PORTLAND, Ore. - A threatening note referencing the Virginia Tech massacre found yesterday in the Rock Creek campus bathroom of Portland Community College (PCC) prompted an immediate evacuation and cancellation of classes for the remainder of the day and today.   PCC Rock Creek Campus According to a news release, Washington County Sheriff’s deputies were called to the campus about 12:30 p.m. to assist PCC security when an employee found the note in one of the bathrooms ... [full story]

NEW YORK - Imported ingredients for human food will be inspected for contamination as part of the U.S. Food and Drug administration's probe into tainted pet food. The agency announced in New York Tuesday it will also expand testing for livestock food after pigs in California, North and South Carolina were quarantined and a poultry farm in Missouri was under investigation, CNN reported Wednesday. Traces of melamine, used in making plastic, has been found in ... [full story]

Attorney General Hardy Myers this week announced the conviction of Don Andrew Nguyen, a former Portland area convenience store retailer, for violations of the state’s tobacco tax laws. Don Nguyen, the former owner and operator of Junior’s II Grocery, plead guilty last week to four separate felony counts of unlawful distribution of tobacco products in Marion County Circuit Court. The case was investigated and prosecuted by officials from the Tobacco Compliance Task Force, which includes ... [full story]

BEIJING - The second most revered Tibetan Buddhist lama, the Panchen Lama, turned 18 on Wednesday but his whereabouts for the past 13 years is unknown. The Dalai Lama named Gendun Cheokyi Nyima as Panchen in 1994 but the Chinese government intervened and named their own Panchen a year later. Gendun disappeared and Tibetan sympathizers claim he is being held in house arrest, the BBC reported. "It's most likely that he's being held somewhere in ... [full story]

ANN ARBOR, Mich. - Warren E. Avis, a Michigan car dealer who tired of waiting for a taxi and founded his own car rental agency, has died at 92. Avis died Tuesday at his home in Ann Arbor, Mich. In 1946, when Avis opened his first Avis Airline Rent-A-Car operations in Florida and Michigan, his rivals were all downtown so he moved to the airport. Avis, known for the "We Try Harder" slogan, clicked and ... [full story]

STRASBOURG, France - Europe should not expect a new U.S. climate change policy after the Bush administration, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union said in Strasbourg. "I don't think it matters which party controls the White House or the Congress," Ambassador C. Boyden Gray told the Financial Times. "The Democrats have signaled very, very strongly in the House of Representatives that the world will have to have China and India engaged before there will ... [full story]

BAGHDAD - The U.S. military said Wednesday it killed an al-Qaida leader in Iraq who specialized in training suicide bombers northwest of Baghdad. The man was identified in a statement as Muhammad Abdullah Abbas al-Issawi the al-Qaida "security emir" in Anbar province, Iran's Press TV reported. "During the operation, the terrorists engaged ground forces with small arms fire," the statement said. "Coalition forces used appropriate self-defense measures and engaged the armed men, killing two and ... [full story]

JERUSALEM - Israeli forces want to erect a security fence through the Judean Desert over the objections of environmentalists and settlers, the Jerusalem Post reported. Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz ordered construction on the barrier to stop in January and told Israeli forces to come up with "technological alternatives" to the physical barrier, the newspaper said. A senior official told the Post that officials found no alternative to protect the area from militants but to ... [full story]

KNOX CITY, Mo. - A woman was killed and two men seriously injured Monday afternoon when a small homemade aircraft crashed in a field and caught on fire near Knox City, Missouri. According to Missouri State Highway Patrol (MSHP) Sgt. Brent J. Bernhardt, the plane piloted by Gene Underland was enroute from Spicer, Minnesota to Florida when it crashed for unknown reasons. A MSHP trooper saw smoke coming from a field about one mile northwest ... [full story]

ROANOKE, Va. - A woman said Cho Seung-hui hired her to dance for him in a Roanoke, Va., motel room a month before the Virginia Tech shootings. Chastity Frye told WSLS-TV in Roanoke that Cho hired her through an escort service, ABC News reported. "He was so quiet. I really couldn't get much from him. He was so distant. He really didn't like to talk a lot," said Frye. "It seemed like he wasn't all ... [full story]