Thurston High shooting appeal — An attorney for Thurston High School shooter Kipland Kinkel will augment an appeal of his nearly 112-year prison sentence by using a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on juvenile life-in-prison sentences. The Supreme Court on Monday extended its ban on mandatory life in prison without parole sentences for anyone who committed a murder before age 18. At age 15, Kinkel killed his parents. He later went to his high school cafeteria in Springfield, fatally shooting two students and wounding about two dozen others in May 1998. The 33-year-old is being held at the medium-security Oregon State Correctional Institution in Salem. Kinkel’s attorney Andy Simrin says the high court’s ruling might help Kinkel. Simrin plans to file a related memorandum with the Oregon Court of Appeals.

Stream buffers — Environmental advocates are calling on environmental managers to apply new Oregon Department of Forestry rules that expand streamside protection rules on Western Oregon’s private and commercial forestlands to southwest Oregon. The wider buffers help shade fish-bearing streams and provide other benefits to wild salmon and other stream-dwelling creatures. The new rules were approved by the board in November and extend no-cut buffers from 20 feet to 120 feet to ensure that streams meet water-quality standards. Rogue Riverkeeper program director Forrest English says his group has not decided how to pressure either Gov. Kate Brown or the state Environmental Quality Commission to extend the rules to the Siskiyou Mountains but that they were improperly left out of the plan.

Fire chief firing — Cannon Beach’s former fire chief has filed a lawsuit claiming breach of contract, wrongful discharge and defamation over his firing in October. Mike Balzer claims the Cannon Beach Rural Fire Protection District’s board retaliated against him over critical comments made by his wife on social media. He also alleges board directors made defamatory statements about him. An attorney representing the fire district’s board could not be reached for comment.

Harassment claims — The Clatskanie People’s Utility District has paid nearly $3 million to six fired employees who claimed they were sexually harassed by a manager and retaliated against for reporting the abuse. The group has filed federal lawsuits claiming misconduct by former manager Joseph Taffe, who was convicted of harassment in 2014, and former general manager Gregory Booth. Elisha Shulda, Gail Rakitnich, Tamela Keith and Sarah Blodgett allege Taffe groped them at least once between 2009 and 2011. Rebecca Rakoz says she was stripped of many of her duties after reporting Booth’s plans to fire the women. The agency’s former information technology director says Booth told him to search through email and phone records of the women who reported the harassment. All claim they were wrongly fired by Booth.