Two unprecedented teachers' contracts approved by the ISD 2142 school board between 2002 and 2004 pushed salaries for the district's senior teaching staff to the highest levels in the state of Minnesota, and have played a major role in the district's dramatic financial slide.

It's all about national search engines for real estate, and Google is easing its way into the fray. NAR has just announced their new Realtors Property Resource national database. Google is releasing "place pages" for every property in its maps database, and growing Google's presence in all areas of...