John Schwartz, writing in the 10/30/02 New York Times discusses the shutting down of the PowerUP initiative, launched in late 1999 to combat the digital divide in underserved communities. Launched in late 1999, PowerUP (http://powerup.org) was an effort to provide capital and technological expertise to youth-serving entities within underserved communities across America. Over 950 technology centers were developed or enhanced through the project, and each will now be supported through other organizations, local financing, or other means.

"Margin of Victory," a new political action committee dedicated to turning out Christian voters, has been formed as a political committee exempt under Section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code, which governs PACs.

Congress approved a compromise bill just before its fall recess exempting state and local PACs from reporting requirements under the Stealth PAC law of 2000 and requiring data from reports to be made available on the Internet in a searchable format. President Bush signed the bill into law a week later.

The GAO has released a report on implementation of "charitable choice" legislation that allows the federal funding of faith-based social service programs. Several programs, including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the Community Services Block Grant and substance abuse programs currently have charitable choice provisions in them. While charitable choice was designed to increase grant opportunities for these organizations, the GAO found that only 8% of the $1 billion in TANF funds granted to non-governmental organizations went to faith-based organizations.