Regional News

One of Spokane’s traditions is its annual celebration of the federal holiday that marks the birthday of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior.

Today [Monday], people from several generations kept the tradition alive with a rally in the convention center and a march through downtown Spokane.

Many of the people marching Monday weren’t alive when Dr. King was assassinated in 1968. And yet, several people, younger folks especially, carried the words of the late civil rights leader with them.

Google is sponsoring a Spokane event for business owners to get some hands-on learning this week in digital skills.

Google spokeswoman Nicky Rigg says the company will hold classes related to marketing your business at the Spokane Public Library.

A Spokane program that pairs police officers with mental health professionals has expanded.

The program has been widely praised for helping to divert people away from jail to mental health and other needed services.

Frontier Behavioral Health says four newly-hired and trained mental health professionals are now riding with patrol officers as part of a local behavioral health unit. Money to pay them comes from a new grant from the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs.

At least two Inland Northwest events will be held Saturday, the same day as the fourth annual national Women’s March.

In Spokane, participants will begin gathering at the Red Wagon in Riverfront Park at noon. A rally is scheduled to begin at 12:30, with a small, but diverse, group of speakers, followed by a three-quarter mile march through downtown.

On a day when the Articles of Impeachment were sent to the Senate from the U.S. House, leaders from both parties joined on Wednesday to honor one former Spokanite with the Congressional Gold Medal.

Steve Gleason played football at Gonzaga Prep and Washington State University and went on to play with the New Orleans Saints.

Gleason was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, but even that couldn’t slow him down, as witnessed by his famous quote, “No white flags.”

The U.S. Census Bureau is searching for workers in the Inland Northwest to carry out the once-every-10-years count.  

The bureau is advertising thousands of temporary jobs in the region. Those jobs will last about eight weeks. Pay is up to $16 an hour.

Washington State University is working to get more Native American students to consider careers as medical doctors. A very small percentage of the doctors in the U.S. are Native and the pipeline is generally empty. WSU’s College of Medicine says, out of nearly 22,000 medical students in the U.S., 44 are Native.

One of them is Grace McPhail. She’s a first-year WSU medical student from Long Beach, Washington.

The University of Washington and Gonzaga University have created a program to teach the next generation of doctors how to become leaders.

An introduction to the story is told by Rachelle Strawther, the director of leadership training and development at the Gonzaga School of Leadership Studies.

“One of my parents was in the ER, had a bad fall. I got there, I rushed over there and people were tending to my mom and I remember at one point the doctor had come in the room, didn’t really say much to anyone in the room, very perfunctory, almost like doing a checklist and asking some questions of the nurses," Strawther said.

On the day when the U.S. House sent articles of impeachment to the Senate, the Senate continued debate on the proposed U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement.

Washington Senator Maria Cantwell rose to support it.

“Continuing to modernize the North American Free Trade Agreement is an important step for Washington and for our economy," Cantwell said.

The opening of the Washington legislative session has intensified the debate about whether Rep. Matt Shea (R-Spokane Valley) should be allowed to continue serving in the state House. No determination about his future as an elected official has been made yet.

Shea has been the subject of some rather sharp debate in the Spokane City Council’s public forums during the last two weeks.

The Washington legislature opened its 2020 session today [Monday] in Olympia.

House members chose Rep. Laurie Jinkins (D-Tacoma) as their new leader, replacing longtime speaker Frank Chopp. Jinkins is the first woman to serve in that role.

After her swearing in, she talked about the road trip she took last fall to visit nearly every House member in their district. And she vowed to work with her colleagues on problems that affect all families.

Only a tiny percentage of the physician population in the U.S. is Native American. And the pipeline from Native communities to medical schools is providing only a trickle of students.

Washington State University’s College of Medicine is working with two other West Coast medical schools to increase the number of Native people prepare for careers as physicians.

The death toll has risen in the aftermath of the avalanche that hit the Silver Mountain ski resort in northern Idaho this week.

Searchers today [Thursday] located the body of a third person. That person hasn't yet been publicly identified.

Idaho officials say the number of people who signed up for health insurance under the state insurance exchange was down this year.

The decrease was exactly what officials anticipated would occur with the recent Medicaid expansion.

Today on Inland Journal, Spokane moves one step closer to determining whether it should consider modernizing its jail or building a new one.

"I think the best financial situation for Spokane would be to put in place these initiatives and continue to expand on them so there would not need to be any new construction.”

Spokane County could lower its jail population by nearly 200 inmates during the next five years if it continues with a series of initiatives.

That was the message Wednesday to a committee of Spokane criminal justice professionals and advocates. They endorsed recommendations that could help county commissioners craft a jail-related ballot measure.