In brief: Airmen in cheating investigation returning to duty
GREAT FALLS – About two-thirds of the airmen involved in the cheating investigation at Malmstrom Air Force Base have been returned to alert duty or are in the training pipeline to be recertified, according to base officials.
One hundred officers at Malmstrom were involved in the investigation. Nine were cleared when the findings were announced in March. Some cases were retained by the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigation because they involved the mishandling of classified material or were part of the initial drug investigation that uncovered the cheating.
An investigation report released in late March revealed low morale and other issues throughout the nuclear force that prompted the Air Force to establish the Force Improvement Program, asking airmen to make suggestions for improvements.
TV helicopter pilot leads rescuers to boy’s body
Rescue teams have recovered the body of a 5-year-old Tacoma boy who fell into the Cispus River on Monday.
Members of the Swift Water Rescue Team had located Drake Ostenson’s body, which had become lodged in a logjam searchers had identified earlier last week as the likely location of the boy, the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office reported Friday night. The team recovered the body at about 8 p.m., according to a press release.
Ostenson was riding a miniature motorcycle around the campground on Memorial Day when it appeared he got too close to the edge of the river bank and crashed into the water.
On Tuesday, a pilot for a KIRO-TV helicopter spotted something red – the color of clothing Ostenson was wearing – caught underneath the logjam about a mile downstream from where the boy fell in.
Permit delays stall plan to kill 4,000 ravens
TWIN FALLS, Idaho – A plan by state wildlife biologists to kill 4,000 ravens in three Idaho areas by feeding them poisoned chicken eggs was postponed due to federal environmental permitting delays.
Idaho Department of Fish and Game officials won’t start the two-year program aimed at boosting sage grouse numbers, the Times-News reported.
State officials said the U.S. Department of Agriculture through its Wildlife Services is the only entity in the state with permission to administer the poison that experts say kills only birds in the corvid family, which includes crows, ravens and magpies.
The federal agency didn’t get a supplemental environmental assessment completed on time to put out the poison, called DRC-1339, this spring, said Jeff Gould of Fish and Game. He said poisoning will begin next spring.
The agency wants to target ravens in eastern Idaho near Idaho National Laboratory as well as Curlew National Grasslands. Another spot is in Washington County, near the Oregon border. Officials say ravens harm sage grouse populations by eating sage grouse eggs.
Groups opposing the plan, such as Advocates for the American Bird Conservancy and Idaho Conservation League, said the raven-poisoning plan fails the most basic principles of scientific investigation and “ignores the central threat to greater sage grouse habitat and populations throughout Idaho (such as) wildfire, weeds, fragmentation and livestock grazing.”