Black publishers of the National Newspaper Publishing Association (NNPA) are concerned that there is nothing "designed" in President Barack Obama's $787 billion stimulus package to do business with struggling Black newspapers in this flailing economy. "While we publishers wholeheartedly applaud the president's efforts of making certain economically devastated communities of color are able to benefit from the billions of dollars within the stimulus package, it is unclear whether any of the money has been earmarked to otherwise help educate the very communities serviced by the Black media, as well as how they are to access the myriad of opportunities," NNPA Board Chairman John B. Smith, Sr. wrote in an April 23 letter to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel; President Obama's Special Advisor Valerie Jarrett, and U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), chair of the Congressional Black Caucus . . . .

Oregon State health officials have identified six more probable cases of swine flu, increasing the number of Oregonians likely hit with the illness to 11.
Dr. Mel Kohn, acting director of the Oregon Public Health Division, said the probable cases are in Multnomah, Washington, Polk, Lane, Wallowa, Umatilla and Marion counties and include three children, two teenagers and six adults . . . .

Pamela Butler has become one among the average looking men, women and children from a variety of economic, social and ethnic backgrounds who make up the more than 102,764 active missing persons in the U.S., according to the National Crime Information Center. Mainstream media continues to fail to present what is in fact a very diverse missing persons population while mostly concentrating on White women. Butler's story received local news coverage by the local television networks, News Channel 8, MSNBC and the Washington Post, but not on a national level. . . .

A business group floated a plan this week aimed at protecting school funding by suspending implementation of a get-tough-on-crime measure endorsed by Oregon voters last fall. It's a politically charged proposal, though. Opponents say it would thwart the will of voters who approved Measure 57 to lengthen prison sentences for repeat property and drug crimes and mandate drug and alcohol treatment for certain offenders. However, the idea is gaining some traction at the Capitol as lawmakers and Gov. Ted Kulongoski struggle to find ways to pay for key services at a time of shrinking state revenue and an increasing prison population. . . .

The mangled state of today's economy isn't giving this year's class of graduating college students much optimism about securing employment after they cross that stage. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that as many 1.4 million college graduates are about to enter a severely contracted job market that seems to be getting worse. For many, the anxiety of figuring out life after school, in some ways, trumps the joys of finishing the four-year college grind. The worries are worse for Black graduates, who are historically among the first fired and the last hired, according to statistics. . . .

Just click here to go to The Skanner home page on YouTube…

Archbishop Desmond Tutu last night delivered the 40^th Annual Collins Lecture at the University of Portland Chiles Center. The sold-out talk was on the topic of "The Transformational Power of reconciliation in Society." Sponsored by Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon. . . . Photo by Antonio Harris

... Herrin and his team of interns wanted to probe more deeply than into just the military aspects of the war, as is often done in standard textbooks. They also wanted to learn about issues affecting the home front -- including civil liberties, slavery and African-American and women's stories. "I think it's a very important story,'' Herrin said, adding that the area's history encapsulates, in many ways, a microcosm of the struggles that led to and followed the Civil War. . . .

DETROIT (AP) -- Pushing for blacks to have equal access to jobs has been part of the NAACP's mission for much of the civil rights organization's 100-year history. The Rev. Jesse Jackson believes fighting to save jobs -- and Detroit's struggling car makers -- should be part of the NAACP's newest mandate.  Much progress has been made in business, education, and politics with the election of Barack Obama as the nation's first black president, but the current battle is with the troubled U.S. economy, Jackson said Sunday evening during his 25-minute keynote address at the Detroit NAACP's 54th Fight for Freedom Fund dinner at Cobo Center. . . .

A leading U.S. health expert said Monday that while `"there are encouraging signs'' of a leveling off in the severity of the swine flu threat, it's still too early to declare the problem under control.  "I'm not ready to say that yet,'' Dr. Richard Besser, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said when asked about indications by Mexican health authorities that the disease has peaked there. Besser did tell network television interviewers that "what we're seeing is an illness that looks very much like seasonal flu. But we're not seeing the type of severe disease that we were worrying about.'' He noted that roughly 36,000 people die each year in this country from the winter flu, so it's still a serious matter. . . .