Passenger train hits truck trailer
A truck driver escaped injury when an Amtrak passenger train slammed into a trailer he was pulling near Centralia.
The driver, Richard Right, said the tracks’ crossing arms were down for a freight train about 9:30 a.m. Friday, so he stopped and waited until the train passed and the arms went back up.
But as he pulled forward, the arms came down for the southbound Amtrak train and landed between the two empty trailers he was pulling.
Right said he punched the truck forward and broke the crossing arm, but the train hit the rear trailer, which wound up in a ditch.
Nobody on the train was hurt.
The truck was on its way to pick up byproducts from the coal-fired Centralia steam-electric power plant.
Boise
ITD announces cuts, transfers
The Idaho Transportation Department announced Friday that it’s cutting its budget by $9 million and reducing administrative costs an additional $1.6 million, by transferring 18 administrative positions to “such critical services as bridge inspection, snowplowing, and road and bridge maintenance.”
Pam Lowe, ITD director, said the agency is acting in accordance with Gov. Butch Otter’s direction to all state agencies to “act prudently and cautiously with taxpayer dollars.”
Though the ITD wasn’t subject to Otter’s newly ordered midyear budget cuts because it receives no state general funds, the governor also ordered the agency to cut its administrative costs by 6 percent; the transfers accomplish that.
The other cuts are coming because of “declining revenue from the state’s fuel tax and economic slowdown,” the department said. Overall, the department is reducing its $190.6 million budget 5 percent, to $181.6 million.
Coeur d’Alene
NIC raffling off home, car, boat
People willing to drop $100 for a good cause will have a one-in-5,000 chance of winning a $300,000 home as North Idaho College kicks off its annual Really BIG Raffle.
Only 5,000 tickets will be sold for NIC’s largest fundraiser, which brings in money for a range of needs at the Coeur d’Alene community college. The drawing will be held July 8.
This year’s grand prize is a ranch home with 1,903 square feet of finished living area and an unfinished basement, currently under construction in the Montrose development in Post Falls.
The home is valued at almost $300,000, the college said in a news release.
Additional prizes include a $20,000 car, a $10,000 boat, a $3,500 travel package and a $2,000 shopping spree.
The raffle, in its 16th year, is sponsored in part by Stock Building Supply of Coeur d’Alene and Greenstone Homes. The raffle also benefits NIC carpentry students, who gain experience helping build the house under the guidance of instructor Dave McRae, the release said.
For more information or to purchase tickets, go to www.nic.edu/foundation/rbr or call (208) 769-3271.
Seattle
British arrest murder suspect
Authorities say a woman believed to have killed her ex-boyfriend with poisoned liquor has been arrested in London after two years on the run.
British customs officials detained Janjira Jeffrey Smith, formerly of Washington state, when she arrived at London’s Heathrow airport from Switzerland on Thursday. She is facing extradition to Seattle, where she has been charged with murder.
Prosecutors say Smith provided a bottle of Jagermeister laced with pesticide to her ex-boyfriend, Roger Lewis, after learning he planned to marry someone else. Lewis and another woman drank the liquor in a suburban Kirkland apartment and quickly became blind and disoriented. Lewis was pronounced dead at the scene, while the other woman made a full recovery.
The U.S. Marshals Service said Smith apparently spent much of the last two years in her native Thailand.
It isn’t clear why Smith was traveling to England, but authorities say she may have realized investigators were closing in on her.