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Charles Apple

Charles Apple

Current Position: designer editor

Charles Apple joined The Spokesman-Review in 2019 as a design editor. He designs weekly Further Review pages that cover subjects such as the history of comics, William Shatner, Tiger Woods, autism spectrum disorder and even how to get your Spokesman-Review aboard the International Space Station. Apple has worked for papers across the nation, large and small. He is considered an informational graphics guru, winning countless international awards and his work consulting and training newsrooms around the world.

Email
charlesa@spokesman.com

Recent Front Pages

All Stories

News >  Further Review

How ‘the U-2 incident’ went down

Sixty years ago today, the Soviet Union shot down a U.S. spy plane and took its pilot prisoner. What came to be called “the U-2 incident” would derail peace talks and set back international diplomacy for years. Here’s how it all went down:
News >  Further Review

History of North Korea’s Kim Dynasty

On April 15, North Korea celebrated the Day of the Sun: The birthday of the founder of the country, Kim Il Sung. A notable no-show for the annual celebration: Kim’s grandson and current head of state, Kim Jong Un. This has led to several questions: Where is the 36-year-old Kim, why has he not been seen in public and what might that mean to the balance of power on the Korean peninsula? Here’s a look at the Kim dynasty:
News >  Further Review

The end of World War II in Europe

Seventy-five years ago this week and next, the European phase of World War II finally came to an end as Allied troops neutralized German defenses, liberated captured cities and prison camps and overran most of Germany itself.
A&E >  Books

Nancy Drew, through the years

Nancy Drew – sometimes a supersmart sleuth, sometimes a hardworking amateur who gets lucky at solving mysteries, but perpetually a teenager – turns 90 today.

News >  Further Review

50 years of Earth Day

Earth Day is the day to celebrate our home planet, to make ourselves more aware of environmental issues that affect it and to do what we can to make our little corner of it healthier and safer. Today is also the 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day.
News >  Further Review

Fake news: What is it?

How did we go from the trustworthiness of “Uncle Walter” and “Chet and David” of the 1960s to today, when so many Americans say they neither trust nor like the news media? It has less to do with news reporting and editing and more to do with rapidly changing technology, nefarious manipulators and a public that often doesn’t take the time to stop and engage in critical thinking.
News >  Further Review

Newspapers 101

To help you understand why we’re not “fake news,” it might help if we explain how newspapers work and the divisions between news reporting and commentary.
News >  Further Review

SECOND ACTS - Athletes with Other Teams

While the rest of the world was busy dealing with the coronavirus, Tom Brady shook up the NFL by leaving New England — his home for the past 20 years — for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. But Brady won’t be the first professional player to change teams near the end of his career:
News >  Further Review

Advertising Mascots

Fifty-five years ago this fall, the Pillsbury Dough Boy made his debut in advertisements and quickly became a part of American pop culture. Here are 34 iconic ad mascots from the past 133 years.
News >  Further Review

Quarantines Through History

Mary Mallon was an Irish-born cook who immigrated to New York City in the 1880s. She carried the bacteria that causes typhus but was apparently immune to it herself. City officials finally traced sporatic cases of typhus to Mallon. In 1907, “Typhoid Mary” was placed in quarantine at North Brother Island in the East River, near Rikers Island and what is now LaGuardia Airport.
News >  Further Review

Celebrity brushes with death

On this date 30 years ago, Miami Sound Machine singer Gloria Estefan nearly lost her life when a semi truck crashed into her tour bus. Estefan isn’t the only famous musician, actor or writer to nearly be killed. Here’s a dozen examples — some of which you might remember:

Keeping Your Kids Busy

Your children are home from school for the next several weeks. Their teachers are sending work for them to do. That’s keeping them occupied for — what? — maybe 45 minutes a day? That still leaves an awful lot of free time for kids to become awfully bored. And for parents to become awfully frustrated. And desperate.Fear not: We have suggestions.
News >  Further Review

The endangered middle class

While the stock market may have reached new heights over the past few months, the simple fact is: Not much of that prosperity has trickeled down to the middle class. For the middle class, income is stagnant, buying power is reduced and hope for the future is diminished. A look at the numbers:
News >  Further Review

Green Day - St. Patrick’s Day in the USA

Next Tuesday, put on your finest green shirt, pin a shamrock to your chest, buy a corned beef sandwich for lunch and drink a Guinness. Or two. For Tuesday will be St. Patrick’s Day, the day to celebrate all things Irish. Here’s how some of the more common traditions began
News >  Further Review

Primary Colors

Primary presidential elections in Washington and Idaho. For Republicans, the choice will be easy: President Donald Trump is running unopposed. Democratic voters will find 13 names on their ballots, but several — Pete Butigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Michael Bloomberg and Elizabeth Warren — have dropped out of the race. Here’s a look at the last eight presidential election cycles in Washington and Idaho:
News >  Further Review

Testing for the Coronavirus

It’s become clear — as more people in Washington state and across the nation are diagnosed with the coronavirus — that COVID-19 has been with us for weeks. Why wasn’t it detected earlier? It all comes down to testing: Officials simply weren’t able to test earlier.
News >  Further Review

Your Guide to Super Tuesday

After smaller primaries and caucuses in a handful of states, a whopping 1,357 delegates are up for grabs in Super Tuesday primaries across 14 states and territories. Just to make things more interesting, two candidates — Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar — have dropped out of the race.
News >  Further Review

NASA Plans Return to the Moon

Last spring, the White House directed NASA to put astronauts on the moon by 2024. That would require an enormous increase in the agency’s budget — and at a time when D.C. politics aren’t favorable to more big-ticket items or more requests from the Trump administration. Meanwhile, NASA is recruiting more astronauts to fly its projected Artemis missions and is moving forward on getting a real lunar landing vehicle built.
News >  Further Review

Valentine’s Day

The average American will spend $196.31 on Valentine’s Day candy, cards, jewelry or other items. But how did Valentine’s Day get its start as a day to treat your sweetie?
News >  Further Review

A Curling Primer

Curling has been around since 16th-Century Scotland — although many Americans weren’t familiar with it until it reappeared in the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, in 1998. The 2020 USA Curling Nationals will be held beginning Saturday at Eastern Washington University.