News Digest:
Thursday, May 1, 2008 10:56 AM PDT
IDAHO
E. Idaho tribes plan to build 2 new casinos
FORT HALL (AP) — The Shoshone-Bannock Tribes in southeastern Idaho plan to build two new casinos on the Fort Hall Reservation, officials said.
‘‘Idaho is one of the fastest-growing states in the country, and tourism is growing in southeast Idaho,’’ Richard Kutch, a member of the Fort Hall Business Council, told the Idaho State Journal. Groundbreaking for the first casino, the Blackfoot Satellite C-Store Casino near exit 89 of Interstate 15 on the Fort Hall Reservation, is planned for May 15 with completion expected in September.
OREGON
Wyden urges Forest Service to approve
logging
BEND (AP) — With Eastern Oregon’s timber industry struggling amid the deflation of the housing bubble, U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden has asked the U.S. Forest Service to quickly approve logging in areas of Grant and Harney counties that were burned by wildfire in recent summers.
‘‘The conservation community, the timber industry and the local elected officials in Eastern Oregon have proposed an agreement that will salvage valuable timber, provide needed product for local lumber mills and aid the ailing economies in a rural area of my state,’’ Wyden, D-Ore., said in a letter Tuesday to Mark Rey, the undersecretary for Natural Resources and Environment at the Department of Agriculture.
Candidate chips in another $250,000 for House campaign
SALEM (AP) — Businessman Mike Erickson has loaned another quarter of a million dollars to his congressional campaign and launched a new round of TV ads attacking Republican rival Kevin Mannix’s past support for tax hikes as a legislator.
Erickson’s loan of $250,000 brings to $590,000 the amount of his own money he’s chipped in for this year’s bid for Congress.
He spent $1.6 million of his own money on his unsuccessful 2006 race against Democratic Rep. Darlene Hooley, who’s not seeking re-election this year.
Erickson’s latest loan triggers the ‘‘Millionaire’s Amendment’’ under federal campaign finance law that allows candidates running against wealthy opponents to receive larger contributions from individuals.
