The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is developing a five-star system to rank nursing homes. The rankings will be available at the end of the year on CMS' "Nursing Home Compare" Web site. The CMS is currently seeking feedback from the public on which data should be included in these rankings and on how to make the site more user-friendly.

Viewing the standardized tests used to meet federal accountability requirements as unfair and unhelpful, Ohio education officials are considering alternative assessment tools. Teams of educators will devise alternative assessment methods this fall, to test during the school year. Popular in the 1990s, assessment methods such as portfolios, journals, small group collaborations, and special performances became less common after the 2002 adoption of the No Child Left Behind Act.

The New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance has launched myBenefits.ny.gov, a Web site that allows New Yorkers to quickly determine whether they qualify for public assistance, including Food Stamps, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and school lunch programs. Public officials expect that this online, one-stop shop will make it easier for many low-income families to learn about and apply for social benefits. Through a simultaneous pilot program, residents in several counties will also be able to file Food Stamps applications online and in seven foreign languages by mid-2009.

This summer, New Yorkers can walk (or run or cycle) the streets of Manhattan—free of cars. The Summer Streets program will ban motorized vehicles from nearly seven miles of streets on three Saturdays in August, from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. While some residents rejoice, many business owners fear the impact this will have on their livelihoods.

The Natural Lands Trust in Pennsylvania has established the Center for Conservation Landowners, a stewardship service for those who own land to be protected from development. Clients include public and private entities, as well as individuals. Funded with $340,000 in grants from Pennsylvania's Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and two nonprofit foundations, the center will counsel landowners on the physical and fiscal challenges of sound environmental management, develop outreach materials, organize stewardship workshops, and aid in the creation of individualized stewardship plans.

The US Forest Service is partnering with Colorado state prisons to employ inmates to cut and remove pine trees eaten away by bark beetles. The weakened trees are safety hazards to campers. Under the initiative, minimum-security prisoners work in the national forests for up to 14 hours per day, and sleep in tents at night. In return, they receive compensation, job experience that will assist them in reentry, and shortened sentences.

State, local, and tribal governments will now be able to purchase homeland security products and services through the General Services Administration using a new cooperative purchasing program. The Local Preparedness Acquisition Act gives these nonfederal entities access to volume discounts previously reserved only for federal agencies.

In North Dakota, the Spirit Lake juvenile court system of the Sioux reservation has created a new diversion program that uses horses to build responsibility and self-esteem among at-risk American Indian youth. Under Shunka Wakan Ah-Ku, or Bringing Back the Horses, youth spend two nights a week for six weeks living with the animals on area ranches, learning from ranchers who volunteer to share their experience.

Massachusetts is launching the nation's first fully funded, statewide effort to decrease the emissions of virtually all of its diesel-powered school buses. MassCleanDiesel's primary goal is to ensure that schoolchildren are exposed to less air pollution by retrofitting up to 5,500 school buses by the year 2010.