Washington AG sues Trump administration to release climate funding
Washington state Attorney General Nick Brown has filed his 35th lawsuit against the Trump administration.
He says more than $9 million in climate funds is being illegally withheld.
Two programs that support climate resilience have been targeted: In one case, the state’s community and technical colleges are missing nine point three million dollars for a new training program.
Maya Esquivido, interim director of Tribal Government Affairs with the colleges, told KNKX public radio the program's current curriculum is outdated.
"We have a system that's not prepared, that isn't teaching our students climate adaptation or ways that we need to move forward in the face of climate change," she said. "A lot of our curriculum also is not incorporating the need for co-management and working intentionally with our tribal communities."
Also unfunded is a state Department of Ecology project for coastal resilience. The state says work to address coastal hazards from flooding and erosion has come to a halt.
The Trump administration terminated both programs, saying they were "inconsistent with the president’s new priorities" and that the administration has the authority to reassess the grants.
The complaint says doing so was unconstitutional—and seeks to get the money reinstated.
"To arbitrarily cancel that because the Trump administration is wedded to fossil fuels, is not only wrong and bad policy, but it's illegal under the provisions of the grants that we received," Brown said.
The state attorney general says he has won back millions of dollars in federal funds with this kind of legal argument. But, billions more are still tied up in the courts.
Idaho lawmakers talk physician retention with new task force
A new legislative task force is working to solve one of Idaho’s longstanding problems – having the lowest number of physicians per capita of any state in the country.
Lawmakers created the Medical Education Plan Working Group earlier this year as they debated severing the state’s relationship with the University of Washington’s medical education program, WWAMI.
During its first meeting Monday, medical education leaders from around the state and the region have said they want to increase the number of student seats available to Idaho residents.
But they’ve repeatedly pointed to a bottleneck: there aren’t enough clinics or doctors willing to host medical students for rotations, especially with multiple schools in the area trying to recruit them.
“It’s a very crowded, competitive learning environment,” said Dr. Rex Force, the health sciences dean at Idaho State University.
Simply accepting more students without increasing the availability of these practical instructors, leaders said, is not possible.
Paying these clinics to become preceptors, or instructors, is one option, though those additional costs could increase the price of tuition.
Force said ISU does not pay its preceptors, but gives them benefits, like access to the university’s medical library, gym facilities and parking passes.
Idaho lawmakers recently tried to boost physician retention rates by requiring any student using a state-subsidized seat to practice here for four years after completing their residency. Otherwise, the student would have to pay back the state’s share of tuition.
Dr. Mary Barinaga, a dean for the WWAMI program at University of Idaho, said she got pushback from students about that law when it first took effect in the fall of 2023.
“Many of them were mad and said, ‘I was planning on coming back to Idaho anyway, but now, you know, this is making me feel like you’re forcing things,’” Barinaga said.
She said she had to accept every alternate student candidate for the first incoming class affected by the change.
Students mentioning the payback requirement has decreased each year, according to Barinaga.
Data on how it could affect retention won’t be available until 2030 when the first class of students will have finished their residency programs.
Dr. Ted Epperly, who coordinates graduate medical education in Idaho, said lawmakers could tweak the policy to become more of an incentive than a penalty, given that most other states don’t have similar requirements.
Epperly suggested covering more, or all of a student’s tuition bill with the same requirement to practice here following a residency.
“I think we’ll see a lot more interest and it’s a choice they then make on the front end not a force on the back end,” he said.
The task force will continue to meet over the coming months and issue its recommendations to the legislature before it reconvenes in January.
Spokane Co. looks ahead to next installment of opioid settlement funds
The next round of opioid settlement dollars from two different sources is set to come to Spokane this month.
An installment of the $11.4 million that opioid distributors owe Spokane County will come by the end of August. Those payments will continue for the next fifteen years.
Certain pharmacies are also projected to pay nearly $10 million to Spokane County. The next installment will arrive this month, and those payments will keep coming until 2036.
All in all, Spokane County is expected to receive close to $30 million in opioid settlement dollars by the end of 2040.
County grants administrator Heather Arnold explained how some of that has been spent so far at Tuesday's Board of County Commissioners meeting.
"So, we have obligated either through one-time or annual/ongoing, about $27.4 million," she said.
Last year most settlement funds went to one-time payments, Arnold said. Those dollars funded expansions to the Regional Crisis Stabilization Center and Spokane Treatment and Recovery Services.
This year, the county is committing most of its funds to annual payments that keep those walk-in treatments and sobering beds operating.
There’s still roughly $2 million of the total payout that the county hasn’t decided how to spend yet.
Pride celebration comes back to Spokane's Garland District
June might be over, but LGBTQ Pride celebrations in Spokane are not.
"Part of the expanding mission of Spokane Pride is also to just kind of do Pride events and lift up our community year-round," Matthew Danielson, executive director of Spokane Pride, said.
Danielson is leading the charge to bring together business owners and community leaders for the Garland District’s second-ever Pride celebration this weekend.
"We're a much stronger community, and we're a much happier and healthier community if we are more connected to each other," he told SPR News.
In previous years, some business owners and landlords had voiced hesitations or discomfort with displaying rainbow flags on Garland Avenue in June.
Danielson said his planning process this year involved getting buy-in from members of the neighborhood business district.
"We just really wanna make sure everybody has a chance to be a part of this," he said. "This isn't Spokane Pride coming into the Garland District and 'Pride-ing' it. It's a collaboration."
Danielson says he sees the new Pride festival as a successor to the discontinued Garland Street Fair.
"Part of the concept with this is also kind of revitalizing that event and bringing some of that energy back," he said, "because that was a big old street fair, Wizard of Oz-themed, so we're already halfway to Pride."
Garland Pride runs from 4 to 9 p.m. on Saturday. There will be a vendor fair and live entertainment between Monroe and Howard.
Plus, the Garland Theater will show classic queer movies, including the Wizard of Oz and a midnight screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
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Reporting by Bellamy Pailthorp, James Dawson, Eliza Billingham and Owen Henderson.