Thursday on the Inland Journal podcast, prison time isn’t always down time for inmates. At the Washington state prison in Airway Heights, hundreds of inmates are studying for their GEDs and a handful will soon collect associate’s degrees through the Community Colleges of Spokane. We’ll go to the prison and talk with the man in charge of the program that helps inmates build skills that will earn them jobs after their terms end.

Wednesday on the Inland Journal podcast, March 15 is one of the dates fourth-year medical students circle on their calendars. It’s Match Day, when the students learn the identity of the hospitals where they’ll work after they graduate. We’ll talk with one University of Washington medical student from Spokane who’s staying home to begin her career. And we’ll hear about progress made in expanding Spokane’s medical residency programs.

Tuesday on the Inland Journal podcast, on the day when we invite Spokane Mayor David Condon into our studio to talk about homelessness, we meet with Jeff Keizer. Keizer came to Spokane about four months ago from northern California. He attended SPR’s homelessness forum last week and shared with one of our staff members his own story about being homeless in Spokane. We followed up to ask him about his experience.

Editor's Note: The Idaho House approved this bill, 45-25, Thursday afternoon. It goes next to the state Senate. Thursday on the Inland Journal podcast, we’ll hear about the battle that rages in Boise between Idaho legislators who want to kill or water down the Medicaid expansion initiative approved by voters in November. We’ll hear testimony from Wednesday on a new bill designed to impose work requirements on low-income people who would qualify for subsidized health care.

Today on the Inland Journal podcast, I talk with my colleague Steve Jackson about tonight’s [Wednesday’s] SPR public forum on homelessness at Spokane City Hall. Steve is the host. There are lots of people involved in the discussion so he has put together two panels. They’ll talk about providing services to homeless people, but they’ll also talk about affordable housing for low-income people and efforts to create more of it. Also, we’ll hear about how food pantries are used to feed hungry

Friday on the Inland Journal podcast, as temperatures slowly warm back to the seasonal norms, people can start finally to think about spring. The time for outdoor burning is still at least a few weeks away here in our area, but in southern Idaho, regulators expect to allow farmers to torch their fields as early as this week. We’ll talk with Mark Boyle, the head of the Idaho state smoke management program, about field burning.

Thursday on the Inland Journal podcast, Native Americans are deeply underrepresented among the health sciences workforce in the United States. Washington State University is working on a plan to recruit more Native students to health-related careers. We’ll talk with Dr. Naomi Bender, the university’s director of Native American Health Sciences about the challenges involved in that and about some of her strategies.

Wednesday on the Inland Journal podcast, many books have been written about Spokane’s history. A lot of them have been focused on downtown or the city’s now-historic neighborhoods. Author Ty Brown has given us something new, a look at the early development of the area we now know as Wandermere. It’s a golf course, yes, but it has an interesting history as a year-round sporting area.

This week on Inland Journal, we’ll talk with a proponent of moving the country to Daylight Saving Time permanently as a bill advocating that moves through the Washington legislature. And Tracy Simmons from Spokane FAVS dot com will talk with the supervisor of the United Methodist churches in eastern Washington about the church’s recent decision to continue with its tradition of not allowing gay Methodists to serve as clergy or to marry same sex partners.

Wednesday on the Inland Journal podcast, we turn the program over to Tracy Simmons from Spokane FAVS dot com…Faves for Faith and Values. She’ll talk with the supervisor of the United Methodist churches in eastern Washington about the church’s recent decision to continue with its tradition of not allowing gay Methodists to serve as clergy or to marry same sex partners.