Phoenix on Mars

One of the first images from the Phoenix Mars Lander shows the surface of Mars after the Phoenix Mars Lander spacecraft landed successfully in the first-ever touchdown near Mars' north pole at the mission control room of the Jet Propulsion lab in Pasadena, California May 25, 2008.

REUTERS/NASA,JPL, Caltech, University of Arizona/Handout

Downtown Portland gets snow -- and snowboarders -- in May

Joseph Rose, The Oregonian

Downtown Portland got dumped with snow Friday. Well, Pioneer Courthouse Square anyway.

Yes, it's the end of May. But the 60 tons of snow that landed in Portland's "living room" didn't fall from the sky. It arrived by dump truck from the slopes of Mount Hood.

The organizers of the Cricket Wireless Campus Rail Jam snowboarding championship paid about $2,500 to have six dump trucks haul snow down from the mountain.

Joseph Rose of The Oregonian was in the square to catch the dumping, shoveling and boarding.

It's dumping snow in downtown Portland

Reach out, save a child that dies from basic illnesses

More than 200 million children worldwide under age 5 do not get basic health care, leading to nearly 10 million deaths annually from treatable ailments like diarrhea and pneumonia, a U.S.-based charity said Wednesday.

Save the Children: http://www.savethechildren.org

Come on home

About 3,500 American soldiers who were part of last year's troop "surge" are scheduled to leave Iraq in the coming weeks, the U.S. military announced.