In short

Head soccer coach Tim Bennett resigns

Head soccer coach Tim Bennett resigned last week to accept an associate head coaching position at Iowa State, according to a source in the Portland State athletic department. A source close to the team said Bennett’s resignation came on Feb. 13.

Before his departure, Bennett was coming off his best of three seasons at Portland State, as the Vikings compiled a 7-10-2 overall record and a 3-3-1 record against Big Sky competition last year.

In Bennett’s final year at the helm, Portland State advanced to the Big Sky Tournament for the first time since former head coach Tara Erickson guided the Vikings there after winning the conference regular-season title in 2004.

Bennett’s resignation came one day after the announcement of Portland State’s 2008 recruiting class on Feb. 12. The recruiting class is comprised of 11 players primarily from the Northwest region, including two from British Columbia, Canada.

During his three-year tenure, Bennett compiled a 16-34-5 record and coached 12 All-Big Sky selections, including three from the first-team.

-Nathan Hellman

Willamette bridges budget forum tonight

The future of the Willamette River bridges will be discussed tonight in the last of a series of town hall meetings.

Representatives from Multnomah County, which maintains six bridges crossing the river in downtown Portland, will present information regarding the county’s budget for the next 20 years. They will also collect public opinion about their proposed plans, such as replacing the steel grating on the Morrison Bridge or painting the Broadway Bridge, according to Mike Pullen, Multnomah County public information officer.

One key issue of the town hall, Pullen said, will be a discussion about a potential ballot measure that would increase the cost of vehicle registration in Multnomah County from $27 to $41 per vehicle per year, a measure that could be on May’s ballot. Pullen said the increased funds would be used for bridge work and a MAX line that would cross the Sellwood Bridge.

The meeting will be held at the North Portland Health Clinic, located at 9000 N. Lombard Blvd., from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. tonight.

-Robert Seitzinger

10-pound, armored ‘devil toad’ found

WASHINGTON-A frog the size of a bowling ball, with heavy armor and teeth, lived among dinosaurs millions of years ago-intimidating enough that scientists who unearthed its fossils dubbed the beast Beelzebufo, or Devil Toad.

But its size–10 pounds and 16 inches long–isn’t the only curiosity. Researchers discovered the creature’s bones in Madagascar. Yet it seems to be a close relative of normal-sized frogs who today live half a world away in South America, challenging assumptions about ancient geography.

The discovery, led by paleontologist David Krause at New York’s Stony Brook University, was published Monday by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“This frog, if it has the same habits as its living relatives in South America, was quite voracious,” Krause said. “It’s even conceivable that it could have taken down some hatchling dinosaurs.”

Krause began finding fragments of abnormally large frog bones in Madagascar, off the coast of Africa, in 1993. They dated back to the late Cretaceous period, roughly 70 million years ago.

-Associated Press