In collaboration with Travel Portland and Amtrak Cascades, Ace Hotel and The Stranger have launched Trainsetters -- a program that encourages train travel from Seattle to Portland and supports Portland's independent shops this holiday season. The program is aimed at an emerging travel market: younger travelers who are sick of the hassle and high costs of driving and air travel, and who prefer the train's practical and aesthetic benefits. Trainsetters will be promoted via design collaborations between The Stranger and Ace Hotel, including postcards, posters and custom coffee sleeves on the train, ads in The Stranger, and also on the web at www.trainsetters.com.

Continue ReadingThe Stranger and Ace Hotel Launch ‘Trainsetters’ Program

For the past five years, as part of its annual Give!Guide, which this year features 55 worthy Portland nonprofits, the paper has honored young nonprofit leaders with the Skidmore Prize. At a ceremony last week, the four recipients (Katy Kolker, Amy Harwood, Rodolfo Serna and Polly Bangs) each got a plaque and a check for $4,000 from WW publisher Richard Meeker and Multnomah County Commissioner Ted Wheeler. Read more about the honorees and their work here.

Continue ReadingWillamette Week Honors This Year’s Skidmore Prize Winners

When First Night, the annual New Year's Eve celebration, was trying to find an artist to create buttons for this year's festival, it turned to Boston's Weekly Dig. First Night spokeswoman Joyce Linehan tells the Boston Globe that once organizers decided they wanted an illustrator, they asked staffers at the paper for recommendations, since they work with illustrators all the time.

Continue ReadingLooking for an Illustrator, First Night Boston Turns to the Dig

Ken Edelstein was fired today after a decade as an editor at Creative Loafing's flagship paper, according to Atlanta Magazine's Steve Fennessy. Edelstein reportedly had a "heated meeting" last week with CL CEO Ben Eason over the implementation of further editorial cuts. "The meeting made it clear that Ben and I have very deep philosophical differences about what's best for the company and its employees," Edelstein tells Fennessy. More from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Continue ReadingCreative Loafing (Atlanta) Editor Fired

Atalaya Capital Management, which lent CL's Ben Eason $30 million to buy the Chicago Reader and Washington City Paper, has filed a motion (pdf file) asking that Eason not be allowed to hire the investment banking firm Skyway Capital Partners to help him emerge from bankruptcy. The main thrusts of Atalaya's argument are that Skyway is not a disinterested party, that Skyway's role will extend beyond mere financial advising into possibly brokering a sale of CL, and that Skyway is not a competent financial advisor. More from the Reader's Michael Miner.

Continue ReadingCreative Loafing Creditor Objects to Hiring of Financial Advisor

An ad placed by the Albuquerque Police Department this week in The Alibi asks "people who hang out with crooks" to do part-time work for the police, the AP reports. The ad reads, in part: "Make some extra cash! Drug use and criminal record OK." Capt. Joe Hudson says the department received more than 30 responses in two days.

Continue ReadingAlbuquerque Police Turn to Alt-Weekly to Find New Snitches

In the eighteenth installment of this year's "How I Got That Story" series, Jake Bernstein talks about his story for The Texas Observer that revealed the state's governor had amassed a huge database of information on Texas' citizens without them knowing it. The story came to Bernstein, who is now a reporter at ProPublica, via a tip, and sparked immediate reactions. "It was one of the most instantaneous responses I've ever had to a story," Bernstein says. "Literally, within hours of us posting it on our website, people were talking about it on the Texas House floor." He explains to Angelica Herrera how he pieced together the story, his opinion on anonymous sources, and the ultimate impact of his story.

Continue ReadingHow I Got That Story: Jake Bernstein