Kevin Keating

The parent company for three pricey schools for troubled teens near Bonners Ferry is being sued by two former students for fraud, racketeering and battery. The suit was filed in District Court on Tuesday. It alleges that Rocky Mountain Academy, Northwest Academy, Ascent and their California-based parent company, CEDU Educational Services Inc., grossly overcharge parents, and have ill-trained staff who verbally and physically abuse students.

Coldwater Creek, one of North Idaho's largest employers, is lending its economic muscle to oppose plans for the Rock Creek mine in Montana. The Sandpoint based mail-order catalog company has purposely stayed out of local political battles until now. But company president Dennis Pence said the Asarco Inc. mine and its potential to pollute Lake Pend Oreille was too important an issue to remain silent.

Authorities are trying to find out how a middle-aged man died and how his partly decomposed body ended up in the woods near Bayview. A man gathering firewood stumbled upon the body last weekend. It was discovered south of Sandpoint, on the border of Bonner and Kootenai counties.

Sorry, no number Harlan Brown spent two weeks trying to get a phone hooked up at a house he is building in Boundary County. Photo by Craig Buck/The Spokesman-Review

After watching school levies pass in Post Falls and Boundary County, school officials here are thinking it's their turn to tap taxpayers. School board members debated Thursday whether to put a $1 million levy before voters sometime this year to buy buses and put computers in classrooms.

City officials want to levy fines against two businesses for failing to comply with city and federal water quality standards. The city cited the businesses after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency accused Sandpoint of being too lax in enforcing water quality regulations.

Teachers in Boundary County won't face layoffs and students no longer will pay $100 to play sports, thanks to a two-year levy voters approved Tuesday. The $980,000 maintenance and operations levy will pay the bills and keep district officials from having to slash programs, reduce staff or close an outlying school.

For the first time in 30 years Idaho residents - not a panel of judges and lawyers - will decide who sits on the Supreme Court. The May primary election marks the first time in decades there will be a contested election for an open seat on the Idaho Supreme Court. Justice Byron Johnson is retiring when his six-year term expires in January. Justices often have left office or retired in the middle of their term. That allowed a judicial council to screen applicants and select candidates to present to the governor. The governor would then appoint the new justice, by-passing a popular vote.