John Stucke

Snow plows have cleared streets on the South Hill and the were continuing to work neighborhoods on Spokane's North side.

A winter storm buffeting Seattle and Portland has led regional air carrier Horizon to cancel flights. The cancelations will affect Horizon's arrivals and departures linking those two cities with Spokane, said Spokane International Airport spokesman Todd Woodard.

C. Paul Sandifur, the former chief executive officer of bankrupt Metropolitan Mortgage & Securities Co., will pay $150,000 to refund investors and settle allegations that he improperly paid himself dividends as the company failed.

A class action lawsuit involving more than 6,000 Metropolitan Mortgage & Securities Co. investors is moving toward trial in 15 months.

Spokane County air pollution officials will begin posting online the names of businesses and individuals who break clean air rules. Driving the new disclosures were concerns that some companies had accrued multiple violations of asbestos abatement regulations, but that information was buried in agency files.

More than 100 students at two Spokane elementary schools may have been exposed to chickenpox. Students in affected classrooms at Madison and Holmes schools must provide proof that they have been vaccinated or that they have already had the highly contagious illness, which is caused by a virus called varicella.

The contract rejected by a California candidate for the job of Spokane’s health officer didn’t include severance pay, and it required him to clear his professional opinions with the Health Board before taking positions on issues. Spokane’s last health officer, Dr. Kim Thorburn, was fired two years ago for what the Health Board called communication problems; she was paid $150,000 in salary and benefits according to the terms in her contract.

Former priest Patrick G. O’Donnell apologized again Wednesday, this time through his lawyer via a phone call in front of Spokane County Superior Court Judge Maryann Moreno, to the victims of his rampant sexual abuse. The apology, along with an agreement to pay $5 million, enables O’Donnell to avoid a looming civil trial over a child sexual abuse scandal that bankrupted the Catholic Diocese of Spokane.

Mike Driscoll is solving a puzzle that has bothered him for 46 years. Could his health have been affected by exposure to atomic bomb testing?

While Washington voters made it legal for doctors to help terminally ill residents end their lives, opponents of the assisted suicide measure indicated Wednesday they will continue to resist the practice. Initiative 1000 won with strong support Tuesday, but doctors don’t have to help their patients make that final act, says the Washington State Medical Association.

The amount of gasoline spilled Monday afternoon from a massive ExxonMobil storage tank in Spokane Valley remains unknown, according to officials. Cleanup crews first vacuumed fuel that had pooled on the ground after maintenance workers accidentally severed a pipe that was part of a temperature gauge, then began excavating dirt.

Thousands of gallons of gasoline spilled Monday afternoon from a holding tank at the ExxonMobil fuel storage facility in Spokane Valley. Maintenance workers sheared a small pipe that was part of a temperature gauge, said Spokane Valley Fire Department Marshal Kevin Miller. Gasoline spilled from the three-quarter-inch pipe for 90 minutes until a city emergency crew plugged the leak at 4 p.m.

A high-dollar rate dispute between Premera Blue Cross and the owner of Sacred Heart Medical Center has been settled. Neither side disclosed the comprise.

The number of Idahoans diagnosed with diabetes has tripled in the past decade – outpacing soaring rates of the disease in other states. The numbers are part of a national diabetes study released this week by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They are especially disturbing to health officials in a state with high numbers of uninsured, feeble funding for education and prevention efforts, and outdated data collection practices that rely on surveys reaching only residents who have landline phones and who are willing to admit they suffer from a disease closely linked to obesity.