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.
Michigan’s two largest power companies — DTE Energy and Consumers Power — have shut-off utilities to more than 181,000 customers so far this year, the Detroit News reports.
A large portion of these shut-offs came this summer as record numbers proved unable to keep up with payment plans designed to pay off large balances racked up over the winter.
Several factors can contribute to customers racking up thousands in unpaid bills. Some defer most of their utility payments in the winter when they are protected from shutoff. Others delay payments because of medical emergencies. More than a quarter of DTE’s 50,000 low-income customers enrolled in the protection plan defaulted in July. At Consumers Energy, which offers a similar plan with the same name, 1,459 of its 31,294 enrolled customers defaulted in the same month…
DTE has ordered 115,000 utility shutoffs this year, a figure sure to outpace last year’s total of 142,000. Consumers has tallied 66,274 as of July.
The News reports that starting in September, the 3.2 million customers of DTE Energy subsidiary MichCon, will be charged an average additional $3.48 per month to help offset the company’s unpaid bills.
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