Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo said earlier that the $250,000 investment loss his campaign suffered in 2008 - and just now disclosed - came at a time when the campaign was between treasurers, so only then-campaign manager Jake Ball authorized the expenditure, in the form of a loan to a longtime friend. But William Corbett, who was Crapo's volunteer campaign treasurer at the time,  tells the AP he was never informed about the transaction. “Obviously, if I would have, it would have been reported,” Corbett said. AP reporter John Miller reports that aides for Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson and Sen. Jim Risch say their campaigns have safeguards and internal controls to protect donor money from a similar fate; among other things, investments such as the ones Ball said he employed with his friend would be forbidden. Click below for Miller's full report.

Gov. Butch Otter will accept the $4,500 a month boost in his pay that’s coming June 1 when his housing stipend resumes, Otter’s press secretary, Jon Hanian, confirmed Friday. The state paid the housing stipend to governors until the 2009 when the hilltop mansion donated by the late J.R. Simplot to the state for a governor’s mansion opened for use after renovations, but Otter never lived there; he’s Simplot’s ex-son-in-law. Instead, he continued to live at his ranch in Star, just west of Boise. Now, the mansion’s being handed back over to the Simplot family.

Otter, a multimillionaire, accepted the payments earlier, saying if other governors got the payments, he’d take them as well; Hanian said the governor’s reasoning hasn’t changed. You can read my full Sunday column here at spokesman.com.

The $54,000 a year in housing stipends will be on top of the governor’s $117,000 a year salary; by law, that salary will rise another 1.7 percent on Jan. 1, 2014 to $119,000.

The Idaho Lottery is expecting lines of ticket-buyers into the weekend as the jackpot for Saturday night’s Powerball drawing hits a record $600 million. It’s the second-biggest jackpot on record, eclipsed only by the $646 million Mega Millions jackpot handed out in March of 2012. “We want to strongly emphasize to everyone to please play responsibly,” said Jeff Anderson, Idaho Lottery director. “Enjoy the games and imagine what you might do if you win, but please only play what you can afford.”

The Powerball tickets can be purchased until 7:55 p.m. Mountain time on Saturday; they cost $2 apiece. Lottery officials encourage ticket buyers to sign their tickets right away; lottery tickets are “bearer instruments,” so whoever signs and presents the winning ticket for payment will get paid.

The largest Powerball jackpot collected by an Idaho winner to date was $220,300 in May of 2005. Powerball is a multi-state game played in all but seven states.

Fazliddin Kurbanov made his first appearance in federal court this morning, dressed in yellow-and-white striped scrubs stamped “Ada County Jail” on the back and speaking through an interpreter. Kurbanov, a 30-year-old truck driver from Uzbekistan, is charged with providing material support to terrorists and possession of a destructive device. “For the record, has the defendant been read the indictment in his native language?” Judge Mikel Williams asked. “He has, your honor,” replied federal defender Richard Rubin, who appeared with Kurbanov in court this morning along with Boise attorney Thomas Monaghan; you can read my full story here at spokesman.com.

“Does the defendant understand the nature of the charges against him and the maximum penalty that can be applied as to each of those counts?” the judge asked. Kurbanov, who has a short, neatly trimmed beard and a full head of dark hair parted on the side, listened to the interpreter on the telephone, then nodded and shrugged. He entered a plea of not guilty to all three of the charges, which each carry penalties of up to 15 years in prison.

The initial appearance was delayed for close to 40 minutes as Rubin got his first chance to meet with his client; they spoke in the courtroom, while the other attorneys and audience waited outside. An interpreter in California translated for Kurbanov into Russian via telephone. Asked if Kurbanov speaks any English, Rubin said, “Very little, very little.”

Kurbanov, who was legally present in the country at the time of his arrest and was living in Boise, struggled to follow the proceedings as he held a corded phone handset to his ear to listen to the interpreter. Court officials said they are working on getting an interpreter to be present in court for Kurbanov’s detention hearing, which was set for May 21 at 1:30. The judge said, “All right. That’ll make things work a little smoother.”

The judge questioned Kurbanov about his financial status in relation to whether he qualifies to have an attorney appointed for him. “The financial affidavit states that you were working as a truck driver up to the time of your arrest, is that correct?” Williams asked. The interpreter said, “Yes,” as Kurbanov nodded. “It also states that other than some used automobiles and a small amount of money in a checking or savings account, you have no other assets or money or funds to hire your own attorney. Is that correct?” the judge asked. After some repeating and pauses, the interpreter told the court via speaker, “That’s correct, your honor.”

The judge then appointed the federal defender to represent Kurbanov, and advised Kurbanov of his rights, including that he’s presumed innocent and the burden of proof is on the prosecution to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. He set the trial in his case for July 2 before U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge, though delays likely will push that back.

A Boise man from Uzbekistan has been arrested on terrorism charges; he's been indicted in both Idaho and Utah on federal charges including possessing an unregistered destructive device, providing material support to terrorists, and distributing information relating to weapons of mass destruction. Click below for the full new release from the U.S. Attorney's office. Fazliddin Kurbanov, 30, was arrested this morning in Boise and will make his initial appearance in court tomorrow in Boise; that appearance has now been rescheduled from 9 a.m. to 8:30 before Judge Mikel Williams.

You can read my full story here at spokesman.com. In this AP/Idaho Statesman photo by Joe Jaszewski, federal agents search a Boise bench apartment on Thursday in connection with the case. 

Five people from Boise and Meridian have been indicted on federal charges for smuggling, money laundering, and selling “spice,” a synthetic marijuana product, and authorities say they were operating across the nation. “This investigation has taken out a major player in the synthetic drug industry who was operating coast to coast,” said DEA Special Agent in Charge Matthew G. Barnes. “Criminal drug organizations prey on our youth to line their pockets with millions of dollars in drug proceeds. This emerging industry poses a significant threat to our communities and regardless of how they are marketed, we will continue with our law enforcement partners to aggressively pursue them.”

Click below for a full news release from U.S. Attorney for Idaho Wendy Olson; the indictment by a federal grand jury in Boise was unsealed yesterday. The indictments are the result of a joint operation by an array of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. “Although we don't yet know the full toll that these substances that mimic cannabis have taken on users, we do know that emergency room workers, parents and law enforcement officers have terrifying stories of medically dangerous and sometimes deadly reactions,” Olson said. “I commend all of the agencies and prosecutors who spent countless hours bringing the investigation to this point.”

Here's a news item from the Associated Press: BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The warden of the privately-run Idaho Correctional Center has quit, one month after his company acknowledged falsifying staffing records for much of 2012. Timothy Wengler, who works for Corrections Corporation of America, lasted three years as warden of the prison south of Boise. The Nashville, Tenn.-based company with the contract to run the prison through 2014 says Wengler's last day is May 31. CCA spokesman Steve Owen says Wengler had been thinking about quitting for a year and described his departure as a “personal decision.” Wengler was supposed to help repair problems at the prison. He arrived in Idaho in 2010, a replacement for a previous warden the company removed after the American Civil Liberties Union sued over claims of brutal inmate-on-inmate violence. CCA says it's mulling Wengler's replacement now.

Click below for a full report from AP reporter John Miller.

The 22-year-old man who broke into Zoo Boise and killed a Patas monkey in November has been sentenced to two to seven years in prison, KTVB-TV reports. Michael Watkins of Weiser admitted to the drunken incident and apologized; you can see KTVB's full report here. The Idaho Statesman reports here that the judge retained jurisdiction, meaning Watkins could get out on probation if he successfully completes an intensive 9- to 12-month program.

The Boise Police Department has been ranked fourth-highest in the country among mid-sized police agencies for its number of Twitter followers, with more than 6,300. The only other city in the region to make the ranking was Salt Lake City, which ranked 10^th at 3,712 followers.

“Twitter connections mean a lot to us, and it’s good to know that, judging by the number of followers, that connection means a lot to citizens as well,” said Boise Police Chief Mike Masterson. The chief said his department uses Twitter to “share urgent and important public safety information” along with safety-related community events, and citizens use it to interact with the department. On Twitter, the BPD is @BoisePD.

The International Association of Chiefs of Police released the rankings today; you can see their full announcement here. The No. 1 overall? The Boston Police Department, with 314,232 followers. Of course, the numbers were taken on April 30 – two weeks after the Boston Marathon bombings. NYPD came in second at 61,633.

Here's a news item from the Associated Press: MOSCOW, Idaho (AP) — Police in northern Idaho say a person waving what turned out to be a toy gun from a car window resulted in officers with weapons drawn stopping the vehicle at a fast food drive-thru and handcuffing the three males and one female inside. Police Lt. James Fry tells the Moscow-Pullman Daily News (http://bit.ly/147bGT7) that a report Wednesday afternoon of a person waving a gun resulted in the felony-style takedown of the vehicle's occupants. Fry says officers typically take emergency precautions when a gun is reported as part of an incident. Fry says a 20-year-old male passenger was taken into custody on an arrest warrant in Latah County for failing to appear in court on charges of minor in possession of alcohol and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Two North Idaho conservation groups, Friends of the Clearwater and the Kootenai Environmental Alliance, are questioning the U.S. Coast Guard's turnabout on permits for the upcoming “Race the Joe” jet boat race on the St. Joe River near St. Maries, allowing the race to go forward as scheduled May 17-19. “We’d like to know how the Coast Guard went from needing 130-something days to complete the environmental assessment to being able to complete it in a week,” said Brett Haverstick of Friends of the Clearwater. “With that kind of speed, the Coast Guard should consider entering the race.” Click below for the two groups' full statement.

Both Gov. Butch Otter and three members of Idaho's congressional delegation appealed to the Coast Guard to issue the permit in time to allow the event to take place as scheduled; Otter also sent a memo from Idaho Fish & Game saying the event wouldn't harm bull trout or bald eagles if organizers agreed to keep people and vehicles out of buffer zones around eagle nesting sites.

Here's a news item from the Associated Press: EMMETT, Idaho (AP) — The Gem County Prosecutor has filed criminal charges against two men accused of intentionally setting fire to a pair of Emmett churches last month. One of the suspects charged Wednesday was convicted of killing his adoptive parents in 1989. Prosecutor Richard Linville charged 41-year-old Bradley Thomasson and 45-year-old William Dorahush Jr., with two counts of first-degree arson. Both were also charged with burglary and theft. Investigators say the men are responsible for the April 27 blazes that damaged Community Bible Church and First Baptist Church. Records show Thomasson spent 22 years in prison for killing his adoptive parents in Nez Perce County in 1989. Dorahush has a criminal record that includes four convictions for arson. Both churches are blocks from downtown Emmett and suffered extensive fire, smoke and water damage.

Canyon County commissioners now say they won't help enforce new on-water regulations that might be enacted by federal authorities on Lake Lowell at the Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge and won't abide by federal rules until federal agencies prove the federal government has jurisdiction over the irrigation water that fills the lake. Click below for a full report from the Idaho Statesman and the Associated Press.

As Idaho works through the early stages of organizing its new state-based health insurance exchange, neighboring Washington is much farther down the road, and now has released the rate proposals from health insurance companies that plan to sell coverage on its state exchange. The big surprise: Expected large price increases didn’t materialize. Instead, most consumers who purchase insurance through the Washington exchange would pay less than they do now, and get more coverage. Only those under age 30 would face higher costs, and they’d have options for lower-priced catastrophic coverage. In addition, those who qualify for subsidies based on their income would pay less than the newly announced rates.

“We’re pleasantly surprised with the individual rates we’ve seen so far,” said Washington state Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler. “In many cases, people will get better benefits and pay less – especially if they qualify for subsidies.” Meanwhile, Idaho’s exchange is just getting organized. So far, the 19-member exchange board has met twice, elected officers, hired an executive director and established six subcommittees on everything from information technology to operations. It will function as an independent, quasi-governmental agency; it is working on plans to issue requests for proposals to establish its online portal and make the exchange operational by Oct. 1. You can read our full report here at spokesman.com.

The Coeur d’Alene School District is proposing to drop all health coverage for the spouses and dependents of teachers, while raising deductibles from $200 to $2000, doubling premiums and setting up health-savings accounts. District officials, who are in the midst of contract negotiations with the local teachers union, said they need to make up a $3 million-plus budget shortfall. “We really can’t think of any other things to cut,” said school board member Tom Hamilton.

Under the proposal, a teacher who had a baby would pay $15,000 out of pocket, and no prescription drug coverage would be offered. “This is unconscionable,” said teacher Michael Emory, who was among more than 350 union members who attended the public negotiation session between the district and the Coeur d’Alene Education Association last night. You can read a full report here at spokesman.com from S-R reporter Jody Lawrence-Turner.

Idaho plans to resume paying a $4,500 monthly governor's housing stipend to Gov. Butch Otter starting June 1, the AP reports, as it clears out furniture from the vacant governor's mansion in Boise where he never lived in preparation for returning the home to J.R. Simplot's family. Click below for a full report from AP reporter John Miller. The state decided earlier this year to give the hilltop mansion back to the descendants of Simplot, the billionaire potato mogul who donated the 7,400-square-foot home to be used as a residence for Idaho's chief executive in 2004, four years before he died at age 99. Otter, Simplot's former son-in-law, declined to live in it, however, and escalating costs of about $180,000 annually to water the expansive lawn and maintain the 33-year-old home threatened to quickly drain what had once been a $1.5 million fund to cover housing expenses for the state's chief executive. It's dwindled to just $775,000, as maintenance, electricity and repair costs added up.

The decision to restore the housing stipend to 2009 levels — it was discontinued after the house was ready to live in following renovations — was unanimous among the Republican and Democratic members of the Governor's Housing Committee. The panel concluded the $54,000 annual cost was a relative bargain, compared to keeping the home. “It's a lot cheaper than $179,000,” said Rep. Phylis King, D-Boise, who said future governors may not be from the Boise area and could require support beyond their salary to maintain a second residence and entertain official guests, as Otter does now at his ranch west of Boise.

Former longtime chief state economist Mike Ferguson analyzed the latest state tax revenue news – which showed revenues surging 13.2 percent over forecasts for April, the biggest tax revenue month of the year – and concluded that lawmakers likely will have $162 million more on hand when they convene their 2014 legislative session than they thought they would two months ago, at the close of this year’s session. “While the numbers will change (for example, we don’t yet know actual May and June revenue numbers, and we don’t know what revised forecast growth rate will be used for FY 2014), it is clear there will be substantially more revenue available than policymakers thought less than two months ago,” Ferguson writers. “How this additional revenue is utilized will depend on Idaho’s public policy priorities.”

The tax revenue jump is big news for the state, Ferguson writes. “This is a significant departure from the revenue forecasts the FY 2013 and FY 2014 budgets are based on, and it has significant implications for the fiscal condition Idaho’s state budget faces in those two years (and beyond).” You can read his full analysis here. Ferguson is now the director of the Idaho Center for Fiscal Policy.

The “Race the St. Joe” jet boat race near St. Maries on May 17-19 is back on, after the U.S. Coast Guard today issued a permit for the event. Gov. Butch Otter and Idaho's congressional delegation had pleaded with the Coast Guard to permit this year's race, rather than first require a lengthy environmental assessment that would have taken until far past the race date. The permit was issued today.

Commander Eric Belleque, chief of external affairs for Coast Guard District 13, said Friday that environmental concerns were being addressed “by requirements imposed by federal, state and local agencies on the event sponsors,” and that he was confident the permit would be issued in time. Otter's letter to the Coast Guard included a memo from Idaho Fish & Game addressing concerns over eagle nests and bull trout, and recommending that zones be established around eagle nests for the event and spectators and vehicles kept out of those zones. With those steps, Fish & Game Director Virgil Moore said the event wouldn't impact sensitive wildlife in the area.

Belleque said, “As environmental stewards, the Coast Guard is responsible for ensuring that our marine event permit process complies with the letter and spirit of the law.” Click below for Otter's full announcement.

The Obama Administration today decided to drop its appeal in the 9th Circuit of a federal judge's rejection of its move to list slickspot peppergrass as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act; Gov. Butch Otter applauded the administration's decision. “It took a while, but the feds apparently have figured out that collaborating and finding common ground is more effective than forcing a wrongheaded listing down our throats,” Otter declared. He said if the plant had been listed as threatened, critical habitat designations that would follow would have been “devastating for farmers, ranchers and recreational land users in southwestern Idaho.”

Click below for Otter's full statement. The Obama Administration first listed slickspot peppergrass as threatened in 2009, but the move was overturned in court when federal Magistrate Judge Candy Dale ruled that the process the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service used for listing the plant was flawed. Idaho Statesman reporter Rocky Barker has more info on this here.

The season’s first rabid bat has been reported in Idaho, after it flew into a northern Kootenai County home and the residents found it lying on their staircase. “It was still alive, and they just kind of used a towel to pick it up and put it outside,” said Cynthia Taggart, spokeswoman for the Panhandle Health District. “They thought it would fly away, but it didn’t, it died – and that’s not a good sign. They wisely sent it off to us for testing and it was rabid.” You can read my full story here at spokesman.com.

Everyone in the house is now being treated for rabies, Taggart said, as there’s no way to know whether anyone was bitten by the bat. “There’s no signs of bites,” she said, “But bats have such sharp teeth that they can bite and you don’t know.” Current rabies treatment involves a series of five shots administered over a couple of weeks; two of the shots are given on the first day of treatment, which must commence within 10 days of exposure. “No one’s ever developed rabies who started within that 10-day window, and these people did,” Taggart said.

Rabies is considered endemic in Idaho’s bat population, and rabid bats have been found statewide. Usually, they don’t turn up until July, but Taggart said, “This last week of hot weather was really out of the ordinary for us, so I guess a lot of bats woke up. They hibernate over the winter.”

State health officials are warning Idahoans to stay away from bats. “People should call their health care providers immediately if they have been bitten or scratched by a bat. Medical therapy administered to people after an animal bite is extremely effective in preventing rabies,” a viral illness that is fatal in humans and animals, said Dr. Leslie Tengelsen, deputy state epidemiologist. “It is extremely important for people to avoid bats or other wild animals that appear sick or are acting aggressively or abnormally.”

Said Taggart, “It’s important to let people know that if they do have a bat in their house, that they’re considered exposed. … They don’t know that it hasn’t bitten anybody, so they should right away get a hold of us.”

The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare has these tips:

·Do not touch a bat with your bare hands.

·If you have had contact with a bat or wake up to find a bat in your room, seek medical advice immediately.

·If you come in contact with a bat, save it in a non-breakable container if it is alive, or sealed and double-bagged in clear plastic bags without touching it if it’s dead. Call your public health district to determine whether testing the bat for rabies is indicated. If it is determined that you or your pet may be at risk of exposure to rabies, testing of the bat is a free service.

·Always vaccinate your dogs, cats, ferrets, and horses — even indoor pets could be exposed to rabies if a bat gets into a home.

·Bat-proof your home or cabin by plugging all holes in the siding and maintaining tight-fitting screens on windows.

·Parents should teach their children to avoid bats and to let an adult know if they find one.