St. Cloud's three-year-old, Chinese-immersion program at Madison Elementary School will be part of a federal grant to improve foreign language programs.

I receive daily calls from sellers asking me whether they should do a loan modification or short sale. Now, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out the financial aspects of certain situations. Say, your home's value has fallen more than 50% over the past couple of years. Many homes in California that were...