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GLENDALE HEIGHTS — Officials in suburban DuPage County say they're deterring crime by seeking financial damages from gang members who break the law.

County prosecutors say three lawsuits filed against gang members since 1999 are the first of their kind in Illinois. The suits can seek money, but judges have also ordered plaintiffs to stop participating in gang activity, with criminal penalties for violations.

Glendale Heights resident Eliazer Bravo Jr. was one of the people sued. The 23-year-old owes nearly $3,800, but says he would've left the Latin Kings gang anyway.

West Chicago officials say prosecutors' efforts have dramatically reduced gang-related shootings there.

FORT WAYNE — Two Fort Wayne hospitals are trying to bring comfort to dying patients with a new program that pairs people in the end stages of life with volunteers who will offer them companionship.

The "No One Dies Alone" program is expected to start in mid-January and will serve Parkview and Parkview North hospitals.

The program is recruiting 20 to 30 volunteers, who will take shifts sitting at a patient's bedside. Each volunteer will have a CD player and instrumental music CDs, a flameless candle and reading material they can share with the patient if appropriate.

The Rev. Ann Lantz, director of chaplaincy services at Parkview Hospital, said the program aims to help those who may have outlived their family members or don't have families in the area, as well as people who live elsewhere but were hospitalized while traveling through Fort Wayne.

Lantz said the program is not designed for evangelizing.

"This is a program of being, rather than doing," she said. "Ninety-nine percent of it is just being there."

Lantz said two to three patients die at the hospital each month without family or friends by their sides.

LANSING — Gov. Jennifer Granholm and lawmakers hope generous tax incentives will help make Michigan the center of efforts to research and manufacture advanced batteries used in hybrid and electric vehicles.

Legislators say the United States today has no large-scale production plant for the lithium-ion battery, the technology General Motors Corp. expects to power its touted Chevrolet Volt. Most battery technology is being developed in Asia.

"It is imperative that Michigan possess this technology to keep Michigan the center of car manufacturing," said state Sen. John Pappageorge, a Troy Republican.

Before adjourning this month, the Legislature approved tax credits worth up to $335 million depending on how many battery packs are assembled here, production expenses and other factors. Granholm is expected to sign the legislation.

Lawmakers were motivated to act at a time auto demand has dropped due to the ailing economy and the credit crunch, which has made it tougher for some buyers to get financing.

The same week lawmakers voted for the credits, GM announced it was delaying construction of a Flint engine factory to conserve cash. The plant eventually will make 1.4-liter engines for the Chevy Cruze and the Chevy Volt plug-in electric car.

HASTINGS— This city along the Mississippi River hopes an experimental turbine being installed just downstream from Lock and Dam No. 2 will generate electricity that can be sold to Xcel Energy for a tidy profit.

But the National Park Service isn't sold on Hastings' plan. Steve Johnson, manager of the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area, said the hydrokinetic turbine's large propellers could grind up fish that are sucked into it.

Even more troubling to Johnson is that the experiment seems to be moving ahead without such questions being answered.

"We don't usually suggest we risk national park resources experimenting with this kind of stuff," Johnson said.

The turbine will be installed by Hydro Green Energy of Houston, and uses a clean energy source called hyperkinetics because it spins in moving water instead of falling water. It's suspended below a floating barge tethered to the dam and anchored for stability.

TOPEKA — Kansas transportation officials are trying to decide whether installing guard cables in highway medians would be worth the cost and actually make it safer to drive in the state.

A study conducted for the Kansas Department of Transportation concludes that the cables — already in place in 25 other states, including Missouri — can help save lives in some instances, but might not be all that helpful in others.

"We've always known you could reduce the potential for fatalities" with guard cables, said Jim Brewer, engineering manager in KDOT's design bureau. "But if you increase the potential for injury and property damage . . . then you may not have improved the system."

According to the study, conducted by a national traffic safety expert at the University of Nebraska, the cables work best on highways with narrow medians and high traffic. But they can pose a risk on highways with wide medians and low traffic — characteristics of many Kansas roads.

"The cable is always there, no matter how light the traffic volume gets," said Dean Sicking, the Nebraska expert who directs the university's Midwest Roadside Safety Facility. "If you get to the middle of the median, you're going to hit that cable.

"But as long as the volume goes down, the risk of hitting somebody in the opposing lane drops off real fast."

CAPE GIRARDEAU — Life on Missouri's eastern border is defined by the Mississippi River, and people fish in it, boat on it, sometimes wade in it with scant concern about pollution. But would they swim in it?

The Environmental Protection Agency thinks it's time the state start moving to make long stretches of the Mississippi sufficiently free of bacteria that swimming would be safe.

In a recent letter to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, Benjamin Grumbles, the EPA's assistant administrator for the Clean Water Program, told the department to take another look at its recreation use designation for the Mississippi River from the Meramec River to the Ohio River.

Grumbles noted that the federal Clean Water Act presumes that rivers, streams and lakes should be clean enough for swimming. If the water is not safe, the law allows the state agency to show why it is not possible to make the water clean.

According to the Southeast Missourian newspaper, DNR staff will recommend Jan. 7 that the state Clean Water Commission change the Mississippi's designation from "secondary contact recreation" — a standard that covers boating, fishing and wading — to whole body contact.

The result could mean new requirements for expensive upgrades at sewage treatment plants along the river, including the Cape Girardeau plant.

CINCINNATI — A school district in Ohio says the economy is so tight that it has kept its cafeterias open during Christmas break to provide hot lunches for needy students.

It's the first time North College Hill School district outside Cincinnati has kept its lunch lines going through the holiday break.

Officials say two-thirds of the district's 1,600 students are economically disadvantaged, up from fewer than one in 10 a decade ago.

The national School Nutrition Association says almost 80 percent of the schools it surveyed are reporting an increase in the number of free lunches served this year.

MADISON — An anti-bullying proposal that failed twice in the Legislature has newfound support and a better chance at being passed next year.

A special committee of state lawmakers, school district employees, police and others wants to see the law enacted. The group studied school safety for five months this year and recommended that schools either follow state anti-bullying guidelines or come up with their own.

It will be up to the Legislature to decide whether to put the recommendation into law.

School safety concerns have been in the spotlight since the fatal shooting of Weston Schools Principal John Klang in Cazenovia in 2006 and the arrest that year of three Green Bay teens accused of plotting an attack at East High School with guns and bombs.

School groups have been supportive of requiring anti-bullying plans that would allow Wisconsin to join 36 other states that have such provisions. But both times that a bill was proposed, in 2006 and 2007, it died in the Republican-controlled Assembly.

Democrats take control of the Assembly next year. That, along with the recommendation of the bipartisan school safety committee and Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle's support, should help ease passage.

DES MOINES — State environmental officials want the Iowa attorney general to impose a larger-than-normal fine against a brother of former Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad for pollution violations.

Investigators say Monroe "Monty" Branstad of Forest City should be fined more than the maximum $10,000 for alleged pollution violations in the Winnebago River that officials claim killed 31,000 fish valued at $63,000.

Officials say the silage spill at Branstad's cattle farm in August ranked among the 40 deadliest for Iowa wildlife since 1995.

Kelli Book, a lawyer for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, says the fine amount could be based on past problems, a prior fine remaining unpaid and the severity of the spill.

Branstad could be fined $100,000.

LINCOLN — The assistant superintendent of the Nebraska State Patrol will retire Wednesday after 29 years with the patrol as an officer and commander.

Lt. Col. Darrell Fisher has served in his current capacity since October 2005.

His successor will be Maj. Dave Sankey, now the commander of the patrol's Investigative Services Division.

The 52-year-old Fisher is a nationally recognized expert in the area of the detection and apprehension of the alcohol- or drug- impaired driver. Fisher has served as commander and director of the patrol's training academy and as captain of the Lincoln headquarters troop.

DICKINSON — The owner of a Dickinson recycling business says the market no longer will support it, and a city official says it's not feasible in a rural area without a subsidy.

Gardner Polanchek, who owns G & G Recycling, says he plans to close. He would like to see the city of Dickinson take over the cardboard side of his business. The city already helps by baling some of the cardboard to prepare it for shipment.

Polanchek collects about 1.4 million pounds of cardboard per year. His business works with the recycling of steel, copper, aluminum and paper products. Because of the recent downturn in the economy, the price of those commodities has bottomed out, Polanchek said.

"Our paper and cardboard prices just fell to nothing. Cardboard is at $15 a ton; a whole semi-load is $300," he said.

Recycling commodities markets seem to be crashing along with the global economy.

SIOUX FALLS — The Faith School District technically is not understaffed when it comes to school nurses.

"We're no-staffed," said Mel Dutton, school superintendent the past four years.

And school officials say they don't view a shortage of school nurses across the state as a problem they can fix, given a myriad of other issues.

At small districts, nurses from health agencies are under contract to visit periodically, and principals call 911 in emergencies.

Larger districts such as Sioux Falls and Rapid City are well-staffed compared to smaller schools but are still below a level recommended by professionals.

Still, almost every district has non-medical school staff members trained to cover minor medical issues.

"All of this adds to a level of nervousness," said Susan Kelts, South Dakota's representative to the National Association of School Nurses.

South Dakota is one of the majority of states that do not require schools to employ their own nurses, although state code says public schools "shall provide" services coordinated by a registered nurse and that schools may share those services.

HAMILTON — A Canadian woman who went missing during a blizzard has been found alive, buried in 23 inches of snow four days after her sport utility vehicle got stuck in a snowy field.

A police search dog and its handler were trudging through almost knee-high snow on Monday when the dog took off across a field, signaling he had found Donna Molnar, who had disappeared.

Overnight temperatures dipped as low as 2 degrees during the four days the 55-year-old Ancaster, Ontario, woman was missing.

"When I came up to her, she was covered in snow, just her face and her neckline was exposed," said Ray Lau. "I was surprised she was alive."

"That's the miracle. That's a Christmas miracle. Sometimes the good don't die young. Donna Molnar is an exceptional person," said friend Mark Mackesy, who spent time comforting Molnar's husband and son.