Column

I've been thinking a lot about our back-to-school traditions, because for many families it's still unclear what school will look like this year. 

People are seeking out locally grown vegetables, fruit, meat, eggs, cheese and products made with local ingredients. So much so that many small-scale farmers throughout the region are doing better than they ever expected when the bottom fell out of the economy in April.

Margaret Sullivan knows what it‘s like to not just love newspapers, but especially love one in particular.

An event with roots in Ferguson, Missouri, came to Spokane Saturday, Aug. 8, at 6:01 p.m., at the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Division Street. It received little attention in the largely white and unchurched Pacific Northwest.

Upon winning her umpteenth nonrigged mail election last week, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers – or perhaps a tipsy aide – took to Twitter to thank voters and proclaim: “Together, we will find the courage to dream again.”

As an undergrad, Bevan Maxey didn’t start out thinking he’d go into law.

Dozens of Washington residents have reported receiving unsolicited seeds from China. People who receive unsolicited seed packets are asked to mail them to the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

I avoided it for days.

July started out cool until temperatures soared and recorded the hottest day thus far in the region on July 31. It also was a very dry month, and August will bring more of the same.

A conservative approach to using revenue has allowed the transit agency to look ahead without major interruptions to service, a spokesman said. But fewer people riding the bus means less taken in through fares, which has STA and government officials asking how they can raise money without burdening low-income riders who rely on the service for essential travel. 

Named for historian and writer Washington Irving, the building stood on the lower South Hill from 1890 to 1973. It once housed the city's first school for the deaf. 

Summer blazes in the hills near Dreamwood Bay on Liberty Lake prompted an all-hands-on-deck response, including those dancing in the pavilion lodge. 

This time of year, people sometimes ask me how I’m voting, which I don’t answer because it’s against the reporters’ code of revealing details that someone somewhere will use in a fulminous screed on voicemail, Facebook or Twitter.

A federal lawsuit over an Oregon ballot initiative drive resulted in a ruling that cited Idaho U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill’s decision in the Reclaim Idaho ballot initiative case no less than 10 times.

My doorknobs and light switches have never been cleaner.

Recently a reader contacted me about some tiny white worms she was finding in her fresh raspberries. That didn’t sound good because the only worm we find in raspberries is the larvae of the spotted wing drosophila, an insect that is raising havoc in fruit crops on the West Side.

While caught up in the throes of a pandemic, Mother Nature recently reminded us of another threat looming in our state: Wildfires.

Sometimes a rumor is fake news, and sometimes it’s a cautionary tale.

The schools have to reopen.