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- Congress came to a compromise and passed a federal budget plan this week that would keep the government financed through September. It now awaits President Obama's signature.
- Congratulations to Dr. Farzad Mostashari, who has been named the new National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.
- Despite huge increases in state spending on prisons, more than four in 10 formerly incarcerated people in the U.S. returned to state prison within three years of their release, according to a new report by the Pew Center on the States.
- Meanwhile, the nation's inmate population has declined for the second consecutive year, the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics announced, with the numbers falling by 2.4 percent in the 12 months ending June 30, 2010.
- On Capitol Hill, Families Against Mandatory Minimums hosted a panel of conservatives to show support for the idea of cutting the nation's prison population.
- Responding to increasing calls for action, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy says it will announce a "national action plan" next week to address the rising problem of prescription drug abuse.
- The prison population in Iowa has risen above 9,000 inmates for the first time, as legislators contemplate ways to further reduce recidivism and provide better mental health care to people who are incarcerated.
- Opposition from county prosecutors appears to have scuttled a plan, supported by Indiana's governor, intended to reduce the state's prison population by easing penalties for low-level convictions.
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