Bill Morlin

The first white supremist demonstration in Spokane in five years occurred Saturday outside the Spokane County Courthouse, just across the river from the ethnically diverse Hoopfest games. The demonstration, involving at least eight neo-Nazi skinheads, was part of a so-called "worldwide remembrance day" for the late David Eden Lane.

Two Spokane psychologists are the focus of a congressional inquiry into the use of harsh techniques to interrogate terrorist suspects in Guantanamo, Iraq, Afghanistan and at secret military and CIA detention centers. In an article published last week, the online magazine Salon.com identified psychologists James E. Mitchell and John Bruce Jessen as key developers of the interrogation program – which the magazine said was linked to the CIA and likely violated the Geneva Conventions against the torture and mistreatment of prisoners. Mitchell was present during one interrogation and argued for harsher tactics, including electric shock treatments, according to a 2005 New Yorker article.

WORLEY, Idaho – Fireworks may be illegal in most communities, but the bans don't appear to be dampening sales on area Indian reservations. Many of the fireworks purchased at stands on the Coeur d'Alene Indian Reservation and the Spokane Indian Reservation find their way back to Spokane and Spokane Valley, where possession of the contraband can bring a fine.

A former fugitive from North Idaho with ties to the Aryan Nations was sentenced this week in Albuquerque, N.M., to 41 months in federal prison for illegal possession of firearms. R. Vincent Bertollini began to cry Tuesday as he explained to the court how a series of drunken driving tickets he got in North Idaho led him to become a fugitive for five years before his capture in New Mexico in April 2006.

A security guard working at the U.S. Courthouse in downtown Spokane was fired after allegedly using remote-controlled rooftop security cameras to peer inside an occupied high-end condominium unit at Main and Lincoln, authorities confirmed. The condo spying case came to the attention of the Justice Department a little more than a week ago, and a criminal investigation was immediately ordered by the U.S. attorney's office.

A confessed killer took FBI agents this week to a remote spot on the Colville Indian Reservation where he claims he disposed of his cousin's body in 1991. After a three-day search with cadaver dogs, FBI agents said Friday they found "some items of evidentiary interest," but wouldn't be more specific.

A man facing federal charges of aggravated identity theft as part of a car odometer rollback scheme was arrested Thursday in north Spokane by U.S. Secret Service agents. Now those agents and investigator James Tilley of the U.S. attorney's office are asking the public to contact them if they purchased a vehicle from Tam Quang Do.

In the past 64 days, Spokane police officers have pulled their guns and shot three men, one fatally. The latest shooting occurred early Tuesday in a Hillyard neighborhood.

LOOKOUT PASS – Spring may be almost a month old, but 135 hard-core snow lovers waited until this weekend to say goodbye to winter. And what a noisy, gas-powered goodbye it was Saturday on the slopes of Lookout Pass Ski Area on the Idaho-Montana border, just off Interstate 90.