An Idaho man remains hospitalized after being bitten by a rattlesnake in the outdoor garden department of a Lewiston Walmart.

The Lewiston Tribune reports that Mica Craig reached down to grab what he thought was a stick to toss it out of the aisle, but the stick turned out to be a brown rattlesnake, which immediately latched onto his hand.

"I did a tap dance on it and got it killed," Craig told the Tribune.

Craig said an alert couple rushed him to an urgent care clinic, where a physician told him to get to a hospital.

He was treated and released from St. Joseph Regional Medical Center in the belief that the snake had not injected any venom into Craig, but by the time he reached his home, Craig said his arm was "the size of a cantaloup." He was rushed back the hospital, where he said he "was treated with six bags of anti-venom."

Meanwhile, Walmart officials said a pest control company was clearing the garden area. Craig said that Walmart officials had found other snakes, but a Walmart manager would not confirm or deny for the Tribune if the incident had even happened.

A north Idaho judge has tossed a lawsuit challenging a controversial land swap involving an historic Boy Scout campsite.

1st District Judge John Luster rejected arguments from opponents, who challenged the swap of Camp Easton on Lake Coeur d'Alene's Gotham Bay for property on Sunup Bay. An Arizona developer indicated that it intended to turn the scout camp into high-end lakefront properties.

Longtime scouting families and neighbors of the Easton camp filed suit to stop the trade, saying the land was donated for the sole purpose of scouting. But Luster dismissed the challenge, allowing the Boy Scouts to further pursue the deal.

The mayor of Hailey, facing reports of vandalism and bullying at his town's local skate park, decided to shut down temporarily the $500,000 facility. Calling incidents of trash being dumped into the skate park an "egregious transgression," Fritz Haemmerle closed the park April 13-14 and ordered a communitywide cleanup of the site for this Saturday.

But this morning's Idaho Mountain Express reports that the executive director of the Skate Park Association USA was troubled by Haemmerle's decision.

"This is never a good idea ... to encourage youth to take on a job that clearly belongs to police or park rangers," said Heidi Lemmon of the Venice, Calif.-based organization. "I can cite several instances where the troublemakers attacked the youth who were left to the chore and ended up hospitalized."

Lemmon told the Mountain Express that closing a skate park because of bad behavior of nonskaters can be viewed as "blaming the victim," or discrimination against skaters in general. Instead, Lemmon said Hailey officials were better advised to beef up patrols or install emergency call boxes.

A higher number of Olivias and Williams will no doubt be registered for Idaho kindergartens in a few years. According to the Idaho Bureau of Vital Records and Health Statistics, Olivia and William were the most-popular names for Idaho babies born in 2010.

The Spokesman Review's Besty Russell reports that other popular boy names included Samuel, Logan, Ethan, Jacob, Aiden, Mason, Noah, Alexander and James. Other top names for girls were Emma, Sophia, Ava, Abigal, Elizabeth, Emily, Isabella and Ella.

Some of the more unusual names were Genghis, King Tiberius, Oo, Character, Dagger, Laugh and Espn (presumably named after the cable sports network).

The Idaho Attorney General's Office has recovered more than $2.5 million to settle allegations that taxpayers ended up paying excessive prices for drugs prescribed to low-income Medicaid patients.

By law, Medicaid reimburses payments at the so-called "estimated acquisition costs" for drugs at what is considered an average wholesale price. But AG Lawrence Wasden said that in some cases, the prices were anything but average. As an example, GlaxoSmithKline's pharmaceutical product Wellbutrin had a published average wholesale price of $2.01 in 2003, 27 percent higher than the actual price.

SmithKline Beecham Corporation, doing business as GlaxoSmithKline, has agreed to pay $2.6 million in the settlement following Wasden's investigation. Since 2005, the AG has resolved 14 average wholesale price matters with drug manufacturers, resulting in the recovery of more than $20 million.

Three more average wholesale price cases, naming eight other drug manufacturers, are still pending.

A controversial land swap involving an historic campsite and the Boy Scouts will be considered in an Idaho courtroom this week.

In February, Citydesk first told you about a dramatic donor backlash following the swap of Camp Easton on Lake Coeur d'Alene's Gotham Bay for property on Sunup Bay. An Arizona developer indicated that it intended to turn the scout camp into high-end lakefront properties.

Longtime scouting families and neighbors of the Easton camp filed suit to stop the trade, saying the land was donated for the sole purpose of scouting. The north Idaho Boy Scout council even lost some of its biggest contributors over the controversy. In fact, one of the contributors, Old Mission District, said they decided to send more than $10,000 previously earmarked for the scouts to interests committed to halting the land swap.

This morning's Coeur d'Alene Press reports that 1st District Judge John Luster will hold a hearing Tuesday on a requested injunction to prevent the property from being used for anything besides a camp for boys.

Idaho's Nez Perce Tribe is set to collect as much as $34 million as part of a federal agreement to settle a series of lawsuits brought by American Indian tribes over mismanagement of tribal lands and funds. Some 41 tribes from across the country are expected to be paid more than $1 billion. Other regional tribes involved in the settlement include the Coeur d'Alene, Colville and Spokane tribes. The Coeur d'Alene Tribe will receive $18 million as part of the settlement.

The tribes claimed that they had lost hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties for oil, gas, grazing and timber rights on tribal lands due to mismanaged accounts. The settlement was announced jointly by the U.S. Justice Department and the Interior Department, which manages more than 100,000 tribal leases and approximately 2,500 trust accounts set aside for the tribes.

Negotiations are continuing in dozens of other cases involving tribes that are not part of the settlement.

The executive board of the Idaho AFL-CIO has scheduled a meeting for Tuesday, April 10, when it will have the somber duty of choosing a successor to Dave Whaley, the labor organization's president.

Whaley died Wednesday after battling pancreatic cancer.

A Lewiston native who worked at the Potlatch sawmill, Whaley succeeded former AFL-CIO President Randy Ambuehl in 1996 after Ambuehl's sudden departure. Whaley was formally elected president in June 1999.

Whaley was praised on both sides of the political aisle for working with business owners and state officials in re-crafting Idaho's unemployment insurance rates. He was appointed by the U.S. secretary of agriculture to the nation's Resource Advisory Committee and served, up until his death, as chairman of the United Vision of Idaho board of directors.

Whaley retired from the Idaho AFL-CIO post just a few weeks ago, citing his failing health.

Idaho's AFL-CIO currently includes approximately 11,000 active members.

A Central Idaho gold miner has been warned to stay away from the banks of the Salmon River near White Bird.

The Lewiston Tribune reports this morning that the Idaho Department of Lands has yet to issue a violation or fine, but has officially informed Mike Conklin of Grangeville that his operation is too close to the high-water line of the Salmon. In the spring, the DOL said such operations should been 30 feet away from the high-water line.

According to the Tribune, the Salmon River between Riggins and White Bird is a popular place for miners "who use small-scale suction dredges ... that suck sand, gravel and sometimes flakes of gold from the river bed."

Conklin operates his mine on the west bank of the river.

A fire inside the Sunshine Mine near Kellogg in north Idaho, which burned for several weeks, remains a mystery.

The Coeur d'Alene Press reports this morning that officials with Sunshine Silver Mines Corp. said they thought "the fire inside the mine is likely out and carbon monoxide levels have come way down."

The mine was evacuated on Feb. 14 following reports of elevated levels of carbon monoxide. The company had been working on refurbishing the mine since it purchased the property in 2010. Following the evacuation, the company reduced its workforce because of the high gas levels and fire. The company cut off all intakes feeding oxygen into the mine and injected nitrogen to extinguish the fire.

"We can't go down there and look without risking re-ignition," said Monica Brisnehan, a company spokeswoman.

The mine was the scene of one of Idaho's worst tragedies, when 91 men were killed in the so-called Sunshine Mine Fire of 1972.