Kraft facility to close next year

Kraft Foods Inc. is closing its Rupert manufacturing facility in January, leaving the region with a loss of about 140 jobs.

Company officials announced Tuesday that the Rupert plant was closing as part of a consolidation of its cream cheese and string cheese operations nationwide.

Lt. Gov. Jim Risch said he would appoint a team of business leaders, government officials and others to help the affected workers apply for unemployment insurance, job search help and career counseling.

“We are also doing everything we can to work with the local economic development groups to bring new businesses into the area,” Risch said.

Members of Idaho’s congressional delegation also issued a joint statement, saying they would work to find federal assistance for the workers.

Boise

Special Olympics coming in 2009

Idaho will host the 2009 Special Olympics World Winter Games, the Special Olympics site selection committee announced Tuesday.

Boise was competing with three other cities to host the games – Reno-Tahoe, Nev.; Schladming-Graz, Austria; and Garmisch Partenkirchen, Germany.

The decision could bring as many as 3,000 Special Olympians from around the world to Idaho, Sen. Mike Crapo said.

Salt Lake City

Polygamist’s conviction upheld

The Utah Supreme Court upheld the 2003 bigamy conviction of a former police officer Tuesday, ruling that the state law banning polygamy is not unconstitutional.

The court said that religious protections of the U.S. and Utah constitutions “do not shield (Rodney) Holm’s polygamous practices from state prosecution.”

Holm, an officer in the polygamous community of Hildale, was convicted of felony bigamy and two counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor. He had argued that the state’s bigamy statute violated his right to practice his religion.

County prosecutors began an investigation after one of Holm’s “spiritual” wives left the faith and sued him over the custody of their two children. The woman said she married Holm in a 1988 religious ceremony when he was 32 and she was 16. At the time, Holm already was legally married to the woman’s sister and claimed another “spiritual wife.”

The former officer was sentenced to a year in jail and is now on court-supervised probation.

Bremerton

Police say man had a machete

A 26-year-old man shot and killed by two Kitsap County sheriff’s deputies early Tuesday had been wielding a machete, sheriff’s officials said.

The shooting followed a report of a disturbance outside Bremerton about 4 a.m., Deputy Scott Wilson said.

Officers arrived at an address in response to a 911 call in which someone said, “Send police,” and hung up. That’s when the man came at them with a machete, Wilson said.

The Kitsap County coroner has planned an autopsy for today.

The two deputies were placed on administrative leave, as is standard practice in these cases, Wilson said. One deputy has been on the force for six years; the other has been a deputy for four years.

It was the first fatal shooting by a Kitsap deputy in four years, Wilson added.

Compiled from wire reports