A man accused with his wife of robbing a gas station in The Dalles last October and later shot by police in Portland after he and his wife robbed a hotel and led authorities on a car chase with three of their children in the backseat has been sentenced by in Washington County to 25 years in prison.  The Oregonian and OregonLive reports Joshua Luther admitted repeatedly firing a rifle at pursuing officers in Portland last October.  His wife, Michelle Luther, was sentenced in April to 10 years in prison for her role as the getaway driver in the chase through suburban Portland.  Joshua Luther was shot twice in the buttocks, and no officers were injured.  The Luthers are charged in Wasco County with three counts each of first-degree robbery and unlawful use of a weapon.

A bill to restore legal immunity for employees and volunteers who do work on publicly owned properties used for recreation has passed both the Oregon House and Senate and is awaiting Governor Kate Brown’s signature. The bill was in reaction to a recent court decision that found while the government entity that owned the property had immunity from legal action, individuals did not.  52nd District Representative Mark Johnson says the legislation is needed.  However, there has been no progress toward recreational liability reform for private sector businesses.  Johnson says there was no attempt at such a bill this session after efforts during last year’s session found no success.

Mid-Columbia Council of Governments interim executive director David Meriwether gave a report and recommendations on the future of the organization to its board on Tuesday.  MCCOG involves Hood River, Wasco, Sherman, Gilliam, and Wheeler counties plus cities and other entities in those counties, and is intended to provide services that can be done more efficiently as a group than through each individual entity.  But a shrinking number of programs and overhead concerns have led to a review of whether the organization is still useful.  Meriwether addressed several topics and gave the board a basic recommendation:  decide whether to do what’s necessary to make MCCOG what it can be or not, and if not then what will be done with the programs.  The MCCOG board will discuss the recommendations and the future of the organization at a meeting on August 8.

The Washington State Department of Transportation has reopened Highway 14 near Salmon Falls Road between Washougal and Stevenson.  The road had been closed since Tuesday morning for cleanup work where a tractor-trailer hauling two tankers of hot oil crashed and spilled about 3,000 gallons of oil.  The oil is used in asphalt for road construction and becomes sticky when cooled.  Before the highway could be reopened, crews had to grind down and repave portions of the highway.  The road will still only have one lane open, alternating directions for several days.  According to the Washington State Patrol, the driver approached a curve when the rear tanker began to drift.  The driver then overcorrected and hit a guardrail.

Washington state lawmakers say they have reached agreement “in principle” on a new two-year operating budget, but won’t release any details.  After budget negotiators met throughout the night, Governor Jay Inslee released a statement about the agreement this morning, saying that legislative leaders were confident they would have a vote on the budget before the end of the day Friday, within hours of a deadline to avert a partial government shutdown.  The Democratic-controlled House and Republican-led Senate have been struggling for months to find compromise on a budget that addresses a state Supreme Court mandate on education funding, and Senate Majority Leader Mark Schoesler thinks what they have come up will work for students.  The rest of the Legislature wasn’t expected to be briefed on details of the agreement until Thursday, and the public won’t see the information until after that occurs.

Mid-Columbia Senior Center’s long-awaited elevator has arrived, and the installation process is underway.  The elevator has long been a goal of the Center to improve access to the lower level of the building.  Joan Silver chaired the fundraising project, and she says it should increase use of the lower level.  Once construction is done, Silver says an inspection must be done before the elevator can be used, and a ribbon-cutting celebration is set for July 18 at 8:15 a.m.  The elevator, along with a 400-square foot building addition to house the Center’s Nu-2-U shop, cost about $400,000.  Silver noted the original Community Development Block Grant that built the Center 30 years ago was $386,000.

The City of Hood River has had to delay a waterline improvement project in the Sherman and Serpentine areas after they only received one bid, and it came in well over estimate.  City Manager Steve Wheeler says the lone bid was $350,000 over the engineer’s estimate.  He noted an extremely busy summer construction season made it a difficult time to put the project before bidders.  Wheeler says the City will put the project out for a bid again next year.  In other business, the Hood River City Council picked Sue Powers to fill a vacancy on the municipal planning commission.

The City of The Dalles has secured a $2,000,000 low-interest loan from Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality for construction of a generator at the municipal wastewater treatment plant to utilize methane gas from plant operations to produce electricity.  Mayor Steve Lawrence says with the loan the generator can pay for itself within ten years, and eventually help defray operation costs for the plant through savings achieved by using the power from the generator and selling excess power.  Lawrence notes the generator is being installed as part of required upgrades to the plant that are already underway.

Contract negotiations for hatchery operations in Oregon have been extended.  The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will extend its cooperative agreements with Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife for up to 120 days, as the agencies continue negotiating contracts for the Corps’ fish hatchery services in the Columbia, Willamette and Rogue river basins.  The current agreements expire on June 30.  Corps Portland District Fish Section chief Tammy Mackey says they hope to sign contracts by July 31, and the extensions keep the hatcheries operating to avoid impacts to the fish being raised in those facilities.  Since the 1950s, the Corps has paid ODFW to manage hatchery operations and provide fish production services to accomplish required mitigation for impacts to habitat by the Corps’ dams.  A 2015 review of existing agreements and federal contracting laws and regulations determined a contract, rather than a cooperative agreement, is the appropriate legal document for the Corps to purchase hatchery services.  The Bonneville hatchery is one of the facilities involved in the negotiation.

A 66-year-old man from Brookings died Monday afternoon when the motorcycle he was operating crashed while he was attempting to avoid lumber that had spilled onto Highway 35 in Hood River County.  According to the Oregon State Police, David Bruce Hall was traveling north bound on Highway 35 near milepost 62.  A preliminary investigation found a Forest Service employee was driving a pickup with a load of lumber southbound on the highway and while negotiating a curve the lumber spilled out onto the road, partially blocking both lanes of travel.  The OSP says Hall attempted to avoid the lumber, which resulted in a crash.  Hall was wearing protective equipment and lifesaving efforts were made, but Hall succumbed to his injuries.  The accident occurred around 12:50 p.m. Monday.  The investigation is on-going.  The OSP was assisted on scene by the Hood River County Sheriff’s Office, Parkdale Fire Department, U.S. Forest Service Law Enforcement and Oregon Department of Transportation.