Rob McDonald

Stricter student visa laws disrupted German student Robert Bechlin's attendance at Lewis and Clark High School during the last school year. He was forced to return to Germany while his visa was processed by the Department of Homeland Security.

Spokane Public Schools is projecting a $17.4 million shortfall in completing three elementary schools and three high school renovations because of spikes in construction costs. Spokane Valley schools and smaller Spokane County districts have also seen challenges from escalating costs.

As South Asia rescuers worked to cope with the death and destruction of devastating tsunamis, Spokane area residents struggled to get in touch with family members and friends 8,000 miles away. As word of Sunday's disaster spread, calls came every five minutes to Wanda Reynolds' office at Gonzaga University.

Gonzaga University's law school and the social work program at Eastern Washington University have joined forces to offer a new four-year dual degree. Now students can graduate with a law degree and a master's in social work through a program that shaves a year off the time it would take to do both independently.

Charles Curtiss had just turned on his nephew's Xbox to play a video game called "American Chopper" on Christmas Eve in his north Spokane home when the lights started to flicker. He thought someone had turned on a garage heater and stressed the circuit.

A local man with family from Post Falls to Orofino, Idaho, died earlier this week during the apparent suicide bombing at a military base near Mosul, Iraq. Staff Sgt. Darren VanKomen, 33, was the youngest of 10 children.

A contractor hired to drill two water wells for Eastern Washington University has filed a $3.5 million state claim that alleges the university withheld important information about what the driller might find underground. The claim also alleges that EWU defamed and libeled the contractor by blaming it for project problems. The claim alleges that EWU was under pressure from the Seattle Seahawks summer-camp contract negotiations to address water concerns, which led EWU to use the contractor as a scapegoat.

School districts navigate tight restrictions on how they use state funds. There's even a cap on how much they can seek in levies. To give more flexibility to Mead School District, a handful of parents created a private foundation to support their teachers and principals.

There was a time when television news operations lost money and were still considered the jewel in the crown. That was the era that Av Westin lived for 55 years. The veteran journalist who produced shows like "CBS Reports," "ABC Evening News" and "20/20" spent Wednesday telling college and high school students about the days when network news was revered for its information. Those days are gone, and not likely to come back, he said. In fact, the public seems to believe that broadcast news can't always be trusted and should be reeled back, he said.

The Eastern Washington University faculty has voted to unionize under a state collective bargaining law, making it the second state school to do so. Central Washington University was the first school to vote for a union under the law.

The second-highest ranking official from the University of Idaho will now head up the Spokane campus of Washington State University. UI provost Brian Pitcher will be the next WSU Spokane chancellor. He starts Jan. 17.

A maintenance supervisor employed for six years at Selkirk School District in northeast Washington has been charged with attempted voyeurism. Charles Miller, 54, was charged last week. He confessed in October that he hid a video camera in a district office bathroom used mostly by women, according to Pend Oreille County Sheriff's Office investigation notes.

In the wheat fields south of Spokane, Liberty High School wrestlers will continue their practices in the cafeteria. For the fourth straight time, a bond issue proposition from the Liberty School District has failed to find voter support.