Trail Blazers Travis Outlaw and Brandon Roy visited Jefferson High School Monday to help kick off the grand opening ceremony of the newly renovated Community Room. Long considered to be in disrepair, the Community Room is open to students, faculty and community groups as a study and meeting area. It is now outfitted with several computers, new furniture and lighting and other amenities. . . .

The Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center hosts its Sixth Annual African American Film Festival, featuring a powerful lineup of documentaries, narratives, workshops, film shorts and animation, kicking off with American Violet , a true story about race, poverty and the criminal justice system starring Nicole Beharie and Alfre Woodard, April 18.

The African American Film Festival runs nine consecutive nights from April 18 -- 26 and all screenings will take place at the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center. . . .

"In response to bicycle licensing and registration. I agree! I also believe that they should be required to have some form of insurance just like drivers. People the ride bike have been given a free ride . . ."

"Regarding "Yes to Licensing, Registering bicycles" I have to disagree. It does not make total sense any way you look at it. One of the largest reasons people chose to ride bikes is because it is free. That includes people who don't have money to buy a car. Or gas. Or even a bus ticket. . . ."

Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Tuesday that mayors should take control of big-city school districts where academic performance is suffering.
Duncan said mayoral control provides the strong leadership and stability needed to overhaul urban schools.
Mayors run the schools in fewer than a dozen big cities; only seven have full control over management and operations . . .

When the beloved House of Sound music store building was demolished on Dec. 31, 2008, decades of memories came crashing down with the wood, metal and glass. Now the sign is the only remnant of a once-vibrant North Williams Avenue scene of jazz clubs, shops, and homes. Award-winning film-maker Vanessa Renwick has launched a show about the building, at the . . .

As the 41st anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., approaches on April 4, newly discovered FBI files say that a small group of White supremacists paid for James Earl Ray to kill Dr. King. This vindicates the 1979 conclusion of a Congressional investigation headed by Rep. Louis Stokes--the House Select Committee on Assassinations--which found that Ray acted for money. . . . 

A state report issued this week projects that Measure 57, the crime-sentencing measure approved by voters in November, will add 1,600 inmates to Oregon's prison population by 2013. The measure, which took effect Jan. 1, requires sending repeat property and drug crime offenders to prison. . . .

An Arctic explorer often overlooked for his accomplishments is about to receive some overdue recognition.
A life-sized statue of Matthew Henson is to be unveiled Monday outside a former Camden church that one group is trying to turn into a maritime museum ... For decades, Henson, who was black, rarely received credit for exploring alongside Peary on all his trips into the Arctic and reaching the North Pole 45 minutes earlier. . . .

The University of Massachusetts in Amherst said Friday it would scan, catalog, digitize and put online papers of civil rights movement pioneer W.E.B. Du Bois. ... an estimated 100,000 diaries, letters, photographs and other items related to Du Bois, who helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. . . .

President Barack Obama on Sunday launched an effort to rid the world of nuclear weapons, calling them "the most dangerous legacy of the Cold War'' and saying the U.S. has a moral responsibility to lead as the only nation to ever use one. In a speech driven with new urgency by North Korea's rocket launch just hours earlier, Obama said the U.S. would host a summit within the next year on reducing and eventually eliminating nuclear weapons. . . .