Spokane

William K. Kramer drove an immaculately kept 1969 Buick Riviera, worked long hours as an executive for International Light Metals and was described by friends as an experienced and cautious pilot, although federal investigators said he had logged only 231 hours of flying time over a period of five years. Kramer was the owner of the single-engine Piper Archer airplane that collided with an Aeromexico DC-9 Sunday.

Police in Spokane, Wash., completed their investigation of a fight that occurred last month and have requested that two USC basketball players be charged with two counts each of second-degree assault, a police spokeswoman said. Neither police nor USC has named the players involved in the March 10 incident. USC suspended center James Blasczyk and forward Dewayne Dedmon indefinitely the day after the incident for violating team rules. The Spokane County prosecutor's office will make the final decision about whether to file charges, police spokeswoman Monique Cotton said in an email.

Peter Gylling, a native of Denmark who now makes his home in Santa Ana, broke away 10 kilometers from the finish to win the seventh and final stage of the Washington Trust Cycling race Sunday in Spokane, Wash. Gylling completed the 60-kilometer criterium through the streets of downtown Spokane in 1 hour and 2 minutes. Gylling was 58th overall.

Police in Spokane, Wash., have identified at least two USC basketball players who were allegedly involved in fights in the downtown area last week, a police spokeswoman said Monday. Neither the police nor USC have released the players' names, but on March 11 interim coach Bob Cantu suspended center James Blasczyk and forward Dewayne Dedmon for violating teams rules. The fights took place in the early morning hours of March 10. USC played Washington State at Pullman, Wash., the night before and stayed in Spokane.

Police in Spokane, Wash., are investigating a fight that witnesses said might have involved USC basketball players, a Spokane police official confirmed. USC concluded its regular season Saturday afternoon with a 76-51 loss to Washington State at Pullman, Wash. The Trojans stayed the night in Spokane and flew home Sunday. Monique Cotton, communications director for the Spokane police, said that 10 to 12 officers responded to a call about a large fight in downtown Spokane about 2 a.m. Sunday.

The former leader of the Spokane chapter of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang was sentenced Monday to 7 1/2 years in prison for racketeering. Richard "Smilin' Rick" Fabel, 50, was also ordered by U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik to pay nearly $55,000 in restitution and stay away from other Hells Angels for at least a year.

A Hawthorne man was in jail in Spokane, Wash., on Wednesday, awaiting arraignment on first-degree murder charges in connection with the shotgun slaying of his former wife. As his sons waited in his car, Raymond V. Brytan, 46, a fifth-grade teacher in the Compton schools, walked up to the door of his former wife's home in Spokane on Christmas Day and killed her with a blast from a sawed-off shotgun, police said. Brytan, who was divorced from Vera A.

When my sister and I were of elementary school age, we tried making our dad a Father's Day cake. Tried, I say, because despite careful preparation, we managed to create an oozing chocolate mess. Today, our baking skills have improved and Dad has even joined in the cooking on Father's Day; we usually do a big breakfast or backyard barbecue. You could say we've been simply following tradition.

The fog hovering over the Spokane airport Friday made the UCLA basketball team's trip to the Northwest a little more frustrating. Instead of a quick flight from Seattle to Spokane and a short bus ride to Pullman, Wash., the Bruins had a long wait at Seattle-Tacoma Airport and then a seven-hour bus ride to Pullman. And that was followed by an evening practice. UCLA will play Washington State today. Coach Walt Hazzard wasn't going to go into that game without a practice.

When she was 21, Barbara Marx Hubbard challenged one of her father's friends, then-President Dwight Eisenhower, to explain the purpose of power. She stared into his electric blue eyes, he into her searching brown ones. Then he responded, "I don't know." The intellectual daughter of a tycoon toy maker, Hubbard was seeking the meaning of life. What do you do when you have enough things? Enough power? If Eisenhower didn't know, she would have to find out herself.

USC basketball players James Blasczyk and Dewayne Dedmon have been suspended indefinitely from all team activities for violating team rules and will sit out the Trojans' Pac-12 Conference tournament opener against Utah, interim Coach Bob Cantu said Monday. Police in Spokane, Wash., are investigating a fight that occurred early Sunday. Witnesses have told police they believed USC players were involved, a police spokesman said Sunday. Neither Spokane police nor USC has identified any Trojans players.

Police in Spokane, Wash., are investigating a fight that witnesses said might have involved USC basketball players, a Spokane police official confirmed. USC concluded its regular season Saturday afternoon with a 76-51 loss to Washington State at Pullman, Wash. The Trojans stayed the night in Spokane and flew home Sunday. Monique Cotton, communications director for the Spokane police, said that 10 to 12 officers responded to a call about a large fight in downtown Spokane about 2 a.m. Sunday.

CHELAN, Wash. - Just say the words "summer at the lake" in certain company, and you'll get a wistful smile, possibly followed by stories about fishing contests, belly-flops, mosquito bites, campfire songs, sexual awakening, lingering regret, family feuds, winterizing expenses and the prospect that the mortgage interest tax deductions for second homes might someday be disallowed. Now, say "summer at the lake" to a room full of Seattleites, and talk will likely turn to Lake Chelan.

Hoping to trip up Mitt Romney's momentum, Rick Santorum made a populist plea to Washington state voters to "put your honor at stake" and give him a victory in Saturday's caucuses that will send a message to the "good old boys" of the Republican establishment. "How often has the state of Washington had the ability to reset a presidential race?" he asked in a speech to several hundred supporters at a Pentecostal church in Spokane. "I know you feel like you've been railroaded and bulldozed.

Three sanitation workers found it along the route of a Martin Luther King Jr. Day march: a nest of wires in a backpack. The homemade bomb was equipped with an unusual remote-controlled trigger and stuffed with more than 100 heavy fishing weights coated in rat poison. The Spokane County bomb squad disarmed it hours before the route would have been flooded with marchers last year. If the device had detonated and the weights had torn into the intended victims, the poison would have prevented their blood from coagulating, all but ensuring their deaths, lab analysts concluded.

SPOKANE, Wash. — A man accused of placing a bomb along the planned route of a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade is facing a federal hate crime charge. The Seattle Times reported that Kevin Harpham is named in a new indictment issued Thursday by a grand jury in Spokane. It adds two counts — one accusing him of violating the federal Hate Crimes Act and the other accusing him of attempting to use an explosive device in connection with the hate crime. Harpham, 36, has pleaded not guilty to federal charges of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and unauthorized possession of an unregistered explosive device.

"I hope this isn't going to be one of those interviews where all we talk about is opera," says Patrice Munsel as she greets a visitor in her penthouse on Central Park West. Munsel, one of the leading coloratura sopranos of the Metropolitan Opera in the 1940s and '50s, is dressed in a skin-tight pink and aqua designer exercise suit. Although she celebrated her 62nd birthday this month, she looks startlingly young. The figure is superb, as is the skin.

Three-time Oscar nominee Todd Field is set to direct and co-write the adaptation of Jess Walter's bestselling book "Beautiful Ruins. " Field will team up with Walter to write the screenplay. Beginning in Italy in 1962, the story picks up with a few characters connected to the ill-fated production of "Cleopatra" before jumping forward to present-day Hollywood. The book's ambitious storytelling should present a particular challenge for Field and Walter in finding a way to bring it to the screen.

Hometown Gonzaga probably will be waiting in the second round. And Pacific 10 Conference champion Stanford almost certainly will advance to the Spokane Regional final. However, UCLA cannot concern itself with either potential opponent unless it gets past Montana in the first round of the NCAA women's basketball tournament. The third-seeded Bruins (27-4) play 14th-seeded Montana (18-14) on Saturday at Spokane, Wash. Bruins Coach Nikki Caldwell has had a few days to study tape of Montana, which won the Big Sky Conference tournament.

UCLA's women's basketball team was mildly disappointed to learn Monday that much of its March Madness experience could be spent in one town. But the Bruins weren't complaining. UCLA is seeded third in the Spokane Regional of the NCAA tournament and could play as many as four consecutive games in Spokane, Wash. The Bruins play Montana on Saturday night in a first-round game at McCarthey Athletic Center and wouldn't mind hunkering down in eastern Washington for an extended period.