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Bend and Redmond tracks are set to host Big Blast this weekend • SPORTS, D1
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One-third of Americans suffer from chronic pain Wednesday. The staggering tab: Chronic pain is costing the nation at least $558 billion a year in medical bills, sick days and lost productivity, the report found. That’s more than the cost of heart disease, the No. 1 killer. See Pain / A4
By Lauran Neergaard The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Nearly a third of Americans experience long-lasting pain — the kind that lingers for weeks to months — and too often feel stigma rather than relief from a health care system poorly prepared to treat them, the Institute of Medicine said
Merkley bill aims to end reliance on foreign oil By Andrew Clevenger The Bulletin
WASHINGTON — Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., on Wednesday introduced a plan to end American dependence on foreign oil. The Oil Independence for a Stronger America Act of 2011 seeks to reduce American oil consumption by eight million barrels a day by 2030, ending the need to import oil from countries whose foreign policies do not Sen. Jeff always align Merkley’s bill with those would create of the United a National States. AmeriEnergy Secucans currently rity Council. use more than 18 million barrels of oil each day, roughly half of which is imported. “For years, leaders from both parties have agreed that our country has a problem when it comes to overseas oil,” Merkley said. “Our addiction to overseas oil doubles our trade deficit. It threatens our environment. It puts our economy and our security at the mercy of foreign regimes that share neither our values nor our interests.” See Merkley / A4
MORE INSIDE HEALTH
Piloxing: Pilates plus boxing, with a hint of dance
Are prostate screenings worth it?
Relieve neck, shoulder pain in 2 minutes
... In the event of an
EMERGENCY ... Deschutes County is making it possible for residents to be notified by cellphone
How to sign up The website for residents to add their contact numbers to the reverse 911 system is not yet active, but will appear on www.deschutes.org in the next couple of weeks.
“It can be used for anything from a Wickiup Dam break, to a wildfire, to, God forbid, the mountain blows up.”
IN CONGRESS
— Rick Silbaugh, Deschutes 911 systems administrator Andy Tullis / The Bulletin
Rick Silbaugh, Deschutes 911 systems administrator, sits by his computer, which displays the registration page for the county’s new reverse 911 system and a missing-person file from an October search.
By Scott Hammers The Bulletin
D
eschutes County is preparing to roll out an expanded reverse 911 system in the coming weeks. For the first time, cellphone users will
be among those contacted automatically in the event
TOP NEWS INSIDE
of an emergency.
OBAMA: Pressures GOP on tax hikes, Page A3
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Amy Storey, spokeswoman with CTIA-The Wireless Association, a trade association for wireless telecommunications companies, said close to 30 percent of U.S. households have no landline telephone and rely exclusively on cellphones — and the number is growing. Oregon ranks seventh among the 50 states in terms of cellphone-
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Bond likely to pass today By Lauren Dake The Bulletin
SALEM — Lawmakers gave funding for the Oregon State University-Cascades Campus their stamp of approval WednesIN THE day, paving the way for the uniLEGISLATURE versity to purchase a building to house graduate programs. The powerful Joint Ways and Means Committee authorized a $2.29 million bond to go toward the purchase. The bill still needs to pass both chambers. But with the session expected to adjourn today, passage is nearly guaranteed. “If I were laying odds, I would say the chances of it passing the floor on the House and Senate (today) is 99.99 percent,” said Rep. Jason Conger, R-Bend. “And that means the money will be there.” Conger, who said passage of the bill was his No. 1 priority, pointed out that in a session where money was tight, not all bonds for projects throughout the state were approved. Central Oregon lawmakers joined forces to lobby for the project. But, Conger said, support from the community was also crucial. In one two-week period his office received more than 200 letters of support. See Cascades / A5
New investment tactic: preparing for end times By Azam Ahmed New York Times News Service
Investment professionals have a new pitch: The sky could soon be falling. While Greece took a step back from the brink Wednesday, the possibility of a default remains a fear. Europe’s debt crisis, as well as Inside natural disasters and political • Greece passes uprisings, are prompting intough austerity vestors both big and small measures as to seek out investments that protests erupt, promise to protect their portPage A4 folios in the event of economic Armageddon. Worried that Greece could go belly up? So-called black swan funds — named for rare and unexpected events — offer a way to profit in the event of a market collapse. Think a slowdown in the United States or China could set off a global economic crisis? New exchangetraded funds are popping up to help pad investor confidence. Since the financial crisis, many investors have prospered from a rebound in the markets. But recent events have led some to brace for the worst. “Clients are suddenly realizing the world isn’t as rosy as it’s been,” said Ahmed Fattouh, a hedge fund executive. “It makes a lot of sense to have these tail protections on.” See Invest / A5
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Rob Poirier, director of Deschutes County 911, said the decline of landline phones has made reverse 911 less effective than it used to be. The reverse directories programmed into the computerized calling systems do not include cellphones, he said, leaving an increasingly large slice of the population not readily reachable by public safety agencies.
only households, Storey said, with an estimated 30.6 percent of households fully reliant on cellphones. The Deschutes County reverse 911 system has been activated a handful of times in recent years to notify residents of wildfire evacuations and, occasionally, to tell them about children and elderly people who’ve gone missing, said Rick Silbaugh, systems administrator for Deschutes 911. On most occasions, the automated calls target residents of individual neighborhoods. However, with the ability to place 1,200 calls a minute, the system is able to reach large swaths of the community relatively quickly in the event of a natural disaster or other widespread emergency. See Emergency / A4
Conger: Cascades building is a lock
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Obama adviser outlines plans to defeat al-Qaida By Eric Schmitt and Mark Mazzetti New York Times News Service
WASHINGTON — A week after President Barack Obama announced the initial drawdown of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, his top counterterrorism adviser described plans to rely more heavily on a largely clandestine campaign to destroy al-Qaida’s network, which he described as already “in its decline.”
The adviser, John Brennan, said Wednesday that military and intelligence operatives would deliver “targeted, surgical pressure” on militant groups intent on attacking the United States. Laying out the Obama administration’s strategy to battle al-Qaida in the era after Osama bin Laden and at a time of declining public support for costly wars, Brennan outlined a counterterrorism strategy that for-
malized an approach that had been evolving over the past several years. He talked of hitting al-Qaida “hard enough and often enough” with increased numbers of Special Operations forces and speedy deployments of “unique assets” (presumably drone aircraft), and he underscored that military commandos and intelligence operatives were working more closely than ever before on the battlefield.
“It will take time, but make no mistake, al-Qaida is in its decline,” he said in a speech at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. But this strategy — relying on often unreliable allies, sometimes sketchy intelligence and a clandestine U.S. force already strained by a decade of secretive wars — has its limitations, U.S. officials have said in recent days. See Al-Qaida / A5
White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan noted threats from Pakistan and Yemen.