News round-up, a bit late -- been busy today.

Melissa Harris reports that the state has begun an effort to track all ground rents, an estimated 115,000 in the city, Baltimore County and Anne Arundel. It's part of the continuing effort to reform an unusual system that has lost some residents their homes over small unpaid bills, a little-known problem The Sun exposed in a series last year.

Harris' story today says ground rent owners "have until September 2010 to complete a two-page form identifying each holding, or else lose their investments."

Meanwhile, Kelly Brewington and John Fritze report today that the Census Bureau has revised its 2006 numbers and -- for the first time in more than half a century -- Baltimore City has not lost population. The estimates show the number of residents up by 897 from the year before, rather than down by about 8,700. Grand total of people in the city:  640,961.

Maybe.

As the story notes:

There is no "margin of error" for estimates, but a 1993 study for the bureau found that estimates in 1980 and 1990 were roughly 4 percent off actual counts for cities over 50,000 in population. The increase announced yesterday would fall well within that percentage.

Ah, "margin of error" appearing in a front-page article. It does my number-crunching heart good.