News

A man who was working for a subcontractor at a Simplot fertilizer plant near Pocatello has died at a Utah hospital after being exposed to ammonia last weekend.

We are currently experiencing technical issues with our stations in Ketchum, Lower Stanley, Salmon and Challis.

The stations in Lower Stanley (91.1 fm), Challis (91.9 fm) and Salmon (91.9 fm) are off the air due to a thunderstorm moving through the region. We're working to fix the outage as soon as possible.

Our station in Ketchum (93.5 fm) is currently experiencing low audio levels. Again, we're working to fix the problem.

Wednesday FBI officials in Spokane arrested a man for connection with mailing a poisonous letter to a government building.

37-year-old Matthew Ryan Buquet pleaded not guilty in his first federal court appearance Wednesday in Spokane. FBI Public Affairs Specialist Ayn Dietrich says Buquet faces a grand jury indictment for mailing a threatening communication.

The number of coal export terminals proposed for Oregon and Washington has dropped from six to three. But a dozen Northwest groups aren’t backing down from their call for a regional impact study of the coal projects.

The groups filed a legal petition Wednesday with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. They want the corps to study the environmental impacts of transporting coal by train and barge from mines in Montana and Wyoming to shipping terminals.

A mountain lion has likely attacked four dogs in Boise in the last month. Early Tuesday morning a woman reported seeing an animal attack her two dogs in her east Boise back yard. She thought it was a bobcat. One of the dogs was later found dead. Idaho Fish and Game officers examined bite marks on the body and on the injured animal and determined they came from a young mountain lion.

Congress held another hearing today on the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) scandal.  The IRS has revealed it subjected Tea Party and other conservative groups seeking non-profit status to extra scrutiny from 2010 to 2012.

Idaho Senator Mike Crapo sat in on two hearings yesterday where the matter was discussed.  He says in 2010 the IRS had created a BOLO or 'Be On the Lookout' list, instructing Internal Revenue agents to identify Tea Party case files. 

He says the abuse by the IRS is very serious.

The Salmon School District did not get the super majority it needed to pass a bond for a new school. 901 district voters said no to the $14.6 million dollar bond for a new combination elementary and middle school. Just 645 people said yes. This was the 9th failed bond vote for the small district on the Montana border.

Unlike previous elections this ballot had an alternate bond proposal. It was $3.6 million dollars for safety upgrades to the existing schools. Voters rejected that even more definitively; 1,184 to 354.

Fishing nets are designed to ensnare fish. But when those nets are lost or abandoned at sea, they don’t stop catching fish.  Instead, they become ghost nets – floating death traps for the marine life that continue to get trapped in their mesh. Ghost nets are a problem internationally – but there’s an international response underway.  And some of the leaders in the movement are at work in the Pacific Northwest.

Doug Monk captains the 39-foot Bet Sea out into the waters of Puget Sound, just south of the Canadian border.  

Yesterday marked the 200th speech given at the Idaho Environmental Forum in Boise. The non-partisan association has been around since 1989, when its first speaker was Governor Cecil Andrus. To celebrate this anniversary, the association invited their inaugural speaker back for an encore.

Of the 50 states and the District of Columbia only Utah spends less on education than Idaho. A new report Tuesday from the U.S. Census Bureau says Idaho spent $6,824 for each student in its public schools in 2011. The National average is $10,560. New York tops the list spending $19,076.

An Uzbek national facing terrorism-related charges in Idaho will remain jailed pending his trial after waiving his right to a detention hearing.

Lawyers for Fazliddin Kurbanov on Tuesday waived a hearing where a U.S. District Court judge was to have considered whether he should stay in Ada County jail in Boise until his July 2 trial.

Kurbanov is a refugee from Uzbekistan in Central Asia who arrived in Boise in 2009. He was arrested last Thursday.

A man working at the Simplot fertilizer plant west of Pocatello was hospitalized in critical condition after apparently being exposed to ammonia over the weekend.

The Power County Sheriff's Office says 23-year-old Derrick E. Martinez of Garden City, Kansas, was found unconscious in a Blick's Phosphate Conversion mobile testing trailer on Simplot property Saturday afternoon.

He was taken to the hospital in Pocatello and then flown to a hospital in Salt Lake City, where he was listed in critical condition on Monday.

A new study says the nation’s aquifers are shrinking at an alarming rate The problem is not as bad in the Northwest, thanks to an abundance of rivers and streams. But even here, aquifers are shrinking.

Think of all the water in Lake Erie. Then double it. That’s how much water has drained since 1900 from aquifers in the U.S. When these underground water bodies shrink, it means less water for cities, farms and streams.

The Salmon School District’s middle school is unsafe according to the state of Idaho. It has structural problems and a heavy snow could cave in parts of the roof. The 940 student district on the Montana Border has been trying for years to convince voters to pay for a new building. Tuesday Salmon weighs in on the issue for the 9th time.

Boise State Public Radio's news team took home 18 local and regional journalism awards this weekend.

At the annual Idaho Press Club awards banquet, we received nine 1st place honors, three 2nd place, and two 3rd place. Here are our winning entries:

Fire fighters at the Idaho National Laboratory are preparing for an intense wildfire season. Under the U.S. Department of Energy, the INL has its own fire department.

Eric Gosswiller is the site’s fire chief. He says a lack of snowpack in eastern Idaho means his department needs to be ready for fires. But he says that’s something his department has gotten used to.

“Down here at the high desert at the INL – we kind of have the potential for significant fires every year,” says Gosswiller.

You can pick up a number of different Audubon-style guides if you're a bird watcher.  But it’s a different story when it comes to fish.  Many Idaho fish haven’t been studied.

City officials in Boise are considering tougher ordinances on panhandling following complaints.

The Boise City Council on Tuesday is scheduled to review three ordinances.

One ordinance would outlaw aggressive panhandling.

Panhandling where solicitation can't be avoided would also be banned. That includes asking for money from drivers on roadways, people in line, or people dining at a sidewalk cafe.

Another ordinance would require panhandlers to have permits to put up tents, chairs or tables on public property.

Federal agents in hazmat suits and SWAT gear searched a Spokane apartment Saturday. They were looking for evidence connected to a pair of ricin-laced letters sent through the mail. The letters were addressed to a federal judge in Spokane and to the post office itself.