Eugene, Lane County | featured news

South Eugene has called upon Chris Miller to revive its football program once again. The former Oregon and NFL quarterback called it “round two” as he was hired once again as head coach of the Axemen on Tuesday.

Persistent, but apparently baseless rumors about violent events hitting local schools on Friday have prompted the Eugene and Bethel school districts to jointly announce that police investigations have not been able to substantiate them.

Retailers that sell guns are making some changes after the shooting in Newtown, Conn.

One lane of travel is now open on the McKenzie Highway near Nimrod, where a semi-truck crashed this morning and also knocked down power lines in the area, Oregon Department of Transportation officials said this afternoon. Flaggers are controlling traffic in alternating directions.

Oregon’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for November ticked down to 8.4 percent, from 8.6 percent in October. Last month’s unemployment rate was 0.7 of a point below November 2011, when it was 9.1 percent. Nonfarm employment grew by 600 in November.

A freshman student at North Eugene High School faces a misdemeanor charge of second-degree disorderly conduct, after police learned this morning of a threatening message posted to Facebook. Soon after learning of the threat, the male student was removed from campus, police said.

A man who ran down his perceived rival for his wife’s affections will spend 7 1/2 years in prison for attempted murder, a judge ruled Tuesday.

Lane County officials on Monday afternoon removed barricade fencing that had surrounded the Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza outside the county courthouse since last Wednesday night. The fencing went up after a protest group stayed there for two nights in defiance of the city of Eugene’s ban on overnight camping.

Eugene police have canceled a planned viewing of stolen property seized earlier this month from two local properties. The viewing — designed to reunite crime victims with items that had been stolen from them — had been scheduled for Wednesday at the department’s property control unit on North Garfield Street.

Many local schools are either closed or operating on a later schedule after overnight showers dropped snow in and around the Willamette Valley.