Huckleberries Best of the INorthwest — 4/4/06

The front and back of the new Washington State quarter. The U.S. Mint must approve the design, but it has so far not rejected any design selected by a governor here /Richard Roesler, Spokesman-Review.

Extra! Gov. Dirk Kempthorne differs with Bush administration on the sale of public lands here .

1. Baby Boomers check up on Medicare benefits, according to David Horsey /Seattle PI, here .

2. On Wednesday afternoon, Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer granted posthumous pardons to 78 men and women turned criminal by Montana’s Sedition Act. One man had his sentence commuted in 1921 here .

3. The state of Idaho and a Seattle-based construction company agreed Wednesday to pay $895,000 in fines for a highway improvement project that ended up sending torrents of mud into Mica Creek and downstream to Lake Coeur d’Alene here .

4. Searchers using a specialized sonar device and robotic underwater cameras Tuesday found fragments from a military aircraft that crashed into Flathead Lake on March 21, 1960, here .

5. Kevin McCoy has been told he’s accomplished a seemingly impossible mission: getting actor Tom Cruise to visit this timber town of less than 17,000 people in Western Washington here .

6. IMHO-NW: Bert Caldwell /Spokesman-Review ( Exxon CEO primes pump ), Robert Herold /Inlander ( Urban warrior ), Cole Smithey /Inlander ( Review: Mission Impossible III ), Kalispell Daily Inter Lake ( Rebuilding Going To The Sun Highway ), and Steve Kelley /Seattle Times ( Ex-Mariner Bucky Jacobsen ).

Online Poll: 81.1% of 1336 respondents to an Idaho Statesman poll believe it’s a good idea to ban sugary sodas from school vending machines.

*the average cost of waging a successful bid for the Washington state Senate has grown to nearly $150,000 here .

*Montana confirms first case of hantavirus this year here .

* Eddie Guardado no longer Seattle’s primary closer here .

Orbusmax Special: Idaho to tap fund used for grizzlies to pay Planned Parenthood bill here .