Kevin Graman

The Canadian government has issued a nationwide warrant for the arrest of fugitive Frederick Russell, the former Washington State University student wanted on three counts of vehicular homicide, bail jumping and unlawful flight to avoid prosecution for a fatal 2001 car crash, a federal marshal said Friday. "This is the first time the Eastern District (of the U.S. Marshals Service) has been able to get cooperation on this level," U.S. Marshal Mike Kline said.

PALOUSE, Wash. – The flags that line this Eastern Washington farm town's main street were put up on Election Day to remind people to vote. They won't come down now until Sgt. Jacob H. Demand's body comes home. The 29-year-old Stryker Brigade soldier was killed Tuesday by small-arms fire west of Mosul, Iraq. He was the commander of a Stryker armored vehicle. The U.S. Central Command reported that five others were injured in the attack.

This weekend, the Inland Northwest Council of Camp Fire USA's historic summer camp on Lake Coeur d'Alene held a reunion for camp counselors and other staff members of Sweyolakan and its sister camp, Neewahlu. You might remember some of these people, mostly women, since the camp didn't go coed until the 1986. They're the ones who had a nice tan when school started in the fall and went on to make something of themselves as adults. For them, their fondest childhood memories are of Camp Sweyolakan and the friends they made there for life.

In 1996, Jayson Bush made a mistake that cost him his freedom. It was a time when police hailed drive-by shootings as evidence that youth gangs threatened the city and politicians demanded that courts sentence juveniles to adult time for adult crime. It was a bad time for a mixed-race teenager from Spokane's North Side to mess up.

Preaching to the choir about an issue near to veterans' hearts, a Medal of Honor recipient told 1,000 delegates to the national AMVETS convention in Spokane that candidates who do not support a constitutional amendment to protect the U.S. flag do not deserve their votes. "Beware of the candidate who tells you I love the flag but don't support the amendment," said retired Maj. Gen. Patrick Brady, a Vietnam War veteran who now leads the Citizens Flag Alliance. The keynote speaker at the opening ceremony of the convention said flag protection should be a litmus test for candidates.

A West Central Spokane family is grieving for a 19-year-old Marine private who died after falling victim to heat exhaustion while training on Okinawa, Japan, last week. Pfc. Dennis Mitchell II, a 2003 graduate of North Central High School, collapsed while on a training hike on July 21 in preparation for being deployed in the global war on terrorism.

Donald "Herk" Taylor, an Army Air Corps enlisted man who piloted bomber missions in three wars and rose through the ranks to command the 325th Bomb Squadron at Fairchild Air Force Base, died in his sleep July 14 at the Spokane Veterans Home. He was 82. "Not a bad way to go after three combat tours," said Rod Taylor of Ontario, Calif., whose father lived at Maplewood Gardens Retirement Apartments until he injured his back recently in a fall and was taken to the veterans home to recuperate.

A lone protester, sleeping without a tent on a small plot of grass behind City Hall, was the only visible sign remaining Friday of a homeless demonstration after the city ousted campers from their downtown campsite the day before. Scott Stanger said he camped out Thursday night on the site across Post Street from Riverfront Park. He was the last protester to be removed Thursday morning from the protest site at Riverside Avenue and Monroe Street. Stanger said he opposed the group's decision to go peacefully and was continuing the protest, even if he had to do it alone.

Mayor Jim West said he is looking at the ordinance against transient shelters, which was approved by the City Council on June 28, and will decide whether to sign it by Monday. Meanwhile, opponents of the ordinance continue to camp on the Riverside parkway between Monroe and Madison streets in downtown Spokane as they have since June 29. The protest organizer said the mayor told him that the protesters had better be out of the way when city crews come to mow the narrow strip of grass within the next couple of days.

The sprinklers are coming on a little more frequently on the Riverside Avenue parkway between Monroe and Madison, where homeless people are camped out in protest of a city ordinance against building or occupying a transient shelter on public property. The question, of course, is whether the increased irrigation might be the city's attempt to discourage the squatters, who have increased in number from nine people Monday night to 41 Friday. "Absolutely not," said Spokane Parks and Recreation Director Mike Stone, who decided to turn on the sprinklers as many as four times a day between midnight and 9 a.m. "It was strictly a horticultural move to protect the turf and trees." Stone said the water is typically turned on for an hour two or three times a day, but the squatters have compacted the soil on the parkway and therefore it needs water more frequently. "We're doing what is right from our stewardship directive," he said. But protest organizer Dave Bilsland, who is something of an amateur horticulturalist himself, said all that watering – at midnight, 3 a.m. 6 a.m. and 9 a.m.. – really isn't that good for the grass. The group residing at what they now call "Camp Serene Freedom," between the Spokane Club and The Spokesman-Review production facility, has responded by placing coffee cans, pots and pans over the sprinkler heads at night. Recognizing the lawn's need to have some water, and the squatters' need to bathe, Bilsland said the protesters remove the covers for the 3 a.m. sprinkling. The group, residing in tents or under blue tarps, appears unlikely to move out because of the stepped-up irrigation. "I'm from Aberdeen," Bilsland said. "You think a little bit of water is going to hurt me?" He also said the sprinkler system on the parkway is in serious need of repair, leaking and with some of the sprinkler heads missing. Since most of those camped out in what Bilsland calls "the most powerful block east of the Cascades" are currently between jobs, so to speak, they would be glad to fix the problems for the city. "If they bring us shovels, we will repair their sprinkler system for free," he said. Bilsland has been homeless for more than two years, he said, ever since his girlfriend kicked him out of his Hillyard apartment with nothing but the clothes on his back. She even kept the photographs of his mom. Protester Junior Bland took the regular sprinkling a little more seriously, though he did say, "half of us need a shower, anyway." He called it "a cowardly way to get us out of here." "All they have to do is come down here and talk to us," he said. "We could resolve this in real short manner." What Bland wants is a place where the homeless can go without being proselytized by a religious group, someplace he can go with his wife without being separated. He said there is no such place in Spokane. "Why not let us remodel a building that would otherwise be torn down?" he asked. He said his efforts to keep a job are thwarted by homelessness. No one will hire someone who has been sleeping outdoors, he said, and even if he could get a job, how would he get to it? He suggested the city provide bus passes to people in his situation. "Why not help the homeless help themselves?" Bland asked. While he spoke, the camp was visited by Susan Whaley, a representative of the Northwest Conflict Management Center, a nonprofit mediation service. Whaley offered to mediate with the city on the protesters' behalf. The anti-camping ordinance, which was approved in a 4-3 vote of the City Council Monday night, has yet to be signed by Mayor Jim West, who is out of town. He has 10 days to sign the law, which would take effect 30 days later. "Spokane has an unwillingness to learn from other cities," Whaley said. "Cities that have tried this kind of ordinance have spent millions in litigation." She said the city could take other action that would help the homeless rather than hurt them further. "Why not turn over the (River Park Square) parking garage to the homeless?" Whaley suggested. "At least it would be full for once." Meanwhile, the protesters are content with their new neighbors. The crowd at the Spokane Club hasn't been keeping them up at night, Bilsland said, and the Catholic Diocese of Spokane has furnished a portable restroom "for the island people."

Air refueling has come a long way since pilots Nick Mamer and Art Walker took off from Spokane 75 years ago for a round-trip, nonstop transcontinental flight in their 1929 Buhl CA-6 biplane. On Sunday, the U.S. Air Force will commemorate that historic flight and "75 Years of Air Refueling and Spokane Aviation" with a fly-by over Spokane of a KC-135 tanker from Fairchild Air Force Base and a C-17 from McChord Air Force Base.