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More federal Motor coaches gather in Redmond • housing help is on the way State must shift funds to secure education aid State’s struggling, unemployed
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By Keith Chu and Scott Hammers The Bulletin
WASHINGTON — The state of Oregon will need to shift $14 million into its higher education budget for the next federal fiscal year in order to qualify for its share of federal school aid approved by Congress
this week, a state spokeswoman said on Wednesday. The bill provides $117 million for Oregon to shore up local school budgets, but it comes with a catch: States need to meet spending targets for higher education and K-12 schools to receive the money.
On Tuesday Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s spokeswoman Anna Richter Taylor told The Bulletin the state would meet the targets. But on Wednesday, she said budget analysts determined that the state will fall short in the higher education category unless the Legislature moves funds.
Taylor said the state needs to spend about $554.5 million to meet federal requirements, called “maintenance of effort,” for higher education spending. Currently the state’s higher education budget is $14 million short. See School aid / A4
Rescue force: Budget slash poses challenge as daunting as wild nature
homeowners to see extra $49.3M By David Holley The Bulletin
Oregon is getting almost $50 million in additional federal money to try to stem foreclosures because its unemployment rate remains so high, the state learned Wednesday. An undetermined portion of that money will come to Central Oregon, especially hard-hit by joblessness and collapsed housing prices. Oregon Housing and Community Services, already planning to spend $88 million in federal money on foreclosure prevention through four programs it hopes to launch at the beginning of 2011, will get another $49.3 million.
Federal restrictions However, because of federal restrictions, OHCS may only be allowed to use the extra money for one of those programs, which provides unemployed or underemployed homeowners temporary help paying a mortgage. As the $88 million plan stands now, OHCS has dedicated $16 million to help with mortgage payments for the unemployed, underemployed or those in significant financial distress. See Housing / A4
U.S. arsenal of antibiotics not being restocked By Trine Tsouderos Chicago Tribune
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Members of the Bend Fire and Rescue Special Operations unit use ropes to navigate teammate Kurt Solomon through whitewater at Lava Island Falls on the Deschutes River during training Monday.
Bend special team faces cuts By Erin Golden The Bulletin
Seven years ago, when the Bend Fire Department was called to help three teens who plunged over the Lava Island Falls in a small vinyl raft, firefighters had to work quickly to put together a rescue plan they’d never tried before. As the sun began to set and the temperature dropped, they strung ropes over the river, attached a boat, and made their way to their teens, who were clinging to rocks in the middle of the roaring river.
The story had a happy ending: The teens were cold and tired, but otherwise in good shape. But for the department — and particularly its Special Operations Team, which takes the lead on swiftwater incidents, along with rescues involving ice, confined spaces and trenches — it was a reminder of the need to be ready with the right training and equipment for complex rescue efforts. This week, the team was back at Lava Island, running a mock rescue during part of a daylong train-
ing session. Since the 2003 rescue, there’s only been one other similar incident on that particular stretch of the Deschutes River, south of Bend, but firefighters say it’s only a matter of time before they get another call. Technical rescues on the river or anywhere else are relatively rare, but certainly not unheard of in a growing area known for outdoor recreation. Officials say there’s been no decline in the need for rescuers with specialized skills, but like many other city programs, the Special Operations Team is now
GEORGIA: Russia moves missile defense system into breakaway Abkhazia region, Page A3
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Expectations of modern medicine “I was insane for a year,” said his mother, Everly Macario of Chicago. “You feel like you are in a dream. You feel like you will wake up sometime.” We have come to expect that modern medicine can cure just about any infection. But bacteria are finding ways to evade, one by one, the drugs in our arsenal, and that arsenal is not being replenished with new antibiotics. Drug companies are abandoning the antibacterial business, citing high development costs, low return on investment and, increasingly, a nearly decadelong stalemate with the Food and Drug Administration over how to bring new antibiotics to market. Soon, doctors fear, we could be defenseless against bacteria that can resist all existing antibiotics and kill many more like Simon. See Antibiotics / A5
Lucy’s kin carved up a meaty meal, scientists say
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facing budget cuts. Its budget is going to be cut in half. Capt. Mike Baxter, who heads up the team, said he’s had to make some tough decisions about what his team can and can’t do. “What we have to do is take those things that are the highest risk and keep training on those,” he said. “And some of the things that are less of a risk — we feel that a structural collapse is probably less likely to happen than a river rescue — those are the things (we cut back.)” See Rescue / A5
CHICAGO — Nobody knows where Simon Sparrow picked up the bug that killed him. One sunny April morning six years ago, the curlyhaired toddler woke up with flulike symptoms; by afternoon he was struggling for breath. He went into septic shock. Doctors at the hospital gave him intravenous antibiotics, but the drugs failed. By the next afternoon, Simon was dead at the age of 18 months, the victim of a highly drug-resistant bacterium, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. The day before, on the way to the hospital, he had learned the word “flower.”
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As early as 3.4 million years ago, some individuals with a taste for meat and marrow — presumably members of the species best known for the skeleton called Lucy — apparently butchered with sharp and heavy stones two large animals on the shore of a shallow lake in what is now Ethiopia. Scientists who made the discovery could not have been more surprised. They said the
cut marks on a fossilized rib and thighbone were unambiguous evidence that human ancestors were using stone tools and sometimes consuming meat at least 800,000 years earlier than previously established. The oldest confirmed stone tools are less than 2.6 million years old, perhaps from only a little before the emergence of the genus Homo. Some prominent researchers of early human evolution were skeptical, saying the reported evidence did not support
such claims. If true, though, the new find reveals unsuspected behavior and dietary habits of the Lucy species, Australopithecus afarensis. Though no hominid fossils were found near the butchered bones, A. afarensis is thought to be the only species living in this region at the time. The species’ large teeth with thick enamel indicated it subsisted mainly on tubers and other vegetation. See Tools / A4
“Now, when we imagine Lucy walking around the East African landscape ... we can ... imagine her with a stone tool in hand and looking for meat.” — Shannon McPherron, archaeologist, Max Planck Institute