Cliff death — Statements made to police by an Oregon man accused of pushing his 23-year-old girlfriend off a cliff will not be admissible at trial. The Oregon Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a detective should have stopped interrogating Stephen Nichols when the suspect said he did not want to discuss Rhonda Casto’s death. The interview occurred shortly after Nichols’ 2015 arrest at San Francisco International Airport. A Hood River County judge had ruled the statement inadmissible, but the state appealed to the higher court. Casto fell 100 feet during a 2009 hike in the Columbia River Gorge. Nichols called 911 to say the woman slipped. Records show that several months before the incident, Nichols increased Casto’s life insurance policy to $1 million. The Bend resident was secretly indicted while living in China in 2014. He has pleaded not guilty.

Fatal fire — A woman and her 13-year-old son who were critically burned in a rural Oregon house fire that killed four others died at a Portland hospital Thursday afternoon, authorities said. Tabitha Howell, 38, and her son Andrew Hall-Young died within an hour of each other, said Erin Patrick with the Multnomah County Medical Examiner’s Office. Patrick said both died from injuries sustained in the early Wednesday blaze that also killed four children ages 4 to 13. James Howell, 39, was in critical condition in the burn center, a spokeswoman for Legacy Emanuel Medical Center in Portland, Julie Reed, confirmed Thursday. The fire started with a portable space heater that was being used after a fireplace malfunctioned, Fire Protection District Chief Rich Holloway said Thursday in a post on the district’s Facebook page. Combustible materials placed too close to the heater ignited and started the blaze in the tiny timber town of Riddle, Holloway said. Holloway did not immediately return calls but City Manager Kathy Wilson confirmed the authenticity of the Facebook post in a phone interview.

Portland General Electric — Portland General Electric has asked state utility regulators to approve a 5.6 percent rate increase. The increase would effectively provide $100 million in new revenue, to go into effect next January. PGE says the increase in necessary to cover increased costs for transmission upgrades and other investments to enhance grid reliability. The request comes after rate increases in 2014, 2015, and 2016 that collectively raised rates about 7 percent. The proposed raise would vary by customer class, with residential customers seeing a 7.1 percent raise. Small businesses would see rates go up 5.7 percent. Ratepayer advocates say they will oppose the rate hike, citing the increases in recent years.

Convenience store killing — A man who fatally shot another man after a fight outside a Southern Oregon convenience store has been convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Bradley Quillen also faced a murder charge, but not enough members of a divided jury determined he was guilty of that crime. The 27-year-old Quillen did not testify during the three-day trial that ended Wednesday. Defense attorney Christine Herbert said Quillen was trying to defend himself last April outside a 7-Eleven store in Phoenix, Oregon. The victim was 23-year-old Miguel Angel Delfin. His mother, Belinda McCurdy, told the court her heart is destroyed.

SOU tuition — The president of Southern Oregon University warns the school might have to raise tuition by 12 percent if the state doesn’t come through with additional funding. Linda Schott told the Mail Tribune editorial board that such a tuition increase, along with a 3 to 5 percent increase in housing, would mean in-state, undergraduate students would pay an extra $1,300 to $1,600 a year. To prevent such price increases, SOU and other public universities have asked the Oregon Legislature for an additional $100 million over the $667 million that Gov. Kate Brown has proposed for public universities in her budget.