Kim Barker

Rick Wheeler and sons Joel Dillon and Dustin Wheeler of Post Falls plug their ears as a top fuel dragster roars by during the AHRA World Finals at Spokane Raceway Park on Sunday. Photo by Colin Mulvany/The Spokesman-Review (Photo appeared in color in Spokane edition only)

Kim Davis has been thrown a life preserver by the medical industry - AIDS-fighting drugs that have given him new hope. The Spangle man has private health insurace to cover those costs. That's not the case with his lover, Jeffrey Weldon. He can't afford the insurance and a state program is no longer picking up the tab for "protease inhibitors, a promising AIDS drug.

Paul Cavanaugh speaks from the Spokane County Jail on Sunday. Photo by Colin Mulvany/The Spokesman-Review

Sky ball Team Violator faces off against team Kittilstved during their match Sunday at the Spokane Spike and Dig Volleyball Festival on the Spokane Falls Community College campus. More than 200 teams competed in the two-day event which concluded Sunday. Photo by Colin Mulvany/The Spokesman-Review

Diana Pollin, left, is called "Mama Day" by 81-year-old Peto Rice. Pollin took in Rice 14 years ago and is celebrating Rice's birthday with a big party. Photo by Sandra Bancroft-Billings/The Spokesman-Review

For the second time in three days, gunfire erupted on a notorious stretch of West First Avenue. Five people were injured early Sunday in a drive-by shooting in front of the Coach House Restaurant.

Painful memory, saving act. At the NABI BioMedical Center, Beverly Schorzman of Harrison, Idaho, donates her plasma twice a week. Schorzman is one of four women who donate plasma regularly to make RH Immune Globulin, an antibody given to women whose blood type could be poisonous to their fetuses. Photo by Colin Mulvany/The Spokesman-Review

During their Hypnosis for Personal Growth class, Alexis Stimpfle, 14, Kathleen Leiserson, 14, and Jackie Duvoisin, 14, relax to soft music. Photo by Colin Mulvany/The Spokesman-Review

When AIDS medication made Stephen Sharpe sick last November, he took a medical leave from his job at the Price-Costco warehouse on East Third. When the 46-year-old Veradale man wanted to return to work in February, the company didn't have a slot for him, he said.

When Lesliann Thomas picks up her son at Kinder College, she says the day care near Whitworth College comes with a Lysol scent. "It's never not clean," Thomas says. Parents picking up children at the 824 E. Hastings center Monday night said they were shocked by allegations against another Kinder College at 1002 E. North.

A fond farewell. Gerald Leahy jokes with well wishers during a retirement party at Sacred Heart Medical Center on Friday afternoon. Photo by Sandra Bancroft-Billings/The Spokesman-Review

It just doesn't seem legal. But gambling at the Mars Hotel follows the law, and the four blackjack tables shoehorned into the Ugly Rumors Lounge are just the beginning. Washington state law allows card room licenses for blackjack and poker. Card rooms aren't legal in Idaho. In Spokane County, card games are also open at The Eleventh Frame, the Scrapbook Restaurant, The Shed Restaurant and Little Joe's Tavern. The only other one of the 90 state-licensed card rooms in the area is at Players Card Room in Pullman. The businesses are allowed to have up to five card tables and charge up to $3 per half-hour of play. Soon, they'll be allowed much more. One of the Mars Hotel Corp. owners led a movement to change state law in March, paving the way for bigger and more competitive card rooms. The law, which went into effect June 6, increases the maximum number of blackjack tables from five to 15. It also allows card room operators to profit from a slice of the bank, instead of charging for playing time. The Mars is working on a contract with the Washington State Gambling Commission that would allow it to do both. "Whether somebody is for gambling or against gambling, the one thing I hear over and over again from people is they don't understand why just one race of people can participate in gaming," said Robert Saucier, chief executive officer of the Mars Hotel Corp., who helped write the new law. "They don't understand why the tribes can do it, and nobody else." Both Saucier and partner Billy Anders say the law doesn't level the gambling field, but it tilts it more favorably. The law means more grandiose plans from the owners, who are drawing up blueprints for a casino five times the size of the one cloistered in Ugly Rumors. Saucier and Anders plan for 15 tables. They hope for video slot machines that pay off in receipts that can be exchanged for cash. The casino, dubbed "Casino Royale," will also feature the hotel's total entertainment approach, with a wine cellar, a cigar humidor and a new nearby bar. Owners aren't saying what percentage of the bank they plan to request from the Washington State Gambling Commission. Players now provide the bank money for the tables to operate. "We're still at a huge disadvantage," Saucier said. "Tribes don't have to charge, because they're banking the game. It gets to the point, how much can you really charge?" Neither owner is saying how much the business has made on gambling so far from the $3 per half-hour fee. The first quarterly report is due to the Gambling Commission at the end of July.

Wheeler-dealers. Jeff Bright, center, grins as he wins a blackjack hand in the Ugly Rumors Lounge, beneath the Mars Hotel in downtown Spokane. Bright went home about $1,500 richer. Photo by Kristy MacDonald/The Spokesman-Review

Karen Ignagni checked the pulse on managed care Friday. Her diagnosis: It needs some positive medicine. Ignagni, president of a national managed-care trade association, said managed-care advocates need to stress good stories to fight the anti-managed care movement. She told of the mother of three whose life-threatening heart problem was caught after persistent phone calls from a health-maintenance organization. She trotted out the growing numbers of people enrolled in managed-care plans.

Deaconess Medical Center is closing its inpatient drug treatment center for teenagers and instead focusing on outpatient therapy. The hospital is expanding outpatient services by creating 140 more slots to treat addicted kids on the North Side, in the Valley and downtown. "The last thing we wanted to do was make a bad decision," said Mike Forness, manager of the chemical-dependency programs at Deaconess. "We're doing what we're doing for the right reasons. We're doing what we're doing for the good of the community. And that's what I had to hang on when I called those staff members."

1. Seth Wagner, left, tests his endurance on a mountain bike as he adn therapist Kathy Schoults ride by St. Luke's Rehabilitation Institute on Tuesday. Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Spokesman-Review (ran only in the Spokane edition) 2. Wagner (ran only in the Idaho edition)

Susan Virnig, right, stands with other members of the Grant Park neighborhood. Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Spokesman-Review

As he walked out of court and toward prison Friday, Kenneth "Junior" Comeslast glanced over at the family and friends of the two teenage girls he shot and killed. It was his first look in their direction. Only Mabel Grantham, mother of one of the victims, bid farewell.

Joyce Bowman hugs her husband Roger and son Matt in the middle of Sacred Heart's neonatal intensive care unit surrounded by their five babies. Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Spokesman-Review

Doctors placed five embryos in Joyce Bowman to improve her chances of conceiving a child. There were strikes against her. She was in her late 30s. She'd suffered one miscarriage. None of the five fertilized embryos were graded as excellent.

Caitlin Krohn sticks her hands between the window miniblinds to look outside. She's like any other curious 21/2-year-old child, a monkey who puts puppy stickers on windows in the car and in the living room.

The first quintuplets born in Washington are becoming minor celebrities. Their names sound like soap opera stars. They're featured on their own Internet page. They're collecting fan letters, donations and flowers. They're staying in a room that costs $1,878 a day - for each one of them. "They're all doing really well," said Dr. Carl Bodenstein, one of five neonatologists caring for the infants. "They're pretty stable."

Joyce Bowman gave birth to 13 pounds and 11 ounces of baby Thursday morning, in five separate packages. Clint Eugene, Randi Michelle, Sierra Nicole, Rachel Elizabeth and Danielle Marie are believed to be the first set of live quintuplets born in Washington state. They were delivered by Caesarean section at Sacred Heart Medical Center after 30 weeks in the womb. Almost 30 staff members helped in the birth while the stunned father sat in the background, watching from his wheelchair.

Michael Rash died of the cold on an 80-degree day in June. He was two weeks shy of his 14th birthday, a dishwater blond in a T-shirt and cutoff shorts fishing with his grandfather and father. A fishing pole bounced off the back of the 16-foot boat on Lake Roosevelt. Michael hopped in after it.