Dan Hansen

The Spokane City Council spent more than $6 million Tuesday with hardly a comment from council members or residents. But debate lasted an hour when the police department requested an additional $15,000 for community-oriented policing. The money eventually was approved by all but councilman Chris Anderson, who called the request "empire-building in the typical bureaucratic form."

Gov. Mike Lowry on Friday picked Ken Kato, a state Court of Appeals commissioner, to be a Spokane County judge. Kato, 46, will replace retiring Superior Court Judge Marcus Kelly. He is scheduled to start work Jan. 8, and will have to run for election in September. "I don't think the governor could have made a better appointment," said Court of Appeals Judge John Schultheis, who called Kato "a tremendously capable person."

Thomas "Rick" Birnel

Are we having fun yet? 1. Ian Elby, left, of Coeur d'Alene, watches his roommate, Kurtis Douge of Bellingham, make sure his bed meets camp specifications. Photo by Dan McComb/The Spokesman-Review 2. Civil Air Patrol cadets study standard operating procedures, hoping to memorize protocol before an instructor puts them on the spot with a question. Photo by Dan McComb/The Spokesman-Review

1. Final days at the zoo. A grizzly pokes its head through a tire at Walk in the Wild zoo. Photo by Dan McComb/The Spokesman-Review 2. A snow leopard rests on a rock at the zoo. Photo by Dan McComb/The Spokesman-Review

Free to a good home: One polar bear, stuffed. Good fur. Spokane landmark. Shot in 1971 by hunter Lewey Lorenzen, the massive blonde bear in a glass case started its afterlife at the Davenport Hotel. The bear migrated to Spokane International Airport after the hotel closed in 1985. For eight years, it greeted travelers with a frozen snarl.

Melissa Mae Wageman volunteered to shop and cook for disabled friends. A single mother, she was raising a teenage son - an honor student and musician at Shadle Park High School. She was so well liked at Happy Time Tavern on North Division that regulars threw her a 40th birthday party Thursday.

Peters

A Spokane woman is suing Ford Motor Co., saying she's had coughing fits and trouble breathing since inhaling powder from her Taurus' air bag. Karen Krotzer, 48, missed 22 weeks of work this year and coughed through her son's wedding last summer, said her husband, Thomas Krotzer. She had to stop singing in the church choir.

Fire chars historic Lincoln County building 1. Firefighters bring a fire under control after it gutted most of the historic Lincoln County Courthouse. Photo by Kristy MacDonald/The Spokesman-Review 2. Deputy Wade Mager inspects the top floor of the courthouse, where Thursday night's fire began. Photo by Dan Pelle/The Spokesman-Review

A Spokane woman convicted of first-degree kidnapping and sentenced Wednesday to 4-1/2 years in prison will spend Christmas at home. Rhondi Zyph, 18, was one of two women convicted in October of kidnapping Taunya Gardella, hacking off her hair and beating her. Zyph has been on home detention, with electronic monitoring, since the trial.

A DNA expert said there was little doubt Phillip Kramer is the father of a child born to a 14-year-old Spokane girl. But a Spokane County jury on Tuesday said that wasn't enough proof to convict Kramer, 50, of second-degree rape or third-degree rape of a child. The jurors found Kramer not guilty of both counts, saying they weren't convinced he and his accuser were together the night of the alleged rape.

A Superior Court judge has declared a mistrial in the case of a Pend Oreille County court clerk accused of harboring a fugitive in her office. The decision was upheld Friday by the state Court of Appeals. Visiting Judge Paul Bastine of Spokane set aside two weeks in June for a new trial of Clerk Winnie Sundseth. She is accused of hiding a man wanted for violating probation.

A West Medical Lake resort owner is suing the state over sewage spills that temporarily shut down fishing and permanently tarnished the lake's image. Ken Lewis says his business was damaged by the 1992 spills, when bacteria levels in the lake rose to 32 times the level considered safe. The lake was closed for three months, and became the topic of numerous reports by television and print media.

From For the record (Friday, December 8, 1995): Larry Stapleton was convicted in July of second-degree robbery, his third serious offense. While he has not yet been sentenced, the courts have no choice but to send him to prison for life under the state's Three Strikes, You're Out law. A Thursday article reported he had already been sentenced.

Convicted of murdering his estranged wife on Monday, Thomas "Rick" Birnel was told Tuesday he can go home for the holidays - if he posts $100,000 bail. His voice cracking, Birnel told Spokane County Superior Court Judge Kathleen O'Connor, "I'd like to be with my kids."

Thomas "Rick" Birnel is led from court Monday evening after being convicted in the death of his wife. Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Spokesman-Review

Any of 17 wounds in Mary "Cookie" Birnel's body could have killed her, a Spokane County prosecutor told a jury Wednesday. "Eight of the stab wounds were to the target area, (near) the heart," Deputy Prosecutor Dannette Allen said during opening arguments in the second-degree murder trial of Birnel's estranged husband. In all, Cookie Birnel - a mother of four who was so hooked on methamphetamines that she ate and slept little - was stabbed 31 times with a butcher knife while fighting with Thomas "Rick" Birnel.

A Mead man whose drinking and drug use led to a car accident that killed a 14-year-old girl was sentenced Wednesday to nearly 3-1/2 years in prison. Bradley Roadruck, 25, pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide in October. Spokane County Superior Court Judge Kathleen O'Connor sentenced him to serve 41 months in prison and pay $20,000 restitution for the death of Nichole Oman. The accident occurred April 1 after Roadruck drove Oman and two of her friends to a store, where he bought them cigarettes, authorities said. The foursome spent the next five hours together, with Roadruck buying beer and marijuana to use himself and offer to the teens.

Spokane County Superior Court Judge Kathleen O'Connor decided Monday not to close her courtroom while three girls testify in their father's murder trial this week. Thomas "Rick" Birnel, 39, is accused of killing his estranged wife, Mary "Cookie" Birnel. The couple's 10-year-old daughter, Lisa Birnel, was the only witness to the stabbing.

Speed may have more to do with a driver's testosterone level than a car's horsepower. Forty of the 72 men who responded Sunday and Monday morning to The Spokesman-Review's request for comments said they favor a plan to let states set speed limits as high as they like. Many said they would raise the speed limit on Interstate 90 to 70 mph or 80 mph - or even higher. Some would do away with the limit altogether.

Drivers soon may have a chance to cut a few minutes off trips across Washington and Idaho. Or, they could drive the same speed most of them do now, but without risk of a ticket.

Getting to grandma's house should be safer this holiday season if the trip requires driving between Ritzville, Wash., and the Tri-Cities. Crews working for the state Department of Transportation cut a ceremonial ribbon near here Tuesday, opening 15 miles of northbound lanes of U.S. Highway 395. Traffic now has two lanes in both directions instead of only one.

Eight-year-old Cierra Smith sat through nearly four hours of budgetary mumbo jumbo to make a 30-second appeal to the grown-ups who control Spokane's money. "If DARE leaves, more kids will die," Smith told the City Council on Monday.