In the most recent The Week that Was column, BDM has a nice series of interviews with some of the influential tournament organizers (TOs) who've helped bring large-scale organized Magic play to their regions. In addition to some nice background on them and what they've done, there are two bits of news in there:
1) If you win your States this year, you win a year of free entries into all Constructed premier events run by TOs participating in the program. Premier events include PTQs, Regionals, and Grand Prix level events. This is a nice prize (and honestly a big payout, if you're the kind of person who attends multiple PTQs in each season).
2) The DCI is shifting to a single rating that covers all types of event. This is necessary given the hybrid nature of the upcoming PTs. This also means that my currently dismal Limited rating will be subsumed within my Constructed rating, I think, so yay and all that. I'm not very concerned about my rating, but the "never playing in Limited events" aspect of my hobby meant that my Limited rating is especially poor.
That's one nice bit of news, and one awesome bit of news.
As a reminder, you can check out what your States will be like here.