The financial services industry, including Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Paypal, Citigroup, and Bank of America, have teamed up with law enforcement and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to create the Financial Coalition Against Child Pornography. The group will combat the expansion of the $20-$30 billion per year business by blocking payments to offending websites and bringing to justice pedophiles who pay to see exploited children. The coalition is attempting to recruit additional financial institutions domestically and abroad, and aims to cripple the commercial child porn industry by 2008.

The Pittsburgh Housing Authority has established a state-of-the-art audio/video production studio, control room, and dance facility at the Northview Heights public housing complex. This July, the Creative Arts Corner will offer residents an opportunity to learn the skills necessary to become a sound recording engineer or music producer, and will provide a location to host performing arts programs, such as music and dance instruction. Tenants are enthused about the first-of-its-kind project, confident that it will steer the talent and energy of its youth to creative and constructive ends.

County officials in Florida will use sales tax proceeds to fortify privately owned buildings, such as churches and clubhouses, for use as shelters in weather-related emergencies. This new state legislation is pending signature from the governor and will provide much needed hurricane shelter. Many counties in Florida today could not shelter more than 15% of their population if a major hurricane were to hit.

As part of the establishment of its new cancer center, Yale-New Haven Hospital has entered into a contract to boost employment and health in the local community. Under the "community benefits agreement," the institution is contractually obligated to provide at least 100 jobs to local workers each year and develop programs that focus on the health of local residents. Similar types of agreements involving large developers originated in California, but Yale-New Haven marks the first time such an accord has been reached between a hospital, a university, and a neighborhood.

Researchers at six universities have been awarded a five-year, $15 million grant from the National Science Foundation to develop a low-cost, laser-based breath analyzer to diagnose disease. Exhaled breath, like drawn blood, can be measured; it contains as many as 400 chemical compounds that can aid in detection of sickness and the monitoring of recovery. Physicians already use breath samples to monitor patients with asthma or who are recovering after heart transplants.

The Maine Readiness Campaign will strive to increase college attendance of Mainers, who lag behind their regional neighbors. Funded by a two-year grant from the National Governor's Association, the effort will include a media campaign aimed at eighth-graders, and may include internships at local businesses, mentoring programs, and university field trips. Fifty public high schools will receive $2000 each to develop "Readiness Partnerships," in which business, community, and education leaders coordinate activities and brainstorm strategies to encourage more students to enroll in postsecondary education.

IBM has joined the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to help stem the spread of infectious diseases across the globe. The Global Pandemic Initiative will study the use of advanced analytical and computer technology to spot and prepare for outbreaks. An epidemiological modeler will integrate health data with maps, airport locations, transportation patterns, and bird migration routes to help predict the path a pathogen could take. The company also plans to contribute software technology to the open source community, which would enable rapid information sharing of clinical data among medical facilities, laboratories, and public health agencies.

U.S. scientists have launched a Web portal that gives Iraqi scientists, engineers, physicians, and students free electronic access to over one million articles from 17,000 scientific journals, as well as multimedia resources. The Iraqi Virtual Science Library is an outgrowth of a public-private coalition of 28 partners, including U.S. government agencies, Iraqi ministries, journal publishers, and software development companies. The consortium will operate the digital library for two years, with U.S. partners underwriting the $12 million cost; the portal will then be transferred to Iraqi control and computer servers.

Newsletter produced by: Alexander Dworkowitz, Brendan St. Amant, and Vanessa Ruget (researchers and writers); Joellen Secondo (editor).