Gonzaga University and Whitworth College both ranked in the top 10 for their category in the new U.S. News & World Report listings of the nation's top schools – an annual report that stirs at least as much heartburn as pride in academia. Public universities in the Inland Northwest all ranked lower in their categories.

PULLMAN – The technology wing of Jeff Records' life is significant. He has computers, both desktop and laptop. He's got a digital camera and cell phone, a PDA and a digital video recorder. Almost all of it, he says, could be used in one way or another as part of his classwork at Washington State University.

College football players are enduring twice-daily workouts in the August heat, practicing blocking and tackling, running wind sprints and learning the playbook. Sharon Stoll would like to see them add one more exercise – in ethics.

For Ruth Dixon, World War II ended in the middle of a song. A USO singer on a six-month tour of the South Pacific, Dixon and her troupe were interrupted while performing at the estate of the Philippines' president on Aug. 14, 1945.

Members of a tightknit Christian group that has been trailed by controversy around the West have purchased six homes bordering Whitworth College, raising concerns on campus and in the surrounding north Spokane neighborhood. Bill Freeman, who leads the group with his wife, Patsy, said he and the members of his church just want to live quietly, worship as they see fit and keep to themselves. For decades, the Freemans have led a group of fundamentalist Christians who live closely intertwined lives of intense religious devotion, according to several former members and published reports.

Washington State University President V. Lane Rawlins is shifting some responsibilities for running the Pullman campus to other administrators to focus more on statewide issues such as fund-raising, lobbying and long-range planning. In an executive reorganization announced Monday, Rawlins said WSU Provost Robert Bates will become executive vice president for the Pullman campus, giving him the primary role in the day-to-day affairs there.

MOSCOW, Idaho – A project to record interviews with Americans across the nation is looking for Palouse stories. Organizers don't want history in a traditional, names-and-dates sense. They're looking for introspection and emotion, personal experience and insight – "the rich lives of reflective people," said Mary Reed, director of the Latah County Historical Society.

PULLMAN – Across the Palouse, wheat and pea fields drape the landscape, a quilt of broad, uniform patches. But hundreds of years ago, before the plow and the combine, the prairie was dense with plant varieties – native roses and geraniums, grasses and wildflowers, mint and juniper.

Washington State University President V. Lane Rawlins refused Wednesday to renounce the school's position on an "intentionally offensive" student play that deteriorated into a shouting match in April. A national advocacy group, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, asked Rawlins to do so, arguing that his apparent support for about 40 protesters who disrupted a performance of "Passion of the Musical" amounts to supporting the censorship of the "heckler's veto."

Washington State University should improve its handling of racial harassment complaints, a new state report says, but the outcry over such allegations on campus last spring "distracted and diverted resources" from that goal. The 102-page report by a task force of the Washington Human Rights Commission recommends a wide range of improvements to WSU's procedures for handling harassment complaints, including establishing alternatives for resolving disputes, clarifying procedures, investigating all complaints and improving coordination among parties at the school.

After years of flat budgets, the Community Colleges of Spokane will have more money next year for salaries and programs. Students will have a little less.