YUZHNO, Russia - This gritty city on the south end of Sakhalin Island, Russia's oil-rich province in its far east, shows the face of a modernizing Russia.

In the early morning, streets are busy with traffic and smartly dressed young women and men who stride purposefully to work in modern office buildings.

The city bustles with new construction, including - in what would amaze visitors to Russian cities just a few years ago - new subdivisions of single-family homes being built for Russians, not foreigners, on the city's outskirts.

There are still plenty of the old Soviet-era block apartment buildings, however, as well as older neighborhoods of log cabins and small wood houses, some which seem to date from czarist times. Many of the old homes have greenhouses and gardens, a sign that many Russian families, in a place with a cold climate and without Costcos and Safeways, must still grow a lot of their own food, as did many Americans not too long ago.

BMC mulls slots for shrines

About 60 remaining unauthorised shrines in the city due to face the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)s hammer may just get some reprieve.

The issue was discussed in the civic house on Friday in the wake of the angry protests during the demolition of a Sai Baba temple in Andheri just a few days ago. Already ,following the Bombay High Courts order, the civic body demolished 1000 unauthorised shrines in the city in the last two months.

Auditors question Alvin H. Butz courthouse contract

Northampton County should have sought bids for a construction manager to oversee the $45 million courthouse addition, instead of hiring a firm that did previous work at the government complex, auditors say.

The county controller's office says the county does not have a valid contract with Alvin H. Butz Inc. of South Whitehall Township.

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Putting a value on investment property

Although you may not think so from reading the newspaper or watching television, people are continuing to invest in real estate as part of their financial plan for the future.Yes, we may not see the double-digit appreciation numbers of the past several years here in the Napa Valley, but the other benefits of owning real estate have hardly gone away.The ability to borrow 80 percent of the value of an investment property will turn a modest 5 percent appreciation in value into a 25 percent return on your initial investment.This is not to say that there are not cycles in real estate values, but history has shown that in longer term five to 10 years real estate has outperformed competitive investments.