JoNel Aleccia

On the advice of police, Coeur d'Alene officials have expanded a city ordinance limiting sales of cold and allergy medications that can be used to make methamphetamine, even as Idaho legislators consider statewide regulations. Liquid, liquid capsule and gel capsule formulations were added to an ordinance approved last fall requiring medications containing pseudoephedrine to be sold only in limited quantities from behind store counters, City Attorney Mike Gridley said.

With as many as 60 babies a year born to addicted mothers in Kootenai County, officials here are conflicted over an Idaho bill that proposes to jail pregnant women who use methamphetamine and other drugs. Debate about the bill that narrowly passed the Idaho Senate swirled Wednesday in local hospitals, treatment centers and agencies that care for vulnerable children.

Nearly a year after critics complained Kootenai Medical Center mothballed vital medical equipment used to examine sexual assault victims, hospital officials said they'll seek a new tool. KMC officials said Tuesday they plan to spend as much as $13,000 on a culposcope, a state-of-the-art magnifying device that can be used to prove sexual abuse in court.

No question: Idaho's substance abuse system needs an overhaul. That much was clear from a scathing state audit released in December, a Sandpoint lawmaker said this week. But Republican Sen. Shawn Keough said state officials shouldn't move too quickly to create a special commission to tackle the problem. More time and more information are needed, she said, to understand the implications of the 117-page report that detailed failings of a system aimed at helping people addicted to drugs and alcohol.

Backers of a proposed Boys & Girls Club program in Post Falls are finalizing plans to lease property from the school district to build a 20,000-square-foot youth center. Details were expected to be ironed out Friday and sent to the Post Falls School Board for consideration at a March meeting, said Boys & Girls Club President Cort Wilcox and schools Superintendent Jerry Keane.

Dan Adamson understands that voters might not take seriously a candidate for governor who gives away T-shirts and iPods, wants to export state inmates overseas and hopes to lure Hispanic supporters with free tacos. The Chubbuck businessman, who owns a chain of nursing homes, acknowledged Tuesday that there's a chance his deliberately outrageous views may be marginalized as he challenges Republican U.S. Rep. C.L. "Butch" Otter to be the state's next governor.

About 350 low-income children in Eastern Washington and North Idaho may have to find new ways to spend summer days after funding for a national sports camp with a 17-year history in Pullman was cut from the federal budget. Organizers at Washington State University are scrambling to repair cuts to the local branch of the National Youth Sports Program, which last summer provided five weeks of child care, sports camps and meals to poor local families, including about 50 children from the Coeur d'Alene Tribe.

Fingers crossed, Coeur d'Alene community leaders are counting on public willingness to build and sustain a proposed $65 million Salvation Army Kroc Center project near the heart of the city. Attaining some $5 million in local donations could be the nudge Coeur d'Alene needs to outbid up to seven other sites in the West for what organizers say is a badly needed recreation and social service resource. So far, backers have raised $1.4 million. City and agency officials met in Coeur d'Alene this week to discuss design plans for the proposed 104,000-square-foot center.

A Coeur d'Alene lawmaker again is introducing legislation requiring strict new standards for Idaho child care providers, saying clearer language and bipartisan support could lead to wider debate – and approval. "If we can get it out to the floor, I know it has a chance," said Rep. George Sayler, R-Coeur d'Alene, whose bill died last year in a House Health and Welfare Committee on a 6-6 vote.

If organizers have their way, a large segment of the audience for this week's production of "The Vagina Monologues" in Coeur d'Alene will never have heard of the show. It won't be because those audience members don't understand the issues addressed by the award-winning performance. Sexual abuse, rape and domestic violence are often topics too familiar to the target audience for this year's benefit show: single, working mothers.

The names of Washington state residents who test positive for the virus that causes AIDS will be kept on file soon under a change health officials say is necessary to retain up to $5 million in federal funds for treatment. The move dismantles a 1999 system that used codes instead of names to keep track of some 4,000 people who have been diagnosed with HIV but show no symptoms, said John Peppert, manager of HIV prevention services with the Washington Department of Health.

The governor's race has come to North Idaho with two of the three candidates visiting Coeur d'Alene this week to remind voters they won't forget one of the fastest-growing areas in the state. Candidates for the open seat in the 1st U.S. Congressional District also have been making frequent trips to the Panhandle lately, solidifying that campaign season has arrived.