In brief: KHQ, DirecTV reach retransmission deal

KHQ-TV and DirecTV reached an agreement Friday that will keep Spokane’s NBC affiliate on the satellite provider’s channel lineup.

“We have reached an agreement,” said Patricia McRae, KHQ’s president and general manager. “We are staying on and it’s a done deal.”

At issue was the fee KHQ charged DirecTV to carry its signal; McRae could not release the terms of the deal, she said.

The contract expired Dec. 31, but was extended through today.

KHQ is owned by Cowles Co., which also owns The Spokesman-Review.

Meanwhile, there appeared to be no movement in the dispute that has kept KAYU off the air for the region’s DirecTV subscribers since Jan. 1. Northwest Broadcasting, which owns the Fox affiliate, and DirecTV both issued statements Friday indicating the stalemate over the fee remained unresolved.

Carolyn Lamberson

Man going to prison for breaking boy’s leg

A Post Falls man was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison for breaking the leg of his fiancée’s child, according to the Kootenai County prosecuting attorney’s office.

Michael Robert Edinger, 27, initially said the 2-year-old boy injured himself while they were playing, but nurses said the injury – a spiral fracture of the left femur – is rare and likely caused by abuse. Edinger, who police said “sat emotionless” during an interview, eventually told authorities he “snapped” while changing the boy Sept. 23 and “grabbed the boy’s leg, twisted it, and slammed it to the floor,” police said.

He and his fiancée, Rebecca L. Mullin, took her son to Kootenai Medical Center on Sept. 24, police said.

The boy had several other broken bones that appeared to be weeks old, nurses said.

District Judge Lansing Haynes, who sentenced Edinger, ordered the first two years of the sentence be fixed, with the remaining eight years being indeterminate.

Chelsea Bannach

Idaho native named to lead Biden’s staff

WASHINGTON – Vice President Joe Biden has named a centrist Democrat, veteran of the Clinton administration and Idaho native as his chief of staff.

Bruce Reed served as chief domestic policy adviser to President Bill Clinton, helping secure passage of landmark welfare reform and Clinton’s education agenda. He most recently was executive director of President Barack Obama’s bipartisan fiscal commission.

Reed, the son of former Idaho state Sen. Mary Lou Reed, of Coeur d’Alene, and Coeur d’Alene attorney Scott Reed, has a long working relationship with the vice president. He helped then-Sen. Biden craft the 1994 Biden Crime Bill.

Associated Press