BIG WIN FOR LAKERS
MYANMAR MEETING
SWOCC extends season, B1
U.S. fears political backslide in region, A7
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2014
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Lawsuit vs. CB schools dismissed Age discrimination claims were not proven in U.S. District Court ■
BY CHELSEA DAVIS The World
Photos by Amanda Loman, The World
Shelby Wilson, a sixth-grader at Sunset Middle School, braids the straps to her portfolio during Studio to School on Nov. 5. Studio to School is a collaboration between the Coos Art Museum and Sunset Middle School that is funded by a grant from the Oregon Community Foundation. The program aims to expand the school's art curriculum and eventually expand to other creative outlets, such as theater.
Expanding creativity
Jamin Villa, 11, left, looks on as Titus Simon, 12, attaches the handles to his portfolio case. More online: Watch the video at theworldlink.com/video.
Shawnee Horn, 11, cuts out pieces of construction paper for her collage on a portfolio to hold art created during the program.
COOS BAY — A former Coos Bay teacher couldn’t prove age discrimination was a factor in the school district’s not hiring her for another teaching position two years ago. U.S. District Court of Oregon Chief Judge Ann Aiken dismissed Laura Bellinger’s age discrimination lawsuit against the Coos Bay School District on Nov. 5. This all began five years ago, when Bellinger started substitute teaching for Millicoma Intermediate School. Principal Travis Howard then hired her as a temporary, full-time sixth grade teacher for that school year. But by the end of the year, Bellinger received the lowest performance evaluation score of any Millicoma teacher, according to court documents. She was still rehired for another temporary teaching position at Millicoma in November 2010, which lasted through that school year. In 2012, two permanent teaching positions opened up at Millicoma in fifth and sixth grades. Bellinger, 51 at the time, applied for both. Howard didn’t submit her application for the sixth grade position (the fifth grade teacher returned to the post) to the district’s hiring committee, as Bellinger didn’t have an advanced degree and hadn’t completed continuing education since she got her bachelor’s degree in 1997. In the end, a 37-year-old and a 29-year-old were offered the job. Both had master’s degrees and years of full-time teaching experience, though they eventually turned down the offers. The job was reposted and Bellinger reapplied, but Howard again didn’t forward her application to the hiring committee. A 28-year-old applicant with a master’s degree and four years of full-time substitute teaching experience was hired. In September 2012, Bellinger filed a complaint with Oregon’s Bureau of Labor and Industries. The bureau said there was evidence the district didn’t hire Bellinger based on her age. In August 2013, Bellinger filed her age discrimination lawsuit against the district. SEE LAWSUIT | A8
Clinical trials on tap for possible Ebola vaccine
Remembering 1984 Autzen sniper attack
BY LAURAN NEERGAARD The Associated Press
west Eugene’s Willamette High School, says he will always carry a “certain sadness” about that gray November Monday. “I still get a little teary-eyed sometimes,” says O’Shea, who was a three-time state champion at Harrisburg High School from 1978 to 1980. “Something happened, and it changed my life. But I don’t necessarily think it affected my life in a bad way. I’m extremely lucky with the way my life has been.” O’Shea, along with some of his wrestling teammates and other UO
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athletes and coaches who were working out in the old weight room at Autzen’s east end, survived that day. But another athlete was not so fortunate. Chris Brathwaite, a 36-year-old former UO track athlete and Olympic sprinter in 1976 and 1980 for his native Trinidad and Tobago, was shot to death by the sniper, 19year-old Michael Feher, while jogging on Pre’s Trail on Autzen’s SEE SNIPER | A8
Early snow in Portland Peggy Lock, Bandon Connor Scott, Olympia, Wash.
Obituaries | A5
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The Associated Press
Rick O'Shea visits the site in Autzen Stadium where he was wounded by a sniper 30 years ago when he was a student and wrestler at the University of Oregon. O'Shea, now 52, was injured in the neck, legs and buttock by a ricochet bullet.
DEATHS
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EUGENE (AP) — He is standing in the east end zone of Autzen Stadium, near the spot where he could have lost his life 30 years ago. “I think he could have shot me if he wanted to. I think he was just telling me to get back inside,” Rick O’Shea says. A standout University of Oregon wrestler back then, O’Shea was hit by shrapnel from a sniper’s bullet at Autzen on Nov. 12, 1984. Yes, Rick O’Shea, now 52, was injured in the neck, legs and buttock by a ricochet bullet, and many have never let him forget the pun on his name. “They call him ‘Ricochet Rick,’” said Ron Finley, the former UO wrestling coach who in 1983 helped guide O’Shea to a Pac-10 Conference wrestling championship at 150 pounds. Puns and lightheartedness aside, O’Shea, a longtime special education teacher and wrestling coach at
WASHINGTON — A top U.S. health official says long-anticipated clinical trials of a possible Ebola vaccine will start soon in West Africa, as the global response to the outbreak took on added urgency with new cases in Mali and reports that the death toll has surpassed 5,000. Results of an initial U.S. safety study proved promising enough that next-step testing should begin in Liberia and Sierra Leone by January, Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health told a Senate committee on Wednesday. If those new studies go well, “we could know by the middle of 2015 whether or not we have an effective vaccine,” said Fauci, director of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The news came as the Senate Appropriations Committee began evaluating the Obama administration’s request for $6.2 billion in emergency aid to fight Ebola. While the number of infections is slowing in some parts of West
The cold front that drove temperatures to minus-31 in Wyoming is also wreaking havoc in the Willamette Valley. Page A5
FORECAST
BY MARK BAKER Eugene Register-Guard
Africa, the World Health Organization said cases still are surging in Sierra Leone. Worse, nearby Mali on Wednesday reported three deaths linked to Ebola and mobilized to stop the virus’ spread. “That cluster has to be controlled or we’re going to have another front,” warned Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The spending request includes $4.64 billion in immediate money to fight the epidemic in West Africa while at the same time shoring up U.S. preparedness. The domestic work includes such things as continuing training so far given to 250,000 nurses and other U.S. health workers on how to safely handle any future patients, designating hospitals capable of handling Ebola or other serious infectious diseases, and creating a national stockpile of protective equipment. Some of the money also would go to setting up health systems in other vulnerable countries so they could spot similar outbreaks early SEE EBOLA | A8
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