QBs for seven of the nine WAC teams have star potential, according to the Idaho Statesman, including UI's Steve Wichman here. Idaho football coach Dennis Erickson, shown above during spring drills, discusses Wichman and the upcoming season in an audio report provided at the same link above. (AP Photo/Joe Barrentine)

Daily Kos: GOP worried about its House seat "in freakin' Idaho? here.

1. FBI: A convicted sex offender living in a Spokane police officer's home was part of an international network of "online predators" who traded thousands of pictures of children being raped, sodomized and sexually abused here.

2. Study: Men who grew up near the Hanford nuclear reservation in south-central Washington during the 1940s and 1950s have a slightly higher risk of developing thyroid disease here.

3. The Boise Airport has been ranked as the worst small airport in the country by JD Power & Associates. The independent consumer ranking company, well-known for its car ratings, gave Boise the lowest possible marks in all five categories measured for its 2006 survey here.

4. A Basin man was sentenced in Jefferson County district court to two years in jail Wednesday for the macabre killing and beheading of a dog with a chainsaw -- and then throwing the head into the campsite of the dog's owners here.

5. Gov. Ted Kulongoski said Wednesday that Oregon and Washington state will form a prescription-drug-buying cooperative to leverage their combined buying power to get medicine for the uninsured here.

6. IMHO-NW: Robert Herold/Inlander (Unlikely penpals), Ralph Bartholdt/St. Maries Gazette-Record (Nothing beats summer), Missoulian (Getting a charge out of hurricane disaster), The Olympian (Eyman's claim not credible), and Art Thiel/Seattle PI (Serving youth part of M's plan).

Online Poll: 57% of 2262 respondents to a NWCN.com poll support the Washington Supreme Court's decision to uphold a state ban on gay marriage.

*Fairchild Air Base has named a tanker in honor of its home town here.

*Tear gas canister started fire in fatal Coeur d'Alene standoff here.

*People of interest sought in slayings of hiking mother and daughter here.

Orbusmax Special: Oregon parental notification measure qualifies for ballot here.

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