Features

From staff reports

For years, local concerns over dangerous substances infiltrating drinking water have been on the West Plains, where firefighting chemicals seeped into the ground at the Spokane International Airport and Fairchild Air Force Base.

BEND, Ore. – My family used to go to Blockbuster every Friday. Walking to the store on 19th Street and First Avenue in Manhattan, we’d wander through the aisles of DVDs, negotiating what to rent for our weekly ritual of making pizzas and watching movies, and I’d try to sweet-talk my way into a Nerds Rope or a box of watermelon Sour Patch Kids.

Boost your success, save money and reduce plastic waste when starting plants from seeds this year. The options are many, so you are sure to find one that works for you.

I’m in the final stages of writing a book that contains hundreds of hacks that you might want to incorporate into your home. I got lots of help from many of my newsletter subscribers, who shared some of their best ideas. It’s been a fun project.

For the last couple of summers, my neighbor and I have been dealing with a pocket gopher invasion that is getting closer to our joint fruit orchard. Their familiar mounds kept appearing around the tree roots. Big mounds.

Many older adults rely on opioid pain medications to help relieve short-term pain or for persistent chronic pain. But seniors might not be the first group that pops into your head when you think about overdose or dependence on opioid drugs. Realistically, they have just as much risk (and sometimes more) of dependence, substance use disorder and overdose as any other person prescribed opioid pain medication.

Public water systems across the country will be required to test for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances under new federal regulations announced Wednesday.

I wanted to build a first-class home. Small enough to be cozy, but big enough to raise a family. I needed an ideal location, near a wooded area, with a natural supermarket nearby. And the design should be simple, crafted entirely out of wood. While I was worried about the cost, I needn’t have been. I finished building mine for about $5 in materials in an afternoon.

Caitlin Quaempts, a new Spokane medical school graduate, has lined up a family medicine residency this June for a path she hopes leads back to the Yakama Nation. After her three-year residency in Klamath Falls, Oregon, she'd like to be a family practice doctor for tribal members – just as her father has. She is a Yakama direct descendent of her dad, Rex Matthew Quaempts, a longtime family doctor for Indian Health Services. Another classmate, Lili Szabo, recently matched to a Spokane internal medicine residency with Providence Sacred Heart, and she hopes to remain here. Both Quaempts and Szabo are among a 2024 class of 60 graduates from the University of Washington School of Medicine's Spokane site. They celebrated "match day" on March 15 for their selections into medical residency programs.

In March, I lost two longtime friends: one in Arizona, the other in Colorado. Bruce was my boss for several years. We’d remained friends for decades. Pete was a friend for nearly 60 years. The differences between their deaths was striking, partly, I believe, because of how their respective “faiths” may have influenced the way they approached death.

Washington State University

Ink runs in the blood of the Koskela family.

As they took the dance floor at their wedding in late March, Elaine Hall and Roland Passaro asked the band to announce that their first dance would be a romantic number.

From staff reports

Clark, a 21-year-old bald eagle, could probably fly himself from Missouri to Washington, D.C., but he took a commercial airline on Tuesday.

My first view of Monterey Bay on California’s Central Coast was thrilling – a raft of 40-something sea otters – and free. The next time I would get close to them, at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, it cost nearly $60. That split between free access to outdoor wonders and investment-grade attractions epitomized my experience in the area.