Jennifer Pignolet

Spokane County spent about $60,000 a month last year doling out prescription medicine to inmates at Geiger Corrections Center and the Spokane County Jail. Ninety percent of the prescriptions were ones the inmates were given before they even reported to jail, so it might sound easy to cut that cost by allowing inmates to bring their medications with them. Think of it: Costs to buy new meds would plummet, inmates who need medications immediately would always get them and complaints about poor medical care would drop.

For a city recently ranked fourth in the nation for car thefts, calling property crime a hot-button issue might be an understatement. Brent McLaws’ technology company, with its U.S. headquarters in the Hillyard neighborhood, is looking to curb the numbers.

John Knighten’s public service started long before he was a Marine or a firefighter. According to his youngest brother, Phil Knighten, it started when they were kids – when Phil was being bullied, and John chased the bully down the street.

John Knighten, a 19-year veteran of the Spokane Fire Department, was honored Monday by about a thousand people at the Spokane Convention Center. Knighten died June 30 after a three-year battle with multiple myeloma, which was presumed to be caused by firefighting and inhaled carcinogens. Because of that, his death is considered to have occurred in the line of duty.

Spokane firefighter John Knighten lost his three-year battle with cancer Sunday night. Knighten, a 19-year veteran of the Spokane Fire Department, former Marine, husband to Shawna Knighten and father of three daughters, was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2010. He died at his home in Mead.

It’s a lesson parents often tell their children: Medicine is not candy. That’s why Nicole Ingram was so surprised when her daughter came home from a day at a Coeur d’Alene community center with a packet of Mike and Ike candies designed to look like prescription medication.