Talking Real Estate

Farm & Ranch Guide 
U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) has been appointed to a House-Senate conference committee that will negotiate the final version of the emergency spending bill that includes agriculture disaster relief for farmers and ranchers whose livelihoods have been threatened by weather-related disasters and skyrocketing energy prices.

Oil prices rebound 
World oil prices jumped overnight on global supply jitters linked to Iran despite news that US energy inventories rose last week, analysts said. New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in June, advanced $US1.44 to close at $US72.13 a barrel.

Tyrrell: The supply-side miracle continues 
It is very reassuring that Republican negotiators in the House and Senate have reached an agreement to extend President George W. Bush’s cuts in tax rates on dividends and capital gains. Equally reassuring, the negotiators plan to liberate as many as 15-million middle-income Americans from the impending burden of the alternative minimum income tax. Now the unparalleled economic growth that has

How we’re coping with gas prices 
Last week, we asked democratherald.com readers what theyre doing to cope with the price of gasoline. Heres what they had to say: Coping with gas prices by making errand trips all at once.

Blanco’s Housing Plan Cross First Legislative Hurdle 
BATON ROUGE, La. — Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s $7.5 billion program for people with hurricane-damaged houses is moving through the Legislature. The plan won approval from a House committee and provides rebuilding and buyout money for storm victims.

Abbotsford houses approval 
Planners recommend approval of 79 houses opposite the historic home of Sir Walter Scott.

With city far from whole, FEMA closes long-term recovery office 
NEW ORLEANS - The Federal Emergency Management Agency office charged with helping New Orleans devise a blueprint to rebuild destroyed houses, schools and neighborhoods after Hurricane Katrina is being closed and nearly all its workers reassigned.

Springsteen delivers emotional set at Jazz Fest 
The first weekend of the 37th annual New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival ended with a slow, elegiac version of the Crescent City standard “When the Saints Go Marching In,” just the kind of thing you’d expect at the first Jazz Fest since Hurricane Katrina.

Porno shoot lays an egg on Easter Sunday 
LOS ANGELES — On Easter Sunday, inside the million-dollar houses on a quiet cul-de-sac in Encino, the neighborhood kids delighted in what the Easter Bunny had brought.