A federal appellate court has upheld a contempt of court ruling made against private prison company Corrections Corporation of America for falsifying staffing reports at an Idaho prison. Monday's ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals means the Nashville, Tennessee-based CCA will have to pay higher-than-normal attorneys' fees...
Interior Secretary Sally Jewell is scheduled to visit the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise on Tuesday to announce funding for wildfire projects and get a briefing on the 2016 wildfire season outlook. Officials will also provide Jewell with an update on the implementation...
A new national report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities charts reduced state investment in higher education and rising tuition across the country, with Idaho ranking fairly poorly – the report found that state spending on higher ed per student in Idaho remains…
Last year’s voracious wildfires are leaving a positive legacy this year for mushroom hunters – morel mushrooms, which can retail for $20 a pound, are popping up in the burned-over forests. The sought-after post-fire morels can appear for about two years after a forest fire...
A second employee of Idaho State Treasurer Ron Crane’s office is corroborating the charges in a whistleblower claim against the state, in which another employee, who was fired after 10 years with the office, said his firing was in retaliation for objecting to waste of…
A hyperlocal GOP race in southwestern Idaho will be decided with a flip of a coin. Ada County Chief Deputy Clerk Phil McGrane says that votes were evenly split for precinct committeemen candidates Mark Johnson and Peggy Moyer in Tuesday's Republican primary election. According to Idaho law, this means a coin flip...
Idaho 2nd District Congressman Mike Simpson has lost 68 pounds in the past 18 months, the Idaho Statesman’s Washington bureau reporter Rob Hotakainen writes, and is in training to hike Castle Peak, the highest point in Idaho’s White Cloud Mountains, in August. Simpson’s move, after…
Here’s my full column from Sunday’s Spokesman-Review: With a couple of close legislative races around the state, the question of possible recounts arises. “We don’t have automatic recounts,” said Betsie Kimbrough, state elections director in the Idaho secretary of state’s office. But for the closest…
News, happenings and more from the Idaho Legislature and the state capital.
