As Spokane Countys unemployment rate has slipped lower and lower, the available work force here, which has been touted for years as plentiful, isnt so abundant any more.Both companies with large hiring needs and temporary-help agencies are a

Louisiana-Pacific Corp.s 33-acre former mill site in Post Falls failed to sell at auction recently, and the property remains for sale, says Tim Reinertsen, senior vice president of Realty Marketing/Northwest, of Portland, which held the auction a

Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp. plans to go ahead with a $10 million project at its Mead Works aluminum smelter that it put on hold indefinitely a year ago.Susan Ashe, Kaisers spokeswoman here, says the project includes rebuilding an older at

Discussions of how to rebuild crumbling roads and bridges, improve the transportation of freight around the state, and ease traffic congestion are expected to dominate the Washington Legislatures 1998 session.Business groups say they will push

Sacred Heart Medical Center, St. Marys Hospital in Walla Walla, and the network that operates Holy Family Hospital and three smaller hospitals north of Spokane are closer to joining into a single integrated network after six months of the to

As Spokane County and municipalities here develop new comprehensive land-use plans to comply with state-mandated growth management, a new topic will be looked at along with the usual issues of land use, transportation, and public services.Its

Are the city of Spokane and Spokane County putting down the right mix of materials to pave their roads?Spokane paving contractors say the city and county need to add recycled asphalt to the paving mix thats laid on roads here. They say it for

Heart surgery here and around the nation is going through a revolution.In some cases, surgeons now are using a variety of much smaller incisions to get to the heart, rather than opening up the entire chest, and are avoiding the use of a machine

The Washington state Department of Transportation finally has released its preferred route for the long-proposed north-south freeway, which would carry traffic between Interstate 90 on the south and both U.S. 2 and U.S. 395 north of Spokane.DOT

In the year ended June 30, 1996, deposits in financial institutions in Spokane County grew at the lowest rate in a decade, new figures show.Deposits in the county totaled $4.091 billion as of June 30, up just 1.3 percent from $4.039 billion at 2