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Stories tagged: Shawn Vestal

Shawn Vestal: When it comes to budgets, bottom lines don’t lie

Budgets, people in politics like to say, are moral documents. They reveal values clearly when the rhetoric doesn’t.

Shawn Vestal: Rachel Dolezal, back in the eye of the camera

DaShawn Bedford grew up in Spokane, graduated from Rogers High, and taught himself video production. He’s 37, African-American, raising three kids – and his take on Rachel Dolezal is complicated.

Shawn Vestal: Support the North Monroe project – have breakfast or get a haircut

Businesses along North Monroe could use some extra customers during these next few months with the big road reconstruction project now underway.

Shawn Vestal: Nethercutt looks back on his time as a ‘giant killer’

George Nethercutt’s victory over Tom Foley in 1994 was a stunner, and presaged a wave of Republican victories across the country. Now, his successor, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, faces the …

Shawn Vestal: McMorris Rodgers has troubles with the truth on pre-existing conditions

If it’s April, it must be time for Cathy McMorris Rodgers to start telling whoppers about health care.

Preventing teen suicide: How to help

Teens often turn to their peers when thoughts of suicide cross their minds, but everyone has a role to play. Here are some of the warning signs to look out …

UPDATED: Mon., April 2, 2018, 2:46 p.m.

Shawn Vestal: King coverage seems to be a yearly write-up, but the truth on race is deeper

Walter Kendricks remembers that he was at a Boy Scouts meeting in Lorain, Ohio, when he heard. Otis Manning recalls his mother hearing the news in their Seattle home, on …

UPDATED: Mon., March 26, 2018, 3:16 p.m.

Shawn Vestal: Phil Tyler fallout expands to complaints from jail staff

Sheriff seeks investigations into Phil Tyler’s tenure as a jail officer amid complaints of harassment.

UPDATED: Tue., March 13, 2018, 7:29 p.m.

Shawn Vestal: ‘We’re really tired of sitting around waiting for the adults’

Like everyone else in their generation, today’s students grew up in the shadow of the mass shootings. Wednesday, teens across Spokane are protesting that it’s time for change.

Shawn Vestal: A reckoning at the gun lobby’s Maginot Line

Twenty years ago, a blip of a debate surfaced among the camps of the gun lobby regarding legislation in Olympia.

UPDATED: Thu., March 8, 2018, 10:44 p.m.

Shawn Vestal: WSU students step up, fund Evergreen print edition

Here’s something you don’t hear every day in the journalism world: Print wins!

Shawn Vestal: Surely Spokane needs a better name for new bridge

The names proposed for Spokane’s new bridge – with the exception of a proposal to use Salish for “Spokane Way,” – are dispiriting illustrations of how a government committee can …

Shawn Vestal: A feeling of the future in the lights of downtown Spokane

Spokane’s evenings have sure gotten a lot more colorful. The Steam Plant towers blaze nightly. The Grand Hotel and the Fox and the old Masonic Temple glow in changing hues. …

Shawn Vestal: Coincidence gave flight to Expo butterflies

In fall 1973, Eric Grohe was a young graphic artist working in New York City when he returned home for a visit to Seattle. “I ran into Brent Blake, literally …

Shawn Vestal: Groups say prosecutor’s policy punishes refugees, legal immigrants

A group of local leaders has asked Spokane County Prosecutor Larry Haskell to reconsider a provision in some case-resolution agreements that could inadvertently impose life-wrecking consequences on refugees and legal …

Shawn Vestal: Idaho schools should teach science, ignore legislators

By stripping the truth about climate change from educational science standards, the members of the Idaho House Education Committee have equated established scientific knowledge with overconfident ignorance, columnist Shawn Vestal …

UPDATED: Fri., Feb. 16, 2018, 7:11 a.m.

Shawn Vestal: Another shooting, another wave of paralyzing congressional sorrow

Congress is super, super sad right now, you guys. Their hearts are broken. Their grief is boundless. Their minds are reeling.

Shawn Vestal: Feds injection of uncertainty into state pot industry stunts business growth

When Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded the feds’ take-it-easy policy on pot prosecutions, he threw a ton of uncertainty into Washington’s marijuana industry.

From cradle to Maeve: A Spokane fire captain’s long road to transition

For decades, John Griffith was, to the outside world at least, an ordinary guy: a veteran of the Air Force, captain in the Spokane Fire Department, a husband and a …

Shawn Vestal: ‘Live PD’ paints Spokane at its ugliest

The reality-TV shows “Live PD” and “COPS” have gleaned plenty of footage in working with local police agencies – and have helped fuel an image of the city as a …

Shawn Vestal: Spokane schools should stop tiptoeing through sex ed controversy

Not too long ago, a relatively small but relatively loud group of people approached the Spokane School Board to oppose a planned sex-ed curriculum. The result: The process of adopting …

UPDATED: Tue., Jan. 30, 2018, 12:53 p.m.

Shawn Vestal: The American Redoubt is alive and well in the Idaho Capitol as ‘Bundy sniper’ receives hero’s welcome

An Idaho man who has become a symbolic hero in the American Redoubt for aiming his assault rifle at the feds during the Bundy ranch standoff in 2014 – and …

Shawn Vestal: When cows were the cornerstone of income inequality

One of the earliest and most potent forces dividing the haves and have-nots may have pretty humble roots: the agricultural beast of burden.

Shawn Vestal: If you think tax cuts are unleashing the economy, wait till you see the pot numbers

The new federal tax cuts should add a jolt to the state’s economy, a new revenue forecast says. Not a huge jolt. Not a marijuana-sized jolt.

Shawn Vestal: How did a system – and a community – fail a boy so completely?

Long after the fact, little Wyatt’s neighbors told police that his parents treated him like “crap.” His father, Melvin Bledsoe, 27, and his stepmother, Joy Tamika Anderson, 30, are facing …

UPDATED: Thu., Jan. 18, 2018, 6:23 a.m.

Shawn Vestal: This is at the Spokane Public Library?

We’re off to the library tonight. Not looking for books. Not checking out DVDs. Not planning to Google stuff on the computer. Not seeking to check out another installment of …

Shawn Vestal: Only in Wonderland is Congress insuring children’s health

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers’ claim that the House reauthorized the Children’s Health Insurance Program is fit for a fact in Wonderland.

UPDATED: Fri., Jan. 12, 2018, 2:40 p.m.

Shawn Vestal: Mayor Condon should have argued his case against city’s new campaign finance law

Rather than making a public appeal tied to his opposition to the new campaign finance legislation, Mayor David Condon stayed strategically quiet during the two months that the proposal was …

Shawn Vestal: Cheers for tax cuts overlooked downstream effects

The chairman of Idaho’s tax-collection agency, Ken Roberts, addressed lawmakers in Boise last week, reporting his analysis of the effect that the new federal tax-cut package. His conclusion: Idahoans could …

UPDATED: Thu., Jan. 4, 2018, 8:52 p.m.

Shawn Vestal: At a moment of acrimony in city politics, Amber Waldref chose compromise over conflict

In a time of combat at City Hall, Amber Waldref has been a peacemaker.