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 Ferndale Police Department is investigating an incident in which a gay couple’s vehicle were scrawled with anti-gay epithets, and a home splattered with paint.
The Daily Tribune has the report:
“One of the victims lives there and had red paint splashed on his house and car,” said Ferndale Police Sgt. Patrick Jones. “Someone spray painted ‘fag’ in yellow paint on his car also. The words ‘white fag’ were scratched on the driver’s side door of the other victim’s car.”
Jones tells the Tribune that he considers the vandalism a hate crime, and that the damages from the incident amounted to thousands of dollars.
The victim who lived at the location was unsure who would have vandalized the vehicles and the home, though he told police his home was splashed with red paint last summer.
While police say this was a hate crime, Michigan law does not cover anti-gay harassment in its hate crimes law, called Ethnic Intimidation. The Michigan Department of Civil Rights and a coalition of groups have attempted on several occasions to amend the state’s law to expand coverage.
And while it may not have a state prosecution level as a hate crime, the FBI and the federal government could take the case and prosecute it under federal hate crimes laws found in the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act.
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