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WASHINGTON - When Mike and Chantell Sackett purchased land for their dream home near Priest Lake, Idaho, they obtained all the permits required by the county. They even checked with the Army Corps of Engineers to make sure the federal government would okay their project. But as workers began laying in gravel in May 2007, Environmental Protection Agency officials showed up and demanded they stop, saying the property was in a protected wetlands zone. "They said it's in the wetland inventory," Chantell told CBN News. The Sacketts checked the EPA's coordinates and found their land wasn't really in that inventory....

UPDATE: A spokesperson for the Kootenai County Medical Center confirms with KHQ that there is one patient at their hospital. They cannot release a name but can tell us that he is a male patient and is in fair condition. This patient was transported to the facility in Coeur d'Alene via Med Star (life flight helicopter). Dr. Panos at Shoshone Medical Center confirms that 6 patients were transported to their facility via ground ambulance. Four of the miners have been released and 2 are still in the hospital for observation overnight. The Lucky Friday is closed as an authorities investigate....

BREAKING: An AMBER Alert has been issued for the state of Idaho. An investigation is in progress for an abducted child. The child is Brandon Xander Bearce; he is a white male, age 4, 2 feet 10 inches and 50 pounds. He has blond or strawberry blond hair and green eyes. Child is wearing red Cars pajamas. The suspect is Stefanie Marie Conteras; she is age 28, 5 feet 7 inches and 160 pounds. She has black hair and brown eyes. Suspect has a tattoo of stars across her chest and stars on her right calf. The suspect vehicle is...

A 75-year-old lawyer who fought private property rights battles alongside Idaho U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth and her Nevada rancher husband Wayne Hage in the 1990s is still cultivating the Sagebrush Rebellion's roots. Fred Kelly Grant has been slowed by age and heart surgery, but he's in demand from counties — and tea partyers who attend his $150-per-person seminars — as conservative elements in the West's continue to clash with the federal government. California's Siskiyou County is paying Grant $10,000 to help block removal of four Klamath River dams. Montana and Idaho counties have enlisted him to trim hated wolf populations...

Mine Collapse At The Lucky Friday Mine KHQ.COM - There's been a mine collapse at the Lucky Friday Mine. We're working on getting you more details. Check back for updates here on KHQ.Com, KHQ, Facebook and our Twitter news feed. You can also get the very latest on NewsBreak with Dave Cotton LIVE on KHQ.Com at 10am, noon at 2pm Monday through Friday. Watch www.khq.com and KHQ Local News for more information

BOISE - Triple murderer Paul Ezra Rhoades was executed this morning despite repeated last-minute appeals, in Idaho’s first execution since 1994 and only its second since 1957. “The time of death is 9:15,” Mountain time, Idaho Department of Corrections spokesman Jeff Ray announced. “The procedures are complete.” In his final words, Rhoades took responsibility for one of the murders, but not the other two. A friend of the family of one of the victims, who was in the chamber witnessing the execution, said, “The devil has gone home.” Unlike the last person executed in Idaho, double murderer Keith Eugene Wells,...

A local man contacted us Wednesday to tell his side of a bizarre meeting he had in early July with suspected White House shooter Oscar Ortega-Hernandez. We canvassed two different neighborhoods connected to Ortega through an extensive background check we ran Wednesday. We knocked, but no one answered. Computer consultant Monte McCall called us after seeing Ortega-Hernandez's picture. "As soon as I clicked on the story on my iPad there was this picture and i was like 'uh oh,'" said McCall. McCall said the picture was Ortega-Hernandez, the same man who contacted him in July and asked to meet. McCall...

The Secret Service searched Occupy D.C. on Monday for a man suspected of firing bullets at the White House on Friday, one of which was stopped by the building’s ballistic glass. Protestor Ralph Wittenberg told TPM on Tuesday evening that authorities came through “searching for a so-called terrorist who shot at the White House, with no warrant, they went into everybody’s tents.” A person handling media requests for Occupy DC confirmed the searches and said they were led by the Secret Service. The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Police have been trying to locate 21-year-old...

ABC News has learned authorities are increasingly concerned that a man sought in connection with a bizarre shooting incident on the Washington Mall last week may pose a threat to President Obama. The Secret Service now suspects that a bullet fired in this incident may have hit the White House after a bullet round was found in a White House window, though the round had not yet been conclusively linked to the incident. Police believe the suspect, Oscar Ramiro Ortega of Idaho Falls, is mentally ill. Local News 8 broke Ortega's connection to Idaho Falls on Sunday night. Ortega has...

PRIEST LAKE, Idaho – Four years ago, Mike and Chantell Sackett cleared a lot to build a house overlooking one of North Idaho’s most scenic mountain lakes. They pictured a roomy A-frame, with a deck for entertaining. At the front of the house, windows would frame views of Priest Lake and the deep forest stretching down to the lake’s indigo water. From the back, the couple could watch the Selkirk Mountains change with the seasons. But instead of their dream home, the Sacketts got a bitter legal fight with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency about whether they improperly filled in...

Rep. Mike Simpson said Sunday that new revenues are central to Congress's efforts to reduce the deficit, but the Idaho Republican drew a line in the sand in his opposition to tax hikes. "The reality is you can't get to $4 trillion without including additional revenues," Simpson told Fox News Sunday. "We might have different ideas what those revenues would look like. I think you could get additional revenues by actually lowering the tax rates and eliminating all of the exemptions underneath. … More revenue is key to this." But Simpson was quick to make a distinction between new revenue...

A legal group claims Idaho's largest school district rejected a measure to require a parent's signature for students to participate in school clubs amid pressure from a national organization that promotes equal rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. But the Meridian School District said Monday the proposal was dropped because the vast majority of their student clubs do not currently require parental permission. The school district's governing board adopted a new policy on student clubs last week after months of discussions, said district spokesman Eric Exline. "It is true at one point there was a provision in there...

MOSCOW, Idaho — A northern Idaho judge plans to issue a written decision soon in a college student's lawsuit challenging a policy that restricts firearms on his campus.

One Idaho couple's property rights battle with the government has reached the U.S. Supreme Court. Mike and Chantell Sackett bought land in Priest Lake, Idaho, to build their dream home in a residential development. As the Sacketts were preparing to build, however, the Environmental Protection Agency blocked them. EPA officials informed them their property is protected wetlands and accused them of violating the Clean Water Act. The agency then threatened to fine them $37,000 a day. "Bullying, that's what the EPA does," Chantell Sackett told Spokane, Wash., TV station KXLY.

Washington, D.C. - A Priest Lake couple is headed for the U.S. Supreme Court over a land use dispute with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that should have never occurred, according to Members of the Idaho Congressional Delegation. Mike and Chantell Sackett were in Washington, D.C., today as part of a forum convened by Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) and attended by Idaho Senator Mike Crapo, Idaho Senator Jim Risch and Idaho Representative Raúl Labrador.

“If we can prevent someone from being killed, that’s the intent,” City Councilman Brad Egbert said. If it can possibly save one life…then we should do it, right? Do what? You are probably wondering. Well, pass another law outlawing stupidity. In this particular case caring lawmakers want to prevent idiots from walking out into traffic because they are more absorbed in their phones than they are in living. Never mind the fact that no one has even died from this particular form of idiocy in Rexburg. . it’s .all in the name of safety. If you are caught risking your...

So if somebody wants to build a coal-fired plant they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them… – Barack Obama speaking to San Francisco Chronicle, January 2008 The United States has the world’s largest coal resources. In fact we have 50 percent more coal than Russia, the country with the next largest reserves. But coal use in the United States is under assault. Before becoming President, Barak Obama promised to bankrupt coal companies. As President, he has tried various strategies to force Americans to use less coal. After failing to pass a national energy tax (cap-and-trade), the President vowed...

Environmentalist arguments that wolves do not pose a potential threat to humans took another hit when bowhunter Rene Anderson took what she is convinced was a defensive action and fatally shot a wolf that had moved aggressively to within ten feet of her on a remote ridge near Headquarters, Idaho. Anderson, speaking to this column Friday morning, said the animal loped toward her while she was elk hunting back on Sept. 25. Her story is just now moving into high gear across the Internet, and she is being supported by friends and co-workers in Pierce, a community about 13 miles...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, Idaho First Congressional District Congressman Raúl R. Labrador called for the resignation of United States Attorney General Eric Holder after evidence of discrepancies in his previous testimony before the House Committee on the Judiciary was brought to light by a national media outlet. Mr. Labrador has been critical of potential abuses of the Bureau of Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BAFTE) since his March 17, 2011 letter to Oversight Chairman Darrel Issa urging his committee to conduct in-depth investigations into allegations of weapons being sold, with federal government complicity, to Mexican cartels. Over 1,500 such weapons remain...

PRIEST LAKE, Idaho - It's a classic David versus Goliath battle. The United States Supreme Court now says it will consider the case of a Priest Lake couple that's just hoping to build a home. But the Federal Government says you can build a home, just not where you bought your property. It's illegal.