More people might be shopping with a click than a physical cart these days, but brick-and-mortar retail news tops the Journal of Business' list of most-read business stories in 2019.

After respectable – albeit slower – gains in employment this year, Spokane-area economists are projecting up to 1.5% growth in jobs next year. That would equate to roughly 3,000 new jobs in the Spokane Metropolitan Statistical Area in 2020, which

Scott Morris started working at Washington Water Power Co. when he was 23 years old, wrapping water heaters in insulation as part of an energy-efficiency measure taken on by the company in the early 1980s.

Total compensation sustained a double-digit drop for executives at Inland Northwest-based publicly-traded companies in 2018, according to a Journal of Business analysis.

Stephen Heath needs more watchers on the wall. And Heath, a part-owner at Spokane Valley-based information technology company Intrinium Inc., doesn't appear to be alone.

Cascadia Senior Living LLC's Fieldstone Memory Care assisted-living center is taking shape on Spokane's South Hill and is expected to open this fall.

A second Ronald McDonald House is under construction on Spokane's lower South Hill, marking the first major expansion in 17 years for Ronald McDonald House Charities of the Inland Northwest.

Two new buildings worth a total of about $57 million are coming out of the ground on the southern edge of Spokane's University District. Construction crews broke ground last fall on the seven-level, 159,000-square-foot Catalyst Building