A new approach: Lane County's efforts to find effective solutions to sex trafficking

Northern Maine is home to some of America's poorest - but it ranks high on national measures of health. Hospital programs visit more patients in their homes where they can be more comfortable and receive everything they need, which in turn reduces medical costs.

Tulsa Public Schools drew on expertise across many sectors and extensive neighborhood input to address the issue of thousands of empty seats in local schools. Through a community-focused process, they were able to mindfully close under-utilized schools and better maximize the community's resources for students.

The Centre for the Prevention of Radicalization Leading to Violence in Quebec has expanded rapidly, becoming a model for programs around the world. What sets it apart from projects in Europe and the United States is that it confronts extremism of all stripes — not just Islamist — and focuses on behavior that signals the risk of violence, not just radical ideas, only involving law enforcement as a last resort.

To address the food insecurity problem among its low-income students, Columbia University launched Swipes, a meal sharing app in which students with a surplus of “meal swipes” could donate them to students in need. But when that app struggled to function and roll out properly, Columbia looked downtown to New York University, where student Jon Chin launched a similarly purposed but more effectively designed app, Share Meals. So far, the app has enabled over a thousand meal donations, and is hoping to work with Columbia to share its code and expand its donor services.

Unprecedented challenges are frequently popping up with the onset of climate change, so governments too have to adjust their processes and strategies. Some new procurement tools used by several different cities include requests for ideas, competitions, and performance contracts. This article looks at two places using these new and publicly accessible procurement tools—Prince Georges County, MD, and Norfolk, VA—to see how it impacts their success.

By making listening and communication a priority, employers can improve employee retention. In Ohio, Mansfield Plumbing Products designated an employee liaison whose job is to listen to employees and facilitate communication between workers and management. By implementing clear communication channels, employers can better learn how to address their workers' needs.

Milan’s tampone sospeso or “suspended test” initiative provides rapid COVID-19 tests to stop the spread of the virus. The initiative sets up in highly visible public areas of Milan and is based on a model of mutual support where everyone pays what they can. It is run with the help of over 50 volunteers and Medicina Solidale, a group of medical professionals who provide free medical advice to those who can’t afford to access care. The project has raised 24,000 euros from 436 donors, which has enabled them to administer rapid antigenic swabs to more than 3000 people.

The nonprofit group Save Giraffes Now, the Kenya Wildlife Service, the Northern Rangelands Trust, and local community members are working together to save the endangered Rothschild’s giraffe species. Rising lake levels and flooding have stranded the animals on its island, so they made a custom-built steel barge to relocate them to a protected wildlife reserve. It’s not easy to move giraffes, but so far they’ve successfully moved three out of nine of them.

To assuage concerns around election security, Ada County, Ohio created an online tool called Ballot Verifier that allows users to search every ballot cast in the county since 2022. County officials invited local election skeptics to be the first to test the new tool and received positive feedback on its level of transparency.

In its first presidential election with state-mandated early voting, which allowed voters to cast their ballots in-person for nine days before election day, Midland County, Mich. saw roughly 20% of its voters utilize early voting and had high turnout at 70.05%. Officials reported that they were able to streamline the early voting process with Ballot on Demand equipment that allowed voters to print their ballots on-site rather than requiring the county to print ballots in advance.