Brain surgeon child-sex case; $61M jackpot; Efron to play Ted Bundy
- Updated
Odd and interesting news from around the West.
- Updated
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (AP) — A brain surgeon and a nurse in Northern California have been arrested on multiple charges involving child sexual abuse.
Police said Tuesday they will release more details about the cases later this week.
Dr. James Kohut, 57, was arrested Sunday at his home in Santa Cruz in cases involving a child under the age of 10 and a child under 14, the Santa Cruz Sentinel reported (http://bit.ly/2qq9QxT). He was booked into the Santa Cruz County Jail and is being held without bail.
Nurse Rashel Brandon, 42, was arrested last week and charged with 11 felonies involving child sexual abuse as well as multiple charges related to the production of child pornography, Watsonville police Capt. Jorge Zamora said. She also remains jailed.
It was not known Tuesday if the two have attorneys.
Both Kohut and Brandon worked at Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz.
Zamora said a third, unidentified suspect is in custody outside of California.
"I can confirm we have three people in custody, and that this is a very serious sexual abuse case," Zamora told the newspaper. "I can also confirm the case crosses state lines." Police declined to elaborate.
The FBI is assisting with the investigation, but a spokeswoman did not provide further information about the cases and referred question to Watsonville police.
Kohut, who received his license to practice medicine in California in 1998, had recently joined Sparks Clinic Neurology Center in Fort Smith, Arkansas, according to the Sparks Health System website.
He was disciplined for attempting to remove a temporal aneurysm from the right side of a 36-year-old patient's head in 2002, when X-rays clearly showed the aneurysm was located on the left side, according to medical board records. He was also disciplined for viewing pornography on University Medical Center computers while working at the institution as a neurosurgeon between 2002 and 2003, according to medical board records.
- Updated
DENVER (AP) — A year after four pilots accused Frontier Airlines of not doing enough to help pregnant or nursing employees, two flight attendants have filed similar discrimination complaints against the Denver-based discount carrier.
In documents filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Tuesday, flight attendants Jo Roby and Stacy Rewitzer say they were forced to take unpaid leave after having their children because they were forbidden from pumping their breast milk on flights and the airline didn't try to accommodate them.
They want Frontier to be required to provide places for them to pump on flights and in airports, allow nursing mothers to work temporarily in ground assignments and provide parental leave.
Frontier says it has identified and provided locations for attendants to pump milk. It says its policies comply with state and federal laws.
- Updated
VAL VERDE, Calif. (AP) — Authorities in Los Angeles County say they've seized 7,000 birds in one of the largest busts of illegal cockfighting in U.S. history.
The Sheriff's Department says the birds were seized Monday in a remote area of Val Verde, about 25 miles north of Los Angeles.
Several dead roosters also were found, along with equipment such as the blades used during cockfights.
Ten people who work on the property were detained. The property owner hasn't been taken into custody.
Authorities say 2,700 birds were seized during a raid on the same property in 2007.
- Updated
MORO, Ore. (AP) — Sherman County may order the use of herbicides on a 2,000-acre organic farm in north-central Oregon after complaints from neighboring farmers about noxious weeds.
The Capital Press (http://bit.ly/2qoRsaX ) reports Tuesday that spraying would cause Azure Farms to lose its organic certification for three years.
The farm is operated by Azure Standard, a major supplier of organic products, and says it will not spray or allow spraying.
The company posted a video sharing its side of the conflict on social media that has generated intense interest among supporters of organic farming.
The issue may come to a head Wednesday when county commissioners are expected to discuss it.
The meeting was moved to a school gym to accommodate an overflow crowd.
Growers near Azure Farms say spreading weeds are costing them.
___
Information from: Capital Press, http://www.capitalpress.com/washington
- By THOMAS PEIPERT Associated Press
- Updated
DENVER (AP) — As a Colorado community mourns the loss of seven students who recently killed themselves, a school district official ordered librarians to temporarily stop circulating a book that's the basis for Netflix's popular new series "13 Reasons Why," which some critics say romanticizes suicide.
The order rankled some librarians who called it censorship, and it appears to be a rare instance in which the book has been removed from circulation — albeit briefly.
It also has highlighted the debate about balancing freedom of speech with concerns about students.
"It would be hard for anybody who has dealt with suicide to not have a heightened awareness of things, to perhaps be a little more cautious about things," said Leigh Grasso, the curriculum director for the 22,000-student Mesa County Valley School District who decided to pull the book.
The bestselling young adult novel, published in 2007, follows a high school girl who kills herself after creating a series of tapes for her classmates to play after her death. She gave the tapes to people who influenced her decision.
Her death in the Netflix series is depicted in the final episode of the first season, and the graphic scene has prompted schools across the country to send letters to parents and guardians with tips on how to prevent suicide.
From upstate New York to the Midwest and California, school administrators have warned that the series sensationalizes suicide and does not provide a good roadmap for people struggling with mental illness. There is no evidence that any of the Mesa County students who killed themselves since the beginning of the school year were inspired by the series or the book.
Grasso, who has not read the book or watched the series, appears to be one of only a few school leaders in the country who has taken the book out of circulation. Another school district in Minnesota temporarily pulled the book after a parent complained that it referenced sex.
Grasso cited media attention and recent events in an April 28 email to district librarians letting them know about her decision.
Of the 20 copies available in the school district, 19 were checked out at the time and were not affected by the directive. Still, several librarians protested, and the order was rescinded about three hours after it was issued.
Grasso said the book was made available again after librarians and school counselors determined it did not include scenes as graphic as those depicted in the Netflix series.
"I think we were just being cautious until we had the opportunity to look at the book and see how closely related to the movie it was," she told The Associated Press.
Grasso said her decision did not amount to censorship because the book was not permanently banned — an argument that drew some pushback in the school district.
The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel cited one librarian saying there is a formal, board-approved process to challenge books in the district.
"I believe it is our duty to follow that process, because censorship is a slippery slope," the librarian wrote.
The newspaper, which obtained the feedback through an open records request and did not name the librarians, reported that a middle school librarian wrote, "Once we start pulling and censoring books for all students as a reactive measure there is no line to which we follow."
The show's creators remain unapologetic, saying their frank depiction of suicide needs to be unflinching and raw.
"Many people are accusing the show of glamorizing suicide and I feel strongly — and I think everyone who made the show — feel very strongly that we did the exact opposite," writer Brian Yorkey said. "What we did was portray suicide and we portrayed it as very ugly and very damaging."
Jay Asher, who wrote the book after a close relative attempted suicide as a teenager, said he has spoken at schools in all 50 states and tells students he would not be there if it weren't for teachers who were not afraid to talk about uncomfortable topics.
"Over and over, readers describe 'Thirteen Reasons Why' as the first time they felt understood," Asher said. "Recognizing that people will understand is the first step toward asking for help."
James LaRue, director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom at the American Library Association, said he understands why Grasso wanted to review the book, but "instead of just reacting to a moment, you get people together and make a sensible decision."
"Sometimes the world is a dangerous place, but reading about it isn't," he said.
___
Associated Press Entertainment Writer Mark Kennedy and researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed to this report from New York.
- By THERESA NOVAK The Register-Guard
- Updated
EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — U.S. Postal Service collection boxes — those blue metal boxes-on-legs where people dropped off their letters for the mail carrier to pick up — had their heyday in another century, but they still have an avid fan base.
U.S. Postal Service officials found out just how avid when they removed three south Eugene collection boxes because they apparently weren't used much. The postal agency has since agreed to put the three back, and the collection-box advocate who pressed for the restoration says she's not done yet.
After Heather Henderson noticed the three collection boxes had been removed from her south Eugene neighborhood, she sprang into action to find out why the Postal Service yanked them, and how to get them back. She soon found she was bucking the Postal Service's plan for removing the squat blue mailboxes that, between 1900 and 1995, were on most city and neighborhood street corners.
The breakneck transition to email and online bill-paying in the past 20 years has drastically reduced use of the blue collection boxes, postal authorities said.
Henderson said her neighbors and local businesses in south Eugene were upset after three such boxes suddenly disappeared from the Edgewood Shopping Center on East 40th Avenue, from 30th Avenue and Hilyard Street, and from 20th Avenue and Patterson Street.
"It was a stealth removal," said Henderson, who said that she soon discovered the Postal Service was removing many collection boxes in Eugene.
It isn't just in Eugene, said Ernie Swanson, a Seattle-based spokesman for the Postal Service.
"The change in the number of collection boxes available to customers in Eugene is not unique," Swanson wrote in an email in reply to questions about the removal. "The drastic change in Americans' mailing habits has shifted the need for blue collection boxes and prompted the Postal Service to be more strategic in its placement of these boxes across the country. As reference, a single piece of first-class mail — the type of mail more common in collection boxes — shrunk from 45.9 billion pieces in 2005 to just 19.4 billion in 2016."
In 2005, the Postal Service had 345,000 blue boxes. By last year, it had cut that to 148,250.
The boxes can be a drag on Postal Service spending because they typically have to be checked for mail at least once a day, and the less mail they contain, the less efficient it is for the service to keep them.
Postal Service spokesman Peter Hass said Eugene now has 107 blue collection boxes, after a winnowing earlier in the year.
"After the Postal Service's regular review of customers' use of collection boxes around the city, a total of 17 boxes were taken out of service," Haas wrote in an email. "In all but a handful of these locations, two boxes were originally in place, and the removal of one box still left a single box available. These removals are all as a result of monitoring the volume of mail placed in the box, indicating that the boxes are used sparingly by our customers in these locations."
Henderson said that isn't what she discovered when she went door-to-door at the businesses in the Edgewood Shopping Center, handing out fliers with strips on them bearing a Postal Service complaint line number that people could call to object to removal of the collection boxes.
She also posted them a few weeks ago at various locations in south Eugene.
"Mostly, I handed out fliers to businesses in person," she said. "And every single business owner I approached was more than happy to take fliers and pass the word."
The word" made it through to the Postal Service.
"As a result of customer feedback," Haas wrote, "collection boxes will be restored ... to the following locations: 3075 Hilyard St., 4000 Donald St. and 2055 Patterson St."
Henderson said she is grateful the Postal Service — struggling to survive in the electronic age — was so responsive.
___
Information from: The Register-Guard, http://www.registerguard.com
- Updated
EVERETT, Wash. (AP) — Snohomish County has agreed to pay $585,000 to settle a free-speech lawsuit brought by its former ombudsman.
The Daily Herald reports (https://goo.gl/llc4UH ) that the county council approved the settlement with John Koster, now a Republican state representative, on Monday. Koster was fired as ombudsman in 2014 after he signed onto a fundraising letter for an Olympia think tank, the Freedom Foundation, that criticized government union leaders for supporting left-wing causes.
Some Democratic elected officials said the letter compromised Koster's neutrality as ombudsman, but Koster sued, saying the firing violated his First Amendment rights.
The county did not admit wrongdoing. Council Chairman Brian Sullivan said it was best to avoid an expensive trial, which could have run up millions of dollars in legal costs.
- Updated
BEND, Ore. (AP) — A legally blind woman who has competed in four of Alaska's Iditarod sled-dog races has announced she will be running for congress.
KTVZ-TV reports (http://bit.ly/2pGRJXi ) 32-year-old Democrat Rachael Scdoris-Salerno filed paperwork Monday to run for Oregon's Second Congressional District seat.
Scdoris-Salerno plans to unseat incumbent Rep. Greg Walden. She says she is frustrated with politicians representing special interests.
Scdoris-Salerno had been born with an uncorrectable visual disorder. She has competed in the Paralympics in tandem cycling and has worked much of her life at her father's sled-dog ride business at Mt. Bachelor.
She bought the business from her father two years ago.
___
Information from: KTVZ-TV, http://www.ktvz.com/
- Updated
MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) — A southwestern Montana sheriff's deputy was killed in a shootout with two suspects during a traffic stop near Three Forks.
Gallatin County Sheriff Brian Gootkin says a Broadwater County deputy was pursuing a vehicle on U.S. Highway 287 when dispatchers lost contact with him at about 3 a.m. Tuesday.
Gootkin tells the Bozeman Daily Chronicle (bit.ly/2pR1e2k) that Gallatin County and Montana Highway Patrol officers responded and found the deputy dead by the side of the road.
The suspect vehicle was spotted near Anaconda. Officers deployed spike strips and the sport utility vehicle eventually stopped about 35 miles east of Missoula.
Gootkin says the passenger got out and shot at officers who returned fire. He was taken to the hospital. The driver, the shooter's father, was arrested.
The names of the officer and the suspects have not been released.
- Updated
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Zac Efron has signed on to star as Ted Bundy in a biopic about the serial killer.
The Hollywood Reporter and Variety report Efron will play Bundy in "Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile." The movie will center on Bundy's relationship with his girlfriend. The reports say the project is set to start shooting Oct. 9. The movie will be directed by Joe Berlinger, who is best known for the "Paradise Lost" series of documentaries.
Bundy confessed to killing more than two dozen women and was executed in Florida in 1989.
Efron stars alongside Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson in "Baywatch," which opens this month.
- Updated
LAGUNA HILLS, Calif. (AP) — A Southern California man who hit a $61 million lottery jackpot says it hasn't really sunk in that he's finally won.
The California Lottery announced Monday that David Trapp, a longtime player, won the April 28 draw of the Mega Millions game. He correctly picked all five numbers plus the Mega number.
The Orange County Register reports (http://bit.ly/2rmh5Hh ) Trapp, per tradition, used the birthdays of family members as his numbers.
Trapp said in a statement that he has a hard time seeing himself as a millionaire but he's ready for the change.
He can receive $61 million spread out in annual payments over 30 years or get $37.2 million right away.
The Laguna Hills 7-Eleven that sold the ticket will receive a $305,000 bonus.
___
Information from: The Orange County Register, http://www.ocregister.com
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (AP) — A brain surgeon and a nurse in Northern California have been arrested on multiple charges involving child sexual abuse.
Police said Tuesday they will release more details about the cases later this week.
Dr. James Kohut, 57, was arrested Sunday at his home in Santa Cruz in cases involving a child under the age of 10 and a child under 14, the Santa Cruz Sentinel reported (http://bit.ly/2qq9QxT). He was booked into the Santa Cruz County Jail and is being held without bail.
Nurse Rashel Brandon, 42, was arrested last week and charged with 11 felonies involving child sexual abuse as well as multiple charges related to the production of child pornography, Watsonville police Capt. Jorge Zamora said. She also remains jailed.
It was not known Tuesday if the two have attorneys.
Both Kohut and Brandon worked at Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz.
Zamora said a third, unidentified suspect is in custody outside of California.
"I can confirm we have three people in custody, and that this is a very serious sexual abuse case," Zamora told the newspaper. "I can also confirm the case crosses state lines." Police declined to elaborate.
The FBI is assisting with the investigation, but a spokeswoman did not provide further information about the cases and referred question to Watsonville police.
Kohut, who received his license to practice medicine in California in 1998, had recently joined Sparks Clinic Neurology Center in Fort Smith, Arkansas, according to the Sparks Health System website.
He was disciplined for attempting to remove a temporal aneurysm from the right side of a 36-year-old patient's head in 2002, when X-rays clearly showed the aneurysm was located on the left side, according to medical board records. He was also disciplined for viewing pornography on University Medical Center computers while working at the institution as a neurosurgeon between 2002 and 2003, according to medical board records.
DENVER (AP) — A year after four pilots accused Frontier Airlines of not doing enough to help pregnant or nursing employees, two flight attendants have filed similar discrimination complaints against the Denver-based discount carrier.
In documents filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Tuesday, flight attendants Jo Roby and Stacy Rewitzer say they were forced to take unpaid leave after having their children because they were forbidden from pumping their breast milk on flights and the airline didn't try to accommodate them.
They want Frontier to be required to provide places for them to pump on flights and in airports, allow nursing mothers to work temporarily in ground assignments and provide parental leave.
Frontier says it has identified and provided locations for attendants to pump milk. It says its policies comply with state and federal laws.
VAL VERDE, Calif. (AP) — Authorities in Los Angeles County say they've seized 7,000 birds in one of the largest busts of illegal cockfighting in U.S. history.
The Sheriff's Department says the birds were seized Monday in a remote area of Val Verde, about 25 miles north of Los Angeles.
Several dead roosters also were found, along with equipment such as the blades used during cockfights.
Ten people who work on the property were detained. The property owner hasn't been taken into custody.
Authorities say 2,700 birds were seized during a raid on the same property in 2007.
MORO, Ore. (AP) — Sherman County may order the use of herbicides on a 2,000-acre organic farm in north-central Oregon after complaints from neighboring farmers about noxious weeds.
The Capital Press (http://bit.ly/2qoRsaX ) reports Tuesday that spraying would cause Azure Farms to lose its organic certification for three years.
The farm is operated by Azure Standard, a major supplier of organic products, and says it will not spray or allow spraying.
The company posted a video sharing its side of the conflict on social media that has generated intense interest among supporters of organic farming.
The issue may come to a head Wednesday when county commissioners are expected to discuss it.
The meeting was moved to a school gym to accommodate an overflow crowd.
Growers near Azure Farms say spreading weeds are costing them.
___
Information from: Capital Press, http://www.capitalpress.com/washington
- By THOMAS PEIPERT Associated Press
DENVER (AP) — As a Colorado community mourns the loss of seven students who recently killed themselves, a school district official ordered librarians to temporarily stop circulating a book that's the basis for Netflix's popular new series "13 Reasons Why," which some critics say romanticizes suicide.
The order rankled some librarians who called it censorship, and it appears to be a rare instance in which the book has been removed from circulation — albeit briefly.
It also has highlighted the debate about balancing freedom of speech with concerns about students.
"It would be hard for anybody who has dealt with suicide to not have a heightened awareness of things, to perhaps be a little more cautious about things," said Leigh Grasso, the curriculum director for the 22,000-student Mesa County Valley School District who decided to pull the book.
The bestselling young adult novel, published in 2007, follows a high school girl who kills herself after creating a series of tapes for her classmates to play after her death. She gave the tapes to people who influenced her decision.
Her death in the Netflix series is depicted in the final episode of the first season, and the graphic scene has prompted schools across the country to send letters to parents and guardians with tips on how to prevent suicide.
From upstate New York to the Midwest and California, school administrators have warned that the series sensationalizes suicide and does not provide a good roadmap for people struggling with mental illness. There is no evidence that any of the Mesa County students who killed themselves since the beginning of the school year were inspired by the series or the book.
Grasso, who has not read the book or watched the series, appears to be one of only a few school leaders in the country who has taken the book out of circulation. Another school district in Minnesota temporarily pulled the book after a parent complained that it referenced sex.
Grasso cited media attention and recent events in an April 28 email to district librarians letting them know about her decision.
Of the 20 copies available in the school district, 19 were checked out at the time and were not affected by the directive. Still, several librarians protested, and the order was rescinded about three hours after it was issued.
Grasso said the book was made available again after librarians and school counselors determined it did not include scenes as graphic as those depicted in the Netflix series.
"I think we were just being cautious until we had the opportunity to look at the book and see how closely related to the movie it was," she told The Associated Press.
Grasso said her decision did not amount to censorship because the book was not permanently banned — an argument that drew some pushback in the school district.
The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel cited one librarian saying there is a formal, board-approved process to challenge books in the district.
"I believe it is our duty to follow that process, because censorship is a slippery slope," the librarian wrote.
The newspaper, which obtained the feedback through an open records request and did not name the librarians, reported that a middle school librarian wrote, "Once we start pulling and censoring books for all students as a reactive measure there is no line to which we follow."
The show's creators remain unapologetic, saying their frank depiction of suicide needs to be unflinching and raw.
"Many people are accusing the show of glamorizing suicide and I feel strongly — and I think everyone who made the show — feel very strongly that we did the exact opposite," writer Brian Yorkey said. "What we did was portray suicide and we portrayed it as very ugly and very damaging."
Jay Asher, who wrote the book after a close relative attempted suicide as a teenager, said he has spoken at schools in all 50 states and tells students he would not be there if it weren't for teachers who were not afraid to talk about uncomfortable topics.
"Over and over, readers describe 'Thirteen Reasons Why' as the first time they felt understood," Asher said. "Recognizing that people will understand is the first step toward asking for help."
James LaRue, director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom at the American Library Association, said he understands why Grasso wanted to review the book, but "instead of just reacting to a moment, you get people together and make a sensible decision."
"Sometimes the world is a dangerous place, but reading about it isn't," he said.
___
Associated Press Entertainment Writer Mark Kennedy and researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed to this report from New York.
- By THERESA NOVAK The Register-Guard
EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — U.S. Postal Service collection boxes — those blue metal boxes-on-legs where people dropped off their letters for the mail carrier to pick up — had their heyday in another century, but they still have an avid fan base.
U.S. Postal Service officials found out just how avid when they removed three south Eugene collection boxes because they apparently weren't used much. The postal agency has since agreed to put the three back, and the collection-box advocate who pressed for the restoration says she's not done yet.
After Heather Henderson noticed the three collection boxes had been removed from her south Eugene neighborhood, she sprang into action to find out why the Postal Service yanked them, and how to get them back. She soon found she was bucking the Postal Service's plan for removing the squat blue mailboxes that, between 1900 and 1995, were on most city and neighborhood street corners.
The breakneck transition to email and online bill-paying in the past 20 years has drastically reduced use of the blue collection boxes, postal authorities said.
Henderson said her neighbors and local businesses in south Eugene were upset after three such boxes suddenly disappeared from the Edgewood Shopping Center on East 40th Avenue, from 30th Avenue and Hilyard Street, and from 20th Avenue and Patterson Street.
"It was a stealth removal," said Henderson, who said that she soon discovered the Postal Service was removing many collection boxes in Eugene.
It isn't just in Eugene, said Ernie Swanson, a Seattle-based spokesman for the Postal Service.
"The change in the number of collection boxes available to customers in Eugene is not unique," Swanson wrote in an email in reply to questions about the removal. "The drastic change in Americans' mailing habits has shifted the need for blue collection boxes and prompted the Postal Service to be more strategic in its placement of these boxes across the country. As reference, a single piece of first-class mail — the type of mail more common in collection boxes — shrunk from 45.9 billion pieces in 2005 to just 19.4 billion in 2016."
In 2005, the Postal Service had 345,000 blue boxes. By last year, it had cut that to 148,250.
The boxes can be a drag on Postal Service spending because they typically have to be checked for mail at least once a day, and the less mail they contain, the less efficient it is for the service to keep them.
Postal Service spokesman Peter Hass said Eugene now has 107 blue collection boxes, after a winnowing earlier in the year.
"After the Postal Service's regular review of customers' use of collection boxes around the city, a total of 17 boxes were taken out of service," Haas wrote in an email. "In all but a handful of these locations, two boxes were originally in place, and the removal of one box still left a single box available. These removals are all as a result of monitoring the volume of mail placed in the box, indicating that the boxes are used sparingly by our customers in these locations."
Henderson said that isn't what she discovered when she went door-to-door at the businesses in the Edgewood Shopping Center, handing out fliers with strips on them bearing a Postal Service complaint line number that people could call to object to removal of the collection boxes.
She also posted them a few weeks ago at various locations in south Eugene.
"Mostly, I handed out fliers to businesses in person," she said. "And every single business owner I approached was more than happy to take fliers and pass the word."
The word" made it through to the Postal Service.
"As a result of customer feedback," Haas wrote, "collection boxes will be restored ... to the following locations: 3075 Hilyard St., 4000 Donald St. and 2055 Patterson St."
Henderson said she is grateful the Postal Service — struggling to survive in the electronic age — was so responsive.
___
Information from: The Register-Guard, http://www.registerguard.com
EVERETT, Wash. (AP) — Snohomish County has agreed to pay $585,000 to settle a free-speech lawsuit brought by its former ombudsman.
The Daily Herald reports (https://goo.gl/llc4UH ) that the county council approved the settlement with John Koster, now a Republican state representative, on Monday. Koster was fired as ombudsman in 2014 after he signed onto a fundraising letter for an Olympia think tank, the Freedom Foundation, that criticized government union leaders for supporting left-wing causes.
Some Democratic elected officials said the letter compromised Koster's neutrality as ombudsman, but Koster sued, saying the firing violated his First Amendment rights.
The county did not admit wrongdoing. Council Chairman Brian Sullivan said it was best to avoid an expensive trial, which could have run up millions of dollars in legal costs.
BEND, Ore. (AP) — A legally blind woman who has competed in four of Alaska's Iditarod sled-dog races has announced she will be running for congress.
KTVZ-TV reports (http://bit.ly/2pGRJXi ) 32-year-old Democrat Rachael Scdoris-Salerno filed paperwork Monday to run for Oregon's Second Congressional District seat.
Scdoris-Salerno plans to unseat incumbent Rep. Greg Walden. She says she is frustrated with politicians representing special interests.
Scdoris-Salerno had been born with an uncorrectable visual disorder. She has competed in the Paralympics in tandem cycling and has worked much of her life at her father's sled-dog ride business at Mt. Bachelor.
She bought the business from her father two years ago.
___
Information from: KTVZ-TV, http://www.ktvz.com/
MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) — A southwestern Montana sheriff's deputy was killed in a shootout with two suspects during a traffic stop near Three Forks.
Gallatin County Sheriff Brian Gootkin says a Broadwater County deputy was pursuing a vehicle on U.S. Highway 287 when dispatchers lost contact with him at about 3 a.m. Tuesday.
Gootkin tells the Bozeman Daily Chronicle (bit.ly/2pR1e2k) that Gallatin County and Montana Highway Patrol officers responded and found the deputy dead by the side of the road.
The suspect vehicle was spotted near Anaconda. Officers deployed spike strips and the sport utility vehicle eventually stopped about 35 miles east of Missoula.
Gootkin says the passenger got out and shot at officers who returned fire. He was taken to the hospital. The driver, the shooter's father, was arrested.
The names of the officer and the suspects have not been released.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Zac Efron has signed on to star as Ted Bundy in a biopic about the serial killer.
The Hollywood Reporter and Variety report Efron will play Bundy in "Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile." The movie will center on Bundy's relationship with his girlfriend. The reports say the project is set to start shooting Oct. 9. The movie will be directed by Joe Berlinger, who is best known for the "Paradise Lost" series of documentaries.
Bundy confessed to killing more than two dozen women and was executed in Florida in 1989.
Efron stars alongside Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson in "Baywatch," which opens this month.
LAGUNA HILLS, Calif. (AP) — A Southern California man who hit a $61 million lottery jackpot says it hasn't really sunk in that he's finally won.
The California Lottery announced Monday that David Trapp, a longtime player, won the April 28 draw of the Mega Millions game. He correctly picked all five numbers plus the Mega number.
The Orange County Register reports (http://bit.ly/2rmh5Hh ) Trapp, per tradition, used the birthdays of family members as his numbers.
Trapp said in a statement that he has a hard time seeing himself as a millionaire but he's ready for the change.
He can receive $61 million spread out in annual payments over 30 years or get $37.2 million right away.
The Laguna Hills 7-Eleven that sold the ticket will receive a $305,000 bonus.
___
Information from: The Orange County Register, http://www.ocregister.com
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