John Stucke

Kootenai Health plans to buy Spokane-based Heart Clinics Northwest in a bid to ensure North Idaho retains cardiology services. The acquisition will not affect services now available to patients in Spokane, said Jon Ness, who took over as chief executive of Kootenai Health a year ago. It will mean an expansion of services in North Idaho.

AmericanWest Bank plans to buy a Seattle-based bank for $7.2 million in a move that gives the Spokane institution a larger footprint in Western Washington. Viking Bank has seven branches, assets valued at $406 million and deposits totaling $379 million. The agreement still requires federal regulatory approval but is expected to close by the end of this year.

Construction will begin on a $110 million canola oil plant later this month near Warden, an agricultural community east of Moses Lake. The plant will be operated by Pacific Coast Canola LLC, a subsidiary of a Canadian company called Legumex Walker Inc.

AmericanWest agrees to buy Seattle bank

AmericanWest Bank plans to buy a Seattle-based bank for $7.2 million in a move that gives the Spokane institution a larger footprint in Western Washington.

Medical services for the poor are eroding in Washington state as budget cuts take hold. The latest round of Medicaid cutbacks will begin Oct. 1, including efforts to curb repeated use of hospital emergency rooms and similar services at private clinics.

Turns out that Spokane politics mirror the rancor in the other Washington. More than 600 people jammed the Lincoln Center on Wednesday night to boo or cheer Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, whose role in the Republican leadership of the U.S. House of Representative has put her under closer scrutiny as the nation’s economy sputters and its politics sour.

Parcels within Post Falls Landing, a project billed for years as a downtown-style community, are being sold at a trustee’s sale this December. The development, which includes a 142-slip marina and dozens of condos, is still largely unfinished. It sits on 33 acres just upstream from Post Falls Dam on the old 33-acre Louisiana Pacific sawmill site.

State regulators closed the Bank of Whitman on Friday night and sold the Colfax-based lender’s deposits and some assets to Columbia Banking System of Tacoma. The deal shutters 12 branches – many in small cities dotting Eastern Washington and in some cases the only bank in town.

State regulators closed the Bank of Whitman on Friday night and sold the Colfax-based lender’s deposits and some assets to Columbia Banking System of Tacoma.

Hundreds of people across Eastern Washington need urgent help to fight drug addiction, according to state health officials, and a California company with a sterling record of substance abuse treatment in Western Washington is poised to open a Spokane Valley methadone clinic in October. It would be the second methadone clinic in the county. WCHS Inc., a division of CRC Health Group, said during a public hearing Thursday that it could potentially treat more than 300 patients at its clinic, 15812 E. Indiana Ave., across Sullivan Road from the Spokane Valley Mall.

Providence Health Care has purchased Spokane Cardiology as part of its plan to develop a new heart institute serving the region. Federal antitrust regulators foiled a more ambitious deal earlier this year when they expressed concern about Providence’s plans to buy both Spokane Cardiology and Heart Clinics Northwest.

Providence Health Care has purchased Spokane Cardiology as part of its plan to develop a new heart institute serving the region.

The Washington State Hospital Association (WSHA) has sued the state for cutting Medicaid payments.

The owner of two adult family homes had his nursing credentials suspended after borrowing $25,000 from two patients several years ago. Thomas Stradling initially sought more than $85,000 from two patients to invest in a business venture, according to records from the Washington state Department of Health.