NISHINOMIYA, JapanSpokane civic leader and former businessman Ed Tsutakawa remembers as a teen-ager in Japan watching American baseball legend Babe Ruth play in an exhibition game at Koshien Stadium. The venerable old ballpark sits just across a

WTB Inc., a troubled Spokane trucking company that at one time purportedly commanded a fleet of 260 trucks operating nationwide, has filed for protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.Petitions submitted to the U.S.

A 2.5-mile one-way couplet proposed along the Sprague Avenue corridor in the Spokane Valley would displace between 25 and 30 single-family homes, some 50 to 65 mobile homes, and a seven-unit apartment complex, according to a draft supplemental on A

Spokane-area school districts expect to kick off more than $34 million worth of construction this year, and are drawing up or seeking public comment on proposed projects worth at least another $81 million.Add to that another $30.3 million in and

Pier 1 Imports Inc., of Fort Worth, Texas, plans to open a store later this year in the Northpointe Plaza shopping center on Spokanes North Side, says company spokeswoman Joy Rich.Pier 1 has leased a 10,000-square-foot, free-standing building

Crown West Realty LLC, which operates the huge Spokane Business & Industrial Park in the Spokane Valley, is refining plans for a $15 million commercial and light-industrial center on vacant land just south of the parks main entrance.The center

Two companies from Wisconsin and California bought the former Best Products Co. building and the nearby Cascade Plaza retail strip center in the Northgate Shopping Center in north Spokane for a combined $4.5 million last month.Continental 80 an

A consortium of wheat growers and others in Eastern Washington hopes to open at least three manufacturing plants, including one just south of Spokane, to make particle board out of straw.Each of the factories would cost between $5 million and to

Spokane city officials knew they had a tiger by the tail when the city became interested in buying the Saltys at the Falls restaurant property while Saltys owner was negotiating to lease the site to Clinkerdagger Restaurant.The city, in a 30

For the past nine months, Spokane cardiac surgeons have been performing an investigational procedure in which they use a laser to pierce the hearts of patients to relieve a serious form of angina, or chest pain.The surgeons, Samuel Selinger, and