Saving Walla Walla VA a priority for senators

The aging Jonathan M. Wainwright Memorial VA Medical Center in Walla Walla has picked up two powerful allies.

The senior senators from Washington and Idaho said last week that they would work to keep a U.S. Veterans Affairs health care “footprint” in Walla Walla as the Veterans Affairs Department evaluates which facilities to keep open.

“The bottom line is, we have to maintain a VA footprint in Walla Walla,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.

Republican Sen. Larry Craig visited the VA hospital last month. “I was pleased to hear you say the VA should keep a footprint in Walla Walla,” Craig told Murray.

The Wainwright Medical Center serves about 69,000 veterans from Washington, Oregon and Idaho.

– Andrew Eder

BOISE

5,000 protest immigration bill

More than 5,000 people marched in downtown Boise on Sunday to protest proposed changes in U.S. immigration laws.

The protesters, most of them Hispanic, carried American and Mexican flags as they marched from Julia Davis Park to the Idaho Statehouse.

Lucio Prado, a radio host for Idaho Jazz Station’s Radio Universidad, said that the U.S. is no longer accepting of the immigrant populations that built the nation.

“We’ve had better times in relation to our laws for our immigrants in our country,” Prado told the crowd in Spanish, as someone on stage translated his speech into English. “We have lost our nerve to welcome others.”

The protest coincided with dozens of other protests nationwide over a proposal passed in the U.S. House of Representatives making it illegal to be in the United States without proper paperwork.

The bill also calls for a fence to be erected along the Mexican border and would make it a felony to immigrate illegally or aid an illegal immigrant.

The measure is now before the U.S. Senate. Some senators are working on alternative proposals that would eventually allow illegall immigrants to become citizens.

– Associated Press

SANDPOINT

Man charged with stealing pills

A Bonner County man has been charged with breaking into a Sandpoint pharmacy and stealing hundreds of prescription pain pills.

Police found the pills inside the hotel room of Brandon Ochoa, who claimed that a friend asked him to store the pills in his room.

Ochoa has been charged with burglary, illegal possession of prescription narcotics with intent to sell and methamphetamine possession.

At Ochoa’s preliminary hearing Friday, prosecutors showed 25 sandwich bags filled with white, blue and yellow pills, identified as oxycodone, OxyContin and methadone.

Prosecutors say Ochoa broke into the White Cross Pharmacy, burglarized a motel room and stole the occupants’ credit card. Ochoa claims he found the credit card in an alley.

– Associated Press