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.
An annual report from a Michigan transportation council shows that Michigan’s crumbling roadways are likely to worsen in the coming years due to lack of funding from the state, with the state’s economy suffering as a result.
LANSING — Interviews and budget documents provided to Michigan Messenger show that a proposal by a Republican lawmaker to eliminate a dedicated health fund in Michigan’s budget would, contrary to his public proclamations, effectively gut HIV programs in the state.
The Lansing State Journal has an interesting report this morning about how the Michigan Department of Transportation is reusing the concrete materials from a stretch of I-96 repairs. MDOT is currently replacing an entire six mile stretch of the highway on Lansing’s west side, which means the workers are literally ripping up the roadway all [...]
Last month the Obama administration announced $8 billion in competitive grants for high speed rail, and though Michigan’s Department of Transportation had compiled about $1 billion in requests, the state ended up getting just $40 million to upgrade three rail stations. In an editorial in today’s Detroit Free Press Tim Fischer, deputy policy director for [...]
Backers of a new, publicly-owned bridge connecting Detroit to Windsor, Canada, received good news yesterday as the Michigan Department of Transportation’s new “investment-grade” study reaffirmed the need for a second bridge spanning the border. The study, conducted by Wilbur Smith Associates, projects traffic volumes through the next quarter century, and concludes that even despite the [...]
As the state’s budget woes continue, the Michigan Department of Transportation announced Thursday it would delay hundreds of road projects because of dwindling resources. The state could see road construction spending go from about $1.4 billion this year to less than $600 million in three or four years, the Lansing State Journal reports. The state [...]
Earlier today, the Michigan Department of Transportation sent out its official feelers — a.k.a. its Request for Proposal of Interest — to gauge the level of private sector interest in partnering with the Detroit River International Crossing project that aims to build a public-private bridge connecting the United States to Canada. Currently, billions of dollars [...]
Michigan lawmakers may soon be considering whether to approve a increase in the state’s gasoline and diesel tax. On Tuesday, Pam Byrnes, (D-Chelsea) and Richard Ball (R-Bennington Twp) introduced a three bill package targeting the fuel tax. Here’s how Peter Luke at MLive.com described the proposal:
DETROIT — Disabled residents who use public transit and their advocates are concerned that new para-transit services recently contracted by the city are not safe for those who depend on them for transportation.
LANSING — Staring down a budget deadline, Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop said Tuesday evening that the state is in “crisis management” mode and that it’s time to cut luxuries, including the Michigan Promise scholarship, local revenue sharing and health care.
“We are essentially a board of directors that has been faced with a substantial loss of revenue and we have to determine between needs and wants,” the Rochester Republican said in an interview with Michigan Messenger. “That is an uncomfortable discussion.”
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