News Digest
Monday, December 31, 2007 11:12 AM PST
OREGON - Cold temperatures, ice make for hazardous driving in W. Oregon
SALEM (AP) — An arctic cold front coupled with rain and snow is causing multiple vehicle crashes on highways and interstates across northwestern Oregon.
All major highways in the northwest section of Oregon have spots of ice and authorities are reporting dozens of crashes. Affected highways include Interstate 5 between Roseburg and Portland.
Virtual schools make
inroads in Oregon
PORTLAND (AP) — A new breed of virtual schools is making inroads in Oregon, and more could be on the way.
Already, more than 1,800 students between kindergarten and 11th grade attend the online-only Connections Academy. That makes it the 20th-largest public school in the state, though the school has only been operational for a few years.
Now, two other online education companies are hoping to set up shop in Oregon, pending approval from the state Board of Education, which will hand down a decision in March.
IDAHO
Idaho woman renews tradition of buffalo hunt
FORT HALL (AP) — A 22-year-old woman is the latest member of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes to kill a buffalo, renewing a tradition of American Indians in the region who once relied on the giant animals for their livelihoods.
Tradition Dann was chosen earlier this year in a random drawing to kill one of the buffaloes her tribe raises in a pasture on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation in southwestern Idaho.
Dann’s killing of the buffalo, tagged with a violet ear marker with the number ‘‘356,’’ is part of broader American Indian interest in ceremonial bison hunting, animals that once numbered in the millions across much of North America before they were reduced to small isolated herds in the mid-19th century by rampant killing by white European settlers pressing west.
As a girl, Dann remembers how she swam in streams near where the buffalo grazed and dreamed of participating in a hunt like her ancestors did.
