Justin Runquist

Whitman County Superior Court Judge David Frazier sentenced Frank Lazcano to 25 years in prison Friday afternoon for his part in the murder of Marcus Schur. Schur was shot to death on the night of Dec. 27, 2011, outside a residence in Malden, Wash. Whitman County Prosecutor Denis Tracy said Lazcano’s 21-year-old brother Daniel fired the shots with Frank Lazcano’s AK-47.

Pullman police officers are elevating their surveillance tactics with tiny, wearable cameras, as well as public cameras that monitor sidewalks and streets outside some of the town’s college bars and local businesses. The new 3-inch-long cameras weigh only a third of a pound, making them easy to clip onto a pair of glasses, the side of a hat or a shirt collar. The $50,000 purchase of 25 body cameras and software support is part of a transition from dashboard cameras in patrol cars to what Chief Gary Jenkins – as well as police leaders in Spokane and many other cities – sees as the future of policing.

Pullman police are using five cameras perched on utility poles outside the Adams Mall area of College Hill to monitor a hot spot of criminal activity. The department purchased those cameras with a $300,000 grant from the Smart Policing Initiative, a consortium of law enforcement agencies that studies more than 30 U.S. cities.

Researchers at Washington State University are making a big push to investigate the world’s deadliest infectious diseases on a global level. Nowadays, viruses and bacterial infections can spread across the world in less than 24 hours, said Guy Palmer, a professor of pathology and infectious diseases at WSU’s College of Veterinary Medicine. Most of those sicknesses spread to humans from animals.

With dry conditions and temperatures soaring into the 90s, outdoor burning across much of Spokane County has been banned until further notice. Spokane County officials made the announcement on a day when wildfires have dominated headlines. A raging wildfire east of Cle Elum has burned dozens of homes and tens of thousands of acres, forcing hundreds to flee the scene. Violating the burn ban in unincorporated areas of Spokane County could lead to a $1,000 fine and 90 days in jail.