Val was out of town last week, so Erin and Aaron filled her in on the biggest stories she missed: A Ghanaian immigrant detained by ICE who has been allowed to return home to await trial, the scoop on Congressman Michael Baumgartner's first Town Hall in Spokane since Trump's inauguration, a political drama out of Spokane Valley that could impact statewide public record access and a very brief update on a local police accountability advocate's First Amendment case against two regional sheriff's offices. Relevant reading:

• Migrant detained by ICE back with family: RANGE caught up with Bismark Avornu, who’s lived in the Spokane area for 15 years, where he met his wife and is raising two American children, about his 45 days in a Tacoma processing facility.
• Congressman Michael Baumgartner’s Spokane Town Hall: The wildest meeting we’ve ever attended
• How a Washington city’s war with its own council member could chip away at public records access: Legislative proposal would allow agencies to withhold the occupations of whistleblowers in investigations from public records.
• Spokane and Bonner county sheriff’s offices can no longer hide or delete critical Facebook comments after First Amendment concerns, judges rule

A track record of poor labor conditions, a deep dive into executive compensation, ghosted donors, an upcoming merger that could spell trouble for unionization efforts and a 20-year-old discrimination case that shows tactics similar to the ones described by our sources have been happening for a long time.

It was a classic Luke/Erin messaround as they talked about two political, pro-business newsletters and the stories they spawned this week + Congressman Michael Baumgartner's Town Hall.

Erin Seller's reads their latest story on varying responses to downtown Spokane homelessness.

FāVS News reporter and editor Cassy Benefield joined Luke and Aaron Hedge on the pod this week to talk about her story about World Relief Spokane, which partly focused on the story of Ukrainian immigrant Julie Horbenko, who thinks President Donald Trump might, with the flick of a pen, make it illegal for her to be here.

Refugees in Spokane at risk as World Relief navigates changing U.S. policies

Luke is back and a rare RANGE reporter appearance unlocked! Our split-custody Murrow Fellow who works out of Newport, WA came to talk shop on the pod about rural journalism in a border community. And our City Hall reporter Erin dove in to homelessness statistics and an arrest at council.

Former crime reporter Valerie Osier interviewed two of RANGE’s reporters about local news gone national. She talked to Erin Sellers about their story on a restrictive Idaho law and the future of gender-affirming care nationwide, and the other Aaron about his easy-to-digest breakdown on the now viral Coeur d’Alene Town Hall that ended with men in black dragging a woman out of the building for voicing her dissenting views. Relevant reading:

•  Red states could preview gender-affirming care under Trump: An Idaho law banning state insurance from covering gender-affirming care could foreshadow a national ban on Medicaid spending for transgender care, by Erin Sellers
• A debrief of the now-infamous CDA town hall: A local extremism reporter’s guide to what happened in the viral video of a woman being dragged out of an Idaho town hall by a group of men with no official uniforms, by Aaron Hedge

Erin and Aaron practiced one of a journalist’s most important skills — interviewing — by asking questions about each other’s coverage of the 2025 Washington State Legislative Session. Erin talked about a bill that would require doctors to give patients increased information about pain management options before IUD procedures, and Aaron talked about fiscal notes and how they can be weaponized to kill important bills. Relevant reading:

• ‘Scissors, scissors’: Washington patients could soon have informed consent for IUD insertions, by Erin Sellers
• 20+ WA state bills to keep an eye on: Workers’ rights, protections for undocumented immigrants and queer kids, reproductive justice, voting access for incarcerated people, and a whole lot more this Washington legislative session, by the RANGE staff

Do you have questions about local government? Wondering who to complain to about an issue in your neighborhood? Wondering which agency governs certain things? Wondering why something is happening or how much it costs? Email us at [email protected] with your questions, and we’ll try and answer them next week!

Erin and Aaron welcomed on guest Eliza Billingham, The Inlander’s City Hall reporter, for an hour of Journos on Journos, interviewing each other about some of the biggest stories of the week: Billingham’s piece on Community Court and Sellers’ story on a City Council resolution in solidarity with undocumented immigrants, recommitting the city to following state law. Relevant reading linked below!

• Spokane’s Community Court handles most nonviolent offenses downtown. While arrests increase, founders say improving quality of life is “not an easy fix.” – Eliza Billingham, The Inlander.
• Solidarity, if not sanctuary: The Spokane City Council showed their solidarity with the immigrant community by promising to continue to follow state law, but opposition feared it created a false sense of security. – Erin Sellers, RANGE

The whole RANGE team sat down to discuss how they're approaching news coverage during the Trump administration, ongoing immigration cases they're following and County Commissioner Al French's commitment to divesting his stocks in PFAS chemical manufacturers. Relevant reading linked below!

• Know your immigration rights: Spokane is within 100 miles of a border, which puts our community at greater risk of mass deportations. It’s time to brush up on your rights, and how to protect your neighbors.
• Immigration officials are arresting people in Washington and warehousing them in Idaho: At least four people arrested in Spokane County, one for unlawful border crossing, were transported and held for several days at the Kootenai County Jail.
• ‘Daunting’: Uncertainty in Spokane as Trump threatens local officials who don’t aid deportations, but state law is clear for schools, hospitals and police
• Hundreds of refugees set to resettle in Spokane could be stopped by day-one executive orders from Trump administration.
• ‘Our communities are truly at risk’: Washington advocacy groups urge state leaders to defy federal deportation policies following surprise immigration raids in California.
• Commissioner French pledges to sell family stock in ‘forever chemicals’ manufacturers: The county commissioner, who says the investments belonged to his mother and were willed to him, has been the target of outcry in public meetings over nondisclosure of PFAS contamination.

Do you have questions about local government? Wondering who to complain to about an issue in your neighborhood? Wondering which agency governs certain things? Wondering why something is happening or how much it costs? Email us at [email protected] with your questions, and we’ll try and answer them next week!