Idaho Matters

Kleenex poses for a photo. (Gemma Gaudette / Boise State Public Radio ) Back in June, Gemma was featured in the "We Are BSPR" section of our weekly newsletter . This is a light-hearted way for us at Boise State Public Radio to share a little more about ourselves with our audience. From that spotlight we learned Gemma thinks she'd make a terrible broadcast engineer, the spare bedroom in her house h...

(iStockphoto.com) Every Wednesday we bring you the latest health care news from COVID-19 to Monkeypox to RSV to Ebola - with our Doctor Roundtable with Dr. David Pate . He's the former CEO of St. Luke's Health System and he donates his time to us every single week to talk about the medical issues that affect you. This week, he joined Idaho Matters to talk about an outbreak the World Health Organiz...

(Lacey Daley / Boise State Public Radio) August 3, 2023, was a horrible day in Boise. First responders were first called to a downtown street where a teen skateboarder was hit and killed by a vehicle. A very short time later, police responded to yet another incident of a man with a weapon. With law enforcement using lethal force for the second time in as many weeks, the man was dead. Boise Mayor L...

Trevor Caughlin, a Boise State University associate biology professor, holds up a goathead yanked from an abandoned lot that his research indicated was a hotspot for the invasive plant. (Murphy Woodhouse / Boise State Public Radio) Across the region, goatheads - or puncturevine - are an invasive scourge to cyclists, walkers and our four-legged friends - popping tires and embedding themselves in sh...

(Berkley) Last year, author Carley Fortune came out with her debut novel "Every Summer After." Her book climbed the New York Times Bestseller list for more than 13 weeks and was named one of the hottest reads of summer 2022. Now, she is out with her latest beach read, " Meet Me at the Lake ." Fortune joined Idaho Matters to talk more about her newest book.

(Ryan Kellman / NPR) Access to health care services in Idaho is getting harder as a shortage of doctors and other health workers makes just getting a timely appointment difficult. Getting routine tests, like mammograms or blood sugar checks, can take months and often require traveling from one end of the Treasure Valley to the other to get to an appointment. Optum Idaho is trying to increase acces...

(mikroman6 / Getty Images) The presidents of Idaho's colleges and universities did a lot of traveling last year around the state, the country and even overseas. Some of those trips covered statehouse meetings, conferences and sporting events and one trip was to Japan to sign an international partnership to train more students to work in the semiconductor industry . Some of those trips were free, s...

(iStockphoto) Since the start of April, over 100,000 people in Idaho saw their Medicaid health insurance dropped thanks to what’s being called "Medicaid unwinding." During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare was not allowed to drop people from Medicaid, even if they were no longer eligible for the coverage. Then in December, Congress said states could remove people wh...

Water from the Colorado River flows through the East Highline Canal on its way to farms in Imperial Valley on June 20, 2023. Climate change is shrinking the river's supply, and farms in the area are under pressure to reduce demand. (Alex Hager / KUNC) Idaho Matters takes a trip to the Colorado River to see how the southwest is working to cut back on water use and take a peak at how agreements conc...

( Flick/NPS Climate Change Response) More than 21 million Americans have lived within three miles of a large wildfire. And almost 600,000 of them found themselves inside the firelines. According to new research , over the last 20 years, the number of people directly exposed to wildfires has doubled and the reasons why may surprise you. Moji Sadegh is an Associate Professor of Civil Engineering at...

Francisco Valenzuela works on installing a support structure common on large-scale solar farms during training at the Northern Nevada Laborers Training Center in Storey County, Nev., on June 23, 2023. (Kaleb Roedel / Mountain West News Bureau) Phasing out fossil fuels requires a lot of clean energy infrastructure, like solar farms. Now workers in one sun-soaked part of our region are grabbing a sh...

(Elaine Thompson / AP Images) Here in the U.S. many states are experiencing record breaking heat and when it comes to cooling down, we need more solutions than just turning on the air conditioner, at least according to Jeff Goodell. He is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, " The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet " which looks at the impact extreme heat i...

(Rob Allen / Flickr) There's a new local tv news station in our region and it's devoted to the Spanish speaking community. But in a region that struggles with affordability, it's a challenge getting the operation off the ground. Khol's Hanna Merzbach reports for the Mountain West News Bureau.

Boise Police at the scene of a shooting on Thursday, August 3. <br/> (Troy Oppie / Boise State Public Radio) A look at Lori Vallow Daybell ' s sentencing , fatal shootings have increased in Boise, Woodings' council seat may soon be filled, the BLM is helping to restore ecosystems and the McCall-Donnelly School District is working to support its employees with more affordable housing. It’s Fr...

(Morning Toast / Flickr<br/>) During the warmer months many people tend to clear out their closets and garages, tidying up their spaces while making a bit of extra cash with a summer yard sale. However, before you start posting "Yard Sale" signs it might be worth checking out whether or not you qualify for an occasional sales exemption . The new exemption could save you from having to collec...

(Chiot's Run / Flickr) Whether you're gardening on a budget or just want to make sure you can grow your favorite plants again next year, seed saving can come in handy. And thankfully there are plenty of plants that produce seeds that you can easily save from one year to the next. Casey O'Leary, co-founder of the Snake River Seed Cooperative and Instructor of Horticulture at the College of Western...

Boise's Saint Alphonsus memorial garden. ( Photo courtesy of Saint Alphonsus) Over the last three years, more than 5,000 people in Idaho have died due to COVID-19. Across the U.S., that number increases to over one million . In order to commemorate those who were lost to the pandemic and the workers who helped care for them, Saint Alphonsus Health System has created several memorial gardens to hel...

(iStockphoto.com) There's a shortage of over 150 drugs , some of them life-saving cancer treatments , and more and more people are leaving their pharmacies empty handed . Why are we seeing these shortages ? How are hospitals in Idaho coping? And what can you do if you can't find your medicine? Dr. David Pate , former CEO of St. Luke's Health System, along with Brian Dotter, Senior Director of Phar...

(Gail K E / Flickr) The Mountain West region offers endless opportunities for outdoor recreation. But Spanish speakers can find it tough to enjoy the trails when there are no maps or other information in their primary language. Latino groups are looking for solutions to get more members of their community outdoors. Aspen Public Radio's Caroline Llanes reports for the Mountain West News Bureau.

LED + Friends begins August 4th and runs through August 6th. (Gretchen LeMay / Photo courtesy of LED) Founded in 2015, Boise-based LED is a nonprofit organization that creates innovative and accessible artistic experiences for everyone. LED co-founders Lauren Edson, joined Idaho Matters to talk about their upcoming project.

(Jessie Wright-Mendoza for NPR) This year marks a special time for the Boise Valley Square Dance Hall as it's celebrating its 45th anniversary . The hall has been around since 1978 when, according to the story, a group of very determined square dancers raised money through raffles, recycling and even selling a train car load of toilet paper and used the cash to build the hall. To celebrate this an...

Every state has a point that's higher than any other spot on the map. It's called a " high point " and in Idaho it's Borah Peak at 12,662 feet. Some high points are easier to climb than others, but very few people have climbed them all . However, Idahoan Ella Johnson will soon be one of them. She's just 15 years old and is about to climb her 49th high point. She just climbed Mount Rainier and is a...

(Whittney Brown / Flickr) Stargazers are getting quite a treat this August: a double feature of two so-called supermoons. The first of which, the sturgeon supermoon, will be visible on Tuesday, Aug. 1 and the second, the rare blue supermoon, in late August. Morning Edition Host George Prentice sat down with Dr. Irwin Horowitz, scholar and past president of the Boise Astronomical Society , to talk...

Red streetlights in Grand Teton National Park. (Barber Lab) It's no secret that our world is getting brighter, especially at night, as more artificial light is added to our environment. And that expanding brightness is having an effect, often a negative ecological impact on wildlife. A recent Boise State University study looked at how bats react to artificial light in Grand Teton National Park and...

(Craig Brown / Flickr) According to the National Weather Service the average temperature this month in Boise was 97.2 degrees and the capital city had eight days over 100 degrees. In Twin Falls this month the average temp was 93.1 and in Mountain Home it was 96.3 degrees. So by anyone’s definition it’s hot out there - for us and for all the wild animals who call Idaho home. Because they can’t pop...