News Digest:
Monday, September 15, 2008 10:37 AM PDT
GOOD AFTERNOON
IDAHO
City, pet group contract for dog patrol
BOISE (AP) — The city of Boise is teaming up with the Idaho Humane Society to pay for officers to provide education and enforcement of dog rules in the city’s parks and foothills trail system.
Officials say the $60,000, one-year contract will pay for a full-time and part-time position. Officers are already making patrols. A local advisory committee recommended additional enforcement earlier this year following a spat over excessive dog excrement on the popular foothills trails and other problems.
New gun trial slated for county official
BOISE (AP) — Boise prosecutors say they will retry a Canyon County commissioner who was arrested for having a gun in his carry-on luggage at the airport.
The first trial of Commission Chairman David Ferdinand ended in a hung jury in August. Ferdinand is charged with a misdemeanor after police confiscated a revolver at the airport on Feb. 28.
He paid a $1,500 federal fine, but has pleaded not guilty to knowingly carrying the gun in his luggage.
OREGON
Suspicious fires burn in west Eugene
EUGENE (AP) — At least three suspicious brush fires in west Eugene closed streets, forced the evacuation of two homes and a business and covered about 100 acres. The Sunday fires started at about 2:30 p.m. in several open fields known to be occupied by transients.
Eugene Fire District Chief Lance Lightly said the fires, all in the same general area, are suspicious because they broke out at the same time.
Presidential candidates’ Oregon visits iffy
PORTLAND (AP) — With the election about seven weeks away, presidential candidates aren’t yet pounding on the doors of the Beaver State. Despite a boisterous May primary, no presidential or vice presidential candidate has booked an Oregon appearance so far.
The money, the vital electoral votes and the swing states are elsewhere, and, by some reckoning, Barack Obama already has Oregon in the bag. See story page A2.
