Teenagers badly hurt in one-car accident
Two Clark Fork, Idaho, teens were in critical condition Sunday night after a car they were in left the roadway, became airborne, struck three trees and came to rest down a 25-foot embankment on Saturday, according to Idaho State Police.
Cody Pitts, 19, was in critical condition at Kootenai Medical Center, where emergency officials took him after they extricated him from the 1990 Mercury Cougar. Lindsey Johnson, 16, who was ejected from the back seat, was flown to Deaconess Medical Center, where she remained in critical condition Sunday night.
Kaile Boward, 17, also of Clark Fork, was released from Bonner General Hospital on Sunday.
Boward was the only occupant wearing a seat belt, according to the ISP.
Pitts was driving about 80 mph when he lost control on a curve near Talache Road and Mirror Lake Road about 5 p.m. Saturday.
– Jared Paben
Spokane
Council’s town hall meeting today
The Spokane City Council today will hold its annual Town Hall meeting at Northeast Community Center, 4001 N. Cook St., to hear from neighborhood groups about projects and concerns involving city government.
The meeting will be at 6 p.m. and will include an abbreviated legislative session prior to a series of reports from neighborhood representatives. The meeting is one of four town-hall style meetings held by the council each year.
Jean Farmer, director of the Northeast Community Center, and Kevin Walstrom, president of the Northeast Community Center Association, are expected to give a formal welcome to the council.
Reports are expected from the Nevada/Lidgerwood, Logan, Bemiss, Chief Garry Park, Minnehaha and Hillyard neighborhood councils as well as the Spokane Police Department and its community- oriented police substation volunteers.
– Mike Prager
Glide, Ore.
Blind inventor killed on roadway
A blind man who invented curbside markers to help the sight-impaired cross the street was struck and killed in Oregon on Friday night, authorities said.
Kevin Stockton, 47, of Glide, was trying to cross the road when he was hit by a van traveling east and then by a pickup traveling west, the Oregon State Police said. Neither driver was injured, police said.
Stockton was shot in the head by a high-powered rifle seven years ago, leaving him completely blind, hard of hearing and prone to seizures.
Stockton developed Blind Signs, curbside markers that help blind people cross the street.
– Associated Press
Fort Lewis, Wash.
Soldiers training on latest Stryker
Soldiers at Fort Lewis have begun training on the Army’s 10th and final version of the Stryker armored vehicle.
Five years in the making, the Mobile Gun System looks a lot like its predecessors but has a 105 mm cannon, and Army officials say it packs more power than other versions armed with a heavy machine gun, a grenade launcher or anti-tank missiles.
At about $3.7 million apiece, the MGS is the most expensive of the 10 variants of Stryker armored vehicles. For now, Fort Lewis will be home to 27 of them.
The vehicle can carry up to 18 rounds, and the gun is loaded by an automated hydraulic handler. Its computerized fire-control system is virtually identical to the one in the M1 Abrams, the Army’s main battle tank.
The MGS will carry four types of ammunition: a depleted-uranium armor-piercing round, a high-explosive anti-tank round, a high-explosive plastic round for blowing through walls, and a canister round filled with 2,300 tungsten ball bearings for firing on enemy fighters.
– Associated Press