Today's headlines:
- STA double decker bus collides with an overpass Sunday, sending four to the hospital.
- Washington legislators consider allowing more college sports betting, but coaches say their players are already being harassed.
- The future of Washington's carbon auctions is up in the air.
- This is the first time in more than a decade that visiting a national park on Martin Luther King, Jr., Day won’t be free.
- Disabled Idahoans can now save for disability-related without worrying they'll lose eligibility for public assistance.
As Idaho legislators look to dig the state out of a projected deficit, education issues take center stage in the debate on where lawmakers might cut spending. We break down the big topics with Idaho Ed News analyst Kevin Richert.
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SPR News Today is a production of Spokane Public Radio.
Reporting contributed by Owen Henderson, Eliza Billingham, John Ryan and Rachel Cohen.
The show is hosted and produced by Owen Henderson.
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TRANSCRIPT
[THEME MUSIC]
From Spokane Public Radio, it’s SPR News Today.
I’m Owen Henderson. It’s January 19, 2026. Happy Martin Luther King, Jr., Day.
On today’s show, Washington legislators are looking at allowing more betting on college sports, but coaches say their players are already being harassed by people with money riding on the games.
Plus, this is the first time in more than a decade that visiting a national park on Martin Luther King, Jr., Day won’t be free.
And as Idaho legislators look to dig the state out of a projected deficit, education issues take center stage in the debate on where lawmakers might cut spending. We’ll break down the big topics with Idaho Ed News analyst Kevin Richert.
Those stories and more, coming up on SPR News Today.
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Multiple Spokane Transit Authority passengers were injured yesterday [SUN] when a double decker bus apparently took the wrong street and hit an overpass too short for the vehicle.
In a social media post, STA said four passengers were taken to the hospital after the bus crashed into the Cedar Street viaduct in downtown Spokane.
According to STA’s map, the Route 6 bus should go under the viaduct on Jefferson and Lincoln Streets, where the overpass is tall enough for the double decker bus’s 13-and-a-half-foot clearance.
In a statement to the Spokesman-Review, STA chief executive Karl Otterstrom said the agency has already begun an investigation and plans to implement additional safety measures to prevent another such incident.
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Washington might allow more bets on college sports.
A proposed bill would permit betting on in-state college games at tribal gambling sites—but prohibit bets on individual college athletes.
SPR’s Eliza Billingham has more.
ELIZA BILLINGHAM: Bill sponsor and Tacoma Democrat Sharlett Mena says the bill would bring college betting out of the shadows into safer, more regulated spaces.
Emerald Casino general manager Yale Rowe testified that the removal of “proposition” bets on specific performances would protect players and the integrity of their games.
YALE ROWE: “This form of prop bets on individual athletes has created a lot of controversy lately, particularly for collegiate athletes who may be more susceptible to nefarious actors seeking to bribe or harass players.”
EB: Washington State University’s deputy athletics director Brad Corbin says the messages sent to one of his athletes…
BRAD CORBIN: “…were extremely derogatory, basically implied that he should harm himself, used a number of slurs and insults, and they were directly tied to his performance.” (:09)
EB: But he does not support the bill. He says expanding gambling in college athletics, even if it doesn’t include specific players, is not the answer.
BC: “Their performance is implied to have affected the outcome of the game. So if you wager on the outcome, they're still going to receive that harassment, unfortunately.”
EB: The bill is still in committee.
I’m Eliza Billingham, reporting.
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OH: Washington Governor Bob Ferguson wants to slash spending on climate change as the state faces severe budget pressures.
KUOW’s John Ryan reports.
JOHN RYAN: The Swinomish Tribe has been installing solar panels on tribal homes and offices, thanks to funding from the state’s biggest polluters.
Big businesses have been paying for their carbon emissions through state-run auctions of pollution permits.
Swinomish Tribal chairman Steve Edwards says that state funding has helped the tribe start to turn away from fossil fuels.
STEVE EDWARDS: “Without those funds, we wouldn't be close to where we are today.”
JR: Governor Ferguson wants to redirect much of the funding from carbon auctions, so the state can keep providing sales-tax refunds for working families.
The state’s carbon auctions make big money, more than a billion dollars a year so far.
Proceeds have gone mostly to fight climate change or help communities hard hit by pollution.
Legislators are just starting to debate how the state should address its various budget woes.
I'm John Ryan, reporting.
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OH: National park goers will not get free admission on this MLK Day.
From our partner the Mountain West News Bureau, Rachel Cohen reports.
RACHEL COHEN: When the National Park Service announced eight free-entrance days for 2026, both Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth were left off the list.
They were replaced by other days, including Flag Day, June 14th, which coincides with President Trump’s birthday.
The shift was rebuked by the national president of the NAACP, who called it an “attack on the truth of this nation’s history.”
Omar Montgomery leads the Rocky Mountain chapter, and he agrees.
OMAR MONTGOMERY: "This is another way that the federal administration is undermining and trying to erase the contributions of Black people in the United States."
RC: The National Park Service started free entry days in 2009 and Martin Luther King Jr. Day was on the list in 2011.
Even with no waived entry this year, several park service sites and nonprofits are continuing to hold days of service to honor the civil rights leader’s legacy.
For the Mountain West News Bureau, I’m Rachel Cohen.
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OH: Idahoans with disabilities are now able to save for disability-related expenses without losing public assistance eligibility.
The State Treasurer’s Office announced late last week it was launching a new site for “Achieving a Better Life Experience,” or ABLE, accounts.
Previously, Idaho was one of three states without such accounts, and disabled Idahoans with more than two thousand dollars in their bank accounts risked losing access to Social Security Income.
Information on eligibility, contribution limits, investment options and enrollment is at idahoable.com.
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Idaho’s legislative session only began a week ago with an address from Governor Brad Little, but lawmakers have already dived headlong into some issues that divide the governing Republican party.
The state is projected to end the next fiscal year in debt—and depending on which federal changes Idaho adopts, that number could be $40 million or $475 million.
Many of the issues taking center stage as lawmakers debate where and how to cut spending have to do with education.
So now, we’re joined by Idaho Ed News senior reporter Kevin Richert to break down a few of the challenges legislators face this session. Kevin, glad to have you.
KEVIN RICHERT: Oh, thanks for having me on.
OH: Most of the high profile issues this session have to do with that projected deficit I mentioned. One of the things Governor Little has said he'd like to cut is some spending for virtual schools. Do you mind explaining what effect that might have and whether it would affect funds for in-person K-12 schools?
KR: Virtual schools are going to be a big fight this legislative session. You have a proliferation of districts and charters that have gone with the virtual option to increase enrollment.
There was a very scathing report that came out in December looking at the way virtual schools spend money, specifically how they kind of siphon money away from state funding that is earmarked for teacher pay, teacher benefits.
They move a good chunk of that money into what are called supplemental learning funds. They're basically payments to parents to allow them to pay for stuff that they need for home education, if they need a better computer, if they need to improve their internet access, so on and so forth.
But the report that came out in December said some of the money is going towards parents enrolling their kids in private school or private school classes. Some of the money is going into items that really have nothing to do directly with education, waterpark passes, paddle boards.
Governor Little wants to cut these supplemental learning funds, and that's about a $20-million cut.
But I think this is going to be a big fight because the virtual school community is very mobilized. They're very engaged. They're very passionate about this option, and they're also very passionate about these payments.
OH: So an issue that has come up often when I speak with school administrators from Idaho and other education reporters is the way special education is funded in Idaho. What are the challenges that educators are currently facing? What are the obstacles to solving that?
KR: Basically, it's about a $100-million gap between what the feds and the state provide local schools for special education, meaning that local districts and charters have to come up with the balance.
In many cases, they have to go to and say, we need you to support a levy that will go in part, at least, into special education.
So State Superintendent Debbie Critchfield, what she is now proposing, and it is part of the governor's budget, is about a $5-million funding shift. And this would create a program that really would serve high needs special education students.
Here we're talking about a student that maybe needs a full-time American Sign Language interpreter or a full-time aid in the classroom, really expensive services that can really become a huge problem for a small district that's operating on a shoestring.
The legislature turned down a very similar proposal that was actually a little bit smaller even last year.
So while this is a very small budget item in the big picture of a $5-billion plus state budget, I expect it's going to be a pretty big debate.
OH: Shifting gears a little bit, Idaho is famous—or infamous—for its lack of physicians and lawmakers have already formed a working group to try to address the issue.
And the state is still part of a decades-old partnership with Washington and a number of other states to train physicians. But the committee has also been exploring other options. Tell me where things stand on that front.
KR: So right now, the state subsidizes 40 medical school seats for Idaho students to go through the WWAMI program.
There had been talk last legislative session about getting rid of the WWAMI partnership entirely. The law that did pass last year gives the legislature the option of reducing that.
The working group wants to hold the line on what we now have with WWAMI. And there are some folks on that working group who would like to see that increase, actually.
Governor Little, he recommended no increase or decrease in WWAMI seats, no increase in seats at the University of Utah, another partner that Idaho has, no new medical school seats aligned with the Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine, which is a for-profit medical school in the Treasure Valley, a budget committee member who's also co-chair of this working group I talked about.
He's saying, you know, we're getting almost a billion dollars in federal funds for rural health. We could maybe use some of that money and shift some money around and maybe we can add some medical school seats and subsidize the medical school seats.
There's a lot of moving parts here in the medical education front. But if the governor has his way, not much is going to change this year.
OH: Anything else you're keeping an eye on this legislative session?
KR: Yeah. Idaho Launch is a $75-million-a-year program. It's one of Governor Little's pet projects.
It's a post-secondary aid program. It'll give a high school graduate up to $8,000.
They can use it to go towards college. They can use it to go into career technical programs, a variety of things.
Conservative legislators don't like this program, haven't liked this program since 2023 when Little first proposed it. So you've got legislators who want to get rid of entirely.
Governor Little in his state of the state. He kind of tried to MAGA-ize the launch program. He said, you know, this is very consistent with what President Trump has been talking about in terms of workforce development.
So I don't know how that's going to play out, but I expect that to be a big fight this session.
OH: Kevin Richert is the Idaho Ed News senior reporter specializing in policy. Kevin, thanks so much for your insights.
KR: Thanks again for having me.
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OH: SPR News Today is a production of Spokane Public Radio.
Reporting today was contributed by Eliza Billingham, John Ryan, Rachel Cohen and me, Owen Henderson. I’m also the host and producer.
Thanks for listening.
It’s SPR.
