Week in review

Monday

Middlemen moving from state to state are buying cheap, prepaid cell mobile phones by the thousands with plans to resell them in Latin America and Hong Kong. Cell phone companies say the practice is costing them millions of dollars.

Tuesday

A Las Vegas hotelier bought the historic Ridpath Hotel in downtown Spokane for $6.75 million. Douglas Da Silva, owner of the Artisan Hotel in Las Vegas, said he plans to keep the Ridpath open under the same name. Immediately following the sale he cut 40 jobs at the hotel, saying he would outsource houskeeping and food-and-beverage services to other companies, a move that sparked a labor dispute with the union representing those workers.

Sterling Financial Corp. signed a $335 million deal to buy Northern Empire Bancshares of Santa Rosa, Calif., giving the Spokane company full-service bank branches in California for the first time. The acquisition will be Sterling’s most expensive to date.

Wednesday

Seattle-based F5 Networks’ Liberty Lake office has grown to 44 engineers today from 10 hardware engineers when it opened in 2000, and more growth is on the horizon, the company said.

Thursday

In a cost-cutting move, the U.S. Air Force said it will probably speed up its plan to cut 40,000 jobs. The service hopes to eliminate the equivalent of 40,000 full-time positions by the budget year 2009 instead of 2011, as had been considered earlier. Officials are still trying to determine an exact plan for making the personnel cuts.

Friday

Demolition of the 72-year-old Rookery Building in downtown Spokane will begin within the next two weeks after crews finish removing asbestos, the property manager for owner Wendell Reugh said.

Coming Oct. 2

Look for the debut a week from Monday of .txt, The Spokesman-Review’s expanded high-tech coverage. Featuring tips and tricks to help you navigate the Internet, reviews of Web sites and Frank Sennett’s Blogspotter column, .txt is your personal portal to the wide world of the Web.