Business in brief: New daily flight nonstop to L.A.

Delta Airlines on July 1 will begin to offer its only daily nonstop flight connecting Spokane International Airport and Los Angeles International Airport.

Delta Connection carrier ExpressJet Airlines will operate the route.

According to Delta’s Web site, the outbound Delta flight 7709 will leave Spokane at 7 a.m. and arrive in L.A. at 9:41 a.m. The return flight, Delta 7710, will depart L.A. at 6:59 p.m. and touch down at 9:25 p.m. in Spokane.

Delta said in a written statement the additional service will make it easier for travelers to get to L.A. and continue on to Mexico and Central America.

Spokane Valley

Rite Aid hearing postponed

A hearing tonight related to a new Rite Aid in Spokane Valley has been postponed, but the property’s owner says the drugstore still plans to locate on the site at Sprague and Pines.

A request to relocate a public alley to accommodate the store has been put on hold, and the accompanying public hearing before the Planning Commission has been canceled.

A city planner indicated the delay was because Rite Aid no longer planned to locate there, but property owner Thomas Hamilton said that it was the result of a scheduling conflict with one party to the project.

“It’s just a temporary thing,” he said.

Buildings east of Dave’s Tavern that once comprised the center of the Opportunity Township would be torn down for the store, to the dismay of some in the community who would like to preserve the 60- to 90-year-old structures.

Although one of the buildings damaged in a fire could be renovated and others could continue to be rented out, Hamilton said, the Rite Aid would be a better-looking site on the busy retail corner.

“They are what they are, which is nothing but an eyesore,” he said of the structures there now.

The application to move the alley slightly to the south is still active, and Hamilton said he hopes to get that process moving again within the next 30 days.

Chicago

Trial witness admits lying

Media mogul Conrad Black’s chief defense counsel ripped into the government’s star witness Wednesday as a liar, getting him to admit that he deceived not only federal investigators but his own lawyers.

“I wasn’t totally truthful,” admitted prosecution witness F. David Radler, who was Black’s partner in the newspaper business for decades.

“Not totally truthful — is that what you call it?” hammered Black defense attorney Edward L. Greenspan, his voice rising.

“Call it lying,” conceded Radler, the insider whose testimony federal prosecutors hope will clinch the $84 million racketeering and fraud case. Defense efforts to discredit Radler on cross-examination as a liar who cannot be trusted loom as one of the trial’s most crucial moments.

Defense attorneys have portrayed Black as too busy running the Daily Telegraph of London to realize that Radler was engineering millions of dollars in fraud into a large-scale sell-off of Hollinger newspapers.

From staff and wire reports