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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
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Shawn Vestal

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All Stories

News >  Spokane

Who will go to bat for books?

If only Eastern Washington University had an alumnus in the NFL who loved books. Then maybe the coolest literary event around would have a rock-solid budget, and the grass at the football field in Cheney could remain green.
News >  Spokane

Every step to home loan solution a fight

On Monday, Jim Shafer learned by mail that he had been denied a modification for his home loan. Also on Monday, Jim Shafer learned by phone that he had been approved for a modification of his home loan.
News >  Spokane

WSU bat master sweetens spot for long shot

Cheating isn’t usually what Lloyd Smith, the bat doctor of the Palouse, is all about. But Tuesday, he was looking forward to the chance to cheat his head off – with an official sanction. Unfortunately, two other realities of baseball got in the way: an injury and a rainout.
News >  Spokane

Sandpoint woman represents best face of tea party movement

Pam Stout is not what you might expect from the most famous tea partier in the land. She talks proudly of helping people through a couple social programs she worked for in California. She says it would be “insane” to eliminate government programs and services. She’s even got a beef with Fox News.
News >  Spokane

Studded-tire tax is a non-starter

It is a measure of the political force field surrounding studded tires that in this, the bleakest of times for state budgets, no one is trying to slap a tax or fee on the things. Raise the sales tax? OK. Freeze salaries and cut services? Sure. Jack up tuition outrageously? All right.
News >  Spokane

Salaries soared at regional universities

Raises have been scarce and budget cuts common at colleges dealing with the fallout from the worst state budget in memory. But between January 2007 and January 2009, the largest paychecks at Washington State University got quite a bit larger. In that period, the money spent at the very top of the pay scale rose by nearly 23 percent, more than three times the typical salary increase at WSU and well above inflation and average wage increases nationally.
News >  Spokane

Making new waves

Like thousands of others before him, Volody Nesteruk brought his family to Spokane from the Ukraine. Now Nesteruk, a Seventh-day Adventist pastor, wants to do something for his ministry and the city’s growing population of Russian speakers by starting the state’s first Russian-language television channel.
News >  Spokane

Whitworth students sample IRS fraud-fighting methods

Accounting students at Whitworth University took a turn as gumshoes Thursday, trading in their ledgers and balance sheets for search warrants and surveillance. The props were bulletproof vests and dummy guns, handcuffs and defensive tactics. The classwork involved poring over fake bank records and tax returns, interviewing mock suspects, and tailing an “embezzler” as he walked across campus carrying a sack full of poker chips – all in the hopes that some students may decide they want to do that kind of thing for real.
News >  Spokane

Marchers united by King’s legacy

Seventy-eight-year-old Hallen Griffin remembers when civil-rights marches weren’t quite so peaceful. A native of Tennessee, Griffin grew up in the segregated racism of the South, a place where for people like him, equality was a distant dream and police were often the “judge, jury and executioner,” he said.
News >  Spokane

Crowds celebrate King’s dream

Hundreds of people marched through downtown Spokane this morning, celebrating Martin Luther King’s vision of equality and nonviolence with what several longtime observers said was the largest crowd in the Spokane event’s history.
News >  Spokane

Watkins never tires of sharing King’s message

The Rev. Percy “Happy” Watkins has become the face of Martin Luther King Jr. in the Northwest. Each year for decades, Watkins has performed King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech at schools, churches, public gatherings – even a recent funeral. The pastor at New Hope Baptist Church, Watkins said that giving the speech and studying King’s life and work since the 1970s has helped shape his life.
News >  Spokane

Toys, food plentiful, but cash gifts lag

Holiday charity was a mixed bag in the Inland Northwest, with some 2009 goals being met and others falling by the wayside while the recession chugs along. Donations of food, toys and other items were up at charities in Spokane and Kootenai counties. But cash donations were harder to come by. Now most charitable organizations are entering a period of donation doldrums, while the number of people seeking help keeps rising.
News >  Spokane

A backlog of ‘brother stuff’

For most of their lives, John Mellinger and Dan Newburn didn’t know they were brothers. Now they talk almost every day via an Internet video phone. Their wives have become friends. They tease and josh each other and trade tips for programs and shortcuts on their Macs. In the space of about six months, their relationship has flourished, the long-lost brothers say.
News >  Spokane

Stimulus spending boosts job training options

Kevin Anderson has been working with metal for years – casting it, fabricating it, plating it. Now he’s trying to move ahead to the cutting edge of cutting metal, learning to program the computerized systems that operate machine tools from drills and lathes, to routers and laser cutters.
News >  Spokane

Changing course after serving time

One April morning eight years ago, police in Thurston County showed up at the home of young Starcia Ague and her father. The mobile home and shed were filled with evidence of a meth factory, court records say – propane tanks, harsh chemicals, needles, firearms, a video surveillance camera.
News >  Spokane

Science center won’t be in Riverfront Park

Organizers have pulled the plug on negotiations to develop a science center in Riverfront Park, and will look to identify a new location for the project by early next year. Officials with Mobius, the nonprofit organization raising money for the center, said the decision will allow them to move forward more quickly with a scaled-back proposal that could open as soon as 2011. Mobius now plans to remodel an existing building in phases, instead of building a new center all at once.
News >  Spokane

Mobius, city of Spokane part ways

Organizers have pulled the plug on a much-debated proposal to build a science center in Riverfront Park, and say they hope to find a new location for a scaled-back version of the project by early next year.
News >  Spokane

Malpractice retrial affirmed

A Spokane judge was correct to throw out a jury verdict in a medical malpractice case after he learned jurors had made racially derogatory comments about the Japanese heritage of an attorney, the state Court of Appeals has ruled. The appeals court ruled that the comments made by jurors – who referred to the plaintiff’s attorney as “Mr. Kamikaze,” “Mr. Miyagi” and other names – provided “reasonable doubt” that they’d rendered a fair verdict.
News >  Spokane

Stolen VW van, claimed by many, may find next owner at auction

The latest stop for a well- traveled 1965 Volkswagen van – stolen in Spokane and discovered 35 years later on a ship headed for Europe – will be the auction block. Allstate Insurance Co. announced Monday it will auction the van and donate the proceeds to a Bellingham homeless shelter. The decision left the long-ago owner of the van, Michele “Mikey” Squires, of Spokane, disappointed but philosophical.
News >  Spokane

Allstate will auction stolen VW van

Allstate Insurance Co. will auction a 1965 VW bus found 35 years after it was stolen from a Spokane woman and donate the proceeds to an organization that helps homeless women and children.