HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) -- Bakeries in Zimbabwe remained closed Sunday and shop shelves were empty of bread despite a 300 percent rise in the official price of a loaf.
The state Sunday Mail, a government mouthpiece, said the National Prices and Incomes Commission allowed the bread price to increase to Zimbabwe dollars 100,000 (US 20 cents at the dominant black market exchange rate) Friday as part of a review to help businesses remain viable.

A peaceful anti-war rally winds it's way up SW Broadway on Saturday, Sept. 29th.  Hundreds of marchers from more than 55 local organizations joined together in an anti-war rally that began with the crowd singing protest songs from the 60s and ended with a peace rally and speeches in front of the world trade center.

A coalition of African American groups in N.E. Portland has been working to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS in the African American community. Five bus-stop benches in Portland have been dedicated to the campaign – MY FRIEND WITH AIDS IS STILL MY FRIEND.  Pictured here is the installation of a bench at the intersection of Killingsworth Street and Michigan Ave. The coalition includes representatives from the Albina Ministerial Alliance, the African American Alliance, Brother to Brother, Cascade AIDS Project, The Portland Alumni Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta, The Coalition of Black Men, The Links, Inc., Portland Urban League and Multnomah County Health Department.

Critically-acclaimed author Walter Mosley will read from his latest novel, "Blonde Faith," from 7-8:30 p.m. Wednesday Oct. 10 at the Central Library, 1000 Fourth Ave., Microsoft Auditorium, Level 1.
The program is free and open to the public. Registration is not required. Limited parking in the Central Library garage is available for a $5 special event rate. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m.
In "Blonde Faith," Mosley's newest and tenth installment in the Easy Rawlins series, Rawlins, Los Angeles' most reluctant detective, comes home one day to find Easter, the daughter of his friend Christmas Black, left on his doorstep. Easy knows that could only mean that the ex-marine Black is probably dead, or will be soon....

Hip hop artist M-Famous cranks up the volume Friday Sept. 28 at the Douglass-Truth Library. The library provided free pizza, and no one was told to be quiet.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) –Just days after the American Library Association's Banned Book Week ended on Oct. 6, some Michigan school administrators want to return English textbooks that include the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama ``Topdog/Underdog,'' which made author Suzan-Lori Parks the first Black woman to win the theater award. The annual Banned Book Week encourages everyone to read works of literature that others have sought to ban because of controversial content.
If they can't return the 140 copies of ``The Literary Experience,'' administrators might cut out about 70 pages from the 1,846-page anthology before distributing it to four Advanced Placement classes, The Grand Rapids Press reported.
Parks' tale of two brothers is a dark, often wildly comic riff on sibling rivalry, a verbal and sometimes physical slugfest between two wary relatives who con not only others but themselves as well.
It won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for drama. The play contains profanity and descriptions of sexual ....

GREENWOOD, Miss. (AP) -- The half-century search for justice in the murder of Emmett Till petered out last February when a Leflore County grand jury declined to indict Carolyn Donham on criminal charges.
``There is nobody left to indict,'' said Greg Watkins, one of 19 members from the grand jury. ``It will be debated forever probably, but there is no one left living to send to jail.''

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Call it the health insurance companies and nursing homes versus doctors and the AARP, a classic, inside-the-Beltway struggle that erupted when House Democrats sought changes to Medicare.
Publicly, all sides trumpeted their concern for older people in the United States and scarcely mentioned their own financial and political self-interests, if at all.
Together, they have spent millions on lobbyists, television ads and polling to influence lawmakers. They stand ready to renew the battle this fall ...

New Portland Schools Superintendent Carole Smith had an interesting conversation with the children of Kate Anderson's Spanish Immersion kindergarten class at Clarendon Elementary, and then posed for a picture with all the children. Smith replaces former Superintendent Vicki Phillips, who left to pursue a job at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. For the full story, see page 9.

It's nothing new; reports of membership increases in White supremacist groups have been trickling in for several years now.
Early in 2007, the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish advocacy group that monitors hate groups, reported an explosion in the activity and membership of Ku Klux Klan groups across the nation. A year ago in the New York Times, the Southern Poverty Law Center reported that large numbers of White supremacists and neo-Nazis had infiltrated the military, despite a 10-year ban on racist group membership.
White supremacists are once again on the move in Portland. From Oct. 5 to the 7, somewhere in the Portland Metro region, the neo-Nazi group the Hammerskins, will be celebrating their 20th anniversary. Also involved in organizing the event is Volksfront, a Portland-based White supremacist group.
To counteract Hammerfest 2007's message of hate, a group of anti-racists are holding their own rally Saturday, Oct.6 at 1 p.m. in Lents Park, Southeast 92nd and Steele Street.
Portland's history of hate group activity includes the 1988 murder of Mulugeta Seraw, an Ethopian student who was beaten to death in Southeast Portland by three members of a racist skinhead group.