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BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Idaho's unemployment rate has dropped below 5 percent for the first time in nearly six years. The Idaho Department of Labor in a statement yesterday says the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate dropped to 4.9 percent in May. Total employment in the state is more than 741,000, setting a record for the ninth consecutive month. The state's labor force participation rate is 63.8 percent of all residents over age 15. The number of jobless workers in the state dropped below 38,000 for the first time since July 2008.
BUTTE, Mont. (AP) — The suspect in an Idaho bank robbery has been arrested in southwestern Montana. Anaconda police arrested 60-year-old Ronald Allen Schumaker on Thursday on a warrant issued after a U.S. Bank branch in Pocatello, Idaho was robbed. Employees at the Pocatello bank told police an intoxicated man entered the bank Tuesday afternoon, demanded money and left with an undisclosed amount of cash.
RENO, Nev. (AP) — The Obama administration is launching an effort to accelerate protection of sage grouse along the California-Nevada line with $31 million in spending commitments through 2024 to help ranchers and others improve grouse habitat. Jason Weller, chief of the USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service, says that while the multiagency effort targets California and Nevada, it ultimately will benefit the overall habitat of the greater sage grouse in 11 western states.
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — An Idaho Republican Party advisory committee meeting turned combative Thursday while members discussed who held the chairmanship. Factions inside the Idaho Republican Party have spent the past week fiercely debating who holds the seat ever since the chaotic GOP convention last week ended with no new chair elected. After nearly two hours of yelling and talking over one another, the committee concluded that Chairman Barry Peterson's term was extended for another two years.
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