The City of Bend Fire Department placed the first two new ambulances into service Saturday, March 29.  The new ambulances replaced units that are 13 to 15-years old and approaching 200,000 miles.  The older units provided the city with years of reliable service but are experiencing an increase in maintenance costs and time out of service for major repairs.  Parts for the older ambulances have also become difficult to secure.   The fire department's new ambulances ... [full story]

CROOK COUNTY, Ore. – A motorhome pulling a trailer carrying 100 gallons of methanol apparently suffered engine trouble and caught fire on Highway 126 Saturday morning, but the driver and his wife escaped injury, deputies reported. Crook County Sheriff’s deputies were responding to milepost 14 on Highway 126 about 6:10 a.m., March 29 to a reported motor vehicle fire when they learned the 1990 Beaver Motorhome was pulling a trailer with the flammable and volatile ... [full story]

BEND, Ore. – A 49-year old Bend man was arrested Saturday evening and charged with two counts of attempted murder and nine other crimes when a domestic dispute turned potentially deadly and he allegedly fired a shotgun "at or in the general direction of" his son, wife, and a 15-year-old girl.    Jeffrey Duane Stogsdill - DCJ photo The suspect’s son, Shane Stogsdill, 19, called 911 from a vehicle outside the family home at 62570 Powell Butte Highway ... [full story]

BEND, Ore. – A minimum of 49 victims had been identified by Friday in a rash of vandalism to businesses, vehicles, a school and a church -- possibly damaged by ball bearings found near some of the crime scenes west of the Deschutes River in northwest Bend, police reported.   Ball bearings were found near some of the crime scenes - BPD photo  The activity began on March 26, and by Friday Bend Police Lt. Ben Gregory said ... [full story]

BEND, Ore. -- A Bend man who failed to secure a load he was hauling to the dump Thursday morning ended up in jail after a drug-detecting dog alerted to the smell of marijuana, deputies reported.   Ryan Patrick Palmer - DCJ photo Ryan Patrick Palmer, 30, was stopped near Highway 97 and Young Avenue for violation of the county ordinance just before 10 a.m. on March 27, Deschutes County Sheriff’s Detective Sgt. Michael Espinoza said. “Missy”, ... [full story]

TORONTO -- A Toronto man has been charged with using a cell phone to snap photographs up schoolgirls' skirts at a downtown mall, police said.Security staff at the Eaton Center called police to report they had observed the man repeatedly taking pictures of girls' faces then approaching them to talk. The security videos showed the cell phone being positioned to take "up-skirt" photos as the man talked with the girls.Police said in a news release ... [full story]

MOSCOW -- International terrorist groups made several attempts to set up operations in south-central Russia, a Russian counterintelligence official said Monday.Nikolai Patrushev, the director of Russia's Federal Security Service, said the groups Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan made "repeated attempts" to move their operations into the Urals region of Russian near Kazakhstan, RIA Novosti reported.Hizb ut-Tahrir calls itself a pan-Islamist political party seeking to establish an Islamic state in Central Asia. ... [full story]

MEYMANEH, Afghanistan -- Three rockets targeted a Norwegian military base in northern Afghanistan early Monday, prompting the evacuation of the base, military officials said.The military base in Meymaneh, the provincial capital of Faryab, came under attack in the early morning. The base held about 150 Norwegian and 50 Latvian soldiers at the time, the spokesman for the Norwegian armed forces, Lt. Col. John Inge Oegland said in Aftenposten."We're taking this very seriously," said Oegland. "It ... [full story]

HARRISBURG, Pa. -- Sen. Hillary Clinton, despite her suburban roots, has resonated with blue-collar workers who, observers say, are keeping her U.S. presidential candidacy afloat.For several reasons -- Clinton's focus on economic problems and solutions and her highly public story of survival -- her message resonates with financially suffering voters, the Chicago Tribune reported Monday."For blue-collar Democratic voters choosing a candidate, the first question is usually, 'Does he or she understand my life?'" said Mark ... [full story]

WASHINGTON -- The acrimony between Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and John McCain, R.-Ariz., regarding ethics reform legislation foreshadows the presidential race, analysts say.The interests on tough ethics reform banning corporate favors for legislators converged with Obama, who pushed similar reform in the Illinois state Senate, and McCain on a joint measure the two future presidential candidates pushed in late 2005.But the relationship crumbled after about a week, with both camps publicly swapping angry letters. McCain ... [full story]