Blue collar workers and big ol' truck aficionados - WINNERS

Regional millennialists, doomsayers and apocalypse mavens merrily clipped and scrapbooked news of an emergency shutdown Friday at Washington's Hanford nuclear plant. Though a safety system's failure did not actually cause a civilization-neutering cloud of radiation to envelop the Northwest, pessimistic Cascadians nodded knowingly and checked their home-built Geiger counters.

Anglers, tribes and environmentalists bellowed a Pyrrhic "told you so" after a new report suggested that a bad year on Southern Oregon's Klamath River may have killed twice as many salmon as previously thought. The river was low and warm in '02, making for an already poor habitat for salmon, but agriculture interests extorted irrigation water from politicians leery of the previous year's battle royal over river use. Fish friends say the diversions fueled the die-off; So-O's feisty dirt farmers dispute the conclusions.

Blue collar workers and big ol' truck aficionados pumped their fists in the air--universal sign language for "please honk, trucker"--when big-rig manufacturer Freightliner announced plans to create 700 Portland-area jobs in coming months. The tidings are especially good for 1,000 former Freightliner workers laid off between 1999 and 2003, who now have a shot at getting their old gigs back.

LOSERS

The previously squeaky-clean image of the Gypsy Jokers took a hit when Portland cops raided a pair of Northeast Portland hangouts favored by the, uh, "motorcycle club."

Les flics were after two Jokers suspected of home-invasion robberies; though Kenneth Gilmore and Howard Broliar, the Jokers in question, slipped the dragnet, the busts did net methamphetamine and enough firepower to start a small militia.

Psycho-dog owners slunk low after friendly neighborhood pit bulls managed to rack up no fewer than four victims in a single week. One dog savaged a Hillsboro woman on the stairs leading from her apartment; another mauled a man on the Sandy River, then attacked an 11-year-old boy in the same location a few days later. And a pair of dogs tore into a 7-year-old boy in Aloha, who only survived because a neighbor shielded him with her own body.

Despite what your attorneys may tell you, the insanity plea doesn't always work: ask Ward Weaver. This week, an Oregon State Hospital evaluation reportedly concluded the accused double-murderer is mentally fit for trial, inching Weaver closer to standing in the dock for the much-publicized killings of two Oregon City girls.