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The Michigan Messenger going forward

By Staff Report | 11.16.11

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 [...]

Colorado-based abstinence program provided false and misleading information to Michigan students

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By Todd A. Heywood | 11.16.11

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.

Class action lawsuit filed against MERS over unpaid taxes

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By Todd A. Heywood | 11.15.11

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.

Schuette fights important mercury regulations

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By Eartha Jane Melzer | 11.14.11

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.

Posts Tagged Kalamazoo Citizens Voting No to Special Rights Discrimination

Targeted transgender community speaks out in advance of vote

By David Alire Garcia | 10.30.09 | 1:02 pm

The new TV ad from opponents of Kalamazoo’s anti-discrimination ordinance serves to highlight the starkly different way both sides in this fight characterize it – supporters saying it promotes basic fairness and equality, opponents saying it opens the bathroom and locker-room door to “cross-dressing men.”

As anti-discrimination vote nears, a surprise from Kalamazoo clergy

By David Alire Garcia | 10.21.09 | 3:04 pm

KALAMAZOO — Rev. Douglas Vernon’s Methodist congregation is one of only a handful of local churches that have embraced the proposed Ordinance 1856, an initiative on Kalamazoo’s Nov. 3 ballot initiative that seeks to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. That makes his Methodist church a surprising exception to the often predictable rule of religious divisions over such proposals: liberal denominations and churches supporting them, conservative ones against.

Kalamazoo plays host to struggle over gay, transgender rights

By David Alire Garcia | 10.16.09 | 10:11 am

KALAMAZOO — With the constant din of volunteers talking and phones ringing behind him, City Commissioner David Anderson sat on a metal folding chair at campaign headquarters and explained his reluctant entry into the battle over a proposed anti-discrimination ordinance in this southwest Michigan city. “I didn’t run to work on this issue,” he said, [...]

Proponents of new anti-discrimination ordinance in Kalamazoo start online petition

By Todd A. Heywood | 07.08.09 | 12:18 am

Proponents of a new anti-discrimination ordinance in Kalamazoo have started an online petition to urge Kalamazoo voters to keep the ordinance, approved June 29, on the books, just as opponents have been collecting signatures to put the ordinance up for a public vote.

Kalamazoo City Commission passes anti-discrimination ordinance

By Todd A. Heywood | 06.30.09 | 1:35 am

The Kalamazoo City Commission voted unanimously to approve a controversial antidiscrimination ordinance — the second such ordinance the city body has passed since December 2008. Opponents of the measure, organized into a group calling itself Kalamazoo Citizens Voting No to Special Rights Discrimination wasted no time in announcing it will begin circulating petitions Tuesday to [...]