Jessica Robinson

YAKIMA, Wash. - There's a Mexican Christmas tradition called a "pastorela." And it's getting a new twist in Yakima. A pastorela is a play about the shepherds' search for the baby Jesus. This weekend members of the community will perform a pastorela that draws on the real-life experiences of Latinos in the Northwest.

You start to get a feel for how the Yakima pastorela is a little different when the angel Gabriel appears to a group of shepherds to announce the birth of the baby Jesus.

"Say it in English," says the children's chorus.

Crews have rescued seven miners after a collapse at the Lucky Friday Mine in north Idaho. It’s the third major accident there this year. The Lucky Friday’s owner says the silver mine has been evacuated until further notice.

A rockburst occurred Wednesday evening nearly 6,000 feet underground near Mullan in Idaho’s Silver Valley. Local law enforcement and the mine’s rescue crew were called in. Twenty-five people were working in the vicinity at the time.

A cold air inversion concentrated east of the Cascades is keeping the air clogged with tiny particles. And public health officials in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho warn that people trying to warm up in front of wood fires could make the pollution worse.

Here's what's going on in the atmosphere: Usually, air temperature decreases as you get higher. But in an air inversion, the opposite happens. And the warmer air acts like a lid, keeping particles concentrated near the surface.

SPOKANE, Wash. - The death of a north Idaho miner occurred last April because of safety failures on the part of the mine's owner. That's the conclusion of a federal investigation released Friday. Larry Marek was working about a mile underground at the Lucky Friday Mine in Mullan , Idaho when 70 feet of rock above him collapsed.

Marek was working in a tunnel or "stope" that was at the base of intersecting silver veins. And about an hour after he arrived at work on the afternoon of April 15, the disconnected wedge of rock between the veins came down.

SPOKANE, Wash. - It took white supremacist Kevin Harpham a few months to collect bomb materials. But newly unsealed documents show he was mired in the Neo-Nazi movement for more than a decade.

Harpham is the man who pleaded guilty to planting a bomb at Spokane's Martin Luther King Day parade last January. A federal judge set a sentencing hearing for Dec. 20.

SPOKANE, Wash. - Attorneys for a Northwest white supremacist accused of planting a bomb along a parade route have won more time to look into federal hate crimes law. Accused would-be bomber Kevin Harpham had been scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday. But a federal judge in Spokane postponed the decision for another three weeks.

Thirty-seven-year-old Kevin Harpham is accused of planting a homemade bomb in a backpack in downtown Spokane last Martin Luther King Day.

The man who planted a pipe bomb along the route of Spokane's Martin Luther King Day parade faces sentencing before a federal judge Wednesday. Kevin Harpham could spend between 27 and 32 years in prison under a plea deal reached with prosecutors.

Thirty-seven-year-old Kevin Harpham pleaded guilty to attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and a federal hate crime charge. The FBI arrested him in March in what they deemed a case of domestic terrorism.

COEUR d’ALENE, Idaho - One of the traditional sounds of the season also represents a job opportunity for many unemployed workers. Last year, Salvation Army bell ringers collected $142 million in spare change in those little red pots. One bell ringer has found that every little bit helps.

“My name is Kari Turner, and I'm a bell ringer.”

Kari stands just inside the sliding doors at the K-Mart in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.

“When the doors open it gets a little breezy, but I bundle up pretty good.”

The Idaho man accused of trying to assassinate the president had a history of minor arrests in his home state and recently developed conspiracy theories about the end of the world. Those are some of the details that are beginning to emerge about Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez.

Ortega-Hernandez's arrest record includes petty theft, possession of drug paraphernalia and misdemeanor domestic violence. He also appeared in court in 2010 for a child support hearing.

The Associated Press reports Ortega-Hernandez has a 2-year-old son with his ex-fiance.

Some of the longest relationships are the life-long ties between siblings. But that connection can get complicated when one sibling suffers from a mental illness.

Many support programs don’t focus much on the sibling relationships. Northwest News Network reporter Jessica Robinson recorded the story of two brothers: one in Moscow, Idaho, the other in Anchorage, Alaska. One has schizophrenia. The other grew up in the shadow of it.

The American Civil Liberties Union says Idaho is violating a federal court's ruling on execution procedures. The state is set to execute convicted murderer Paul Ezra Rhoades by lethal injection on Friday morning.

The Idaho Department of Correction allows witnesses at executions, including members of the press. But only after the execution team has secured the inmate to the table and inserted two IV lines.

Voters in a small Idaho town have defeated what would have been the state's first ban on plastic grocery bags. The measure in Hailey, Idaho went down with only 42 percent in favor in Tuesday’s election.

It was a group of local teens that collected the signatures to get the bag ban on the ballot. Lex Shapiro is co-president of the high school environmental club. She says her group’s campaign was out-funded by the plastic bag manufacturer Hilex Poly, which owns a nearby plastic bag plant.

Idaho is releasing a new plan that seeks to combat the state's high rate of suicide. Idaho ranks sixth in the nation for suicide, according to the latest figures. Oregon's not far behind at number 12. It's part of a trend in the West, where the suicide rate is higher than the national average.

Alaska typically tops the list, followed by the Lower 48's intermountain states. Experts say, frankly, they're not sure why. But many have a hunch about the factors: isolation, depression-inducing climates, and lack of access to mental health services.

An Idaho commission is declining to commute the death sentence for convicted murderer Paul Ezra Rhoades. Rhoades received life in prison for one murder, and the death penalty for brutally killing two other women in 1987. He's scheduled to die by lethal injection on Nov. 18 outside of Boise.

Consumers are using their phones to do what their computers once did. And that's prompting a major technology company in the Northwest to shift its focus too.

The bread and butter of Micron Technology has been memory for PCs. But the CEO of the Boise chip maker told Bloomberg BusinessWeek the company will expand its base of products for mobile devices.