A stunning follow-up to a solid debut album, "V2" is the sophomore album from one of music's brightest rising stars. J. Moss is taking contemporary gospel music to new heights with his brilliant, staggering falsetto soaring over upbeat jams, reassuring ballads and introspective anthems on a disc of track-to-track hits.
"I've beefed up everything on 'V2'," says Moss. "My vocal chops, my dancing chops, my ministry chops; I wanted the intensity to be double what my last album was and definitely wanted to show growth, and I want people who listen to my music to be able to grow along with me."

NEW YORK -- The radio station that produces Don Imus' talk show pledged to keep tabs on its content after he apologized for calling the players on Rutgers University women's basketball team "nappy headed hos."
"We are disappointed by Imus' actions earlier this week which we find completely inappropriate," WFAN-AM said in a statement Friday. "We fully agree that a sincere apology was called for and will continue to monitor the program's content going forward."
Imus apologized Friday for the comments made earlier this week on his nationally syndicated program.
The National Association of Black Journalists demanded the immediate firing of the "Imus in the Morning" host. Imus questioned the players' looks, describing them as tattooed "rough girls." His producer compared the team -- which has eight black members -- to the NBA's Toronto Raptors.
Near the start of Friday's show, Imus said he wanted to "apologize for an insensitive and ill-conceived remark we made the other morning referring to the Rutgers women's basketball team."
"It was completely inappropriate, and we can understand why people were offended. Our characterization was thoughtless and stupid, and we are sorry."

Astronaut and U.S. Navy Capt. Robert Curbeam Jr., pauses in front of a "final frontier" display at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry March 28, after a tour of OMSI and lunch with the museum's board of directors.
After serving as an officer with the U.S. Navy throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, Curbeam joined NASA in 1994. He is a veteran of two space flights, has logged 593 hours in space and been on three spacewalks. Curbeam and fellow astronaut Mark Polansky met with Gov. Ted Kulongoski and discussed their flights at a Rotary Club luncheon in Portland earlier this week.

If it passes, a bill requiring cities to tie Drug Free Zone exclusions to a conviction could calm anger over the city's controversial policy to clean up major drug corridors.
"In this country you are innocent until proven guilty," said Rep. Chip Shields, D-N./N.E. Portland, a co-sponsor of the bill. "In the end we will be increasing public safety by encouraging convictions instead of simply excluding someone (from the zones)."
Under current rules, people arrested for a drug-related crime – and, in the past, even suspected of dealing drugs — can be excluded from large geographic areas known as "drug free zones." In Portland there are three such zones – the "north zone" covering a swath of land in inner North and Northeast Portland; the "central zone," which encompasses the bulk of downtown Portland; and another stretch along the entirety of 82nd Avenue.

Ten Grant High School students took a journey of a lifetime last week, when they traveled to Alabama to retrace Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s historic march for the voting rights of African Americans.
The students' travels took them to King's original starting point in Selma, Ala., and they marched with their teacher, Doug Winn, the whole way to Montgomery, Ala.
King's original 1965 march was the beginning of a new era in this country and played a big part in passing the Voting Rights Act, which gave Blacks the right to vote....

In the seven weeks since it opened, Nurse Practitioner Shelda Holmes' new Hands On Medicine clinic has attracted a following of North and Northeast Portland's most underserved residents.
For Holmes, it is a dream come true.
"My passion is in serving the underserved," Holmes says.
In former jobs, Holmes sometimes saw more than 24 patients each day, and had barely 10 minutes per person to diagnose and treat their problems.

Portland Center Stage, in collaboration with Hartford Stage Company and Dallas Theater Center, presents August Wilson's "Fences" April 10 through May 5.
Winner of both the Pulitzer Prize for drama and the Tony Award for best play in 1987, "Fences" stands toe-to-toe with plays like "Death of a Salesman" as both a snapshot of a troubling time in American history and an epic portrayal of the human condition, but "Fences" is told from an African American perspective.

Author Rebecca Walker, right, talks to Natasha Martin after signing a book for her new memoir, "Baby Love: Choosing Motherhood After a Lifetime of Ambivalence, " at the Douglass-Truth branch of the Seattle Public Library on March 22.
Walker is the bestselling author of "Black, White, and Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self" and the daughter of novelist Alice Walker. Time magazine recently named Rebecca Walker  "One of the 50 most influential future leaders of America." She lives with her son, Tenzin, the subject of "Baby Love," in Hawaii.

According to a recent study on the link between poverty, race and food access in King County, low-income people living in neighborhoods like Rainier Valley are cutting back on healthy foods because they can't afford them.
"People are stretching their money and buying energy-deficient foods that are high in sugar, fat and sodium, such as Top Ramen," Jamillah Jordan, lead researcher of the Grocery Gap Project, which compared Seattle's Rainier Valley and Queen Anne neighborhoods. "People are making conscious decisions about what they can and cannot afford to buy at the grocery store so that they can be able to pay their bills every month."
The study found that, on average, groceries in the Rainier Valley cost 29 cents more a week than the national standard and $1.97 more a week in Queen Anne.
Jordan shopped for the basics — bread, meat, milk and cheese, fresh fruits and vegetables and condiments — at nine retailers on Queen Anne and ten in the Rainier Valley to see if a family of four can buy a week's worth of food on $121.30 a week,  the maximum a family of four with two school-age children can receive through the U.S. Department of Agriculture's food stamp program. In Washington State alone, one-half million people rely on food stamps to buy groceries each week.
Jordan's Grocery Gap Project, a pilot research study, compared and identified the availability and costs of healthy foods in low-income communities and communities of color compared to more affluent neighborhoods. Focus groups were formed to see what mattered to residents when shopping.

OLYMPIA – Community organizations and programs serving the diverse 37th Legislative District, which includes southeast Seattle and part of Renton, will benefit from funding in the House of Representatives' capital, operating and transportation budgets.
"These budgets help build a better Washington for our kids, grandkids and families," said Rep. Eric Pettigrew, D-Seattle. "I'm proud and excited that we're breaking the state record for building new schools and putting more than a billion into building colleges and universities.".............