Jessica Robinson

The 38-year-old man accused of sending ricin-laced letters to a federal judge and the Spokane post office had an active social media presence. But his online profiles contain no hints at a grudge toward the federal government.

This was also not his first run-in with the law.

Federal agents in hazmat gear searched Matthew Ryan Buquet’s apartment last Saturday for evidence related to ricin, a dangerous toxin made from castor beans.

People living near Fairchild Air Force Base say they’re not worried by news they won’t get a brand new fleet of Boeing-built Air Force refueling tankers. The Air Force made the announcement Wednesday following a process that pitted Spokane against other other communities around the country.

McConnell Air Force Base in Kansas got the nod to be the first to house the new KC-46A refueling tankers. That dismayed Washington Sen. Patty Murray, who said she would press top Pentagon officials for an explanation.

A tragedy in Wenatchee, Wash., is prompting educators there to bring back a high school aquatics program. Starting this fall, high school freshmen in the central Washington city will have to demonstrate they know how to swim.

Formal swimming lessons in Wenatchee had gone by the wayside, as is frequently the case lately in public schools. But the Wenatchee school board is now reversing course.

In November 2011, a freshman named Antonio Reyes drowned in the high school swimming pool.

Federal agents arrested a man in Idaho Thursday suspected of conspiring to support a terrorist organization in Central Asia. Thirty-year-old Fazliddin Kurbanov is from Uzbekistan and lives in Boise.

Two federal grand juries – one in Idaho and one in Utah – handed down a total of four terrorism-related charges against Kurbanov. Federal authorities say he attempted to help the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan with money and computer software between August 2012 and May 2013. The U.S. government designates that group as a foreign terrorist organization.

In the next couple of months, many employment office workers in the Northwest will join the unemployed. State labor agencies are having to make cutbacks in staffing. It's due to a combination of the economy getting better and federal budget cuts known as the “sequester” setting in.

Staffing at the local employment office usually moves in the exact opposite direction as the rest of the economy. When times are tough, unemployment rolls are booming.

Researchers say the economic benefits of prisons often don't materialize for rural communities. That's according to a new paper by Northwest sociologists. In fact, they found communities with private prisons fare worse than they did before.

Washington State University sociologist Gregory Hook says rural areas that opt to build prisons, even courting them with tax breaks, have one main goal in mind: jobs.

“You know, you look across the way and you say 'Oh there's a prison. Fifty people have a job there. So that's 50 new jobs in my community.' … Only it's not.”

The high price of silver is bringing one of the Northwest's oldest silver mines back online. The Sunshine Mine in north Idaho is known for one of the worst mining disasters in the nation’s history. It will resume production in late 2014.

The new owner, Sunshine Silver Mines Corp., bought the mine after the previous owner went bankrupt. It happened just in time for silver prices to hit $30 an ounce, and mostly stayed there. The company expects to hire 250 miners once production begins.

SPOKANE, Wash. - In December, a suspected serial killer from Washington killed himself in a jail cell in Anchorage, Alaska. Israel Keyes’ suicide abruptly halted progress into uncovering one of the widest-ranging serial killing sprees in the U.S.

Now, the FBI is trying to piece together exactly what he did. Investigators are struggling to connect seemingly random dots that they hope will lead them to other victims.

POST FALLS, Idaho - Personal incomes took a hit in the economic downturn across the nation. But according to the latest figures, no state has lower median earnings than Idaho.

A few years ago, James Drennen and his family left Lancaster, Penn., to start a new life in north Idaho.

“We figured we could come out here and live on a whole lot less money and my wife could stay home," he says. "But when we got here, we found out the jobs aren't paying as well.”