Week in review

TUESDAY

Spokane’s clean-energy startup ReliOn has received an additional $23 million from PCG Clean Energy & Technology Fund, of La Jolla, Calif., and Robeco Clean Tech Private Equity, of Rotterdam, Netherlands.

•Tax rebates have begun dropping into bank accounts. The first direct deposits from the Internal Revenue Service landed in bank accounts Monday, and shoppers were already using the cash to play catch-up on the basics, such as milk and other groceries.

WEDNESDAY

Less than a year after BlueRay Technologies Inc. displaced nearly 50 poor tenants from apartments on the top two floors of the downtown the company wants to sell that part of the structure.

•The Institute for Systems Medicine has laid off all but one employee in a bid to keep the organization viable until new funding arrives and a scaled-down business plan can be implemented.

•Consumers struggling with high gas prices, rising food costs and falling home values have something new to worry about: sharply rising electricity rates due to a surge in coal prices over the past year.

THURSDAY

Community Health Systems criticized the state of Washington for taking “an inordinately long period of time” to scrutinize the takeover of Empire Health Services.

•The Federal Reserve cut a key interest rate by a quarter-point, a smaller move than the aggressive easing it undertook earlier this year.

•Shares of Spokane Valley-based contract manufacturer Key Tronic Corp., buoyed by the company’s report of improved quarterly earnings, jumped more than 40 percent after months of decline.

FRIDAY

Federal authorities declared the West Coast ocean salmon fishery a failure, opening the way for Congress to appropriate economic disaster assistance for coastal communities in California, Oregon and Washington.

•A 250-stall downtown parking garage under consideration by Spokane Partners LLC could help alleviate parking headaches for theater and restaurant patrons in the Davenport District.