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Shawn Vestal: It’s not the main reason to open schools, but a bit less family togetherness will be wonderful

Wed., March 3, 2021

It was not even 8:30 in the morning and the kid was already wearing clothing, for heaven’s sake.

News

Shawn Vestal: A war over words sits at the heart of a court ruling over racist covenants

UPDATED: Fri., Feb. 26, 2021

What does it mean to “strike” a document from the public record? To “remove all remnants” of it?

Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: Crisis puts brighter spotlight on sports spending at WSU, EWU

UPDATED: Thu., Feb. 25, 2021

The faculty at Washington State University is trying to conduct a very modest, very gentle intervention with the school’s drunk uncle – asking the administration not to expand its subsidy to the deficit-spending athletics department by another few million dollars per year.

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News

Shawn Vestal: Police contract better, but remains far from the spirit of voters’ call for independent oversight

UPDATED: Tue., Feb. 23, 2021

“The police ombudsman and any employee of the OPO must, at all times, be totally independent. Any findings, recommendations, reports, and requests made by the OPO must reflect the independent views of the OPO.”

News

Shawn Vestal: Prominent African-American architect did his first work in a modest West Central home

Sun., Feb. 21, 2021

Julian Francis Abele among the first Black architects in America, whose portfolio includes the Philadelphia Museum of Art and he famous chapel at Duke University. But his earliest design was for a house for his sister, in West Central.

Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: In a time of false patriots, Herrera Beutler showed she’s the real thing

Sat., Feb. 20, 2021

The word “patriot” has fallen into egregious misuse lately.

News

Shawn Vestal: Neo-Nazi leader who bought 30 acres near Republic worked for Homeland Security

Fri., Feb. 19, 2021

The leader of a neo-Nazi terrorist group who bought 30 mountainous acres of land outside Republic in 2018 once worked for the federal agency dedicated to… fighting terrorism.

Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: From an unforeseen corner comes a push to return dam-breaching to the discussion

UPDATED: Sun., Feb. 14, 2021

Redfish Lake is one of the most beautiful places in the Rockies – a classic mountain lake, icy and deep blue, surrounded by the lush green slopes and distant rocky peaks of Idaho’s Sawtooth Wilderness.

News

Shawn Vestal: Reform will require blocking police unions from impeding accountability

UPDATED: Thu., Feb. 11, 2021

If you’re hoping to see shackles placed on the ability of police unions to hamper officer misconduct investigations, then I suggest you get to grips with an excellent slice of legislation: Section 3 of Senate Bill 5134.

News

Shawn Vestal: The synagogue vandal grows from an entire ecosystem of hatred

Wed., Feb. 10, 2021

People say it was shocking that a racist vandal spray-painted swastikas and defaced the Holocaust memorial at Temple Beth Shalom this week.

Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: After a rough COVID-19 winter, glimmers of optimism appear

Sun., Feb. 7, 2021

There is, as Dr. Francisco Velázquez likes to say, light at the end of the tunnel.

Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: Matt Shea, the Redoubt rock star, keeps riling up his followers for ‘total war’

Fri., Feb. 5, 2021

Less than a month after the fatal Capitol takeover by self-described patriots battling supposed tyranny, Matt Shea stood before an adoring crowd in North Idaho and told them to prepare for “total war.”

News

Shawn Vestal: Unemployment chief’s terrible, horrible, very bad year somehow lands her a federal appointment

Wed., Feb. 3, 2021

Anyone who has found themselves waiting – and waiting, and waiting, and waiting – for unemployment benefits might be puzzled to learn that the woman in charge of them in Washington has been scooped up for a job in the Biden administration.

News

Stolen by COVID: As Spokane passes 500 deaths, we look at a few of the lives lost to the pandemic

Sun., Jan. 31, 2021

Mothers and fathers. Grandpas and grandmas. Teachers and bus drivers, choir soloists and boiler room engineers, dental assistants and plumbers.

News

Stolen by COVID: Four lives, driven by deep passions, ended too soon by a pandemic

UPDATED: Sun., Jan. 31, 2021

The people who have succumbed to COVID-19 have come from all corners of the community. We remember some of those people, and the lives they led.

News >  Pacific NW

Stolen by COVID: Lives remembered

UPDATED: Sun., Jan. 31, 2021

The following accounts, which make up a fraction of the people who have died of COVID-19 during the pandemic, represent people whose families attributed their deaths to the virus or related complications. The information and photos were drawn from obituaries, news accounts and interviews with family members.

Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: As one Trump conspiracy dies, James Allsup returns to offer another

Fri., Jan. 22, 2021

With the inauguration of President Joe Biden, the underpinnings of the wildest conspiracies associated with the Trump presidency were dealt a serious blow.

Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: Pastor who organized anti-abortion rallies in Spokane helped rally Trump supporters in D.C.

Wed., Jan. 13, 2021

The night before the Trump riot at the U.S. Capitol, a face that would be familiar to many in the Spokane area took the stage in Freedom Plaza just east of the White House to rally the crowd to rise up against Satan and a “stolen” election.

News

Shawn Vestal: Sidelined by the pandemic, a comic and her trumpeter father make a joyful online noise

Sun., Jan. 10, 2021

The pandemic has been hell on performers. Anyone whose work requires an audience has had to undergo massive changes – and they’ve had to give up a lot.

Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: The Capitol takover was foretold, time and again, in the patterns of Northwest extremism

Sun., Jan. 10, 2021

The mob’s takeover of the U.S. Capitol came with a whole symphony of echoes.

Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: A COVID-19 death, turned into both a memorial and a mask campaign

Fri., Jan. 8, 2021

When Joe Hodl died of COVID-19 in August, his wife, Cheri, was left grief-stricken and bereft – and wondering whether there was anything she could do to help fight the virus.

News

Shawn Vestal: With her vote today, McMorris Rodgers finalizes the sale of her soul

Wed., Jan. 6, 2021

“Reputation, reputation, reputation! Oh, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial.”

Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: Cancer called, and a Spokane poet answered with a moving inventory of precious moments

UPDATED: Sun., Dec. 27, 2020

The first memory that came to Dennis Held, as he began taking notes for an essay that he would title “What I’ll Miss,” emerged from his youth: Riding shotgun while a friend drove down a highway, reaching out into the slipstream.

Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: In this dark night of a year, newborn children arrive like a sunrise

Fri., Dec. 25, 2020

It popped up on my phone among the zillions of things that pop up on my phone every hour: A texted picture of my brother, holding our nephew’s infant daughter in his lap.

News

Shawn Vestal: Ninety-one names to help us all remember those living, and dying, on our streets

Wed., Dec. 23, 2020