Alison Boggs

Before they dove into discussions about technology updates and special education, administrators and principals in the Coeur d’Alene School District began a Wednesday morning management retreat with training in suicide-prevention techniques. The session was a grim reminder of four suicides by district students within the past 15 months. Two were by juniors at Lake City High School who died within about three weeks of each other. Another, last June, was by a middle school student. The fourth, this past June, was by a student who had recently withdrawn from a district middle school.

Joey Bonacci is only 5 years old, but he’s training for his second triathlon. He asks his baby sitter to time him as he sprints across his Hayden lawn. He took swimming lessons this winter so he’d be more comfortable in the water. And he packs milk in his lunch because it’s better “fuel” than soda.

Kootenai County commissioners are proposing a 2012 budget almost $3 million higher than this year’s, but they say property taxes won’t increase because $4 million will be used from reserve funds. Several county reserve funds have risen to levels well beyond what is needed, said Commissioner Dan Green, who took office in January. “We are going to draw them down to prudent levels,” Green said. “Right now we have extra money.”

By the time Nicole Behar slid behind the wheel of her No. 38 Ford Mustang on a recent Wednesday night, her family was getting a little nervous. Three other top racers at Stateline Speedway had turned in strong performances during time trials. The time to beat was 15.399 seconds, and Behar had been running closer to 15.60 on the quarter-mile track.

Blaine Hahn, of Hayden, officially began dreaming again this week. He enrolled at North Idaho College in Coeur d’Alene in hopes of becoming a mechanical engineer. After dropping out of high school in ninth grade due to bullying, the 19-year-old studied on his own but never thought he’d be able to attend college.

A baby boy is fighting for his life in a Spokane hospital and his 19-year-old Coeur d’Alene father is accused of causing the bleeding in the infant’s brain by repeatedly handling him too roughly. James Blanchard has been charged with felony injury to a child. Bond was set Monday at $100,000 during Blanchard’s first appearance before Kootenai County magistrate Judge Clark Peterson. A preliminary hearing is expected within 14 days.

Landscapers on Monday were planting maple trees outside Idaho’s first residential Hospice House in anticipation of a community dedication of the Coeur d’Alene facility tonight. Following a year of construction, Hospice House at Hummingbird Fields will welcome its first patients in mid-August. The 14,000-square-foot building at 2290 W. Prairie Ave. offers 14 patient rooms, two of which adjoin other rooms and can be used by family members wishing to stay with loved ones.

A baby boy is fighting for his life in a Spokane hospital and his 19-year-old Coeur d'Alene father is accused of causing the bleeding in the infant’s brain by repeatedly handling him too roughly.

Joe and Lydia Sokol say it might be nice to visit downtown Coeur d’Alene from time to time to do a little shopping, then sit outside and have a snack. It’s not far – only about three to four miles from the Coeur d’Alene home they share with their daughter and son-in-law – but it may as well be 100 miles away. At 82 and 91, respectively, Joe and Lydia no longer drive due to health problems. Family members help out, but the Sokols hate to impose.

A convicted burglar who escaped Friday from Benewah County Jail has been recaptured, thanks in part to Kootenai County’s cross-deputization agreement with the Coeur d’Alene Tribal Police. Tribal officers made the arrest working with Plummer city police and the Benewah County Sheriff’s Office, authorities said Wednesday.

More than 400 people lined the streets of Coeur d’Alene Friday afternoon to pay their respects to Spc. Nicholas W. Newby, one of two Coeur d’Alene soldiers killed recently in Iraq. They started showing up more than two hours before the military procession escorted Newby’s remains to a downtown funeral home. They ranged in age from babies to a World War II veteran. By the time the procession passed the street outside Lake City High School, Newby’s alma mater, it was a tunnel of American flags, signs with good wishes, and veterans saluting.

More than 400 people lined the streets of Coeur d’Alene on Friday afternoon to pay their respects to Spc. Nicholas W. Newby, one of two Coeur d’Alene soldiers killed recently in Iraq.

Law enforcement representatives in Spokane and North Idaho will join members of the U.S. military in processionals today to deliver to funeral homes the remains of two Coeur d’Alene soldiers killed in Iraq. A procession around 11:30 a.m. will escort the remains of Army Sgt. Nathan R. Beyers from Spokane International Airport to Hennessey-Smith Funeral Home on North Division Street in Spokane. A second procession, around 1:15 p.m., will escort the remains of Army Spc. Nicholas W. Newby from the Coeur d’Alene Airport/Pappy Boyington Field to Yates Funeral Home on Fourth Street in Coeur d’Alene.

Law enforcement in Spokane and North Idaho will join the U.S. military in processions today to deliver to funeral homes the remains of two Coeur d’Alene soldiers killed in Iraq

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is calling for the city of Coeur d’Alene to remove hundreds of trees from its levee, which separates North Idaho College and the Fort Grounds neighborhood from Lake Coeur d’Alene. Rosenberry Drive, otherwise known as the “dike road,” draws thousands of people year-round as a place to park when headed to the college or the beach or events like Art on the Green. A section of North Idaho’s Centennial Trail also stretches along the road and is popular with walkers, joggers and bicyclists.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is calling for the city of Coeur d’Alene to remove hundreds of trees from its levee, which separates North Idaho College and the Fort Grounds neighborhood from Lake Coeur d’Alene.

Dozens of neighbors who live near a downtown Coeur d’Alene homeless drop-in center say in the two years the center has been there, they’ve been subjected to panhandling at their homes, urine and feces in alleyways, trash thrown over their fences and drug dealing on their street corners. “My neighborhood is not anti-homeless,” said Cherie McCabe, who lives near Fresh Start, the drop-in center at 1524 E. Sherman Ave. But, she said, “It’s like we’re in jail. I literally do not want to go into my backyard.”