NEWS DIGEST
Monday, February 5, 2007 10:22 AM PST
IDAHO
A month into office,
Idaho’s Otter governs from his gut
BOISE (AP) — As a freshly minted lieutenant governor, C.L. ‘‘Butch’’ Otter caused a furor 20 years ago by vetoing a bill lifting Idaho’s drinking age to 21 from 19. Lawmakers passed it to keep the feds in Washington, D.C., from denying highway payments. Gov. Cecil Andrus had left town, and Otter, a 44-year-old just two months on the job, took a populist swipe at ‘‘usurpation ... of Idaho’s sovereign power by the Congress’’ — his words at the time.
OREGON
Fireproofing material
production boosts
reservation business
BEND (AP) — Fireproofing material made by the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs is enjoying strong growth, especially in the export market, tribal officials say. Tectonite is an amalgam of diatomaceous earth — which is soil full of crushed organic skeletal material — along with fiberglass, recycled newspaper slurry and other ingredients.
IDAHO
N. Idaho veterans groups might join forces as
numbers decline
POST FALLS (AP) — The dwindling number of surviving World War II veterans is prompting Veterans of Foreign Wars posts in northern Idaho to consider merging.
‘‘We’ve got 117 members, but when we have meetings only five or six people show up,’’ Emmett Sullivan, commander of Post 3603 in Post Falls, told the Coeur d’Alene Press.
THE CAPITOL
Astronaut sets spacewalk record for women
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — U.S. astronaut Sunita Williams has now spent more time spacewalking than any other woman, setting the record on Sunday as she and a crew mate upgraded the international space station’s cooling system. Williams broke the previous female spacewalking record of more than 21 hours when she and Michael Lopez-Alegria completed three spacewalks in nine days.
