Idaho Matters

This year, Optimist Youth Football will be celebrating its 75th anniversary.

As a nonprofit, the organization has helped to coach more than 70,000 young athletes, and this month they'll be adding to that number as they kick off their Kids Skills Camp.

Jerrone Moore, president of Optimist Youth Football, joined Idaho Matters to talk more.

Every day, thousands of people drive Highway 55, which connects the Treasure Valley to places like McCall, Cascade, and Garden Valley.

And on summer weekends, the number of cars traveling the road can double as folks head up into and back out of the mountains.

Construction projects on the roadway, including replacing the Rainbow Bridge, will slow things down this summer, and nowhere seems slower to the folks who are stuck at the Banks to Lowman road intersection on a Sunday afternoon where traffic can back up for miles as cars try to turn into highway traffic going 55 miles an hour.

As the Idaho Transportation Department works to find a long-term solution for that intersection, the short-term plan is to put a traffic light there and provide more flaggers on the weekends in the meantime.

Transportation program manager Vince Trimboli joined Idaho Matters for an update on Highway 55.

In Ada County alone, the Speaker of the Idaho House of Representatives got just 186 votes over his primary challenger in May.

Another race in Ada County was even closer. Republican Chris Bruce was just 47 votes away from Melissa Durrant in the larger race for the District 23 state representative seat.

And now, thanks to the new Ada County Ballot Verifier, anyone can inspect the ballots for these races, looking at each vote, to see for themselves how the election came out.

We told you about the new tool before the May primary, which was the first real-time test of the system, and we wanted to know how it worked out, so we invited Ada County Clerk Trent Tripple and Civera CEO Adam Friedman to join Idaho Matters.

The federal government is sending billions of dollars to farms, cities, and tribes to help cut back on demand for water from the Colorado River, which is shrinking due to climate change. It set aside $157 million to pay cities in Arizona that offered to leave water in the nation’s largest reservoir. KUNC’s Alex Hager reports for the Mountain West News Bureau.

Following May's failed levy, the Caldwell School District has been left to make some big cuts, one of which includes the budget for Caldwell High Schools cross country and track teams.

This means that starting next year, kids who wish to participate in the sport will now have to pay-to-play.

However, that's something that coach Alexis Martinez isn't comfortable with. Which is why he's started a GoFundMe in order to help cover the fees for any students who want to join the team. Coach Martinez joined Idaho Matters to talk more about this effort.

Western Display – which will put on Boise’s 4th of July fireworks show again this year – is one of North America’s most successful pyrotechnics experts.

“We put on approximately 300 shows throughout the year – about 200 of them for Independence Day,” said Heather Gobet, co-owner of Western Display. “Most of our shows, of late, are in Idaho, Oregon and Washington.”

And while their company is in the “surprise” business, perhaps the biggest surprise is how what was once a family farm, growing medicinal herbs in the 1940s, became a fireworks powerhouse.

Gobet joined Summer Altieri, special events coordinator for the City of Boise, to visit with Morning Edition host George Prentice to preview this year’s showcase, get all the do’s and don’ts for the big show, and share the history of Western Display.

The U.S. Supreme Court decided Thursday to send a lawsuit over Idaho's abortion ban back to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and said, for now, Idaho hospitals can perform abortions in medical emergencies.

It's known as the EMTALA Case, and the justices did not rule on the merits of the lawsuit, which means the case will continue to be argued in a lower court for now.

Peg Dougherty, Deputy General Counsel for St. Luke's Health System, joined Idaho Matters to talk more about how this will affect patients and doctors in Idaho.

The Teton Pass has reopened, there's a divide over education issues, U of I and Phoenix have requested an extension in their negotiations and we take a look at the latest on the Daybells.

It’s Friday, which means it's time for our Reporter Roundtable when Idaho Matters gets you up to date on all the news that made headlines this past week.

Our journalist panel today:

It's no secret that the city of Boise has some ambitious climate goals as they work to make the community carbon neutral by 2050.

Which is why they are enlisting the help of some of Idaho's most passionate activists, our youth.

With $50,000 to invest in youth-led projects, the city is looking for proposals that will help make a difference in our community.

Climate action and sustainability coordinator, Alex Brooks, joined Idaho Matters to talk more about this opportunity.

If there’s a more controversial environmental subject than wolves in Idaho, we haven’t found it yet.

When wolves were reintroduced into the Gem State almost 30 years ago, there were two very distinct sides: those who wanted them back and those who didn’t.

Anger, prejudice, myths, truths, and above all, very strong feelings on both sides, have often made it feel like common ground can never be reached.

Almost 20 years ago, Living with Wolves was formed to try and break down the myths around wolves. This nonprofit's mission is to build "tolerance that can lead to coexistence between people and wolves sharing the same land."

Garrick Dutcher, the research and program director for Living with Wolves, joined Idaho Matters to tell us more.