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.
Flickr: Stallio
Payday lenders are out in full force in Wisconsin, where a legislative battle is underway over efforts to impose a 36 percent rate cap on payday loans, a move the industry claims will put it out of business. The next big battleground state will be Colorado, where payday lenders already are making financial contributions to minority groups to win favor, in anticipation of an upcoming legislative fight over payday reform. And in Washington, D.C., payday lenders have sharply increased their Capitol Hill spending and profile at a time when other types of political fundraising is on the decline, hoping to dissuade Congress from imposing any additional federal limits on the industry. Payday lenders also wary of a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which would have oversight of mortgages and other financial instruments, even though proposals don’t specifically single out payday lending.
“Obviously, the industry has gotten its hat handed to it at the state level, and it appears to be spending a lot of time and money trying to win friends and influence people on the Hill,” said Jean Ann Fox, director of consumer protection for the Consumer Federation of America.
Not a single state has authorized payday lending since Michigan did so in 2005, Fox said. The last payday lender shut down and left Arkansas in August, not long after a crackdown by the state Attorney General. Voters in Arizona and Ohio last year approved rate caps on payday loans, despite aggressive opposition from the industry. In 2007, the District of Columbia approved a 36 percent rate cap, after a heated fight. The decisions have shifted the momentum in the payday lending battle, given that prior to the financial crisis, the industry regularly won victories at the state level to authorize their lending with no limits.
Read more at Michigan Messenger’s sister site the Washington Independent
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