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.
By changing a policy that classified college as job training, the Michigan Dept. of Human Services has made it more difficult for students to qualify for food stamps.
The Detroit News reports that DHS has eliminated benefits for about 30,000 students in a move that it says will save the state $75 million a year.
Federal rules don’t allow most college students to collect food stamps, but Michigan had created its own rules that made nearly all students eligible, said Brian Rooney, Corrigan’s deputy director. As a result, the number of Michigan college students on this form of welfare made the state a national leader. For example, Michigan had 10 times the number of students on food stamps as either Illinois or California, Rooney said.
Cutting off the students is part of what Corrigan says is an effort to change the culture of the state’s welfare department and slash tens of millions of dollars of waste, fraud and abuse.
“Maybe (students) could go get a part-time job — that’s what I did,” said Corrigan, a former justice of the Michigan Supreme Court who attended Detroit’s Marygrove College and University of Detroit Mercy School of Law.
Critics say that rising college costs and the dismal job market mean that making ends meet is much more difficult than when Corrigan attended school.
Nearly 2 million state residents receive benefits through the food assistance program, which is funded by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture.
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