The Bonneville Power Administration says Spring wasn’t snowy enough to make up for a dry Winter in the Cascades.  A low snowpack means less surplus power to put on the market at reduced rates later this year.  A BPA spokesman says Northwest hydro dams don’t store much water…it has to be stored over the winter as snow to make for a good year with abundant low-cost hydro power.

A new nationwide study says about one in every six kids from age 10 to 17 is obese.  But Oregon came in with the lowest rate of childhood obesity of any state in the Union.  National health officials say Oregon kids could still use some excercise–one in ten of them is obese.  Still, Oregon was the only state where childhood obesity declined from 2003 to 2007.

DNA technology may have  solved a 1971 Klamath County murder this month.  But the suspect killed himself.  OSP says the now-64-year old man took his own life after officers showed up at his house with a warrant for his DNA.  19-year old Joyce Cross was raped and her skull crushed in 1971.  Semen samples from her clothing were saved, so a cold-case unit began looking into the killing anew in 2008.  In 2009, an OSP detective saw an old man open a bag of peanuts with his teeth at a baseball game.  He was a 1971 suspect.  The DNA on that peanut bag matched the 1971 evidence.   Murder, 1971–Suicide, 2010???

The company that makes liquid Tylenol, Tylenol Plus, Motrin, Zyrtec, and Benedryl   for infants and children has turned itself in to the FDA for defects and is mounting a massive recall.  McNeil company spokespeople say some of the medicines are more powerful than indicated on the label, and in some cases, the bottles contain foreign substances.  For more information call 1-888-222-6036.

A Portland newspaper says police paid an informant to have sex with a prostitute.  The story in the Portland Mercury says police used 150 dollars from their evidence fund for the informant to get the goods on a suspected prostitute by engaging in a sex act for money–the police’s money.  Arrest reports show that the po-po nailed the woman shortly after her motel room hook-up with the informant.  A Portland Police spokeswoman says police don’t really have rules for using evidence money in prostitution cases, but she says, after all, they use evidence money to buy drugs before arresting dealers…………..

Another Oregon National Guard unit has been called up to the Middle East.  Soldiers headquartered in La Grande,  Baker, Ontario, Hermiston, Pendleton, and The Dalles received orders to deploy in November.  A total of 2700 members of the 116th Cavalry Brigade headquartered in Boise, Idaho, with units in Oregon and Montana will take part.  Their training will take place in Mississippi.  The unit was deployed to Iraq in 2004 and 2005.

Please click on the link below to see some more amazing images of the Volcano in Iceland.

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One more welcome-home ceremony has been added for members of Oregon’s 41st brigade of the National Guard, just home from Iraq.  Tomorrow (Fri) there will be a demobilization ceremony in Eugene at the Lane County Fairgrounds at 1:30 PM.  After that, a convoy of at least two busses full of soldiers will travel up I-5 to Highway 34, head over the Harrison Street bridge into Corvallis, and up Kings Boulevard to the National Guard Armory.  The party is open to the public.  The soldiers should arrive at about 4:30 PM.

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin speaks at a Eugene GOP fundraiser tomorrow night (Fri).  Her security bill will be paid by the Lane County Republicans, who expect to clear about $190,ooo from the rally.  Eugene Police say overtime costs for a public appearance of this kind could cost up to $20,000–but Palin’s speech is counted as a private event, so the GOP will foot the bill for cops and private security people.  If you’re quick, you might still get a $100 ticket that will get you into an overflow room to watch the speech on big screen TV.

The Beaverton middle school teacher, Jason Levin, who started a website urging Tea Party opponents to infiltrate the group, show up at Tea Party rallies with misspelled signs, shout racial epithets and otherwise behave badly to discredit the movement has been put on administrative leave by his school district.  The district says it will investigate whether Levin used school time and property to set up his ‘crashtheteaparty’ website, as pro-Tea Party computer experts say he did.  Still not getting much respect from the Oregon political establishment, the Tea Partyers were characterized by state Democratic Party Executive Director Trent Lutz as ‘a small group of disgruntled people’, and ‘an extremist, out-of-step faction of the Republican Party’.

DMV offices will be closed Friday, April 16 

Friday is a mandatory statewide unpaid closure for most state offices

The Oregon DMV headquarters and all DMV field offices throughout the state will be closed Friday, April 16. The closure is the fourth of 10 statewide mandatory unpaid “furlough” days for employees scheduled through June 2011.

However, during these closures, customers still can do business with DMV by mail or online. Online services include most passenger vehicle registration renewals, change of address and notice of sale of your vehicle.

DMV offices will reopen on their regularly scheduled days and times after the furlough day.

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A Mid-Willamette Valley group is holding a Pre-Tea Party rally on Saturday, April 10th, from 11 AM to 1 PM in the parking lot of the Original Breakfast, at 3225 Santiam Highway SE in Albany.  It’s right off the freeway at exit 233.  Organizers ask you to park in the back and bring a sign expressing your views. There will be a prize for the best sign!! At the rally will be speakers, candidates, and an opportunity to walk the sidewalks around the area as a warm-up for a bigger Tax Day rally in Salem on April 15th.

U of O President Richard Lariviere says he asked Mike Bellotti to leave the university after Bellotti told him about an opportunity for a job at ESPN.  But he stopped short of saying Bellotti was fired.  Lariviere said although the university had its highest football revenue ever this past season, the Athletic Department still needed ‘an individual with experience handling the financial and business aspects of a complex program”.  He said Bellotti did not have those credentials despite his coaching success, so it was agreed that Bellotti would leave.  Paying Bellotti 2.3 million dollars was fair, he said, based on a verbal contract Bellotti had–something Lariviere said would never happen again.  The money comes from private donors, and is not taxpayer money, he said.  The Oregon Justice Department and the Board of Higher Education are both looking into the matter.

Oregon doctors and hospitals are looking forward to increased Medicare reimbursements negotiated by Congressman Peter Defazio before he flipped his health care vote to ‘yes’.  That’s according to Defazio.  Defazio had threatened a ‘no’ vote over the issue of low Medicare reimbursements in Oregon and 16 other states.  He said he had to play hardball with the Obama administration, and ‘get out the steel bats’.  He says Oregon hospitals should see an immediate 1.5% reimbursement increase, and doctors will see 4% more, as part of  a deal that dedicates about 400 million dollars extra to 17 low Medicare-reimbursed states over the next two years.  A full fix is estimated to cost hundreds of billions of dollars.

The Oregon Attorney General’s office is warning Oregon property owners about a California company flooding the mail with bogus property tax relief notices.  The mailings contain official-sounding phrases like, ‘regional processing center’, and, ‘2010 property tax reduction form’.  The company offers to attempt to lower property taxes for a $189 fee.  The AG’s office says anyone can do that for free at any county Assessor’s office.  If you have sent money to the scammers, call the Oregon Consumer Hotline at 1-877-877-9392.

The Eugene parking meter good samaritan has been acquitted.  A Eugene judge ruled that the city prosecutor had n0t proven that Ben Bond threatened to commit a crime against meter maid Maria Velasquez.  Bond went so far as to say that Velasquez lied in court when she testified that he told her he was going to keep her from doing her job, and called her names in a profanity-laced tirade.  Witnesses for Bond said he seemed calm at the time and Velasquez did not seem frightened as she testified.  After the acquittal, Bond said he would express his displeasure and race ahead of a meter maid to feed meters all over again.

There is a new Facebook Virus Alert. If you recieve any email that asks you to reset your password or open any attachment please delete the email without opening it.

According to the McAfee blog, “this threat is potentially very dangerous considering that there are over 400 million Facebook users who could fall for this scam. This is also the sixth most prevalent piece of malware targeting consumers in the last 24 hours, as tracked by McAfee Labs.”

Facebook would never send an email of this nature and “Dear user of facebook” in the first line is a good indication that this is a spam email. Delete the email completely.