In brief: Restaurant open after grease fire
Longhorn Barbecue reopened for business at 11 a.m. Sunday after workers cleaned up the mess created by a brief fire during the Saturday dinner hour.
Smoke from a grease fire in the barbecue forced the evacuation of about 100 customers from the restaurant at 2315 N. Argonne, but did not do any structural damage.
Because of production problems, a portion of an article in Sunday’s edition of The Spokesman-Review about the fire included garbled paragraphs. The jumbled paragraphs should have read:
Kevin Miller, fire marshal for the Spokane Valley Fire Department, said emptying the restaurant of more than 100 people was a bit of a challenge. Some customers wouldn’t leave until wait staff returned with their credit cards, he added.
Powerful fans were clearing the restaurant of residual smoke within an hour of the initial call to firefighters at 6:55 p.m.
Man enters pleas in Coolin shooting
A North Idaho man has pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and accessory to grand theft following the shooting death of a Priest Lake man.
Keith Allen Brown entered Alford pleas Wednesday in 1st District Court.
Brown’s Alford plea means he did not admit guilt involving the killing of Leslie Carlton Breaw in Coolin on Jan. 23, 2007, but acknowledged a jury likely would convict him.
The Bonner County Daily Bee reports that the 49-year-old Brown faces up to 15 years in prison at his sentencing, scheduled for Nov. 5.
Brown has said he accidentally shot Breaw during an argument.
MARYSVILLE, Wash. – Police in Marysville, Wash., have arrested three men from Cheney for investigation of kidnapping and robbery after the men allegedly tried to repossess two vehicles at gunpoint.
Police Cmdr. Robb Lamoureaux told the Daily Herald of Everett that the men – 19, 33 and 45 years old – were in a pickup truck Friday night when they confronted a Mount Vernon man and his teenage son in a sport utility vehicle outside a restaurant. Police allege the men pointed a handgun and a shotgun at the man and son, then took the boy out of the SUV and put him in the pickup.
Officers say another man got into the SUV and demanded to go to the man’s home to repossess the other car. The Herald said police, alerted by witnesses, then stopped the car and truck and arrested the men.
Anti-hate award winners named
The Gonzaga Institute for Hate Studies next month will present the Eva Lassman: Take Action Against Hate Award to the Human Rights Education Institute in Coeur d’Alene and to Raymond Reyes, Gonzaga University’s associate academic vice president and diversity officer.
The award was created last year, with the first one given to Lassman herself. A Spokane resident, Lassman is a Holocaust survivor who speaks out against hate.
The Human Rights Education Institute will receive the award for its work challenging hate and educating the community about social justice, a Gonzaga University news release said. Reyes has been a tireless advocate for the marginalized and underprivileged and is committed to “giving voice to the voiceless,” the release said.
Ken Stern, an expert on anti-Semitism, hate and extremism for the American Jewish Committee, will present the keynote speech. The Oct. 12 banquet will be held in Gonzaga’s Cataldo Hall Globe Room, beginning at 6:30 p.m. It is open to the public and tickets are $50. For information, call (509) 313-3665.
Grant will fund fire-climate study
A National Science Foundation grant will help faculty at the University of Idaho and two other universities study wildfire and climate change.
The $3.8 million grant will fund five years of research at UI, Montana State University and the University of Colorado. Faculty members will work in cooperation with the U.S. Forest Service, studying forests in the United States, Australia and New Zealand.
“We will be looking at how climate change and humans have altered fire activity in areas with different climates, fuels and human activities, as points of comparison,” said Cathy Whitlock, a Montana State professor. “One thing is clear – the frequency and severity of fires have increased around the world and this is considered to be one of the signs of global climate change.”
Philip Higuera at UI will participate in the research, using computer models to reconstruct fire activity and studying how defoliation from insect outbreaks affects fire activity.