Today's headlines:
- After a wet but not snowy winter, will Washington growers have enough water for the summer?
- State lawyers prepare to challenge a block of WA's new sheriff requirements.
- Today opens candidate filing week in WA, including for open seats in Congress and the state House.
- WSDOT incentivizes switch to zero-emission vehicles and equipment with vouchers.
- Fiftieth Bloomsday sees first U.S. winners in elite men's women's races in decades.
And we visit the Nez Perce Tribe’s health service, where a pilot program for diabetes management is working to combat social and historic health risk factors.
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SPR News Today is a production of Spokane Public Radio.
Reporting contributed by Eliza Billingham, Sarah Mizes-Tan, Owen Henderson, Steve Jackson, Monica Carrillo-Casas and Rachel Sun.
The show is hosted and produced by Owen Henderson.
TRANSCRIPT
[THEME MUSIC]
OWEN HENDERSON: From Spokane Public Radio, it’s SPR News Today.
I’m Owen Henderson. It’s Monday, May 4, 2026.
On today’s show, Washington got a lot of rain this winter, not snow. That means while snowpack is historically low, an important reservoir is hitting its peak capacity for the first time in years. So what does that mean for farmers this summer?
Plus, today is the first day candidates can file to run for office in Washington. We’ll walk through some of the hopefuls already raising money for state and federal positions.
And Rachel Sun takes us to the Nez Perce Tribe’s health service, where a pilot program for diabetes management is working to combat social and historic health risk factors.
Those stories and more, coming up on SPR News Today.
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Washington’s snowpack is at a historic low, but the Yakima River Basin reservoir is reaching maximum capacity for the first time in years.
As SPR’s Eliza Billingham reports, experts disagree on whether that will be enough to stave off drought for Washington growers.
ELIZA BILLINGHAM: This winter, Washington got a lot of rain, but not a lot of snow.
Record low snowpacks have been making headlines, but one meteorologist at the University of Washington thinks concerns have been overblown.
Meteorologist Cliff Mass presented to lawmakers last week during the Joint Legislative Committee on Water Supply During Drought.
MASS: “People who managed the reservoirs this year did a brilliant job. When the water was there, they filled those reservoirs up. And they put us in an extraordinarily positive situation right now… agriculture is going to be fine because they filled those reservoirs in a very timely way.”
EB: Other scientists at the university and Department of Ecology agree that the reservoir is helpful, but they don’t agree that it can put Washington growers at ease.
GENUISE: “The reservoirs, even though they're near full in Washington, that only accounts for about a third of the total demand.
EB: That’s Jacob Genuise with U-W’s Washington State Climate Office.
Thanks to low snow, his team expects a third of this year’s water demands to go unmet.
I’m Eliza Billingham, reporting.
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OH: Lawyers for the state of Washington are preparing to challenge a court order pausing new rules for elected sheriffs.
State Government reporter Sarah Mizes-Tan has more.
SARAH MIZES-TAN: A judge from Thurston County filed an injunction against the law just hours before it was set to take effect.
Supporters say the new rules would hold elected sheriffs to the same standards as police chiefs.
But others like Sheriff John Nowels of Spokane County say they believe that law is unfair.
JOHN NOWELS: If this law was allowed to go into effect, it would also trespass on our constitutional right to run for office and to have unfair qualifications put on sheriffs that are put on no one else.
SMT: The law would require candidates for sheriff to be certified by a commission before running for office.
They would also be subjected to a background check and have at least 5 years of experience as a law enforcement officer.
In Olympia, I’m Sarah Mizes-Tan.
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OH: Washingtonians looking to run for office this year can officially file to do so at 8 o’clock this morning, including for an open U.S. House seat.
Central Washington Republican Representative Dan Newhouse won’t be seeking reelection.
His 2024 opponent, Navy veteran and fellow Republican Jerrod Sessler, has already raised more than $400,000, according to the Federal Election Commission.
Republican and Yakima County Commissioner Amanda McKinney has raised even more so far, though, with more than $520,000 in the bank.
State Senator Matt Boehnke and John Hughs of Lind are also running as Republicans.
John Duresky is so far the lone Democrat registered with the FEC and has raised about $64,000.
Several Spokane area state House seats are also up for grabs this year, with Democrat Timm Ormsby and Republicans Mike Volz, Suzanne Schmidt and Jenny Graham stepping aside.
In Spokane Valley, three Republicans have registered with the state Public Disclosure Commission as running for Schmidt’s vacant seat: Hillary Pham, George Wagner and Shawna Nowels.
Pham is an Air Force veteran and former legislative assistant in the state House. Wagner is a Navy veteran.
And Nowels teaches in the Mead School District and is the wife of Spokane County Sheriff John Nowels.
Two Democrats have started raising money for Ormsby’s open seat in the city of Spokane: Luc Jasmin III and Pam Kohlmeier.
Jasmin co-owns a nonprofit consulting firm and co-founded several early learning organizations. Kohlmeier was an emergency room physician.
A note that Jasmin’s consulting firm provides payroll services to SPR, but we cover him like any other candidate.
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As skyrocketing diesel prices push up costs for many businesses, Washington is incentivizing a switch to zero-emission vehicles and equipment.
The state Transportation Department is now offering vouchers to drastically reduce the purchase price of electric on- and off-road vehicles, agricultural and construction machinery, commercial boats, and charging infrastructure.
Janet Matkin is WASH-DOT’s communications manager.
JANET MATKIN: “These incentives would offset about 40% of the costs of any given piece of equipment. Small businesses, nonprofits, local governments have even higher incentives for them. Another 15% above and beyond the regular level of incentives.”
OH: She says dealers of such equipment have been briefed on the program, and can handle the details of the vouchers.
The incentives are funded by the state’s Climate Commitment Act as part of Washington’s attempts to bring its net carbon emissions to zero by 2050.
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This Sunday’s Bloomsday saw the first U.S. runners win the elite men’s and women’s categories in decades.
In the men’s division, Reid Buchanan from Missouri took first place with a time of 34-and-a-half minutes.
He’s the first U.S. man to win the 12-kilometer race in 40 years.
Kasandra Parker, originally from Iowa, finished in about 39 minutes.
She’s the first American woman to win since 1997.
KASANDRA PARKER: “It's part of the marathon movement for U.S. Women. So I feel like I'm a part of that, which feels pretty good.”
OH: Last year, Parker took 8th place.
Hannah Babaloa took first for a second year in a row in the women’s wheelchair division. Valera Jacob Allen won the men’s wheelchair group.
Organizers estimate about 41,000 people were part of Bloomsday’s 50th anniversary.
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If you’re a person of Native American descent, you’re almost three times more likely to have type 2 diabetes than a white adult, according to the CDC.
But many regional tribes now offer diabetes management programs to help their patients fight those odds.
Northwest Public Broadcasting’s Rachel Sun reports from Nimiipuu Health in Lapwai, Idaho.
RACHEL SUN: For years, McCoy Oatman kept a pair of pants in his closet that he never wore.
McCOY OATMAN: “I could barely squeeze my leg into 'em, you know? And I thought, ‘Oh, I'll just keep these. Maybe one day I'll lose weight.’”
RS: Oatman had yo-yo dieted for years, he says. He developed prediabetes, and at his heaviest, his size started to make daily life difficult.
MO: “I have three daughters, so being active there in dance and karate, and being able to be part of that with them—even like, tying their shoes. You know, I remember I was at my biggest, just trying to tie my shoes, and getting outta breath.”
RS: Last year, Oatman became one of the first participants in a diabetes management pilot program at the Nez Perce Tribe’s Nimiipuu Health clinic.
The program offered comprehensive support: cooking classes, medication management and group fitness—plus access to behavioral health support and wellness education.
Months later when the town hosted a 5K, Oatman was there—about 80 pounds lighter.
MO: “Me and my oldest daughter ran in that 5K.”
RS: Julie Keller is a dietitian at the clinic. She says learning how to take better care of your body can be hard.
She recalled one cooking class in the first pilot where patients were supposed to cook quinoa.
JULIE KELLER: “ Our quinoa story is probably the funniest … They had quinoa that we were cooking in it because I knew it had been distributed. And I had five different people come to my office and tell me that they'd put it out in a bowl for squirrels because they had no idea what to do with it.”
RS: Keller says education is a big part of the diabetes management program. Their first 16-week pilot showed major early improvements for patients.
That included 17 out of the 19 patients losing weight, and about half seeing a reduction in their hemoglobin A1c levels—that is, the measure of blood sugar over time used to diagnose diabetes.
Native American people face a much higher rate of type 2 diabetes than the general population.
One reason is that historically, reservation allotments and federal policies often limited access to traditional whole foods in favor of processed rations like flour, lard and sugar.
MO: “I dunno if you've ever had fry bread, and you know, people say that’s traditional food, but it's not. It's just from you what was given to us and we made what we could.”
RS: Marissa Verduci is Nimiipuu Health’s diabetes program coordinator. She says food insecurity also makes diabetes management harder.
Many tribal communities are in food deserts.
So the food you can buy [sound of grocery item scanning] costs more.
MARISSA VERDUCI: “I think that our closest grocery store is 16 miles away, other than Valley Foods. So, that does make it harder to make those healthier choices.”
RS: Shannon Turner, another patient who went through the pilot program, says she’s off her diabetes medication because she doesn’t need it anymore.
She says the mental health support and culturally informed guidance was especially helpful.
SHANNON TURNER: “Culturally, our community -- we eat. Events are surrounded by food. When you go to powwow, you feed everybody. Like, that’s what we’re supposed to do … I think what the program has really focused, and helped, is that we can still do those things, but we can do them in a healthier way.”
RS: Nimiipuu Health isn’t the only tribal clinic to find success.
At the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation’s Yellowhawk clinic, patient data showed those enrolled between 2019 and 2023 achieved improvements in Hemoglobin A1c values over time.
A 2020 report to Congress on the Special Diabetes Program for Indians, which funds both of those clinics’ programs, showed that average blood sugar levels at Native American health programs decreased by an average of 10% over roughly two decades.
Reporting in Lapwai, Idaho, I’m Rachel Sun.
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OH: SPR News Today is a production of Spokane Public Radio.
Reporting today was contributed by Eliza Billingham, Sarah Mizes-Tan, Steve Jackson, Monica Carrillo-Casas, Rachel Sun and me, Owen Henderson.
I’m also your host and producer.
Thanks for listening.
It’s SPR.
