A Boise High School student won a third place medal in the Intel Science Talent Search in Washington, D.C. on  March 16.  Nate Marshall, 17, was awarded the third place Medal of Distinction for Global Good in the 75-year-old contest talent search, the nation’s best-known science and math competition for students who have not yet entered college.

Marshall studied a marine sediment core sample and related it to present-day climate change, concluding that the earth can recover from current climate change trends if action is taken soon. Marshall grew up in Boise and attended Adams and Roosevelt elementary schools, the Treasure Valley Math and Science Center, and North Junior High. He was one of 40 finalists chosen for the prestigious competition from around the country. He won $35,000. Three students from Massachusetts, Maine, and California won first-place awards of $150,000 for their projects.

Beginning Wednesday, downtown Boise venues will host over 400 musicians and artists from around the Treasure Valley and the world. In its fifth year, Treefort Music Fest is a five-day festival that provides an opportunity to discover new musicians, art and the latest technology trends. Besides headliners like Boise-based Built to Spill, YACHT and Chairlift, this year, a handful of bands from Canyon County are on the music lineup, including singer-songwriter Ana Lete of Nampa.

Astronaut Tim Kopra, who holds the career absolutely everyone envies, greeted Boise from the International Space Station Tuesday.

Kopra used Twitter to share a photo of Boise — as seen from space, noting it as “a great place to live!” (Something residents already know, but come on, recognition from a NASA astronaut is noteworthy.)

Since his breakout role in Breaking Bad, Aaron Paul has never shied away from intense roles. For the most part his characters are positioned at a critical life precipice, a stage at which every next decision could be the one that completely unravels everything. Such is the case for his latest film, Eye In The Sky, in which he portrays a drone pilot ordered to carry out a deadly strike on an area in Kenya where young children are playing. Caught in a struggle between his conscious and his commanding officer, played by Helen Mirren, he does everything in his power to spare an innocent life. 

"I just love stories with conflict," Paul tells us from his suite in the Waldorf Astoria in New York. "I wasn't very familiar with drone warfare when I first started on this movie, but the more I learned, the more I was fascinated in these soldiers' ability to compartmentalize. Would I be able to pull the trigger? Absolutely not. But that's why I could never do what these guys do."

His other recent projects, Triple 9 and Hulu's new cult-based series The Path are just as affecting, leaving us to ask how Paul chooses to decompresses from these arduous shoots. His answer lies in his home state, Idaho, where he has a secluded cabin to get away from it all.

What’s in Idaho besides potatoes? Having promised my parents that I would visit their new home for both Thanksgiving and Christmas, I thought the month in between would be a good time to get to know the state a little better. In partnership with Visit Idaho, I road tripped through the entire state, and what I saw and experienced amazed me to the core. I knew after that month long adventure that I did need change in my life, and that change was leaving California, the state I loved and lived in for most of my life, and trading it in for the quiet and laid back life that Idaho is.

There are a million reasons why I made this change, but here are the top 11 reasons why I moved to Idaho.

As with every other day of this year’s Treefort Music Fest, dozens of bands showcased at nightclubs and other indoor venues scattered throughout downtown Boise, Idaho, on Sat. March 26, the fourth day of the five-day festival. But many festival-goers spent the day outdoors, having fun on a section of the city’s West Grove Street that had been closed to traffic so that Treefort attendees could party in the street.

Other than entry to the Main Stage which required the purchase of a wristband, this whole part of the festival was free for anyone to attend, and it included this year’s edition of what has become a Treefort tradition, Seth Olinsky’s “Band Dialogue.” Olinsky, of Akron/Family and Cy Dune fame, composed “Band Dialogue” to be performed by 20 Treefort bands, and at 4:30 PM the musicians, lining both sides of the street, launched into the piece under Olinsky’s direction. Dashing around from area to area, Olinsky waved his hands constantly giving direction to the myriad musicians who ended up pulling off the piece nicely. A non-vocal piece, “Band Dialogue” was a long, droning piece that had occasional exclamation points put on it by bursts of percussion or flourishes of guitar, keyboards and even saxophone.

Petula Clark was right. The lights are much brighter downtown, where you can also forget all your troubles and forget all your cares. The 1965 Grammy Award-winning song, “Downtown,” still resonates loudly today, for good reason.

Downtowns are cool again. America’s city centers may have lost some luster throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s, but they have come back with a vengeance.

“Boise is delightfully convenient for busy travelers. From our airport, where you can sample local food and drink, it’s just a 10-minute cab, Uber or shuttle ride to downtown. Once there, visitors might not need to use a car for the remainder of their trip. The Boise Centre, our meeting facility, is in the heart of downtown, just a few minutes’ walk from several Boise hotels, and is expanding with an additional 36,000 sq. ft. of meeting and event space by September 2016. And if visitors are planning ahead, they can anticipate more lodging options in the coming years. Boise is experiencing a hotel boom, with at least four new projects underway in the city’s core. From the doorsteps of the convention center, Boise offers dozens of new and revered restaurant options, brew pubs and cafes, as well as a growing wine scene. Need a break? Hop on a Boise Bike Share bicycle and cover even more ground in our compact, welcoming city.” - Carrie Westergard, executive director, Boise Convention & Visitors Bureau

March presents a difficult choice for outdoor recreationists in the Treasure Valley. Extract a few last memories from winter? Or dive into spring? One more day on skis? Or knock the rust off your golf game? Or maybe, you can have it both ways.

Since I was a teenager living in Bend, Ore., I’ve been familiar with the idea of combining skiing and golf in one day — but I’d never tried it until Sunday. That’s too bad, because I enjoyed the day, I never felt overwhelmed by it and the Treasure Valley likely is among the best, easiest places in the country to pull off the winter-summer double. We have easy access to Bogus Basin Mountain Recreation Area — the drive up Bogus Basin Road took less than 30 minutes with no snow or ice on the surface. Bogus is open at night — you could, conceivably, play golf in the afternoon and still get in plenty of ski runs in the evening. Our golf courses often are open most of the winter. And our days get long after Daylight Saving Time begins, which allowed me to flip my original plan. Instead of Tee & (Night) Ski, this became Ski & Tee.

Some top resort destinations like to market their golf-and-ski combinations. A quick Google search found references to the idea in Utah, Alberta, British Columbia, Pennsylvania, California, New Mexico and Colorado, for starters. But usually, that possibility is limited to a small overlap in the seasons — and might require enduring a frigid day on the course.

In the Treasure Valley, you can pick just about any pleasant winter day to give this a try.