Bert Caldwell

Washingtonians should be blushing – or flushing, depending on how seriously one takes outsider rankings of a state’s desirability as a place to do business. Washington scored a rare three-fer last week.

Washington and Idaho are at a standstill, and that proved to be a good thing Tuesday in new rankings from the Tax Foundation. In its 2010 State Business Tax Climate Index, the nonpartisan watchdog group says Washington climbed to ninth among the 50 states, Idaho to 18th, largely because neither state made any significant adjustments to their tax structures while many others did so in response to budget shortfalls.

Key Tronic Corp. has transformed itself from a company once wholly dependent on its keyboard business to one that makes gaming machines, printers, medical devices and satellite control units. It has reported a profit for 22 consecutive quarters. There’s not a dime of debt on the books. And the stock trades at almost a 50 percent discount compared with that of its competitors.

Local, state and federal authorities were still looking Saturday for Phillip A. Paul, a missing Eastern State Hospital patient committed in 1987 for killing an elderly Yakima-area woman. Paul walked away from a group attending the Spokane County Interstate Fair on Thursday, triggering a manhunt that has attracted national publicity.

Two Lewiston residents died Saturday when their car collided head-on with another attempting a pass on State Route 127 seven miles south of Dusty, in Whitman County.

The conditions of two North Idaho men involved in a 26-motorcycle wreck on Interstate 5 in Oregon Friday have been upgraded.

Private airplanes headed for Vancouver, B.C., during the Winter Olympics next February will have to land in Spokane, Boise or Reno for a security check, a spokesman for the Transportation Safety Administration said Friday. Dwayne Baird said airspace around Vancouver will be open only to those aircraft that have been screened at the three U.S. airports. The planes will be inspected and the passengers screened, a process that will take about 20 minutes, he said. Baird said TSA workers at Spokane International Airport should be adequate to handle the extra duties.

Private airplanes headed for Vancouver, B.C., during the Winter Olympics next February will have to land in Spokane, Boise or Reno for a security check, a spokesman for the Transportation Safety Administration said Friday.

Five Eastern Washington banks serving Spokane have lost nearly $750 million since 2007, and bad loans will keep the pressure on the banks for the foreseeable future, the president of Inland Northwest Bank said Wednesday. Randy Fewel said Inland, Sterling Savings Bank, Banner Bank, Washington Trust Bank and AmericanWest Bank have also shed about 370 jobs, many in branch systems that extend into Utah and Northern California. All but Banner, which is headquartered in Walla Walla, are Spokane-based.

Confidentially, the United States has won a major victory for Boeing Co. in its ongoing fight against allegedly illegal European government aid to rival Airbus. Confidentially because the World Trade Organization opinion in the case has not been published, which has not stopped many an interested party from rendering 2 cents worth of commentary. Add one more to that group. I’m not starting down a 1,000-page path unless Cervantes or Tolstoy leads the way.

Inland Northwest Lighthouse has achieved in one year what company and community officials had hoped might take three. Already, 45 blind and sighted workers produce white, cork and other communication boards, paper cutters, hanging file holders and other office goods in a former Tidyman’s grocery store on the North Side. If a new line of boards configured for cubicles gets the go-ahead, another dozen could be in the plant by the end of the year.

A partial settlement announced Friday will cut by almost half a proposed Avista Utilities electricity rate increase in Washington, and slice a natural gas increase by almost 40 percent. The agreement is not binding on the Utilities and Transportation Commission, which will hold a public hearing on the increases Sept. 30 in Spokane. But all other parties in the case, including the commission’s staff and the attorney general’s public counsel, have accepted the changes.

Kootenai Electric Cooperative members will pay almost 12 percent more for power starting next month, unless they can persuade the utility’s directors to modify their plans at a Sept. 29 hearing. A pending 7.5 percent rate increase by the Bonneville Power Administration, which supplies all of Kootenai’s energy, and the cost of new substations and other system improvements made the increase necessary, spokesman Larry Bryant said.

The United Food & Commercial Workers will stop advising consumers to shop at competing stores while a Fred Meyer complaint against other negative union publicity proceeds through arbitration. Meanwhile, negotiations will continue on the union’s central complaint against the Portland-based chain: its policy of dismissing workers for a single error handling money.

The United Food & Commercial Workers will stop advising consumers to shop at competing stores while a Fred Meyer complaint against other negative union publicity proceeds through arbitration.

Spokane-based Advantage IQ Inc. has purchased a Portland company that helps businesses manage energy consumption. Ecos Consulting Inc. becomes a wholly owned Advantage IQ subsidiary that will keep its name and remain in Portland.

Avista Utilities natural gas customers in Idaho and Washington can expect a double-digit price cut when the Spokane utility submits new rate filings to regulators later this month, spokeswoman Debbie Simock said Monday.

I miss our 1994 Aerostar in these days of clunker-envy. It was the extended version that could accommodate a 4-by-8 sheet of plywood if the back seats were removed. The all-wheel drive got us pretty much wherever we wanted to go, including a run into the Kalmiopsis Wilderness that bounced that vehicle into a new dimension of misalignment.