John Stucke

A whooping cough outbreak has worsened in Kootenai County, infecting 43 children as investigators scramble to track down suspected sources of the disease. The episode underscores a stubborn problem in Idaho: the failure of parents to vaccinate their children against infectious disease.

A Fortune 500 company is now calling the shots at Black Rock North after purchasing the promissory note on the private golf club overlooking Lake Coeur d’Alene. The arrangement assures that big dollars continue to follow big development plans for the financially troubled project.

C. Paul Sandifur Jr., the former chairman and chief executive officer of Metropolitan Mortgage & Securities Co., will pay $23,000 to investors in the bankrupt company as part of a class-action settlement reached with executives. It’s the last money expected to be paid out by the former CEO, whose father founded the Spokane company in the 1950s.

Faced with yet another back surgery, John Fisher remembers slumping in his chair, dispirited. “I guess I knew that’s what it would come to,” the Spokane man said. “And I knew that, eventually, my pain would return.” It was the kind of hurt that dropped him to his knees. Made him scream.

Like everyone who met Gia, 11-year-old Hayden Kamakaala knew right away the dog from Spokane was special. A tingle raced through his body when he first saw her. He tugged at his mom’s arm, his eyes sparkling: “This is the one!”

Rockwood Clinic is fighting eviction from the Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center campus, insisting that it won’t be able to move its outpatient surgery center and heart clinic by June 30 without disrupting patients. The sides have exchanged letters outlining their legal positions this month as the fallout continues from Rockwood’s decision last year to join Deaconess Medical Center, Sacred Heart’s rival. Meanwhile, Rockwood employees are left to wonder where they will be working this summer and how it will affect patient care after Sacred Heart declined to rework the clinic’s leases two months ago.

Cigarettes soon will cost about $8 a pack as Washington legislators add another $1 in taxes. The higher state taxes – which brings the total on every pack to $3 – is part of the recently adopted plan to raise $800 million and close the budget gap without cutting more programs and state jobs.