Tracy Ellig

A bizarre accident last February at a Valley restaurant has led to a lawsuit. Charlene Boeger was enjoying a meal at the Chapter Eleven restaurant on East Sprague when a retractable wall toppled and pinned her face-first in her salad, said attorney Keith Glanzer, who represents Boeger. It took three men to lift the 500-pound wall off the 49-year-old woman, Glanzer said.

Celebrating 'being different'. Marchers in Spokane's sixth annual Gay Pride March cross the Post Street Bridge on Sunday. Photo by Dan McComb/The Spokesman-Review

This Acme gravel pit shows the aquifer on the rise. Photo by Steve Thompson/The Spokesman-Review

The hallways at the former Valleycrest nursing home on East Mission Avenue are no longer silent, the rooms no longer empty. This week, the once-troubled facility woke from an eight-month blackout, admitting its first four residents since the federal government shut down the nursing home last fall. Along with the smell of new paint in the building comes a new owner, the Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society and a new name: The Good Samaritan Center for Health and Rehabilitation on Mission Avenue. The society also owns the Spokane Valley Good Samaritan Village nursing home, which opened in 1958.

Faced with a $2 million budget shortfall due to low enrollments, Eastern Washington University is proposing not to fill 23 vacant faculty posts this fall. The university also plans to terminate three teachers and 13 staff members to balance its $53 million budget for the 1997-98 academic year, which begins July 1. At the same time it is making cuts, however, EWU is increasing spending for student services and activities.

An African prince needs a reliable and trustworthy partner to hold onto tens of millions of dollars for him. Allow him to put the money in your bank account and in return for your help you'll get several million dollars. That is the seductive - though fraudulent - pitch being made in thousands of letters that have hit the Northwest from Nigeria in the past month. Most of the letters are targeted at small businesses.