Kip Hill

OAKESDALE, Wash. – Dick Schu’s weathered hands grip the controls of his combine, his left on the wheel and his right clutching the gearshift as he slowly descends a hill on his Whitman County farmland. Farther up the hill, his son Ryan drives another harvester. The header is spinning a bit low as dust kicks up from underneath.

The arraignment of former NBA player and Eastern Washington University assistant basketball coach Craig Ehlo was delayed Wednesday to accommodate his treatment at a facility in Massachusetts. Ehlo is facing charges of reckless burning after sheriff’s deputies found him outside his home south of Spokane earlier this month next to a pile of his burning clothes. Ehlo had been involved in an altercation with his wife earlier in the evening and was being held down by family members when police and firefighters arrived, according to court documents.

Craig Ehlo's arraignment on a charge of reckless burning was pushed to Oct. 2 to accommodate medical treatment he is receiving in Massachusetts.

LEWISTON – With car headlights casting their shadows against a wall of the Clearwater River Valley on Nez Perce lands Tuesday night, protesters once again gathered in an attempt to block passage of a truck bearing an oversize load of oil refinery equipment bound for Canada.

LEWISTON – With car headlights casting their shadows against a wall of the Clearwater River Valley on Nez Perce lands Tuesday night, protesters once again gathered in an attempt to block passage of a truck bearing an oversize load of oil refinery equipment bound for Canada. But their protest was swept to the side of the road by police by press time, as the Omega Morgan truck hauling 322 tons of equipment rolled by to a chorus of boos. A similar protest successfully barred the truck’s path for more than four hours Monday night. Tuesday’s gathering attracted about 50 participants just before 10 p.m., some bearing glowsticks to illuminate the pitch-black roadway.

Dennis “Denny” Young fired pottery in a portable kiln at Coeur d’Alene’s Art on the Green festival for 44 years. Known for raku, a Japanese technique employing low firing temperatures, Young cooled his pieces in the traditional way by dumping them from the warm kiln into a trash can full of grasses and sawdust, sending plumes of smoke into the sky. Young died in December, leaving behind partner and student Jeff Harris to carry on the raku process and his children with memories of the early days of the annual celebration on the banks of Lake Coeur d’Alene and the Spokane River at North Idaho College.

Don’t expect LaKecia Farmer to pick up the tab on a celebratory toast if she emerges victorious from a three-way race in the Pullman City Council primary Tuesday. “I will celebrate by sleeping,” Farmer, a 20-year-old Washington State University junior and Spokane native, said Friday with a laugh. “I haven’t slept since I started campaigning.”

Former NBA and WSU basketball standout Craig Ehlo appeared in court Friday, where a superior court judge released him on his own recognizance and ordered him not to contact his family.

When Alan Bisson hobbled on crutches into his Spokane Valley Sportscards trading shop following knee surgery in March and discovered his windows broken and collectibles missing, it was immediately apparent the culprit was a regular. “They knew what they wanted, and they got it,” Bisson said.

Beneath orange strands of fabric representing the Hopi tribe wafting in the breeze Saturday morning, Billy McDermitt sat among Native American friends and gestured to the pine branches supporting his teepee lodge. “These represent the different churches of the world,” he explained. “All of our prayers, they’re tied up at the top.” According to traditional beliefs, a visitor leaving the lodge is absolved of their sins, he said.

Next month, Army Staff Sgt. Ty M. Carter, 33, will add the nation’s highest military honor to a long list of decorations for fighting insurgents in one of the bloodiest battles of the Afghanistan war. When President Barack Obama bestows the Medal of Honor on Carter on Aug. 26, Carter will be the second North Central High School graduate to earn the decoration and the second soldier this year to be decorated for service during the Battle of Kamdesh, a clash on Oct. 3, 2009, that left eight U.S. soldiers dead and 25 wounded. Carter told the News Tribune of Tacoma, near his current assignment as a noncommissioned officer at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, his decoration belongs to their memory.

Sarah and Trevor Cressey's dog, Peetie, was found by a wheat farmer near Sprague Lake on Thursday. He appeared to have died from wounds sustained during a rollover car accident nearby Friday.