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Barack Obama's campaign hopes it will. They're putting out the word that they hope to announce on the night of May 20, after the results come in from the Kentucky and Oregon primaries, that their candidate has the 2,025 votes needed for the Democratic nomination. That would mean that the nomination would be settled before the May 31 rules committee meeting on the status of the disqualified Michigan and Florida delegations; this would deprive Clinton of a grievance but would not deprive Obama of the nomination. The June 1 primary in Puerto Rico, in which it seems possible Clinton could...

The Popular Press is lined up outside the tuxedo rental places here in Your Nation's Capital, to get ready for what they all assume will be the Coronation of Sen. Barack Obama as the Nominee for President of the Democratic Party after the primaries in Kentucky and Oregon. The endorsement of John Edwards yesterday, one assumes, also brings his eleven delegates with him. That would put Obama, according to CNN's count, at 1,910 delegates only 115 short of the 2,025 to have a majority. Kentucky (60 delegates) and Oregon (65 delegates) will hold their primaries on Tuesday. Assuming Obama and...

Hey sweetie, are you bitter? Pittsburgh Tribune-Review By Salena Zito Perfect Sen. John McCain bumper sticker: Hey sweetie, are you bitter?

Having finally worked out the kinks in using more biodiesel in its 600-bus fleet, TriMet is not sure it can afford it because of skyrocketing biodiesel costs.

With mail ballots due Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama returns to Oregon this weekend with campaign stops in Roseburg, Portland and Pendleton. The Democrat will appear for a town-hall meeting in Roseburg High School at 11:30 a.m. Saturday. On Sunday, he will hold a 12:30 p.m. rally in Portland's Waterfront Park and a 6:30 p.m. town-hall meeting at the Pendleton Convention Center. Obama's rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, will visit Friday. Full details of her schedule still had not been released Thursday afternoon.

The Democratic Presidential frontrunner talks timber payments, Gordon Smith and of course tattoos. Sen. Barack Obama once remarked on the long odds of a “skinny guy from the South Side with a funny name” finding success in American politics. How much more improbable then that Oregon—an overwhelmingly white state 1,700 miles from his Chicago home—could finally put the Illinois senator over the top this Tuesday, May 20, in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. (snip) WW: What’s the biggest difference between you and Hillary Clinton on an Oregon-specific issue? Barack Obama: I don’t spend all my time reviewing Sen....

Dems score a hat trick with specials TRIBUNE-REVIEW By Salena Zito Democrats scored a hat trick with their third special-election win in GOP-held House seats by winning tonight in Mississippi’s 1st District. This win follows Democratic victories in special elections in Illinois' 14th District in March and in Louisiana's 6th District 10 days ago.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone poll in Oregon shows Barack Obama leading John McCain 52% to 38%. That’s a significant improvement for Obama compared to a month ago when he led the presumptive Republican nominee by six percentage points. In three consecutive Oregon polls, McCain has never received more than 40% support when matched against Obama. In the current poll, McCain attracts just 68% support from Republican voters in the state. Obama leads McCain among voters under 50. With older voters in Oregon, the two candidates are essentially even. Nationally, McCain and Obama remain fairly evenly matched among all voters...

City wants charges dropped against Kecia Powell, who's back on the job Culver Police Chief Kecia Powell, the city's only officer, is back to patroling the streets and writing tickets in the small Jefferson County community. But she's hoping Jefferson County District Attorney Peter Deuel will honor a request to drop the official misconduct charges against her. Powell and her lawyer said Wednesday they plan to file a motion to dismiss the case because of civil compromise. She's accused of paying the bill on her work/personal cell phone with a Culver city credit card. It allegedly happened in February, when...

ROSEBURG - Former President Bill Clinton comes to Roseburg Tuesday morning in one of the rare visits of a president in this area. Roseburg High School is gearing up for a visit from the former president, and a rally Tuesday morning at 9:00 o'clock. The former president is trying to rally democrats to vote for Hillary Clinton in the Oregon primary. Roseburg High Vice-Principal Larry Rich said it's a historical event for Roseburg to have a president visit. "We found out this morning that he is coming to R.H.S. so he will be speaking in our gym. Every since we...

Education - Portland Public Schools may add the book to the new social studies curriculum for eighth-graders Portland Public Schools is poised to adopt a new curriculum today, making the district the first in the state to use a textbook exploring Oregon's racial history. "This is not your traditional Oregon history kids may have learned in social studies class in fourth grade," said Marcia Arganbright, district director of curriculum and instruction. "Beyond the Oregon Trail: Oregon's Untold History" is one of four books recommended for eighth-grade social studies classes. Arganbright said the district did not seek out a curriculum that...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuRHRRYHKIY

....... In Beaverton, outside Portland, where Obama visited a small software firm, employee Jack Randall, a chemist, said he was an independent who had voted for Republicans in the past -- including Bush in 2000 -- but that he would vote for Obama this fall. "He's very personable, intelligent and thoughtful. There was a lot of intensity of data about what he's going to do, it wasn't just the fluff that we've been hearing about," said Randall, 56, whose Republican wife is also backing Obama. For him and his colleagues at the firm, he said, a key issue setting Obama...

Is it the province of a "correspondent" of an ostensibly objective network to proclaim the tactics of a presidential candidate "inappropriate"? Apparently so, when the network is MSNBC and the correspondent David Shuster. The frequent sidekick to Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann got into it with Pat Buchanan on today's Morning Joe. Shuster spoke out against Hillary's rough-'n-tumble end-game tactics, while a feisty Buchanan defended Clinton's right to go down swinging. Shuster sounded less the reporter and more the DNC member concerned about damage to the party's presumptive presidential candidate. When Mike Barnicle got into the act, he wanted to...

Clinton and her campaign know that the road to victory for her must include a resolution to the Florida and Michigan votes, something that has been dragging on since both states voted in January in violation of Democratic Party rules. Later this month the Rules and Bylaws Committee of the DNC will meet to discuss the matter... The fund-raiser was interrupted briefly at the beginning when a protestor stood on his chair with a large sign that read "Obliterate Iran? Apologize." The sign referred to some comments Clinton made in regards to bombing Iran if they attacked Israel with a...

Could Oregon be the state where Hillary Clinton pulls off a miracle comeback? Or will it turn out to be the state that puts Barack Obama on top for good? Maybe, just maybe, the Democratic presidential race will be all over before the state's final votes are tallied on May 20.Perhaps, Oregon's race will be just another stop near the end of an endless primary season, as the two battle all the way through to Montana and South Dakota on June 3. Save for perhaps Clinton and Obama themselves, no one really knows whether one of these scenarios - or...

DEMOCRATIC White House hopeful Barack Obama said today he could declare victory over Hillary Clinton on May 20, when Kentucky and Oregon may put him over the top in terms of elected delegates. "If at that point we have the majority of pledged delegates, which is possible, then I think we can make a pretty strong claim that we have got the most runs and it's the ninth inning and we have won," he told NBC television, referring to the final inning of a baseball game. "But, you know, I think it is also important for us to, if we...

Now it's Oregon's turn. With the Indiana and North Carolina primaries concluding Tuesday, presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will turn much their attention toward Oregon, allowing the state's more than 870,000 Democrats their moment in the primary spotlight.Oregon is one of only a handful of contests remaining, and is perhaps the most competitive of the states that have yet to vote. Clinton is predicted to prevail in Kentucky, which also votes on May 20, while Obama is expected to win upcoming caucuses in South Dakota and Montana. Most political analysts think Obama has the edge in Oregon, but...

Six federally protected sea lions were apparently shot to death on the Columbia River as they lay in open traps put out to ensnare the animals, which eat endangered salmon. State and federal authorities are investigating. The discovery came one day after three elephant seals were found shot to death at a breeding ground in central California. Trapping will be suspended during the investigation, said Rick Hargrave, a spokesman for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife who was at the scene Sunday.

I 'm with Joyce Kilmer -- "I think that I shall never see/ A poem lovely as a tree." I'm even with city Commissioner Dan Saltzman, who recently waxed poetical before the Portland City Council on the "incredible" "show-stopping" trees growing in Portland. But before I could recall the last lines of Kilmer's poem -- "Poems are made by fools like me, / But only God can make a tree!" -- Saltzman went on to say something that's creepy and chilling: "It sometimes pains me to think that we have no ability to control their destiny -- that a private...

LA GRANDE, Ore. (AP) - Irv Nikolai resigned as superintendent of schools in La Grande hours after he was arrested on charges of sexual abuse of a 7-year-old girl. The La Grande Observer reports the 71-year-old Nikolai submitted his resignation by phone hours after he was arrested Friday on charges of touching the girl at a birthday party in Hillsboro. He was serving as interim superintendent and was scheduled to leave office in June. School board chairman John McKinnon says an acting superintendent will be named next week. Nikolai is from Forest Grove. He is being held in La Grande...

HORSETHIEF LAKE, Wash. -- Fidelia Andy was a 6-year-old happily running coffee to tribal fishermen at Celilo Falls when the federal government signed a deal with the tribes that flooded the falls and her family's home in the rising waters behind The Dalles Dam. On Friday, more than 50 years later, Andy and other leaders of four Northwest tribes finalized a new $900 million agreement with the federal government that they hope will begin to reverse the damage done by Columbia River system dams. "We Indians gave up so much in the past," Andy, a Yakama tribal leader and chairwoman...

Oregon citizens who say their rejection of same-sex marriage was quashed by the state legislature scored a small legal victory in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. The appeals court granted a motion by the Alliance Defense Fund to expedite the appeal of a federal court judge's decision that invalidated a voter petition drive. As WND reported, a coalition of citizen groups want Oregonians to decide on a law that created "domestic partnerships" for homosexuals and lesbians in the state. But state officials contended the petition drive failed because there were too many invalid signatures. With the...

Salmon fishing was banned along the West Coast for the first time in 160 years Thursday, a decision that is expected to have a devastating economic impact on fishermen, dozens of businesses, tourism and boating. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez immediately declared a commercial fishery disaster, opening the door for Congress to appropriate money for anyone who will be economically harmed. The closure of commercial and recreational fishing for chinook salmon in the ocean off California and most of Oregon was announced by the National Marine Fishery Service. It followed the recommendation last month of the Pacific Fishery Management Council after...

LOS ANGELES -- An arbitrator has ordered the union that represents dockworkers at West Coast ports to tell members they must report to work Thursday and not take the day off to protest U.S. military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. A wide enough walkout could cause a slowdown at West Coast ports -- the nation's major gateway for cargo from the Far East. Arbitrator John Kagel issued his decision today after holding a hearing by phone with the employers' group, Pacific Maritime Association, and International Longshore and Warehouse Union, according to a document outlining the ruling. The union previously asked...

As Food Prices Rise, Ethanol Promotion Scrutinized By GAIL KINSEY HILL   Some states have been following the federal government's lead in promoting production of ethanol, fuel made from corn. Food price increases have prompted criticism of such policies. (Photo by Jon M. Brouwer)     A year ago, America was high on ethanol.Made from corn and mixed with gasoline, the alternative fuel promised a smooth ride to cleaner air, more jobs and a homegrown product.This year, in a fearsome recoil, ethanol has been blamed for a host of ills, mainly that its production — in growing and transporting corn,...

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - The American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon has joined booksellers to challenge a state law restricting the sale or provision of sexually explicit material to children, saying it could affect constitutionally protected material. The ACLU says the law approved by the 2007 Legislature is vague and could result in parents being charged for providing educational books to their children - or even an older child who gives material to a younger sibling. As an example, the ACLU cited the 1975 novel "Forever" by Judy Blume, a frequent target of censors because it deals with teenage sexuality....

PENDLETON, Ore. (AP) — A small group of people from Hood River are interesting in making Eastern Oregon its own state. Consultant Paul Koch, 69, his partner Ernie DeRocher and DeRocher's wife, Rita Swyers, both 82, are pushing the effort. Koch said people in Eastern Oregon are fed up with how Salem has treated them. If they got their wish, the stateline would stretch from east of the Cascade Mountains to the Idaho border. Koch has done consulting and strategic planning work for Milton-Freewater, Baker City, the Umatilla County Special Library District and Blue Mountain Community College. He said during...

At first glance, the letter on Portland Public Schools stationery looked like the genuine article, but by the second paragraph, most of the Lincoln High School parents who received it were probably smelling a rat. It started off mildly, announcing Saturday's upcoming prom and discussing ways parents could help their students have a safe and fun evening. But the advice quickly crossed the line from polite to outrageous. The letter told parents the school was abandoning its abstinence-only education and would instead encourage safe sex. A condom was enclosed. The fake letter also suggested that parents open up their homes...

A federal appeals court injunction issued Wednesday says Northwest states can trap, but not kill, the animalsThe on-again, off-again permission for Oregon and Washington officials to kill salmon-gobbling sea lions below Bonneville Dam is off again, courtesy of a federal appeals court injunction issued Wednesday. However, the appeals court said state officials could still capture sea lions and ship them to zoos. Oregon officials said they will begin trapping up to eight of the Bonneville animals today. The sea lions gather at Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River to feast on salmon, including imperiled species, gathering to climb the dam's...

This is a from column called Taking Stock by Malcolm Berko where he responds to questions concerning finances: Dear Mr. Berko: I began taking Social Security at 62 and will be 70 in a few months. I wish I had waited until age 70 to collect my benefits, which would have been almost twice as much as I’m getting now. Several years ago I heard, and I can’t recall where, that I can reapply to the Social Security Administration and get higher benefits as if I had waited until I was 70. Can you verify this, and if this is...

A Tualatin man, a former U.S. Marine and an aspiring sheriff's deputy, was cleared Friday of all charges related to the fatal shooting of his wife Dec. 16, 2007. Ryan Michael Osbrink, 24, was practicing drawing an H & K model USP, .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol from a holster, and it discharged as his wife entered the room. Kimberly Osbrink, 23, was hit by a single bullet to the abdomen. According to the Washington County District Attorney's report on the incident, police found Kimberly conscious but in great pain. Officers reported her stating, "It was an accident. He didn't mean to...

The Animal Liberation Front has claimed responsibility for raiding a fur farm in Jefferson on Monday, releasing mink and destroying breeding records. The front, described by the government as one of the nation's leading domestic terrorist organizations, wrote that it freed about 40 domesticated mink from the Jefferson Fur Farm to give them a chance at survival. The note was signed ALF-Cascadia. "These animals are not capitalist commodities to be bought and sold for fashion or vanity, but unique individuals deserving of liberation from human exploitation," said the note, released today by the North American Animal Liberation Press Office in...

PORTLAND, Ore. — A lawyer who watched a police officer park illegally in front of a restaurant, then wait around while his meal was prepared, issued the officer a series of citizen-initiated violations. Eric Bryant said he was sitting at the restaurant March 7 when Officer Chad Stensgaard parked his patrol car next to a no-parking sign and walked inside to wait for his food, the Portland Mercury reported Thursday. Bryant told the weekly paper that when he asked Stensgaard about his car, the officer asked Bryant: "If someone broke into your house, would you rather have the police be...

George Taylor recently took a few minutes away from his job directing the Oregon Climate Service to talk about global warming, global cooling and why he thinks climate control’s out of our hands. COURTESY OF OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY For the past 16 years, George Taylor has been the most prominent weather forecaster in Oregon – who doesn’t work for a TV station, at least. As director of the Oregon Climate Service, based at Oregon State University in Corvallis, he’s responsible for monitoring and predicting the state’s weather – which should be a routine job, except that Taylor has drawn headlines...

The case of the Oregon Labrador identity crisis is closed--- Callie came home. The real one. Not that she'll confirm her identity. She'll only bark. Ken Griggs of Lake Oswego was reunited with his family's dog Wednesday afternoon, more than two weeks after he claimed a Dundee boarding kennel returned the wrong female black Labrador from a spring break stay. "I'm happy and relieved and just want things to get back to normal," he said after exchanging dogs with a Sherwood woman who had mistakenly taken Callie home. Callie spent Wednesday evening romping with Griggs' four younger children and fetching...

A federal judge on Wednesday refused to stop fishery officials from trapping and killing California sea lions who are eating endangered salmon at Bonneville Dam. The Humane Society of the United States had challenged the plan, arguing that federal officials had failed to show that trapping the sea lions will have a significant impact on the salmon runs. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman said the government had shown that the sea lions were doing "serious damage." The Humane Society also argued that trapping and killing the animals would harm kayakers and others who have established relationships with individual...

I was supposed to ask her questions like "where are you most likely to disagree with your mom or your dad?" or "did you ever call your mom at 3 am and how did she react?" But all I could think of was that: "I am...standing in front of Hill and Bill's kid...in a red Mary Kay Cosmetics Collection dress...I'd just bought that day at the Goodwill...how weird is that?" Yes, Chelsea Clinton made it to the infamous "Red Dress" Party. Not to be confused with that other annual "Red Dress" fundraiser, this is the "Red Dress Party," a mondo-alcohol-fueled...

Same-Sex Couples Tend To Go Along, Get Along By JULIE SULLIVAN[Portland, OR] -- Watching Silda Wall Spitzer and Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan try to reconcile their idea of "room service" with their husbands', you might wonder whether same-sex couples are better off. More understanding of each other's needs and nature. Less conflicted about the whole monogamy-means-monogamy concept. Happier, even. Isn't the problem between men and women — forgive me, dear — men and women? Well, yes and yes. Same-sex couples are more honest about monogamy and sex, researchers say. They're also more mature, considerate and fairer to each other...

I've never been a big basher of members of Congress as a class. Capitol Hill lawmakers do important work in a democratic republic, and many of them put in long days of high purpose. Also, as tempting as it is to roast Congress, it's always helpful to recall that Congress in our Great Republic represents . . . us. Last week, however, I may have finally reached a break point. I say finally because my anger, disgust, frustration -- call it what you will -- has been building for some time now -- perhaps since late 2007. It started when...

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) - Scientists listening to underwater microphones have detected an unusual swarm of earthquakes off the central Oregon Coast. Scientists don't know what the earthquakes mean, but they could be the result of magma rumbling underneath the Juan de Fuca Plate - away from the recognized earthquake faults off Oregon, said geophysicist Robert Dziak of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Ore. They hope to send out the OSU research ship, Wecoma, to take water samples, looking for evidence that sediment on the ocean bottom has been...

HILLSBORO, Ore. – The state of Oregon may try to take a 2-year-old girl from her grandparents in Hillsboro and send her to Mexico to live with relatives of her half-siblings – people she doesn't know. State officials say they aim to keep the three children together, a move that the grandparents, Luz and Maurice Cephus, are fighting. The girl at the center of the conflict is 23-month-old Faith Cephus. Her grandparents, (pictured below) who became the girl's certified foster parents, want to adopt her but are living in fear of losing her. "Her being our blood granddaughter, we thought...

Any hopes salmon fishermen had for even token chinook fishing in Oregon faded Thursday when federal fisheries managers adopted the most restrictive limits on West Coast salmon fisheries in history.The recommendation by the Pacific Fishery Management Council allows fishing for 9,000 hatchery coho salmon off Central Oregon. No other salmon fishing will be allowed south of Cape Falcon, a point between Seaside and Tillamook.That eliminates a fishery that has typically been one of the richest on the West Coast, averaging catches of more than 800,000 chinook annually from 2000 to 2005.Salmon fishing north of Cape Falcon and in Washington...

EUGENE, Oregon, April 7, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton gave an interview with the editor of Eugene's Register-Guard paper, Jack Wilson, on April 6, in which she praised Oregon's assisted suicide laws.Clinton, who spoke in Eugene on the same day as leading conservative bioethicist Wesley J. Smith, commended Oregon for providing the "right" to assisted suicide."I believe it's within the province of the states to make that decision," said Clinton when asked by Wilson about her attitude toward assisted suicide. "I commend Oregon on this count, as well, because whether I agree with it or not...

Hillary Clinton is honoring an Ohio hospital’s request that she stop retelling the tragic story of an uninsured pregnant woman who died after being denied care, after the hospital referenced in the story disputed the account.... She died in August after her baby was stillborn at the hospital, but hospital administrators told the Times Bachtel actually was insured and kept under the care of a practice affiliated with the hospital.

Acquitted and vindicated. A Lake Oswego swim coach accused of sexually abusing his swimmers has been found not guilty on all charges in Linn County, while all charges against him in Clackamas County have been dropped. Now that coach is telling the story of his time in jail, as an innocent man. NewsChannel 8 was the first TV station to interview Coach Don King. In a 30 minute talk at King's Lake Oswego home, the coach told reporter Jack Penning that he feels lucky to have won his case, but he's still upset by the way detectives in both Linn...

While I am sad to report the death of a long-time friend, I can at least be thankful that he died peacefully in his sleep on March 30, 2008. His funeral will be held on April 5, 2008, and his burial in the National Cemetery at Willamette (Portland, Oregon) will be on Tuesday, April 8, 2008. Gordy was a true hero. I think this biographical announcement pretty much tells the story of a courageous young man who, at a very tender age, became a Marine and a hero under circumstances that defied all odds. Bio of Gordon Morgan: Gordon William...

Hold the potty humor, please, but archaeologists digging in a dusty cave in Oregon have unearthed fossilized feces that appear to be oldest biological evidence of humans in North America. The ancient poop dates back 14,300 years. If the results hold up, that means the continent was populated more than 1,000 years before the so-called Clovis culture, long believed to be the first Americans. "This adds to a growing body of evidence that the human presence in the Americas predates Clovis," said Michael Waters, an anthropologist at Texas A&M University who was not involved in the project. DNA analysis of...

Legal tussle - The battling lawyers draw a crowd, then some harsh words from the judgeThere are plenty of fights between attorneys in the Multnomah County courthouse every day, but rarely do they include actual blows. That's why jaws dropped last week when two attorneys duked it out in a first-floor hallway in front of a crowd of spectators, including a few county sheriff's deputies and Portland traffic cops. Attorneys David Lawrence and Aaron Matusick had been in landlord-tenant court Thursday for a hearing and began shouting at each other when they left the courtroom, according to witnesses and officials...

The nation's oldest and largest environmental group has set out to educate voters in New Mexico and eight other battleground states about clean energy, saying the future of the country's energy policy hinges on this year's elections. Rather than focusing on individual candidates, the Sierra Club is highlighting the successes of renewable energy production in the nine states and asking voters to consider the economic and environmental impacts of policies that depend on fossil and foreign fuels. "We're in the middle of this very exciting election cycle and we have the technology now to move beyond oil and coal, beyond...