Today's headlines:
- WA and OR won't have to change voting systems under SCOTUS mail-in ballot ruling, the relief of state and county voting officials.
- Spokane affordable housing developers say “right to cooling” proposal could prevent future affordable housing development.
- CHAS and Frontier Health break ground on one-stop behavioral health facility in downtown Spokane.
- Coeur d'Alene remembers slain firefighters a year after Canfield Mountain shootings.
Plus, Bosnian community members in the Northwest are already celebrating their home country’s World Cup team. Last week in Seattle, the Dragons (or Golden Lillies, depending on whom you ask) qualified for the knock-out round for the first time ever. As Grace Madigan tells us, some Bosnian fans say it's a chance to add positivity to the national reputation of a country largely still shaped by its deadly war in the 1990s.
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SPR News Today is a production of Spokane Public Radio.
Reporting was contributed by Dirk VanderHart, Doug Nadvornick, Eliza Billingham, Owen Henderson, Chantal Ramirez and Grace Madigan.
TRANSCRIPT
[THEME MUSIC]
OWEN HENDERSON: From Spokane Public Radio, it’s SPR News Today.
I’m Owen Henderson. It’s Tuesday, June 30, 2026.
On today’s show, Washington and Oregon election officials are breathing a sigh of relief after the Supreme Court yesterday ruled against a challenge to mail-in voting.
Plus, Spokane’s affordable housing developers want the City Council to delay a vote on a “right to cooling” proposal. They say the ordinance’s current language could prevent future affordable housing development.
And Bosnian community members in the Northwest are already celebrating their home country’s World Cup team. Last week in Seattle, the Dragons (or Golden Lillies, depending on whom you ask) qualified for the knock-out round for the first time ever.
Those stories and more, coming up on SPR News Today.
[FADE OUT THEME]
Washington, Oregon and other states can continue to count ballots that arrive by mail after Election Day, under an opinion issued by the Supreme Court yesterday.
Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Dirk VanderHart reports.
DIRK VANDERHART: Conservative groups had challenged a Mississippi law that accepts ballots that arrive up to five days after Election Day, so long as they are postmarked on or before the election.
The GOP-aligned challengers said the policies ran afoul of federal law. But the Supreme Court disagreed. Two conservative justices sided with the court’s three liberals to uphold Mississippi’s law.
The ruling was a relief to election officials in Oregon and Washington, which both accept late arriving ballots.
Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read, a Democrat, called the decision a win for Oregonians. But Read also cautioned that recent changes within the post office may delay postmarks.
He said voters who use mail to submit their ballots should do so at least a week before Election Day
I’m Dirk VanderHart, reporting.
OH: Spokane County Auditor Vicky Dalton is also relieved by the Supreme Court’s decision.
VICKY DALTON: “It means that our voters will not be disenfranchised if they happen to put their ballot into the mail stream two days before Election Day, and it doesn't arrive to us until two to three days after Election Day, which is a pretty common occurrence anymore with the U.S. Postal Service.”
OH: She says a court decision invalidating Washington’s rules would have caused chaos.
VD: “The county auditors and the Secretary of State's office had already been working on contingency plans, including messaging. We'll probably still go ahead with a considerable amount of the messaging, which is, don't wait. Get your ballot in early if you're going to mail it.”
OH: Like Read, Dalton also suggests mailing ballots at least a week before Election Day.
After that, she recommends taking ballots to an official election drop box.
Ballots for Washington’s August primary elections have already been mailed to military and overseas voters.
They’ll go out in the mail to Spokane County voters on July 15.
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As Spokane continues to work to strengthen its criminal justice and crisis support systems, a new behavioral health facility is coming to downtown in an attempt to fill service gaps.
Officials broke ground yesterday on a joint CHAS Health and Frontier Behavioral Health clinic near the intersection of Division and Sprague.
CHAS and Frontier leaders say once the 10,000-square-foot facility is completed, it will offer primary care, mental health services and addiction treatment, all in the same location.
That means patients wouldn’t have to try to navigate a network of referrals and providers on their own.
About 40% of the funding for the new site comes from federal and state grants.
Frontier will foot the rest of the bill. We should note, CHAS is a financial supporter of SPR.
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Spokane’s affordable housing developers are asking the city to rewrite its “right to cooling” ordinance.
The proposed version would require landlords to install air conditioning in all rental units by 2031 to make sure units are kept at 80 degrees or less.
When the ordinance was first read last week, multiple members of the Spokane Low Income Housing Consortium spoke about the risk they say it poses to current and future affordable housing.
Catholic Charities’ Jonathan Mallahan says his organization already provides cooling.
But he’s worried the specific language of the ordinance might make new projects impossible.
JONATHAN MALLAHAN: “Our preliminary review indicates the compliance with this ordinance, in combination with existing requirements such as the evergreen sustainable development standards and current energy codes, may require developers to install more expensive heating and cooling systems in each bedroom. We estimate that this could increase development costs by at least $12,000 per apartment or roughly 5% per unit.”
OH: Other affordable housing advocates called the proposal an “unfunded mandate,” especially as federal housing vouchers get stripped away and rents remain capped by federal standards.
Affordable housing organizations are currently meeting with the city to bring forward an alternative option they believe would improve habitability for tenants without stunting future projects.
They are asking Council to delay its final vote on the proposal, which is currently set for July 15.
— — —
Coeur d’Alene community members are remembering the two firefighters shot to death while responding to a fire on Canfield Mountain a year ago yesterday.
As first responders arrived last June, a man started shooting at them, killing two and injuring a third.
Police say the shooter started the fire and ultimately took his own life.
Idaho Department of Lands Director Dustin Miller spoke this month about the incident during a fire preparedness press conference.
DUSTIN MILLER: “No matter what the threat is on the fire line, I want people coming home at the end of the day. And so that communication and how we respond is, is critical.”
OH: Miller says the incident made clear the importance of communication between first responder agencies.
DM: “If we've learned anything from this, it's these partnerships and that constant stream of communication matters.”
OH: The victims were Kootenai County Fire Battalion Chief Frank Harwood and Coeur d’Alene Fire Battalion Chief John Morrison.
[SHORT MUSIC BED]
The U.S. men’s national soccer team is in the knockout round of the World Cup.
The Americans play the team from Bosnia and Herzegovina tomorrow afternoon at 5 o’clock in Santa Clara, California.
Bosnian fans may feel like they're playing with house money.
Their national team advanced to the knockout round last week in Seattle, the first time it's made it that far.
Northwest News Network contributor Grace Madigan has more about what it means to the Northwest’s Bosnian community to be competing on the world’s biggest soccer stage.
GRACE MADIGAN: More than a decade after its first tournament appearance, Bosnia is competing in the World Cup for just its second time. For Bosnians, like Mehlia Jusupovic, who immigrated to Seattle in 1998 after the war as an 11-year-old, it is a point of pride that her home country will be seen in a light that doesn’t have to do with its past.
MEHLIA JUSUPOVIC: Bosnia will get brought up, and people who are older immediately remember the war. They're like, "Oh, it's the war,” and then your country is constantly tied to like the hardest part of your life, and like the thing that everybody has struggled through.
GM: The Bosnian war, which lasted from 1992 to 1995, resulted in the second largest diaspora in the world, according to the U-N. Around 2-million Bosnians live abroad, and about 350,000 live in the U.S. today. Mehlia Jusupovic immigrated to Seattle with her family in 1998 when she was 11 years old.
MJ: "We basically had, like, time to pack one bag and flee that city for another city, and that was kind of what we ended up doing throughout the war, was basically trying to dodge the primary fighting zones. Some of my family members were not so fortunate."
GM: It is estimated that more than 100,000 people were killed during the three-year war, including 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in what the UN considers a genocide. Today, the country continues to recover economically and reframe its image from a war-torn country.
MJ: So when another event like the World Cup happens, you're reminded, like, hey, we've made it, we made it through a really, really horrible time in our history, it shows the resilience that I've known Bosnian people and people just from that part of the world, to just be incredibly resilient.
[MUSIC, CROWD AMBI]
GM: Thousands of Bosnians descended upon Seattle for its pivotal game against Qatar.
People of Bosnian heritage from across the Northwest also made the trip. Alma Zelkanovic drove up from Vancouver, Washington. For her, seeing so many Bosnians was moving.
ALMA ZELKANOVIC: "It feels like we were home…after this many years living here, yeah, it feels like home."
GM: Fans celebrated the win long after the final whistle at a pub just around the corner from Seattle Stadium.
[PUB AMBI]
Father and son Armin and Mehmed Imamovic attended the game from Augusta, Georgia. Both were overwhelmed with emotion after the game.
ARMIN IMAMOVIC: "It means everything, honestly. That's as simple as I could put it. It means everything, this town, the whole country, Tulsa, that my dad comes from, everything like that. It means so much for everybody there. This man has never missed a game ever, he does whatever he can to watch a Bosnia game, this is his team, like, he will rep it till the day that he dies."
GM: For a team that statistically was unlikely to even qualify for the World Cup, fans are ecstatic to have made it as far as they have.
AI: "Whatever happens next, it doesn't matter. But you know, if we do win, you know, you already know we're right, so the wheels fall off, but you know, if we don't, the future of this team is very promising."
[ARMIN, MEHMED YELLING ‘Go Bosnia!’]
GM: In Seattle, I’m Grace Madigan.
OH: The Bosnia and Herzegovina Heritage Association of Spokane says it estimates about 150 people of Bosnian descent made the trip from Spokane to Seattle last week to see the game.
[SHORT MUSIC BED]
OH: SPR News Today is a production of Spokane Public Radio.
Reporting today was contributed by Dirk VanderHart, Doug Nadvornick, Eliza Billingham, Chantal Ramirez, Grace Madigan and me, Owen Henderson.
I’m also your host and producer.
Thanks for listening.
It’s SPR.
