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Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber submitted his resignation on Friday, just one month into his record fourth term in office. Kitzhaber's fate was all but sealed Thursday, after Secretary of State Kate Brown issued a statement describing his behavior, accurately, as "bizarre," top Democrats called on him to step down, and several of his closest advisers resigned.

<p>Gov. John Kitzhaber announced his resignation Friday, ending weeks of speculation about whether he could lead Oregon with the cloud of at least two investigations into possible ethical breaches hanging over his head.</p> <p>The embattled governor faces allegations that his fiancee used their relationship to win contracts for her consulting business and failed to report income on her taxes. The state’s two top legislative leaders and the state treasurer -- all Democrats, as is the 67-year-old governor -- had called on Kitzhaber on Thursday to resign. Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber, fiancee provide new green energy scandal Caption Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber, fiancee provide new green energy scandal Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber, fiancee provide new green energy scandal Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber, fiancee provide new green energy scandal After rumors swirl. Gov. Kitzhaber says he's not resigning After rumors swirl. Gov. Kitzhaber says he's not resigning Oregon governor insists he won't resign Oregon governor insists he won't resign Oregon sec. of state 'headed to the capitol to do some work' Oregon sec. of state 'headed to the capitol to do some work'</p>

Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber submitted his resignation Friday. He met with his senior staff and administration officials before the official announcement, sources with direct knowledge told KOIN 6 News. The resignation will take effect as of 10 a.m. Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2015. Oregon Secretary of State Kate Brown will become the next governor.

Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber is expected to resign Friday, perhaps in the early afternoon, multiple sources told KOIN 6 News. The decision came after intense debate among the governor and those close to him. These sources say Kitzhaber has wanted to pursue that course since the weekend but had been dissuaded by his fiancée, Cylvia Hayes, and his legal team.

Oregon’s Democratic Gov. John Kitzhaber will resign this afternoon, multiple sources told Portland’s KOIN. News of the governor’s resignation comes after the governor was accused of using his influence to arrange contracts for his fiance’s green energy company and ordering the deletion of thousands of emails relevant to the scandal.

John Kitzhaber, the Democratic governor of Oregon was sworn into his fourth term of office just last month. But it seems highly unlikely he will be able to survive this month in office. Last October, the Willamette Weekly newspaper published an exposé showing how the governor’s fiancé, Cylvia Hayes, was taking money as a private consultant to environment groups and then pushing their policies in her public role as “First Lady” of the state. Most infamously, she ordered state employees to follow a policy she was being paid $25,000 by an advocacy group to promote. Apparently, some of the money...

Gov. John Kitzhaber’s office last week requested state officials destroy thousands of records in the governor’s personal email accounts, according to records obtained by WW and 101.9 KINK/FM News 101 KXL. The request came as investigations into allegations of influence-peddling involving Kitzhaber and first lady Cylvia Hayes were intensifying. Records show the request to destroy Kitzhaber’s emails came from Jan Murdock, Kitzhaber’s executive assistant. She wanted all emails from Kitzhaber’s personal email accounts removed from state servers. [snip]Personal emails of public officials can be subject to the state’s open records laws if they are used to discuss public business. Earlier...

Oregon’s top Democrats urged Gov. John Kitzhaber to resign Thursday, saying he cannot lead the state effectively amid a growing ethics scandal involving his fiancée, a green-energy consultant accused of using her relationship with the governor to land contracts for her business. Senate President Peter Courtney said he and House Speaker Tina Kotek asked Kitzhaber, a Democrat who recently started his fourth term, to step down. “I finally said, ‘This has got to stop,’” Courtney told reporters after he and Kotek met with the governor. “I don’t know what else to do right now. It seems to be escalating. It...

The consortium building the third set of locks for the Panama Canal is making fresh claims for cost overruns totaling $737 million ... Work began in 2007 to expand the canal with a third set of locks to enable it to handle the modern mega-freighters that global shipping companies prefer. But the $5.25 billion project has been plagued by delays, strikes and a bitter dispute over $1.6 billion in cost overruns with the consortium carrying out the upgrade, led by Spanish construction firm Sacyr. Initially scheduled for completion in 2014, the project's due date has been pushed back to early...

One of the big reasons for the slowdown at the 29 West Coast ports isn't on the tip of everyone's tongues, including elected officials, is because the public doesn't see it, he said. It's like cracks in the foundation of a house: virtually invisible but still very dangerous for the structural integrity of the house.

WASHINGTON—Highway funding, tax reform and tire registration were the big issues tire dealers, repair shop owners and association officials discussed with Capitol Hill staffers during the Tire Industry Association’s Federal Lobby Day on Feb. 5. Approximately 55 representatives of the tire retailing and auto repair industries participated in the event, which began with speeches from current and former members of Congress and progressed to one-on-one meetings with key staff persons in the offices of several top Washington lawmakers. With the Highway Trust Fund set to run out of money in May, passage of a multi-year transportation funding bill was the...

Embattled Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber had reached a decision to resign because of an ethics scandal surrounding him and his fiancée, but he changed his mind, three people with direct knowledge of the situation said Wednesday. They said the Democratic governor informed some of his aides on Sunday that he was going to resign and on Tuesday he asked his would-be successor, Secretary of State Kate Brown, to rush back from a conference in Washington D.C. They spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about private discussions. Brown’s abrupt and unexplained...

SALEM, Ore. -- Secretary of State Kate Brown has left a conference in Washington, D.C., and is making an unscheduled return to Oregon. Brown's abrupt return Wednesday comes as Gov. John Kitzhaber faces calls for his resignation. Brown would become governor if Kitzhaber leaves office before the end of his term.

Like many residents of Northwest Portland, Matthew Hale doesn’t own a car. Instead, he prefers to walk or ride the bus to the city’s innumerable coffee shops and breweries and live-music spots. On weekends, he and his wife have no problem hitching rides to the Pacific Coast or the Cascade mountain range. Everywhere he looks, Hale told me, there are people just like him — bearded, on skateboards, brewing kombucha. “It’s really chill,” he says. Portland has taken hold of the cultural imagination as, to borrow the tag line from “Portlandia,” the place where young people go to retire. And...

State legislators around the country have introduced more than 200 bills aiming to nullify regulations and laws coming out of Washington, D.C., as they look to rein in the federal government. The legislative onslaught, which includes bills targeting federal restrictions on firearms, experimental treatments and hemp, reflects growing discord between the states and Washington, state officials say. “You have a choice,” said Kentucky state Rep. Diane St. Onge (R). “To sit back and not do anything or say anything and let overregulation continue — or you have the alternative choice to speak up about it and say, ‘We know what...

...owners of an Oregon bakery who declined to make a cake for a same-sex couple’s wedding celebration were found guilty last week...will have to pay up to $150,000 for violating the Oregon Equality Act of 2007. ...Aaron said the fine would bankrupt the couple and their five children.

The Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) announced that loading and unloading operations at all 29 West Coast ports would temporarily be suspended this weekend in response to union slowdowns that brought freight movements at the ports to a near standstill. PMA members stated that they cannot afford the almost $1,200 per day cost to employ International Longshore and Warehouse Union members to do little work. After Breitbart broke the story on Thursday that union members of the ILWU planned to “walk out within the week,” the PMA employer group announced they can no longer continue to pay workers the premium pay...

An Oregon judge has acquitted a 61-year-old man who admitted taking photographs up the skirt of a 13-year-old girl as she shopped at a Target store in suburban Portland, lawyers in the case said Friday. Washington County Circuit Court Judge Eric Butterfield ruled on Thursday that Patrick Buono did not break the law when he surreptitiously took the pictures of the girl in January 2013, said his defense attorney Mark Lawrence. "He did not deny it and he feels real bad about it too, by the way," Lawrence said. The girl did not notice his actions, Lawrence said, but another...

Oregon's governor is struggling to deal with allegations that his fiancee used his position to land clients for her environmental consulting business, claims that have drawn an ethics investigation and the scrutiny of the state's attorney general. Although his role in arranging the deals isn't clear, the scandal has posed a threat to the decades-long political career of four-term Democrat John Kitzhaber, Oregon's longest-serving governor. The editorial board at the state's largest newspaper, The Oregonian, called for him to resign this week, saying the controversy has become such a distraction that he can't effectively lead. Two advisers to the Republican...

The Pacific Maritime Association suspends weekend vessel operations at all 29 ports along the West Coast. For the second time this week, terminal operators controlling the West Coast ports have raised the stakes in contract negotiations with their dockworkers. On Friday, the Pacific Maritime Assocation (PMA) said it would suspend weekend vessel operations at all 29 ports along the West Coast. “After three months of union slowdowns, it makes no sense to pay extra for less work,” PMA spokesman Wade Gates said in a statement. “Especially if there is no end in sight to the union’s actions, which needlessly brought...