Employment Oregon

At the downtown Rotary Club meeting, the talk around the lunch table was of taxes and timber, not war and peace in the Persian Gulf. "In this area, the environment is a very heavy issue, jobs are a very heavy issue," said Salem attorney Bernard Bednarz. "I haven't heard anybody complain about the Persian Gulf except at the gas pump; they haven't felt it at home." That's not good news for Republican Rep.

At the downtown Rotary Club meeting, the talk around the lunch table was of taxes and timber, not war and peace in the Persian Gulf. "In this area, the environment is a very heavy issue, jobs are a very heavy issue," said Salem attorney Bernard Bednarz. "I haven't heard anybody complain about the Persian Gulf except at the gas pump; they haven't felt it at home." That's not good news for Republican Rep.

They asked for it. And now they're getting it--1,400 tons a day of someone else's household garbage. The hamlet of Arlington, 137 miles up the Columbia River Gorge from Portland, and one of two towns of consequence in thinly populated Gilliam County, was the only community in Oregon foolish--or foresighted--enough to volunteer to host a new landfill for Portland's trash. Elsewhere in the country, people organize to keep landfills out.

They asked for it. And now they're getting it--1,400 tons a day of someone else's household garbage. The hamlet of Arlington, 137 miles up the Columbia River Gorge from Portland, and one of two towns of consequence in thinly populated Gilliam County, was the only community in Oregon foolish--or foresighted--enough to volunteer to host a new landfill for Portland's trash. Elsewhere in the country, people organize to keep landfills out.

The number of new state laws related to immigration has more than doubled in the first six months of 2007 compared with the same period last year, and some experts are attributing the activism in state capitals to a lack of action in Washington. In a report issued today, the National Conference of State Legislatures said that 171 immigration bills were enacted in the states from Jan. 1 to June 30, compared with 84 such measures in the first six months of 2006.

Rows of men sit before their sewing machines, moving their hands quickly and steadily as they stitch stiff swathes of blue denim. At the end of the production line, Sergio G. Mora, biceps rippling from daily sessions pumping iron, goes through a bin of jeans carefully checking for defects, snipping off loose threads wherever he finds them.