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.
Advocates for second parent adoption want to pass legislation legalizing that practice in Michigan, but face likely opposition not only from the religious right but from the new head of the agency that oversees adoptions in the state.
LANSING — Lansing Community College, the state’s third largest community college, has announced it is offering a scholarship for members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. While some four year institutions such as Michigan State University offer such scholarships, this is believed to be the first scholarship offered to the gay community at [...]
State and national organizations who represent the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community are expressing outrage over t-shirts bearing the slogan “Straight Pride” offered for sale at a Saturday rally of the Tea Party Express.
Under a new policy adopted by the Lansing City Attorney’s Office, medical information is required to be redacted from public documents. In addition, employees who handle requests for public documents will be required to undergo an annual training regarding the law and the policy. The new policy arose after City Attorney Brigham Smith released the [...]
Members of the Lansing city attorney’s Freedom of Information Act policy working group left a 45-minute closed-door meeting on Friday promising a renewed spirit of openness going forward.
LANSING — City Attorney Brigham Smith wants a working group being put together to develop new Freedom of Information Act policies for the city in the wake of a series of incidents earlier this year where he was criticized for being careless with private information. But the details of the capital city’s information disclosure guidelines will be hammered out in private.
LANSING — The city council’s Public Safety Committee demanded that City Attorney Brigham Smith provide a draft policy to that body in a special 6 p.m. meeting Monday night, or it will introduce an ordinance to address problems with the city’s responses to Freedom of Information Act requests.
LANSING — The Michigan Department of Community Health is calling on city officials to request an investigation by the Michigan attorney general’s office into the release of a man’s HIV status related to arrests made during a controversial sex sting in May.
LANSING — Buried at the end of one of the arrest reports from a controversial May 22 sex-sting operation in the capital city’s Fenner Nature Center is information that one of the men arrested was HIV positive. That disclosure, experts say, may have violated the state’s confidentiality laws protecting the identity of those who are infected with the virus.
LANSING — In the study of ethical strictures that govern actions by public officials, there is a principle called “councilmanic interference,” a term that describes the extra weight that’s given to statements, inquiries and comments from elected and appointed officials by city employees. And in the capital city, officials are sorting out whether a request for a May 22 undercover sex-sting by the Lansing Police Department by an appointed member of the city’s Board of Police Commissioners stepped over the line and into the territory of councilmanic interference.
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