Spokane

After a devastating third wave last winter and a fourth wave of cases this past spring, COVID-19 case counts have dropped in the past two weeks to some of the lowest daily counts seen in 2021.

A debate is escalating in City Hall over the extent to which Spokane should – and is able to – provide shelter during events like last week’s record-breaking heat wave.

Thomas Soeldner has had enough.

A 34-year-old man sleeping in front of the Spokane Intermodal Center was beaten to death last month, likely by an acquaintance, according to recently filed court documents.

The man arrested for smashing windows at the Planned Parenthood in Spokane Valley over the weekend allegedly was angry over a family member who had abortions and later died by suicide, according to police.

Firefighters at the blaze near Cheney, now called the Andrus Fire, held growth at 300 acres overnight, but the fire is still 0% contained as of Tuesday morning.

Famed World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker was in Spokane and delivered this advice to the U.S. government: “Quit building battleships and build airplanes.”

The true story of the Chronicle, which lasted from that first four-page edition in 1881 that announced the arrival of the Northern Pacific railway in Spokane, to August 1992, is intertwined with its sister publication, the Spokesman-Review, and competition between the two. It's also a story of buttercups and criminals, cute babies and roving afternoon paperboys.

A confrontation over the lighting of fireworks led to a man being stabbed in Northeast Spokane on Sunday night, according to the Spokane Police Department.

Some 25 residents have been given advisory notices to stand by to evacuate as fire crews, including air support, battled a wildfire near Cheney on Monday.

A vandal smashed 14 windows at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Spokane Valley on Saturday afternoon, according to a spokesman for the organization.

A wildfire near Wenatchee, now being referred to as the Batterman fire, grew to approximately 2,500 acres Monday and is only 10% contained, according to the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office.

Green burials generally aim to avoid greenhouse gas emissions, but it's not always just about sustainability. Many green burial advocates don't see the point of delaying the inevitable.

There's no single source of the greenhouse gases that are warming our planet, and there's no definitive way to tie the Pacific Northwest's recent heat wave to those gases. But ample evidence indicates Spokane is getting hotter and drier, and that gas-guzzling vehicles are a major source of carbon emissions in our area. 

The biggest fire was centered at Hamilton Street and Carlisle Avenue, where one home was destroyed and two others badly damaged. A long list of other homes and garages were badly damaged by roof fires.

Tom Westbrook started Freedom at the Arboretum in 1962. The annual event eschews party-line politics – although politicians attend – and military-centric Fourth of July traditions.

Spokane’s two top fireworks retailers reported that their sales were “the best we’ve had in ten years.”

It was one idea tucked into a volunteer subcommittee’s nonbinding draft proposal to address climate change in Spokane.

Every afternoon for decades, young men (and sometimes women) slung canvas bags over their shoulders after class and slung Chronicle papers onto porches across the Inland Empire. Several responded to a recent call by The Spokesman-Review for memories of those formative years, including the occasional dodgy subscriber, vicious dog and, of course, the spoils of their paychecks.