HGTV's reality TV series, "My First Place," is back for a sixth season and coming to Portland, and surrounding areas to film first-time homebuyers as they journey through the trials and tribulations of looking for, bidding on, and buying their first place.
Each half-hour episode features people making their dream of homeownership a reality.
Producers of the show are looking for future homebuyers who are . . .

With budget cuts threatening services for many Washington residents, advocates for the homeless and low-income in Clark County will join hundreds from all over the state on Housing Advocacy Day on Feb. 24.
 "Even though the state is in a financial bind, most of us want to protect the most vulnerable among us and make sure that some cuts do not cost communities and local governments more than they save," said Sharon Wylie, board president of the Council for the Homeless.
"Some of the proposed funding cuts could put more people in jails and emergency rooms and more children on the street instead of in school" . . .

NEW YORK (AP) _ The head of the nation's oldest civil rights organization on Saturday urged readers to boycott the New York Post, calling a cartoon the tabloid published an invitation to assassinate the president.
Earlier this week, the newspaper apologized to anyone who might have been offended by the image, which some say likens President Barack Obama to a violent chimpanzee gunned down by police in Connecticut.
But the apology wasn't good enough for the NAACP, and President Benjamin Todd Jealous said the cartoon printed Wednesday was "an invitation to assassination.'' . . .

CAIRO (AP) _ Sudan's president is seeking Egypt's help to "delay or halt'' the International Criminal Court from issuing an arrest warrant for his role in suppressing the Darfur rebellion, Sudan's ambassador to Cairo said Sunday. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir traveled to Cairo and held talks with his Egyptian counterpart about Darfur, where a six-year rebellion by ethnic Africans against the Arab-dominated government has claimed 300,000 lives. . . .

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama has committed hundreds of billions of dollars to help revive the economy and is working on a plan to cut the federal deficit in half by the end of his first term. . . . an administration official Saturday, speaking on condition of anonymity because the president has not yet released his budget for the fiscal year 2010, which begins Oct. 1, said the deficit will be shrunk by scaling back Iraq war spending, ending the temporary tax breaks enacted by the Bush administration for those making $250,000 or more a year, and streamlining government. . . .

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Brace yourself: The recession is projected to worsen this year.
The country stands to lose a sizable chunk of economic activity in 2009 as consumers at home and abroad retrench in the face of persistent economic troubles. And the U.S. unemployment rate -- now at 7.6 percent, the highest in more than 16 years -- is expected hit a peak of 9 percent this year. . . .

WASHINGTON (NNPA) – House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), the highest ranking Black member of Congress, has asked President Barack Obama to consider the public health-oriented president of a historically Black university for the post of secretary of Health and Human Services.
Clyburn is pushing New Orleans native Wayne J. Riley, a specialist in internal medicine, who has been president of Nashville's Meharry Medical College for two years. He says Riley would be ideal for the job, in part because of his consistent focus on the disparate rates of health care coverage, illness, and death in Black and other racial minority communities. . . .

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama promised quick help for strapped Medicaid programs Monday as he brought in advisers and adversaries to discuss keeping entitlement programs from exploding the federal deficit.
Obama's summit at the White House, which was coming at close of a three-day meeting of the nation's governors, was the first such forum of his young presidency designed specifically to get at problems threatening the long-term fiscal health of the nation. It came as Obama gets ready to disclose ambitious plans to slash the federal deficit in half within four years. . . .

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI has rescued more than 45 suspected teenage prostitutes, some as young as 13, in a nationwide sweep to remove kids from the illegal sex trade and punish their accused pimps.
Over a three-night initiative called Operation Cross Country, federal agents working with local law enforcement also arrested more than 50 alleged pimps, according to preliminary bureau data. . . .

SALEM, Ore. (AP) -- Sheriffs around Oregon have been sending an unusual letter to holders of concealed weapons permits with this message: If you don't want the public to know you've got a permit, we'll try to help you out.
The letter from the sheriffs says newspapers and others are trying to get lists of people who have concealed handgun permits, sparking a legal challenge that's pending in the Oregon Court of Appeals. . . .