A jury in Portland, Oregon, has convicted a novelist — who once wrote an essay titled “How to Murder Your Husband" — of fatally shooting her husband.

Daniel Brophy died four years ago.

KOIN-TV reports the Multnomah County jury of seven women and five men delivered a guilty verdict Wednesday on a second-degree murder charge after deliberating over two days.

He was shot and killed as he prepped for work at the Oregon Culinary Institute in Southwest Portland.

His wife Crampton Brophy was arrested three months later, in September of 2018.

Prosecutors determined that the writer’s motive for killing her husband was to cash in on his life insurance policies, so she could alleviate herself from debt.

Crampton Brophy’s 2011 essay was not used as evidence during the trial.

Sentencing will take place on June 13.

One of Crampton Brophy’s attorneys said the defense team plans to appeal.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House on Friday approved wide-ranging legislation aimed at helping communities in the West cope with increasingly severe wildfires and drought — fueled by climate change — that have caused billions of dollars of damage to homes and businesses in recent years.

The measure combines 49 separate bills and would increase firefighter pay and benefits; boost resiliency and mitigation projects for communities affected by climate change; protect watersheds; and make it easier for wildfire victims to get federal assistance.

"Across America the impacts of climate change continue to worsen, and in this new normal, historic droughts and record-setting wildfires have become all too common,'' said Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colo., the bill's chief co-sponsor. Colorado has suffered increasingly devastating wildfires in recent years, including the Marshall fire last year that caused more than $513 million in damage and destroyed nearly 1,100 homes and structures in Boulder County.

"What once were wildfire seasons are now wildfire years. For families across the country who have lost their homes due to these devastating wildfires and for the neighborhoods impacted by drought, we know that we need to apply a whole-of-government approach to support community recovery and bolster environmental resiliency," Neguse said. "This is a bill that we believe meets the moment for the West."

The bill was approved, 218-199, as firefighters in California battled a blaze that forced evacuation of thousands of people near Yosemite National Park and crews in North Texas sought to contain another fire.

One Republican, Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, voted in favor of the bill, while Oregon Rep. Kurt Schrader was the only Democrat to oppose it.

The bill now goes to the Senate, where Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has sponsored a similar measure.

Both the House and Senate bills would permanently boost pay and benefits for federal wildland firefighters. President Joe Biden signed a measure last month giving them a hefty raise for the next two years, a move that affects more than 16,000 firefighters and comes as much of the West braces for another difficult wildfire season.

Pay raises for the federal firefighters had been included in last year's $1 trillion infrastructure bill, but the money was held up as federal agencies studied recruitment and retention data to decide where to deliver them. The raise approved by Biden was retroactive to Oct. 1, 2021, and expires Sept. 30, 2023.

The House bill would make the pay raises permanent and sets minimum pay for federal wildland firefighters at $20 per hour, or nearly $42,000 a year. It also raises eligibility for hazardous-duty pay and boosts mental health and other services for firefighters. The bill is named after smokejumper Tim Hart, who died fighting a wildfire in New Mexico last year.

"The West is hot — hotter than ever — it is dry and when it is windy, the West is on fire,'' said Rep. Kim Schrier, D-Wash. "And we are seeing this every year because of climate change. That's why this bill is so important.''

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called the bill "a major victory for Californians — and for the country.'' The Oak Fire, the largest wildfire so far this year, "is ravaging our state,'' she said. "At the same time, countless of our communities regularly suffer lack of rainfall that can kill crops and further fuel fires."

The House bill would deliver "urgently needed resources" to combat fires and droughts, "which will only increase in frequency and intensity due to the climate crisis,'' Pelosi said. The bill includes $500 million to preserve water levels in key reservoirs in the drought-stricken Colorado River and invest in water recycling and desalination.

Republicans denounced the measure as "political messaging," noting that firefighters' hourly pay has already been increased above $20 in most cases. The House bill does not appropriate additional money for the Forest Service or other agencies, and without such an increase, the Forest Service says it would have to lay off about 470 wildland firefighters.

Rep. Bruce Westerman of Arkansas, the top Republican on the House Natural Resources Committee, called it "egregious" that Democrats would seek to enact provisions that could lead to firefighter layoffs in the midst of a devastating wildfire season.

"Democrats are finally waking up to the wildfire and drought crises, exacerbated by years of forest mismanagement and a lack of long-term water storage. Unfortunately, Democrats' proposals are anything but solutions,'' Westerman said. He accused Democrats of failing to follow science showing the need to manage forests before fires begin, and said Democrats "fail to construct the kind of long-term infrastructure needed to make communities resilient to drought'' while prioritizing "liberal talking points" about climate change.

Neguse called that accusation outrageous and noted that many of the bills included in the wildfire/drought legislation are Republican proposals.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said the bill was important to the whole country — not just the West, where wildfires and drought are a daily reality.

"We are one nation indivisible and if one part of us is burning, we are all burning," Hoyer said.

Besides boosting firefighter pay, the bill enhances forest management projects intended to reduce hazardous fuels such as small trees and underbrush that can make wildfires far more dangerous. It also establishes grant programs to help communities affected by air pollution from wildfires and improve watersheds damaged by wildfire.

Republicans called the thinning projects — which also include prescribed burns and removal of vegetation — meaningless without waivers of lengthy environmental reviews that can delay forest treatment by years.

The White House said in a statement that it supports efforts to address climate change, wildfires and drought, but wants to "work with the Congress to ensure the many provisions in the (bill) avoid duplication with existing authorities and administration efforts."

EUGENE, Ore. (Video above: KEZI via CNN) —

A 7-Eleven employee in Oregon went above and beyond her job description recently when she helped deliver a baby during her shift.

Around 3 a.m. on Sept. 6, Karin Warren said a man asked for help calling 911 because his wife was in labor.

The situation that followed was caught on the convenience store's surveillance camera.

Warren told KEZI that after she called 911, she went to be with the expectant mother until an ambulance arrived.

"That's when she stuck her legs up on my shoulders and I was like, 'woah, OK,'" Warren said.

Warren said she went into "mama mode" and helped the woman through what happened next — the arrival of her newborn son.

"I always wanted to see a baby be born other than mine," Warren said. "It was incredible."

The parents Warren helped were originally from California and trying to find the closest hospital. They were so grateful for her help in a stressful situation that they made Warren the child's godmother.

Watch the video above to see the whole situation unfold.

OREGON, Ohio — An Ohio oil refinery was shut down Wednesday after two people died in the massive fire on Tuesday.

A spokesperson for British Petroleum told the Associated Press that the fire occurred at its Husky Toledo Refinery in the city of Oregon, just outside Toledo.

According to the news outlet, the company said that the two workers were initially injured in the blaze but later succumbed to their injuries.

In a video provided to CNN, Ryan Rohm told the news outlet that he began noticing black smoke rise from the refinery around 7 p.m., adding an explosion also shook the ground and houses nearby.

During a Wednesday night speech on the House of Representatives floor, U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur offered her condolences to the families of Ben and Max Morrissey, the two men who died in the fire.

"Madam Speaker, I rise today with deep sadness to pay tribute to two highly skilled U.S. steelworkers, brothers Ben and Max Morrissey, who tragically lost their lives at the British Petroleum refinery in my hometown," Kaptur said as she addressed lawmakers. "Yesterday, while on the job at the BP-Husky plant in Oregon, Ohio, their lives were cut short in a horrific explosion. Responsible citizens, husbands and fathers who performed America’s essential work that drives progress and our American way of life forward."

The company spokesperson said the fire was extinguished around 10:15 p.m. Tuesday and the refinery was "safely shut down," NBC News reported.

The cause of the fire has not been released, the Associated Press reported.

Police in Eugene, Oregon, are investigating several reports of razors found in Halloween candy.

The candy wrappers appeared to be sliced open just enough to slide the razor inside.

"The razor appears to be something similar to a pencil sharpener blade," the Eugene Police Department stated.

The trick-or-treaters all collected candy within blocks of each other, allowing police to narrow their search for the culprit. However, no arrests have been made.

Police are asking parents to check their child's bag of candy before allowing them to consume any of it.

"It's so unfortunate that a holiday that's meant for kids to go out and have fun and get some treats and spend time with their families and enjoy themselves— that someone is taking advantage of that and potentially hurting kids," said Captain Chris Harrison told Eugene TV station KVAL.

No injuries from the razor blades have been reported.

CINCINNATI — Mount Notre Dame senior combo guard KK Bransford, Winton Woods senior point guard Chance Gray and Mason senior center Kyla Oldacre were selected Tuesday afternoon to the McDonald's All-American Girls Game March 29 in Chicago.

The 2022 all-star game roster was announced during ESPN's "NBA Today" show. The game is at Wintrust Arena in Chicago on March 29 at 6:30 p.m. on ESPN2.

Bransford, Oldacre and Gray are three of only 24 players selected nationally to compete in the McDonald's All-American Girls Game. This is the first time Greater Cincinnati has had three players selected for the prestigious all-star game in a single year.

Bransford, a University of Notre Dame signee, is on the MaxPreps national player of the year watch list this month.

Bransford, who won the 2021 Ohio Ms. Basketball award, has helped to lead the Cougars (17-0) to 89 consecutive wins - the second most in Ohio High School Athletic Association history.

Bransford enters Tuesday night's game at St. Ursula with 1,984 career points which is 16 points away from joining the OHSAA record book for most career points (2,000 points minimum).

Gray, who is signed with the University of Oregon, is ranked the nation's No. 7 player overall in the 2022 class by ESPN.

Gray was a Division I first-team all-state selection as a junior. Gray has led Winton Woods to a 17-1 record including 15 consecutive wins.

Gray averages 25.6 points, 4.9 rebounds, 3.6 steals and 3.2 assists. Gray is 27 points away from reaching the 2,000 points milestone.

Oldacre, a University of Miami (Fla.) signee, averages 13.9 points, 8.9 rebounds, 3.5 blocks, 1.9 steals and 1.4 assists this season for Mason (15-2).

Oldacre averaged 14.9 points, 9.1 rebounds and 3.2 blocks as a junior at Mason and was very impressive at Nike Nationals last year. The center totaled four double-digit games, including two 20-point outings in Augusta, Ga.

This is the first time a Greater Cincinnati player has been selected for the McDonald's All American Game since former Mason star Sammie Puisis was selected for the 2019 contest.

SALEM, Ore. — A former Oregon lawmaker who was expelled for letting violent, far-right protesters into the state Capitol has pleaded guilty to one count of official misconduct.

The Statesman Journal reports that Mike Nearman was sentenced Tuesday to 18 months probation, during which he will need to complete 80 hours of community service and is banned from the Capitol building and grounds.

He will also pay $200 in court fees and $2,700 to the Oregon Legislative Administration for damages done during the Dec. 21 riot.

Nearman appeared defiant while entering his plea on Tuesday.

"I opened a door of the Capitol, I went out, and that allowed people to enter," Nearman said, according to Oregon Live and Oregon Public Broadcasting, when asked by a judge to describe his actions to the court.

The judge then reportedly suggested that there was "more to the story" and that Nearman was admitting to receiving a benefit for his actions.

"The benefit was that the citizens were allowed in the Capitol," Nearman said.

"Are you telling me that the benefit that you were seeking to confer was on the public being able to enter?" Pellegrini asked.

"It would make me appear favorable to certain citizen groups," Nearman said. "I don't support what they did when they entered."

Right-wing rioters stormed the Oregon Capitol on Dec. 21, amid a protest against COVID-19-related restrictions. Five days prior to the riot, a video was posted to YouTube that showed Nearman explaining to a group in vague terms about accessing the state capitol through its west entrance.

Surveillance video from Dec. 21 showed that Nearman left the Capitol through a locked door that was surrounded by protesters. The protester's confrontation with the police in the building occurred shortly afterward.

After reports of the Dec. 16 YouTube video went public, Nearman was charged, and Oregon House Speaker Tina Kotek introduced a resolution to expel Nearman.

On June 10, Nearman became the first member of the Oregon House to be expelled in its 160-year history after a 59-1 vote.

As drought- and wind-driven wildfires have become more dangerous across the American West in recent years, firefighters have tried to become smarter in how they prepare.

They’re using new technology and better positioning of resources in a bid to keep small blazes from erupting into mega-fires like the ones that torched a record 4% of California last year, or the nation’s biggest wildfire this year that has charred a section of Oregon half the size of Rhode Island.

There have been 730 more wildfires in California so far this year than last, an increase of about 16%. But nearly triple the area has burned — 470 square miles (1,200 square kilometers).

Catching fires more quickly gives firefighters a better chance of keeping them small.

That includes using new fire behavior computer modeling that can help assess risks before fires start, then project their path and growth.

When “critical weather” is predicted — hot, dry winds or lightning storms — the technology, on top of hard-earned experience, allows California planners to pre-position fire engines, bulldozers, aircraft and hand crews armed with shovels and chain saws in areas where they can respond more quickly.

With the computer modeling, “they can do a daily risk forecast across the state, so they use that for planning,” said Lynne Tolmachoff, spokeswoman for Cal Fire, California’s firefighting agency.

That’s helped Cal Fire hold an average 95% of blazes to 10 acres (4 hectares) or less even in poor conditions driven by drought or climate change, she said. So far this year it's held 96.5% of fires below 10 acres (4 hectares).

Federal firefighters similarly track how dry vegetation has become in certain areas, then station crews and equipment ahead of lightning storms or in areas where people gather during holidays, said Stanton Florea, a U.S. Forest Service spokesman at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.

In another effort to catch fires quickly, what once were fire lookout towers staffed by humans have largely been replaced with cameras in remote areas, many of them in high-definition and armed with artificial intelligence to discern a smoke plume from morning fog. There are 800 such cameras scattered across California, Nevada and Oregon, and even casual viewers can remotely watch wildfires in real time.

Fire managers can then "start making tactical decisions based on what they can see,” even before firefighters reach the scene, Tolmachoff said.

Fire managers also routinely summon military drones from the National Guard or Air Force to fly over fires at night, using heat imaging to map their boundaries and hot spots. They can use satellite imagery to plot the course of smoke and ash.

“Your job is to manage the fire, and these are tools that will help you do so” with a degree of accuracy unheard of even five years ago, said Char Miller, a professor at Pomona College in California and a widely recognized wildfire policy expert.

In California, fire managers can overlay all that information on high-quality Light Detection and Ranging topography maps that can aid decisions on forest management, infrastructure planning and preparation for wildfires, floods, tsunamis and landslides. Then they add the fire behavior computer simulation based on weather and other variables.

Other mapping software can show active fires, fuel breaks designed to slow their spread, prescribed burns, defensible space cleared around homes, destroyed homes and other wildfire damage.

“It’s all still new, but we can see where it’s going to take us in the future when it comes to planning for people building homes on the wildland area, but also wildland firefighting,” Tolmachoff said.

Cal Fire and other fire agencies have been early adopters of remote imaging and other technologies that can be key in early wildfire detection, said John Bailey, a former firefighter and now professor at Oregon State University.

Some experts argue it’s a losing battle against wildfires worsened by global warming, a century of reflexive wildfire suppression and overgrown forests, and communities creeping into what once were sparsely populated areas. Climate change has made the West hotter and drier in the past 30 years, and scientists have long warned the weather will get more extreme as the world warms.

Yet, firefighters' goal is to replicate the outcome of a fire that started Monday in the canyon community of Topanga, between Los Angeles and Malibu.

It had the potential to swiftly spread through dry brush but was held to about 7 acres (3 hectares) after water-dropping aircraft were scrambled within minutes from LA and neighboring Ventura County.

What firefighters don’t want is another wildfire like the one that ravaged the Malibu area in 2018. It destroyed more than 1,600 structures, killed three people and forced thousands to flee.

In another bid to gain an early advantage, California is buying a dozen new Sikorsky Firehawk helicopters — at $24 million each — that can operate at night, fly faster, drop more water and carry more firefighters than the Vietnam War-era Bell UH-1H “Hueys” they will eventually replace.

It will also soon receive seven military surplus C-130 transport aircraft retrofitted to carry 4,000 gallons (15,140 liters) of fire retardant, more than three times as much as Cal Fire’s workhorse S-2 air tankers.

For all that, firefighters’ efforts to outsmart and suppress wildfires is counterproductive if all it does is postpone fires in areas that will eventually burn, argued Richard Minnich, a professor in Riverside who studies fire ecology.

“No matter how sophisticated the technology may be, the areas they can manage or physically impact things is small,” he said. “We’re in over our heads. You can have all the technology in the world — fire control is impossible.”

Working with wildfires is more realistic, he said, by taking advantage of patches that previously burned to channel the spread of new blazes.

Timothy Ingalsbee, a former federal firefighter who now heads Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology, also said firefighters need to adopt a new approach when confronting the most dangerous wind-driven wildfires that leapfrog containment lines by showering flaming embers a mile or more ahead of the main inferno.

It's better to build more fire-resistant homes and devote scarce resources to protecting threatened communities while letting the fires burn around them, he said.

“We have these amazing tools that allow us to map fire spread in real time and model it better than weather predictions," Ingalsbee said. “Using that technology, we can start being more strategic and working with fire to keep people safe, keep homes safe, but let fire do the work it needs to do — which is recycle all the dead stuff into soil.”

Associated Press writers Keith Ridler in Boise, Idaho, and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed to this story.

Beachgoers in Oregon last week caught a glimpse of a large, rarely-seen fish when a 100-pound opah washed ashore.

The three-and-a-half foot long, silver-and-deep-orange fish washed ashore July 14 on Sunset Beach in Seaside, Oregon, located in the state's northwest corner.

Officials with the Seaside Aquarium said that while it's unclear how the fish died, they found it in "great shape," meaning it likely died near the shoreline.

"It created quite the stir at the Aquarium where folks were encouraged to come take a look at this beautiful and odd looking fish," the aquarium said in a Facebook post.

The Seaside Aquarium said the last time an opah was spotted in the area was in 2009 when a fisherman hooked a 97 pound opah off the Columbia River Mouth.

Not much is known about the opah, which is sometimes referred to as the "moonfish." They typically live deep in the ocean, making it difficult for scientists to track their behavior and environment.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), opah fish are typically found in "tropical and temperate waters."

Heidi Dewar, a research biologist with NOAA, told The Washington Post that the changing climate might be the reason why the rare disc-shaped fish found itself in the Pacific Northwest.

"We are seeing some marine organisms moving northward as ocean temperatures increase," Dewar said.

Officials with the Seaside Aquarium recovered the fish. They say they will freeze the specimen until later this year when they say they'll select a school group to dissect the fish.

Almost 100 people in Oregon have now died as a result of a recent heatwave that brought historic temperatures to the Pacific Northwest last week.

Oregon's governor, Kate Brown, said communities of color and low-income families were disproportionately impacted.

She is calling for more federal resources to combat the issue. 

Brown said the heatwave showed a need to prepare even more for climate change.

Heat-related deaths have also been reported in Washington state and Canada.

At the same time, emergency responders in British Columbia are battling more than 180 wildfires, most of which were likely caused by lightning strikes.

This story originally reported by Robin Dich and Alex Livingston on Newsy.com.

You may not pay attention to where your burgers come from, but forthre meat processing industry, COVID-19 has shed light on some of the issues the supply chain faces for both big and small companies.

“I founded the company in 1990,” Geoff Latham, president and CEO of Nicky USA, said.

Nicky USA is a small meat processor and distributor in Oregon. When we visited, the building was busy cutting, packing, and sending off meats. The demand for processing hasn’t gone away since the start of the pandemic; it’s actually increased.

“Our processing plant has been the heart and soul of me and my company and really excelled at that time. Our distribution was suffering but our processing plant, the demand skyrocketed for the plant,” Latham said.

Last year, the pandemic shook America’s food supply chain as restaurants closed and groceries saw a spike in demand. Meat processors were included.

“We had to turn away a lot of business in the processing side just because we only had so many hours per day we could get done,” Latham said.

Where those meats ended up changed.

“When COVID-19 hit, we were 85 percent restaurants, zero direct to consumer, and about 15 percent was...butcher shops and retailers,” he explained.

Now, Latham said restaurants are only 45 percent of his businesses, and 10 percent comes from a new direct-to-consumer model.

“It doesn’t seem like much, but it’s a very important 10 percent of what we do,” he explained. ”A really big part of our survival has been the support of direct to consumer.”

COVID-19 shook up a lot of industries, and small processing facilities happened to benefit in some ways.

“Over the last year, there’s really been a surge of demand for those,” David Anderson, livestock economist and professor at Texas A&M University, said.

Anderson is referring to these smaller plants.

“They may not have an open date until next year, 2022, so there has been a surge in demand for those services and those are very small plants,” he said.

Meanwhile, large plants were dealing with their own problems, including COVID-19 outbreaks that received attention from the federal government and national news.

“When COVID hit and the big packing plants were getting written up in the paper, hundreds and hundreds of people getting sick. It really temporarily stopped the supply chain, which most people don't realize is just so massive,” Latham said.

The CDC reported almost 5,000 people tested positive for COVID-19 in 225 facilities across the U.S. Outbreaks at larger plants caused a ripple effect.

“Just as an example, we saw prices skyrocket when we had a COVID outbreak in the Midwest, and all of a sudden, beef is $3 to $4 more expensive here in Oregon,” Latham said. “It really emphasized how important it is to maybe decentralize some of our production in this country.”

Latham said more local production is the solution.

“The more you can buy regionally, the better it mitigates prices going up and down that dramatically,” he said.

However, Anderson said, while he’s seeing more of these small facilities doing well, the larger plants still have a purpose.

“The reason food is so cheap is because those places are so big,” he said. “Big plants have much lower costs than little plants, so if we took that a step further and went to a system with a lot of little plants, our food is going to cost a lot more.”

“I just believe that COVID made people realize how important it is to support your local people,” Latham said.

SALEM, Ore. —

Kip Kinkel, who killed his parents before going on a shooting rampage at his Oregon high school in 1998, killing two classmates and injuring 25 more, has given his first news interview, telling HuffPost he feels "tremendous, tremendous shame and guilt."

Kinkel, now 38, is serving a de facto life sentence at the Oregon State Correctional Institution. He spoke with the news site by phone for about 20 hours over 10 months.

He said he felt guilty not just for what he did as a 15-year-old suffering from then-undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenia, but the effect his crime has had on other juvenile offenders sentenced to life terms: His case has been held up by some of his victims and by others as a reason to oppose juvenile justice reform in the state.

While he has not previously given interviews because he did not want to further traumatize his victims, he said, he also began to feel that his silence was preventing those offenders from getting a second chance.

"I have responsibility for the harm that I caused when I was 15," Kinkel said. "But I also have responsibility for the harm that I am causing now as I’m 38 because of what I did at 15."

Kinkel described how he had been hearing voices since age 12 and how he became obsessed with knives, guns and explosives, believing China was going to invade the U.S. and that the government and the Walt Disney Co. had implanted a microchip in his head.

When he was caught at Thurston High School in Springfield with a stolen handgun he bought from another student on May 19, 1998, "My whole world blew up," he said. "All the feelings of safety and security — of being able to take control over a threat — disappeared."

Facing expulsion, a possible felony charge and an enormous sense of shame, he said, the voices in his head made him believe he had to kill his parents and then return to school to "kill everybody."

He killed his parents the next day, and the day after that he opened fire in the school cafeteria, killing 16-year-old Ben Walker and 17-year-old Mikael Nickolauson and injuring 25 before being subdued by other students.

He pleaded guilty — at the time, he did not want to accept his diagnosis and felt community pressure to resolve the case rather than plead not guilty by reason of insanity. He was sentenced to nearly 112 years after apologizing profusely.

"I feel tremendous, tremendous shame and guilt for what I did," he told HuffPost. "I hate the violence that I’m guilty of."

Kinkel shot Betina Lynn in the back and foot. She told HuffPost the idea of him ever getting out is "literally terrifying." She has permanent nerve damage, a constant reminder of what happened.

"Even now, more than 23 years later, I and many other survivors are still dealing with the fallout," Lynn said. "We are all serving life sentences right alongside him."

Kinkel described how he underwent mental health treatment at the youth prison where he began his sentence and recognized he harmed innocent people, including his parents, whom he loved. He also said he cried when he learned about the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado, afraid that he had inspired it.

Kinkel, who has obtained a college degree behind bars, continues to challenge his sentence, which was upheld by the state Supreme Court. In March, his attorneys filed a petition in federal court, arguing that his plea was not voluntary — he had been off his meds for several weeks beforehand — and that his sentence was unconstitutional.

"Sentencing a juvenile to die in prison because they suffer from a mental illness is a violation of the Eighth Amendment," his lawyers wrote.

In 2019, as part of a national effort to re-evaluate tough-on-crime sentences for juveniles, the Oregon Legislature passed a measure to stop automatically referring 15- to 17-year-olds to adult court for certain offenses and to ensure that they weren't sentenced to life in prison without a chance to seek parole. At the time, there were about a dozen people serving life or life-equivalent terms for crimes committed as juveniles.

But critics warned that that the measure could lead to Kinkel's release, and a month later, lawmakers passed another bill to make clear that the measure was not retroactive.

"It doesn't matter if he was 15," Adam Walker, the brother of Kinkel's victim Ben Walker, said in a video released at the time. "The victims don't get second chances. Why should the offenders?"

Kinkel said he watched the debate in the prison library.

"It was like, there was hope," Kinkel said. "And then the Legislature ... came back and said, 'No, we are specifically, intentionally, purposely with everything that we have, going to take this away from the kids already in the system.'"

He said he doesn't often consider the possibility of ever being released: "I don't allow myself to spend too much time thinking about that because I think that can actually bring more suffering."

A Republican state lawmaker in Oregon faces potential expulsion from the state House of Representatives after a video has emerged that appears to show him explaining to a group of protesters how to enter the closed state Capitol building.

Days after that video was published on YouTube, a crowd of far-right protesters entered the Capitol during a legislative session where lawmakers were debating COVID-19 restrictions. The breach led to a scuffle with police; the Associated Press reports that some protests sprayed chemical irritants on officers.

The video was published Friday by Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB). In the video, which was posted to YouTube on Dec. 16, State Rep. Mike Nearman speaks to a group about setting up what's referred to as "Operation Hall Pass," as the group discusses accessing the Capitol despite it being closed over COVID-19 restrictions.

In the video, Nearman speaks in vague terms about how "somebody might exit that door while you're standing there," if someone were to send a text message to a "random number" about being at the "west entrance" of the Capitol.

That "random number" happened to be Nearman's number, according to OPB and CNN.

Surveillance video on Dec. 21 showed Nearman leave the Capitol through a locked door that was surrounded by protesters, CNN reports. The protester's confrontation with the police in the building occurred shortly afterward.

Nearman faces charges of first-degree official misconduct and second-degree criminal trespass, according to CNN.

On Monday, Oregon House Speaker Tina Kotek introduced a resolution that would expel Nearman if two-thirds of House members vote in favor and appointed a committee to investigate further.

Kotek's actions came as Republican House members called on Nearman to step down.

"Today, we strongly recommend that you resign from the Oregon State House of Representatives," all 22 House Republicans said in the joint letter, according to the Associated Press. "Given the newest evidence that has come to light ... it is our beliefs as friends and colleagues that it is in the best interest of your caucus, your family, yourself, and the state of Oregon for you to step down from your office."

On Monday, Nearman remained vague about whether he would resign ahead of a potential vote later this month.

"I'll put myself in God's hands and see how that works out for me," Nearman said, according to the Associated Press.