Obama has an ambitious jobs plan. President-elect Barack Obama has an ambitious goal in mind when it comes to creating jobs over the next couple years. With the economy flying apart at the seams, 3 million to 4 million jobs could dry up over the next year, spiking the unemployment rate to an astronomical 9 percent, according to Vice-President-elect Joseph Biden. In what has become the worst economy since World War II, General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler have announced that they will close five dozen manufacturing plants over the next month – mainly because Americans have stopped buying cars. Read the rest here.

Portland preachers stand strong against violence. About a dozen Black Portland, Ore., preachers, fed up with the street violence rocking their city, have taken to the streets to demand that the gangbangers drop their guns and usher in a new era of peace. “The issue is urgent. Our house is on fire. Our children are dying. We need to take immediate action,” said the Rev. LeRoy Haynes Jr., at Northeast Portland’s Allen Temple Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. His call comes a week after the fatal shooting of a 30-year-old on Dec. 12, inside of New Hope Missionary Baptist Church. In this “unthinkable travesty,” as the Rev. Robert C. Jointer of New Hope calls it, Darshawn Cross, a gang member, was attending a noon funeral service when he got into a fight with Latwan Brown, a member of a rival gang. Police and witnesses said Cross suspected Brown was the man who shot him in the stomach four months ago. Brown was handed a gun by somebody else at the service and unloaded four shots into Cross, who slumped to the floor of the church. The pastors want the violence to stop and for Brown to turn himself in to authorities. “We call upon Latwan Brown to surrender himself to the Portland Police Bureau and take responsibility for the actions he has done,” Haynes said. “We plead to the family members to encourage him to surrender. Then we call upon the witnesses to do their moral and civic responsibility by contacting police.”

Oregon university lynches an Obama image. George Fox University in Oregon may be a Christian school, but you’d never know it by the way some of its students behave. On campus Tuesday, somebody lynched a life-sized cardboard dummy of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. George Fox University President Robin Baker said that a custodian found the six-foot cutout of Obama swinging from a tree on campus and removed it – sending a chilling historic flashback through the minds of its African-American students. Between the late-19^th century and mid-20^th century, Blacks were routinely lynched throughout the South and Midwest, often for nothing other than having darker skin. Sometimes successful African Americans were lynched by Whites who were merely jealous of their accomplishments. Obama, a Harvard graduate, Grammy winner, best-selling author and millionaire is the first Black person to land a major-party presidential nomination. The image of Obama was accompanied by a note: “Act Six reject.” A minority scholarship program at the university is called “Act Six.” Baker told The Associated Press that he met with the students in Act Six who are on full scholarship, noting that he had another meeting scheduled for the entire student body this week.

Kevin Duckworth dies in Oregon.

A former Portland Trail Blazers center has died of unknown causes. Kevin Duckworth, who retired from the NBA in 1997, was discovered not breathing at Salishan Lodge on the central coast of Gleneden Beach Monday night. The Depoe Bay Fire Department responded to a call that Duckworth was down. A medical examiner will determine what caused the ex-player’s death, but foul play was not suspected. Duckworth averaged 11.8 points and 5.8 rebounds over 11 seasons in the NBA, helping Portland reach the NBA finals in 1990 and 1992. “Kevin will be remembered by fans as one of the most popular and recognizable players to ever wear the Blazers uniform, but to people who knew him, he’ll be remembered as one of the warmest and biggest-hearted,” Blazers president Larry Miller says.