Cat Tales liger, Kimber, dies at 18

Cat Tales resident Kimber, a liger, died Monday, according to Mike Wyche, a spokesman for Cat Tales Zoological Park. The liger, a lion and tiger mix, was popularized in the 2004 movie “Napoleon Dynamite.” The movie’s success made Kimber the most photographed animal at the zoo for several months after it was released.

“We will miss discovering each morning if she was going to be a lioness or tigress,” Wyche said. “I always believed it depended on how she groomed her fur that day.”

Kimber was 18 in human years, or 126 in cat years, Wyche said.

Coe back in city for hearing

Kevin Coe has been returned to Spokane for a hearing that will determine whether he should be locked up at the Special Commitment Center for sex predators on McNeil Island.

Coe was booked into jail last Friday for a pretrial conference scheduled this Friday.

Coe recently completed a 25-year sentence for rape.

Officials are seeking to have him civilly committed because of his risk of reoffending.

BONNERS FERRY

Deal reached on sturgeon

The Kootenai River’s white sturgeon population is declining so rapidly that by 2015 fewer than 35 breeding females could remain.

To create better spawning conditions, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho, along with four government agencies, reached an agreement Tuesday over Libby Dam’s operations.

“After nearly six years of litigation, the parties have agreed to a plan that will help save the sturgeon,” said Geoff Hickox, an attorney for the Western Environmental Law Center, which represented the Portland-based Center for Biological Diversity.

Sturgeon spawning is timed to the spring runoff, said Noah Greenwald, the center’s science director. Since Libby Dam was built in 1974, reproduction has dwindled.

The agreement steps up monitoring and restoration efforts designed to mimic historic spring flow conditions. Other parties involved in the agreement are: the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; Bonneville Power Administration; the state of Montana; and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

BOISE

Luna to seek $1.5 billion

The state Department of Education plans to ask Idaho lawmakers in January for $1.5 billion to operate and enhance public schools in 2009 and 2010.

Public schools superintendent Tom Luna released his yearly budget proposal on Tuesday.

The $1.5 billion Luna will request in 2009 is about 5 percent more than the $1.46 billion he requested in January 2008.

Luna calls his request “responsible” and says he recognizes the state is operating on a tight budget. Like last year, Luna will ask for more than $5 million to pay for classroom supplies.

Luna has also earmarked $27 million in his budget for teacher raises and a pay-for-performance plan that is similar to a proposal that died in the Legislature earlier this year.

Idaho lawmakers voted to kill Luna’s previous plan for merit-based pay increases in February, choosing instead to approve $23.8 million in teacher raises and a plan to boost the minimum Idaho teacher salary by 3 percent.