People are being convicted for burying hazardous waste five years ago at the now-bankrupt L-Bar magnesium recycling plant near Chewelah, Wash., but creditors are about the only ones being penalized.
Plant manager Stan McCurdy on Monday got three years of probation and six months of home detention that won't keep him at home.
McCurdy will be allowed to leave home to run the two convenience stores he owns in Lewiston, Idaho, and Clarkston, Wash., U.S. District Judge Frem Nielsen said.
Pend Oreille, the county, won a big victory Thursday in its multimillion-dollar tax assessment dispute with Ponderay, the newsprint plant.
If upheld on appeal, the ruling wipes out an effort to cut in half the Usk, Wash., newsprint plant's property tax bill.
Marvin E. Jones, 25, has avoided a life prison sentence in an Adams County rape case, but probably can't avoid the death sentence of the HIV he carries.
Health authorities say about 95 percent of people who have the human immunodeficiency virus will develop AIDS within 15 years, and AIDS always is fatal.
World War I veteran Paul Henry, 104, is reflected in an 80-year-old photo. Henry barely escaped the fighting with his life, but his friend wasn't so lucky. Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Spokesman-Review
Voters in Springdale, Wash., made it clear Tuesday that they want the Town Council to quit sniping at Mayor Ernie Gehrke.
Three supporters of the controversial mayor were voted onto the five-member council.
Corky Peterson got a solid 68-vote call to return to the council. Store owner Floyd Pope defeated Gehrke's chief critic on the council, Ray Turner, 57-34. Turner supporter Bud Brown was defeated 59-33 by Gehrke supporter Mike Pammler.
Court documents suggest two orchard workers from Mexico who were murdered Sept. 27 in Omak, Wash., may have been killed for sport.
Attorneys for the two men accused of the murders are fighting to keep potential jurors from hearing about the confessions police say the men made.
A federal judge's ruling Monday could settle a 23-year-old lawsuit between the Kalispel Tribe and the Pend Oreille County Public Utility District over flooding of tribal land.
Judge Richard Bilby of Tucson, Ariz., filed an order in U.S. District Court in Spokane that requires the utility district to pay the tribe slightly more than $3 million for past use of tribal land and to make annual payments for future land use.
A young man who was a hero at age 7 is a convicted double murderer at 19.
Shawn C. Ryan, of Sacramento, Calif., admitted Wednesday in Adams County Superior Court that there was enough evidence to convict him of killing two fellow drug dealers near Ritzville on June 16.
Margo Finnegan is the first person in the Spokane Tribe to go to law school. The Gonzaga student says scholarship money from tribal casinos made it possible for her to attend the law school. Photo by Dan Pelle/The Spokesman-Review
Jacqueline Bence refused a plea bargain Thursday and could become the first woman ever to be executed in Washington if convicted as charged in a murder this spring at Eloika Lake.
Pend Oreille County Prosecutor Tom Metzger already has charged Bence with aggravated first-degree murder, which carries a minimum penalty of life in prison without parole.
Critics of plans to build a new airport here agreed after a two-hour public forum Monday night to seek a public vote on the city's portion of the estimated $4.5 million cost.
About two dozen of the 33 people who attended the meeting appeared to be against the proposed airport along the Colville River just west of town. Environmental issues were high on their list of concerns, but cost, need and safety also were cited frequently.
This town of 260 people may have the hottest Nov. 7 general election contests in Stevens, Pend Oreille, Lincoln or Ferry counties.
Springdale voters must decide two Town Council races that could end several years of feuding between the town's executive and legislative branches.
Incumbent mayors face challengers in Colville, Davenport, Harrington and Republic in next month's general election.
Also in rural northeastern Washington, two candidates are competing for the Kettle Falls mayor's job that Eric Weatherman resigned from on Aug. 15.
Here is a look at the races:
A woman who had two husbands at the same time was blown out of court when she laid out a conspiracy claim involving a supposed third husband.
Although she demanded $1 million, Kettle Falls resident Linda J. Erickson told visiting Superior Court Judge Phillip Borst of Lincoln County that all she really wanted was protection from the people plotting her death.
A 52-year-old Ephrata, Wash., man faces six charges of first-degree child molestation and is suspected of more than 150 sex acts with several boys.
Michael D. Taylor is accused of molesting two boys, now ages 8 and 11, over the past three years at a cabin at Twin Lakes, near Inchelium on the Colville Indian Reservation.
A gold-fringed United States flag has been removed from the Ferry County Courtroom because the flag supposedly eliminated constitutional rights.
With the help of a county commissioner and an American Legion official, constitutionalist Ralph Westlake replaced the offending banner earlier this month with a rights-respecting fringeless flag.
Dawn Mining Co. began pumping water out of a disposal pit, left, into one of five new evaporation ponds such as the one on the right. Photo by John Craig/The Spokesman-Review
A 58-year-old Hunters, Wash., man has been charged with incest and rape of his 37-year-old daughter.
The defendant, Dennis W. Williamson, says he did not commit second-degree incest or third-degree rape. He also denies a Stevens County sheriff's detective's report that he admitted having sex with his daughter.
Kettle Falls High School students will take time today to honor three graduates who might now be parents of high school kids if they hadn't died in Vietnam two decades ago.
Like many other students at the high school, student body president Tatum Marco knew little about the Vietnam War when veterans groups approached the school
Pend Oreille County Superior Court Clerk Winnie Sundseth pleaded innocent in her own court Tuesday on a charge of harboring a fugitive in her office.
She is accused of lying to keep law officers from arresting Newport-area resident Randy Brown, 35, on a probation violation charge.
Workers laid off at Vaagen Bros. Lumber and the now-defunct John Chopot Lumber Co., both of Colville, are eligible for federal benefits under the North American Free Trade Act, public officials said Monday.
The state Job Services Office in Colville said federal officials determined that employees of both sawmill companies lost jobs because of competition from Canadian sawmills. Vaagen Bros. and Chopot said Canadian companies had an advantage because of low prices on timber from Canadian forests.
