Columbian business editor Julia Anderson is retiring later this month, ending a long career with the paper. As Publisher Lou Brancaccio told employees today in an email, features editor Elisa Williams set to replace her:

I am very pleased to announce that Features Editor Elisa Williams will take on the responsibilities of business editor as well.

Elisa brings to the table solid management experience (she's been both an assistant metro editor as well as working in her current position) and also a wealth of business experience.

Please join with me in congratulating Elisa. She will take over the position after Business Editor Julia Anderson retires February 26.

We also will begin looking for a business reporter. Elisa will be in charge of that search.

Prior to joining The Columbian in 2003, Williams was a Los Angeles staff writer for Forbes magazine. She's also covered business for The Oregonian, The Orange County Register and The Palm Beach Post.

Williams tells OMC, "I'm thrilled about the opportunity to oversee two sections. It will be a wonderful challenge."

The Columbian in Vancouver today announced that it has emerged from bankruptcy. It's the paper's lead story online.

Bank of America gets ownership of the six-story building constructed for the paper by the publisher's own company, Downtown Vitality Partners. The Columbian moved into the building in early 2008 but decided within the year to return to its previous location in a cost-saving move. The paper went on to declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May of last year.

Publisher Scott Campbell told employees this morning, "This county deserves to have a locally owned newspaper."

The Campbell family has owned The Columbian since 1921.

In eight days, over half a million Oregon and Southwest Washington residents will be subscribers to something they've never heard of before: Xfinity. Comcast's residential television, internet and voice products will bear that new name in eleven markets, including Portland and the entire stretch of service from Longview, Washington to Eugene. The rest of the country will make the switch over the coming year.

Portland was the first market where Comcast converted to digital service, and the Xfinity name is intended to communicate that difference and more, said Comcast CEO Brian Roberts on yesterday's earnings call. "I think we are giving a better and better service experience," he said.

The renaming also introduces a new brand between consumers and Comcast, with Comcast remaining the name at the top of customers' bills. Comcast's beleaguered brand placed second in Consumerist's Worst Company in America surveys in 2008 and 2009, surpassed only by economic disasters AIG and Countrywide Financial, which have also rebranded. Comcast didn't mention any negative associations with its brand in its earnings call.

The Xfinity name will also be added to Fancast, the company's online video service. Comcast customers will retain their existing comcast.net email addresses.

The Columbian's website has a cleaner look and new features today, which the paper says are in beta testing. From the FAQ:

The Columbian has updated its Web site in an effort to make the site more stable and make sure that users have a seamless experience while viewing and interacting with content on the site.

The new site also allows a user to personalize their experience with commenting, ratings of stories, a personal wall, and a blog. Users can connect with others on the site and get reminders about events.

Changes have also been made to search, navigation, mobile access, photos, video, and social networking integration, the FAQ explains.

Comcast Cable tells Oregon Media Central that they have resolved the reception problems that have affected customers in Oregon and Southwest Washington recently, most notably for the past two nights.

"First, we apologize for any inconvenience to customers who have experienced intermittent video issues, often times called tiling," Comcast said in a statement. "Our engineers have been working diligently to identify the root cause of the problem and resolve it, and customers should not experience any interruption this evening."

Viewers from Vancouver to Eugene reported experiencing severe tiling problems and audio loss, including in our forums. Theressa Davis, Comcast's Vice President of Communications in Oregon, told OMC that the trouble "stemmed from how the signals are transported around the regional network."

While some had speculated that demand during primetime was exceeding bandwidth, Davis said that there wasn't any one cause as direct as that. "Any number of things" could be a factor in the routing, she said.

Davis also pointed out that "many, many customers didn't experience any interruptions." Rather, the problems "affected certain parts of the system at different times."

Many customers had said that the trouble was particularly severe with OPB, but it's unclear why. It's possible that OPB viewers were simply more irritated by the video issues because they occurred during a Ken Burns documentary that featured high-definition scenic photography.

There was "no channel disparity" with the video issues, Davis said, though the episodic nature of the problems could have made them worse for one channel at a particular time.

One customer noted in our comments that they received a free week of service credited to their account after reporting the issue. Davis says that Comcast is working with customers on a case-by-case basis.

While Comcast doesn't anticipate continued problems tonight, anyone experiencing trouble should contact 1-800-COMCAST. You can also leave a comment to this story, and we'll contact an executive if troubles persist.

Below the break, see videos of the problem, which viewers have uploaded to the internet.

Reporter Isolde Raftery and courts reporter Stephanie Rice are leaving their posts at The Columbian in Vancouver next month.

Raftery, who has been with the Clark County newspaper since February 2007, told OMC she will be attending the University of Oregon's literary nonfiction program. She says the program's director, Lauren Kessler, "has a reputation for being a tough and excellent editor, for meticulously picking apart writing and reporting styles. After five years reporting, I felt as though I needed that kick in the pants." Her last day with the paper is August 5.

Following her six days later will be Rice, who leaves to become a private investigator after 13 years with The Columbian. As a PI, "I'll basically be interviewing people and looking up public records, which are the favorite parts of my newspaper job," she says. She'll be working for Gary Rice (no relation), who owns Protective Security Investigations in Vancouver and assists defense attorneys on indigent felony cases.

Says Raftery, "This is a pretty bittersweet move for me, as I really, really respect my coworkers (reporters like they used to make 'em * salty cynics who don't take boo for an answer), and I'm gonna miss some of my sources something fierce."

"But that's why God invented Facebook," she says.

OMC has learned that both positions at the paper will be filled. The departures appear unrelated to the finances of The Columbian, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy restructuring in May.

UPDATE (7/29, 3:11pm): Sports reporter Brian Hendrickson also recently left The Columbian. Reporter Brian T. Smith from the Bristol Herald-Courier in Tennessee replaces him next week.

• Portland Mercury freelancer Paul Leonard has been hired as managing editor of the Vancouver Business Journal. Congratulations, Paul! Read all about it from the VBJ and the Merc.
• In a freak tragedy, Ray Shaw, chairman of American City Business Journals, parent of the Portland Business Journal, died Sunday from complications of a bee sting. He was 75.
• "Wage Slaves," the new Portland-based web comedy, premiered its pilot episode today.
• We're a little late to this, but via Portland Mercury intern Will Radick's I'm in your water, did you know OregonLive has a police scanner on their site?
• And Tara Dublin, formerly of Portland's 94/7fm KNRK, has a post up on the anxiety of finding a job after being let go as a DJ. Best of luck to you, Tara!

Speaking of money issues, we received a donation yesterday after a bit of a dry stretch. And while she doesn't want us to make a big deal of it, we're happy to report it's from Lynn Siprelle, formerly of Oregon Media Insiders. Thank you, Lynn! Donations really are the only way this site is staying online. We're working on getting an advertising system set up, but it's a lot slower going than we'd like. Even then, it's unlikely to be enough to keep us alive. If you'd like OMC to continue, there's a big shiny donate button on the left for any amount, big or small. Thank you for your generosity!