A 39-year old Prineville driver and her four children received minor injuries when she collided with a deer on Highway 26 East near Orchard Lane Wednesday night, deputies reported. Crook County Sheriff’s deputies, Prineville Police officers and Crook County Fire & Rescue personnel responded to a report of a single vehicle crash at 10:20 p.m., November 22, Sgt. Jim Chapman reported. Adrione Gayton, 39, the driver of a 1996 Ford mini-van, was traveling east on ... [full story]

Two Bend men were arrested Thursday night when a physical fight between two co-workers in the Wal-Mart parking lot apparently didn’t settle the dispute, and one retrieved a gun from his vehicle and pointed it at the other, police reported.  A friend of the man with the gun was also arrested after allegedly brandishing a wooden bat.   Joshua Taylor Lunsford (left) and Jeffrey Scott Pachtman (right) - DCJ photos Joshua Taylor Lunsford, 20, and Brian Allen ... [full story]

Fire officials say that an overloaded extension cord sparked a fire that destroyed a 29-foot fifth-wheel RV in the Deschutes River Woods area. The 72-year old owner was injured when he was removing belongings from the burning trailer. Deschutes County Sheriff’s deputies and Bend firefighters responded to 19662 Manzanita Lane about noon on December 23, and found a 2004 Cougar by Keystone fifth-wheel trailer fully engulfed in flames, with nearby grass and brush igniting, Lt. Deron ... [full story]

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) awarded three grants recently, totaling $164,692, to the La Pine Rural Fire Protection District, the City of Redmond Fire & Rescue, and the Goshen Fire District, all in Oregon. These grants, awarded under the federal agency’s Assistance-to-Firefighters Grant (AFG) program, will be applied to those agency’s operations and safety initiatives. “As the holiday season rapidly approaches, now is a wonderful time for all residents ... [full story]

All may be fair in love and war, but not in politics. Presidential campaigns not only help us choose the leader of our country. They also help define who we are and what kind of country we want to be. So it is vitally important that, as much as possible, these campaigns be conducted on a high moral plane. To put it mildly, that hasn't always been true in American political history. As the man ... [full story]

JERUSALEM -- Hamas militant Ayad Abu-Shehadam was sentenced Monday in Israel to 450 years in prison for bombings in Beersheba that killed 16 people.A military court convicted Shehadam of preparing the suicide bombs used in the Beersheba attack in 2004 and in a failed attack against a cafe in Jerusalem, Ynetnews.com reported.Officials also said Shehadam was linked to 16 other attacks in Israel in 2003 and 2004.Shehadam, reportedly a senior Hamas operative, was arrested by ... [full story]

BRUSSELS -- Violence is increasing again in Sudan's Darfur region and humanitarian agencies have less access to victims of the conflict, a human rights group said Monday.The International Crisis Group also said a political settlement remains far off, and that a multi-country peacekeeping force is not yet effective.Confrontations have increased and the warring parties have splintered into more factions than there were in 2003 and 2004, the region's most intense period of fighting, said the ... [full story]

DHAKA, Bangladesh -- Searchers looked for bodies Monday in the Bay of Bengal following reports Bangladeshi migrants drowned in an illegal human smuggling operation.Police said only one body had been recovered off Shah Parir Dwip, but local fishermen reported seeing other bodies floating they couldn't reach, the Bangladesh Daily Star reported Monday.Officials said motorboats shuttled more than 200 people to a trawler bound for Malaysia, but the trawler became top-heavy and capsized, the report said.Panicked ... [full story]

BUDAPEST, Romania -- Romanian voters cast ballots in their first European Union elections Sunday.The election will determine the makeup of the country's 35 representatives in the European Parliament, Voice of America reported.Romania joined the European Union Jan. 1. A vote was scheduled for May, but was postponed because of conflict between President Trajan Basescu and Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu, VOA said.The president's centrist Democrat party is expected to win about 40 percent of the ... [full story]

YANGON, Myanmar -- Thousands of Buddhist monks, a fixture in Myanmar's monasteries and temples, have vanished in the wake of the September crackdown by the military junta.A report in the Dec. 3 issue of Newsweek says the few foreigners, who managed to visit the country since September, have noted how empty these places look in cities like Yangon, formerly Rangoon, and Mandalay."What has happened to all the monks?" Shari Villarosa, charge d'affaires at the U.S. ... [full story]