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.
A group of messianic Jews commonly called Jews for Jesus has filed a lawsuit against the city of Pontiac alleging that the city police department violated their right to free speech and freedom of religion by preventing them from handing out literature during an annual music festival. The Oakland Press reports:
The organization, officially known as Congregation Schema Yis-Rael of Bloomfield Township, filed its lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Detroit, charging Pontiac police used its authority to violate the group’s First Amendment rights.
The group charges its members were harassed while handing out information pamphlets and were threatened with arrest during the Labor Day weekend.
The plaintiffs filed the suit because they fear they again will be prohibited from passing out literature at the festival next year.
The suit was first filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan in September, after the group was allegedly threatened with arrest if they continued to hand out pamphlets at the annual Arts, Beats and Eats Festival. According to the complaint, the group handed out literature at the festival, both inside and outside the festival grounds, every year from 2004 to 2006 without problem or incident.
Beginning in 2007, the plaintiffs say, the Pontiac Police Department told them literature distribution was forbidden at the festival, even on public sidewalks near the entrances while people are walking to the entry gates. In 2008, they were told that they could only hand out literature if they paid for a booth at the festival as a non-profit sponsor, but after consulting with an attorney, the police relented and allowed them to continue to distribute fliers outside the entrance to the festival.
This year, on the second day of the festival, the plaintiffs say that the Pontiac Chief of Police, Valard Gross, told them that they could not distribute literature near the entrance even on a public sidewalk, because “the sponsors of the Festival didn’t want it.” They were told they had to move at least a block away and that they couldn’t even talk to people near the entrance of the festival.
In the meantime, the complaint alleges, others were allowed to sell artwork near the entrance of the festival in the very area that the Jews for Jesus group had been ordered to vacate under threat of arrest.
A court conference has been set for Jan. 11, 2010 to lay out a schedule for the discovery phase and the trial.
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