Today's headlines:
- Crews continue their work to contain a handful of wildfires burning in the Inland Northwest. We’ll have the latest on three of them.
- Early detection is one of the major strategies for fighting cancer. We’ll hear from one Spokane doctor who is urging people to be screened for a cancer that isn’t easily detected.
- This is the week that the Spokane City Council moves to a new night for its weekly meetings.
- We’ll talk with Spokane City Councilman Michael Cathcart, who is looking to continue his political career in another office.
Those stories and more, coming up on SPR News Today.
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Crews all over the Northwest continue working to contain wildfires.
In Boundary County, planes have been scooping water from Priest Lake to drop onto the hot spots of the Upper Smith fire. The flames have charred a little more than 400 acres in steep terrain. Officials says crews on the ground have made progress getting lines around the fire. They’re asking the public to avoid the Smith Creek drainage area so that firefighters can freely work. The fire management team will conduct a community meeting tonight at 6 at Bonners Ferry High School.
Forest Service officials say they’ve had problems with people flying drones in the fire area. They say that means they can’t get planes up in the air to drop water and retardants on flames.
One other fire of note in north Idaho. The Greer Fire southeast of Orofino in Clearwater County has burned about 350 acres. Firefighting helicopters and planes have been drawing from reservoirs in the area for water, though officials say they’ve had to abort several of those operations to avoid harming people using jet skis.
In Okanogan County, officials say they’ve continued to rein in the B and O fire, despite breezy conditions. Level 1, or the lowest evacuation levels, remain in the effect near what’s left of the fire. That one has burned about 2,800 acres. A few roads remain closed.
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One traffic note: motorists driving Highway 2 in central Washington will have to navigate a detour this week. A 14-mile section of the roadway west of Leavenworth will be closed through Thursday. It’s part of the last set of repairs to the section of highway that was damaged by storms last December. The state Department of Transportation has set up a detour using the Chumstick Highway.
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A Spokane surgeon is promoting early screening for lung cancer as a way to catch tumors early.
It’s a timely message. Health researchers say an increasing number of young people – in their 20s and 30s, many non-smokers – are diagnosed with lung cancer.
Dr. Alexi Matouzek says an advanced robotic
machine at Sacred Heart called ION collects very small tissue biopsies for testing.
Matouzek says he was recently able to detect and take out a tiny lesion from the lung of a female patient who had several months earlier had cancer removed from her other lung.
“I said to her, you know, you made a cancer on the other side. Your body's been exposed to enough smoke to make a cancer once. Maybe it's making another one. And I said, I think we can hit that seven millimeter thing with the ION. So let's go try. So we did. We drove right to it," he said.
And took it out. He says the patient went home the next day, cancer free.
Matouzek is mentoring University of Washington medical student Christian Held, who is studying the circumstances and outcomes of people who get early lung biopsies.
“It’s really exciting, especially as a first-year medical student, to be able to be involved in something like this, that really has tangible benefit to patients and the whole population," Held said.
The American Lung Association reports only about one in six people in Washington ever get a screening test for lung cancer, far less than for other cancers.
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To politics now…A new law that requires political campaign ads to alert the public when they are created with artificial intelligence is getting its first test. Dirk VanderHart from Oregon Public Broadcasting reports.
In an unsuccessful run for congress this spring, Republican Jonathan Lockwood embraced AI like few other Oregon candidates.
One over-the-top video posted to Lockwood’s facebook page depicted Democratic U.S. Rep. Janelle Bynum and Governor Tina Kotek terrifying children in what appeared to be a Satanic ritual.
Now Lockwood’s use of the technology is under fire. State elections officials are investigating whether he broke state law by not adding a disclosure that the video was created using AI.
Lawmakers passed the law in 2024 because of worries that the fast-improving technology was leading to so-called “deepfakes” designed to give voters misleading impressions of candidates.
Lockwood’s videos may help determine whether that law extends
to depictions of outlandish situations few would believe are real.
Lockwood denies wrongdoing, saying he looks forward to defending himself if the state concludes he broke the law.
I'm DV reporting.
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Spokane City Council is back from its summer break this week—but the usual Monday meetings aren’t on today’s agenda.
Council members voted this spring to change the schedule.
Committee meetings and agenda reviews will move to Tuesdays. Legislative meetings will move to Wednesday evenings.
But they’ll still be held at the regular time and place: 6 p.m. at City Hall.
Supporters of the change say the new schedule is meant to make council’s deliberations less rushed and increase transparency with the public.
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During last week’s Inland Journal, we talked with the three candidates running for Spokane County auditor. Next year, for the first time since 1999, the job will not be filled by Vicky Dalton.
We talked with Republicans Dale Whitaker and Michael Cathcart and Democrat Callie Gee. You can go back and listen to that entire program here.
This morning, we feature part of our interview with Michael Cathcart that didn’t make either of those. Cathcart is a second-term Spokane city council member.
DN: Pick an elected official other than yourself who you particularly admire and why.
Michael Cathcart: That I admire and why? Boy, that's a very, very good question. I don't know. I mean, I've got a lot of admiration in different ways for different elected officials.
You know, I've served with Commissioner Kerns, for example. You know, we worked together in Olympia. We roomed together in Olympia. So we've gotten to know each other really well. We're good friends.
I have a lot of respect for him. But, you know, I think Tom Konis and Tim Fitzgerald, our clerk and our assessor, have done a brilliant job of being available to everybody going and talking to everybody, regardless of party or background or anything else. And so I have a lot of respect and admiration for their ability to get out there.
I can recall one time at a parade I was in a couple of years ago for city council and Tim Fitzgerald had joined the parade. It was just him. And people on the side were like, what does the clerk do? And he's over there explaining to them what the clerk does in the middle of the parade.
And I just always thought, you know, I mean, that is the public servant that we want and that we deserve. And so I would probably say that to a very high degree, you know, Tim and Tom represent that.
DN: So how would you describe, if you had to describe your own leadership style, and how you've evolved over six and a half years as a council member in terms of how that would apply as a county auditor?
MC: Yeah. Well, I mean, I would just say I'm not a micromanager, but I will make sure that we are focused and on task and doing the things that we need to do.
I was asked a question at a forum a couple of weeks ago, you know, what's the very first thing you would do if you were in this office? And of course, there's going to be a lot of lead up to the official start date and a lot of work that I'll be doing in that meantime.
ANNOUNCER TAG: Spokane City Councilman Michael Cathcart is one of three candidates for Spokane County auditor in next month’s primary election.
Tomorrow we’ll hear from another candidate in that race, Democrat Callie Gee.
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SPR News Today is a production of Spokane Public Radio.
Reporting was contributed by Tom Lee, Dirk VanderHart, Owen Henderson and Doug Nadvornick.
Doug Nadvornick hosts and produces the show.
