A major financial newspaper reports that the price of peanuts has gone from $450 a ton to $1150 a ton in just one year.  Skippy, Jiff, Planters and Peter Pan peanut butter producers have announced wholesale price increases of 25%-to-40%, beginning at the end of the month or next month.  The peanut harvest is short this year, due to droughts in Texas and Georgia, and some farmers rotating out of peanuts due to a glut on the market last year.  Be prepared for hefty price increases for that PBJ.

A couple is being charged with  two murders after being nabbed in California…and there may be a third murder charge.  An alert CHP trooper noticed the 1999 Plymouth Breeze believed to have been stolen from missing 19-year old Lafayette, Oregon man Cody Myers.  It was parked beside I-5 north of Sacramento.  After confirming that the car was wanted out of Oregon, a felony traffic stop took down David Pederson and Holly Ann Grigsby without incident.  The two are wanted for the bloody killing of Pederson’s step-mom in Everett, Washington,  and for the killing of Myers, whose body was found near Corvallis two days ago.  A 2010 Jeep Patriot, and Pederson’s dad are still missing.  Neither have been seen since the Everett murder.

About 15 local, state, and federal agencies are still looking for two people suspected of an Everett, Washington murder, who are thought to have killed or harmed a missing Lafayette, Oregon teen.  19-year old Cody Myers was last seen Saturday, headed to Newport.  However, today, investigators said the body of a young adult male was found in an undisclosed mid-Willamette Valley wooded location. ID and cause of death are pending an autopsy and notification of the victim’s family. Murder suspects David Pederson and Holly Ann Grigsby are thought to be driving Meyers’ white 1999 Plymouth Breeze in the area. They have been reported in Linn, Benton, Polk, and Marion counties.  31-year old suspect Pederson is 5-10, 165, short red hair and hazel eyes, with numerous tattoos on his upper body, and one on his cheek.  He and Grigsby are wanted for the bloody killing of Pederson’s step mother in Washington State.  Additional new information released today indicates that they may have traveled to Oregon in a 2010 black Jeep Patriot with Washington tags, missing from the step mother’s residence.  If you see the suspects or either car, call any police agency.  UPDATE–UPDATE  California Highway Patrol officers located the 1999 Plymouth Breeze being sought and took Pederson and Grigsby into custody north of Sacramento.

Tim Duy, the University of Oregon economist who publishes his index of Oregon economic indicators every month says the state now has a better than even chance of slipping into a double-dip recession.  His index has fallen for five months in a row, now.  Duy says another recession would further erode state revenue collections.  The Governor has already ordered state agencies to plan for a possible billion dollar shortfall within the current biennium.  Duy says the only good news for Oregon is that the economy here has crashed so hard, and rebounded so weakly that it can’t tank as fast and as hard as it did in 2008-2009.

Oregon Governor Kitzhaber says prison sentences are too expensive, and he blames conservative tough-on-crime initiatives.  Kitzhaber says Oregon officials and legislators have to have the ‘wisdom and courage’ to ignore the intent of the voter-passed measures, and reduce sentences for  criminals.  Kitzhaber says some criminals would be better ‘punished’ by being set free and monitored by  electronic bracelets, like Lindsey Lohan—others, he said, should be ‘punished’ by getting free taxpayer-paid drug and alcohol treatment, even though studies have shown a huge relapse rate among mandatory drug or alcohol treatment graduates.  Kitzhaber says such decades-old liberal ideas  would be less costly, and keep Oregon safer than longer prison sentences.  He made the remarks at the first meeting of his hand-picked “Sentencing Reform Committee”.

Oregon grocers say not to worry about the deadliest food-borne outbreak in decades in the U.S.—that the cantaloupes from the Jensen farm in Colorado tainted with listeria bacteria are not in the fruit bins at your store in Oregon.  But, before you get too comfortable, consider this: a California company has recalled bags of chopped romaine lettuce because it, too, may be contaminated with deadly listeria.  The brand name is “True Leaf Farms”.  The farm in Salinas, California shipped at least 90  cartons of bagged romaine lettuce to an Oregon distributor.  It has a sell-by date of September 29th.  If you have any, throw it away.

President Obama told an audience of rich supporters in Seattle over the weekend that the Republican vision for America–not raising taxes in a recession, reducing government bureaucracy and regulation on job-creation, reducing the deficit, drilling for American oil and natural gas, protecting the border,  resisting another multi-billion dollar thinly disguised pay-off to Democratic Party constituencies, whether it is called Stimulus-two or the Obama ‘jobs’ bill,  repealing or un-funding the unpopular, cost-ballooning, service slashing Obamacare bill, controlling the presently out-of-control cost of public employee pensions and benefits, and generally getting  big-government czars off the backs of Americans striving for excellence—that vision would “fundamentally cripple” the country.  Obama’s audience paid $36,000 a couple–so, for the moment, he stopped demonizing the rich.  He said he has tried nothing but sensible reforms since he took office to improve the economy and give people more opportunity.  His weekend campaign tour skipped Oregon.

Governor Kitzhaber has named a Democratic Party insider from Eugene to a newly-created job in his office.  Democratic political campaign war-room strategist Dan Carol will be Kitzhaber’s Director of Multi-state Issues, at an annual salary of more than 110-thousand dollars.  Kitzhaber says the Party insider worked on campaigns for Bill Clinton, Ron Wyden, Barak Obama, and, of course, he was a key member of the Kitzhaber campaign.  Carol will work with other states to develop Oregon jobs–keying in on green industries.  Carol has limited private business experience, but he founded or worked with several Environmentalist groups, and has been a Party power-player in Oregon since the 1990’s.

A group of millionaires is financing a new internet start-up–they’re starting up a third political party.  The group “Americans Elect” is launching a petition drive this week in Oregon to make the state’s 2012 Presidential ballot.  The group plans to nominate candidates for President and Vice President entirely online, and run them against the two major party candidates in 2012.  “Americans Elect” has already qualified for the ballot in six states, and says it has enough signatures for a seventh–California.  Internet advocates say the group could blow open the U.S. political process, as Amazon did to book selling, and as the Apple I-pod changed the music industry.

The Bureau of Land Management says a fossil found by employees is the oldest known beaver fossil ever found in North America.  The  beaver buck teeth found in northeastern Oregon are believed to be about seven million years old.  The earliest beaver fossils ever found were in Germany–about twelve million years old.  Scientists say beavers waddled their way across Asia and crossed the Bering Strait land bridge to Oregon.

A gadabout former Utah gubernatorial candidate has been arrested for base jumping–paragliding off the top of the 125-foot tall Astoria Column over the weekend.  The jump was made Saturday, and a video was immediately posted on Youtube by the jumper’s friends.  Then, Del Schanze hung around town.  He was arrested after he was spotted at the beach, basking in the glory.  He was cited and released.  Outside the jail, he said the government was stifling his creativity.  The city attorney calls the stunt a Class A Misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail and a thousand dollar fine.  A local paragliding guide says only a skilled jumper could make the difficult flight.  He said Schanze set a terrible example that could get an inexperienced copy-cat killed.

The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Department says researcher Audrey Magoun had it right when she said she tracked a wolverine in the Wallowa Mountains of northeastern Oregon.  Photos from a remote bait-triggered camera clearly show two of the rare animals.  Magoun says she turned the camera so that the next time the wolverines come back for a meal she will be able to get pictures of their underbellies and determine their sex.  Wolverines are a threatened species in Oregon.