The Los Angeles Times reports on how the city's police and fire departments overcame their distrust of social media to tap into the real-time public conversation about the rash of car-burnings of the last four days. “This investigation is social media phenomenon," Sheriff’s Capt. Mike Parker told the paper. “Early, in terms of the public information office, the PIOs noticed that a lot of the best information was coming from and being distributed by social media. We wanted to speak to the public where the public is, and that is social media.” Using a common Twitter handle (@arsonwatchla) and Facebook page also helped. Read More

In Virginia, residents can go online to watch hundreds of hours of footage of floor speeches from the state legislature. A tool to analyze data on asthma attacks is expanding use, providing medical information that could ... Read More

Bay County American Civil Liberties Union President Bill Pritchard, speaking at a redistricting hearing in Bay County, Fla., that had maps of the current districts but no proposed districts as they would be for the next ... Read More

Today, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation* announced the winners of the fifth and final year of the Knight News Challenge, explaining how it will allocate this year's nearly $5 million pool of money to support ... Read More

After connecting hundreds of people and generating nearly $65,000 in business for local shops and restaurants in Macon, Ga., an online-offline game that uses alternative currency to spur civic engagement may be going ... Read More

Currencies aren't necessary known for bringing communities together, but in the case of a game called Macon Money, that was exactly the point: Game creators Area/Code, funded by the John S. and James L. Knight ... Read More

New Yorkers have a new way to identify problems and solutions in their city with the launch of Commons, a mobile, social game which aims to make 311 an easy and social experience through a platform for citizens to ... Read More

The federal government should continue its move to cloud computing and hosting services, for cost savings and to avoid a reliance on outdated infrastructure, U.S. Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra said earlier this ... Read More

Marcus Westbury, the festival organizer who led an effort to reinvigorate the downtown in his native Newcastle, Australia, by filling it with small businesses, art installations and temporary uses, shares an article he ... Read More

Inspired by soon-to-be-expatriate Chicagoan Christopher Groskopf, Virginia web designer S.D. Salyer now says he'll do for his native Washington County, Va., what Groskopf has begun to do for Tyler, Tex.: Following in ... Read More