Josh Suhr is CDA Association's Realtor of the Year

Josh Suhr is CDA Association's Realtor of the Year

Middle East turmoil pushing oil prices higher again

Facebook users, stay safe out there

In light of Cyber Security Awareness Month (October), and the recent Facebook data breach, it’s a good idea to look over your social media accounts and make changes to passwords and settings so you can keep your personal information safe.

Complication for the Fed

Other central banks cut rates

SILVERWOOD: Great lessons learned

I believe that the Coeur d’Alene Press article about the ticket price watchdog website changing its ranking of Silverwood Theme Park has lessons in it for all of us…

Seasonal firefighters seek health care coverage

DENVER (AP) — They work the front lines of the nation's most explosive wildfires, navigating treacherous terrain, dense walls of smoke and tall curtains of flame. Yet thousands of the nation's seasonal firefighters have no health insurance for themselves or their families.

Is history about to repeat itself?

This month marks the fifth year of this column. It began as an effort to keep you informed of our real estate market in the face of gloomy news as the market began to sag in other locales. While the real estate bubble burst in some areas, we appeared still strong. It wasn't until late in 2008 that the cold reality struck - it was over. The phones grew silent as the snow began to pile up. Traffic came to a halt as the plows struggled to keep up with record snowfall that winter, on the heels of a record boom in the real estate market.

Ready for growth in Spirit Lake

City buying site for future land application

SPIRIT LAKE - Spirit Lake is planning for future growth, which means buying property to dispose of its treated wastewater.

Sales are neck and neck year over year

Many of the agents we spoke with last week are saying they are busy so we wanted to see why. On Friday, we checked the Coeur d'Alene Multiple Listing Service to see how the market was stacking up to last year. Remember last year was the year of tax incentives to spur housing activity.

Home sellers are cutting list prices as spring buying season starts with higher mortgage rates

The pickup in the share of home listings with price cuts is a sign the housing market is shifting back toward a more balanced dynamic between buyers and sellers

Liquor sales continue climb

State estimates 2-percent hike; Post Falls store is No. 1 in sales

POST FALLS - The doors of the state liquor store on Seltice Way next to the White House Grill may as well have just been kept propped open on Friday.

OBAMA: Buying Democratic votes

In the grade school book “Animal Farm” the animals agreed that they were all equal. Over time, the pigs decided that they were “more equal,” so they moved into the farmhouse and lived like kings over the other animals.

Retailers take on Silicon Valley

Target, Kohl's among those opening technology test labs

Dangers of overprescribing kids' antibiotics

Parents must carefully consult with their children's pediatricians before deciding to treat their kids with antibiotics. It is important for parents to understand that prescribing antibiotics to children unnecessarily raises the risk of developing antibiotic-resistant infections in both the child and society as a whole. For this reason, health experts have been warning of the dangers of antibiotic over-prescription for years. Yet, a recent study involving nearly 65,000 outpatient visits by children under the age of 18 shows that pediatricians write more than 10 million unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions annually, mostly for respiratory conditions. About one-quarter of antibiotic prescriptions are given to children with respiratory conditions that will not respond to antibiotics, such as asthma, bronchitis, influenza and allergies.

Obesity and medication use

While prescription medication use is high among all age groups in this country, especially among older adults, obese U.S. adults use more of a number of particular prescription drugs than adults of normal weight. These include medications to treat high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels (at the top of this most-used group), followed by drugs used to treat diabetes, asthma and thyroid problems, as well as antidepressants and painkillers. Obese patients were also as likely as adults over the age of 65 to be taking multiple medications at once. Members of both groups should understand that taking multiple prescription drugs increases the risk of "adverse events." With this in mind, a review with the pharmacist may be in order.

Silver prices hover near high

Experts differ on investment opportunities

KELLOGG - Silver prices are remaining near their highest point in decades.

Arsenic and other issues

We taste and have wines on our shelves here at the dinner party that range from the very inexpensive - around $10 per bottle - to prices many of us would find unreasonable to pay for a single bottle of wine. There are customers and markets for all of them. It goes without saying that much more care, attention, and quality goes into premium bottles of wine than the value priced ones. From farming methods and crop levels, to the time wines spend in barrels and fermenters, all have an impact on what a bottle costs to produce, and ultimately the quality of the end product.

More people buying homes

U.S. housing market boosted by jobs, higher rents

Home sales expected to remain strong

All the news from our industry tells us our current level of activity is expected to sustain itself through next year. For the fifth consecutive week, mortgage interest rates have hovered around 4 percent. This provides some security to those buyers who have qualified for home loans but are having difficulty finding the home they want to invest in. Many fear a spike in interest rates could put them in a position where they would qualify for less house.

Encouraging preliminary numbers emerge

On Friday we got a preview of the real estate activity from the Coeur d'Alene Multiple Listing Service that supports our prediction - 2011 outperformed 2010. Although we had been tracking a 4 percent increase in number of units sold, the actual ending number of sales puts us at 5 percent over the previous year.