3rd Oregon News Minute from the AP

Date: 04/10/2013 10:20 AM

OR–3rd NewsMinute/309
Here is the latest Oregon news from The Associated Press

 

SALEM, Ore. (AP) – About a dozen people carried signs in downtown Salem yesterday to protest the decision to allow a US Bank branch to cut down five mature trees. Demonstrator Mark Wigg told the Statesman Journal removing the trees would destroy what makes downtown Salem beautiful and unique. The bank says the trees obscure sight lines of the building and their roots crack the sidewalk and clog storm water lines.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) – About 50 Portland police officers have been selected for a new unit to respond to mental health crisis calls. Officers in the Enhanced Crisis Intervention Team remain on patrol but will be trained as the go-to responders for calls involving the mentally ill. The Oregonian reports the new unit is one of the initiatives recommend by the Justice Department after it found last year that Portland officers used excessive force against people with mental illness.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) – Oregon lawmakers are considering a bill intended to save the lives of young athletes who are hit in the chest by a baseball or other objects and go into cardiac arrest. A Senate committee yesterday heard from the parents of a young boy who died after being hit in the chest with a football. The bill would require that a defibrillator be located within a one-minute walk of playgrounds and sports fields.

ASTORIA, Ore. (AP) – Five Clatsop County men made a pact a year-and-a-half ago to grow out their hair and donate it to an American Cancer Society program that makes wigs for cancer patients. If anyone cut their hair before the donation, he’d have to pay the others $50 apiece. The Daily Astorian reports all five kept the pact. And on Saturday they had their long locks cut down to about half an inch. Each surrendered about 8 inches of hair.

 

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