Writing for Salon this week, Alexander Zaitchik reports about Glenn Beck’s connections to Washington state.

The report, which includes references to The News Tribune’s coverage of the 1979 drowning death of Beck’s mother in Commencement Bay, raises questions about whether Beck is telling the truth about that tragic event: Was it suicide, as Beck claims, or was it an accident?

The controversial radio and television talk show host, who stirred a furor over his branding of President Barack Obama as a “racist” earlier this year, is expected to travel to his boyhood home of Mt. Vernon this weekend to accept the key to the city. The event has drawn widespread controversy in his hometown in bucolic Skagit County.