Jim Camden

A Senate committee investigating Gulf War syndrome will hold a hearing in Spokane next month, listening to veterans who suffer from the unexplained medical problems. The Senate Veterans Affairs Committee also will ask federal officials to appear at the hearing at Gonzaga University and a companion hearing in Kent, Wash. Sen. Patty Murray, a member of the panel who has pushed for months for a hearing in her home state, said the two meetings will give local veterans a voice in the committee's investigation.

One of the state's largest citizen lobbying groups will stick with its embattled parent organization, saying it's easier to fix problems from the inside. Citizen Action is under fire from two dissident state chapters for accepting money from groups connected to long-time foes - the tobacco and nuclear industries. It is also under investigation by the U.S. Attorney's Office in New York for allegedly funneling money into the election for the national president of the Teamsters union.

Contrary to some reports, Rep. George Nethercutt has not pulled himself out of the 1998 Senate race. Nor has he decided to get in. Nethercutt said this week he won't decide whether to run for the Senate or seek re-election to the House until after Congress' August recess. He'll spend part of that time in Eastern Washington, talking to key advisers about a possible run for the seat held by Democrat Patty Murray.

Carl Maxey smiled as he showed off his gold "Jackson" lapel pin at the 1988 Democratic National Convention in Atlanta. The smile was equal parts pride, humor and irony. Pride, because Maxey was Washington state's at-large delegate for the Rev. Jesse Jackson, whose campaign he had helped guide to an impressive showing. Humor, because Maxey and a few other stalwart Democrats knew the inside joke: The Jackson named on the pin wasn't Jesse. It was the late Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson. Irony, because Maxey ran against Scoop Jackson in 1970, mounting a campaign he knew he couldn't win to talk about ending a war and addressing the needs of the poor. Just as he knew he would lose that 1970 campaign, Maxey knew Jesse Jackson would lose his bid for the presidential nomination. But the attorney was in his element, echoing his candidate's call to "keep hope alive" and talking about campaigns to come. For Maxey, a force in Spokane's Democratic Party for much of the last half-century, there were always political battles down the road. Allies may become adversaries, and vice versa, but Maxey was always a voice for the poor and the powerless. "Carl believed in all people getting a fair shake," said Kathy Reid, who worked with Maxey to stun party leaders and deliver a third of Spokane County's Democrats for Jesse Jackson in 1988. Liberal Democrats recruited Maxey in the late 1940s as they tried to wrest power from the party's conservative wing, recalled former Spokane City Councilman Robert Dellwo. Americans for Democratic Action were organizing door-to-door and "we needed someone like him to represent the minorities of the district," Dellwo said. Maxey became a voice quoted in the newspapers, a face seen in brochures, talking about workers' rights and civil rights. By the mid '60s, he had added another cause: ending the Vietnam War. "To Maxey, civil rights and the war were interlocked," said Bill First of Spokane, a longtime Democratic activist. "Because of college deferments for middle-class whites, a disproportionate number of minorities were being drafted into the service." The showdown over the war came with Scoop Jackson, one of the nation's most stalwart hawks, and the state's most powerful Democrat. In 1970, Jackson was so secure even Republicans were giving him money. The liberal Democrats had nowhere to turn. Maxey gladly entered a fight he knew he would lose, recalled Tom Westbrook, who handled the campaign's publicity. "I don't remember any lingering hard feelings," recalled former House Speaker Tom Foley, a staunch backer of his mentor Scoop Jackson. "It was the kind of thing that Carl felt, in his own judgment, he had to do." Maxey backed George McGovern in 1972, and ran as independent Eugene McCarthy's vice president on Washington state's ballot in 1976. He then led Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition in 1988. McGovern. McCarthy. Jackson. Maxey. Not an electoral victory in the bunch. "But these aren't losers," argued Dellwo. "They're actually winners in doing what they did - for a reason. "Carl became the soul of the Democratic Party on civil rights, Indian rights and the rights of the poor."

Taxpayers would spend more than $38 million on improvements to Fairchild Air Force Base next year if both houses of Congress get their way. That's about $30 million more than President Clinton wants to spend at the base for fiscal 1998. Two plans to increase the amount of military construction at Fairchild are moving through Congress, shepherded by Democratic Sen.

The state's unions are seeking sanctions against their longtime election foe, the building industry, for an interlocking system of committees that spent thousands of dollars on last year's legislative races. In a 12-page complaint filed Tuesday, the Washington State Labor Council contends the Building Industry Association of Washington "systematically violated the letter and spirit" of state campaign finance laws. The council asks the state Public Disclosure Commission, Attorney General Christine Gregoire and county prosecutors from Spokane County to King County to take action against the association.

There's little doubt who "the other side" is at the Western States Coalition Summit. Amid lectures on why global warming theories are phony and how schools do a lousy job with environmental science, delegates to this two-day gathering are looking for ways to win the debate with "the enemy." Environmentalists.

Look familiar? 1. The ramp of the Mars Pathfinder is shown at the bottom of this panoramic view of the Mars terrain. Though painted red by iron oxides, the terrain bears a striking resemblance to that of Eastern Washington scablands. Photo by Associated Press 2. NASA engineers try to fix a model rover during a 1995 test near Moses Lake. File/The Spokesman-Review

1. Julie Mangan, wife of British hostage Keith Mangan, distributes leaflets, asking for information on four Western hostages, to Kashmiri villagers. Spokane teacher Jane Schelly will join Mangan today in Srinagar, Kashmir's summer capital. Photo by Associated Press 2. Donald Hutchings with his wife, Jane Schelly, before being taken hostage. Photo by Associated Press

Murray

Former congressional candidate Marlyn Derby told police investigating an arson at her estranged husband's house that she set the fire. She admitted dousing magazines with gasoline and piling them next to the house where her husband, Al Derby, has lived for more than a year. The magazines had her name and address on them. A box of blue-tipped matches, similar to one found in the street near Al Derby's house, sat on the refrigerator, police reported.

Anniversary of kidnapping marked. While thousands pounded downtown streets during Hoopfest, a handful of people gathered in Riverfront Park on Sunday for a short ceremony and a walk along the Centennial Trail as part of observances marking the kidnapping of Spokane psychologist Donald Hutchings in India two years ago. Photo by Liz Kishimoto/The Spokesman-Review

1. Jane Schelly meets with villagers at a Pakistan mosque in 1996 while searching for information about her husband. Photo courtesy Jane Schelly 2. Donald Hutchings' information pamphlet. 3. Jane Schelly celebrates her birthday with her husband, Donald Hutchings, in 1995. 4. Hostages Hans Christian Ostro, Dirk Hasert, Paul Wells, Keith Mangan and Donald Hutchings. 5. Schelly meets wiht villagers outside a mosque in Hazarabad, Pakistan. 6. Schelly talks with an aide to Rep. George Nethercutt about legislation she hopes might help her husband.

Friends of Don Hutchings will mark the second anniversary of his kidnapping with events designed to remind Spokane he's still held hostage. They will set a medallion on the Centennial Trail today and drape the Riverfront Park Clocktower with yellow ribbons Friday. Medical facilities and the Rocket Bakery will give away pins made with yellow ribbons.

In the 1950's, Hmong soldiers fought the Pathet Lao, a communist group that attacked U.S. forces in South Vietnam.

Would-be Seahawks owner Paul Allen jams on guitar with Beatniks' Bobby Beaulieu early Wednesday after an election night party in Seattle. Photo by Associated Press

Washington voters seem more satisfied than ever with the job President Clinton is doing, while Gov. Gary Locke gets good marks for his first six months in office. Voters also give their two U.S. senators passing if unenthusiastic grades in a new poll conducted for The Spokesman-Review and KHQ-TV. Clinton's job performance ratings - 54 percent said he was doing either an excellent or good job - are probably a reflection of the state's strong economy, said Del Ali, an analyst for Mason Dixon Political Media Research, Inc., which conducted the poll.

Sen. Patty Murray faces some red flags in next year's re-election campaign: Nearly two-thirds of the voters may be willing to at least consider another candidate. A poll of the state's voters shows the freshman Democrat is far better known than two of her possible Republican opponents - Reps. George Nethercutt and Linda Smith. But just under half the voters have a favorable impression of her, while about one in five has an unfavorable opinion, according to the survey conducted by Mason-Dixon Political Media Research Inc.

A ballot proposal to build a new football stadium in Seattle faces an uphill fight as Tuesday's election nears, a new scientific survey indicates. The $425 million stadium and exhibition center plan faces stiff opposition from women and from voters outside metropolitan Puget Sound, a poll by Mason-Dixon Political Media Research says. Even more troubling for supporters: Among voters who already have cast their ballots, the proposal is losing.

Thousands of Spokane County voters - most of them in rural areas - don't have their ballots yet for the June 17 referendum on a new football stadium because the envelopes were improperly addressed. Their ballots have been returned to the county courthouse.

The United States should no longer be part of the United Nations, two Inland Northwest members of Congress are saying. Reps. George Nethercutt of Washington and Helen Chenoweth of Idaho voted to pull this country out of the United Nations and all of its agencies and force the 52-year-old body to leave its New York City headquarters. Both described their vote - on an amendment to the Foreign Relations Appropriations Bill that Congress is considering - as a way to "send a message" to the United Nations. The amendment failed overwhelmingly, in a vote of 369 to 54, last week.

The United States should no longer be part of the United Nations, two Inland Northwest members of Congress are saying. Reps. George Nethercutt of Washington and Helen Chenoweth of Idaho voted to pull this country out of the United Nations and all of its agencies and force the 52-year-old body to leave its New York City headquarters.

The U.S. House of Representatives is set to ask again for the release of a Spokane psychologist missing for almost two years. An amendment to the Foreign Relations Authorization Act will call on the Al Faran guerrilla group in Kashmir to release Donald Hutchings and three other Western tourists who were kidnapped in July 1995. It also asks that a State Department program offering rewards for information about the kidnapping be used "to the greatest extent possible."

Spokane County voters have nearly two weeks to ponder their decision on Referendum 48, the proposal to build a football stadium in Seattle. Some voters may need that long to figure out when to fold, when not to fold and what to do about "CHAD" for their vote-by-mail ballots. It may be tempting to blame the confusing instructions on the person who sent you the ballot. But Spokane County Elections Superintendent Tom Wilbur said the wording is set in the Washington Administrative Code, appropriately known as "the WACs."