When the interstate was built in the mid-1950s to ease longer-distance traffic off local streets, it didn’t skirt the working-class Italian community the way it did more affluent parts of Fairfield County. It cut straight through, like a battering ram. Houses came down; so did a church. Blacktop replaced Turtle Pond, a favorite place to ice-skate. A rumbling overpass halved Franklin Street, a residential locus for Italian-Americans (who today account for about 20 percent of the population). Read more [...]

By Beth Pinsker and Chelsea Emery NEW YORK | Tue Apr 9, 2013 10:44am EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - As the housing market heats up, eager buyers are refusing to wait until the for-sale signs appear. Instead, they are knocking on the doors of attractive properties, leaving letters in strangers' mailboxes, scanning foreclosure listings and surfing the Web for prospects.The direct approach worked for contractor Jerry Spring, 56, and his wife Kathryn, 62, Read more [...]

The spring housing market started with a rush of sales in North Texas.

But sellers are not rushing into the market with pre-owned home listings.

Sales of pre-owned single-family homes in March rose 22 percent from a year earlier, with 7,483 properties sold. It was the most homes sales for