In brief: Phone records sought in bomb threat case

Investigators are seeking the cellphone records of a 16-year-old Columbia Basin Job Corps student who they believe may have made a bomb threat to University High School.

A Spokane County Sheriff’s Office detective received a tip from another Job Corps student who said she heard a boy bragging to friends that he had made a bomb threat to a Spokane Valley high school.

According to a search warrant filed Wednesday, she confronted the boy and asked why he would make the threat. He allegedly responded, “Because it’s funny.”

He also allegedly told her he picked University High School because his girlfriend was from the Spokane Valley area.

Columbia Basin Job Corps program is based in Moses Lake. Job Corps is a federal training program for at-risk teens and young adults.

Investigators believe the student may have borrowed his girlfriend’s cellphone to register the anonymous email address used to make the threat on April 1. When interviewed by detectives, his girlfriend said she didn’t know anything about the bomb threats, but confirmed the student had had her phone since March 30.

University High School has received three other written bomb threats since April 1, including one on Monday. The Sheriff’s Office has said they may be unrelated, and is still investigating all threats.

Rachel Alexander

No hydroplane races on Lake Coeur d’Alene

Hydroplane races last held on Lake Coeur d’Alene in 2013 won’t return this summer, said the organization trying to bring the sport back.

Coeur d’Alene Silver Cup Inc. said it needs more time to raise at least $300,000 from sponsors to stage the races. The group had planned to hold unlimited hydroplane racing July 17-19 in the Silver Beach area east of downtown.

“We have a talented and dedicated group of volunteers who have been working hard to pull together all the moving parts and pieces to make this a successful event,” said Keith Allen, vice president and race director. “We feel we are going to be in a very strong position to ensure a successful and safe event as well as one that is financially whole once it’s over.”

Hydroplanes returned to the lake in August 2013 for the first races since 1968. But the event lost money and was unable to pay all its debts, and the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office denied a permit needed to stage the races in 2014.

Scott Maben