Power outages caused by Hurricane Gustav have shut down gas stations throughout Louisiana this week, but Florida officials are hoping a little-known state law can help them avoid the same complication the next time a major storm reaches their shores - which could be this weekend.

For more than a decade, states have urged health care providers to use telemedicine to boost the quality of medical care in rural communities. Maine and other states just got federal grants to build the health information highway to make that possible.

E-mail has become the communications tool of choice in the past decade, but imbroglios involving the governors of Missouri and Texas show that the rules of paperless messaging  are still evolving and can create problems  for state government.

It sounds like sci-fi, but some states are making sure their citizens will never be forced to have microchips implanted under their skin.