Cities across the nation have watched homes go vacant and neighborhoods deteriorate. Now, St. Paul, Minnesota, and Baltimore, Maryland, are teaming up with other cities across the nation to combat the foreclosure crisis. The National Multi-City Litigation Working Group on Foreclosures will coordinate legal strategies to deal with mortgage lenders, pool resources and legal clout, and search for alternatives to lawsuits to encourage lenders to beecome part of the solution.

A new proposal would
require Minnesota's public school districts and charter schools to combine efforts
to achieve greater purchasing power and to reduce duplication of service
delivery. Officials state that this approach would reduce costs for such items
as information technology, supplies and equipment, transportation, and food
services. Under the Minnesota K-12 Shared Service proposal, the state's
Department of Education would create and maintain a list of preferred vendors
for these goods and services. Supporters cite evidence from other states with
similar arrangements that have resulted in savings of 5 to 15 percent.

The US Department of Justice has unveiled the National Motor Vehicle Title Information System. The database is accessible to consumers for little to no fees, and allows users to determine if a car has been in a wreck, salvaged, or even had its odometer turned back. It will also help keep stolen vehicles from being resold. To date, 36 states are participating, representing around 75 percent of all motor vehicles. Several large states, including Illinois, California, New York and Pennsylvania, have not yet agreed to sign on.

Forty percent of Colorado's lawmakers are now women, compared to the national average of 24 percent. The nonpartisan White House Project, which recruits and works to put women in leadership positions, has been particularly active in Colorado and may be one factor in their increasing representation. Women comprise more than half of the state's Senate, where many male and female legislators feel that gender has become almost a non-issue.

FEMA has opened the National Exercise Simulation Center, a facility that will help officials train and refine personnel, procedures, and support systems during simulated disasters. The NESC will link to other centers that provide specialty modeling, and simulation and data services, to enhance collaboration and information sharing during emergencies. It will also provide access to historical deployment and response information. Other realistic incident scenarios allow stakeholders from the government, nonprofit, and private sectors to identify gaps in their responses and determine alternative courses of action.

Maryland has joined a growing nationwide trend by launching the Maryland Funding Accountability Website, which allows citizens to track how their tax dollars are being spent by the state. For each expenditure of $25,000 or more, the site allows users to determine the name of the payee, their ZIP code, the amount of payment, and the state agency that made the payment.

Michigan's Governor Jennifer Granholm has signed legislation to ensure that students in eligible low-income school districts or municipalities will have access to free college tuition for at least two years. The Promise Zone legislation is modeled after the Kalamazoo Promise, which guarantees up to four years of tuition at a Michigan university to resident graduates of Kalamazoo Public Schools.

In New Mexico, the Rio Rancho Police Department has signed up with CrimeReports.com to keep its residents better informed about criminal activity. The online crime alerting and mapping service allows citizens to receive automatic e-mail alerts when a crime occurs near a location of interest, such as their home, office, or school. The service is free for residents, and also allows them to search the Website for reports of crimes in specific neighborhoods.

Medical professionals at the U.S. Armed Service's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany are using speech recognition software to more quickly and accurately document patient information. Previously, physicians would dictate inpatient surgery notes into a recording machine and then wait several days to receive the transcribed notes from a service that charged about 17 cents per line. Now, doctors can dictate notes into their computer, and review and correct the words almost instantly. The software also allows for easy storage and electronic distribution of the notes.

Colleges, universities, and student groups in Minnesota are taking action to combat skyrocketing textbook prices. Some schools in the state have expanded book rental programs or broadened their online textbook offerings. Professors are also being asked to do their part, including taking bids on comparable books to secure less expensive choices or allowing the use of older editions if they are acceptable. A recent study from the US Government Accountability Office examining the rapid rise in prices for textbooks has raised awareness at the federal and local levels.

When snowstorms hit Springfield, Massachusetts, two dozen cameras now survey downtown streets, patching real-time information to the Department of Public Works. This helps the DPW determine when to send out the plows. The cameras are also used for police surveillance, traffic monitoring, and maintenance work. Officials say that the cameras give the city an edge during the winter storms, and they hope to add more cameras in different neighborhoods, as well as place streaming video of local road conditions on the city Website.