PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Nearly 1,000 Oregon National Guard employees must take unpaid leave this summer. An Oregon Military Department spokesman announced yesterday that the furlough will affect everyone from mechanics to administrative personnel. The employees will be required to take 11 days off between July 8 and Sept. 30.
EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — Amazingly, nobody was hurt when two trains collided with two passenger vehicles in two different parts of Oregon’s Lane County within eight minutes. Lane County sheriff’s Sgt. Steve French tells The Register-Guard that both trains were traveling slowly yesterday. Deputies ticketed the motorists involved.
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — State lawmakers say they’ll remove the most controversial provisions from a bill aimed at slowing the growth of Oregon’s prison population. A compromise plan released yesterday would not make any changes to Measure 11, a 1994 voter-approved initiative that created mandatory minimum sentences for certain violent crimes. The latest plan would have removed the minimum requirements for drug and property crimes.
ST. HELENS, Ore. (AP) — An Oregon prosecutor has decided a state trooper was justified in fatally shooting a St. Helens man when the man displayed a gun after a high-speed car chase near Scappoose. Columbia County District Attorney R. Stephen Atchison announced his decision yesterday in Trooper Justin Oxenrider’s May 3 shooting of 27-year-old Josiah Fischer. The Oregonian says an investigation found that the trooper told the driver to show his hands but Fischer displayed a loaded handgun instead.
