Idaho

A fugitive sought in Garden City, Idaho, on charges of arson for hire was arrested as a result of a motor vehicle accident in Lester on June 10, police said. Police said the accident took place at 10:53 p.m. at the Rosenbluth Valet Parking and Car Wash, 621 N. Governor Printz Blvd. The driver attempted to leave the scene but was reportedly restrained by Rosenbluth employees. When police arrived, the driver identified himself as Ernest Borg but refused to turn over his license, registration card or proof of insurance, authorities said.

Montgomery County authorities are investigating the possibility that one of two neo-Nazi skinheads wanted in last week's killing of an 18-year-old Norristown man, also believed to have been a skinhead, has fled to Idaho. First Assistant District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr. said yesterday, "We have federal authorities in Idaho working on the case now. " Paul Minton, 23, of Philadelphia, may have fled west to be with other white supremacists, Castor said. Keith James Pearce Jr., 21, of Norristown, also remains at large.

When my friend Ridley Pearson invited me back to Idaho, I said to myself: He is NOT getting me up another tree. I was still combing sap out of my hair from a trip to Idaho last fall, when Ridley talked me into - this is an Idaho sport - climbing way up into a blatantly hostile tree and then getting back to Earth by "rappelling," which means "sliding down at the Speed of Fear on a rope approximately the same width as a strand of No. 8 spaghetti....

As outlined in court documents, Larry L. Eastland had a job that is not easily explained on a resume. Among the hats he contends that he wore: ghostwriter, security chief, and tracker of pedigrees of his boss' pets. Salary: $25,000 a month. Employer: John E. du Pont. His position ended in June 1995, Eastland claims in a suit in federal court, when he was told that his services were no longer needed. Now Eastland, who once ran for governor of Idaho, wants what he says was promised to him: nearly $1 million, most of it part of a severance agreement that was never put on paper.

The state of Idaho has offered to settle out of court a $1.3 million lawsuit it filed against a retired Scranton-area couple who inadvertently started a forest fire near Boise last year, a state official said yesterday. The state, which alleged that Frederick and Jeanne Howard started the blaze when a car they were towing behind their motor home caught fire, decided to settle for $355,000, the maximum money believed to be provided in the Howards' insurance policies. But Idaho Deputy Attorney General Terry Anderson said the decision, reached Thursday by the state Land Board, also called for the Howards' insurance companies to reveal the full amounts of the insurance and for the Howards to sign an affidavit stating that their other assets did not exceed $500,000.

To look at Sheriff Tim Nettleton - limping along in grimy Reeboks, worn Wranglers riding dangerously low on his hips, a little five-shot revolver on his belt and a star on the buckle the only indication of his law-enforcement capacity - is to think: Here's a guy who doesn't go by the rules. That thought would be misguided. Nettleton, 57, Idaho's longest-serving sheriff, is a big believer in rules - his. He rewrote the book. Working with inmates is no different than working with spoiled mustangs.

That good old American melting pot is boiling over. And if you want to see what can happen when a melting pot boils over, tune in "Dynasty" (tonight, Channel 6 at 9) these nights and notice the beautiful young lady who is now playing Jackie Devereaux, the daughter of the character Diahann Carroll plays. Her name is Troy Beyer. (The Troy, she says, came about because when she was born her mother had a crush on Troy Donahue. She's always felt relieved that her mother had no such crush on Bing Crosby or Boris Karloff.

Emergency workers tend to a high school student injured when a bus rolled on a snowy highway south of Moscow, Idaho. Several of the 26 passengers suffered head and neck injuries yesterday.

INTRODUCING THE MOUNTAINS Eight states make up the Mountain region: Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. Phoenix is the largest city in the region (ninth-largest in the United States), followed by Denver, Tucson, Albuquerque and Colorado Springs. The Great Plains are often called the "Last Frontier," but gold, silver, lead and uranium "rushes" made the Mountain region the last to be settled. This region is huge in area.

Actor Bruce Willis, Cybill Shepherd's co-star in the ABC series "Moonlighting," shattered his left collarbone in a skiing accident, his press agent said yesterday. Willis, 32, was on his first run down a slope at Sun Valley, Idaho, Sunday when the accident occurred, said agent Paul Block. The actor returned to Los Angeles after having his left arm placed in a sling. Block did not have details of the accident, but he described Willis as "a very good skier. " Willis will be out of action for about a week, Bloch said.

WASHINGTON - Mike Sackett remembers what he thought when he saw the eye-popping fines of more than $30,000 a day that the Environmental Protection Agency was threatening to impose on him over a piece of Idaho property worth less than one day's penalty. "If they do this to us, we're going to lose everything we have," Sackett said. The EPA said that Sackett and his wife, Chantell, illegally filled in most of their 0.63-acre lot with dirt and rocks in preparation for building a home.

BOISE, Idaho - A woman was able to escape an attack by a mule deer after a passer-by and his daughter fought off the buck, grabbing the antlers and striking it with a hammer until it fled, state wildlife officials said. Sue Panter was on a stroll near her home in rural southeastern Idaho when the buck attacked, raking her body with his antlers and goring her legs, officials said. Michael Vaughan and his 17-year-old daughter, Alexis, spotted the struggle early Friday and tried to intervene, the state Department of Fish and Game said in a statement on Sunday.

By Michael Silverstein These days there's a lot of talk about privatizing various government functions to save money and improve efficiency. All of it, however, amounts to half-measures. It's time to consider going all the way by taking the United States of America private. The U.S. government is actually a classic takeover candidate. It's a well-known enterprise with a long and often distinguished history that is facing new fiscal challenges. It also has an enormous wealth of assets with huge revenue potential - were they operated with that end in mind.

BOISE, Idaho - Rescuers trying to reach a trapped Idaho silver miner Tuesday were forced by dangerous conditions to shift to a new route, more than quadrupling the distance officials said workers must dig through to reach him. They were also still trying to get a separate air hole to Larry "Pete" Marek, a 53-year-old employee of Hecla Mining Co., who was trapped Friday in the cave-in and hasn't been heard from since. Instability deep inside the Lucky Friday Mine led to the shift in plans to reach Marek, said Federal Mine Safety and Health Administration spokeswoman Amy Louviere.

BOISE, Idaho - Part science and part sculpture, Bob Crum's fruit trees look like delicate relatives of their cousins in nearby orchards. That's intentional. "I've tinkered with this for a long time," he said of his espaliers. "The thing about espalier is it's a work in progress. You can make your own shape. All it takes is time. " Espalier is a method of training trees to grow in two dimensions in an ornamental design, often against a wall, but the trees also can be attached to freestanding trellises, such as Crum's.

BOISE, Idaho - The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday ordered a chemical company to halt toxic, explosive gases leaking from a southeastern Idaho Superfund site that toxicologists concluded were an "urgent public health hazard. " FMC Corp., a Philadelphia-based maker of specialty chemicals, operated a phosphorous production plant from 1949 to 2001 on the Eastern Michaud Flats area west of Pocatello, on the Shoshone-Bannock Indian Reservation. Nearly a decade after FMC mothballed the operation, however, its capped ponds continue to produce phosphine gas that smells of rotten fish and can damage respiratory, nervous and gastrointestinal systems, and the heart, liver, and kidneys.

Mike Iupati said when he talked to Eagles offensive line coach Juan Castillo, he liked what he heard. "He said the one thing that he saw that he really liked . . . was that when I got beat inside, I slid my feet and pinned my guy down," Iupati said yesterday after practice for Saturday's Senior Bowl. Iupati, a highly regarded guard out of Idaho, could be on the Eagles' radar for the NFL draft, which begins April 22. The team could be looking to address an offensive line that was banged up last season, and Iupati fits the mold.

Despite her efforts to portray herself as an average, small-town, "folksy" American, Sarah Palin's political views - ardently pro-gun, pro-censorship, antichoice and antigay - make John McCain's conservative credentials pale in comparison. What few observers have said, however, is these beliefs are not just extreme - they are radical, and even bear a comparison with some of the most notorious "rural radicals" of our time. It has been years since groups such as the Montana Militia, the Posse Comitatus and the Sagebrush Rebels, and individuals such as Terry Nichols and Ted Kaczynski have made us wonder why so many "angry white men" populated our rural regions.

This series is based on about 18 hours of interviews with terrorist hunter Shannen Rossmiller, 10 of them conducted in person in Montana. Information was also derived from hundreds of pages of Rossmiller?s files; from military and civilian court documents from Fort Lewis, Wash., and U.S. District Courts for the District of Idaho and the Middle District of Pennsylvania; and from sworn testimony. Augmenting those interviews were others with Rossmiller?s husband, friends and family. The stories include information from the Army; the Association for Intelligence Officers; local police and sheriffs?

The 33-year-old man charged with raping at least six Philadelphia women between 2003 and 2005 is accused of a similar crime in a Sun Valley, Idaho, resort last fall. Jeffrey Marsalis was charged with rape in October 2005 after allegedly giving a knockout drug to a female coworker, according to a report in the Oct. 12, 2005, edition of Idaho Mountain Express. Officials with the Sun Valley Police and Prosecutor's Office would not comment on the case because of a gag order. But the Mountain Express article states that a 21-year-old woman reported she had been out with Marsalis at a Ketchum bar Oct. 8 and woke up in his condominium the next morning.