Week in review
TUESDAY
Sacred Heart Medical Center is acquiring a heart-surgery practice in a deal both parties say is designed to stabilize cardiac care in the region.
The surgeons at Northwest Heart and Lung Surgery Associates perform nearly 1,100 procedures at Sacred Heart each year and draw patients from throughout the area.
•A 150-inch high-definition plasma TV unveiled by Panasonic is the world’s largest, the Japanese consumer electronics company claimed Monday at the International Consumer Electronics Show.
•Starbucks Corp. said it is bringing back its chairman and former chief executive, Howard Schultz, to lead a major restructuring initiative, replacing CEO Jim Donald.
WEDNESDAY
Coldwater Creek Inc. laid off 51 people at its corporate headquarters in Sandpoint, following a rocky year in the women’s apparel industry that sent the company’s stock price tumbling nearly 80 percent.
THURSDAY
Before Boeing Co.’s new 787 jetliner gets the green light to fly passengers, the jet maker will have to prove the plane’s computer network can’t be hacked.
•Researcher Ken Vogel said he estimates that an acre of switch grass would produce an average of 300 gallons of ethanol based on the study of grass grown on marginal land on farms in Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota.
FRIDAY
Two Spokane economists have joined the camp predicting a recession this year in the U.S. economy. But Eastern Washington University’s Grant Forsyth and Avista Corp.’s Randy Barcus also said they expect the Inland Northwest to ride out the storm in comparatively good shape.
•Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke pledged Thursday to slash interest rates as needed to prevent housing and credit problems from plunging the country into a recession.
•North Spokane shoppers may have easier access between a planned warehouse-style grocery store and existing retailers using a road extension that will connect Dakota and Nevada streets.
• Spokane City Council on Monday signed off on a deal with WinCo Foods LLC calling for the grocery chain to extend East Jay Avenue along the south edge of the proposed development to help alleviate traffic.