another round of snow Tuesday, snarling traffic and closing schools for more than 380,000 students.
With snow falling before daybreak across much of the state west of the Cascade Range and one to three inches expected in most areas before noon, traffic snarls developed quickly in the morning commute following the three-day Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend.

African Americans are under-represented as blood donors and in the National Marrow Donor Program. In blood and bone-marrow donation, ethnicity is critically important in matching blood types and marrow donors for patients with life-threatening diseases.