Becky Kramer

At an informal shooting range near Hayden Lake, the targets are anything that will take a bullet. That includes vacuum cleaners, air conditioners and a mysterious square of pock-marked metal that Lisa Isaacks prodded with her boot one morning last week.

A former All-American football player at the University of Montana died Friday of internal injuries from a rock fall in a morning accident at Galena Mine near Silverton, Idaho. Timothy Allen Bush, 29, was a contract employee at the underground silver mine. He was working with his cousin when he was hit by a falling slab of rock about 8 a.m., family members said. Bush had to be carried up a ladder before he could be taken to Shoshone Medical Center, where he died. His dad, Ken Bush, who works as a trainer at the Galena Mine, was by his side.

A former All-American football player at the University of Montana died this morning of injuries he received in an accident at the Galena Mine near Silverton, Idaho.

Industry has flourished along the banks of the Spokane River for more than a century. So, perhaps it’s no surprise that high levels of PCBs show up in rainbow trout and other fish.

BONNERS FERRY – Chris Lewandowski pressed gently on the white sturgeon’s belly, forcing a stream of glistening black eggs through the ovarian duct. Jose Ponce caught the eggs in a stainless steel bowl and poured them into a Pyrex measuring cup. As caviar, they’d be worth hundreds of dollars per pound. But this sturgeon roe is destined for a higher purpose. To the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho – the men’s employer – the eggs are priceless. They represent the next generation of white sturgeon for the Kootenai River.

Stigmas associated with “being leaded” discourage parents living in the Bunker Hill Superfund site from getting their children tested for lead exposure, says a new study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Parents felt “blame, shame and guilt” if their kids had elevated blood-lead levels, the research indicated. They also feared that a child identified as having a high blood-lead level would become a target of public ridicule.

Cabbage plants unfurled purple-tinted leaves in the garden behind Gayla Moseley’s house while a young rooster practiced its crowing. Once an empty lot, the land now resembles a tiny farmstead. By summer’s end, the orderly rows of vegetables – fertilized organically with chicken manure – will appear as fresh produce on local families’ tables.

Cabbage plants unfurled purple-tinted leaves in the garden behind Gayla Moseley’s house while a young rooster practiced its crowing.

WALLACE – Tom Tidwell, chief of the U.S. Forest Service, was a young recruit when he first heard the stories of the 1910 fire. Fresh out of college, he’d been hired as a seasonal firefighter on the Boise National Forest. Within a week, “I heard the story of Ed Pulaski,” he said.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture will pay farmers and ranchers to protect 38,000 acres of sage grouse habitat in Douglas County, which has one of the nation’s last stable populations of the chicken-like birds. Sage grouse are known for their colorful courtship dances. The males strut around breeding grounds, puffing up air sacks on their chests to attract females.