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An announcement of momentous import was made at the April 26th 2012 Board of County Commissioners meeting of Clackamas County, Oregon. Commissioner Jamie Damon revealed that Clackamas County would not be renewing their membership in “ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability USA” at the next annual dues deadline. Commissioner Jamie Damon stated, “This was brought up several business meetings ago, and I was unfamiliar with the organization, so I did some research and looked up the organization as well. And we have decided to not continue as members of ICLEI. So I just wanted to let you know that.” The remaining...

PORTLAND, Ore. -- The equivalent of 95 full-time positions in the Oregon court system will be eliminated by May 1 and administrators worry about the effects on people who want swift resolution to legal problems. The Oregonian reports the layoffs will mean fewer employees to accept payments for tickets, answer questions, pull files from archives and staff courtrooms. The latest staff cutbacks will mean the loss of 296 positions since 2009, a 17 percent decrease. Multnomah County trial court administrator Doug Bray says the cutbacks are the worst he's seen since the state started funding circuit courts in 1983. He...

Democrats in House of Reps. joined J Street in supporting Obama administration's attempt to force Israel into making painful concessions Seventy-four Democrats in the House of Representatives have joined the dovish J Street organization in supporting the Obama administration's attempt to force Israel into making painful concessions to the Palestinian Authority. “In our view, support for a two-state resolution is inseparable from such support for Israel, its special relationship with the United States, and its very survival as a democratic homeland for the Jewish people,” the letter said. Seven Jewish members signed the letter, including Reps. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), John...

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Police are investigating another flash mob theft by a group of teens, this time at Nordstrom at the Lloyd Center. Last week, a group of 16 teens converged on a Southeast Portland convenience store and stole merchandise and then ran out. Police are still investigating the incident. Friday's incident happened just after 8 p.m. Police interviewed employees of the store who said a group of approximately 10 African-American male teenagers were in the store and began taking items and putting them in bags before they ran out the southwest doors of the store toward Northeast 9th Avenue....

PORTLAND, Ore. -- A Civil War veteran who died years ago will finally be laid to rest this Friday in Portland. He was the youngest of 13 children, and the last one to die. And so, after he passed away, his remains laid unclaimed for 88 years. Alice Knapp's curiosity about her own family tree led her to Peter Knapp's remains. She still remembers taking possession of the box Peter's remains are in. "It was a gold box -- both he and his wife were placed in this gold box," Alice Knapp said. "It had a ribbon around it and...

M5.9 - [off] Bandon, OregonM7.0 - Arteaga, Mexico

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Police are hoping the public can help identify several kids who stormed a local gas station this past Saturday night and stole everything they could grab. On the surveillance video, one person came into the Chevron convenience store on SE 92nd and Foster. Then a second person came in and pretty soon, a large group of kids was packed into the shop. Soon, they were stealing anything they could, from drinks to gum to candy. Carlos Garcia was working Saturday night at around 11:30 p.m. when the incident happened. He said there were 16 kids in the...

LONDON — (March 26, 2012) — Resistance at individual and societal levels must be recognized and treated before real action can be taken to effectively address threats facing the planet from human-caused contributions to climate change. That's the message to this week's Planet Under Pressure Conference by a group of speakers led by Kari Marie Norgaard, professor of sociology and environmental studies at the University of Oregon. In a news briefing today, Norgaard discussed her paper and issues her group will address in a session Wednesday, March 28, at 2 p.m. London time (9 a.m. U.S. Eastern; 6 a.m. U.S....

Professor Kari Norgaard has followed the lead of all the other Liberals who can’t use data and facts to win their argument. Professor Norgaard, from the University of Oregon, says to deny Global Warming junk science is “racism.” But, it’s even more absurd than that. If you reject the junk data, corruption, and blatant grab for power that is the Green Movement she wants you diagnosed with a disease. And treated.

For the record, we don't especially care whether Oregon voters elect a labor commissioner in May or November. But we do care that election dates and other key decisions are made in an open, timely and fair process. By any measure, Secretary of State Kate Brown's belated "announcement" that the election for the statewide position of commissioner of the Bureau of Labor and Industries will be held in November, not May as everyone formerly believed, fails that test.

The man shot by Washington County tactical officers in New Columbia Tuesday night had grabbed a gun because he thought intruders were on his property after his wife had checked on their barking dog in their backyard and saw a stranger in dark clothing. Alberto Flores-Haro, according to relatives and witnesses, did not know that the men surrounding his home and neighborhood Tuesday night were authorities approaching to raid a residence just a few doors down from his home in the 9500 block of North Woolsey Avenue. "There was someone in our backyard, and my mom called our stepdad," said...

Dr. Peter Goodwin killed himself this week. He took advantage of Oregon’s 15-year-old assisted-suicide law, which allows residents of the Beaver State to score a legal dose of drugs by obtaining a prescription from an enabling physician. Goodwin happened to be one of the first physicians to voice support for Oregon’s euphemistically titled “Death With Dignity Act,” which took effect in late 1997. “I don’t think we would have aid in dying in Oregon without Dr. Goodwin,” said Barbara Coombs Lee, who worked closely with the former family physician to get the law the passed. Indeed, the late Dr. Goodwin’s...

The panel finds that department officials violated his free speech rights A federal jury ruled Wednesday night in favor of a former Eugene police officer who claimed in a lawsuit that his supervisors violated his free speech rights by transferring him from his job working with a police dog after he questioned the department’s response to multiple, inadvertent discharges of high-­powered weapons by SWAT team members. The jury ordered the city of Eugene to pay former officer Brian Hagen $50,000 in compensatory damages and $200,000 in punitive damages. The jury ruled unanimously that Hagen’s First Amendment rights were violated by...

Bishop-designate Liam S. Cary Baker, Ore., Mar 8, 2012 / 01:39 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Benedict XVI’s March 7 appointment of Fr. Liam Stephen Cary as the new bishop of Oregon’s Baker diocese was warmly received by Catholic bishops in the region.Archbishop John G. Vlazny of Portland, presently on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, praised the news and called Fr. Cary “one of Portland’s finest priests.”“For me, the appointment is bittersweet. The gain for the Diocese of Baker and the college of bishops is apparent. At the same time, the loss for the clergy and people of the Archdiocese...

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any weirder… The Obama Administration now wants to demolish three dams in northern California to supposedly save the salmon… But the whole reason to support the move was based on shoddy and inconclusive scientific data.

"FBI Seizes Computers of Portland Blogger For Allegedly Posting Sheriff Death Threat" SNIPPET: "If you're going to target the police, guess what happens next."

Feds: Unruly air traveler, 19, was "singing about Usama bin Laden" FEBRUARY 22--The man who repeatedly yelled “Allah is great” as he was removed yesterday from a plane that was forced to make an emergency landing due to his unruly behavior is a 19-year-old Saudi Arabian who was arrested Sunday night after he led Oregon police on a drunken car chase that saw him ram two cop cars and attempt to run over pedestrians, The Smoking Gun has learned. According to investigators, Yazeed Mohammed Abunayyan was smoking an electronic cigarette on a Continental Airlines flight traveling from Portland to Houston....

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Geothermal energy developers plan to pump 24 million gallons of water into the side of a dormant volcano in Central Oregon this summer to demonstrate new technology they hope will give a boost to a green energy sector that has yet to live up to its promise. They hope the water comes back to the surface fast enough and hot enough to create cheap, clean electricity that isn’t dependent on sunny skies or stiff breezes — without shaking the earth and rattling the nerves of nearby residents. Renewable energy has been held back by cheap natural gas, weak demand for...

In a move the technology sector will surely see as a victory, a controversial antipiracy bill being debated in Congress will no longer include a provision that would require ISPs to block access to overseas Web sites accused of piracy. Rep. Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas), one of the biggest backers of the Stop Online Piracy Act, today said he plans to remove the Domain Name System or DNS-blocking provision. "After consultation with industry groups across the country," Smith said in a statement released by his office, "I feel we should remove DNS-blocking from the Stop Online Piracy Act so that...