Chad Sokol

Work has begun on a $61.9 million building addition that will serve as the new home of the Washington Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory, which plays a crucial role in infectious disease monitoring, public health, food safety and the success of the state’s fish and livestock industries.

Steve Groene must vacate the Coeur d’Alene house he has lived in for more than a decade, a judge ruled Thursday, ending protracted litigation over the home that was built for Groene’s daughter following her 2005 abduction by a child molester and serial killer.

Prosecutors are preparing criminal charges after sheriff’s deputies, animal control officers and volunteers rescued 255 dogs from two illegal breeding sites in southern Stevens County.

The Spokane County commissioners will host a series of community meetings to inform the public and gather input as they craft the county’s budget for 2019.

“My cousin died three years ago in Spokane County Jail, and I wish that it had stopped with him,” said Monica Moore, whose cousin, Lorenzo Hayes, died in the jail in 2015.

Community members are planning to march this evening from Salem Lutheran Church to the Spokane County Courthouse to draw attention to the deaths of inmates at the county jail.

The Spokane County Prosecutor’s Office has determined two law enforcement officers were justified when they shot a man who was wielding a bolt-action rifle in a Hillyard neighborhood apartment in March, according to a news release issued Friday.

A program launching Monday at the Spokane County Jail aims to prevent inmates from dying of opioid withdrawal.

Washington State University announced Thursday it has received donations totaling $100,000 that will be used to purchase training equipment for health sciences students in Yakima and Spokane.

Michael “Scott” Maclay, the Harley-riding respiratory therapist who changed his name to DumpOzzie Dot Com as part of a conspiracy-theory-fueled campaign to unseat Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich, died in a motorcycle crash Monday afternoon near Mashburn, Idaho.

WSU administrators say the INTO University Partnership will eventually bring in thousands more students from other countries, making the university more culturally diverse, boosting tuition revenue and improving the school’s international reputation. They say the partnership will not only help WSU climb out of a spending deficit, but also put the university on track to become one of the nation’s top public research institutions – in part by supplying WSU laboratories with talented young academics from around the world.

The official, clinical-sounding cause of death – “pulmonary aspiration of gastric contents due to combined opiate and methamphetamine intoxication” – completes an agonizing image of what happened to David Good in the early hours of March 1.

As two candidates square off to lead the Stevens County Sheriff’s Office, some have accused the department of covering up a 2016 incident in which a top official may have driven while intoxicated. The incident involved Capt. Andy Harbolt, who was later promoted to his current position: Stevens County undersheriff, second in command to Sheriff Kendle Allen.

The Spokane County Jail inmate who died Saturday evening was Cindy Lou Hill, a 55-year-old mother of two, her older sister said Monday.

A house in Coeur d’Alene was supposed to be a gift for Shasta Groene, the lone survivor of one of the region’s most horrific crimes. But more than a decade after it was built, the house is entangled in litigation and likely to be sold.

A new Christian college taking the place of the Moody Bible Institute, which closed its Spokane branch last fall, has received state approval and begun accepting applications for the fall semester.

Spokane police planted an expensive mountain bike to catch thieves Wednesday outside the Safeway grocery store at Mission Avenue and Hamilton Street, an area rife with property crime in recent weeks.

A man being held in the Spokane County Jail for failing to register as a sex offender now faces a second-degree manslaughter charge in connection with the death of his cellmate last week.

More than 100 people gathered outside the Spokane Intermodal Center on Wednesday afternoon to protest the arrests of undocumented immigrants at the downtown transportation hub, and to call on local leaders to limit cooperation with the U.S. Border Patrol and other immigration agencies.

Wildfire smoke that has blanketed Northeastern Washington and North Idaho, creating unhealthy breathing conditions, is expected to linger through much of the week, experts said.