This morning the Mountain Home Junior High received a phone call threat to evacuate the building. In coordination with the Mountain Home Police Department the school went into Shelter in Place. The same threat went out to other school districts in the Treasure Valley indicating it was another "Hoax" which has been confirmed by the MHPD. At this time the Junior High has lifted the Shelter in Place and is back to normal. MHPD will maintain a police presence at the Junior High School for the remainder of the day.

WASHINGTON — Today, January 11, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced that its new guaranteed-acceptance life insurance program, VALife, has issued more than $950 million in coverage to 31,400 Veterans in its first year.

When VALife first launched in January 2023, it became the first new VA life insurance program for Veterans in more than 50 years and extended life insurance access to millions of Veterans. VALife provides up to $40,000 of whole life insurance to our nation’s Veterans. For all Veterans age 80 or under with service-connected disabilities from 0-100%, acceptance in the program is guaranteed and no medical underwriting is required. Veterans can apply online through VA.gov and receive an instant decision. This program also allows self-service functions like electronic payments and beneficiary updates.

For the full story, pick up a copy of the Mountain Home News or click on this link to subscribe to the newspaper’s online edition.

As winter weather hits our region this week, Idaho Power offers the following important reminders to help customers stay safe and prepared for outages.

Visit My Account to ensure your contact information is up-to-date and sign up to receive outage alerts for your home or business.

Download the Idaho Power mobile app to sign up for outage-related push notifications, view the outage map, and track your power status.

Prepare for medical needs, such as refrigerated medicine or electrically powered medical equipment. This could mean finding a place you can go during an outage or buying a backup generator.

For the full story, pick up a copy of the Mountain Home News or click on this link to subscribe to the newspaper’s online edition.

1.11.24 - BOISE - The Idaho Transportation Department wants to remind drivers to stay vigilant while driving in snowy conditions and to keep their eyes on the road in case there is a crash or hazard affecting traffic patterns.

On Wednesday Jan. 10, one of ITD's snowplows was clearing shoulders on I-84 near Blacks Creek Rest Area south of Boise. A crash ahead was forcing traffic to merge.

For the full story, pick up a copy of the Mountain Home News or click on this link to subscribe to the newspaper’s online edition.

Photo Credit Shawn Martinez

For Idaho Power staff, winter weather always presents different, frequently extremely cold, problems. Over the past days, they have been very active, cleaning up and fixing numerous poles that were brought down Monday, Jan 8th, by strong wind gusts in the South 18th area as well as patrolling for heavy snow on all of the lines.

For the full story, pick up a copy of the Mountain Home News or click on this link to subscribe to the newspaper’s online edition.

Idaho State Police is investigating a two-vehicle crash that occurred Saturday, January 6, 2024 at 6:24 p.m. westbound Interstate 84 at milepost 77, west of Mountain Home.