Summer

It's summer, it's hot, and your kids are out of school. Keeping kids cool, and occupied, is no easy feat for busy families. But what if your family is homeless and doesn't have a nice air-conditioned house to spend the summer in? Boise's Pioneer Neighborhood Community Center Day Shelter is now open.

Summer means time for fresh berries, from blackberries to strawberries and everything in between. Every August, the Monastery of St. Gertrude in Central Idaho holds its annual Raspberry Festival. In this episode of Edible Idaho, correspondent Guy Hand meets Sister Wilma, then 91, still working in the Monastery's raspberry patch. 

7/31 UPDATE: Several large fires continue to burn across Idaho. Firefighters are hoping to get a handle on them ahead of change in the weather expected to set in Wednesday. The forecast indicates temperatures will cool slightly, meaning more bearable conditions for firefighters as they battle blazes. However, the cooling will bring a chance of thunderstorms and winds which could help spread flames and spark new fires.

When Treasure Valley kids cry "I'm bored," author Rick Just has the answers. Just will join us to talk about his new book, 'A Kid's Guide To Boise.'

With many schools on summer vacation and the summer travel season here, deaths on Idaho roadways are spiking in what the Idaho State Police call the 100 Deadliest Days.

The theaters will be filled with action movies this summer - 'Solo,' 'Deadpool 2,' 'Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom' and 'Oceans 8' will keep the lucrative franchises alive for another year and on Friday's Idaho Matters we talk with Boise Weekly film critic George Prentice about which films to pick and which should get a pass.

After a tumultuous summer of E. coli outbreaks, ponds in Boise are again dealing with tainted water. This time, algae found in pond water could be toxic.

After being closed for the better part of summer, Boise officials are finally reopening Esther Simplot Pond. The move comes after E. coli levels in the pond went down and stayed consistently low.

E. coli contamination continues plaguing Boise’s Esther Simplot Pond and preventing swimmers from beating the heat by taking a dip. After a summer of searching for the cause of the bacteria, officials may have finally found the source.

Summer means barbecues, baseball and of course, bathing suits. When temperatures push a hundred degrees, there’s no better way to cool off than by jumping in a pool or pond. But this season, some of the ponds around Boise have dealt with outbreaks of E.coli. As part of our news experiment where we answer questions submitted by you, we went with a summer theme and explored this question from listener Alexi Balmuth: Who monitors harmful bacteria in public swimming areas and how is it done?

Things are heating up around the Treasure Valley and across much of southern Idaho. Little relief appears to be in sight for the heatwave that could break records.

In eastern Idaho, people are in the midst of a heatwave that, if it keeps up, could be the longest in the region’s history. It’s not so much the temperatures that are setting records, though a few have fallen in the past few days, but it’s the sustained high temperatures says Dawn Harmon.

With summer unofficially here, it’s almost the time of year to float the Boise River. However, with the river still running well above flood stage and untold amounts of debris collecting along the waterway, it’ll probably be a while before kayaks and tubes are allowed to make that lazy trip downstream.

Memorial Day means holiday travel, and AAA Idaho says the number of trips in the state, and the country, are going up. Here's a preview of what to expect.

This Memorial Day weekend, more people will be traveling, especially driving. Some of the reasons are a lower unemployment rate, relatively low gas prices and the fact that the economic recession is in the rear-view mirror.

Wednesday is the first day of summer vacation for students in the Boise School District. Other districts have already ended the year, others will very soon. That means free summer nutrition programs for low-income kids are about to start up.

Nationally, nearly 4 million kids participate in USDA-sponsored summer meal programs. Preliminary numbers show nearly 27,000 of those kids were in Idaho last summer.