A sell-out crowd of about 90 people, all waiting to laugh, filled the Magic Lantern Theater in downtown Spokane. Before long, a young man with screaming yellow hair, wearing a referees uniform, bounded out onto the small stage and began with the

A little over a year ago, Spokane-based Metropolitan Mortgage & Securities Co. was in the midst of slashing its large work force by more than half as it exited the high-volume, low-margin mortgage-banking market and sought to redirect its resources

A Spokane health-care plan administrator has launched a project to link employer-sponsored health-education programs with increases in worker productivityan approach that businesses would like to take, but that theyve historically been unable a

AmericanWest Bank, of Spokane, plans to open four new facilities in the Spokane area and North Idaho this year and hopes to move its downtown-Spokane branch next year into a sizable new building that it says developers are planning to construct in

Western Garnet International Ltd., a Coeur dAlene-based provider of industrial garnets, says it will move its headquarters offices this month into Riverstone One, a multitenant office building in the Riverstone development in Coeur dAlene. is a

A group of North Idaho physicians and a Chicago company have firmed up their plans to build a specialty surgical hospital in Post Falls, saying they plan to construct the facility at the northeast corner of Mullan Avenue and Syringa Street there, a

Spokane School District 81 has launched a facilities study to update a 1997 study that resulted in $104.5 million in improvements and construction projects for Spokane schools, says Mark Anderson, the districts associate superintendent for The

Empire Ford Inc., of Spokane, has begun a $1.1 million remodeling project at its dealership building in downtown Spokane, and says it will stay downtown rather than move to the West Plains as it once considered doing.John Robideaux, a marketing

United Furniture Warehouse, a Canadian-based 155-store discount chain, is considering closing one or more of its three stores in the Spokane-Coeur dAlene area as part of a scaling back of its struggling U.S. operations, says company President are

Lloyd Industries Inc., a Spokane-based pizza-pan and equipment maker, has bought the assets of Paul Eyraud Co., a Cheney business that made commercial baking products and Martha Stewart Living-brand baking pans. The transaction will allow Lloyd