Small tornado — A small tornado that touched down Tuesday afternoon in the parking lot of a community college campus briefly lifted two people in a Jeep Cherokee into the air, then slammed the vehicle back down on its tires, witnesses said. Student Josh Hollowell was between classes at Lane Community College’s main campus in Eugene when he saw the twister touch down, hitting four vehicles in the parking lot. The man in the Jeep told Hollowell he and his female companion were unhurt. A short time later they drove off. No one was hurt, college spokeswoman Joan Aschim said. Both Hollowell and a campus safety officer, Sgt. Lisa Rupp, estimated the Jeep was lifted about 8 feet off the ground.

Ranch slayings — The jury in the murder trial of a Southern Oregon woman has listened to a recording of her interview with police, in which she admits shooting two men and acknowledges that her pigs fed on the bodies. Susan Monica went on trial Tuesday in Medford on charges she killed two handymen living on her pig ranch in a small Jackson County community and dismembered the bodies. The men died in separate years. In opening statements, defense lawyer Garren Pedemonte said Monica shot the first victim in self-defense and the second as a kind of mercy killing. Police searched her pig ranch after Monica was discovered using a food stamps card belonging to one of the victims and found remains of the two men.

Portland shootings — Police responding to reports of gunfire early Tuesday found a man dead in a residential parking lot in northeast Portland. Sgt. Pete Simpson said no arrest has been made and there is no information about a suspect. The victim was identified as 24-year-old D’Andre Dickerson. His last known address is in Seattle, and it is not known why he was in Portland.

Wolf decision — State biologists are telling the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission there is enough information to consider taking the gray wolf off the state endangered species list. A draft status review was posted Tuesday on the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife website with materials for the commission’s next meeting. The meeting’s agenda includes a formal staff recommendation that the commission determine there is significant information to start the rule-making process. A final decision is not scheduled until August in Salem, but the commission is to make the first step in the process — deciding whether it has enough information to consider the issue — when it meets April 24 in Bend. At last count, Oregon had 77 wolves descended from animals introduced in Idaho in the 1990s. The 76-page status report says they are projected to increase at a rate of 7 percent a year, and the probability of a major drop in population is very low. There is plenty of habitat available on public lands, and wolves continue to expand their range, establishing at least one new pack in the western third of the state.