WASHINGTON—Highlighting candidates' race-tinged comments seems to be the campaign gotcha of this political season, even if the words were uttered decades ago.
Republican Sen. George Allen of Virginia has been fending off charges of racism for almost two months and now he's on the spot for allegedly making offensive comments about Blacks and other groups in the 1970s. His Democrat opponent, Jim Webb, has had to answer for writing dialogue in a novel that includes a common racial slur.

Last month, a caravan of Hurricane Katrina survivors and relief volunteers returned safely to Seattle after a two-week road trip to the Gulf Coast for the one-year anniversary of the hurricane.
Organized by the Social Change Caravan to New Orleans, the caravan provided displaced Katrina survivors, at no cost, an opportunity to reunite with family and friends or to move home. For most of the survivors on the caravan, it was an emotionally difficult journey, and the start of a healing process.

Seantaila Spears, left, and her son, Dante Haynes, 3, make candle holders Oct. 2 during Family Night at the Columbia City Library. Children from birth to age 11 and their families can come to the library on the first Monday of the month and listen to stories, make music and create art.

SHANNON, Ireland—Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she cannot recall then-CIA chief George Tenet warning her of an impending al-Qaida attack in the United States, as a new book claims he did two months before the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
"What I am quite certain of is that I would remember if I was told, as this account apparently says, that there was about to be an attack in the United States, and the idea that I would somehow have ignored that I find incomprehensible," Rice said Sunday.

Renee Hart, left, squares off against her friend, Sequoia Causey-Waters, right, for game of chess at the Chess for Success booth while Aushonii Glover, center, looks on. The three girls were attending GirlFest, held Sept. 30, at the Portland Expo Center.

Leaders from all faiths are joining forces to mobilize a religious response to global warming.
Oregon Interfaith Power and Light, a project of Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, will participate in Interfaith Power & Light's "Spotlight on Global Warming." This inter-religious, nationwide screening of educational films about global warming — featuring Paramount's "An Inconvenient Truth" and HBO's "Too Hot Not to Handle" — includes more than 175 Oregon congregations in at least 35 cities and towns.

Robert Moseley, who works at the Home Depot store located at 4738 N. Vancouver Ave, volunteered his time helping to clean up the courtyard at Madison High School. Volunteers from Home Depot and Hands On Portland removed debris, weeded the campus, built benches and painted as part of Corporate Month of Service, a national initiative to increase volunteerism. 

Martin Luther King Jr. "Life's most urgent question is: What are you doing for…

Vernon Elementary School students Deandre McDonald, left, Delonce Davis, Brian Boly, Arial Montalvo, Anna Madison and De'osha McDonald show off their model rockets Sept. 20. NASA scientists visited the school to announce that Vernon had been selected as a NASA Explorer school.

Voters will be asked in November to take a look around them and decide if they want to improve their natural environment: parks, greenspaces, water, fish and wildlife.
Ballot Measure 26-80, known as the 2006 Natural Areas Bond Measure, would issue $227.4 million in general obligation bonds. Those bonds would preserve targeted natural areas in the region; protect and restore watersheds for improved water quality; protect streams, fish and wildlife; and increase the presence of nature in neighborhoods.
The estimated cost of the bonds is $19 cents per $1,000 of assessed value; the average homeowner would pay about $2.50 to $2.92 per month or $30 to $35 a year.
Among the measure's goals, supporters say, is to bring parks and greenspaces closer to those who don't have easy access to existing parks.
Although some residents may say the Portland metro area appears to have a lot of parks and natural areas — and the city does rank fairly well with other cities of its size nationally