Today's headlines:
- Head Start students in Washington show strain from increased immigration enforcement, according to a new survey.
- Avista is switching into fire safety mode earlier than any time in the last 6 years.
- Spokane Transit expands service for World Cup festivities.
- The Salish School of Spokane breaks ground for its new campus along the Spokane River.
Plus, if you're not very into soccer but want to hop on the bandwagon during the World Cup, journalist Nick Greene can help. His new book, "How to Watch Soccer Like a Genius," explores the history, aesthetics, and hidden data of the beautiful game. He shares some of his discoveries with SPR's Eliza Billingham.
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SPR News Today is a production of Spokane Public Radio.
Reporting was contributed by Mitch Borden, Doug Nadvornick, Owen Henderson and Eliza Billingham.
Owen Henderson hosts and produces the show. Eliza Billingham provides digital support.
TRANSCRIPT
[THEME MUSIC]
OWEN HENDERSON: From Spokane Public Radio, it’s SPR News Today.
I’m Owen Henderson. It’s Friday, May 22, 2026.
On today’s show, many preschoolers are more anxious and missing more school because of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. That’s according to a new survey from Washington’s free preschool program.
And Avista Utilities has made its yearly switch to “fire safety mode.” But the move comes much earlier in the summer than any time in the last five years.
Plus, are you interested in watching next month’s World Cup games, but aren’t quite sure what to look for in the matches? We’ll chat with the author of the new book “How to Watch Soccer Like a Genius.”
Those stories and more, coming up on SPR News Today.
[FADE OUT THEME]
Head Start providers in Washington and six other states say the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement is affecting preschoolers.
In a new survey, educators say they’re seeing more Pre-K students miss class or show signs of anxiety.
KNKX reporter Mitch Borden has more.
MITCH BORDEN: The Washington State Association of Head Start and ECEAP surveyed 277 Head Start providers and parents.
The group was interested in how Immigration and Custom Enforcement’s aggressive, and sometimes violent, tactics were affecting students.
Joel Ryan, the association’s executive director, says nearly half of those surveyed said students are showing signs of anxiety, stress and trauma.
JOEL RYAN: “Our kids are scared to go out to the playground because they think they’re gonna get grabbed, they think they’re not going to see their parents again.”
MB: Head Start is a federal program that provides preschool to low income families.
The survey’s findings suggest ICE enforcement is affecting children from both immigrant and non-immigrant families.
I’m Mitch Borden reporting.
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OH: Avista Utilities has taken a step to prepare for wildfire season—much sooner than any of the last five years.
The utility yesterday moved to what it calls “fire safety mode.”
It’s an annual change that gives Avista the ability to quickly shut off parts of its electrical grid when fire danger is high.
Last year, the utility made the switch in the first week of June.
And from 2020 to 2024, Avista switched to fire safety, or “dry land mode” as it was previously known, in late June or July.
The move comes as Washington experiences a fourth consecutive year of drought conditions and historically low snowpack levels.
Liz Frederiksen is the utility’s wildfire resiliency and system operations director.
LIZ FREDERIKSEN: “Because fire safety mode makes the system more sensitive customers might see additional outages or service interruptions but it's not something that we necessarily expect.”
OH: In “fire safety mode”, Avista crews will often take extra time to check for and remove vegetation around transmission facilities before turning power lines back on.
That means outages may last longer than usual.
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Spokane Transit is making it easier for soccer fans to get around the city this summer.
SPR’s Eliza Billingham reports.
ELIZA BILLINGHAM: Starting in June, Saturday rides will be every 10 minutes on the City Line and every 30 minutes on Routes 7 and 63 to and from the airport.
The Spokane Transit Authority says that’s to support extra activity thanks to Team Egypt and other World Cup festivities—but anyone, regardless of soccer enthusiasm, can enjoy the added service.
To help with Spokane’s fan zones on June 19 and July 19, Route 11 will have a shuttle service to Riverfront Park, with an additional stop in front of the Spokane Arena.
This is all funded by state grant money, which will also pay for added security and transit ambassadors.
All STA employees will also get specially branded soccer jerseys for an extra bit of fun.
I’m Eliza Billingham, reporting.
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[STUDENTS SINGING AMBI]
OH: Students sing in nsəlxcin, kicking off yesterday’s groundbreaking of a new campus for the Salish School of Spokane.
Right now, the non-profit language immersion school teaches Colville-Okanogan Salish out of a site on Spokane’s Maple Street.
But a land donation by the Catholic Charities of Eastern Washington and multimillion-dollar fundraising effort mean the school will eventually move to a site near Spokane Falls Community College, along the Spokane River.
Meghan Francis is the education chair of the Colville Tribal Business Council.
She says a number of Colville Tribal members and descendants attend the Salish School.
MEGHAN FRANCIS: “And not only are they learning the language, but they're learning to see the world in the way our ancestors did, and that's really, really important for our future so we can take care of the earth and we can take care of each other and love each other the way our ancestors did.”
OH: Plans for the campus include an expanded education building and a community center, as well as outdoor facilities for traditional activities like hide tanning and tule weaving.
The education building will be named for Sʕamtíc̓aʔ, the Salish woman who mentored and taught school co-founder LaRay Wiley and the school’s principal Chris Parkin.
Parkin says the two went on to develop a fluency transfer system that’s now used for language revitalization across the U.S. and beyond.
CHRIS PARKIN: “More than 50 indigenous language communities in Australia are using this work and this system and this vision that Sʕamtíc̓aʔ helped us make come true.”
OH: The school still needs to raise about two million more dollars to hit its $17 million goal to fund the project completely.
[SHORT MUSIC BED]
With the World Cup coming to the U.S. this summer, more American fans might be paying attention to that kind of football.
There’s just one problem: Plenty of Americans just aren’t that into soccer.
SPR News Today has been airing a special weekend guide on “how to watch soccer” for new and old fans alike.
But one person wrote a whole book on the topic: Bay-area journalist Nick Greene just released “How to Watch Soccer Like a Genius.”
In it, Greene talks to people from NASA scientists to landscape architects for their unique insight on one of the world’s most popular sports.
He chatted with SPR’s Eliza Billingham the day the book was released.
EB: Pretty early on in your book, you say that soccer is one of the only things that the US feels completely comfortable having nothing to do with. Why do you think that is?
NICK GREENE: Well, it's one of the few things that we concede is a huge, massive global deal that we basically have no role or part in its growth or acceptance or what have you.
And I guess an exaggeration, but it really does seem like this sort of you get the sense is a kind of foreign phenomenon, this miracle occurring just over the horizon that is just outside our reach, but it's not.
I mean, soccer is a very American sport, too. American football evolved from the very same games that soccer evolved from. It just happened to do so in a different timeline and a different path.
So there's a lot of the things we love in soccer or from sports in soccer.
EB: A lot of people also compare soccer to chess, but you compare it to dominoes. What is that all about?
NG: Yeah, well, I compare a couple aspects of it to dominoes.
One is just the passing sequences themselves. Basically, a pass is a move that's made in good faith. You trust that your opponent, your teammate, excuse me, is going to do better with the ball than you.
It's a movement of trust. And every single pass, every pass creates a chain. And the hope, of course, is that, well, that chain eventually ends up with a goal.
As anyone who doesn't watch soccer or watch soccer can tell you that that's not always the case. But nonetheless, there are these intricate patterns and chains being built. And so to learn more about that, I talked to a man who invented the art of domino toppling.
Something like soccer, I assumed was an ancient art, but it actually can be traced to more recent times. It's a man in Pennsylvania named Robert Specka. And he went on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson as a teenager and had a magnificent pattern of dominoes.
And I kind of talked to him to learn about patterns, tempo, because he messes with the tempo in his domino art, and why certain things spread and where breakdowns occur. And so that can happen on the pitch and passing or with the spread of the popularity of the game itself, why it took off in some countries and not in others.
If you think about why the places where soccer is not huge, places like the United States, India, Australia, you'll notice a common theme there that these were all former British colonies.
And there is some truth to the idea that as former colonies, these countries wanted to pursue their own sort of versions, their own sports, to sort of set themselves apart. So that's just one of the many reasons why there are spaces and breaks in the chain in different parts of the chain. But it's something that happens, as I said, on the pitch and off it.
EB: At the risk of pandering, Nick, I really loved your book. Thank you so much for writing it.
NG: Thank you for everything.
OH: That was SPR’s Eliza Billingham with author Nick Greene talking about his new book, “How to Watch Soccer Like a Genius.”
You can hear their full interview tomorrow morning on a special weekend episode of SPR News Today.
Find that, and other “Soccer Saturday” episodes on our website, Spokane Public Radio dot org, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[SHORT MUSIC BED]
OH: SPR News Today is a production of Spokane Public Radio.
Reporting today was contributed by Mitch Borden, Doug Nadvornick, Eliza Billingham and me, Owen Henderson.
I’m also your host and producer. Eliza Billingham provides digital support.
Thanks for listening, and have a good weekend. We'll be back in your feed on Tuesday.
It’s SPR.
