Jim Camden

A 17-year-old juvenile detention escapee kicked an elderly woman to death in her north Spokane home for a purse containing $62, a court document says. Vy Thang of Aberdeen, Wash., was charged Friday with first-degree murder. He climbed into the woman's home through an open window last Aug. 29, according to a police affidavit.

Smith

The federal government would spend about $11.6 million on construction projects at Fairchild Air Force Base, but nothing at an agriculture research station in Prosser, Wash., if President Clinton gets his way. While the construction programs at Fairchild received general support from the state's congressional delegation, House Republicans said they would fight to keep money for the research station. Details of Clinton's fiscal 1999 budget show that the West Plains air base is in line for a new, $7.6 million squadron operations building.

Environmental groups around the nation want the federal government to sell the Bonneville Power Administration to raise money for the government and restore the Columbia and Snake rivers. Northwest chapters of those groups said they aren't quite ready to demand the BPA be sold. But they may be in the future if the federal government doesn't take the steps they say are necessary to restore salmon in the region's rivers.

Fifty years haven't cooled the interest in former state Rep. Al Canwell of Spokane. He's the subject of one of the most requested oral histories in a program operated by the secretary of state's office. In "Albert F. Canwell: An Oral History," he defends his record as chairman of the state's Communisthunting committee of 1948, and accuses prominent Spokane residents and other Americans of the '30s, '40s and '50s of being Communists or subversives.

Compatriots 1. Vice President Richard Nixon visited congressional candidate Albert Canwell, left, and Republican leaders in Spokane just before the 1954 elections. The Spokane Club is in the background. File/The Spokesman-Review 2. Albert Canwell, 91, pursued Communists in the 1940s. Photo by Liz Kishimoto/The Spokesman-Review

The Air Force was clearly negligent in the way it handled a mentally disturbed airman who killed five people in a 1994 shooting spree at Fairchild Air Force Base. But that doesn't mean the families of those Dean Mellberg killed, or the 21 people he wounded, can sue the federal government, U.S. District Judge Justin Quackenbush said Monday.

Former GOP congressional candidate and anti-abortion activist Marlyn Derby was found guilty Monday of trying to burn down her estranged husband's home. Derby entered an Alford plea - not admitting guilt but acknowledging the evidence exists that would lead to being found guilty - to a charge of first-degree reckless burning. She will be sentenced in April. In exchange for her plea, the charge was reduced from first-degree arson.

Washington residents who want to keep track of what the Legislature is doing for them - or to them - need not cross the Cascades to Olympia. They can make the trip through cyberspace. The Internet provides several Web sites that track legislation and provide information.

Some of the state's most powerful legislators no longer face a forced exit from office this year. Voters didn't have the power to limit their politicians' time in office through a 1992 initiative, the Washington Supreme Court said Thursday.

A baker's dozen of Republican conservatives in the Legislature have formed their own caucus to push an agenda they believe GOP voters want but haven't received. "We want to give people hope," state Sen. Val Stevens, R-Snohomish County, said Tuesday at a Spokane press conference. "Many Republicans have felt they have not gotten what they asked for." The Conservative Caucus will dedicate itself to "making government responsible to the individual," Stevens said. "We want to get rid of the programs that don't work."

The Legislature will not approve the gas tax increase proposed by Gov. Gary Locke, House Speaker Clyde Ballard reiterated Monday. It won't even put it to a vote. It might spend some of the state's surplus on road repairs, and may channel some money from the Motor Vehicle Excise Tax out of the general fund and into transportation, the East Wenatchee Republican said at a Spokane news conference. "We will not be raising taxes for (roads) or anything else," Ballard said as he looked forward to a session that begins next Monday. "There will not be a vote in the House of Representatives on a gas tax increase."

Term limits could turn the coming legislative session into the swan song for the most powerful members of the state House of Representatives. Unless the state Supreme Court says otherwise, the 1992 initiative is going to issue a pink slip to chairmen of a dozen committees and the leaders of both caucuses. "It will leave a pretty big hole," said state Rep. Larry Sheahan, R-Spokane, one of 29 legislators who can't have his name on the ballot next fall if the term limits law is upheld.

What's a Cougar victory worth today? It could be worth some books for a children's reading program. What's a loss going to cost?

Workers at the Ridpath Hotel will be reapplying for their jobs next week as the owner of the downtown restaurant and lodge prepares to sell it. The new owners and union officials who represent the workers describe that process as standard when a large business changes hands. They will fill out applications, be interviewed and take drug tests. The hotel's current owner, Dunson Ridpath Hotel Associates Limited Partnership, has notified state and city officials that "the layoffs will be permanent."

Washington's U.S. Senate race is 11 months away, but one would think it was next week by the way two candidates are going at each other. In the last week, Sen. Patty Murray accused Rep. Linda Smith of calling her anti-American through surrogate Ollie North, and misconstruing her comments about the IRS. Then Smith responded by ignoring the demand for an apology and challenging Murray to a debate next week in Seattle.

Unions and developers were the big spenders in Spokane's municipal elections this year. But development interests generally did a better job of backing winners, an analysis of campaign giving and spending shows. While candidates raised and spent less than in past years trying to win the city's top elective post, independent campaigns helped boost spending on the mayor's race to a new plateau.

'There's no mandate here'. John Talbott picks up a pile of policy and agenda pamphlets from Brenda Corbett on Thursday at City Hall. Photo by Sandra Bancroft-Billings/The Spokesman-Review

Washington state's five-year-old campaign finance law makes it harder for the public to know who's spending money on elections, says a nonpartisan group. The Washington Council for Fair Elections is proposing a set of changes that it says would make candidates and contributors more accountable.

Mellberg

Nethercutt

Tolerance of other groups and cultures is not enough as the nation tries to fight hate crimes, Gonzaga University students and faculty said Monday. "We tolerate root canals," said Bob Bartlett, university director of cultural affairs. "We don't embrace them. We don't celebrate them. What we're talking about today is to move beyond tolerance."

A new political group has launched a $12,000 mail attack against mayoral challenger John Talbott as a last-minute counterpunch to a similar attack against Mayor Jack Geraghty. The campaign was described by the group's director, Chris Schnug, as a response to a campaign funded mainly by David Sabey, owner of NorthTown Mall. But the anti-Talbott mailer from the group calling itself People for Positive Leadership apparently violated state law by failing to disclose its main contributors. The ad should have noted its primary funding came from Washington Water Power Co. and Allison Cowles, widow of the late publisher of The Spokesman-Review.

With only four days left before the general election, Spokane Mayor Jack Geraghty has raised about $25,000 more than challenger John Talbott. But when the campaign by a Seattle-based political action committee is thrown in, the scales tip the other way.