Week in Review
Washington and Idaho customers of Avista Utilities could be paying $16 more per month for natural gas starting in November if state regulators approve a request the company submitted Monday. Citing skyrocketing wholesale prices that are tied closely to the price of oil, Avista has asked that customers pay 23 percent more to cover the cost the company is paying for natural gas.
Tuesday
If $3-per-gallon gas prices have forced Americans to think about smart cars, the nation’s housing gap should push us to also look at smart housing, an author and architect told 300 people at a Spokane gathering Monday.
Avi Friedman, a professor of architecture at McGill University in Montreal, said the lifestyle of large, sprawling developments has produced a society that’s losing touch with true community and fairness.
• The Bush administration said Monday it is considering reducing high tariffs imposed on such items as lumber from Canada and cement from Mexico if building needs from Hurricane Katrina cause prices to spike.
Wednesday
Spokane County’s rapid economic rebound has produced the first increase in earning power area workers have had since 1999, a state economist said Monday.
• Senior Bush administration officials touring the Gulf Coast area devastated by Hurricane Katrina expressed concern Tuesday about possible shortages of natural gas, saying that the region’s production may not recover for months.
Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said there is less known about the damage to the natural gas supply system than about the effect on crude oil production.
Thursday
Despite predictions of a gradual slowing of home sales, Spokane County Realtors have insisted lately that they aren’t seeing anything like that. Sales figures reported Wednesday certainly back up their claims.
August residential sales in Spokane County hit record numbers for that month, with 850 closed sales reported. August sales were up 17.6 percent over July and 16.9 percent over August of last year, the Spokane Association of Realtors reported. Pending sales also were up 110 transactions over July.
• Delta Air Lines Inc. and Northwest Airlines Corp., hobbled by high fuel costs and heavy debt and pension obligations, filed for bankruptcy protection from creditors Wednesday, becoming the third and fourth major carriers to enter Chapter 11 since the 2001 terrorist attacks.
• A new Google Inc. specialty search engine sifts through the Internet’s millions of frequently updated personal journals, a long-anticipated development expected to help propel “blogging” into the cultural mainstream.
The new tool, unveiled Wednesday at http://blogsearch.google.com, focuses exclusively on the material contained in the journals known as Web logs, or “blogs.”
Friday
Hurricane Katrina triggered the biggest one-week surge in jobless claims in nearly a decade and analysts say that’s just the beginning of the bad economic news to come as the nation starts paying for the most expensive natural disaster in U.S. history. Consumers can expect to see price hikes for all sorts of products and services as high energy prices drive up inflation.