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.
State Sen. Tupac Hunter has an op-ed in the Detroit Free Press calling for immediate action to clear a staggering backlog of 12,000 rape kits that were recently found in the now-closed Detroit Crime Lab sitting on a shelf, unopened and untested. Saying that Detroit and Wayne County cannot handle the problem on its own, he argued for state action and funding to get those kits processed so justice can be served:
Each kit represents a person that has suffered through a violent attack. Each kit represents a person who then went through an evidence collection process that can take as long as 4 hours, but gives police evidence that can be the difference between an arrest and conviction or an unsolved crime. These victims deserve justice and better treatment from our law enforcement system.
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy has been working closely with the Detroit Police Department to get a handle on this situation. But they cannot solve this problem alone.
The state stepped up two years ago when firearms testing problems surfaced, and the state police shut down and took over that lab. Now the state needs to step up again and go the extra mile to deal with this rape kit situation.
Hunter argues that even if the state legislature passes a budget that includes the almost $40 million that Gov. Granholm has proposed, that will not be enough. He is calling for legislation to provide specific funding to pay for testing on all of the rape kits and says he will soon submit legislation to do so.
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