10 Years After White Supremacist Tried To Bomb Spokane’s MLK Parade, Extremism Is More Mainstream

By Scott Leadingham
The backpack bomb made by Kevin Harpham, of Stevens County, Washington, was discovered on the parade route of Spokane's 2011 Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade, before it could be detonated. CREDIT: FBI
This week marks 10 years since a white supremacist attempted to bomb the Martin Luther King Junior Day parade through downtown Spokane. The bomb was discovered and defused just in the nick of time. But the effects of extremist ideologies in the region lived on. Journalist Leah Sottile examined that in the podcast Bundyville, from Oregon Public Broadcasting. Leah spoke with Read More

Spokane Area’s Largest Districts To Begin Year With Remote Classes; Palouse Region Schools TBD

By NWPB News
The first electric bus for a Washington school district went to the Franklin Pierce School District in Tacoma. Courtesy of Washington Governor's Office
Spokane Superintendent Adam Swinyard says parents in his district can choose full-year distance learning or an option that allows for a transition to classroom learning, if that becomes possible later. Both would involve live instruction with teachers. For other districts, like Pullman, there's still an open question about what the fall term will look like, at least in the Read More

Northwest Mask Wars And Pandemics: Nothing New For Washington As Politics Of 1918 Return

By NWPB News
Volunteers wearing gauze masks at a street kitchen in Cincinnati serve food to children of families afflicted by the flu pandemic in the winter of 1918-1919.
In 1918 Walla Walla, the chief of police, refused to enforce a state mask mandate. He pointed out that he was going to meet heavy resistance and, anyway, that he had no authority to carry out a state directive, only city ordinances. Still, he also openly defied the instructions of the city’s health officer, J.E. Vanderpool, to follow the state health officer’s guidance. Read More
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