Idaho

A man who was fatally shot when picking up his son from his estranged wife in suburban Phoenix was confronted by his baseball bat-wielding stepdaughter, shortly before her uncle killed him during a dispute.

When state Treasurer Julie Ellsworth went before lawmakers for her budget hearing last week, Sen. Mark Nye, D-Pocatello, said: “I don’t see in here anything about the litigation costs. Without getting into the pros and cons of litigation between entities, can you give us an estimate of the cost of litigation … on the occupancy question?” Ellsworth is being sued by House Speaker Scott Bedke and Senate President Pro-Tem Brent Hill over her refusal to move her offices out of the first floor of the state Capitol, where they’ve been located for more than 100 years – but a 2007 law gave the Legislature, not the executive branch, control over the first floor of the Capitol. Legislative leaders want to remodel the treasurer’s space to provide private offices for House members, many of whom now just have open cubicles.

While there remains some sentimentality in holding on to “Indians” as the Nezperce schools’ official mascot, a number of people think it’s time to relinquish the nickname and be “good neighbors” to the Idaho tribes that oppose it.

Ada County prosecutors have added 11 additional child pornography charges against a Boise man with deep ties to state politics and the University of Idaho. In early October, Martin “Marty” Peterson, 76, was charged with three felony counts of accessing/viewing sexually explicit images of minors. Prosecutors amended that number in mid-December from three to 14.

The University of Idaho’s Information Technology Services and units under the university’s provost, which includes academic programming, are expected to make the largest budget reductions as the UI tries to mitigate a shortfall expected to balloon to $22 million by 2022.

A Clean Water Act lawsuit filed by the Nez Perce Tribe that seeks to force a Canadian gold mining company to acquire permits for pollution discharged from its central Idaho facility will be allowed to continue, a federal judge decided.

It may be difficult to notice in the shadow of its Pacific Northwest peers, but the Idaho wine industry is quietly growing both in acreage and acclaim, according to a new report.

The co-chairmen of the Legislature’s powerful budget-setting committee are backing Republican Idaho Gov. Brad Little’s call for “transparent budgeting.