Treasured Valley

New lawyer says they’re innocent, egg exodus, Idaho unemployment, ripped off and lotto winners…

• New lawyer in Haiti: American missionaries innocent. The new lawyer for 10 American Baptists charged with child kidnapping said Monday he believes they had paperwork to take 33 children out of the country after Haiti’s devastating earthquake. Attorney Aviol Fleurant’s remarks came as investigators questioned the Baptist group’s leader, Laura Silsby, who insisted she is innocent of any wrongdoing.
• Fellow Baptist has faith in Laura Silsby. The new lawyer for 10 American Baptists charged with child kidnapping said Monday he believes they had paperwork to take 33 children out of the country after Haiti’s earthquake.
• Lawyer: Idahoans had papers to take kids out of Haiti. The Americans have been charged with child kidnapping and criminal association for trying to take 33 children out of earthquake-ravaged Haiti.
• Support for detained missionaries showing up on Facebook and Twitter.

• Idaho, others prepare for Calif. egg exodus. Idaho is among several states watching to see if a California animal cruelty law drives flocks of big egg farms there to fly the coop. California voters in 2008 approved Proposition 2, banning cramped cages for laying hens by 2015.
• Idaho’s Unemployment For January Is…? Boise State Radio’s Adam Cotterell updates us on the status of Idaho’s jobless numbers.
• $3,000 speakers for $300? Yup, it’s too good to be true. A quick-talking person in a car pulls up and through his or her excitement tells a grand story of how they received an extra speaker system and want to pass the savings on to you. But buyer beware, these speakers aren’t the real deal as one local man quickly found out.
• ‘A Love/Haiti Relationship’: BSU students aid Haiti with local benefit. BSU students hosts “A Love/Haiti Relationship” on Feb. 10, a night of local music with all profits ($5 at the door) going toward charity: water. The organization provides fresh drinking water to the three million individuals impacted by the earthquake.
• Happy Birthday! Mom gives her kids a $100,000 present. A local brother and sister are splitting a $100,000 lottery prize! Donald Howell, of Meridian, and Donna Baker, of Boise, got the winning ticket from their mother in Burley as a birthday gift.
• Officials: DUIs average over Super Bowl weekend. The number of intoxicated drivers seen by law enforcement in Nampa and Canyon County and by the Idaho State Police over the Super Bowl weekend stayed consistent with most normal weekends, officials said. “We didn’t see an increase from a normal Sunday,” Nampa Police Sgt. Donald Peck said.
• Who’s driving your kids to school? For many local bus drivers, distracted drivers on the road are what worries them the most.

• Campus crime log: Theft, indecent exposure and trespassing. Personal property theft incidents continue to disturb campus life; bike larceny remaining most common, while backpack pilfering persists.
• Report shows home buyers’ negotiating power gains. Home buyers in much of the United States paid thousands of dollars below asking prices in December and for the first time in 11 months gained negotiating power, real estate website Zillow.com said.
• Canyon County defaults rise 70 percent in January. Canyon County’s home defaults had dropped off in the last few months of 2009, but they came back with a vengeance in the first month of 2010.
• Bus driver Olympic-bound. Middleton resident Albert Wilson, a motor coach operator for Boise-Winnemucca Stages/Northwestern Trailways, is one of six Treasure Valley bus drivers who are bound for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, British Columbia.
• F-35 Jet May Land In Idaho For Good. Local leaders are putting together a high-flying campaign to get a fighter jet to the Gem State and are hoping it’s an idea that will really take off.
• Help Ada County, Boise young victims by buying new bears. Help victims of crime in Ada County and Boise by bringing a new teddy bear to the BSU men’s basketball game on Thursday, Feb. 11. The bars go to the Ada County-Boise City Victim Witness programs.
• Idaho Supercross Racer Gets the Checkered Flag. An Idaho Supercross racer is tearing it up on the national circuit. Twenty-two year old Jake Weimer is tearing up the Supercross Lite circuit. In the first race of the season in Phoenix, he was in third with just a few laps to go.
• Tapeworm in Idaho years before wolves arrived. Idaho’s wildlife agency wants to set the record straight: Tapeworms were in Idaho long before wolves were transplanted, and they only rarely infect people.
• Boise Greenbelt section closed until March for riverbank restoration. A project to repair an eroded bank of the Boise River has temporarily closed a section of the Greenbelt in Southeast Boise.