Lisa Waananen

After getting stranded at a U.S. Highway 95 rest stop in Idaho this summer, Sadie the desert tortoise is finally getting back to a more familiar climate. She’ll get a celebrity’s welcome in Blythe, Calif., today, complete with a police escort and greetings from the chamber of commerce before going home with adoptive family Wayne and Lee Ann Cusick and their young tortoise, Speedy. “Sadie’s our star,” Wayne Cusick said.

When three dogs attacked Nancy Sonduck in her fenced North Spokane yard, all she had to defend herself and her two dogs was a plastic gardening bucket. “I hit the pit bull in the middle twice in the head,” Sonduck said, “and it did not faze it.”

Karl Boettner’s daughter stood outside Tuesday morning, waiting for the bus. It was her first day of middle school and would have been her first day taking the bus to school. Instead she just waited. And waited.

Sadie was abandoned at a U.S. Highway 95 rest stop, southeast of Spokane and far from her Mojave Desert home. It’s unclear how the desert tortoise got to the rest stop. Maybe someone found out their Southwestern souvenir was a threatened species protected by law. Maybe she was a longtime family pet accidentally left behind. Maybe, like so many other animals along highways, someone just couldn’t care for her anymore.

Many people already have their reasons for going to the fair: the rodeo, the concerts, the historic trains or a chance to continue blue-ribbon dominance. Spokane County Interstate Fair coordinator Jessica McLaughlin has heard from people who say they go because it’s the best place to price-compare hot tubs.

Surrounded by more than 100 other Spokane-area Democrats, Emelda Brown and Patricia Maddox were transfixed Thursday night as they watched something they never thought they’d live to see. An African-American had just accepted their party’s nomination for president.