Man recovering after eye stabbed
A man who suffered serious injuries Wednesday night when he was stabbed in the eye with a broken beer bottle was in stable condition in a Spokane hospital Thursday, said police Officer Glenn Bartlett.
The man and an acquaintance got into a fight about 8:30 p.m. at a residence at 927 S. Adams St., police said. The alleged attacker fled, but police tracked him down through the cell phone he dropped at the scene.
Spokane resident Darrick P. Haffner, 24, faces a felony assault charge.
A witness told police that she heard the victim screaming. She rushed to help and saw his eye sticking out of its socket. It was unknown whether he’ll lose vision, Bartlett said.
Road rage killer won’t get out early
A Spokane man convicted of a 2002 road rage murder won’t get out of prison early even if he behaves, according to a sentencing change filed this week.
When a judge sentenced Christopher W. Conklin, 27, to 28 years in prison in July 2003 for killing 64-year-old Melvin J. Hendrickson after a minor traffic collision, the plea agreement allowed for early release based on good behavior. But state law didn’t allow for such sentence reductions, and Conklin was resentenced Monday in Spokane Superior Court to reflect that, said his lawyer, Chris Phelps.
Conklin was convicted of first-degree murder with a weapons enhancement for shooting Hendrickson to death Aug. 28, 2002.
Conklin is serving his sentence at Airway Heights Correctional Facility.
Hayden, Idaho
Two-story home damaged by fire
Fire damaged a two-story home in Hayden on Thursday.
No one was home when fire crews arrived at 2008 W. Honeysuckle Ave. about 3:30 p.m., said Lt. Pat Riley, of the Northern Lakes Fire District.
It took crews from Northern Lakes, the Coeur d’Alene Fire Department and Kootenai County Fire and Rescue about half an hour to douse the blaze.
Riley said he didn’t know what caused the fire, but he described damage as “significant.”
The home is owned by James M. Brennan, according to property records.
cheney
Digital Archives plans open house
Washington state’s Digital Archives will hold an open house from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday to showcase its collection of state and local government documents that are accessible online.
The archives include millions of documents, such as census and birth records, marriage licenses and historic corporation records.
The digital archive building is at 960 Washington St., on the Cheney campus of Eastern Washington University.
A noon discussion Saturday will address ways teachers can use the archives in class projects. A hands-on tutorial will run from 1 to 2 p.m.
Seattle
Washington bans fish pedicures
Washington state officials have banned a procedure that uses tiny fish to nibble dead skin off the feet of customers getting pedicures.
Peridot Nail Salon in Kent began offering the procedure several weeks ago, with customers paying $30 to have small, toothless carp tickle their toes for 15 minutes.
But the state Department of Licensing decided the procedure was unsanitary and potentially unsafe and Thursday declared it illegal.
Agency spokeswoman Christine Anthony says state law requires that all implements in pedicures be sanitized, and there’s no way to sanitize live fish.
Anthony says that to her knowledge, the Peridot salon was the only one in Washington offering the pedicures, which are popular in Turkey and Asia.
Kingston, Wash.
Three killer whale pods spotted
The three pods of killer whales that live in Washington’s inland waters have made a visit to central Puget Sound.
Howard Garrett, of Orca Network, a group that tracks whale sightings, said observers spotted all three pods – a so-called “super pod” – near Kingston on Tuesday morning and in several places off Whidbey Island. The whales usually move south to hunt for salmon each fall, after the chinook salmon runs dwindle in the San Juan Islands.
In typical years, “J” pod, one of the three groups, will spend much of the winter in central and south Puget Sound. “K” and “L” pods normally come and go less often. Sometimes they swim out into the Pacific and along the coast, staying until spring.
Seattle
‘Lucy’ exhibit opens Saturday
About 200,000 people are expected to see the “Lucy’s Legacy” exhibit that opens Saturday for a five-month run at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle.
Seattle is the second stop on a tour that began in Houston.
The 70 bone fragments found in Ethiopia in 1974 come from a human ancestor who walked upright 3.2 million years ago.
A University of Washington anthropologist, Patricia Kramer, said Lucy is one of the most important scientific discoveries of all time. Walking upright gave early hominids the ability to carry things and use their hands.
Sound of explosion a false alarm
Police say it could have been a blown bus tire, or construction noise that caused the sound of an explosion in downtown Seattle.
But spokeswoman Renee Witt said inspections by officers, the bomb squad and a bomb dog found no evidence of a blast Thursday morning in a parking garage.
Witt said an earlier report of a hole in the structure was incorrect.
An explosion was reported just before 6 a.m. by the driver of a Metro bus passing the garage at Second Avenue and Union. Nearby streets were closed for a time during the investigation.
Staff and wire reports