Week in review
TUESDAY
Community Health Systems will spend $272 million to buy Deaconess Medical Center and the other holdings of Empire Health Services.
The for-profit Tennessee hospital chain has filed a 4,800-page application with Washington state regulators.
•Under mounting pressure from law enforcement and parents, MySpace agreed to take steps to protect youngsters from online sexual predators and bullies, including searching for ways to better verify users’ ages.
WEDNESDAY
The second Greater Spokane Incorporated report card on the area economy indicates progress on many of the business group’s 20 objectives but difficulty with two – income and health insurance – important to most members of the community.
•Apple Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs took the wraps off a super-slim new laptop at the Macworld trade show on Tuesday, unveiling a personal computer less than an inch thick that turns on when opened. Jobs also confirmed the company’s foray into online movie rentals.
•As the housing market continues to deteriorate and the economy slides toward a recession, Citi stunned Wall Street by posting a $10 billion loss for the fourth quarter of 2007, the biggest in the bank’s 196-year history.
THURSDAY
A $20 million overhaul of rental car operations at Spokane International Airport will increase capacity 30 percent by November, project manager Teresa Eckard said. Although some preliminary work has been done, she said, construction should begin in earnest next month, when a contractor will be selected. Airport officials will open bids Tuesday.
•The new owners of the Spokane CompUSA store say it will remain open, a turnaround from original statements suggesting the electronics outlet would shut down at the end of January. How long it will remain open is unclear.
FRIDAY
John Thain, presiding over his first set of earnings on Thursday as the new leader of Merrill Lynch & Co., cleared the decks with about $15 billion of subprime mortgage related write-downs that led to the largest quarterly loss since the brokerage was founded 94 years ago.
•The steep slump in housing intensified at the end of last year, pushing home construction down by the biggest amount in nearly three decades. Analysts forecast more bad news in the months ahead.