Yes, it’s been wet and cold.  In some parts of Oregon where they keep records, May was the wettest and coldest in almost a decade.  All of that rain is dampening the spirits of Willamette Valley farmers.  Some are as much as three weeks behind on plowing and planting because of the mucky field conditions–and a wheat rust fungus has proliferated.  Meteorologists say the mild winter and wet spring are typical of El Nino years.

The Linn County SWAT team–Sheriff’s deputies and police from Sweet Home, Albany, and Lebanon–were called out to Holley yesterday to a domestic disturbance situation that became a standoff.  23-year old Maja Howery reported at about 4:15 AM that her 34-year old boyfriend Ryan Holley had been violent, and moody over the weekend.  She was escorted to safety, and officers surrounded the house.  They entered after using tear gas, but Holley was gone.  He turned himself in later, and was taken to jail on assault, strangulation and menacing charges.

The projected 562.6 million dollar State of Oregon budget defecit for the rest of the biennium has grown to 577 million dollars….because of smoking.  The State Economist’s  office says it missed something….cigarette tax revenues are down 14.5 million dollars.  Governor Kulongoski wants across-the-board nine percent agency cuts to make up the defecit.  Republicans and even some Democrats say the legislature should be called into special session to make targeted cuts more in line with the priorities of Oregonians.

A woman and her two kids were stuck on a back country road in the snow by her gps unit over the weekend in southern Oregon.  Rescuers say she was just 15 minutes away from her campsite destination along the Rogue River when her gps unit sent her on a snowy detour.  Thankfully, her cell phone had a signal, and rescuers actually say her errant gps unit helped them reach her by giving them her latitude and longitude.

Senator Jeff Merkley wants to end subsidies and tax credits that encourage domestic oil drilling for the country’s biggest oil producers.  Merkley and two other senators are also calling for punative measures against what they call tax loopholes, like the one that allows oil companies to claim oil drilling and production as manufacturing, and the provision that allows oil companaies to claim depreciation on their wells as they peter out.  He says big oil companies are doing well, even in the recession, so it’s time to penalize them and use the money he estimates at 20 billion dollars to subsidize green energy companies.  The bill would only apply, he says, to oil companies with revenues of 100 million dollars a year or more.

The next time you go to Springfield, you can drop a couple of quarters into a red parking meter and help a homeless person smell sweeter.  City officials are putting up two dozen used parking meters,  freshly painted red, to collect donations for the homeless.  Fifty cents buys a shower, a dollar buys a meal, and so on.  The program is modeled after one in Denver that really cut down on downtown panhandling.  Springfield hopes businesses will ‘sponsor’ more meters to make the program grow.

The U.S. Diplomatic Security Service is releasing some background info on the man who stole a dead three year old’s i.d. years ago.  The man calling himself Jason Evers has refused to give his real name.  Agents say he would have dissappeared from his old life in 1996 at age 17 to 25.  He speaks with an East Coast accent and sometimes uses street-type Spanish.  He may have gone by the nickname Smiley.  He may have a father in the Florida prison system.  He is reported to be of above average intelligence, and he’s a very good chess player.  If you think you who he really is, call–collect if you need to–206-220-7721.

Food Stamp use is way up in Oregon.  More than 700-thousand Oregonians got free government food last month…about the population of Portland and Salem combined.  That means nearly one out of every five Oregonians is on the dole–up from one in six just months ago.  The national average is one in eight.  State welfare officials say they’re seeing more first-timers apply, as their unemployment benefits run out.  The biggest jump in Food Stamp demand was in the Portland area.

Just days before the 30th anniversary of the Mount St. Helens eruption, Mount Hood may be rumbling to life.  Mount Hood has been the scene of a swarm of earthquakes, which can precede a dormant volcano coming to life again.  The largest quake measured 3.o on the Richter scale, Friday afternoon.  U.S. Geological Survey volcanologists say swarms of small quakes have shaken the mountain for about a month.  They say they don’t think Mount Hood is going to erupt, but they’re watching their instruments.

Sweet Home Police arrested four adults and took three children into DHS protection during a drug raid Wednesday morning.  Chief Bob Burford said the raid on 1155 Elm Street yielded numerous pre-packaged bags of methamphetamine, prescription drugs, scales, drug records, two pistols and a shotgun.  The same house had been raided in January after a burglary at a local funeral home.  Arrested on various drug and child neglect charges were 33-year old Jonathon Keil, and 28-year old Catherine Denton.  They were taken to jail.  25-year old Christina Marr and 63-year old George Drexler were arrested for frequenting the place.  They were cited and released.

A 23-year old Oregon City man broke down and blubbered like a three year old in court as he was sentenced to 26 years in prison for the brutal scalding and near-drowning of a three year old boy.  Derek Piskorski exibited ‘sadism’ and took no responsibility for the torture, according to the Clackamas County judge who handed down the sentence.  Police say Piskorski began dating the boy’s mother about six months before his January arrest.  The mom pleaded guilty to reduced charges for failing to stop the abuse.

The new University of Oregon president wants the legislature to let him issue a billion dollars worth of bonds.  He says the bond issue would be the first of its kind in the nation.  It would be designed to assure that the U of O is well-funded even if  Oregonians go through another recession and have to cut back.  Richard Lariviere’s plan didn’t sit well with lawmakers–even Liberal ones.  House Speaker Dave Hunt compared the idea to giving his kids a 30-year advance on their allowance.

Trucks over 10,000 pounds GVW are banned from the highway 99E bridge in Harrisburg this week, while repair work is done.  Damage from a May 3rd incident in which a boom truck hit the bridge was worse than initial estimates.  So this week, only cars and pickups will be allowed to use the bridge…heavier trucks will be detoured around Harrisburg.  The bridge may close completely tomorrow night  and Wednesday night.  Repairs should be completed this weekend.

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.