Chad Sokol

They were gone almost as quickly as they appeared. A marketing ploy that involved 20 orange bicycles on the South Hill was abandoned Monday afternoon following a wave of criticism on social media. The bikes, which began appearing Friday evening, were removed by the same employees who put them there.

After months of warnings, York Hoskins was forced to vacate his home near the Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Authorities call the place a “chronic drug nuisance,” though Hoskins insists he never set out to run a drug house.

An orange bike leaning against the pole of a stop sign. An orange bike tethered to a handrail. An orange bike resting under a tree. Is this good advertising?

Traffic on Interstate 90 is moving again now that a four-vehicle pileup has been cleared from the westbound lanes.

Breaking out of prison can be a real bonding experience. Just ask the owners of Spokane’s new entertainment venue, Escape, where you can pay to be locked up, complete with bars and shackles. Working in a small team, players must scour the room for clues, crack codes and solve puzzles to escape within one hour. The clues can be anywhere, sometimes hidden in plain sight: a poster on the wall, a page in a book, an empty tin can. A game master provides hints along the way, but if the timer hits zero before you’ve broken out, the “warden” will stop by to foil your attempt.

The Spokane County inmate who escaped in a stolen truck Tuesday was found and arrested Thursday night in a motel room on North Division Street.

Deputies still are searching for the inmate, Devin B. Johnson, who escaped around 9:30 a.m. while working at the Spokane County Fairgrounds.

Deputies are searching for an inmate who escaped from the Spokane County Fairgrounds in a stolen work truck around 9 a.m. Tuesday. The truck is a white 2002 Ford Ranger, with two-wheel-drive, a regular cab, tinted windows and license plate number 82263C. It was last seen around 9:30 a.m. near Mayfair and Euclid.

The truck lurched forward and stopped abruptly every few seconds, then rocked side to side as a mechanical arm slung bottles, cans and stacks of cardboard into a receptacle in the back. Dennis Coppinger sat in the driver’s seat, tapping the gas pedal and the brakes and wiggling a joystick that controls the mechanical arm. A massive diesel engine whined and heated the cockpit as the sun rose over a quiet Spokane neighborhood.

The rocket, which was built by about 25 students in EWU rocketry club, carried a plane designed and built by students of Mead School District's Riverpoint Academy, an alternative high school that focuses on STEM fields.

A downtown Spokane restaurant closed Wednesday after an overheating kitchen exhaust fan caught fire and sent flames crawling up the side of the building. An employee taking a break outside the Steelhead Bar & Grille called 911 after spotting the fire around 1:30 p.m. Another employee tripped while trying to use a fire extinguisher and was taken to Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center with some bruised ribs and possibly some minor burns on his face.

Witnesses reported a black-clad man walked into the store and demanded medications. He indicated he had a gun.

If ever there was a year to be extra careful with fireworks, this is it, fire officials say. Extremely dry conditions and more hot days ahead have them nervously watching the approaching holiday. “In well over 20 years it’s never been this dry,” said Jim Lyon, fire inspector with the Northern Lakes Fire District serving Rathdrum, Hayden and Twin Lakes.

Spokane police arrested a man last week and extradited him to Idaho, where he is accused of having a connection to the suspicious death of a woman whose body was found partially submerged in a slough near Hauser Lake. Patrick Neil McGhee, 47, is a Hauser resident. He is accused of failing to notify law enforcement of the death of 55-year-old Kelly Lynne Sallee. His bond is set at $250,000.