Mike Prager

Three people were found dead Tuesday in a fire that consumed part of a Deer Park-area house owned by a lieutenant in the Spokane Fire Department. Fire officials were unable to contact Lt. Terrance Barnett-Canfield after the early morning blaze at 20 E. Chattaroy Road southeast of Deer Park, and two of the victims were burned so badly that visual identification was not possible, Spokane fire Assistant Chief Brian Schaeffer said in an email to fire department staff.

Three people are dead following an early morning fire Tuesday that consumed part of a home southeast of Deer Park. The home is owned by a Spokane Fire Department lieutenant.

Spokane International Airport, along with the Airport Business Park and Felts Field, generates $791 million in direct economic impact a year, according to a new analysis commissioned by Spokane International Airport. Those numbers were reached during a detailed look at airport-based jobs, visitors and businesses that feed into the economy of Spokane and Kootenai counties.

The Associated Garden Clubs of Spokane has a lot of plants left over from its annual fundraising sale earlier this spring, and the organization is now giving the public a second chance to purchase a wide variety of plant stock. Norma Gavin, a garden clubs member and leading volunteer in the plant fundraisers, is hosting the sale at her spacious yard from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday.

A group of Eastern Washington University students has been nosing around East Central in recent months to help with ongoing efforts to revitalize the aging district. They are undertaking a historical survey of 144 properties in the heart of East Central, including several older buildings on Sprague Avenue.

The Federal Highway Administration’s top official lobbied for passage of a $478 billion transportation bill while touring Spokane’s unfinished North Spokane Corridor on Wednesday. Gregory Nadeau, acting administrator of the agency, said that while the community has identified the freeway as a priority, there’s no long-term funding for the project or thousands of others across the country.

Keith and Kendra Kelly describe their short-term rental listed on Airbnb as an “urban oasis.” Indeed it is. Their Spanish mission-style home at Indiana Avenue and Walnut Street often is booked by Internet bargain-seekers looking for something other than another standard hotel.

Two men in a plane that crashed during a test flight and sank into the Spokane River near Felts Field Thursday afternoon died after they were underwater for nearly 30 minutes. Witnesses said the plane sounded like it was having engine problems and appeared to lose power as it flew east over Millwood just before 4 p.m.

Two men were pulled from a single-engine airplane that crashed into the Spokane River this afternoon near Felts Field, authorities said.

Historic preservation officials have come up with an interactive way to celebrate National Preservation Month in Spokane: an online scavenger hunt for people to identify historic facades and decorative elements around the community. Participants can submit entries through a form at http://historicspokane.org/scavenger-hunt and be included in drawings for historically themed prizes.

One of the grandest old homes on Spokane’s South Hill is going to anchor this year’s Mother’s Day Tour of Historic Homes along Manito Boulevard and Manito Place. Known locally as the Manito White House, the 1909 mansion at the southwest corner of Grand Boulevard and Manito Place has been restored over the years and is now on the Spokane Register of Historic Places.

The newly expanded Spokane Convention Center offers plenty of elbow room for Bloomies picking up their race day numbers this weekend. On Friday, a steady stream of race participants filed into the Convention Center to claim their race bibs and packets.

David Benscoter, a retired federal investigator, is still using the core of his talent: He researches historic records and visits farm country to find long-lost strains of apples. That’s right. He’s an apple detective.