I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
The Associated Press reports that the next victim of state budget cutting may well be millions of dollars in Amtrak subsidies that keep the trains running along two major routes in the state.
The state is paying Amtrak $7.3 million a year to offer roundtrip daily service linking Grand Rapids to Chicago and Port Huron to Chicago.
Funding would drop by half to about $3.7 million starting in October under a budget passed by Senate Republicans. Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm and House Democrats want to reduce the subsidy to about $5.7 million, a 22 percent cut.
With the governor and the Senate Republicans looking to cut the subsidies, a cut seems virtually inevitable. But one group worries that such cuts will send the wrong message at a time when the state is trying hard to attract federal money for a high-speed rail line:
The Michigan Environmental Council said if the Amtrak contract is cut, the two rail lines likely would run fewer than seven days a week.
“We’ll have to see if cutting Amtrak sends a negative message to the U.S. Department of Transportation … ‘We’ll take your free money but we’re not going to invest in anything of our own,’” deputy policy director Tim Fischer said.
A consortium of all the Great Lakes States are pushing for a plan to make Chicago the hub of a high-speed rail network that would include a line from Chicago to Detroit.
Do you know where to vote on Election Day? Do you know what to bring with you? Get comprehensive voter information for your state here.
Sign up for our email newsletter