Region in brief: Man gets 100 years in prison for murder
A man who pleaded guilty to murdering an 18-year-old woman and dumping her body on a road near Arlee, Mont., has been sentenced to 100 years in prison.
Kelly Birmingham was accused of beating and killing Tasheena Craft on May 29, 2007.
Craft had been living with her brother, Shonto K. Pete, in Spokane. She was in Arlee, north of Missoula, visiting her Marine boyfriend, who was on leave from Iraq, when she was killed.
Craft’s family, friends and teachers fought for the judge to give Birmingham life without the possibility of parole.
The 19-year-old Birmingham also was sentenced Friday to two 10-year prison terms for tampering with evidence and tampering with a witness.
Pete survived a shooting in February 2007 by an off-duty, intoxicated Spokane police officer, Jay Olsen, who has pleaded innocent to the charge of first-degree assault.
– From staff and wire reports
BOISE
Smoke-management legislation in the works
The state and several groups Friday agreed on legislation to set up a statewide smoke-management program focused on public health while allowing field burning to resume in Idaho. A bill could be proposed as soon as next week.
The plan calls for Idaho to change its laws to transfer regulation of field burning back to the state Department of Environmental Quality from the state Agriculture Department. It also will launch a new smoke-management program that cuts off burning if air pollution exceeds or is expected to exceed 75 percent of standards; change the practice of keeping field burn locations secret, and instead make information about the burns widely available; and put more state resources into analyzing air quality impacts.
Safe Air For Everyone, a Sandpoint-based group that successfully sued the state and won a federal court ruling declaring Idaho’s field burning program illegal, reached the agreement through mediation with the state, growers and others. It needs both legislative and EPA approval to take effect.
– Betsy Z. Russell
Spokane County
Obama edges out Clinton in ballot count
Barack Obama took the lead over Hillary Clinton for the first time Friday in counting of presidential primary ballots in Spokane County.
With more than 56,000 Democratic ballots tallied, Obama had 27,349, or a lead of 335 votes. Clinton had a lead of about 1,500 ballots in the first reports on Tuesday night, but Obama gained in later counts, which tend to be ballots marked and mailed closer to Election Day.
On the Republican side, with more than 53,000 ballots cast, Sen. John McCain remains in first place with more than twice the votes of his nearest rivals. But former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee moved past former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney into second place. Romney, who dropped out of the race about a week after ballots were mailed to voters, led in early ballot counts in Spokane.
Statewide, McCain has about 49 percent of the vote and is expected to get most of the GOP delegates determined by the primary. Obama has 51 percent of the vote, or a lead of about 32,000 votes, but no delegates were at stake in the Democratic primary.
– Jim Camden