The US Small Business Administration has launched "Emerging 200" to spur business development in inner cities, especially in areas undergoing negative growth cycles. The program provides free management training, professional contacts, and financial guidance to about 200 small firms in 11 cities. Qualifying inner city firms that show strong potential for market growth may apply. In addition to supplying wages, growing inner city firms may lead to spillover improvements in the neighborhood.

Faced with an aging population, government agencies across the United States are devising programs to help seniors stay in their homes. In one Albany, NY neighborhood, a state-funded pilot program works as a one-stop shop to enhance neighborliness among older property owners. In partnership with faith-based institutions and nonprofits, Neighborhood Naturally Occurring Retirement Community offers seniors social activities and needed resources in areas as diverse as home maintenance, financial abuse prevention, and preventive medical care.

More than 600 police departments across the country are training their officers to be more attuned to the needs of mentally ill citizens. In the city of Riverside, California, for example, officers are taught how to actively listen and utilize de-escalation techniques when dealing with disabled individuals. One training exercise includes a headphone simulation that reproduces the sensation of hearing other voices while trying to respond to issued orders.

To guard against voter fraud or abuse, Vermont is testing a new "mobile voting" program aimed at ensuring that elderly residents in nursing facilities get a fair opportunity to vote. Under the plan, two specially trained voting officials—one from each political party—visit nursing facilities and personally assist residents who want to vote by helping them fill out ballots on site.

In Kentucky, the Louisville Metro Police Department will launch a text-messaging system that teenagers can use anonymously to give crime tips. The initiative is in response to both the popularity of text messaging among youth and the falling calling rates for tipsters, who rely on increasingly rare pay phones to make anonymous calls.

A new intellectual-property law clinic at the University of San Francisco School of Law will assist students accused by the record or film industries of violating copyright law by swapping multi-media files online. The clinic will give advice on how to respond to pre-litigation letters and walk students through the steps of bringing an effective defense should suit commence. 

In an effort to rekindle teachers' enthusiasm for their profession, Clemson University and the South Carolina Department of Education are partnering to create the Teacher Renewal Center. The facility, following nationally recognized programs in North Carolina and Washington, will use weeklong residential seminars organized around the interdisciplinary study of ideas, questions, or themes that teachers encounter during their practice.

The city of Lafayette, Colorado, will hang banners with art created by youth in its schools on lampposts across the city. The art displays will serve to both promote the city and instill pride in the participating youth.

A growing number of educators are using graphic novels and comics as instructional literary forms. The stories, which often can portray sophisticated and complex subjects through the arrangement of visuals and words, create a unique method of communication apart from film or prose. Award-winning titles such as Maus and Persepolis have led the way in legitimizing this art form.