A pharmaceutical company agreed Thursday to pay $9.85 million to settle claims that its former president and other executives had pressured women employees for sex and had replaced older workers with young beauties. At least 79 women and a man who said he was punished for speaking out will share the sum - the biggest sexual harassment settlement ever obtained by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Would-be developers at the edge of Glenrose Prairie are mired in legalities as thick as the mud from the washouts that damaged their property. A year ago, the Spokane County commissioners decided to exclude the developers' 35 acres from suburban-style housing under the emerging growth management plan. About the same time, repeated storms sent torrents of water across the land and left deep gouges on the sloping property.

Washington customers of TCI must respond quickly if they want to stop a deal that could deny them millions in refunds, a Washington, D.C., lawyer said Tuesday. Phil Friedman said the cable television provider has negotiated a "sweetheart deal" with an Okanogan County attorney that does not adequately roll back late fees, or return past overcharges.

A federal judge should stop the U.S. Forest Service from salvage logging in nearby roadless areas because the agency is too vague about how many trees it will take from which areas, two environmental groups contend. The Ecology Center and the Inland Empire Public Lands Council filed suit in U.S. District Court in Boise on Friday over the ice storm salvage sales on the Coeur d'Alene River Ranger District.

A vegetarian activist being sued with Oprah Winfrey testified Friday that he didn't have an agenda to get people to stop eating beef when he appeared on her talk show. Under questioning by a lawyer for Texas cattlemen, Howard Lyman said he went on the show "to express my opinion on the mad cow disease and the circumstances surrounding it."

Oprah Winfrey arrives at the Federal building in Amarillo, Texas, on Monday. Photo by Associated Press

After years of trying to solve dairy pollution problems through the government, citizens in the lower Yakima Valley have taken matters into their own hands. A group of residents filed a civil complaint in U.S. District Court last week against a dairy farmer, claiming he lets manure flow off his property into nearby ditches and streams.

An Idaho National Guardsman severely injured in a helicopter crash during 1997 flood rescue efforts has filed a $3 million claim against the state. Chief Warrant Officer 2 Shelby Wuthrich of Boise said he is entitled to the damage because of negligence.

Would a priest lie? When is a line not a line? Such were the questions Friday raised in the final arguments of one of North Idaho's most historic civil trials.

For Rodney Fletcher, wrongfully arrested and jailed more than five years ago for a burglary he never committed, it was a day of sweet redemption. "I feel everyone is a little safer now," said a relieved but still angry Fletcher after learning of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in his favor.

About 20 people who lost their belongings in an apartment fire have sued the owners of the building over lack of firewalls, a sprinkler system and warnings about baseboard heaters. The suit for unspecified damages was filed last week in Kitsap County Superior Court by David Blair, Viola Lewis and others who did not immediately want their names released, said Terry E. Lumsden, their lawyer.

A high-ranking city official who was fired for alleged sexual harassment filed a $244,100 damage claim Wednesday and asked for his job back. E. Terry Clegg, who supervised Spokane's zoning code enforcement office, contends the city reneged on its deal that would have allowed him to voluntarily retire. The offer would have given the 67-year-old veteran city employee severance pay and permitted him to retire quietly, without admitting any wrongdoing.

Former Coroner Graham McConnell and Causna Albin in 1994. File/The Spokesman-Review

Bannock County is under orders from the federal Environmental Protection Agency to accelerate plans to stop underground water contamination from an old county landfill. Now Pocatello has sued the county to force it to clean up the contamination, which is moving into the city's underground water supply.

A jury will decide next week whether North Idaho College failed to warn a student about the dangers of one of its classroom buildings. Former NIC business student Sharon Foster, 59, filed suit in 1992 claiming she suffered permanent mental impairment from noxious gases and chemicals in the college's Hedlund Building.

The Chelan County Public Utility District, uncertain whether power sales to a subsidiary of Washington Water Power Co. are legal, is paying the legal expenses of a ratepayer challenging the transactions. Fruit industry lawyer Jim Brown filed the lawsuit Monday in Chelan County Superior Court. Avista Energy Inc., formed by WWP last spring, was named as a defendant along with the PUD.

A class-action suit filed in Spokane wants the makers of fen-phen to pay for medical monitoring of former diet-drug users. Spokane residents Fred St. John and Kathy Azzinnaro are the first patients named in the suit, filed this week in Superior Court. Twelve firms that manufactured fen-phen, the popular name for a combination of prescription diet drugs pulled off the market in September, are named as defendants.

Rep. Jack Metcalf, R-Wash., and animal protection advocates filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government Friday to try to block a Washington state Indian tribe from whaling off the Olympic Coast. The suit filed in U.S. District Court here against Commerce Secretary William Daley says the whaling planned in or near a national marine sanctuary off the coast of Washington state violates several environmental laws.

Jimenez