Today's headlines:
- A bill prohibiting law enforcement officers from wearing masks clears the Washington state Senate.
- Washington could be on its way to lowering the BAC required for a DUI.
- Idaho lawmakers may honor the firefighters killed and injured in an alleged ambush north of Coeur d'Alene last summer.
- One of the best—and lowest tech—ways the ag industry could set itself up for success: switching to the metric system.
- Washington's Board of Natural Resources may need to add a tribal seat, but some counties worry about trust land revenue.
And West Central Abbey has served one of Spokane's lowest income neighborhoods since 1895. It's the second church in Washington to receive a grant from the National Trust of Sacred Places. But to get those grant dollars, it has to raise matching funds first. As SPR's Eliza Billingham reports, it's enlisted the help of local authors—both sacred and secular.
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SPR News Today is a production of Spokane Public Radio.
Reporting contributed by Amy Radil, Doug Nadvornick, Owen Henderson and Eliza Billingham.
The show is hosted and produced by Owen Henderson.
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TRANSCRIPT
[THEME MUSIC]
OWEN HENDERSON: From Spokane Public Radio, it’s SPR News Today.
I’m Owen Henderson. It’s January 29, 2026.
On today’s show, Washington is moving closer to banning all levels of law enforcement from wearing masks while interacting with the public in most cases.
And some Northwest farmers are looking to artificial intelligence as the agriculture industry faces multiple existential threats. But one researcher says a more analog fix could be the first step.
Plus, a look at the efforts to revitalize a historic church in West Central Spokane
Those stories and more, coming up on SPR News Today.
[FADE OUT THEME]
The Washington state senate has approved a measure to ban face masks for law enforcement officers, with certain exceptions.
Seattle Democrat and bill sponsor Javier Valdez made clear it’s aimed at the recent use of masks by federal immigration enforcement officers.
JAVIER VALDEZ: “This is not what public safety looks like in a democracy. This is what happens when accountability disappears, and fear is allowed to take its place.”
Republican and former Spokane police officer Jeff Holy says he can’t argue with the public concerns over masking.
But he says only Congress can restrict what federal agents are doing.
JEFF HOLY: “This is beyond our pay grade. I’d love to think we can make a difference. Quite frankly this is something that’s out of our scope.”
OH: The bill passed along party lines, 30 to 19. It now proceeds to the House.
California passed a similar measure that is now being challenged by the Trump administration in court. It says officers need masks for their own safety.
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The Washington Senate also yesterday narrowly approved a bill that would lower the state’s D-U-I limit.
Snohomish County Democrat and retired state trooper John Lovick sponsored the bill, which lowers the limit from point-08 percent to point-05.
He says nearly half of all traffic fatalities in Washington last year involved impaired drivers.
JOHN LOVICK: “Drivers with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.05, 0.06, 0.07 are not good for the community. Impairment starts with the first alcoholic beverage.”
OH: Spokane Republican Senator Jeff Holy, himself a retired officer, says many people show no impairment with a point-05 blood alcohol level.
JH: “A large part of our volume has to do with repeat offenders. I remember arresting people that had three or four prior DWIs and just hadn't seemed to get around to actually doing time.”
OH: Holy argues the state should instead focus on strengthening penalties for repeat offenders, including more jail time.
Utah is currently the only state with a point-oh-five D-U-I threshold.
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Idaho lawmakers may vote to honor the Coeur d’Alene and Kootenai County firefighters killed and injured after a sniper allegedly ambushed them on Canfield Mountain last summer.
Coeur d’Alene Fire Department Battalion Chief John Morrison and Kootenai County Fire and Rescue Battalion Chief Frank Harwood were both killed.
David Tysdal, of the Coeur d’Alene Fire Department, was also injured.
A committee advanced the resolution to the House floor yesterday.
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As farmers in Washington stare down multiple existential threats, experts are asking how advanced tech and artificial intelligence can solve issues with labor, weather and pests.
But as SPR’s Eliza Billingham reports, some analog changes could help set the industry up for success.
ELIZA BILLINGHAM: One of the main things keeping Washington growers from sharing data and developing tools with the rest of the world is the U-S’s imperial system.
INES HANRAHAN: “Have you guys heard of the metric system?
EB: Ines Hanrahan is the executive director of the Washington Tree Fruit Research Commission. As a German native in the States, she’s had to convert between liters and gallons or kilometers to miles her whole career.
IH: “It sounds very trivial, but most of the problems with data sharing right now is with data labeling…This seems very basic, but this is where most of the systems fail right now.”
EB: Hanrahan is speaking to the Washington State Academy of Sciences, which is hosting a series of webinars called “Growing with A-I.”
While her main focus was on technology, Hanrahan also asked researchers to consider a grower’s experience.
She said producers are bombarded with new information now more than ever, and building trust is just as important as building tools.
IH: “In order to implement all of this, we really also need psychology, because at the core of all of this, or at the end, human beings that have feelings, and that needs to be dealt with, and we need to acknowledge that this is a very important part.”
EB: Growing with A-I’s next webinar will focus on using A-I to bolster weather and climate resilience.
I’m Eliza Billingham, reporting.
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OH: Federally recognized tribes in Washington might get more of a say on the state’s Natural Resources Board.
A proposed bill would add a seat for a tribal citizen to the board, which guides the Department of Natural Resources’ policies.
Swinomish Tribal Senator Jeremy Wilbur spoke in favor of the bill to a House committee this week.
JEREMY WILBUR: “We've been stewards of the lands since time immemorial. We also have a great working relationship with DNR over the years and adding a seat with a tribal voice at the table will help to improve the decision-making at the DNR level.”
OH: Josh Weiss with the North Olympic Legislative Alliance says his organization isn’t opposed to tribal representation…
JOSH WEISS: “But we do feel it's important that the representative come from one of the tribal nations who actively manage their own commercial forest or milling operations.”
OH: A Washington Association of Counties representative also raised concerns that adding a tribal member might divert the board from prioritizing revenue state trust lands generate for counties.
Lands Commissioner Dave Upthegrove says the bill’s language right now leaves a lot of discretion for the governor to choose from tribes’ nominees.
DAVE UPTHEGROVE: “If I were governor I would maybe rotate between East and West over time, and, you know, I think those kinds of decisions are made during appointment processes for all kinds of positions all the time looking at the historic composition, but the bill itself doesn't specify beyond a federally recognized tribe and in Washington state.”
OH: The six-person board already contains the lands commissioner and a county representative, plus stand-ins for the governor, the state superintendent, and two state university forestry schools.
[SHORT MUSIC BED]
Spokane’s West Central Abbey has been a fixture in its neighborhood for more than a century.
The Abbey serves its neighborhood well, but for one basic function.
That is on its way to being addressed, thanks to a grant from the National Fund for Sacred Places.
But first, as SPR’s Eliza Billingham reports, the Abbey has to raise its own funds to match that grant.
EB: Jess Walter’s latest novel “So Far Gone” is about estranged grandfather Reese Kinnick reuniting with his grandchildren. In this scene that Walter reads, Reese takes his grandson Asher to a chess tournament.
JESS WALTER: “The chess tournament, according to Mrs. Gaines, was being held at an old abbey in west central Spokane, the city's oldest working class neighborhood. The Spokane Chess Club met in this 19th century Episcopal church, a barn red steepled church building with an abbot's house attached. A sign out front read ‘We cultivate justice, joy, compassion, and peace.’ There were only four cars in the gravel parking lot, a few more on the street. Reese parked and turned back to consider his grandson. ‘You ready to go get ‘em, Kasparov?’ Asher looked up from his paper and notebook, suddenly seeming panicked. ‘I have to pee.’ ‘I'm sure there's a bathroom in there.’ ‘I hope so.’”
EB: So how did you find out that the Abbey doesn't actually have a bathroom inside?”
JW: “Well, Katy Shedlock reached out to me and asked if I would help in this fundraising effort to try to put a bathroom in the Abbey. So until that point, I just sort of assumed there was one.”
EB: To be fair to Walter, the Abbey technically does have a bathroom. But it’s not inside the Abbey. It’s in the parish hall next door and requires a walk outside to get to it.
The caretakers of the Abbey hope that’s about to change.
West Central Abbey was the second church in Washington to receive a grant from the National Trust of Sacred Places—fifty thousand dollars to help keep the building usable.
To Reverend Katy Shedlock, that means a bathroom in the same building as the sanctuary.
And there should be enough money to replace the cedar shingles that are falling off the roof, too.
The grant is a matching grant—the Abbey got news of the award in 2024, but it needs to raise its own fifty thousand dollars first.
So Shedlock asked three West Central writers who have been inspired in some way by the old church to host a reading.
They’ll hold that reading next week.
And all proceeds from that will go towards matching the grant.
But what is it about the Abbey that has captured both local and national attention?
KATY SHEDLOCK: “The National Fund for Sacred Places, they really look for what I think can be kind of a unique blend of, they want really cool historic buildings and they want churches that are really committed to serving their communities.”
EB: Shedlock says the Abbey is actually a gothic chapel, with some original stained glass windows and others that were painted in the 70s.
Though the space has an ancient feel, the church’s mission is progressive.
Parishioners give out NARCAN at the free Wednesday night meals.
And its hymnal includes Be Thou My Vision and Brandi Carlisle.
And for our detail-oriented listeners—no, this isn’t actually an abbey.
KS: “So an abbey historically speaking is a place where people who have taken vows of living together in religious community would live and work. We are not an abbey in that traditional sense…But we have some things that we do hold in common with abbeys of the past. One is that we have this big giant garden and agricultural life was often a part of monastic community work and life together. We have lots of really creative folks who are people who practice the arts in lots of different ways.”
EB: There’s even a banner above the doorway that encourages whoever is leaving the sanctuary to go “Live Creatively.”
Thom Caraway is a Whitworth professor, book printer, author, and poet.
He is one of the writers who will read at the fundraising event.
He gives entire lectures on the overlap of sacredness and creativity.
THOM CARRAWAY: “You don't need to make art. We must make art, right? Our souls demand it. And so why is that? And I think it's because that creativity is the expression, the outer expression of our own kind of inner sacredness.”
EB: But what exactly makes a place sacred?
JW: I probably have a much more working class idea of sacred spaces.
EB: That’s Jess Walter again.
JW: “I grew up next to a drive-in movie theater, which was a little bit sacred to me. Any time I go by a basketball court in the middle of a city, that's kind of a sacred place for me.”
EB: He says church services never really did that for him.
Same goes for Leyna Krow, an author, creative writing professor, and West Central resident who will also read at the fundraiser.
LEYNA KROW: “I don't think about sacredness, but I like the notion of it. And I would say, as a person who's more connected to the arts than I am to, I think, conventional notions of religion, that art does feel sacred. I guess I would think of sacredness as something that's essential in a very core way, either on an individual level or a community level.”
KS: “I think on the one hand, a sacred place can be any place, right, because God is everywhere. If I were to give someone a list of, like, here at Katy Shedlock's top five sacred places, they're all places where something meaningful really happened that helped me understand myself and the world in a different way. And I certainly hope that that's what happens here.”
EB: The reading will take place on Friday, February 6 at the Abbey.
If you attend, just make sure to ask someone where the bathroom is.
OH: That was SPR’s Eliza Billingham, reporting.
[SHORT MUSIC BED]
SPR News Today is a production of Spokane Public Radio.
Reporting today was contributed by Amy Radil, Doug Nadvornick, Eliza Billingham and me, Owen Henderson. I’m also the host and producer.
Thanks for listening.
It’s SPR.
