284 wildfires reported this year, most human-caused

The 2023 fire season proved to be an unremarkable year, with just 284 total wildfires in the state. In total, 2,582 acres burned this year — nearly half of what burned in 2022, and only a fraction of the historic fire season in 2021 that burned 141,981 acres in Idaho.

The Rising Cost of Highway Right-of-Way

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Rising land prices in the growing regions of Idaho don't just affect the cost of housing — they also impact how much it costs for the Idaho Transportation Department to widen a highway. Senior reporter Margaret Carmel from BoiseDev joins Logan Finney to discuss right-of-way land prices and how they affect ITD's highway project planning.

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Commutation hearing granted for Thomas Creech

The Idaho Commission of Pardons and Parole has granted a request from Thomas Creech for a commutation hearing, a move that delays his scheduled execution. His attorneys are asking that his sentence be changed to life in prison without parole.

Retired judge who sentenced Creech now says he shouldn’t be executed

Judge Robert Newhouse repeatedly sentenced Creech to death for the killing of a fellow inmate, even after appeals. But, in the petition for a clemency hearing, Newhouse has changed his stance on the case.

The judge said that no “purpose would be served by executing [him] now” after he “has spent more than forty years on death row with the threat of execution hanging over him,” according to the clemency petition.

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