Tom Sowa

Spokane startup Beardbrand, a men’s grooming products company, will compete for financial backing during Friday’s network TV show “Shark Tank.”

The Nut Factory, a fixture along Interstate 90 for years, will close its retail and production site and move its wholesale operations to a nearby commercial warehouse. Owner Gene Cohen said the Spokane Valley site, at 19425 E. Broadway Ave., will be closed in the next few weeks. He didn’t disclose where the wholesale commercial production will be relocated. He also declined to say how the changes will affect his labor force.

One day your car will robotically drive you to your destination and park itself without your help. The chip in your cellphone will beep a command to the automated meter and with a swipe of the phone screen you’ll pay for the time you need. Or you’ll just tell the phone, “give me two hours.” Spokane drivers can get a first look at parking of the future later this year when the city of Spokane converts dozens of downtown meters so drivers can pay for time with smartphones and other wireless devices.

Southern California developers plan to build a 60-unit student apartment complex on the west edge of Gonzaga University. David Schneider, director of a development group based in San Clemente, said he and his partners plan to build a second student housing complex in the Spokane University District after the GU project is finished in summer 2016.

Spokane businessman Murray Huppin will be recognized by the Anti-Defamation League next month, an honor he calls the most satisfying of his three-decade career. Huppin, 54, is president and CEO of Spokane-based consumer electronics retailer Huppin’s and its OneCall online division.

Banks and credit unions across the region are making the switch from magnetic swipe cards to the cards of the future – the safer kind with a microchip built in. The past year’s string of high-profile data breaches and cyberfraud incidents has pushed financial institutions in the United States to start adopting chip-based cards that already are widely used across much of the world.

Back in 1961 the U.S. Air Force, without any attempt at secrecy or stealth, hauled nine long-range ballistic missiles by truck from California to Eastern Washington. The trucks carried 82-foot-long Atlas E missiles that ended up parked inside heavily reinforced underground sites. Each missile was later armed with a 4-megaton nuclear bomb, ready to be launched.

Gonzaga University law school professor Scott Burnham spent three hours Sunday working on his game. It wasn’t golf or tennis.