Continuing with yesterday's theme, we bring you more tax-related news in a "the certainty that's not death" themed news round-up.

I know it's a bit early for a news round-up, but I wanted to point you to the current Willamette Week cover story. This article, by former New York Times tax reporter David Cay Johnston, will give you nine facts about tax disparity in our country.

Every serious comic fan knows of those massive story-arcs where superheros from titles all across a universe come together to fight a great evil.
Well, that just happened, kind of. But this epic struggle for good wasn't captured in the digitally-colored pages of several Marvel or DC comics but in the bars of Portland.
This Past Saturday, both the heroes and villains of the Portland Alter Egos society waged this war during Power Summit, the group's annual pub crawl.

From education reform to Mayor Sam Adams "state of education" report, Oregon headlines have been booming with education news. So this week we bring you a "School Daze" themed news round-up.

In promoting an upcoming bond measure to fix up several Portland schools, PPS employees appear to have broken state law, Betsy Hammond reports in today's Oregonian. The law dictates that public agencies must be impartial and neutral in promoting "election issues" such as the $548 million Bond measure in an upcoming May election. Here's an example of material sent from PPS on behalf of the measure. You can also view the state restrictions here.

Two state legislators, one Republican and one Democrat, are working on a bill that would change the way Oregon teachers are paid, according to the recent issue of Willamette Week. The calculus behind the bill is to cap teacher's raises during times of economic prosperity to leave money for salaries and prevent lay-offs when money is tight.

Last week, we pointed you towards this Oregonian article about the state program designed to bring film production to Oregon through tax credits. Now this week, we bring you this Oregon Business Journal article about film production in Oregon.

Willamette Week news editor Hank Stern recently accepted a communications job with Multnomah County where he will work under former Oregonian reporter, David Austin, as both the Portland Mercury and Portland Business Journal reported yesterday.

The reading list is now up! Sort of.
Rather than have you wait for us to find everything readable about Portland, I've put together the blogs and news sources I've checked regularly since moving to Portland.

So, I'm currently putting together the first incarnation of our promised Portland required reading list.
Expect something by tomorrow.

So, I'm currently putting together the first incarnation of our promised Portland required reading list.
Expect something by tomorrow.

If you didn't read yesterday's Oregonian, you should at least check out this article by transportation reporter Joseph Rose. In the wake of some recent stabbing on the MAX, Rose correlates the scale-down of MAX security staff and the rise of violent offenses.

Here's some interesting news about Oregon's Legislative branch which today has and must vote on issues covering food products and higher-education for undocumented students.
Yesterday the Oregon house, by a 44-14 vote, passed the "Code of the West" resolution

Found this via The Portlander, it's a relatively new database of Oregon information such as data sets and expenditures.
The site is hosted by the state of Oregon and seems full of interesting figures, like this chart detailing the cost of education per student over Oregon's 36 counties. I will try to post any interesting info I find from this over the next week.

Well, Portland News NW has now officially been alive for one week and as staunch believers in self-improvement we plan to make each week to be better than the last.
With that in mind, here's a list of what to expect next week:

The launch of more regular features ( They don't end with "Look What We Found")

An actual picture for our Twitter feed

Hopefully, some multimedia content

I just got a gray hair about trying something new. If you look to the right, you can see the blogs and news sources we read everyday to keep up on Portland news.
But, being the neurotic I am, I can't shake the feeling that I missed something. Which is how I came up with this new idea.
I want to start a Portland news required reading list.

If there's a more Portland way to observe Lent than reducing your carbon footprint, I haven't heard of it. Several parishioners at northwest Portland's St. Juan Diego's Parish have done just that, according to a recent article on The Catholic Sentinel.
According to the article, a few parishioners have limited their appliance usage and one family even started a garden in this green observance of the 40 days preceding Easter.

Today I was reminded of this February NPR story about Portland after reading this USA Today article about recent census data pointing a decline of black populations in major U.S. cities.

Numbers of both middle and lower-income black families moving to suburbs and warmer southern cities may be partially contributing to the decline, says the article.

Hey everyone!
Want to get involved with Portland News NW?
The "get involved" page is now up!
Go here to see it!
Check out the ways to get involved! Then get involved!
Also, can you offer any services not listed on this page and want to get involved with News NW? Shoot us an email!
We're always open to suggestions and ideas.

Welcome to Portland News Northwest.
For those of you familiar with our Olympia counterpart, we're now here in Portland. For those not familiar with our work, let me explain who we are.
In brief, we're a journalism startup dedicated to putting news in context through aggregated and original reporting. What does that mean exactly?
Well, have you ever tried to pick up a show like Lost or 24 mid-season? What happens?
You end up a bit out of the loop. You're unfamiliar with characters, how they work together, and maybe even some crucial plot elements.

Hello! This is portland.newsnw.org, a project of News Northwest.We're getting things organized and will soon be producing content for the site. If you're interested in getting involved, email us.