Today's headlines:
- Border Patrol says they detained a Spokane father because he missed 17 immigration check-ins. An advocate says that isn't true.
- City Council has been meeting on Mondays for more than six decades. That could be about to change.
- Idaho could have to furlough state troopers and Correction workers if agencies have to cut budgets further.
- Marimn Health opens a shelter specifically for vulnerable teens. It's one of the few in North Idaho.
- Why does long COVID hit some people harder than others? A UW study says it might have to do with past trauma
Plus, while many Idahoans feel good about where their state is headed generally, economic confidence has plummeted since 2024. We break down those results and more from Boise State University's annual Public Policy Survey with the study's research director, Matthew May.
- - -
SPR News Today is a production of Spokane Public Radio.
Reporting contributed by Monica Carrillo-Casas, Eliza Billingham, Owen Henderson and Lisa Brooks.
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 February 2, 2026.
On today’s show, we get an update on the 10-year-old girl and her father detained by federal immigration agents in Spokane.
Plus, unhoused Indigenous kids in north Idaho have another option for housing now that the Coeur d’Alene Tribe has officially opened its teen shelter.
And Boise State University conducts a public policy survey every year. We’ll break down some of the major takeaways with the research director behind the study.
Those stories and more, coming up on SPR News Today.
[FADE OUT THEME]
U-S Border Patrol is giving a reason for detaining a Spokane father and his daughter.
SPR’s Murrow News Fellow Monica Carrillo-Casas has more.
MONICA CARRILLO CASAS: In a statement issued last week, Spokane Sector Border Patrol agents claim they arrested Arnoldo Tiul Caal and his 10-year-old daughter after he missed 17 check-ins in the last three years.
Olga Lucia Herrera, a local volunteer who had been assisting him, says Tiul-Caal was going through an active asylum case and held a valid work permit.
Herrera says he was instructed to check-in through the app every Wednesday. The only times she’s aware he had to go in person were in October 2024 and May 2025. She says he made an appearance both those times.
Herrera also says officials should have addressed the missed check-ins if they were an issue to his case. She says they had the opportunity in December, when officials scheduled Tiul-Caal’s next court date for 2027.
As of now, the family continues to be held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Dilley, Texas.
I’m Monica Carrillo-Casas reporting.
— — —
OH: After months of deliberation and delay, Spokane City Council has finally decided what day it wants to change its meetings to.
SPR’s Eliza Billingham reports.
ELIZA BILLINGHAM: Spokane City Council has been meeting on Mondays since at least 1960.
But now, Council President Betsy Wilkerson and Councilmember Zack Zappone are asking the council to consider changing their meeting day to Tuesdays.
It may seem like a small change, but proposing it caused quite a kerfuffle when the idea was brought up last fall.
Supportive council members thought a midweek meeting would promote better community attendance and avoid cancellations for Monday holidays.
Opposing members, most notably then-councilmember Jonathan Bingle, felt community attendance has been just fine for the past six decades.
He also felt that council members agree to a certain schedule when they get elected, and it’s unfair to upend those expectations.
So, Council waited until after last year’s election cycle to seriously consider the shift. Bingle’s replacement Sarah Dixit, as well as newly elected councilmember Kate Telis, were aware as candidates that the council calendar could change.
I’m Eliza Billingham, reporting.
— — —
OH: Idaho could be forced to furlough more than 12-hundred prison staff and all commissioned state troopers if its legislature goes through with the additional 2% budget cuts lawmakers asked agencies to plan for.
In a statement released Friday, Department of Correction officials wrote that implementing those furloughs would “compromise safety, disrupt essential services, and increase legal and fiscal risks for the state.”
State lawmakers have been looking to combat a projected budget deficit after months of lagging revenue collection.
Last week, the top budget writers told all state agencies to cut another 2% from their spending on top of the 3% budget holdback Governor Brad Little requested last year.
The governor’s budget chief told the Idaho Capital Sun that Little does not support the additional cuts.
— — —
Teens who need a supportive home now have another option in north Idaho.
After soft-launching the house this fall, the Coeur d’Alene Tribe’s Marimn Health has officially opened its teen shelter in Plummer.
Shelter manager and Tribal member Josie Lozeau says before, local unhoused teens didn’t have many options to stay near the Tribe.
JOSIE LOZEAU: “They might have to go somewhere else into foster care or into another home somewhere else away from their home and away from their people and away from their culture. And I think that this will help avoid that in a huge way.”
OH: Lozeau says she left her home at 15 and ended up going all the way to Spokane.
JL: “If this had been available, maybe I would have utilized it. Or at least, I would have known that I really did have somewhere that I could go that I knew I was going to be okay and not harmed and have somewhere to sleep and shower and eat and have people that cared.”
OH: Kids who stay at the shelter are required to continue some kind of schooling and be involved with the Tribe’s youth advocacy program.
While the shelter is open to anyone ages 12 to 17, Lozeau says Coeur d’Alene Tribal members and descendants will get first and second preference, followed by citizens of other tribes and then all other teens.
— — —
If you have Long Covid and your blood pressure suddenly spikes, or you have an intense wave of nausea, those symptoms may be the result of stress or trauma.
Researchers at the University of Washington have found a possible connection to past trauma and heightened Long Covid symptoms.
A UW Medicine Neurologist along with UW psychiatrist Dr. Rebecca Hendrickson just published a study linking the two.
REBECCA HENDRICKSON: “So it’s sort of up-regulating or increasing activity of this stress-threat response system in a way that isn’t actually helpful, and that’s why it’s leading to symptoms. But it doesn’t represent something that’s actually broken; it represents an attempt at adaptation or a type of learning based on experiencing sort of stressful or dangerous events.”
OH: Hendrickson says potential treatments might involve physical or talk therapy… or possibly medication, depending on the individual.
The study was recently published in the journal "Chronic Stress".
[SHORT MUSIC BED]
A majority of Idahoans think the state is generally headed in the right direction, but the number of people worried about the state's economic future has swung way up. That's according to Boise State University's most recent annual statewide Idaho Public Policy Survey.
With me now to break down some more of those results is the Boise State Public Service School’s Survey Research Director, Matthew May. Thanks for joining me.
MATTHEW MAY: Well, thanks for having me.
OH: Let's start with some of your biggest takeaways. What are the headlines from this year's responses?
MM: I think the biggest takeaway from this year's responses is that Idahoans are generally have a positive outlook on the state's overall direction.
Forty-six percent feel that we're headed in the right direction. But whereas typically or in years past, the state's direction and people's economic expectations have moved in tandem with one another, this year they're pointing in different directions.
So while the plurality believes the state's headed in the right direction, they're far more pessimistic about the economic situation where the 42% expect things to get worse over the next two years, which was a 19-point jump from where it was last year.
One of the new questions we asked this year was how people would describe their financial situation. Where are they right now?
And one in five Idahoans said that they are finding it difficult to get by. Two in five say that they are just getting by.
So collectively, that's three out of five Idahoans are in that borderline or worse than borderline economic situation themselves.
And just over a third say that they're actually living comfortably. And so when you have people experiencing economic hardships themselves, they may like the positive direction of the state.
But when it comes to those more tangible economic concerns, you start to see some of the competing or differing outlooks among their answers.
OH: You mentioned housing affordability earlier, and that's an issue that gets a lot of airtime and it's on a lot of people's minds, especially up here in North Idaho. What did respondents say about where that is ranking in their priorities?
MM: One of the questions we ask each year is what should be the top priority for the legislature when considering the state's budget this year? The number one answer with 39% of Idahoans saying housing affordability is their top budget priority for the legislature this year.
It was high across the board. It was the top response in Northern Idaho. And this is the third consecutive year that the housing-related answer has been the top budget priority.
And so we are seeing this stay at the top of Idahoans' minds. And what exactly that means, because it can mean a lot of things. For some people, it can mean property taxes are too high and I can't afford it in here.
Some of it can mean that I can't house myself on my salary. It can mean a wide variety of issues.
And so as a blanket issue, housing affordability, with all of the impacts of growth and the insane growth that Idaho has experienced over the last several years, we're seeing that kind of stay at the top of people's minds.
OH: The recently implemented school choice tax credit has been on a lot of people's minds. It was also very recently in front of the Idaho State Supreme Court. Where did respondents land in terms of their support for the program?
MM: Respondents were generally supportive of this in describing the legislation to the respondents.
Half we referred to the legislation as the Idaho parental choice tax credit. Half we described it as simply House Bill 93. When we give them the title of the legislation, combined support was at about 56%.
When we simply called it House Bill 93, combined support was at 61%. So we think it's possible that so much of the debate surrounding this issue has been framed as House Bill 93, that this is actually what more Idahoans potentially know this policy as.
And so when we followed up and asked them what sort of changes they'd like to see, a little bit more than a third, about 36% say keep the tax credit as it is, see how it works before you make any changes.
Almost as many, 35%, said repeal it and reinvest the money into public education. So Idahoans are kind of split.
And then you had another 21% say, you know what, we need to expand the tax credit beyond 50 million and make it available to more families.
OH: Public lands have also been on lots of people's minds over the past year. They make up a significant percentage of Idaho. What did you ask people about public lands and what did you learn?
MM: There were three main questions we asked this year. The first of these was whether or not people would support transferring management and ownership of lands owned by the federal government to the state government.
Thirty-five percent said that they would support the state taking over federal lands and managing it, even at an additional cost. Forty-six percent say that they would oppose it. Eighteen percent weren't sure.
When we followed up and asked what the state should prioritize in its management, just under a third said that they should prioritize public access, like camping, hunting, fishing. About 27% said ecosystem health, like forest management.
Twenty-five percent said preservation, like preventing development. And a distant fourth, at 11%, was revenue generation, like mining and timber and things of that nature.
And so certainly I think there's a strong preference for prioritizing public access matters and things related to the ecosystem health and preservation and less so for things like revenue generation.
OH: Matthew May is the survey research director for Boise State's School of Public Service. Thanks so much for breaking down these results for us.
MM: Well, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
[SHORT MUSIC BED]
OH: SPR News Today is a production of Spokane Public Radio.
Reporting today was contributed by Monica Carrillo-Casas, Eliza Billingham, Lisa Brooks and me, Owen Henderson. I’m also the host and producer.
Thanks for listening.
It’s SPR.
