Bloglander

Jury doesn't see the hate Only one of the three North Idaho brothers charged with the first hate crime to go to trial in Kootenai County in years was convicted of misdemeanor conspiracy to disturb the peace, as a jury deadlocked on more serious charges Monday. "I won," Ira Tankovich, 48, mouthed to his family in court after the jury read the guilty verdict on the misdemeanor charge, but cleared him of felony conspiring to commit malicious harassment. Jurors could not reach unanimous verdicts on conspiracy charges for his brothers William Tankovich, 49, and Frank Tankovich, 46. The three were accused of making racial threats against a Puerto Rican man last summer.

Two banks robbed Police in Spokane and Spokane Valley were called to apparently unrelated back-to-back bank robberies Monday evening. Spokane Valley police arrested 43-year-old Jesse Adams for first-degree robbery after officers recognized him from the surveillance video of the robbery at Washington Trust Bank at 310 N. Argonne Rd. A news release says money and clothing from the 4:30 pm robbery were recovered. At about 6 pm a man waving a handgun robbed the Chase Bank in the 2200 block of Northwest Boulevard in Spokane. Police say the robber appeared well-versed in bank security measures, demanding specific bundles of money in an apparent attempt to avoid exploding dye packs.

Springing On a day when temperatures boomed into the upper 70s, the Coeur d'Alene Press captured an annual rite Monday, with intrepid young men peeling off shirts and shoes and leaping from Tubbs Hill into the still frigid waters of Lake Coeur d'Alene. They do it, they explained, "Because we're dumb. We're teenage guys still," 19-year-old Michael Cuentas cheerfully explains about plunging into 45-degree, rock-strewn water.

Hot in here? Photographers from Playboy Magazine are in Pullman for a second day today recruiting models for its annual feature, "Girls of the Pac 10." The young women trying out for a spot are almost certainly attracted by Playboy's many fine articles.