Officers in King County and elsewhere, including city police, county sheriffs and state patrol are using a new system designed to reduce traffic stop times and eliminate errors in reports.
The new ticketing system allows officers to file citations and collision reports electronically, without ever having to pick up a pen.

Joshua James stood outside his neighborhood watering hole last Saturday, watching as a group of community activists calmly described why this particular bar was a bastion of racism and sexism.
"This offends me," James said, gesturing toward the speakers of a group called CORS (Citizens Overcoming Racism and Sexism). "I am Mexican American and when I come here I don't have to worry about my race or that people will question me about my sexuality, about whether I'm gay or straight. I have never sensed that racism or sexism was happening here."
James was one of many perplexed Florida Room fans standing outside the North Killingsworth Street bar on April 28, listening as speaker after speaker described the bar and its owners as "the worst part of gentrification....

"I don't go to North Portland. I have no reason to go there," said a bearded…

A Benson Polytechnic High School senior will represent Oregon at the 2007 Miss Black USA competition in Gambia, Africa this year.
Portland native Kelci Rae Flowers, 18, is the current Miss Black Oregon USA 2007 and a former Miss Oregon Teen USA 2006 who says she's extremely excited to be heading to Gambia later this month.
"It's going to be a life changing event," Flowers says. "I never thought in a million years I would be blessed with the opportunity of a lifetime ... I'm going back to the motherland, which is very cool."

From left to right, Ockley Green kindergartners David Dent, Ethan Belau and Liam Boswell, all 6 years old, read the label on "William Johnson," an acrylic painting put together by 11 Jefferson High School students at the April 26 opening night reception of ARTiculations a collaborative art show of Jefferson High students and Ockley Green K-8 students currently showing at the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center. The three boys also have their artwork on display.

Brenda Braxton, TV news anchor, KGW Northwest News Channel 8, left, chairs a panel of the four business executives of the year before an audience of over 600. Pictured here, left to right, with Braxton are: Woman Entrepreneur of the Year Danielle Forsyth, co-founder/CEO, Thetus Corp.; Woman Executive of the Year, Nonprofit, Sue Hildick, president, Chalkboard Project; Woman Executive of the Year, Small-Medium Business, Kerry McClenahan, president, McClenahan Bruer Communications; and Woman Executive of the Year, Large Business, Judy Peppler, president-Oregon, Qwest.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- A special grand jury convenes Wednesday in Marion to review the fatal shooting of a Black Vietnam War veteran by a state trooper during the height of civil rights tension in Alabama in 1965.
"There is no question about who did the shooting. The question is whether this was a murder or it was something else," District Attorney Michael Jackson said.
Former State Trooper James Bonard Fowler has insisted for years that he shot Jimmie Lee Jackson in self defense when Jackson grabbed his pistol during a melee in a Marion cafe.

WASHINGTON -- In his 15 months on the Supreme Court, Justice Samuel Alito has been everything his conservative supporters expected and his liberal detractors feared. The newest justice has been a reliable vote in favor of the death penalty, expanded police powers and restrictions on abortion. Alito has yet to write an opinion on a major constitutional issue, not uncommon for someone so new to the court. And he has been more measured than Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, declining to join their call to overturn the court's landmark Roe v. Wade decision on abortion, for instance.

Your voted ballot must be received at an official drop site or an elections office by 8 p.m. Tuesday, May 15. A postmark does not count. 24-hour ballot drop boxes will be set up at the following North/Northeast locations: Goodwill store, 3134 N. Lombard St. U.S. Bank, Northeast 39^th Avenue and Northeast Tillamook Street. Voted ballots may also be delivered to any Multnomah County library through 8 p.m. May 15.

Read here a day-by-day diary of free community events to fill your week...